Robert Fisk | |
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.jpg) Robert Fisk at Al Jazeera Forum 2010 | |
| Born | (1946-07-12)12 July 1946 Maidstone, Kent, England |
| Died | 30 October 2020(2020-10-30) (aged 74) Dublin, Ireland |
| Citizenship |
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| Education |
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| Occupation | Middle East correspondent forThe Independent |
| Notable credits | |
| Spouses | |
| Website | independent.co.uk/author/robert-fisk |
Robert William Fisk (12 July 1946 – 30 October 2020) was an English writer and journalist.[1][2] He was critical ofUnited States foreign policy in the Middle East, and theIsraeli government's treatment of Palestinians.[3]
As an internationalcorrespondent, he covered thecivil wars inLebanon,Algeria, andSyria, theIran–Iraq conflict, the wars inBosnia andKosovo, theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan, theIslamic revolution in Iran,Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, andthe U.S. invasion, andoccupation of Iraq. AnArabic speaker,[4][5] he was among the few Western journalists to interviewOsama bin Laden, which he did three times between 1993 and 1997.[6][7]
He began his journalistic career at theNewcastle Chronicle and then theSunday Express. From there, he went to work forThe Times as acorrespondent inNorthern Ireland,Portugal and theMiddle East; in the last role, he based himself inBeirut intermittently from 1976. After 1989, he worked forThe Independent.[8] Fisk received many British and international journalism awards, including thePress AwardsForeign Reporter of the Year seven times.[1]
Books by Fisk includeThe Point of No Return (1975),In Time of War (1985),Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War (1990),The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (2005),[1] andSyria: Descent Into the Abyss (2015).[9]
The termfisking (meaning a line-by-line rebuttal) was named after him.[10]
Fisk was an only child, born inMaidstone, Kent,[11] to William and Peggy Fisk. His father was Borough Treasurer at Maidstone Corporation and had fought in theFirst World War.[12] His mother was an amateur painter who in later years became a Maidstone magistrate.[4] At the end of the war Bill Fisk was punished for disobeying an order to execute another soldier; his son said, "My father's refusal to kill another man was the only thing he did in his life which I would also have done." Though his father said little about his part in the war, it held a fascination for his son. After his father's death, he discovered that he had been the scribe of his battalion's war diaries from August 1918.[13]
Fisk was educated atYardley Court, a preparatory school,[14] then atSutton Valence School andLancaster University,[15] where he undertook his B.A. in Latin and Linguistics[16] and contributed to the student magazineJohn O'Gauntlet. He gained a PhD inpolitical science fromTrinity College Dublin in 1983;[17] the title of his doctoral thesis was "A Condition of Limited Warfare:Éire's Neutrality and the Relationship betweenDublin,Belfast andLondon, 1939–1945".[17] It was published asIn Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality 1939-1945 (London: André Deutsch, 1983; reprinted in Dublin by Gill & MacMillan, 1996). Reviewer F. I. Magee in 1984 stated: "This book presents a detailed and definitive account of Anglo-Irish relations during the Second World War....Fisk's excellent book highlights the ambivalence in relations between Britain, the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland and goes a long way towards explaining why the current situation is so intractable."[18]
Fisk worked on theSunday Express diary column before a disagreement with the editor,John Junor, prompted a move toThe Times.[19] From 1972 to 1975, at the height ofthe Troubles, Fisk wasThe Times'Belfast correspondent,[20] before being posted to Portugal following theCarnation Revolution in 1974.[21] He then was appointed Middle East correspondent (1976–1987).[22] In addition to the Troubles and Portugal, he reported theIranian revolution in 1979.[2] When a story of his onIran Air Flight 655 wasspiked shortly after the paper's takeover byRupert Murdoch, Fisk moved toThe Independent[23] in 1989.[2]The New York Times described Fisk as "probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain".[24]The Economist referred to him as "one of the most influential correspondents in the Middle East since the second world war."[25]
Fisk lived inBeirut from 1976,[26] remaining throughout theLebanese Civil War. He was one of the first Western journalists to report on theSabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon,[27] as well as theHama Massacre inSyria.[28] His book on the Lebanese conflict,Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War, was published in 1990.[29]
Fisk also reported on theSoviet–Afghan War, theIran–Iraq War, theArab–Israeli conflict, theGulf War, theKosovo War, theAlgerian Civil War, theBosnian War, the2001 international intervention in Afghanistan, theinvasion of Iraq in 2003, theArab Spring in 2011 and the ongoingSyrian Civil War. During theIran–Iraq War, he suffered partial but permanent hearing loss as a result of being close to Iraqi heavy artillery in theShatt-al-Arab when covering the early stages of the conflict.[30]
After the United States and allies launched theirintervention in Afghanistan, Fisk was for a time transferred toPakistan to cover the conflict. While reporting from there, he was attacked and beaten by a group ofAfghan refugees fleeing heavy bombing by theUnited States Air Force. In his graphic account of his almost being beaten to death until a local Muslim leader intervened,[31] Fisk absolved the attackers of responsibility and pointed out that 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 attheir 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'."[32] According toRichard Falk, Fisk said of his attacker: "There is every reason to be angry. I've been an outspoken critic of the US actions myself. If I had been them, I would have attacked me."[33]
During the2003 invasion of Iraq, Fisk was based inBaghdad and filed many eyewitness reports. He criticised other journalists based in Iraq for what he calls their "hotel journalism": reporting from one's hotel room without interviews or first-hand experience of events.[34][35] Fisk's criticism of the invasion was rejected by some other journalists.[36][37] Fisk criticised theCoalition's handling of thesectarian violence in post-invasion Iraq and argued that the official narrative of sectarian conflict is not possible: "The real question I ask myself is: who are these people who are trying to provoke the civil war? Now the Americans will say it'sAl Qaeda, it's the Sunni insurgents. It is the death squads. Many of the death squads work for theMinistry of Interior. Who runs the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad? Who pays the Ministry of the Interior? Who pays the militiamen who make up the death squads? We do, the occupation authorities. ... We need to look at this story in a different light."[38]
Fisk interviewedOsama bin Laden on three occasions.[35] The interviews appeared in articles published byThe Independent on 6 December 1993, 10 July 1996 and 22 March 1997. In Fisk's first interview, "Anti-Soviet warrior puts his army on the road to peace", he wrote of Osama bin Laden, then overseeing the construction of a highway inSudan: "With his high cheekbones, narrow eyes and long brown robe, Mr Bin Laden looks every inch the mountain warrior of mujahedin legend. Chadored children danced in front of him, preachers acknowledged his wisdom" while observing that he was accused of "training for further jihad wars".[39]
During one of Fisk's interviews with bin Laden, Fisk noted an attempt by bin Laden to convert him. Bin Laden said: "Mr Robert, one of our brothers had a dream ... that you were a spiritual person ... this means you are a true Muslim". Fisk replied: "Sheikh Osama, I am not a Muslim. ... I am a journalist [whose] task is to tell the truth." Bin Laden replied: "If you tell the truth, that means you are a good Muslim."[40][41] During the 1996 interview, bin Laden said theSaudi royal family was corrupt. During the final interview in 1997, bin Laden said he sought God's help "to turn America into a shadow of itself".[42]
Fisk strongly condemned theSeptember 11 attacks, describing them as a "hideouscrime against humanity". He also denounced theBush administration's response to the attacks, arguing that "a score of nations" were being identified and positioned as "haters of democracy" or "kernels of evil", and urged a more honest debate onU.S. policy in the Middle East. He argued that such a debate had hitherto been avoided "because, of course, to look too closely at the Middle East would raise disturbing questions about the region, about our Western policies in those tragic lands, and about America'srelationship withIsrael".[43]
In 2007, Fisk expressed personal doubts about the official historical record of the attacks. In an article forThe Independent, he wrote that, while the Bush administration was incapable of successfully carrying out such attacks due to its organisational incompetence, he was "increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11" and added that he did not condone the "crazed 'research' ofDavid Icke", but was "talking about scientific issues".[44] Fisk had earlier addressed similar concerns in a speech atSydney University in 2006.[45] During the speech, Fisk said: "Partly I think because of the culture of secrecy of the White House, never have we had a White House so secret as this one. Partly because of this culture, I think suspicions are growing in the United States, not just among Berkeley guys with flowers in their hair. ... But there are a lot of things we don't know, a lot of things we're not going to be told. ... Perhapsthe [fourth] plane was hit by a missile, we still don't know".[46]
Bill Durodié noted that at one point Osama bin Laden had advised the White House to "read Robert Fisk, rather than, as one might have supposed, the Koran."[47]
Reporting fromDouma, in April 2018 on theDouma chemical attack, Fisk quoted a Syrian doctor who attributed the victims' breathing problems not to gas but to dust and lack of oxygen after heavy shelling by government forces. Other people he spoke to doubted a gas attack, and Fisk queried the incident.[48] Fisk's reporting drew criticism for having relied on government supplied contacts, withAsser Khattab writing inRaseef22 that the doctor quoted by Fisk "had been introduced to him by officials in the Syrian government and army".[49]Richard Spencer andCatherine Philp inThe Times wrote that journalists had been taken to Douma on a government-organised trip while international investigators were forced to remain in Damascus, and that the doctor interviewed by Fisk admitted to not having been to the hospital where the victims were taken.[50] TheSnopes website said other reporters on the same trip as Fisk had interviewed locals who said they had inhaled toxic gas.[51]
Fisk returned to the subject of the Douma attacks in early January 2020, in an article concerning internal disagreements within theOrganisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) recorded in documents released byWikiLeaks.[52]
He was interviewed byKirsty Young forDesert Island Discs in 2006. His final selections wereAdagio for Strings bySamuel Barber,Le Morte d'Arthur byThomas Malory, and a violin.[53]
Fisk featured in the 2016 documentary filmnotes to eternity by New Zealand filmmaker Sarah Cordery, along withNoam Chomsky,Norman Finkelstein andSara Roy.[54] The film explores their lives and work in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Fisk was profiled inYung Chang's 2019 documentary filmThis Is Not a Movie.[55] In reviewing the film,Slant Magazine stated: "The two things that give this documentary its power and provocativeness are intellectual rather than dramatic: Fisk’s work, and his ideas."[56] Cath Clarke, writing forThe Guardian, said the film asks its audience about war: "Is there something deep in our souls that permits it because it feels natural? His painful, deeply serious question about the inevitability of war sets the tone of this documentary about his career."[57]
Fisk was known for his criticism of theforeign policy of the United States, particularly the country's involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East.[2] He was consistently critical of Israel, labelling some of the country's actions against Palestinians as "war crimes".[58] One of his beliefs was that he should report events from the point of view of the victim rather than those in authority.[59][60]The Times newspaper, in its November 2020 obituary of Fisk, said that he had developed a "visceral dislike of the Israeli government and its allies" following his coverage of theSabra and Shatila massacre, arguing that this had made Fisk biased and "unable to provide a dispassionate account of events and their context".[59]David Pryce-Jones, writing inThe Spectator in 2003, said that Fisk was guilty of "hysteria and distortion" in his coverage of Middle Eastern topics. In contrast,The Independent, for whom he wrote from 1989, praised him as being "renowned for his courage in questioning official narratives from governments".[61]
The BBC'sJeremy Bowen also praised him following his death, and noted the controversy Fisk drew for his "sharp criticism of the US and Israel, and of Western foreign policy". Bowen described himself as an admirer who would miss Fisk's "guts and his appetite for the fight".[58] Fisk dismissed the controversy related to his reporting in Syria, saying that he was "writing only what he saw and heard".[62] His ex-wife,Lara Marlowe, took exception to the use of the adjective "controversial" in his obituaries, saying "he was a prolific non-conformist in the world of journalism, whose judgments avoided jumping on the bandwagon" and, in her experience, had been "intuitive, rapid [...] and invariably right".[63]
Similarly, the foreign correspondent forThe IndependentPatrick Cockburn, responding to criticisms raised in obituaries, said "Derring-do in times of war usually gets good notices from the press and from public opinion, but moral endurance is a much rarer commodity, when the plaudits are replaced by abuse, often from people who see a world divided between devils and angels and denounce anybody reporting less than angelic behaviour on the part of the latter for being secret sympathisers with the devil." Cockburn wrote that Fisk was better than anyone at "find[ing] out significant news as fast as possible, disregard[ing] all efforts by governments, armies and media to suppress it, and pass[ing] that information on to the public so they can better judge what is happening in the world around them".[64]
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Fisk described himself as apacifist andnon-voter.[65] He said that journalism must "challenge authority, all authority, especially so when governments and politicians take us to war". He quoted, with approval, the words of Israeli journalistAmira Hass: "There is a misconception that journalists can be objective. ... What journalism is really about is to monitor power and the centres of power."[66] In light of his earlier training as a journalist on theNewcastle Evening Chronicle, he said "I had a suspicion that the language we were forced to write as trainee reporters all those years ago had somehow imprisoned us, that we had been schooled to mould the world and ourselves in clichés, that for the most part this would define our lives, destroy our anger and imagination, make us loyal to our betters, to governments, to authority. For some reason, I had become possessed of the belief that the blame for our failure as journalists to report the Middle East with any sense of moral passion or indignation lay in the way that we as journalists were trained."[67] In an interview with the BBC in 2005, he articulated this position further: "If you believe that victims should have more of a say than people who commit atrocities, then yes, I take a definite position. If reporters don't do that then they are out of their minds."[68]
On coverage of foreign reporting, he observed in a 2006 interview with Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies at UC Berkeley: "the French are very good at getting to the scene and reporting the reality. I know France doesn't have a very clean reputation in American politics at the moment but my goodness, they've got good journalists. You read a translation ofLibération,Figaro,Le Monde – they've got it. I work a lot with French – I normally work on my own, but if I work with other reporters, I tend to report with Italians or the French because, my goodness, they get to the war front."[69]
When he spoke on "Lies, Misreporting, and Catastrophe in the Middle East" at theFirst Congregational Church of Berkeley on 22 September 2010, he stated: "I think it is the duty of a foreign correspondent to be neutral and unbiased on the side of those who suffer, whoever they may be."[70] He wrote at length on how many contemporary conflicts had their origins, in his view, in lines drawn on maps: "After the Allied victory of 1918, at the end of my father's war, the victors divided up the lands of their former enemies. In the space of just seventeen months, they created the borders ofNorthern Ireland,Yugoslavia and most of theMiddle East. And I have spent my entire career—inBelfast andSarajevo, inBeirut andBaghdad—watching the people within those borders burn."[71]
Fisk wrote extensively about theArmenian genocide of 1915 and supported moves to persuade the Turkish Government to acknowledge it.[72]
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ForRemembrance Day in 2011, Fisk wrote that his father "old Bill Fisk became very ruminative about the Great War. He learned that Haig had lied, that he himself had fought for a world that betrayed him, that 20,000 British dead on the first day of the Somme – which he mercifully avoided because his first regiment, the Cheshires, sent him to Dublin and Cork to deal with another 1916 "problem" – was a trashing of human life. In hospital and recovering from cancer, I asked him once why the Great War was fought. 'All I can tell you, fellah,' he said, 'was that it was a great waste.' And he swept his hand from left to right. Then he stopped wearing hispoppy. I asked him why, and he said that he didn't want to see 'so many damn fools' wearing it."[73] He returned to the subject in 2014, the standfirst summarised his experience "My family was haunted by my father's experience on the Somme and the loss of his friends. Why do we pay homage to the dead but ignore the lessons of their war?"[74] and in 2016 where he said "His example was one of great courage. He fought for his country and then, unafraid, he threw his poppy away. Television celebrities do not have to fight for their country – yet they do not even have the guts to break this fake conformity and toss their sordid poppies in the office waste paper bin."[75]
Fisk married American-born journalistLara Marlowe in 1994. The couple divorced in 2006.[12] At the time of his death, he was married toNelofer Pazira, an Afghan-Canadian journalist, author and human rights activist.[76]
On settling down, he wrote in 2005: "I told the journalism students there [at City, University of London] that when I saw families walking happily in London or Paris, I wondered whether I had not missed out on life, that perhaps comparative safety and security with nothing more than the mortgage to worry about was preferable to the existence I had chosen for myself. A friend of my father's once said I had enjoyed the privilege of seeing things that no other man had seen. But after a flood of questions from students in Sydney about suffering in the Middle East, I began to wonder if my privilege had not also been my curse."[77]
On 30 October 2020, Fisk died aged 74 atSt. Vincent's University Hospital inDublin, Ireland, after a suspectedstroke.[2][78] Due to theIrish Government COVID-19 restrictions, his funeral was held privately.[79][80]
The president of Ireland,Michael D. Higgins said "with his passing the world of journalism and informed commentary on the Middle East has lost one of its finest commentators" and theTaoiseachMicheál Martin stated that "he was fearless and independent in his reporting, with a deeply researched understanding of the complexities of the Middle East, eastern history and politics".[81]
The Australian anti-war journalistJohn Pilger declared upon hearing of his death that "Robert Fisk has died. I pay warmest tribute to one of the last great reporters. The weasel word 'controversial' appears in even his own paper,The Independent, whose pages he honoured. He went against the grain and told the truth, spectacularly. Journalism has lost the bravest."[82] FormerLeader of the UK Labour PartyJeremy Corbyn eulogised him onTwitter, finding it "[s]o sad to hear of the death of Robert Fisk. A huge loss of a brilliant man with unparalleled knowledge of history, politics and people of Middle East."[83] The Greek politician and economic theoristYanis Varoufakis also posted a eulogy on Twitter, declaring that "[w]ith Robert Fisk's passing we have lost a journalistic eye without which we shall be partially blind, a pen without which our capacity to express the truth is diminished, a soul without which our own empathy for victims of imperialism will be lacking."[84]
Christian Broughton, the managing director ofThe Independent, said "Fearless, uncompromising, determined and utterly committed to uncovering the truth and reality at all costs, Robert Fisk was the greatest journalist of his generation. The fire he lit atThe Independent will burn on."[85] For Harry Browne inJacobin: "Robert Fisk's voice was everywhere, and his ideas were vital in both creating and meeting that Irish urge for explanation."[86] TheIrish Times obituary read: "He used to explain his rejection of conventional journalistic detachment by saying: 'If you watch wars, the old ideas of journalism that you have to be neutral and take nobody's side is rubbish. As a journalist, you have got to be neutral and unbiased on the side of those who suffer."[87] FormerChartered Institute of Journalists presidentLiz Justice wrote: "I knew him as a very detailed and knowledgeable journalist. My friend had to edit his work from 2,000 words to 400 and we have very different views involving eggshells and walking carefully. We both agree he will be missed."[88]Richard Falk, in an interview withCounterPunch, said: "Fisk's departure from the region left a journalistic gap that has not been filled. It is important to appreciate that there are few war correspondents in the world that combine Fisk's reporting fearlessness with his interpretative depth, engaging writing style, and candid exposures of the foibles of the high and mighty."[33]
Love in a Time of War, a memoir by Fisk's first wife,Lara Marlowe, was published in 2021. It covers the period from 1988 to 2003, the period Fisk and Marlowe worked together.[89]
Fisk received theBritish Press Awards'International Journalist of the Year seven times,[90] and twice won its "Reporter of the Year" award.[91] He also receivedAmnesty International UK Media Awards in 1992 for his report "The Other Side of the Hostage Saga",[92] in 1998 for his reports fromAlgeria[93] and again in 2000 for his articles on theNATO air campaign against the FRY in 1999.[94]
His 2005 work,The Great War for Civilisation, was critical of Western and Israeli approaches to the Middle East.Neal Ascherson, forThe Independent on Sunday commented: "This is a very long book, allowing Fisk to interleave political analysis, recent history and his own adventures with the real stories which concern him. These are the sufferings of ordinary people under monstrous tyrannies or in criminal, avoidable wars".[115] InThe Guardian, a former British Ambassador to Libya,Oliver Miles, complained of "a deplorable number of mistakes" in the book's 1,366 pages which "undermine the reader's confidence", and that "vigilant editing and ruthless pruning could perhaps have made two or three good short books out of this one".[66]Richard Beeston, a longtime foreign correspondent and then foreign editor forThe Times, wrote in a review of the book that Fisk's "central argument is lost in a verbal avalanche, as Fisk empties 30 years of notebooks onto the page" and that while there are what he calls "passages of descriptive brilliance" he regarded some of his arguments "ridiculous" and "utter nonsense".[116]
Fisk produced a three-part series titledFrom Beirut To Bosnia in 1993 which Fisk said was an attempt "to find out why an increasing number of Muslims had come to hate the West".[117] Fisk said that theDiscovery Channel did not show a repeat of the films, after initially showing them in full, due to a letter campaign launched by pro-Israel groups such asCAMERA.[117][118]
