The Norwegian Martyr And The Belief In Western Journalism
January 15th, 2008 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
Few Norwegians die in conflicts or attacks abroad, and when it happens the attention to the events rival those of the martyr tradition of more martial cultures elsewhere. In an attack on the luxury Serena Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Monday, the Norwegian journalist Carsten Thomassen was killed when exiting the elevator in the lobby as four attackers made their way into the building, blasting everyone in their way. Another Norwegian, a diplomat, was injured in the incident. Considering that Norway has had forces stationed in the country since just after the invasion, it is quite surprising that the country and its inhabitants act as confused and angry as they are doing at the moment in the aftermath of the attack.
That a country covers episodes that involve its own citizens is nothing new. However, news from Afghanistan rarely make headlines anymore despite the numbers of Afghans and others killed in both terror attacks and military skirmishes. As with most conflicts that have been going on for a while, people loose interest and think of it as something bad happening far away in a country inhabited by people who are unable to live in peace, unlike ourselves. Should a Norwegian soldier, participating in a civil war, be killed, however, it becomes personal and terms like “terrorism” and “freedom” are scattered all over the headlines. Few people stop to think about what the role of the soldiers is and that even in this time and day war means deaths, even for the good guys.
The killing of a non-combatant, though, who travelled to a war zone, stayed in the most high-profile target in the whole country, and followed the entourage of the foreign minister of one of the warring parties, leads to his elevation to martyrdom. Thomessen was an outstanding journalist and was doing an important job when he was killed, but he was no martyr. He knew the risks and is only one of scores of journalists killed every year in Afghanistan. Plastering his face and life story on every front page and every news broadcast only amplifies Norwegian ignorance of what the country is involved in and our disrespect for the other casualties of the conflict. On the news broadcasts the evening he was killed, there was no mention of who the other victims were other than the implication that they, of course, were Afghan security forces (who, incidentally, were sacrificing their lives for very little pay to protect sightseeing politicians from abroad). The Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg was quoted as saying that the journalist ‘died in the service of freedom.’
Naturally, journalists, at least from our Western perspective where journalists are supposedly objective and only live to serve the truth, should never ever be targeted in conflicts. Their job is to report back what is happening and in many conflicts, therefore, few journalists are killed with intent as they are the voice of the oppressed and dying. However, this is not always how it looks from the other side in a conflict that is perceived to be between cultures, religions or civilisations. This perception is not helped when journalists effectively become part of the enemy when they ‘embed’ themselves with the enemy forces or travel with politicians who surprisingly enough are referred to as ‘civilians’ when they are targeted by the bad guys.
What kind of journalism are we talking about anyway? Thomessen was part of a big contingent of journalists travelling together to report directly from the source. I do not know what they were planning to do, but imagine the slant to the story when ten journalists in flak jackets descend on a local village protected by fifty soldiers to interview the ‘natives’ and portray ‘reality’ for us back home. What kind of reality will they be reporting and who do they have access to in their mortal fear of terrorists? The news are only reliable if they are reported by a Norwegian, I suppose. The local journalists can only be trusted to help out and maybe translate what the ‘natives’ are saying, as long as the ‘natives’ are talking about a reality that we recognise, where the bad guys are evil and our guys are doing an excellent job serving democracy and freedom. This is why we rarely see reports bought from al-Jazeera or other news channels that have access to people and stories that Western journalists would never dare approach: they don’t use a discourse that is recognisable for us because the reality we are fed is so distant from the discourse of the locals and the enemy.
Thankfully, both local and freelance journalists still travel the world in search of the alternative stories and truths that compete against the Western perception of good and bad, black and white, freedom and oppression. When they die, their names are rarely spoken. But, sometimes, their stories reach a few people who believe there must be more to a story than what is said on CNN.