In case you've wondered if Arab media ever entertains a view critical of Islamic radicals, this video answers the question. Obviously it's been edited, but I still thought it was remarkable to see on al Jazeera.
(Subtitled, no need for sound.)
Please note that this woman is on TV, without a head covering, claiming that she does not believe in the supernatural. To many in the audience for al-Jazeera, this makes her Satan incarnate.
Listen to this NPR story about how the one TV actress in Afghanistan gets death threats from her own family, just for appearing on TV at all.
So when you see the cleric on the split screen, and watch his hand movements -- he's preaching, he's not just commenting. He's essentially excoriating the woman as a heretic as though from the pulpit of a mosque, and probably comes off as a lot more sympathetic than the woman psychologist, who is obviously (you should excuse the expression) an American running dog (or should that be Dutch running bitch, in this case?).
Still, this is a great example of why I think that al-Jazeera is riding a very interesting fence. McLuhan was so right -- "The medium is the message." People with access to the Internet don't think the same way about information, news, media, or their neighbors as people who need to actually pick up a phone or heaven forbid actually see people to talk to them. We see these secondqry effects in our own society, but it's harder to see the secondary effects sweeping through areas that were relatively media-free a short time ago.
Most people who are threatened by al-Jazeera's secondary effects aren't on the net yet. But satellite TV will be enough to undermine their conservative cultures within a generation, by changing the way they think. People throughout the middle east and central Asia will, regardless of al-Jazeera's content, be transformed just because the availability of satellite TV undermines the simple authority structures of elders and tribal authorities.
For every twenty men who are satisfied that the imam tore this Satanic woman a new orifice, there may be one young woman who gets the seed of doubt sown. It's probably enough.
How much of that is conscious on aJ's part? Well, I can tell you it doesn't behoove western media to talk about these secondary effects too much. Better to condemn al-Jazeera and up their credibility.
But regardless of any value judgement you might make on the destruction of tribal cultures that have lasted thousands of years relatively unchanged (because, let's face it, Islam is as plastic as Catholicism for many of these least modernized cultures) -- these cultures will be gone, irrevocably and inevitably -- within a tiny number of years on their scale.
We are watching the last convulsions of one of the last bastions of tribal social structures. Makes me wonder what this looked like to the colonists here, suddenly. Or to the native americans. Assimilate and compete -- or die. It doesn't justify, but it might help us to understand the rage.
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 4
I wonder if, while many people are saluting this idea of breaking down the tribes, they even consider that here at home we're seeing new ones crop up in the mega-churches. Good example: http://www.southeastchristian.org/
I agree with you completely. Kind of reminds me of some exchanges I had with Bert on the subject of tolerating Christian fundamentalism.
We are walking a very fine line here that is true. We know that modernity will destroy ancient cultures and in the process take down many old prejudices and superstitions, but the process inevitably destroys not just culture but the peoples themselves who then want to destroy their destroyers.