In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ricardo Duchesne
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>It is not "you" or "I"; it is us: the war in Irak was presented to us
>in TV in the form of video games.
It wan't much, I know, but when we organised demonstrations against the
intervention we changed our experience of the war from a passive one to
an active one. That intervention widened our experience of the war. If I
had not been working on Living Marxism magazine, I probably would not
have seen Simon Norfolk's photographs of Iraqis protesting againt the
West (or that they had adopted the British left's slogan against
Margaret Thatcher 'Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher' to draw a parallel
between the way that the one-time education secretary had removed free
school milk and the Prime Minister had bombed a milk-powder plant). If I
hadn't been active in the Hands off the Middle East Committee, I might
never have seen the uncensored film of the Basra High-Road slaughter
smuggled out by one BBC correspondent, which we showed to highlight the
West's all too real role in the Gulf War.
It isn't necessary to take the media's presentation of the conflict on
face value, you can find out for yourself what happened. Many of those I
met in the campaign aginst intervention did, like Felicity Arbuthnot, a
peace campaigner who went to Iraq to find out what was really happening
behind the headlines. She has done much to popularise the case of those
Iraqis suffering under sanctions. So too did Kayode Olafamihan and Hugh
Livingstone did. You can read their report at
http://www.informinc.co.uk/LM/LM81/LM81_Iraq.html
>
>Since you want to play "reality" games, how much "wider" were those
>events not experienced by the potatoes?
Well, the experience of those who were bombed was certainly different
from that of those who watched the events on TV.
>
>I guess you could say this, keeping in mind that Baudrillard does
>not celebrate but criticizes our post-modern society; and
>criticism presupposes enlightenment...
Does he criticise or celebrate. I read Fatal Strategies as the latter.
Fraternally
--
James Heartfield
