What do Fifa corruption, tuition fees and Wikileaks have in common? They were all clouded, distorted, and overshadowed by Weapons of Mass Distraction. You are as much a victim of these WMDs as I am.
The original WMDs – the Weapons of Mass Destruction – were themselves also Weapons of Mass Distraction back in 2002. In an attempt to strengthen grounds for the illegal invasion of Iraq, Blair’s government claimed that Saddam had developed weapons that could wipe out everything we hold dear – and the population of Staines – in less than the time it takes to get to the front of a Post Office queue.
Instead of questioning whether that would justify the winless death-fest that was the Iraq War, attention centred on how the BBC could dare accuse the government of ‘sexing up’ the report. This diversion was partly thanks to spin doctor Alastair Campbell, proud owner of a vast weaponry of mass distraction.
Weapons of Mass Distraction (WMDs) are as prevalent today as they were then. When Panorama exposed bribery by Fifa bosses, WMDs helped to divert people from condemning the institutional corruption to instead just whinging about how the media scuppered our chances.
The bigger picture hidden by those WMDs? Two votes cost us £15million. Compare this sporting spending spree with the cuts to school sports funding, which will leave us with yet more generations of blobby kids becoming fatter than the sofas that encase them (and no world cup hosting in sight).
Reporting of the student protests showed an even greater use of WMDs. British youths finally peeled themselves away from watching Deal or No Deal to become politically active in the cold and snow, protesting against education cuts and tuition fee increases. What did WMDs do? Turned us into tutting disapprovers, shaking our heads at footage which obsessively focused on the violent minority.
This violent minority included people who broke some windows, people who splodged paint onto the royal car, people who actually prodded Camilla with a stick (surely that should be a national sport?), and a disabled bloke in a wheelchair. In an interview with him, BBC newsreader Ben Brown actually asked Jody McIntyre whether he had provoked the police into dragging him onto the ground, by “wheeling himself towards them”. You can imagine the fear in the interviewer’s eyes, probably brought on by nightmares involving the Paralympic basketball team rolling their wheelchairs en masse in his direction.
The focal talking point was how unruly those yobs were, rather than questioning why the generation will have to pay more for less (up to triple the tuition fees for an education system lacerated with brutal funding cuts). It is the equivalent of making someone pay Fortnum & Mason prices for a trolley of Iceland shopping.
Finally, the worst use of WMDs is in the focus on Julian Assange’s sexual assault allegations to divert from the content of the Wikileak cables. Papers were plastered with news of his alleged assault (which wouldn’t classify as rape in this country), instead of investigating the cables’ claims that the U.S. ignored torture in Iraq and that drug company Pfizer tried to blackmail their way out of dodgy clinical trials. Rather than holding our leaders to account, we’re been tasered by these WMDs – shooting the messenger, whose biggest crimes seem to be omitting to use protection and being so bad in bed that the woman actually stayed asleep through his efforts. Unforgiveable.
These WMDs have attacked our better judgment and diverted us from the bigger picture. It’s like hearing someone shout, “There’s a man-eating lion behind you!” and responding with outrage at the tone of his voice, rather than dealing with your impending carnivorous annihilation.
So, make your 2011 new year’s resolution to evade the power of WMDs, which currently pose a far greater threat to our society than any of Saddam’s weapons ever did.
Luxmy Gopal
lifeinyourtwenties 