EDITORIAL

The West, particularly the US of A, is yet to reconcile with the victory of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, in the 10th presidential election of Iran. Even as dying protests in Tehran are worrying the West, the outcome is stuck as a lump in the throat. The Western media’s active coverage of the protests had left no stone unturned to render the authenticity of the outcome doubtful. All networks dished out copious footage from the streets of Tehran. But one failed to find even some semblance of similar enthusiasm with regard to coverage of Egyptian Presidential election. American stooge Hosni Mubarak won it the fifth time in 2005 and everyone could have foretold his victory without a shred of doubt and of course, without even able to name a single of the nine opponents. The Western media has facile access to every nook and corner of that hoary African nation. Yet those formidable names, i.e., CNN, NBC, Fox News, the Newsweek, the NYT chose to voluntarily stay aloof from the Cairo streets. Only Al-Jazeera provided some relief in this direction. Did anybody ask, Why? Perhaps it begs no answer. The Western media knows well where its interests lie.

Google brims with video footage of Neda Agha Soltani, the Iranian protester felled by a police bullet. The Washington Post described her ‘a symbol of rebellion’ against the ‘Iranian regime’. But chances that anyone would recognize Marwal El-Sherbini are few. The wife of Egyptian scholar was stabbed and killed by her German tormentor and killer Alex while she defended her right to dignity in a Dresden court. There was no buzz in the Western media. Human rights activists did not feel outraged. Feminists kept silent. German Government offered no apology against the hate crime.

Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi did not issue a statement. No one discerned the streak of racism in the crime even though Marwa had been dubbed ‘a terrorist’ just because she donned a headscarf.

This shameful lack of reporting of the hate crime against an Arab woman and absence of any public remorse is indicative of the Western media’s dishonest, lopsided and biased coverage of events. One wonders if the attitude of the highly monopolized media is just an extension of their Governments’ double standard on policy matters. It only leads to a healthy guess that Western media is often more enthusiastic in defending Western interest than the rulers would demand.
Western silence on seething anger in Egypt against Mubarak and Marwa’s murder (German police has booked Alex only for manslaughter), are not unique exception to Western media doublespeak. A classic example is the Middle East where Israel’s state terrorism is defended as ‘right to retaliate and respond’ to ‘Arab aggression’, completely oblivious of the background of the usurpation of the Arab land, forcible eviction of Arab families, encirclement of water sources and farms and historic claims of Muslims and Arabs on the land of their ancestors. Israel’s claim that killing of civilians in Gaza is unintended, is reported dutifully but Arab clamour for justice goes unheeded. Abu Nidal and Osama bin Laden are ‘Islamic terrorists’ but Peter Bleach, Kim Davy and Warren Anderson have been spared from any branding despite their conviction for crimes against humanity in the Third World. Few in the US media are willing to accept that Islamic scholar Ismail Raji Al-Faruqi was assassinated. The crime has for the last quarter century been categorized under ‘bungled burglary’. Western media shies away from suffixing ‘Jewish terrorist’ with Goldstein, the hooligan who killed over 29 Muslims in the Hebron Mosque in 1994 even while his links with the Jewish Defence League are well documented.

A woman killed by a delinquent husband in Pakistan or Jordan is news for the Western media. But Third World’s women falling victims to Western men’s lust hardly fit that category. It is mere trafficking. IMF and the World Bank are saviours, the WTO is a trade regulator, but Opec is a cartel. Occupation, invasion of and aggression against Third World countries is civilizing mission, but resistance against occupation is freely dubbed terrorism. The Western media’s doublespeak knows no end.

But remedy does not lie in complaining. For the West, the media is a power tool helpful in reinforcing its dominance and suppressing the voice of the disadvantaged people. It helps them foist their consumer products on the hapless people of the developing countries, win a class of ‘intellectuals’ who sing paeans of ‘West’s glory’. Notwithstanding all that one must confess that the West has invested heavily in media and communication infrastructure, trained human resources and designed a world order that sub-serves its objectives. The media have-nots are a disparate group who have no consensus on an alternative world order, no media strategy and no infrastructure worth the name. Unless due thought is spared in this direction, Western bias is unlikely to be countered.