|
|
|||
|
|
|
||
|
WORLD ISLAMIC
ASSOCIATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH Vol. I, No. VII , Seventh Issue, June 2000 |
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
q CONTENTS / SOMMAIRE |
|||
|
q
MESSAGE FROM THE SECRETARIAT
q
LETTER TO US SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT
IN RESPONSE TO NEW REPORT, "PATTERNS OF GLOBAL TERRORISM, 1999"
/ by Ali Abunimah
q
THE TRUTH ABOUT TERRORISM
/
by Ali Abunimah
q
JOIN ARAB
AMERICANS AND MUSLIMS TO PROTEST RACIST FILM "RULES OF ENGAGEMENT"
|
|||
|
q SUMMARY / RESUMES |
|||
|
q
MESSAGE FROM THE
SECRETARIAT
Dear Brothers;
The film Rules of Engagement
portrayed Arab Muslims as blood-thirsty-terrorists. As
this is not enough, and adding injury to insult the state department has
published a new report entitled “Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1999”which
identifies Islamic elements as the greatest terrorist threat in the world
today (May 5, 2000). The
film combined by the report vilify and demonize, whatever, or whoever are
Arab and Muslim. This
demonization will no doubt reflect negatively on the Mental Health
of Arab and Muslims. Therefore
we have devoted the whole WIAMH Newsletter No 7 to this important issue.
In
this issue we have analyzed the mental health implications of this
demonization. What can we, as mental health providers, who are dedicated to
the betterment of the Islamic population on this earth, do in light of this
continued and relentless demonization of the Muslin population? We
have also responded to the U.S. Department of State Terrorism Report. Dr. Ali
Abunimah has shown that the main conclusions of this report are not supported
by the data it provides. You will find Dr. Ali Abunimah’s response to US
Department of State Terrorism Report at the end of this Newsletter.
§
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF
ARAB-MUSLIM’S DEMONIZATION:
Once again Arab-Muslims are being demonized by
Hollywood. This time the film is Rules of Engagement, a
box-office hit starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel Jackson. Last weekend it
took $ 8 million at movie theatres, meaning that, it has already grossed $ 43
million in 17 days. The
film portrays Arab-Muslims as bloodthirsty terrorists. The American-Arab
anti-discrimination committee (ADC) has called for protests against the film,
which it describes as “Probably the most vicious anti-Arab racist film ever
made by a major Hollywood major studio”. Paramount Pictures produced this
film. And
the plot of this film which stigmatized Arab-Muslim; A large crowd of
demonstrators surrounds The American embassy in Yemen. Marine colonel Terry
Childers (Samuel L. Jackson) is sent to evacuate the ambassador and
his family. Childers launches his mission, the ambassadors safety is secured,
but three of his men are shot.
The
colonel orders his men to fire at the crowd, Eighty-three Yemenis, including
women and children, are massacred by Marines – a realistic – looking scene
that has evoked cheers from some American audience. A
diplomatic crisis erupts and colonel Childers faces a court-martial for
violating the rules of engagement by killing unarmed civilians. During his
court-martial proceedings, colonel Childers, with the support of his lawyer;
his former Vietnam comrade Hays Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones), contends the
protestors, even the women and children, were armed. Also,
there was “a declaration of Islamic Jihad against the United States” and a
call to kill American. Colonel Childers’s act was, therefore, not only
justifiable, but patriotic too. Jack
Shaheen author of the TV Arab, an upcoming book about the image of
Arab-Muslims propagated by Hollywood, said that “this film is the worst
ever”. He
added that it is not only immoral but dangerous too, “The message it conveys,
he argues, is simple” “It is correct to kill Arabs, even children”. In
the US film industry, he believes, “It is perfectly acceptable to vilify, to
demonize, whatever, or whoever is Arab and Muslim”. WIAMH
is a world organization, which is basically concerned with the mental health
of the Muslims. We
see that this misrepresentation of the Arab-Muslims by popular media as a
very dangerous process. It is believed that this social ostracism and
stigmatization will lead to “cumulative trauma” among Muslims. (See
a section written by Fred Brauer in which he elaborated on the psychosocial
effects of demonization and vilification of Arab-Muslims by Hollywood, and
which is attached). We
urge WIAMH’ members to discuss further the mental health consequences of this
process of distortion in their E-mails to WIAMH’s Secretariat. More
than that, we need to spend more efforts to eliminate ignorance about Islam. William
Rugh, former American ambassador to Yemen said about Rules of Engagement that
it is another “Hollywood film and it is not fair”. “It is a biased film that
reinforces prejudice against the Arabs”. He sees the films
“misrepresentation” of Yemen as a product of ignorance. And the majority of
Arabs would agree with his assertion that far greater efforts are needed from
us to rectify such distorted perceptions.
World
Islamic Association of Mental Health should cooperate and coordinate with
other world organizations to promote greater understating of the Middle East. In
an effort to do this we have attached a “Letter to US Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright In Response To New Report, “Patterns of Global Terrorism,
1999” by Ali Abunimah. It shows that the only one region where the largest
number of anti US attacks is occurring is Latin America and not the Middle
East. Finally,
WIAMH’ members are kindly requested to do their humble share in the
discussion of this serious mental health problem which is created by
Hollywood through misrepresentation of Arab-Muslims in its fictional
presentations. During
the peace process, after all, tolerance, understanding and sensitivity
towards the concerns of others have been consistently demanded of the Arabs.
Such sensitivity has yet to be reciprocated.
§
MENTAL HEALTH IMPLICATIONS OF THE
DEMONIZATION OF MUSILMS BY HOLLYWOOD; FRED BRAUER:
The world of psychiatry and psychology is often
dedicated to assessing pathologies that are observed already existing in
patients, groups, organizations or entire societies. The reasons behind this
“postmortem” approach are many and varied and not necessary to elaborate on
here, but it has become so much our primary lens that we spend much of our
professional time patching up the wounded after they fall or quickly
providing emergency medication and coping tools after they have lost the
battle. We have, for example, proudly identified post traumatic Stress
Disorder, complete with multiple approaches and interventions designed to
mitigate the outward behaviors and overt symptomatology as well as numerous
psychosomatic manifestations born out of the individual’s attempt to cope
with the trauma after it has taken its toll. But,
what if we could begin, even generally, to inoculate individuals, groups, or
large portions of populations to potential traumas/stressors that threaten to
become the very events that will create PTSD in countless persons? e.g.
helping instruct people living in known earthquake zones with better
preparation and systems to cope immediately after an event, or those likely
to be caught-up in armed conflict, as in the case of parts of the former
Yugoslavia that were engulfed in war only after the initial outbreak of
hostilities. To
place Dr. Masoud Khan’s concept of “cumulative trauma” into a social context,
we can look at the identification of specific groups as the beginning of a
process, followed by their stigmatization as “good” or “bad,” that can lead
to serious consequences. With this message continually spread through mass
media, members of the target group are unsure of how to react to such
classification, especially if it results in trauma producing outcomes. More
specifically, today there is adequate data to support the U.S. and European
focus on Islam as a “potential” threat to world peace. The West’s inability
or blatant unwillingness to differentiate between what governments and the
press call “terrorists,” “militants” or “radical movements” and general
populations creates an image of any Muslim country as “the enemy” (of the
West). The consequences have so far ranged from the systematic harassment of
persons “looking” Middle Eastern in Western countries, to the
characterization of the leader of one Middle Eastern country as Hitler-the
devil incarnate to the Western mind, and has allowed the people of that
country to be continually traumatized through harsh sanctions for nearly 10
years, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of children annually and
continuing to this day. An
over-reaction? Perhaps. At least one other religious group would not
necessarily agree. After the trauma of an event like the holocaust in Europe,
the Jews have built an industry on “never again,” – a posttraumatic reaction.
The fundamental reason still given for the “need” to maintain the state of
Israel as a Jewish state is “that it can happen again”. The “it”
is the selling point. They have successfully convinced an entire population
of this possibility. It has provided them the impetuous to commandeer land,
backed by arrogance, strong allies and military bravado, thereby
“inoculating” the group from a similar trauma being visited upon them again. While
this particular case in point is extreme and is likely the cause of other
pathologies visited on such a fortified population, it is nonetheless
instructive of how a group can be better prepared to avert draconian measures
that can be applied to it with the stroke of a pen, if not the sword. We need
only look to how “Muslim terrorists” were first identified in the U.S. press
as the likely perpetrators of the Oklahoma City bombing, leading to
the arrest and detention of a Jordanian born American citizen and suspicion
cast on anyone looking “Middle Eastern”. The TWA flight 800 explosion marked
the immediate passage of laws allowing the profiling of persons of certain
generalized descriptions at airports and other public places without regard
to protections provided by the U.S. constitution. The list goes on … The
Terrorism Report of the U.S. department of Sate released 5 May 2000
identifies Islamic elements as the greatest terrorist threats in the world
today.
What can we, as mental health providers who are dedicated to the betterment
of the Islamic population on this earth do in light of this continued and
relentless demonization of this population? The paranoia often
accompanying the portrayal of Muslims in the West seems comparable to the
mentality of the Crusades. The West continues to identify Muslims as the
“other”. It has openly announced Islam as the next potential “evil foe” after
the fall of the Soviet Union. What impact does this have on individuals and
on the entire body of the religious community? How can we learn from groups
in history that have been identified in such ways, their methods of dealing
with that identification, and what results such methods created? Are there
general coping mechanisms that can be developed? Are there ways of responding
to such stereotyping that would be more effective than scurrying to free
detained “profiled” individual after his arrest, or counting the bodies after
the wanton bombing of a city based on the same profiling with little or no
supporting evidence? Can we begin to look at these issues through the lens of
our scientific profession dedicated to the understanding of human behavior? These
are merely ideas that need more development. There are obviously many valid
directions this topic area could take. www.abunimah.org
q
LETTER TO
US SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT IN RESPONSE TO NEW REPORT,
"PATTERNS OF GLOBAL TERRORISM, 1999"
/ by Ali Abunimah
by
Ali Abunimah
From: Ali Abunimah May
2, 2000
Dear
Secretary Albright,
I
read with interest the State Department's latest report, "Patterns of
Global Terrorism: 1999," published on May 1. I would like to thank you
for this report, and assure you of my full support for all genuine efforts to
combat terrorism, and to bring those who deliberately harm innocent people
for political gain to justice. To the extent that you actually do this, you
can be certain of my full and unequivocal backing.
Allow
me, however to make a few comments about your report, publication of which
was widely reported in the media.
1)
The main conclusions of your report are not supported by the data you provide
The
introduction to the report and the conclusion most widely covered, states
that, "The primary terrorist threats to the United States emanate from
two regions, South Asia and the Middle East. Supported by state sponsors,
terrorists live in and operate out of areas in these regions with impunity. They
find refuge and support in countries that are sympathetic to their use of
violence for political gain, derive mutual benefit from harboring terrorists,
or simply are weakly governed."
Yet,
the statistics and narrative you provide about anti-US attacks, and
"terrorist" activities in and from these regions tell a different
story.
Of
the 169 anti-US attacks reported for 1999, Latin America accounted for 96,
Western Europe for 30, Eurasia for 9, and Africa 16. The Middle East
accounted for only 11, and Asia for 6. Most of these attacks were
bombings. The figures you provide for the total number of terrorist attacks
by region indicate that in recent years, Latin America and Europe have each
accounted for a greater number of terrorist attacks than either the Middle
East or Asia. 1999 is consistent with this pattern.
The
chapter on the Middle East does not provide any insight into why your report
headlines that region as presenting one of the two major threats to the
United States today. On the contrary, it details widespread and
"vigorous" "counter-terrorism" efforts by Jordan,
Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Although you
continue to list Syria, Iran, Iraq and Libya as "state sponsors" of
terrorism, the report does not detail any activity by these states that would
support the conclusion that the Middle East region represents one of the two
main threats to the United States.
To
the extent you allege that "terrorist" activity persists in the
Middle East, this is principally directed not at the United States, but at
Israel, a country that is illegally occupying the territory of several
others. You also categorize resistance against combatant Israeli occupation
forces in Lebanon as terrorism, [this activity is cited in the section on
Lebanon, and the section on Iran accuses that country of encouraging
HizbAllah and other groups "to use violence, especially terrorist
attacks, in Israel to undermine the peace process"].
The
definition of HizbAllah's activities as "terrorist" is at odds with
the internationally recognized right to resist foreign occupation, but it
could possibly be justified if you were at least applying a consistent
standard. Yet, while you term HizbAllah a "terrorist" organization,
you do not use this designation for the Israeli-controlled "South
Lebanon Army," a sub-state group that frequently carries out attacks on
Lebanese civilians, seizes and tortures noncombatant hostages, and threatens
and uses other forms of violence and coercion against Lebanese civilians.
The
continued designation of certain countries as "state sponsors" of
terrorism appears to be politically motivated. Your report states, for
example, "A Middle East peace agreement necessarily would address
terrorist issues and would lead to Syria being considered for removal from
the list of state sponsors." This may suggest to seasoned observers that
Syria's continued designation as a "state sponsor of terrorism" is
simply a stick to get Syria to sign an agreement with Israel consonant with
US preferences, rather than a designation arising from an objective analysis
of that state's policies. This view may be supported by the fact that you do
not allege any activities being planned from Syria, and you say that Syria
"continued to restrain" groups operating in Damascus from any but
political activities.
The
section on Iran claims that that country was "the most active state
sponsor of terrorism" in 1999. Yet almost all the alleged activities
were directed not at the United States, but were assistance to groups
fighting the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Iran's other alleged
principal activity was assistance to the PKK, the group fighting Turkey's
repressive policies against Kurds. Again, none of the reported activities
appear to directly threaten the United States.
None
of the other sections on Middle East countries list any activities by states
or groups that would seem to justify the assertion that the Middle East
represents a major threat of terrorism to the United States. Certainly this
assertion is not borne out by the actual data on terrorist attacks and
casualties, which consistent with recent years, shows the Middle East
accounting for a relatively tiny number of "anti-US attacks," and
US casualties.
As
for the assertion that the "locus of terrorism" has shifted from
the Middle East to South Asia, and particularly Afghanistan, your entire case
seems to rest on assertions that Usama Bin Ladin is operating a vast,
international terrorism network. It is difficult for observers to evaluate these
claims, because you do not publish any substantial evidence or sources,
merely assertions. We do know that in cases where the US government has made
specific claims, these have often turned out to be exaggerated or false.
Investigative reporting by The New York Times and others, of which you are
surely aware, severely and compellingly questioned the factual basis, and
process of President Clinton's decision to bomb the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical
factory in Khartoum, Sudan in August 1998. I also note that the United States
government chose not to contest a lawsuit brought against it by the owner of
that factory who sought to recover control of his assets, frozen by the
United States on the grounds that he was linked with Mr. Bin Ladin. Hence, in
the absence of any compelling evidence to the contrary, the US government's
past record with regard to claims about Mr. Bin Ladin suggests that a
responsible observer should at the very least be deeply skeptical. Some
observers have suggested that the threat from Mr. Bin Laden has been
deliberately exaggerated to justify limits on civil liberties in the United
States, and an expanded US role in the Middle East.
Again,
as in the case of the Middle East, the principal events in South Asia, such
as the hijacking of an Indian airliner and bombings in India and Pakistan
which claimed many lives, were unrelated to the United States, and seemed to
be related to local or regional conflicts such as that in Kashmir or Sri
Lanka.
In conclusion, it appears from the data in your report, that the only
region where a large number of anti-US attacks is occurring or originating is
Latin America, and particularly Colombia. Yet, this country is
not designated as a major threat to the United States. The reasoning for this
is absent.
2)
The report makes disturbing assertions that may fuel anti-Muslim prejudice in
the United States and around the world
The
report assures the reader that, "Adverse mention in this report of
individual members of any political, social, ethnic, religious, or national
group is not meant to imply that all members of that group are terrorists.
Indeed, terrorists represent a small minority of dedicated, often fanatical,
individuals in most such groups. It is those small groups--and their
actions--that are the subject of this report."
Yet
it appears to do quite the opposite. For example it states:
"Islamist
extremists from around the world--including North America; Europe; Africa;
the Middle East; and Central, South, and Southeast Asia--continued to use
Afghanistan as a training ground and base of operations for their worldwide
terrorist activities in 1999. The Taliban, which controlled most Afghan
territory, permitted the operation of training and indoctrination facilities
for non-Afghans and provided logistic support to members of various terrorist
organizations and mujahidin, including those waging jihads in Chechnya,
Lebanon, Kosovo, Kashmir, and elsewhere."
This
paragraph appears to cast any Muslim person fighting any battle, for any
reason as an "Islamic extremist." It also uses the Arabic words
"jihad," and "mujahidin," which have very specific
definitions, to be synonyms for terrorism. Is it not possible to imagine that
a Muslim in Kosovo, or Chechnya could be engaged in a legitimate battle? [I
certainly think the United States would have thought so when it provided
substantial state sponsorship to groups in Afghanistan and when it designated
such people as "freedom fighters," using them to fight against
Soviet intervention. Unfortunately the report is silent about US state
sponsorship of these groups, so again it is difficult to evaluate how much of
the presently observed phenomena are a direct result of United States
activities in South Asia over the past two decades. Certainly an objective
analysis would have to take this into account.]
Careless
references to Islam, "jihad" and "terrorism" are
unfortunate and damaging. This report comes in the context of US officials
late in 1999 openly linking the Muslim feast of Ramadan with an increased
threat of "terrorism" around the world. The threat did not
materialize, but the hysteria generated by the government warnings was
particularly damaging to Arab Americans and Muslims in the United States who
already face enormous obstacles due to stereotyping and misrepresentation in
popular media. The panic and media sensation created by the arrest of an
Algerian man at the United States-Canada border, allegedly for carrying
explosives, reportedly caused an increase of harassment of Arab Americans and
Muslims by airlines and others, and allegations by law enforcement officials,
later retracted, that other Arabs arrested at the border for visa violations
were terrorist suspects.
3)
The definition of "terrorism"
The
report states:
"The term
"terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence
perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine
agents, usually intended to influence an audience."
This
definition may be overly narrow, since it defines "terrorism"
principally on the basis of the identity of its perpetrator rather than by
the action and motive of the perpetrator. Hence, if Israel launches a massive
attack on Lebanon and deliberately drives several hundred thousand people
from their homes, openly threatens and targets civilians, and states that all
of this is intended to pressure the Lebanese or Syrian government, as Israel
did in April 1996, it does not fall under the definition of terrorism, solely
because you recognize Israel to be a state.
If,
by contrast, Lebanese people organize themselves to resist an internationally
condemned foreign occupation of their soil, you term this
"terrorism," even when such people restrict their targets to enemy
combatants in occupied territory.
May
I suggest that you broaden your definition of terrorism to include state
terrorism? While terrorism as you define it is certainly disturbing, compared
with the number of victims of state terrorism, it is a relatively minor
concern. If you included statistics for state terrorism, observers could then
objectively evaluate, for example, PKK activities on the one hand against
premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against
noncombatants carried out by the Turkish government. Or we could put into
perspective a "jihad" by "Islamic extremists" in Chechnya
against premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against
noncombatants by the Russian army.
This
would provide the public with a fuller picture of the problem, and analysts
and policymakers with better information to make policy recommendations which
could end the political conflicts, injustices, and occupations which in
nearly every case seem to generate the phenomenon known as
"terrorism."
I
thank you for taking the time to read this letter.
Sincerely,
Ali Abunimah www.abunimah.org
q
THE TRUTH ABOUT TERRORISM /
by Ali Abunimah by
Ali Abunimah (ali@abunimah.org)
December
22, 1999
Are
the recent warnings about the threat of terrorism a reasonable precaution by
the government to a real and present danger, or are the media and government
once again promoting anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hysteria under the guise of
vigilance against terrorism? Whatever the case, the arrest of an Algerian man
last week, allegedly for trying to enter the United States from Canada with
bomb-making materials, has set off yet another free for all of media
speculation about vicious Muslim plots to blow up the United States on the
eve of the millennium.
To
many people this hysteria appears to be nothing more than a reasonable
response to a frightening possibility. But if we examine the US government's
own data about terrorism, it is a completely unjustified overreaction which
puts at risk all of our civil liberties and freedoms, but especially those of
Arab and Muslim Americans who are, despite all the lessons of Oklahoma City,
TWA 800 and other incidents, still the first to fall under suspicion and to
be victimized by repressive measures such as the use of secret evidence and
passenger profiling.
So,
is all the focus on the threat of "Islamic" terrorism justified and
based in fact?
To
put the issue in perspective, I examined the State Department's own annual
report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1998."
(http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1998Report/1998index.html)
Below
I have summarized some facts from the report about events, which the State
Department defines as international terrorist incidents (in other words
excluding domestic terrorism by purely US-based groups, such as anti-abortion
groups). The report uses the following definitions:
"The term
"terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence
perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine
agents, usually intended to influence an audience. The term
"international terrorism" means terrorism involving citizens or the
territory of more than one country. The term "terrorist group"
means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice,
international terrorism."
1) TERRORISM WORLDWIDE IS DECREASING SIGNIFICANTLY AND CONSISTENTLY
There
has been a significant and consistent downward trend in international
terrorist incidents in the period 1979-1998.
In
1998, the number of international terrorist incidents, at 273, was the lowest
ever in the period, and the annual number has shown a consistent downward
trend since it reached a peak of 666 in 1987.
2) THE VAST MAJORITY OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST INCIDENTS ARE NOT
RELATED TO THE MIDDLE EAST, MUSLIM "EXTREMISTS" OR ARABS
Since
1995, Latin America has consistently had the highest annual number of
international terrorist incidents of any region, followed by Western Europe.
In 1998 there were 110 attacks in Latin America, 48 in Western Europe and 31
in the Middle East. There were 21 in Africa and zero in North America.
The
incidents in Latin America are primarily connected to conflicts in Colombia
and Peru, while the vast majority of incidents in Europe are, according to
the State Department, attributable to Basque separatists in Spain, the
conflict in Northern Ireland, the Kurdish movement in Turkey and various anarchist
groups in Greece. Middle East or "Islamic" terrorism was not a
significant factor in either region.
In
terms of casualties (deaths+injuries), the highest number have consistently
been in Asia since 1993. In 1998 there were over 5,000 in Africa, 635 in
Asia, 405 in Western Europe, 68 in the Middle East and zero in North America.
3) EIGHTY PERCENT OF ATTACKS AGAINST UNITED STATES TARGETS ARE IN
LATIN AMERICA
Consistently,
the vast majority of events defined by the State Department as "anti-US
attacks" occur in Latin America. In 1998, there was a total of 111
anti-US attacks. Eighty-seven were in Latin America, 13 in Western Europe, 5
in the Middle East and 3 each in Africa and Eurasia.
By
far the most common targets of terrorists are businesses. Attacks on
diplomats, military or government installations are relatively rare.
The
total number of US fatalities from these attacks in 1998 was 12, all related
to the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
4) VERY FEW AMERICANS ARE KILLED BY TERRORISTS
Here
are the numbers for the total U.S. Citizen Casualties Caused by International
Attacks, 1993-98. Note that the figures show no upward trend
(The 1998 attacks on the US embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania caused a large number of non-US casualties in addition
to the US victims).
These
numbers suggest that terrorism is a relatively insignificant cause of death
and injury to Americans compared with other forms of violence. For example,
according to the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, 14 children are
killed EVERY DAY in the United States by handguns. In the State of Illinois
alone, 320 are killed each year (National Center for Health Statistics,
1997).
5) MIDDLE EAST VIOLENCE IS RELATED TO LOCAL POLITICAL CONFLICTS, NOT
"HATRED OF THE WEST"
Although
the level of international terrorist events in the Middle East has been lower
than in other parts of the world, such violence as occurs is principally
related to local political conflicts, not to generalized "hatred of the
West" as often portrayed in the media. The numbers and descriptions of
patterns of violence in the Middle East suggest that as in other regions like
Northern Ireland, violence diminishes when broad-based political processes or
solutions are set in motion. The State Department report acknowledges that
the downward trend in terrorism "reflects the improved political climate
that has diminished terrorist activity in recent years in various parts of
the world."
CONCLUSION
There
is a complete disparity between the facts about international terrorism as
presented by the government on the one hand, and the media, official and
popular response to the issue on the other. There is no objective connection
between the frequency of terrorist attacks originating from and occurring in
the Middle East, and the amount of attention that such attacks receive.
President Clinton and other government officials have repeatedly defined
terrorism as one of the greatest threats facing the world.
There
is little or no media attention to the facts about terrorism, as reported by
the government, and a generalized willingness to continue to blame and
speculate about the Middle East as a principal purveyor of violence. This
situation continues to hurt and marginalize Arab and Muslim citizens of the
United States, and to distort public perceptions about the Middle East, a
region in which US taxpayers are being asked to invest a lot of money, often
in the name of "security."
Each
and every life lost due to terrorism is one too many, and of course there
must be vigilance against terrorism, and support for genuine efforts to
prevent it. But clearly other policy agendas, totally unrelated to public
security, are being served by the obsessive focus on Middle East terrorism,
when the facts suggest a more balanced approach would be appropriate.
Ali Abunimah
q
JOIN
ARAB AMERICANS AND MUSLIMS TO PROTEST RACIST FILM "RULES OF
ENGAGEMENT"
NO PROFITS FROM RACISM!!
WHEN:
Saturday April 15, 6.00 PM
WHERE:
Entrance of Cineplex Odeon, 600 N. Michigan Avenue, CHICAGO (entrance is on
corner of Ohio and Rush Streets, one block west of Michigan Ave.)
WHY:
"Rules of Engagement," a major Hollywood film, contains the most
racist portrayal of Arabs and Muslims of any film in years. The film depicts
US soldiers massacring Yemeni men, women and children, who are presented as a
hateful, anti-American mob. According to the American Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee, the movie features:
"Repeated
portrayals of Arab children as hateful, vicious and murderous. These children
are shown several times shooting guns at the film's US Marine protagonists
and shouting curses."
and:
"The portrayal of Yemeni society as an anti-American mob just
waiting to erupt at any second. The images of Arabs in the film are solely
stereotypical--veiled women, men in headscarves and all shouting fanatical,
angry slogans and firing automatic weapons at a peaceful US embassy."
The
New York Press writes: "the continuing scandal of Hollywood's
Arab-bashing smells to high heaven, but this film manages to stun
nonetheless." (4/12/2000)
The
movie stars big-name actors Samuel L. Jackson, Tommy Lee Jones, and Ben
Kingsley (who played Gandhi!). It is directed by William Friedkin and is
released by Viacom subsidiary Paramount. It was the highest grossing movie
last weekend.
We
protest this film because it dehumanizes Arabs and Muslims at a time when
they are being victimized, and glorifies US militarism. According to UNICEF,
200 Iraqi children die every day because of US-backed UN sanctions. Last week
fourteen Iraqis were killed and many others injured, including a number of
children in a US air attack on that country. This film harms Arab American
and Muslim children in this country, who already struggle with prejudice and
stereotyping on an enormous scale.
In
1998, Arab Americans protested "The Siege," which portrayed Arab
Americans as an undifferentiated mass of terrorists. Hollywood has to get the
message that it cannot continue to make money off racism!
IF
YOU CAN ATTEND: Please bring a friend, family member or neighbor and make a
poster board sign or banner opposing Paramount's racist portrayals.
IF
YOU CANNOT ATTEND: Email Jennifer Bing-Canar (jbcafsc@igc.apc.org) to
request a flyer which you can print out and distribute at your local cinema
where this film is being shown.
IF
YOUR ORGANIZATION WOULD LIKE TO CO-SPONSOR THIS PROTEST, EMAIL Ali Abunimah
at
aaan@aaan.org
CO-SPONSORED
BY (group in formation): Arab American Action Network, American Friends
Service Committee, American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee--Chicago Chapter,
The Arab Union at the University of Chicago, Chicagoland Arab Professionals
and Students (CAPS), Eighth Day Center for Justice, Islamic Association for
Palestine, Southwest Youth Collaborative, Tiny Leaps Productions, Voices in
the Wilderness |
|||