Operation Veritas?
How the Truth was brought from New York to Our Friends in Islamabad.
By John Theobald
It was a text book case of the BBC's balanced approach to a subject. You really couldn't fault it. Observing, in the wake of September 11 the polarisation and confrontation between the Western and Moslem worlds, and wishing to promote contact and rapprochement between them, BBC1's Panorama decided to set up a live debate between ordinary citizens in New York and Islamabad to investigate the 'clash of cultures, and, it hoped, serve as mediator in a process of furthering mutual understanding at 'people to people' level with our Pakistani allies. The programme went out on October 24, 2001.
In setting up the programme, the greatest attention was evidently paid to demonstrating scrupulous observance of balance.
A group of US citizens sat in New York, their contributions managed by a white British presenter. A group of Pakistanis sat in Islamabad with a British presenter of Pakistani background in charge of that side of the discussion. The New York group could be seen as a carefully chosen cross-section, containing as it did not only representatives of the white mainstream, but also both genders, US Moslems, people of colour, people from the peace movement, and workers engaged in clearing up operations in the ruins of the Twin Towers.
The Islamabad group also set up its own kind of balance, with half of the group having been involved in direct action and recent street demonstrations, and half classified as moderates. Amongst the women, one chose to wear the veil. There was a manifest desire shown in the selection of both groups to represent a broad range of opinion.
As well as the discussion groups, the programme provided a balance of experts – one from the US, one from Pakistan. In the studio, again underlining the BBC/UK self- positioning as intermediary, was ex-Foreign Minister Robin Cook. Anchor-man was David Dimbleby.
As the programme developed, the debate was switched back and forth between New York and Islamabad, the experts had a couple of slots to make their comments, and Robin Cook was likewise brought in for the British standpoint.
What could anyone complain about? This had to be the BBC at its much vaunted fairest and best, doing what it was renowned and praised for throughout the world, and showing the positive value of globalised mass communication by promoting live citizen participation and dialogue across continents. The care it had taken to be balanced furnished it with the most robust of answers to any critics.
We are going to be churlish here, however, and show how a closer look at the programme unmasks a quite different agenda. What will emerge is that the programme actually functioned as a disguised Anglo-US government propaganda exercise, and a forceful assertion of US hegemony masquerading as fair debate. It did this by branding Pakistani Moslems as brainwashed dupes, while pushing Bush II's 'for us or for terrorism' stance. Furthermore, far from promoting dialogue and understanding, it deliberately set up a 'clash of civilisations' confrontation, and made sure the West/US won it by allowing a verbal carpet-bombing of Pakistani-Moslem standpoints, and a rubbishing of their positions while permitting some response, but not an adequate one.
The real unbalanced nature of the programme is revealed by taking a closer look at the detail of its structure, and at the discourse it employed.
Five brief points exemplify the deceptiveness of the supposedly fair structure:
A combination of editorial decisions made prior to the live transmission, and choices made during it thus subtly undermined the Pakistani side and put the US side in the driving seat even before they opened their mouths.
- The opening sequences set up polarised oppositions leading to false images and identifications. The series of images shows us, on the one side, Bush and the New York discussion group of 'typical Americans', and on the other side Osama bin Laden and the Islamabad studio group of 'typical Pakistanis/Moslems'. Demon figure bin Laden is thus from the outset falsely visually associated with Islam in general, and the Moslem interlocuters in particular – a mendacious representation which is hardly an invitation to conciliatory dialogue.
- The choice of experts and discussion hosts betrays both desire for confrontation and use of hierarchical gender categorisations. The chosen US expert is male, hard-line right-wing hawk from the Bush administration, Richard Perle; the chosen Pakistani expert is the non-polemic female diplomat Abida Hussein. We have here the predictably uneven pairing of bullying propagandist with someone who had come onto the programme to discuss the issues rather than shoot soundbites. Equally the New York host is male and somewhat bullish, whereas the Islamabad host is female and constantly forced into defensive postures. These choices by the programme makers underline the 'dominant, authoritative West' versus 'subordinate, less credible East' assumptions of the programme.
- The series of contributions from the groups in New York and Islamabad both begin and end in New York. The New Yorkers are thus crucially permitted both to set the initial tone, and to have the last word. Despite the range of US citizens represented, we note that the aggressively anti-Islamic mainstream whites – those least likely to want to listen to and understand the views expressed in Islamabad – are physically placed more visibly than the others in relation to the main camera position, and are repeatedly drawn into the talk by the host, consequently dominating it. For example, of the 16 minutes 45 seconds of the programme allocated to the New York group (already about a minute more than the time permitted to the Islamabad group), only 1 minute 25 seconds is allowed to the two token peace movement representatives.
- Similarly, the experts' interventions are dominated by the Western side. Perle and Cook, with their different perspectives are allocated both the first and the last words, with their combined comments lasting 10 minutes (Perle with a dominant 6 minutes 15 seconds in four interventions, Cook with 3 minutes 45 seconds in two interventions), while Hussein gets only 4 minutes 20 seconds and three interventions. Moreover, in two of her three interventions, Hussein is crudely interrupted in mid sentence by Dimbleby, whereas Perle and Cook are treated with greater deference and do not get cut off.
- If we add up the total time allocations across the 50 minute programme – discussion groups and experts together – we end up with 20 minutes and 10 seconds – about 40% of the programme – allocated to the East, and 26 minutes 50 seconds – 53% of the programme – allocated to the West, with 3 minutes taken up by the introduction, links and conclusion. That 6 minute 30 seconds difference, about one eighth of the programme's available time – is a key quantitative measure of the BBC's 'balance' on this occasion. Even if one were to assume British neutrality and remove Robin Cook from the equation, one would still end up with 46% taken up by the USA, and 40% allocated to Pakistan.
A closer look at just a few admittedly selective, but indicative examples of the language used in the programme sets the domination of the East by the West in even starker profile. Right from the start, it is the 'clash of cultures' rather than any attempt at understanding and real dialogue which is emphasised, with US/Western rectitude set against presumed Islamic/Eastern violence, envy, rage, self-delusion, and accusations of sympathies with the (alleged) mastermind of the September 11 atrocities. In the opening sequence, Dimbleby praises Bush as: 'Sticking to the bold war aims he set out at the start' – indicating Bush qualities of determination, courage, decisive action and consistency. Then we are shown Bush himself, saying: 'This conflict is a fight to save the civilised world and values common to the West, (pause) to Asia and to Islam.' One might detect at least a positive gesture here, but on the final word, 'Islam', and as if to undermine immediately any hope of dialogue, the programme editor changes the image from Bush's talking head to images of gun-toting crowds of evidently Islamic/Asiatic children burning an effigy of Bush. The powerful images deny the anyway dubious conciliatory intent in Bush's words, as the thinly disguised discourse of 'clash' that pervades the programme takes over.
The first visit to NewYork confirms this. Nicky Campbell, the discussion leader, has clearly already lined up those with the most strident pro-US ideas to kick off the 'debate' – Niki Hayden and Lisa Ponte. He turns to them first, addressing them by name, then repeatedly returns to them throughout the programme. They oblige with highly inflammatory 'us and them' generalisations. Asked to explain Islamic 'rage against America', the black hat/white hat confrontational clichés (n.b. words in italics) pour out of them:
Hayden: …it is our freedoms that we enjoy here, our many choices, and a misconception on the other side. Ponte: [egged on by the presenter] …they think our women are too liberated, our press is too free, our free market is not a system they ascribe to, so absolutely, they have it in for the American way of life.
By the time the discussion switches to Islamabad for the first time, the bludgeoning and insulting anti-Islamic tone has thus been set, and the Pakistani group is forced into reactive debate to deal with the falsehoods and defend themselves against stereotypes. Seeking common ground or putting across a reasoned argument has already become difficult under such provocation. Yet they for the most part avoid polarising counter attacks, and make points about not being anti-American, just opposed to current policy in Afghanistan, particularly at a time when no conclusive evidence against Osama bin Laden had been made public, and when the military action was killing and terrorising an innocent population. Repeatedly, throughout the programme, they try to bring the debate back from confrontation and into genuine dialogue, but are not listened to by those in New York.
Back in New York, Lisa Ponte and Niki Hayden are again immediately brought in by the host:
Campbell: Lisa, let me bring you in first. You may well have not got the right guy if they're right in Islamabad.
The questioner again picks on a 'clash' issue, and we can note easily in the replies the markers of total certainty, belief in superior morality and intelligence, possession of truth and reality, and corresponding denigration of the Islamic others (see italics).
Ponte: Oh give me a break, Nicky. The evidence is beyond reasonable doubt… Hayden: We have a free press here in the US, unlike their country; we have it from all sides, the left, the right, the middle. They only hear it from Al Jazeera and the Arab [sic] sanctioned newspapers.
Then Ed Koch, ex-mayor of New York intervenes:
Koch: I think that what they're saying is so silly, it boggles my mind…
Other, less aggressive New York interventions are for the most part smothered by this kind of onslaught, and ultimately drowned out by the US government expert, Richard Perle, who makes his contempt for Islam, and the Islamabad participants aggressively clear. Asked by Dimbleby if the US can win the war on terrorism without the support of Moslems, he replies:
Perle: of course we can. We're going to defend ourselves against these sorts of attacks whether we have the support of the Moslem world or not. We are not going to fail to defend ourselves because someone in Islamabad is unconvinced …. If [bin Laden] has declared war on the West, then it really doesn't matter at the end of the day if the people of Pakistan agree with that or not.
He thus expresses nothing but disdain for those whom the programme is ostensibly bringing into contact with him for dialogue. The US is the top world power and will impose its will.
His words, although they leave even Robin Cook embarrassed and using his privileged final word which the BBC had clearly agreed in advance to accord him, to express the intermediate position of the British government while notably failing to refute Perle, sum up the dominant bullying tone of this supposedly balanced and constructive debate:
Perle: I have sat and listened now to nearly 40 minutes of rubbish, much of it from Islamabad. Unbelievably ill-informed people, perhaps because they don't have the free and vigorous and open press, and access to information…. So I am really tired of hearing the ramblings out of Islamabad. If that's the thinking in Pakistan, so be it. No rational argument. And certainly no change in American policy is going to convince people who think the earth is flat.
So what happened here? Was a well-intentioned live BBC programme hi-jacked and sabotaged so that it turned into the opposite of what had been hoped for? (It certainly left the two sides further apart than when they started, contrary to the stated aims.) No, this could not have been the case. Both the framing of the programme, the order of appearance, the time allocations, the behaviour of the presenter in New York, and the very fact that Richard Perle, with his well known views, was permitted to appear, show that the BBC was complicit in the direction that this ultimately biased and unfair programme took, and that its ostensible neutrality was merely a disguise for functioning primarily as a mouthpiece for US propaganda.
The BBC may have long lost its credibility as a bastion of balance and fairness in the eyes of critical observers, but it still proclaims it and manages to maintain a good measure of public and international trust in its integrity. This programme was just another example of its duplicity in the covert pursuit of power elite agendas. Despite its claims to the contrary, it is likely to have contributed more to war than to peace.
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