You can hardly pick up a magazine these days without some middle-aged columnist making a reference to their days as a punk. This column is no different. It’s not lazy – honestly – it’s just punk was a key to our political awakening. And so as I listened to the radio the other day I was taken back to a dingy club pogoing to the Angelic Upstarts. “Last Night Another Soldier”, sang (in the loosest sense of the word) the shaven-headed Mensi. At the time, the Upstarts referenced war in Ireland, the Falklands and the then Soviet war in Afghanistan. “Last night another soldier was killed in…” was a staple of news bulletins. The song not only drew attention to the killing of soldiers but also to the innocent victims of war. Like many punk songs, it questioned the futility of conflict and challenged the politicians’ lies.
But we shouldn’t have to rely on ageing punk singers to ask the questions. The media have a vital role to play. In the wake of the invasion and occupation of Iraq some media in the United States apologised for failing to ask the right questions or ask them forcefully enough. They failed in their historic mission of holding power to account. The British media fared little better. There was some brilliant journalism and brave and fearless reporting but there was too much swallowing of the official line to call it adequate scrutiny. I still have a copy of the London Evening Standard whose front page screamed “45 Minutes from Attack” as Tony Blair unveiled the dodgy dossier.
The Standard devoted unquestioning pages to Blair’s apocalyptic warnings, accompanied by fancy graphics showing the extent of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and a really useful map illustrating how Cyprus was to be devastated in an imminent attack. There was, of course, no attack in 45 minutes, no WMDs and as far as I am aware the devastation being inflicted on Cyprus is a consequence of greedy bankers not Iraqi missiles.
Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion and thinks this is some apologist rant on behalf of the Ba’athists I have always believed Iraq could be better off without Saddam’s dictatorship. I just don’t believe it is, when under occupation, with much of its economy in the hands of US corporations and in the wake of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians being killed.
And so to Libya. Headlines in the tabloids have already resorted to type. Our “brave boys” are jetting off to bring “freedom and democracy”. Our “precision” missile strikes are a “success” and those supporting Colonel Gaddafi are “delusional” or “intimidated” into doing so. Again, I’m no apologist for Gaddafi. I hope he is overthrown by a workers’ revolution which seizes the levers of economic power and uses them to build a democratic society based on economic and social justice.
Instead I’m faced with a tabloid choice of supporting a “mad dog” or “heroic freedom fighters”. Yet I know little of these heroes. Who do they represent? What kind of Libya are they intent on building? I want the media to ask questions for me. What is the French, British and US interest in supporting them? After all, there are no bombing raids over Yemen or Bahrain. There is no seizure of assets of the emirs who order their troops to fire on protestors. There are no demands for free and fair elections in Saudi Arabia or Qatar. War in the media is often simplified. Good and bad. Right and wrong. Most wars have many shades of grey. It’s in the grey the truth often resides. Over the coming weeks, there will be some brilliant and courageous journalism from Libya. Journalists may die to bring us a sense of the truth. Their courage must not be undermined by those who accept too readily, question too little and resort to jingoism too easily. The politicians may not have learned the lessons of their failures in Iraq. The media must show they have.
Jeremy Dear is general secretary of the NUJ
