Refugee Journalism?

This question of ‘refugee journalism’ in an ideal journalistic sense set me thinking when I read an article about ‘Bhutan’s way of ethnic cleansing’, http://www.exponto.nl/mags/003_004/exPonto03.pdf , which appeared in Ex Ponto magazine, web/print magazine written by refugee journalists for the Dutch media. This article is written by Nanda Gautam, a Bhutanese refugee working for OHM, a national TV channel for the Dutch Hindu communities. Of course, I do respect his opinion but his article contains some wrong information. For instance, he says that the ‘newly written Constitution is drafted without including representatives from the Lhotshampa community’, the minority group in Bhutan. This is not true. There were three representatives from the Lhotshampa community. They were elected by the people as their representatives.

 

And also Gautam writes that the Constitution does not incorporate religious, cultural sentiments of the Hindus nor the rights of the minorities. This again is not true. According to Article 7 (4), every ‘Bhutanese citizen shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion’.

 

According to the new Constitution, there shall be no more than three ministers from one region. And, in the current parliament there are eight directly elected MPs from the Lhotshampa community. Of these elected members, two are ministers (in-charge of Education and Communications portfolios) and one is Deputy Speaker.

 

The question that rises here is of the objectivity and the credibility of both the magazine and the journalist. As I said earlier, that I have nothing against the author or the magazine, nor do I want to undermine role of refugee journalists. In fact, I appreciate the fact that a magazine like Ex Ponto is creating a platform for the unheard voices. But, as journalists, we have to keep in mind what JOURNALISM is all about, don’t we? 

 

We have discussed at length the issues of minority journalists, in the class and elsewhere. Through our instructors, guest speakers and from the readings we now have some idea of how one feels to be a minority journalists or a minority working for the mainstream media. We have also discussed the question of ‘detachment and disinterestedness’, ethics, belongingness and sensationalism as some of the major drawbacks for minority media and minority journalists. But what about refugee journalists? So, how different is ‘refugee journalism’ from ‘minority journalism’?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When cultures collide, open your mind (and maybe a history book)…

Since the second week of school when our program officially began at our beloved “DSJ” or Journalisthøjskolen in Aarhus, and just about the time we were learning to pronounce each other’s names, map the fastest bus and bike routes to school, and find the best shawarma in town, we were also “introduced” to a figure that will continue to follow us forever after as we make our way through our academic and professional careers.

                

Mr. Huntington and his grand debate. The great ‘clash of civilizations’ – an obvious topic of discussion for a masters program in journalism, let alone one studying globalization from a specifically European perspective. So, I couldn’t help but be intrigued when an article arrived in my mailbox here in Amsterdam. The article was actually a speech. It was written and delivered by Professor Georges Corm, a lecturer at Saint Joseph University in Beirut and the former Minister of Finance of Lebanon. On the occasion of a book launch for the Cultures and Globalization Series I: Conflicts and Tensions, Professor Corm gave an interesting, thought provoking, and most of all alternate viewpoint to what we’ve been reading in our textbooks.

 

In his presentation- entitled “Reducing the divide between the West and the East”- Prof Corm discusses why the west(-ern elite) typically frame the division between the Arab and Western world in a “sterile” way that focuses on the “essential nature” of religious or cultural differences. Rather, Corm argued, we need to put aside discussions on religion and value to overcome the “Huntingtonian thesis” that each culture (either Muslim or non-Muslim) is the same and cannot change. We also need, says Corm, to avoid (utopian) visions for a unified world, because it is not the specific cultural values that are sources of tension, but rather how we historically contextualize the different “traumas”- in this case those experienced by the European and the Arab worlds (ie. WW II and the division of Palestine, respectively). It is only through an understanding of the implications of these traumas (and not the religious or cultural factors) that we can trace the present-day strained and divided relations that exists between the two “civilizations”.

 

His idea of “mega-identities” is a particularly interesting for our class to consider, especially after an intense month of political science with Professor Georg Sorenson in Aarhus last semester. Corm’s notion refers to how globalization has forged new ethnic and religious identities in place of our traditional ‘national and secular identities’. Western mega-identities are positioned opposite the “antagonistic blocs of countries”; Muslims countries lumped together and assumed to all share the same “civilization”, and thus also share the same basic values.

 

Without going further into the specifics of Corm’s argument and his historical analysis of why and how the “Jewish trauma” has pinned Arabs as anti-Semitics and relinquished Europeans of their post-genocide burden so they may fulfill a “moral obligation to Israel”, I will instead offer the link and invite my heterogeneous and culturally diverse classmates to comment on their own thoughts regarding Huntington and Corm:

www.princeclausfund.org/en/c_and_d/policy/princeclausfundpublicationconflictandtensions.shtml

 

The right to provoke?

When does freedom of expression become the right to provoke? This question has been lingering in my mind since the publication of the Mohammed cartoons three years ago and this was stirred recently with the release of ‘Fitna’, a very controversial anti-Islamic film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Not surprisingly, the Mohammed cartoons caused a big uproar all over the world. Some of the demonstrations turned violent. Wilders says he hopes his film does not result in violence but, and this is what caught my eye, “should this happen, which I don’t hope, then it’s the people who use violence or threats who are responsible.” This assertion not only challenges the principle of causality but also portrays the arrogance of its speaker. If not for the gravity of the matter, it would have been laughable how Wilders shifts the blame to the targets of his vitriol.

Writing about the flap over the Danish cartoons, Gary Younge, a US correspondent of The Guardian who also writes a monthly column for The Nation, captured this clearly in his 2006 piece titled ‘The Right to be Offended’. He wrote: “Muslims were in effect being vilified twice–once through the original cartoons and then again for having the gall to protest them. Such logic recalls the words of the late South African black nationalist Steve Biko: ‘Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked’”.

Of particular concern to me, however, is the recent ruling by a Dutch court that ‘Fitna’ is legal and its maker is allowed to exercise his freedom of expression (Fitna by the way means gossip in Swahili). Of course there is nothing groundbreaking about this ruling considering that independent courts worldwide have in most cases upheld the right of individuals to express themselves. I haven’t had an opportunity to go through the ruling, but based on media reports I have looked at it seems to me that the equally important right to religion was downplayed in the case. A court spokesman reportedly said: “There is a grey area involving some of Wilders’ statements, which could be provocative, but he is not crossing the line.” The tricky question here is where to draw the line between the competing rights of expression and religion.

Although I don’t want to impute any motives on the court’s verdict, it’s curious (at least to me) that the honourable court ruled in favour of Wilders, who in word and in deed has averred that he wants to stem the growing Islamic influence in the West. Wilder’s argument is based on the false premise that Islam and Western democracy are incongruous. Discussing this with some of my fellow Mundusians (Erasmus Mundus students), it came as a surprise that some of them are absolutists, who believe the Fitna and Mohammed cartoon controversies should solely be about freedom of expression, arguing that Islam shouldn’t be immune to criticism and satire. I however beg to disagree. Freedom of expression is not and shouldn’t be a license to provoke. I therefore fully agree with Gary that “freedom of speech equates to neither an obligation to offend nor a duty to be insensitive”. I also believe that those who are offended have a right to protest. In this regard, I want to end with another quote from Gary: “The right to offend must come with at least one consequent right and one subsequent responsibility. People must have the right to be offended, and those bold enough to knowingly cause offense should be bold enough to weather the consequences, so long as the aggrieved respond within the law”.

 

The limits of literacy

Since I was six, I have considered myself a literate person. After all, doesn’t literacy mean being able to read and write? In fact, back home I am considered not only literate, but one of the best educated—for, as my people put it, having gone to university “not on a guided tour” but for serious studies.

But my visits to Europe have left me wondering whether am literate or illiterate. First it was in Berlin, a few years ago, where I spent over an hour in a supermarket looking for such mundane commodities as sugar and salt. Everything was branded in German, and every German I asked which was what s/he had a ready answer for me, “I don’t speak English”. I wondered silently whether the “I don’t speak English” was a German phrase. Finally I bought my goods, partly through intuition and with the help of a young lady who knew some more English than “I don’t speak English”. Never mind that I ended with white shoe polish instead of toothpaste in my bag!

The case is not peculiar to Germany, as I have witnessed the same in Denmark and Netherlands although on a lesser scale. You can hardly read the menu in the hotel, or even the free newspaper you pick in the street. You end up ogling at pictures trying to decipher what’s in the news.

I feel utterly illiterate every time I do this. I have pleaded with people in buses to read the headlines for me. What’s more stupid than asking; “Eh, I have a newspaper here, could you tell me what the headline says?”

I remembered all these when Sulakshana, a classmate pleaded with us to contribute a Euro each to support Amsterdam Weekly, the only English newspaper in Amsterdam, which is on its death bed. Now 40 Euros, we are a class of 40, cannot save Amsterdam weekly, but the gesture is quite telling; that those in the Netherlands who cannot speak Dutch need Amsterdam Weekly, and more.

I believe it is the high time that the EU came up with a common language for Europe. English, I think can do the trick, as it is spoken by many people in Europe (don’t ask for statistics, I don’t have them).

 

“Where you from? you sexy thing !”

‘Full Monty’ grabbed my attention. But it just turned out to be the name board of a popular corner-restaurant in Leidsplien. I am sorry ladies, it offers little by way of female entertainment, but sure looks like doing a good job of recreating the English breakfast experience in a bustling Amsterdam hot-spot.

The name is of course borrowed from a British film set in Sheffield, “the beating heart of Britain’s industrial north.” The movie features a bunch of out-of-work metal industry workers stripping to make ends meet. Surely, the British tourists, whom the restaurant is obviously targeting, would make the connection.

But to my Indian mind, the metal industry, the Netherlands, the Britishness and The full Monty manifested in another way. The sign-board stands in the cultural capital city of the Netherlands, one of whose biggest steel companies was acquired by a company from what was once a former colony of the British. (India’s Tata group acquired the Dutch steelmaker Corus in a multi-billion-dollar deal almost a year ago.)

But that is just an Indian student making confounded connections. What is more interesting is that the ‘Kitchen is open until closing time.’ Just in case you thought otherwise. Have a good English folksJ

 

Sticky notes from Holland

Last week, as the much-publicized Geert Wilders film Fitna buffered on my computer screen, I remembered a Saturday evening spent sparring about prejudice. The location: my gay cousin’s loft in Wimbledon, London, and my opponent his straight flat mate, a Dutchie whom I’ll call W for anonymity’s sake. I was trying to remember the name of a candy I had come to love in my four months living in Denmark earlier that year. As I described the bulbous chocolate coated sweetie to him, a spark of recognition flashed across his face, “Oh yeah I know that. We call it Negerkuss (Negro kiss).” “You don’t think that’s a bit umm, politically incorrect?” I asked. He frowned like it was the first time anyone had asked him that. And it was. After a short while he retorted, “Sainsbury in London sells Indian tonic water.” Somehow I don’t think it’s the same.

Most people don’t believe they’re prejudiced and it shocks them to realise that the shoe might actually fit. W quickly googled something and proclaimed that the name of the candy had recently been changed to the more neutral Chocolate Kiss. But it doesn’t matter, just like most people still call Myanmar Burma and I call Mumbai Bombay, the old names tend to hang on. In India, many pejorative terms used to describe Muslim minorities are still whispered behind closed doors. In remote villages you and I will never visit, people from our backward classes still have “untouchable” slurred at them.

The same with Allochtoon. Recently I had a promising article read to me from the newspaper Spits which talked about outlawing the use of the word in Holland (http://www.spitsnet.nl/nieuws.php/1/12104/online/Schaf_woord_allochtoon_af.html). I’m afraid that despite these measures, it simply won’t go away. Mr Wilders won’t let it. If prohibited by law, it will just make the transition to street slang. What is more disheartening is that films like Fitna are actually helping to add to the body of labels that already exists.

I’m aware that Holland is a champion of free speech, “He has a right to his opinion,” said W. But I’m afraid this beautiful country is attracting a label of its own—racist. It’s sad that so many have to endure this name calling because of a few right wingers. But just like in kindergarten, it’s catching on surprisingly fast.

We all need a good bout of de-wording to unlearn phrases and adjectives we have come to use without fully realizing their potential to offend. While this sounds like a brilliant plan I have no idea how it might be accomplished. Especially since W let it slip that he had a bag of Negro Kisses stashed in his room. He later looked a bit sheepish. But it made me realise again that labels stick longer than laws.

 

First Impressions

A city of 600,000 bicycles, 165 canals, 1400 cafes and bars, 755 ferries, 232 trams, and many more, Amsterdam, the capital and largest city of The Netherlands is a city of many colours and juxtapositions. Perhaps it is better known as the ‘city of sex and drugs’ due to its famous red light district, and liberal coffee shops where the thick heavy whiffs of weed/cannabis along with the brew can warp time into a timeless experience or eternity to infinity.

And since this is an account of my impressions and solely mine, you bet they are subjective. I could be wrong about a whole lot of things as things are not always what they seem to be, rather never! But still, my impressions of Amsterdam are my first impressions as an outsider of seeing, watching, processing and making sense of this lovely city where there is so much to do and yet nothing at all… sitting at Leidseplein, with a packet of steaming hot fries with a pinch of my favourite hot, spicy sambal sauce, especially on a weekend and watching the thoroughfare is like doing nothing and everything at the same time!

What an ethnically diverse city this is! It seems to embrace people of different colours, languages, religions, shapes and sizes that converge in a cacophony of jingle, which disperse no sooner than they met.

And then, Amsterdam as rightly pointed out by one or our classmates is a ‘city of books’ and one can lose oneself just as much in its encapsulating wonder as in the labyrinth of roads leading to and from it. Though a small city, the numerous lanes can be quite confusing… it could land you in the red light district, and catch you unaware at the sudden sight of attractive belles on the glass windows, as was the case with me when one evening I tried to find my way from the Central Station to meet a bunch of friends, or could make you go in circles just like a dog after its tail only to realise after a good “roundabout” that you could have reached the place in a shorter way or that it was just there! Ahh! What agony!

Well apart from the Dutchies, I guess most don’t know that Amsterdam is a great bird watching destination as well! No. I don’t mean it the way you think about the word “bird watching”. Today, when I was forced by one of my class mates and floor mates of Meer en Vaart (meaning where the lake meets the stream) to go for a walk on the pragmatic that it would refresh my mind, me thought, “What the hell. Let’s go. In any case I wouldn’t finish writing 4000 words or even close to it in two hours.” And being the nature lover that I am, I was pleasantly surprised by an array of wetland birds. Though I couldn’t tell off hand what birds they were when questioned by my friend, a little search back home through Fatbirder, Flevo Birdwatching and several other online guides, an I learnt that I saw the Baikal Teal, the Ice-landic Black-tailed God wits, Chiffchaff, Waxwings and many more (high up on the tree, and without the aid of my spectacles or binoculars, it was hard to recognise any).

And now before I cross my word limit any further, I’ll halt. But there is more to come… in the coming weeks. So keep yourselves posted to wereldjournalisten.

Cheers!

 

Dutch media’s coverage of Tibetan unrest

Thanks to the help of my friends here who could understand Dutch, I have now collected 17 pieces from Dutch media De Telegraaf, Volkskrant, Trouw, and NRC. After a rough review, I came across similar problems such as the misuse of pictures.

 For example in this article by De Telegraaf (http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/3558278/_Doden_bij_protesten_Tibet__.html), a picture featuring Nepali police was shown to illustrate Beijing’s crack down in Lhasa. The first paragraph read: “The Chinese authorities have tried on Friday with violence to end demonstrations in Tibet.”

Is it simply a problem about objectivity and professional standards? Or it might have something to do with the general “Tibetan complex” in western society. With the help of popular culture, from Lost Horizon to Seven Years in Tibet, Tibet has been frequently and constantly constructed as a far-away sacred place with all idealized fantasies. Dalai Lama, the religious and secular leader of Tibetan government in exile, managed to use this western utopia and gained great sympathy about his current political situation. As Australian scholar Peter Bishop once pointed out, “Tibetan refugee group might be the most successful minority in the world since it’s the only one that actually mobilizes mainstream media”.

Back to the issue. Lack of transparency – as usual not of any surprise – in China’s government action also contributes to this misunderstanding. China does have a lot to improve regarding its policies in Tibet, and should be blamed for some of that. But this doesn’t give excuse to bias rooted in media discourse.

 

“Anti-cnn.com”, an outcry against bias

Coverage of recent Tibetan riots in western media has triggered huge resentment among Chinese communities abroad, who accuse the West for media bias. An independent website (http://www.anti-cnn.com) was set up to “expose the lies and distorted facts in the western media”. CNN has been exposed under cross-fire together with some other big names like BBC, Times, Fox, and a vast number of German media Spiegel, NTV, RTL etc. The website also started an English-language online forum (http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/en) 4 days ago on March 31st, which now has 1209 posts in total and a boosting number of members rush in almost every single minute.

Under the prompting slogan “We Just Want the Truth, CNN: the world’s leader of liars”, the website scrutinizes how western media like CNN have treated the riot unfairly, mainly out of two concerns:

–         Misuse of pictures and videos. Most materials used to illustrate Chinese military force in Tibet were proved to be taken in Nepal or India where some other protests took place. But all captions pointed to Chinese military violence against Tibetan protesters in Lhasa.

–         Imbalanced source. Most media only quote pro-Dalai Lama voices, saying the unrest was “Buddhist peaceful protest” and “Beijing used military violence against protesters”. The website has collected vast evidence from video clips to blogs written by western travelers who eye-witnessed the riots, to show that the protest was nothing peaceful but violence, and the death toll was mainly composed of Chinese people (instead of Tibetan protesters as Tibetan government in exile has claimed).

Very likely due to the influence of this website, protests against western media bias burst out in at least 8 countries including Canada, Germany, Australia and Sweden, self-organized by local Chinese students and immigrants.

A few media responded to such movements. German RTL apologized for being bias and misusing some of the pictures. BBC Beijing correspondent admitted “too much emphasis on Tibet side instead of a voice balance”. CNN also posts a self-defending statement (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/03/28/tibet.statement/index.html#cnnSTCText). But anti-cnn.com seems not satisfied with this and posted a “statement on CNN’s statement” (http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/en/thread-50-1-1.html) written by a Chinese student studying in Munich, Germany.

 

Australia’s reaction to Fitna

And here is Australia’s reaction to the the release of Geert Wilders’ film Fitna.

Australia being as multicultural as it is and with a large Muslim community, it comes as no surprise that the Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has expressed outrage and disagreement with the film.

In the below article Mr. Smith has been quoted saying that the film is an “obvious attempt to generate discord between faith communities”. He also added that “in Australia we believe in the right to freedom of expression but we don’t believe in abusing that right to incite racial hatred.”

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23455556-12377,00.html

Having discussed the numerous definitions of the “freedom of speech” and likewise the abuse of it when it is used to insult, where does Fitna fit into all this?