December 28, 2005 Semantics used to soften the horrors of war
and occupation
We are
fast becoming a nation of drones where money and political power is
transforming our lives. Newspaper editors and writers are under increasing
pressure to use a PC lexicon to describe current events. Those who resist these
pressures and attempt to maintain their traditional role as watch dogs of
democracy often suffer the wrath of their corporate advertisers or the power
brokers in Washington. For example, the term illegal Jewish settlements has been replaced by
the softer term, ‘settlements’, or ‘disputed settlements’ or ‘outposts’ by a
directive from Colin Powell, in 2001, under pressure from the Jewish lobby. The apartheid
wall separating the West Bank from ‘greater Israel’ is now referred to as a
‘fence’. The language of the Iraq war and rules of engagement, conceived by the
second pro-consul, Paul Bremer, was obediently followed by most of the US
media. Great care was taken to exclude
the graphic images of the ‘shock and awe’ aerial attacks to minimize public
outrage. Hidden from the American public were the US flag draped coffins and
wounded American troops.
Iraqis who
resisted the illegal invasion were demonized as terrorists, rebels, remnants of
the former regime or simply the ‘bad guys’.
Writers, or commentators who attempted to travel along the ‘road less traveled’
often suffered the ultimate fate. The semantic effect of this journalistic
obfuscation is to sanitize the insane horrors of war and blunt public
opposition to actions which violate the basic tenets of all great religions and
basic human decency.
No comments:
Post a Comment