"Jihad in America" has, so to speak, come and gone. The controversial documentary by Steve Emerson was broadcast on NNTV on November 19, following delays in broadcast starting from July when it was first announced that is would be screened but was subsequently pulled of the air.
The eventual screening was a last minute push of the button, due to an urgent court interdict brought about by three Muslim organisations based in Gauteng wishing to stop the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) from broadcasting the programme.
So while the programme has now been screened and the storm surrounding it has settled somewhat, the issues that it raised need to be addressed. For the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), the issues cut to the very bone of what the organisation has been fighting against: censorship and more importantly, the Public Broadcaster buckling under pressure from outside to censor itself. The editorial decisions of the SABC about what to screen or not should be made independently of any power groups, be it the government or power groupings within a particular community. The SABC is there to serve the entire South African public, and this public consists of people who subscribe to numerous faiths and ideologies. No one power grouping can be allowed to compromise the duty of the SABC to serve the information needs of the entire public.
The internal decision-making process that was used to decide on "Jihad" was not very clear except that the SABC board made it known that it would not decide on the matter but would leave it up to internal management. This was a very good sign and the board should be congratulated in passing up the opportunity of becoming the censor of the SABC. However, what was the role of the SABC's Religious Broadcasting Panel (RBP), and particularly, the Muslims on this panel? The members of this panel were selected in a very open and public manner, which involved nominations from the public and public interviews before their eventual selection.
The controversy over "Jihad in America" provided the Muslims on this panel with a golden opportunity to enhance their role from merely co-ordinating the allocation of religious air-time on the Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) for their community, to actively co-opting the Muslim community into a process of free and open debate and contributing to a culture of freedom of expression in this country. More importantly, the Muslims on this panel, much like the entire SABC, cannot be seen to be representing only a few power groupings within their community, but the entire Muslim community in this country. It was clear that the entire Muslim community did not support a ban on this documentary, not even to mention those Muslims who were completely oblivious to the whole debacle. The Muslims on the Religious Panel, therefore, were in a perfect position to use the time allocated to them on the PBS to facilitate debate within the Muslim community itself, but failed to do so. Their silence and inaction can be see n as a failure to rise above the party politics within the Muslim community, and as such is a serious indictment of their behaviour on a public panel aimed at being representative of all the religious communities in this country.
The documentary was indeed a distressing account of marginal groupings within the Muslim community and, as many Muslims were at pains to point out, allegedly contained numerous factual errors. However, the content of the documentary could hardly have been as harmful to the Muslim community as the actions of those Muslim groupings trying to stop the film from being screened. Had they succeeded, their actions would have spoken for the entire local Muslim community because it would have affected the entire South African public. As much as these Muslim groups who wanted to stop the film were wont to point out that the people portrayed in the Emerson programme were not representative of all Muslims or Islam, neither were they. Their insistence on claiming to speak on behalf of all Muslims in this country entrenched the view of an homogenous-thinking community that was prone to adopt the same actions in whatever situation. Their actions therefore did nothing to dismiss the stereotypes of Muslims that they accused Emerson of promoting.
The FXI's involvement in a programme at the Claremont Main Road Mosque in Cape Town two weeks before the documentary was screened was a valuable experience for the organisation. Not only did it shed light on the willingness of Muslims to engage in free and open debate but gave some Muslims the opportunity to make an informed judgement about the film - something which a few Muslim groupings in this country were keen on denying their community.
The programme involved the screen ing of the documentary followed by a panel discussion comprising Sheikh Ameen Ahmod, a member of the RBP, Raashied Galant, FXI's Publications Assistant and Raymond Louw, the Chairman of the FXI's Executive Committee. The overwhelming feeling from the congregation present was that the film should be shown and that it didn't fall within the conduct of Muslims to demand that the SABC drop the film. In the lively debate and discussion that followed, a number of issues were raised, one of these being the question of what criteria the SABC used to purchase overseas material. This is a legitimate question that members of the public can pose to an institution that is supposed to be accountable to them. While dictating what the SABC should purchase or not could be tantamount to censorship, a process of consultation, particularly involving members of the RBP, could go a long way in preventing a repeat of the "Jihad in America" debacle. This is not to suggest that documentaries like "Jihad" should not be purchased, but rather that more and a diverse range of programmes reflecting the Muslim community be shown. The SABC should now also take cognisance of the manner in which Muslims were marginalised, and perhaps still are, on the PBS. Efforts should be made now to adequately represent and portray the diverse nature of the local Muslim community and indeed, a conscious effort should be made to honour the allocation of time for Muslims on the PBS and reflect this community in a holistic manner and not only in a controversial manner. This would apply equally to other religious and cultural communities.
Finally, the Media Monitoring Project (MMP), in its Media Update of 15 November 1995 , raised an important concern in the light of the "Jihad in America" debacle. It noted that while this documentary was accompanied by intense debate, including a panel discussion on the night it was supposed to be screened (but was not screened), the same treatment was not afforded to the Canadian film "Jesus of Montreal". This film was supposed to have been screened in October, but was not shown due to protests from Christian groups. According to the MMP, "this does not bode well for the public broadcaster as it appears to reflect a bias towards white Christian groups who seem to hold more sway than groupings such as the Muslim community." The FXI is definitely concerned about this conduct of the SABC and will indeed oppose any attempt to put pressure on the public broadcaster to censor itself, irrespective of where the pressure may emanate from.