Radio Propaganda and the Broadcasting of Hatred: Historical Development and Definitions PDF
Preview Radio Propaganda and the Broadcasting of Hatred: Historical Development and Definitions
p Radio Propaganda and the Broadcasting of Hatred Historical Development and Definitions Keith Somerville Radio Propaganda and the Broadcasting of Hatred This page intentionally left blank Radio Propaganda and the Broadcasting of Hatred Historical Development and Definitions Keith Somerville UniversityofKent,Kent,UK ©KeithSomerville2012 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-27829-5 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis publicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noportionofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedortransmitted savewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewiththeprovisionsofthe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988,orunderthetermsofanylicence permittinglimitedcopyingissuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, SaffronHouse,6–10KirbyStreet,LondonEC1N8TS. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorizedactinrelationtothispublication maybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivilclaimsfordamages. Theauthorhasassertedhisrighttobeidentifiedastheauthorofthiswork inaccordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firstpublished2012by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN PalgraveMacmillanintheUKisanimprintofMacmillanPublishersLimited, registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills,Basingstoke, HampshireRG216XS. PalgraveMacmillanintheUSisadivisionofStMartin’sPressLLC, 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010. PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabovecompanies andhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld. Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnitedStates, theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries. ISBN 978-1-349-32609-9 ISBN 978-1-137-28415-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137284150 Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingandmadefromfully managedandsustainedforestsources.Logging,pulpingandmanufacturing processesareexpectedtoconformtotheenvironmentalregulationsofthe countryoforigin. AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 Contents Preface vi Acknowledgements xi 1 Propaganda:Origins,DevelopmentandUtilization 1 2 TheAdventofRadio:CreatingaMassAudiencefor PropagandaandIncitement1911–1945 33 3 TheColdWarandAfter:PropagandaWarsandRadioin RegionalConflicts 55 CaseStudies 4 NaziRadioPropaganda–SettingtheAgendaforHatred 87 5 Rwanda:Genocide,HateRadioandthePoweroftheBroadcast Word 152 6 Kenya:PoliticalViolence,theMediaandtheRoleof VernacularRadioStations 208 7 Conclusions:Propaganda,HateandthePowerofRadio 238 Bibliography 247 Index 259 v Preface ItwaslateeveningonWednesday,6April1994instudioS36inBushHouse, the home of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service. My Newshour team was coming to the end of a long shift and there were about 15 minutes of programme time to go. And then came the moment when a newsflash both set my pulse racing and also set off alarm bells in myhead. The breaking news came in on the BBC newsgathering system, from Agence France Presse. It said that the plane carrying presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi had crashed near Kigali – all on board were presumed dead. It’s not every day that you get two presidents killed in the same crash, so that alone meant that it would develop into a big story for the World Service audience. But these twomenwerefromRwandaandBurundi,twoofthemostvolatilestatesin Africa.TheywerereturningfromArusha,fromasummitatwhichpressure was put on Habyarimana to proceed with implementing the Arusha Peace Accords designed to end four years of war in Rwanda. His death would at theveryleastputtheaccordsindoubtbutcouldleadtofull-scalecivilwar orworse. As I sought more information from BBC newsgathering and the African service at Bush, and checked incoming news wires, I was simultaneously assessingwhatweactuallyknewandcouldthereforereporttotheaudience andwhetherwecouldcoverthestoryaccuratelybeforetheprogrammecame offair.Icheckedwithmytrustedstudioproducer,FredDove,ifwehadroom fortheRwandastoryand,professionalasever,hesaidhecouldmakeroom. SoIhadtodecide. While not an expert on the minutiae of Rwandan politics, I had been there, reported stories from there, followed the four-year civil war and had good background knowledge of the decades of conflict, massacres and repression of the Tutsi minority by the Hutu majority. I knew very well how unstable the ceasefire was between the government and the opposing Rwandan PatrioticFront(RPF), and how an event like this and any sugges- tion that the Tutsi-led RPF was responsible for Habyarimana’s death could lead to not just renewed fighting but the mass killing of Tutsis. I did not wanttoriskhavinganyroleinstartingrumoursorbroadcastingsuggestions that could have catastrophic results – and I knew our programme was lis- tenedtobyEnglish-speakersinEastandCentralAfrica.Alljournalistswant to report the news and report it now, but it is better to be a bit late on the newsandgetitrightthantojumpinfast,perhapsspeculateandthenhave totakeresponsibilityfortheconsequences. vi Preface vii I opted for safety and caution. When we had confirmation of the crash andthedeathsofallthoseaboard,westillhadtimewithintheprogramme tobroadcastashortnewsflash.IdecidednottotrytogetholdoftheAfrican service stringers in Rwanda, not all of whom broadcast in English anyway, ortogotoourregionalofficeinNairobi,asthecorrespondentstherewould knowlittlemorethanIdid.TheprioritywastobroadcastonlywhatIcould confirm and avoid potentially inflammatory speculation. When the pro- grammecameoffair,wewerenonethewiseraboutthecause–acrash,shot downand,ifso,bywhom?Butspeculationwasalreadybeingairedinsome follow-upnewsagencyreports,includingaccusationsfromRwandathatthe Tutsi-ledRPFhadbeenresponsible. Ididn’tgetthechancetofollowupthestoryonsubsequentprogrammes. As it did for most of the continent of Africa and much of the world, my focusswitchedtoSouthAfrica.Withindays,IwasinJohannesburgleading the World Service news programme team reporting the elections that were to bring the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela to power and transformSouthAfrica.Buteveninthehecticrunuptothestartofvoting on27April,thehorrifyingnewsemergingfromRwandawasbeingdiscussed inSouthAfrica–ofthekillingoftheprimeministerandseveralministersin thecoalitiongovernment,andreportsoflarge-scalemurdersofTutsis.Days beforetheofficialannouncementoftheelectionresultbytheelectioncom- missionon6May,itwasclearthattheAfricanNationalCongress(ANC)had wonandthatinternationalleadersanddiplomatswerebeginningtosound outANCleadersaboutaSouthAfricanrole–politicalandmilitary–inend- ing the Rwandan violence. The man soon to become South Africa’s deputy defenceministerandakeyfigureintheANCmilitaryandintelligencesetup, RonnieKasrils,toldmethathewasalreadyhavingtofendoffsuggestionsof aSouthAfrican-ledAfricanforcetokeepthepeaceinRwanda. BythetimeIwasbackinLondonandrunningprogrammesagain,Rwanda was one of the lead stories for the World Service, despite being ignored by much of the rest of the British and international media. They seemed only to be able to cope with one African story at a time and they already had South Africa. For many news editors across the world, the main questions were, ‘Where the hell is Rwanda?’ and ‘Why should we care enough to reportit?’Ourprogrammesweredifferent.Wehadcorrespondentsthereand I despatched one of our best radio documentarymakers, Hilary Andersson, toRwandaandTanzaniatogetusmoredepthonthestory–whichwasstill patchyandunclear.Thousands,perhapstensofthousands,werebeingkilled butbywhomandtowhatend? Overthenextcoupleofmonthstheextent,intentandsheerhorrorofthe attemptedgenocidebecameclear.Whatalsobecameobviouswastheroleof themedia inRwandain incitinghatredofandviolenceagainst Tutsis, and againstHutusseenasopposedtoHutuchauvinism.Thephrase‘hateradio’ became synonymous with Rwanda – ‘radio that killed’ and ‘radio machete’ viii Preface werejustacoupleofthephrasesusedregularlytodescribeRadioTelevision LibredesMilleCollines(RTLM),theHutustationthatencouragedandaided thekillings. Thatradioshouldplaysucharolewasanathematosomeonelikemewho had worked for years in the World Service and was wedded to the motto ontheBBCcoatofarmsthat‘nationshallspeakpeaceuntonation’–even though I knew well that, in its way, BBC World Service output was, like most other news, a form of propaganda even if it was a soft, benign and well-intentioned one. I was also aware that there was a wide spectrum of broadcasting,fromtheWorldServicenearoneendtostationslikeRTLMat theother. Beforeworkingasaradioproducer,reporterandeditor,Ihadspenteight years at the BBC Monitoring Service directly monitoring Soviet, Czech, Israeli,Afghan,apartheidSouthAfricanand,duringtheFalklands/Malvinas War, Argentinian news and propaganda broadcasts. I’d selected and edited for publication news and propaganda output from across Africa, the Mid- dleEastandLatinAmerica–andforabriefperiodNorthKoreaandChina, too–fortheBBC’sSummaryofWorldBroadcasts.Ihadfewillusionsaboutthe purityofthebroadcastmedia.Butthefirsthalfofthe1990sbroughthome withviolentforcethewaysthatbroadcasting,primarilyradio,couldbeused to encourage, justify, incite and support violence, particularly in regional orcivilconflicts.EvenbeforetheghastlyexampleofRTLM,SerbandCroat radioandTV,especiallylocalstationsliketheSerboneinKnin,hadshown howradioandothermediacouldbeusedforotherendsthaninformingpeo- pleofnewsandinformationthatcouldenablethemtomakesenseof,and makerationaldecisionsin,theworldinwhichtheylived.Thatradiocould be used to incite hatred, to sanction, justify or encourage communal vio- lence, was becoming clearer. Politicians, non-governmental organizations, journalists and academics were aware of this and were starting to call for waysofjammingorcombatingthehatebroadcasts.Buttherehadbeenlittle attempttodescribe ordefinewhereandhowthissortofhatebroadcasting began, and where what one could call ‘mobilizing propaganda’ ended and incitementtohatredandviolencebegan. OtherprioritiesasaBBCjournalistmeantthatatthetimeIwentnofur- therintothedarksideofbroadcasting.Imovedintoacademiain2008and started research on radio; this coincided with the investigations into the post-electionviolenceinKenyain2007–2008andthesuggestionsthatonce again radio had played a role in inciting violence and hatred. This rekin- dledmyinterestand,onfurtherinvestigation,Ifoundthattherehadbeen littleprogressindefininghateradioorprovidinganysortofrealisticguide as to how or whether one could identify where propaganda morphed into somethingeven more sinister.Aresearch triptoKenyain 2010,andsubse- quentdealingswiththeInternationalCriminalCourtinTheHagueoverthe indictmentofaKenyanradiojournalistwhomIhadinterviewed,confirmed Preface ix that an examination of Kenya’s experience could throw a new light on the usesofbroadcastingintimesofconflict. Research into the role of radio in the events in Kenya inevitably threw upcomparisonswithRwanda.IalsorelatedittowhatIknewofthebreak- upofYugoslavia–whichIhadbeeninvolvedincoveringexhaustivelyasa programme editor at the World Service in the early 1990s. My research led mebacktoColdWarpropaganda,theroleofradiointheMiddleEast,andto theSecondWorldWarandNaziGermany,andthenfurtherbacktotheearly uses of radio for the purpose of propagandizing and the career of the ‘hate priest’, Father Coughlan, as an early exponent of bigoted and racist radio commentary. I found more and more material but struggled to put it into context,tofinddefinitions,todelineatethedifferentformsandmotivations of propaganda, and to decide where, how and why propaganda developed intoanopenengenderingofhatredandincitementtoviolence. That is the basic purpose of this book – to tease out the strands of propaganda and present a more coherent analysis of how and in what cir- cumstancespropagandabecomesincitementandthentofinddefinitionsof hatemediaand,inparticular,hateradio.Thesubjectsunderparticularstudy arethoseperpetratorsofhatepropagandawhopropagatetheirideasopenly– whathasbeencalled‘whitepropaganda’,whichcomesfromanidentifiable sourcethattriestobuildcredibilitywiththeaudience,whetherornotitdoes sothroughdistortion,outrightliesoramanipulationoffactsorinterpreta- tions(JowettandO’Donnell,2006,pp.16–17).‘Black’or‘covert’propaganda isnotthesubjectofthisbook,noristheattemptbyradiostationsorother mediatoinfluencethebeliefsorideologyofforeignaudiences–asboththe USAandtheSovietUniontriedtodothoughtheirbroadcastingduringthe ColdWar.Thefocusisonthosebroadcastersandmediathatsoughttoinflu- encetheirownpopulations–toincitethemtohatredandviolenceagainst domesticorexternalenemies.Ihaveomitted,aftermuchresearchanddelib- eration, analysis of the American Shock Jocks, such as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Don Imus. Bigoted and biased they might be but there is no evidence of a specific agenda of hate or incitement; rather just a stream of right-wing prejudice and abuse of perceived liberals and social- ists, or mindless abuse of groups within American society. Under the First AmendmentoftheUSConstitution,thisisalllegal. Thestructureofthebookreflectstheoriginsofhatebroadcastinginpro- pagandaandhowincertaincircumstancesnationalist,politicalparty,racist or other forms of propaganda move into the area of incitement. Chapter 1 charts the development of propaganda as a weapon in conflict over his- tory and the use of hate as the most deadly propaganda weapon of all. Chapter2followsthedevelopmentofpropagandainthe20thcenturyand charts how radio as a means of mass and targeted communication became such an effective propagandatooland its utilizationan extremely effective medium for inciting hatred. The first two chapters are also used to set out
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