Books, Films, Video Games That Glorify War Won't Face Censorship

Books, Films, Video Games That Glorify Terrorism To Be Banned

So What's The Difference?

This from the Sun Herald :

Patriotic movies or games that glorify war will be specifically excluded from tough new anti-terrorism censorship laws.

Depending on which side of the border you were living, the war between Lebanon and Israel last year was a long series of brutal acts of terrorism, and state-sponsored terrorism, that claimed the lives of more than 1100 civilians and injured thousands more.

If you were in Israel, the missiles and rockets fired into its cities and towns by Hezbollah were acts of terrorism. If you were in Southern Lebanon, the missiles and tank shells fired into civilian population centres were acts of state-sponsored terrorism.

Acts of war by a nation, or a peoples' movement, are usually viewed by the enemy as acts of terrorism.

This is how it has always been during war, whether the war is declared and mandated, or an illegal pre-emptive attack.

That kind of disparity is likely to prove very important in Australia in the coming months because a new regime of media censorship is about to be imposed that will aim to define what acts of violence and bloodshed constitute acts of terrorism, and which are patriotic and glorify war.

In short, "patriotic" movies, books or video games that "glorify war" will likely be deemed acceptable expressions of free speech, art and creativity, whereas media that glorifies, incites, instructs or inspires terrorism are going to face nationwide bans.

So what's the difference between glorifying acts of war that decimate civilian populations and glorifying acts of terrorism that decimate civilian populations?

As cited above, it may all come down to what is deemed to be "patriotic" by a censorship board.

The example of the Israel-Lebanon war is purposely, and obviously, obtuse, but then so is the idea of a group of censors acting on behalf of the community to decide which media is glorifying "patriotic" acts of violence and which are not.

Perhaps the peoples' movement of Fretelin in East Timor is a better example. They rose up against the Indonesian government, a government backed by Australia, in the 1970s, and fought back against the depopulation of their nation. They used what would now be called terrorism to fight for their freedom.

Would an Australian made movie about this 'terrorist group', that showed how they waged their insurgency against the Indonesian government, not be deemed to be "unpatriotic" under these new guidelines?

Or what about the insurgency waged by the Kooris in New South Wales against the English occupation of their native lands in the late 1700s and early 1800s?

There is no doubt that the Aboriginal warriors terrorised the civilian population of Sydney and Parramatta back then, as the English terrorised and decimated the Aboriginal tribes. In a movie about the Aboriginal uprising against the English invaders, which side would be deemed "patriotic"?


The Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, is trying to head off an expected wave of criticism and outrage when new censorship laws for books, movies and video games are released, by pointing out that movies that are "patriotic" and "glorify war" are unlikely to be removed from the Australian marketplace.

But according to the Sun Herald, :

Publications, films and computer games that are deemed by the Classification Board to incite or advocate terrorism will be banned.

As we wrote here, enjoy your last viewings of Stephen Spielberg's Munich, it will surely be banned. How could it not be?

After all, Munich is a movie that clearly "advocates terrorism" as it depicts a bunch of mostly cold-blooded mercenaries traveling through Europe, committing assassinations and planting and detonating bombs as they hunt down suspected Black September terrorists. The movie also shows, in some detail, how bombs are constructed and planted, and how to carry out ambushes and organise an illegal cell that committed acts of violence that terrorised civilian populations.

With barely a whisper, Ruddock and state attorney generals have apparently agreed on these new guidelines for new censorship legislation, which are supposed to be released this week via a discussion paper.

More from the Sun Herald :

The discussion paper says material which even indirectly counsels, urges or provides instruction in how to commit a terrorist act through "text, tone and context" could be banned.

How wide open are those parameters? As wide as the ocean.

Some commentator or politician will no doubt rant that all these changes are only aimed at removing jihadist material from sale in Australia, and they'll probably be right. But why not be more specific then?

Because the federal government, and the state governments, apparently, want to have the flexibility to guide media-related censors, through such guidelines, to remove any material they don't like the look, sound or smell of.

I can think of about a dozen old books, including some official Australian war histories, that comprehensively detail war-related acts of terrorism, and how they were carried out, including the derailment of civilian trains, the firebombing of civilian populations, the assassinations of democratically elected leaders and the destruction of food supplies aimed at starving civilian enemy populations into submission.

Of course, the inclusion of the proviso that material that glorifies war would presumably make such books about Australian war history acceptable. The level of patriotism on display in the books, movies and video games under review will clearly act as a deciding factor.

Patriotic to Australia, that is.

But what if the movie under review was about a homegrown, non-religious militia, who was trying to depose an Australian government who had introduced brutal police state measures of control, for example? If the movie depicted the government as acting against the best interests of the people and the nation, wouldn't the acts of violence committed by a militia against a dictatorial, or totalitarian, government be deemed "patriotic"?

That's all blue-skying for now.

But I do wonder about mainstream movies like Fight Club and V For Vendetta, for example.

Both clearly advocate the use of terrorism (against corporations in Flight Club, and the government in Vendetta) and could easily be deemed as inciting or inspiring terrorist thought and actions.

And what about Fox News? You can tune into Fox News on cable, in Australia, and here plenty of talk about why acts of state-sponsored terrorism must be committed against the civilian populations of Iran : actions that would clearly result in massive loss of life.

And if the horrors of the Iraq War are inspiring or encouraging young Muslim men to join jihadist groups, then would the coverage of the Iraq War by the media, or the larger 'War on Terror', also fall under censorship restrictions that do not allow the airing of media that :

indirectly counsels, urges or provides instruction in how to commit a terrorist act through "text, tone and context"?

Hopefully there will be plenty of mainstream media debate on these new censorship restrictions, but don't be surprised if you barely hear a peep about it until it's too late, and the new censorship guidelines become law.


Previously on The Orstrahyun :

A significant new layer of censorship will be introduced in Australia, where books and DVDs that "glorify" and "advocate" terrorism will be banned outright, and removed from store shelves.

The Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, is clearly aware that this will be controversial, but he is aiming to cut off any debate on what books and DVDs should disappear through this censorship by claiming that public safety overrides any issues relating to free speech.

"We are not going to allow material to be out there saying terrorism is a good idea," Mr Ruddock told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

"This is a zero-tolerance approach to terrorism. Terrorism acts are a specific and highly dangerous threat to Australian society. Material that advocates people undertake such acts should not be available for this reason alone."

Ruddock intends to change the laws about material that could be seen to "advocate" or "encourage" terrorism because the post-9/11 sedition laws required "a very high standard of proof."

Curse those standards of proof.

Next thing you know they'll be telling us books and movies that "advocate" and "glorify" war, or discuss the long-term benefits of firebombing civilian-filled cities, or just plain nuking them instead, are going to be taken off the shelves as well.

They'll clearly have to be, eventually. You only have to look at war-related death tolls and the destruction of infrastructure to know that even the smaller wars of the 20th century proved to be a greater risk to society and humanity at large than the biggest acts of terrorism ever committed.