Language, Thought and Politics: Part 2

Case by case, we find that conformity is the easy way... The very structure of the media is designed to induce conformity to established doctrine. In a three-minute stretch between commercials, or in seven hundred words, it is impossible to present unfamiliar thoughts or surprising conclusions with the argument and evidence required to afford them some credibility. Regurgitation of welcome pieties faces no such problem.
– Noam Chomsky

To think that we are free from indoctrination or propaganda in this country is all too foolish. My belief is that mainstream party politics, the media and its readership participate in a relationship of sorts, where the media (especially tabloid media) exploits the most deep-rooted prejudices and fears of its readership. It scaremongers and blames its way into the hearts and minds of the population, through potent oversimplifications designed to incite emotion rather than understanding. The majority of British people receive news only from tabloids and the BBC (incidentally, the top three daily newspapers for both men and women in Britain are, in order, The Sun, The Daily Mail, Daily Mirror/Record. The Sun’s male readership is 18%, and female readership 13% whereas The Guardian, to take an example, has a male readership of only 2.5% and female readership of only 2.1%). Consequently, political parties pander to the same prejudices and fears. Exploiting our ignorance is their greatest tool.

Recently, a particularly distasteful topic that has been cropping up in mainstream tabloid newspapers is that of ‘the Islamification of Britain’. The Daily Telegraph sees this phenomenon as a result of the approximate 5,000 annual conversions to Islam, despite the fact that growth of British Muslims at this rate (0.0032%) would result in a doubling of the Muslim population every 213 years. The current estimates for the Muslim population of Britain lie somewhere between 2.4 and 2.7% of the whole population. While for me, this mythical ‘Islamification’ of Britain didn’t really seem like a pressing problem, the reason why it proved to be such terrifying news for The Daily Mail readers harks back to a decade of ‘anti-terrorism’ propaganda since 9/11 in 2001, from both media and government.

In the Oxford English Dictionary ‘Fundamentalism’ is defined as “strict adherence to ancient or fundamental doctrines, with no concessions to modern developments in thought or customs.” Nowhere is their mention of belief in violence, support of terrorist activities and so forth, yet ‘fundamentalist’, ‘terrorist’ and ‘extremist’ have been used synonymously in newspapers for the last ten years, manufacturing a connection in many people’s minds between women in hijabs, Muslim men in traditional dress and negative images of Muslim terrorists. A range of statistics have emerged regarding people’s perceptions of Muslim people; the most source suggesting that three-quarters of people would be unhappy if a mosque was built in their area (British Attitudes Survey.)  

If we look closer into the implications of these words; what does ‘extremism’ actually mean? Answer: it’s a non-word, a sound-bite that means nothing. On an imaginary spectrum of ideas, the ideas on either end are deemed ‘extreme’ but those ‘extreme’ ideas are only at the end of the spectrum because of the way it was drawn in the first place. Those accused of extremism may wish to draw very different spectra. Put simply, an extremist is someone whose opinions differ markedly from ours, and the term asks of no further engagement into the matter. To define someone as ‘extreme’, is to assume that their whole self is extreme – conflating many types of motivation and ideology under one all-purpose sound bite. Finally, the vagueness of ‘extremism’ acts as the ultimate government tool. To set a population against such a broad concept, means that this ‘struggle’ can outlive any mere fight with Al Qaeda. We’re all aware that populations are more supportive of their governments in times of war, so consider the implications of an ongoing struggle that has no tangible goal – just potential successes along the way.

Moving on, think back to the election debates that took place in 2009. The first debate, on domestic affairs, saw another issue that I have seen saturating newspapers over the last few years; that of the plague of youth crime.  Nick Clegg spoke of a ‘conveyor belt from nuisance at the beginning, anti-social behaviour in our communities, yobs on the street corner who then become the hardened criminals of tomorrow’. Newspaper headlines such as ‘A Nation Under Siege’ by ‘yobs ruling the streets’, or ‘100 thugs in siege at police station’, are far from uncommon. One problem is, that because young people are protected by law when having committed a crime, journalists aren’t allowed to name names and so feel free to demonise the youth in question to their hearts content, exaggerating and extrapolating far beyond reality. Indeed, when Clegg referred to his ‘conveyor belt’, and Cameron and Brown were singing the exact same tune, not one of them mentioned the connection between crime and poverty, between crime and poor education in poor areas, between crime and hardship. In fact, the question which sparked the debate was from a woman from Burnley in Lancashire, an area with the highest burglary rate per head of population in the entire country. It is also the second poorest town in the county and Lancashire itself has been historically on the lower end of the wealth spectrum. This wasn’t mentioned, because party politics no longer relies on logic, but on sensational headlines.

As a result of a combination of exaggerated media, existing prejudices in the population, and a self-interested set of political parties, we have what I see as a breakdown of any hope of community whatsoever, a society so individualistic and detached from each other, that it genuinely upsets me. We have ‘The Mosquito’, an alarm that emits a high frequency sound of over 100 decibels that only young people under the age of 25 can hear, stopping them ‘loitering’ in particular places. We have three-quarters of people being unhappy if a mosque was built in their neighbourhood, despite the fact that Islam is a highly rich religion and culture and that we’re supposed to live in a multi-faceted country where people are free to practice any religion they want.

To finish this critique of the media, conbsider the words of Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian and commentator on public affairs;

Rationality belongs to the cool observers – but because of the stupidity of the average man he follows not reason but faith and the naive faith of the proletarian requires necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications which have to be provided by mythmakers to keep the ordinary person on the right course.

I consider this an apt description of mainstream media today; broad simplifications, which we believe because of our unconscious obedience, just as Orwell predicted.

By Kelly Rogers