[Mb-civic] Media Incitement Inflames The Middle East

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

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http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2006-02/08schechter.cfm

==================================

ZNet Commentary
Media Incitement Inflames The Middle East 
February 08, 2006
By Danny Schechter

Mediachannel.org

DOHA, QATAR February 5: World be warned: the modern centurions in the
Pentagon have finally surfaced their plans for "long war," a  "defense"
posture designed to put the United States on a permanent global war
without end footing. The announcement was greeted in the Arab World-where
I have just spent a week-- with a "ho-hum" response as if to say 'so
what's new?"

Memories in this part of the world are long and go back to the brutality
of the crusades and more recent Western colonization. A protest by Muslims
in Britain against those cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad renamed
the BBC, The "British Broadcasting Crusaders." Some factions in
Palestinian refugee camps called on Osama bin Laden for revenge even as
more sober leaders, including those from Hamas, counseled restraint.

Many Arabs believe they are in a long war with the west already,
culturally denigrated in our press, under physical bombardment in Iraq,
and new threats in Iran. Many feel treated as by the west as children who
must be lectured or spanked constantly. They are applauded for going to
the polls but then have foreign assistance yanked for voting wrongly.

A Danish media exercise in free speech last September that many in the
West dismiss as no big thing, has been followed by pro-forma calls on
Arabs who protest to become more thick-skinned and "get over it."  After
all, it is argued, it's only an illustration by one man

There has been in some quarters a sanctimonious insistence that uncensored
freedom of the press is absolute without much awareness that the cultures
in an uproar are not societies with traditions of tolerance. (Would the
reaction have been any different if the cartons were crudely racist or
anti-semitic?)

A fierce debate is now raging as Danish Embassies are attacked by people
using the issue to score points who make as few distinctions about people
in the West as the cartoonist did about the Prophet Mohammad. Many Arabs
are challenging their own culture too. Sheik Hamza Yusuf gave a lecture in
Doha saying one man made a stupid cartoon, to blame a whole nation is
disproportionate and unislamic. According to a blogger who was there, he
also remarked, "We Muslims should ask ourselves what have we done to
encourage people to draw a cartoon of the Prophet like that, and more in a
similar vein."

In an editorial, England's Guardian made some sensible distinctions: "The
Guardian believes uncompromisingly in freedom of expression but not in any
duty to gratuitously offend. It would be senselessly provocative to
reproduce a set of images of no intrinsic value which pander to the worst
prejudices about Muslims." (As media platform, Mediachannel reprinted the
cartoons to inform a deeper discussion, a decision I am not comfortable
with.)

The cartoons themselves touched a nerve that was already raw and are
symbolic of a great gap in perceptions that is getting wider.

Perhaps that's why the Al Jazeera Media forum I attended here in Qatar
began with a debate about what role the media should play. Should we in
the media try to bridge the divides that lead to hate and conflict or
should we just report them?  Should media outlets intentionally or
unintentionally incite confrontations? Can media irresponsibility be
defended in the name of press freedom?

Is there another way?

Behind the veils of the women and beyond the anger of the men in the Arab
world is a worldview reflected in their media but missing in ours. As a
result, their frame on the news is as different as their feelings about
what's behind all the mistrust. Bear in mind also that Arab societies are
far more politicized then our own.

Writing this week in Beirut's Daily Star, the respected columnist Rami C.
Khouri cited a University of Maryland study of attitudes in the Arab world
showing that hatred towards US policies is growing even in countries
nominally allied with the US.

"One of the significant findings," he writes. 'Is that Arab citizens by a
margin of 75% did not believe that democracy was the real objective of
American efforts to promote reform and change in the Arab world.. Very
large majorities of Arabs believed that the main motives of American
policies in the Middle East 'were oil, protecting Israel, dominating the
region, and weakening the Muslim World."

For many, the litmus test of Washington's professions is how it deals with
Hamas which swept a Parliamentary election in Palestine.  Already the US
is, in effect, collectively punishing a whole people who voted for a party
that ran on a "change and reform" program.   One Al Jazeera reporter
quipped to me, "I thought Bush supported faith-based politics."

In an essay titled "Yes to a Just Peace" in Dubai's Khaleej Times, Khaled
Mishaal, head of the political bureau of Hamas, lashes out at governments
which "failed the test of democracy" by their refusal to accept the will
of Palestinian voters by cutting off aid.  He says Hamas is willing to
seek peace "based on justice."  He insists they do not hate Jews as Jews
but rather oppose Israeli policies and practices. "Our conflict with you
is not religious," he says, "but political." This approach has many
adherents in the region even among those that do not support terrorism of
any kind by any party to the conflict."

Here we go again, as tensions mount once again, with Palestine once again
at the center of it. Pouring oil on the fire are provocative and offensive
cartoons uniting Muslims who are divided on many political issues but feel
a duty to defend their religion from disrespect. Isn't it time for more
real balance and diversity of perspective in our media? Instead of
responding to insults with more insults, we should demand more in-depth
nuanced coverage and less stereotyping.

I was struck by many Arab voices at the Al Jazeera Forum who noted that
there is less media freedom and room for the expression of all views in
the US in most of our media outlets than they have in their societies.
They see our media as keeping Americans uninformed almost by design.

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman's denunciation of the embedded war 
reporting
were applauded as were remarks by South Africa's Allister Sparks that the
American media has hit a new low when it comes to timely coverage of the
world.

As fresh revelations emerge about President Bush's deliberate deceptions
in collusion with Tony Blair in warring on Iraq, key information never
reported at the time, the reality of our "failed press" is  becoming more
and more evident.

Many "news" outlets should be renamed "the olds"

"News Dissector" Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org. His latest books
are "When News Lies" and "The Death of the Media." See
newsdissector.org/store.htm. Comments to dissector at medichannel.org

***

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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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