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Re: [casi] What is to be done?



Diarmuid wrote in response to Yasser:
> Perhaps if the Iraqi people had not been subjected to the added torture of
a
> decade of bombings, sanctions, death and disease, they would be in a
better
> position to let their voices be heard. As it is, their voice is not heard
> here in England.

This is an important point:  how can the voices of ordinary Iraqis be heard
so loudly in the US/UK that they can't be ignored or dismissed?  So that
Phillip Knightley's third stage of misinformation is unsuccessful?
(Knightley talks about different stages of misinformation in times of war:
Stage 1 - the crisis, the government prepares its people for war;
Stage 2 - the demonisation of the leader of the enemy country (already well
under way);
Stage 3 - the demonisation of that country's people. see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4270014,00.html )

Someone in the British media has tracked down the English boy who, aged 5,
refused to sit on Saddam Hussein's knee back in 1990/91 - now aged 16 he is
reported as saying that 'Iraqis are just like us' and he doesn't agree to
war except as a very last resort.  'Any normal 5 year old would have refused
to sit on the knee of a stranger who wasn't very nice.'  No demonisation
material there, then.  (Perhaps we need more 16 year olds in the White House
and Number 10.)

How possible would it be to support/supply equipment for the making of films
and the taking of pictures by ordinary Iraqi people living in Iraq?  Not
focusing on the suffering/horror, important though that is to be shown of
course, but giving Iraqis' own views of ordinary life as lived by
resourceful, intelligent survivors, who are 'just like us'?

Remove the threat of war and the real work resumes, ie. bringing about the
conditions whereby people who are 'just like us' can rebuild their own
country - and pictures will help.  Much of the world's media responds first
and mainly to pictures, which often set the news agenda.

Cathy Aitchison
Aitchison Media & Development





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