Artifacts: #I AM KENJI

Vanessa Moore

When I woke up on Sunday to read that the Islamic State had beheaded freelance reporter Kenji Goto, it sent a shiver down my spine knowing that the gruesome reach of ISIS had spread even closer to home to Asia. According to long-established rules of conflict such as just war theory, observers or citizens shouldn’t be used as targets or become pawns in conflicts themselves. But it seems that for the despicable ISIS militants, anything is now permissible. After American reporters James Foley and Steven Sotloff were among several Westerners who were butchered in the line of duty, the old adage ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ is falling on increasingly deaf ears.
However what disturbs me more about ISIS’ brutal beheadings is that in today’s information age they appear like some sort of neo-medieval regressionary shock tactic so far removed from the values of the enlightenment as to be doubly barbaric to the psyche. In the era of social media, these canny terrorists can use modern technology to post such atrocities online as a sick form of PR for their own brand of Middle Age torture. And now thanks to the Internet, location is no barrier and it’s online for all to see – no matter whether they’re in the US, Europe or Asia.
In a country that used to feel isolated from far-flung geopolitical crises, back in Tokyo, many were so shocked that Haruna Yukawa (who reportedly was killed earlier) and Kenji Goto could be targeted because it seemed as if Japan’s remoteness and its belief in its post-WW2 identity as a peaceful nation were adequate defences from the troubles of the far-flung Middle East. (The Japanese see themselves not as colonial aggressors but as pacifists having been the only country to have suffered the direct results of nuclear war.) But with Japan’s efforts to engage more with the international community ending so gruesomely, this setback may conversely cause it to revert to isolationism once again.
For genuine journalists who consider their job a true calling, the desire to tell the truth is stronger than the regard for their own safety. Believing the media truly provides a necessary public service, all Kenji and his Western liberal colleagues were guilty of doing was giving a human voice to the conflict. Likewise, following the bombing of the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris only a few short weeks ago, this latest episode made me ask myself would I do the same and knowingly flout danger or the threat of attack for a story? The noble part of me would probably say yes, but after this grisly Japanese sequel, what’s clear is that the jihadists have ripped up the rulebook. Now that the defence of being a reporter and the protection of impartiality have gone out the window, even if I disregarded my own safety, I’m not sure I should be forced to ask my colleagues to risk theirs just to do their jobs properly.
And it’s not only radical Islamists waging war in faraway places threatening journalists. Closer to home, the job of the media to defend freedom of speech, cover important issues and hold our leaders accountable is increasingly under threat. Last Tuesday, MDT reported on the International Federation of Journalists releasing its 2014 Annual Report on Press Freedom in China and Hong Kong. The report depressingly detailed how the media in Macau “received direct threats from the local government” while commenting that “press freedom in Macau did not improve. Journalists were arrested on spurious grounds and two outspoken scholars were ‘kicked out’ of their universities”. In Hong Kong, the IFJ similarly claimed that at least 39 reporters were “harassed detained, assaulted or maliciously accused by Hong Kong police or anti-Occupy Movement demonstrators”. Other incidents also included newspaper editors being assaulted (most prominently Ming Pao Daily editor Kevin Lau being hacked with a meat cleaver) and replaced, as well as a radio host having her contract terminated.
Targeting reporters is a slippery slope, and what starts out as assault can rapidly degenerate into arrests, violence, and even murder. Thinking back to Kenji, James, Steven and the hundreds of other journalists who have paid too heavy a price for their calling, is it too much to ask to be able to do our jobs properly? I think not. That’s why I am Kenji.