US media: From Geronimo to Gadhafi

ONE OF the factors that have contributed to America's success as a nation is the fact that most Americans have absolute faith in their country and in the rightness of the causes it supports. To the American, for someone or something to be declared 'anti-American' has always meant that that person or thing is inherently wrong in what it stands for. The mainstream American mass media has been at the forefront of the propagation of this view. Hollywood has also been of vital importance in selling the idea that the positions held by the power wielders in the United States (US) are honourable and 'right'.

The impact of this has not been limited to Americans, but to all in its sphere of influence. Hollywood and the American media are responsible for most of us in the English-speaking Caribbean sharing in this view of the inherent goodness of 'the American way' and the inherent evil of those considered, or declared to be, America's enemies.

For example, my generation grew up on a diet of American movies which created in us a somewhat skewed world view. We 'knew' that native Americans were vicious savages who threatened the civilizing forces of the Europeans who had come to forge a 'brave new world'. One often-quoted example of the savagery of these people was their penchant for 'scalping' their defeated enemies. We were horrified at the thought of these brutes cutting off the scalps of white men whom they had killed, and keeping these as trophies. We did not know that scalping was practised in the ancient Eurasia, and that scalps were taken in ninth-century wars between the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons of England! Nor did we know that it was the whites who may have introduced the practice of scalping to the Indians. Between 1721-1725, British colonial authorities in America offered £100 per Indian scalp, and in 1744 the government of Massachusetts paid for the scalps of Indian men, women, and children. As a result, men conducted scalp-hunting expeditions as a means of generating income.

Cruelty abounds

We also grew to see the Japanese of World War II as being cruel, brutal and inhumane. By the end of the century, these qualities were being given to the Koreans and then the Viet Cong of north Vietnam. Until quite recently, when it has become almost impossible to do so, the cruelty of American and allied forces, as epitomised in the massacre at Mi Lai, was generally completely downplayed.

In recent times, we are being led in the direction of seeing Arab leaders and Muslim states as being innately untrustworthy. Despite the revelations of WikiLeaks, most of us still believe in the general rightness of the American Middle East position, and that this is pursued with humanity, dignity and honour. We have put behind us the Iraq debacle as an aberration by a misguided US president, and accept the latest incursions into the Arab world.

But, recently, the US welcomed the assistance of Italy in the bombing of Libya in an effort to depose Moammar Gadhafi. An important part of the history of the Arab world is the decades-long struggle of the Libyan people, led by the legendary Omar Mukhtar, a schoolteacher, against Italian colonisation. During this time Libyans were placed in concentration camps and large areas of the country bombed by Italian aircraft. In the movie , Lion of the Desert, there is a moving scene where Mukhtar is hanged in one of the concentration camps. As he dies, his glasses fall and a little boy picks them up. I remember a man sitting behind me in the cinema muttering "Gadhafi!" at this point.

Gadhafi may have been corrupted by power, and may now be a cruel, nepotistic leader. But he has been the most outspoken Arab leader against the work of al-Qaeda and terrorism, which he rejected as a method years ago when he apologised to the world and paid compensation for the Lockerbie bombing. He is not the monster the media is now making him out to be. Although he has supported dubious causes, he has also supported struggles, for justice by groups like the aborigines in Australia and just causes in the African continent.

Keith Noel is an educator. Send comments to columns@gleanerjm.com