How often have you heard people using or you yourself have used labels like neo-Nazi, Jihadi, Bhakt, Zionist, to name just a few. It is easier to use those labels because that label is expected to explain in one word that you would need otherwise to elaborate in multiple sentences. If the label covers a wide swathe, blankets a lot and crushes nuance, then so be it. Who has the patience to explain in detail when a single word can do.
Add insensitive (or vested) groups who use the label to stereotype.
- All blacks are untrustworthy
- Immigrants are a law and order problem
- Crime goes up with lack of border control
- All terrorists are Muslims
- 90% of scam calls are from Nigeria
Such easy labeling is a boon to politicians. The diminishing attention span of the current generation coupled with the need to get a quick digested opinion is a lethal mix. If one wants to understand history or complex geopolitical situations one needs to invest time, understand various points of view, decipher nuances, acknowledge that most issues, especially history and people, are never black and white and one has to account for the gray in between.
Here one must tackle the minefields of fake news, misinformation and propaganda. There is a general tendency to believe that anything in print to be true. This was relevant “maybe” about 80 years ago. When newspapers had a conscience and a spine. The current generation is at a disadvantage because they are bombarded non-stop with information.
Viet Thanh Nguyen said in his Pulitzer winning novel, The Sympathizer “ Nothing………..is ever so expensive as what is offered for free.”
When so much of information is available for free on your phone screen, it is tempting to digest what is offered. The algorithms further make sure that you get to see what someone wants you to see or what you regularly crave. When a particular theme is played endlessly, on loop, on your screen, that is all you read. WhatsApp has lent this whole quagmire an additional layer of depravity as the “Big brother” has finally found a channel to address to you specifically with contents tailor made to form and then boost your biases.
Add AI assistance in the form of ChatGPT or Gemini or Grok or several others in the market which prompts you when you open a document with “This document appears quite large, shall I make a summary for you?”.
So, now you are left with not only propaganda nonsense, but also a tool to help you digest it to a few bullet points. The whole exercise is engineered to make sure that one does not use one’s intelligence or independent thinking to form a balanced opinion. Fake news and Deepfake were already a menace. AI now makes it immensely more catastrophic. (It is such a pity, because as in any other new invention, AI is such a powerful tool when used where and how it must be used, by experts)
- Hatred was whipped up between two factions of Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka with doctored videos and unsubstantiated news circulated via WhatsApp.
- Scores were killed in Myanmar where it was a child’s play to whip up a frenzy against the Rohingya Muslims
Extreme intolerance and a complete unwillingness to engage in a discussion has become the norm among those who absorb these convenient ready made opinions.
- If you try to highlight the atrocities of Israel post Oct 7, you are branded Pro-Hamas and you become an Anti-Semite.
- If you expose Hamas you are a Zionist.
- If you have voted for Mamdani you are a communist who is pro-immigration and you will be the reason that the nation will collapse.
- If you voice your concern over institutional Islamophobia in India, you are branded an anti-national.
- Should you support LGBTQ and participate in a Pride march, then you are a deviant and you are here to destroy our culture.
- If you question God and religion, chances are you may not be alive to weigh the consequences.
History is so easily altered, doctored and distorted. Nothing is sacrosanct anymore.
Be it the 1903 Protocols of the Elders of the Zion, or a nearly 60 year old ongoing opinion that the moon landing was fake or be it the Weapons of Mass Destruction narrative used to invade Iraq.
The above instances were before Social Media exploded.
After the triumvirate of the Social Media cesspool – Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter/X – the following have become new battlefields between the rational and the rabid. No points for guessing who is winning.
- In India the main victory has been in driving a deeper wedge between Hindus and Muslims and for additional variety it has become quite fashionable to demean Gandhi and Nehru. History books are ACTUALLY being rewritten. A different, often unverified but popular, narrative is given a fresh lease of life.
- Every mosque is where a temple had been.
- In USA, the “election was stolen” was enough to lead an insurrection.
- Covid time was beyond the imagination of even the wildest. Origin theories, cures, news about sections of the society that willfully spread the virus,………
- In every country, the constant propaganda to blame one section of the society for all the ills prevailing today is a never ending exercise.
- The secret cosmic wavelength sound is “OM”
- Ancient Hindu temples have carvings of people using a tablet, and a cell phone.
- Missile interceptors were in norm during Kurukshetra
- Ramsetu is real
- Plastic surgery originated from ancient India. (Lord Ganesha)
- Then there are doctored quotes attributed to people who never said them.
- Post a quote with a picture and if you can find it on google, it is the gospel truth.
- ….……..
Controlling the traditional media and perpetuating these false narratives make it easier for leaders to control the masses and abuse their powers.
Not that traditional history or news has been without a flaw. There is merit in the saying that History is written by the victors. How many know about Unit 731 compared to Auschwitz – Birkenau? How many know Holodomor compared to the Holocaust? The silver lining is, if one is willing to dig deep there is a possibility to find the truth.
In today’s world it has become impossible. No one has the time or the inclination to read, analyze or investigate. Hence, opinions are no longer formed. They are taken in fully formed shape from the supermarket shelves.
The Bedouins are a traditionally nomadic or semi-nomadic Arab tribes, who have lived for centuries herding camels, goats and sheep. Moving with the seasons in search of grazing land. They wore practical clothing – long robes, loose garments, and the Keffiyeh to protect from heat and sand. They are known for a strong code of honor, hospitality and tribal loyalty.
After 9/11, the media succeeded in presenting every single Arab through a narrow and negative lens. Stock images of armed men in desert settings for any story about terrorism regardless of relevance, repeatedly associating turbans, keffiyehs or beards have all added to this specific narrative. (A secondary fallout that is almost comical, if it were not so tragic, was a few Punjabi lives that were lost).
A peaceful, nomadic, poetry and art loving Bedouin overnight became a caricature for “ the desert Arab with a gun.”
In India, print media and films follow the same pattern. If mythology is filmed, the devas and the gods are all fair skinned and clean shaven while the Asuras or the demons are always dark skinned, hirsute and unkempt. The comics (the famous Amar Chitra Katha) were not far behind. They regularly depicted the demons as black skinned, clad in animal skins or rags and hirsute (either unruly hair or a ragged beard and a terrifying mustache) and the gods as fair skinned, well dressed and, if a male god, clean shaven. The films were the same. The hero in bespoke trousers, well manicured, with a dazzling shampoo-ad hair while the villain was always dark and with some physical deformities to boot, a mole, a scar, and if they are not enough some additional stains on his character too, like a womanizer or an alcoholic.
Hollywood has chipped in with its share.
For a long time, Hollywood was happy playing the “ white savior” to villages and towns in Africa.
(Hilariously detailed by Dipo Faloyin in his masterpiece “ Africa is not a country”).
Post 9/11, the villains changed from a cold ruthless immoral communist from Russia or one of the Eastern European nations to a standard “ robed, bearded, keffiyeh wearing, brown Arab”
True Lies, Executive Decision, The Siege, Body of Lies, American Sniper…….the list can go on and on and on and on……..
In his article “ The English language is in a bad way”, George Orwell lamented on the falling standards of the English language. One of his main complaints was people using ready made stock phrases. When you use idioms, proverbs, stock phrases, you are actually not thinking. You are mechanically picking up a string of words readily available from a shelf, like assembling a carburetor for your car. When words are used without thinking, the end result can’t be expected to be exceptional.
Let us look at our tool box or our kitchen. The compartments in the toolbox are labeled “ screws, nails, nuts, wires, screwdrivers, spanners” and the containers in the kitchen are labeled “Sugar, tea, coffee, flour, rice” because it is easy to pick, without thinking a lot about it. It works mostly fine. OK, once in a while your coffee is salty or your omelette is sweet, but generally these mishaps are rare. Even if they occur, the damage is limited and not life threatening. (unless you are the type who keep cyanide next to sugar in your kitchen, or acid next to turpentine in your art studio)
Labels have a place and a purpose. To label a thing is OK. But when we attach labels to people or a section of society, we do them a disservice and this shortcut is an insult to our intelligence.
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