This article is about the media and its slant of events occurring in the "democratically-elected" governments in Iran and Honduras.
I'd like to think that my awareness of international current events are at least equivalent to the average American, because it was something I had to be aware of for thirteen years monitoring foreign markets at one of my previous jobs.
As an American, I trust my news sources, but know that it can be inevitably skewed. Look at the media frenzy leading up to the Iraqi war. And Fox News makes no compunction about being a conservative news outlet.
The Media can be a powerful tool to tell the truth or to hide it.
Let's start with Iran.
Like many Americans, when I first read a byline in a newspaper that there were upcoming elections in Iran and that there was a moderate running against Ahmadinejad, I gave it little thought. Just another election in another Middle Eastern country. Chaos sure to ensure.
I started to wonder when I saw another story about the elections two days later. Why are U.S. papers publishing two stories about an upcoming Iranian election? I mean, what was really going to change? One guy who hates America will remain or he'll be switched out with another one who hates America. The Iranian Supreme Council of clerics are the ones who hold the power. But I was intrigued, so I spread out the paper. As I did so, I wondered if the moderate challenging Ahmadinejad was that guy who used to be president and had given the Supreme Council fits with some of the moderate policies he had enacted. It wasn't. But it turned out this Mousavi guy had been a special advisor to that president and that Mousavi had been prime minister in Iran from 1981-1989. Still, I thought, there is no way Ahmadinejad is going to lose.
Perhaps with my U.S.-biased viewpoint, in my opinion very few countries in the world have clean elections. Look at the U.S. and the hi jinx in Florida and Ohio in recent elections and the convictions in multiple states of voter fraud and other problems during 2008's election.
So far what I've gathered from the media reports and YouTube, is that Mousavi claims the election has been stolen, Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Council are crushing protests and blacking out the media. Pretty much what I expected before the elections.
Of course, Ahmadinejad has been so demonized by the United States (justly or unjustly I can't say), its very easy for the world to swallow the opponents' view of Ahmadinejad's government hook-line and sinker. And it makes it easier for us (and the media) to swallow it when these opponents are supposedly more moderate (therefore supposedly more aligned with our views) and support a candidate who once supported a notion to ask the West for help in rebuilding after the Iran-Iraq war. Don't get me wrong, crushing protests and shooting innocents is bad, but it's not like the only country in the world who has done this. While the U.S. - thank God - doesn't shoot protesters, they have no qualms about smacking them around with batons - think Seattle, Echo Park.
So what am I saying? If the elections were stolen, I wish the Iranians the best in getting the rightful man in office. But, beware of the media. Beware of what you read.
Which brings me to Honduras.
My first hearing of the coup in Honduras was a picture in the Los Angeles Times of protesters throwing rocks at a group of soldiers/policemen who cowered behind a wall of riot shields. So after listening to NPR and reading the updates on AOL, I initially gathered, the leftist president (am I sensing a trend here that our media tends to support moderates and leftist - I wonder how Fox News is reporting it) was removed in a military coup, deported to Costa Rica and if he ever returned he'd be arrested.
So, it was to my surprise, listening to NPR again last night on the way home, that both I and the host on NPR were taken aback when the official ambassador to the U.S. from Honduras said that the president had been removed through due process in accordance to their constitution. My words probably aren't perfect, but the sense was that he was removed legally under their constitution. The Honduran legislature overwhelmingly voted to remove the President out of his office. Acting on an order from the legislature, the military removed the President. Now, I'm not an expert in Honduran constitutional law, so I can't say if what the ambassador said was true, that the president was removed through a legal process, but I found it odd that I have not heard this from anyone else (and the interviewer couldn't seem to believe it either). The ambassador went on to say, be careful of only listening to one side of the story. Learn all the facts. At that point I was home and turned off the car.
I'll take that ambassador's advice to heart and learn all the facts, before jumping to conclusions and raising the riot act.
On a final note, speaking of media, a very interesting take on the current elections in Iran is an updated graphic novel version of the original Persepolis, called Persepolis 2.0.
Attached is a link the 2.0 version. Below that is the 2 minute trailer to the original movie.
Persepolis 2.0
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