The Vietnam War, which lasted 19 years, resulted in the deaths of at least 1.1 million Vietnamese and 58,220 American troops. Although victims on both sides did not only die by bullets, do you ever recall reading an article overflowing with moral indignation directed at the American scientist Eugene Stoner, designer of the M16 assault rifle?
These facts about the Vietnam War were rekindled in the midst of flawed coverage in the western media of the death of Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of the famous AK-47 assault rifle. Their reportage provided us some insights into the man, but that seems less important when all these reports ended up reminding readers of the ethical burden Kalashnikov must bear for his “legendary” rifle, which ended up in the hands of rebels, terrorists, criminals and Third World dictators according to these reports. Reinforcing this ethical burden might warrant recalling quotes from Kalashnikov, wherein he exonerates himself from any responsibility for the millions who were killed by his rifle. Such questions of ethical burden seem always directed at Kalashnikov exclusively and not at any other weapon inventor. By this yardstick, and given the enormous death toll of the Vietnam War, why don’t they put the same ethical blame on Stoner, and bash him similarly? Surely, his M16 rifle, too, played a part in the deaths of 1.1 million Vietnamese and injuries to three million people in that war?
On December 23, the Times newspaper reminded readers of the millions who died through the AK-47 when reporting on Kalashnikov’s death, while Reuters said: “The designer of the assault rifle that has killed more people than any other firearm in the world has died aged 94.” And for the Daily Telegraph, it was the death of the man who invented a “weapon of choice for guerrillas and terrorists across the world”. With more eloquence, the Associated Press wrote on December 23: “Mikhail Kalashnikov started out wanting to make farm equipment, but the harvest he reaped was one of blood as the designer of the AK-47 assault rifle, the world’s most popular firearm.”
Archives are full of the same type of stories that never mention Kalashnikov without reminding us of his ethical burden. The otherwise sober Guardian on October 10, 2003, published an interview with Kalashnikov with this headline: “I sleep soundly”. In that long interview, the writer, of course, did not forget to ask Kalashnikov questions related to the ethical burden of his invention. If the AK-47 is condemned and cursed as a tool of death, these ethical norms must reserve the same condemnation for all inventions that have led to similar death tolls. But we never hear or recall reading any condemnation of those who invented guns for “the empire on which the sun never sets”. Unless somebody would argue that the empire was built by flowers and candies gifted to millions of people in the colonised countries!
Favourite gun
If ethical norms demand condemnation of killings and the tools used to kill, why do we never read in western media any condemnation for the inventor of the Israeli Uzi sub-machine gun — the main weapon of the Israeli army that has harvested the lives of thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians for decades? The favourite gun for clans in US that took thousands of lives in a country whose constitution protects the right to bear arms? And the favourite gun for the drug cartels in Latin America? These questions might not be seeking direct answers but highlighting the fact of a typical weapon of unbeatable affect: “stereotyping”.
Stereotyping of Kalashnikov and his gun was built on the weapon’s proven efficiency and simplicity. But these features of superiority are given a different twist, by putting on him the responsibility for the deaths of millions, as though his rifle was the only tool of killing in the world. Ignoring other weapon designers and focusing on one of them exclusively is just another way of demonising a man who wanted to give his country a weapon to defend itself. And while other weapons are also responsible for millions of victims, for the western media, the inventors of those weapons are exempt and immune from such questions of ethical burden. These inventors are allowed to sleep soundly, but not Kalashnikov.
Stereotyping doesn’t require anything more than repetition, as Joseph Goebbels said. Recurrence only makes the reader believe that what he reads is true — only because it is repeated so often, in other words what people call “common consensus”.
The reminders of the ethical burden of Kalashnikov have a sequel. Western reporters are keen always to remind readers that although Kalashnikov did not profit from his legendary rifle, he owned 30 per cent of the shares in German companies using his name in some products: Umbrellas, knives and vodka. But those reporters never tried to calculate the ethical burden of Stoner in figurers, as he gets $1 (Dh3.67) for every M16 sold anywhere in the world — from the 1950s until now.
Mohammad Fadhel is a Bahraini media consultant at BHUTH in Dubai.
