How we see war [Archive]

chuck

01-18-2009, 01:19 PM

This article from the Globe is interesting - and speaks to what I was talking about in the Gaza thread - regards to the images and the perception and opinion of conflict and war. I thought it warranted a new thread so as not to get lost in "actual" news.

The Violence Network (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/18/the_violence_network/?page=full)

In NZ we have Al-Jazeera screening on one of the obscure news channels, so it's great to be able to view it. I don't watch it religously - mainly sticking with BBC World. Although CNN gets my view when they're showing The Daily Show.

The author makes some valid points, particularly around how we're immunized to the reality of war as a result of "objectivity". We do it here as well - arguing ideas, or regurgitating the ideas of those we agree with. You know - the sound of one hand clapping and all that.

Even the article is a bit meta - discussing the presentation of war and perceptions of reality. But it made me think. Please do read the entire article.

Some quotes:

"This is news without even the pretense of impartiality. After several days of following the Al-Jazeera coverage of Gaza, I've never seen a live interview with an Israeli, neither a politician nor a civilian. In the Al-Jazeera version, the Gaza conflict has only two participants: the Israeli army - an impersonal force represented as tanks and planes on the map - and the Palestinian civilians, often shown entering the hospital on makeshift stretchers. There are few Hamas rockets and no Israeli families. It's not hard to see why Al-Jazeera is accused of deliberately inflaming regional enmity and instability.

But in a larger sense, Al-Jazeera's graphic response to CNN-style "bloodless war journalism" is a stinging rebuke to the way we now see and talk about war in the United States. It suggests that bloodless coverage of war is the privilege of a country far from conflict. Al-Jazeera's brand of news - you could call it "blood journalism" - takes war for what it is: a brutal loss of human life. The images they show put you in visceral contact with the violence of war in a way statistics never could.

For an American, to watch Al-Jazeera's coverage of Gaza is to realize that you've become alienated not just from war, but even from the representation of war as a real thing. As Americans, we're used to hearing the sound of heavy artillery, machine guns, and bombs in action films and video games. Yet here on the news, they seem strangely out of place. You could argue that Al-Jazeera uses images of civilian violence to foment public outrage against Israel. This might well be true. At the same time, these images acknowledge human suffering and civilian death and stand strongly against them - and in doing so, foment outrage against war itself.
Whether you are a fan or a critic of the network's presentation of the news, it's hard to deny that Al-Jazeera is, first and foremost, excellent television. The network's command of the form is one reason why it has resisted being marginalized, and even gained in prestige, despite acrimonious criticism from the American government and from many Western media sources. Watching its sounds and images, day after day, has a powerful effect totally outside the framework of the conflict it's covering."

"That word "Holocaust" on that poster (in Arabic, mihraqa) is also a provocation, and it's only part of the very deliberate lexicon used on Al-Jazeera to describe the Gaza War: "aggression" ('udwan), "occupation" (ihtilal), and "genocide" (ibada). If objectivity is your yardstick, the entire way the network's newscasters discuss the war disqualifies them as journalists. But this is also how my Syrian neighbors see American journalism, which lumps any number of Arabs and Islamists and political rebels together as "terrorists."

Here in Damascus the ethical stakes of this war of words are very real. Yesterday, I went down to a popular shopping district a few blocks south of my house to buy groceries. On the main commercial strip, I noticed that a number of the stores had put up anti-Israeli propaganda posters. Many of them featured a burning American flag with a Star of David and a swastika in the middle. On many thresholds, shop owners had painted the Israeli flag so that their customers could step on it. In one storefront, the owner had placed a poster that said: "Americans not welcome." Ironically, this shop owner is also the landlord of some of my best American friends in Damascus.

I can understand why many people strongly believe that Al-Jazeera itself contributes to these regional hatreds. But after months of watching the network intensely, I can honestly say that I've never heard their newscasters frame an argument or a story in anti-Semitic or anti-American terms. And Al-Jazeera hosts one of the most ecumenical news programs I have ever seen on TV, anywhere: A morning spot called the "Press Tour," which shows images of newspapers from the United States, Europe, the Arab world, and (notably) Israel, and translates excerpts of the most important articles. Since the start of the current Gaza conflict, Al-Jazeera has expanded its coverage of the Israeli press into an entire nightly segment in which a newscaster reviews the lead articles in the major Israeli newspapers, with readable images of the Hebrew text they are translating. Many of them openly support the war and condemn Hamas, and some of them even condemn Al-Jazeera's coverage of the war. To think about how remarkable this is, imagine an American news anchor simply reading article after article from newspapers in Tehran, or Mosul, or even Paris.

In a way, that's the paradox of Al-Jazeera's war journalism: It is flagrantly political, but accompanied by a real curiosity about other perspectives. It also makes me wish for something else: A TV network with the bravery to show the war imagery you can see on Al-Jazeera, but the integrity to do it in the service of peace, rather than the service of a side. Its violent imagery, however unpleasant, would be a strong stand for the individual against violence, and for human compassion against easily fanned hatreds."

mmm skyscraper

01-18-2009, 10:13 PM

I couldn't see anything in Gaza.

Strangelet

01-19-2009, 09:20 AM

In a way, that's the paradox of Al-Jazeera's war journalism: It is flagrantly political, but accompanied by a real curiosity about other perspectives. It also makes me wish for something else: A TV network with the bravery to show the war imagery you can see on Al-Jazeera, but the integrity to do it in the service of peace, rather than the service of a side. Its violent imagery, however unpleasant, would be a strong stand for the individual against violence, and for human compassion against easily fanned hatreds."

This article kind of bugs me, sorry. WIth the above paragraph and statements like this...

all its gruesome cruelty. It is openly partisan, almost never showing Israeli deaths or injuries.

what israeli deaths and injuries? 14 people israelis have died last time I looked it up. 10 were soldiers 4 of whom died of friendly fire.

and the "paradox" of Al-Jazeera's war journalism is really that it is secularly intellectual *and* from the middle east. I mean that's what he wants to say. Instead its this patronizing tone of "oh look they're being objective *AND* positional." That, and its jarring to watch the process of journalistic dialog from the enemy. a source that was demonized by Rumsfeld early on for its "ambulance chasing" journalism in the iraq war, eventually calling them terrorists themselves and bombing their baghdad headquarters.

I mean if we want to call out the obvious differences between just recording the carnage versus what CNN does that's fine. I'm personally tired of watching anderson cooper in Isaac Mizrahi designed black turtle necks blathering israeli talking points while graphics from last year's super bowl is lifted off and run like a summer blockbuster.

BeautifulBurnout

01-19-2009, 12:36 PM

I think it is vital we see war for what it is, all the disgusting, gruesome bloodiness of it all, because without it, it is just some sanitised advertising slogan for whichever side people are rooting for - I have no doubt that the US media has been even better than the Beeb at showing many shots of Kassam missile trails coming out of Gaza and Israeli planes flying over, like it is all some glorified video game.

The more people see real war images, the more revolted they will be by it - the mass protests against the attack on Gaza are only the beginning. Who knows, maybe in fifty or a hundred years wars will, like slavery, be consigned to history as something vile people did to one another but which must never be repeated.

I have a dream....

chuck

01-19-2009, 01:45 PM

Who knows, maybe in fifty or a hundred years wars will, like slavery, be consigned to history as something vile people did to one another but which must never be repeated..

Uhh.. yeah, we're still working on the slavery thing (http://www.utne.com/2008-07-01/Politics/People-for-Sale.aspx) though.

We just call it different things (http://www.good.is/?p=14124).

chuck

01-19-2009, 07:09 PM

And then Al-Jazeera go and do this (http://cc.aljazeera.net/node).

Which, as far as I'm aware, is a bit of a first for an international news media outlet.

I'm quite impressed by it to be honest.

myrrh

01-20-2009, 06:43 AM

In general I agree with this article. However, I really don't think that the average American wants to see footage of what American supported groups are doing overseas.

For example, I mentioned before how when my parents - whom are the most typical average brainwashed American - came to visit here, in Morocco, they were appalled that the news shown these types of images. In fact, my stepmother said "It's no wonder why everyone hates us- if these are the images they see all the time." Notice that she didn't acknowledge the fact that the US foreign policy backs these types of governments etc. Her issue was that all the news contained was images of the US fighting. And that they didn't show anything 'good' about the 'good ole USA'.

Another example, is that here I am a group leader for a company called Intrepid Travel. However, in my spare time, I was part of a film which we made here about extremism (which we are hoping gets selected at Cannes this year ;)). In this film I play the leader of a group of Taliban. So, this is naturally a point of conversation with the groups I lead, once it comes out that I was in a movie. One time I had another typical white upper-middle class husband and wife in my group from Texas. When I was talking about this subject, that is the news media in the US, and how it is extremely biased and never shows the perspective of the 'enemy', I mentioned while during our research for our film, we downloaded all the Taliban/Al-Qaeda videos and watched them. And that they released actual legit videos that explain what they are doing and why they are doing it. And then questioned her as to why we never see such videos on the TV, or even heard that they exist? Her response was flat and stern. She said "I don't want to watch something like that. And I don't thing that they should be shown on TV."

So there lies the problem, and this is probably my issue with America in general, even though I am an American. That is that the general masses want to continue to live in a world where they are fed media images that only promote the USA as being the 'greatest country in the world' - because they believe this 110% and this is not to be questioned.

Another example of this type of thinking is that when I got married - to an American with German heritage- my parents where dumbfounded that she would want to live in another country other than the US. They literally said "Why would you want to live someplace else?".

I could list a hundred examples just from first hand experiences as well but I am sure that you get the point.

Strangelet

01-20-2009, 09:44 AM

In general I agree with this article. However, I really don't think that the average American wants to see footage of what American supported groups are doing overseas.

We are in agreement, but I'll stop at faulting the author of the article for making such arguments. We agree that it's an obvious obfuscation to say it is because of Al Jazeera that americans are turned against. Even though the author admits that Al Jazeera does nothing unethical except be *too unsanitized* in its portrayal of certain atrocities.

If you want to go further and say that the author is just reflecting american culture as a whole, well....

BeautifulBurnout

01-20-2009, 12:16 PM

Uhh.. yeah, we're still working on the slavery thing (http://www.utne.com/2008-07-01/Politics/People-for-Sale.aspx) though.

We just call it different things (http://www.good.is/?p=14124).

Tru dat. Although, to be fair, slavery is no longer a state-sponsored and Vatican-approved activity.

Myrrh - I see where you are coming from. It took me a long while to understand why so many Americans unquestioningly believe they live in the best, most civilised, most popular country in the world. I think it has to do with your education, pledging allegiance to the flag and such - something we never do here. It is almost like finding fault with your own country or the behaviour of its Administration is an act of treason in itself.

Perhaps it is because we have lost an Empire in the UK that we are considerably less patriotic; perhaps because we have so many different countries, languages and cultures on our doorstep, many of which are considerably better than ours; I really don't know what the answer is. But we are, in general, not so prepared to swallow the "Great Britain is best" argument, neither do we baulk from seeing the bad side of ourselves. I repeat, in general, because there are obviously vast swathes of citizens who swallow everything and are patriotic to the last hair in their armpit.

Sean

01-20-2009, 04:05 PM

Strangelet

01-20-2009, 04:26 PM

Strangelet

01-20-2009, 04:38 PM

Tru dat. Although, to be fair, slavery is no longer a state-sponsored and Vatican-approved activity.

Myrrh - I see where you are coming from. It took me a long while to understand why so many Americans unquestioningly believe they live in the best, most civilised, most popular country in the world. I think it has to do with your education, pledging allegiance to the flag and such - something we never do here. It is almost like finding fault with your own country or the behaviour of its Administration is an act of treason in itself.

Perhaps it is because we have lost an Empire in the UK that we are considerably less patriotic; perhaps because we have so many different countries, languages and cultures on our doorstep, many of which are considerably better than ours; I really don't know what the answer is. But we are, in general, not so prepared to swallow the "Great Britain is best" argument, neither do we baulk from seeing the bad side of ourselves. I repeat, in general, because there are obviously vast swathes of citizens who swallow everything and are patriotic to the last hair in their armpit.

I don't personally have a problem with patriotism. I consider myself to be fairly patriotic. I have a problem with stupidity. I guess what I'm saying is that when americans say they live in the best country in the world, it doesn't come from their patriotism, it comes from their stupidity.

I know this sounds really elitist, but its not because I admit that I am no genius. However, there is a huge difference between me and most of the people that surround me on a daily basis. Unlike most americans, I don't think its ok or even cute to be stupid. Its the willful stupidity, chosen out of some drastically misguided sense of right and wrong, this is what kills me.

And maybe I'm turning into myshkin, but I really have this suspicion that America is corrupted with a culture of willful stupidity, engineered by corporate power.

Deckard

01-20-2009, 05:26 PM

To the point about airing more graphic footage from wars on the news, I personally have a bit of an issue with that. My wife and I are starting to try to have kids, and I don't like the idea that if I had a young child and I was watching the news, they could suddenly be subjected to images of violence on that scale. I get what you guys are saying about driving the reality of war home to people, but I'm not sure that shoving images of it in the faces of children who aren't ready to process the raw pain, death and emotion of it all is the way to go.
That's true, but let's certainly see it on the 10pm bulletins.

I know this sounds really elitist, but its not because I admit that I am no genius. However, there is a huge difference between me and most of the people that surround me on a daily basis. Unlike most americans, I don't think its ok or even cute to be stupid. Its the willful stupidity, chosen out of some drastically misguided sense of right and wrong, this is what kills me.
No mate that's not elitist. I consider it ultimately far more damaging when people deny the overwhelming amount of stupidity (by that I mean wilful ignorance) out there - it has to be one of the most potent forms of political correctness going. It should be perfectly legitimate to acknowledge, free of any guilt, that large swathes of people in the richest country in the world show an enormous amount of ignorance when you know that you personally mean no harm and take no pleasure in seeing/saying it. I realise that we don't nurture understanding and education by dismissing people as stupid, but there comes a point - for instance when 'intellectual' is a dirty word - that people have to speak out.

And maybe I'm turning into myshkin, but I really have this suspicion that America is corrupted with a culture of willful stupidity, engineered by corporate power.
You know it may not be centrally organised in the true conspiratorial sense, but certainly corporate and political entities benefit from the spread of stupidity. (Btw, where is that dude these days? Do you think we came across as sheeple a little too strongly? ;) )

Incidentally, Chuck - not read the article yet, hence no comment to make on it. I'll get round to it...