Africa Growth Pilot/Online self-paced course/Module 3/Examples of covering controversy

And I'd like to give you an example. I'm deliberately not picking African examples so as not to upset anyone here, but let's take a look at this example of the region of Kashmir. For those of you who may not know, Kashmir is a hotly disputed region between India and Pakistan, and to some degree, China as well. And how does Wikipedia discuss that or report about it? This is from the article about Kashmir on English Wikipedia:.

"Kashmir is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent." That's a fact, right? And then there is a bit of history about the term. And today it's "a larger area than what was historically et cetera..." "In 1820, the Sikh Empire annexed Kashmir." That's a fact. "In 1846, it was sold...". And coming up to the bolded section, "until the partition of India in 1947, when the former princely state of the British Indian Empire became a disputed territory now administered by three countries: China, India, and Pakistan", and it goes on to give statistics and information about what region exactly each country is in control of, etc.

What it doesn't say here is *who is right*? Who does Kashmir actually belong to? Wikipedia *does not have an opinion* on that question, nor should it. It doesn't have an opinion. Now, I promise you, absolutely every Indian and Pakistani has an opinion about Kashmir. Maybe not the same opinion, by the way, but they have opinions.

But Wikipedia does not. In fact, the Indian government is upset about this article *because* it is neutral. The Indian government would like this article to say "Kashmir is 100% Indian, and part of it is illegally occupied by Pakistan". And the Pakistani government no doubt has a similarly opposite view. So the Indian government would have liked the article on Wikipedia to reflect *its* point of view. But the Indian government's point of view is not a fact. It's a point of view. It *is* a fact that it *is* the Indian point of view. And the article on Kashmir mentions that! It mentions the Indian position, and the Pakistani position, and the Chinese position, but it doesn't say that any of them is correct or incorrect. It is *reporting* about this controversy, this disagreement, without taking a position itself. That's one example.

Here is another example. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As I mentioned, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the early 20th century. That's a fact. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict. It has historical roots. The First Zionist Congress, the Balfour Declaration by the British Empire following World War One, etc., etc., and coming to the United Nations' 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine, which was never implemented. That's a fact, and it led to the 1947 to 1949 Palestine war. That's also a fact. The current status quo began following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, known as the Palestinian occupied territories.

These are all facts. By the way, "the 1947 to 1949 Palestine war" is a neutral name for that war. If you ask an Israeli about that war, they will tell you: "oh, yes, that's our Independence War. That is our War of Independence. This war is the war that Israel had to fight to gain its independence." That's the Israeli point of view on that war.

The Palestinian point of view on that same war is that it is the Nakba, the disaster, the downfall. That's the Palestinian point of view about that war. Should Wikipedia call that war "the Israeli independence war", or should it call it "the Nakba"? Neither. What it can do is use a perfectly factual, neutral name for it. It's a war that took place in Palestine in 1947 to 1949. Both sides can agree that that's a fact. (Separately, Wikipedia does have an article called "Nakba", all about that term and viewpoint, its historical significance, the arguments and disputes over it, etc.)

So I'm using these examples to show you that some things may seem very natural to you but not neutral. If you grew up in Israel, it would be very natural for you to call it the Independence War. And you might even say, "what do you mean 'that's not a neutral name'? That *is* the name of that war! There is no other name in Hebrew!" Maybe there is no other name, but the encyclopedia doesn't have to accept this national Israeli narrative; because it *is* a narrative. It is a particular view of that war that is not universally shared. It is certainly not shared by the Palestinians!

So all of you may have similar things that are obvious to you because of the culture and the history that you grew up in, that may not be universally acceptable as fact and therefore problematic on Wikipedia. So these were two examples on highly controversial issues and how Wikipedia manages to report about the conflict in a factual way. And this is, by the way, just the opening paragraph. Of course, if you look at these articles on Kashmir and on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, you will see a lot of information with all kinds of claims and opinions and positions by the various sides, and that's as it should be.

I chose very controversial, politically sensitive examples, to powerfully demonstrate the principle of not picking sides. But of course you should also not pick sides on the great rivalry between, say, Liverpool F.C. And Manchester United F.C.. That's also a rivalry or a disagreement that you should not have a position on. As Wikipedia! Personally, you're welcome to have a position on that. But if you're writing with Wikipedia's Voice, just like we don't know if it's a man or a woman, Nigerian or not, who wrote the article on Nigeria, we also mustn't know whether the person who wrote a football-related article is a Manchester United fan or not.