‘Colonialism of a special type’

Veteran CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour might not have anticipated the reaction on social media when she posted on X this week expressing condolences for the killings of nine members of the family of her colleague, Ibrahim Dahman, in Gaza.

I think Amanpour made a big mistake of condemning the killings without mentioning who the killers were, although it was obvious the family was probably buried under the rubble in Gaza, where Dahman had been covering the war.

X was abuzz with angry posts that accused Amanpour of deliberately ignoring the fact that Israeli troops bombed the place.

Obviously, in times of war propaganda is heightened and, in the process, the truth suffers because certain narratives have to be pursued by both sides to make themselves look good and the enemy look bad.

ALSO READ: WATCH: Scale of the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza an ‘unprecedented tragedy’

In addition to traditional media, social media tends to abet the disinformation campaign because the debate is open to everybody and anybody with an account.

Because there is so much disinformation and fake news, we in this part of the world might not know the whole truth about what really caused the wars in Ukraine and Gaza because the information that we consume is mainly generated from sources in the West.

We have to take what the Western media, embedded analysts and authorities tell us, even when it is obvious there is an agenda to twist the story to redirect the public opinion.

Unless you find alternative sources such as independent media, independent research institutions, analysts and commentators, you may struggle to get to the bottom of where it all started and who was actually right or wrong.

ALSO READ: Hamas says it has a relationship with the ANC, not SA government

With social media such as X, Facebook and YouTube, independent voices that provide alternative views on current affairs abound.

The social media platforms have been able to expand the circle of news coverage through citizen journalism, in which the public gathers and disseminates news instantaneously, in real time and mostly uncensored.

There has been a massive growth of YouTube channels that specialise in geopolitics and international relations. Some are pro-Nato and others anti-Nato, or specifically opposed to US unilateralism.

But the terminology they use, the slant of their news angles and the individuals they invite for interviews, tell who they favour in the conflicts.

ALSO READ: Malala Yousafzai urges world to recognise and confront ‘gender apartheid’ against women and girls

It would be naive to think that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine started with the Russian attack on Ukraine on 24 February, 2022, and the ongoing war on Gaza started with the attacks and kidnappings by Hamas on 7 October.

Surely each of those conflicts has its history and it was that history that precipitated the “aggression”, as these acts have become known today?

But had the independent media that operates via social media not existed, we would only know one side of the story – that Russia and Hamas decided overnight to attack an innocent enemy.

This is because that’s what our information Big Brothers in the West feed to the public and which, in turn, is replicated into our society via news wires and international broadcasters.

ALSO READ: Wreaths for Madiba: Pro-Palestine marchers honour Mandela at 10th anniversary of death

As South Africa, we are part of the global south but, due to centuries of colonialism, our minds and practices are embedded in the global north. Some call it “colonialism of a special type”.

With our society’s culture echoing Western values and our thinking moulded in Western schooling systems and academia, we have yet to realise there is a non-Western view and that the global south is replacing the unipolar with the multipolar information world order.