Hizbullah fights back!

[Wever]

Special Force: Hizbullah fights back in Politicization of Computer
Games

Peter Speetjens
Special to The Daily Star

Beirut, Lebanon - July 17, 2003 - In the good old days, a war was
won on the battlefield, with swords, axes and dirty tricks. The
side that kicked in the most enemy heads won, and could then
go on a rampage of drinking, raping and pillaging.

Though the essence of modern warfare hasn't changed much in
the sense that it's still all about killing, today winning a war
involves a second front: the all-important struggle for "hearts and
minds." The arsenal of weapons involved on this front is almost
as large as that used on the battlefield.
Take the recent US-led invasion of Iraq, for example, where there
was everything from the daily "Vincent Brooks Show" - live from
Qatar, to the beautifully orchestrated prime-time rescue of Private
Jessica Lynch to the unbelievable pronouncements of former
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed al-Saeed al-Sahaf - all
competing for our viewers' support. Yet there are many more
subtle ways of pushing war propaganda onto the public, from
films, television shows, and the medium with arguably greatest
access to adolescent minds - computer games.
Hizbullah, which has long proven to be a very modern and
organized fighting force, swiftly joined the latest trend. As
reported in The Daily Star at the time, on Feb. 16 the group
launched its first computer game, Special Force.
And successfully so, according to Bilal Zeyn, who works for the
Hizbullah Internet Bureau that developed the game: So far some
12,000 copies have been sold in Lebanon, Iran, the Gulf and
some countries in Europe as well as in Australia.
And there are many more copies out there, says Zeyn "as there's
a lot of piracy."
In the game the player becomes a Hizbullah fighter in action
against the Israeli Army in South Lebanon. The game has three
levels. First, the player has to complete a training session, which
includes the crossing of minefields, the neutralizing of snipers
and learning how to operate an automatic weapon.
Targets for shooting practice are the heads of prominent Israeli
leaders and generals, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and
former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. After successfully completing
training, the player has to infiltrate and neutralize an Israeli
military outpost, complete with minefields, snipers and tanks.
Finally there's a digital version of a battle that took place in the
southern Bekaa Valley during the Israeli occupation.
Zeyn explains that the game is based on actions once executed
by the resistance. "The geography and layout of the Israeli
outpost, for example, is based on maps given to us by Hizbullah
intelligence," he says.
At the end of each round, a table appears with some background
information and the most important statistics of the fight as it
once took place.
The game's aim is first of all to entertain, but Zeyn believes that
"entertainment is never just entertainment. Films, videos,
TV-programs and computer games express certain moral and
cultural values. So, in many American films, the hero is
American, while the bad guy, the terrorist, is an Arab. (With this
game) we've changed roles."
But a second aim for Hizbullah is self-promotion. It hopes the
game will help make sure the word "resistance" will not simply
be replaced by or equated with the word "terrorism."
"In that sense," Zeyn says, "the game has a clear message,
especially for those outside Lebanon: The South was occupied
by the Israeli Army, and so armed resistance was legitimized."
Produced in four languages, Special Force was first introduced
in Lebanon, Syria, Germany, Australia, Iran and the United Arab
Emirates, but can also be ordered online at
www.specialforce.net.
It took Hizbullah two years to develop the game, which
technologically and graphically is able to compete with the
numerous similar such war games produced in the West. It
costs $7 and according to Zeyn, all profits will be used to
develop a Special Force - Part II. The game is not, however, the
first Arab-produced computer shoot-em-up which switches the
traditional roles of hero and devil designed in the West. Nor is it
the first game carrying a political message.
Last year Under Ash was launched with more or less the same
goals and reasoning as Special Force. Made in Damascus, the
game introduces Ahmed, a 19-year-old Palestinian boy, as the
main character.
After his house has been destroyed by Israeli bulldozers, Ahmed
becomes active in the intifada, first by throwing stones, then by
pursuing armed violence against Israeli soldiers and settlers.
The makers of the game were wise enough not to include any
suicide bombings, which would only to serve to defeat their
purpose. In fact, as soon as an Israeli civilian is killed it's "Game
Over."
And it is not a coincidence that the game was developed in
Damascus as it expresses exactly the current Syrian position
regarding the legitimized use of violence by the Palestinian
resistance: Occupying forces are legitimate targets.
Both Special Force and Under Ash have led to much dismay and
public outcry in Israel and in the West. Their opponents claim
that both games aim to glorify "terrorism." In Australia, Labor MP
Michael Danby speaking to ABC Radio called for an official ban
on Special Force, stating that the game would generally
encourage violence among the Australian youth.
Those who believe the game is a valid expression of the genre
argue that there is no difference between Special Force as a
game that will encourage violence and the overwhelming
amount of similar Western shoot-em-up games available today.
In the gaming world you can shoot and kill just about anything
from flying aliens to big hairy monsters to World War II German
Nazi soldiers. Scientists have still not been able to answer the
question to what extent violence in films and games makes the
people who watch or use them more aggressive or inspired to
commit violent acts.
Danby also told ABC Radio that: "We don't need to encourage
suicide bombers or people like that in Australia with things like
this … particularly among vulnerable younger people who have a
disposition to these kinds of political views."
Who, exactly, is Danby referring to when he says, "people like
that?"
Of course, the problem for Danby, and many others, with the
Hizbullah game in particular, is ultimately not the violence itself,
but the political view on how violence is used and justified -
violence is justifiable only if it serves the right purposes. The
right purposes, of course, are for them only to decide.
Campaigners against Under Ash and Special Force have
remained silent on other games based on violence and killing -
games which all promote an implicit political message of their
own. Take the Israeli-produced game Israeli Air Force,
developed on request for Jane's Defense, a weapons and
warfare analysis company in London. In the game the player can
fly an Israeli fighter jet in the 1967 war or in the 1982 Israeli
invasion of Lebanon. One of the options the player has is to
carpet-bomb Beirut and other Arab cities.
The game received rave reviews from computer magazines and
specialized gaming websites for its "realistic portrayal" of the
Israeli Air Force's capabilities and the flying sequences. The US
Army itself developed a highly sophisticated online game called
Operations, in which the player, after undergoing tough military
training, has to exterminate "terrorist" networks in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The game is so effective that the US Defense
Ministry reports that 15 percent-30 percent of the some 35,000
people it says plays Operations daily, also visit the army's
recruiting site, linked to the game by a banner, with applications
for recruitment forms rising considerably.
Another similar game to Operations is Counter Strike, and the
latest version of the popular Delta Force game series is set in
Somalia against "evil-doers."
Several steps beyond is the game entitled Ethnic Cleansing, in
which the player is a skinhead or hooded Ku Klux Klan member,
who "purifies the world of Jews, Latinos and Negroes." The
game was developed by the American National Alliance, an
ultra-right group that considers the white race to be superior.
The computer games of Hizbullah, the Israeli Air Force, the
United States military and the American National Alliance have in
common one thing: They all have wrapped up in them a political
message in a game designed for the youth.
Thousands of people playing Operations online daily is not a
small figure. And in Beirut alone, there are a few hundred
computer and internet cafes occupied day and night by kids
playing violent shoot-em-ups - Special Force being one of them.
Whatever the arguments of right and wrong, the market for
violent propaganda pushing computer games is unlikely to
diminish any time soon.