John Pilger will always inspire hope for a just and peaceful world
It isn’t enough for journalists to be mere messengers without understanding the hidden agenda of the message – John Pilger
The family of John Pilger announces the investigative journalist has died on Saturday 30 December.
‘The World Has Lost John Pilger’, headlines Consortium News; an apt headline. John Pilger defined true investigative journalism. John Pilger’s soulful and thoughtful investigative journalism defined the truth. He gave a voice to the oppressed routinely denied by mainstream media echo chambers.
John Pilger revealed the truth about the causes of war. Wars that destroyed the lives of peoples in Vietnam, Iraq, and Palestine. He revealed horrific injustices suffered by indigenous people in East Timor and in his own native Australia.
John has constantly alerted us to the disastrous course of future conflicts and injustices, including those closer to home. He revealed the ideologically-driven dismantling of Britain’s National Health Service in The Dirty War on the NHS (2019).
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In October 2022, I was part of an audience at the Prince Charles Cinema in London. John Pilger was reprising his equally prescient film, The Coming War on China (2016).
John answers our questions with typically thoughtful clarity. “My film title was initially seen as too provocative, even in China,” says John. “Well, now, I’m pleased I stuck with that title, as the United States and its allies have imposed a state of siege on China.”
We ask about Britain’s role. John explains Britain’s national security apparatus and military is fully integrated with the United States. “There has been a few diversions but now British politicians casually say China is a threat to us,” says John.
Indeed, since John’s film, the United States and its poodle ‘Atlanticist’ partner Britain signed up to Aukus. This pact with Australia will supply the Royal Australian Navy with nuclear-powered submarines armed with ‘conventional’ weapons. The British government denies Aukus aims to militarily confront China’s growing emergence as an economic super-power.
John talks about the danger of Britain’s powerful mainstream media parroting propaganda about the ‘China threat’. “We all know about the suppression of human rights in China but much of our outstanding of China’s aims is contaminated by propaganda that consumes any discussion about China,” says John.
“This dangerously grooms us to accept China as an enemy.”
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Postscript: The passing of John Pilger is an immense loss – especially for his family. However, the investigative journalism of John Pilger will always inspire others to seek the truth, as John did, to move us all towards a truly just and peaceful world.
John Pilger: born Bondi, Sydney, Australia, investigative journalist, partner, father and grandfather. Dies, London, 30 December 2023, aged 84.
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© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, January 2024
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