by
lwtc247
@ 28. May 2007 - 19:23:21
lwtc247 post 66.
On the weekend 18-19th May, I spent my time transcribing an interview by one of my heros. The Investigative Journalist John Pilger.
D = Radio presenter Dennis Bernstein. The program was called "Flashpoints" on Pacifica Radio.
J = John Pilger.
The interview took place in 17th May 2007. Here it is.....
( You can also listen to it here: http://aud1.kpfa.org/data/20070517-Thu1700.mp3 )
D:
In Berkley, I'm Denis Bernsein. Your listening to flashpoints on Pacifica radio. John Pilger is an internationally renound journalist and author whose career began in his native Australia before he moved to London in the 1960's. He has been a foreign corrspondent, an award winning documentary filmaker and he writes for the new statemsman and the Guardian. I personally like what the Guardian says about Pilgers new book - "Freedom Next Time" - Quote "It allows us to hear the personal testimonies of those challenging power" The array of interviews with the voiceless and abused, provides an indispensible corrective, to the litany of disinformation we are fed by the media and for this achievement, Pilger is surely the most outstanding journalist in the world today." John Pilger. I thank you for joining us and its good to have you at this time.
J:
Its very good to be with you Dennis thank you.
D:
Alright, lets just start off with Palestine. You've made two films about Palestine. You've called them the same thing because it's the same problem over a 25 year period. Today, just looking at the wires coming down from Al Jazeera, at least 4 Palestinians have been killed in a series of airstrikes across Gaza strip. Those are Isreali airstrikes. Two people died when Isreal aircraft targeted a car in Kahn Younus, it goes on, some 32 people were wounded by an F-16 fighter jet attack against the executive force building in Gaza City. The most densely populated city in the world. Talk a little bit about the situation there now and the knd of cynical and bruital policy coming out of the West that continues to inflame the situation
J:
Well you have toi imagine Gaza, if you can. Gaza is a prison. It's an open prison. On one side is the sea, on another side is Egypt, through which there is a border but it generally it's closed. And on the othe side is israel, which locks people in. There are more a million people living there. There is almost no real work. There is no real sustinance for those who need it most, like children, the ill and the elderly. The united nations has issued many reports saying how malnurished children are, some of the most malnourished children in the world. It's an enforced Ghetto. And it's enfoced by the united states. When I say the United States, yes Israel does it, but really, all of the wars conducted by israel and the impositions of Isreal in the middle east are American backed, and there done as you've just described, with american aircraft that happen to be flown by Isrealies. That's very important to understand that in the reporting. I've just watched a television report here, in which it described the most horrific bombing as, even using the euphamist "airstrikes", - how anodine that sounds, and four Hamas "militans" were killed. How do they know? and militants about what? Militants about running the country? Hamas was voted in to run the country in democratic elections and that sorely upset the United states, and they decided to stop it. And the, the tragic civil war of a kind, that has erupted in Gaza and is entirely caused by outside forces, about people not even being allowed to democratically run their own country, choose their own people. If I sound very strong about this, it is becasue I've been to GAza, and I've seen the conditions there, and it's just unreal to come away from a place like that and really know what's causing this horror, and then sort of be transported into our safe and comfortable world. Gaza is the mataphore, a very live and bleeding metaphore for the whole Middle East, and probably for the whole world in terms of the imposition of great power on powerless people.
D:
You talk about this situation from the point of view from somebody, a journalist if you will, who went there, who saw, who went there and then went there 25 years later with a camera and saw much of the same situation based on much of the same policy. We hear language like a 'roadmap'. A map, a map that would be interesing wouldn't it? It's the only state, the only thing close to a state - it's a state of mind. One, there is no attempt, it's a cynical discussion to even talk about a map. Is that right?
J:
Well is a cynical, absolutely right, its a cynical discussion but its, and its a farcical discussion and that requires the kind of contortion of intellect and morality that most people arn't capable of in my opinion. I think most people live their lives in a fairly straightforward manner. Power does not. Were different. Were different from those who are in unaccountable power, and that's true now and {in the} the United states its true, in a large degree, here in Britian, and in other so called democracries, the world itself has just fallen into disrepute.
Yes i made 2 films. I made the first one "Palestine is still the issue" I believe in 1975 I think. I made the 2nd one "Plastsine is still the issue" in 2002. And the reason I kept the title was because it was still the issue. That fundamentally over that period of 20 odd years, nothing had changed. Fundamentally, nothing had changed. The Palestinian people were subjected to the worlds longest military occupation, were an indigenous people in their own homeland denied the rights of living peacefully in their own homeland, denied the right of even living peacefully beside those who came later - that is the Israelies. Those what want to believe the biblical story of 3000 years ago, go ahead. There are plenty of myths in the world, but we are dealing with lives now. Israelies and Palestinians could be living together today in peace, were it not for the power ambitions of the United States, combining with the more extreme power ambitions of Zionist israel. I don't say that with a light heart, it's just true, and Journalist whose been going backwards and forwards to that part of the world as I have for so many years, who denies that truth, because there worried about there going to be attacked by Zionists, and get a blizzard of e-mails, abd the usual stuff, well, then they should stand up to that, becasue thats the truth, and until Palestine is, until the people of palestine are given justice which will automatically give secutiry to the people of Israel, then the rest of the Middle east will remain in a sort of petetual torment and indeed much of the world.
D:
You listening to flashpoints on Pacifica radio. My name is dennis burnstein. WEre speaking with John Pilger. His new book is "Freedom Next Time". Of course Mr. Pilger, were looking forward to you coming here in the bay area. I guess your gonna be here in june and we'll be happy to meet you then. Good to have you now on the telphone talking about Palestine, and I wanna sort of take you into Iraq and bridge it with Palestine in the context of the nature of Journalism. The reason why the oppression and this I guess we can call an ethnic cleansing, continues of Palestine is the same reason that the US administration with Britian, could take us into a war, because the Journalists were both complicit and sort of, activist patriarch/patriot cheerleaders for the wars. Could you talk a little bit about how this kind of policy is able, can contintue becasue of the failure of Journalism?
J:
Well in my view its impossible to understand what the hell is going on in the world unless you put in the context of Imperial ambitions. Otherwise if you don't do that then it all seems like sort of, fires breaking out here and there and you then start to be persuraded into thinking about the world in personalities, bad dictators, and this and that and so on. But if you think about the world in terms of the true and demonstrable ambitions of great power, to impose itself on the world, in essence no differenct from the way great Eurpoean powers imposed themselves on the world in the 19th centuary, same thing, then you begin to understand it, and that Imperial power always has its courtiers, and it always has its euphamistsms. It has its code words, because people don't want to stand up and say "were imperialists" now, before the second world war, in Britian, you could do that and feel quite proud, you know, "I'm a sort of imperial, I'm part of the british empire and it's a good thing" and all that, but the second world war, really threw all that away, becasue the Nazi's and the fascists were also Imperialists, so they gave Imperialism a very bad name, and the word was effective banished from the dictionary until GW Bush turned up and now, thanks to him, it's back, and that's how the world in my opinion, has to be made sense of, and once you see it that way and you see the courtiers of Imperialism, the apologists for it, the apologists for power, and liberalism, you know its not just neo-conservative, neo-liberism - sorry were getting mixed up in these dreadful terms but, basically Liberalism plays its own part in believing it has a missionary mandate to interviene in countries, so while there is this excuse for Imperiasm, "bringing democracy to the Middle East", you know, "saving the people of Kosovo" and so on and so forth, I mean all this is pretty thread bare now, I mean anyone with half their witts could really see through it surely, but a lot of people have had a lifetime of conditioning, and that conditioning comes from the principle courtiers of Imperialism, and that is unfortunately; Journalism. So called mainstream, another euphamism, but really that means establishment, mainstram means 'establishment journalism', and I've had recent examples of that, particicluarly pompos examples from the NY times, saying that, like the BBC, you know "we look both sides", that were really "newspaper record", or "broadcasters of record" their not. Their not. And I think more and more people are deconstructing the news, understanding that the mainstream are the messengers of a very very dangerous Imperial period in our history and that, I think the fact that public awareness has risen so rapidly in the last few years, has become very threatening, not only to Politicians, but to Journalists.
D:
It's incomprehensible to me the way certain stories are coverend now. I sure your somewhat familiar about the big story in the united states about the attorney general firing the nine regional prosecuters becasue they weren't pro-Bush. Now this is the attorney gneral who created the structure and the backdrop, who called the Geneva convention "quaint" for a wide ranging forward fighting tool to be used by the united states govt - that's called torture. Not a word in pages and weeks of scandal, not a word, that this man should be standing before an international dock.
J:
That's right. Sorry I interupted.
D:
No, no go on please.
J:
Yeah well the fact that he was Bush's attorney general in Texas and he used to write down, I understand, summaries of the people on death row in Texas, and hand them to the Govenorer for the Govenorer to decide whether they should live or die. I wont go into detail of this, because all I know, but I'm told reliably that's the way the system of life and death would work in the prisons of Texas, and this man, little more than a croney of Bush, ends up as attorney general of the Unites States, So its not surprizing that he regards the Geneve convention as Quaint. But then so much has happened int ehe last few years that really make a mockery of all those great tablets that were handed down by theose Georgian gentlemen in the 18th century. I mean they can be questioned too, but their very essence, you know, which is based on the Magna Carta and the revolution in this country (UK) of individual justice of people people being innocent until their proven guilty and having the right of habeous corpus, all those basic tennants of law have just been thrown asside. It's very, when Norman Mailer said a couple of years ago that the united states he felt was in a pre-fascist, entering a pre-fascist era, I remember I put this, in one of my films, I put this to Ray McGovern the former CIA man whose done an excellent job of standing up to a lot of these people in the Bush Administration, and he laughed, he said "Well I wish it was pre-fascist. I dont believe it was pre, I think were in it"
D:
Well, lets just talk a little bit more about journalism. How about we turn the converastion this way. We've heard a lot about sources, about Judith Miller the former NY times lead reporter on Iraq, who had sources inside the white house. She needed to protect of course, here's a journalist whose sources sold us the war. How do you evaluate your souces. How do we get to the ottom of a story. How should the people of the united states who have not yet been told about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, how should they be told. What sources should be used to inform them?
J:
The NY times went along with Judith Miller becasue it wanted to. They don't like to say that. And all right, Judith Miller has gone, but when you look back and read what she wrote, it was clearly propaganda. There was nothing substantial apart from the white house to back it up. And it is not the role of Journalism, under any circumstances, to take the word of government or authority at face value, ever. I believe that the NY times was aware that she was skating on the thinnest of ice, but they had gone along with Bush. They went along with Bush from the moment he was elected actually, and month after month we had these almost ludicriuos reports from Judith Miller. How does one assess sources? Well I think people you know Dennis are much more savvy than certainly then most journalists give them credit for. I think they are. Then there becomming more savvy by the minute. I think they get to know their own sources, their own journalists, I think they trust them. I think they trust people like Seamour Hersch. You earn the trust by getting it almost as right as you can, and people will then go along with you. That's my experience.
D:
I really like, I mentioned earlier in the introduction, I like the work the Guardians as saying about your new book "Freedom Next Time" It talks about how you do interviews with the voiceless and abused and it provides an indespensible corrective. These are the voices challenging power. Is that the job finding the way to question authority and challenge power. Is that the heart of the matter? '
J:
Thats the basic job of journalism. You know I'm often asked, "When did you first see the light." You know? "When did you start your campaigning, your crusade" Well I say nonsense. I never had a sence of that at all. But I did have a sence of the basic job of journalism, and that is, to lift up the rocks, the tear down the fascades, not accept the official version of events, and question it! and be independednt! and always remember that journalism is about huimanity. So if you appear to be on the side of people and theire inerests then fine, but it is about about, calling power to account. And I dont believe you can do that by being a courtier of power.
D:
And in terms of the sourcing, is it not a cruicial part of your work has it not been to actually go to those who have been oppressed by particulay policy and let them speak for themselves?
J:
Yeah, I think the greatest source, I don't think there is any great mistery about this, you know you dont go through pathings(?), find some smoking gun, well alright, some do, and occasionally it's there, you know, we have the great edifice of Watergate and deep-throat and all that, that's very unusual. The greatest sources are ordinary poeple. In my experience ordinary people all over the world, very seldom decieve you. There almost always tell you what happened. Now what they may tell you, may not be absolutely correct becasue people can see things happening and have different version, thats just the way we are, you know, those see and accident - tell differently about it. So you have to talk around it but generally speaking, their good faith makes them excellent sources and thats been my experience that the best sources, yes are documents, documents that reveal, but it's ordinary people who reveal.
D:
Are they they ones who sell you the story, who convince you its time to go to bring your cameras to bring your pencils and go on site. Is it usually something you hear that bubbles up from the bottom from the people?
J:
Well its the way you talk to them. If you speak to people and you genuinely interested in hearing what happened, and about them and about what they saw and witnessed and let them speak, you'll get as close to the truth as its possible. You wont get the whole truth but you'll get a pretty good version of it.
D:
Were speaking with John Pilger. we are just have couple of minutes left Mr Pilger and I wanna guide you back to the current wars. Obviously the unites states is on the ground. I'm afraid to think what's happening in what really does look like this search and destroy mission for the three soldiers. I dont even wannt try and figure out how many people died. And we will never know in this so called search for the soldiers were now threatened with another war in Iran and we actually see a related proxy oil war, could easily be in Somalia. You wanna take a look at the scene now, talk about whats happening and your concerns.
J:
Well I think that this can all be stopped if the American people stop it. And there's no doubt of the congressional elections last November. The majority voted for and end to Iraq, they didn't get it. But perhaps they learned from that. But every poll I see, suggests to me very strongly, that Americans are against what its govenrment is doing around the world. And I've worked in the United States and I've seen the great movements begin in the south, the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam movement and so on and so forth, freeze(or peace?) movement there enormously powerful. This is not yet coerced, its not yet been brought together as a national movement and I think its really up to Americans - they are probably, not as the propaganda says, but in terms of bringing peace to, and lack of threat to much of the world, probably the most important people there at the moment because they can stop it. It's really up to them and its about the action, the direct action that Amercians take.
D:
Are they going to be sold another war in Iran. Are the papers...
J:
Yes, yes
D:
predictibaly doing what they need to do, to make sure we have another patriotic war?
J:
Well there not going to be sold it, I've, Well they may, they may, there'll be a period where, you know, the propaganda gets Iran as being well and truely on. Iran, It's just ludicrous! Iran is an origional signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation act, something that the United States has broken time and time again, that Israel doesn't even belong to, the international atomic energy agency has said that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, and, you know, the UN sanctions, security council sanctions, was a classic act of bribery by the United States. Iran is being targeted because it is an indepenedent state, and a big and powerful one, with oil, in the Middle East and that's intolerable to the present administration. That's the only reason. One doesn't have to like the regeime though its far more complex, the regeime than its painted, but then one doesn't have to like the regeime in Washington and no one really one really wants to attack it, and kill Americans. So I think it's, an attack on Iran is quite likely. I think Bush, the notion that Bush might try and do it near the end of his time, is quite a feasable one really. We can only guess, we dont know, but certainly, all the ships are in place, the cruise missiles are primed, the war plan is there and so on and so forth, and in my experience when this great monstor ,called the pentagon decides that it's going to war. Not a lot stops it. The sheer momentum of it. So we'll see.
D:
All right. We will see. We will see you John Pilger in a month or so, couple of months, coming to the bay area. Your new book is "Freedom Next Time", in which you go into some of the key subjects you've covered in your films over so many years. We thank you. Let me thank you for our audience, for all your good work and we know the work that is still to come. Thanks for being with us on flashpoints.
D:
Thank you Dennis its a pleasure always.
