Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Robert Fisk
I saw Robert Fisk speak last night. I'd heard him on the radio before, but seeing him live was a treat. He looked like somebody's grandfather with his sweater, shirt and reading glasses. But his talk was anything but sedentary.
Inspired - Robert Fisk
As a journalist, he travels the world and meets everyone. He's spoken to Syrian intelligence officers, Iraqi soldiers, Palestinian families. In the question period, he tossed off casually that he'd met Osama Bin Laden a couple times. Fisk bitterly criticized the new Iraq Study Group report because it didn't quote any ordinary Iraqis and its advisors were entirely from right-wing think tanks.
The actual subject of his talk was the Armenian genocide, and he drew out the historical threads of what he named the first Holocaust: the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkish soldiers in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. The horrific story illuminated some of the chaos that the region has been plunged into repeatedly. Turks recruited Kurds for the massacre; some Kurds and Turks refused to help and sheltered refugees; Armenians scattered throughout the region and their descendants can be found in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere, intermarried with locals.
Victims of the first Holocaust - Armenian children orphaned by the Turkish army
One of the common refrains on the Right is that Iraq is a mess because 'they've been slaughtering each other for centuries'. Fisk's research shows the massacres weren't tribal hatred, but calculated political moves that reshaped the region's complicated history. In revealing that history, he's cutting against western racism that reduces Arabs, Kurds, Armenians and others to savages. In a brilliant, if depressing prediction, Fisk told us, "The Americans want to leave Iraq, and here's how they're going to do it: blame the Iraqis for failing to appreciate their liberators." He not only quoted American opinion-makers doing just that; he quoted British invaders of Iraq pursuing exactly the same argument 80 years ago, when their Occupation met popular resistance.
You'd think the cycles of history would make him lose hope - and indeed, he wasn't very hopeful. During the recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon, he told us how one journalist he knows simply rearranged his archival stories on previous Israeli invasions and submitted them again - the story is exactly the same.
But Fisk is militantly optimistic, not for the region, but for the task at hand. And I think I understand why. He's not political.
This sounds like a contradiction, because of course Fisk can be intensely political. He published a 1300 page history of the Middle East last year. But he steers clear of controversy. He advocates a strictly middle of the road, two-state solution for Israel. He never mentions oil companies. He (correctly, in my view) eschews 9-11 conspiracy theories. The first question last night was, "You've said how things are going in the Middle East; can you answer why?" He offered some vague statements about the decline of democracy, and how today's leaders have never experienced war directly - as if those that had were more careful.
A measured response?
Fisk's passion is not politics, but journalism. He can witness atrocities that affect him deeply - he spoke of uncovering Armenian mass graves, for example. He puts himself in great physical danger; he confronts the powerful. He can do all this because he's concerned with the story.
He showed us a clip of him witnessing the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon. In the space of five minutes, he said three times, "You'll never get this close to Syrian intelligence again! This is history! This is what it's all about!" He wants to reveal how the world works - his commitment to change is strictly moral, and pessimistic as a result; his last comments were that he had no hope for Iraq or the Middle East getting better. But that wasn't despair; the chaos still meant he had a job to do.
History and resistance continues - from The Iraqi Resistance Reports
Maybe that's necessary. A truly committed journalist couldn't be a journalist at all; he'd have to put down his camera and pick up a gun. Fisk is incredibly good at what he does and, quite rightly, he has nothing but scorn for the mindless drones shovelling government and business propaganda out of the corporate media networks. Fisk will never be a revolutionary, but we can use his work to great effect.
Inspired - Robert Fisk
As a journalist, he travels the world and meets everyone. He's spoken to Syrian intelligence officers, Iraqi soldiers, Palestinian families. In the question period, he tossed off casually that he'd met Osama Bin Laden a couple times. Fisk bitterly criticized the new Iraq Study Group report because it didn't quote any ordinary Iraqis and its advisors were entirely from right-wing think tanks.
The actual subject of his talk was the Armenian genocide, and he drew out the historical threads of what he named the first Holocaust: the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkish soldiers in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. The horrific story illuminated some of the chaos that the region has been plunged into repeatedly. Turks recruited Kurds for the massacre; some Kurds and Turks refused to help and sheltered refugees; Armenians scattered throughout the region and their descendants can be found in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere, intermarried with locals.
Victims of the first Holocaust - Armenian children orphaned by the Turkish army
One of the common refrains on the Right is that Iraq is a mess because 'they've been slaughtering each other for centuries'. Fisk's research shows the massacres weren't tribal hatred, but calculated political moves that reshaped the region's complicated history. In revealing that history, he's cutting against western racism that reduces Arabs, Kurds, Armenians and others to savages. In a brilliant, if depressing prediction, Fisk told us, "The Americans want to leave Iraq, and here's how they're going to do it: blame the Iraqis for failing to appreciate their liberators." He not only quoted American opinion-makers doing just that; he quoted British invaders of Iraq pursuing exactly the same argument 80 years ago, when their Occupation met popular resistance.
You'd think the cycles of history would make him lose hope - and indeed, he wasn't very hopeful. During the recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon, he told us how one journalist he knows simply rearranged his archival stories on previous Israeli invasions and submitted them again - the story is exactly the same.
But Fisk is militantly optimistic, not for the region, but for the task at hand. And I think I understand why. He's not political.
This sounds like a contradiction, because of course Fisk can be intensely political. He published a 1300 page history of the Middle East last year. But he steers clear of controversy. He advocates a strictly middle of the road, two-state solution for Israel. He never mentions oil companies. He (correctly, in my view) eschews 9-11 conspiracy theories. The first question last night was, "You've said how things are going in the Middle East; can you answer why?" He offered some vague statements about the decline of democracy, and how today's leaders have never experienced war directly - as if those that had were more careful.
A measured response?
Fisk's passion is not politics, but journalism. He can witness atrocities that affect him deeply - he spoke of uncovering Armenian mass graves, for example. He puts himself in great physical danger; he confronts the powerful. He can do all this because he's concerned with the story.
He showed us a clip of him witnessing the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon. In the space of five minutes, he said three times, "You'll never get this close to Syrian intelligence again! This is history! This is what it's all about!" He wants to reveal how the world works - his commitment to change is strictly moral, and pessimistic as a result; his last comments were that he had no hope for Iraq or the Middle East getting better. But that wasn't despair; the chaos still meant he had a job to do.
History and resistance continues - from The Iraqi Resistance Reports
Maybe that's necessary. A truly committed journalist couldn't be a journalist at all; he'd have to put down his camera and pick up a gun. Fisk is incredibly good at what he does and, quite rightly, he has nothing but scorn for the mindless drones shovelling government and business propaganda out of the corporate media networks. Fisk will never be a revolutionary, but we can use his work to great effect.
