Journalists and Bad Guys

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

I have this image in my head of a journalist who likes to believe he or she is a realist. I imagine a reporter thinking of himself as being knowledgeable, after tromping down these mean streets, and after attending university. But I’m wrong, of course. Being a hard-boiled reporter went out with fedoras and trench coats. Precious few Canadian journalists, whether from formal education or being self-taught, “remember” my dad’s war.

It’s as if these guys managed to get through university without taking a single non-journalism course: To me they seem awfully innocent about war and peace. I would hope that even a reporter who had no ambitions to be a columnist one day, or to ever write like Hemmingway, would know that, for a writer, words are his “bread and butter.”

Buddhists tell me “words build your world.” Maybe reporters didn’t get the memo.

People are talking about words this week. As I write, there is talk of more action in Syria, either by a coalition, or by NATO if France invokes “defensive war” under article 5 of the NATO agreement. And what in the world do we call that terrorist region we might target? What words? Monday morning, the anniversary of Pear Harbor, on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio, two experts told the CBC host that saying “Islamic State” is wrong, partly because it isn’t a state, “don’t give it legitimacy,” and mostly because it isn’t Islamic, not as most Muslims would understand the term.

On Tuesday a British newspaper went into some depth covering various possible words: ISIL, ISIS, Daesh, or Islamic State. (Here is the link)

At home in Canada, it is as if the reporters have forgotten such details as sauerkraut being called liberty cabbage during my dad’s war, and German shepherd dogs being called Alsatians. This means they have forgotten the concept behind the details. Our soldiers in fearful combat did not use a neutral term like “Germans.” No, the opposing soldiers were called “the enemy,” krauts. Surely great fear causes great hatred. Maybe in some fantasy la-la land soldiers may kill as a job… impersonally, without malice. But in the real world, unlike in the Hollywood movies, soldiering will never be “a job.” There is no cheer in a foxhole-shaped grave.

In a democracy like my dad’s the soldiers are just as innocent as we of the general population, a population that has decided that all of us are supporting some of us to go carry out our wishes. As a united nation of killers, on the home front we say "liberty cabbage."

I don’t know what to think of citizens who are reporters. The main detail is that Canadians are attacking with just a few fighter bombers, flying high and remote from the “killing ground.” The obvious concept is: Don’t send our boys to bomb unless you are willing to kill. There’s more: If you would kill, whether with remote bomb or close bayonet—there’s no true difference—be realistic in your words. Don’t call the enemy a name you would use for your dear daughter.

I have heard of two girls in my city named Isis. Poor kids. The previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, and his minister of defense, quite rightly said Isil. As does President Barack Obama. But despite this, the reporters for the CBC, all across Canada, every day, are saying Isis.

I can imagine, if ever push came to shove, stiffening my gut and shoving my bayonet at dirty Isil!”…. But a guttural bellow of— “Isis?” Go ahead, try it. Not the same. Besides being a pretty girl’s name, it’s a classic name for an Egyptian goddess. But reporters, I guess, pass through university without reading the classics.

I can understand how if two names are equally short then a journalist, for commercial reasons, will choose the sweetest sounding one. Profit is good. But war should never be commercial or sweet. As soon as I heard that wrong word being used all the time I knew that Canada’s six warplanes in Iraq would NEVER be reinforced, no matter how many mass graves and how many refugees. Now, I don’t think the CBC contains leftist conspirators who thought to keep the war from increasing. No, they just didn’t think.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

December

2015

Footnote:

Update: I was correct that our conservative party led government would not increase our six fighter-bombers. What I didn't anticipate was that our liberal party led government would remove all six planes. A google search shows our liberal prime minister saying both ISIS and ISIL, but I think he mostly says ISIS.

~I wrote a lovely essay called Troy, the Iliad, and Music, putting Troy into the context of our modern democracy with reservists, citizen-soldiers. The post, archived January 2014, has achieved merely an average hit count, but I still think it’s a lovely piece.

The Iliad is Homer’s classic three thousand year old story where, (unlike U.S. movies) unless you know history, you can't tell which side wrote the story about the horror of that war—without any glamorous Trojan Horse. No such horse. It’s all tragedy, and I was moved.

New Drivers, Bullies and Me

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My young nieces live in a former crown colony: British Columbia. As New drivers when they drive with me they are required by law to put a big letter N on the car. It's magnetic like those oversized 'support the troops' ribbons.

While visiting I realized I was "supposed to" do "the uncle thing" and give driving advice but—whoa!—Call me humble but that feels too much like trying to advise high school kids on algebra. My girls are fresh from driving classes. Maybe I did have good driving habits once, but as they say, "only the good die young."

So you can picture my niece driving us along a well paved highway up the river past a ranch called 132 Mile Ranch, past a cluster of houses at a wee government road sign 140 Mile House, past a strip village labeled 150 Mile House, (I'm not making this up) past Sugarcane Reserve and on to the "city" of Williams Lake. (It has a downtown) Along the way I sternly asked, "Are you speeding?"

"Everyone speeds along here Uncle."

"When you're with your Uncle Sean you don't speed." I was only doing what the driving schools do. They know that people may tend to degenerate once they get a licence to thrill. But when teaching, what else can you do? Teachers and uncles have a duty not to rush to be cynical.


The best "uncle" thing I could do was disclose about the time I phoned the "cop shop" to say, "You guys drive a squad car eight hours a day; perhaps you could advise me. When I turn I always go into the 'proper' lane. Am I being naive?"

"No sir, you keep doing what you're doing. Otherwise one day you will get in trouble for sure." (My niece hastened to tell me, "You're supposed to go curb to curb.") I told her about the time, a few weeks after my call: "... So this jackass comes out of nowhere, trying to break the land speed record, and nearly kills us both! Good thing I had turned into my proper lane..." I told the girl that the cop I talked to would know about "being naive" as cops are known to bend some rules themselves. "I know, Uncle, I've seen them." Yes, the police and I have a lot in common.

I failed to tell my girls the most significant highway statistic of all: The average motorist self-reports being an above average driver. Such a disconnect from reality. We older folks get to thinking we are entitled to our idiosyncratic driving habits. Actually, we're just idiots. Some, like my brother, even yell curses habitually from behind the wheel—that's OK with me, since it can't hurt him. (Not unless he forgets to keep his windows rolled up.) My concern is for those who yell or use verbal abuse on the sidewalk or indoors. Speaking of such abuse, it's time to "segue." (slide to another topic)


Before me is the book Teen Torment subtitled Overcoming Verbal Abuse at Home and at School by Patricia Evans.

Ms Evans offers a fascinating take on abusers: they are spellbound. To do her theory justice I would have to plagiarize her at length. Instead let me over-over simplify by saying that abusers act as if they are "under a spell" of private unreality. Hence bullies go after those who are real before bullying conformists.

Here is my made up example: If an abuser is spellbound to say, "You are stupid" then it does you no good to try to use reasoning. Don't reply that you won a Hollywood quiz show, and don't pull your hometown newspaper clipping out of your hip pocket to prove it. A spellbound person is enraged by reality. He won't thank you for the truth. So if I pull into a roadhouse (tavern) and that spellbound jackass is there, well, let's hope he's a lot smaller than I am, because it's no use taking my driver's manual from my pocket to educate him. Better to invite him into the parking lot and then talk with my fists.

Sometimes, perhaps, I might possibly put a spell on myself. Maybe one day I go 10 kilometers per hour over the speed limit while claiming that everyone else should go that fast too. And maybe on another day I go 15 kph over the limit feeling entitled to go faster than you. And maybe one day as you make a nice legal left turn I will turn behind you into the slow lane and floor my gas pedal so that you can't move over and you have to miss your turn off and — whoops! — OK, so that last is surely a lie. I could never be such a jerk.

And I can never kid myself about whether I am speeding: I drive a manual transmission and so my ear is pretty good. Meanwhile, I'm sure that lots of people who drive automatics who don't even think to glance at their speedometers. They probably drive guilt-free, horribly oblivious, "judging" their speed by whatever "feels good." Such a disconnect.

Even if I drive only 5 kph over the limit I would do well to keep a touch of guilt, and a trace of humility, rather than being the Center of the World. In the end my only sure way to de-spell myself is... to say our children are our future. If I drive as if my nieces are with me then I can't go wrong. But then I can't speed, either.

So that's my plan. Is this being "too" honest?... Nah, we will always desperately need some honest drivers to keep the rest of us from behaving like swine.



Sean sharing the world with other people Crawford

footnote: I wonder if leaders of the Islamist republic are spellbound? Enraged by real people?