I suppose we should continue to be afraid — very afraid. The British-American-sponsored version of democracy, that is free and fair elections across Iraq, is being celebrated with jubilation and gusto across the world through CNN, the independent international news network rivalled only by al-Jazeera.
The question is, which one of these networks brings more balance to what we are receiving through the testimony of our eyes, held hostage as they are by whatever the editorial policies of these media choose to let us believe?
CNN, as I have said, reports on the Iraqi elections with an unrestrained sense of bombast and elation, giving the lie to the idea that the channel has re-examined its position since the unprovoked commencement of hostilities against Saddam Hussein, and has attempted to appear more objective. Democracy, American style, is embedded deep inside the non-insurgent insurgency, and has now been commonly accepted as the order of the day. Therefore a seemingly successful election in Iraq underlines the original message that preceded the first bombings over Baghdad: be afraid. Be very afraid. Big Brother is here, and will brook no bullshit.
Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, is roundly condemned for telling the other side of the story — in other words, for telling the bad news, as far as the West is concerned. Where CNN would baulk at it, the plucky, cheeky, authoritative Arab-based news network reports in detail on the most gruesome hijackings, abductions, cat-and-mouse negotiations and, finally, beheadings or executions by other means of the hapless and generally supposedly innocent Western hostages caught up in the midst of this undefined conflict. It also gives the gruesome reapers, the executioners of these supposed innocents, space to explain just what it it they are so cross about — cross enough to take human lives and, if necessary, to sacrifice their own.
As you will see from the above, my position is that nothing is clear. It takes two to tango. The only question these days is: Who can tango, not better, but loudest? At the moment, the unlikely, mutually left-footed and rhythmically challenged duo of Tony Blair and George W Bush appear to be tangoing louder than the whole of the rest of the world put together, and to their own tune, to boot, which has never been part of the game. That’s how it goes.
The television makes everybody take sides. We in the West (yes, you heard me right) down here, south of the Limpopo, howl and scream that giving ‘terrorists” and ‘insurgents” (who ‘insurged” upon whom, by the way?) any airtime whatsoever simply adds fuel to the fire. Every publicly broadcast beheading encourages the youth of the region, and supposedly the impressionable youth of the world in general, to follow suit. ‘Eenie-meenie-minie-mo/Catch a Yankee by the toe/If he hollers, make sure you don’t let him [or her] go.” Or sentiments to that effect.
(Incidentally, while we’re here, it’s worth pointing out that it is through my daughter’s nascent school career that I have discovered that we are no longer allowed to sing the nursery rhyme according to the original lyrics by which we learned it, in all innocence, during those ‘innocent” times: that is, ‘Eenie-meenie-minie-mo/Catch a Nigger by the toe,” and so on. In case you had forgotten. We therefore feel free to extemporise at will on our own account. There are, presumably, no Niggers around here to catch any more. Ask Condoleezza Rice.)
It’s ghastly stuff out there. As the late, great Ray Charles put it, ‘The world is in an uproar/The danger zone is everywhere.” The world has become a far more dangerous place in the past couple of decades. And not exclusively because of the events of 9/11.
And yet all we see is smiling faces on TV. Successful strings of smiling, dancing voters in Baghdad, and even American soldiers in full-metal-jacket mode incongruously dancing alongside them. And unclaimed bombs going off in the background, spoiling everyone’s party.
Even Ariel Sharon is trying to join the tango party, now that his personal nemesis, Yasser Arafat, has gone on to what is supposedly a separate heaven where he, Sharon, will not have to deal with him any more, even after death. (God willing. But who knows what God has in mind?)
It remains to be seen how all this will pan out. The interim Iraqi government, installed as a fait accompli by the United States army, predicts that there will be no clear winner. The winner, they say, will be the people of Iraq — just for having had the guts to turn out and vote. And so, without a clear project in front of them, the coalition tangoes in the streets.
The unrepentant Hussein, meanwhile, languishes in an American jail on his home soil, waiting for his day in court. Prison, it must be said, has not been entirely unkind to him. He looks much more handsome these days in his neatly trimmed, greying beard than he did as a stolid, unsmiling dictator with a thick black moustache. But that’s not to let anyone off the hook — not even Hussein himself for his past misdemeanours.
The concern is that the unfolding political process in Iraq and Palestine will become a mere media circus, orchestrated from powerful nations far afield, who will exclusively define the outcome unto the next generation and beyond.
Haven’t we heard all this before? Is this not a mere sophistication of previous dispensations, when the West ruled the world and its respective parliaments hurrahed and gave an obligatory stamp of approval? Or have I been sleeping while nothing has changed? Has it simply been like this all along, and all that post-colonial guff spouted by the likes of Robert Mugabe is amateur theatrics on the sidelines of the main stage?
Yes, we should be afraid. Very afraid.