|
Magazine
On trial ... today's Hitler
SEVANTI NINAN
WHEN the Nuremberg trials took place there was no live television. As the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic began at The Hague, however, it promised to make the unpretentious courtroom of the International Court of Justice a grim theatre of horrors in the months to come. The cameras focussed relentlessly on his keenly attentive, yet largely immobile face, and conferred instant stardom on the principal trial lawyer Geoffrey Nice. The guards on both sides of Milosevic change frequently, but he will remain in that chair for many months — the trial is expected to take at least two years.
Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague.
While the chief prosecutor did not fail to invoke in various ways just how momentous an event this was in modern history, calling it "the most significant trial this institution will ever undertake", it left the media in our part of the world cold. The beginning of the trail which was telecast live on BBC, CNN and Channel News Asia recorded nary a blip on the Indian news channels, and no newspaper front-paged it the next day. Both were busy with Omar Sheikh — localisation means that European horrors will find little place on Asian new menus. Bin Laden has bridged the divide for now, but for a decade before this the events in Bosnia and then Kosovo have left the Indian media relatively unmoved.
Yet it was fascinating to watch. If you disregarded the irritant of Christiane Amanpour giving it her usual treatment, between the chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, a flaxen-haired Swiss martinet, and principal trial lawyer Nice, they used words with great deliberation, painting Milosevic as a latter day Hitler. "This tribunal will write only one chapter, the most bloody one, the chapter of individual responsibility." She would not allow herself, Del Ponte intoned, to take advantage of the fact that Milosevic would be conducting his own defence, eschewing the services of a lawyer. Nice, in particular has a monkish austerity to go with his slow, deliberate British enunciation. His even narration of two or three ghoulish events, which form part of the testimonies he will bring forth in days to come, reminded one of the film script of "Schindler's List". Meanwhile on CNN they nattered away about Milosevic's wife, daughter and son, feeding Western curiosity about a man who is credited, we were told, with bringing the term ethnic cleansing into our vocabulary. And once in a while the cameras would cut to people in the streets of Serbia, a nation uncertain about its emotions as this trail begins, worrying, as the news channels put it, about whether their entire country was on trial in the eyes of the world.
* * *
Jobless journalists in India might consider heading for Kabul as international agencies get moving on restoring media to a country which has had that institution wiped out. The only English newspaper Kabul Times was desperately trying, a couple of months ago to trace former journalist and non-journalist staff, most of whom have either left the country or were forced to leave their jobs after the Taliban seized over in 1996. It continued to publish with a pro-Taliban editor, but then he fled to Pakistan following the militia's ouster by the Northern Alliance, and the paper suspended publication. With journalists gone, the chief composer of the paper was left with the task of reviving it. They are used to hard times at the Kabul Times: the 1995 shelling of the city by the rebel forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Uzbek commander Abdul Rashid Dostum destroyed nearly all of the 300 printing machines of the Kabul Government Press which used to print it.
At the end of January, the independent Kabul Weekly hit the streets in the Afghan capital after being driven out of existence for five years. UNESCO helped relaunch it with a relatively modest grant of $12,000, which revived the 10-page tabloid, carrying news in Dari, Pashtun, English and French. It was brought out by a team of 14 journalists using a single computer, a printer and a scanner.
Broadcasting to Afghanistan by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
It took two months for the journalists, including three women, to put together the revived Kabul Weekly (Hafteh Nameyeh Kabol), founded in February1993.
The World Association of Newspapers is collaborating with the U.N. agency to help restore distribution networks in the country. The U.N. is setting up a media centre in Kabul which will provide training, advice and information as well as equipment communication facilities, including Internet connection, and space for independent media to operate.
The latest to aid restoration of media in Afghanistan is the BBC World Service Trust, which started work last week in Kabul with the help of a U.K. Government grant of a million pounds sterling. It too talks of setting up a media resource centre and training 150 journalists with basic journalism courses, and providing equipment to Radio/TV Afghanistan for two radio studios. The BBC is also going to look at working with the Afghan Interim Authority (AIA) to assess future needs and the foundation for a regulatory framework for the media here. That's being optimistic: surely you need a lot more media around to make regulation worthwhile.
Copycat: "Sunday ke Sunday" on Sony borrowed a concept from "Small Wonder" when it introduced a pretty, grown up robot into the family. But it made this loud, slapstick comedy more interesting.
Neena Gupta
Dubious advantage: "Qt", a quiz show sponsored by Manorama Classifieds is a treat. It spells English current affairs names according to the way they are pronounced in Malayalam. Thus Condoleeza Rice becomes Condolissa Reece, Corozon Aquino becomes Koroson Aquino, and Dickie Bird becomes Dikkie Bird. Bal Thackeray becomes Takaray. Its general knowledge is not much better than its spelling. It thinks the Planning Commission has a vice-chairman, whereas it actually has a deputy chairman. It didn't know Jacques Chirac's first name so it just dropped it. Does Kerala's leading newspaper really want to be associated with a quiz that makes so many general knowledge gaffes? On Asianet.
Southern cuteness: Studio sets are getting cuter by the day. Both the quiz above and Sun TV's letters from viewers show late Sunday night, sport stuffed teddy bears, for god's sake.
Neena Gupta: is restrained, appears sparingly and looks very lovely in "Manthan", DD Metro's show on marital discord at 7 p.m. on Sundays. Interesting, though last Sunday's case study was more than a little bizarre.
E-mail the writer at sevantininan@vsnl.com
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
|
