The British Media, its ignorance and misconception of Somalis/Somalia

[VisiT]

The British Media, its ignorance and misconception of Somalia

 

Every time something happens in one end of the world, the British media is known for two things: indignant haste and sensational reportage. These are the two starting pointing that on which the understanding and analytical basis of many British journalists is based. The drive for increased speed of news delivery informed by quick profiteering and rating-driven craze always increases the likelihood of distorted news being made available for public consumption. The majority of the public, which is too busy to conduct their own critical analysis and filtering of news, may end up taking as facts stories that don't conform with the realities on the ground. Furthermore, stories related to developing countries do not usually attract much interest from great many. Thus, these unwillingness for critical analysis of news makes entire societies in the Third World (especially in the Muslim world) become the victims of media misrepresentation or misinformation.

 

Among these disadvantaged societies include the Somali society which has fallen prey to the British media. Inside the United Kingdom, the media has often lambasted the Somali community as being 'donkey eaters, phoney asylum-seekers, terrorists, thugs, dangerous criminals and what have you. As a result, the Somali community has become one of the most vilified communities in the UK. However, this very community that is being vilified as criminals suffers daily victimization. Although the Somali community has no more criminals that any other community in Britain, and victims than criminals, the media expediently ignores this. Not even the so-called neutrality of the British Broadcasting Corporation does justice to Somalis living in the UK. The few and far between research or study that has been conducted about the Somali community has repeatedly noted that the community is the 'most victimized ethnic community in the UK', and also, recent research conducted by the University of Sheffield has indicated that Somalis, as a result of under representation, 'have become an invisible community'. Albeit this invisibility, you would think that they would not attract the media's dreaded and negative attention. The moment a crime is committed by an individual of an ethnic minority background, or even when illegal asylum seekers are mentioned in inter-party debates, the media always finds the Somali community as its prime target, and surprisingly enough the point of contact for these 'journo-vultures' is uniformly Somalis who have no understanding of UK life, let alone able to speak the English language to a good degree.

 

Quite often, therefore, the media gets the materials it requires for creating negative and sensational reportage of misinformation, which abviously generates an upsurge of public curiousity. Lately, however, the media couldn't get enough materials from the Somalis living in the UK for their news-doctoring, but unsurprisingly, the journo-vultures have decided to tie Somalis to another negative term just to generate more misinformation. Soon after the tragic 7/7 bombings in London, Somalis have achieved to basket another negative term to the ones they already possessed, and that term is: terrorists. This is because what one man had sawed, is what the entire community has come to reap. Such fate isn’t new to Somalis in the UK. It has happened before, when one man who is infected with HIV/AIDS committed a heinous crime. That man's face, as is usual with the media, has been made to represent the image of the community as a whole. However, whenever a Somali kid is killed (as is often the case), he/she will get nothing close to the attention the one Somali criminal gets from the media. Just few days ago, a young Somali man was brutally assaulted while travelling on a bus and has suffered multiple fractures. As a result of the assault, the young man fell into a comma with little chance of recovery. Now, this boy's ordeal is not known to many outside the Somali community. Few weeks before that another young Somali was killed by the police, and what happened? Nothing whatsoever! 'Nothing is to be done' is the precarious fate in which the Somali community has come to find itself, and nothing is more depressing than being left in this state of helplessness with no end at sight. Yet, the Somali still calls itself British while the British media labels it terrorists. What an endurance that is!

 

As if this helplessness needed to be deepened into new lows, the media is now bracing itself for more sophisticated fabrication of news about Somalia, the country and its people. I call this 'more sophisticated fabrication' because while domestic reportage about British Somalis is easily countered with the provision of another side of the story, the stories fabricated about Somalia are not easily countered or understood by the majority of the public. When the public is not fully acquainted with international issues such as concerns Somalia, the media’s inclination to make news out of nothing is highly increased. A case in point is a news report that had appeared in The Independent on 17/06/06, which if read by individuals well informed in Somali issues, would find it ridiculous. What is ridiculous about Kim Sengupta's (who is apparently in Mogadishu) article is her inference that the Islamic militias who have captured Jowhar, Somalia, had 'American and British accents'. She says: "What has also emerged is that many of his fighters are Somalis returning from the Diaspora to the West. Those storming the buildings in Jowhar, just 50 miles from Mogadishu, spoke English with American and British accents and the same tones can be heard among others in Mogadishu. Some said they did not want their photographs taken because they wanted to seek work in the West" The Independent

 

Sengupta says she is writing about Jowhar which she cannot visit, yet she claims these Islamic Courts Union fighters had American and British accents. While in fact Kim cannot visit Jowhar just yet and thus means that she is relying on word of mouth, which purports as 'news'. Sengupta is unethical in not realizing that what she designs to be news will have wider implications for the status of Somalis living in the West. One implication is to make it seem as if Somalis in the West are (Taliban-style) terrorists who go back to an African Afghanistan which is untrue. Contrary to what she implies, Somalis rarely go back to Somalia to fight and also Somalia is not Afghanistan. Therefore to imply otherwise is to commit a journalistic crime against Diaspora Somalis and those living in Somalia. The media must not prey on poor Somalis wherever they are (especially in the UK) and also public broadcasting institutions must be responsible enough not to tarnish the image of the community needlessly. Ignorance about the affairs of the community is not an entitlement to fabricate negative reportage about it. That said, just as all other ethnic communities living in the UK receive their equal opportunity for representation and integration, Somalis must also be allowed the same.

 

Source: The Somali Analyst www.thesa.motime.com/

[ElPunto]

^How interesting - so true - these news ppl have little grasp of Somalia or Somali issues. Context and specificty are completely lacking. And not to mention - lies, innuendo and conjecture that passes for news about Somalia.