Media Wrongs against Truth and Humanity

Jayan Nayar *)

Panel of the Jury, members of the audience, Friends

I feel real regret that I am unable to be with you in person, unable to have the privilege of being inspired by our gathering as we rise and speak against the violent desires of power. I hope my words may at least be of some useful contribution to this imagination and spirit of a peoples" claim to judgement and action.

I am conscious that we have assumed for ourselves the responsibility of voicing a peoples" demand for justice. We gather and speak here because of failure - the failure of individuals and institutions to uphold the very basic of collective promises that have been made, by humanity, for humanity. We gather and speak here because we jointly reject the inevitability of such failure. But what must we say? What do we intend to do in order to carry out our responsibilities as a peoples" tribunal in ways which go beyond mere lamentations of power"s wrong-doing?

We could repeat what each and every one of us here already believes and find comfort in such repetitions. We could utter strong words against power, and applaud each other for uttering them. We could make belief that this, our moment as the WTI, by its very happening, represents a dent into power"s armour of shamelessness. We could, in our excitement and rejoicing of simply being together, do all these things - necessary as they may be at times simply for the preservation of energy and hope, yet essentially self-deluding - we could do all these things and forget that we in reality stand and speak under contexts of failure, not just of institutions of power, but also of our efforts of imagination and action for a humane humanity. Despite the many ideas for a better world, despite the persistent insistence for a political and economic order governed by truly democratic law, despite the everyday demands that take place throughout the world to eliminate the impunity of power in fulfilling its desires against the social majorities of the world, we are here, again, today. How do we imagine resistance and directions for humane futures now?

I begin with this reflection more as a marker for the importance of the WTI and the challenge I believe we face. I will return to some possible implications later.

First, I address the primary theme assigned to me. The issue of "media accountability".

I am not a media analyst or commentator. Neither am I part of the "alternative media" community. I was simply part of the Rome Session of the WTI, a session conceived of and carried through based on an assessment of a gap in the series of tribunals sessions planned for the WTI. It was felt that fundamental to any peoples" indictment against the US-UK led invasion and occupation of Iraq and its consequences for humanity, must be an examination of the role played by the institutions of the Media. This in itself is nothing new; scathing criticisms of the mainstream, corporate-media abound. The question we wished to confront in holding the session was how might we speak about the media with a language that recognised and placed as a matter of priority the human contexts of media voice and silence; to seek for a language of violation from perspectives of the violated. We saw this task as essentially invoking a language of a peoples" law. It is from this position that I speak to you now.

What We Know: On the War, Media and Disinformation.

We know that the case for war against Iraq was made by the governments of the so-called Coalition under various guises. Against the overwhelming opposition of the membership of the United Nations, and the unprecedented uprising of peoples" anti-war movements globally, it was asserted that what was being undertaken was a noble violence for the common good, and more particularly for the good of the Iraqi peoples. The same message of good against evil was repeated throughout the subsequent Occupation of Iraq, and is still on-going as the process of purported political transition reveals itself daily as a violent and impoverishing hoax. The message, hoax or otherwise, however is crucial. At stake are the "authority" and the "legitimacy" to military-political action - to War, Occupation, so-called Assistance.

It is obvious that governments alone cannot create the ideological universes which we inhabit. The authority and legitimacy prized by those who rule in the name of democracy comes from a perceived congruence of power-populace world-views, a congruence that is tied to perceptions of "reality" that invests in power the meanings of language and action that are understood and accepted, if not shared by the populace. It is here that the Media impacts most critically upon the political space.

That the Media plays a significant role in constructing the public debate is well known. As such, the Media, regarded to be bearers of truth-information, the so-called "Fourth Estate", is taken to represent a crucial component within the democratic process, providing the ideas and knowledge-link between the worlds of power and the worlds of citizenry. "Truth-telling", therefore, is intrinsically a social function, for from it is enabled informed understandings of the realities of the world, and deliberations on the political choices we might collectively make as we engage in the world. The power to construct social realities is indeed a formidable one. It bears great significance how it is wielded. It entails responsibility and accountability.

How then do we understand Media responsibility in times of war?

Standards of responsibility articulated in locations of official authority are not absent in this regard. Some examples would suffice:

Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal
Article 6.
["] Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes [crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity] are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.

UNESCO International Principles of Professional Ethics in Journalism.
Principle III: The Journalist"s Social Responsibility
Information in journalism is understood as a social good and not a commodity, which means that that the journalist shares responsibility for the information transmitted and is thus accountable " ultimately to the public at large"

Principle IX: Elimination of War and Other Great Evils Confronting Humanity
The ethical commitment to the universal values of humanism calls for the journalist to abstain from any justification for, or incitement to, wars of aggression "

International Federation of Journalists Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists.
1. Respect for truth and for the right of the public to truth is the first duty of the journalist ."

Yet, the revelations about the lies, falsifications, disinformation, misrepresentations and silences, upon which was based the call to war against Iraq, accompanied the brutality of occupation, and directed the politics of "transition" remain ceaseless. You have already been presented with substantive evidence on this. Much of the "mainstream", corporate-controlled Media stands implicated. This has been followed by periodic expressions of horror and outrage at the "mistakes", "omissions", inaccuracies etc. "Apologies" to readers for inadequacies of investigation and failure to reveal competing claims to truth in the run-up to war in Iraq have even been issued. The Media appears willing to confront some of the implications of disinformation that served the cause of aggression, and even to their own ineptitudes in relation to truth-telling. But, without consequence it would seem, long after the event, and with a voice of professional detachment. It was not sufficient then, it is still not sufficient.

It is worth emphasising that the recognition thus far of "media failures" has not entailed any acceptance of substantive consequence. Repeating its "failures" with respect the duty towards the public"s right to truth, it assumes that all there is by way of consequence to peddling disinformation is an inconsequential "acknowledgement" of ineptitude. Death, the consequence of the message to war, however, deserves greater dignity. "Failure", needs a clearer articulated denunciation, and "apologies", a more profound content. Above all, there must be recognition that the rights to "expression" notwithstanding, the wrongs against truth which lead to patently avoidable death and the destruction of livelihoods cannot enjoy impunity. When war is the message, the "messenger" must stand accountable. As of now, as we are only too aware of, they don"t.

The culpability of much of the media, in conjunction with the "governments" that we accuse, arises from their parroting of government claims, and their silences and silencings on the following substantive issues:

· The real reasons for the claim to war, and the implications of the claim to the unilateral right to so-called "preventive" and "pre-emptive" violence without question or challenge.
· The celebration of "Coalition" goodness and the silence of the realities of suffering caused by human and socio-economic destruction.
· The silence on the prevalent spirit of resistance within Iraq.
· The impact of so-called "anti-terror" and other "security"-based laws which create structures and processes of state terror across the global political landscape.
· The human, social and economic consequences of the spiralling militarization of polities in the name of security.
· The realities of human insecurity, the role of institutions of power in inflicting such conditions of impoverishment and insecurity and the vitality of peoples" other visions against war, and for peace.

In following and pandering to power, rather than serving to scrutinise and call to account power on these issues, those sectors of the media may be seen, perhaps, to have succeeded to serve as the ideological frontline for imperial violence. For this, we must name them complicit, and therefore guilty, in every crime committed as a consequence of the war on Iraq.

But all this said, such denunciation alone is insufficient. We have made these accusations often enough. We perhaps need to better communicate our judgements on these matters to the global audiences. But in itself, this is not enough.

On the matter of general media complicity in power"s designs, there is nothing stated earlier which we do not already know and have not already been powerfully claiming and demonstrating for decades. Our many alternative media activists have been bombarding the information-truth environment, through every conceivable media mechanism, with the truths not present in much of the dominant corporate media. Yet war, invasion, killing, socio-structural destruction, impunity, all of this proceeded unimpeded and still persist. We have either been insufficient in the volume of our desperate screaming for humanity and sanity, or we have not been screaming in the right way, with the right audiences in mind. I don"t know. But I do know that this requires us to stop and think. The Rome session, thought of as a component part of a broader WTI movement for ideological resistance and counter-creation, was an attempt to ask these questions of how we should speak and with what languages, and how we might move for effective peoples" actions to identify and intervene at the locations of power"s weaknesses.

My intention here is not to describe the Rome Session on Media Wrongs. Rather it is to elaborate on the thinking upon which it was based, thinking not solely on the issues of the media but importantly, on the role and potential of the WTI process as a Peoples" Law doing. I would like to speak now about the idea and potential praxes of Peoples" Law, on the visualising of the WTI process along these lines, and its application to our judgements and deliberations on the issues of media wrongs.

The idea of Peoples" Law, as an opposition to what may be regarded as Empire"s Law, is something more than an articulation of protest. It is not preoccupied with urging power to reform. It is not intended to seek an invitation to speak with the powers who seek to implement Empire"s projects. Rather, it is about creating a different authority for judgement and action altogether, based on other "Word-Worlds" of law that are authored by peoples in action. It begins, therefore, with the following repudiations of power"s asserted normalcies:

· Despite attempts to claim the opposite, there exists no inviolable right, on the part of the powerful, to govern, rule, order, the weak.
· Regardless of the ideological claims being advanced, there exists no unifying or unified civilisational consensus on the natural-ness of a corporate-dominated, militaristic imperialism as comprising the common values, truths, visions of human futures that prescribe a universal course for humanity"s social evolution.
· Notwithstanding attempts to convince otherwise, there exists no pre-ordained rationale for, eternal truth of, inevitability, regarding, forms of socially constructed orders that form the institutions of governance, including the form of "Law".

Peoples" Law may therefore be understood and viewed as follows:

· as a process of reclaiming Histories and Futures. An underlying thrust of the conceptual and practical implication of peoples" law is the reclaiming of violated peoples" rights to "truth". An elaboration of peoples" law, therefore, impinges on the very basis upon which ideological constructions of the "world" are maintained and promoted. Much of what can be seen as peoples" action in this regard has been to re-tell history as a means of reclaiming the power of memory and judgement of violation.
· As a manifestation of reclaiming Political Action. Running through the entire range of violated peoples" political initiatives in opposition to "power" is a fundamental reclaiming of the "right to act". Peoples" Law therefore brings to the fore ideas of political action which counterposes the mainstream conceptualisation of democratic politics with the radical reappropriation by peoples" groups to initiate what might be termed "grassroots democratic action" of and for law.

Briefly, the following principles may be stated as describing the foundations of a peoples" oriented perspective of law-action:

· Judgement: the right/power of peoples to judge the "realities" that are inflicted upon them and to name as violation that which is otherwise proclaimed as normalcy by the dominant powers.
· Authorship: the right/power of peoples to author/create "law" and to define the structures and nature of social relationships conducive to a life of security and welfare.
· Control: the right/power of peoples to control (and not merely "participate" in) the processes of decision-making and judgement in relation to the matters which affect the daily life-conditions of their communities.
· Action: the right/power of peoples to effect the "implementation" of their alternative visions of social relationships in ways that reinforce and celebrate the diversity of humanity, for humanity.

How might this then be translated in to a perspective on media wrongs?

We begin with a fundamental claiming of a peoples" power to judge the bearers of information for the message that they bear. We claim seriously the duties of truth-telling imposed by society upon our agencies of information and journalistic messengers, even more so in times and conditions of grave consequence. Contrary to the perverted demand for media "patriotism", we demand that it is indeed a greater burden to truth that is borne by the profession of journalism during times of war.

A Peoples" Law perspective on media wrongs therefore aims to go beyond simple recognitions and denunciations of media "failure", as if such failures were merely of professional inadequacies. Instead, it seeks to transform the discourse on media responsibility from professional ineptitude to one of violations.

The question that follows is how then do we name violations? First we must seek to bring to focus the different truth-contexts and the human constituencies within which the questions of responsibility and culpability arise. What is significant here is that "responsibility" or "accountability" of media institutions is not spoken of in abstract terms; the specificities of media actions and silences correspond with the specificities of human beings wronged, violated in their specific contexts. The language of violations, as spoken by the violated, is critical. In Rome, we argued for the recognition of 3 communities of the violated and the naming of wrongs so inflicted.

1. Against the Peoples of Iraq:

· A Wrong of Aggression - complicity in the waging of an aggressive war and perpetuating a regime of occupation that is widely regarded as guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
· A Wrong of Silence - neglect of the duty to give privilege and dignity to voices of suffering.

2. Against the Peoples of the "Coalition": (in addition to the above)

· A Wrong of Deception - complicity, through the validation and dissemination of disinformation, in enabling the fraudulent misappropriation of human and financial resources for war, from social development.
· A Wrong of Incitement - culpability for inciting an ideological climate of fear, racism, xenophobia and violence.

3. Against Humanity: (in addition to the above)

· A Wrong of Exclusion - Complicity in the marginalisation, if not exclusion and non-hearing of global voices for peace and justice?
· A Wrong of Usurpation - Complicity in the promotion of corporate-military perspectives on "security" against human-centred analyses and visions of peoples" security, and against the fundamental concerns and priorities of the global population?

The language of violation adopted here does not derive its validity from any formal source of law, nor from any validation by institutions of power. The object is not to plead with power for the recognition of wrongs so named, but to name them regardless, voiced by peoples claiming the power of judgement against the claimed violations. With this language of violation, it is not the case that we set out to claim that "the media" in some abstracted sense is guilty of all of the above. The assigning of guilt is not so much the priority here. Rather it is that such wrongs be named; whether or not a particular media organisation, or individual, can be found to be culpable for any of the above is to be determined by examination. But the wrongs, the violations, from a peoples" perspective is to have been given name. It is in this respect, ideally, an act of self-becoming; our naming of these wrongs enables us to become authors in the creation of norms, rather than recipients of handed down privileges from power. I say, ideally. Whether we do so, whether such a self-becoming is realised, whether this self-becoming leads to a political consciousness and political action that is sufficiently strong to confront power, all of this is up to us. It is yet to be seen.

It is in this connection that the WTI imagination becomes central. The real significance of a peoples" law doing lies in its ability to generate imaginations for new political action, deriving from the assertion of the power of peoples" voice and judgement. Let me speak a little here about the WTI imagination as I see it and the challenges we face.

I believe that the WTI must adopt for itself three significant functions, corresponding to the original repudiations from which a Peoples" Law imagination is born:

· The Declaratory Function: rejecting the claim to "inviolability" of Empire"s Rule/Law;
· The Deliberative Function: reflecting on the realities of Empire"s Rule and their implications for thought-action thereby challenging the claim to the "naturalness" of Empire"s prescribed orders; and
· The Mandating Function: imagining strategic action for continuing Peoples" Law initiatives to follow from the WTI thereby challenging the claim to the "inevitability" of Empire"s Rule.

Applied to the issues of media wrongs, the following becomes necessary as required WTI action. The burden here is on you, the Panel of Jury, to take up this challenge.

On The Declaratory Function:

The declaratory function requires that violations be named; that the normalcy of power"s violence be repudiated and the statement of a peoples" judgement be registered in the public conscience. Naming violation, adopting the peoples" language of inflicted wrongs as discussed earlier, and declaring these wrongs as being legitimately articulated as grounded and substantiated with evidence; these would be the essential tasks for the Panel. The critical function here is the validation, by a peoples" tribunal, of a peoples" law articulation of justice demands. As such, the declaratory function announces to the world the languages of peoples" law and the determinations of violations found by our tribunal. This then forms the public record of a peoples" judgement.

On the Deliberative Function:

The declaration of a peoples" judgement through this tribunal, however, must be seen as only a first step. It is in many ways the easiest of the tasks before the tribunal. I spoke earlier about us having to confront the contexts of failures which necessitate our gathering. Declarations of rejection, important as they are in making present and heard peoples" voices of judgement against power, need to be followed by a serious thinking of the challenges that confront us as we declare these wrongs. A declaration alone, leaving unchallenged our own assumptions and practices of "action" leaves little changed in the workings of the worlds controlled by power. It is for this reason we face the deliberative challenge.

What do we do with this language of media wrongs as presented? I do not assume that the articulation of wrongs put forward should stand unchallenged by you, the Panel. Perhaps, such a voicing of wrongs is not so useful, perhaps it is clumsy and requires refinement, perhaps it provides little by way of provoking new thinking on the possibilities of action against the corporate dominated media. As a preliminary to any subsequent deliberation, all of this requires your critical assessment.

Even if this suggested language for a peoples" naming of wrongs be accepted, it is required that you consider what implications may flow from such an articulation. How do we translate a peoples" law language into peoples" law actions in furtherance of justice?

Often we see the world of the media, and speak of media wrongs, simply in terms of the duality of the dominant media and the alternative media. Against the dominant media"s constructions of worlds conducive to power"s designs, the alternative media stands, providing powerful counter narratives. And there is no dearth in the sources of these counter narratives against power. There is no silence on truth. But why then do we still confront the unimaginable ignorance of truth amongst the citizenry in the centres of power, audiences that crucially matter as it is this ignorance which enables power to pursue the hoax of democratic action for human good.

Some questions come to mind in terms of issues that require deliberation:

1. How do we translate our words of wrongs committed by the media into action which brings consequence to those who commit such wrongs? Perhaps we need here to think about the adequacy of confrontation at the level of truth-telling alone, ie, in simply pursuing the practice of presenting to the public domain our competing truths. Silence there may not be, but ignorance or worse still, indifference, most certainly persists. How might we impact upon this? Perhaps, we need to think more specifically about naming and shaming strategies, pursued tenaciously, to bring specific instances of violation by specific institutions and individuals as the means by which the consequences of media violations may be brought to focus. Perhaps we might consider the feasibility of bringing public campaigns for test-cases, using the official courts of law as theatres for a peoples" action, against such institutions and individuals by adopting the languages of international criminal law. Perhaps" you the Panel of the Jury carry this burden of deliberation.
2. Do we need to rethink the directions for alternative, people-centred media action? We need to be frank. An issue which I raised in the Rome Session which did not I believe receive sufficient attention by way of considered response, relates to the nature of the alternative media environment. Alternative media activity is in proliferation. To what extent does this mean that the alternative media environment is also dominated by a logic of competition, and what are the implications that follow from this? Money matters! We cannot pretend otherwise, and money matters also to the alternative media sector. How might we ensure a greater coordination of people-oriented media so that the logic of competition may be overcome by a logic of cooperation? This is particularly important in connection with establishing real and meaningful spaces for voices from the global south. Can we simply continue with business as usual within the alternative media sector? For all our brave talk, can we become of sufficient collective force to impinge seriously upon power"s ability to control truth?

I have no answers to these questions. I can only ask them. I believe that this responsibility of deliberation, over and above the declarations of outrage, is a necessary burden we must bear as a peoples" tribunal. Out of such deliberation may be developed a "mandate" for future peoples" actions.

On the "Mandating Function":
The WTI exists, I believe, in a political climate where a Peoples" Law orientation is nascent. Consistent with the stated aims of the WTI to be a component part of a creative and vital movement for peace and justice, the "mandating function" would use the opportunity of solidarities fostered by the WTI process to give credence, and provide inspiration, to new directions of Peoples" Law actions. Through the voice of the WTI, therefore, may be mandated specific future initiatives which build movements across time and space, challenging the inevitability of the ways of the world as it is presently ordered. In connection with people-oriented media action, the mandating function would provide an authoritative call for relevant actors to pursue strategies identified as critical to challenge the ability and the impunity of the corporate-dominated media to falsify and misrepresent our worlds. WTI mandates for peoples" campaigns for truth and truth-telling responsibilities would therefore also have a symbolic potency which emphasises the collective coming-to-being of peoples" law movements for media accountability. The specific mandates that might be deemed necessary would depend obviously on the nature and outcome of the Jury"s deliberation of the issues raised earlier.

Friends, to conclude, I believe that the WTI possess a unique potential. My wish is that it will seize what I believe to be a significant potency of voice, not merely of protest, but of reclamation. If we can believe that there is nothing inviolable, natural or inevitable about Empire"s rule, notwithstanding such indoctrinations, if we can recognise within ourselves the internalisations of Empire"s prescriptions as we find ourselves "existing" within Empire, then we might begin to accord a rightful dignity to those for whom the struggles against Empire are more than theoretical postulations, more than professional activism.

I urge that you, the Panel, gives significant attention to the potential of the WTI as a new beginning towards Peoples" Law imaginations. I hope that the outcome of your work here will provide real and new directions by which we may begin reclaiming truth for humanity. I wish you well in this important task.

JAYAN NAYAR (Maleysia/İtaly)
Dr. of Law at Warwick University. Also, Coordinator of Peoples? Law Program at the Lelio Basso International Foundation. He has written extensively on People's Tribunal, People's Law, and the relationship between legal processes and transnational corporations.