‘Govts, corporate sector still spearhead media in the world’
KARACHI, June 16 2006: Corporate and government interests have acquired almost total control of media, making it difficult for anyone from China to Peru seeking truth escape embedding, India’s leading documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan said. Addressing the participants of South Asian electronic media workshop ‘Breaking the Line’ on June 15, Patwardhan made his point while probing into the long list of what he called American crimes against humanity.
“I am convinced that our attitude towards the global control exercised by the Anglo-American combine is a key to understanding and improving relations between the regions of the South,” he maintained. Patwardhan inserted a couple of video clips from his documentaries War and Peace, In the Name of God, and Images you don’t see in his presentation.
Referring to the media control by corporate and governments, he said the media is too powerful to be left in the hands of truth seekers. Recalling American atrocities right from dropping atomic bombs on Japan, Patwardhan said a worst possible example would be set by accepting the American paradigm of lies all without apology. He warned journalist of believing that censorship is something only exercised by countries like China.
“The list of American or America induced crimes against humanity is a long one,” the award-winning documentary filmmaker said, adding: “If we accept their version of those crimes if we get embedded with them and spoon-fed by them then we become party to all these crimes without apology.” Recalling what he dubbed as ‘missing stories’ from the mainstream media of either side, Patwardhan said its reason is not hard to find. “Eighty per cent of the mainstream media in India and Pakistan is either controlled by the state or by 6 to 7 large family empires,” he added.
The filmmaker said not only governments but elites on both sides want to get closer and closer to America. “This is largely the fault of omission and commission of media,” he observed. “We are thrilled to be seen in the arms of George Bush JuniorÖit is what we call arms deal.” Patwardhan said that both the governments and elites on either side of the border have been whipping people into nationalistic frenzy by pointing to the threat of each other. He believed that the duo at the same time have been selling out the respective sovereignty of the two countries.
An optimistic filmmaker, the resistance is not only possible but actually happening, the way it always happened. “One has to search for the resistance stories of June 16 and join all those who have embarked on the project of tearing down the velvet curtain,” he said.
Source: The News
Date:6/16/2006
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