The war of words

By Fayza Hassan
On a summer morning of 1967, we boarded the train from Alexandria for our regular visit to my parents in Cairo. As we walked into the station, I could feel that something was terribly wrong, but could not fathom what it was. Like many young mothers of my generation I had not been paying much attention to politics, being more interested at the time in the debate for and against breast-feeding and which kind of diapers was softer. At first I believed that there had been a major train accident. My husband bought a newspaper and a glance at the headlines left us with no doubt as to the cause of the commotion: we were at war.
On the train, several people had their transistor radios on. Every now and again they would cheer and announce that we had shot down yet another plane. Their numbers kept increasing, and my husband looked at me ironically. "Don't believe it," he whispered. "We must have been badly beaten already. This is the usual propaganda that goes with losing." He wished someone would turn on the BBC, "the only way to know the truth," he said.
I felt angry at what I secretly thought of as his Lebanese smugness. "The Phoenicians have always been superior to the Arabs," he used to announce sententiously whenever he had a chance. Why couldn't he just believe the announcer? Surely the man was not making his report up. I was rather unpleasant with my husband during the whole trip, which lasted over seven hours, and pretended to cheer at every cry of victory coming from the front of our wagon. I even hummed along when the passengers broke into patriotic songs.
When we arrived in Cairo, my family was waiting for us at the station, an unprecedented fact. They had been afraid, they said, that we would not make it before the curfew. "What curfew?" I asked. "I thought we were already bombarding Tel Aviv."
From that day on, I became allergic to anything that smacked the least bit of political propaganda. Satellite television changed my life. CNN, the BBC, TV 5 now gave me an insight into a world that was varied and truthful, or so I imagined. I often refrained from buying books that claimed to tell the "real, unreported truth" behind an event, believing they were just sensationalist and based on figments of the author's imagination and his espousal of crazy conspiracy theories.
Furthermore, until recently, I associated the dissemination of false information with developing countries, practiced for the purpose of enhancing their national image, creating a smoke screen to hide their wrongdoings and failed policies, or simply to appease their exploited and gullible populations.
I, on the other hand, with the different Western news sources at my disposal, considered myself politically savvy and well informed.
I was shattered, therefore, when I discovered that the same Western sources I had trusted not only have no qualms about using the same crude, self-serving propaganda tactics as their less sophisticated counterparts, but are actually hiring professionals to "sell the new war" to the unbelievers. Improbably, they are suddenly resorting to the same slogans, catchphrases and grandiloquent pep talks that I despise in order to disguise -- as a fight for "the true values of democracy," no less -- the fact that the mightiest powers are relentlessly pounding barefoot, starving warriors. Had they achieved their aim in 24 hours, I might have felt a twinge of respect for their good judgement; but the struggle is dragging on, with Goliath only managing to hit helpless civilians instead of the elusive David. Meanwhile, the worldly Western public seems to take it all in with unconditional enthusiasm. And to think that I always believed empty rhetoric to be characteristic of backwardness...
The new Western show is complete by now, with flag waving, national anthems and long-forgotten patriotic songs, a painful reminder of our past debacles. Inebriated by their own speeches, the men and women in power have apparently lost sight of their original aim and every now and again are so carried away that they announce their intention of taking on "all" the countries that harbour terrorism, completely forgetting that this accusation applies to them.
Obviously, the "civilised world" does not like the idea of concentrating on the causes of terror and wondering why it has finally turned against its creators. It prefers by far to embark on a costly and hazardous scheme. Its great leaders have been coached at top speed by astute advisers on how to elude the topic skillfully, drowning their arguments in patriotic verbosity that nevertheless indicates only one thing: their utmost concern is for their own safety and way of life, which they will defend by the only means with which they are familiar -- a formidable show of might. To the "uncivilized," it is nothing but a page taken out of Sharon's book
On cue, and always ready to jump on the bandwagon, the Israelis have rushed to declare that Yasser Arafat should be treated like Bin Laden and labelled a pariah and a terrorist, while Binyamin Netanyahu decided to add his own bit of wisdom to the general campaign of misinformation by letting CNN viewers know that the Palestinians are currently running kindergartens for terrorists. "Imagine, Jonathan [Mann]," he said with an appropriate little sob in his voice, "three-year-olds who are trained as terrorists!" Even Jonathan looked rather incredulous.
Having had my fill of vulgar boasting and self- serving messages, I change channels. Suddenly, Al-Jazeera's reporting, laid back and comparatively unbiased, is a breath of fresh air; for once, I can turn to an Arab source without being swamped by a deluge of self- aggrandising and empty words.
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