Leaps in logic and hoary propaganda techniques

The Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist, now to be found on the frontlines of the Middle East, covering himself covering himself with glory, wrote this piece yesterday, titled “Unfit for Democracy” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27kristof.html), challenging the almost-racist (according to none other than the Eton-educated Prime Minister of the UK) view that Arabs, Chinese, Africans et al (i.e. presumably anyone who has been wallowing in tyranny for a while) are unfit for democracy.

Long live freedom, but we have learnt that the ends do not necessarily justify the means and let us not let our intellectuals get away with breaking the norms of argumentation only because we live in tumultuous times.

The first line, in this article exploring readiness for democracy, is:

> Is the Arab world unready for freedom?

A lumping together of democracy and freedom, two terms that often hobnob at the watering hole but are by no means the same. Unready is a pleasant choice, though – so, top marks as far as literary style is concerned. It is generally fifty times rarer than “not ready”, if one may go by hits on google.co.uk.

But this grouping together is no slip of the pen.

> I’ve been humbled by the lionhearted men and women I’ve seen defying

> tear gas or bullets for freedom that we take for granted. How can we say

> that these people are unready for a democracy that they are prepared to die for?

Again, the journalist juxtaposes “freedom” and “democracy”, implying that they are the same. (boldfacing not in the original text)

Not only that, the article has numerous references to the courage of “ordinary” humans; people defying torture, the threat of rape and death etc..

> I watched a column of men and women march unarmed toward

> security forces when, a day earlier, the troops had opened fire with

> live ammunition. Anyone dare say that such people are too immature

> to handle democracy?

The virtue of courage (personal and that of a massed group) is translated, apparently, into political maturity.

Courage, we are informed by Philip Mason in his “A Matter of Honour” is always worthy of admiration, and is independent of any analysis of causes for which men suppose they are fighting for. This would mean that the courage of a mob, of a suicide bomber, of Oliver Twist and of Horatious are all good things. But courageous or not, possessed of excellent dental hygiene or not, skilled in the pleasanter arts of the Kamasutra or not – none of these things necessarily have any influence on political maturity.

These brave men and women deserve freedom, certainly. Whether or not they will want to, or can, replace tyranny with a liberal democracy (in the manner of the West, say) cannot be extrapolated from how they behaved under stress when massed together in a public square.

> I’m awed by the courage I see, and it’s condescending and foolish to suggest that people dying for democracy aren’t ready for it.

Agreed. But that does not imply that the converse is true, that people dying for democracy are ready for it.

And let us not forget that a democracy is not automatically liberal. Freedom is worth striving for; a slighter different form of bureaucracy is probably not worth dying for. So let us treat freedom and democracy as distinct terms and socio-political features, and insist upon freedom as the inalienable right of all those currently fighting against dictatorships in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Freedom equates easily into overthrowing of the current tyrant. Whether the revolution leads to greater personal liberties, perhaps via democracy, is not a logical consequence of said revolution. It may, or may not, take place. Therefore, those fighting against old tyrants and helping to bring down unjust regimes are certainly being lead by Freedom (as Delacroix so beautifully put it) but are not necessarily fighting for democracy.

A fascinating study in modern-day colonialism

I read with increasing distaste the outpourings of the esteemed Mr. Kristof of the New York Times. He has travelled all the way to Egypt, because he scorns anyone who dares hold an opinion on a subject without physically being within a radius of (say) 3 km from the epicentre of the, er, subject. ("I also deeply believe in opinions grounded in on-the-ground reporting not just in armchair pontificating." --Mr. Kristof on his Facebook site, 05 Feb 2011) Of course, by this logic, someone who is 71 years old must have a better insight into the first world war than someone who is only 65. And someone who has never been to South Korea cannot possibly know as much about the IMF/Korean crisis of 1997 as a journalist who took a champagne-class flight to Seoul and actually spent three whole weeks in a hotel, walking and talking with the common folk, the bureaucracy and even a couple of old ladies.

Now, the latest from Mr. Kristof is a piece on Mr. Mubarak's much awaited speech where he reiterates a commitment to hand over power to the winner of free and transparent elections in September (http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/the-pharaoh-refuses-to-go/).

The title itself is not a little tacky: "The Pharaoh Refuses To Go".

The Pharaoh? I can conceive of a segment of the population who think of Egypt as a quaint old land, where they haggle over the prices of carpets, where camels are traded during weddings, where it is considered unacceptable for women to have opinions and whose economy is based on tourists giving the natives baksheesh when shown around the pyramids. But surely, journalists who work at the New York Times have access to Wikipedia and probably a university education behind them?

Compare this to the Civilized World, i.e., the West. Would the obstinacy or, if one is for the President, steadfastness, of Mr. Obama on a given issue be referred to as Chief Conquering Bear digging his heels in? (Reference to Native American history, exactly as the Pharaoh is a reference to Egyptian history) Another cheap trick is to refer to Mr. Putin as a Tsar (97,100 hits on Google, as compared to 507,000 for Mubarak Pharaoh). It recalls to mind a backward Russia, say of the 19th century, and is soothing for lots of people who feel most comfortable with accounts of foreign cultures being inferior and, for good measure, godless. Pandering to the mob is often advantageous.

A form of the ad hominem attack, then, projecting the negative associations of a modern-day pharoah onto Mr. Mubarak.

> This is of course manifestly unacceptable to the Egyptian people.

Rather fetching, how Mr. Kristof feels incumbent upon himself to speak for the Egyptian people. Or does he mean the people with whom he's had an extended conversation on the current political state in Egypt? This must necessarily be a fraction of the masses of people in Tahrir Square in Cairo, which location Mr. Kristof and camera-crew grace with their presence. That, in turn, must be a fraction of the people of Egypt. The claim is manifestly incredible.

> An Arab friend of mine who has met Mubarak many, many times
> describes him as “a stubborn old man,"....

Mr. Kristof has a friend who is an Arab - this open-to-different-cultures thing must be catching on, then. Wonder if this particular friendship predates the current Egyptian crisis. Wonder if the Arab is a non-Egyptian. If a non-Egyptian, then it is akin to referring to "my Catholic White Friend" when discussing a situation in Spain, even if said CWF is from Dublin. And if an Egyptian, then interesting that his (or her) ethnicity should be insisted upon, given that the events unfolding in Egypt are primarily of a political nature.

Someone who has met Mr. Mubarak "many, many times"? Now, Mr. Kristof did not use quote marks, so the "many, many" bit is not a direct quote. And if a direct quote, the one expects an insightful journalist to post the subtle follow-up question, "Er, how many, then? Thrice, eight, eighteen times, every three months for eight years?". Especially questionable as the Arabs do have a system of numbering superior to the stereotypical troll system of "one, two, many".

Again, an ad hominem attack - a stubborn old man, a man who is ga-ga, closed to new ideas, bitter and twisted, desperately hanging on to power because it is the only aphrodisiac.

> Suleiman just spoke as well, praising Mubarak
> and asking the youth of Egypt to go home and
> stop watching satellite television. Only possible
> conclusion: he’s delusional, too.

Mr. Kristof states - with an air of utter conviction - that the President and Vice President of Egypt are both delusional. Where from comes this arrogance? Did he date *all* the girls in his high-school class? Does his gardener back in the US hold a PhD from Moscow University? Do President Obama and the Pope have him on their speed-dials? The ancient Sanskrit proverb, "Vidhya dadati Vinayam" suggests that with wisdom comes humility, so it can't be that.

> It was interesting that Mubarak tried to push
> the nationalism button and blame outside forces
> (meaning the United States) for trying to push him out.

The phrase "Push the nationalism button" appears to suggest that our writer is contemptuous of classical patriotism, as befits a thinker of our age. Yet, the writer, in previous posts has glorified
those ready to die for their country. A little opportunistic, then.

And the extrapolation from "outside forces" to "the United States" suggests that Mr. Kristof's Arab friend is Mr. Mubarak's speech writer. He had probably written "outside forces, i.e. the United States", but Mr. Mubarak didn't know what "i.e." meant, and just skipped that bit.

Long live liberty. And the respectful handling of our ideological opponents.

Pity the truth

Let us stand up for liberty, and firmly deal with brutality, that all the children of the earth may celebrate the seasons in their own proud fashions.

But the ends do not justify the means, do they? So let us not sully the truth in this fashion nor engage in artifices of cheap propaganda.

Mr. Kristof, the influential New York Times reporter posted today on his Facebook page:

"Some people don't understand why Egyptian demonstrators remain so determined to keep on protesting. Take a look at this video, apparently showing the police shooting a lone, unarmed demonstrator in cold blood. That's the kind of brutality that the protesters want uprooted from their state, and I think they have a point. Don't you?"

Let us dissect the journalist’s message here: “….apparently showing the police…..”.

Apparently? So it is not confirmed? But then, if it’s not confirmed, then surely, one may not use it to talk about the brutality of the regime?

But that is precisely what our journalist does.

“This may not be true, but if it is, it’s pretty awful. Things that are awful are, well, awful, and we really can’t tolerate them. Long live the demonstrators”

All this without clicking on the link for the video.

Let us do that now (http://www.casavaria.com/cafesentido/2011/02/07/7525/video-egypt-police-shoot-unarmed-demonstrator-in-cold-blood/).

The text reads:

“A video from Alexandria reportedly shows Mubarak’s police force shoot an unarmed pro-democracy demonstrator in cold blood.”

Again, the key word is “reportedly”, used early on, and then quietly ignored.

“Mubarak’s police force”? A force directly under the control of Mr. Mubarak? Or is it because Mr. Mubarak is the President of Egypt and must therefore take responsibility for all actions (and inactions) of the police forces in all the towns of Egypt? If that’s the case, then it’s also Mubarak’s army which is not shooting at the protestors? And Mubarak’s hospitals which are treated the wounded?

“Pro-democracy”? How does anyone know that, on the basis of given information? Maybe it’s someone who’s kid brother was molested by a police officer. Maybe it’s someone who has had a couple of bottles of whisky (or distilled coconut juice) and has his nerves turned into those of the Nemean lion. Maybe it’s someone who can’t stand Mr. Mubarak. Maybe it’s someone who has been brought up in a public school imagining that it is noble and glorious to die for the fatherland. Maybe it’s someone who has been threatened with violence to his lover, in case of non-compliance. Maybe it’s someone who has no prospects, but finds the notion of the cameras of the community pointed at him as he walks forward, with the chants of the crowd behind him, to be a rather engaging one.

Anyone who has attended a football match in a football loving land knows what the screams of the mob can mean, to what they can lead.

Unarmed demonstrator? How does anyone know that, on the basis of given information? Did the young man just walk through an international airport? What does “armed” mean? Having a rifle or a pistol or, at any rate, a largish, very visible, sinister-looking knife? What about all those suicide bombers who strap things to their waists, or to their ankles? Things which go “boom”? If an Afghan-looking man walks up to a US military post in Afghanistan, with lots of people standing behind him, cheering him on, with obvious anger towards the regime to which the military openly owe allegiance, there is a good chance that the man will be shot, if he does not stop his advance towards the post, perhaps after a warning shot.

“Cold blood”? This term is also used by Mr. Kristof. How is this cold blood? In the video can be heard a lot of confused shouting and be seen a burning tire. All this in a context of violence and hatred over the past weeks, much of it directed against state actors. At what point would the policeman have fired and the shot not considered being in “cold blood”? When the lone man walks up to them within suicide bomber range? Knifing range? Throttling range?

“The video clearly shows the man shot by the police, without any violent provocation whatsoever.”

Note, of course, that the video does NOT “clearly” show police, or even people dressed up in some sort of uniform, shooting anyone. It shows people with guns, it shows a man lying on the concrete, probably shot, but not who did the shooting.

“Rights groups and anti-government activists are saying the video is now clear evidence for all the world to see that the Mubarak regime has held onto power by the use of lethal violence and totalitarian measures.”

Which rights groups, which anti-government activists? And what of us who do not see this as “clear evidence” for the 30 years of Mubarak’s regime having being one steeped in lethal violence? Are we to have the mob march against us?

“Tonight The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof reported to CNN that watchdog groups have talled at least 297 deaths so far resulting from the regime’s violent crackdown on unarmed demonstrators”

So Mr. Kristof of the NYT told CNN (so he’s working for the NYT and CNN? Are they not competitors? Or do they have shared financial interests? Does not say much for an independent media, unfortunately) that certain watchdog groups (unnamed here, for reasons……for reasons not stated here) have etc.etc..

Talled? What does that mean? Noted, maybe, from the context?

297 deaths from violent crackdown on unarmed demonstrators? So, in each case, they checked that the deaths were caused by the regime and that the demonstrators were unarmed? Somehow, this sort of rigorous data analysis is not something one associates with “Mr K told CNN that some unnamed groups said that…”.

And the fact that Mr. Kristof links to a page which in turn refers to Mr. Kristof suggests that the independent-lines-of-evidence paradigm is not in play here.