Quote Of The Day

"The partisan coverage of the Iranian election is just an event in the overall process of undermining the distinction between official Western government policy and Western media reporting. This fusion of government and media has reinforced an attitude of 'us' against 'them' in the rest of the world and partly explains the increasing global cultural polarisation. In spite of its many weaknesses, Iran has the most democratic government in the Middle East after Israel. The governments of the West who are condemning Iran have excellent relations with some of the most brutal regimes like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. The journalists who have joined the chorus of condemnation know (or ought to know) this. Clearly, therefore, the West is not seeking to correct the democratic deficit in Iran. It is seeking regime change – at any cost. Contemporary experience shows us that all secular governments in the Middle East tend to be autocratic. Every move towards democracy tends to produce a theocracy. This was the case in Palestine when Hamas beat Fatah and Algeria in 1990 when the Front for Islamic Salvation won the election. By being hostile to such outcomes, the West stands opposed to democracy in the Middle East. I am always suspicious of Western, especially American, pretentions at promoting democracy in other countries. Except for Japan and West Germany, there are no examples of US involvement in other countries on the side of democracy. On the contrary, the US has always intervened to remove democratic governments and replace them with its favoured dictatorships – in Iran in 1953, Chile in 1974, Congo in 1960, etc.....The biased media reporting on Iran is detrimental to the democratic aspirations of the people of that country. There is considerable discontent in Iran. However, because the charge is largely carried with fanatical and partisan zeal by Western media, this has inadvertently furnished Iran’s rulers with the perfect excuse to crack down on demonstrators by projecting them as agents of America. This way, Western media are undermining the democratic legitimacy of local opposition. This is especially so given previous US involvement in undermining democratic government in Iran." — Andrew Mwenda, Ugandan libertarian journalist, arguing that Western media coverage of Iran has been Pravda-like propaganda