Robert Fisk RIP

paleoperson

paddyref wrote: »

His brilliant ' The great war for civilisation' was an incredible story on the absolute madness of the 1st World War as was his fearless coverage of Middle Eastern politics.

Did you read it? It wasn't about the first world war at all.

mzungu

A proper journalist and one of the few who was not afraid to put life and limb on the line to get to the truth of a story. His knowledge of both the history, and the current goings on in North Africa and the Middle East was second to none. It showed in his articles where his analysis of the various machinations was razor sharp.

One of a kind and a big loss to journalism.

RIP.

Manach

His historical account of Ireland during the emergency, "In time of War", is highly recommended.

dirtyden

paddyref wrote: »

His brilliant ' The great war for civilisation' was an incredible story on the absolute madness of the 1st World War as was his fearless coverage of Middle Eastern politics.

A fine book yes, but had nothing to do with the First World War.

Fisk was a fine reporter an excellent journalist, and a very brave man and you could sense his real love for the Middle East and it’s people.

dxhound2005

jam_mac_jam wrote: »

They really don't make journalists like him anymore. Great loss.

We still have Fintan O'Toole, who Fisk rated highly, at least back in 2009.

In Ireland, my favourite journalistic justification for this bloodbath came from my old mate Kevin Myers. "The death toll from Gaza is, of course, shocking, dreadful, unspeakable," he mourned. "Though it does not compare with the death toll amongst Israelis if Hamas had its way." Get it? The massacre in Gaza is justified because Hamas would have done the same if they could, even though they didn't do it because they couldn't. It took Fintan O'Toole, The Irish Times's resident philosopher-in-chief, to speak the unspeakable. "When does the mandate of victimhood expire?" he asked. "At what point does the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews cease to excuse the state of Israel from the demands of international law and of common humanity?"

KaneToad

His work was what journalism should be. It's lamentable that we move further away from real journalism every year.

4Ad

Sad to hear that..Always enjoyed his interviews..
RIP.

Brussels Sprout

After leaving school, I don't think I ever learned as much history from one book as I did from this one:



The one constant with Fisk is that he was for the man on the street in the Arab world. He saw that they were being hammered both by foreign imperialism and corrupt, incompetent autocrats and he tried to give them a voice. He will be missed.

statesaver

Had no idea he was living in Ireland.

RIP

paddyref

paleoperson wrote: »

Did you read it? It wasn't about the first world war at all.

F*ck apologies, mixed it up with Max Hastings Catastrophe.

dvcireland

Limpy wrote: »

He interviewed Bin Laden before he was popular in the west. Even though OBL was probably very popular with the CIA over there.

olb wanted him killed but the afghans wouldn't because he was their guest

dvcireland

statesaver wrote: »

Had no idea he was living in Ireland.

RIP

yeah I thought he was based in lebanon most of the time

Phoebas

Sad to hear this.
I read 'Pity the Nation' years and years ago and it was a real eye opener for me.

I didn't agree with his analysis on everything, but did admire his honesty. He was a great journalist.

RIP.

ButtersSuki

Very sad news. Hard to think of a better living journalist. RIP.

seligehgit

statesaver wrote: »

Had no idea he was living in Ireland.

RIP

An Irish citizen to boot.

Snickers Man

Very saddened to hear about his death. He had lived in Ireland, or at least had been based here when not "on assignment" abroad for many years.

I think the best way to pay tribute to a great journalist is to admire his writing and reporting. Following below are just the opening paragraphs to his report on the massacre by the Christian South Lebanese Army of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps (ie slums) of Beirut in 1982.

The context: it was the tail end of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that year which they had undertaken in the first instance to attempt to destroy the PLO. They had blasted through the country with their planes and tanks, kicked hell out of any PLO fighters or Syrians who got in the way and then forcibly expelled the remaining armed PLO militias, with the co-operation of an international peace-keeping force. They were shipped from Beirut harbour to other Arab countries in the Mediterranean at the end of August.

There remained, however, many thousands of Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps. On 14th September, the president elect of Lebanon Bachir Gemayel, a militant Christian, (all presidents of Lebanon have to be Christian by law) was assassinated in a bomb blast. He and the Palestinians cordially hated each other as his private militia had carried out massacres of Palestinians in the past during the Lebanese Civil War. Naturally, the Palestinians were the scapegoats for this assassination in many eyes, although it is now believed it was carried out by Syria or its allies.

In this fraught, tense, murderous atmosphere the Israelis thought it would be a good idea to send in Christian militias to the Sabra Chatila camps two days after the assassination and "clear out the remaining terrorists" even though the last of these had been expelled from the country two weeks previously.

The Israelis sealed off the camps; the South Lebanese Christians went in. The results were predictable. They are brilliantly and starkly described by Fisk in his book Pity the Nation, although I believe his initial newspaper reports were the same.

RIP to a great journalist

It was the flies that told us.

There were millions of them, their hum almost as eloquent as the smell. Big as bluebottles, they covered us, unaware at first of the difference between the living and the dead.

If we stood still, writing in our notebooks, they would settle like an army--legions of them--on the white surfaces of our notebooks, hands, arms, faces, always congregating around our eyes and mouths, moving from body to body, from the many dead to the few living, from corpse to reporter, their small green bodies panting with excitement as they found new flesh upon which to settle and feast.

If we did not move quickly enough, they bit us. Mostly they stayed around our heads in a grey cloud, waiting for us to assume the generous stillness of the dead. They were obliging, these flies, forming our only physical link with the victims who lay around us, reminding us that there is life in death. Someone benefits.

The flies were impartial. It mattered not the slightest that the bodies here had been the victims of mass murder. The flies would have performed in just this way for the unburied dead of any community. Doubtless, it was like this on hot afternoons during the Great Plague.

At first we did not use the word massacre. We said very little because the flies would move unerringly for our mouths. We held handkerchiefs over our mouths for this reason, then we clasped the material to our noses as well because the flies moved over our faces. If the smell of the dead in Sidon was nauseating, the stench in Chatila made us retch. Through the thickest of handkerchiefs, we smelled them. After some minutes,we began to smell of the dead.

They were everywhere, in the road, in laneways, in back yards and broken rooms, beneath crumpled masonry and across the top of garbage tips. The murderers--the Christian militiamen whom Israel had let into the camps to 'flush out terrorists' -- had only just left. In some cases the blood was still wet on the ground. When we had seen a hundred bodies, we stopped counting. Down every alley way, there were corpses -- women, young men, babies and grandparents -- lying together in lazy and terrible profusion where they had been knifed or machine gunned to death.

Edgware

paddyref wrote: »

F*ck apologies, mixed it up with Max Hastings Catastrophe.

Bluffer caught out.

Edgware

dvcireland wrote: »

yeah I thought he was based in lebanon most of the time

Maybe you were thinking of the R.T.E. "journalist" who reported on the Iraq war from Beiriut.