Islam, Media & the West

http://www.artbma.org/collection/overview/cone.html#

Last weekend I went to Baltimore to visit a friend at Hopkins. Right next to their campus is the Baltimore Museum of Art, which has some very impressive pieces. There is a large Matisse collection and I found myself stopped in one corner of the room. There were about four or five painting that he did of Arabic women lounging in settings of fabric that were quintessentially Eastern. I knew that Matisse painted in France, and found myself wondering how he came to paint these women. A Google search led me to the right place: he painted French women adorned in these fabrics that supposedly represented a world of luxury and otherness to the artist.

Standing in front of the paintings I was struck by the Orientalist nature of them. They weren’t especially negative portrayals of these women, but the lives in a harem are definitely romanticized in the paintings. The women look Arabic not only because of the fabrics surrounding them but also in their costumes. They are also overly sexualized in the renderings. It’s interesting to see Said’s writings played out in real life. I don’t think that anyone could deny how Orientalist these works are, but I wonder how many people walking through the museum realize that.

By taking the opportunity to study the Arab world, and hopefully to understand the people of the Middle East a bit better, I hope that I’ll be able to express to others and understand myself a more humanistic view of a people who are alienated in our society as the ‘other’ or the bad guy in the media that Americans are fed and/or willingly consume on a daily basis.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/world/middleeast/22dubai.html

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/09/22/world/20080922DUBAI_index.html

This article and slideshow appeared in the NYT and had an attached slideshow portraying young men who immigrated to Dubai from various Muslim countries. They are living a very different life in Dubai than they were in their home country, often with much more independence.
There is a line in the article comparing Dubai to Vienna during the cold war, saying that both cities became playing grounds for both sides of a societal schism. In Dubai’s case, it is a playing ground for anyone who wants it to be so. These young people who are moving to Dubai can still go to Mosque and be practice the religion they grew up with, but have social lives that most Westerners would consider “normal”-- going out to bars, etc. These young immigrants are concerned about losing their values in a society where everything they could possibly want is within their reach.
I wonder what Lewis and Huntington would say—if they would call these men’s identity issues a clash within themselves or if they would be at odds, since Dubai is such a Western place that has fairly western values and there are obviously people from every nationality living there. I think that Dubai has the prospect of being the city that ends the Clash, or at least helps to bridge the divide that exists between the Western and Eastern worlds. Dubai strikes me as the type of city that has limitless opportunities, why wouldn’t it be a step towards having one future, instead of a world that is always at odds with itself. This hybridity has been happening and continues to occur across the world, and across societal difference. It is certainly the modern answer to what the world can look like in the coming years, since it allows the best of both worlds simultaneously.

I just finished watching Control Room….I’m not sure how I feel about it. Clearly it’s a documentary so there’s an opinion that is within it, but I had a general view of Americans being aware of the lack of news items about Iraq for a while now. Or maybe I am naïve, living in New York and being a college student. Sometimes I forget that the rest of the country doesn’t share my views or thirst for any and all news items I can get. Especially with the elections coming up in only a few days (EEK!!) I’ve been reading The Times and looking casually at the International Herald Tribune, BBC, and now Al-Jazeera. So I guess I’ve read articles about the lack of information and how the American government is dealing with telling the press certain things. I understand that it is impossible for the US military to give out exact times of where and when an attack will happen because that would be giving information to “enemies”—a term which I think is used very loosely and generally. This is a new information age and America has to figure out how to deal with it. We should be leading the world in this, handling it the right way. This odd privacy and fake news items that come out, such as the men taking down Saddam’s statue not being Iraqi, only makes the US look foolish.

I enjoy looking at conflicts in a different light. After studying media for three full years, I think that most of us in class understand certain aspects of western journalism and are weary of it. For instance, all of us are savvy audience members who can recognize a bias when is comes up in the media. Those biases are sometimes expected by everyone. Fox News is conservative, NPR is liberal. But sometimes biases are beneath the views’ radar. This, I believe is dangerous. I think this is the case for a lot of American audience members looking at the middle east. Seeing the meaning of something outside of yourself is humility, which is something that I think Americans, if I can generalize, are missing. There is a humility that makes you proud—to see the meaning of something else is good but sometimes takes courage or a different perspective. To take the time to sit down and see either the ‘big picture’ or to contemplate the other side is to try and be just.

The bombings of both the Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV’s headquarters were shocking when they happened, and seeing the Al-Jazeera’s employees’ reactions to the death of their colleague was so…sad, although that is an understatement. At one point an Al-Jazeera employee is speaking about the information that’s received by the public during the war and says that “the whole war is like an American movie….” where you know who the bad guy is, etc. However, she is struck by how real it is. Having this interview was important not only because it gives a face to what the “other”, Arab news people look like.

I wonder if Westerners would think of Al-Jazeera as being deceitful if the American government did not spread so many lies about them. Regardless of anyone’s view of the Iraq war, I think it makes sense to be weary of the enemy’s news station. Since more Americans don’t speak Arabic and have been told for years that the Arabs are not trustworthy, I think it makes sense for Americans to so easily buy into the anti- Al-Jazeera viewpoint. I think Said would agree that this is a very Orientalist viewpoint that makes seeing the “other” so natural for us. However, the American and British reporters on the ground should be reporting on the deceitfulness of the American government.

The disrespect that the army has for journalists in general is weird. I mean, these are the people who are going to be telling the world what you’re up to—one would think that the army would want to be nice to them. I think that the character who got under my skin the most was the Army press secretary. He seemed to think that just because he was learning Arabic and was friendly to the Arabs at CenCom, he was doing this amazing thing when he was really just frustrating everyone he gave interviews to. I also know that people in the Army have to follow orders, but the individuals must look at the situation and see how absurd it is, such as the refusal to show the journalists playing cards that were discussed during the press conference.

This news story about Obama's aide, Emanuel, has been on the front page of the Al-Jazeera website for several days now. (Although I think at this point it only comes up when you click on the "Americas" section of the site.) I understand why an article like this was written to begin with, but I wonder if there's a reason why it's been up for so long. The site also had many stories showing people around the world, including Muslims, celebrating Obama's victory. It seems a bit to me like Al Jazeera was trying to stir up a bit of conflict over something that didn't have much conflict in it. Most people internationally that I've read/heard about/talked to have been totally thrilled that Obama won, and it just seems like this is taking a dig at something that's not worth digging at. I guess though, after reading the article and the numerous responses from people around the world, articles like this provide a necessary platform for discussion.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/11/2008111404055793981.html

I haven’t written in a little while, but I keep thinking back to Darwish, which really struck me. It was disalarmingly human, and really showed how people cope with the horrors of war. He gave a situation that most Americans only read about or watched from a distance a real voice. (I know that we have read other things that also give people a voice, but the beauty of Darwish’s writing really drove his points home for me.) I think that my favorite line comes when he is talking about the ritual of making coffee . As he sits in his apartment in fear and only yearns for a cup of coffee, you can almost taste the want of something real and ordinary. He wrote “the first coffee, the virgin of the silent morning, is spoiled by the first words…”. Maybe because I am a coffee addict myself, I felt a real connection to what he was saying and how real he is in the world. The media portrays bombed buildings and the like, but actually hearing someone’s voice within a society humanizes what is happening. This human element is important and Darwish does an amazing job of explaining this through the relatively simple act, during peace, of drinking coffee. This routine becomes something else entirely in a time of war…

I guess I still haven’t explained where I’m coming from in relation to this class. I thought of it while I was reading Three Cups of Tea, David Oliver Relin’s book about a man named Greg Mortenson who goes to Pakistan to build schools for children across the region. Mortenson is such a remarkable man but seems more special to me in my final year of college, as he never really sought out to do what he became early in life. He was a mountain climber who stumbled into a village and realized that his life calling is to build schools for these children. Part of the reason that I think Mortenson was so willing to pick up his life and move to Pakistan for months at a time to help these people build a school (and later on goes to many villages to build schools, water lines, and other social necessities) is because he grew up in Tanzania with his missionary parents. This upbringing obviously gives him a very specific worldview.
Now, I am not about to tell you that I grew up at the foot of Everest or anything, but I did grow up traveling quite a bit. Through this I’ve gained a view of the world that has become an inherent part of me. When I read about India or Turkey on Al-jazeera, I think that I understand much of what they’re talking about because I’ve seen some of the places and met some of the people there. It’s not that you can’t understand if you haven’t actually been there, but it certainly makes it easier for me to relate to people knowing that I could possibly have laid eyes on them when I was there. I think that this is part of the reason why Mortenson gets such support for his Pakistani schools from the climbing society on the West Coast. The climbers had either been to K2, near the first town where Mortenson starts his building, or have hoped of going to the mountain. After seeing or reading indepthly about the people living in the mountains, the climbers felt connected to these locals.
I know this is a convoluted way to go about saying this, but the so-called Orientalist view is painfully obvious to me when I am at my family’s home in Nassau County. ::read- upper middle class sheltered neighborhood that only cares about what yacht club you belong to:: However, when I am in New York, and even more so when I am in Europe, I think that people are thinking differently, in a more worldly view. So while I agree that Orientalism is a way of defining one self as Western, educated, modern, etc., I do think that there are many many people who don’t identify themselves by putting others down and assuming that the “other” is living in a cave or a harem or something of the like. I think that if you’re defining yourself in a positive light by putting others down that it would be very difficult to act like Mortenson—selflessly living to help somebody else without being condescending. I hope this makes some sort of sense—these ideas that are so broad yet mean so much are sometimes hard to put down on paper (or blog).

I’ve been thinking recently about why I wasn’t too shocked with the TV and/or pop music videos that we watched in class. I guess that as a media student, I knew that the satellite market in the Middle East is huge, so I figured that there would be an array of programming. Although I do have to admit to being a little surprised by the ultra-sexualized music videos popularity. I would have assumed that these videos would be banned from Muslims’ TVs because of their portrayal of women, but I know that people have varying degrees of religiosity. Some of the characters on the shows also surprised me, not because of their sexual natures but because of how Western they looked, from hairstyles to dress.
Sami Yusuf is interesting for me because he is both a pop star and religious, something that I don’t think would happen in the US. Sure, we have some “religious pop music” but for the most part you would never even know that it was religious unless you were told, unlike Yusuf’s music, which is overtly religious. Really religious music is just not popular here, and I think that if someone listened to it, they would be a little ashamed. (Although that may be different in other parts of the country.) The way that Islam infiltrates so many aspects of Muslim’s lives is very interesting to me, and it’s interesting to see how it has an impact on the media and entertainment. This brings me straight to Ramadan TV, and the special serials that are produced there. I looked for a while online to try and find one that had English subtitles, but it was really hard. I think that the most fascinating aspect of Ramadan TV is the variation not only of programming, but of Production value as well. Some of the shows look like they were taped in a basement, while others are extremely produced. I talked to a friend of mine who is Tunisian and he was able to rattle off around 10 shows that he knows were popular this year. It’s interesting that these shows have served the purpose of bringing the family together to watch TV and talk about it, because I think that television in the West is seen as driving families apart. In the West, the TV is turned on at dinner so that no one has to talk to each other, but it seems that Ramadan TV provides something for everyone to discuss after breaking the fast, or just generally during the season.

My father just called and told me that Mumbai was being attacked. (I was in India a few years ago and he wanted to know if I knew where either of the hotels were in the city, but he forgot that I didn’t make it as far south as Mumbai.) Out of habit, I went immediately onto the New York Times website, only to be greeted by a front page that has nothing about Mumbai. So, now second nature, I went onto Al Jazeera website which had a story already written with fairly precise information. This seems to be what I’ve found with international news—Al Jazeera not only has the fastest news, but that it is accurate.

There are apparently seven different locations that are being attacked as we speak. I am so sorry for these people, and I hope it’s over soon. This is something that is so curious to me as a communications major. There are pictures and videos on CNN that are almost live. It is scary but fascinating that we can watch this type of attack on a play-by-play basis, something that is such a sign of our times. There are horrific pictures of people running and clutching their bloody limbs, trying to get away from attackers. I wonder what the technology being used today in the news will do for the future of current events coverage, because I can’t imagine seeing anything more up to the minute than what I’m watching right now. People who commit these attacks clearly know that this is what will happen, and are looking for the publicity that these attacks bring to them.

Even before we know who attacked Mumbai, the news reporters on CNN are saying that “India is paying the price for democracy” and for having Western ideals. The anchors have already said “Islamic” several times, but seem weary to point fingers too authoritatively before they know who is taking credit for the attack. Still though, “Muslim militants” are the first suspects who are even brought up. I can’t believe that all of these things are being said before we know anything….but I guess the sadder part is that I’m not all that surprised. I wish I could watch Al Jazeera! All of this is only reinforcing what we’ve read about. I have to go to class, but I’m sure I’ll be writing more later.

no Internet over Thanksgiving, sorry that I'm posting this a few days after writing it:

I guess that I have to admit that I wish the group who attacked Mumbai today were not Muslim. I would have been pretty self-righteous in telling people that Muslims are not the only people who do bad things. I know that they are not, but the news that we get of mass killings and terror attacks seem to tell the American people otherwise. I separate mass killings and terror attacks because they are not the same. I believe that these people could have killed many more people if they wished to last night. The publicity that they get from attacking places where high profile people and tourists are makes a much bigger splash on international news. I’m guessing that if a hundred people were killed in a local market or something such as that, it would have only been a scrolling on the bottom of the screen, if that, rather than taking over many news channels as ::breaking news::
I wonder what the American news channel in Iraq makes of this. I’m guessing that that don’t have a lot of tact in saying that this was a Muslim group who were apparently doing this in hopes of turning India into a Muslim state, which is what CNN and other news channels are saying here.
There was another curious thing. After Decca Mujahideen came out and said that they were responsible, all that the news anchors and experts said was that they had never heard of the group. However, all that it took for me to at learn at least the meaning was a quick Googling of the words that were flashing on the screen. It seemed as if everyone was complacent in their not knowing much about what was happening on the streets, even though there were live news feeds of what was going on. People seemed to be relieved that this wasn’t Al Qaeda, understandably, but there wasn’t much talk about discovering who this group was. I’m guessing that will come out in the coming days…

I have to say that overall, I enjoyed blogging and having access to everyone’s views on what we were covering in class. The blog also opened up my eyes to what was going on in the world around me, and to think critically about what I read or saw through the lens of the Clash or Orientalism. I was surprised by how often these thoughts popped into my head after we had discussed something in class. I guess this happens a lot when you have a thought provoking class, but it seemed as if everywhere I turned had to do with class, from a newspaper to museums.
After this semester, I enjoy looking at the news in a different light. After studying media for three full years, I think that most of us in class understand certain aspects of western journalism and are weary of it. For instance, all of us are savvy audience members who can recognize a bias when is comes up in the media. Those biases are sometimes expected by everyone. Fox News is conservative, NPR is liberal. But media biases also exist beneath the views’ radar. This, I believe is dangerous. I think this is the case for a lot of American audience members looking at the Middle East. Seeing the meaning of something outside of yourself is humility, which is something that I think Americans, if I can generalize, are missing. There is a humility that makes you proud—to see the meaning of something else is good but sometimes takes courage or a different perspective. To take the time to sit down and see either the ‘big picture’ or to contemplate the other side is to try and be just.
I know that many people don’t have the time to sit and read a bunch of different newspapers to get their views, but it is important to remember that there are other sources for news other than your own countries, or from people who definitely share your point of view. It has been so interesting for me to read Al Jazeera online, and I think it really gives me more of a world view than an American newspaper, such as the New York Times, which is what I regularly read. It gives me a bit of a thrill to be able to get any news that I want, at any time of day, which I guess is why I like being a Comm student because I get to learn all of the many ways that it's possible for me to do so.