Update on the caricatures
So it seems that the conflict around the cartoons of the prophet has entered a new stage with the European press displaying no longer images of burning flags, but of burning embassies and consulates. Once more, we are seeing pictures of an angry, mostly male Muslim mob, what commentators sometimes call "the Arab Street".
The pictures that are broadcast are disturbing for two reasons. First, because they show an enraged population, which, we are led to believe, is ready to attack European citizens, simply because of their nationality and irrespective of their role in this whole issue. Those who are attacked (whether in reality or only symbolically, through chants, slogans, threats, boycotts) are guilty not through their action, but by association. That is not acceptable.
But there is a second reason why the images we are fed by TVs and newspapers are troubling and disconcerting. They display a nameless crowd, a mass of people who lack individual features and characteristics. The participants here are not asked to tell their stories. They, like the Danes, function as symbols. They are there to shout, chant and threaten. What has to appear on the screen is not an explanation, an argument, but a horde, a gang and a pack. These people are dangerous because of their number, and, significantly, because of their irrationality.
This irrationality, an incapacity to think clearly, logically and calmly is a classic feature of how Europeans have represented Muslims over the course of the past few hundred years. Typically, Muslims have been represented as prone to violence, brutality and carnage, as subject to the sweet seduction, the lull of the waterpipe or the sermons of the imams. And once again today, Islam is represented as the religion of violence. But the violence we are seeing today is not an unexpected outburst. In what might seem like a historical irony, it was already announced in the caricatures that originally appeared in the Jyllands-Posten. Recall that one of the major themes of these cartoons was precisely the violent aspect of Islam. Paradoxically, it is those who oppose this representation, the protesters in the streets, who now seem to corroborate and authorize it ex post facto. Unwittingly, the protesters are participating in the reprodcution of the fiction that Islam is a violent religion, that its adherents are irrational and prone to excess and blood-shedding.
It is too easy to accept these images as the truth about Islam. But it is also too easy to simply blame the European media for these representations. Indeed, we have to think through
this more carefully. The "Arab Street" is far less of an spontaneous, immediate force than we are led to think. There is no way that such demonstrations, protest marches and rallies could take place in any Arab country without at least the silent accord of the government. Let's not forget that all Middle Eastern countries without exception have very strong internal security services that keep tabs on everything that is going on in the country. Let's also remember that all of them have sizeable police and military forces, which have been used against their own populations in the past. And let's not forget that most of them (save Lebanon) are ruled by autocrats.
Why then, this sudden burst of public outcry, this moment of mobilization? What interest do Arab rulers have in seeing this kind of protest on the streets?
The answer here is pretty obvious: the Islamist organizations, above all the Muslim Brotherhood (ihwaat al-muslimin) are increasingly popular in many Arab countries and are a major threat to the incumbent governments. The Islamists tend to criticize their governments for the corruption, dishonesty and sleaze that has become a hallmark of the administrations and bureaucracies of the Arab world. They also tend to attack governments for their lack of social welfare programs and for wasting their (oil) resources on grand status project instead of helping the poor.
Arab governments, in particular those who sit on a powder keg (as is the case in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria) have all the interest in the world to deflect the anger and wrath of the Islamists away from domestic politics towards foreigners and the European press.
Those you see on TV, the angry Arab mob are only the pawns, who are being played like a fiddle by everyone involved. That does not justify their attacks against consulates or the like, but at least it puts it in context.
The pictures that are broadcast are disturbing for two reasons. First, because they show an enraged population, which, we are led to believe, is ready to attack European citizens, simply because of their nationality and irrespective of their role in this whole issue. Those who are attacked (whether in reality or only symbolically, through chants, slogans, threats, boycotts) are guilty not through their action, but by association. That is not acceptable.
But there is a second reason why the images we are fed by TVs and newspapers are troubling and disconcerting. They display a nameless crowd, a mass of people who lack individual features and characteristics. The participants here are not asked to tell their stories. They, like the Danes, function as symbols. They are there to shout, chant and threaten. What has to appear on the screen is not an explanation, an argument, but a horde, a gang and a pack. These people are dangerous because of their number, and, significantly, because of their irrationality.
This irrationality, an incapacity to think clearly, logically and calmly is a classic feature of how Europeans have represented Muslims over the course of the past few hundred years. Typically, Muslims have been represented as prone to violence, brutality and carnage, as subject to the sweet seduction, the lull of the waterpipe or the sermons of the imams. And once again today, Islam is represented as the religion of violence. But the violence we are seeing today is not an unexpected outburst. In what might seem like a historical irony, it was already announced in the caricatures that originally appeared in the Jyllands-Posten. Recall that one of the major themes of these cartoons was precisely the violent aspect of Islam. Paradoxically, it is those who oppose this representation, the protesters in the streets, who now seem to corroborate and authorize it ex post facto. Unwittingly, the protesters are participating in the reprodcution of the fiction that Islam is a violent religion, that its adherents are irrational and prone to excess and blood-shedding.
It is too easy to accept these images as the truth about Islam. But it is also too easy to simply blame the European media for these representations. Indeed, we have to think through
this more carefully. The "Arab Street" is far less of an spontaneous, immediate force than we are led to think. There is no way that such demonstrations, protest marches and rallies could take place in any Arab country without at least the silent accord of the government. Let's not forget that all Middle Eastern countries without exception have very strong internal security services that keep tabs on everything that is going on in the country. Let's also remember that all of them have sizeable police and military forces, which have been used against their own populations in the past. And let's not forget that most of them (save Lebanon) are ruled by autocrats.
Why then, this sudden burst of public outcry, this moment of mobilization? What interest do Arab rulers have in seeing this kind of protest on the streets?
The answer here is pretty obvious: the Islamist organizations, above all the Muslim Brotherhood (ihwaat al-muslimin) are increasingly popular in many Arab countries and are a major threat to the incumbent governments. The Islamists tend to criticize their governments for the corruption, dishonesty and sleaze that has become a hallmark of the administrations and bureaucracies of the Arab world. They also tend to attack governments for their lack of social welfare programs and for wasting their (oil) resources on grand status project instead of helping the poor.
Arab governments, in particular those who sit on a powder keg (as is the case in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria) have all the interest in the world to deflect the anger and wrath of the Islamists away from domestic politics towards foreigners and the European press.
Those you see on TV, the angry Arab mob are only the pawns, who are being played like a fiddle by everyone involved. That does not justify their attacks against consulates or the like, but at least it puts it in context.
posted by Yves at 2/05/2006 03:18:00 PM
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