Note by Farzad Rafi Khan:
it is remarkable how the Third World continues to be depicted as the perpetrators in the media when they are the victims. How do we explain this consistent decontextualization of information from Iraq WMDs to Somalia that is again and again biased in favour of Western imperial interests. What is perplexing is this is happening in an apparently free media system operating outside of any centralized control. I think a clue is in the heavy socialization, particularly in universities, undergone by professionals where they internalize the values and prerogatives of power and privilege which they take and accept to be just reality (e.g., of course businesses are to be run to make maximize profits—in my undergrad days as a McGill BCom (1990-93) I never once heard a statement to the contrary). Having internalized the framework of assumptions they are then allowed to freely operate for they will not trespass into terrain that will call the premises of debate into question. Thus, there will be plenty of respectable debate on the merits of colonization, whether it was too harsh or could have been managed better. Some would say it should not be done. Rarely, would one find such a statement as that of Arundati Roy, a Booker Prize Winner and a leading Indian intellectual, that calls the whole idea of debate on this topic into question:
In the great cities of Europe and America, where a few years ago these things would only have been whispered, now people are openly talking about the good side of imperialism and the need for a strong empire to police an unruly world. The new missionaries want order at the cost of justice. Discipline at the cost of dignity. And ascendancy at any price. Occasionally some of us are invited to "debate" the issue on "neutral" platforms provided by the corporate media. Debating imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it? (Roy, 2004)