EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
"Civility and its unit, the civilian, are too honorable and pure to be given up with such ease and promptness."
Media(ted) Musings:
On numbing precedents
By Adel Iskandar
Today's headlines announce a military standoff between the Pakistanis and Indians along the Kashmir border, declare Israeli forces are entering Nablus in the Palestinian territories, and report that the Senegalese soccer team recorded a historical win against defending champions France in the opening game of the World Cup. Like any other day in the life of news coverage, the first draft of history is being drawn and written to be chronicled and recalled for years to come. However, it is the focal points, days marked with dramatic events of immense tragedy or triumphant celebration, that leave memorable marks in people's consciousness and memories. Tomorrow, when today's news is forgotten, when the papers are sent to recycling plants, garbage landfills or are incinerated, it is these focal points that will be etched into the endless volume we call history. For today's first two stories, the historical turning points beneath them are Indian and Pakistan's announcement, a few days apart, that they possess of nuclear weapons and in the Middle East it was Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000, the atrocities of the Netanya bombing, and "Battle of Jenin." The only pivotal turning point in today's headlines is Senegal's win over France. The rest we've grown accustomed to.
So what then makes one event a hallmark in history and not another? Not its sheer magnitude or value, not the number of people involved or the price-tag attached to it. Instead, it is the event's precedence. The days that we commemorate with ribbons, and mark with push-pins on the bulletin board that is history's eternal timeline, are the trend-setting precedents. These days are when some monumental part of our reality is altered or shifted in a way it never has before. Whether it is the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show or the attacks of September 11, they are both unique and altering.
In some instances, precedents can be trend-setters. We see this in the discovery of antibiotics. It was the dramatic stories of cancer patients that instigated worldwide campaigns to raise money for research, and the same goes for Multiple Sclerosis and AIDS. While in most cases the trends set are ones that herald the betterment of the human condition, some instances the trends are far less fruitful or even destructive. The day of September 11 is one such push-pin that marks a turning point in history where ensuing trends are anything but positive. The first few items in most news bulletins every day since September 11 have been characterized by morbid negativity. There seems little positive to report from any region of the world. A terrorist precedent that appeared to have demoralized all those who once believed in a vision of peace and a non-violent resistance resolution to achieve it. It helped create disillusioned publics around the world that seek refuge in the familiar terrain of conservatism. A conservatism that preaches a few solutions and even fewer means to accomplish them. One means is the reliance on military action rather than diplomatic avenues. A public now desensitized to the horrors of tragedy embraces a perpetual war in hope of a perpetual peace. The true precedent of September 11 have been its ability to numb a civilian populace to the option of war and the tragedies it delivers. It has desensitized them to the pain of loss, and given governments and non-governmental militias around the world the warranted license to take the law into their own hands. Approval rates for military intervention, war declarations, and those leaders who advocate them have never been higher, whether in India, the Arab world, Israel, Philippines or the United States.
The army recruitment offices in the US have seen a dramatic increase in applicants, civilians in some Arab capitals protest in demand of military action against Israel, offering their services to any army. Have we militarized our publics? Have we transformed ordinary citizens into warmongers? As tyrannical as September 11 was, what have we accomplished in its aftermath? What solutions or retributions have we sought? Are they fair? One misdirected and myopic mind once stated that "a well-armed populace is the best defense against tyranny." Instead, a well-armed and militarized populace with today's public trends is tyrannical. Civility and its unit, the civilian, are too honorable and pure to be given up with such ease and promptness. In the interim, until the next positive turning point in history comes along, the World Cup seems the sole symbol of international civility and only venue for positive precedents today. From now on, I will be reading my newspapers back to front.
Adel Iskandar teaches communication at the University of Kentucky, USA.
To send opinions, email at mail@ambassadors.net.
