India's 9/11? aka wtfrk, media.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Quick plug to Rupa's coverage of the Mumbai attacks over at New American Media.

The recent attacks in Mumbai have been unapologetically being referred to in the mainstream media as "India's 9/11". Just google it.

The events of last week are NOT India's 9/11. First of all, I think it cheapens the impact of what happened in Mumbai to compare it to something that happened in the United States- it's kind of an extreme case of cultural appropriation. This is India's tragedy and their experience needs to be heard and documented. Biju Mathew's article in Samar magazine highlights some of the unsung heroes whose faces will never be seen on our side of the world.

The shock in India is very different than what we felt in the US 7 years ago. Incidents of terrorism have happened in Mumbai before. In the past few years, there have been at least two train bombings and I'm sure theres many more that I don't know about. What we've been hearing from India is frustration, exhaustion, and disappointment.

The Western media is the one emphasizing shock. This is the first time "we're" hearing about things like this happening in Mumbai, and the only reason we're hearing about it is because they were "targeting Americans". Yeah, that was part of it. But what about the Indian citizens that died. We can't forget about them. We mustn't.

I wonder what it means that we're so desensitized to the violence in the middle east that nobody cares about the day-to-day terror there, and that the world comes to a standstill when the "terrorists" strike somewhere "new". 

I have another huge gripe about the way media handled the situation. Folks, we still don't have any confirmation that they were Muslim or Pakistani. The constant riots in Gujurat prove that terrorists don't have to come externally from India. There's plenty of people IN India who insist on keeping the option open that these people were Indian citizens.

Also, why the hell does Western media automatically assume that this has to do with Kashmir? I think it's pretty ignorant that that's the only speculation I heard about these attacks. It seems that the possibility that these terrorists were not a.) Muslim and b.) Pakistani was not even considered by these so-called reporters/scholars. Anyone who follows world news knows that the Kashmir conflict has never reached such extreme levels as to arrange such a highly organized hostage situation. That's outrageous. 

Overall, I'm just really disappointed about the way this situation was handled in the mainstream media in the US. They managed to take a situation that was very uniquely Indian and turn it into a uniquely American issue without actually hearing out what Indian people and government had to say about it. 


Posted by Viraj at 7:05 PM  

1 comments
ajw said...

I totally agree with your thoughts on the mainstream/traditional media in this country; unfortunately, it's during times of tragedy and crisis that their failures are most palpable.

I've been super intrigued by something that happens often but is very visible right now: the double standard of how the MSM deals with representations of embodied violence and death. We NEVER see pictures or video of dead American bodies--especially if they are bloody or gory. Showing pictures of Indian victims--mangled, bloody, dead--seems to be perfectly okay, and it's been all over newscasts about the bombings. I think I can understand both the "we should show all" or "we should never show" sides of the argument, but in the case of a double standard like this, I can't help but think it's indicative of a racist, imperialist vision of an Indian (or otherwise non-White foreign) subject.

Argh, I don't know...the news is so frustrating.

--Anna

December 3, 2008 at 3:13 AM  

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