In the third of a five part special report, Ahmed Shibli, managing director of ETD Consulting sets out his own unique take on the twenty-first century to date and how several disparate events that have shaped our lives over the past twenty years may well be connected.
Part Three
The 21st century saw the dawn of the digital media over which we had little or no control. Then came along the mobile telephones with the digital and video cameras that cost little and came within the easy reach of everyone. This meant that what happened either at home or in our wars overseas was instantly relayed around the world. Muslim youths, many dispossessed and unemployed around the world, were radicalised by some of the pictures that they saw.
The clergy became even more radical than ever before with their own ‘heavenly’ view of world affairs. The mix became really toxic. Warnings that the invasion of Iraq would radicalise the Muslim in the UK were brushed aside, perhaps because we thought that this would all be controllable and only a minor irritant. The digital media took on its own momentum and became a mix of real and fake news. This mix suited some who termed as fake news anything that they did not like or termed all bad actions as the doing of a ‘few bad apples’.
The kneeing of George Floyd would have gone un-noticed in the old world but this time the news spread like a wildfire with protests and solidarity marches in the most unlikely of places, such as South Korea. Some in the US establishment were furious and blamed the digital media for spreading the ‘bad’ news. The digital media not only gave rise to the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement but spread it equally to the previously unlikely quarters like the sports men and women.
The impact of the above toxic mix on various democracies around the world was unbelievable. In the process, and unrealised by our leaders, our own disposed also became radicalised in a different way. Many heads of governments were elected on single popular slogans such as ‘Make America Great Again’, ‘Get Brexit done’. Populist slogans brought about populist leaders. And then came Covid.
The populist leaders were not going to bow to Covid that easily. They all put on brave faces, brushed the risks aside and told us to ‘take it on the chin’. While many South East Asian countries had the experience of SARS and reacted quickly our leaders in the West left it too late. Even the scientific advisers were reluctant to learn from the experience of those countries. So while Vietnam, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and other countries neighbouring China, some with thousands of miles of border with China, stopped all flights and other transport from China right from day 1 and nipped the evil in the bud with deaths that could be counted on the fingers of one, or may be both, hands, we in the West paid a heavy price both in terms of life and ruined economies. The countries with populist right-wing regimes suffered most. The USA, India, UK, Brazil and Israel saw the bulk of deaths. This cannot be a pure coincidence, the common denominator is quite clear to many.
While we condemned the digital media which suddenly started showing the ‘other side of the story’ that the established media was sometimes less than enthusiastic to show, it became very popular with those seeking to know the alternative version. Thus, while the UK media covered well the brutal actions of the Hong Kong police, its coverage of the Indian army curfew in Kashmir, the year long lockdown of the masses, large scale arrest of the politicians and brutal treatment of the youth that dared to come out to protest or even to attend weddings or funerals of the loved ones was, and still is, nearly non-existent.
It is in this environment of telling the half-truths that the alternative media became popular. Similarly, the new TV media outlets such as Aljazeera and RT became popular alternative sources of storytelling. Our reaction was to blame these sources of media as pure propaganda or ‘fake’ news. Instead of improving the message we sought to shoot the messenger and thus gave more oxygen to the alternative media.
