Book Review by Carol van Strum: The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East, by Neil MacFarquhar, 2009. Public Affairs, $26.95
In a prodigious display of ignorant, knee-jerk censorship, some 20 newspapers -– including print editions of The Washington Post and the Boston Globe -– refused to publish Wayne Miller’s “Non Sequitur” comic strip for Sunday, Oct. 3.
The reason? The cartoon satirized the very knee-jerk censorship those 20 editors practiced. It depicted a crowded park with the caption, “Picture book title voted least likely to ever find a publisher: ‘Where’s Muhammed?‘”
Both the cartoon and its censorship reflect the arrogant ignorance of Islam and Middle Eastern cultures that pervades the U.S. population and news media. As a nation, we behave in ways that would make a viper cringe. With typical colonial hubris, we think nothing of invading another country (or whole region) to rip off its resources, control its commerce, and mold its culture to serve our interests. Repeating the most senseless mistakes of history, we send in troops to bend entire populations to our will at gunpoint, without bothering to learn their customs and traditions, much less their language. And then we wonder why they don’t like us.
With our media compromised by commerce, our only remedy for ignorance is to educate ourselves. Short of learning Arabic and traveling to the Middle East, a good place to start is Neil MacFarquhar’s The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday. MacFarquhar grew up in Libya, covered the Middle East for Associated Press, and speaks Arabic as fluently as any native. Thanks to that rare skill he became New York Times Cairo bureau chief from 2001 to 2005.
From one atrocity or war or hotspot to another, MacFarquhar criss-crossed the region, meeting and listening to people in Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Morocco, Israel, Gaza. Their voices, collected in his book, are the stories he never got to file, from restaurant chefs, game show hosts, limo drivers, hashish farmers and sex therapists to prime ministers, princes, clerics, and the legendary Lebanese diva, Fayrouz. Here in the wealthiest, oil-rich nations, the most common complaint is of brutal, ubiquitous government repression, often sanctioned by some interpretation of Islam. Brave souls who dare to advocate change risk prison, torture and death, but are frustrated by blundering American efforts to impose superficial democracy by fiat. The result is widespread public rejection of all reform “as an American enterprise.”
Among other treasures in his book is MacFarquhar’s history of Al-Jazeera, the “news junkie’s dream,” founded in 1996 by the emir of Qatar – a tiny pimple of a nation poking into the Persian Gulf – expressly to put his emirate on the international map. He did this by establishing a television station independent of the rigidly controlled and censored existing Arab news media, hiring veterans from the BBC to run the station. “Those journalists blasted away the cobwebs hobbling news in the region – reporting events in real time, interviewing Israeli officials about developments in the Palestinian territories, lending opposition figures in exile a platform to voice their views about the situation under despotic rulers at home.”
Multiple attempts to muzzle or extinguish Al-Jazeera – by every despotic Arab ruler as well as by the United States -– speak to the station’s extraordinary success in “creating a competitive news industry where none existed” and its uncanny ability to get reporters on the ground at the very instant events occur. “While working in the Cairo bureau or any hotel room, I kept the station on as long as I was awake because it was always first with breaking news,” MacFarquhar writes. “More often than not, the English-language satellite stations [CNN or the BBC] either were not covering the event or broke away much sooner. On that score Al-Jazeera provided unfiltered news reporting at its best.”
Another goldmine in the book is the extensive discussion of Islam, dispelling numerous myths and distortions in American media. Like Christianity, Islam itself is a collection of many sects and philosophies, all attempting to apply hearsay interpretations of events thousands of years ago to a modern, high tech world. The word “fatwa,” described in our media as a pronouncement of murderous intent, is actually and most commonly a religious edict on any subject from the running of a hotel to the length of women’s skirts; the sheer number and frequent triviality of fatwas, and the practice of fatwa-shopping for the opinion wanted, render them almost laughable.
More serious is the increasing violence and zealotry of fundamentalist Muslims and their intrusion into government across the region. What is most striking in the quotes is that substituting the word “Christian” for “Muslim” produces the same rhetoric as fundamentalist zealots in American politics, including the same obsession with sex. If ever there were proof of the need to separate church and state, it can be found in both Muslim and Christian extremists, for whom religion is not an opiate of the people but a means to control every aspect of their lives.
Throughout this fascinating, informative, and often funny tour of the Middle East, the United States intrudes frequently and inappropriately as a sort of drunken uncle, embarrassing but too big and destructive to ignore. MacFarquhar points out politely but firmly the numerous occasions when a little tact, common sense, and knowledge of local customs and language could have saved the U.S. its reputation and the Arab people a lot of grief.
Hizbollah, he says, really does remember to send him a card on his birthday every year.
The graphic does not show the prophet , so what is the problem ? what difference will make if a non believer ask through a graphic where is God or where is this or that prophet or saint ? but this is not the case with so-called Islamic group they must create a problem to justify there presence and to get legality whiten their community , I say to those who continuously complain that some does not respect their believes , it is not your believes which they do not respect but they do not respect your commercialization of your believes and in my opinion that apply for Muslims, Christians and Jewish of the middle east, the commercialization of the religion has become a part of their culture.
This is Carol’s article but I will respond, GG.
Most papers publish the same cartoons every week. They subscribe, the cartoon develops a following, and it runs. It’s rare that a cartoon is censored (there’s a book featuring lots of censored Gary Larsen cartoons, tho, including the magnificent “Scrambled Babies,” involving a chicken ordering breakfast in a diner).
Speaking of chickens, most modern newspaper editors are chicken shit. They put so much energy into worrying about what will and will not offend someone that they lack nearly any sense of guts. Their job is to recycle wire stories and press releases, and put something at least barely readable between the ads — that doesn’t offend anyone. And since everything is offensive to someone, that doesn’t leave a lot of room, and as a result, most newspapers are currently used best for cat litterbox liners.
Most editors no longer t perceive their job as being to be brave or gutsy; they have to keep the advertisers and the publisher happy. This cartoon is milquetoast. It’s poking fun at this edict that you cannot depict Muhammed. You can say his name, you just can’t show him illustrated. How precious, let’s bow to that, and remember that the world is caught in various jihads and wars on terror and committing all kinds of murder in the name of “god.”
When exactly do we say BUZZ OFF with your wars for “god” and let’s do something fun and creative and loving.
oh, I don’t know Eric. Those papers may have decided not to publish the cartoon because they didn’t want to bring a fatwah down on their heads.
It was much the same sort of cartoon that made that Dutch newpaper cartoonist the target of radical Muslim death threats, wasn’t it?
I think papers have to weigh what they gain by publishing something — something that rightly should be published — versus the consequences to them and their staffers if they do put it in print.
I’m not saying it was the right decision to not publish. I”m saying I can understand how they may have come to that point.
If it were an editorial about a weighty topic, or even if it were a cartoon that packed a more serious political message, they may have come to a different decision about what to do.
clear effective review…which inandofitself gets the brain ticking.
Thanks!
I have to read that book. I lived in the Occupied West Bank with my Palestinian husband (he is now an ex but not because he was Arabic; we were both too young for marriage) for almost 6 months and felt first hand the negative effects of Occupation. If every American had to live through that they would be less quick to give a blank check to every Muslim-hating, oil-wanting jerk who wants to use our tax monies to pay for their greedy and horrific killing ends.
I found the Palestinian people to be gracious, family oriented, caring and friendly. No terrorists in sight. In fact, the worst people were the Israelis who made it a point to denigrate and demoralize me and my husband’s family at every opportunity.
You can watch Al-Jazeera on Free Speech TV.
Carol,
Ah, your words are so reasonable. The subject matter could use more of that. Thank you.
thanks, carole!
sounds like a brilliant book, and a must-read for any of us curious about what’s really going on in a culture (or set of cultures) hard to get a clear look at in this country.