Simplifying History: the BBC's Coverage of US and Cuba Relations
Simplifying History: the BBC's Coverage of US and Cuba Relations
Josh Watts, 3 August 2012
Categories: USA | Cuba | BBC News |
Cuban President Raul Castro 'grabbed the microphone' at a Revolution Day ceremony in eastern Guantánamo, reported the BBC, and 'made a seemingly impromptu address' in which he 'said he is willing to hold talks with the US'. So explained an article which left much unsaid with regards to US-Cuba relations.
In his own words, Castro is willing to talk to the US about 'the problems of democracy, human rights etc. But on equal terms because we are no-one's colony'. In BBC speak: 'Referring to renewed US criticism of Cuba's human rights record, President Castro said he was happy to discuss it, if that of the US was also up for debate'. These points merit elaboration which, unsurprisingly, the BBC does not provide.
For starters; the notion of Cuba as a colony. Prior to the 1959 revolution, the island was, ‘more than any other place in Latin America’ writes one historian, ‘virtually a de facto U.S. colony’ which was ‘made over for (the United States’) own needs and desires’, with US investors owning 90 percent of Cuban utilities, 50 percent of its railroads, and 40 percent of its sugar production, among other areas.1 The United States in fact believed it had a divine right to Cuba, its resources and inhabitants, which was not to be denied even by native islanders. In a study of American art, literature, poetry, etc., and the words of Senators, Congressman and government officials, Louis A Perez, Jr. demonstrates that through the use of metaphor - that is, viewing Cuba as a damsel in distress, a neighbour in need, a child which must be simultaneously protected, educated and disciplined, for example - the United States came to believe that, following its intervention in the Cuban war of liberation against Spain in1898, it had a duty - and furthermore, an undeniable right - to intervene in Cuban affairs and exert control over the island, in the perceived American national interest. Importantly, such metaphors were, in the tradition of empire, self-fulfilling, as Perez Jr. explains: ‘Precisely because the pursuit of national interest was imagined as enactment of moral purpose, the Americans could plausibly demand the world to acquiesce to the purity of their motives’, ‘concluding that other people had no cause to doubt their intentions or oppose their policies’2– in this case, intervention in the ‘Spanish-American War’ of 1898, the result of which delayed the liberation of Cuba, with the island transferring from Spanish to American hands.3 Indeed, as Perez Jr. has written elsewhere, the US, through its intervention, ‘had not only rescued and revived the moribund colonial order, it had also assumed responsibility for its protection and preservation’.4
To speak of ‘the problems of democracy, and human rights . . . on equal terms’, refers, in this case, to the United States respect for the human rights of its own citizens. ‘President Castro said he was happy to discuss it’, explained the BBC, ‘if that of the US was also up for debate’. Naturally the BBC did not feel it necessary to venture down such an avenue. Let us do so. With regards to repression in the US, the FBI’s COINTELPRO programs throughout the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s – in which political organisations were subjected to numerous methods of subversion, intimidation and murder, in an attempt to disrupt, discredit and destroy the groupings of activists – are an obvious case.5 Turning to the present, however, Bradley Manning springs to mind; with the ‘extraordinarily harsh conditions’ in which he was held at Quantico marine base (in the words of The Guardian) constituting torture.6 It is interesting to observe BBC reports on Manning. In one, entitled ‘Bradley Manning must face “aiding the enemy” charge’, the BBC reported that ‘During pre-trial hearings, (judge) Col Lind also heard arguments about whether or not the leaked material actually harmed US interests - and whether this mattered’, citing ‘Prosecutor Maj Ashden Fein [who] called the reports "completely irrelevant", arguing [that] the government did not have to prove if damages actually occurred, only that Pte Manning knew they could’. The BBC takes the prosecutor’s opinions at face value, whilst not even quoting the defence – who are, for the record, paraphrased in the report. Given the US response to the leaking of the data, whether or not the effects of the leak ‘matter’ to ‘US interests’ is undoubtedly relevant - indeed, in this instance paramount. Regardless, the BBC is satisfied by the prosecutor’s predictable conclusion that such details are ‘completely irrelevant’, and does not pursue the line of inquiry. The report rounds off with mention of ‘a video showing US troops firing on Iraqis from a helicopter’. Further elaboration is required however, as the video – known as ‘Collateral Murder’ - in fact showed the soldiers repeatedly firing on civilians and laughing whilst doing so. Such details are obviously too grisly for readers of BBC news. Completely relevant however, is that Manning ‘lip-synced to Lady Gaga while he downloaded thousands of classified documents from military servers, according to a computer hacker he befriended’ – the opening sentence of a BBC profile on Manning.
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