John Pilger (ed.), Tell me no lies
Jan. 31st, 2010 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraThe book I was most annoyed at myself for not finishing in 2009, because I was about thirty pages from the end for six weeks or so, this is a collection of journalistic pieces from 1945 (the liberation of Dachau) to just after 9/11, focussing on exposing unpalatable truths. Overall very good, although for me the second half has too much emphasis on the Middle East (against the war in Iraq and for Palestine). I think these are important issues – the current Chilcot inquiry certainly is attempting to address the first – but, and this is quite probably my own bias, as my views on Palestine don't mesh all that neatly with the authors, it felt as though too much space was being spent telling me the same things over again, undermining rather than emphasising their impact. Having said that, the first half - and bits of the second half - is excellent, and worth reading. I would, however, recommend not reading large chunks of it at a go unless you're already feeling particularly disenchanted with humanity.
So. Bits that stood out – Wilfred Burchett's trip to Hiroshima as the first Western correspondent after the bombing, with him travelling on a train from Tokyo (a 24 hour trip) with soldiers from the just surrendered Japanese army, and General MacArthur's staff arguing with on his return about his testimony, particularly anything that suggested the after-effects of radiation damage (the bombs having been exploded, apparently, at a height that removed any risk). Edward R. Murrow, fighting McCarthyism, and quoting Hitler as a warning – "The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it will force those who fear it to imitate it." Seymour Hersh's excellent piece on the My Lai massacre, which is clear and controlled and devastating – even when I knew the outcome I still found myself hoping that those who tried to stop it, such as the helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, would actually get somewhere.
John Pilger's own piece on Cambodia's Year Zero, which is not just about the genocide itself, but also about the aftermath; how the UN continued to recognise Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, withholding humanitarian aid, with the British SAS training Khmer soldiers, and how the fact that Vietnamese forces were the ones to liberate Cambodia meant that the US refused to support them. Pilger visited Tuol Sleng, an interrogation and death camp, with blood still on the floors and rooms full of the victims' discarded clothes; figures differ according to sources, but at least 12 000 and possibly as many as 17 000 people were imprisoned there, with 12 known survivors. Kang Geuk Eav (Duch), who ran the centre is currently on trial at the UN-backed Cambodia Tribunal and has admitted his guilt and apologised; however, when I checked his defense team were still arguing he should be acquitted, and the trials of other senior Khmer figures had not yet begun. Dame Silvia Cartwright is one of the two international judges on this tribunal, and there's also an NZ documentary coming out soon,Brother Number One, about Rob Hamill's (the NZ Olympic rower) brother, Kerry, who was tortured and killed at Tuol Sleng along with his friends after their yacht took shelter in Cambodia during a storm.
Hmm. One of the issues I have with this collection is the subtitle, which says, "Investigative journalism and its triumphs", as I don't think anything like this – or Linda Melvern's equally heart-breaking description of the Rwandan genocides, and again the UN's failure to act (again, an unexpected NZ connection – Colin Keating, president of the UN security council, desperately trying to force through a statement that called the killings genocide, the day before his term expired; the UK and the US refused, and so the statement avoided the word, and this was nearly three weeks after the murders started) can possibly be called a triumph. The pieces that I felt did fit this description were Günter Wallraff's undercover work in Germany as a "guest worker", disguising himself as a Turkish casual worker to expose the appalling conditions (an expose that prompted significant social change), possibly Anna Politkovskaya's work exposing Russia's attacks on civilians as part of their "anti-terrorist" campaign (this book was published two years before she was shot dead by an unknown assassin), and even Phillip Knightley's rather pessimistic piece on the thalidomide victims, given the recent announcement of government compensation in the UK. The rest is certainly impressive writing, but there needs to be a more ambivalent description.
Other bits I've bookmarked – Mark Curtis' piece on Suharto's seizure of power in Indonesia in the 1960s, and the secret backing by the UK and the US, along with the enthusiastic involvement of global corporations keen for the country's resources – over a million people were killed, and I'd never heard about this at all, or any of the history in Indonesia. There's an appalling quote from a British official about 10 000 prisoners, where the concern is not that they might be killed but that they not be thrown into the sea where "it will cause quite a shipping hazard." The complete lack of subsequent action when Indonesia invaded East Timor and killed about a third of its population in 1975 is almost an afterthought (the Timor piece in here reproduces confidential American briefing papers on the process). A depressing piece on Dick Cheney's plan for global dominance. And last, a translated piece by Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano, which is fierce and intelligent about inequity, and how free trade, consumerism and other supposedly good things like the war on drugs are all too often thin veils over the desire to control and perpetuate injustice.
Anyway. Finishing with two quotes that made me think. First, Pilger mentions in his introduction a quote from Orwell about how censorship in free societies is more sophisticated and thorough than in dictatorships. And second, in the Galeano piece, a quote from Bishop Helder Cámara. "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. And when I ask why they have no food, they call me a Communist."
So. Bits that stood out – Wilfred Burchett's trip to Hiroshima as the first Western correspondent after the bombing, with him travelling on a train from Tokyo (a 24 hour trip) with soldiers from the just surrendered Japanese army, and General MacArthur's staff arguing with on his return about his testimony, particularly anything that suggested the after-effects of radiation damage (the bombs having been exploded, apparently, at a height that removed any risk). Edward R. Murrow, fighting McCarthyism, and quoting Hitler as a warning – "The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it will force those who fear it to imitate it." Seymour Hersh's excellent piece on the My Lai massacre, which is clear and controlled and devastating – even when I knew the outcome I still found myself hoping that those who tried to stop it, such as the helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, would actually get somewhere.
John Pilger's own piece on Cambodia's Year Zero, which is not just about the genocide itself, but also about the aftermath; how the UN continued to recognise Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, withholding humanitarian aid, with the British SAS training Khmer soldiers, and how the fact that Vietnamese forces were the ones to liberate Cambodia meant that the US refused to support them. Pilger visited Tuol Sleng, an interrogation and death camp, with blood still on the floors and rooms full of the victims' discarded clothes; figures differ according to sources, but at least 12 000 and possibly as many as 17 000 people were imprisoned there, with 12 known survivors. Kang Geuk Eav (Duch), who ran the centre is currently on trial at the UN-backed Cambodia Tribunal and has admitted his guilt and apologised; however, when I checked his defense team were still arguing he should be acquitted, and the trials of other senior Khmer figures had not yet begun. Dame Silvia Cartwright is one of the two international judges on this tribunal, and there's also an NZ documentary coming out soon,Brother Number One, about Rob Hamill's (the NZ Olympic rower) brother, Kerry, who was tortured and killed at Tuol Sleng along with his friends after their yacht took shelter in Cambodia during a storm.
Hmm. One of the issues I have with this collection is the subtitle, which says, "Investigative journalism and its triumphs", as I don't think anything like this – or Linda Melvern's equally heart-breaking description of the Rwandan genocides, and again the UN's failure to act (again, an unexpected NZ connection – Colin Keating, president of the UN security council, desperately trying to force through a statement that called the killings genocide, the day before his term expired; the UK and the US refused, and so the statement avoided the word, and this was nearly three weeks after the murders started) can possibly be called a triumph. The pieces that I felt did fit this description were Günter Wallraff's undercover work in Germany as a "guest worker", disguising himself as a Turkish casual worker to expose the appalling conditions (an expose that prompted significant social change), possibly Anna Politkovskaya's work exposing Russia's attacks on civilians as part of their "anti-terrorist" campaign (this book was published two years before she was shot dead by an unknown assassin), and even Phillip Knightley's rather pessimistic piece on the thalidomide victims, given the recent announcement of government compensation in the UK. The rest is certainly impressive writing, but there needs to be a more ambivalent description.
Other bits I've bookmarked – Mark Curtis' piece on Suharto's seizure of power in Indonesia in the 1960s, and the secret backing by the UK and the US, along with the enthusiastic involvement of global corporations keen for the country's resources – over a million people were killed, and I'd never heard about this at all, or any of the history in Indonesia. There's an appalling quote from a British official about 10 000 prisoners, where the concern is not that they might be killed but that they not be thrown into the sea where "it will cause quite a shipping hazard." The complete lack of subsequent action when Indonesia invaded East Timor and killed about a third of its population in 1975 is almost an afterthought (the Timor piece in here reproduces confidential American briefing papers on the process). A depressing piece on Dick Cheney's plan for global dominance. And last, a translated piece by Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano, which is fierce and intelligent about inequity, and how free trade, consumerism and other supposedly good things like the war on drugs are all too often thin veils over the desire to control and perpetuate injustice.
Anyway. Finishing with two quotes that made me think. First, Pilger mentions in his introduction a quote from Orwell about how censorship in free societies is more sophisticated and thorough than in dictatorships. And second, in the Galeano piece, a quote from Bishop Helder Cámara. "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. And when I ask why they have no food, they call me a Communist."
