At this moment, numerous wars are being fought throughout the world: East Timor, Africa, South America. One of the most prominent places that immediately springs to mind is the Middle East. Yes, it is an old, hackneyed story, one that people don’t want to hear about anymore because they think they’ve heard it all before. But if we were to take a poll, how many people would honestly be able to say how the present conflict in the Middle East came about? How many of us know the history behind the current crisis, the key players and their history, and what’s taking place now in that area?
Human rights are being violated in the Middle East hand over fist and, for any number of reasons, none of us really know what is taking place.
The main reason for our ignorant state is the “free American media,” or so we like to tell the rest of the world. No, our media isn’t state run or controlled, like it is in China. But neither is it representative of all the sides of a given story.
Our media is controlled by multinational conglomerates like AOL Time Warner, which hold large stakes in big business in various countries. Because of this, they don’t want to show the complete picture of any story, unless it is advantageous to their pocketbooks to do so. And it isn’t. Not with any of the current crisis, human rights violations or wars taking place around the globe.
Whenever you hear about someone shooting someone else, someone invading a town or village with a tank and killing many people, most of the time civilians such as yourself, do you ever wonder why they did that? Why they felt it necessary to kill those people, destroy their homes, scatter the remaining human beings to the four winds and beyond?
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Physics teaches this in the laboratory. Yet in the test tube of life there are no equal and opposite reactions to an incident unless you count the “eye for an eye” mentality that pervades certain areas of the world and certain philosophical ideologies. But what happens when an eye isn’t taken, instead an entire life or an entire village is taken in revenge for something we don’t even learn about on our conglomerate-run TV?
If you don’t question, you’ll never understand what’s really going on in the world, and what’s more important still, why it’s happening. And until you know that, human rights will continue to be violated, and none of us will know anything about it, let alone be moved to change it.
If you wish to learn more about alternative media resources that give a different perspective on world events, visit http://www.fair.org for more information.
