Sunday: 18^th of March 2007

A Lecture on: ‘The Role of Media in the Relationship between Civilizations’

By

Robert Fisk (Prominent Journalist and Foreign Correspondent for The British Independent)

‘Robert Fisk’ is considered one of the distinguished and influential figures in the field of journalism. He gave a lecture at Cairo University in the Faculty of Economics and Political Science. In this lecture, he spoke about many of his ideas. He discussed the war on Iraq, American and British policies towards the Middle East, Bin Laden, journalists and their relation to those in power, and other topics. He analyzed how superpowers tend to act resorting to evidence from history.   

At the beginning, Dr. Nadia Mustafa, the director of the Program, pointed to the fact that we can discover common denominators between both some Arab Muslim perspectives and Fisk ones. These include human dimensions, the anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist views. There are different positions and views of the defenders of freedom, liberty, human rights in Arab and Muslim world as well as in the West. So, she praised Mr. Fisk as being such an influential defender for all human beings and freedom every where in the world.

Robert Fisk began by speaking about the suffering of people in the Middle East, and how amazed he was when he saw how people in the Middle East were acting towards the West after all the injustices they had witnessed from the West. He talked about his experiences as a media reporter working in the Middle East.  

Robert Fisk started talking about his book ‘The Great War of Civilizations’ in which he put almost all of his experiences of ‘an epoch of barbaric actions’, as he describes it. He talked about Americans and how they loved Saddam Hussein, being their ‘dictator ally’. When he met Bin Laden, as he said, Bin Laden told him that he defeated the Russians, and this was true to a great extent. Fisk realized, then, how dying was meaningless for him. Bin Laden told him that ‘God permits us to turn America into a shadow of itself’, a statement which Fisk believed to be true.

As for the 9/11 events, he raised many questions around these events; Where did these planes come from? Who are the perpetrators?

Fisk said that after these events, and the identification of the perpetrators as being Muslims, he turned into a racist, judging passengers of the planes. He described it as a process of dividing the innocent from the innocent. According to him, the American administration claimed that this event changed the world altogether, and if one claims that, then it’s possible to change legislation, human rights criteria, etc. Fisk thought that, at this moment, New York has become a shadow of itself.

He said ‘How?’ and ‘Who?’ were the questions constantly asked. ‘How?’ The answer is through planes, ‘Who?’ The answer is 19 Muslims. But the question ‘Why?’ was never asked. In an Irish radio program, he was being interviewed, and the interviewer told him to ask why he is “pro-terrorist, and hence anti-American, and hence anti-Semitic”!! He said this was a strange phenomenon. When a crime happens, the first thing people do is looking for a motive. However, this was not raised in 9/11 events. The question that should have been raised is: ‘What is wrong with the Middle East?’

Robert Fisk pointed to Bin Laden’s audio and video tapes in which he was obsessed with history, the media did not analyze his tapes. All what they were concerned with is ‘Is this his voice?’ and ‘When was the tape recorded?’. In one of his tapes, Bin Laden condemned Saddam as a criminal; nevertheless, he called upon his supporters to fight against American crusaders. In the West, Fisk says, “We did not read or listen to what Bin Laden was saying”.

He said that “in an ideological war, as the war on Iraq 2003, we only hear what we want to hear”. He described it as a war that is run by fantasies. And at the end, the Iraqis proved to be winning.

Journalists, Fisk said, should take a notebook to war, but also a book of history so that they get the full picture instead of small fragmented pieces. He explained that a similar claim of liberation of occupied people was mentioned during Napoleon’s occupation of Egypt. By referring to history, he said that his estimate is that there are more soldiers today in the Middle East than during the times of Crusades. Back to 1920, when insurgencies broke out against the British occupation, the first British soldier died 20 meters from the place where the first American soldier died in Iraq. The British Prime Minister during this time said that if the British army leaves, it will turn into chaos.

According to Fisk, these historical parallels are very important because, through them, one would get to see how politicians had an idea of what to come. There were no plans made for post-war government in Iraq. In 1937, he mentions, Winston Churchill (11 years before the establishment of the state of Israel), wrote an essay reflecting on the future of Palestine which is quite similar to the situation after the occupation of Palestine.  

Added to that, Robert Fisk said that in the U.S. now correspondents reached the very bottom of their work. They de-semiticized the Arab-Israeli conflict by taking it out of its context. The media calls Jewish settlements ‘Jewish neighborhoods’ and ‘Jewish towns’. So, when a Westerner hears that people are throwing stones in a town, this is a dispute that could be solved in a less violent manner. “Only when you know it is a war and occupation and taking of Palestinians’ land, you get to understand the reality”.

He asserted that when people accuse him of anti-Semitism, he accuses them of slander because this is like throwing accusations around so that they create fear from it. They forget that Arabs are Semites too. Fisk said that our moral duty is to fight those prejudices.

Fisk believes it is not a good sign when journalists get close to power. As they consider authorities and officials their major sources. In Iraq, he said, American journalists are practicing ‘hotel journalism’. New York Times office is a fortress guarded by Iraqi police, and so is Association Press office in Iraq.

He does not object to journalists doing this, because insurgencies made it worse by killing journalists. Nevertheless, he suggests practicing ‘mouse journalism’ i.e. getting a little bit of reality while not taking a big risk. This is necessary because if journalists stopped going there, it becomes a closed war.

Fisk says that many in the West have become blinded in this war on Iraq. He believes that the coalition led by the U.S. and U.K. invaded Iraq for Oil.

He explained that superpowers and empires have a need to project military strength, always pushed and advanced. “America is able of doing good things in the Middle East, if it understands it”, he said.

Superpowers love to chop people into small divisions: Shi`is, Kurds, Sunnis, etc. He said, “We do these maps because we like to make divisions in lands we occupy. But no one would dare to draw a map of sectarian Britain!” No one can draw such maps of divisions in Washington because the claim would be that Western civilization is great and not backward.

Robert Fisk concluded by saying that journalists do not want to put realities up and front. In one of the trails of a Muslim in Guantanamo Bay, it was written in U.S. official papers that the Colonel, at this trial, had no evidence to convict the Muslim. Nevertheless, the Colonel, when asked about the evidence, said, “I do not care about international law, and we are not concerned with international law”!

At the end of his speech, Fisk said “I won’t let 19 murderers of 9/11 change your view, despite what the Bush administration might want us to”.

Dr. Nadia Mustafa commented on the presentation of Robert Fisk saying that it included very deep historical comparisons. She described him by being ‘a journalist with a civilizational message’. She said that in the Arab and Islamic world whoever views reality in the light of historical events, people accuse him of being an advocate of conspiracy theories.

The floor was opened for questions, interventions and responses. The following points were raised:

-       One of attendees addressed Robert Fisk saying that he talked about history and different situations. He asked him about his evaluation of pre-conceived attitudes in handling problems. Fisk replied saying that some journalists ‘cloud what happens’. He said, “Most Arab Muslims would like freedom and democracy.. They like freedom from us !” He added that people ask for justice before asking for democracy. The last time the word justice appeared in the news, it was the name of an operation done by American troops in Iraq ‘Operation Infinite Justice’ !

-       Robert Fisk said that foreign policies do not change that much with the change of administrations in the U.S. or in Britain.

-       According to him, the concern of the U.S. is the security of Israel and not the security of all people living in this area.

-       Responding to a question about the withdrawal of American and British troops from Iraq, he said that at the moment there is the deadly equation of ‘Americans will leave but they cannot leave’. However, the insurgencies are already thinking of an orderly American withdrawal.

-       Another question was raised about the future of Iraq. Fisk replied by saying that the future of Iraq was never planned. One evidence is that there are 120,000 foreign mercenaries, ‘Contractors’ as they call them, those are heavily armed militia men in Iraq, and they are outside the law.

-       Robert Fisk illustrated that what is happening in Iraq, at the moment, is not actually a civil war. Sunnis and Shi`is never fought each other. On the contrary, they fought beside each other in the first Gulf war.

-       Another question was raised about his opinion on the Israeli war on Lebanon. Fisk said that Americans and Iranians fought through their proxies. Hizbollah claimed ‘divine victory’ but what is for certain is that Israel lost this war. He added that it was a pre-planned war from both sides.

-       Responding to a question about Bin Laden, Fisk said, most people in his position tend not to care about death. He is admired for saying things not many leaders elected would dare to say about Middle East, and that is why he was able to create al-Qaida.

-       Another question was raised about Fisk’s opinion towards the Iranian nuclear file. Fisk replied by referring to the history; as the Shah introduced nuclear facilities and the West sold him this nuclear technology. “He was our man!” And when the revolution took place they said that these nuclear weapons are the work of the devil, and Iranians closed them down. Saddam was using gas bombs, so they said that he might use nuclear weapons, and hence Iranians started preparing their nuclear weapons as well. Fisk believes that this is totally a false crisis. Pakistan is an Islamist state as well, and it includes a large number of al-Qaida members, however, Musharaf is a friend of the Americans so they allow him to own nuclear facilities.

-       A number of questions addressed the issue of the path towards democracy in Egypt, and asked about Fisk’s vision of the future of this area. He explained, “When you arrive in Egypt, you will find an awful lot of secret policemen. Demonstrations, torture, arrest of Muslim Brotherhood members and opposition groups, etc. This is not the path towards democracy. The U.S. does not consider Egypt a country that they can push more towards democracy, they are busy enough already.” He said, “Stop asking foreigners for democracy, we want to occupy you.” He also posed the question, “How many governments in Middle East, control their people and how many of these governments represent their people?”