Islam and the West

This chapter summarizes the history of relationships between Islam and the Christian West. Said
says, "Modern Occidental reactions to Islam have been dominated by a radically simplified type
of thinking." To Westerners, he says, Islam represents not only an impressive competitor but also
a challenge to Christianity itself.
During the Middle Ages, Christians viewed Islam as a "demonic religion of apostasy,
blasphemy, and obscurity," intensified by the presence of Islam as an active competitor with
Christianity. In the Christian "good must prevail over evil," Islam was seen as the evil that must
be defeated during the Crusades.
Said writes that only Islam seemed never to have submitted completely to the West - it has
triumphed in the war over oil prices, and has shocked and terrified the West with cases of
terrorism.
Learning about Islam has been impossible for Westerners because of the way it has been framed.
The media oversimplifies and distorts Islam, and Islam scholars have alienated people with their
overzealousness and passionate defensiveness. Also, America has little experience with
Muslims, contrary to the Europeans who have had colonies in Muslim countries as well as have
large Muslim populations in their cities. This lack of exposure of Islam to America has caused
Americans to be largely ignorant of Islam. Said writes, "Culturally there was no distinct place in
America for Islam before World War II."
The history of relationships between Islam and the Christian West is important in understanding
how ideas about Islam are framed in our news medium. Unlike other civilizations in the East,
Islam never submitted to the West. Said points out that after oil-prices rose dramatically in the
early 70's, the Muslim world was seen as trying to conquer the world again, leaving the West
"trembling with fear." At the end of the Cold War, Iran and Islam were considered terrorist states
because they supported Hizbollah, who opposed hegemony in the Gulf and Middle East.
Throughout the decades after the Cold War, media coverage of Islam have always been
associated with what they find to be "newsworthy" and of "importance." Any story connected to,
or emphasizing the stereotype behind Islam and Muslims is considered newsworthiness.
Understanding how images and the use of images have evolved will give us perspective and a
framework for examining these media. This chapter supports the ideas presented in the
"Framing" readings, and in fact seems to take them under consideration.
Specifically, understanding how the media has employed the image of the Muslims as invariably
oil tycoons or terrorists will help us to spot whether our medium is guilty of this.
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Communities of interpretation
In Edward W. Saids "Covering Islam," he argues that in the Western world the term Islam refers
to a country without an identity, a history or a national revolution. For Western journalists, the
meaning of Islam encompasses all the ideologies of the Islamic people in one stereotypical
category. Said argues that the Western media presents Islam as an entire group of mediaeval
thinkers and policy makers who threaten the American way of life, and this representation
evokes anti-Islamic sentiment across the United States.
According to the philosophies of C. Wright Mills, human beings "are aware of much more than
they have personally experienced; and their own experience is always indirect."(1) Using Mills
philosophy, Said argues that American citizens can indirectly experience the Islamic culture
through its media; however, this media misrepresents Islam. For example, Said argues that
Robert Tuckers "Oil: The Issue of American Intervention," and Daniel Patrick Moynihans "The
United States in Opposition," evokes anti-sentiment among their American readers against the
Islamic people. Tucker describes Islam as attempting to create an interdependence between "us"
and "them" through the dramatic increases of oil prices in the United States in 1974. In Tuckers
article, he describes the Islamic peoples interest in interdependence as against American
political ideology. As for Moynihan, he says that "Western democracies" cannot stand by idly,
allowing the Islamic people who do not embody democracy to bully them. Said contends that
both Tuckers and Moynihans articles, paint a picture in the United States that the Islamic
people intend to increase oil prices and strip the United States of its oil supply. Thus, they will
ultimately strip American citizens of their right to drive automobiles - which can be seen as
symbols of an individuals' freedoms in America.
In the United States, Said argues that the media does not always make the truth readily available
for its American citizens. He says, "pictures and ideas do not merely spring from reality into our
eyes and minds, truth is not directly available, we do not have an unrestrained variety at our
disposal."(2) Said believes that this lack of truth stems from the medias tendency to favor
certain views and representations of reality over others. He argues that the American press is
different than the French and the British media because it is a "superpower," and although the
U.S. may not think it takes part in foreign policy, it often times shapes it.
Western journalists can decide what is news, what will be omitted and how it will be framed for
the public. Said believes, in the United States, Islam has been framed in a negative and false
light. He says, "So much of Islamic life is neither bound by texts nor confined to personalities or
neat structures as to make the overused word "Islam" an unreliable index of what we try to
apprehend."(3) Said's argument about Western media's framing of Islam coincides with Charlotte
Ryan's "Prime Time Activism," in the fact that articles written on Islam have been framed to
represent the cultural goals of the West. Thus, the Western media uses the term Islam to explain
a group of peoples ideologies in a confined, stereotypical format, creating a misrepresentation of
the Islamic people and evoking anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States based on partial truth
to create a sense of nationalism.
Saids argues that Western media frames information with a political bias that encourages
national patriotism, while misrepresenting the Islamic people. In Time for Kids, every story
printed in this magazine glamorizes America and American values. The pictures depict
Americans to be clean, powerful, and wise. The pictures of the Afghani soldier is dirty and
savage looking.

The Princess Episode in context
When the "West" represents "Islam" in the media, it's for the purposes they propose. When the
media covers a subject in context it is usually distorted due to the lack of "experts," and the lack
of analysis of the situation in a historical, social, and political sense. So in actuality, "the media
hides more than it reveals" when covering issues in the Middle East.
One such case is the "Princess Episode," a PBS film made by British director Anthony Thomas.
It depicts, or so the Saudi Arabians say, "Islam" in a wrongful and obscure manner. The Saudi
Arabians were outraged, and this, in turn, helps to reinforce the "West's" connotation that Saudi
Arabia represents "Islam." This caused a slanted and partial view on Islam, which is made up of
much more than just Saudi Arabia. The film generalized and portrayed a bad picture of Saudi
Arabia in particular.
The Saudis' felt that the only reason Western culture was interested in the episode was because it
discredited the regime.
This film was not made by a Muslim, yet was probably the most impressive film Westerners
would encounter. After the airing of the program, there was a panel discussion over issues the
film supposedly tackled. The problem was that the panel used extreme cases to represent Islam.
These were not people who lived and participated in the political and social realms of the
country. So, how is it that they could make an accurate judgment on what the film represented?
What the film did was confirm the West's assumption of the Middle East being a breeding
ground for fundamentalist Muslims and never ventured into context, power, and representation.
In short, the analysis afterwards "only served as a substitute for a careful analysis."
Another film, "Jihad in America," which aired on PBS in 1995, added to these slanted views of
Islamic culture by saying, "America was the battleground for Muslims plotting terror and
horrifying warfare against us in our midst."
These tensions piling up only resulted in making the view, an issue of "us" and "them" leaving
true discussion, analysis, and exchange out of the question. It is only until we can analyze and
question news, can we know or try to "grasp" what Islam really is.
This chapter shows just how framing takes place. It supports in full the framing ideas brought up
in this chapter. It depicts how the two films generalized, breaking down individuals and even
different sects of "Islam" and lumped "them" together. Furthermore, it shows how a country like
Saudi Arabia is all of a sudden dubbed the poster child for "Islam."
In the frame of the context analyzed in Time For Kids, it is apparent that the framing readings
hold their relevancy here. In the article entitled "A Look at Islam," the prominent theme is that
terrorist breed in this religion, even though it is a peace-loving faith. The article starts out with
discussion of terrorism, and slowly moves through the religion giving a little credit to
Muhammad, before moving back onto terrorism. How is it possible to think anything more of
"Islam" if it's only portrayed as a religion that festers out of control, and all the people involved
have the same beliefs, political ideologies, and grievances with social injustices? Time for Kids is
teaching children to see the Islamic culture as an "us vs. them," reinforcing the stereotypes
associated with Islam and the Muslim world. By portraying Islamic and Muslim values as evil,
Time for Kids is projecting the idea that American values are good.




The politics of interpreting Islam: orthodox and antithetical knowledge
Said asks if it is possible for members of one culture to correctly analyze knowledge of other
cultures. He answers by saying that it has been a common practice in the West to assert
knowledge of other cultures so long as knowledge pertains to what is human and natural. As
Bacons disciple Vico says, "Human knowledge is only what human beings have made. External
reality, then, is no more the modifications of the human mind." However, one of the main
problems is that objective knowledge does not exist in western thinking.
The European study of alien cultures is based on actual encounters with those cultures usually as
a result of trade, conquest, or accident. "Interest" derives from need, and need rests on
empirically stimulated things working and existing together - appetite, fear and curiosity. The
basis of our interpretation and study of alien cultures relies on what American philosophers and
scientists have gathered and interpreted from Europeans. The concern for alien cultures has
always been associated with commercial, colonial or military expansion, conquest and empire.
One does not interpret another culture unless prior circumstances have made that culture
available and interesting for interpretation. Nothing about interpreting Islam is "free" and
undetermined.
For the general public in both America and Europe, Islam is "news" associated with evil and
disgrace. The academic "experts" on Islam, which are the media, the government and the
geopolitical strategists, are all interconnected in thinking that Islam is a threat to Western
Civilization. As a result, negative images get attached to the Islamic name. supports up this idea
by presenting the four seminars conducted at one of the nations most prestigious schools,
Princeton. These seminars were held with American views of Islam in mind and were funded by
American government and corporations. These seminars were repeatedly stating that Muslims
live in a make-believe world, where the family is repressive. In addition, most of the leaders are
psychopathological, and that the societies are immature. Said writes that these seminars
demonstrated Islam as a commodity stating that when experts venture into the public eye, it is as
if experts are brought in because an emergency has caught "the West" unprepared, and not
because they know Islam. As a result, covering Islam in the United States is not interpretation in
the genuine sense but as an assertion of power, and many figures in the public eye try to get their
hands on it.
For Said, there are three types of antithetical knowledge of Islam and there are three forces
within society in a position to challenge the orthodoxy. The first is a group of young scholars
because they tend to be more sophisticated and politically honest. The second are elder scholars
whose work runs counter to the orthodox scholarship dominating the field. The third is a group
of writers, activists, and intellectuals who are not accredited experts on Islam. They are the
antiwar and anti-imperialist militants, the dissenting clergy, the radical intellectuals and teachers.
Said writes that knowledge for these three groups is essentially an actively sought out and
contested thing, and not a passive recitation of facts and "accepted" views.
Concluding, Said presents the idea that until knowledge is understood in human and political
terms for coexistence and community, no particular race, nation, classe, or religion
When a child picks up an issue of Time for Kids, that child depends and expects the affiliated
reporters to present truthful and accurate stories of what is happening in the world. These
reporters are seen as experts to the child, who are shaping and molding what they consider to be
moral and valuable. There is a tight connection between the portrayal of Islam, and the socio-
economic and political institutions that run over country. The system of understanding
knowledge and values in America is taught through academies, books, congress, universities,
media and foreign service institutions. As citizens we take this system to be truthful and correct.
However, as Said points out, our knowledge of Islam is a created body of practice and theory.
Because Time for Kids is owned by a major media conglomerate, funded by the explotation of
American values; this journal frames Islam in correlation to the preconsieved notions that Islam
is dangerous and barbaric. This idea is backed up by the analysis of the American soldier and
Afghanistan soldier presented later in the project.
When a journal views Islam as a commodity and not as a culture, the images corresponding to
Islam will distort the child's objective knowledge. That child will then consume the contaminated
interpretation as a projection of reality.
American children are the future of this country, and if their initial exposure tp Islam is from the
government, corporations or universities, who have connections with one another, the
information they are receiving is pure commodity. This leaves the future leaders of the "great"
nation targets of consumer globalization.
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Knowledge and interpretation
According to Said, knowledge in human society is historical and rests upon judgments and
interpretation. Even though history is a representation of facts and data, facts get their
importance from what is made of them in interpretation. No interpretation is without precedents
or connections to another interpretation. It can be said, that no writing is original. With this in
mind, Said says four things that an interpretation depends on: Who the interpreter is, whom he or
she is addressing, what his or her purpose is in interpreting, and what historical moment the
interpretation takes place. All interpretation depends upon the intentional activity of the mind,
molding and forming the objects of its attention. The interpretation of texts, which is what
knowledge of other cultures is based on, never takes place with a clear objective mind to present
both sides.
When conducting interpretation, feelings, habits, associations and values are all interconnected.
Because of cultural barriers, the interpreter understands himself or herself in his or her human
situation and then relates what he or she has learned to what he or she already knows. Said writes
that there is never interpretation, understanding, and then knowledge where there is no interest.
Said quotes Hans-Georg Gadamer, who says, "A person trying to understand a text is prepared
for it to tell him something." This something is thus compared to what that person already
knows; and the foundation of this knowledge comes from within that persons own views
towards his or her own culture.
Said mentions that our knowledge of societies, religions and cultures come from a mixture of
indirect evidence with the individual scholars personal situation. What makes knowledge
"good" or "bad" depends on the needs of the society in which that knowledge is produced.
Nothing is a pure analysis because interpretations are based on previous exposure. These
exposures come from academia, the government and the media. Ideas that are presented within
the exposure of an alien culture is then learned and taught. Such projections of the alien culture
are built upon and past down to future generations, creating a concrete image in the mind of what
that culture stands for, and Islam is an example of this.
Islam today, according to Said, is associated with either the political oil crisis, or
fundamentalism, terrorism, intense media attention, or of the longstanding tradition of "experts"
commentary on Islam in the West. When any knowledge is presented about Islam, these
underlining factors are already imbedded into it, creating a contaminated interpretation.
If Said is correct in stating that all views are connected and based upon other interpretations, the
children reading Time for Kids, will create a foundation of Islam based on the American
projection of their culture and country in the future. Whether or not a particular reader comes
across the "other side" to the Islamic culture, his or her interpretation will still have connection to
the message presented in Time for Kids.
According to Charlotte Ryan's "Prime Time Activism" article, Time for Kids is presenting a
frame of cultural resonances: cultural stereotypes are used to reinforce general social goals. As
Said points out, these social goals are intertwined with money, power and the government.