 |
|
|
|
||
|
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
|
|
December
3, 2002 9:15 a.m. |
|
oliticized
artists make few sales around my household. Message movies are given only
the slightest consideration. The same is true of politically-themed novels
and music, which may be swiftly perused just too see how crudely the artist
puts forward the Great Truth, then fed to the chipper. This stuff is rarely
any good, and often very bad. One is apparently supposed to forgive artistic
mediocrity because the creator's heart is in the right place. Forgiveness
is a noble policy, especially when much is at stake. For this trifling
stuff, however, it's No Sale.
Journalism is given more leeway. Around here we never bought into the objectivity sermon. Everyone in the trade's got an axe to grind, and a little editorializing is to be expected, even far from the editorial page. Yet sometimes the editorializing becomes so crude it reminds one of bad art such as those riveting dung-pieces that famously graced an otherwise obscure Brooklyn museum. We flee its presence. Such is the case regarding a recent Reuters news-service dispatch:
DUBAI (Reuters) - The Arabic-language television station al-Jazeera said on Tuesday that Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden has hailed recent anti-Western attacks in Bali, Kuwait and Yemen, and last month's hostage-taking in Moscow. The television said bin Laden also issued a warning to citizens of countries allied with the United States in a new audiotape. It gave no further details.
Bin Laden a "dissident"? Reuters seems to have been taken over by the organizers of the Def Poetry Jam, a sample of whose material was recently passed along by the Wall Street Journal's Barbara Phillips: "They snuck into our law schools and / Hijacked the Supreme Court / Their money makes missiles / Their labs created Anthrax. / Osama was their pawn / Evil is their axis."
In our age, the word dissident brings to mind heroic people such as Nelson Mandela, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and the leaders of free-speech and religion movements in oppressive countries. These are heroic people who take highly public and often-dangerous stands for causes and principles that are humanely admirable. They do not hide themselves, and their bravery can come at great cost to themselves and families. Guys like Gore Vidal may also think of themselves as dissidents, but they are mere publicity curs. Nothing's on the line for them except more book sales and perhaps a crack at a star-struck adolescent.
Calling bin Laden a "dissident" is a profoundly crude attempt at reputational whitewashing. After all, the world knows this man. He has made a point of introducing himself. He is an Islamic warrior. He is a mass murderer. He's not denying any of that. It's his soulcraft. He stays up late at night trying to figure out how to slaughter more people in his crusade to bring down the Great Satan.
In his latest dispatch, provided by a news service only slightly less ridiculous than Reuters, bin Laden informs Westerners of impending doom. As this is written the government is taking these renewed threats very seriously. After all, OBL masterminded the deaths of 3,000 Americans, and as the dispatch says is highly pleased with the slaughter of hundreds of tourists in Bali, an attack on an oil tanker, the destruction of a synagogue, and the massive hostage-taking at a Russian theater.
Yet in Reuters's deeply considered view, this mass-murderer is merely a dissident. Perhaps Tim McVey was a dissident as well, along with Pol Pot, and even Hitler. To be sure, bin Laden hasn't killed nearly as many people as Hitler, but it is fair to say that were it within his capability, bin Laden gladly detonate H-Bombs throughout America. Given the choice, he'd like to make Hitler look a piker in the mass killing competition.
Preaching one's political beliefs, to be sure, is a powerful desire, and sometimes an irresistible one. And so Joni Mitchell warns us about right-wing preachers, Iris Dement lends her unsolicited guidance on various topics, and Bruce Springsteen and countless lesser prophets lead us in the paths of righteousness regarding capital punishment. Many fans patiently wait until the fever passes, and hope no permanent damage has been done.
Reuters, however, is badly served by its editors' excess. As a news service, it needs to be taken at least fairly seriously. Providing a neutral description of a mass-murdering, hate-mongering enemy of civilization is not an act of fairness, objectivity, or neutrality. A man who incinerates 3,000 innocent people, and who clearly hopes to incinerate many times that number in the future, can be called many things, but dissident is not rightly among them.
Reuters can certainly do as it pleases. But someone there should realize a line has been crossed, so that even the most forgiving readers no longer feel they are being informed. Reeducation seems the objective.
Reuters has spoken. Cancel my subscription.
— Dave Shiflett is coauthor of Christianity on Trial.