Praising dead terrorists: In defense of Octavia Nasr
This may be surprising coming from me, but I wouldn't be inclined to fire Octavia Nasr over a single Tweet, however repulsive and obtuse. Human beings have complex emotions. They occasionally say dumb things without thinking. I certainly have. It's particularly easy to say something stupid on Twitter.
I read her longer explanation. This part struck me:
I met Fadlallah in 1990. He was willing to take the risk of meeting with a young Christian journalist from the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. Fadlallah was at the height of his power. As I was ushered in, I was told that he would not look at me in the eye and to make it quick as there was a long line of dignitaries waiting.
The interview went 45 minutes, during which I asked him about Hezbollah's agenda for an Islamic state in Lebanon. He bluntly told me that was his group's dream but there would be room for other religions. He also joked at the end of the interview that the solution for Lebanon's civil war was to send "all political leaders without exception on a ship away from Lebanon with no option to return."
He challenged me to run the entire interview on LBC without editing. We did.
If you read between the lines, you can see that her memories of Fadlallah are memories of a certain kind of journalistic success--one in which the journalist charms a bad person into giving her a very good interview. You can't do that, or at least I can't, without developing some kind of rapport with your subject. I think every writer understands that it's possible to walk away from an interview with sympathetic or mixed feelings for someone you know, rationally, to be a force for mischief or wickedness. If that doesn't happen, the writer probably hasn't done his job as well as he might have.
If you want to see an example of this, look at this footage of an interview I did recently with the anti-Zionist rabbi Dovid Weiss. He's calling for the destruction of the State of Israel. He's lending his support to some of the vilest terrorists in the region. I find almost every word that comes out of his mouth insane. But you can see that there's nonetheless a friendly rapport between us. At times my expression is almost tender. It surprised me a bit when I looked at the video and saw that; I wasn't fully aware of it at the time.
Those friendly feelings were real. People are complicated, and it's pretty much impossible for two Jews raised in New York to meet in Istanbul and fail to have some kind of instinctive rapport. If I received word that Rabbi Weiss had died today, I'd feel sad. I don't think I'd say so in a Tweet, but I've said other things in my life that were just as dumb.
I've interviewed a lot of people who are basically bad: raving anti-Semites, fascists, Holocaust deniers, communists, people who either have blood on their hands or are only one step removed from people who do. I've found myself liking a lot of them. How is that possible? I suppose it's because goodness and charm are not the same thing. The world's villains very rarely appear on the stage wearing a Darth Vader mask, wheezing asthmatically, conveying in their every mannerism and expression the essence of evil. They're often more like the Godfather. He was a murderous mafioso, of course, but no one can watch that movie without feeling sadness at the moment of his death. The movie is great art precisely because it captures the truth that even wicked people can be rich, complex characters.
Octavia Nasr's Tweet was hardly great art, but I can understand how it happened. She heard he was dead, remembered that interview, and felt a moment of sadness. The death of someone you've met is sad, to most normal human beings. She said something impulsive and human, as so many of us do. It was a stupid thing to say.
I can't help it, I feel sorry for her.
I have a lot less sympathy for other people in this region, such as the Turkish prime minister, who have been dialing in their heartfelt condolences for Fadlallah. These are very premeditated political signals; they're meant to be reported in the press; they're not impulsive at all, and they're more than merely obtuse. They're genuine expressions of support for his ideology--meant as such, and understood as such. That worries me a lot more than Nasr's dumb Tweet.
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Praising dead terrorists: In defense of Octavia Nasr
It's not a sentiment I understand. My good/evil file cabinet has fewer drawers than yours does. Mine has good, evil, and pending. I think that's about it.
Re: Praising dead terrorists: In defense of Octavia Nasr
How does literature work for you? Serious question.
May '10
Re: Praising dead terrorists: In defense of Octavia Nasr
It seems that an Ayn Rand debate is about to happen!
Claire, I enjoyed your post, and I've noticed the same thing in my reporting. One added observation: sometimes people who do evil things imagine, either due to perverted morals or self-delusion, that they are doing good. Intentions shouldn't count for everything, but if you're someone who also deals with a lot of people who knowingly do wrong, intentions count for something.
I don't know if that's very relevant to the case of Octavia Nasr, but I do know that it's insanity to fire anyone for their off the cuff reaction to hearing a person they've long known has died.
May '10
Re: Praising dead terrorists: In defense of Octavia Nasr
Different but not dissimilar to the Weigel story. Social media changes the rules. I think the judgment too harsh as well but news media still trying to figure out how to navigate this blurring of the personal and professional.
Jun '10
Re: Praising dead terrorists: In defense of Octavia Nasr
Given my categories--good, evil, and pending--the good drawer is very full, the pending drawer is very full, and the evil drawer...not so much. If I knew more history, I'm sure the evil drawer would be fuller. But, since Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah was a supporter of suicide bombing, as a tactic, and since the leaders of Hezbollah considered him a founder, their inspiration, he definitely goes into the evil drawer. I understand that by Hezbollah standards (a low bar) he was supportive of women's rights, but so what? Not enough. And in literature, not a surprise, I like plot-driven novels more than I like character-driven novels.
May '10
Re: Praising dead terrorists: In defense of Octavia Nasr
Well said, Claire.
I wouldn't say it's merely charm. People can be evil in one aspect of their lives while genuinely good in another. For example, a person can be utterly selfish in business or politics yet selfless with family. Different aspects of our personalities arise when interacting with different people and circumstances. Some people make great decisions in simple day-to-day affairs but terrible decisions in dire situations; or vis versa. And it's possible to prioritize one's values in any number of ways.
I agree. People are complicated. But acknowledging that in actions makes life difficult, so not all people are willing to accept it. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle.
An aspect of Obama's personality that has worried me since his campaign is that he seems to be a person who doesn't care in the least about his enemies. Combine that with his "end justifies the means" morality, and he is as dangerous as his power allows.
May '10
Re: Praising dead terrorists: In defense of Octavia Nasr
@Claire -- I am with you that ending a long and distinguished career over a hasty few words on Twitter is too harsh. But let's not pretend that this is about Octavia Nasr. This is about CNN's tanking ratings and their quest to regain some credibility among conservatives.
Also, let's not accept the blame here .. conservatives made a fuss about it, but CNN could certainly have taken less draconian action without negative consequences.
BTW .. the Nasr tweet is kind of shocking when one think about the evils that the man has perpetrated. It was 140 characters of unequivocal admiration.
The controversial tweet: "Sad to hear of the passing of Hussein Fadlallah... One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot."
Jun '10
Re: Praising dead terrorists: In defense of Octavia Nasr
That's certainly part of it. They don't want to do anything to validate CNN's reputation (among conservatives) for having a post-American point of view. Likewise, if a Toyota engineer tweeted, "saved department a bundle today, replacing physical brake testing with computer simulations," the repercussions for him today would probably be different than two years ago.