The great journey of life became ours alone because we no longer shared in the wisdom of those who came before us or walked beside us.

I see this changing. More and more, people are telling their stories the web over. It is as though we have exchanged the fire for the glowing screen of our laptops. We may be alone in our apartments miles apart, but once again, we have each other.

We have made a brave return to the great tradition of story-telling. I see this as a wonderful thing. But there are those who are not so relieved.

CONFESSIONAL JOURNALISM

“There is a new and very weird and, to my mind, very wrong genre of journalism that is becoming all too popular: female confessional journalism,” writes Hadley Freeman at The Guardian:

Here’s how it goes: a female journalist describes her obsession with her weight/breasts/ageing face/food or alcohol problems/inability to have a happy relationship. The article is illustrated by the journalist looking as miserable as possible. There are tales of daily woe. It concludes with the writer still sufficiently unhappy to be commissionable for another very similar piece.

This genre has nothing to do with journalists opening a window into what life is like for women today. It does women no favours at all. It is entirely about perpetuating an editor’s misogynistic image of what women are like (self-hating, self-obsessed) and making a semi-celebrity out of the writer in the belief that readers like to read journalists whose names and faces (and breasts) they recognise.

Perpetuating an editor’s misogynistic image of what women are like: self-hating and self-obsessed. Freeman completely ignores the feelings and trials of the women who inspired her column, labels their editor a misogynist and says that this form of writing is setting feminism back 50 years.

Who are these women?

TERRORISTS OF FEMINISM

Christa D’souza wrote about her three breast surgeries, the problems with encapsulated implants, breast cancer, and her final decision to have her implants completely removed.

Liz Jones has never loved food. Her need to be thin and have control of her life through food rationing has ruled her life since she was eleven. This summer, when her sister visited, she decided to eat normally for three weeks. Her journey of discovery is brutal, sad and heart-wrenching. She describes her change in mood—she’s happier, she feels better, she has more energy. Her skin is less dry. She is alive. But just the same, she knows that when her sister leaves, she will return to her regime. She is an anorexic. This is the truth she is facing within herself.

The story of the playwright Zoe Lewis was pointed out by Anna N in a post at Jezebel on what they’ve labeled “the business of self-hate.” Lewis is successful and independent, but she is questioning her choice of career over that of being a housewife.

NOT JOURNALISM

“Certainly, sometimes a bit of personal experience can add to an article,” writes Freeman. “A first-person piece about, say, drug addiction in the week the government is voting on downgrading the classification of certain drugs is journalistically justified. An extended piece pegged to absolutely nothing in which a ‘former anorexic’ journalist describes her hilarious horror at having to eat ‘normally’ for three weeks is not, and simply suggests that the journalist can think of nothing to write about but herself.”

But who said it was journalism? Is it really that surprising that, in an age where blogs are becoming more and more popular than print media, editors would seek to emulate their qualities in their publications’ lifestyles sections?

How about giving the finger to inverted pyramid style in a burst of first-person, politically irrelevant humanity?

“Many editors do love this genre of journalism,” Freeman adds. This sort of story drives page views. “But do readers [love it]? Well, speaking purely from personal experience, I have yet to encounter a single woman ever saying to me, ‘Hey, did you read that article by that woman in The Daily Mail about how she only eats 500 calories a day, and how she knows that all women are secretly as self-obsessed as her? Wow, I loved that!’”

Well, I’ll be the first, Hadley.

THINKING OF FOR YOU

“I have no doubt that the women who write these articles truly feel the emotions they describe,” Freeman says dismissively in her Guardian piece. “But these women need help; they do not need to be made to feel that their professional USP is to play up their misery. Yet I’m a lot less bothered about the effect these articles have on the journalists who write them than I am about the readers who read them.”

Why? Because we’re so suggestible that reading about a woman’s losing battle with anorexia or another’s miserable journey to find youth in implants will destroy our idea of what it means to be a woman?

Freeman’s verdict is final: “This kind of journalism sets feminism back by about 50 years, because not only does it perpetuate offensive stereotypes about women as needy, helpless, childlike narcissists, it suggests that the most interesting thing a woman can offer up to others is her own battered, starved, bloated, enhanced or reduced body. And that seems a lot sadder to me than any shocking revelation I ever read in a single piece of confessional journalism.”

What I see here is not the call of feminism, what I see is women trying to silence other women. I see women dismissing the realities of other women using words and phrases like, “dangerous,” “self-hating,” “self-obsessed,” “childlike narcissists,” “needy,” “fucked up by aesthetic and social strictures,” “twisted view of what it means to be a woman,” and “not normal.” And that is a lot more horrifying to me than anything I have read in a confessional piece.

It’s clear that the writers of the confessional pieces are not in a happy place within themselves. Should we silence them, then? Should we cut their experience away and lock it up somewhere lest they tarnish the notion that women are strong, are invincible, are women? Heaven forbid they influence other women, who obviously can’t think for themselves! How dare the press and blogosphere not do more to keep this sort of rubbish away from the masses?

Anna N makes a point for me when she points out that no one who reads D’Souza’s piece is going to run to get implants. There is a lesson in her story, just as there is one in that of Jones and Lewis. The decision to get implants involves more than knowing what size breast you wish you had. The decision to limit your calorie intake has more consequences than physical ones. The choice to give up a relationship for your career is a big one.

They may not be happy stories, but look at fairy tales—before Disney had its way with them, that is.

“Stories are medicine,” writes Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her classic work Women Who Run With The Wolves. “They have such power; they do not require that we do, be, act anything—we need only listen. The remedies for repair or reclamation of any lost psychic drive are contained in stories.”

Sterilizing the media of the battles that women (or men, for that matter) face everyday is not going to make us stronger. What does make us stronger is not being alone in our struggles. And when we hear the stories of those who have lived what we are living, we are heartened.

PLEDGE

I’m a confessional columnist. I have made terrible and wonderful mistakes in my life. I have been hurt, I have hurt myself and I have hurt others. I have questioned myself, I have lost myself and I have found myself. And I have written it all. I will never stop.

I think of Muriel Rukeyser again as I write this, those immortal lines: “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? / The world would split open.”

In victory or defeat, we will not be silenced.

And if that’s a threat to feminism, then down with feminism.

The main difference between the rest of us and Anleu is that he was arrested for posting a tweet.

Anleu lives in Guatemala, where a law has been in effect to prevent any action on any medium that could lead to financial panic. According to elPeriodico de Guatemala, decree 64-2008 makes expressing, elaborating, divulging or reproducing, in any media or communications system, false or inaccurate information that strikes against the faith of clients, users and investors of any institution overseen by the Guatemalan Superintendencia de Bancos, the entity that oversees national financial institutions.

Guatemala finds itself in a state of unrest already following the murder of the attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg on May 10. The manner that these events are related gets a little complex, so bear with me: Rosenberg was representing Khali Musa, whose name as a prominent businessman, had been used extensively to legitimize the dealings of Guatemala’s Banrural bank, after Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom’s administration appointed Musa to join the bank’s board as director. Musa had refused, weary of the extent the institution was involved in financing drug-trafficking and money laundering. To prevent the information from going public, Musa and his daughter were murdered. Rosenberg continued his investigation of his client’s murder until he, too, was murdered this month.

But Rosenberg left a video (video is in Spanish, with English subtitles. You can also read the English translation here).

The video went viral, informing hundreds of thousands of people around the world about what was happening in Guatemala. From Time:

In the 18-minute tape, a seemingly calm Rosenberg, sitting behind a desk and microphone, alleges that Colom, the First Lady and two associates were involved in murder, corruption and money laundering. The group, he says, filtered public funds through a state-owned bank for personal gain and to finance drug traffickers.

It was in response to this video and the events surrounding it that Jean Ramses Anleu formulated the tweet that now finds him in jail (translated from Spanish): “first real action: withdraw funds from Banrural and break the bank of the corrupt.”

Anleu has been fined US$6,500 and may be sentenced to ten years in prison for his tweet.

I’m South American. I wasn’t born in time to see my family ousted in a military coup, but the fear of these tactics—the silencing, apprehending and “disappearing” of dissidents, is seared in my DNA.

We didn’t have the internet then.

But we do now. What are we going to do with it?

Of possible interest:
Guatemala: “El Efecto Streisand,” Update on Twitter User Arrested For One Tweet On Political/Financial Crisis by Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing has updates on the situation.

Petition to free Anleu on PetitionOnline.com (Spanish). It has 486 signatures at the posting of this piece.

Use the hashtag #escandalogt in Twitter search to read more about the unrest in Guatemala and #freejeanfer to keep up on the developments surrounding Anleu.

On January 8, 2009, while driving to work, Wickramatunge was viciously assassinated by two unidentified gunmen. As attacks on the media increased around the country, Wickramatunge knew his death was near, but his commitment to truth was bigger than his fear. In an editorial he wrote just days before his death–and which The Leader ran three days after–he reminds the world, what seeking the truth and reporting it is all about:

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader’s 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse…. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not…. But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

… The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognise that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic… well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you’d best stop buying this paper.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let’s face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful…. For these views we have been labelled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

… I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands….

As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view.

For this I–and my family–have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am–and have always been–ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.

That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be–and will be–killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts.

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted.

… If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

His message ripples across the world, calling attention to the fight in which many engage every day to report the truths around them.

“Just two days earlier, the offices of Sri Lanka’s largest private broadcasting company were attacked in the middle of the night,” Jyoti Thottam writes in a piece for TIME, which paints a frightening picture of the fight between freedom of the expression and the oppressive climate in Sri Lanka.

“What has happened to Lasantha Wickrematunge today is an absolute atrocity,” the TIME article quotes Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, the executive director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a research group. He said the two attacks were linked, part of a plan to silence Sri Lanka’s few independent media voices. “Those who are doing it want to stifle dissent and destroy democracy in this country.”

Wickrematunge had known his time was coming, but he hadn’t shrunk away in fear.

“I spoke to him less than an hour before the gunmen appeared, and he was full of ideas,” Thottam writes in his memorial piece at TIME. “It will be up to the staff at the Leader—including his wife, also a journalist with the paper—to continue that work. A staffer who was waiting at the hospital during his surgery told me a group of her colleagues had decided to go back to the office before they knew whether their mentor and friend would survive. ‘We have to get the newspaper out,’ she said. I can’t think of a more fitting tribute.”

Neither can I.

THE HARD FACTS

Reporters Without Borders has fought for press freedom on a daily basis since it was founded in 1985. Their annual survey of violence against journalists continues to be the canary in a coal mine, indicating the well-being of freedom of expression in our increasingly hostile world.

In 2008, the figures for print media tally as follows:

• 60 journalists were killed
• 1 media assistant was killed
• 673 journalists were arrested
• 929 were physically attacked or threatened
• 353 media outlets were censored
• 29 journalists were kidnapped

But it’s not just tradition print media that’s at stake here. Let’s not assume that just because one is a blogger and not working at a newspaper that these numbers don’t mean anything. We can bicker all day long about whether a blogger is a journalist but at the end of the day, this isn’t really about the medium or the way of reporting: it’s about the freedom of expression.

The Press Freedom Round-up 2008 report by Reporters Without Borders summarizes it well: “As the print and broadcast media evolve and the blogosphere becomes a worldwide phenomenon, predatory activity is increasingly focusing on the Internet… it poses a threat to those in power who are used to governing as they wish with impunity.”

Last year, for the first time in the history of the blogosphere someone was killed while acting as a citizen journalist.

The victim was Chinese businessman Wei Wenhua and his infraction was filming a clash between demonstrators in Tianmen with municipal police officers. He was beaten to death.

Cases of online censorship were recorded in 37 countries, above all China (93 websites censored), Syria (162 websites censored) and Iran (38 websites censored).

There are democracies that do not lag far behind in terms of online surveillance and repression. Taboos established by the monarchy in Thailand and by the military in Turkey are so tenacious that incautious Internet users are increasingly being monitored and punished by the police. Video-sharing websites such as YouTube and Dailymotion are favorite targets of government censors. It is becoming more and more common for sites to be blocked or filtered because of content that officials have deemed “offensive.” A visceral reaction from some governments towards participatory websites, especially social networking sites, is beginning to give rise to cases of “mass censorship.” The censorship of sites such as Twitter (in Syria) or Facebook (blocked in Syria and Tunisia, and filtered in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates) leads to massive amounts of content being blocked–an effect that is considerably compounded when combined with other standard methods of control.

Governments are increasingly responding with imprisonment to criticism by bloggers. In China, 10 cyber-dissidents were arrested, 31 were physically attacked or threatened, and at least three were tried and convicted. In Iran, Reporters Without Borders registered 18 arrests, 31 physical attacks and 10 convictions. Online free expression is also curtailed in Syria (8 arrests and 3 convictions), Egypt (6 arrests) and Morocco (2 arrests and 2 convictions).

Internet freedom has been crushed with particular severity in Burma, where the military government has arrested and tried blogger and comedian Zarganar and the young cyber-dissident Nay Phone Latt in a disgraceful manner and sentenced them to incredibly severe jail terms (59 years for the former, 20 years for the latter). These two men join Burma’s many other political prisoners, who include 16 journalists.

RIGHT OR PRIVILEGE?

It’s automatic: open browser, log in to the blog, type like crazy, hit publish. Some of us have been doing it for so long we can’t imagine not blogging.

Take a minute right now to look at the figures:

• 1 blogger was killed
• 59 bloggers were arrested
• 45 were physically attacked
• 1,740 websites were blocked, shut down or suspended

It doesn’t matter whether you blog about handbags or political issues. The oppression of expression is something we should all fight against.

Lasantha Wickrematunge had this clear. In his last editorial, he quotes the famous and haunting poem by the German theologian, Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.