Recently, BBC posted a question for readers’ comments – Should the world trust Iran?
As an answer, I posted the following alternative questions for the BBC readers’ to ponder upon (I don’t know whether they will publish it or not):
“Why is it that we never ask such questions in ‘reverse’ whenever it comes to the ‘Orient’ – in this case, for example, should Iran trust the world? The ‘oriental’, ‘southern’ countries, who represent the majority world population too can have their own interests to preserve, considering that they have more responsibilities. Why do we limit “the world” to a few ‘hegemonies’ and dub their psychotic fear of “others” or their “obsessional neurosis”, as Freud would say, as the concern for ‘international security’?”
However, many of us do know the answers, don’t we? This is the way hegemonic ideologies rationalise the hegemonies. Questions determine the way we answer them, and the function of mass media, and all other educational ‘institutions’, is to school us in this mode of problem solving – don’t go beyond what is asked, as anything “beyond” is irrelevant, incoherent, and hence unpublishable.
Beyond Capital 