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The London Blasts: Media Review
DAY 101: Sunday
16 October 2005
One Hundred Days Since 7/7: The Media
ONE HUNDRED DAYS OF DENIAL
A CULTURE OF TERRORISM
Nearly twenty years ago, Noam
Chomsky (who has just 'won' the Prospect
poll as the most influential living public intellectual) published
a book entitled The
Culture of Terrorism. He was referring to the mainstream
culture of the United States, and of Western society more generally.
Chomsky's particular topic was the impressive record of US state
terrorism in Central America, and the no-less impressive record
of intellectual servility on the part of the US intelligentsia
in justifying these atrocities. Both of these he documented with
a level of detail that is simultaneously thrilling and numbing.
What is the meaning of the phrase
'culture of terrorism' used in this way? At its simplest, it means
that terrorism - the use or threatened use of force for political
ends - is an accepted part of US (and Western) culture. What matters
is who uses the force, for what purpose, and against which victims.
AL-SHIFA
When the United States launched
missiles at the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in 1998,
in retaliation against the earlier al-Qaeda East Africa Embassy
bombings, there was no basis in international law for this use
of force, and there was no concern at the foreseeable loss of
life that would result from the destruction of the facility producing
90 per cent of the country's vital medicines, as well as veterinary
drugs at an affordable price.
A year after the bombings, it
was estimated that tens of thousands of people, many of them children,
had died as a direct consequence of the bombings. (Chomsky discusses
these and other, even more serious consequences of the attacks
in his book 9-11.)
What is interesting for us right
now is the media response to these bare facts. The United States
destroyed a vital civilian facility in a poor foreign country,
knowing or careless that its destruction would lead to the deaths
of quite probably tens of thousands of poor Sudanese (with no
connection to Osama bin Laden or his organization).
This is international terrorism
on a scale well beyond 9-11.
The event is barely recollected,
and is classified in an entirely different space to the debate
around the 'war on terrorism'. The Guardian
archive, for example, shows precisely eleven
mentions of the al-Shifa factory since 9-11. It ought to be
at the centre of discussion about international terrorism.
If we
carry out terrorism, it is a matter of momentary concern. If they
carry out terrorism, history pivots and 'the rules of the game
change'.
The mass media and academia
play an important role in this ideological system, excusing and
forgetting the crimes of our State, and emphasising, and if necessary
misrepresenting, the crimes of the official enemy, in this case
the loose networks of militants inspired by or associated with
Osama bin Laden.
THE CHALLENGE AFTER 7/7
After the 7 July bombings in
London, the mass media were presented with a major challenge.
Expert opinion, inside and outside the intelligence services,
believed that the bombings were at least partially caused by anger
over Britain's participation in the continuing wars of occupation
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The challenge, in a general
sense, was to suppress or misrepresent information that was harmful
to those who hold power, and to implant ignorance and stupidity
in the general population, so that important policies would not
come under pressure from the public. The challenge, in a word,
was to protect the powerful from the general public.
(Now it so happens that British
elites are bitterly divided over the cost-benefit analysis of
the war in Iraq. This means that there is greater room for dissidence
in the mass media, but the general rule of reducing the role of
the public remains in force.)
The mass media do not function
as a homogenous or monolithic entity. They are not managed by
central direction from any one centre. Chomsky and Herman teach
us that the mass media are a guided free market in ideas, with
considerable 'leakiness'. Hence the frequent awkward anomalies.
THE YOUNG MUSLIMS AND EXTREMISM
REPORT
One of the first anomalies came
just three days after the bombings, when the Sunday
Times published a front-page story about the joint Home
Office-Foreign Office report, Young
Muslims and Extremism. This leaked report, dating back over
a year, identified British foreign policy as a major factor in
the growing post-9/11 'extremism' of part of the British Muslim
community:
'It seems that a particularly
strong cause of disillusionment amongst Muslims including young
Muslims is a perceived "double
standard" in the foreign policy of western governments
(and often those of Muslim governments), in particular Britain
and the US. This is particularly significant in terms of the
concept of the "Ummah", i.e. that Believers are one
"nation". This seems to have gained a significant
prominence in how some Muslims view HMG's [Her Majesty's Government's,
i.e. British Government] policies towards Muslim countries.'
'Perceived Western bias in Israel's favour
over the Israel/Palestinian conflict is a key long term grievance
of the international Muslim community which probably influences
British Muslims.'
'This perception
seems to have become more acute post 9/11. The perception
is that passive "oppression",
as demonstrated in British foreign policy, eg non-action on
Kashmir and Chechnya, has given way to "active
oppression" - the war on terror, and in Iraq and
Afghanistan are all seen by a section of British Muslims as
having been acts against Islam.'
The Sunday
Times did not draw particular attention to this element
of the report, choosing instead to focus on its estimate of the
number of al-Qaeda activists in the UK. Nevertheless, the paper
did post the draft report and accompanying correspondence on its
website, where they
remain.
At this point, the burning question
in British politics was how young British Muslims, born and bred
in this country, could have decided to carry out such an appalling
atrocity. The Sunday Times story,
and the documents they had posted on their website, went directly
to this question, with authoritative research by the Government's
own departments for domestic and foreign policy.
How did the British quality
newspapers respond to this windfall? The day after the story appeared,
no British 'quality' newspaper followed up the story, even the
Sunday Times' sister daily paper.
It wasn't until 19
August that we got the first serious discussion of the report
in another newspaper - this time in the Guardian.
There had been a substantial quotation from the report on 20
July, in the same paper. These were one-off articles that
failed to influence subsequent commentary or news reporting about
this crucial topic.
MORE FRAGMENTS
More fragments from the correspondence
and research around the Young Muslims and Extremism Report surfaced
in other news outlets.
On 28
August, the Observer published
an 18 May 2004 letter from the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary
Michael Jay to Sir Andrew Turnbull, the Cabinet Secretary which
reiterated some of the themes of the Young Muslims and Extremism
report:
'Other colleagues have flagged
up some of the potential underlying causes of extremism that
can affect the Muslim community, such as discrimination, disadvantage
and exclusion. But another recurring
theme is the issue of British foreign policy, especially
in the context of the Middle East Peace Process and Iraq.'
'Experience of both Ministers and officials
working in this area suggests that the issue of British
foreign policy and the perception of its negative effect on
Muslims globally plays a significant role in creating
feelings of anger and impotence amongst especially the younger
generation of British Muslims.'
The Independent
noted on 16
September that a report entitled 'Working Together to Prevent
Extremism: Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation', drawn up after
meetings between leading Muslims and government officials, said:
'British
foreign policy in the world cannot be left unconsidered
as a factor in the motivations of extremists.'
In neither case did the newspaper
concern allude to the Young Muslims and Extremism report, or to
the fact that their revelation was merely part of an ongoing discussion
within Whitehall of this very troubling topic.
INCOMPETENCE OR INDOCTRINATION
One can see this as an extraordinary
pattern of incompetence, but it is difficult to see why it should
be so systematic, or why each new leak should be met with such
indifference, and have so little permanent impact on the debate
around 'British Muslims and the threat of terrorism'. How is it
that, at the very least, each fragment of the correspondence and
research around the Young Muslims and Extremism Report was not
linked to the preceding leaked documents?
When we turn to the larger patterns
of forgetting, misrepresentation and de-emphasis, we see that
the treatment of this report is of a piece with the wider media
response to the 7/7 and 21/7 atrocities.
How is it that within days there
was no further mention of the first and most credible statement
of responsibility for the bombings? It blamed the bombings
on British foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How is it that the clear reports
of the bombers' anger at the invasion of Iraq - by friends
and associates in the case of the 7/7 bombers, and by one
of the bombers themselves in the case of the 21/7 cell, were
also forgotten as soon as they were reported? How is it that the
media has virtually erased the clear statement by the presumed
lead 7/7 bomber that
his motivation was British participation in atrocities against
Muslims around the world?
How is it that the string of
opinion polls on the link between the bombings and British foreign
policy were forgotten as soon as they were published? The national
polls in the Guardian
and the Daily
Mirror; the business poll in the FT;
the poll of Londoners
by the Greater London Authority all found very large majorities
linking the war in Iraq to the bombings in July.
How is it that repeated statements
by British intelligence linking the threat of terrorism at home
to the war in Iraq were all rapidly forgotten also? The warnings
by the Joint
Terrorism Analysis Centre in June 2005 and by MI5
in July after the bombings. The warning by the Joint
Intelligence Committee even before the invasion of Iraq, in
February 2003.
How is it that there is no lasting
impact on the debate around 7/7 from the constant refrain in the
Muslim community that the bombings derived at least in part from
British foreign policy? Even when this is the stated view and
central recommendation of the Muslim
taskforce set up by Tony Blair in the wake of the atrocities.
To take one very small example,
how is it that no British quality newspaper has recalled, to our
knowledge, former Conservative Cabinet Minister Ken Clarke's warning
before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, '
'We should avoid it [war on
Iraq] because of the consequences of war. How many other terrorists
will we recruit in the long standing battle against international
terrorism, which is going to be far harder to win? And what
will we have done to the stability of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,
Egypt?'
'Next time a large bomb goes off in a western
city, how far did this policy [the invasion of Iraq] contribute
to it?' (The official version of this quote is in Hansard,
26 February 2003, col 295)
Mr Clarke has been at the forefront
of British politics for the past six weeks. The question of 'Muslim
extremism' has been at the forefront of British politics for the
past six weeks. The situation in Iraq has also barely been out
of the headlines. Yet, so far as we can tell, no one has reprinted
this very apposite warning from Mr Clarke.
On its own, such an omission
would look like lazy journalism or the short memories of today's
generation of commentators and reporters. When set aside the huge
edifice of systematic forgetfulness built up by the mainstream
media since 7/7, it looks not like an accident, but one small
part of a larger pattern of denial.
This is not incompetence, this
is indoctrination. Not at the orders of Downing Street, or Rupert
Murdoch, or any official or corporate authority, but a powerful
form of self-censorship on the basis of the 'guided free-market
in ideas', in which those who hold power and wealth are in a position
to hire and promote those who conform to the needs of the system,
and those who wish to progress internalize the needs of the system.
A CULTURE OF TERRORISM
The media is capable of recording
a fact, and at the same time effectively suppressing it. Noam
Chomsky and Edward Herman write:
'That the media provide some information
about an issue... proves absolutely nothing about the adequacy
or accuracy of media coverage. The media do in fact suppress
a great deal of information, but even more important is the
way they present a particular
fact - its placement, tone,
and frequency of repetition
- and the framework of analysis
in which it is placed.'
'[T]he enormous amount of material that
is produced in the media and books makes it possible for a really
assiduous and committed researcher to gain a fair picture of
the real world by cutting through the mass of misrepresentation
and fraud to the nuggets hidden within.'
'That a careful reader, looking for a fact
can sometimes find it, with diligence and a skeptical eye, tells
us nothing about whether that fact received the attention
and context it deserved, whether it was intelligible
to most readers, or whether it was effectively distorted
or suppressed.'
This describes accurately the
pattern of suppression surrounding the evidence of a link between
British foreign policy and the threat of terrorism in Britain,
and the secret Government view that there is such a link.
British participation in, or
support for, lawless violence in Iraq and Afghanistan (one thinks
immediately of the assault on Fallujah, and of the brutal warlords
who now rule Afghanistan) is, directly or indirectly, terrorism.
That terrorism is excused and hidden from view by the British
media, who also collude in that violence by suppressing evidence
of a link between the brutality of British foreign policy and
the heightened threat of terrorism in the UK.
The culture of terrorism is
also a culture of lies.
JNV welcomes feedback
This
page last updated 16 October 2005
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