Letting sleeping dogs lie.
I have often wondered if some truths are better left unsaid.
Case in point, the huge media furore over Koran abuses by US guards at Guantanamo Bay. Before I go into the merits and demerits of the media glare on this story, lets clarify the rather murky waters with some caveats.
I for one, find the detention camps in Guantanamo to be morally reprehensible. I found Abu Ghraib disgusting. And I'm really not swayed by the neo-conservative rhetoric coming from the current American political establishment: that it is justified to trample over fundamental human rights in the name of national security.
Consequently, I condemn the acts of abuse against the Koran.
However, the crux of this post is not to condemn America for these terrible attacks. I do not want these acts perpetrated by a few sadistic individuals, to take on any larger significance than just that - a classic bully's reaction in a position of power over his weaker victim. I do not want these to be viewed as attacks of a Conserative Christian America against the Islamic faith.
And that is why I am disturbed by the glee with which the media is reporting instances of abuse. Not a day passes without a new story coming in. There definitely seems to be a hidden agenda behind this sort of reporting- it definitely smacks of opportunism.
In the name of a good story, the western media is pushing on with a rather over-the-board reporting of abuses by the American military establishment. If these stories disturb me so much, I wonder what the repurcussions will be in a highly destabilized Mid-East region.
Moreover, these stories really play into the hands of the hardliners in the Mid-East establishment, who are only too gleeful to paint America as the Great Satan. Dictatorial regimes in the Mid-East political establishment are not representative of and responsible to the fundamental needs of their citizenry. They desperately need good reasons for their raison d'etre- to explain away the poverty, the everyday violence, the lack of infrastructure, and the surreal detatchment from normality in the lives of common folk in their countries. And America is a convenient escape route. For if you can fan hatred for America, to blame the Great Satan for normal, everyday problems, that saves the political leaders there from answering some highly inconvenient questions of why they are there in the first place.
As said earlier, America is not really blame-free, in its paranoid fear of the Great Other, it has sacrificed the very ideals which are the foundations of its existence. It should acknowledge the huge moral and practical failure that is Guantanamo Bay, and dismantle it with immedeate effect.
However, a sense of perspective needs to be maintained in news reporting. Especially, since it is opportunism that drives today's media and not really any great faith in the reporting of the Truth.
Case in point, the huge media furore over Koran abuses by US guards at Guantanamo Bay. Before I go into the merits and demerits of the media glare on this story, lets clarify the rather murky waters with some caveats.
I for one, find the detention camps in Guantanamo to be morally reprehensible. I found Abu Ghraib disgusting. And I'm really not swayed by the neo-conservative rhetoric coming from the current American political establishment: that it is justified to trample over fundamental human rights in the name of national security.
Consequently, I condemn the acts of abuse against the Koran.
However, the crux of this post is not to condemn America for these terrible attacks. I do not want these acts perpetrated by a few sadistic individuals, to take on any larger significance than just that - a classic bully's reaction in a position of power over his weaker victim. I do not want these to be viewed as attacks of a Conserative Christian America against the Islamic faith.
And that is why I am disturbed by the glee with which the media is reporting instances of abuse. Not a day passes without a new story coming in. There definitely seems to be a hidden agenda behind this sort of reporting- it definitely smacks of opportunism.
In the name of a good story, the western media is pushing on with a rather over-the-board reporting of abuses by the American military establishment. If these stories disturb me so much, I wonder what the repurcussions will be in a highly destabilized Mid-East region.
Moreover, these stories really play into the hands of the hardliners in the Mid-East establishment, who are only too gleeful to paint America as the Great Satan. Dictatorial regimes in the Mid-East political establishment are not representative of and responsible to the fundamental needs of their citizenry. They desperately need good reasons for their raison d'etre- to explain away the poverty, the everyday violence, the lack of infrastructure, and the surreal detatchment from normality in the lives of common folk in their countries. And America is a convenient escape route. For if you can fan hatred for America, to blame the Great Satan for normal, everyday problems, that saves the political leaders there from answering some highly inconvenient questions of why they are there in the first place.
As said earlier, America is not really blame-free, in its paranoid fear of the Great Other, it has sacrificed the very ideals which are the foundations of its existence. It should acknowledge the huge moral and practical failure that is Guantanamo Bay, and dismantle it with immedeate effect.
However, a sense of perspective needs to be maintained in news reporting. Especially, since it is opportunism that drives today's media and not really any great faith in the reporting of the Truth.
posted by Venkat at 6:47 PM
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