Anti-Islamist Ramadan Serials

Hassan Fattah of the New York Times (following about four dozen similar articles elsewhere) notes that there are some interesting Ramadan serials this year which challenge or denigrate radical Islamists and jihadis.   In the midst of some otherwise useful analysis of the increasing centrality of the media realm to both Islamists and their opponents, Fattah offers a money quote -  "It is the first time in Arab drama that you see people who believe in the Koran and faith doing bad" - which is simply absurd.   

There have been plenty of anti-Islamist films and serials broadcast on Arab TV, during Ramadan and at other times - with the Egyptian media campaign of the early 1990s the premiere case.   Lila Abu Lughod's fascinating book on Egyptian television serials offers some good examples.   For example:

In 1993, newspapers trumpeted the new policy announced by the Minister of Information, Safwat al-Sharif, of "confronting terrorism with media." ... It suddenly became acceptable for a writer like Usama Anwar 'Ukasha, who had earlier battled with censors over the inclusion fo a mosque scene... in the third installment of his celebrated serial Hilmiyya Nights to feature as a key character a young man who had joined an extremist Islamist group and to show how two characters who had collaborated with the British suddenly become 'pious' and then swindle people through their Islamic investment company. 

Abu Lughod also relates an intense national controversy in 1994 over the serial Al-A'ila (The Family), "whose screenplay had been allegedly held up for three years (given only the excuse 'we are unable to present a serial on terrorism') was produced to great fanfare and some controversy."  It told the story of "a troubled college graduate who, after having family problems and being raped, searches for meaning first in materialism and then in an Islamist group."   The portrayal of the Islamist group suggested a brainwashing cult, which warned parents about letting them seduce their children;  the lead actor explained that "we need to admit that there is a 'lack of awareness' among people that left an empty field to be filled by words said in the name of religion.  This is what facilitates irrational terrorism."  Islamists protested bitterly about the portrayal of Islam and Islamists.

In March 1994, Abu Lughod writes, Egyptian TV broadcast a videotaped "confession" of a repentant Islamist, who revealed that his Islamist colleagues were degenerate criminals who "engaged in a form of wife-swapping."   These televised "repentant militants" became something of a staple of the Egyptian anti-Islamist media campaign.    And then, of course, there is al-Irhabi (The Terrorist), the blockbuster 1994 Adel Imam film portraying Islamists as sex-starved, corrupt, illiterate criminals and the secular bourgeoisie - and the national football team - as the enlightened hope for the nation.   

So, not to say that broadcasting anti-Islamist serials and films is a bad idea. Nor that there aren't more of them right now than have been there in recent years.  Just that it is hardly novel - many of these media strategies (the serials celebrated in Fattah's piece, the militant confessions on Iraqi TV) have been tried before, in Egypt.  There's a bit of a template, and a track record, here which shouldn't be whitewashed for the sake of a good newspaper story.

Meanwhile, the other big Ramadan serials story is al-Shitat, the serial based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was running on Mamnou, a private Jordanian satellite station based in its Free Media Zone.  After MEMRI and some other watchdogs called attention to it (remember "Mike"?), the Jordanian government started feeling heat, allegedly from Israel and the American government (but that isn't confirmed, just what some reports are saying), to take it off the air.  The other day, the Jordanian government complied, and al-Shitat ceased broadcasting.   

At one level, that's all to the good:  it seems to have been a nasty little program, and fanning the flames of anti-Semitism in the region shouldn't be tolerated.  At a second level, it's fueling the common feeling of persecution and double standards among many Arabs and Muslims - "proving" to them how "World Zionism" polices the world's media.   My response to that is, well, so what?  They should feel heat when the broadcast irresponsible things - which this by available accounts seems to have been.   

A third level is a bit more disturbing, though, and has little to do with al-Shitat itself - it has to do with the Free Media Zone.  The whole premise of the Media Zone - and of Mamnou - is that it is independent of the government, and free of state censorship.  No matter how good the cause, this intervention by the Jordanian authorities into Mamnou's programming throws the credibility of those guarantees into real doubt.  If the Jordanian government can and will intervene over this, why would any station broadcasting out of the Zone believe that it wouldn't intervene over, say, a critical report on Jordanian human rights, or of American foreign policy, or anything else?   

Comments

[David]

Funnily enough Rory McCarthy in the Guardian has an op/ed today about anti-Islamist Ramadan serials, concentrating on 'al-Hour al-Eyn'.

[the aardvark]

THanks for the link - there have been about a million of these articles, which is partly to do with the importance of the serials and partly to do with an aggressive PR job by their producers who want the West to know what a great job they are doing.

I think that it's fascinating to see - and to follow the debates they've been sparking in the press and in private. It's just not as novel as Fattah and others claim, is all, and the Egyptian experience might offer some insights into how this campaign is going to work out.