JAMAAT AL-MUSLIMEEN FORUM
(Ms. Nadrat Siddique writes from University of Maryland)
Washington Post etc: The Forces Behind the 'Honor Killing' Propaganda
Links Between the Media and the Power Structure
Despite any vestiges of truth in the Washington Post article on women
inPakistan, and the legitimate claims of the women's rights movement
there(women have always had to fight for our rights--they have never been
"given" to us), I think the fact that we're all forgetting is the
nature of mass media in this country. Starting from World War II (or
earlier), when the media was used to denigrate the Japenese to ease the public
conscience around their arbitrary and unconstitutional internment in
prison camps on U.S. soil, in complete contradiction to the
putative democratic ideals of this country, and their holocaust in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this institution has traditionally played the
role of facilitator of U.S. government policy, labelling, blackballing, and
stereotyping the group or nation-state which is to be the next target
of an amoral and profit-driven U.S. foreign policy.
The current monopoly in media is evidenced by the dearth of
competing daily newspapers in any major U.S. city, and the incredible
pressure which is placed on alternative papers until they are forced
out of business, or to scale down to non-competitive levels. Prime
examples of this type of quashing was of the "Washington Star," in my own city,
and of the "Baltimore African-American," in Baltimore. (For more on this,
read "The Media Monopoly," by Ben Bagdikian, published by the media
watchgroup, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (F.A.I.R.)) A
monopolized media, by its very nature (since there are few voices to
counteract it), is far more susceptible to government and corporate
control than a multi-faceted media, as exists in some parts of Europe.
If Islam (or "radical Islam," ie, any form of Islam which doesn't
accede to Western neocolonialism and cultural imperialism in Muslim
countries)--as Senate counterintelligence committee reports, and
a plethora of position papers published by the Department of Defense at
Fort Leslie McNair (available at all Government Printing Offices)
bluntly state--is the new enemy, replacing the Evil Empire in all its
inauspiciousness, then it would seem that the demonization which is by
turns applied to the current "Public Enemy No. 1" might now be applied
to Muslims, and to Muslim countries, to "neutralize" any potential
sympathies for those countries. Thus, the public outcry which might arise as a
result of a U.S. onslaught is quelched. Such was the case when the
U.S. bombed Tripoli, Bagdad, Khartoum, or Afghanistan, in each
instance preceding and succeeding the campagin with a barrage of
propagandistic reporting against the targeted party. No conspiracy is
at work here, only the practicality of a government which knows that it
is easier to carry out a campaign (and to fund it), when public sentiments
disfavour the target. And practiced war criminals (such as
Washington) are very practical indeed.
It is in this context that one must examine reporting on Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and many other Muslim countries. One analytical method is to
select a major newspaper, such as the Washington Post, and to read it on a
daily basis. Since returning from Afghanistan in 1990, I followed the Post
reporting on the subject, on not quite a daily basis--since I am in
school, and time is limited--but close to it. I wondered at the lack of
reporting on the positive efforts and struggles to rebuild the country by the
democratically elected government of Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani
(Jamiat-e-Islami). The only reports coming out of Afghanistan in this
time interval were of internecine fighting among the various Afghan
factions and the claimed haplessness of the Rabbani government. Nothing
on the real starvation risk faced by many Afghans. And nothing on
violations of women's rights.
Then followed a period of coalition rule, in which power was shared by
Rabbani, Hizb-e-Islami leader Hikmatyr, Hizb-e-Islami (the other
Hizb) leader Abdul Rasoul Sayyaf, and others. Again, little or no
reporting on the steadfast efforts by this coalition to rebuild the country. And
nothing on the conditions of women.
Then the Taliban came to power. There were suddenly reports of
women's rights violations in the country. Many of the complaints were
legitimate, and resulted from the Taliban heavyhand which extended to
both men and women, in their effort to keep order during the transfer of
power in a very volatile political climate. At any rate, most of the
violations were rectified by the Taliban when they were confronted with
them--indeed the Taliban appeared quite open to compromise. The complaints
continued however, in many instances fueled by Afghan women members of the
residual Khalq and Parcham communist parties.
(For those not up on their Afghan history, these parties had prevailed
under the Afghan communist "President," Najibullah and his predecessors,
against the will of the vast majority of Afghans, who had opposed them
in popular uprisings beginning in 1978.) These young members of the
Afghan equivalent of the Comintern went to the extent of launching
propagandistic websites, which might be mistaken as containing factual information by
the unsuspecting. The Afghan government, with its resources strained from
years of war, attempted to answer, but the high tech propaganda of the
Khalqi and Parchamis prevailed.
Not long after, Afghanistan became tagged with another label: aider
and abetter of a terrorist. Afghanistan, like most sovereign nations,
exercising its right to allow entry and residence within its borders to
individuals of its chosing, allowed Osama bin Ladin to remain in
Afghanistan, after the U.S., in the absence of any solid evidence,
labelled him the ringleader of an international terrorist ring.
Shortly thereafter, camps in Afghanistan's Southern region were bombed
in an unprecedented violation of International Law, ostensibly to
destroy "terrorist camps," in the region. The policies hadn't changed
since Vietnam: Blackball 'em, THEN bomb 'em, then starve 'em into
submission. Only we've forgotten the policies.
Pakistan, like Afghanistan, was a region on which coverage by the
national newsmedia was, until recently, scarce. Reports on the
condition of women were few and far between when Benazir Bhutto was in
power. Likewise for much of Nawaz Sharif's term of office. The
condition of women in Pakistan, of which a thorough and insightful analysis is
possible only if one resists the urge to apply the usual eurocentric barometer,
certainly warrants improvement. This condition, however, has remained
more or less constant for the past decade or so, since the women's
movement, to my knowledge, has not been able to mobilize the support or
to apply tactics which might be effective in ameliorating their status in
a Muslim country, in which, by Qur'anic injunction, women are given
equal rights with men. This is comparable to the existence of laws
prohibiting sexual harassment in the U.S.--such protections exist, but often are
not invoked by the victims of sexual harassment due to lack of knowledge,
resources, fear, etc. In the Pakistani case, this has much to do with
the women's own lack of other than a perfunctory knowledge of Qur'an and
hadith, a shortcoming which they share with their male counterparts,
who only memorize the verses of the Quran, with little or no understanding
of its meaning.
When Mussharaf came to power, he stepped out of line by refusing the
U.S. ultimatum to hold an election when the U.S. wanted it (as if the
U.S. is some kind of universal election monitoring committee--perhaps
we ought monitor elections in the two countries to whom we give the most foreign
aid--Israel and Egypt--since amendments to the U.S. constitution
prohibit aid to countries which are gross violators of human rights). Suddenly,
there was oppression of women in Pakistan (although nothing had changed
within Pakistan itself)!
Sensationalized reporting of the bizarre and violent has long been a
hallmark of local Pakistani newspapers, as it is in the U.S. National
Enquirer and other tabloids. Depraved and senseless acts of violence
occur in every country, every day; and usually they are treated as
depraved and senselesss acts, rather than as the norm of that
society. Which is why one's natural skepticism should be aroused when
a previously apathetic media suddenly become hyperobsessed with the
conditions in a Muslim country, and lead one to ask: Which political
initiative is this political propagandizing in support of?
2001-12-10 21:39ct