Why the media war has extended to the global scene?

Reflections on the Media War Between BBC and IR and the Power of Iranian Audience

Recently, BBC Persian the new-colonial TV channel, reported that its staff were interrogated on-line by information ministry of Islamic Republic. The story goes that IR has arrested family members of BBC Persian staff in order to force confessions from the staff. In this way worried staff in London gave up to interrogations via skype!

Clearly this is not a new story as the TV channel narrates many occasions whereby staff in London were under pressure. It is interesting that till now they have hidden this serious conflict. The head of BBC Persian Sadegh Saba, an ex-communist, first very briefly interviewed Deutsche welle about this forced interrogation/confession. Why didn’t he report it from BBC Persian first? perhaps because they treat Deutche welle as a test to observe how the news of their surrender to IR information ministry would be recived by the media. They didn’t get any response from the Iranian audiance and it seemed that it was counted as not-negative for their reputation. At this point they moved to thier own highly equiped and modern looking studios and extensively explained very vaguely and generally the threats from Tehran. We still don’t know why BBC Persian staff were introgated, to what they confessed and why BBC Persian who takes no responsibility for filmmakers in Iran (who were arrested for the sake of this channel) decided to report this conflict.

The media war got to its hight when the head of BBC, Mark Tompson went on the British channel and during one of the busiest hours of the evening admitted the stories of introgations and condemned the Iranian government. It was from this position that he announced that IR would see a tough response and they planned to ask international institutions to recognize their complaint and condemn IR act.

Publicizing the conflict and surrender to Tehran, thus, entered a new stage. From a limited braodcast it was transffered to the level of global affair and will be followed as a matter of international security. How the conflict was esclated? Why did it change its level? Since we don’t know the content of skype introgation/confessions, we cannot answer these questions aqurately but we can derive two new ideas: Firstly, the IR intreogators achived what they were after whether it was information, scaring the BBC Persian staff or limiting their  power, etc, they reached the goal. In other words, the TV channel was defeated. This global escalation of the conflict is a dramatic and necessary reaction (from BBC perspective) to a defeat we don’t know what it is.

Secondly, this escalation of media war should be seen in line with the war propoganda that the tv channel has been devoted to since November 2011. Through this story the new-imperialist channel draws a horrific picture of their enemy as those who do not have pity for innocent civilians (family and friends of BBC Persian staff in Tehran), power-hunger monsters who abuse women (Sadegh Saba and Mark Tompson constantly say their female staff were interrogated, it is very interesting that it is invariably women who are used as a political pretext for condemnation) etc. The escalation of conflict aims to prove that IR has gone out of control and the new-imperial tv channel intends that sanction and war are justified actions against uncontrolable government. Our question is who was supossed to be in control? and what counts as control? Is control something that NATO and the neo-imperialism pinns down?

No doubt that the current government of Iran is just another version of the modern barbarism but the question is how could BBC Persian, the instrument of new-imperialism, justifies its position as holder of justice, morality and truth? Where do they get their moral authority? Why is it always already assumed that they are the victims? This media war is based on numerous imperialist pre-suppositions which the Iranian audience are never given a space to problemtise. As a result the TV channel is not treated as the source of truth and its battle of interest with IR is not taken as in favour of Iranian’s interest.

The last crucial point which we would like to argue for is that the esclation of media war only demonstrate how BBC Persian is isolated inside Iran. Unlike what Mark Tompson claims that it is a popular tv in Iran and millions watch BBC Persian (if that was really true, Tompson didn’t need to loudly claim it on his own channel on the evening news programs).

To demonstrate how isolated BBC Persian is, how little its impact is on the cerculation of news and to a great extend is regarded as a noisy outsider by Iranian viewers, we would like to attract your attention to what happened during the celebration of 1979 revultion last week in Tehran. The event illustrates what a huge power the Iranian audiance have on the virtual space. And the Iranian audiance always already choos to withhold this power, not to support the BBC and let the IR damage it.

This year the anniversary of the arrival of Khomeyni to Tehran 10 days before the triump of the 1979 revolution turned to a ridiculous show. The day which is 2 of Feb (12 of Bahman in Iranian calender) was the start of the 10 day ceremonies in the country. As someone who grew up in IR’s schools, I perfectly remember how glorious the celebrations were. As a kid I took part in many preparations, making wall newspapers, group singinging, performances, etc. On Feb 2 ususally the story of the arrival of Khomeyni was re-narrated. We are all familliar with photos of the day, when he descended from the airplane and recived by thousands and thousands of people who ornamanted his route from the Mehrabad airport to the cemetry.After 13 years of exile, he smartly chose to go straight to the cemetry where many martyrs and victims of the royalist regime were buried. There, between thousands of excited revolutionaries he delivered a very radical speech and announced that he will allocate a temporary transitional government. The rest of the story is known to everyone but this moment is very crucial for IR to reconstrcut every year and to celebrate.

[The photo on the right is the original photo, many people who accompanied Khomeyni were executed in the first two years ensuing the revolution. So later in the official narratives (the photo on the left) they were deleted].

This year on 2nd of February, Iranians watched the most impossible photos and videos from the official outlets of the IR. In order to celebrate the anniversary of the arrival of Khomeyni, a cardboard model of the founder of Islamic Republic was erected. The cardboard was brought into actual scenes of celebration to re-constrcut the very event of his arrival. The cardboard was not treated as a cardboard but as Khomeyni himself.

In fact, the scenery demonstrated that the radical Islamist Khomeyni has been reduced to an apparition who is summoned to official celbrations only.

The images were truely unbelivable. The shock, confusion and disbeliefe  were the reactions of many of us upon seeing Khomeyni welcomed by military officers. Gone are the days when he was saluted by millions of the forgotten Iranian people, those voiceless supporters who put their faith and hope in him.

Upon seeing images, I phoned Tehran to ask about people’s reaction. My mother who spent her youth as a fierce defender and supporter of Khomeyni, as an unshakable Khomeynist ready to die for him and her belief, was shaking in horror and disbeliefe. She said that the whole ceremony was the revival of idol worshiping and the government deprived people from their revolutionary leader.

That was the point when I remembered the silent layer of the Iranian society, the lowest layer regarding income usually, which is also the most religious one, people who keep the image of Khomeyni not in their offices but on their heart, perhaps to keep the memory of beliefe, perhaps to keep faith in the possibility of radical revolutionary changes as Khomeyni once promissed.

Now, the apparition of Khomeyni is gaurded by the cabinet of millioners and thieves, the most reactionary in the region who govern the country only through the support of millitary, plain caots and tugs.

[Later, the cabinet ministers drank tea with cardboard Imam]

This totally ideological shift in political and historical representation of the idea of revolution, was not ignored by the people. Within hours the Iranian audiance responded sharply and effectively to this ridiculous show to the extend that the state TV, IRIB, stopped showing the related video, and the photos were deleted from the official websites.

The reaction mostly came in the form of verbal engament with the new representation. Hundreds of on-line texts, status and comments were cerculated who played with the songs, slogans, texts, quotes about or by Khomeyni, whereby the word Khomeyni was replaced with carboard. I spent the whole evening reading the fantastic imaginative reaction of people and laughing to death. They were mostly lingustic games or displacements of contextual elements of the revolution with the cardbaord. As the English-speaking audiance would not easily realize them, I gathered a couple of photos which went on-line within a couple of hourse after the Imam apparition apeared on TV.

The caption of this photo said: Imam Khomeyni from behind!

This one didn’t need any caption!

The reaction to the cardbaord Imam Khomeyni (whether in defence of him or as a way to denounce the whole system) was that strong which forced the authorities to delete the whole ceremony and forget about the cardbaord Imam. The reaction demonstarted the power of the audiance and how effectively they can influence the political strategies of the government.

Going back to the BBC Persian media war with IR, the Iranian audiance chose to ignore the sufferings of the BBC Persian staff in London. No one defended them, even on the social networking websites, the news about introgation/confession was not cerculated at all. The problem of new-colonial TV has remained their very own problem with the IR. That is the reason that forced BBC to resort to international institutions and broadcast their media war with IR.

The way the Cardboard Imam incident was received, proved how isolated BBC Persian TV is as people chose to ignore and silently watch their defeat. The Iranian audience stepped back and left the stage to the rival capitalist powers, only to observe how they wear off in this hideous conflict.