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“When you exclude people from the conversation, when they don’t have a role in your journalism, when they don’t have a role in your film, when they don’t have a role in your TV, when they don’t have a role in your books, they seize to exist as people and become these kind of cartoon cut-outs that other people make of them. And they become much more easy to kill. That’s on us.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates
As images of people being burnt alive flood our screens and the war-machine sends more weapons to the merchants of death, we must resist madness or despair. Franz Fanon said that we had to try “relentlessly and passionately” to show that everything depends on us, the masses, and that if we stagnate, it is our responsibility, if we go forward, it is due to us. No famous person will come save us, “the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people.”
While those experiencing genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes have been abandoned by a paralysed international community, there is a growing movement of people across borders working steadfastly, and quietly, to use every avenue, every tool at their disposal to try to stop the horrors, seek accountability and preserve what is left of our common humanity.
We each have a responsibility to contribute to these efforts, to move beyond words of condemnation and angry social media posts. As Greta Thunberg once said, “the bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility.”
To begin with, we must understand how entangled we are in these death worlds. We are all complicit, and we all benefit, to varying degrees, from the oppression and massacres of people and the planet, simply by being citizens, taxpayers and consumers. Being neutral or apolitical is a privilege, not a choice.
So, how can we understand the various levels of responsibility? Beyond the complicity of nation states, the war machine could not continue unimpeded without the full and intentional support of many people, institutions and companies. Who funds it, who invests in it, who benefits from it, who shields the perpetrators, who enables them, who pretends they don’t know, who disseminates lies and propaganda?
We can start by looking at those who craft the narratives, who bury the truth, those who exclude certain voices. Can we challenge those who make claims of impartiality or neutrality? While neutrality may be justified in cases of state diplomacy and peace mediation, when it comes to non-state actors, including media companies and humanitarian agencies, claims of impartiality are probably a delusion.
On Palestine, Human Rights Lawer, Craig Mokhiber, argues that Western media companies that are knowingly disseminating disinformation and propaganda are manufacturing consent, in effect, justifying war crimes, crimes against humanity, and are contributing to the dehumanisation of Palestinians; this makes them part of the machine of genocide.
Under international law this is incitement and there is precedence for holding journalists or their institutions accountable, going back to the Nuremberg Trials in Germany through to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
As we know from recent revelations about The New York Times, CNN, the BBC, and others, they are not just being unprofessional, they know exactly what they are doing. And while the cases are different, Mokhiber says they are meeting the elements necessary for a conviction for incitement to genocide, and other crimes against humanity.
Whether it’s in a court of law or the court of public opinion, we must ensure they are held accountable lest they continue to operate on this model.
The question of impartiality is also a question for humanitarian organisations. The language used is often one of pity and charity, suggesting somehow that what people in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, or the Congo need is not justice or accountability, but aid.
Writing in the Lancet, a group of scholars argue that apolitical humanitarianism is an illusion. Firstly, they argue that depoliticising humanitarian situations ignores power imbalances and state interests and their use of aid for geopolitical advantage. Second, it ignores entanglements of aid with colonialism, racism, and white saviorism. And finally, it fails marginalised people and by not confronting injustice, they risk normalising oppression and even legitimising it. This makes them at best complacent, at worst, complicit.
They urge humanitarians to speak out against oppression and reconsider the traditional Dunantist approach, which they argue is increasingly inadequate in modern conflict contexts. “We encourage you to ask yourselves: what state interests, power structures, and voices do you uphold, and whose do you minimise? Politics in humanitarianism cannot be avoided, nor should it be.”
Words, Veronica Yates and illustration, Miriam Sugranyes
References
‘“Ta-Nehisi Coates on complexity, clarity, and truth.” The Gray Area podcast with Sean Illing, Vox, 15 October 2024. Listen here.
Necropolitics, Achille Mbembe.
‘Failing Gaza: Behind the Lens of Western Media,’ The Listening Post, Al Jazeera, 5 October 2024. Watch the documentary here.
‘Western media can be held legally accountable for its role in the Gaza genocide?’ Craig Mokhiber, Mondoweiss, August 24, 2024. Read here.
‘How Western Media Can Be Prosecuted For Its Role In Gaza Genocide, with Craig Mokhiber.’ Palestine Deep Dive, September 2024. Listen here.
‘How journalists become complicit in Gaza’s suffering,’ By Samer Badawi, 972 Mag, 12 August, 2014. Read here.
‘Monitoring of Journalistic Malpractices in Gaza Coverage.’ Al Jazeera Media Institute. Visit here.
‘Leaked NYT Gaza Memo Tells Journalists to Avoid Words “Genocide,” “Ethnic Cleansing,” and “Occupied Territory.” Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, The Intercept, 15, April 2024. Read here.
‘The humanitarian system: politics can not be avoided,’ The Lancet, Shatha Elnakib, Sarah Aly, Yara M Asi, Yusra Ribhi Shawar, 21 September 2024. Read here.
‘Incitement in International Criminal Law,’ Wibke Kristin Timmermann, International Review of the Red Cross, Volume 88 Number 864 December 2006. Download the pdf here.
Further Resources
‘No Propaganda on Earth Can Hide the Wound that is Palestine,’ Arundhati Roy’s PEN Pinter Prize 2024 Speech, 15 October 2024, Pen Transmissions. Read here.
‘Call for input for the report of the Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory to the Human Rights Council 58th session - Deadline 30 November 2024.’ Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Read more here.
The Signals Network, for the protection of whistleblowers: https://thesignalsnetwork.org/.
‘I resigned from Canada’s largest broadcasting corporation over its complicity in Israel’s genocide.’ By Arfa Rana, Mondoweiss, 16 October 2024. Read here.
‘Law of Neutrality under the Laws of War – Analysis from a Current Affairs Perspective,’ Arooba Mansoor, DLP Forum, May 19, 2023. Read here.
‘The Struggle against Apartheid: Lessons for Today's World,’ Enuga S. Reddy, UN Chronicle. Read here.
‘A Quiet Rebellion On Gaza Is Growing Among Civil Servants Across The West,’ By Akbar Shahid Ahmed, Huffington Post, 5 October, 2024. Read here.
‘Crime of Complicity in Genocide: How the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia Got It Wrong, and Why It Matters,’ Daniel M. Greenfield, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol 98 Issue, 2008. Visit here.
‘On State Responsibility for Complicity in Genocide: Will South Africa’s “All-In Strategy” Be Effective?’ European Journal of International Law, Eugenio Carli, 5 March, 2024. Read here.
‘Corporate responsibility to avoid complicity in genocide in Gaza,’ Dr Irene Pietropaoli, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, for Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, 21 June 2024. Read here.
‘The Responsibility to Protect,’ Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect. Read here.
“[...] To work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.” — Vaclav Havel
"We have art in order not to die from the truth." — Friedrich Nietzsche
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.” — Pablo Neruda
“Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.” — Hannah Arendt
“Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.” — Toni Morrison
