Robert Fisk

For people named Robert Fiske, see Robert Fiske (disambiguation).

Robert Fisk during a lecture at Carleton University, Canada, 2004

Robert Fisk (born 1946, Maidstone, Kent) is a British journalist, currently Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent. He was married to the American journalist Lara Marlowe.

Career

Described by the New York Times as "probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain", he has over thirty years of experience in international reporting, dating from 1970s Belfast and Portugal's 1974 Carnation Revolution, the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War, and encompassing the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, 1991 Persian Gulf War, and 2003 Invasion of Iraq. He is the world's most-decorated foreign correspondent, having received numerous awards including the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year award seven times. Fisk speaks good vernacular Arabic, and is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden (three times between 1994 and 1997).

Fisk's reporting—and his bestselling books, based on his field notes and recordings—combine straight factual reporting with analysis and often strong criticism of Middle Eastern governments as well as what he perceives as hypocrisy in British and United States government foreign policy. His view of journalism is that it must "challenge authority—all authority—especially so when governments and politicians take us to war", and he quotes with approval the Israeli journalist Amira Hass: "There is a misconception that journalists can be objective ... What journalism is really about is to monitor power and the centres of power." Fisk has received widespread praise and criticism for his condemnation of violence against civilians, courageous reporting, and willingness to challenge the statements of governments.

Early Career

Fisk received a BA in English and Classics at Lancaster University and a PhD in Political Science, awarded by Trinity College, Dublin in 1985. From 1972-1975 Fisk served as Belfast correspondent for The Times, before becoming its correspondent in Portugal covering the aftermath of the 1974 revolution. He then was appointed Middle East correspondent (1976-1988). He later moved to The Independent, with his first report published there on 28 April, 1989.

As Middle East correspondent, Fisk covered the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He was one of two Western journalists to stay in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war. His book on the conflict, Pity The Nation, was first published in 1990. Fisk has also reported on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the conflicts in Kosovo and Algeria. He is one of the few Western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden - three times (all published by The Independent: 6 December 1993; 10 July 1996; 22 March 1997). Fisk is also one of the few western journalists covering the Middle East who speaks fluent Arabic.

9/11

Fisk described the September 11, 2001 attacks of the "9/11 killers" as a "hideous crime against humanity." One Year On A View From The Middle East- By Robert Fisk

Assaulted on assignment

After the U.S. launched its attack on Afghanistan shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Fisk was for a time transferred to Pakistan to provide coverage of that conflict. While reporting from there, he was attacked and bloodied by a group of Afghan refugees (he was also saved from this attack by another heroic Afghani refugee), and for a moment became part of the news he was reporting.

In his graphic account of his own beating, published in The Independent of 10 December 2001, Fisk considered his attackers blameless ("I couldn't blame them for what they were doing,") and excused the attackers of responsibility, as in his view their "brutality was entirely the product of others, of us—of we who had armed their struggle against the Russians and ignored their pain and laughed at their civil war and then armed and paid them again for the "War for Civilisation" just a few miles away and then bombed their homes and ripped up their families and called them "collateral damage."

Conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan, while denouncing the attack on Fisk, called Fisk's apology "a classic piece of leftist pathology," for refusing to hold the refugees morally culpable for their attack, and led to the coining of an internet neologism, "Fisking," to describe Sullivan's method.

2003 Iraq War

During the 2003 Iraq War, Fisk was stationed in Baghdad and filed many eyewitness reports. He has criticized other journalists based in Iraq for their "hotel journalism", arguing that they were out of touch with the events and atmosphere of the Baghdad streets.

Praise and Awards

Fisk received Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 for his reports from Algeria and again in 2000 for his articles on NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. He received the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year seven times, and twice won its "Reporter of the Year" award.

Publishers Weekly said this about his recent book: "Combining a novelist's talent for atmosphere with a scholar's grasp of historical sweep, foreign correspondent Fisk has written one of the most dense and compelling accounts of recent Middle Eastern history yet. Fisk possesses deep knowledge of the broader history of the region, which allows him to discuss the Armenian genocide 90 years ago, the 2002 destruction of Jenin, and the battlefields of Iraq with equal aplomb. But it is his stunning capacity for visceral descriptionâ€"he has seen, or tracked down firsthand accounts of, all the major events of the past 25 yearsâ€"that makes this volume unique. Some of the chapters contain detailed accounts of torture and murder, which more squeamish readers may be inclined to skip, but such scenes are not gratuitous. They are designed to drive home Fisk's belief that "war is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death."

Salon praises him by saying "Fisk's eyewitness reports from the killing fields are more than just bang-bang accounts: They are implacable and indispensable documents, grim reminders of what actually happens when nations go to war. And his devastating analysis of the reasons for those wars exposes the sins not just of the West, but of the Arab world as well. Fisk is a polemicist, but his anger derives from a Swiftian humanism. He is appalled by official lies and hypocrisy and driven to show, in nightmarish detail, the human suffering and death that results from them. And if he emphasizes and perhaps at times overemphasizes the culpability of the powerful that perspective is not just excusable, but much needed in an intimidated intellectual climate in which received positions have gone largely unchallenged."
He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews on June 24 2004. The Political and Social Sciences department of Ghent University (Belgium) awarded Fisk an honorary doctorate on March 24 2006.

Foreign Affairs Analysis & Commentary

Dust jacket of The Great War for Civilisation, 2005 (UK edition)

In the British journalistic tradition of the foreign correspondent, Fisk has developed a historical analysis of the foreign affairs that he covers and presents them in that light, often with trenchant criticism of the British government and its allies.

In April 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, Fisk recalled the words of the British Lt. Gen. Sir Stanley Maude, made during the 1917 invasion of Mesopotamia as part of World War I: "we have come here not as conquerors but as liberators to free you from generations of tyranny." Comparing the two invasions, Fisk says: "History has a way of repeating itself... And within three years we were losing hundreds of men every year in the guerrilla war against the Iraqis who wanted real liberation — not by us from the Ottomans, but by them from us — and I think that's what's going to happen with the Americans in Iraq. I think a war of liberation will begin quite soon, which of course will be first referred to as a war by terrorists, by al-Qa'ida, by remnants of Saddam's regime. Remnants: remember that word. But it will be waged particularly by Shiite Muslims against the Americans and the British to get us out of Iraq — and that will happen. And our dreams that we can liberate these people will not be fulfilled in this scenario."

Fisk is a critic of what he perceives as hypocrisy in British government foreign policy: "Again, one needs to also say that Saddam Hussein was...is — I'm sure he's still alive — a most revolting man. He did use gas against the Iranians and against the Kurds. And I also have to say that when he used it against the Iranians — and I wrote about it in my own newspaper at the time, The Times — the British Foreign Office told my editor the story was not helpful because, at that stage of course, Saddam Hussein was our friend — we were supporting him. The hypocrisy of war stinks almost as much as the civilian casualties." Fisk was asked by Amy Goodman in a Democracy Now interview what gives him hope, he responded:

Nothing. I'm sorry. Nothing. I'm sorry. Nothing at the moment. Ordinary people, I guess. Ordinary people who speak out. People in the Arab world as well. But in terms of governments, nothing much. I may be wrong. I may be too much of a pessimist because I've seen too much.

Criticism and Opposition

Fisk's reporting and commentary style has made him the object of much criticism, to the extent that certain bloggers coined the blogosphere term fisking ("a point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or a news story").

Fisk has written about being the target of hate mail and death threats from Americans as a result of his critical reporting of US and Israeli policy in the Middle East.

Works

The Point of No Return: the strike which broke the British in Ulster (1975). London: Times Books/Deutsch. ISBN 023396682X
In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality, 1939-1945 (1996). London: Gill & Macmillan. ISBN 0717124118 — (1st ed. was 1983).
Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War (3rd ed. 2001). London: Oxford University Press; xxi, 727 pages. ISBN 0192801309 — (1st ed. was 1990).
The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East; (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate, xxvi, 1366 pages. ISBN 184115007X

References

External links

* An Evening with Robert Fisk recorded on April 7, 2006 at The New York Society for Ethical Culture, mp3 format
* The Independent
* Robert-Fisk.com unofficial archive of Fisk articles, more of Fisk's writing can be found here:
* an excellent feature on Robert Fisk, focussing on his passion for film
* Z Magazine
* Another source
* CBC interview from December 3, 2005
* "Reflecting on war" - interview with Arabian Business magazine, December 18, 2005
* Lengthy review of The Great War for Civilisation Salon.com
* The War in Quotes by Alan Jacobs (The Weekly Standard) April 14, 2003
*Norton, Augustus Richard, (2006, Junuary 19) "Pity the Region", The Nation. - Review of The Great War for Civilisation.
* Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Directed by Sut Jhally and Bathsheba Ratzkoff (2003) quotes Robert Fisk
* Robert Fisk with Amy Goodman, Recorded in Santa Fe, September 21, 2005

Robert Fisk: Encyclopedia BETA

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