Posted by panch from ? (64.79.4.3) on Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 9:31AM :
In Reply to: Arab TV ousts CNN to bring Palestinian tormen posted by Turkish delight from 64-66-215-86.stkn.bigvalley.net (64.66.215.86) on Monday, April 01, 2002 at 1:09PM :
Bombs strapped to young bodies are old fashioned. It's about as primitive a device as there is...one guaranteed to play into Israeli hands...well there are costs to robbing land...it doesn't come cheap.
The A-rabs are so damn naive it hurts. In their simplicity they can't see that PR is a far more effective weapon. The pen is indeed mightier than the bomb...in the long run. The explosion that takes out a few Israelis is a waste of everyone's time, as well as brutalizing all sides some more.
If they spent some of their considerable wealth on media ventures...on literature and films...on monuments even...they'd get a lot more bang for their buck.
Take a lesson from another Israeli book for a change...like the "Diary of Anne Frank" for instance. You suppose there are NO equally compelling stories that could be told from the refugee camps? Is there not the possibility of a Romeo and Juliet story...or any other timeless and proven way to sway people, to reduce them to tears?
In those countries they have reduced Art to propaganda, usually heavy handed and ham fisted. That doesn't work, makes cartoons of people and banishes subtelty...which is what sneaks up on you at night as you try to sleep and haunts your memory.
The example of Elian Gonzalez should have taught all us darkies something about how to move the beast known as Public Opinion. No people on earth have been as effective at swaying Congress and the populace of a major country, given their small numbers, than the anti-Castro forces in the state of Florida.
It should have been a slam dunk to convince people to keep Elian here and "save" him from the horrors of Communism, and his father...even to overlooking the fact that his mother almost got him killed. And the community there, with all the goodwill in the world and Walt Disney on their side blew it because they didn't take into account how fickle public opinion can be.
With the entire apparatus of the Immigration Department, the Justice Department, Federal Courts, the President of the United States...all agreeing that the boy had to be returned...the government was paralyzed into humiliating "conferences" with the relatives who were basically holding the United States government hostage to public opinion which believed that anything done to save a kid from Communism was RIGHT, if illegal...that there is a HIGHER right than the Law.
It all changed by the simple mistaken act of showing a video of Elian obviously being coached by the relatives, lecturing his father and 'demanding" freedom. In one night enough people realized what was going on to tip the scales on the next poll taken, something they were doing three times a day back then over this issue. It was just enough of a shift to tell the timid officials that they had the backing of enough people out there to go ahead...and when they did move...they did it as clumsily as they handled the whole thing...but they DID finally enforce the Law.
Palestinians, A-rabs, Assyrians...don't realize that politicians can do nothing...will risk nothing if they don't feel the nation backs them up enough. You can buy all the politicians you want, and as often as you want, and the politicians will convince you they have "access" and can get results...and you'll want to believe and you'll cut that check..and if you are Assyrian, you'll brag about it till your cousins throw up...and it will get you ZIP.
Literature and Art are the most powerful forces Human Beans have ever invented. Just look at us...look at what saves our dismal reputation in the world...our Art, fragments of our statues...barely one tenth of one hundredth of what was actually created back then...gives the lie to the Hebrew Bible...if you have an open mind...if you can think a little for yourself.
That's how powerful Art is...and in this case a picture or a stone fragment is worth a million lying words.
-- panch
-- signature .