Just woke up from my nap and before I dive back to studying for math (I really did sell my soul to IB when I decided to enter gr 11 IB didn't I?) I want to bring up an issue that we discussed in ToK today (went to school for 1st, 2nd , and part of 3rd).
East Timor & Cambodia: 1975
The events in E. Timor and Cambodia occurred at the same time however while the events in Cambodia had a lot of coverage, the events in E. Timor had little to no coverage at all. This is so b/c the Western governments were indirectly involved with the events in E. Timor and didn't want the people to look into it, also b/c of the time period. At this time the Red Scare was working to keep the people united together against one group - if the people of a nation are united against "the enemy" they will think their own government is for the best, the media only exposed the events in Cambodia b/c it showed how we need to fear the communists - they used the Red Scare. The media often declares itself as "free" and "unbias" but is it really? We need to think and understand the media is owned by cooperations and they determine what we know is what we know.
Background Details (notes are all over the place):
East Timor
* east controlled by Dutch, west by Portugal
* East Timor people were some of the oldest communities
* One of the worst genocides
* was Portuguese colony until 1975
* President Suharto of Indonesia refuses to recognize E. Timor's independence
* Dec 7, 1975 - Suharto orders the invasion of E. Timor
* At least 200000 Timorese were slain
* Members of the Timorese independence group, Fretilin were especially at target
* Indonesia occupies E.Timor until 1999
-Suharto was favoured by the Western powers b/c they didn't want Indonesia to be communist (at that time China was already communist as well as some other Asian countries)
-Indonesia invaded E. Timor for many reasons: resources (oil), submarine reconassise (US put pressure), fear the Indonesian islands would want independence (used E. Timor as showcase of what would happen if they rebeled)
-Ford was president at the time, he was in Indonesia, knew about invasion, he asked for delay, wait till "I"m out of the country"
-As soon as Ford was on plane, Suharto sent the troops to E. Timor
-Western world knew nothing about it - the government didn't want the media to expose their terrorist acts
-to this day, there is not full coverage on this issue
Cambodia
* taken over by Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge
* Radical communists who ruled 1975-78
* approx. 1.5million Cambodian slain by the Khmer Rouge
* Pol Pot read a thesis by some guy in Oxford about turning a society back to the beginning
* w/Pol Pot year 1975 became Year One
* People were moved from the cities and sent to work in agriculture
* Many died of starvation, execution, & force labour
* Labour was harsh
* Many teachers and students were killed - if they didn't agree with the ideas of the Pol Pot government they were killed instantly
-these events were reported heavily by the Western media b/c it was an example of how devasting a communist government will be
-government, media, cooperations wanted the general public to be focused on issues like this so they will be distracted from going into further issues regarding the wrongs their own government were committing ex. E. Timor
The example of the events in E. Timor and Cambodia make me think about "What do we actually know?" what is the government hiding from us and what is the media hiding from us? I already have issues with the current Canadian government and their inability to reveal the truth about the torture of the Afghan detainees but now, I'm having even more questions about what is hidden from us? We need to think about the stuff we're being fed and think about what we really know. Is what we know the truth or is it some conspired theory, what else is hidden from us?
What do we actually know?
Is what we know the truth?
What is the truth?
What is being hidden from us?
How are we to find the truth?
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