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WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
Media uses Pearl kidnapping to whitewash American society
By David Walsh
7 February 2002
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The kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and the
threats to murder him, as the World Socialist Web Site has made
clear, are reprehensible and reactionary. Such actions contribute
nothing to the defeat of imperialism and will only strengthen the
hand of the US ruling elite, providing it with a new pretext for
advancing its geopolitical agenda in Central Asia. Pearl’s abduction
is another expression of the bankruptcy of terrorism.
Pearl to a large extent has found himself a victim, like so many
others in the region, of circumstances over which he has little
control. Apparently investigating alleged connections between “shoe
bomber” Richard Reid and Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist groups,
Pearl went missing in Karachi on January 23. Pakistani police
officials have arrested several individuals and claim to know the
identity of the group, the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of
Mohammad), responsible for his kidnapping. A representative of Jaish,
however, denied any connection and condemned “such acts [of
kidnapping].”
Friends and colleagues have expressed understandable concern and anger over the
abduction. His wife, six months’ pregnant, offered to exchange herself for her husband.
However, other voices in the US media are attempting to make use of the case once
again to whitewash American society. The kidnappers, you see, are “evil” individuals
who hate “freedom and democracy” and “everything Ameri
ca stands for.”
A series of editorials along these lines has appeared in the print media. One of the
worst appeared in the Oregonian, published in Portland and considered to be the
Pacific Northwest’s leading newspaper. Entitled, “The lo
st Pearl,” the piece claims that Daniel Pearl “became a target because his life’s work
represents all that is anathema to groups that thrive on hate and ignorance: Freedom.
Information. Global understanding. Truth.”
The editorial later comments that violence against journalists “is a brutally
efficient way to keep information, and therefore power, away from the people. The
public stays in the dark, vulnerable to manipulation and lies
. ... The next step is directly controlling the presses, spoon- feeding lies to the
public on government-run media.”
Nothing justifies or excuses the Pearl kidnapping, but it emerges within a definite
historical and political context. To make sense of it, in the first place, one would
have to grasp why the US and, by extension, anyone a
ssociated with its government, military or media should be so despised in the region.
Such an examination would have to take into account the last several decades at least
of American policy in the Middle East, Pakistan a
nd Afghanistan and the suffering it has inflicted on masses of people in the region.
It must be said that the circumstances of the case express, in their own fashion, the
disproportion in the power exercised by the different parties involved. It is a
reflection of the privileged position of the US that it
s mass media and layers of the population can be aroused by the potentially tragic
fate of an individual, while the Pakistanis and Afghans experience mass death on a
regular basis. During the time Pearl has been held capt
ive, reports have circulated about the killing of hundreds of civilians, supposedly by
mistake, by the US military in Afghanistan. No one in the American media turns a hair.
Somehow, apparently, that is what the people of
that country deserve, or at any rate are accustomed to.
It is precisely this reality, the utter indifference of the American establishment to
their plight, that those under attack, or even those simply caught in the middle, feel
all too clearly. Kidnapping and hostage-taking a
re the actions of the weak, those who feel overwhelmed by an immense sense of
oppression.
Again and again, the American government and media demonize their enemies, all the
more to avoid any and all responsibility for the conditions they have helped create.
The media would have us believe that the US has no re
sponsibility for conditions in Pakistan; for example, for the Zia ul-Haq Islamist
dictatorship that came to power in 1977, legitimized itself by hanging the country’s
former prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, not long a
fter and fomented Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan (generously supported by the
Reagan administration) following the Soviet invasion in 1979. Indeed the media
conceals the entire catastrophic record of American invol
vement in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The ongoing and relentless attempt by the US to gain access to and dominance over the
oil resources of the region has been the principal driving force behind policies that
have resulted in the suffering of masses of peopl
e. The Oregonian editorial writers, complacent and philistine, entirely close their
eyes to that.
“Freedom. Information. Global understanding. Truth.” Pearl may personally stand for
that, but America certainly does not in the eyes of tens of millions. More like:
“Colonial enslavement. Ignorance. Imperialist violence.
Lies.”
The Oregonian’s callousness in regard to the consequences of US foreign policy is
complemented by its dishonest view of American life and its own role.
The editorial is entirely devoid of self-criticism. It implies that there are “Blue
skies, nothing but blue skies” over America. Where do these people live? The United
States in 2002 is blighted by social ills: poverty, h
omelessness, drug addiction and disease among the poor, widespread illiteracy, the
rise of racist violence and religious bigotry. The “social safety net” has been
devastated; any measures that assist the disadvantaged or
represent any obstacle to the accumulation of profits have come under attack. Masses
of people get by from week to week, one pay-check away from the social abyss. The gulf
between the wealthy handful and everyone else dom
inates social life.
The Republican Party has been taken over by the ultra-right and the Democrats have
given up the pretense of defending the working population. The Bush administration has
launched an unprecedented assault on democratic rig
hts and civil liberties. No one would seriously look to the trade unions or the
so-called civil rights organizations to lead any struggle against the giant
corporations and their representatives at every level of governme
nt. As a result of both the economic conditions and the crisis of leadership in the
working class, a sense of hopelessness afflicts great numbers of people.
To the well-heeled editorialists of the Oregonian or the Dallas Morning News
(pontificating about “how little terrorists understand free societies”) or the Kansas
City Star (“Extremists exploit human suffering for propaga
nda”), or, unsurprisingly, the Murdoch-owned New York Post (“Civilization Held
Hostage”), however, US society is above reproach.
The ceaseless claims about America’s “free press” deserve their own specific response.
The mass media is a privately-owned business operation that has always been dedicated
to the defense of the profit system. The degener
ation of the American media in recent years, however, has been rapid and marked. It
has demonstrated its utter incapacity to defend the basic rights of the American
people. From fueling the manufactured sex scandal that d
ogged and destabilized the Clinton administration to covering up the hijacking of the
Florida vote, secured by the vote of five right-wing Supreme Court justices, the
American media has played a pernicious role. It has li
ed and lied again in the service of the most right-wing and authoritarian forces. The
Bush administration is in part the result of its handiwork.
This media has sunk to new depths in its coverage of the September 11 attacks and the
war in Afghanistan. Controlled by a handful of giant conglomerates, with the closest
ties to the state, the American media has found it
s own methods of keeping “information, and therefore power, away from the people.” The
mainstream media has refused to ask a single pertinent question about the terrorist
attacks, the absence of an investigation into the
attacks or the role of the US in Afghanistan, the legitimacy of the American military
response, or any other critical matter. The US public is almost entirely “in the dark,
vulnerable to manipulation and lies” about the b
rutal war in Afghanistan. The “next step,” “spoon-feeding lies to the public” is
precisely what already occurs on a daily basis, as the major television networks in
particular function more and more as simple conduits for
White House, Pentagon and CIA misinformation and propaganda. And it must be said that
Pearl himself writes for a publication whose editorial pages systematically call for
the bombing of any number of countries and enthus
iastically endorse US military violence.
A further point needs to be made. Inflammatory, provocative and cynical editorials
like the one that appeared in the Oregonian and elsewhere will only enrage Pearl’s
captors and put his life at greater risk. The irrespons
ible pouring forth of self-satisfied and chauvinist poison by the American government
and media, which merely deepens the hatred felt for the US by great numbers of people
all around the globe, increasingly endangers Amer
ican citizens—journalists, aid workers and others—outside the country and, as
September 11 tragically demonstrated, innocent civilians at home.
Copyright 1998-2001
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
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