[Reader-list] an article about media

[Taraprakash]

(from Hindu)

Opening western minds to international crosswinds
Ramesh Thakur
Why do the major newspapers not organise a reciprocal exchange of columns — 
we will publish as many of your articles per month as you take of ours?
THE TECHNICAL gadget that Americans are most in need of, it's been said, is 
a hearing aid. Too many of them are prone to lecture, hector, and otherwise
pressure much of the rest of the world, in the far from touching belief that 
the American way is the only way.
To be sure, America and Americans do indeed have much to be immodest about. 
The vibrancy, dynamism, and energy of Americans can be very infectious. The
pinnacles of achievements that the United States as a country, society, and 
people has reached is worthy of great self-pride. Some of the rage against
all things American is based on nothing more substantial than envy of the 
successful, as captured in the protest banner "Yankee go home — and take me 
with
you!" That said, it is just as true that, in most civilisations, humility is 
a greater social virtue than pride and vanity on constant public display.
There must be a good reason why we have one mouth for speaking but two ears 
for listening.
Before the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, many other governments 
were at the receiving end of moralising lectures, from westerners in general 
and
Americans in particular, about the absolute inviolability of human rights, 
no matter how grave or real the security threats some of them faced. The 
subsequent
trajectory of American practices and discourse shows just how shallow the 
understanding of and commitment to human rights was. But it also proves the 
point
about world views being grounded in our own experiences, much more so than 
in any abstract conception. The world view and perspectives of western 
governments,
scholars, and commentators changed dramatically after 9/11 with regard to 
the proper balance between hard and soft power, force and diplomacy, 
security
and liberty, and unilateralism and multilateralism, compared with what their 
previous position had been based on — theoretical arguments rather than 
actual
experience.
The progress of history rests on the battle for supremacy of competing 
ideas. The power and wealth of western countries give them a dominant role 
in shaping
the international public discourse. This is a privileged position they have 
earned, and the rest of us have little claim to object. But imagine if the
United States had given a respectful hearing to opinion from around the 
world in 2002-03 on Iraq: the wasteful spilling of so much American blood 
and treasure
might have been avoided.
Yet there is no effort by any of the mainstream U.S. media, as far as I 
know, to harvest international opinion on the great issues of the day for 
dissemination
to the domestic American audience. Instead the trafficking in the opinions 
and thoughts of international public intellectuals is almost all one-way. 
This
seems to rest on an implicit racist assumption in both camps. Namely, that 
when western and non-western values diverge, the latter are in the wrong and
it is only a matter of working on them with persuasion and pressure for the 
problem to be resolved and progress achieved. The cognitive blindness is 
shown
in the statement by scholars Thomas Risse and Stephen C. Ropp that "pressure 
by western states and international organisations can greatly increase the
vulnerability of norm-violating governments to external influences." 
Self-evidently, only non-western governments can be norm violators; western 
governments
can only be norm setters and enforcers. The philosophical antecedents of 
such beliefs lie in the 18 th-19th century theory of evolutionary progress 
through
diffusion and acculturation from the west to the rest.
Or consider what, in some ways, is a more tragic example. A massive 
earthquake and tsunami struck the Indian Ocean on December 26. In the three 
weeks following
that, the International Herald Tribune published 16 opinion articles on, or 
in relation to, the tragedy. Not one was by an Asian. The equally 
influential
Financial Times published six articles, of which again not one was by an 
Asian. Each by itself was of very high quality, as one would expect from 
these
newspapers. Nevertheless, it would be surprising to find that either paper 
has ever carried opinion and analytical pieces on a major western tragedy 
(9/11,
the London bombing, the Madrid bombing) written solely by developing country 
authors.
This imbalance of voice in the international discourse has built up a 
dangerous sense of resentment by the silent majority of the world's peoples. 
Developing
country governments sometimes complain about the activities of international 
media commentators as interference in their internal affairs and view them
suspiciously as instruments of `soft' western intervention. They are surely 
right in the implied belief that media weight augments foreign policy tools
and comprises part of what Harvard University's Joseph Nye has labelled 
"soft power." The U.S. is indeed a more powerful world actor for being able 
to
draw on a rich civil society, a depth of scholarly knowledge, and a media 
that has market dominance and reaches into the farthest nook and cranny 
around
the world.
Still, this begs two questions. First, should not governments learn how best 
to strengthen civil society in their own countries and enter into 
partnership
with them in the pursuit of shared international goals? Why is it that 
non-western governments complain about biased coverage by western media 
instead
of doing something constructive? Journalists are censored, manipulated, 
harassed, and sometimes even imprisoned and liquidated.
To be sure, English is the dominant medium of global communication, and the 
BBC and CNN are truly global brands in the world of media. Yet today they 
are
being challenged by Al Jazeera, to the point where Washington has had a 
strained if not antagonistic relationship with the group in relation to its 
coverage
of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Of the large and well-established Asian democracies, India and Japan could 
easily by now have supported the emergence of truly global media brands as 
well.
Quite a few Indian journalists have world recognition but, almost without 
exception, they work for western print and electronic media. In its 
desperation
to control information, news and analyses, the Indian government has 
effectively aborted the rise of independent Indian news services with the 
authority
and credibility to command a global following. Not for nothing was AIR known 
as "All Indira Radio."
The BBC provided the model; is it the west's fault that Indians failed to 
emulate such a positive example? The net result is that India (like China 
and
Japan) does indeed lack a key agent of international influence and a crucial 
ingredient of soft power in the modern networked world. In this respect, 
sadly,
India is a metaphor for all of Asia. The challenge for enlightened national 
interest diplomacy is how best to nurture civil society and credible media
so that they help to project local values and perspectives to a receptive 
international audience.
Second, western commentators have their columns regularly reprinted in 
newspapers all over the world, which is good. Readers of The Hindu have 
regular access
to selected opinion articles from The Guardian. Should westerners not make a 
deliberate effort to read and listen to what the rest of the world might 
have
to say? Should not readers of The Guardian be exposed to The Hindu's 
columnists? Or do we simply assume that if the rest of the world has a 
different opinion,
it is wrong? It is clear to me, as a professor and as a high-level U. N. 
official, that the writings of Siddharth Varadarajan, to take just one 
example
from these pages, do not compare unfavourably to the best that The Guardian 
has to offer on some of the most sensitive contemporary issues like Iran.
Hence the final question: why do the major newspapers not organise a 
reciprocal exchange of columns — we will publish as many of your articles 
per month
as you take of ours? Or do we share the westerners' implicit belief that 
what they have to say on any and every topic is important for the whole 
world
to know; but what we have to say about our own affairs may perhaps be worth 
considering, but otherwise we should know our place and stay there.
(Ramesh Thakur is senior vice rector of the UN University in Tokyo. These 
are his personal views.)