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============================================
Mr. Kristof Invents Cairo
A critique of media coverage of the February 2 fighting in Tahrir
Square, using the example of an article and video by a star
columnist at the
leading newspaper of the Western world, The New York Times.
by Jared Israel and Samantha Criscione
Appendix I: "Watching Thugs With Razors and
Clubs at Tahrir Square," by Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York
Times, February 2, 2011
Embedded video: "Meeting Mubarak's Supporters,"
by Nicholas D. Kristof and Jaron Gilinsky, The New York Times,
February 2, 2011
[Posted March 21, 2011; last revised March 29]
============================================
"And the ones they are
in darkness, and the others are in light, and one sees those who
are in daylight, those in darkness drop from sight."
-- Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, Dreigroschenoper/Three
Penny Opera
Summary
In order to understand what is happening in Libya and the rest of
the Middle East, it is crucial to understand the nature of the
recent (and ongoing) upheaval in Egypt. But the problem with
understanding Egypt -- what forces came to power in what the
Egyptian military government now calls the "January 25 Revolution," what these
forces
want, the nature of their relations with the dominant Western powers,
and who in Egypt is resisting them and why -- is that the media has given
us a false picture of events, and it is impossible to think
accurately based on false information. We can make a start in
correcting this by using the
media's own photos and videos of the Egyptian conflict to test the
accuracy of the media's descriptions of that conflict.
In this
article we analyze one such description, written by Nicholas D.
Kristof of The New York Times, and the images that
refute it, also available courtesy of Mr. Kristof.
============================================
You say those are horses? Amazing. They look like cows.
============================================
The event that had perhaps the biggest effect in forming Western
public opinion about the Egyptian conflict was the fighting in Tahrir
Square on February 2 and 3. With few exceptions, the media, led by
the major opinion-leaders (Associated Press,
The New York Times, the BBC, the
Guardian, and so on) told us that, in the words of Nicholas D.
Kristof of The New York Times, the appearance of pro-Mubarak
demonstrators in Tahrir Square resulted from "an organized government
crackdown" on the "democracy movement," which "relied on armed hoodlums,
not on police or army troops." According to Kristof, the
pro-Mubarak people were government stooges who:
"arrived in busloads
that mysteriously were waved past checkpoints. These forces
emerged at the same time in both Alexandria and Cairo, and they
seemed to have been briefed to carry the same kinds of signs and
scream the same slogans."
-- "Watching Thugs With Razors and Clubs at Tahrir Square,"
The New York Times, February 2, 2011, posted in full in
Appendix I
This depiction of the
Tahrir Square confrontations and fighting as pitting
government-organized "pro-Mubarak mobs" against peaceful
"pro-democracy crowds" (the words in quotation marks are all
Kristof's) was crucial because, by reporting that the people
demonstrating against regime change were government-organized (and,
as the media also reported, government-paid) "hoodlums," the media
greatly bolstered the view, already instilled in the public, that
those opposing Mubarak represented the people as a whole, not a
limited although very aggressive faction
(namely, Islamists), while the government had no support among
ordinary people.
On the one side, we were told, was autocracy and its paid thugs,
plus the elite; on the other side
was 'the people.' Accepting
this view, how could one criticize Western leaders for demanding
that Mubarak resign except to say they didn't demand it hard
enough, soon enough?
The coverage of the fighting in Tahrir Square on February 2 and
3 was remarkable for its uniformity -- we say 'remarkable' because if
one carefully examines the pictures and videos accompanying media
descriptions of
supposed "hoodlums"
supposedly sent by the government to attack
supposedly peaceful protesters, (and we have examined all
the images publicly available from Associated Press,
Getty,
The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Reuters,
Agence France Press and more) the evidence of these photos
and videos refutes what the media have reported, as clearly as if we
were told, "Look at these horses in a meadow," and were shown a picture
of cows.
In some case the media released videos and photos with so little
identifying information that it is impossible to tell who is doing
what and to whom; those images neither support nor contradict
the official media line. However, in other cases the videos
and photos have enough identifying information for us to figure out
what is happening; and
all those videos and photos flatly contradict the media line
about government-organized stooges attacking peaceful protesters in
order to destroy a non-sectarian democracy movement.
Case in point: Nicholas D. Kristof's influential New York
Times column of February 2, 2011, which has the
headline, "Watching Thugs With Razors and Clubs at Tahrir Square."
(Apparently Kristof or his editors wanted to make sure that even
those who read only the headline got the message.) The column
is illustrated with a photo, taken by Nicholas D. Kristof, and a
video, produced by
Kristof and his cameraman Jaron Gilinsky. And therein hangs
the
tale.
In a trial -- and surely the media has put the Mubarak
government on trial, with us serving on the jury -- if a leading
prosecution witness is shown to be lying, this weakens or destroys
the prosecution case, or in any event it should. Let us take
some of the accusations Nicholas D. Kristof makes in his February 2
Times column and test them against the evidence in his
accompanying photo and video. If only we can overcome the hold
that authority and status have over all humanity and follow
the evidence of our eyes, we will see that what Mr. Kristof,
two times winner of the Pulitzer Prize and leading columnist for the
Times, has written in this article about the fighting in Tahrir
Square is a lie.
============================================
Mr. Kristof makes it perfectly clear
============================================
In his text, Kristof repeatedly states that "pro-Mubarak" people
(meaning, those who didn't want the Egyptian government and
constitution scrapped) are "thugs" armed with weapons of mayhem:
swords, machetes, straight razors, and so on.
By way of evidence, Kristof uses the word "thug" (or "thugs" or
"thuggery"), as in "pro-Mubarak thugs," eight times, including in
the headline; "razor" three times, including in the headline;
"machete" and "sword" once each; "club" twice, including in the
headline; "armed," as in "armed young men pour in to scream in
support of President Hosni Mubarak," three times; "mob" six times,
as in "the pro-Mubarak mobs were picking fights."
Following the headline, which, as you will recall, reads "Watching
Thugs With Razors and Clubs at Tahrir Square," Kristof's first
sentence begins:
"Pro-government thugs
at Tahrir Square used clubs, machetes, swords and straight
razors on Wednesday to try to crush Egypt's democracy movement
[...]."
-- See Appendix I
Get the message?
"Clubs, machetes, swords and straight razors" employed by government
"thugs" in order "to crush Egypt's democracy movement," all
of it witnessed by Kristof and his cameraman, Jaron Gilinsky.
That is the entire message of Kristof's column. In addition to
repeating said message various ways, Kristof endows it with
emotional power by employing the fictional device of a hero.
Indeed, not being a piker, he employs two heroes.
=======================================
Mr. Kristof meets Mr. Israel's third grade teacher
=======================================
According to Kristof, his heroes (or rather heroines) are two:
"middle-age [sic!
Should be 'middle-aged' -- EC] sisters, Amal and Minna,
walking toward the square to join the pro-democracy movement.
They had their heads covered in the conservative Muslim style,
and they looked timid and frail as thugs
surrounded them, jostled them, shouted at them."
[Our emphasis -- EC]
-- See
Appendix I
So, women who are "timid
and frail" and "middle-age[d]" are "surrounded," "jostled" and
"shouted at" by "thugs." Please hold those thoughts.
Kristof claims he was awed to see the women calmly debate the
supposed mob of "thugs," who were, you will recall, supposedly armed
with weapons of mayhem. He writes that when he began to
videotape an interview with the women, a "mob" of the "thugs" became
enraged:
"But when I tried to
interview them [i.e., the two sisters -- EC] on video, thugs
swarmed us again. I appeased the members of the mob by
interviewing them (as one polished his razor), and
the two sisters managed again to slip away and continue toward
the center of Tahrir Square [...]."
[Our emphasis -- EC]
-- See
Appendix I
Since he tells us he started
by interviewing (i.e. videotaping) the sisters and then continued by
interviewing (i.e. videotaping) the "thugs," Kristof should have an
historic video record of the opposing forces in Tahrir
Square revealing their true nature in action. Please hold that thought as well.
As we mentioned, Kristof's article is illustrated with a photo
and a video. First,
here is the photo:
 |
The caption reads:
"Minna, left, and Amal, with pro-Mubarak forces."
This image is (C)
Nicholas D., Kristof/The New York Times 2011. It is
reproduced here for educational purposes, for Fair Use Only. |
So these are Minna and Amal, Kristof's
two "middle-age[d]" sisters who "looked timid and frail as thugs surrounded them,
jostled them, shouted at them," but who
bravely held their ground.
Since their pictures appear right
under the headline in
which Kristof tells us he watched "thugs with razors and clubs at
Tahrir Square," the message is clear: the "thugs" these women are
standing up to in the photo are very dangerous indeed.
The problem is, the photo completely contradicts what Kristof has
told us.
The women in the photo are not "surrounded."
They are not "jostled."
They are not "shouted at" by a crowd. There is no crowd,
let alone a mob.
One man is talking to them while
three others stand around
casually, listening with varying degrees of interest.
Nobody looks threatening or hostile, and nobody is holding
"razors and clubs" or indeed weapons of any kind.
The men appear perfectly respectable.
Kristof's photo gives us no reason to think they are "thugs."
Or perhaps we
should write, 'no good reason.'
Notice that the photo has been
set up so that the sun is shining on the two supposed sisters, with the
one Kristof calls "Amal"
glowing pale in a virtual halo of light, like a Renaissance Madonna, whereas the man she is
speaking to is cloaked in shadow, making his naturally dark skin look
even darker. Is that just an
accident, or did Kristof strive for precisely that effect? It
isn't subtle: the shadow on the man's face is so dark it is hard to
make out his features. Did Kristof hope we would think
the men are thugs because they appear dark-skinned
compared to the sisters? It certainly appears that way since this
contrast of darkness and light, so obviously contrived, is the only
salient feature of this photo.
The women do not look "frail,"
as Kristof claims, nor "timid"
nor intimidated, as they would if they were heroically standing up to an
armed, threatening mob of hired thugs, as Kristof also claims. Quite the contrary, one is
smiling and the other, "Amal," the one who glows white, is beaming and wagging
her finger condescendingly, just the way one of our third grade teachers
(Jared's) used to
do when she caught somebody without their homework. And by the
way, the women do not look "middle-age[d]."
Based on the evidence of this photo, everything Nicholas D.
Kristof has told us about the women and their experience in Tahrir
Square is a lie. Well, almost everything: we cannot say from the photo
that they are not
sisters.
Now, given sufficient time, we imagine that Kristof could have
staged a picture of men threatening two women to fit the details of his
story. Therefore, if this photo supported his claims
it would not prove
he was telling the truth.
But since the photo does
not support his claims, since it contradicts
his article on every point -- no being "surrounded," no being
"jostled," no "thugs," no "weapons," no being "shouted at," no
threatening gestures on the part of the men and no frailty or timidity
on the part of the women, plus they are not even "middle-age[d]" -- and
since Kristof could have no conceivable reason for staging a picture
that contradicts his article, therefore we can assume that
the picture is telling the truth, whereas Nicholas D. Kristof is not.
Next we will examine Nicholas D. Kristof's video,
entitled "Meeting Mubarak's
Supporters," which is a)
manifestly dishonest but b) nevertheless disproves the claims Kristof
makes in his Times
article.
Quite an
achievement.
=================================
Kristof's video: dishonest before it starts
=================================
In his video "Meeting
Mubarak's Supporters" (embedded above), Kristof addresses us several times,
plus there are a couple of snippets of interviews with Mubarak
supporters, some footage of Mubarak supporters chanting, and one
exchange between a Mubarak supporter and the two women Kristof
claims are sisters.
The video puts the nail in the coffin wherein lies Nicholas D.
Kristof's credibility.
Frankly we don't know what is most disturbing about the video: the
fact that what Kristof shows us flatly contradicts
what he
tells us, or the fact that he seems utterly confident
that we will believe him anyway.
Mr. Kristof manages to lie to us even before the video begins.
He does this by means of the thumbnail image he has chosen to
represent the video.
Below is a screenshot of that thumbnail as it appears
near the beginning of Kristof's Times article:
This thumbnail image is a lie for two reasons.
First, the video's title, "Meeting Mubarak's Supporters," appears under the
thumbnail as if it were a caption, clearly communicating that this
is a still shot taken from the video, i.e., that these men
standing on a tank at twilight are among "Mubarak's Supporters"
whom Kristof "Meet[s]" in the video.
But the thumbnail is
not a still shot taken from the video. Whenever and
wherever it was filmed or photographed (and by whom), Kristof chose this very
threatening image of men swarming over a tank while a light glows ominously in the background to represent the video
not
because it is a preview of what is in the video, but because it
orients us to view the Mubarak supporters as an aggressive
paramilitary force, whose job is to attack the anti-Mubarak people,
even before we start the video.
Second, if one examines a larger version of the image in question, one will
see something quite revealing. We accessed the larger version by
starting the video from Kristof's article and choosing full screen
mode. At the end of the video, after the copyright information, the
video closes with the thumbnail image more than twice as large as
picture below.
 |
To see the much larger version of
this image go
here. |
Look at this detail:
 |
Do you see what is remarkable about it?
(If not, check out the larger version.)
What is remarkable is that the men in front of the
tank are praying. Indeed, all but one are prostrated on the ground
-- on a city street, in the midst of a political upheaval! -- in prayer.
Contrary to recent Western media coverage, most
Egyptian Muslims do not routinely prostrate themselves
on city streets in front of tanks in prayer; this method of worship,
which creates an atmosphere of political intimidation,
is the province of believers in the Islamic version of clerical
fascism -- Islamists. So, far from being Mubarak supporters
the men in this picture are Islamists, probably supporters or
members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the most extreme anti-Mubarak
faction.
A double
deception, and the video has not yet even
started.
========================================
Weapons of talk destruction
========================================
The video begins with some
Mubarak supporters chanting, following which Kristof appears on screen, telling us that:
"Mubarak today seems to
have sent in the thugs to try to restore his role to Tahrir
Square. There have been
people pouring in with exactly the same talking points,
with very similar signs."
[Our emphasis -- EC]
-- New York Times video, "Meeting Mubarak's
Supporters,"
embedded above
Aside from his incoherent
language -- what does it mean to "restore his role to Tahrir
Square"? -- please recall that in the headline and very first
sentence of his article, Kristof told us he was "watching" as:
"Pro-government thugs at
Tahrir Square used clubs, machetes, swords and straight razors
on Wednesday to try to crush Egypt's democracy movement.
[...].
[Our emphasis -- EC]
The problem is, except in
farces, a government
mobilizing a mob of gutter-thugs to carry out lethal attacks does not
worry about getting them to memorize "exactly the same talking points,"
or indeed any talking points at all.
People armed with "clubs,
machetes, swords and straight razors" would not "crush Egypt's democracy movement"
by talking.
In claiming both that the Mubarak supporters are armed
with "machetes, swords and
straight razors" and that
they are armed with "talking points," Kristof turns his attack into a
burlesque, inviting a cartoon parody in which thugs, armed with weapons
of mayhem, torture their victims by endlessly repeating "exactly the
same talking points," until said victims break down and renounce the
so-called "democracy movement." Thus are tyrants victorious!
Kristof has to resort to this foolishness because, as
we shall see, in his video he cannot produce a single image of a Mubarak
supporter doing anything but talking. No weapons. No intimidation.
Not even any mean looks.
====================================
Footage inserted to deceive
====================================
Since Kristof
makes his opening statement -- that Mubarak has sent "thugs" "pouring"
into Tahrir Square with "exactly the same talking points" and "similar
signs" -- immediately after showing us some pro-Mubarak demonstrators
chanting and holding signs, he obviously wants us to believe
we have seen the supposed "thugs" "pouring in."
The problem is a) the opening shots show only ten Mubarak supporters,
hardly a flood and b) in any case, since all they are doing is holdings
signs and chanting, why should we believe they
are "thugs"?
Attempting to give credence to his use of the word
"thugs," immediately after Kristof utters it, the
video jump-cuts (from 0:22
to 0:25) to a shot
of a man walking, talking on a cell phone, holding what appears to be a
police billy club. This is the video's only image of a weapon and,
inserted at this point, seconds after we have been shown Mubarak supporters chanting and
less than a second after Kristof
has told us that Mubarak "sent in the thugs," it is obviously
intended to convey the impression that "Mubarak's supporters" are armed
(although keep in mind, Kristof has not shown us swords, machetes and razors,
just one small
club.)
However, when one examines the
video critically it becomes clear that a) there is no evidence of a
spatial
or temporal
connection between the opening shot of pro-Mubarak demonstrators and
the lone man with the billy club; b) we have no way of knowing who this
man is (a policeman possibly?), or when or where he was filmed (or by
whom), and
therefore c) we certainly have no evidence that he is either pro-Mubarak
or a "thug."
What Kristof is relying on here is that, looking at the
video hastily because we are pressed for time, and intimidated by the
reputation of the New York Times, we will suspend our critical
faculties and accept that Kristof has shown us armed "thugs." In fact, he has only shown us that
he is trying to deceive, just the way he did with the thumbnail of the men standing on the tank.
=========================================
When there's statutory duty to be done (to
be done),
a
Kristof cameraman's lot is not a happy one (happy one).
-- With apologies
to Gilbert & Sullivan,
Pirates of Penzance
=========================================
In his Times article Kristof tells us that the
pro-Mubarak people --
"singled out foreign
journalists [for attack -- EC], especially camera crews,
presumably because they didn't want their brutality
covered."
[Our emphasis -- EC]
-- See Kristof's column, Appendix I
-- indicating that they
fought not to be videotaped displaying their
brutality, but he also writes that when he tried to videotape an
interview with the two sisters --
"thugs swarmed us
again. I appeased the members of the mob by interviewing
them (as one polished his razor), and the
two sisters managed again to slip away [...] ."
[Our emphasis -- EC]
-- See Kristof's column, Appendix I
-- indicating that they
fought
unless they were videotaped displaying their brutality, thus
putting the poor cameraman in the position of the Fool in King
Lear [1],
trapped, if we
may mix our metaphors, between Scylla and Charybdis.
Kristof would want to prove both these claims by showing us the
footage in which the pro-Mubarak people threatened his own cameraman
(at 1:17 in the video Kristof says this did happen) as well as the
footage where he started to interview the two alleged sisters,
whereupon, as you will recall, the "thugs," so-called, "swarmed us
again," and he "appeased [...] the mob by interviewing them (as one
polished his razor.)"
Since according to Kristof all this happened while the camera
was rolling, this sensational material, which provides such strong
evidence for the case Kristof is trying to make, should be in the
video, right? Including the guy polishing his razor.
Don't forget him!
So, let us investigate.
In the video, there are two interviews. The only one
involving a group is the first, which starts at 0:27, in which
Kristof interviews an English speaking man identified as Ismail
Farouk, an engineer.
The problem is, during said interview:
a) The two supposed sisters are nowhere to be seen.
b) Nobody pressures Kristof to interview them (or, as Kristof
also maintains, not
to interview them); rather it is Kristof who seems hyper as he
questions Farouk, while Farouk appears relaxed about the
whole thing.
c) None of the pro-Mubarak people filmed during the interview,
or indeed elsewhere in the video, threaten Kristof or seem the least
bit hostile, although he is manifestly a Western reporter, and
therefore they should be primed to fight with him (for one reason or
the opposite).
d) Mr. Farouk does not rant against the anti-Mubarak forces,
but speaks calmly and with tolerance. Too much tolerance for
Kristof, apparently, as demonstrated by a little editing trick
Kristof pulls off at 0:57-0:58.
Kristof has just asked Farouk, "Do you think that the police and the soldiers, should they
remove the protesters or not?" Farouk appears to reply, "I
hope that. For all Egypt, we need stability," which would mean, 'I
hope that the police and soldiers do remove the protesters, for the
sake of stability.' Not a statement suggesting that Farouk
means to lead a charge to drive away the anti-Mubarak people, to be
sure, but consistent with the accusation that Kristof (and all the
rest of the media) have made, that, as Kristof puts it in his
Times article, the pro-Mubarak people "arrived in busloads that
mysteriously were waved past checkpoints," as part of a scheme to
justify police and military action to crush the anti-Mubarak forces.
So: in these remarks of Farouk's, has Kristof supplied the
first piece of actual evidence to support his case? No, he has
not. We do not know what Mr. Farouk said to Kristof -- only
Farouk and Kristof and his cameraman, Jaron Gilinsky, know that --
but, what is almost as helpful, we know that he did
not say, "I hope that. For all Egypt, we need
stability." That is because, if you look carefully between
0:57 and 0:58, you will see that, immediately after Farouk utters
the word "that," there is a visually evident break.
Something has been cut out.
To be precise, Kristof and Gilinsky have removed whatever
Farouk and possibly also Kristof said, whether he or they spoke for
a second or an hour, between Farouk's words, "I hope that," and his
words, "For all Egypt."
Very possibly Farouk said something like, "I hope that, since
the President has confirmed that he will not run for another term
and reforms will be instituted, the people in Tahrir Square will
give the government a chance to act on these promises so that Egypt
can remain stable in the process of reform. For all Egypt, we
need stability."
These possible remarks would be consistent with what an oil
worker tells Kristof later in the video (1:28), and with comments
that pro-Mubarak people make in a Time
magazine article that is unique in presenting both sides of an
Egyptian street debate on whether Mubarak should be forced out.
[2]
Notice that if Farouk did indeed say something along these
lines, his next sentence -- "For all Egypt, we need stability" --
would, by appealing to Egyptian unity, constitute an attempt at
conciliation, as in, 'I hope they will understand the need to act
with restraint because
all of us need a stable Egypt.' That is, this sentence
would not then be a justification for a police and
military crackdown.
The fact remains, whatever Mr. Farouk said, Kristof has cut out a
chunk of his words, so that Farouk falsely appears to be calling
for a police and military crackdown. This so-called 'journalism' is
shameful; Nicholas D. Kristof will surely get a third Pulitzer
Prize.
e) Notice that neither Mr. Farouk nor his associates are armed.
This is certainly a problem for Kristof: nowhere in the video is
anyone seen carrying a weapon of any kind (except for that
irrelevant footage of a man with a billy club, which was filmed
who-knows-where-or-when, and which Kristof/Gilinksy inserted
earlier), let alone is anyone seen
sharpening a razor while being interviewed although that is
what Kristof tells us in his
Times article that he saw -- and recorded on film.
f) During this interview, Farouk's colleagues chant in the
background. They are not threatening; they chant
enthusiastically and cheerfully, and they carry a motley assortment
of hand made signs -- hand made, that is, not stamped
out in bureaucratic uniformity by some government agency, as Kristof
implies in his column.
So how do Kristof's claims in the Times
article hold up so far against the video evidence? Well, the
men he has described as a mob of threatening thugs in fact appear
calm and friendly. Their body language is not
threatening and their facial expressions are not
harsh. Indeed, they seem earnest, just as one might expect
from Egyptians naively trying to enlighten foreign reporters, and,
through them, to reach Western audiences, unaware that Kristof and
his associates will attack them whatever they say, making things up
as required to fit their assignment of smearing those who oppose the
anti-Mubarak people.
And allow us to repeat,
the pro-Mubarak people have no weapons. Contrary to
Kristof's claim, nobody threatens any women prior to being
interviewed, and nobody sharpens any razor. The people he
films are unarmed
except for their voices: they are well-armed with words,
indicating that they have come to Tahrir Square to persuade the
anti-Mubarak forces that they are mistaken, not to fight them.
Following this first and quite unthuglike exchange (indeed, in
this first exchange it is Kristof not the Egyptian Farouk who seems
pushy, although Kristof is also not polishing a razor) Kristof
addresses us again, claiming that the "pro-Mubarak forces" have
tried to break his cameraman's camera. (Apparently this has
occurred when they were in their no-interviews mode.) If
Kristof is
not lying, why does the video contain zero footage of this supposed
incident, which would be so useful to his argument? Indeed,
why does all the footage in the video show the
pro-Mubarak people acting perfectly cordial? Are the
pro-Mubarak people violently hostile only off-camera? Really,
why should we not
conclude that Nicholas D. Kristof is lying?
But let us go on.
Kristof next shows
us a conversation with another Mubarak defender, an oil worker
identified as Mohamad Magdi, who again is a) not armed, b) not
hostile, and c) quite articulate.
Mr. Magdi says about Mubarak:
"I want him to stick to
the end and then there will be a new president chosen by the
people. But he should go out in dignity. He has helped this
country."
-- New York Times video, "Meeting Mubarak's Supporters,"
1:28
Video is
embedded above
We then watch Mr. Magdi
argue in Arabic with Kristof's two alleged sisters. In this
argument, a) nobody is arguing on Magdi's side (that is, it is not a
mob assault) and b) the two sister's are entirely unintimidated.
If anything, they are mocking.
Mr. Magdi is translated saying that nobody can sleep or go to
work, apparently because of the disruption caused by people burning
down buildings and rioting in the streets. He then says: "Let
it be a smooth transition instead of destruction," meaning, let
Mubarak finish his term and then Egypt can move to a new
administration without people burning and looting half the country
(as the anti-Mubarak "protesters" had in fact been doing), to which
the women scornfully (not timidly) reply, "Enough of fear,"
apparently meaning, throw caution and the country to the winds, you
wimp.
Mr. Magdi's sentiments sound neither pre-programmed nor thuggish
and he is neither threatening nor armed. Nevertheless,
after Magdi's interview and argument with the two women, Kristof
appears again and
tells us, referring to the pro-Mubarak people:
"One had a machete;
another had a straight razor; several had sticks; there's stone
throwing in various places. It seems to be an effort to create
violence by these provocateurs and thereby perhaps create a
pretext for a crackdown or at least simply scare people out of
the democracy movement."
-- New York Times video, embedded above
Why does nothing Kristof
has just told
us correspond to anything he has shown us?
Since his cameraman has filmed Kristof telling us this in Tahrir
Square; since said cameraman has filmed a couple of groups of
pro-Mubarak people with signs, as well as two interviews and an
argument (Mr. Magdi and the unintimidated ladies) -- since, in other
words, Kristof and his cameraman have been filming hither and yon,
where the action is, how come he has no pictures of mobs of thuggish
pro-Mubarak people attacking with machetes or straight razors or clubs
or swords, or at least pushing and jostling, or at the very least threatening
somebody, anybody, not to mention none
throwing stones? Remember, in the very title of his article,
Nicholas D. Kristof
claims he watched Mubarak supporters with "razors and clubs."
In what world did he see them?
======================
A tale of two worlds
======================
Apparently Kristof occupies two worlds.
In one, so-called "pro-Mubarak" people, that is, people opposed
to destroying the government and indeed the country
of Egypt, want to talk to the anti-Mubarak people and persuade them to
give the government a chance. That world could be found on February 2 in Tahrir Square,
but Kristof pretends it didn't exist.
In the other world, lethally armed pro-Mubarak "thugs" threaten timid but brave ladies, break cameras
and attack the anti-Mubarak people with razors, machetes and swords. That world could not be found anywhere at any time except in Nicholas D.
Kristof's head, but he tells us it did exist.
Having of necessity filmed the real world of
pro-Mubarak talkers, Kristof nevertheless describes the imaginary
world of pro-Mubarak killers, with the result that
his video is a slightly
incoherent parody of the doublethink George Orwell writes
about in
1984. (You know, where they show us
war and we are required to say peace.) Here we are
shown reasonable discourse; we are
told we have been shown vicious mob intimidation; we
are expected to
say "Thugs!"
You say you are worried about democracy in Egypt? With media
like The New York Times, how can we have democracy in the
U.S.?
-- Jared Israel and Samantha Criscione
Emperor's Clothes
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Footnotes
============================================
[1]
King Lear, Act I, Scene IV
Fool: I
marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are:
they'll have me
whipped for speaking true, thou'lt
have me whipped for lying;
and sometimes I am
whipped for holding my peace.
[2] "Cairo Street Debate: When Mubarak Foes and Backers Clash," by Rania Abouzeid / Cairo, Time, Monday, January 31, 2011, at
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2045278,00.html
or
http://snipurl.com/20wvng
============================================
Appendix I: "Watching Thugs With Razors and
Clubs at Tahrir Sq."
By Nicholas D. Kristof,
The New York Times, February 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/opinion/03kristof.html
[Nicholas
D. Kristof's column begins here]
Pro-government thugs at Tahrir Square used clubs, machetes,
swords and straight razors on Wednesday to try to crush Egypt's
democracy movement, but, for me, the most memorable moment of a
sickening day was one of inspiration: watching two women stand
up to a mob.
I was on Tahrir Square, watching armed young men pour in to
scream in support of President Hosni Mubarak and to battle the
pro-democracy protesters. Everybody, me included, tried to give
them a wide berth, and the bodies of the injured being carried
away added to the tension. Then along came two middle-age
sisters, Amal and Minna, walking toward the square to join the
pro-democracy movement. They had their heads covered in the
conservative Muslim style, and they looked timid and frail as
thugs surrounded them, jostled them, shouted at them.
Yet side by side with the ugliest of humanity, you find the
best. The two sisters stood their ground. They explained calmly
to the mob why they favored democratic reform and listened
patiently to the screams of the pro-Mubarak mob. When the women
refused to be cowed, the men lost interest and began to move on
--- and the two women continued to walk to the center of Tahrir
Square.
I approached the women and told them I was awed
by their courage. I jotted down their names and asked why they
had risked the mob's wrath to come to Tahrir Square. "We need
democracy in Egypt," Amal told me, looking quite composed. "We
just want what you have."
But when I tried to interview them on video, thugs swarmed
us again. I appeased the members of the mob by interviewing them
(as one polished his razor), and the two sisters managed again
to slip away and continue toward the center of Tahrir Square,
also known as Liberation Square, to do their part for Egyptian
democracy.
Thuggery and courage coexisted all day in
Tahrir Square, just like that. The events were sometimes
presented by the news media as "clashes" between rival factions,
but that's a bit misleading. This was an organized government
crackdown, but it relied on armed hoodlums, not on police or
army troops.
The pro-Mubarak forces arrived in busloads
that mysteriously were waved past checkpoints. These forces
emerged at the same time in both Alexandria and Cairo, and they
seemed to have been briefed to carry the same kinds of signs and
scream the same slogans. They singled out foreign journalists,
especially camera crews, presumably because they didn't want
their brutality covered. A number of journalists were beaten up,
although far and away it was Egyptians who suffered the most.
Until the arrival of these thugs, Tahrir Square had been
remarkably peaceful, partly because pro-democracy volunteers
checked I.D.'s and frisked everyone entering. One man, a
suspected police infiltrator, was caught with a gun on Tuesday
quite close to me, and I was impressed with the way volunteers
disarmed him and dragged him to an army unit --- all while
forming a protective cordon around him to keep him from being
harmed.
In contrast, the pro-Mubarak mobs were picking fights. At first,
the army kept them away from the pro-democracy crowds, but then
the pro-Mubarak thugs charged into the square and began
attacking.
There is no reliable way of knowing right now how many have
been killed and injured in Egypt's turmoil. Before Wednesday's
violence, Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for
human rights, said the death toll could be as many as 300, but
she acknowledged that she was basing that on "unconfirmed"
reports. There are some who are missing, including a senior
Google official, Wael Ghonim, who supported the democracy
activists. On Wednesday, the government said that three more had
died and many hundreds were injured; I saw some people who were
unmoving and looked severely injured at the least. These figures
compare with perhaps more than 100 killed when Iran crushed its
pro-democracy movement in 2009 and perhaps 400 to 800 killed in
Beijing in 1989.
Chinese and Iranian leaders were widely
condemned for those atrocities, so shouldn't Mr. Mubarak merit
the same broad condemnation? Come on, President Obama. You owe
the democracy protesters being attacked here, and our own
history and values, a much more forceful statement deploring
this crackdown.
It should be increasingly evident that
Mr. Mubarak is not the remedy for the instability in Egypt; he
is its cause. The road to stability in Egypt requires Mr.
Mubarak's departure, immediately.
But for me, when I
remember this sickening and bloody day, I'll conjure not only
the brutality that Mr. Mubarak seems to have sponsored but also
the courage and grace of those Egyptians who risked their lives
as they sought to reclaim their country. And incredibly, the
democracy protesters held their ground all day at Tahrir Square
despite this armed onslaught. Above all, I'll be inspired by
those two sisters standing up to Mr. Mubarak's hoodlums. If
they, armed only with their principles, can stand up to Mr.
Mubarak's thuggery, can't we all do the same?
(C) The New York Times Company, 2011. Reprinted here for
educational purpose, for Fair Use Only.
[Nicholas D. Kristof's column ends here]
===============================================
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