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In this age of the information superhighway the media defines who we are. The media defines the way we perceive our surroundings, the way we perform our tasks, the way we view our world. The media defines the way we shop, the way we get our news even the way we interact and the way we communicate with each other. It has always been maintained —rightly or wrongly— being informed empowers those informed. Knowledge helps form considered opinions. Knowledge helps form ideas. Knowledge is necessary to be engaged both in the national and international arena. Information is good. More information more good. The question is, how is this deluge of information and entertainment that we consume prodigiously processed, packaged, disseminated? How central is it to our ability to make rational choices about ourselves, about our surroundings, about the day to day events that affect not only us but our world? Today we live in the age of the society of the spectacle. The spectacle, Guy Lebord says, is an integrated and diffuse apparatus of images and ideas that produce and regulates public discourse, exchange and opinion. The main instrument of the society of the spectacle is the communication of fear. Fear is what binds and ensures social order. Lebord goes on to say, in the society of the spectacle only what appears exists. When the media have a monopoly of what appears then it exists. Democratic political discourse and exchange become subsets to what appears. By and large white media (or Western media in more polite terms) defines our world. Through a strategy of manipulation, slanting, filtering, the use of value loaded words and phrases; through the punditocracy rackets and an endless myriad of institutions and associations, bourgeois democracies constantly wage a political, cultural and class war on our world.
Take the recent conflict in the Middle East. When organized and institutionalized violence is committed on a defenseless community it can be dismissed as self defense. The strategy to change our perspectives and assessments of what is reality to fit a certain version of history disarms us from our ability to become far more searching and more critical. White media is sometimes racist in nature and becomes more so when there is an agenda to sell. In our new world of the perpetual and by extension self perpetuating war on terror, old footage of Awad Mohamed Osma bin-laden and his mujuhadin training in the foothills of Afghanistan in their war against the Soviet Union could be superimposed on the war on terror report, say by CNN, and the acts of a few dastardly, repulsive despicable fanatics and zealots can be presented as the accepted characteristics of a whole region and religion. Apologies for the loss of innocent lives become easy to disseminate. White media can boldly claim, innocent civilians get killed because “terrorist” “insurgents” “jihadist” with no regard for human life 'hide their weapons and themselves among civilians.’ How more racist can you get? This imagined moral and ethical superiority becomes heart rending. The crocodile tears submerging. Western media strives to convince us to celebrate new racial divisions and economic disparities that are totally absent in the flat world of a Thomas Friedman. The exploits of predatory capitalism becomes the new panacea that will lift us out of our abject poverty. We are asked to celebrate the new global order and the advent of the modern slave. Celebrate the new era of humbugger flipping. An alternate world is not possible. White media has such a complete and total monopoly on the world scene that we have come to a point where we are not in a position to question what is right from what is wrong and what is prudent from what is arcane. But white media is not all that mistaken. I don’t want to sound sermonizing, but there is some truth in what they say too. How else you explain the inexplicable carnage in Iraq? How else you explain the genocide in Darfur or the total disregard for human life in Rwanda? Or how you explain the madness of Isaise and Melese? Two infantiles who can send thousand of young people to their graves so they can prove to each other they can play better poker. How else you explain the assaults on innocent bystanders on the streets of Addis or the incarceration of innocent Eritrean in metal containers in the unbearable heat of Massaw. Regard for human value? The unequal production of information is a function of the unequal distribution of power in the global society. Ideally, the media as a traditional component of civil society is supposed to be the voice or even the conscience of the people in opposition to the power of the state and private interests. A power in the management of the globe that represents the will of the people. Media in general operates on two levels and press censorship and the degree of the manipulation of information varies with the degree of sophistication, the level of technical know-how, the degree of political control and the number and independence of public institutions (courts, watchdog associations and alternate media). Press censorship in the developed world is self censorship based on the maintenance of entitlements. Press censorship in the developing countries takes the form of outright lies or outright censorship. The belief that western media is more authentic emanates from the belief that we have not been able to create a better alternative. Hence we are made to believe that Western media provides relatively a fairly unbiased view of what is vis-à-vis the staple of crude lies we are fed at home. But this is largely a myth. It is based on our naiveté in the pursuit of the ethical ideal. Western societies by and large don’t operate Government media. But this is a matter of perception. In the West the Government is the establishment. An amalgam of the rich and the elite who control the means of production, circulation and exchange. The consumer needs of information and the limits of tolerance the establishment will accept has a finite boundary. But to a limited degree Governments in addition to being the chief sources of most of the information of the private media do own and operate outlets designed to enhance their ideology. Take the US for example. Under its agency the USIS it openly and in some instances clandestinely operates a number of propaganda outlets that are designed to subvert unsympathetic movements and influence US policies in a number of countries Among this are the Voice of America, Radio Marty, Radio free Europe etc. Recently with the US debacle in Iraq the list has not only grown (Al Hayat, Al Watan ,Al Arabiya) but Every country has a right to influence evens in its favor. Here one should also be a bit cautious in labeling all media as staunchly being in the service of their Governments or the interests of capital. A good exception for example is the British network the BBC which has maintained against all odds its independence, its identity, its credence Yes sometimes you don’t need to climb a tree to see daylight! So the question is not what these Western democracies are doing. The question is what are we doing? As in Shakespeare’s’ Julius Ceasar “The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are…” And how do we stem the assault on our sovereignty. The assault on our culture on our history. The assault on our humanity and on who we are? It is true, we who live in countries that have no semblance of democracy. We live in countries ruled by unscrupulous rulers with no legitimacy. We live in countries that have no credible alternate media and as such we solely rely on Government outlets for our information. It would be unfair to characterize that all countries and all Government media are untrustworthy, inadequate, are simple propaganda outlets. There are times when Government media has been found more reliable than the establishment media. Papers in Kenya and South Africa and in Botswana are as reliable as media anywhere in the World. But the picture is not as rosy as we may want to believe in the case of the majority. Let me give some examples here. A typical third world country that believes it is playing the media card correctly is Ethiopia. Ethiopia has for example allowed a number of private papeprs to flourish. There is no altruistic motive in this. Meles was not instantly converted to democracy when he allowed it. Ethiopia did this not because it believed in a free press but because the ruling class knew a) how ruinous rumors can be and the impossibility of containing fliers that could profligate if they made a total ban. What I call the ‘Negede Shimut’ syndrome b) They wrongly believed that they can use repressive rules and regulations to contain excesses c) They believed that since the majority of Ethiopians can not read and write let alone afford to buy a paper the TV and Radio Ethiopia would do an adequate job of outbalancing the balance. Above all The Meles Government at the same time felt that he would be lauded by his Western benefactors for such a luminous gesture. Ethiopias’ Ministry of Information is and has always been one of the most discredited information service agencies that I have ever been able to observe. There are a number of reasons for this. Reason number one of course it simple. The Ministry throughout its history whether under the Hail Sellasie regime or the Dergue was always more of a propaganda outlet than anything. Under the Meles regime it has been turned into something even the word propaganda (propaganda denotes false information) cannot even define. The question that is now central and mind boggling is why do the rulers feel scared of a free and fair media or why can’t they make the Government media a more reliable and respectful media to counter what the opposition may say. There are a number of reasons for this. First of course is disdain for the people. When a Government realizes that it has no legitimacy in the eyes of the ruled it has no respect for the rule of law and is only interested in the prolonging of its illegitimate rule. After the recent elections for example the information the Government disseminated was not only shameful but a huge embarrassment even to the Government itself. It is one thing to lie about internal Government activities to your people. It is another thing to be caught lying about a meeting held with respected European diplomats to the international community. When the EPRDF held a meeting with an opposition parliamentarian group the way the media slanted the spirit and the debate in its favor was so crass and so shameless that even members of the ruling Tigrean elite felt that Bereket Simon has outdone himself, has become a liability. We in East Africans should erect a monument to the Bereket Simons of our region. A giant monument that would be a tribute to all the liars who have passed before them and a warning to all the liars of the future that even lying has its bounderies and its own ethics. It is one thing for the private press to lie because they are accountable to no one. It is another thing for the Government media to lie because the Government is accountable to the people. Today the Ethiopian Government has realized how counter productive the activities of Mr. Simon have been and how unsustainable his lies have become. Simon has now been demoted from his position of first liar to the less unsavory position of second liar. He has also been moved to one of the Government subsidiary media they call Walta. Walta is an information site (like agromedia) run by Tigreans and is financed in part by the TPLF with some Government subsidy (in the form of salaries, personnel and materials) Although this outlet simply echoes what the Government media prints it also tries to input opinions that it prints under various suede names to make it look legit and a site that actually is a popular outlet with many contributors. But we should not concentrate on Ethiopia because this is not unique to Ethiopia alone. In next door Eritrea, the Eritrean Government is equally a Government of liars. Here there is a variety of media outlets such as the New Eritrea and a web site Shabia. The Government also runs some other web sites (disguised as private) such as Dahai and possibly Meskerem. The Eritrean Government is not as sophisticated as other third world media and to its credit does not hide behind any semblance of reliability or integrity. The Eritrean Government believes it is waging a war on its opponents and operates its media accordingly. Most of its media people are people who are beneficiaries of the system or closely related to higher ups in the Government. The point I am trying to make here is not to condemn these two Governments for lowering even the status of lying to its present level. The point I am trying to make here is not to show that the media should not be biased or unsophisticated or should not strive to present the beliefs of the Government or their side of the story the way they want others to see it or influence events. The point is why they have to believe that they should always be compelled to lie when there are alternatives. The strategy should not be based on outright lies. The strategy is in the ability of fine tuning the information to reflect varied interest or leave enough doubts. The strategy is one of balance. You have choices. You can tell everything the way it is, warts and all, and let the chips fall where they may. But that takes courage. Or you can try to fool say ten percent of the people ten percent of the time. But never try like Bereket Simon to fool all of the people all of the time—it Bushfires! The problem with our leaders is that they have not learned anything from the wisdom of their fathers and their fathers before them. “Hakee Tezaribka Ab Megedee Baboor Dekis.”
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