Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert was the featured speaker at this year’s White House Correspondents’ dinner. The White House correspondents are, of course, those journalists we see in the White House briefing room, asking questions of presidential spokesmen and (under this administration) getting few answers. Their dinner guests are the President and many of his staff. The event is an opportunity for the two sides to trade humorous barbs in a sort of mutual roast, but the jokes are usually clawless.
Not this year. Standing six feet away from George W. on the speakers’ dais, before a crowd of media luminaries, Colbert (an actor who plays a rabid right-wing journalist on “The Colbert Report”) proceeded to rip everybody a new one, with a biting sarcastic wit that was evidently not appreciated by the President or his nominal adversaries in the press – neither side was spared.
Live coverage of this event was carried by C-Span, the station usually devoted to boring wall-to-wall coverage of votes and hearings in the US Congress. I suspect that relatively few people saw the event live on C-Span TV, but C-Span posted it on their website for a day or so, and it quickly made its way onto popular video sharing sites such as YouTube and the torrent networks, where it’s been thoroughly enjoyed by millions of ravening liberals like myself.
The mainstream media was slow to pick up the story, preferring to focus their coverage of the dinner on Bush’s own act, a comedy routine featuring himself and a Bush impersonator. The denizens of the blogosphere cried foul at the press’ failure to mention Colbert, so loudly that their outcry is now the story being covered, finally, by the New York Times et al. (Some of the press claim that they didn’t have much to say about Colbert’s routine in the first place because they didn’t find it funny.)
Whether or not the mainstream media tried deliberately to ignore Colbert, the role of by the Internet has been critical: the event was widely seen because it was distributed online where everybody could judge for themselves, regardless of whether the press chose to cover it. Copyrights be damned – this is important! Somebody finally got through Bush’s protective bubble, right in the face of the professional press who have so notably failed to do so. Chalk one up for the forces of online democracy.
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-71)
Dawkins has devoted much of his career to explaining evolution to the general public. He does this extremely well, and richly deserves all the praise and awards he has garnered.
Unfortunately, all his explaining doesn’t seem to be getting through to those who need it most. I share his despair as I look at a world where science can show and explain so many fascinating things – and there is still so much to discover! – yet so many people prize blind faith above independent thought. And we have only to watch the evening news to see what blind faith in religion is doing to us all.
Hence, I suppose, this program. Intelligent, rational, polite, and genuinely puzzled by religious belief, Dawkins visits various religous sites, such as an American mega-church and the “holy land” in Jerusalem, trying to understand what people find in it all. He makes no progress towards mutual understanding, in part because he picks extreme examples: Ted Haggard (an American mega-pastor and supposedly an adviser to George W. Bush), who condescendingly tells him: “Don’t be arrogant.” And then chases him off the property, threatening to take his crew’s film because “you have called my children animals.”
“Well, so I did,” says Dawkins, “in the sense that ALL human beings are animals.”
In Jerusalem, Dawkins manages to get hold of a New York Jew who moved to Israel to help colonize the Gaza strip, then converted to Islam and now wants all “kaffirs” out of the Muslim holy lands. This man’s fundamental problem seems to be an obsession with female lewdness. “Look how you dress your women,” he expostulates.
“I don’t dress my women,” retorts Dawkins,”they dress themselves.”
And there, I think, we come to the heart of the problem with religions: they are mostly run by men desperately afraid of, and therefore seeking to control, women’s sexuality. I’ve written about this before, but in several more years of thought am no closer to understanding why women put up with it.
To say that women must be covered up so as not to present a temptation to men is a profound insult to both sexes: to the men, who apparently couldn’t restrain themselves from rape if they were to see a bare ankle. To the women, who are thought to be unable to say “no” should anyone offer them sex. Have we (men and women) no more self-restraint than dogs in heat, that the slightest sexual stimulus will have us copulating in the public square? Where is the dignity of humankind in that?
<sigh> I shouldn’t even bother. Trying to make sense out of religion is about as useful as banging my head against a wall. Seeing that a recent real head-bang left me with a headache for a week, I shall desist.
I fear that Dawkins is, um, preaching to the choir; his show won’t have been watched by those who need it most (and I doubt it will be shown in the US outside of PBS). But at least he is trying to shed a light of science and sanity in a murky world.
One worrying effect of the Danish cartoons rumpus is statements from governments and the UN that “all religions should be respected,” and calls for laws against offenses to religion. WTF? Italy already has such a law, which has been ridiculously applied to a satirical website showing Pope Benedict in a Nazi uniform.
No, religion does not deserve to be protected or respected under law, any more than any other belief does. If I were to state publicly that, oh, say, the moon is made of green cheese, people would feel free to ridicule that belief, to my face. Much of religion seems equally ridiculous to me, but I am supposed to be polite and not trample on people’s beliefs.
In fact I am polite where I respect the person, if not the belief. I count among my friends a number of deeply religious people. We manage to respect each other in spite of a deep divergence of views in some areas. I also have friends with whom I disagree on politics or economics. It is even possible to discuss our differences, while keeping a firm grip on our mutual respect: all that’s required is an open mind and willingness to listen.
But to enshrine such common-sense civility in law is ridiculous. You never know when you may need to be uncivil about something, especially when the other side is far from civil. I hereby declare and defend my right to be as rude as I damn well please, about religion or anything else. If you’re civil to me – and that includes respecting my rights and freedoms as a human being – I will certainly be civil to you. On the other hand, if you try to tell me that I’m going to hell, or that I should cover myself so as not to tempt men, or that I’m not allowed read or write or do certain things – well, you’ll find out just how rude I can be.
Clarification and Amplification
Feb 28, 2006
In case it needs saying: I do not gratuitously insult any person or religion (except sometimes inadvertently, when I don’t realize what set of beliefs I’m dealing with). I don’t seek fights about religion, though sometimes sorely tempted. But when the fight comes to me… For example, I had a sharp exchange with a Jehovah’s Witness who insisted on proselytizing to me while I was peacefully minding my own business one morning at the Lecco railway station. I neither started nor desired that discussion, but anyone who insists that I cannot attribute the glories of the world around me to anything but God is asking for trouble.
She went on to dismiss certain non-Christian origin myths as “less advanced” than her own beliefs, setting herself up for the obvious retort: “Then surely my belief in no god at all is more advanced than your still needing a god.” (I don’t think I actually said that, but definitely thought it.) As Dawkins says: “We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
My article said: “…the heart of the problem with religions: they are mostly run by men desperately afraid of, and therefore seeking to control, women’s sexuality.”
David responded:
“I think you should cut the word ‘women’s’ because they indeed want to control SEXUALITY, PERIOD (in fact, anything that has to do with the human body).
It’s pure POLITICAL CHOICE that the Catholic Church (in Italy and America) drones on and on about homosexuality and abortion – thereby supporting the RIGHT WING government – and never drones on and on (as CHRIST did in the gospels) about PEACE and love of neighbor (ie: the application of that philosophy to the current war on terror) – which would thereby support the LEFT WING government.
In reading the New Testament you’d get the impression Jesus really didn’t care what people did sexually…he seemed way ahead of all that, with his focus on bigger and better goals…just as today the Church is WAY BEHIND all that with a focus on tiny worldly goals of money and power that are so antithetical to the higher philosophies upon which it was established.”
David was the first (of many) to respond to this article and, shortly after reading his email, I was highly amused to receive a call from Ross, recounting her day at school. I don’t explicitly instruct my child to follow in my radical atheist footsteps, and I certainly don’t want her to be rude about it, but she is her mother’s daughter, and has a very low bullshit threshhold.
A Franciscan monk had come to speak in religion class. The original intent of his talk wasn’t clear, but he immediately got up Ross’ nose by trying to act cool, saying he liked teenagers, and trying to prove it by swearing the way they do (but would never dare, in front of their teachers – and he even said that theyweren’t allowed to!).
He also claimed that he liked kids to openly discuss issues with him. 99 out of a hundred teenagers would do no such thing in that situation, but… Number 100 was in the classroom. (At Ross’ new school, religion class is required. The person who normally teaches the class likes her, because Ross applies more real thought to the topics at hand than her Catholic classmates do.)
After some stuff about how beautiful the world is, the monk said that the most beautiful thing in the world is love (amore – for which he gave a totally wrong etymology). Ross asked: “If love is such an important concept and we should all love, why are some types of love not accepted by the Church?”
“Oh, you mean why don’t we accept culattoni?” (a rude word for gays)
After further discussion, the best answer he could come up with was: “Sometimes the concept of love is right, but the object is wrong.” But he refused to define what he meant by ‘object’ …and it was all downhill from there.
“Ross is the class non-conformist,” explained one of her classmates helpfully. (I think he had already figured that out for himself.)
I have been accused of being proud of my daughter’s pagan attitudes. Well, yes. If Christian parents can be proud of their child’s Christianity, Hindus of their child’s Hinduism, etc., then I have a right to be proud that my daughter has grown up as atheist as myself and her father. Am I pleased if she’s rude to people about it? No… but an adult talking down to teenagers through a hypocritical veneer of “I’m one of you” is not giving them credit for much intelligence – an insult unworthy of any adult, let alone one who represents both scholastic and religious authority.
In response, again, to “the heart of the problem with religions: they are mostly run by men desperately afraid of, and therefore seeking to control, women’s sexuality,” Julia wrote:
“Indeed; I think that’s the heart of the problem with most cultures and governments, too. I believe that ultimately almost all wars (gloss for a variety of conflicts) are a struggle for control over resources (which is why reproduction and thus women’s sexuality is involved), and at the same time, almost all wars are “justified” (“sold” to the cannon fodder and their families) by religion (which is sometimes masked by nationalism or racism but is nevertheless the underlying rationale, never mind that it perverts the fundamental tenets of the religion).
And one reason that religion — especially fundamentalist religion — is so useful to convince people to act against their own interests is precisely what you say later in the newsletter: ‘Children raised to blindly follow the dictates of another person, or a book, or a way of life, are less likely to have the critical faculties needed to evaluate every opinion that comes their way.’
Fundamentalism in anything is dangerous.
‘I’ve written about this before, but in several more years of thought am no closer to understanding why women put up with it.’
Well, religion is clearly not rational, so rational thought isn’t likely to bring understanding. I’ve asked the same question. I ask myself whyI put up with it, especially at a time when my own religion is headed by Papa Ratzi, the Gland Inquisitor (I wish I had come up with that one, but it’s the title of an article by William Saletan in the current issue — the one with the two punk lesbians kissing on the cover — ofConscience, a pro-choice Catholic newsjournal I subscribe to). I think the answer is that we don’t just put up with it. Sometimes we are marvelously disrespectful. As part of the larger fight against patriarchy, there are many organizations and people who are constantly struggling against the stupidity of many of the Vatican-down decrees and for a faith community based on the example of Jesus (egalitarian, non-violent). Some of my favorites are:
Like the larger fight, this one is a long and incremental struggle. Sometimes real change (i.e., Vatican II) as well as backlash against it (recent and present situation) can be seen within a lifetime. In the meantime, we often just roll our eyes at the leadership while living our lives and practicing our faith as we see fit.”
Stan wrote: “Just one tweak about freedom of speech. I agree mostly but differ on the right to mock and insult. Turkish law, as I understand it, makes a distinction between criticism, permitted, and insult, not permitted. The Orhan Pamuk case hinged on this.
Related is the issue of the absolute freedom of speech. Does one have the right to say anything at any time, or are there limits? I think most everyone would agree that there are limits. So then the problem is one of determining what the limits are. One thing is clear. Mocking someone else’s religion is hardly the way to commend the right of free speech to him, The “Cartoon War” is a case in point. Perhaps mocking own’s own religion would be different, because the mocker knows, and accepts, what the result might be. Criticism, even of the most tabu matters, has to be protected by the right of free speech. So where is the line between that and being insulting? Your thoughts, please.”
Ooh, that’s a hard one… and not one I am likely to solve. My gut feeling is that it’s best treated as a private matter, even in the media.
First, we can never be sure what another person’s intentions are. The now-infamous Danish newspaper may in fact have intended to mock and insult Islam by publishing those cartoons, but we’ll never know that unless the publisher explicitly says so. The same is true in face-to-face conversation: how many times has someone protested: “I was only joking!” when you know they truly intended to hurt?
Even when there is no intent to offend, anyone publishing anything can never be sure who may be offended by whatever they say – something I’m keenly conscious of when I write potentially incendiary articles like that one. Though I was writing about topics that make me very angry indeed, I thought long and hard about that article and revised it several times, because I care about my relationships with my readers, some of whom, as I mentioned, I know to be deeply religious.
Another reason that I don’t want to gratuitously offend anybody is that it’s not conducive to dialog. I remain baffled by the concept of faith, but I am willing to concede that there has been and can be good in religion. The kinds of people who read my newsletter are more likely to practice religion constructively than destructively, so I’m interested to hear what their belief does for them individually, and how they feel it can be a force for good in the world. If we could collectively find a way to bring religions back to their core concepts (e.g., perhaps, the teachings of Jesus before Paul got into the act) I could live at peace with most religions – and, more importantly, so could the world.
A popular meme in American consciousness is cultural hegemony: the idea that American culture, as represented in widely-exported American movies, TV shows, fast-food restaurants, and brands, is overwhelming the traditional cultures of other countries. The fear is that this will eventually result in a sadly homogenized world in which everyone abandons their own customary foods and entertainments to eat at MacDonald’s and listen to hip-hop.
This theory seems to be popular on both sides of America’s own cultural divide. The liberal left worries that we are teaching the rest of the world to be destructively, mindlessly capitalistic and individualistic. A more conservative viewpoint worries that we are “exporting the wrong picture” of America, an argument propounded by Martha Bayles of Boston College in a Washington Post editorial (see below).
There are two problems with this theory.
The first is that it’s arrogant. It is true that American popular culture is widely consumed worldwide. This is not simply because American media companies are good at selling their products – no one is forcing people to watch American shows. In many countries, local cinemas and TV stations show American stuff because their customers want to see it. Some governments work hard to censor what their people see, for political or religious/cultural reasons (or both). Nonetheless, their citizens often go to great lengths, sometimes breaking the law, to obtain and consume American media. It’s not being forced on them by those evil capitalists in Hollywood.
The cultural hegemony argument is also a subtle put-down of other cultures: it assumes that they are so weak or ignorant that they cannot be trusted to decide for themselves what they should see and hear. That these people should, “for their own good,” be protected from invasive American culture, so that their “native” cultures will be preserved.
(Aside: Preserved for what? As a quaint playground for American tourists who want the “authentic” experience when they travel in other countries?)
The second problem with the theory of cultural hegemony is that it’s simply not true. I’ve been in many parts of the world and, while you do see signs of American/ Western culture everywhere, most people value their own cultures and work actively to preserve them, consuming local media, food, etc. alongside whatever foreign stuff they like.
India is a great example of a society which needs no special measures to preserve its traditional culture – unlike, say, France (said she mischievously). Indians love TV, and have plenty of it: at least two or three channels for every major language (of which India has 14 or 15, including English), and at least one each for Muslims, Christians, Jains, and Sikhs (probably Buddhists as well, though I didn’t see this), plus one for each of the major branches of Hinduism. In addition to news and worship, there are channels dedicated to Indian-produced TV series and movies, and channels of Indian music videos. A few channels show imported TV, movies, and music, plus CNN International/Asia and BBC World, but these are vastly outnumbered by local fare – no case to be made there for Western culture overwhelming India! Which is hardly surprising: India has been absorbing and subsuming foreign cultures for 3000 years.
If there’s any cultural invasion going on, it’s occurring in the opposite direction. A number of Indian directors are doing well in Hollywood, some with films you can’t tell apart from any other Hollywood product (M. Night Shyamalan), others bringing Indian or cross-cultural themes to Western audiences (Gurinder Chadha), and/or adding Indian spice to otherwise Hollywood-standard movies (Mira Nair’s “Vanity Fair”).
There’s a growing presence of American brands in India, but that doesn’t mean that Indians are adapting to American tastes. Reading a women’s magazine in Mumbai, I saw an ad for a very familiar American brand, Pillsbury. Attempting to sell devil’s food cake mix into India, you wonder? Nope. The ad was for a rice flour mix that could be used to make dosas, idlis, and vadas – distinctly south Indian treats. I’d be surprised if that product ever got to the US, and I didn’t see any ads for Pillsbury brownie mix or refrigerator cookies in India. American companies, far from trying to foist American tastes on Indians, are studying the local market and adapting their products accordingly. You don’t get to be a global brand by expecting everyone to like what Americans like – as most American multinationals are keenly aware, even if the American general public is not.
So, the next time you get worried about American culture taking over the world, look around you. If you can’t get to a foreign country to see what’s actually happening there, just look at your American hometown: how many “ethnic” restaurants do you have? And what is American culture itself, but a rich soup of the many cultures that Americans originally came from?
It’s not just Americans who buy into the “American cultural behemoth” myth: UNESCO has recently passed a resolution supporting nations’ rights to set a protected percentage of “local culture” to be shown in cinemas and aired on TV. Several nations have such laws, which Hollywood has been protesting as protectionist.
Bayles’ articleso incensed me when I read it that I started to write a reply, then lost it for a month in the swamp of my email box. I don’t think I’ll bother sending it to her now, but here it is for your edification, though it’s slightly repetitive with the above.
Dear Dr. Bayles,
I read with interest your piece in the Washington Post, though not (yet) your book. I’d like to make a few observations.
Though a US citizen, I have lived overseas much of my life. I attended international schools, particularly, for high school, an international boarding school in India with students from all over the world. I did my BA in Asian Studies and Languages (including a study abroad year in Benares), and now live in Italy with my Italian husband and daughter.
In short, I think I’m qualified to comment, from personal experience, on how US popular culture is perceived in some other parts of the world.
I would first take issue with the study you quote:
One of the few efforts to measure the impact of popular culture abroad was made by Louisiana State University researchers Melvin and Margaret DeFleur, who in 2003 polled teenagers in 12 countries: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, South Korea, Mexico, China, Spain, Taiwan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Nigeria, Italy and Argentina. Their conclusion, while tentative, is nonetheless suggestive: “The depiction of Americans in media content as violent, of American women as sexually immoral and of many Americans engaging in criminal acts has brought many of these 1,313 youthful subjects to hold generally negative attitudes toward people who live in the United States.”
American women living normal American lives as depicted in films and TV are sexually immoral by the standards of some of the cultures mentioned. After all, in Saudi Arabia, it is not only immoral but illegal for a woman to ride unchaperoned in a car with any man who is not her husband or a blood relative. By such standards, almost anything a woman does outside of stay home, or hide her face when she goes out in public, would be immoral. How is the American film industry not to violate those standards and still depict American life as it actually is?
Depicting the freedoms that American women enjoy may be offensive to some cultures, but I would argue that those cultures NEED to be offended. Do you want to help protect cultural norms which oppress women as severely as Saudi Arabia’s does? What about cultures where any grown woman possessing a clitoris and the ability to feel sexual pleasure is considered immoral? Cultural relativism be damned – these women need to be freed, and if American movies help inspire them to fight for their freedom, I say bring on “Thelma & Louise” !
It is true that many American films and movies depict people engaged in criminal acts. Most of the time, these people are “the bad guys” and the plot has to do with bringing them to justice. Although there are films glorifying anti-heroes, I don’t think the majority of American films would lead any sensible viewer to the conclusion that American society condones criminal behavior.
From what I see in Italy, if Italian youngsters have a negative attitude towards Americans, this is more likely the result of America’s foreign policies than what they see in the imported media.
As for the depiction of Americans as violent – Americans ARE violent. As reported by Gregory S. Paul recently in the Journal of Religion & Society, “the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that retains high homicide rates…” (as compared with other developed nations).
You go on to say:
…The 2003 report of the U.S. House of Representatives Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World stated that “Arabs and Muslims are . . . bombarded with American sitcoms, violent films, and other entertainment
I’ve heard this kind of argument many times, and my response is the same response I make to American parents who are “so concerned” about what children see on TV and in the movies: YOU HAVE A CHOICE. No one (outside of a Stanley Kubrick movie) is forced to sit in front of a television set with their eyelids propped open, helplessly absorbing hours of sex and gore. In America it happens because adults choose it for themselves, and don’t control what their children watch. In some countries, where much or most foreign media is censored, people go to great lengths to obtain American films, TV, and music, illegally and sometimes at risk to themselves. This is hardly bombardment on America’s part. The stuff is produced and people who want it, find it. American parents, not the media, are mostly responsible for what their children see and, even more, WHAT THEY LEARN FROM IT. The tendency in America lately is to want government to play parent and protect us from “bad stuff,” and now you want to export that paternalistic model to adults in other countries who, like adult Americans, are mature enough choose what they want to watch.
A final quote:
…much of which distorts the perceptions of viewers. The report made clear that what seems innocuous to Americans can cause problems abroad: ‘A Syrian teacher of English asked us plaintively for help in explaining American family life to her students. She asked, ‘Does “Friends” show a typical family?’
In describing the state of the modern American family, “Friends” is actually a good place to start. A group of young people in and out of relationships (both straight and gay), having children in and out of wedlock – yes, that’s pretty typical. If anything, these friends are fortunate: they form a de facto family that mostly stays together, there to support each other through the vicissitudes of life. Which is more than can be said for many multiply-divorced “traditional” families in America today. This isn’t a happy reflection on American culture, but it’s an honest one.
NB: I did email this letter to Dr. Bayles, but she has not so far (Feb 2006) dignified it with a reply.
Cultural Hegemony?
Oh, those poor Indians – they’ve lost touch with their native culture! <big grin>
I have received from several well-meaning friends emails urging Americans to do this or that to protest high gas prices. I appreciate the good intentions, but would like to offer some global perspective on Americans’ “suffering”.
Go to http://www.prezzibenzina.it/ (“gas prices”) and look at the top of the right-hand column. “Media nazionale” means “national average”. Italians put commas (in prices) where Americans put periods, so the first price listed, for “ecological” gasoline, is 1.323 euros PER LITER.
There are 3.79 liters in a gallon.
So… (adding in the euros to dollars conversion at approximately $1.20 per euro), in Italy we are paying over $6 per gallon for gas.
A lot of that is taxes.
Yes, it hurts. Sometimes truckers protest by doing highway slowdowns etc.
BUT – the high price of fuel encourages people to use public transport, reducing traffic and pollution. Public transport systems are crowded and sometimes late, but generally they work pretty well, and more are being built all the time (with our tax money). Everyone recognizes that this is a better solution for most individuals, as well as society at large. Everyone would like to live in an Italy with less traffic and less pollution, and some of us are willing to sacrifice some personal comfort to achieve that. (Personally, I’ll take an hour in the train over an hour stuck in traffic any day.)
Americans need to learn to consume less. They consume far more of the world’s resources per head than any other country in the world. They live in bigger houses (= more energy costs for heating and cooling), drive bigger and far less fuel-efficient cars, and tend to own more “stuff” than even other wealthy populations in the world. They drive when they could walk, hopping in the car to go two blocks to the corner store. Many American cities are built so that there is no place to walk, and you take your life in your hands if you try. Then you have to pay money to go to a gym to stay in shape.
So my suggestion to Americans is: don’t protest today’s gas prices. Protest – and work to change – the gas-guzzling lifestyle that is killing you, and the rest of the world.
I mentioned that I was going to be on TV, part of the audience on the Italian political talk show L’Infedele hosted by Gad Lerner.
Lerner showed far more political bias than he had in the previous show I attended (partly about Microsoft, partly about taxes – two inevitabilities of modern life?). My friend David Callahan and I were flattered to be specially shown to seats in the second row, stage right, until we realized that they had put us on the side of the cattivi (bad guys), as Lerner jokingly remarked. I was seated behind Gianni de Michelis, a long-time bastion of the Italian Socialist Party (abundantly disgraced by the Clean Hands anti-corruption investigations years ago), who had been Italy’s foreign minister for years during his heyday. Staring at the back of his greasy head for hours was not particularly edifying, his political opinions even less so.
The topic of the evening had been changed from “George Bush and Iraq” to “Are we winning the war [on terrorism]?” More broadly, should the war in Iraq ever have been started and have we (the Coalition) won it? There were several videomontages of recent violent events, with disingenuous voiceover narration. And, as I had expected, Giuliana Sgrena took part, remotely from a studio in Rome.
Someone had told me she wasn’t likely to participate, as she hadn’t given any interviews since her disastrous exit from Iraq, and was still recovering from being shot by American troops at a blockade as she was being carried away from her kidnappers (the Italian secret service officer who had secured her release was killed outright). But there she was, and, after so long a silence, she had plenty to say. As did everyone else, though few said anything sensible or surprising. This, too, was disappointing. Lerner picks intelligent guests from both sides of his topics, but these two groups were each entrenched in their own positions, and nobody was listening to anybody else.
The show was being broadcast live, with commercial breaks every 20 minutes. As break time approached, a young producer would hold up a sign for all of us to see: 4 minuti. 2 minuti. 60 secondi. Pubblicita’. These were largely ignored by whoever had the floor at the time, in spite of Lerner’s efforts (more determined in some cases than others) to shut them up. We missed one break by at least 10 minutes. Even on a TV schedule, Italians will be Italians… The show ran overtime by about 15 minutes, as is common for many live shows in Italy. Tivo would have a hard time working correctly here.
The one distinguished guest I felt any sympathy with was Anna Prause, seated on the “good guys” side. She had gone to Iraq with the Red Cross, then was hired by the Iraqi government to help set up the new Ministry of Health. As the situation for foreigners in Iraq deteriorated, she was eventually advised to leave, advice which she took only reluctantly.
When she finally got the floor, she exploded, saying that, while things in Iraq are still bad, and more dangerous than they were before, things are also better in many ways that are not understood or mentioned by the press. She gave an example: one of her tasks for the Ministry of Health had been to set up a new headquarters, planning everything right down to office fixtures and furniture. A year ago, she could not get her Iraqi colleagues to make a decision on anything even as minor as the color of the office furniture. Not because they were stupid or had no opinions, but because they were accustomed to watching carefully to see what opinions they were supposed to have, so that they could parrot those back to their political masters.
A year on, they not only had opinions, but were very happy to argue about them. This, she said, demonstrated an important change for the better in everyday Iraqi life, in spite of the ongoing violence. Is security more important than liberty? That’s a fundamental question which almost every country faces today. Personally, I come down on the side of liberty, but I’d like to hear from Iraqis themselves how they feel about it.
That evening forced me to confront and clarify my own very mixed feelings about what’s going on Iraq and how it all went down.
I always knew (who didn’t?) that Saddam was very bad news for the world and especially for his own people. He was a monster, partly of American creation, so the US had some responsibility to clean him up. The sanctions imposed after the first Gulf War caused tremendous suffering among the Iraqi people, without adversely affecting their “leaders”. I have mentioned my schoolmate who was married to an Iraqi and lived in Baghdad -through two wars – until her death from cancer last year. When I met Shahnaz and Achmed in 1996, Achmed’s salary as a schoolteacher was 3000 dinars a month: just about enough to buy a pack of cigarettes. Of course they couldn’t survive on that; their extended family, like everyone else in Iraq, was scraping along by selling off valuables and assets, and getting poorer all the time.
Yet Saddam seemed to have accomplished a sort of brainwashing (not surprising – as absolute dictator, he controlled all the media). People didn’t like him but, as Shahnaz insisted, “In Iraq we have a saying: better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
Post facto, it’s clear that most Iraqis didn’t feel that way, and are relieved to have got rid of the devil they knew for so long. So I can’t regret that the US military went in and removed him. I am, however, furious at how Bush & Co. lied, cheated, and manipulated the American people into agreeing to this, and then managed it so badly. There are plenty of other reasons to be angry at the Bush administration, but on this issue I may come out feeling much as I did about Reagan: I hated his methods and attitudes, but must, however grudgingly, applaud some of his results.
Dec, 2006 – No, never mind. Removing Saddam was never worth what’s happening now.
