BY IMAM RASHIED OMAR
On July 11 this year NNTV, the educational channle of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) had planned to screen the film "Jihad in America" by Steve Emerson. However, a few days before the screening, NNTV announced that it was to withdraw the film mainly due to pressure from Muslim groups in the country. Late last month, NNTV announced that it will now screen the film on November 14 and that the screening will be followed by a panel discussion on the merits or demerits of the film. The FXI invited Imam Rashied Omar from the Institute for Comparative Religion in Southern Africa at the University of Cape Town, who has already viewed the film, to share his thoughts on the issue surrounding the film ahead of the screening. However, as the Update went to press, NNTV announced that the film had again been pulled from the air. We decided to print Iman Rashied's article nevertheless.
On the 14 November 1995, NNTV will be airing Steven Emerson's controversial documentary, "Jihad in America". The screening will be followed by a one hour panel discussion during which the merits of the film will be debated. Some Muslims will oppose the screening of the documentary, claiming that it offends the religious sensibilities of all Muslims. Others, not surprisingly those with a track-record of anti-apartheid activism, will remain true to the freedom of expression clause contained in the Interim Constitution and will be loathe to support the call for the censoring of the film. The vast majority of South Africa's disempowered working class Muslims, who reside in areas such as Mitchell's Plain, Chatsworth and Soweto, will be oblivious to the raging dispute.
The media will predictably disregard the latter two groups and focus their attention exclusively on the histrionics of obscurantist Muslims. This oblique media coverage will engender an image of Islam and Muslims being that of a homogenous entity which is inherently intolerant.
The above scenario pro ceeds to the heart of what "Jihad in America" is all about. The Muslim voices which the film projects are of the same ilk as those of the South African protesting group. The film disregards the views of mainstream Muslim organizations in America, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Its slanted coverage of the polyphony of American Muslim voices is not an oversight on the part of its producer, but exposes the blatant political and propagandistic agenda which Steven Emerson was pursuing in making "Jihad in America".
It is no small wonder that Steven Emerson is a former advisor to the Israeli Likud Party. He has become notorious for his obsession with "Muslim terrorists." In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing earlier this year, Emerson was one of the "false prophets" who immediately began insisting that all signs pointed to Muslim extremists. A few days later when the identities of the FBI's suspects were announced, Emerson's' "Jihad" proved to be a phantom of his bigotrous imagination.
The critical question that all of this raises for the freedom of expression debate, is that far too ften its liberal protagonists naively ignore the power dimensions which underly it. We do not live in an ideal world where the proverbial playing fields are level, but in a ubiquitous one. It has become almost a cliche9 to argue that politically powerful interest groups control and influence the media.
In such a context can one glibly speak about allowing the public to make an informed decision, when the powerful media images it will be exposed to is guilty of censorship of the worst kind, that is "selective reporting"? Basic standards of journalism, and programme guidelines of the SABC, dictate that balancing views be sought and included. When this is blatantly compromised however, the challenge which confronts us is how to deal with such material which lack journalistic integrity and seeks to promote political causes? The response we have received thus far from the SABC is clearly inadequate. After being subjected to two hours of colourful pictures depicting carefully and edited selected snippets of war images accompanied by sound bites of, fiery rhetoric, the jaded viewers will be asked to listen to a one hour academic appraisal of the merits of the film by a representative panel. Is it realistic to expect such an exercise in futility is to nuetralize and correct powerful political images promoting propaganda.
In conclusion, lest I am accused of being an apologist, I hasten to add that this article does not seek to absolve those conservative Muslims who cry foul at every instance of critical portrayal of Islam and Muslims. Such Muslim fascists have a direct complicity in the negative image to which they object. Muslims however do not have a monopoly on fascism and censorship. All religio-cultural groupings and societies struggle with lunatic fringes. The problem with the media however is when they portray such fringe movements as representing the only, orthodox and authentic voice of Islam. When some orthodox Serbian Christians commit genocide against Bosnians, it would be absurd for media to carry a banner headline saying "Christians slaughter Bosnian Muslims" Why should this principle be different when it comes to Muslims or even Blacks for that matter. The anomaly of the Islam and media debate is that there exists a strange collusion between the agenda's of the western media and that of fundamentalist Muslims . This is epitomized in an analysis of Steven Emerson's' "Jihad in America." It is essentially bad journalism.