Nick's Blog
The Blogs of War
13/8/2008 @ 22:53
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I want to get a bit serious here. I was watching the news the other day and following one of the stories about the Russian invasion of Georgia.
It's a sorry state of affairs and tragic to see war visited apon the people of Georgia but the feeling I had most was one of annoyance bordering on disgust about the media coverage given to the war.
These days, television and radio news are obsessed with the human tragedy stories in war. Any war. Watching the BBC coverage, I had very little idea of why Russia was invading Georgia and what exactly was happening. At the end of all the reports and stories, I was left with no clearer understanding of the conflict.
What I was left with was another story about how horrible it all was for the civillian population. It is important to know the human cost of war, but it's becoming a mantra in TV news that human interest and tragedy is what war reporting is all about. So we get interminable images of crying refugees whose houses have been destroyed, an angry woman who just yells "why! Why! Why!" and the inevitable image of a broken child's toy.
I'm not indifferent or even dismissive of their suffering but, and this might sound harsh to some but it's not meant to be, I feel like I've seen it all before and heard the same sentiments from a series of wars in my lifetime and from every continent in the world...except Antarctica.
War is hell. It kills people and destroys their homes. Those that survive are left stranded with no homes and very little hope for the future. I've had seared into my brain the images of the dead, the maimed, the frightened, the angry and the lost from the naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm strike to the old lady from Georgia wailing in desperation at the Russian invaders. I know the human cost of war...what I don't know is why it happens, what circumstances drove these...and other nations...into war.
Nor do I know who's winning, who's losing and what it might mean for both sides when the shooting stops. And contemporary news reporting is to blame.
The worst offender for this type of mawkish misery-porn were ITV and the BBC back during the last Israeli war in Lebanon. There was nothing on the war aims and objectives of both sides, no progress reports and no context for all the scenes of blown up buildings and displaced families. Every report was about the human cost, the personal tragedy and all told in the same sonorous voices. It was all heartstrings and no hard facts.
But the real hard fact about war is that it is about soldiers, not civillians, and it's about objectives and not effects. There can be no one with access to a TV who has not witnessed war carnage on the news and feels shocked by the images, but the danger now is that we can only see the effects of war on the human body and cannot see beyond that.
If the peace deal holds in Georgia, then both sides will settle down and I'll be none the wiser about why the whole thing started...I'll just wait for the next conflict to emerge and I'll get treated to the same footage of panicked civillians and wounded children...only the backdrops will have changed.
News on TV no longer informs, it just shows us other people being miserable and desperate. Likewise, newspapers no longer report events, it just offers opinions. My best hope to figure out what happened in the Lebanon, Georgia and former Yugoslavia is to wait for someone to write a history book on the subjects.
The Wheels Of A Blog Go Round And Round
04/8/2008 @ 20:51
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The buses in London seem to have an automated announcer telling you where you are...I call it "Sonya" because it gets Sonya nerves. So I'll be riding along in the bus and suddenly this booming woman's voice says "HARTLAND ROAD". All well and fine if you're someone who is always lost but a bummer if you're trying to get a nap on a bus at night.
The place and street names Sonya blurts out are often a complete mystery to me as well. I've been living in my area for 20 years now and I like to think I know the streets around the neighbourhood and surrounding districts but Sonya keeps mentioning the really obscure ones as if they're the definitive point of reference.
"BURRARD ROAD". Where hell that? I've never heard of Burrard Road! No one goes down it, no one lives on it...that's not a good point of reference.
"THE VALE". Well, THAT'S descriptive. How many vales are there in suburban London? 20? 500? 50,000?
"MINCELEY MEWS". Now they're taking the piss...that street contains a windscreen repair shop and a few recycling bins.
You see, the locals don't refer to the neighbourhood geography by these pissy little backwater streets, they use a far more recognisable system of finding out where they are and how to direct others. And if London Transport were to follow suit and use REAL locations for Sonya, they would sound like this:
"THE BUS STOP OPPOSITE THE BASILICO PIZZA PARLOUR".
"THE BOARDED UP OLD NEWSAGENTS"
"THAT OFF LICENCE WHERE ALL THE FOREIGN STUDENTS HANG OUT"
"THAT SCARY ASS BIT OF THE PARK WHICH HAS INADEQUATE STREET LIGHTING"
"THE BURGER BAR...THE NICE ONE"
"THE STOP THAT'S JUST TWO STREETS AWAY FROM THE ONE DECENT PUB AROUND HERE"
You see, we all know these places round my way. So get your finger out, London Transport and change Sonya before I do...with a chainsaw.
