MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is empowered by the system to provide commentary as well as reporting.. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Riyadh: Friday 20th September 2012
Two video’s in the space of the week; both different. Yet they both have exacted outraged responses that threaten to further polarize society.
Tape 1. The Innocence of Muslims:
First there was a film, mocking and insulting the Prophet Mohammed, suggesting, among other things, that he was a child molester. Ownership of this video, The Innocence of Muslims, has been difficult to determine; hardly surprising considering its deliberately inflammatory and divisive intent. Yet the general consensus in the west appears to be that its creator was both an idiot and a bigot. Commentators have been at pains to stress the poor quality of the film, implying that the quality of the film is somehow evidence of the maverick nature of its creator’s politics.
The narrative is that this directorial lone-wolf has put out a video which should never have seen the light of day on quality grounds. Clearly it was nothing to do with the west. Clearly it was nothing to do with the United States. Clearly the riots it has sparked are ill-informed. The attacks on American embassies has been treated with bemusement. To any sane westerner, the idea that so amateurish a production could be associated with a State, more commonly implicated with high-tech infringements of domestic liberties, is patently laughable.
Yet that has not prevented an Egyptian Salafist broadcaster devoting a two-hour show to it as well as a series of political leaders making hay by drawing unsubstantiated connections between it and a widely believed, but vaguely rendered myth of American / Jewish conspiracy in the region. Crowds have been incited. Violence has been encouraged. Deaths have resulted.
At the time of writing this post, The White House appears to be indicating that the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi was the result of an Al Qaeda sponsored terrorist attack coinciding with the anniversary of 9/11 and not, as it first appeared, the result of spontaneous riots. Yet while this story continues to develop along multiple streams, the reality of the response to this video across the Middle East, is that from Libya to the Far East, people have taken to the streets in protest. Moreover, they clearly believe that this tape speaks for America and the west generally.
Of course the rioters are not all, or even a majority of Muslims. Yet the fact that they can be so easily motivated to riot and can so readily believe that America is the source of their anguish and troubles, speaks powerfully about the way they have been governed in the past. Moreover, living here it is hard to ignore such views. On one occasion, a security guard manning the security scanner at the entrance to my office, uttered the words Osama Bin Laden, under his breath as i passed through. Not expecting me to react, he looked embarrassed when i turned and shook his hand with a smile. And it is not merely boy’s in junior occupations, who feel this way. A member of my client team, an intelligent and wealthy man from a well-connected family, articulated the opinion that, in his view America has changed. What was once a land of tolerance and manners, held, he believed, the intent to attack Mecca and Medina. When I suggested that Americans are not stupid and would not incite the worlds Muslims for the sake off occupying two cities of no strategic value whatsoever to a western power, be merely looked disappointed.
Moreover, these are not isolated experiences. All of which tells me that while Individual Arab’s of all classes, are mostly moderate politically, their hearts burn with pride as all hearts do. And sometimes men listen to their hearts over their heads. I might be implacably opposed to Scottish independence, but that does not prevent me being chippy at perceived injustices heaped upon my nation. Probably you, dear reader can empathise with this sentiment also.
Rightly or wrongly, whatever the cinematic merits of the film in question, it has had a powerful effect that has damaged the agendas of governments from both the West and the Middle East, all of whom would rather be getting on with the business of government. moreover, in both spheres it gives radical and extremist political voices added power and currency by tentatively linking the fear in people’s hearts with the suspicions and prejudices preached by such leaders.
The apparently spontaneous rage at the heart of the protests is misleading. Political leaders have been complicit in inciting this rage by directly linking the video to America or to the American Secret Service, rather than to an individual.
The day’s when an Islamic State could incite a Fatwa against an individual, Salman Rushdie for publishing a mediocre book, appears long gone. Now, a video, of poor quality; the nasty figment of an individual’s politicised imagination, is cynically manipulated by politicians from across multiple countries, who imply a link between this video and the United States.
Tape 2: The Romney Tape:
This is keyhole film taken of a $50,000 a plate Romney Fund-raiser. The Republican Nominee is filmed and recorded giving candid responses to the invited questions. It was not intended for broadcast or public consumption and Romney talks about his strategy for targeting a small section of the electorate and well as his policy on the Arab-Israeli peace process.
In the last three days, he has seen his campaign publicly derailed as a result of the leak of these comments.
In particular, his comments about not bothering to woo the 47% of Americans who do not pay federal income tax has been the source of repeated and continued media derision. Moreover, Romney appears to have lost friends as a result, with a succession of prominent Republicans failing to support him publicly or endorse or defend his comments. Even the stalwart Fox News has struggled to contain the damage, or shift the agenda.
Of course, political professionals know the stink of toxic comments, and his remarks appear to have been misjudged to the extent that they will have caused grave offence to many Republican Voters, including the elderly, who rank among the 47% in question.
Yet, what interests me is that this was not really a gaff. A gaff is when a person misjudges a public statement. Romney’s comments were made in a private forum. Moreover, they are essentially about strategy. You can argue that the strategy is flawed. You can argue that his facts were wrong. But to suppose that the man is merely the sum of his public messages is naive in the extreme. Neither Mitt Romney, Barak Obama, nor any politician who has ever lived has been so two-dimensional.
Politics is misleadingly described as a science. In reality, as Machiavelli demonstrates in The Prince, Politics is an art: specifically the art of looking strong while compromising and pushing through policies as close to your own vision as possible.
And this inherent compromise, built into most political systems, is healthy. It mitigates the worst effects of political change through revising policy and weeding out its weaker elements. Romney’s record as a State Governor is notable for its apolitical approach, including extending healthcare provision to the poor. Yet he is politically hamstrung, requiring the support of wealthy backers, and religious groups just to get on the ticket. No Richard Nixon, Romney does not have the implicit trust of the Republican base and is therefore not strong enough to plough his own furrow, in policy terms. He is obliged to preach messages which alienate the centre in order to shore up his campaign funds.
Of course I cannot claim to know the views of the real Mitt Romney, but the point is that a politician needs to be able to appear to be supporting your interests. He is bound to give a different speech to a group of bankers and financiers than to a group of religious conservatives, or a group of soccer Mom’s. None of this should matter, because campaigns should be fought on policy. But they aren’t.
Romney’s comments are interesting only to the extent that they reveal his strategy. In focusing his efforts on a narrow band of perhaps 10% of Americans and retaining his base, he believes he can win a majority. That is enough to gain power. And Mitt Romney’s policy commitments will only ever be tested should he get there. The Romney tapes revel little about the man beyond the fact that he is more than the sum of Republican orthodoxy, his party would like him to be. And in an election based upon popularity and whether you feel you can relate to the candidate, that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Yet if anything the media storm surrounding the Romney comments, appears to have drawn the opposite lesson. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, suggested that seeing the real Mitt Romney would damage his campaign. Of course Fox balances this. Tonight the Megyn Kelly Show was seeking to redress the impact by suggesting that it had been creatively edited. Both approaches miss the point, however.
My suspicion is that this tape will not adversely affect the voting intentions of many Americans. Firstly, most of the fated 47% who pay no income tax, actually pay a different form of tax on their income, while a substantial amount are retired and have paid all their working lives. While some will undoubtedly take offence at the comments, many will relate to them, not realising that they themselves are included. Most importantly, however, the outrage or identification of individuals is likely to be most keenly displayed by already partisan supporters of one party or the other. The main effect on independents will be further disengagement.
None of this washes, with the political parties or the Media of course, who have recoiled from and reviled his comments, creating a media storm which might well be irrelevant to most American peoples’ lives, but which has fed off the panic it has created in the political landscape and caused a flustered Romney campaign to refocus his campaign message.
So what?
What do these videos have in common, beyond occupying parallel news space?
Well, they both demonstrate the power, not of the media per se, but of a tiny number of political operators to successfully manipulate the media to their political ends.
The creator of The Innocence of Muslims, has, on one level, achieved his goals, by contributing to an environment where extremists from the Middle East feed off the views of Western Extremists and in turn feed the bigotry of those self-same Western extremists.
Yet the real winners in this scenario are the extremist populist politicians of the Middle East who have tended to be out-performed electorally by moderates. A democracy tends to elect moderate governments and left to their own devices, tend to become more moderate over time. Yet any evidence, regardless of how flimsy, that American interest in the Middle East is malign and conspiratorial, will serve to empower the extremists by allowing them to manipulate mobs, providing them with a disproportionate significance in their own political landscape.
Similarly, the impact of the Romney Tape is magnified by the partisan media landscape into which it has emerged. Far from allowing American voters to judge what they will on his comments, they have been treated it to commentary on every single sentence. Media outlets whose agendas are unregulated and whose scripted analysis is skewed in favour of either the Democrats or Republicans, deny Americans the right to decide for themselves the real meaning and significance of Romney’s comments by spoon-feeding them a highly skewed interpretation designed to reinforce prejudice and intolerance and victimhood.
As with The Innocence of Muslims, the person responsible for the Romney tape, possibly a member of the team of waiters serving the invited guests, has likely achieved much of what he or she intended. Yet the real winners, ultimately, are people who already operate within a highly political environment, supporting one side or another.
The real impact of both tapes, is that they provide politically partisan campaigners with weaponry to manipulate the arguments away from the individual or the independent.
And crucially, the two tapes share another, fundamental common theme. While one emerged into the environment of an American Presidential campaign and the other into a deeply unsettled Middle Eastern region, both emerged into societies were the regulation of the media and impartiality are next to none-existent.
And as long as the media are empowered to provide analysis and commentary as well as news, the dis-empowerment of the individual will continue.
And Yet…
There is an alternative. At the recent Republican and Democratic National Conventions, four speeches were better received than any others. Ann Romney and Michelle Obama both showed a human side and a love for their respective husbands, that was engaging and unfailingly supportive. Meanwhile two former big hitters engaged in speeches replete with insight and policy analysis, and yet engaging and profound and human. Condoleezza Rice and Bill Clinton are very different personalities but each have and ability to communicate political policy directly. Bill Clinton in particular, is a consummate politician because of his engaging and charismatic optimism.
Regardless of the country or region, people respond to optimism, and there is no more optimistic message than one of belief in people. Muslim or Christian, Republican or Democrat, a politician who genuinely believes that tomorrow will be better will better because people themselves will make it better, is a politician who will have little to fear from leaked tapes.
Bill Clinton, and Condoleezza Rice, are both admired and respected and have emerged from periods when their reputations may have been tainted by failure, relatively unscathed. But then, both of them are very substantial individuals. As Clinton, in particular has demonstrated time and again, simple optimistic communication of your beliefs, married to a command of a policy based narrative, is both captivating and engaging. In this context, Romney’s greatest crime is that he has demonstrated a fundamental lack of belief in the American people to judge his arguments on its merits.
But then, for them to do that, they would need to be given the chance and for that to happen, the Media would need to embrace the old-fashioned art of impartial reporting. Believing in people is an equally applicable lesson for the media to learn.
