17.10.1996
The power of television
The media are among the most influential forces in society, both in Britain and indeed in the world at large. They help to shape our perceptions of the world and are a key ideological battleground. Most of the media are dominated by either the state or by wealthy proprietors and of course they reflect the views and interests of those who own them.
Those who are in power do not just want the media to express their interests. They also want to suppress or weaken media messages or indeed outlets that contradict or damage those interests. A case in point is Med-TV. This is a Kurdish satellite TV station. It is based in London, but most of the production work and news gathering is done in Belgium. According to a publicity brochure, Med-TV “evolved in response to calls over recent years, particularly from the Europe-wide Kurdish diaspora, for a television station of its own”.
Television and radio probably have a disproportionate impact in the Middle East, compared with the print media. Much of the Kurdish target audience of Med-TV is illiterate and beyond the reach of the printed word, and the station has few, if any, competitors in using the Kurdish language.
Of course, the station has enemies - first and foremost the government of the Republic of Turkey. The Turkish authorities have long specialised in suppressing Kurdish culture and political expression, and naturally Med-TV is a target. In the first instance, people in Turkey who possess satellite dishes for watching Med-TV have been victimised by soldiers and police. There have been well documented cases of Med-TV viewers being forced at gunpoint to eat excrement.
The Turkish authorities have also sought to pressurise European government and media bodies to have Med-TV closed down, saying that the station is an arm of the “terrorist” PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). Med-TV sometimes carries phone interviews with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and PKK political statements, as well as footage of the organisation’s guerrillas. Representatives of other Kurdish movements have also appeared on the station, however.
Med-TV has also punched through the Turkish state’s efforts to conceal its misdeeds against Kurds. For example, in 1995 it broadcast pictures of the mutilated bodies of seven Iraqi Kurdish shepherds tortured to death by Turkish troops when the latter were making a cross-border incursion into Iraq. (Needless to say, the USA fired no cruise missiles at Turkish positions after the word got out. They might have used the atrocity as a pretext for opening fire if the killers had come from the Iraqi state, as opposed to being Nato ‘brothers-in-arms’.)
Turkish premier Necmettin Erbakan recently claimed that Britain is supporting the PKK, on the grounds that Med-TV broadcasts from London. The Turkish authorities also complained recently that a Kurdish demonstration was permitted during a Turkish state visit to Italy, and Turkish TV showed PKK flags being waved by demonstrators. Presumably Turkey’s rulers believe that the Italian authorities are also for the PKK, simply because Italian police did not wade into the protesters with armoured cars and live ammunition in the subtle Republic of Turkey manner.
As a matter of fact, in September British police raided Med-TV’s offices, and similar raids were carried out against other Kurdish institutions in Britain, France and Belgium. Med-TV has suffered from periods when its broadcasts have been interrupted. Western governments are merely more subtle than Turkey’s in the forms of repression they use (usually).
Med-TV is under threat, and revolutionaries should defend it. Not simply because of the need for freedom of expression, but also because Med-TV is an important cultural and political means of self-defence for an ethnic group threatened with genocide.
Andrew MacKay