Civil Society Lost in Media Sound Bites

In these trying times of wars, famines and all sort of manmade disasters, I

strongly believe that we ought to confront our popular apathy and the

abundant arrogance of our business, political, religious and military

leaders. It is time for some serious introspection; without it we 'the

common people', will continue to be duped into the simplistic media view of

the world, that of the good and the bad.

Everyday I wonder what atrocity I am going to be enlightened with when I

turn on the television set, Google the news or access the newspapers and

magazines. Every time I wonder what messaging I am going to hear from

leaders and experts, what angle they are going to take, either to justify

one atrocity or to prepare us for another.

Why people are not taking to the streets, why are we not having collective

global strikes, boycotting our bankers or rejecting the payment of our

taxes?

Dramatic as this may sound, I cannot help but wonder if we are witnessing

the disintegration of our 'civilized society' beneath the challenges

permeating our world.

While media conglomerates are in constant expansion, pandering to stats and

big businesses, various activist groups are busily engaged in fighting for

their own separate causes, human rights of all sorts, poverty, corruption

and all the rest.

Doubtless, they are all important key topics, but maybe it is time for a

truly united and organized resistance to regain the direction of true

democratic values, rather than "staying the course" with our individual

fights, without a sense of fraternal and global direction. Considering the

global menace of war that unifies the states, the media and the big

businesses, maybe it's time for all groups to organize globally as well, and

come together under the banner of peace, justice and equality.

In a letter from Noam Chomsky to Jan Tamás addressing the issue of the US

intent to build a missile defence system in Eastern Europe (published in

Znet), Chomsky expressed the following; "the installation of a missile

defence system in Eastern Europe is, virtually, a declaration of war." He

finished his letter by referring to the extraordinary appeal to the people

of the world made by Bertrand Russell and Alfred Einstein over half a

century ago, warning humanity about the choice it faced of putting an end to

the human race or renouncing to war. Chomsky concluded with the following

words; "accepting a so-called 'missile defence system' makes that choice, in

favour of an end to the human race, perhaps in the not-too-distant future."

On Monday Reuters ran The following statement made by George W. Bush while

sitting with the Polish President Lech Kaczynski in the Oval Office;

"There's no better symbol of our desire to work for peace and security than

working on a missile defence system."

Not everyone is impressed by Bush's logic, however. Valdimir Putin of

Russia, has compared the United States to the Third Reich during a speech at

the Munich security conference in February. Then a few weeks ago the Times

reported; "Putin has warned the US that its deployment of a new anti-missile

network across Eastern Europe would prompt Russia to point its own missiles

at European targets and could trigger nuclear war."

Is it not clear that tensions are mounting and inching toward another global

conflict; that such leaders are becoming increasingly fanatical, a fact that

will bode disaster upon everyone caught in the middle?

And as if further antagonism is needed at these difficult time; when the

Iraq war has proved to be a lie, Afghanistan is wrecked in mayhem, Lebanon

is still recovering, and Palestine is falling apart, why antagonise the

Muslim communities of the world by granting a Knighthood to Salmon Rushdie,

who is largely perceived by them as one who has degraded their holiest of

all symbols, their own prophet? Why add insult to injury, considering the

humiliation they had to endure in Abu Ghraib, Kabul and Gaza?

But one has to remember that antagonism is not only targeting Muslims alone,

considering pope Benedict XVI statement that other Christian communities are

either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true

path to salvation.

Moreover, was the UK's decision to expel Russian diplomats over a KGB agent

fatally poisoned in London, the wisest and only possible handling of the

affair keeping in mind what such event would trigger? Read the International

herald Tribune and you will understand; the latter reported: "Russia on

Saturday suspended participation in a key European arms control treaty,

saying it will halt NATO inspections of its military sites and no longer

limit the number of its tanks and other heavy conventional weapons."

One must admit that it's becoming increasingly harder to know the good from

the bad. With half truths and media sounds bites, one is often forced to

revert to his comfortable western reality: that of a mortgaged home, a

stable job and a new car. But even such privileges are becoming harder to

come by, and when they do, they come at so heavy a price, that of our

silence and subjugation to the state, to the corporation and to the ever

mindless media. Indeed, our civil society is in danger.

Pablo Ouziel is an activist and a free lance writer based in Spain. His

work appeared in many progressive media including Znet, Palestine Chronicle

and Atlantic Free Press.