Mamoun Fandy: "Where's the Arab Media's Sense of Outrage?": July 4, 2004
Mamoun Fandy is a columnist for two daily newspapers, Asharq al-Awsat in London and al-Ahram in Cairo. He is a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. This commentary discusses trends in reporting by Arab media.
"As I scanned Arab satellite channels and Arabic newspapers, I found a lot of reporting on the brutal attacks, but very little condemnation and a widespread willingness to run the stomach-turning video and photos again and again. [...] I have watched perhaps a dozen Arab channels and read countless newspapers in recent weeks. I found that few Arab commentators and journalists noted either that major shift or its significance. [...] I am aware of only a handful of columnists, most notably the Kuwaiti journalist Ahmed al-Rubai, who condemned the killings unequivocally. Some reporters and analysts intimated to me that they were afraid to denounce the beheadings; others provided distorted coverage that blurred the line between terrorism and Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation. [...] Al-Jazeera is the same network that calls every Arab suicide bomber a shaheed, or martyr. And yet its anchors take care to refer to Abdul Aziz al-Maqrin, who claimed to have beheaded Johnson, as the 'man who Saudi Arabia and Washington call a terrorist.' [...] I went directly to Abdul Rahman Rashed, the head of al-Arabiya, and asked him why most Arab commentators remain silent about these horrific acts of violence and why his channel and al-Jazeera give so much airtime to the terrorists. Rashed blames both contemporary Arab culture and the culture of Arab newsrooms. [...] I also talked with fellow Arab writers and journalists to seek further answers, and it became obvious that many were outraged over how the beheading stories had been handled and why so many Arab journalists are afraid to express their anger publicly or put it in writing. [...] Islamic radicals have killed writers in Algeria, Egypt and elsewhere whose work challenged the logic of martyrdom and 'random jihad,' or killing foreigners in the name of Islam. But the lack of condemnation of the beheadings, despite their barbarism, is a direct result of a broad and dangerous trend in Arab media and in Arab culture broadly. The Arab world today swims in a sea of linguistic violence that justifies terrorism and makes it acceptable, especially to the young. [...] In each country, I was struck that al Qaeda and its ideas are no longer perceived as extreme. Indeed, al Qaeda has become mainstream and being part of the movement is 'cool' in the eyes of young people. Why? Arab culture is being corrupted by the media that glorify violence, but also by schoolbooks that present only one role model for Arab children: the Jihadists and those who excelled at battling non-Muslims. [...] This trend must be reversed -- and the responsibility for doing so lies not just with the media. Unless Arabs themselves muster the courage to speak out against these heinous acts and those who perpetrate them, very little success can be made in the war on terrorism. [...] The American media should also stop replaying images of violence from al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, because when the Arab media air these gruesome images, they animate the logic of terror. They export fear to America. If the Americans did not import these pictures, the Arab media would stop manufacturing them. That could be a first step toward defeating the terrorists who kill not just for Allah and jihad, but for airtime."
[Washington Post]
[Reprinted by Houston Chronicle]
"Police assume either the Iraqi armed group distributed the tapes to the site or the site purchased them from other Muslim sites, considering the site put out an ad seeking videotapes of Kim Sun-il’s beheading since June 22. The videotapes contain a scene showing a masked man beheading Kim after declaring “Allah is great.” Netizens who saw the tapes showed strong emotional responses, saying, “It was too cruel and I couldn’t help myself from bursting out into tears. [...] Many netizens are holding a campaign not to watch the videotape at all. Opinions such as: “Please, let’s not watch the videotape even though it may be just us Koreans who don’t watch it. It is the same as allowing Kim Sun-il to be killed twice. Imagine how painful it would be if his family and friends watch it. Let’s not watch it and delete it even when it is in your hand,” have been posted on most Korean internet portal sites. Kim Ho-ki, Professor of Sociology at Yonsei University, pleaded with the government, citizens’ groups, and netizens to control unnecessary expressions of emotion and impulsive behavior, saying, “I am concerned that the videotape may provoke sentiment against Iraq and intensify the dispute on the army dispatch.”"
"Students said he wanted to make the point that atrocities are committed on both sides of the Iraqi war. The video showing the 26-year-old Berg's execution by Islamic militants has been one of the most widely watched items on the Internet since it was posted Tuesday, according to Web sites that track search requests. The execution has left its mark on other media, too. A pair of Portland-based disc jockeys were fired this week after playing the audiotape of the incident on the air and joking about it. And Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau is apologizing for a cartoon, which he created before the Berg killing, that shows a man's head on a platter."
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