[Peace-discuss] assaults on free expression - Noam Chomsky in Z Communications: "We Are All - Fill in the Blank"

[Stuart Levy via Peace-discuss]

  Noam Chomsky: We Are All - Fill in the Blank

[from Z Communications - 
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/we-are-all-fill-in-the-blank/ ]

The world reacted with horror to the murderous attack on the French 
satirical journal Charlie Hebdo.  In the New York Times, veteran Europe 
correspondent Steven Erlanger graphically described the immediate 
aftermath, what many call France's 9/11, as "a day of sirens, 
helicopters in the air, frantic news bulletins; of police cordons and 
anxious crowds; of young children led away from schools to safety. It 
was a day, like the previous two, of blood and horror in and around 
Paris." The enormous outcry worldwide was accompanied by reflection 
about the deeper roots of the atrocity. "Many Perceive a Clash of 
Civilizations," a New York Times headline read.

The reaction of horror and revulsion about the crime is justified, as is 
the search for deeper roots, as long as we keep some principles firmly 
in mind. The reaction should be completely independent of what thinks 
about this journal and what it produces.  The passionate and ubiquitous 
chants "I am Charlie," and the like, should not be meant to indicate, 
even hint at, any association with the journal, at least in the context 
of defense of freedom of speech.  Rather, they should express defense of 
the right of free expression whatever one thinks of the contents, even 
if they are regarded as hateful and depraved.

And the chants should also express condemnation for violence and 
terror.  The head of Israel's Labor Party and the main challenger for 
the upcoming elections in Israel, Isaac Herzog, is quite right when he 
says that "Terrorism is terrorism.  There's no two ways about it." He is 
also right to say that "All the nations that seek peace and freedom 
[face] an enormous challenge" from murderous terrorism -- putting aside 
his predictably selective interpretation of the challenge.

Erlanger vividly describes the scene of horror.  He quotes one surviving 
journalist as saying that "Everything crashed.  There was no way out. 
There was smoke everywhere. It was terrible. People were screaming. It 
was like a nightmare." Another surviving journalist reported a "huge 
detonation, and everything went completely dark." The scene, Erlanger 
reported, "was an increasingly familiar one of smashed glass, broken 
walls, twisted timbers, scorched paint and emotional devastation." At 
least 10 people were reported at once to have died in the explosion, 
with 20 missing, "presumably buried in the rubble."

These quotes, as the indefatigable David Peterson reminds us, are not, 
however, from January 2015.  Rather, they are from a story of Erlanger's 
on April 24 1999, which made it only to page 6 of the New York Times, 
not reaching the significance of the Charlie Hebdo attack. Erlanger was 
reporting on the NATO (meaning US) "missile attack on Serbian state 
television headquarters" that "knocked Radio Television Serbia off the air."

There was an official justification. "NATO and American officials 
defended the attack," Erlanger reports, "as an effort to undermine the 
regime of President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia." Pentagon 
spokesman Kenneth Bacon told a briefing in Washington that "Serb TV is 
as much a part of Milosevic's murder machine as his military is," hence 
a legitimate target of attack.

The Yugoslavian government said that "The entire nation is with our 
President, Slobodan Milosevic," Erlanger reports, adding that "How the 
Government knows that with such precision was not clear."

No such sardonic comments are in order when we read that France mourns 
the dead and the world is outraged by the atrocity.  There need also be 
no inquiry into the deeper roots, no profound questions about who stands 
for civilization, and who for barbarism.

Isaac Herzog, then, is mistaken when he says that "Terrorism is 
terrorism.  There's no two ways about it." There are quite definitely 
two ways about it: terrorism is not terrorism when a much more severe 
terrorist attack is carried out by those who are Righteous by virtue of 
their power.  Similarly, there is no assault against freedom of speech 
when the Righteous destroy a TV channel supportive of a government that 
they are attacking.

By the same token, we can readily comprehend the comment in the New York 
Times of civil rights lawyer Floyd Abrams, noted for his forceful 
defense of freedom of expression, that the Charlie Hebdo attack is "the 
most threatening assault on journalism in living memory." He is quite 
correct about "living memory," which carefully assigns assaults on 
journalism and acts of terror to their proper categories: Theirs, which 
are horrendous; and Ours, which are virtuous and easily dismissed from 
living memory.

We might recall as well that this is only one of many assaults by the 
Righteous on free expression.  To mention only one example that is 
easily erased from "living memory," the assault on Falluja by US forces 
in November 2004, one of the worst crimes of the invasion of Iraq, 
opened with occupation of Falluja General Hospital.  Military occupation 
of a hospital is, of course, a serious war crime in itself, even apart 
from the manner in which it was carried out, blandly reported in a 
front-page story in the /New York Times/, accompanied with a photograph 
depicting the crime.  The story reported that "Patients and hospital 
employees were rushed out of rooms by armed soldiers and ordered to sit 
or lie on the floor while troops tied their hands behind their backs." 
The crimes were reported as highly meritorious, and justified: "The 
offensive also shut down what officers said was a propaganda weapon for 
the militants: Falluja General Hospital, with its stream of reports of 
civilian casualties."

Evidently such a propaganda agency cannot be permitted to spew forth its 
vulgar obscenities.

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