--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
<http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,1605276,00.html>
>
> ... As some see it, one ill-judged choice of cause
> was the accusation
> made by Living Marxism magazine that during the
> Bosnian war, shots
> used by ITN of a Serb-run detention camp were faked.
> The magazine
> folded after ITN sued, but the controversy flared up
> again in 2003
> when a journalist called Diane Johnstone made
> similar allegations in
> a Swedish magazine, Ordfront, taking issue with the
> official number
> of victims of the Srebrenica massacre. (She said
> they were
> exaggerated.) In the ensuing outcry, Chomsky lent
> his name to a
> letter praising Johnstone's "outstanding work". Does
> he regret
> signing it?
>
> "No," he says indignantly. "It is outstanding. My
> only regret is that
> I didn't do it strongly enough. It may be wrong; but
> it is very
> careful and outstanding work."
>
> How, I wonder, can journalism be wrong and still
> outstanding?
>
> "Look," says Chomsky, "there was a hysterical
> fanaticism about Bosnia
> in western culture which was very much like a
> passionate religious
> conviction. It was like old-fashioned Stalinism: if
> you depart a
> couple of millimetres from the party line, you're a
> traitor, you're
> destroyed. It's totally irrational. And Diane
> Johnstone, whether you
> like it or not, has done serious, honest work. And
> in the case of
> Living Marxism, for a big corporation to put a small
> newspaper out of
> business because they think something they reported
> was false, is
> outrageous."
>
> They didn't "think" it was false; it was proven to
> be so in a court of law.
>
> But Chomsky insists that "LM was probably correct"
> and that, in any
> case, it is irrelevant. "It had nothing to do with
> whether LM or
> Diane Johnstone were right or wrong." It is a
> question, he says, of
> freedom of speech. "And if they were wrong, sure;
> but don't just
> scream well, if you say you're in favour of that
> you're in favour of
> putting Jews in gas chambers."
>
> Eh? Not everyone who disagrees with him is a
> "fanatic", I say. These
> are serious, trustworthy people.
>
> "Like who?"
>
> "Like my colleague, Ed Vulliamy."
>
> Vulliamy's reporting for the Guardian from the war
> in Bosnia won him
> the international reporter of the year award in 1993
> and 1994. He was
> present when the ITN footage of the Bosnian Serb
> concentration camp
> was filmed and supported their case against LM
> magazine.
>
> "Ed Vulliamy is a very good journalist, but he
> happened to be caught
> up in a story which is probably not true."
>
> But Karadic's number two herself [Biljana Plavsic]
> pleaded guilty to
> crimes against humanity.
>
> "Well, she certainly did. But if you want critical
> work on the party
> line, General Lewis MacKenzie who was the Canadian
> general in charge,
> has written that most of the stories were complete
> nonsense."
>
> And so it goes on, Chomsky fairly vibrating with
> anger at Vulliamy
> and co's "tantrums" over his questioning of their
> account of the war.
> I suggest that if they are having tantrums it's
> because they have
> contact with the survivors of Srebrenica and witness
> the impact of
> the downplaying of their experiences. He fairly
> explodes. "That's
> such a western European position. We are used to
> having our jackboot
> on people's necks, so we don't see our victims. I've
> seen them: go to
> Laos, go to Haiti, go to El Salvador. You'll see
> people who are
> really suffering brutally. This does not give us the
> right to lie
> about that suffering." Which is, I imagine, why ITN
> went to court in
> the first place.
>
> You could pick any number of other conflicts over
> which to have a
> barney with Chomsky. Seeing as we have entered the
> bad-tempered part
> of the interview, I figure we may as well continue
> and ask if he
> finds it ironic that, given his views on the
> capitalist system, he is
> a beneficiary of it. "Well, what capitalist system?
> Do you use a
> computer? Do you use the internet? Do you take an
> aeroplane? That
> comes from the state sector of the economy. I'm
> certainly a
> beneficiary of this state-based, quasi-market
> system; does that mean
> that I shouldn't try to make it a better society?"
>
> OK, let's look at the non-state based, quasi-market
> system. Does he
> have a share portfolio? He looks cross. "You'd have
> to ask my wife
> about that. I'm sure she does. I don't see any
> reason why she
> shouldn't. Would it help people if I went to Montana
> and lived on a
> mountain? It's only rich, privileged westerners -
> who are well
> educated and therefore deeply irrational - in whose
> minds this idea
> could ever arise. When I visit peasants in southern
> Colombia, they
> don't ask me these questions."
>
> I suggest that people don't like being told off
> about their lives by
> someone they consider a hypocrite. "There's no
> element of hypocrisy."
> He suddenly smiles at me, benign again, and we end
> it there.
>
>
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