On Tuesday, I attended a Q&A session hosted by Blackwell books at the School of Oriental and African Studies’ Brunei Gallery. The speaker for the evening was journalist, author, and documentary film-maker John Pilger (he has his own website at www.johnpilger.com and a blog at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free website). The topic for discussion was his new book Freedom Next Time, where historian and author Mark Curtis, when reviewing the book for the Guardian, said “the voiceless” are “given a voice”. Johann Hari of the Independent was less flattering but still complimentary, trying to “stand between … admiring [Pilger’s] great skills and exposés but weeping over his occassional follies”. “Freedom Next Time mostly showcases Pilger at his best,” he said, but “flaws can be spotted”, concluding that “when Pilger is good, he is great, but when Pilger is bad, he reeks.”

Not having read the book myself, I was interested to hear what Mr. Pilger had to say. I’ve read and seen some of his previous works (The New Rulers of The World being a particularly favourite of mine), and agreed with many of his observations from time to time, so I knew what to expect. I was also particularly interested in his thoughts on South Africa, where I come from, and his observations regarding Nelson Mandela. Twelve A5 pages of hand-scribbled notes later, here is a summary of his talk, and the Q&A session that followed, along with some of my own thoughts. I’ll split this into two parts, one for his outline, and the other for the Q&A session, to cut down on the overall length. [And, to clarify: all links used in the article are not meant to reflect sources that Pilger himself may or may not have used to substantiate his comments, I simply searched the Net to try find out more, and linked to relevant pieces.]

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On Sunday, three prisoners at Guantanamo Bay committed suicide by hanging themselves using make-shift nooses from clothing and bedsheets. What follows are a collection of quotes in response to the revelations.

“He also stressed that it was important to treat the bodies humanely and with cultural sensitivity.”
- White House Spokesman Tony Snow describing US President George Bush’s reaction

“He wants to make sure that this thing is done right from all points of view.”
White House Spokesman Tony Snow describing US President George Bush’s reaction

“It does sound like this is part of a strategy - in that they don’t value their own lives, and they certainly don’t value ours; and they use suicide bombings as a tactic. Taking their own lives was not necessary, but it certainly is a good PR move.”
- Colleen Graffy, the deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy

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IOL have reported some more details regarding the rendition Khalid Rashid. They state that the airline company AVE that is linked to the plane used in the rendition, is the latest incarnation of Phoenix Aviation i.e. they’re both one in the same, which clears that up. They also revealed more details about the deportation:

Meanwhile, a Lenasia-based radio station, Channel Islam, reported on Friday night that it had established, following a special investigation, that a Gulfstream II jet (with registration A6-PHY) left Mombasa, Kenya, at 11am on Saturday, November 5, last year. It landed at Lanseria at 2.52pm, where passengers and crew cleared customs. The jet departed for Waterkloof Airforce base at 6.42 the next morning, where Rashid was waiting with Joseph Swartland, a senior immigration official.

It has also been revealed that Execujet, an international handling company at Lanseria, checked at least six people from the Gulfstream into the Palazzo Hotel at Monte Casino.

In papers before the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday, the Minister of Home Affairs said there were five crew members and four passengers on board when the plane left Waterkloof. However, the flight plan only mentions a pilot and one crew member.

They also revealed that Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service gave a report on Rashid to the South African Secret Service sometime last year which claimed that “Rashid was not involved in terror in the UK and had never been to the United States.” Finally, IOL also said claimed that Rashid’s family’s lawyer, Zehir Omar, is taking the case to the International Criminal Court.

I’ve mentioned the Government-Private partnership on snooping before, in particular a speech given by Michael Chertoff who was remarkably candid on how the government and the private sector can work together, whereby the private sector can “create a marketplace for the technology and a marketplace for the systems”. He was talking specifically about screening travellers, but they apply equally well to the current NSA scandal. Business Week recently reported that purchasing “commercially collected data allows the government to dodge certain privacy rules”.

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It seems the NSA snooping scandal has taken a little twist. ABC News journalists Brian Ross and Richard Esposito have claimed that a federal source told them “the government is tracking the phone numbers we … call in an effort to root out confidential sources.”

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One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” That’s all I could come up with. That was back in 1972. Since then I haven’t been able to define reality any more lucidly.

But the problem is a real one, not a mere intellectual game. Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups�??and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener. Sometimes when I watch my eleven-year-old daughter watch TV, I wonder what she is being taught. The problem of miscuing; consider that. A TV program produced for adults is viewed by a small child. Half of what is said and done in the TV drama is probably misunderstood by the child. Maybe it’s all misunderstood. And the thing is, Just how authentic is the information anyhow, even if the child correctly understood it? What is the relationship between the average TV situation comedy to reality? What about the cop shows? Cars are continually swerving out of control, crashing, and catching fire. The police are always good and they always win. Do not ignore that point: The police always win. What a lesson that is. You should not fight authority, and even if you do, you will lose. The message here is, Be passive. And�??cooperate. If Officer Baretta asks you for information, give it to him, because Officer Beratta is a good man and to be trusted. He loves you, and you should love him.

So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another.

From Philip K. Dick’s work, How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later, 1978

Ever since watching the films Powaqqatsi and Koyaanisqatsi, I was turned towards director Godfrey Reggio�??s ideas about technology as environment, that “it�??s no longer something we use, but something we live. The popular myth of neutrality, that technology is �??neutral�?� and it�??s the use or misuse of it that determines its value, I think is woefully inadequate.”

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Dear God Almighty … this has got to be the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages. I’ve long been a big fan of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, and Steven Colbert has always been one of the highlights of the show. This, however, has raised Colbert to another level (or a new low, depending on your outlook on life). The man has some serious balls to lampoon Bush to his face. Ten points! And if he gets shot, we know who did it.

Check out parts 1-3 on YouTube.

Update: Looks like the YouTube version got pulled due to copyright infringement (puke), so you can get another version here.