Discussion with Ed Vulliamy
A flurry of books, movies and TV series continue to perpetuate the myth of our upright societies – markedly that in the United States - fighting “organized crime” and “drug cartels”. But as a small group, and movement of journalists, including our guest, insist: this notion – and the ‘war on drugs’ it propels - is not only fantasy, it is a lie. So vast are the quantities of money flooding into and sustaining the so-called ‘legal’ economy – laundered and ‘cleaned’ with impunity – we need to face a reality that the line between ‘lawful’ and ‘criminal’ has been dissolved. Reporters, argues Vulliamy, work in conditions of appalling danger to cover the carnage in Mexico, and it is now up to us - their colleagues in the ‘consuming’ countries - to be aware that we are part of that carnage, and to challenge our own establishment, economy and presumptions that perpetuate it.
Ed Vulliamy is an author and journalist, who worked 32 years as international correspondent for the Guardian and Observer newspapers of London, and before that for Granada TV’s flagship documentary series World in Action. Vulliamy has been based in the Americas, Italy and the Balkans, where he won every major award in British journalism for his coverage of the war in Bosnia. Since turning his attention back to the Mafias he investigated in Italy, Vulliamy won the coveted Ryszard Kapuscinski award for literary reportage for his book Amexica: War Along the Borderline, the first to come out of the current Mexican narco-carnage, and was shortlisted for the same prize for The War is Dead, Long Live the War, Bosnia: The Reckoning.
Co-Sponsors: ISHR, School of Journalism, Technology, Media and Communications (TMaC) specialization of the School of International and Public Affairs, School of Journalism, Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma
