Excerpted from AG NOORANI, Islam and Jihad
(New Delhi: Leftword, 2002)
“The Media and the Burden of History” (pp 31-34)
[….]Western media wields considerable influence in many third World countries. In an extremely able survey Daya Kishen Thussu demonstrated that the Western media “projects Islam as inimical to civilized values. The demonizing of Islam fits in well with the Western geo-political interests in arms and oil. Today, after the demise of communist states, when Islam is being seen as a security threat to the West, the media in the Muslim world needs to devise ways and means to reduce the dependency on western news sources.”
The writer pointed out that “with the expansion of western electronic empires, western media have instant global reach though satellite and cable technology. Western and, more specifically, Anglo-American media dominate the world’s online services, television, radio and print journalism”.
“The bulk of international television news is disseminated though western news organizations- both raw footage from TV news agencies such as Reuters Television, Worldwide Television News and APTV, and completed reports from satellite and cable-based organizations such as CNN, Sky and BBC. The Voice of America and the BBC World Service, with their various language services, dominate the world’s airwaves”.
“Of the world’s four biggest international news agencies Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters and Agence France Presse, the first three are Anglo-American, and between them the four disseminate nearly 80 per cent of global news. Despite having international staff, these companies promote, consciously or unconsciously, a western, and more specifically, an Anglo-American, news agenda.”
Moreover, virtually all major English-language newspapers in India and news magazines proudly carry regular commentaries and features from western newspapers and magazines, thanks to syndication arrangements. Thus western news organizations wield great influence in setting and then building a global news agenda, conforming to western interests.
Many Indian journals ‘mimic’ the idiom of Western media and adopt its language, news, values and styles. Thussu cities a specific instance. When P.V.Narasimha Rao visited the United States in 1994 one Indian periodical ran a 20 page cover story ‘Pan-Islamic Fundamentalism Exporting Terror’ on the so-called threat from militant Islam that India faced.
A consultation paper produced by the Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, set up by the Runnymede Trust in 1996, entitled Islamophobia provides illustrative example of the results which the media and the burden of history have produced in British society. The Commission was headed by Prof. Gordon Conway, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex. Among its members were: Dr. Zaki Badawi, Principal of the Muslim College, London, The Rt. Revd. Richard Charters, Bishop of London (till December 1996), Ian Hargreaves, editor of New Statesman, Dr. Philip Lewis, adviser on inter-faith issues to the Bishop of Bradford, Zahida Manzoor, chair of Bradford Health Authority, Rabbi Julia Neuberger, trustee of the Runnymede Trust, Trevor Philips, chair of the Runnymede Trust, Dr. Sebastian Poulter, reader in law at the University of Southampton, Usha Prasahar, civil service commissioner, Nasreen Nehman, Trustee of the Runnymede Trust, Saba Risaluddin, director of the Calumus Foundation, Imam Dr. Abduljalil Sajid, director of the Sussex Muslim Society, Dr. Richard Stone, chair of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, The Revd. John Webber, adviser on inter-faith issues to the Bishop of Stepney.
Conway wrote in his foreword: “If you doubt whether Islamophobia exists in Britain, I suggest you spend a week reading, as I have done, a range of national and local papers. If you look for articles which refer to Muslims or to Islam you will find prejudiced and antagonistic comments, mostly subtle but sometimes blatant and crude. Where the media lead, many will follow. British Muslims suffer discrimination in their education and in the workplace. Acts of harassment and violence against Muslims are common.”
The consultation paper said: “Islamophobia is dread or hatred of Islam and of Muslims. It has existed in western countries and cultures for several centuries but in the last twenty years has become more explicit, more extreme and more dangerous. It is an ingredient of all sections of the media, and is prevalent in all sections of society.”
It listed seven features of Islamophobic discourse. “1. Muslim cultures seen as monolithic and unchanging. 2. Claims that Muslims cultures are wholly different from other cultures. 3. Islam perceived as implacably threatening. 4. Claims that Islam’s adherents use their faith mainly for political or military advantage. 5. Muslim criticisms of Western cultures and societies rejected out of hand. 6. Fear of Islam mixed with racist hostility to immigration. 7. Islamophobia assumed to be natural and unproblematic.”
There are four main perceptions of “Islam as threat”: Muslim colonization; chief threat to global peace; “there will be wars”; and “the hooded hordes will win”. This is what Charles Moore, editor of The Spectator wrote: “You can be British without speaking English or being Christian or being white, but nevertheless Britain is basically English-speaking, Christian and white, and if one starts to think that it might become basically Urdu-speaking and Muslim and brown, one gets frightened and angry… . because of our obstinate refusal to have enough babies, Western European civilization will start to die at the point when it could have been revived with new blood. Then the hooded hordes will win, and the Koran will be taught, as Gibbon famously imagined, in the schools of Oxford.”
Readers of the RSS organs Organiser and Panchjanya (Hindi) will be struck by the affinities between Islamophobes in the West and in India, very “natural allies”.
A.G. Noorani is a lawyer, historian and author who lives in Mumbai.