The Forum - Journalism, insight and debate at the Frontline Club

#FCBBCA Cyber snooping: In whose hands should internet governance be entrusted?

2012-10-23T22:04:16Z

By Doug Brown

A packed audience filled the Frontline Club forum on 23rd October to hear a panel tackle the question: In whose hands should internet governance be entrusted? Chaired by the Chief Executive of Index on Censorship Kirsty Hughes the event, in association with BBC Arabic, featured: Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir; developer for The Tor Project, Jacob Appelbaum; independent media technology consultant, Karl Kathuria and director at the Cyber Security Centre Dr Ian Brown.

Dr Ian Brown kicked off proceedings by describing the distribution of power over cyberspace. Referring particularly to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) which runs the international domain name system and although it is a "international facing" it is governed by US laws.

"Is it fair that this one powerful country the US should have such say over something that is a global resource?… Since so many large internet companies; the Googles, the Facebooks, the Twitters and so on, that are becoming increasingly important in internet governance debates, are headquartered in the US or at the very least have significant exposure to the US, and US law and case law has very firmly said that the behaviour of companies... with any assets exposed to the US had better watch out when it comes to their behaviour elsewhere in the world because there have been a number of US laws applied to the behaviour of these companies elsewhere in the world"

Karl Kathuria then moved on to discuss the censorship of information by governments from a more optimistic viewpoint, describing his time at the BBC on access to users in Iran and China:

"People were still able to get access to that content anyway, people are always looking for the content... its average everyday people who are reaching out."

Birgitta Jónsdóttir has misgivings on calls for further global internet governance:

"Shouldn't we have a global freedom of information act?... it is impossible... it would destroy the internet as it is today... maybe we need to start to look at this differently."

Jacob Appelbaum, a core member of the anti snooping software Tor described the rise of cyber snooping and the oppression it can bring:

"Surveillance is a support system for violence."

"What we see is a massive expansion of authoritarianism across the globe, even in so called free countries... the mere fact that it has gone so far and the American government has become so brazen.. is an incredibly bad sign, because in a lot of ways the US has led the world in these matters."

"Freedom from suspicion is part of the necessity for feeling free... we should look at Facebook as stasi-book, and we should look at human data as human data-traffic. It is not a problem of over there-istan, it is a problem over here."

Birgitta Jónsdóttir discussed the Iceland Modern Media Initiative as a solution to internet governance and excessive cyber snooping, and its uptake by the Icelandic Government to turn Iceland into a "safe haven" for freedom of information.

"Take the same concept as if you were to create a tax haven, so why not create the same for a freedom of expression and speech haven... if you have one country that sets the standard [other countries will rise to it]. I have a dream for a 'Scandinavian Shield'... as the Scandinavian countries now have a good idea of the importance of these rights to bring the laws into the 21st century."

Dr Ian Brown finished on a note about public uptake of new technology that can divert around any governmental snooping, "encouraging people to use the tools that already exist is the first step".

View reaction to the debate on Twitter: #fcbbca, or watch the debate as it happened below.

Not Invisible: London Premiere of The Invisible War

2012-10-23T00:13:16Z

By Lizzie Kendal

On October 22 the Frontline Club hosted the London Premiere of The Invisible War, followed by a Q&A with Emmy-nominated producer Amy Ziering.

The Invisible War explores the devastating emotional and physical effects of sexual assault within the US military. In the Q&A producer Amy Ziering, explained how the emotional side of the film was balanced with the intellectual content through the differing, but complimentary approaches, that she and director Kirby Dick brought to the project:

"What I think is reflected [in this film] is that I came to it with a really intense emotional and passionate connection to each and every one of the survivors, I was mostly liaising and interacting with them more than he [Kirby Dick] was, and he came to it with an incredible sense of just outrage, moral outrage at [the] injustice. The film not only packs a powerful emotional punch but it also has a really, really substantial and intellectual argument, and I think it reflects both of our strengths in that way."

One issue of injustice in particular that the film tackles is the inward looking nature of the American military judicial System:

"I wasn’t aware of the extent to which the American military judicial system sort of only answers to it’s own and really, you don’t have recourse outside … it is astonishing." Admitted Ziering.

The strong influence of an individual’s Commander in the way that a sexual assault case is dealt with, she said, was something they particularly wanted to address through the film. Bias in favor of the attacker who may have close ties to the Commander is common, which means that the only channel for seeking justice is shut off. The campaign surrounding The Invisible War however, advocates for the military to be accountable to civillian authorities as an alternative:

"We are pushing now to try and get the military to acknowledge that oversight would actually only make them a stronger institution … that’s the message we are trying really hard to articulate."

On being asked if there has been change in the aftermath of the film’s release, Amy Ziering was able to say yes. Through targeted screenings following the initial burst of interest when The Invisible War won the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award, they had reached several influential military figures:

"In doing my research I’d heard that you can legislate, can do grass roots, but if you don’t get the leadership on board in the military - nothing’s going to change … so to make a long story short eventually four of the five Joint Chiefs have now seen it including the head of the Joint Chiefs, General Dempsey."

This, in turn, has affected policy and changed attitudes she explained:

"The army is embracing the film and we are on almost every army base - they bought it as a training tool."

As a last note, Amy Ziering invited audience members to host screenings of their own:

"You never know who knows someone and it really makes a difference."

Marikana: undermining the ANC?

2012-10-18T12:21:40Z

By Tom Meade

"This is merely the worst, the most brutal, the most bloody of thousands of so called 'unrest incidents' we've had around the country. We have them on an almost daily basis."

Cape Town based journalist and political commentator Terry Bell set the tone at last night's insightful discussion of the Marikana massacre and South African politics today. The talk's key focus was not 'what happened?', or 'why?', but 'what next?'.

The chair for the evening, Royal African Society director Richard Dowden, was joined by an expert panel, the discussion ranged from ANC corruption and economic issues, to 2024 political forecasts.

Audrey Brown, BBC producer and presenter interviewed the National Union of Mine Workers' spokesperson, Lesiba Seshoka, following the massacre, and was shocked by his response:

"'Well the police sent out a very strong signal to these people - we will not be held to ransom, there will be no disorder.' The response was just astonishing. The National Union of Mine Workers is meant to represent and protect these workers."

Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC MP who left the party following a public spat with Thabo Mbeki surrounding a $10 billion arms deal, took the discussion further:

"Our new Commissioner of the Police made this statement very soon after the tragedy happened, that 'the police had nothing to apologise for.'"

Moving away from the specifics of the massacre and its precursors, Feinstein gave an impassioned insight into the ANC 's interior:

"Mbeki had a degree of technocratic competence... there was the sense of the building of a government...which during the Zuma administration has just collapsed. And, I would characterise the Zuma administration as one of serial ineptitude."

Jonny Steinberg, acclaimed author and lecturer in African Studies at Oxford University, gave a damning indictment of the ANC's future prospects.

"Currently poor black South Africans vote at a greater rate than the apathetic middle class. The post-Marikana political scene will see a swing between poor, predominantly black voters, and the wealthier middle class - who will return to the poles, voting against the ANC."

"Very little is going to change in the short term, but a great deal will change in the medium term." Steinberg said. "By 2019 or 2024 we may see the end of one party movement in South Africa and an era of coalition party politics."

Natznet Tesfay, head of Africa forecasting at Exclusive Analysis Ltd, commented on the threat of contagion of strikes to sectors that appear unrelated.

"These economic problems, combined with the perception that President Zuma is already in position to win re-election as ANC party leader, continue to undermine the party's dominant position."

Predictably, Julius Malema's name arose in discussion. Steinberg and Feinstein held he was not a long term political player, while Tesfay added:

"Malema himself has become an indicator...within a couple of days of his arrival [at a mining site] or his contacting them, there is a strike. So he is providing some kind of incitement and that needs to be recognised."

Ultimately the panel highlighted the ANC's increasingly embattled position when fielding audience questions on Malema, economic issues and corruption, which Bell described as:

"People in one another's pockets but much more subtly than with bribes."

Feinstein added:

"I think the way in which money percolates between the mining houses, or companies in general, and the political class happens between a variety of formal and informal mechanisms, but that it is happening, there is absolutely no doubt."

Watch the event here:

And all that Jazz

2012-10-16T11:27:09Z

By Merryn Johnson

“I’m very happy to face serious opposition: If I would say what I say and talk about Jewish political power without facing serious, relentless opposition, it would mean that I am talking nonsense... and apparently I’m not.” — Gilad Atzmon

Gilad Atzmon certainly does face serious opposition, but he also revels in it. “Struggle is fun,” he says. Gilad is a world famous jazz musician, but also a writer and political activist, to the point that as a whole he is a political artist. It is this artistic platform for political debate which attracted director Golriz Kolahi and producer David Alamouti to follow him in the making of Gilad & All That Jazz, screened at the Frontline Club on October 15.

This film looks back at Gilad’s childhood in Israel, when he was an enthusiastic Zionist, and follows his artistic development and political transformation, his self-imposed exile and his increasingly controversial and vocal stance on Jewish political identity.

The film captures the very large personality of Gilad – his humour, passion and energy – from his shocked realisation that Charlie Parker was black to his self-disgust at perceiving Nazi traits in his own Israeli army uniform.

The film also gives voice to his critics. Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a campaigner for Palestinian rights, Tony Greenstein, a founding member of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and journalist David Aaronovitch all point to an anti-Semitism in Gilad which he obscures by talking about ‘Jewishness’, as opposed to ‘Jews’ and ‘Judaism’.

The audience were not without their criticism either.

A member of the audience said: “As a Palestinian, I’m flattered for your comment that you won’t go to Palestine until it is Palestine, but it gives me the feeling that you are running away from a problem. Why don’t you go there as a courageous voice to fight? It’s your battle.”

“I have a devastating answer for you, my friend, as you may know different Jewish lobbies invest to silence me and this is why I decided that rather than talking to Jews about Jewishness, just to talk about Jewishness to the world....my duty is to talk to you guys.”

Another member of the audience asked:

“You take issue with Jewish supremacy and ‘chosenness’, does that apply to white supremacy, Islamic supremacy, black supremacy?”

“Of course...Jews didn’t invent supremacy; they are just politically very good at exploiting this discourse,” he replied.

But Gilad wryly sees himself in good company:

“The most important humanists known to us in the West were Jews: Christ, Spinoza, Marx, but what is the problem with them? They were all self-haters! They all drifted away, like me, and they were all crucified, like me!”

Gilad’s enthusiasm for debate and argument and challenge is paramount, and it is this gusto, combined with his exceptional musical ability, that the film delivers.

“Both of us, never really even to this day, agree with a lot of these ideas, but one thing that makes us happy is: where else would you go to have these sorts of debates? With Jews and Palestinians in a room to really talk about issues that you don’t hear them in the newspapers, we don’t see them on the TV, and that’s what the film does.” — David Alamouti

900 Days: myth and reality of the Leningrad blockade

2012-10-13T00:52:41Z

By Lizzie Kendal

On Friday October 12, the Frontline Club hosted the UK Premiere of 900 Days, followed by a Q&A with director Jessica Gorter, and Anna Reid, author of Leningrad: Tragedy of a City Under Siege 1941-44.

The documentary looks at different perspectives on the blockade of Leningrad (1941-1944) during which approximately one million people died due to starvation and sub-zero temperatures. By interspersing footage of present day Victory Day parades with personal accounts from survivors, Jessica Gorter's film illustrates the discrepancy between the different narratives surrounding the blockade:

"Survivors often hold two different narratives in their heads."

Explained Jessica Gorter, referring to the Soviet triumphalism which can still be seen reflected in today's parades and government rhetoric, and to the memories of survivors, which in many cases are too painful to share.

It was this dualism of memory, she admitted, that moved her to make this film:

"I was on a journey because I was trying to figure out, I mean I didn't understand this enormous contrast that I encountered between the world version and the stories that people actually started telling me. That's what triggered me to make the film, and this journey is what the film is about."

Anna Reid took the discussion further by drawing out similarities in the way the Second World War is remembered in the UK:

"When British historians started writing for the first time about the looting of bombsites during the blitz, about crime during the blitz and the black market, about collaboration in the occupied Channel Islands - that was very uncomfortable. That didn't happen for a long time after the war, ... so this isn't just a Russian thing, rewriting the war. But in Russia you have ... decades of censorship so it's more acute."

Anna Reid was quick to point out that the film sought to explore:

"How the siege has been remembered and how it has effected the survivors, it's an analysis of memory rather than an analysis of the actual events of the siege."

Agreeing, Jessica Gorder added:

"Then at least you leave room for the people themselves."

Despite the film being currently barred from Russian TV by companies who are nervous of causing offence, 900 Days is so far creating an opportunity to provide this 'room' off screen as well as on it by starting new conversations with the next generation:

"It's very difficult to have normal discussions about it [the Leningrad blockade]. Which is why it was really special when this premier happened in St Petersburg because all of a sudden the discussions started. There were a lot of young people, I was really surprised, ... and they also were in tears afterwards telling me that they didn't know about it."

For a taster of the film watch the trailer:

Communicating about Syria - A humanitarian perspective

2012-10-11T09:24:59Z

By Sally Ashley-Cound

The conflict and humanitarian issues Syria faces is at the forefront of many peoples minds at the moment, this was reflected by the full house that gathered at the Frontline Club's panel discussion, Communicating about Syria - A humanitarian perspective on 10th October.

Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News' International Editor chaired a panel which included Hicham Hassan from the International Commitee of the Red Cross (ICRC); Lyse Doucet, BBC Chief International Correspondent; Ben Parker, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs (OCHA); and Fadi Haddad from the Mosaic Initiative for Syria.

Hilsum started things off by asking Doucet to set out the current situation in Syria, where over a million people are now displaced within the country, 50% of which are children.

There can be no doubt that when it comes especially to war we [journalists] take the side of the people. And sadly it's ugly terrible bloody wars that drag on there's a lot of people that are affected and Syria is no different...And of all those people that are stuck in the middle one of the other sad realities of the Syrian conflict is that most of them are children.

Parker, who was only in London by coincidence on a break from his post in Syria as head of OCHA then spoke about how the problems in Syria are unlike any he has faced before.

I've never in my career spoken less to journalists. It's a very unusual situation; aid agencies want to talk to the media for three things: 1. Cash. 2. To make sure that the attention doesn't go away, and 3. We also have advocacy, in the sense that we want the people with power to take a certain course of action. In Syria, none of these three really work. In terms of the course of action, nobody has the answer. And what is the course of action? Stop the violence? ok...We're heading into unknown territory.

There's normally criticisms that we're too tight with journalists... but here I can't help you [journalists] at all, I can say maybe you should check out that school, but you being associated with me makes your job even harder. The state of Syria feels that the humanitarian people need to be watched just as much as the journalists because they have the potential to delegitimise and confuse and be instrumentalised by hostile forces.

Hassan who is the Middle East spokesperson for the International Commitee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that the humanitarian aid is not there to solve the problems in Syria:

A very good friend of mine said: "The solution in Syria is not humanitarian because the problem in the first place is not humanitarian; it is political so don't you think you guys are there to solve the problems." It is true, we are not there to solve the problem, humanitarian aid is just there to push the limit a bit more and a bit more and a bit more.

Haddad from the Mosaic Initiative for Syria who works directly with human rights defenders and NGOs inside Syria and neighboring countries, gave some insight into how he gets supplies to people in Syria by foot through Turkey, but how even that is getting more difficult.

I've been targeted now more than the Free Syrian Army, if they know that there's a field hospital in a place, they will try to shut it straight away. It's getting more stressful.

When you're dealing with these groups you need a good relationship with the local community and this is where journalists have to help us, as they go inside they know these communities so our mission is to work in partnership with them and to work like a middle agent between the international NGOs and the people on the ground.

Melissa Flemming, chief spokesperson for the UN High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR) was in the audience and Hilsum asked her to give her take on the situation. She finished with a final thought about the displaced people of Syria, before the discussion was opened to questions from the audience.

They've all lost family and they've all got horrendous stories to tell and they're living in places like Lazatri camp which is inhospitable because of the landscape...It would be like any one of you who is used to living in an apartment having a high standard of living, and from one day to the next having to pick up everything probably having lost a lot and run for your lives across the border and try to make a life for yourself in a tent.

Listen to Lyse Doucet talk about the current state of affairs in Syria:

listen to 'Lyse Doucet on the war in Syria' on Audioboo

Listen to Lindsey Hilsum talk about the different kinds of people who have been caught up in the Syrian conflict:

listen to 'Lindsey Hilsum on displaced people in Syria' on Audioboo

Listen to Fadi Haddad talk about the problems he faces when getting aid to the people who most need it in Syria, he also tells the story of one man he couldn't get aid to quick enough:

listen to 'Fadi Haddad on getting aid to people in Syria' on Audioboo

Watch the full event here:

Oscar Arias: Leader of Strength and Peace

2012-10-09T08:14:03Z

By Jim Treadway

"There's a definite lack of leaders [today]," documentary producer Richard Symons commented to a Frontline Club audience on 8 October. "Where are they?"

Symons had just screened the third film in his and Joanna Natasegara's series The Price of Kings, which explores the weight of leadership. Previous films have focused on Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres.

One true leader, the latest Price of Kings film suggests, has been Oscar Arias, two-time President of Costa Rica.

In 1987, he famously defied American and Soviet insistence - "an incredible amount of pressure," one aide put it - that Costa Rica pick a side in the Cold War proxy battles that were tearing Central America apart.

"I had to fight Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev," Arias reflects in the film. "It was not gonna be easy, to say to Goliath, 'well, here's David, little David, but we're gonna fight for our convictions, for our principles, for our ideals."

Peace was Arias' ideal. With no military behind him - Costa Rica's disbanded in 1948 - he nonetheless broke from Washington and Moscow to bring ideologically-opposed Central American leaders to a negotiating table.

"Dial back to 1986," Symons said, "if you looked at those guys and what was going on in their countries, Arias must have been absolutely off his tits to think he could even get them on the phone!"

The Esquipulas Peace Agreement resulted, settling bloody conflicts that raged between Kremlin- and American-backed groups fighting for power over Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. His efforts earned him the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize.

"In person, he's an oddly persuasive man," Natasegara shared. "He's not necessarily hugely charismatic, and yet there's something right about what he says, and you see how he could have convinced them."

In 2006, Arias risked his legacy by serving once more as Costa Rica's President; the film shows how his dogged support for an unpopular mining project left his reputation among Costa Ricans in tatters.

Today, he campaigns - so far unsucessfully - for an International Arms Treaty that would halt the flow of weapons from idustrialized nations to the third world.

"Use the dividends of peace," Arias says simply, "[and] the world would be quite different, it seems to me."

After the screening, an audience member wondered why so many people in the film, even those very close to Arias, did not speak entirely positively about him. Natasegara answered,

"Ironically, I think apart from two people in the film [...] everybody was very warm about him. And I think that's what's nice [...] that they feel so much trust in him that they can speak openly about his flaws [...] So if they speak badly towards him, it's only because he allows this kind of openness."

The trailer for The Price of Kings: Oscar Arias can be seen here.

Narco Estado: an advertisement of terror

2012-10-05T11:18:37Z

By Merryn Johnson

Teun Voeten’s CV reads like a guide to some of the world’s most dangerous places.

“For 25 years I’ve been working [as a photojournalist and anthropologist] and seeing pretty nasty things, to put it diplomatically, in Rwanda, Sierra Leon, Liberia, Congo, but this is savagery and depravity that I have not seen.”

Voeten has been photographing the effects of the Mexican drug wars since 2009, when he travelled to Ciudad Juarez, epicentre of the violence which threatens to engulf the country, as well as Culiacan and Michoacan. His book, Narco Estado, presents the arbitrary brutality and disturbing public displays of violence and cruelty that are played out daily in a region where authority and crime have merged, where all are vulnerable, and where there is rarely any justice.

Last night, Voeten presented his work in conversation with Peter Watt, Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Sheffield, and co-author of Drug War Mexico: Politics, Violence and Neoliberalism in the New Narcoeconomy.

Voeten’s photographs are a damning catalogue of how cheap life has become: bloodied, tied hands; police so overworked by 10 murders a day that they are reduced to being blasé about butchered bodies; desolate towns, devastated by the ultra-capitalism and narco-cultura of the cartels; acres of graves, marked only with serial numbers; splattered bloodstains on the wall of a sports stadium, where seven people were killed with Kalashnikovs; and a soldier taking a picture of a body on a blood-washed pavement.

As a war-photographer, Voeten was drawn to this topic as it is the newest form of war, a scary development away from the more traditional forms of warfare, where terror is advertised, where ultra-capitalism exploits every imaginable human misery.

“It asserts the power of each criminal organisation but it creates a climate of terror among the population.... Why?” asked Watt.
“It’s very dark and deep. It’s instrumental and symbolic.... Death is part of dehumanising an enemy but in Mexico it goes one step further: decapitation, body parts put in plastic bags along the highway or throwing out 20 killed people in rush hour. It’s a display to the other cartels and authorities and the population: Don’t mess with us. We’re cabrónisimo.”

And as the gap between the filthy rich and the filthy poor widens, it creates a reservoir of people with no hopes and no dreams – an underclass of people who feel and are excluded. The culture of the cartels – live fast and die young – is, says Voeten, actually a very rational assessment of the situation, because the alternative is only a miserable, impoverished life.

When asked about the role of religion in this traditionally very Catholic country, Voeten said: “This is something I want to find out. It is a very strong Catholic country, but with strong Aztec roots.... You have a very perverted cult, Santa Muerte, which has become very hip among drug criminals and they have started to revere death and gory violence. There’s even a narco saint, Malverde.”

Perhaps the solution is to legalise all drugs?

“No, no, no. I don’t think it’s a good idea to legalise crystal meth or crack cocaine. Some people can use drugs responsibly, but you cannot leave it up to the free market because criminal elements will always exploit addiction.”

Voeten's book, Narco Estado, can be bought through his website.

Videos and violence - Defending Islam and free speech

2012-10-04T23:35:59Z

By Nigel Wilson

The online publication of the Innocence of Muslims video was the catalyst for violent and at times deadly protests in some countries. In the UK the series of events has pushed debates on freedom of expression and cultural sensitivity into the mainstream. For October's First Wednesday an expert panel took to the Frontline Club stage to grapple with the big issues raised by the video and the violence.

Chaired by the delightfully dynamic Paddy O'Connell, the debate opened with each panelist outlining their stance. Whilst their views were varied, the speakers agreed that the British media had placed too great an emphasis on reporting extreme views rather than the reaction of moderates. The role of moderate thinkers and academics would come up later in the discussion.

In an examination of the root causes of the violent protests, long term American foreign policy was mooted as a cause by writer and academic Myriam Francois-Cerrah:

"It's people in the third world who've been bombed, who've lived under dictatorships who for years have regarded the West and in particular the US as having played an important part in holding them down and they view the film...you've got to remember that for people in the Middle East it wasn't clear that the American government had nothing to do with it. I know that's absurd but preachers were coming in telling people that Hollywood had made this movie and that the government approved it."

This view was hotly contested by a number of the panel including The Times columnist David Aaronovitch:

"There is a perception that's created by people who are on the right of political Islam which creates a sense of total victimhood and plays upon grievance at moments like this in order to get a reaction."

Maajid Nawaz who's previously spent 13 years inside an Islamist organisation suggested that the causes lie somewhere between the two:

"We used to look at occurring geopolitical events and discuss how we could use those events to further our narrative that there's a global war going on against Islam and Muslims... There's a vested interest in two extremes. The anti-Islam extremists and Islamist extremists. Foreign policy is only half the truth."

Award winning author Tom Holland stressed the importance of belief that led to the protests:

"The reason we've had this response is that Mohammed is regarded by Muslims as the model of human behaviour. The ferocity of the response maybe reflects an over emphasis on certain elements in global Islam on the life of the Prophet and not on the divine."

The debate shifted to questions on censorship as a result of the deadly protests. Index on Censorship chief executive Kirsty Hughes expressed concern that self-censorship has already crept in when discussing religions like Islam:

"People in this country feel inhibited about whether they can analyse and challenge through our politics and our documentaries. Especially Islam. So there's self-censorship going on."

Whilst the biggest cheer of the night was reserved for Aaronovitch's call for everyone to learn to get offended less readily, the panel agreed that in the globalised digital age these types of protests are likely to repeat.

Watch the event here:

Graham Greene: A Finger on the Pulse of the 20th Century

2012-10-02T08:29:44Z

By Jim Treadway

"He was there!" Director Thomas O'Connor said of English author and journalist Graham Greene (1904-1991), the subject of his documentary Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene, which was viewed by a full house at the Frontline Club on 1 October.

"There, you know, for 70 years, from one place to another, in these hot spots."

Greene - whether meeting with the Pope, giving a speech to Gorbachev's Kremlin, conversing with Latin American rulers, or journeying in the 1930s through the hinterlands of Mexico or Liberia - had his finger on the very pulse of the 20th century: its crimes of foreign policy, the inner angst of its inhabitants.

In his own life, Greene left his wife and two daughters early on, indulged in drugs, prostitutes and affairs, suffered from bipolar disorder, and fought powerful suicidal urges, often admitting to his own yearning to die.

"Dear Vivien," he wrote to his wife, "the fact that must be faced, dear, is I have been a bad husband. You see, my restlessness, moods, melancholia, even my outside relationships, are symptoms of a disease, not the disease itself. Unfortunately, the disease is also one's material. Cure the disease and I doubt whether a writer would remain."

"He was a tremendously courageous writer and journalist," O'Connor reflected, sharing that a driving motivation to make the film was that he "worried about journalism [today]," that future generations would lack voices as brave and voluminous as Greene's.

"Some writers write their novels," O'Connor said, "and then every once in a while a letter to the Editor. Greene had a whole book of letters to the Editor!"

His eyes searing with intelligence and sensitivity, Greene asked readers to see more deeply into the world around them. He challenged the injustices of big business, globalization, Soviet totalitarianism, and British and American interventionism.

"I would go to any lengths to put my feeble twigs into the spokes of American foreign policy," Greene wrote.

His 1955 novel The Quiet American paired the damage done by a naive American idealist with that by a cynical English journalist like himself, both living in Saigon and desiring the same Vietnamese woman. The work so touched a nerve that, as O'Connor highlighted, even George W. Bush could not help mentioning it in a 2007 speech to American war veterans.

O'Connor wished Greene had been alive to challenge the narrative that led to the latest invasion of Iraq.

"We still need writers," he argued, "as [Greene] famously said, 'with a sliver of ice in their heart,' and willing 'to be a piece of grit in the state machinery.'"

Tarun J. Tejpal: The Story of My Assassins - Part 2

2012-09-27T10:54:17Z

By Tom Meade

A descriptive portrayal of Indian political life and culture was painted by journalist and author Tarun J. Tejpal on Tuesday, 25 September as he discussed the background to his novel The Story of My Assassins.

Tejpal founded Tehelka, the news organisation that has become renowned globally for its aggressive public interest journalism. Explaining the differences between it and other mainstream media outlets he said:

"There is a kind of mood at Tehelka that when they join, they don't look to chase film stars, they don't want to chase fashion designers, they don't look to chase sport stars, they get in there and they want to make a difference."

Tejpal's position as founder of Tehelka and as a former editor of India Today gives him a unique insight into the Indian press and legal system, what he calls "the belly of beast."

He describes his reasoning for setting up Tehelka, which indirectly lead to an assassination attempt on his life following the breaking of an arms procurement and government corruption story 'Operation Westend'.

"You had a sense of personal agency in that decade, that was extraordinary, you felt you were at the heart of things and you were actually doing what journalism was meant to do which was to inflect public policy, inflect public decision making in a huge way. And in the 1990's I felt we had lost that totally."

"When you live in a country as big as india, even if you sell a million copies it's a drop in the ocean, its nothing. But if you can convince one politician, one public figure, one minister to take one right decision - that, can impact tens of millions of people."

Tejpal's philosophy behind Tehelka is aligned with India's founding fathers. He wants to help many of the 1.25 billion people in India who live in poverty.

Tarun J. Tejpal: The Story of My Assassins - Part 1

2012-09-26T10:12:05Z

By Benedicte Page

Tarun J. Tejpal, founder of India's news organisation Tehelka, famous for its public interest investigations, shared its inside story and his thoughts on Indian journalism in a discussion with the BBC World Service's Shahzeb Jillani on 25 September at the Frontline Club.

Tejpal related details of some of Tehelka's most high-profile investigations, including 'Operation West End', a 2001 sting to expose corrupt arms procurement at India's Ministry of Defence. Reporters posed as weapons salesmen and used secret cameras to record bribe-taking by officials. Not long after the story broke, an attempt on Tejpal's life by hired hitmen was foiled by the police, an event which became the inspiration for his most recent novel, The Story of My Assassins.

Tejpal also touched on Tehelka's investigation into the Gujarat killings of 2002:

"In 2007 we sent a reporter to Gujarat and he went underground for six months and took footage of mass murderers talking on camera about the Gujarat killings. It was picked up by the Supreme Court of India and three weeks ago they nailed three key figures in the killings, one was given a 30-year sentence ... The Gujarat judgment was a great vindication for us - when we broke it [the original story] we were attacked [for doing so]."

Jillani challenged Tejpal on whether he personally "took the glory" for work carried out by his reporting team. Tejpal replied that many journalists from Tehelka had gone on to "build fabulous careers for themselves" while equally "a lot who have built huge reputations at Tehelka have left and never done anything good again". He put this down to something in the organisation's DNA, saying:

"There is a mood at Tehelka, people don't look to chase fashion designers and sports stars, they want to make a difference and crack stories. Our job is clear - not to seduce two million readers but to affect public policy. If you can convince one politician, one public figure, to take the right decision, you can affect the lives of millions of people. Whether we do it through shaming them, arguing with them, moralising with them, it doesn't matter."

Responding to a question from the floor on how Tehelka manages to fund six-month-long undercover investigations despite its sometimes precarious finances when well-funded British news organisations expect reporters to file every day, Tejpal said:

"We go the extra mile relentlessly and so far we manage to keep going. I don't see how you can get your teeth into game-changing stories unless you give them time and space."

The weight of public policy change should be aimed "at just one constituency - the poor", Tejpal added, he called India's inequality levels "absolutely hysterical".

"Forty-seven per cent of India's children below five suffer from malnutrition. [Yet] you have this fantasy of being a superpower, a nuclear power. The social contract in India was, the more you have, the more you have to give back. In the last 25 years we have forgotten that. What is gorgeous about India is its founding vision - Gandhi ... a picture of nobility and compassion, who comes from great wealth and elitism and spends his life battling poverty. We fight for that idea of India."

Watch the event here:

In the Picture: Urban refugees with Andrew McConnell

2012-09-25T09:00:10Z

By Sally Ashley-Cound

Aiming to dispel the familiar and stereotypical image of refugees living in camps World Press Photo Award winning photographer Andrew McConnell previewed a new body of work about the 50% of refugees now living in cities at the Frontline Club's, In the Picture: Urban refugees with Andrew McConnell, on September 24.

Taken over the last four months, in seven cities and four continents, with the help of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), McConnell photographed and produced short films about individual refugees in cities such as Nairobi, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Jordan, Port-au-Prince and New York.

Dr Sara Pantuliano, a political scientist and Head of the Humanitarian Policy Group at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) introduced McConnell and he wasted no time in getting to his motivations behind the project:

"The whole reason for this project is this new phenomenon, that refugees no longer flee to camps, that the old stereotypes don't really fit anymore. Over half the world's refugees live in cities. And so what I hope to achieve with the work is to challenge those stereotypes and hopefully present a new way of viewing refugees in the modern world."

Pantuliano asked whether McConnell had any expectations about what he would find when starting the project:

"There were no huge surprises, I found what I suspected I would find. People living in terrible conditions, in very small cramped places, one family in one room … the same things repeated themselves; the same fears, fear of detention, the authorities, afraid to go outside."

The element of fear was not the only similarity that McConnell found between the people he met:

"They had an incredible resilience, they've suffered things that you and I can only imagine. That will to survive was there in each and every one of them - they weren't giving up."

McConnell relayed the stories of the people in his photographs from a lady who had escaped with her family to Burundi from Congo where she had been kidnapped and raped by FDLR or Mai-Mai forces; to Syrians who had fled over the southern border into Jordan after conditions in Homs became unbearable.

He then took the audience through how he tried to convey these people’s stories through his images:

"The whole series was photographed at night time and what I'm really trying to do is give a sense really, how forgotten these people in cities are … They don't understand what rights they have and so they're afraid to go outside, they suffer discrimination, it's hard to find employment and so they often find themselves hidden away."

"We were really here trying to give a sense of the isolation these people feel, coming to a foreign city like this and trying to some how survive."

McConnell has big plans for the project - there will be an exhibition in St Pancras Station in January and after that he hopes to take it to Brussels and New York.

Listen to Andrew McConnell on his photographs:

listen to ‘Andrew McConnell on his photographs (Frontline Club - September 24, 2012)’ on Audioboo

Listen to Andrew McConnell on why refugees choose cities instead of camps:

listen to ‘Andrew McConnell on why refugees choose cities instead of camps (Frontline Club - September 24, 2012)’ on Audioboo

Deadline Every Second: On the road with photojournalists

2012-09-24T11:44:39Z

“I wanted to show the range that photojournalists do, and I wanted to somehow grasp the idea that they could be doing a basketball game in the afternoon and going to Haiti that night. I think it’s one of the most remarkable things that these people are able to do so many things and do them so well.”

In Deadline Every Second, director Kenneth Kobre did exactly that. Following 12 photographers from the Associated Press, Kobre captures the working lives of those journalists on assignment in locations across the world, from Downing Street to Gaza. Lefteris Pitarakis, one of those featured in the documentary, joined Kenneth at the Frontline Club for a screening of the film and a Q&A session on 21 September.

The wide ranging discussion with the audience opened with AP photographer Pitarakis defending the emergence of citizen journalism:

“It’s great if everyone’s able to take pictures on the spot and report what he or she sees especially local people in areas where I can’t go, then it’s great for all of us. The mainstream media has very strict ethical rules about how we validate the work and make sure the truth is there so there are some issues that have to be addressed every time.”

Kobre added that professionals always bring a different perspective to a story and produce quality work:

“During the Arab Spring, the first pictures out were those citizen journalist pictures but very soon afterwards you saw the professionals start to arrive and the quality of the photos improved immensely. Photojournalists see the world in a very different way than an amateur sees the world and even if the equipment is the same, the pictures are rarely the same.”

The discussion then touched on technological developments and their impact on the profession. Pitarakis acknowledged the benefits and the downsides of digital technology and rolling news coverage:

“For me the most important thing is that I’m able to stay in a place for longer … because I have a satellite modem and I can send my pictures right there. Sometimes it causes trouble because of the volume of pictures. Personally it causes me overload and I over work. I’m lucky if I sleep three hours.”

Turning to a question on the power of photography, Kobre stressed the cumulative impact of a series of photographs.

“No single picture changes history. A picture doesn’t end a war, but they start to add together. They are used over and over again and become burned in to our minds. I can’t point to any picture that’s changed history recently except for one and that’s the one in Somalia, with the dead soldier being dragged, Black Hawk Down. That caused Clinton to have a fear of that ever happening again and when Rwanda occurred he didn’t send in American troops in part, they say, because he feared that kind of publicity. But short of that I don’t think individual pictures do, it’s like drops of water that add up.”

Ryszard Kapuściński: Where does journalism end and literature begin?

2012-09-20T10:11:22Z

By Rebecca Omonira

The significance of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński was the topic of a heated debate at the Frontline Club on 19 September.

Fans and a few critics flocked to the Frontline Club to discuss the writers' life with: renowned Polish journalist and recent Kapuściński biographer, Artur Domoslawski; Victoria Brittain, former associate foreign editor at the Guardian; John Ryle, a British writer and specialist in Eastern Africa; and Antonia Lloyd-Jones, an award winning translator of Polish literature.

Revelations about Kapuściński’s possible involvement with the Communist Polish secret service, after his death in 2007, polarised opinion about the veracity of his writing and legitimacy of his position as one of the great journalists of the twentieth century.

Antonia Lloyd-Jones, who translated Artur Domoslawski’s book to English, said:

The facts of Kapuściński's biography don’t detract from Kapuściński as a writer. It made me want to read his books again.”

Lloyd-Jones' thoughts reflect the tone of the debate; most wanted to focus on the singular brilliance and political significance of Kapuściński's reportage, rather than possible inaccuracies. Victoria Brittain, an “unabashed Kapuściński fan”, referred to the event’s title Where does journalism end and literature begin? as “quite unhelpful”. “I think more interesting is Kapuściński,” she said.

Aside from the literary quality of his writing, Brittain said Kapuściński's work was relevant and important. She recalled meeting people living in Angola during her time reporting there who read his book Another Day of Life about the Angolan civil war.

“...people in Angola lived with him, really enjoyed him and found the book told the story they wanted told”.

John Ryle, a lone detractor during the debate, said adulation of Kapuściński should not distract from questions over the truthfulness of the writer’s accounts.

“He was a great stylist, but if you are interested in the history of Ethiopia it is problematic,” he said.

Ryle was concerned that though readers in the west and Poland voice opinions on the significance of Kapuściński's work, little attention is given to his subjects, particularly those in Africa.

“It is important not to allow our admiration for his style, I don’t think we should take that as an authority about the things he writes about,” he said. It is not just the “elasticity of the facts”, he added, “but the whole representation of Africa.”

To support his argument Ryle referred to the Granta article by Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina, How to Write About Africa. “The main inspiration for the essay was Kapuściński,” said Ryle.

But Domoslawski staunchly defended Kapuściński, his work and his legacy. Kapuściński's style derived from a school of reportage particular to communist Poland, he said, which was heavily censored at the time.

“Reportage became a description of the darker side of reality of life in Poland under Communism. The reporters changed the names of the people in order to [protect] them, they created fictional characters,” he said. “From the perspective of the free world you can say that is absolutely unacceptable in journalism.”

However, at the time it was necessary to convey a certain message. In reference to criticism of Kapuściński's book The Emperor, about the last days of Haile Selassie in Ethiopia, Domoslawski said people reading it in Poland at the time saw it as an allegory of their own society. One of the sources for his book told him that, “The Emperor was the best Polish novel of the 20th century”. Domoslawski added: “I think Kapuściński wouldn’t mind [this accolade].”

Where does journalism end and literature begin? The question remained unanswered as both the audience and panel succumbed to the “great seducer” Kapuściński. However, insight into the creation of lyrical, yet accurate, reporting came from Domoslawski:

“Instinctively, you can write things that capture the spirit of the moment. You have to use real ingredients, you can’t make things up. There are some descriptions in Kapuściński's books which are very poetic, they are literature but they are journalism.”

Watch the full discussion here: