Masood Mortazavi's Weblog

Sunday November 12, 2006

[ Society ] Koppel on Social Change

People in their 30s and 40s may still remember Ted Koppel from "the hostage crisis." He made a career out of reporting it. Now, for the Discovery Channel, he has filed a new video documentary on Iran, speaking to a number of individuals and opinion makers. While still rooted in the common biases of the Western and American discourse on Iran, it provides a platform for a potentially better understanding of the immense transformations that have followed the Islamic Revolution of 1979 by virtue of interviews conducted with a relatively broad range of Iranians. (Most of those interviewed, either appear to know little about those biases or, out of sheer politeness, let Koppel get away with them. A good training in journalism would make it clear to anyone that every question can come loaded with assumptions. However, one needs a good sense and training as a politician to respond or to unload and disclose the assumptions.)

2006-11-12 22:35:41.0 -- Comments [3] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
america bias discovery iran islamic koppel revolution tehran us video

Comments:

I wonder what in the past has given people reason to be suspicious? http://obsessionthemovie.com/timeline.htm

Posted by Dan P on November 13, 2006 at 05:38 PM PST #

To: Dan P ... whoever you may be ...

People who want to live in and foment fear, hang on to any propaganda that comes their way that keeps them in their comfort zone and pours fuel on the flames of their fears.

Obsession, the movie, feeds such people with the propaganda they need to consume to keep living in the illusion they live. Such propaganda, while acting like a hallucinating drug, remain a poor attempt at understanding real facts on the ground. It has the dangerous side effect of removing any moral qualms involved in eliminating people you imagine to be your enemies.

Instead of poorly produced propaganda, I simply point you, quite at random, to the following reports in the Financial Times on birth pangs and the 2006 Qana massacre, and also, these reports of the 1996 Qana massacre from Al-Mashreqh and from Robert Fisk, and this documentary on Peace and Propaganda in the Promised Land.

Now, if after seeing these you still bask in consuming openly Muslim-hating propaganda which feed your fears and biases---propaganda movies such as Obsession---that is your choice but it is not a wise choice that would lead you to a better understing or anything that is real. It is a choice of a life as an illusion. Many live it without realizing their ignorance until it is too late, up to a time when they can no longer do much about it.

Posted by 71.139.160.223 on November 14, 2006 at 12:02 AM PST #

to: 71.139.160.223 i totally agree with you. i see it in friends, i see it in my parents and grandparents... they see the propaganda and they swallow it-- and i can tell it's becoming more and more difficult to do so. but instead of vomiting it out immediately, they instead regurgitate into people's minds as truth. why do they do this? perhaps it's the profound magnanimity of the truth, the weight of it, that helps push the lies down their gullet. perhaps they swallow the lies because, at this point, swallowing the truth would cause their tiny stomachs (and minds) to simply burst. the poor, simple bastards...

Posted by just some guy on November 15, 2006 at 06:56 PM PST #