That Presidents Mugabe and
Putin end up in the same bracket, according to the West, confirms the
continuance of the Cold War which the western media is fanning whether
in courting confrontations and advancing preemptive purposes or by way
of interpreting events. Sochi thus became a new Cold War metaphor in an overdrive of western media propaganda. |
| Bad Guy...Vladmir Putin is to the Western and its media |
It is hardly surprising — it is a norm rather — that western media follow the flag on foreign policy.
Sometimes it even leads it.
That is how this world has gotten along in the Cold War, and in recent times, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Zimbabwe, Uganda and even lately Ukraine and Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia.
There are other innumerable examples.
Lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, terrorists in Afghanistan, horror stories of government crackdown on “civilians” in Libya and Syria; among others, have been peddled the media.
Libya’s Muammar Gaddaffi, whom the western media liked to call “Mad Dog”, was toppled.
Syria’s Bashir still stands, hanging by the cliff rather, after the US nearly invaded Syria for having crossed some dubious “red line” last year.
Zimbabwe has been fodder for negative western media following the revolutionary land reform and indigenisation and pro-poor policies. President Mugabe became a villain. He is also so because of his stance against homosexuality.
Unsurprisingly, the western media sunk to new lows by appearing to begrudge the Zimbabwe’s leader’s 90th birthday last week.
The UK Independent, for example, had a piece entitled “Robert Mugabe’s 90th birthday, and why no-one on earth should have turned up to his party”.
Many Zimbabweans did with a lot of goodwill. But the Independent emblematically said President Mugabe’s has been a “catastrophic dictatorship that continues to claim lives. And for that reason, Mugabe, we’re afraid we can’t make it.”
One Vince Musewe, nowadays very useful in western commentary on Zimbabwe, thought celebrating the milestone was “just irresponsible”. There were other reasons, according to the Independent, for not celebrating President Mugabe.
One of them: “Because what he says about homosexuality makes (Russian President Vladmir) Putin look like a pussy cat . . .”
The juxtaposition of President Mugabe and Putin is significant. Coincidentally, President Putin sent a warm congratulatory message to President Mugabe saying, “You enjoy well-deserved respect as one of the leaders of the African national liberation movement,” and appreciating friendly Russia-Zimbabwean relations.
That Presidents Mugabe and Putin end up in the same bracket, according to the West, confirms the continuance of the Cold War which the western media is fanning whether in courting confrontations and advancing preemptive purposes or by way of interpreting events.
Sochi thus became a new Cold War metaphor. Many analysts and experts saw an overdrive of western media propaganda.
Stephen F Cohen, professor emeritus at New York University and Princeton University writes about the US media’s “shameful” treatment of the games.
“If the recent tsunami of shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory articles in leading newspapers and magazines — particularly about the Sochi Olympics, Ukraine and, unfailingly, President Vladimir Putin — is an indication, this media malpractice is now pervasive and the new norm,” he says in an article.
He says “Overall pre-Sochi coverage was even worse, exploiting the threat of terrorism so licentiously it seemed pornographic.”
On the opening day of the games the Times “found space for three anti-Putin articles and a lead editorial, a feat rivaled by the (Wahington) Post. Facts hardly mattered.” Cohen says, “US media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War.” The history of this degradation is also clear. It began in the early 1990s, following the end of the Soviet Union, when the US media adopted Washington’s narrative that almost everything President Boris Yeltsin did was a “transition from communism to democracy” and thus in the US’ best interests. This included his economic “shock therapy” and oligarchic looting of essential state assets, which destroyed tens of millions of Russian lives; armed destruction of a popularly elected parliament and imposition of a “presidential” constitution, which dealt a crippling blow to democratisation and now empowers Putin; brutal war in tiny Chechnya, which gave rise to terrorists in Russia’s North Caucasus; rigging of his own re-election in 1996; and leaving behind, in 1999, his approval ratings in single digits, a disintegrating country laden with weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, most US journalists still give the impression that Yeltsin was an ideal Russian leader.”
This explanation illustrates two vital points: one that everything that serves the interests of the US is best; and secondly, and in relation, that someone or a country may afford to be bad and still get western support as long as that serves western interests. Prof Cohen further debunks US media practice noting that since the early 2000s, “the media have followed a different leader-centric narrative, also consistent with US policy, that devalues multifaceted analysis for a relentless demonization of Putin, with little regard for facts.”
The Hollywood Reporter Hollywood also explains the anti-Russia media obsession. It notes that, Google, the giant US multimedia company, ran a doodle on its homepage expressing solidarity with gay athletes in Sochi, which a government figure dismissed as “provocation created out of fear to weaken a strong Russia.”
It cited Vladimir Yakunin a government official, saying, “There is an impression that what is hiding behind the democratic principle of ‘freedom of speech,’ is not the diversity of opinion, but a well-organised information war (against Russia).” Finian Cunningham of the Strategic Culture Foundation wrote on NSNBC, noted that apart from the superlatives associated with the cost and preparation of the games, “Another superlative is that no other sporting event has attracted so much lurid and negative media coverage, emanating largely from the Western corporate news outlets…”
This coverage, especially on alleged problems, ranged from “grimly serious to the sublimely ridiculous.”
For example, Cunningham, cited the New York Times, a whole paper of record, carrying a story on “Racing to Save the Stray Dogs of Sochi” on the same top foreign stories along with Egypt and Ukraine. By the way, Ukraine has become another Cold War front, with the media in tow. And Prof Cohen notes that US media has been “highly selective, partisan and inflammatory”. It is “Ukraine’s chance for democracy, prosperity” versus “escape from Russia, . . . (the) “bullying” Putin and his “cronies” in Kiev.” He explains: “But the most crucial media omission is Moscow’s reasonable conviction that the struggle for Ukraine is yet another chapter in the West’s on-going, US-led march toward post-Soviet Russia, which began in the 1990s with NATO’s eastward expansion and continued with US-funded NGO political activities inside Russia, a U.S.-NATO military outpost in Georgia and missile-defense installations near Russia.”
Cunningham concludes “The saying goes: don’t mix sport with politics. From Western media and their governments’ point of view, Sochi is evidently all about politics and very little about sport.”
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