Over the last three years, the world changed beyond recognition. Long-standing friendships are on life-support. Many of the cherished values that we spent decades promoting are dying fast. Negotiations, mediations and initiatives, which we wrongly believed would lead to treaties that end the carnage and the raging violence in the Middle East, stalled or totally collapsed.
We are witnessing a new world disorder. The gun has replaced the olive branch, a culture of revenge and hatred, hard to reverse or restrain, is growing fast. Injustice, mistrust, divisions, arrogance and lies have replaced justice, trust, cooperation, humility and truth. Respect for world cultures and reverence for world religions have disappeared.
Dialogue among cultures and dialogue among religions have receded. Ignorance of world cultures is flourishing and attacks on world religions are on the rise. Alas! The mad theory of an impending clash of civilizations is steadily gaining credibility. It is regarded by few influential individuals as the desirable and the inevitable fate that our generation must face.
In the prevailing unwholesome social and political climate and out of the mind-boggling confusion and chaos, emerged a schizophrenic, double-faced media with opaque motives and dubious intentions, kind, honest, perceptive sometimes, cruel, prejudiced, deceptive, conniving and severely hostile to Muslims and the Muslim world most of the times.
There is ample evidence to support the view that concerted efforts have been made to project in the West a negative image of Arabs and Muslims.
Thus for example, instead of describing the sorrow that filled the majority of Muslim and Arab hearts on Sept. 11, 2001 and the severe shock and deep indignation the Arab and Muslim world experienced on that dark day in history, a hostile media played and replayed images of a group of young Arab children cheering, applauding and hailing the crime. God Almighty alone knows why these images were shown to a traumatized nation. He alone knows why, where, how and when these pictures were taken.
Is it not interesting that when demonstrations and rallies in support of an Arab or a Muslim cause are photographed, the camera usually focuses on women with unfriendly facial expressions and ugly men with crossed-eyes, untrimmed beards and a menacing grimace?
Many Western and Westernized writers, journalists and radio and TV presenters relish leveling harsh criticism at Islamic teachings, Islamic culture and the Muslim way of life. The practice is so common nowadays that it must have developed into a full-fledged hobby or a popular game.
Do we not follow unending discussions of issues directly or indirectly related to Islam, Arab culture or Muslim life style? Do we not notice the sever criticism of Arabs and the Muslims that ensue?
Are not Arab and Muslim women and the veil popular topics of discussion in the West?
Arab and Muslim women suddenly caught the attention of the Western media. Their status and their lives have been scrutinized with the curiosity and interest which are normally reserved for a newly discovered planet, an important Egyptian mummy or and ancient Roman or Greek ruin.
I am pleased with the belated global realization that women represent 50% of world population. I am delighted with the increasing awareness in the Muslim world in general, and in my country in particular, that women can and should play a greater role in the development of the Arab and Muslim society. I am flattered with the special attention Arab and Muslim women are getting from in West. I do, however, find the timing of this sudden interest in our social status rather intriguing,
I do not recall that the Western media was interested in Arab and Muslim women when education was beyond their reach, when most of Arab and Muslim families discouraged women from joining the work force and when their achievements were ignored or underestimated. I remember vividly that, until recently, the West showed little interest in how Arab and Muslim women lived, what they thought, what they did, how they were treated or how they dressed.
Why is the media taking little interest in the Arab and Western women who live and work in the West? Why does it not expose the moral harassment and professional discrimination many of them have experienced since Sept. 11, 2001? Why has the media developed an insatiable appetite for criticizing the veil that modest Muslim women wear? Why has it portrayed the veil as a threat to social cohesion and a symbol of female suppression?
Many have followed, with total amazement and utter amusement, the intellectual and “unintellectual” discussions of “the veil”, or the “Hijab” as it is called in Arabic. Is it not amazing that the veil suddenly popped out, like Jack in the box, to occupy center stage and to enjoy an exceptionally long life, while issues of greater importance continue to appear and disappear in a twinkling of an eye? Would a piece of cloth on the head of women have attracted that much attention had it not been associated with Islamic teaching?
Most of the Western books and articles on Arab and Muslim women emphasize the social impediments and the cultural restrictions that prevent them from participation in the decision making process and overlook their remarkable achievements since they joined the work force. The media ignores the contributions of Arab and Muslim women to the development of their respective societies. This oversight gives the impression that the sudden interest in Arab and Muslim women is triggered by a desire to reinforce the prevailing view in the West that they are victims of a backward culture and a cruel male dominated society.
Arab and Muslim women will believe that the Western media is genuinely interested in promoting their status if it commends their contributions, praises their achievements and encourages them to participate more in the development of their societies.
They will trust the media if it interviews women, who represent the silent majority among them instead of a handful of women whose views they oppose.
They will not doubt the intentions of the Western media if it sheds light on the difficulties that their sisters in the West have faced since Sept. 11, 2001.
Charity begins at home.
(Ibtissam Al-Bassam is a former dean of King Fahd Academy in London and a present staff member of UNESCO. The views expressed are hers alone, and not those of UNESCO.)
