Spin doctors have turned around the Blair government. Their success in doing so is cause for alarm, writes Galal Amin It was interesting, if disconcerting, to follow the debate taking place in Britain recently as the media began to question whether the British government had misled the public in order to wage war against Iraq. The campaign against the Blair government was led by the reputable broad sheet The Independent. Since the occupation of Iraq the British newspaper has raised the obvious question: just where are the weapons of mass destruction the British government claimed existed in Iraq and went to war to eliminate? Citing a BBC programme, The Independent ran a story to the effect that a high-ranking British intelligence official had claimed that the Blair government had asked him to reword an intelligence report about Iraqi weapons to make the threat sound more plausible. The Independent called for investigation into the allegation which, if true, would mean that the British government knowingly misled the public in order to gain support to the war. Acknowledging the seriousness of the charge the British parliament formed a committee of inquiry to look into the matter. The Blair government was in an unenviable situation. The accusations were damaging to the credibility of the government as well as damaging to the democratic process. If such key decisions are made through massive manipulation of public opinion, so what is the sense in claiming that the country has a functioning democratic system? Following a period of procrastination, the government selected one of its veteran officials to handle the crisis. Alistair Campbell, Blair's media adviser, was put in charge of the government offensive. In harsh language he chastised the BBC for reporting unsubstantiated remarks by an intelligence official. Campbell succeeded in changing the key question from whether the British government had lied to the public with respect to the war against Iraq to whether the BBC had the right to report a statement attributed to an intelligence official without sufficient verification. As the BBC started defending itself Campbell countered with more accusations. Before long, the entire media, and the British public, had forgotten the main issue, focussing instead on the secondary matter of whether the BBC had behaved appropriately. I found the whole affair troubling. This, it seems, is how key Western governments manage to trick their own people into thinking that they live in a democracy though most major decisions are in fact taken without due consultation. The art of manipulating public opinion has been perfected in the technologically advanced world. And just as with any other technique perfected in the First World, spinning facts has become the domain of specialists. Distract the public with minor issues and major issues can be pushed under the carpet runs the conventional wisdom. The whole process rests on technical details, on how to best manipulate the public, to distract the attention of people with minor affairs while the make-and-break decisions, those of peace and war, of income distribution, of the exploitation of the Third World, are papered over. Soon, no one was discussing whether Saddam Hussein was acting on his own behalf or on behalf of more powerful countries. No one was interested in whether Saddam attacked Iran then Kuwait to satisfy his own ambitions or those of other states. The success of such media manipulation is in evidence everywhere. Essential domestic matters are routinely ignored in supposedly sophisticated countries. No one, for instance, seems interested in whether there are any real differences between the Tories and Labour in Britain, or between Democrats and Republicans in the United States. Instead of focussing on momentous issues the public is instead preoccupied with relatively minor affairs, such as the dispute between the British government and the BBC, the counting of votes in Florida, or Clinton's affair with a White House intern. And, while the attention of the public is so engaged, decisions that actually matter are made without consultation. Ironically, things are less twisted in our Arab countries. In our case disillusionment set in a long time ago. Thankfully, perhaps, our less-than-democratic governments are not as sophisticated in the art of political manipulation as their western counterparts. Lacking the necessary technological and political sophistication our governments govern in a crude and rudimentary manner. This is something we have grown used to, and learned to laugh at. Our governments do what they want, simple as that. They never consult the public. But at least they are unable to deceive us. The writer is professor of economics at the American University in Cairo.
