IT鈥橲 FRIDAY evening in a big American city. In the middle of the rush hour,
terrorists smash glass bottles full of anthrax spores on the subway tracks. By
Tuesday, the sick are overwhelming hospitals. A few days on, 50 000 are
dead.
This is how Nightline, the late-night current affairs programme on
the US television network ABC, depicted a fictional anthrax attack last month.
Some TV critics feared a repeat of the 1938 broadcast of War of the
Worlds, whose mock news flashes convinced people that Martians had landed.
Nightline took no chances. 鈥淔ictional scenario鈥� constantly flashed on
the screen. 鈥淣o one has actually been infected with anthrax,鈥� a disclaimer spelt
out before each show.
They needn鈥檛 have bothered. No one could have been fooled by 鈥淏iowar鈥�, unless
they thought a biological attack on an American city would be reported in real
time, replete with repetitious, cobbled-together clips of demonstrations and
body bags. No matter. The point is not whether drama has dulled since Orson
Welles adapted H. G. Welles鈥檚 novel for radio. The real question is what
Nightline wanted to achieve by telling Americans that a biological attack
鈥渋s no longer a question of if, but when鈥�. Who were they trying to scare and
why? The programme said it was so people could prepare, but in truth nobody
could do much to prepare for the sort of attack they portrayed.
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Biophobia is gripping the US. It started in February 1998 with a host of
scare stories about biological weapons, as Washington DC mobilised voters for an
air strike against the anthrax-wielding Iraq of Saddam Hussein. Then it took on
a life of its own. A lucrative 鈥減reparedness鈥� industry of seminars and civil
defence exercises aimed at preparing for bioterrorist attack sprang up. Spending
on biodefence R&D has skyrocketed. Anthrax hoaxes abound.
Some in the industry are undoubtedly hyping the threat so that people will
pay them to help face it. Others are clearly recycled Cold Warriors who miss the
way the nuclear threat made 1950s America united and docile. But most believe
the threat of bioterrorism is real. There are plans to have 400 鈥渆mergency
responders鈥� trained in bioterrorism at the world trade meeting in Seattle this
month.
Nothing wrong with that. And 鈥淏iowar鈥� was at least a good yarn which might
have scared some legislators into funding some useful research. But there was
still something sinister underlying the scenario. When the fictional city ran
out of antibiotics, other US cities, fearing similar attack, refused to send
theirs鈥攁nd people went untreated. Couldn鈥檛 they just ask Canada for some?
Or Europe? The show made not one mention of any other part of the world.
Parochialism is hardly unknown in American reporting. But it is striking that
the week 鈥淏iowar鈥� was aired, the US Senate was killing a treaty banning nuclear
tests because they didn鈥檛 trust foreigners not to flout it. Saddam still has his
anthrax鈥攂ecause the US abandoned the UN inspectors trying to wrest it from
him. Washington now wants to defend the US against missiles, instead of
scrapping them under treaties. It continues to obstruct serious verification of
the treaty banning bioweapons.
That is isolationism. It is fed by television that tells people they will be
attacked, they will die and no one else will help. The US, or at least an
influential part of it, has decided to forget the rest of the world and stand
alone against the threats of the next century.
鈥淏iowar鈥� was no War of the Worlds. But frankly, it scared the hell
out of me.