Imperialism hurts

IIPM Business & Economy

An unbiased chronicle of tragedy in West Asia

In this age of “embedded reporting” and brazen propaganda being dished out in the name of ‘objective’ media, it is difficult to find truly objective accounts of the momentous events that are sweeping across the world. Difficult yes, but certainly not impossible. For, if you really want to know about what exactly is happening in Sudan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, simply take a few days off from office, switch off your mobile phone and go through the 1,400 pages of masterful reportage and history written by Robert Fisk, one of the few remaining journalists who cover the crisis and tragedy in the Middle East without ideological blinkers.

The Middle East correspondent for the British daily, The Independent, Fisk has imaginatively titled his tour de force as ‘The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of Middle East’. The amazing thing about the book is that Robert Fisk has been actually reporting from the frontlines and fault lines of the volatile regions first for BBC and then for The Independent for close to three decades. He was there when the CIA-armed Afghan Mujahideen battled the Soviet army of occupation. He was there when Saddam Hussein (tacitly encouraged by the West) launched a ‘one week’ invasion of the newly formed Islamic Republic of Iran. Fisk witnessed the ‘one week’ war degenerating into an eight-year war of attrition where Saddam used chemical weapons against Iranians. He was there in Beirut when Israelbacked- militias ruthlessly massacred more than 2,000 Palestinian children, women and elderly in refugee camps. Fisk was also around when the first major suicide bombing rattled Uncle Sam – a “terrorist” rammed a truck into a Marine base in Lebanon, killing 268 American soldiers. The brave warriors that the Americans are, they promptly packed their bags and quit Lebanon. Fisk was witness to the frenzy of extra judicial killings after Ayatollah Khomeini took over Iran.

Fisk has also reported on the civil wars in Algeria and Sudan. And of course, he has met and interviewed the elusive Osama Bin Laden in both Sudan and Afghanistan during the 1990s when the brutal Taliban regime was in power. From every battlefront in every country, Fisk has been eyewitness to one simple message that local populations have been trying to convey to the Imperial powers. The message is: “We don’t want your troops. We don’t you to teach us democracy. We are tired of your double standards when it comes to the conflict between the Israeli Army and the Palestinians”.

His coverage of the monumental tragedy in Iraq is educative, and chilling. Way back in the 1920s, the then Imperial power England had tried to impose ‘democracy’ on Iraq through military means. Of course, England eventually failed. But what is chilling is the bizarre similarity between the excuses offered by England for the military conquest of Iraq then and the platitudes offered by the Bush administration now. British troops were then busy massacring and torturing Iraqis who resisted the British version of democracy. American troops are doing quite much the same now.

Don’t for a moment think that Fisk is an apologist for Islamic terrorists who use the American military presence in Middle East (particularly Saudi Arabia) as a valid reason for ‘Holy War’. Fisk oft en laments at the inhuman depths to which the terrorists descend for their political agenda. The book is great because he also laments the inhuman depths to which western democracies have descended in the conquest of Middle East.

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Source :- IIPM Editorial, 2006, Editor - Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri

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