13 posts tagged “media”

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WORLD LEADERS - Sept 24th 2007 - Forum Columbia University - Ahmadi Nejad
Entire Video Link WCBSTV http://wcbstv.com/video/?id=103767@wcbs.dayport.com
(thanks to germanicus24)

"I'm not saying that it didn't happen at all," he said. "I said, granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?"

Speaking about Israel:

"We do not recognize that regime because it is based on occupation and racism. It constantly attacks its neighbors," Ahmadinejad said in a video news conference from New York with the National Press Club in Washington, citing recent Israeli military action in Syria and Lebanon.

"It kills people. It drives people from their homes."

Reuters

Somali police have surrounded the offices of an independent radio station in the capital Mogadishu and opened fire on the building, according to station officials.

"Many Mogadishu-based journalists have been forced to flee the country due to the ongoing intimidation of journalists," Joel Simon, the CPJ's executive director, said in a statement.
   
"We call on the government to stop this harassment and to move its forces away from the main gates of the Shabelle media network offices."

Somalia is also the second deadliest country in the world for journalists, after Iraq, according to the CPJ.

Al-Jazeera (Sept 18th, 2007)

Some of you may be shocked after reading that. Not only by the gore of it, but by the fact you could never have imagined that could happen. Let me tell you that the area it happened in is only a twenty minute bus ride out of the centre of a major Azanian port. This gruesome incident occurred in a suburb of Durban City. Yes, you never heard about it being this bad. I know.

The truth is seldom heard. Most people only see blurbs on CNN, and then they are usually the same ones repeatedly shown, regardless of the story connected to them. If such images are shown to you without any information, you assume it happened in one of those "naughty" countries like Zimbabwe or Mogawhatsusname", not good old Mandelaville. The truth is that violence in Azania is so severe it puts Zimbabwe in the eyes (no it's not as bad as Mogadishu yet). Let me say that in standard, non Azanian English: the Azanian violence levels are far worse than that found in Zimbabwe or Malawi. The sad difference is that our situation is ignored. It is drummed home that we are a democratic country so many times, that when people go missing and turn up in the hands of the terror cell controlled from the pentagon, people just continue with their daily duties. After all, South Africa is one of the "good African states", obediently following American and British guidelines about social spending, and economic policies. So, one is sure they did "whatever" for "whatever good reason". So even if you DO happen to hear that "politicians have repeatedly said that security is an expensive affair and that Azanians need to start paying for out of their own pockets", you'd probably agree with them. A few years ago, the security industry was the fastest growing industry. Today, private security companies patrol wealthy neighborhoods, expensive electric fences and burglar alarms are installed by anyone with half a brain and the money to do it. The rest of the folks get screwed. Private security companies have even been signed up to protect certain police stations that had had their weapons stolen so many times, they themselves had become part of the problem.

Of course, I don't blame you for not knowing about our situation. We are a small drop in the ocean compared to all the other things going on. Besides, the media and shoddy journalism is also to blame. This is not only true about Azania (still known by it's colonial name, South Africa). Last month I showed some students a report about the Russian exploration of the North Pole, an dteh following day, one of the net savvy kids showed me a young blogger's response to the event. The video shown during CNN TV soundbyte/blurb was footage taken from the famous movie "Titanic". Though it doesn't prove the Russians had faked the whole affair, it does lead one to question what the media giants really assume about our intelligence. We weren't even informed about the source of the footage, which would have been half respectful. Such oversights or plain shoddy production or "journalism" is meant to sensationalise and sometimes to mislead. Many misconceptions about many important things arise from this sort of dishonesty.

When we actually read the cold hard facts about a situation in Azania or Iraq, we tend to see it in relation to other images we have seen (genuine images or otherwise) and the impact of these hard facts are actually softened by the subliminal (and not so subliminal) repetitive rubbish we have been fed prior to exposure to the facts.

As a result, when we see a leader like Ahmadenijad or Chavez address the UN, though they may be making very good points, if we have been suckered up to that point, we can't understand the address.

Now, back to the article I posted: Why has the situation come to this? If anyone wants my opinion, let me hear yours first. i will only say that it has a lot to do with a culture having been whittled away and something else put in its place. Also with a breakdown of other norms, services, and a silence regarding the whole thing. If there is noise being made, it's all that it amounts to: NOISE. The noise takes place at middle class dinner tables, and among ruling class newspaper redaers. The end result is that nothing ever happens, and a state of paralysis sets in.

There, I've gone and said too much now. I'll leave the rest to you.

And amidst all the terror they have created, they lie and lie and lie and lie......
This New Zealand interview shows the legendary reporter, Robert Fisk explaining his reasons for retiring. A seemingly broken man. The inhumanity he has witnessed in 30 plus years, has not turned him into a sub-human, but it may have nearly broken a very good man.

If he doesn't return to his job, his legacy will certainly live on in the journalists who follow his footsteps. This interview brings me to tears. I have long last seen the film called the Road to Guantanamo, and seeing these news clips in the video remind me why I have often turned the film off midway. I apologise for the language in the title, but I couldn't use the"F' word, so we will have to make do with the word "bastards".

Shame on you Bush and Blair and all your cronies. Shame on all who support these lies against all reason. Those who howl down the voices of reason and civilization, and continue to support these tyrants. History will not deal kindly with this generation. Shame on us all, for we have not done enough.

Fallujah_111404_m November 2004

60km west of Baghdad, there is peace. But residents describe it as the peace of the dead. Resistance to the invasion is still common however. Unemployment is at 80%. Car movement is banned. There is no longer freedom of the press. People often go missing and then turn up as unidentified bodies in the streets. Medical supplies are denied to the residents. It is a slow death that residents are being subjected to.

The city sees no more of the kind of resistance attacks of old, and no more of the 2004 kind of crackdown. "We are so happy that our city is peaceful and quiet after all the battling that killed thousands of our citizens," a captain in the local police force of Fallujah, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "We can patrol the streets without fear now, and arrest any person that we suspect to be a terrorist." ...

... Several of those found dead had been arrested earlier, eyewitnesses and families of several of the men killed have said.

"This is fascist behaviour that shows the brutality of the Americans and the so-called Iraqi government," a former member of the Fallujah city council who asked to be referred to as Mahmood told IPS. "Those young guys were executed without any trial. This brutality was not known in our city before this occupation began." ...

... Journalists inside the city are also quiet after a few of them were arrested and held for several days.

One of the detained journalists spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity. Visibly shaken, he said that a major in the Fallujah police force had told him that freedom of the media had been misused and that the police would not allow it any more. He said the major told him that "the news you transmit to the world will be what we tell you, not what you pick up from the street". ...

... Medical services also continue to suffer under the vehicle ban. Doctors at Fallujah General Hospital told IPS that the government in Baghdad is not supplying them with medicines and medical equipment.

"The officials of the Ministry of Health tell us we are terrorists, and so we do not deserve their support," a doctor said. "As if they own Iraqi money and it is up to them whether to give it or not."

The Ministry of Health was headed by Ali al-Shemari from the group of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr until Sadr withdrew from the government Apr. 16.

Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily (August 28th, 2007)

The article leads with this statement:

One of the most durable features of the U.S. culture is the inability or refusal to recognize U.S. crimes.

The statement ends with this relevant observation:

imperial terrorism inevitably produces retail terrorist responses; that the urgent need is the curbing of the causal force, which is the rampaging empire.

In short, the much disliked yet apt words of brother Malcolm concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy remain true today:

a case of chicken coming home to roost

Moreover, apart from seeing their own violence turned on themselves,
Americans are paying the price for:

• their acquiescence of the fraudulent process which ushered in the current US presidency,
• their acquiescence of the assaults on freedoms which were instituted subsequent to Bush's election
• their acquiescence of the obvious deceptions created and then used as pre-texts for the military interventions
  
• their acquiescence of the abuses of the media meant to incite fear, then hatred
  
• their acquiescence of the illegal wars which are being waged today
• their acquiescence of the abuses at secret torture camps including but not exclusive to Guantanamo
  
• their acquiescence of the continued support for the criminal entity occupying Palestine

Sadly, we are all victims of this rampaging empire and we will all pay the price for inaction.

In the humble opinion of this blogger, this is more than natural. It is self-serving and it is obstinant. Another blogger noted that the Holy Quran mentions how the enemies of God will never accept the believers, until [the believers] embrace [the non-believers'] religion (identical in the translation to "way of life"). The Holy Bible mentions something similar in the book of Proverbs and elsewhere, I believe. We must in effect show our allegiance to the great satan by our wanton and obstinant embrace of death, violence, destruction, symbols of allegiance, if you will. Refusal to open one's mind to allow rational considerations into our thinking and our actions, is surely sinful at best, and dangerous at worst. For it prevents our God from using us as instruments in His correction of the wrongs of others.

i would expect this posting could be classified as "hate speech" in less democratic nations. Frankly speaking, i couldn't care less if it is. let me say only that i don't hate anyone, i just don't support some people's choices, and i reserve the right to say so. if and when those choices begin to affect my own life and the life of my family, then my voice will become louder. the right to speak out and to do what i can to establish a community in line with my values, is non-negotiable. if it is not too much to ask for, let those who agree with me also be heard. of course, we have a long way to go before people begin to speak without fear. but let us make a start. open the can of worms so to speak.

Nigeria's Anglican congregation, is second in size only to Britain's. That is news to me. News.24.com carried a report in 2003 in which the typical African opinion was expressed concerning people who choose to engage in homosexual practices:

The primate of Nigeria, the Most Reverend Peter Akinola, has described the appointment of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex marriage as "a Satanic attack" on the church.

More recently, (News.24 URL http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2162306,00.html)

Abuja - Eighteen men face charges of sodomy in a Nigerian Islamic court after authorities arrested them as they prepared to take part in a gay marriage, state media reported.

On Tuesday (August 21st, 2007), Ugandan's staged a protest calling for tougher measures by police against people who choose to engage in this particular sexual deviance, actions which are banned in the conservative Christian country. The protest seems in part to have been triggered, by a press conference held by sexual deviants (known as smug) a few days before. The protesters also took the opportunity to object to a report made by the US intern Katherine Roubos in the Daily Monitor, in which she dealt with the experiences of people who choose the homosexual lifestyle in Uganda. The newspaper is owned by Aga Khan, currently visiting East Africa. The Daily Monitor intern has denied campaiging for people who choose a gay lifestyle, saying she was simply doing her job:

I was assigned a story by the editor and I did it objectively. My job is to report on events, not my personal opinions

Notwithstanding the conservative views of Africans, some religious leaders, seeking to impress upon the world  their allegiance to an idea of modernity perhaps at best,  or to satan at worst, continue to insult Africans. In South Africa, conservative religious views are also ignored by the church leadership who is increasingly out of step with political, moral, and generally most social and economic realities in Azania and Africa at large. A major part of this scenario is coloured perhaps by an ingrained racism, even self hatred, which disregards Africans as backward, seeing them as needing to be led, cajoled, and if need be, whipped into a world of modernity.

In a letter to Southern Africa's Anglican Archbishop Ndungane, Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria said:
http://www.afrol.com/articles/10519

What you cited as top priorities are in this context clearly misplaced. I ask, are the issues of peace, hunger, shari'a, and HIV/AIDS, serious and prevalent, as they are, more important to the Church than faithfulness to the plain truth of Scripture?

Ugandans are rightly making some much needed noise on this issue, but they may be missing the point just a bit. Far more damage is being done by media outlets across the continent and no doubt inside Uganda as well. It may be easier to attack the Daily Monitor and it's staff, yet the real culprits are left smiling. The Daily Monitor report may just be the straw that breaks the camels back, yet i would venture to say, the camel needs a back breaking.

Aga Khan's visit is more significant however. He will officiate at the inauguration of the Bujagali hydro-power dam, a multi-national project supported by the World Bank. The Bujagali project will bring many opportunities to Uganda (Mail & Guardian, Azania), and it also symbolises in itself, new alliances and prospects for development. My strange personality smells a rat once again. Our progress as Africans is often hampered by outside influences, who see benefits in sowing division. The Daily Monitor is carrying other significant stories at the moment, yet this one report has become the cause perhaps, of many Ugandans setting the newspaper aside as an unreliable tabloid.

After reading Roubos' report, the mention of so called abuse and oppression and referring to people who choose this lifestyle with the term "gay and lesbian" seems to suggest that the reporter was perhaps out of step with African sentiments. Being American, such errors are to be expected. In Africa, (the topic being taboo from Nigeria and Ghana to Uganda and Azanian) most of us do not consider this to be abuse or oppression at all. Neither do we consider that such people are a natural category of humans, as is the popular belief in some western societies. The term criminal would suffice instead of "gay and lesbian". Roubos should have worded her report differently, and perhaps spoken more in terms of preventing inhuman treatment of those who choose to violate Ugandan law.

Those interested in reading more about the Anglican communion in particular, may wish to visit a blog entitled BOLIVIANBEAT : Building bridges, engaging Truth

p.s.

I would have liked to post this article in the "Gay group" at vox, unfortunately i have been banned from the group for some reason. My hope is that the post reaches the audience it is intended for. The view that this issue is a closed one, is unfounded. Let it be known there are many voices in places where there exist no restrictions on the expression of opposition to this issue as is the case in less democratic western societies where certain views are seen as hate speech.

Expressing these views puts one at risk of losing some alliances and some friends in the process, yet it is any person or community's God-given right to decide it's own course of action, according to it's own values. The fact i am an African, fundamentalist Christian, Catholic, Muslim, or any other number of labels shouldn't make my view any less valid.