Terrorism, Free speech, and the Hypocrisy of Western Media

I can't think of a more epitomic institution of free speech than a university. They are are not called the conscience of society for nothing. Anybody who has spent a decent length of time amongst academia knows that pretty much anything can be said, and it’s more often than not elucidated in such a way that it makes Patrick Gower’s opinion pieces sound like school boy name calling. As I look through my social media feeds on what is possibly the most fervent of Christian feast days I see next to nothing regarding a terrorist attack at a university in Garissa, Kenya that has at the time of writing this claimed 147 lives (including 4 assailants). There are a few token headlines at the usual corporate media institutions, but alas, there is very little semblance of condemnation, sympathy, solidarity, criticism, or even the typical anti-Muslim sentiment (The New Zealand Herald's top story is a championing of some wealthy narcissist putting the neo-colonial boot into local Māori because her profit trumps the exploitation of their land, while the Kenyan story falls faster than an anchor in water)[1]. To Western media, and the hegemony of European political consciousness, this is just as usual for Africa as flatulence in the wind. For an attack on such a prominent institution of free speech, there seems to be deafening lack of it. There is, and never will be a "Mimi ni Garissa"[2] for the 143 pinko student nobodies in some far flung corner of that homogeneous continent called Africa.

Cast your mind back to January 7th of this year—it may seem like a distant memory but it was a mere 3 months ago—to the horrific attack on the journalists at the forgettable excuse of a satirical tabloid (it does not deserve a prestigious description) Charlie Hebdo by al Qaeda in Yemen, not anti-Muslim flavour-of-the-month the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant.[3] Anyone is who is not within the manifold of fundamentalist Islamic organisations can agree the attack was horrific and should be condemned. However, as pointed out by a myriad of commentators, this should come with the caveat that any act of violence regardless of religion, race, state, or non-state actor, should be equally condemned. What followed was the fire stoking of Eurocentrism, nationalism, fascism, and racism all under the excusal banner of free speech. Marches with millions of people attracted leaders from across the world all to condemn terrorism and advocate free speech.[4] Social media had a wet dream, both left and right of the political spectrum, shouting loudly "Je suis Charlie".[5] I was one of the very few who refused to get caught up in the emotionally tinged implicit cultural superiority of the campaign. I'm not a fan of religious extremism or religion in general, but the vitriol Charlie Hebdo publishes was the crass vacuous rubbish that appeals to red-neck racists who champion democracy (despite not knowing or understanding what it is), but are open to spreading that "democracy" by bloody prolonged wars in far flung corners of the world they know nothing about. Terrorism is a very complex phenomenon that requires a difficult conversation with the Muslim world rather than just pointing fingers, putting up walls, and bombing.

Now contrast this ostentatious response to the luke-warm response to Anders Behring Breivik's vicious but equally calculated attack on members of the Norwegian Labour Party’s youth wing at an organised retreat on July 22nd 2011 that claimed 77 lives of equal moral worth. Breivik, being from one of those Viking countries, was as white as white could ever get. There was no global public out-cry over Caucasian extremism, or Protestant extremism, Christian extremism, Islamophobic extremism, Zionist extremism, anti-feminist extremism, patriarchal extremism, free-market extremism, or just general far-right extremism. Corporate media white-washed this event so much so, that if you quiz anyone on the street in the Anglo-Saxon nations now, chances are they couldn't recall this equally horrific event that claimed more lives that the Parisian attack (not that the number killed is the important issue under discussion). Why? Because Breivik didn’t fit into the Western narrative of “us versus them”, “Christians versus Muslims”, or “freedom versus hatred”. Conservative American political commentator Glenn Beck even had the atrocious audacity to compare the camp for aspiring progressive lawmakers to the Hitler Youth.[6]  There is something horribly askew in the media when a far-right political commentator implicitly sypathises with Anders Breivek by suggesting a moderate left-wing organisation is like the youth wing of a political party responsible for the Holocaust. Aside from a few well-attended local memorials by Norwegians, there were no global marches of millions, no conglomeration of heads-of-states in solidarity, no overt social media campaigns, and certainly no "Jeg er Arbeiderpartiet".[7]

In recent years Kenya has become more and more susceptible to terrorism, so today’s attack is not unexpected given Kenya’s proximity to the politically unstable Somalia, and in turn Yemen and the Arabian Peninsular. But suggesting some sort of concerted pan-Muslim attempt at expansion of a Sharia governed hegemonic sphere—especially in contrast to the surreptitious and often unwanted American hegemony reaching in all four corners of the globe—is an outlandish and downright naïve. The most recent terrorist attack in Kenya in recent years was the September 21st 2013 attack on a Westfield shopping mall, owned by Israeli interests, in Nairobi, and it is interesting to note to differences and similarities between that attack and today’s in relation to the media coverage. Both attacks were committed by al Qaeda affiliated al Shabaab, and both attacks were similar in their execution. The 2013 attack in contrast had some different, and striking ingredients: the attack was against Westerners, and Western capital. The reactions to the attack were swift and strong, and the Muslim narrative was all too apparent unlike Mr. Breivik’s political and religious affiliation. So today’s attack which appears to not involve Westerners or Western interests, deadlier than the Westfield attack and the Charlie Hebdo attack, has become drowned in a sea of trivial news items. Not one media institution is leaping to its feet to defend Kenyan academics’ or students’ rights for freedom of speech. The apathy expressed by the West will be just another predictably unfortunate aspect of the African continent. The self-righteous and conceited calls for freedom of speech after the Paris attacks have simmered down to a muttered freedom of sheep for the Kenyan students.

This attack falls just outside the narrative so is exempt to the usual fear mongering and scare tactics that accompany an attack on anything remotely European. Kenya’s terrorism and subsequent media reactions to it are a product of neo-colonialism. Kenya is just another helpless victim of Westernisation and expansion of Western markets manifested in shopping malls, and when those shopping malls are attacked, the attack resonates with Westminster and Washington. Never mind the lives of local Kenyans whether they are at a shopping mall or university, the West’s precious capital is under threat. To the West, the attack on Charlie Hebdo was not just an attack on freedom of speech, but an attack on an institution designed to create a particular narrative about the “Other”, and in turn justify a fear-driven war against this invisible Other. I find an attack on a university (regardless of whoever is on the campus, Western or non-Western) just as abhorrent as an attack on a shopping mall, tabloid newspaper, or youth camp, and they should tell the same story: that violence for political purposes is not morally justified. But the glaring differences in narratives portrayed by Western media institutions of the aforementioned terrorist attacks is intentional: Europe, America, freedom, democracy, capitalism, good; Africa, Middle East, Muslims, community, cosmopolitanism, academia, progressivism, bad.

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[1] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11427447

[2] Swahili: I am Garissa [University College].

[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/us-france-shooting-aqap-idUSKBN0KN0VO20150114

[4] http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/en-direct-marche-republicaine-la-place-de-la-republique-noire-de-monde-11-01-2015-4437327.php

[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11331836/Je-Suis-Charlie-Vigils-held-around-the-world-after-Paris-terror-attack-in-pics.html?frame=3159654

[6] http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/26/glenn-beck-site-of-norway-massacre-sounds-like-the-hitler-youth/

[7] Norwegian: I am Labour [Party].

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.