http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/782/in12.htm
16 - 22 February 2006
Issue No. 782
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
Cartoon awakening
Ramzy Baroud* inches towards a positive media strategy
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Much has been said and done in response to the deliberately offensive
anti-Muslim cartoons published late last year by a conservative Danish
newspaper, and profusely printed in many Europeans and non-European media,
including South Africa, Jordan and Malaysia.
While the prevalent narrative in the mainstream Western media has treacherously
defended the essentially Western emphasis on freedom of speech and expression,
an equally forceful reading of the event also took hold; one that incessantly
wishes to differentiate between hate speech and freedom of the press, using
legally enforced anti-Semitism laws and doctrines as a model.
In Arab and Muslim media, few condoned the aggressive protests, embassy
burnings and threats of violence awakened by the global cartoon campaign.
Except of a few holier-than-thou Arab and Muslim journalists, however, there
seemed to be consensus among most commentators that both appreciate the
enormity -- and harm -- of the inherent anti-Muslim bias in Western societies
and acknowledged the need to respond to such vilification of Muslims and Arabs
on a collective level, even if it includes modes of pressure and muscle
flexing. Even prominent Egyptian Arab novelist and Literature Nobel Prize
recipient Naguib Mahfouz was of the opinion that economic boycott must be
utilised on a large scale, for the West only understands the language of power,
of which economy is a major factor.
Consequently, there were some attempts, however minor, to channel one's
resentment of racism and bias into positive energy to pressure the increasingly
polarised Western media into a more objective reading of Muslim discourse,
culture and belief. Malaysia fired a call for dialogue through an international
conference; Indonesia held their own conference and a few genuine and
level-headed Arab and Muslim voices were allowed to trickle in through Western
media itself. Nonetheless, few dared to wander far from this equilibrium that
identified with Muslim fury on one hand and condemned the use of violence and
intimidation on the other.
But what is effectively lacking in the Arab and Muslim debate is the most
fundamental issue of all: how can they respond as a collective to growing
anti-Muslim sentiment, touted through the media and further inflamed through
belligerent right-wing political forces in the West, and, dare I say,
belligerent and self-defeating Arab and Muslim voices whose obnoxious and
inconsistent response is playing well into the hands of their adversaries?
Unfortunately, Arabs and Muslims have proven incapable of departing from their
decade-long posture of simply recognising Western media bias and, at best,
offering their version of counter bias, which is equally distasteful and
counter productive. For example, since Jesus is considered one of Islam's
greatest prophets, an Iranian newspaper chose to offset the Western media
demonising of Prophet Mohamed, by announcing a Holocaust drawing contest, aimed
at mocking and doubting the catastrophe. Not only repugnant, but strategically
flawed as well.
And as the countdown to the cartoons protests is drawing to an end,
reprehensible video footage of British soldiers abusing Iraqi teenagers -- in
what seems like a routine practice by the British army -- amid the nauseating
cheers of the cameraman, emerges. While these chilling images served as a
reminder which -- once again -- underlines the obscene lie that Brits -- and
Americans -- stretched their armies thin for the sole purpose of "liberating"
the Iraqi people, it is likely to underscore a major flaw in Arab and Muslim
inconsistency in the face of such formidable tragedies.
Chances are the latest tragedy in Iraq will be whitewashed just as abruptly as
it materialised. We know so because hundreds of similar tragedies have befallen
Muslims, from Iraq, to Palestine, to Chechnya, to Bosnia, to Afghanistan
without any meaningful and durable popular retort. The devastating mid-January
CIA bombing of a Pakistani village in the northwestern tribal region of Bajur,
which killed and wounded scores of innocent people, didn't inspire one major
rally of protest in any other Muslim country, save Pakistan itself. It goes
without saying that violations of human rights committed by Muslim governments
themselves are equally and just as swiftly brushed off, as bearable facts of
life.
It's tempting to declare that the Prophet Mohamed cartoon travesty "exposed"
the bias of the mainstream Western media, but I will refrain, for only a naïve
would doubt such a fact in the first place. Late intellectual Edward Said's
Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How we See the Rest of
the World, is a sufficient testimony to that claim. However, what the cartoons
truly exposed -- among many other realisations -- is the frightening extent of
vulnerability among Arab and Muslim nations and the lack of any meaningful and
effective Muslim and Arab media strategy that forcefully attempts to alter the
misconstrued Western discourse that endlessly denigrates their culture,
disparages their religion and positively questions their humanity.
By a strategy, I am neither referring to political conferences with no specific
objectives, nor to an occasional appearance of an Arab or Muslim dignitary on
European or American television to market his country's "moderate" positions,
contrasting them with the misguided and unrepresentative "extremists"
elsewhere. I am specifically referring to an investment in a potent,
unremitting, unapologetic, yet eloquent and collective media strategy that
makes use of squandered Muslim and Arab talents all over the globe and empowers
the unforgivably neglected voices of justice and reason throughout the West.
Neither counter bias nor Holocaust contests will restore the widening gulf
between the West and the Muslim world. Of that I am sure.
It's of no use to deny the importance of cultural dialogue in this critical
juncture where opponents of civilisation clash theories have recently received
an unequaled boost. This leaves Arab and Muslims -- who are vilified as one
group -- with a formidable challenge, or an awesome opportunity, to respond
with reason as a collective using their immense resources and hidden talents,
or to carry on with fiery Friday sermons and futile flag burnings.
* The writer is a Palestinian-American journalist.
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