Why are our media terrified of nuanced discussion?
JVL Introduction
Defining who is a “terrorist” is not so easy, as this article in Media Lens makes clear, exposing our media’s obsession with labelling Hamas as terrorist as part of an unstated way of distinguishing us from the dark other and as a way of ruling out certain ways of even thinking about the world we live in.
Thus Piers Morgan: “If you can’t call Hamas a terror group, you’re a terrorist sympathiser.”
So, drawing on Noam Chomsky’s insights and analysis, nothing “our side” does can ever qualify as deserving the label, no matter how many civilians are killed or displaced by our actions. “Terrorism” it is argued, is a propaganda label placed solely on Official Enemies. What we do can only ever be “counterterrorism” – and therefore legitimate.
Thus to think of ever calling Israel a terror state, or the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) a terror group, is outside of the mental framework within which our media operate.
The fact that that Israel’s actions might be experienced as terrorist by Palestinians on the ground is something our media find impossible to understand and report on properly.
No matter what atrocities they commit, as we are witnessing in Gaza at present.
RK
This article was originally published by Media Lens on Fri 17 Nov 2023. Read the original here.
‘Are Hamas A Terror Group? Are They A Terror Group? Answer The Question!’
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Easy. The terrorist is the one with the little bomb. Brendan Behan.
The fact that the author had to wheel out Pilger and Chomsky to try and justify this piece says it all. We all know very well that Hamas and Islamic Jihad and ISIS and Al Qaeda and Boko Harem are terrorists and so does Corbyn. They would happily slaughter everyone of us, committed or non committed Jew alike.
If you only have to press a button and ambitious mediocrities making a career by supplanting all honest journalism have your back, when you kill civilians it’s not terrorism. They are all cannibals. One side has their meat delivered shrink wrapped. The other slaughters it themselves.
This is a brilliant and timely article by Media Lens which all MPs and journalists should be required to read, digest and then be tested on to see if they have grasped the point. At the moment is it apparent that virtually no-one in Westminster has given the slightest thought to this central question: can states or governments qualify as “terrorist”?
The answer is of course “yes”. The term originated in the “reign of terror” after the French Revolution. Apparently, it became a matter of debate between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in the early 19th century when the word was generally understood to refer to states rather than violence by political opposition groups.
One of the things to come out of the war in Ukraine is that the Zelensky government has no reservations about using the term “terrorist” or “terrorism” in relation to the Russian government. I have never heard a politician or journalist querying that usage. It is increasingly obvious that “terrorist” has become a term of abuse, a word that can be freely used to describe any group regarded as “the enemy” but never about “friends” or “allies.”
The fact that the American or British government declares an organisation to be “terrorist” is never questioned, presumably because it must be true if the government says so. It also seems that journalists at the BBC have either been lobotomised or are under instruction to describe Hamas as a “terrorist organisation” on every possible occasion – and that precludes any further analysis or discussion.
We do well to keep in mind that today’s “terrorist” may become quite respectable in the future, depending on your point of view: Archbishop Makarios, Nelson Mandela, Martin McGuinness, Fidel Castro or perhaps Menachim Begin?
Many years ago, I came across this thoughtful definition of the word “terrorism”….
[cut to our limit of 300 words – admin]
All occupiers and oppressors label resistance movements that oppose them as terrorists: the French in Algeria and Indo-China, the US in Vietnam, the British in colonies across the world, from Kenya to India, from the Caribbean to Ireland. As well as labelling the allied bombers as ‘Terrorflieger’, the World War II German authorities described resistance groups in their occupied territories as terrorist: the Soviet and Yugoslav Partisans, the Polish Home Army, the French Résistance.
The apartheid regime in South Africa designated the ANC as a terrorist organisation. Nelson Mandela, was described as a terrorist by both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and was not removed from the official US list of terrorists until 2008.
Such designations are designed to rob the groups of any legitimacy, criminalise their actions, deny their voices and justify any measures taken to combat them. Once accepted, no further argument is required.
The other issue raised by this article is the wisdom of appearing on programmes such as that presented by Piers Morgan, Andrew Neil and others. This is the Roland Freisler school of interviewing. Nobody should think that such shows offer the chance to express a dissenting view.
In the film “Sophie Scholl – The Final Days”, Scholl expresses the hope that her trial will be an opportunity to present the group’s message to the public. When she enters the courtroom, it is packed with party members. Freisler, the President of the People’s Court, uses the complete imbalance of power in the court-room in the Scholls’ trial (and later in that of those accused of the assassination attempt of 20th July 1944) to humiliate, bully, attack and silence those before him.
Morgan, Neil and their ilk do the same, and it is naïve of Corbyn and others to hope for anything different.