Veteran British journalist Robert Fisk spoke at UVIC February 1 at the invitation of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME). The author of a 2005 international bestseller (which the London Sunday Times called his testament)The Great War for Civilization, The Conquest of the Middle East, Robert Fisk has been covering the Middle East since 1976 for The Independent, The Guardian and The Times.
   The blurb on the back of the paperback edition reads: “Vivid personal reporting and incisive, angry historical analysis…Thirty years at the heart of world-shaking events have produced a masterpiece that is personal, tragic and compassionate by one of the world's most acclaimed journalists.”

  Veteran British journalist Robert Fisk spoke at UVIC February 1 at the invitation of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME). The author of a 2005 international bestseller (which the London Sunday Times called his testament)The Great War for Civilization, The Conquest of the Middle East, Robert Fisk has been covering the Middle East since 1976 for The Independent, The Guardian and The Times.
   The blurb on the back of the paperback edition reads: “Vivid personal reporting and incisive, angry historical analysis…Thirty years at the heart of world-shaking events have produced a masterpiece that is personal, tragic and compassionate by one of the world's most acclaimed journalists.”
   The sold-out hall where he spoke seated 350 but I was the only media person at the front row table reserved for the unseen guests. Two people from the university CFUV Guerilla radio program appeared before he started.
   The contradiction that the world's most acclaimed war time journalist could not attract Victoria’s mainstream media lies at the heart of the story he has to tell. Attitudes about the obsessive conflicts in the Middle East are radically divided with great passion on all sides.
                                                            Contradiction
   But what Robert Fisk has to say should interest everyone, such is his stature based on his reputation for getting the story. I felt that his very manner of speaking underlines the contradictory reality of the region.
   I half expected a radically objective, measured speaker in droll tones, issuing cynically mordant observations with the dry irony which the English can best master.
   Nothing could be farther from the actual experience. He is engaged. He reminded me of so many political survivors of the 1960s, down to earth, plainspoken and engagingly passionate about every area of subject matter.
   He is a combination of a social animator driven by passion for justice and a challenging if not hectoring school master. His phrasing did drip with the sort of irony which emerges as the best way of dealing with such tragic and revealing subject matter.
   His greatest criticism was reserved for the superficiality of western politicians and the corporate media which just did not happen to show up for the story of his point of view. The politicians, he said, seem to forget any history they may have known once they take office. He used current coverage in the regular newspapers to illustrate how the media quote only from safe sources, the official ones. Also, they don’t balance it properly and thus only conventional wisdom is presented. He said that if what they do is journalism he should be out of a job.
                                                     Infantilization
   The purpose of the political statements and the media coverage is what he terms “the infantilization” of the public around these issues. He also decries the loss of fine writing in any reports on the region.
   The title of the talk was The Arab Awakening, a term he prefers to ‘The Arab Spring.’ His term comes from a 1938 classic book on the region while the other term is the usual media catchy buzzword which has little or no resonances with the deeper reality of the story.
   Fisk stated he found it significant that with both the Egyptian and Tunisian ‘revolutions’ there was little talk of the people wanting democracy because they know only too well that it was the western ‘democracies’ who propped up the tyrants they were busy getting rid of.
   Talk was more of justice and dignity, he said. Also there was no mention of Osama bin Laden during those struggles. Fisk said that he could imagine bin Laden must have been watching the uprisings on his little television set during the time that lead up to his assassination by The Americans; and how there was no mention of him or al-Qaeda at the Arab Awakening revolutions. He was absent, Fisk exclaimed.
   Contrary to popular opinion that the internet was the primary factor in bringing about the Arab revolutions, Fisk said two other major factors were the education of the Egyptian people during the last decades and the fact they had been able to travel to see other parts of the world.
   The technology was just one factor among these other changes. Often, he explained the trade union movements are starting the resistance. He illustrated his point with the case of the changes in Libya when Mummar Ghadafi was removed.
                                                                 Gaza
   As far as positive improvement in Gaza, which he calls the biggest shameful slum, he says it is all but hopeless. The West has no interest in it.  He has nothing but pessimism. This was in the face of a question from Kevin Neish who has been part of the efforts to run the Israeli blockades with aid for Gaza.
   Fisk’s analogy was the need for Berlin type airlifts where there was a similar wall to be overcome. He calls the wall in Israel infinitely more monstrous, often referred to in the sympathetic media as a security fence or a protective barrier. But, he says, there is no political will for a Gaza airlift
   His only suggestion for the ultimate solution was for people to visit the region as pilgrims or tourists and befriend the population to get the real story. Then take their action from that experience.
   This is the trademark of what he does to get the real story for which he is now labeled a legend. He said he learned that talking to official authorities is always a predictable waste of time.
                                                                Syria
   He also said that change in Syria should not be expected any time soon. For one thing 78 per cent of the population still favours the Assad regime and none of the Israelis, the Russians or the Americans want to see things different at the present time. I noticed that headlines in the Globe and Mail during the following week reflected this insight.
   He said the West’s history of backing up strongmen and then deposing them when the wind shifts betrays their real strategic interests in the region. Liberation is far from what they have in mind, unless it benefits their interests.
   Questioned at length from the floor he said that political leaders today including Canada’s current Prime Minister Stephen Harper are still mesmerized by the ideology and imagery of The Second World War. The western leaders are a generation which has had no direct experience of war, says Robert Fisk. As a result they make bad decisions which cost human lives.
   In reply to Vicky Husband’s question, Where is the hope?, he pointed to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and how it is based on the sort of person to person small group action he advocates as a counter trend to the ominous State solutions.