WAR AS SPECTACLE

In bygone eras, when today’s conveniences for transmitting information did not exist, the world depended on correspondents who, defying danger, travelled from one end of the earth to the other by whatever means they could, for its news. As a result, there was a clearer picture of what was happening on battlefields. With minimal recording and transmission equipment, and certainly no comparison to the speed with which news can now be transmitted.

Today, available media favour disinformation more readily. Each side broadcasts its own truth, cultivating its own audience. And the images transmitted increasingly rarely contain the human element. As if there are no dead, as if people are not being made homeless. Israel and Iran launch missiles against each other, but the prevailing image resembles something like fireworks. Even in Gaza, before the barbarity became so extreme, what we saw was mainly building rubble, as if it were film sets.

The absence of the human element from images of war makes it easier for warlords to cultivate whatever conviction they wish to convey. Gaza was riddled with tunnels, and beneath the ground, there were galleries used by Hamas. Truth or lies? Beneath Iran’s mountains, there are nuclear facilities. Truth or lies? It is easy to choose to believe it is true and that Netanyahu has undertaken the godly work of disarming the villains and saving the region from nuclear attack. And if you believe that, it becomes easier to accept the human sacrifices, too.

Ordinary citizens are called upon to take sides, to choose camps, in other words. But with information they do not know to be genuine. They never knew for certain, but there was never such a parallel information stream either.

In the history of disinformation, the image of a bird (a cormorant) covered in oil has been recorded. It was March 1991, and the image went around the world to show the barbarity of Saddam Hussein, who channelled oil into the Persian Gulf, killing birds and every other marine organism. It was later revealed that the photograph was staged and the hapless bird was killed not by Saddam but by propaganda. What is remarkable, however, is that 34 years ago, the image of a bird dying covered in oil could move people. Today, images of skeletal and dead children pass almost unnoticed. War is consumed like just another spectacle (for those not living through it).

This article was first published on 18.06.2025

Source: WAR AS SPECTACLE