By
Rostam Pourzal,
The
Muslim uproar against the publication of offensive cartoons has elicited calls
from respectable Western opinion to defend freedom of the press. Empathetic
voices here have gone further and suggested that Muslims should concentrate on
educating Christians and others about their culture, rather than retaliate. This
kind of well-intentioned reaction ignores the history of non-Western nations'
frustrated campaign for freedom of information and the right to communicate on a
global scale. During the 1970s, newly independent nations known as the
non-aligned movement, supported by the
The
campaign was ferociously opposed by Western corporate media and governments, who
falsely framed it as a communist-inspired effort to stifle freedom of the press.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization came under
attack for a report it commissioned in this regard, advocating actually nothing
but comprehensive freedom of information. The
What
conservative and liberal circles hailed at the time as a victory for "our
values" was in fact a subversion, dressed in Cold War terms, of global media
democracy. Today few observers doubt that most Muslims, devout or secular, feel
humiliated by double standards prevailing in the New World Order. The
back-to-back rise of popularly elected governments opposed to one-way
globalization in
Having
faced a united Western media-government front at UNESCO and other forums,
nations yearning to be heard can hardly be blamed for seeing the "free" press of
NATO countries as an extension of big power hegemony. A declassified Nixon-era
internal memo, published last week in an Iranian daily, further illustrates why
Muslim public opinion does not buy Western claims of press autonomy. Nixon's top
aides, seizing an opportunity to calm the
**[begin text] The worldly interests and
understanding of the President came out very clearly in the Shah's remarks
today. He had some things to say about the President which we should work with.
For example,
- Friendly columnists should be called today
– and given excerpts of the Shah's remarks about the President. The
interpretation along the lines of how good it is that America finally has a
president who has studied the world for twenty years and understands it…
shouldn't a president like this be given an opportunity regarding Vietnam
?
- The Monday Republican flyer should carry
the picture of the Shah and the President – with a portion of the Shah's remarks
quoted on the cover.
- Eric Severeid should be called by
Shakespeare or perhaps by Klein – and try to get the thrust of the Shah's
remarks into his show for tonight [end
text].**
Severeid
was the CBS evening news anchor at the time. Accompanying declassified documents
published in
Progressive
activists should focus on the glaring hypocrisy of our "defenders" of free
press. And instead of wasting time on dissecting Islam for traces of
enlightenment, we should revive UNESCO's defeated plan to democratize the flow
of information – including cartoons -- worldwide. If Muslims get access to a
level playing field in global communications, fewer will express themselves in
south
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