Quote:
|
Originally Posted by roachboy
in some recent posts in the context of debates about the "war on terrorism"
i found myself linking the war on terrorism to domestic racism. by coincidence, i ran across the following on al jazeera's english website--an article/advert for a new documentary from morgan spurlock, the guy who made "supersize me"---read on:
source: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...8FF3390E08.htm
there is much of interest in the above which goes beyond the pr function of the article as a whole:
1. the apparent lack of information about the most basic features of islam abroad in the states--i find the quote from dave stacy taken from the start of the adventure that defines a muslim as "someone with an ak-47, at war with someone" to be a dispiriting reflection of the way in which islam is framed by the major media apparatus in the context of marketing bushwar as if it was a rational response to 9/11.....
2. the kinds of questions that seem obvious to be asked about 9/11 and other such attacks from the two commuities being brought into contact across the theater of this film are also quite interesting: the question of analysis, of understanding why somone would undertake an irrational action on the order of flying jets into the trade center seems evident, fundamental--from this viewpoint, everything about the bushresponse to 9/11 is beside the point, was beside the point, remains beside the point.
what i find really quite interesting is stacy's response to encountering this way of thinking about the bushwar on "terror"--he thought he was being unpatriotic by considering such questions.
this is like peering down into a vast tunnel of structuted idiocy--and it confirms (in a backhanded way) the otherwise bizarre tendency in right ideology of the past few years--the equation of learning, the desire to learn--when it comes to the main signifiers that prop up the bush administration--with weakness. this boundary--the one that distinguishes "patriotic" and "unpatriotic" in the view of someone like stacy is interesting: what is this boundary? where does it comes from?
or: how did we arrive at a place where wondering about context as it shapes/impinges upon political action something that could possibly be understood as "unamerican" or "unpatriotic"? what is the inverse of this? ignorance=patriotism? where did this come from? i am genuinely bewildered by it...
i am not making any claims about the film--i havent seen it, this is a bit of buzzcreation--but nonetheless these issues are quite interesting and i for one am glad they are being raised. |
I'll say to start off with that I'm not a big fan of Spurlock. His documentary "super-size me" I found ridiculous to the extreme. The fact that he was able to wrangle a tv series out of that (as well as the acclaim he recieved) stuns me.
As to this show (it's an episode of a series which follows the same 30-day form), when I read about it I thought IT was racist. The way I read it seemed similar to how you would promote a freak show or circus:
"See the AMAZING AMERICAN as he enters the den of the...
MUSLIM !!!
WATCH as he grows a
BEARD !!!
THRILL as he goes to a
MOSQUE !!!
SUFFER as he is
DENIED PORK !!!"
and so on (some artistic licence taken). To me, it seems the best way to try to make any understanding between differing groups of people isn't to accentuate those differences.
As to what was described in the article, there are a couple of key things I'll address. First:
Quote:
A dinner discussion where Stacy questioned why Muslim Americans had not come out more strongly and condemned the attacks on the World Trade Centre created one of the most illustrative scenes on the divide of viewpoints.
"There are deeper issues about Muslims in that region (Middle East)... We can't just say these people are crazy. We need to ask what would make them so crazy that they would do that"
Shamael Haque, Stacy's host for 30 days, speaking about 9/11
Shamael Haque's view was that in post 9/11 America the key questions were simply not being asked.
"There are deeper issues about Muslims in that region, and what would lead a person to do something as irrational as that. But if people do ask questions, then they are viewed as unpatriotic," he says.
"We can't just say these people are crazy. We need to ask what would make them so crazy that they would do that."
|
You can both condemn and work to understand. They are not mutually exclusive. I don't need to work to understand Hit...Stalin to condemn how he behaved, unless I think there's some valid reason that could excuse his actions. McVeigh was mentioned later in the article, there were no shortage of Americans who condemned him publicly. The same was not seen with the 9/11 attacks from the muslim community.
And in general, the exchange seems to be one-sided. Americans seem to be portrayed in the piece (as I gathered from the article) as ignorant hillbillies recieving education from their perfect Muslim hosts. That adds a staged feeling.
As to how questioning can be seen as unpatriotic, I touched upon that above. Trying to understand lends the impression that terrorist acts can be justified, which is an opinion that many people would find unpatriotic. Also, in wartime asking questions does undermine war efforts (regardless of if the questions are valid) so there's a reason anyone running a war would want to make any questioning undesired.
Quote:
another index of the racist effects of the way in which this administration has chosen to frame its Adversary:
linked from the story above....
what do you make of all this?
|
There is no room for hate crimes against muslims. I can understand them, but they are wrong. However, as to the racial profiling, I see little wrong with that. Being black, I'm racially profiled constantly and I make it through life. SUre, it's wrong and yadda yadda yadda, but it's not going away. And if blacks/muslims really want profiling to stop they should work on stopping the crime/terrorism disproportionally found in their respective groups and quit blaming others. Sure, their should be some help from those who helped contribute to the conditions that breed crime/terrorism, but when someone in the community tries to place some responsibility at the source, they are usually yelled down (Bill Cosby comes to mind).
Quote:
caveat: i know, i know--the folk from the right are going to see aljazeera linked and immediately revert to repeating the rumsfeld platitudes about it that you see relayed and ridiculed in "control room"--that al jazeera is somehow "unamerican" because it does not operate within the frame of the american press pool, does not simply focus on questions framed in such a way as to reasure americans of the rightness of everything they think, say and do. i have thought this accusation bullshit from the earliest phase of its repetition...i doubt seriously that anyone from the right will have anything substantive to say or post about al jazeera that goes beyond these television cliches about it. ....
[[note: my apologies for the typo in the thread title--drinking my morning coffee while typing has some consequences it seems.....]]]
|
If you don't think al jazeera is biased, you aren't paying attention. But I do agree that dismissing anything out of hand can be wrong. Liberals should remember this the next time they see something linked from Fox News.