The Political Dimension of Religion in Shiism

Stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims in the Western Mass Media: an Obstacle To the Movement of Al-imam Al-mahdi That Must Be Confronted

Stereotyping of the "other" is still alive and well in America. The portrayal of Arabs and Muslims in both movies as well as the news is highly influenced by pro-Israeli interests. The portrayal is meant to shock at times and other times to subtly manipulate the masses into supporting Israeli and American policy and taking a stand against its opponents.

The bias has been seen many times in American coverage of the Middle East but was clearly seen in the Israeli-Hizbullah Conflict during the summer of 2006. Muslims globally have an uphill battle in promoting the movement of al-Imam al-Mahdi because of the mainstream western media\'s biases. A discourse analysis of two Detroit newspapers shows how this is the case.

Arabs and Muslims as the "Other"

The portrayal of Arabs and Muslims in the popular press is highly inflammatory and stereotypical. It is highly contemporary in that it is driven by current political situations. At the same time, such stereotyping is based on old archetypes created in the past to demonize. To understand what it happening and how it is will be an obstacle to Imam al-Mahdi\'s movement, it is beneficial to begin with a review of Jack G. Shaheen\'s book, Reel Bad Arabs.

Shaheen\'s book is a review of racist images of Arabs in the media collected over a span of 20 years. An encyclopedic attempt, the book covers more than 900 movies, most of which depict Arabs and Muslims as inhuman. By the end of the book, one can clearly see that Arabs and Muslims are the last ethnic groups who are still negatively portrayed by Hollywood without consequences. The Arabs are almost always part of five different plot schemes:

villains, sheikhs, maidens, Egyptians, and Palestinians. Shaheen ranks the movies in several appendices including a "best" and "worst" list.

"Other" groups have long been caricatured by Hollywood. These groups include African-Americans, Jews, Latinos and East-Asians. Generally they were depicted devoid of individual character and even when the subject of the movie was shown as an individual it was almost always within the context of a stereotype. Shaheen points out that much has happened in the last century-women\'s suffrage, the civil rights\' movement, the collapse of the U.S.S.R, numerous wars-to change how minorities are represented, Arabs are still portrayed in much the same stereotypical way that they have been in the past.

While the stereotypes against other groups are today widely rejected in the media, Arabs are still fair game. Shaheen notes:

Pause and visualize the reel Arab. What do you see? Black beard, head dress, dark sunglasses. In the background-a limousine, harem maidens, oil wells, camels. Or perhaps he is brandishing an automatic weapon, crazy hate in his eyes and Allah on his lips. Can you see him?

As was the case with other ethnic groups in the past, Arabs are often depicted as oversexed and desiring pure, beautiful, white women. If Arab or Muslim women are portrayed, they are almost always either sexually inviting or faceless. In the case that they are sexually inviting, their seduction is almost always rejected by the "pure" white men as being below their dignity. Arabs are also depicted as being hook-nosed and devious. In many ways these caricatures mirror past western stereotyping of the Jews: thick lips, crooked nose, scruffy beard, angry faces, different dress.

The Arab is made to look ugly and thus evil. Even Arabs who may seem peaceful on the surface should be suspected of being violent. Shaheen notes that the same imagery which was used by Nazi propagandists to dehumanize the Jews is used today by Hollywood to dehumanize Arabs.

Shaheen notes that Islam is also an unfair target for Hollywood. Although most Arabs are Muslims, most Muslims are not Arabs, a fact that Hollywood seems to ignore. Throughout Reel Bad Arabs, "Arab" and "Muslim" are shown as being interchangeable.

Because mentioning every single review is not possible for this short paper, this reviewer is looking at examples of four different Arab/Muslim archetypes: villains, sheikhs, maidens, and Palestinians. All the examples mentioned below are taken from the "worst" film list-it\'s striking that many of the films to be mentioned in this paper were shot in Israel and even use Israeli actors to portray Arabs and Muslims.

This is surely no accident; such a portrayal is a part of winning hearts and minds to support the Israeli cause. Pro-Israelis achieve a number of objectives through negative portrayals of Arabs. Through repeatedly viewing images of Arabs and Muslims as angry, over-sexed, lazy, incoherent and strange, audiences come to give essential meaning to concepts which should only be viewed as incidental.

In this way, a concerted effort is being made to shape the subconscious image that the Western world has of the Muslim world, especially vis-à-vis the Palestinian question. By promoting the image of Arabs as incapable of peace, the pro-Israeli lobby is constructing a rationale for not bringing Arabs and Muslims to the same table as the Israelis.

Shaheen also points out that many of the most virulent images of Arabs as militant have come about after the creation of Israel. That Hollywood\'s movies are spread around the world and gross millions every week enforces these stereotypes not only on a national level but on an international one.

Shaheen doesn\'t say in Reel Bad Arabs that Arabs should never be portrayed as "bad guys" or that there are no movies which portray Arabs positively. The author makes it clear in introducing his book that Arabs can be bad guys like individuals from any other ethnic group.

Furthermore, he compiles a list of movies in which Arabs are portrayed sensitively. However, Shaheen makes it clear that Arabs are too often exclusively portrayed as evil, backwards, sexual, and incompetent. It is seemingly acceptable for Arabs and Muslims to be painted with a stereotypical broad brush. One may refer to Shaheen\'s book for hundreds of examples.

Toleration of Stereotyping Breeds Discrimination

The consequences of stereotyping minorities are manifold. In the case of Arabs and Muslims, the problems are compounded because approaches to the groups in the international arena can be seriously flawed,

as mentioned earlier in the case of Iraq. Widespread informal racism-racism which is not institutionalized-helps shape attitudes that can support legalized discrimination. Examples of attitudes like this abound in American history. The city of Detroit is a great example of how prejudicial attitudes can result in institutionalized discrimination, discrimination that contributes to more prejudice with potentially long lasting effects.

In the past, Metro-Detroit residential areas were ranked on a scale of green (good) to red (bad). Areas that had African Americans living in them were automatically given a red ranking. The reasoning was that if African-Americans moved into white neighborhoods, they would be sure to bring in crime, driving down property values and increasing taxes on residents in the area.

The fact was that for African-Americans to move to the neighborhoods in the first place required significant capital, money almost always procured through hard work and years of saving. This was ignored. White Americans labeled African-Americans as having a tendency to commit criminal activity, violence and prostitution.

African Americans were shuttered out of opportunities-even if they were the most qualified-which included moving into prime real estate areas. If African-Americans dared move into white areas, they were often met with psychological pressure and violence so that they would move back where they came from. Such is the power of stereotypes.

In the end, whites could not openly stem the tide of African-Americans moving out of the city. Housing discrimination was declared illegal through passing of civil rights\' amendments. But today, Detroit is more segregated then any other metropolitan area in North America. What happened?

Danzinger, Holzer and Farley identify four reasons that people give for the persistence of the race divide in Detroit. These reasons are 1. Economic differences that lead blacks and whites to seek differently priced housing; 2. Blacks and whites may differ in their knowledge of the housing market so that blacks consider suburban areas outside their purchasing ability; 3. Each racial group just wants to stick to its own area; and 4.

Discrimination from real estate agents keeps the groups separate. Although it is now illegal, even today, blacks have to worry that even if they manage to move into a white area that they would face hate including destruction of their property and psychological intimidation.

Discrimination, including stereotyping and racial segregation, clearly has negative long-term consequences that Arabs and Muslims should take note of. Arabs and Muslims are the latest in a long line of caricatured minorities to be at the mercy of policy-makers who benefit from bigotry. In this case, those policy-makers represent a wide range of personalities and interests but are united in tolerating the open denigration of people of Middle Eastern descent or those who practice Islam, as part of a larger agenda.

Such rhetoric and images are valuable tools in shaping the hearts and minds of a public that is often times skeptical if politicians care for its best interests. The American coverage of the Israeli-Hizbullah Conflict of 2006 was one of the best examples of how this stereotyping contributed to a filtering of information available to the public.