[lit-ideas] Re: News via the web
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 01:34:21 -0800 (PST)
Packer evidently does not speak Arabic and had to
communicate through not-too-competent translators.
This should be the first thing to raise doubts about
the reliability of his impressions. I have had many a
confusing 'conversation' in China, due to my own
linguistic incompetence and that of my interlocutors
or (what often makes things even worse) other people
acting as translators.
He obviously has read too much about psychology
('peeling layer by layer' is taken from some book, I
am pretty sure), but I don't imagine that he is
professionally qualified to diagnose someone's mental
health. Given what the Iraqis have been through in the
last year or so, it seems only natural that they would
have confused and contradictory perceptions. There was
plenty of illogical thinking and irrational expression
heard from Americans after 9/11. As to the long
conversations, Iraqis are known for hospitality, and
when asked by a Western journalist to give him an
interview they would probably feel obliged to give him
special attention. Packer obviously had not done much
prior preparation and I am not sure how much 'empathy'
he applied, either.
O.K.
--- Scribe1865@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Here's an excerpt:
> online at
> http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/2/beckerman-iraq.asp
> From Columbia Journalism Review (March/April 2004)
>
> In Their Skin
>
> Few aspects of reporting in postwar Iraq are more
> important than the job of=20
> entering Iraqi minds to see what they think and feel
> about the American=20
> occupation. Four journalists discuss the challenge
>
> BY GAL BECKERMAN
>
> But Packer found that Iraqis do love to talk. Their
> garrulousness surprised=20
> him, although he thought that this, too, could have
> a certain pathological=20
> quality. =E2=80=9CThere were many interviews where I
> would be sitting with s=
> ome guy in his=20
> living room, after the three-hour lunch we would
> always have, and I would=20
> just start getting angry at my translator because
> what he was telling me jus=
> t didn
> =E2=80=99t make sense,=E2=80=9D Packer says.
> =E2=80=9CThe conversation just=20=
> kept on leaping around=20
> without any rational back and forth. And he would
> say to me, =E2=80=98George=
> , I=E2=80=99m=20
> giving you a word-for-word
> translation.=E2=80=99=E2=80=9D=20
>
> Many of the Iraqis he talked to had a hard time
> developing clear arguments,=20
> explaining themselves fully, and, as Packer put it,
> =E2=80=9Cunderstanding t=
> heir own=20
> situation.=E2=80=9D Packer thinks this might be
> related to the fact that the=
> Iraqis were=20
> isolated and denied free will for so long. A
> psychiatrist whom Packer quoted=
> =20
> in the article explained that Iraqis lack
> =E2=80=9Cthe power to experience f=
> reedom.=E2=80=9D=20
>
> Empathy, Packer believes, can help reporters bridge
> this divide. Journalists=
> =20
> need to =E2=80=9Cmake the little imaginative effort
> to get into the skin of=20=
> Iraqis,=E2=80=9D=20
> Packer says. =E2=80=9CThen they won=E2=80=99t need
> hours and hours, and they=
> will be a little=20
> bit immune to the tidy sound bite they often end up
> with.=E2=80=9D=20
>
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