Ramzy Baroud*
inches towards a positive media strategy
Ahram Weekly
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 na?ve 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.