Robert Fisk

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For people named Robert Fiske, see Robert Fiske (disambiguation).
Robert Fisk during a lecture at Carleton University, Canada, 2004
Robert Fisk during a lecture at Carleton University, Canada, 2004

Robert Fisk (born July 12, 1946 in Maidstone, Kent) is a British journalist and is currently a Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent.[1] He was married to the American journalist Lara Marlowe.[2] His current partner is Afghani-Canadian journalist Nelofer Pazira. He lives in Beirut, Lebanon, where he has resided for over 25 years.

Contents

Career

Described by the New York Times as "probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain",[3] he has over thirty years of experience in international reporting, dating from 1970s Belfast and Portugal's 1974 Carnation Revolution, the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War, and encompassing the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, 1991 Persian Gulf War, and 2003 Invasion of Iraq. He is the world's most-decorated foreign correspondent,[4] having received numerous awards including the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year award seven times. Fisk speaks good vernacular Arabic, and is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden (three times between 1994 and 1997).[5][page # needed]

In the British journalistic tradition of the foreign correspondent, Fisk has developed a personal analysis of the foreign affairs that he covers and presents them in that light, often with trenchant criticism of the British government and its allies. His admirers take this as a sign of his depth of knowledge; his critics take it as confirmation of his incorrigible bias. Fisk is a consistent critic of what he perceives as hypocrisy in British government foreign policy.

Fisk's reporting—and his bestselling books, based on his field notes and recordings— offer strong criticisms of Middle Eastern governments as well as what he perceives as hypocrisy in British and United States government foreign policy. His view of journalism is that it must "challenge authority — all authority — especially so when governments and politicians take us to war", and he quotes with approval the Israeli journalist Amira Hass: "There is a misconception that journalists can be objective ... What journalism is really about is to monitor power and the centres of power."[6] Fisk has received widespread praise and criticism for his condemnation of violence against civilians, what his admirers see as his courageous reporting, and his willingness to challenge the statements of governments. Speaking of the historical basis for the conflicts he has covered Fisk said, "After the allied victory of 1918, at the end of my father's war, the victors divided up the lands of their former enemies. In the space of just seventeen months, they created the borders of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and most of the Middle East. And I have spent my entire career — in Belfast and Sarajevo, in Beirut and Baghdad — watching the people within those borders burn."

Fisk's articles on the Independent's website attract enough readership to merit their own subscription.[7]

Early career

Fisk received a BA in English and Classics at Lancaster University and a PhD in Political Science, awarded by Trinity College, Dublin in 1985. From 1972-1975 Fisk served as Belfast correspondent for The Times, before becoming its correspondent in Portugal covering the aftermath of the 1974 revolution. He then was appointed Middle East correspondent (1976-1988). He later moved to The Independent, with his first report published there on 28 April 1989.

As Middle East correspondent, Fisk covered the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He was one of two Western journalists to stay in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war. He was one of the first journalists to visit the scene of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. His book on the conflict, Pity The Nation, was first published in 1990. Fisk has also reported on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the conflicts in Kosovo and Algeria.

9/11, Osama bin Laden, and the war in Afghanistan

Fisk is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden - three times (all published by The Independent: December 6, 1993 July 10, 1996, and March 22, 1997). Fisk described the September 11, 2001 attacks of the "9/11 killers" as a "hideous crime against humanity." In the aftermath of 9/11, he called for an honest discussion for identifying explanations for the attacks. He believes that Al Qaeda launched 9/11 because of U.S. policies in the Middle East, especially its support for Israel,[8] and disagrees with President's Bush's statements that the perpetrators of 9/11 did it because "they hate our freedoms."[9]

After the U.S. launched its attack on Afghanistan shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Fisk was for a time transferred to Pakistan to provide coverage of that conflict. While reporting from there, he was attacked and bloodied by a group of Afghan refugees (he was also saved from this attack by another heroic Afghani refugee), and for a moment became part of the news he was reporting.

In his graphic account of his own beating, published in The Independent of December 10, 2001, Fisk excused the attackers of responsibility ("I couldn't blame them for what they were doing,") and said that, in his view, their "brutality was entirely the product of others, of us — of we who had armed their struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and laughed at their civil war and then armed and paid them again for the 'War for Civilisation' just a few miles away and then bombed their homes and ripped up their families and called them 'collateral damage.'"[10]

Bin Laden and Adam Gadahn, an alleged Al-Qaeda spokesman and translator of American birth, have apparently mentioned Robert Fisk in speeches. Osama bin Laden said Fisk's reporting was "neutral".[11] According to a MEMRI report, on September 2, 2006, in a videotaped statement, Adam Gadahn, said that Fisk and George Galloway have a "respect and admiration for Islam," have "sympathy for Muslims their causes", and added "I say to them, isn't it time you stopped sitting on the fence and came over to the side of truth?". [12]. During one of Bin Laden's and Fisk's meetings, Fisk noted an attempt by Bin Laden to possibly recruit him. Bin Laden said, "Mr Robert, one of our brothers had a dream. He dreamed ... that you were a spiritual person ... this means you are a true Muslim." Fisk replied, "Sheikh Osama, I am not a Muslim ... I am a journalist".[13]

Iraq War

During the 2003 Iraq War, Fisk was stationed in Baghdad and filed many eyewitness reports. He has criticized other journalists based in Iraq for what he calls their "hotel journalism", arguing that they were out of touch with the events and atmosphere of the Baghdad streets.[14]

Awards

Fisk received Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 for his reports from Algeria and again in 2000 for his articles on NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. He received the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year seven times, and twice won its "Reporter of the Year" award.[15]. More recently, Fisk was awarded the 2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize along with $350,000.[16]

He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews on June 24, 2004. The Political and Social Sciences department of Ghent University (Belgium) awarded Fisk an honorary doctorate on March 24, 2006. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University of Beirut in June 2006.

The Great War for Civilisation

Dust jacket of The Great War for Civilisation, 2005 (UK edition)
Dust jacket of The Great War for Civilisation, 2005 (UK edition)

Publishers Weekly said this about Fisk's 2005 book The Great War for Civilisation:The Conquest of the Middle East

Combining a novelist's talent for atmosphere with a scholar's grasp of historical sweep, foreign correspondent Fisk has written one of the most dense and compelling accounts of recent Middle Eastern history yet. Fisk possesses deep knowledge of the broader history of the region, which allows him to discuss the Armenian genocide of 1915, the 2002 destruction of Jenin, and the battlefields of Iraq with equal aplomb. But it is his stunning capacity for visceral description—he has seen, or tracked down firsthand accounts of, all the major events of the past 25 years—that makes this volume unique. Some of the chapters contain detailed accounts of torture and murder, which more squeamish readers may be inclined to skip, but such scenes are not gratuitous. They are designed to drive home Fisk's belief that "war is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death."[17]

Gary Kamiya, a writer for Salon.com wrote that,

Fisk's eyewitness reports from the killing fields are more than just bang-bang accounts: They are implacable and indispensable documents, grim reminders of what actually happens when nations go to war. And his devastating analysis of the reasons for those wars exposes the sins not just of the West, but of the Arab world as well. Fisk is a polemicist, but his anger derives from a Swiftian humanism. He is appalled by official lies and hypocrisy and driven to show, in nightmarish detail, the human suffering and death that results from them. And if he emphasizes and perhaps at times overemphasizes the culpability of the powerful—in particular of America and Israel—that perspective is not just excusable, but much needed in an intimidated intellectual climate in which received positions have gone largely unchallenged.[18]

Criticism

Fisk's reporting and commentary style has made him the object of much criticism, to the extent that some bloggers[19][20][21] have coined the blogosphere term fisking ("a point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or a news story"). [22][23][24][25]

In an essay titled, "Why does John Malkovich want to kill me?", Fisk states that he and other journalists who criticize U.S. and Israeli policy in the Middle East will have to deal with hate mail and death threats. In that essay, he refers to actor John Malkovich's remark in May 2002 at the Cambridge Union Society, when asked who he would like to fight to the death, that he would rather just shoot Fisk.[26]

Guardian columnist Simon Hoggart (also a former Northern Ireland reporter), has leveled criticism at Fisk for being, "dreadfully pessimistic" since 9/11, because of his predictions that "the (actions of the) West (in response to 9/11) was about to bring total disaster upon its own head". Hoggart also cites claims brought forward in commentary submitted by Fisk over the years, specifically that "a group of British soldiers lost in the desert" meant that Desert Storm would fail, and that the bombing campaign during the Kosovo crisis would "only make things worse" . While acknowledging "his brilliant and vivid reporting", Hoggart concludes that Fisk's pessimism reveals judgement that is, "not just mistaken, but reliably mistaken".[27]

Ethan Bronner, in a New York Times review of Fisk's book, The Great War for Civilisation argues that Fisk is "most passionate and least informed about Israel," pursues his agenda "nearly to the exclusion of the pursuit of straight journalism" and allows his points to be "warped by his perspective."[28]

Israeli historian Efraim Karsh, in a Commentary Magazine book review, commented on what he saw as Fisk's carelessness with facts:

It is difficult to turn a page of The Great War for Civilisation without encountering some basic error. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not, as Fisk has it, in Jerusalem. The Caliph Ali, the Prophet Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law, was murdered in the year 661, not in the 8th century. Emir Abdallah became king of Transjordan in 1946, not 1921. The Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958, not 1962; Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, was appointed by the British authorities, not elected; Ayatollah Khomeini transferred his exile from Turkey to the holy Shiite city of Najaf not during Saddam Hussein’s rule but fourteen years before Saddam seized power. Security Council resolution 242 was passed in November 1967, not 1968; Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, not 1977, and was assassinated in October 1981, not 1979. Yitzhak Rabin was Minister of Defence, not prime minister, during the first Palestinian intifada, and al-Qaeda was established not in 1998 but a decade earlier. And so on and so forth.[29]

The pro-Israeli media watchdog CAMERA has criticised Fisk on a number of occasions for things he has written or said. In one case, they criticised Fisk for quoting an Israeli journalist to the effect that "[Israeli PM Menachem] Begin described [the Palestinians] in a speech in the Knesset as 'beasts walking on two legs'." According to CAMERA, Begin was not speaking about Palestinians in general but only about terrorists who harm Israeli children.[2][3]

CAMERA also accused Fisk of asserting that journalistic objectivity is "no longer relevant" to the Middle East and that instead journalists are "morally bound ... to show eloquent compassion to the victims."[30][31]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Works

  • The Point of No Return: The Strike which Broke the British in Ulster (1975). London: Times Books/Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-96682-X
  • In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality, 1939-1945 (2001). London: Gill & Macmillan. ISBN 0-7171-2411-8 — (1st ed. was 1983).
  • Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War (3rd ed. 2001). London: Oxford University Press; xxi, 727 pages. ISBN 0-19-280130-9 — (1st ed. was 1990).
  • The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East; (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate, xxvi, 1366 pages. ISBN 1-84115-007-X

References

  1. ^ Robert Fisk. The Independent. Retrieved on 2006-07-19.
  2. ^ Herrick, Linda (2006-03-25). The Robert Fisk Phenomenon. The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved on 2006-07-24.
  3. ^ Bronner, Ethan. "A Foreign Correspondent Who Does More Than Report", The New York Times, 2005-11-19. Retrieved on 2006-07-19.
  4. ^ "Honoured War Reporter Sides With Victims of Conflict", New Zealand Press Association, 2005-11-04. Retrieved on 2006-07-19.
  5. ^ Robert Fisk: The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East ISBN 184115007X
  6. ^ Miles, Oliver (2005-11-19). The big picture. Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved on 2006-07-19.
  7. ^ Daithi O. hAnluain, 13 February 2006, Online Journalism Review, Free Content Becoming Thing of the Past for UK's Online Newspaper Sites
  8. ^ One Year On: A View From The Middle East, Robert Fisk, The Independent, September 11 2002, reprinted at ZNet
  9. ^ Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, George W. Bush, White House Office of the Press Secretary, September 20 2001
  10. ^ Fisk, Robert (2001-12-10). My beating by refugees is a symbol of the hatred and fury of this filthy war. robert-fisk.com. Retrieved on 2006-07-19.
  11. ^ Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech, Al Jazeera, 1 November 2004
  12. ^ Special Dispatch Series - No. 1281, MEMRI, September 6, 2006 (contains ellipses)
  13. ^ Fisk, Robert (2007). The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. Vintage, 29-30. ISBN 9781400075171. 
  14. ^ Fisk, Robert (2005-01-17). Hotel journalism gives American troops a free hand as the press shelters indoors. [1]. Retrieved on 2006-07-19.
  15. ^ ""Times reporter wins award"", The Times, 1987-12-15.
  16. ^ "2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize awarded to Robert Fisk". Lannan Foundation.
  17. ^ Book Review: The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, Publishers Weekly, October 10 2005
  18. ^ Blood and betrayal, Gary Kamiya, Salon.com, December 16 2005
  19. ^ Fisking Central
  20. ^ The Fisk
  21. ^ Fisking as a Rhetorical Construct
  22. ^ William Safire, Blargon, The New York Times, February 19, 2006.
  23. ^ Fisking (Jargon File)
  24. ^ Fisking (Word Detective)
  25. ^ Archbishop on end of a good Fisking (The Observer) June 19, 2005
  26. ^ Robert Fisk: Why does John Malkovich want to kill me? (14 May 2002).
  27. ^ Hoggart, Simon. A war cry from the pulpit, The Guardian, November 17, 2001.
  28. ^ Bronner, Ethan. The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, The New York Times (reprinted in The International Herald Tribune), November 25, 2005.
  29. ^ Karsh, Efraim. Beirut Bob, Commentary Magazine, February 2006.
  30. ^ Ini, Gilead. Fisk Warps the Facts, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, February 8, 2006, retrieved September 3, 2006.
  31. ^ "War is the total failure of the human spirit", www.robert-fisk.com

External links

Related video

Robert Fisk on Democracy Now!

  • February 7th, 2001 On the Sabra and Chetilla Massacres and the Israeli Election
  • March 30th, 2001 On Palestinian Protests of Israel's Bombing of the Occupied Territories
  • August 7th, 2001 BBC Journalists May Not Call Israeli Killings of Palestinian activists Assassination; Fisk on the Language of Death
  • December 11th, 2001 Fisk Severely Beaten By Angry Afghans, Narrowly Escapes
  • December 11th, 2001 "We Are the War Criminals Now" Interview with Fisk, Part II
  • February 8th, 2002 Fisk Makes a Plea to Osama Bin Laden to Release Daniel Pearl
  • April 25th, 2002 First Hand Account From Fisk of Killing of Palestinian Teenagers by Israeli Soldiers in Jewish Settlement of Netzarim
  • May 21st, 2002 On the Politics of Language and the Media in the Middle East
  • May 22nd, 2002 "Ask Who Did It, But Don't Ask Why": Speech By Fisk
  • August 21st, 2002 On the "Suicide" of 'Gun for Hire' Abu Nidal in Baghdad and Anarchy in Afghanistan
  • November 20th, 2002 On US Insistence That Iraq Is Violating the UN Resolution
  • February 27th, 2003 "The Press Will Once Again Serve Primarily As the Mouthpiece for the Government" - A Talk with Fisk As Journalists 'Embed' with US Troops in Iraq
  • March 25th, 2003 Will Iraq Become a "Quagmire for the Americans"? - Report From Baghdad
  • April 22nd, 2003 "My Feeling Is That There Will Be a War - It May Already Have Begun - Against the Americans By the Iraqis": On Looting, the U.S. Targeting of Journalists and the Possibility of Civil War in Iraq
  • June 11th, 2003 On Returning from Fallujah
  • July 25th, 2003 Fisk: “The Publication of the Uday and Qusay Photographs will Prove to be Either a Stroke of Genius or a Historic Mistake of Catastrophic Consequences”
  • September 18th, 2003 On Wesley Clark & Iraq: “What is Happening Is An Absolute Slaughter Every Night of Iraqi People”
  • October 29th, 2003 On Iraq: “This is a Resistance Movement, Whether We Like It or Not”
  • December 15th, 2003 Report From Near Tikrit After Visiting the Hole Where Hussein Was Found
  • January 3rd, 2005 The Mire of Death, Lies and Atrocities: Fisk Looks Back at 2004
  • January 31st, 2005 On Iraq Elections: Iraqis Voting for "Freedom From Foreign Occupation"
  • February 16th, 2005 On the Beirut Bombing, U.S.-Syrian Relations and the Iraqi Elections
  • October 20th, 2005 Fisk: War is the "Total Failure of the Human Spirit"
  • November 9th, 2005 The Roots of Civil Unrest in Europe: On Post-Colonial Muslim and Arab Immigrants
  • November 9th, 2005 On Torture: "We Have Become the Criminals...We Have No Further Moral Cause to Fight For"
  • December 14th, 2005 On The Murders of Gibran Tueni, Rafik Hariri and the Changing Tide in Lebanon
  • April 7th, 2006 On Iraq, Palestine and the Failure of the U.S. Corporate Media to Challenge Authority
  • July 19th, 2006 Fisk in Beirut: Israeli Assault on Lebanon Inflicting "Mass Punishment on a Whole People"
  • July 31st, 2006 Report From Lebanon on the Israeli Bombing of Qana That Killed 57, Including 37 Children
  • August 1st, 2006 Fisk Repors From Lebanon On the Intensifying Israeli Attack, Qana, Tony Blair and the Possibility of a Ceasefire
  • September 5th, 2006 On His Interview with Former Iranian President Khatami, Why "The IDF Could Not Protect the People of Israel" and More
  • September 6th, 2006 On Lebanon: "The Ceasefire Can't Work"
  • December 20th, 2006 Fisk Criticizes 'Experts' Cited in Iraq Study Group Report
  • December 20th, 2006 "I Don't Think We Westerners Care About Muslims" - Fisk's Keynote Address at MPAC Convention
  • March 5th, 2007 On Osama bin Laden at 50, Iraqi Death Squads and Why the Middle East is More Dangerous Now Than in Past 30 Years
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