Re-Humanising Death In The Media: New Age Islam’s Selection From World Press, 06 October 2015
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
06 October 2015
• Is Hezbollah losing its edge?
Nicholas Blanford
• Syria’s polarizing narrative
RAMZY BAROUD
• The selfishness culture!
Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi
• Media And Education Challenge In Afghanistan
ABDULLAH BOZKURT
• The roots of Syria's tragedy
John McHugo
• Re-humanising death in the media
Andrew Eagle
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Is Hezbollah losing its edge?
Nicholas Blanford
October 6, 2015
Hezbollah, backed by regional power Iran, has played an essential role in helping keep Syrian President Bashar Al Assad in power.
A huge roar erupted from the 100,000 cheering Hezbollah supporters as the Shia organisation's beaming leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, dressed in a customary brown cloak and black turban, stepped onto a stage decorated in the red, white, and green Lebanese national flag and yellow party banners.
It was May 26, 2000, and Sheikh Nasrallah was in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, a few miles north of the Israeli border, to mark a stunning and unprecedented military achievement. His group of several hundred lightly armed resistance fighters had pushed the Israeli army out of south Lebanon, ending an occupation that had begun 22 years earlier.
Since that heady moment 15 years ago, Hezbollah has strengthened enormously and come to dominate Lebanon's fractious political arena. But it also faces daunting domestic and regional challenges - most particularly, navigating the war in neighboring Syria.
Today Nasrallah is still the leader of Hezbollah - his beard now longer and steely gray - but is rarely seen in public. The threat of assassination by a vengeful Israel forces him to deliver his speeches by video.
While the struggle against Israel remains a key component of Nasrallah's frequent addresses, Hezbollah's critical intervention in Syria's war and its battle against Sunni jihadists have come to overshadow the older conflict.
In a military commitment that dwarfs the south Lebanon resistance campaign two decades ago, thousands of Hezbollah cadres have fought on Syria's bloody battlefields - from Aleppo's battered ruins in the north to the rugged Qalamoun Mountains near Damascus and the basalt-studded Golan plateau in the south.
Hezbollah, backed by regional power Iran, has played an essential role in helping keep Syrian President Bashar Al Assad in power as his forces have battled an uprising for more than four years. Russia, too, has stepped in more forcefully to prop up Assad in a conflict that has claimed some 250,000 lives.
But the move has put a strain on Hezbollah, which has paid a price in lives and prestige, with many analysts saying the toll in three years in Syria must have exceeded the 1,276 from 18 years spent battling Israel's occupation.
Lebanon's Shia community generally continues to support Hezbollah's actions in Syria. The threat posed by extremists, such as Daesh, does much to keep the community rallied around the yellow banner of Hezbollah and the protection given by its formidable army.
Yet signs of unease and dissent are growing. Hezbollah's usually resilient base is beginning to feel the burden of a war now in its fifth year that has claimed the lives of a quarter million people and shows no sign of ending. Some are wearily asking - albeit in muted tones for now - where Nasrallah, a leader in whom they traditionally place absolute trust, is taking Hezbollah, the Shia community, and Lebanon.
"We are with the resistance [Hezbollah], and we have faith in Nasrallah when he promises us victory in Syria. But how much longer is it going to take and how many more of our sons will die before victory?" asks Umm Ali, mother of a Hezbollah fighter killed in Syria in 2013.
The decision to intervene in Syria was not taken lightly. Although Hezbollah is a Shia organization, Nasrallah has always promoted unity with Sunnis, believing Muslims should unite against Israel. But dispatching his fighters into Syria against a mainly Sunni opposition to help preserve the Alawite minority rule of Assad was bound to alienate Sunnis across the region. It would also tarnish Hezbollah's image as a champion of oppressed peoples and risk dragging Syria's war onto Lebanese soil.
On the other hand, if the Assad regime were to fall it would sever the geographical links between Iran and its protégé Hezbollah and rupture the regional anti-Israel "axis of resistance." Hezbollah might also have to contend with a hostile Sunni regime in Syria and an emboldened Sunni community in Lebanon. For Hezbollah and Iran, the motivations for interceding in Syria outweighed the potential blowback.
"Nasrallah has taken the Shia to dangerous places.... He started a war with our neighbours that we will feel for generations," says Sheikh Sobhi Tufayli, a founder of Hezbollah and its first secretary-general, who was expelled in 1998 and is today a bitter critic of Nasrallah and the party leadership.
Crucially, the war in Syria has provided an opportunity for a new generation of recruits to gain combat experience in environments ranging from rugged mountains to city streets.
Despite its military commitment in Syria, Hezbollah continues to closely watch Lebanon's southern front, wary that Israel may seek to take advantage of the organization's presence in Syria to attack it in Lebanon.
Still, for Hezbollah's cadres, Syria is the immediate focus.
Abu Khalil, who battled Israeli troops in the 1990s and in 2006, has no qualms about continuing to fight in Syria's grueling war. He unquestioningly subscribes to the party line that Assad's survival is essential to maintain "resistance" against Israel and to protect Lebanon from the Takfiri threat. "It's not easy, but God is with us," he says.
However, not all Hezbollah fighters share his view. Some say they have had enough of the war and are looking to leave Hezbollah.
"It's not only me. There are people who want to quit who have had enough of it," the veteran fighter says, speaking on condition of anonymity.
It is difficult to assess the depth of such sentiment within Hezbollah's ranks and among its support base. However, it does not appear to be sufficiently strong to pose a potential challenge to Nasrallah's leadership of the party. He appears to have the continuing confidence of Iran, and if there are qualms expressed in the upper ranks of Hezbollah, they are not leaking into the public arena.
But as the war grinds on, Hezbollah's supporters inevitably will ponder how much longer the party will remain in Syria.
Christian Science Monitor
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/editorials-columns/is-hezbollah-losing-its-edge
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Syria’s polarizing narrative
RAMZY BAROUD
Published — Tuesday 6 October 2015
Imagine the Syrian war from the ordinary Syrians’ point of view and from a variety of backgrounds. They are most likely to offer a different perspective and to hold entirely different expectations than most other parties involved.
A resident of Idlib, a villager from Deraa, a housewife, a teacher, a nurse or an unemployed ex-prisoner from anywhere else in Syria would distinguish their relationship to the war in terminology and overall understanding that is partially, or entirely, opposed to the narrative communicated by CNN, Al-Jazeera, Russia Today, the BBC, Press TV, and every available media platform that is concerned with the outcomes of the war.
These media tailor their coverage and, when necessary, as is often the case, slant their focus in ways that would communicate their designated editorial agendas, which, unsurprisingly, is often linked to the larger political agenda of their respective governments. They may purport to speak in accordance with some imaginary moral line, but, frankly, none of them do.
Surely, the stories of ordinary Syrians are not prepared in advance or communicated via press conferences in so articulate, guarded and predictable a manner. That is a job that has been reserved for, and perfected by, politicians who represent countries with palpable vested interests in the war.
But how could a story that is so thoroughly covered and discussed round the clock in so exhaustive a fashion be so far removed from the reality at hand?
Of course, there is no single truth in explaining the war in Syria, and not even an unmitigated people’s narrative can change that.
If seen from others’ perspective — the Arab, Turkey, Iran, Hezbollah, Jordan, US, European countries, and so on — every country seems to communicate their understanding of the war, thus explaining the nature of their involvement by using all sorts of upright and righteous rationales. It seems as if they are all united by their love of the Syrian people and the sanctity of their lives.
However, considering that over 300,000 Syrians have been killed in the war so far, with many more wounded, and six million becoming desolate refugees, one can be certain of the fact that not enough was done to mitigate the suffering of the hapless Syrians.
Those who perished in Syria have been victimized by all warring parties, and the bullets that killed, the shells that devastated neighborhoods, and the rockets that randomly toppled homes originated from too many directions to count.
In other words, there should be no room for polarizing narrative in Syria any more, as in good guys vs. bad guys; evil regime vs. opposition or terrorists vs. a sovereign government; or regional forces that are attempting to invite stability and peace vs. others espousing chaos.
These thoughts, and more, crossed my mind as I began recording the experiences of Syrian and Palestinian refugees who managed to cross to Europe via Turkey and Greece. After reading countless articles about the war, listening to a thousand news broadcasts, consulting with dozens of ‘experts,’ Arab and non-Arab alike, I found the hours I spent with the refugees far more enriching and informative.
When it was explained to me, for example, how the Yarmouk siege came about, and after I crossed referenced the information with other refugees, who may hold a different political perspective on the war, I found out that our understanding of what took place in the refugee camp was almost completely misguided, or rather, politicized - thus slanted, self-serving and generally untrue.
Khaled’s journey from Damascus to Idlib, Homs, Hama, all the way to Qamishli, then to the Turkish border deprives the narrative from its polarization; he was a target for everyone; indeed, his suffering continued even when he crossed the Turkish border, took a boat to Lesbos, attempted to enter Macedonia, then Serbia, and so on. It took him four months to reach Sweden, with about ten different stops in different jails.
His narrative contained no references to good guys vs. bad guys, in any collective sense. Any act of kindness he encountered on his journey was surely a random one, and depended entirely on the goodness of ordinary people, like himself.
The same sentiment was conveyed through Maysam’s story, whose peers at the Syrian Red Crescent Society were arrested and tortured because they treated fighters from the Free Syrian Army at the Palestine Hospital. She fled before the mukhabrat came looking for her at her house in the Zahra neighborhood in Damascus.
Many more are no longer able to convey their own story of the war because they were killed, either by Syrian government forces, the opposition, other parties or US-led airstrikes. A particularity moving account was of the execution of a 16-year-old girl in a public square near Al-Hajar Al-Aswad, after she confessed to be a ‘spy’ for the regime. The ‘confession’ was exacted after she was shot, point-blank, in the palm of her right hand. They claimed that she placed GPS devices in opposition areas so that the Army may guide its missiles based on signals it received. The Syrian Army’s barrel bombs, of course, are not smart bombs and, in fact, none exist. The child was shot in the face six times.
Ordinary Syrians’ narratives are often used in media coverage of the war, but in a selective fashion, never in an honest and true sampling. Al Mayadeen’s version of ‘average Syrians’ is almost entirely different to that of Al-Jazeera. Syrians are used to supplement existing media agendas, as their country is used to advance political agendas.
When the war is over, the warring parties will reach the conclusion that they have either achieved their objectives or can no longer do so; only Syrians will be left to put their lives back together. When the remaining dead are buried, the missing found or declared dead, the prisoners released or kept indefinitely, only then winning and losing will cease to hold any meaning at all.
The tragedy in Syria is that the war fought in the name of the Syrian people has little to do with the rights of the Syrian people; and the voices of Syrians are either entirely neglected or used and manipulated to achieve specific political ends. And when it is all said and done, the media jackals are likely to fan the flame of some other conflict in some other place.
Certainly, it is already late for too many Syrians whose stories were buried with them, but it is not too late for many who are still alive. We need to listen to the Syrian people, who have been at the receiving end of death, but are yet to articulate their own aspirations for life, and their ongoing tragedies.
• Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com.
http://www.arabnews.com/columns/news/816166
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The selfishness culture!
Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi
October 05, 2015
As a result of one-family, one child law in China, those who are lucky enough to have a male child, they shower him with love, admiration and attention. The result is what is called the “little emperors” — a new generation of spoiled kids, who treat others as servants who are made to dedicate their lives to satisfy the masters’ needs.
Selfishness rules in the new age. Today’s free market principles are interpreted by many as allowance to make money “ethics free”. Maximizing profit, minimizing cost, and doing whatever it takes to be on top and in front, are acceptable, even admirable, as long as you can get away with it. The measure of success in life has become more materialistic. Showing off wealth and power is called good image, while pretense is regarded as prestige.
“When we opened our shops in the morning, some of us get luckier. Customers would come to them first. In this case, the lucky merchant would direct the next customer saying ‘I’ve had my opening share this morning, please see my neighbors, who hadn’t had similar luck,’” said a merchant about the old good days in Jeddah. I’ve heard similar stories from all around the Arab world, when social standing had more to do with giving than taking, serving than being served, and sacrificing than plundering.
Another senior merchant related, “When the children of a famous merchant family decided to import food products to compete with a merchant specialized in the same products, the elders of their family were very upset. They took away the new shipment, and sold it at cost price to the other merchant with an apology for trespassing on his commercial territory. Today, businessmen may cut each other’s throats in competition, for pennies. No principles are respected anymore!”
Selfishness is a natural human tendency. Civilized cultures rectify it. Religions are basically set of rules, frames and modes that make up a culture of ethics. Goodness, passion and consideration are the antidotes of selfishness. Then come civic laws and regulations. Sophisticated societies punish those who abuse others while promoting self-interests and reward those who help, cooperate and support. In the absence of such rules and antidotes, the disease of “Me First” makes life a real jungle.
Islam is more about how we deal and treat each other than how we worship Allah, who doesn’t need us, but His children do. He says: (Verily prayer forbids indecency and dishonor.) (29:45) And the Prophet (peace be upon him) declares: (The most perfect of believers in faith is the most beautiful of them in character.) He also announces that he was sent to us to complete the best in our ethics and morals.
Still, many — too many — believe if they pray and fast, and do their worship duties that is enough to guarantee them paradise.
Unfortunately, our social education doesn’t help much. Following the example of their fathers and elders, children act as only the self matters. They grow up feeling that all they need to do to survive and proposer is to look after one’s own interests.
The other day, my son was telling me that his friends were blaming their country for not providing them with jobs and housing. Now that is so selfish! Why should the government, parents or society be responsible for providing a whole generation with all their needs, aspirations and even luxuries? What, in return, do or did they give back to their country, family and society? Isn’t it enough they were given full boarding and university education, free of charge? Why don’t they take responsibility for their own destiny, and start paying back their dues?
Selfishness shows its ugly face everywhere. We see it in the wasting of resources like water, energy, and food, without any regard for the have-nots and future generations. We see it on the road where you see lots of bad driving and poor eétiquette. It is not because drivers don’t know what is wrong and right, but because they want to jump ahead, park by the door, and reach there first. It doesn’t matter if such action would be at the expense of others — shocking traffic or delaying those who stood in line and followed the rules. All they care about is what is good for them.
“Me Comes First” is seen at its worst when laws are not strict, properly observed or justly applied. The same line-jumper, rule-breaker and fast-driver would not dare to do so in places or countries were such behavior is not tolerated. In Dubai, many of us follow traffic, civic and commercial regulations. They pay the rent on time, write valid checks, and refrain from harassing women in public, and generally respect rules and regulations that are not respected in their own country.
What do you think dear readers? How can we change this culture of selfishness? Would religion, education and media be useful tools? Or do we just need to apply stricter rules? Do we ignore our generation as a hopeless case and focus on the new generation? How? Lets share thoughts!
— Dr. Khaled M. Batarfi is a Saudi writer based in Jeddah. He can be reached at kbatarfi@gmail.com. Follow him at Twitter:@kbatarfi
http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20151006258747
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Media And Education Challenge In Afghanistan
By ABDULLAH BOZKURT
October 05, 2015
The resurgence of violence, a stubbornly lingering narcotic-financing chain and growing economic difficulties in Afghanistan have put a damper on optimism for the future of the country, yet I believe hope is still strong among the resilient Afghan people and certainly there is no shortage of success stories that will keep them going.
In the fourth series of the Herat Security Dialogue (HSD) last week, held by the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS), many who came from Afghanistan's neighboring and more distant countries echoed these hopes, including me. Speaking on the media, education and culture panel in the Saturday session, I recalled my first experience in Afghanistan back in 2012 when I was struck by the amazing success story that was little-known outside of Afghanistan, a country that is often associated with wars, drugs, refugees and human rights violations.
A short report published in the Turkish media told the audience in my home country that young Afghan students enrolled in Kabul's international Afghan-Turkish schools brought home 75 medals (12 gold, 24 silver and the rest bronze) at an international Olympiad competition of 1,500 students from 135 countries. It stated that altogether, Turkish-Afghan schools achieved 212 awards (of which 71 were gold) in various highly competitive international science contests. That showed how competitive Afghans can be given the right tools and instruments. Sharing this story with participants at Herat, I made a plea that we need to amplify these success stories in our media networks.
Going back to this wonderful city three years later, I did some investigative journalism and talked to the principals and teachers employed in these schools both in Kabul and Herat and found that this success story is still going on and in fact with far more impressive results achieved by the best and brightest young Afghan students who are enrolled there. Among some 7,000 students (more than 2,000 are girls, by the way) in 20 schools scattered among six provinces, these schools have so far collected 717 awards in international competitions (230 gold, 232 silver and 255 bronze). That is a 238 percent increase in a very short time span.
That shows the critical role of education in the future of the Afghan nation. In the media, we should give broader coverage to education and not shy from publishing success stories so that people are inspired in Afghanistan and beyond. Especially during difficult times when the security situation is getting worse and economic difficulties are growing, people need to hear these stories to continue clinging to hope. If we do that, perhaps we'll break the vicious cycle of pessimism and realize what former Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid emphasized in his keynote speech at the Herat conference: Education will eradicate poverty by creating more opportunities for young people and finally it will eliminate security concerns and deal with challenges.
The key ingredient is local ownership. At the end of the day, it is up to the Afghan people to make a difference and sustain this positive momentum. Although the Turkish-Afghan schools started out as an investment by Turkish businessmen who were inspired by the teachings of the well-respected Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen -- who has been a leading voice in advocating the idea of science, critical thinking and interfaith and intercultural dialogue -- they are now owned by Afghans. Out of some 1,000 staff members employed in these schools, only one-tenth are Turkish nationals.
We should not forget that investment in education produces more sustainable results than investing in wartime efforts that only deal with the symptoms of fanaticism and radicalization, rather than the root problems. It is estimated that the war in Afghanistan had come to a staggering cost of almost $1 trillion for the US government by the end of 2014. According to US Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko, the money spent in Afghanistan, adjusted for inflation, outweighs the Marshall Plan to reconstruct post-World War II Europe.
The Afghan people question how much of that aid, as well as other funds coming from donors, was in fact spent wisely and whether the scarce resources in the government's budget were allocated efficiently. The soul-searching is still going on. Again, the media's role is crucial here in exposing waste and corruption in the government and the private sector. Responsible journalism is paramount for good governance because it scrutinizes the government on behalf of the public interest. That is why transparency in media ownership -- a challenging issue that is not unique to Afghanistan -- must be addressed as well.
We know from experience that a lack of transparency is typically used to hide political or commercial interests in controlling media companies. The fundamental importance of freedom of information through the media requires transparency in ownership structures so that citizens can form an opinion on the value of the information disseminated by the media. In Turkey, this is a major problem because the pro-government media, financed by kickbacks from companies in exchange for lucrative government contracts and tenders, has a fuzzy picture when it comes to ownership structures and complicates the job of free and independent media.
Both senior journalists in Afghanistan and officials who have considerable knowledge of the pervasive and disruptive penetration of Iranian influence in Afghan society say some 70 percent of the media in the country is controlled today by Iran. Just as proxy battles in terrorism and drug trafficking must end on Afghan soil for locals to continue with reconciliation and nation-building efforts, the proxy media battles must also cease. That is as important as battling radical elements for the fledgling Afghan democracy. Otherwise, a media that works under foreign influence will continue to provoke divisions, spread false rumors, perpetuate prejudices and amplify differences among some 50 diverse groups in Afghan society.
The media's role also relates to the problem of ignorance, as emphasized during the conference by Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and former ambassador to Afghanistan. He talked about ignorance and fear on both sides of the aisle when it comes to difficulties in communicating between Muslims and non-Muslims. Some of the blame for that surely goes to the media, which conveys and amplify fears to the respective audience. Hence, we need to review our editorial policies to reflect better understanding and enhance dialogue while striving harder to minimize the fear of others.
While Afghans are looking for ways to rise up to the challenges amid lackluster interest from the international community, the people who love this great nation in the heart of Asia should continue to not only seek success stories but also support and even create new ones in partnership with Afghans.
http://www.todayszaman.com/columnist/abdullah-bozkurt/media-and-education-challenge-in-afghanistan_400646.html
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The roots of Syria's tragedy
John McHugo
05 Oct 2015
The conflict in Syria is often described as the greatest humanitarian disaster of the 21st century. Half of Syria's population of 24 million has been displaced either internally or externally, and unprecedented numbers of refugees are frantically seeking safety in Europe. These include Muslims and Christians alike.
Many are professional people with transferable skills and some knowledge of English or French, but there are also tens of thousands of rural poor, who will find adapting to life on a different continent very difficult.
Their push at the European door shows that they, too, want the life that Europeans lead: with freedom, democracy, and a chance to make their own way in an economic environment that is not strangled by corruption.
Ramifications of Sykes-Picot
Nevertheless, by drawing attention to the scale of this tragedy, commentators risk depriving it of context. It is but the latest - if not the largest - in a series of refugee crises arising from the events that followed on from the arbitrary partition of the Arabic-speaking provinces of the Ottoman Empire by Britain and France after World War I.
That partition led to injustices intertwined with instability, which have played their part in incubating the Syrian tragedy. Before Syria descended into chaos in 2011, it had been forced - as had Jordan and Lebanon - to accommodate successive waves of destitute people fleeing their homes.
Syria gave refuge to Iraqis escaping the effects of sanctions after 1990, and then from the organised crime and sectarian strife which have been hallmarks of the new Iraq since 2003. It did what it could with its limited resources, although the influx put strains on its economy and society.
The poorest refugees became very noticeable in the cities, where they almost drove the local shoe-shine boys out of business. Overcrowded schools were faced with a deluge of additional pupils for which there was little funding. At the same time, Iraqis with money started buying homes. This exacerbated a severe housing shortage and even led to a change in laws to restrict house purchases by foreigners.
Yet, this wasn't the only refugee crisis in the area at that time. During Israel's pulverisation of Lebanon in the summer of 2006, nearly one million Lebanese - perhaps over a quarter of the country's population - were displaced internally or turned into refugees who fled the country.
Around 180,000 entered Syria and were frequently welcomed by hospitable local families, even in the poorest areas of the country. These refugees were lucky since most were eventually able to return home.
Before that, during Lebanon's 15 years of civil war from 1975 to 1990, Lebanese were routinely forced to take refuge with their kith and kin in the heartland of their sect-tribe. Many of them, too, would finally be able to return to their homes.
Never-ending plight
But the earliest refugee crisis was that of Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. Even before the unilateral proclamation of the State of Israel in May 1948, much dispossession of Palestinians had already been carried out by the Zionist militias that would become the Israeli army.
As the Palestinian historian Rashid Khalidi has succinctly put it, those who set up the Jewish state, "understood the well-established demographic calculus of Palestine, which meant that without such ethnic cleansing, the new state would have had nearly as many Arabs as Jews".
Some of these refugees still live under Israeli occupation for the purposes of international law, such as the 70 percent of the population of Gaza who were driven into the enclave by Israeli forces. Although some of them live virtually in sight of their ancestral homes, they have little prospect of return.
Other Palestinians have made new lives abroad, but many have been unable to do so. With the exception of Jordan, Arab countries have been unwilling to give them full citizenship.
Their despair at their abandonment by the international community caused some to turn to armed resistance, something which led to the bloody crushing of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Jordan during "Black September" in 1970, the eventual destabilisation of Lebanon in the 1970s, the Israeli invasion of 1982, in which thousands of civilians were killed, and, more recently, the suicide bombings and untargeted rockets fired at Israeli civilians by Hamas and other Islamist resistance groups.
When the father of Alan al Kurdi, the three year old who drowned in the surf near Bodrum, rebuked wealthy Arab states for not offering hospitality to Syrian refugees, many will have heard an echo of the plea of the Palestinians for justice.
With the future of Syria so uncertain, will many Syrians, too, now find themselves deprived of the right to return to their homes? If so, the long-term consequences on the stability of the area are unbearable to think about.
John McHugo is the author of "A Concise History of the Arabs" and "Syria: A Recent History".
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/10/roots-syria-tragedy-151004075956712.html
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Re-humanising death in the media
Andrew Eagle
October 06, 2015
This writer firmly believes that all deaths are equal. As such, he confesses as a personal flaw that, being an Australian living Dhaka, it has taken the recent deaths of Italian Cesare Tavella and Japanese Hoshi Kunio for him to reconsider how such deaths are reported. Like all Bangladeshis, he is used to the violent deaths to be found in any day's broadsheet.
There can be no doubt that human life is highly valued in Bangladesh. One only needs to attend a funeral to witness the devastation of grieving friends and relatives. At times, this grief is depicted in newspaper photographs or short, grief-stricken televised statements by relatives, such as in the case of the victims burnt to death by petrol bombs earlier this year.
While the value of the media publicising such moments of sheer grief can rightly be questioned in terms of needing to be balanced with a family's right to grieve privately, all too often this is the only chance readership and viewership has to better appreciate the humanness of the tragedy.
The uniqueness of the murdered individual is almost never elaborated upon, that uniqueness which makes each of us irreplaceable. From the moment their chests ceased to rise and fall with breath, Tavella and Kunio were reduced to a list a statistics: nationality, occupation, age. A few additional details filtered through: NGO-worker Tavella had been in Bangladesh for a few short months. Kunio had a grass farm in Kaunia.
There is much more to know.
Bangladesh is not a usual choice for either Italians or Japanese to live and work. How did Tavella come to decide to move to Dhaka, what were his thoughts upon arriving, how was he settling in, what did he think of the food, culture and society? I'd be interested in what he did before and it'd be meaningful to know anecdotes such as the often humorous misunderstandings that are a part of settling in any new country. Too, I wonder about his opinions of Islam and working in a Muslim-majority nation, which likely run counter to the intolerant views of his murderers.
With work colleagues in Dhaka, it cannot be too difficult to uncover at least some of what made him unique. Such reporting could highlight his value to Bangladesh by way of specific contribution or simply in contributing to Dhaka's wealth of human diversity.
From a Bangladeshi perspective, Kunio's life seems even more intriguing. Did he speak Bangla? Did he often spend an evening in a teashop laughing with local friends or was he bookish? He must've known many people in Rangpur. They must know what he thought of the place, what it was that kept him returning. Given he has a long history with Bangladesh, it seems likely his contribution, at the least in building cultural bridges, is substantial. And yet we don't know.
Some days following their deaths, the two have sometimes even lost their names. They've become 'the two foreigners'. While in newsprint there are space constraints, is that entirely necessary?
Then there comes speculation about responsibility. While it is of course valid to report on such issues, at times it becomes so abstract that it borders on offensive. After all, a corpse is a corpse no matter whether or not there is a conspiracy at work, or if those responsible are home grown or directed from abroad. Even when considering possibilities, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that two precious, individual lives have been violently ended.
Too, in reports of reaction by the government officials, there has been little focus on condolences. Often I have criticised Australia but one thing the media there seems to do a little better is to ensure that such simple gestures of sympathy and co-humanity take more central space. When the Prime Minister expresses sadness at the loss of life, she does it on behalf of all Bangladeshis. It's important, more important than the subsequent speculation about who might be responsible.
Then there is the question of the Japanese name. In some reports he is referred to as Hoshi Kunio; in others he is Kunio Hoshi. Like most of the country's journalists, I am not a Japanese expert. But it only takes a minute to discover on Google that in Japan a surname comes first. Taking a minute to clarify a man's correct name would surely demonstrate respect.
I feel that I still know nothing about these two individuals. I want to know, because the tragic irony is that reducing humans to a list of basic facts is not altogether different, though of course less extreme, than what fundamentalists do. It was dehumanising the individual that made them targets. The media could better reflect the high value life holds in Bangladeshi society. They could do more to humanise reporting of violent deaths.
The writer is an English Instructor and Feature Writer at The Daily Star.
http://www.thedailystar.net/op-ed/politics/re-humanising-death-the-media-152434
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/re-humanising-death-media-new/d/104807