The strange silencing of liberal America
newstatesman.com | Jul 7th 2011
How does political censorship work in liberal societies? When my film Year
Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia was banned in the United States in 1980,
the broadcaster PBS cut all contact. Negotiations were ended abruptly; phone
calls were not returned. Something had happened. But what? Year Zero had
already alerted much of the world to Pol Pot's horrors, but it also
investigated the critical role of the Nixon administration in the tyrant's
rise to power and the devastation of Cambodia.
Six months later, a PBS official told me: "This wasn't censorship. We're
into difficult political days in Washington. Your film would have given us
problems with the Reagan administration. Sorry."
In Britain, the long war in Northern Ireland spawned a similar, deniable
censorship. The journalist Liz Curtis compiled a list of more than 50
television films that were never shown or indefinitely delayed. The word
"ban" was rarely used, and those responsible would invariably insist they
believed in free speech.
The Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico, believes in free speech. The
foundation's website says it is "dedicated to cultural freedom, diversity
and creativity". Authors, film-makers and poets make their way to a sanctum
of liberalism bankrolled by the billionaire Patrick Lannan in the tradition
of Rockefeller and Ford.
The foundation also awards "grants" to America's liberal media, such as Free
Speech TV, the Foundation for National Progress (publisher of the magazine
Mother Jones), the Nation Institute and the TV and radio programme Democracy
Now!. In Britain, it has been a supporter of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for
Journalism, of which I am one of the judges. In 2008, Patrick Lannan backed
Barack Obama's presidential campaign. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican,
he is "devoted" to Obama.
World of not-knowing
On 15 June, I was due in Santa Fe, having been invited to share a platform
with the distinguished American journalist David Barsamian. The foundation
was also to host the US premiere of my new film, The War You Don't See,
which investigates the false image-making of warmakers, especially Obama.
I was about to leave for Santa Fe when I received an email from the Lannan
Foundation official organising my visit. The tone was incredulous.
"Something has come up," she wrote. Patrick Lannan had called her and
ordered all my events to be cancelled. "I have no idea what this is all
about," she wrote.
Baffled, I asked that the premiere of my film be allowed to go ahead, as the
US distribution largely depended on it. She repeated that "all" my events
were cancelled, "and this includes the screening of your film". On the
Lannan Foundation website, "cancelled" appeared across a picture of me.
There was no explanation. None of my phone calls was returned, nor
subsequent emails answered. A Kafka world of not-knowing descended.
The silence lasted a week until, under pressure from local media, the
foundation put out a terse statement that too few tickets had been sold to
make my visit "viable", and that "the Foundation regrets that the reason for
the cancellation was not explained to Mr Pilger or to the public at the time
the decision was made". Doubts were cast by a robust editorial in the Santa
Fe New Mexican. The paper, which has long played a prominent role in
promoting Lannan Foundation events, disclosed that my visit had been
cancelled before the main advertising and previews were published. A
full-page interview with me had to be pulled hurriedly. "Pilger and
Barsamian could have expected closer to a packed 820-seat Lensic [arts
centre]."
The manager of The Screen, the Santa Fe cinema that had been rented for the
premiere, was called late at night and told to kill all his online promotion
for my film. He was given no explanation, but took it on himself to
reschedule the film for 23 June. It was a sell-out, with many people turned
away. The idea that there was no public interest was demonstrably not true.
Symptom of suppression
Theories? There are many, but nothing is proven. For me, it is all
reminiscent of long shadows cast during the cold war. "Something is going to
surface," said Barsamian. "They can't keep the lid on this."
My 15 June talk was to have been about the collusion of American liberalism
in a permanent state of war and in the demise of cherished freedoms, such as
the right to call governments to account. In the US, as in Britain, serious
dissent -- free speech -- has been substantially criminalised. Obama the
black liberal, the PC exemplar, the marketing dream, is as much a warmonger
as George W Bush. His score is six wars. Never in US presidential history
has the White House prosecuted so many whistleblowers, yet this
truth-telling, this exercise of true citizenship, is at the heart of
America's constitutional First Amendment. Obama's greatest achievement is
having seduced, co-opted and silenced much of liberal opinion in the US,
including the anti-war movement.
The reaction to the cancellation has been illuminating. The brave, such as
the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, were appalled and said so.
Similarly, many ordinary Americans called in to radio stations and have
written to me, recognising a symptom of far greater suppression. But some
exalted liberal voices have been affronted that I dared whisper the word
censorship about such a beacon of "cultural freedom". The embarrassment of
those who wish to point both ways is palpable. Others have pulled down the
shutters and said nothing. Given their patron's ruthless show of power, it
is understandable. For them, the Russian dissident poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko
once wrote: "When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie."
Original Page:
http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2011/07/pilger-foundation-obama-fil
m
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