لطفا منتظر باشید ...
relations on behalf of "good Muslims," like the Kuwaiti royals, who hired
one of the biggest US public relations firms to manage their wartime
propaganda. [34] Most juxtapose two images there is a "terrorist
fringe" among US Muslims (the "bad Muslims"), but most other Muslims are
peace-loving and eager to be assimilated to the American way of life (the
"good Muslims") The American corporate news pundits continually remind
consumers that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the US; at the
same time, they tell Americans that "Islamic terror cells" are on the rise
in the US Muslims in such stories are usually defined by their politics
and class While the media assure Americans that most Muslims are dutiful
middle-class citizens, the "terrorist fringe" is always laying at the
wait, a threat to the very core of American interests and values Such
images have been utilized by politicians and corporate leaders to frighten
American citizen-consumers into accepting all sorts of barbarous
immigration and security laws.
Closer scrutiny reveals that, in most cases, the Muslims profiled on
corporate TV programmes are Palestinians One insidious implication is that
Palestinians are somehow inherently irrational, though this is not always
made explicit The misogynist character of dominant media imagery of
Muslims in the US is underlined, for example, when the corporate news
shows images of Palestinian or other Muslim men crying, perhaps after
another Israeli raid on their homes Since "real men" don't cry, it becomes
hard for Americans to imagine other people's grief expressed in that way,
and it is seen instead as an expression of rage or insanity The point is
that some images are heightened by the inability of television to portray
anything but the most extreme expressions of emotion, causing some to
label TV as best suited to portray death. [35] This technical inadequacy is something that even
good PR can't fix It also heightens the effectiveness of television as a
medium to utilize deep-seated American visions of sex and violence in
Islam
US corporate news features often use Islamic religious symbols to frame
stories about violent political events For example, a 1994 story about the
end of the disastrous American intervention in Somalia begins with the
reporter intoning ominously "night falls ul Mogadishu" over the Islamic
call to prayer and a backdrop of a mosque silhouetted by a dark, cloudy
sky The report segues to picture bites of destroyed American helicopters
and corpses of US marines. The call to prayer in this case, as in many
others, forebodes death and terror. Furthermore, this is the only Somali
voice in the piece.
Some media portrayals of Muslims are reminiscent of the contrived sense
of inevitability that Native American scholar Ward Churchill brings out in
his comments about the Orientalist extravaganza epic film, Lawrence of
Arabia:
Its major impact was to put a 'tragic' but far more humane face upon
the nature of Britain's imperial pretensions in the region, making
colonization of the Arabs seem more acceptable-or at least more
inevitable-than might have otherwise been the case. [36]
The US media often rely on pre-existing images of Muslim barbarity in
order to explain the need for intervention or to help the US military save
face when things don't come out as planned When the US Marines were
escorting members of the UN out of Somalia in February 1995, ABC News
televised a report of a multiple amputation, featuring a man who
presumably had just been convicted of theft in an Islamic law court The
piece was pure emotion and imagery, seeming to say, with Churchill's
tragic self- righteousness, "look how easily the natives revert to their
barbarity once we leave "
Despite its pervasiveness in the media, imagery that I have described
above is far removed from the daily experiences of most American citizen-
consumers But lately, some media producers have tried to bring these
images closer to home
TV Holy War
In the Fall of 1994, PBS aired a documentary by journalist Steve
Emerson Titled "Jihad in America," it followed on the heels of other
recent works that put forth the thesis of an elaborate, secret, and
centralized network of "Islamic terrorists," who take orders from Iran,
and who are mounting a violent war against their hated enemy, the mighty
Great Satan. [37]
Evidence within the programme suggests that Emerson has access to
official government intelligence Most of the programme either consists of
interviews staged by Emerson, or clips from Muslim conferences (which are
available publicly from the organizations that sponsor conferences)
However, some clips appear to be from other sources, such as home videos
confiscated from Muslims in FBI sweeps during the Oil War and in the wake
of the World Trade Center incident, or surreptitiously taped surveillance
videos Using "former" FBI and State Department officials as informants is
only a smoke screen to cover the access Emerson has to official
intelligence Concurrent with the debut of his program, Emerson was invited
to appear on news and talk shows as an "expert on terrorism " A year or so
of this kind of programming set the climate for what became a rush to
judge Muslims for crimes they did not commit
Within hours after a truck bomb blew up the Alfred P Murrah Federal
Building in Oklahoma City on Wednesday 19 April 1995, word was out that
"Islamic extremists" were responsible Talking heads on all the major
corporate news outlets made immediate parallels to the World Trade Center
bombing, or to the car bombing of the American Marine barracks in Beirut
Programmes sporting logos like "Terror in the Heartland" popped up on all
the major networks. Speculations ran wild: an international cartel of
terrorists were retaliating for the abduction from Pakistan of their
leader, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef; fanatical followers of Shaykh Omar Abdel
Rahman were protesting his trial in New York; Muslim extremists intended
to show that even America's heartland was not safe from Mideast terror;
religious and political "zealots" from the Middle East were lashing out at
the US.
That night, Steve Emerson, along with CBS Mideast expert Fuad Ajami,
asserted on a CBS news programme that the bombing had "all the earmarks of
Islamic radical extremists," and that Muslim terrorists were now "wreaking
havoc in the land they loathe." Former FBI agent and Pan Am flight 203
bombing investigator Oliver "Buck" Revell, who rose to public prominence
after appearing in Emerson's anti-Muslim tirade "Jihad in America," was
once again wheeled out of obscurity, spewing theories about how vulnerable
the US was to attacks by Islamic militants.
It was not only the corporate news media that jumped to such
conclusions about Muslims. The same accusations and speculations could be
heard from other corners of US officialdom. For example, the director of
the House Republican Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare,
Yossef Bodansky, well known for his conspiracy theories about a centrally
controlled Islamic "holy war" against the West, assured viewers that "we
have a host of enemies that have vowed to strike at the heart of the Great
Satan" and called upon law enforcement agencies to take preventative
measures that amount to severe curtailments of civil liberties. [38] The tirades by assorted "terrorism experts"
continued into Thursday 20 April, when World Trade Center investigator
Michael Cherkasky told CNN that "we've got to know what's going on in
these fanatical terrorist groups," and called for beefed up intelligence
against immigrants.
Politicians worked quickly to capitalize on the tragedy, quickly
realizing its utility for pushing new anti-immigration laws and wiretap
legislation. Then Republican Senate Majority Leader, and later
Presidential candidate, Bob Dole reminded the President that the Senate
was ready to pass a new "counter-terrorism" bill, the Omnibus
Counter-terrorism Act of 1995, which had provisions for enabling the use
of "secret evidence" to deport immigrants, allowed for the banning of
fundraising by "suspected terrorist" organizations, and lessened or
eliminated restrictions for conducting phone taps. Similarly, House
Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde emphasized that the US had to
identify "potentially dangerous foreigners" and that "we should keep them
from getting into the country in the first place," while Florida
congresswoman Ileana Ros Lehtinen cried that "the radical Islamic movement
has penetrated America and presents a real threat to our national security
and serenity." Summing up the general tone of most reporting up to this
point, James Wooten, an expert on terrorism at the Congressional Research
Service, asserted that "it's no longer to be looked at from afar, it's
come home to roost."
As if a vast contingency plan were set in motion, other Federal
agencies quickly joined the fray, and there was even talk of possible
"retaliation" against. a Middle Eastern state. The Pentagon detailed
several Arabic language interpreters to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) for possible use in interrogating suspects, and the
FBI began to question Arab and Muslim groups in the Oklahoma City area. A
Jordanian-American was detained in London and returned to the US for
questioning because his luggage contained "possible bombmaking equipment,"
but which later turned out to be a telephone and other innocuous items.
When the man's identity was announced publicly, his property in Oklahoma
was vandalized and his wife spat upon. [39]
Though the mainstream media ignored repercussions, the independent
Muslim press reported hate crimes related to these incidents. [40] A Muslim woman in Oklahoma city miscarried her
late term child when an angry mob besieged her home with bricks and
stones. Muslims and Arabs were harassed and many organizations received
death and bomb threats and phone calls demanding that they get out of the
US. All of this abuse was further exacerbated by continuing reports, such
as one that the Immigration and Naturalization Service was on the lookout
for men of "Middle Eastern appearance" and that they had detained several
suspicious men of "Middle Eastern origin." [41]
All of this occurred within less than 48 hours after the blast.
However, when the composite sketches of "two white males" were released in
the late afternoon of 20 April, people began to ask if this reduced the
possibility that the bombing was carried out by "Middle Eastern
terrorists." News services started mentioning a possible "lone kook" or a
"disgruntled employee.' When a suspect with ties to American
ultra-nationalists was arrested, attention shifted to the "militia"
phenomenon. Although resurgent white supremacy had been seething for
years, and despite the warnings of watchdog groups, the mainstream media
acted as if the militias had come out of nowhere.
The lesson here is that, while a white American Christian acts alone
Muslims always work together. In such a discourse, Muslims are guilty
merely by association with the vast menagerie of imagery that government
and corporate outlets use to sell products and ideas to Americans. The
cruel ironies of American domestic problems began to pile up for Muslims:
once it was announced that a man with possible ties to the militias was
arrested for the Oklahoma City bombing and emphasis shifted away from
"Islamic terror", some branches of the corporate news media insisted on
clinging to the hope that there might still be an "Islamic connection,"
since "our boys" don't do such things; once a white Christian American
"good old boy" stood accused of the crime, programmes entitled "Terror in
the Heartland" were replaced by those with titles like "Tragedy in
Oklahoma;" once it was clear that there were no "Islamic extremists" to
blame, the tone of public discourse softened remarkably, with less talk of
"retaliation" and more about "forgiveness " Despite the obvious haste with
which American officialdom was set to blame Muslims, there were no public
apologies to Muslims once it was clear that they could not bc
blamed.
The Utility of "Muslim Terror" in Israeli-American
Relations:
In the 1970s, Arab American academics like Edmund Ghareeb, Jack
Shaheen, and Michael Suleiman made strong connections between stereotypes
of Arabs in corporate culture and the issue of Palestine. [42] They concluded that in order for the
dispossession of Palestinians to bc supported by ordinary Americans, Arabs
had to bc written off as either backward barbarians (who don't understand
that colonization is in their best interests) or violent terrorists (who
deserve to be eliminated). This was a time when no one used the term
"Muslim fundamentalist." Even the Islamic revolution in Iran was seen as
some kind of wild and crazy Persian phenomenon.
At the same time, with the gradual acquiescence of Arab regimes to
either American or Israeli demands throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there
was a shift from "Arab terror" to "Muslim terror." The infrastructure of
imagery, already in place from decades of anti-Arab propaganda, simply had
to be transferred to Muslims, the new "enemies of peace." In fact, many of
the same political problems still persist, but the "terrorists" are now
conceptualized as Muslims, since Arab regimes were now obedient allies.
Although the Persian Gulf Oil War was a successful test case for enframing
the Muslim world into "good" and "bad" parties, Zionist colonization of
Palestine still remains one of the core issues contributing to conflict in
West Asia.
American scholar Edward S. Herman believes that anti-Muslim racism in
US corporate culture is closely related to the issue of Palestine. He sees
an "enormous pro-Israel (and anti-Arab) bias of the mainstream media and
intelligentsia," and gives four sources of this bias:
Israel's strategic value to the US.
the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC.
Western feelings of guilt toward Jews.
anti-Arab racism. Herman clarifies what he means by
anti-Arab racism:
This racism is mainly an effect and reflection of interest and policy
rather than a casual factor. . . Arabs who cooperate with the West. . .
are not subject to racist epithets and stereotypes. This suggests that if
other Arabs were more tractable and responsive to Western demands they
would cease to be negatively stereotyped. Scapegoating is a function of
power and interest. [43]While his remarks on anti-Arab racism
illustrate my point about the utility of imagery, I want to take another
one of Herman's observations-the pervasiveness of the Israeli lobby in
framing American policy-and look at the utility of Muslim terror in that
context.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held a conference
on the "Middle East Peace Process" in Washington DC on 7 May 1995, which
was aired live on CSPAN. The guests of honour included US president Bill
Clinton and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. In his speech, Rabin
warned that "extremist radical Islamic fundamentalists" are the "enemies
of peace" and that "Khomeinism without Khomeini is the greatest danger to
stability, tranquillity and peace in the Middle East and the world." The
"scourge of Khomeinism" has replaced the "scourge of communism," and even
as the Israelis "consolidate peace with Jordan," the forces of "terror"
are seeking to "destroy peace between peoples of our area." He called for
the "free world," which successfully mobilized itself against communism,
to mobilized itself against "Khomeinism." Rabin concluded by stressing
that "only a strong Israel can guarantee stability in the Mideast" and
that, therefore, US foreign aid "must remain a key pillar of the peace
process." But the aid Rabin demands is about more than "peace" and
"stability."
Israel cannot survive without continuous transfusions of American
dollars, both from US government aid ($4-5 billion in American tax dollars
annually), and private contributions, making Israel one of the few states
in the world whose economic viability relies almost entirely on foreign
donations and charity. (Despite this, it has never been economically
viable, with even the World Bank considering Israel to be a weak financial
risk.) This is meaningful because recently the US Congress has been
threatening to cut foreign aid. While the Cold War provided the impetus
for supporting aid for Israel as the ''first line of defense" against the
"communist threat," it seems that the "Islamic threat" is now being
utilized for the same purpose by Israeli politicians and their proxies in
the US Congress.
After Rabin concluded his speech, AIPAC president Steve Grossman
introduced US president Bill Clinton by emphasizing that Clinton has
raised the "strategic partnership between the US and Israel to new
levels." Clinton began his speech by emphasizing that the US role in the
"peace process" was to "minimize the risks taken for peace." He then noted
that Russia's cooperation with Iran was a "prime concern" of the US
because Iran is "bent on building nuclear weapons." Clinton ignored
another "prime concern" of people living in the region, the long standing
Israeli nuclear weapons programme and its cooperation with South Africa in
detonating a several nuclear weapons, or its kidnapping and imprisonment
of Mordecai Vanunu, an Israeli technician who revealed the existence of
the long-denied Israeli nuclear weapons programme to the outside
world.
Clintons rationale for preventing Iranian-Russian cooperation was that
since Iran has "ample oil reserves" it cannot possibly need nuclear
technology for peaceful energy purposes. He warned that while Iran haunts
the Mideast," the US will seek to "contain Iran as the principle sponsor
of terrorism in the world," reminding his audience that Iran undermines
the West and its values." He also thanked the Israelis for "drawing our
attention to Iran's history of supporting terrorism." But the utility of
this imagery became clearer when Clinton next asked for AIPAC to help out
with the floundering American embargo against Iran. American attempts at
convincing the Europeans and Japanese to sever their economic ties with
Iran have been met with little international support, and he seemed to
think the Israelis would have some sway over European politicians.
Clinton stated that US support for Israel was "absolute" and that all
forms of current assistance will be continued.-He chastised the US
Congress as a bunch of "budget cutting back door isolationists" for daring
to suggest that the US discontinue its bloated but politically selective
foreign aid programs, emphasizing that the US "did not win the Cold War to
blow the peace" on budgetary issues. But the kind of peace that Clinton
and his cohorts support is clear from the ensuing promises he made to the
AIPAC congregation.
Clinton revealed that the once closed American space launcher vehicle
market would now be open to the Israeli arms industry, along with other
previously unavailable high-tech US weaponry. He also noted that the US
would escalate its pre-positioning of weaponry in Israel, and that it
would buy $3 billion worth of Israeli made military products. Since the US
already has the largest military-industrial complex in the world, buying
weapons from Israel is another thinly disguised form of economic
aid.
As with other aid, US taxpayers are slated to foot the bill in the name
of "national security." Clinton explained the need for all of this
wheeling and dealing about war and weapons of mass destruction as
necessary because "Israel is on the front line of the battle for freedom
and peace." Again seeming to assume that they held some sway over public
opinion, this time domestically, Clinton suggested that AIPAC help to
"lobby" the American people about budgetary matters.
