Israel’s war against Palestinians has exposed the innards of Western media: contra the principles of ‘free speech’ and ‘speaking truth to power’, Western media has supinely grovelled before power and interest. The suppression of narratives by Western media is not overt or ‘in your face’: it is subtle. Consider this. One, the narratives about Israel are peddled in a way to evoke and elicit sympathy and empathy. Two, this is buttressed by ‘expert views’ that offer academic justifications employing the nuances of international law. Three, narratives about Palestinians are just news with sanitized headlines. To maintain the semblance of ‘balance,’ an odd Palestinian voice is given space , but in a way that accords with the editorial guidelines of newspapers and TV channels.
All this would not have mattered if the Western media – one’s who control knowledge in both Foucauldian and prosaic terms- would not have replaced the Christian priestocracy in the West. The new priest , to state a pedestrian cliché , in the West is not the psycho-analyst or the psychiatrist but the media. To make a wee digression here, while the ‘casting couch’ jostles with the ‘glass ceiling’ , with perhaps the casting couch winning out , the ‘psychiatrists couch’ has been well and truly replaced by the media and its touts in the West. The name of the game then for media in the West is not to enlighten, or educate people but validate their prejudices , at times, and guide people’s thoughts (and action) towards ends that are determined by the media. With respect to Islam and Muslims, this has been put forth eloquently by Edward Said in his book,’ Covering Islam’. Calling it an ‘invisible screen’, the late Said refers to it as the Western media’s ability to filter out what it wants western publics to know or not to know. In the case of Islam and Muslims, Said postulates that Western media wants westerners to believe that ,’ Muslims are primitive, regressive and violent’. It is, to state the obvious, this deep historical prejudice that is panning out in the Israeli Palestinian war.
How and why is this happening? Barring the political west’s age old animus against Islam, and the missionary proselyting zeal of the West to propagate and thrust its ideologies on the non-west, where Islam is seen as an impediment, the other reason is the corporate control of Western media. The moment shareholders – majority ones – determine the financial side and control of the media organization’s structure- a give media house forfeits its duty to tell the truth. It is no longer accountable to the public( as it should be) but to dominant or majority shareholders. It is then corporate governance of media organizations (like other corporations) that is majorly responsible for slanted, prejudiced coverage- both in print and visual media. The biases, ideologies and prejudices of corporate honchos percolate in news slants, coverage, editorials and op-eds. There then , no matter how much Western politicians , scream their lungs out, is no such thing as free media in the West. Media capture by power and interest is real across the western world. Another lesser impactful reason could be that media organizations are mostly staffed by careerists and wannabes; not idealists or romantics animated and motivated by principles of justice, fairness and a better world. A careerist will naturally want ‘career progression’ and a pay packet over anything else. This undercuts idealism and fairness and makes the careerist a ‘biddable harlot’ in the service of power and interest.
This rubric and framework exacts victims: one, those against which are sought to be seen as the ‘other’ of the West and two, the western publics. In economics, there is a phrase and idea called ‘bounded rationality’- that is, roughly no person is supremely rational and that his or her rationality is bounded. Another concept is that of ‘asymmetric information’- roughly where availability of information is skewed. It is in the interstices of ‘bounded rationality’ and ‘asymmetric information’ that Western media keeps western publics misinformed, poorly informed, plainly ignorant , or guides and directs the prejudices of people toward the preferences of the media.
This proclivity of the Western media is obviously and naturally bad, especially for those at the receiving ends of Western politics. But its special odiousness arises from the fact that it undercuts the principles of the real and existing West- the West that was crafted after painful , historical , political and philosophical struggles. Or the West that pioneered and defined the modern world and its outlook, the West where many people have a refined sensibility and are defined by a compassionate and sensitive outlook, the West where the state could not infringe on a person’s personhood, rights and liberty with strong safeguards designed to prevent abuse. I can personally vouch for the ‘bad’ West and the ‘good’ West: I have been a victim of the former and the beneficiary of the West’s largeness, capaciousness and graciousness- not the Western states but by and of some bold and beautiful people. The graciousness and grace of these people made me attempt to disabuse people of the flawed notions they held of the idea of the West. I fought and struggled to make myself heard and draw attention to some beautiful people that do dot the landscape of the West. And I did convince people. But now, all these efforts seem to be in vain- an exercise in psychological projection where a few great and fantastic experiences made me occlude the ugly and the bad. I , for one moment , do not regret having broached the bold and beautiful experiences I had in the West. These were real and have left a mark on me. But I cannot make these assertions now credibly. That there are many bold and beautiful people in the West, whose sensitivity and compassion is laudable and worthy of being told is undercut severely by the glib insincerity of the Western media. It was Voltaire the great philosopher- the progenitor of free speech – of the West who said that, ‘ I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend unto death your right to say it’. Contemporary Western media do not even come close to the principle underlying this quote. Instead of being Voltaire’s worthy descendant(s), Western media have , by being ‘ the lap dogs of power’ become ‘Voltaire’s Bastards’!
Post Script: Fortunately and even mercifully, Western media does not entirely retain its monopoly on information, knowledge and discourse. Besides alternative forms of media – social media and the democratization of information -rendered possible by the revolution in Information Technology and Communications(ICT’s), there are news outlets like Al Jazeera that aim to present news and analysis in a reasonably objective manner. This is an unalloyed good for global publics with the caveat that anything dished out by anyone might not be the truth. The best hedge against this is education and critical thinking. May the light of education shine on the whole world!
- Wajahat Qazi is an International Affairs analyst.
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