West and selective perception
By Reason Wafawarova in SYDNEY, Australia
POLITICS in general and global politics in particular is an art centred on
perception and there is an inherent tendency for politicians to selectively
perceive political developments on the basis of self-motivated interests.
This trend has notoriously gone on for a long time and even decent terms like
democracy, humanitarianism and peace have not been spared the adulteration.
Equally, inherently evil terms like torture, terrorism, dictatorships and
totalitarianism have also not been spared the bias.
The Western ruling elite prefer to call non-compliant political leaders from
weaker countries everything else except anti-imperialists.
The preferred terms often include such awful and calamitous terms as dictator,
tyrant, authoritarian, despot or anything that resembles Satan.
In May 1986, a freed Cuban prisoner by the name Armando Valladares published
memoirs detailing his life in prison.
These memoirs immediately became a media sensation in the West, not because of
the merit of their content but purely because the memoirs painted Commandant
Fidel Castro in bad light.
It is like any Zimbabwean asylum seeker claiming that the rest of their family
were cut to pieces by "Government militias" and they are the sole survivors
with no known relative surviving.
The memoirs of this single man were taken as Bible truth and were described by
the Washington Post as "the definitive account of the vast system of torture
and prison by which Castro punishes and obliterates political opposition".
The New York Times called the memoirs "an inspiring and unforgettable account"
of "the hell that was the Cuba that Valladares lived in".
Purely on the basis of the memoirs of one man Commandant Castro was factually
labelled "a dictatorial goon".
So numerous were Commandant Castro's alleged atrocities that the Washington
Post concluded "only the most light-headed and cold-blooded Western
intellectual will come to the tyrant's defence".
The unchallenged and untested truth earned Valladares guest status at a White
House ceremony to mark Human Rights Day in 1986.
Ronald Reagan emotionally praised this "brave and decent" man for his courage
in enduring brutalities, horrors and sadism of this bloody ''Cuban tyrant''.
So touched was Reagan that he immediately appointed Valladares the US
representative at the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Valladares returned the unmerited favour by shamelessly performing signal
services in defence of the US-sponsored rightwing dictatorships in El Salvador
and Guatemala.
The charges levelled against the two governments involved atrocities that were
so despicable that they made whatever Valladares claimed to have suffered look
like child's play.
At the time Valladares was posturing as an authority in torture, the surviving
members of El Salvador's Human Rights Group were still mourning their slain
leaders and they were all arrested and tortured, among them their director
Herbert Anaya.
They were jailed at La Esperanza Prison and while in prison they continued to
gather evidence of torture and other atrocities.
They collected 430 signatures from the 432 inmates that were in that prison and
they also produced a 160-page report and videotape with prisoners testifying
about their torture.
The US national Press refused to cover the story and so did many of the Western
mainstream media houses.
No one in the Western mainstream media was prepared to touch this story.
Anaya was neither invited to the White House nor was he awarded any tributes.
His name did not feature on Human Rights Day and neither was he appointed a
representative of anything.
Rather, he was released in a prisoner exchange programme and then immediately
assassinated by US backed El Salvadorian forces.
His death did not feature in the Western media and no one in the media ever
asked whether his death was a result of the exposure of the La Esperanza
tortures or not.
This is how consent is manufactured in the West.
People are told what the politicians want them to hear and that which may get
people questioning is just ignored by the media.
Looking at the comparisons between Anaya's revelations of what was happening in
El Salvador and Valladares' memoirs, Noam Chomsky said: "Valladares's memoirs
are not even a pea next to the mountain."
This kind of selective perception by the Western ruling elite is found in
matters related to human rights, war, democracy and anything with a political
meaning worth influencing the world. Again in 1986, the University of
Massachusetts carried out a study in which they asked ordinary Americans
whether they thought the United States should intervene with force to reverse
illegal occupation or serious human rights abuses.
Two in every three people asked thought the United States were to use force to
intervene in such matters. Following this logic and thinking the United States
were to immediately start bombing El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Syria,
Turkey, and many other states.
In the mid-eighties all the listed places were all classical cases of illegal
occupation and serious human rights abuses.
When Saddam Hussein illegally occupied Kuwait in the early nineties, the facts
around this aggression were falling perfectly within the range of the facts
surrounding each of the above listed examples.
The only difference is that Saddam was heavily publicised and those others were
not.
The result is that very few people know about these cases.
This is how propaganda functions. Do not allow them to make comparisons,
otherwise they begin to question a lot of things and this is not good for a
properly functioning democracy.
Right now the African Union is seeking to block the indictment of Sudanese
President Omar Al-Bashir because they are of the view that Africa is being used
as the laboratory to test the new concepts of international law at the
International Criminal Court.
They are questioning the logic that so far only Africans have appeared at the
ICC.
The much-publicised allegations of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe have nothing
to do with the magnitude of human rights abuse but all to do with selective
perception.
This writer was recently challenged by an Australian lawyer who said: "Even if
we assume that only 5 percent of what the Western media report about Zimbabwe
is the truth, Mugabe still remains a ruthless dictator and his regime still
remains despicable."
This writer concurred and added: "That is how big the lies in the Western media
are."
Selective perception is what we saw during the Gulf War.
Saddam was facing a war against 28 nation states and the bombing campaign was
getting hotter and hotter.
At the same time Lebanon was requesting Israel to observe UN Security Council
Resolution 425, which called for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of
Israel from Lebanon.
This was a resolution dating back to 1978 and backed by two other subsequent
resolutions.
Israel did not listen to this request and they arrogantly based their defiance
of the resolution on the support of Washington.
So Saddam had to be halted by force and Israel had to be backed in its
massacring of 20 000 Lebanese people, 80 percent of whom were children and
civilians, at exactly the same time.
In July 2006, Lebanon was again invaded and ruthlessly bombed by Israel with
the full backing of the United States and ironically in December the same year,
Saddam was hanged at the hands of US military personel for allegedly killing
182 people in 1982.
This is how selective perception works.
No one calls for the bombing of Tel Aviv, although this is the advice of two in
every three Americans.
They want every country that illegally occupies another country and engages in
serious human rights abuses to be bombed by the United States.
The Western media do not splash headlines questioning why the US and Israel
ignore UN Security Council resolutions.
Rather they question daily the governance of North Korea, Zimbabwe, Cuba and
Iran.
George W. Bush even came up with an "axis of evil" label, countries picked and
chosen as members of the evil club purely on the basis of selective perception.
Now that Zimbabwe has chosen a route of unity and reconciliation it is time we
begin to rationally look at those who want to preach to us the firebrand gospel
of political uprightness and moral righteousness while their own hands are
dripping with the blood of innocent and defenceless civilians from many nations.
Zimbabwe we are one. It is homeland or death. Together we will overcome.
l Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on [EMAIL
PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit www.rwafawarova.com
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
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