“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.” - Plato
Seeking Truth in a World of Propaganda. Links do not necessarily indicate agreement with stories or perspectives.
The Internet was originally promoted as a completely free and uncensored mechanism for people everywhere to exchange views and communicate, but it has been observed by many users that that is not really true anymore. Both governments and the service …
The post Internet Free Speech All but Dead appeared first on Global Research.
In February, I wrote an essay for Quillette about the Durkheimian witch-hunting taking place on the picture-sharing platform Instagram, and how it was affecting the thousands of knitters, designers, and businesses who rely on social media for their custom. My article described how a blogger and online craft store owner was denounced for writing an innocuous blog about her forthcoming trip to India, and how the yarn dyer Maria Tusken was then harassed and accused of complicity in racism for objecting to the mobbing. Businesses were chastised for their failure to be “truly inclusive” or for apologising too late when they had put a foot wrong.
Since my article appeared, things have only got worse. Kate Davies became the next target for abuse. A well-known designer, yarn vendor, and owner of her own brand of knitwear, she set up Kate Davies Designs after suffering a stroke at the age of 36, which ended her career as a literary academic. Davies is based in the Scottish Highlands, where she employs a small team of people and has won awards for sustainability. She is also a campaigner for disabled people, having had to cope with disability herself. One might assume that people committed to social justice would look elsewhere for enemies.
Her crime? In the aftermath of the “conversation,” as the campaigns to root out supposed perpetrators of racism was called, the topic of “white silence” became widely discussed. Designers and others with large followings who had hitherto failed to speak up about how they were confronting racism were now urged to do so, lest they contribute to the perpetuation of “oppression.” In a post entitled “A Letter on My Not-So-“Cozy” Doocot Sweater: aka My First and Last Kate Davies Project,” Helen Kim (@keinhelm4 on Instagram, who describes herself as an advocate for antiracism and an astrophysicist), wrote:
As more and more voices in the fiber community discussed their concerns about racism and lack of representation, I patiently waited for the designers I respected to do the same. Days went by, weeks, and yet I naively found myself wanting to give these makers the benefit of the doubt for withholding their views while they continued to advertise their products and snowy winters.
When Davies did speak out, her statement was denounced as “very harmful” by Kim. “Your words are demonstrations of entitlement to racial discomfort and racial arrogance (see Robin DiAngelo’s work on white fragility),” Kim declared. “White privilege,” she added, “is a white problem.”
Davies deleted her Instagram account, which had 75,000 followers, and posted a since deleted statement on her blog on 14 February. An archived copy of Davies’s statement was retrieved and reposted by Kim, along with her own critical commentary. Davies had written that “real change and real action can be best implemented by me outside a particular social media bubble—in promoting and amplifying the voices of BIPoC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour] in our community by taking forward projects in writing, publishing, and design that are explicitly antiracist and inclusive.” But she said she would not participate in finger-pointing or shaming on Instagram, and felt “deeply saddened” about being misrepresented and misunderstood.
It is my own political decision to choose not to speak from the particular social media script that has repeatedly been presented to me (with various level of demand); to carefully listen to marginalised voices rather than to shout; to not participate in acts of shaming and intimidation; and to refuse to engage with those who insist that the only way I can effectively demonstrate my antiracist solidarity is by continually displaying it in my Instagram stories.
Criticism mounted. Ysolda Teague, an Edinburgh-based knitting designer and owner of online knitting shop ysolda.com, weighed in, telling her followers that she would no longer stock Davies’s books. Davies then withdrew as a speaker from the Edinburgh Yarn Festival citing health reasons following a campaign led by Kim to have her disinvited. Kim, who was probably Davies’s most vocal critic, concluded a story entitled “Call Out” (which can be found at the top of her Instagram profile) with the following:
To those who worry about [Kate Davies’s] career and the impact her own reactions have caused her, perhaps you should consider that historically BIPOC have been the ones who have been wronged and oppressed. Ask yourselves: in what ways do you hold power? In what ways do you hold power over BIPOC? How have you been complicit in that structure of power? How do your actions, inactions, and privileges reflect systemic racism? How do you want to acknowledge the system and your complicity? […] KD actively SILENCED those who are different from her and tokenized them. That is called RACISM and DISCRIMINATION. As a white woman knitwear designer with over 75K followers and international renown, Kate Davies was NOT vulnerable. Rather, she was in a position of power.
In short, even though she is a disabled woman, Davies was a legitimate target because she is also white, straight, and middle class, and her business is thriving, which implies a degree of affluence.
Many of the influential activists on Instagram are academics. They draw on the work of scholars such as DiAngelo, the author of White Fragility, and recommend Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad to those needing a lesson in “how to dismantle the privilege within themselves so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of colour, and in turn, help other white people do better, too.” Only by adopting the correct political views, espoused in precisely the correct jargon, can an accused person demonstrate to the satisfaction of her persecutors that she is now a “true ally” who has “done the work.” It’s all about as inspiring as it sounds.
Each fresh campaign would last a few weeks before moving on. Inevitably, some other company or individual would make some trivial but apparently unforgivable error, such as giving their pattern or yarn the incorrect name.
Madelinetosh Co. is America’s largest hand-dyed yarn producer, owned by Amy Hendrix. Her wool is sold in 800 independently owned yarn stores around the world. Their “Inclusivity” colourway was white, beige, brown, and black to reflect various skin tones, but it was pulled from sale after furious protests. In response, Hendrix posted the following note: “This yarn was developed by women of colour in our office together. We heard your concern and removed this colour from our site. All existing proceeds will be donated to the Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Foundation.” In a follow-up post, Hendrix offered a more fulsome apology and explained why the colour had not been removed straight away: “Action was not taken sooner because I am indeed on a break working through a recent diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. I share this not for your empathy but only to explain why the colours were not removed. […] I stand with people of colour in the knitting industry, I stand with diversity.”
Needless to say, this did not satisfy her critics. @cdickdesigns, a knitting pattern designer with about 4,000 followers, said:
If a large company refuses to make a statement and refuses to moderate their own posts to protect people from vitriolic bigotry, and then make a colourway called “Inclusivity” it’s a straight-up fucking slap in the face for people like me and other people who are currently suffering in their private lives due to the pains we have shared publicly and openly.
It means that this “Inclusivity” colourway was developed solely for profit. It wasn’t created to help, educate or benefit anyone other than themselves. The colourway might as well have been called “All Lives Matter.” Right now, Madelinetosh is profiting from my pain. Madelinetosh has 95K followers and a following of cishetero white women who go into LYS [Local Yarn Store] and say things like “Do you have Madelinetosh? The only handdyed yarn I like is my Tosh!”
Laine magazine describes itself as a “high-quality Nordic knit and lifestyle magazine for knit folks.” A few months ago, it was criticized by Ysolda Teague, a stockist of Laine, for appearing to be…
…very white and that is extremely problematic. I appreciated how welcome lgbtq+ like me where [sic] in Laine, and I hoped they’d do better about representing POC. I made excuses to myself […] but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to upset the editors. That wasn’t good enough. I apologise for my silence. I’m taking my responsibility as a stockist, and as an advertiser and as someone who has been featured in Laine seriously […] I’m expecting to see changes, and I’m committed to supporting that, and being accountable if we don’t see it.
Then, a few weeks later, Laine magazine hired Ysolda’s fiancĂ©, photographer Kate O’Sullivan, who is also a writer and social justice activist. O’Sullivan is white and this did not go unnoticed. “Six weeks ago,” wrote Kim…
…@ysolda posted in her stories heavy criticisms against Laine Magazine for not being inclusive of BIPOC. A couple of days ago, Ysolda’s partner, Kate O’Sullivan, announced that she had gladly accepted Laine’s offer to be their new regular photographer. […] In an ideal world, I would be able to ask: To what extent did Ysolda take advantage of her large platform, in voicing dissatisfaction, to allow someone close to her to personally gain from public criticism? […] Who gets to call themselves an ally and to receive the protection, and compensation, for that label? In an ideal world, no one.
Teague and O’Sullivan both posted grateful and self-reproachful replies to Kim. “Hi Helen,” O’Sullivan began, “thank you for once again holding this community to a high standard. You are right, my first commission for Laine was as a white woman. I pitched for somebody I knew I could interview nearby. This was back in Autumn as Laine publish biannually.” She explained that it was up to Laine to decide who to hire, and that she would put forward BIPOC designers for the magazine. She ended her comment by announcing: “I also wanted to be clear I’m private for our daughter’s safety as we had alt right pseudo journalists who live locally, targeting us this weekend over another issue.”
This sounds alarming. But it turned out that I was the “alt right pseudo journalist” in question. On Twitter on 19 February, I had pointed out that Teague and users on Ravelry.com, the biggest knitting community on-line, were participating in the hounding of Kate Davies, which had just erupted. I was then blocked by Teague and O’Sullivan. End of story. Nevertheless, if O’Sullivan’s tale was an attempt to solicit sympathy and alleviate the criticism she was facing, it met with some success. “I am sorry to hear that local alt right movement is threatening your safety,” a concerned @burrobird replied. “Please be safe.” Even Helen Kim thought it would be wise to step back in the light of this news. “I would like to reach out and apologize to @kateo_sullivan and @ysolda,” she wrote. “No one—NO ONE —should have to face threats and violence from alt-right supremacists. This kind of violence is sadly the reality of racism and white supremacy today, here in our very own community.”
It remains to be seen who will be the next object of the mob’s attentions. Sophia Cai (@sophiatron)—a Melbourne-based writer, curator and knitter and a friend of O’Sullivan and Teague—has begun compiling a list of local yarn stores and other knitting businesses which fall short of the standards of antiracism she expects from the community. She calls this list her “burn book”:
You might be surprised who is in this book. Many places with “inclusivity” statements or signs on doors or a token POC friend/employee/consultant. If there is one thing that unites yt [white] people it’s white fragility. To all the LYS and yarn businesses I have spent so much time speaking to over the last few months who still don’t get it. Who still think it’s a matter up for debate or further “consideration.” That’s fine. Take the time you need. I just won’t wait around for you. But maybe pay for the consultation and emotional labour.
Donations, she adds, can be directed to her Ko-fi account. A complete list of those included in her burn book can be obtained by messaging her, but they include “white feminists who don’t care about intersectional feminism,” “white feminists who are outraged by plastic straws but are quiet about white supremacy” and “people who don’t see colour or declare that ‘everyone is welcome.’”
These campaigns are risible, but they are also ugly. They license pettiness, cruelty, and ruthlessness in the name of causes they do nothing to advance. They threaten the businesses and livelihoods and professional reputations of good people struggling to navigate a dense web of ideological trip-wires. Everyone has to watch what they say lest an innocuous remark is seized upon as a new excuse to denounce and shame. And yet, this intolerable situation persists because everyone involved is silently complicit in the pretence that this is noble behaviour motivated by loving concern and righteous anger. It will only end when the revolution eats itself or when a critical mass of participants say, “Enough.”
Kathrine Jebsen Moore grew up in Norway, studied Media and Print Journalism in London, and worked at Bloomberg News until 2009, covering financial news, specialising in oil & gas and fishing. She now lives with her husband and four children in Edinburgh. She is a freelance writer and you can follow her on Twitter @moorjebsen
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
The post Instagram’s Diversity Wars Revisited appeared first on Quillette.
In her analysis “Women and Genocide in Rwanda,” the former Rwandan politician Aloysia Inyumba stated that “The genocide in Rwanda is a far-reaching tragedy that has taken a particularly hard toll on women. They now comprise 70 percent of the population, since the genocide chiefly exterminated the male population.”
In a 1998 speech delivered before a domestic violence conference in El Salvador, former US senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that “Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat.”
These statements are illustrative of a wider trend of “male disposability.”
What is Male Disposability?
“Male disposability” describes the tendency to be less concerned about the safety and well-being of men than of women. This night sound surprising given the emphasis in contemporary Western discourse on the oppression of women by men. How is it possible that societies built by men have come to consider their well-being as less important? But embedded in this kind of question are simplistic assumptions that flatten a good deal of complexity.
A 2016 study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that people are more willing to sacrifice men than women in a time of crisis and that they are more willing to inflict harm on men than on women. In 2017, an attempt to replicate the Milgram experiment in Poland provided some (inconclusive) evidence that people are more willing to deliver severe electric shocks to men than to women:
“It is worth remarking,” write the authors, “that although the number of people refusing to carry out the commands of the experimenter was three times greater when the student [the person receiving the “shock”] was a woman, the small sample size does not allow us to draw strong conclusions.”
A 2000 study found that among vehicular homicides, drivers who kill women tend to receive longer sentences than drivers who kill men. Another study found that, in Texas in 1991, offenders who victimized females received longer sentences than those who victimized males. There is at least some evidence that “women and children first” is a principle still employed during rescue efforts in natural disaster zones. Some social scientists have also noted that the media is more likely to focus on female victims than male victims. This is especially true for white female victims.
It is interesting to consider the above in light of the following: Men are more likely to be murdered than women and, in some cases, they are more likely to be physically assaulted. In most countries, men are more likely to die from suicide, they are more likely to be homeless, they’re more likely to be killed by the police, and they are more likely to work in dangerous jobs. Some countries also specifically criminalize male homosexuality, and male homosexuals seem to be more likely to be victims of hate crimes. The wartime rape and sexual abuse of men are also believed to be more prevalent than most people realize.
That's a weird way of saying 75% of homeless people are men. #equality #feministlogic pic.twitter.com/VNsJy9mliW
— ಠ_ಠ(@AtheistLoki) June 5, 2016
Despite all this, the media appear to focus overwhelmingly on violence against women and whole international organizations and movements have been founded to end violence against women and girls. You will be incredibly hard-pressed to find similar resources when it comes to ending violence against men. Of course, all this doesn’t mean that men are always more disposable than women. There are indeed circumstances in which women are treated as more disposable, such as the disproportionate abortion of female fetuses in countries like China and India. However, although this complicates the Male Disposability Hypothesis, it does not invalidate it.
Why Violence against Men Is Often Ignored
When pressured to admit that violence against men is largely normalized and ignored compared to violence against women, many respond by trying to justify the imbalance. For example, some contend that violence against women is “gendered” and should therefore be taken more seriously. However, a lot of violence against men is also gender-based. During the Rwandan genocide, it was mainly men and boys who were targeted for murder because of their gender. The gendered nature of the killings was largely downplayed, however. During the Srebrenica massacre, men and teenage boys accounted for the vast majority of the victims. Sexual abuse against men is also believed by many social theorists to be an attack on masculinity intended to demoralize victims by making them feel incapable of fulfilling the male role. Even if we were to accept that violence against men is not gendered, that would not justify ignoring the more common and widespread victimization of men and boys.
A related argument holds that because men are usually victimized by other men, it is less important than violence inflicted on men and women arbitrarily. For some reason this is not considered “gendered” violence, because it is assumed that men cannot target other men for being men. This line of thinking is highly unsatisfactory. Men tend to be quite competitive with other men and there is at least some evidence that women like women more than men like other men. When a man rapes or castrates an enemy during wartime, it is not just a random act of violence, it is a direct attack on masculinity.
A third excuse, usually not explicitly stated but strongly implied, is that men somehow “deserve” to be victimized. After all, if men are the majority of the perpetrators, then it is somehow just that they get a taste of their own medicine. In a 2004 post about the violence in and around the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez, political scientist Adam Jones quoted an article by Debbie Nathan in the Texas Observer as follows: “Slaughtered, butchered and scorched male corpses are found far more frequently than women’s bodies are. [But] few seem surprised, much less outraged, by this male-on-male carnage.” Drawing on the arguments above, Jones went on:
The standard operating procedure in feminist scholarship and activism dictates that when a complex social phenomenon like murder is addressed, certain rules must be followed. Briefly put, trends that evoke concern and sympathy for women—in this case, the sharp rise in women’s murder rates in Ciudad Juárez—must be carefully separated out and presented in isolation. Data that threaten to offset or contextualize the portrait, perhaps to the detriment of an emphasis on female victims, must be ignored or suppressed. Hence the invisibility of the nine-tenths of Juárez’s murder victims who are male. […] This feminist strategy reflects, and exploits, cultural convictions about men that are nearly universal. Men are seen as the “natural” victims of homicidal killing, for two main reasons. In part, this is because in most cases, men’s killers are other men—and we all know that “boys will be boys.” Second, men are viewed as implicated victims.
In other words, men are generally perceived as responsible for their own victimization on some level. Women, on the other hand, are largely innocent so violence committed against them is a more serious crime. This is merely a doctrine of collective guilt and punishment.
What Are the Causes?
The question is, why does society frequently appear to care more about the well-being of women?
Social theorists might argue that men are expected by society to be more resilient and self-reliant so they’re often viewed as lesser victims. Women, on the other hand, are perceived as comparatively weak and vulnerable and therefore in greater need of protection, in the same way that adults feel protective towards children. However, feminists would no doubt counter that this attitude is simply evidence of benevolent sexism and female infantilization.
Others speculate that humans—especially males—evolved to be more protective of women. At least one study conducted by evolutionary psychologists has found that men are more willing to make the anti-utilitarian choice to let three members of the same sex die in order to save one member of the opposite sex, especially when there are fewer potential sexual partners. This suggests that men’s willingness to sacrifice men to save women may be tied to their need for sexual and reproductive success. Scientist David Brin argues that women in many ways physically resemble children more than men do (neoteny) and that they evolved that way to inspire protective impulses in men. However, this doesn’t explain the findings of other studies which suggest that women are also more willing to sacrifice men. Another possible explanation is that both men and women evolved to be protective of women because one man can impregnate several women, while a woman will usually only bear one child at a time, so it makes sense for societies to keep women safe so they can reproduce.
It’s hard to say which theory is more accurate or if all of them have some basis in truth. There is shockingly little research on the subject. Researching male victims is not compelling precisely because men are disposable “lesser victims” and male disposability tends to be reinforced by this tendency to ignore the phenomenon.
Is It Possible to Eliminate Male Disposability?
It is not possible to say for sure given the available data whether male disposability is partially evolved or purely the result of socialization. Even if we were to assume that male disposability is, on some level, instinctual, it doesn’t mean that society cannot minimize it. The real question is, do we want to eliminate male disposability? Do we want to send more women into combat? Do we want to have more women in dangerous jobs? Do we want to focus on male and female victims equally? I think this kind of equality is a laudable goal, but it will surely meet some resistance from society. Men themselves are often hesitant to see themselves as victims, traditionalists (male and female) would resist such a challenge to gender norms, and many feminists would resist the idea that male victims should receive greater attention.
What Does Male Disposability Mean for Feminism?
Male disposability does pose a challenge to certain feminist assumptions, but it doesn’t inherently have to be an argument against feminism. There have been cases in the past where feminists have been hostile to attempts to address male victimization, mostly because they fear that shifting the focus toward male victims will further marginalize female victims of male violence.
However, to generalize about all feminist theory in this way would be unfair. Many prominent feminists, like bell hooks, have argued that what they call “patriarchy” can be harmful to men. It is also generally accepted by feminists that male victims of sexual abuse can be marginalized under the gendered norms they oppose. Feminist attitudes towards male issues can be far from perfect and criticisms of feminism by some men’s rights activists are not without merit. But I believe it is both possible and necessary to find some common ground. It is hard to argue that feminism is not needed when one looks at the victimization and oppression of women worldwide. However, oppression is not a zero-sum affair—addressing the oppression of women does not require us to disregard the victimization of men.
Maria Kouloglou is a sociology student interested in women’s and men’s rights. You can follow her on Twitter @MairGr
The post Considering the Male Disposability Hypothesis appeared first on Quillette.
"I do find it sad that not more women are encouraged to embrace marriage and family. I have many single women friends, now in their mid and late 30s, who now feel the clock ticking but have all but resigned themselves to being alone for the rest of their lives."
Such was the response I recently received from a woman after she read a recent article of mine about families, plummeting American birth rate, and marriage.
Soon after receiving her email, I stumbled across Rod Dreher’s “The Agony & Hope of Christian Courtship,” an online article in which he discusses a column by Anna Hitchings, an Australian writer lamenting the dearth of available men who were “churchgoing, single and worldly wise,” with that last term meaning socially adjusted. Hitchings writes that men “seemingly do not understand what it is to be a man anymore.” She then applauds figures like Jordan Peterson, who are “actively promoting qualities that are sorely lacking in our society, such as personal responsibility, honesty, and integrity.”
In his column, Dreher adds a comment by a reader, Steve:
A woman asked my friend, an awesome, 40-year-old man of God who wants kids and a wife, if he believed in egalitarianism vs complementarianism, and when he said the latter, she wished him a happy life. That’s the culture now and that mentality has seeped into the church. So it’s no wonder why women in my congregation complain the men aren’t asking them out — we’re not interested in having to argue our worth and leadership in a relationship.
Putting aside Christianity, few today would deny that male-female relationships among young adults are fraught with suspicion, discord, false hopes, and shattered expectations. I know a dozen women like Anna Hitchings who echo her sentiments, namely, that they and their friends have trouble finding men who are honest, responsible, and know how to engage socially.
But as Steve points out, men also face challenges in finding the right woman.
What has happened?
Since the 1960s, our society has undergone a sea change regarding marriage and family. Schools find time for sex education but not for teaching the values of partnership, commitment, and obligation. Nor does our culture endeavor to restore marriage and family, institutions once considered the building blocks of a healthy society. Today our technology, the sexual revolution, and in some quarters, the antipathy toward men and marriage, have severely damaged the nuclear family.
Let’s look at just one of these changes.
The women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s stressed equality of opportunity in education and the workplace. Young women were encouraged to go to college, win a degree, take their place in the workplace, and break the glass ceiling.
All well and good.
Unfortunately, this quest for equality has taken a different turn. Our popular culture – movies, television, children’s books – has demeaned men while elevating women, an indoctrination begun in pre-school. One small example: pick up almost any of the Berenstain Bear books, aimed at kids three to seven years of age, and you’ll find Mama Bear portrayed as flawless and wise, Papa Bear as a doofus. This propaganda occurs in movie theaters, in television shows where Dad is a guy too dumb to change a light bulb, in the media, in textbooks attacking the “patriarchy,” and in classrooms from kindergarten through graduate school. More recently, some teachers and commentators go so far as to preach toxic masculinity, as if manhood was a piece of poisonous waste. We are raising our girls to be aggressive and independent; we are raising our boys to be… well, more like girls.
In her 2017 post, “Camille Paglia: Neo Feminism Teaching Women to Live ‘In a Permanently Juvenile Condition,’” Annie Holmquist looks at what Paglia, a feminist writer and provocateur, thinks of this second-wave feminism: “What I am saying throughout my work is that girls who are indoctrinated to see men not as equals but as oppressors and rapists are condemned to remain in a permanently juvenile condition for life. They have surrendered their own personal agency to a poisonous creed that claims to empower women but has ended by infantilizing them.”
It gets worse. By buying into this propaganda, some women now regard females as superior to males. They engage in the tribalism endemic in our time. Like the male chauvinists of yore, they crack jokes in public about the stupidity of men, make sexist comments, or disparage males, all with no pushback. Meanwhile, men risk being accused of harassment simply for complimenting a woman on her appearance.
Given such an anti-male culture, what sort of men are women expecting?
As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Abolition of Man, “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise… We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
Young adults, male and female, who are searching for love, commitment, and marriage, who want a home and children, deserve our sympathy. They are the unwitting victims of a culture whose values have gone drastically awry.
And until we recognize we are on the wrong road, these same young people must expect a bumpy ride.
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[Image Credit: Pixabay]
UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer has said that on the 31st of May he gave video interviews with both Sky News and the BBC on his findings that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is the victim of psychological torture. As of this writing, footage of those interviews is nowhere to be found.
In response to a smear by virulent empire propagandist Idrees Ahmad about his conducting an interview with RT, Melzer tweeted that he has given interviews to both Sky News and BBC World, but that they seem not to have been aired.
“So the UN rapporteur actually appeared on the Kremlin’s premier propaganda network — yes, the propaganda network of the state that shoots journalists in the face — to discuss Julian Assange’s ‘torture’,” tweeted Ahmad, pretending to be under the illusion that UN experts are meant to remain exclusively loyal to a specific group of nations.
“For the record: On 31 May, I have also given similar exclusive TV interviews to both Sky News and BBC World on Julian Assange, but it seems they decided not to broadcast them,” Melzer responded.
For the record: On 31 May, I have also given similar exclusive TV interviews to both @SkyNews and @BBCWorld on #JulianAssange but it seems they decided not to broadcast them. https://t.co/WLhg7jYKxv
Indeed, there is as of this writing no video footage to be found anywhere of Melzer’s interviews with either of these outlets. If you search for online video footage of Nils Melzer conducting interviews on this subject, you’ll find videos from RT and Ruptly, you’ll find his excellent interview on Democracy Now which we discussed recently, but you won’t find videos from BBC World or Sky News, nor any record of any video interviews ever having been aired.
So appears that these interviews were never aired at all, or, if they were aired, have had any record of them hidden from online visibility. In any case, this is a big deal. The BBC published one print article that contains a few small excerpts from a discussion with Melzer, but in terms of impact and quantity of information this comes nowhere close to a televised interview and online video footage.
The idea that anyone from the UN should only be giving interviews to western media outlets is of course ridiculous, and it’s made even more ridiculous by the fact that Melzer has been wide open to speaking with any platform that’s willing to circulate his findings, including my own.
“I stand ready to respond to uncomfortable questions, but then media must also stand ready to publish uncomfortable truths,” Melzer told me via Twitter when asked about the missing footage. He said the interviews were conducted with BBC World and Sky News via Skype, and lasted about five minutes each.
We may be sure that “uncomfortable truths” were indeed what came out in Melzer’s interview. Watch any existing video interview that Melzer has done on this subject and you’ll see how much damning information he packs into each minute of footage. You may also get a pretty strong suspicion of why establishment narrative management firms like the BBC and Sky News may not have wanted to publicize that footage.
“UK’s BBC News and Sky News censored exclusive interviews with UN Torture expert Nils Melzer showing overwhelming evidence that Assange has been deliberately exposed to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” tweeted the Defend Assange campaign in response to Melzer’s post.
Pressure must be put on these outlets to explain why they didn’t air these exclusive interviews, and they must be forced to give a response. Yes, any response we might get will be mealy-mouthed, they’ll make some huffy noises about limited air time etcetera, but they need to know that people aren’t just watching what they are airing with skepticism, they’re watching what they’re ignoring. When it comes to propaganda, lies by omission are even more pernicious than outright lies because they are difficult to confront.
Don’t let them fool you, this story is big. In terms of newsworthiness, it meets all the criteria and then some. Nils Melzer is great “talent” as they say; he is well spoken and interesting, and he has hugely important things to say about a hugely important situation. There is no reason to bin these interviews other than backroom politics. Demand to know what went on behind closed doors.
Julian Assange has been tortured. His health has been declining dangerously. The US, UK, Sweden, Ecuador and Australia are responsible for this. They did this to him because he published inconvenient facts about the powerful. These are truths. They are uncomfortable truths, but they are truths we all must ingest, process, and respond to.
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