Contents
1]Introduction.
2]Historical Background.
3]Media As A Sociopolitical Engineering Tool.
4]The Zionist Factor.
5]The South African Historical Perspective.
6]Conclusion.
7]Bibliography.
Since the acquisition of writing skills, man has acquired the ability to transport and transmit his ideas, achievements and prejudices faster and in a more prolific way than during the oral transmission period. The innovation of electronic media - Radio and TV - augmented by satellite transmission and the Internet has literally condensed the world to global, instantaneous communication.
Not only is information transmitted to every part of the populated world, satellite transmission has now made it possible to transpose the entire culture and ideological biases of one nation onto another.
This is coupled with the fact that the media in any country in the world are intrinsically bound up with the national, cultural, economic and above all, the political history of that country. The result is that the information imparted by the mass media is seldom neutral but has a specific agenda in the way in which it is presented. Making use of sensational headlines and dramatic imagery, the controllers of the mass media systematically perpetuate stereotypes and mould the mind-set of the uninformed masses to conform to their norms and standards. For Muslim thinkers, this dilemma brought with it many new challenges in terms of how to combat media stereo typing and demonising of Islam and Muslims.
It is precisely for this reason that the Islamic Research Centre (IRC) set out to seek people, through the process of networking, with the necessary expertise and commitment. People who would combat this onslaught against Islam (not that there was no one responding to the challenge). Individual Muslim writers asserted their right to reply, but because the problem was tackled at an individual level, the respondents found it very difficult to have their work published. The IRC provided the structure by formalising the Media Review Network (MRN) and undertook to coordinate and facilitate the work through administrative support; thus acting as a base from which MRN could autonomously operate.
The Question arises as to why Islam allowed itself to be portrayed as a violent, fanatical religion by the media.
It is a well known fact that Muslims have no control over the world press and news that is reported throughout the world, comes with its political and cultural biases. The corpus of reference works on Islam in the English language, emanate from the secular academic institutions of the West. This serves as the basis for most research, and is in itself deliberately distorted and intended to undermine Islam and Muslims.
The problem of portraying Muslims as the "other", is as old as Islam itself. The same vitriolic abuse that was engendered against Islam and the Prophet (PBUH) during the Jahili period, finds a bedmate in Anglo- European (Orientalists ) scholarship regarding Islam and Muslims. It must be noted that the defamatory rationale used by Salman Rushdi in his Satanic Verses, has precedents in the early British translations of the Holy Qur’an, which British scholarship has accredited as masterpieces of literature and heaped many accolades on its authors. This type of abuse was extended to the Seera (history) and corpus of Ahadith (oral, active and tolerated traditions) of the Prophet (PBHU). What we are dealing with today in the media are mere extensions of this crusade.
Western biases have actually tried to distort the entire civilizational norm of Islam in order to perpetuate their false claim of ideological superiority. This is aptly demonstrated in the many distortions that are still current in most reference works on Islam. An example of this is a recent book published by the department of Islamic studies of the University of Toronto. It was published through the Cambridge University Press, and is entitled " Introduction to Islamic civilisation," edited by R.M. Savory.
The two most outstanding features of the book are:
1] The huge - almost unbelievable - number of distortions and errors it contains with respect to the Islamic religious tradition.
2] The noticeable absence of Muslim contributors among the eleven individuals whose articles make up the text of the book despite the fact that the University of Toronto’s Department of Islamic Studies has several members who come from a Muslim background.
The pervasive presence of distortions in an "Introduction to Islamic Civilization" concerning the Islamic religious tradition is due to what appears to be a virtually total disregard of, if not contempt for the Muslim perspective. This disregard / contempt for the Muslim perspective is not only shown by the various contributors to the book but especially by the editorial committee responsible for the selection of the different articles that appeared in the final published edition of the book.
Unfortunately the same sort of conspiratorial attitude is also reflected in most of the Orientalist literature. This type of literature becomes authoritative sources on Islam and the journalists use this material to propagate the distortions sometimes unwittingly.
For example:
Very recently YOU magazine published a "historical" article on the development of the spice trade during the 10-12th century. The article depicted the Prophet (PBHU) as a spice trader akin to the "Merchants of Venice." Not only was the information spurious, YOU Magazine had the temerity to insert an alleged portrait of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The IRC contacted YOU Magazine to inform them that their article was fraught with errors and disinformation and that the portrait of the Prophet (PBUH) was a fake, as there is no authentic historical record of such a picture ever existing. YOU Magazine apologised for this over sight, but asserted that the material that was published came from reliable library sources. The fact that You Magazine published the article as a historical document, contributed to the false perceptions abounding in western scholarship regarding Islam. In spite of the apology, the article served as a reinforcement of prevailing negative perceptions regarding the prophetic historical tradition and provided a continuum for the existing stereotyping of Islam and Muslims.
3] MEDIA AS A SOCIO-POLITICAL ENGINEERING TOOL.
Although the Media are important commercial commodities on the one hand, they have also been regarded as instruments of political power and the mainstay of the opinion changing mechanisms employed by world governments and vested interest groups.
The Media are supposed to serve as the basis on which the masses can form an opinion on any given issue and provide them with the means to monitor those in power. But instead, the media, in the hands of capital, (the power base of modern democracy), has developed into an effective tool to make or break opponents of Euro-centricism vested in Anglo American hegemony - the so-called new world order. This is especially the case with those who dare to challenge the validity of the uni-culture philosophy that underpins the strategy for global domination by the North over the South - Democracy in its essence.
By their very nature, the media with their current status are a diatribe against democracy and its attendant rights of freedom of choice and freedom of expression. Through their propagandist tactics, they ensure that the only acceptable choices are the western liberal choices. Any other choice would constitute the "abnormal," based on "illogical" premises. Anyone who dares to oppose this status quo becomes an "offender" of western liberalism. Hence the need for a psychological war against "offenders" who seek to live by and propagate another set of norms and values.
In this way the Mass Media are used as an effective socio-polical engineering tool. In other words, in order for Muslims or any other non neo-colonial culture to be politically correct and socially acceptable, they have to abide by the standards set by western liberalism or risk being included under any of the ready made Western lables of prejudice. This often means that Muslims either have to abandon their own value system or at best, compromise it to the point where it becomes indiscernable from the neo-colonialist psuedo culture - the process of "post modernism." At the same time this psuedo - culture is endorsed by a whole regiment of indigenous "scholars" who echo their master's voice in their attempts to super-impose their masters' will on the "uninformed" masses.
Muslims, in claiming their right to choose Islam, have fallen foul to this paradox practised by western liberalism in the Media. In asserting their rights of freedom of religion, freedom of choice and association, and to express those rights in terms of the Islamic ideology, Muslims have placed themselves in the camp of the "offenders." And the most effective way of marginalising the "offending" ideology is to employ the old age strategy of "Bogeymanitis."
The foundations of the new world order are built on, and its success is determined by, how effectively the concept of the bogey-man is accepted in world opinion. The new world order cannot do without Bogeymanitis. Its societies draw strength from it and show common cause in it, and its military expertise is sustained and advanced through its supposing menace. In an interview earlier this year, NATO Secretary , Willy Claes, stated that: "Islamic Fundamentalism is at least as dangerous as communism was." At a private NATO security conference held in early February 1995, US Senator John Glen told delegates: "Looking at the Muslim world, I feel we might be heading for a fight to protect our basic political norms."
Such was the case during the so called cold war with the USSR and the "Swart / Rooi Gevaar" phenomenon during the apartheid era in South Africa. Now that the cold war has ended with the collapse of Communism - (to read) the fragmentation of the USSR - since communism is still very much alive in China , Cuba and other areas of the world; - and the "Swart / Rooi Gevaar" has dissipated with the transition of South Africa into a democracy, the new bogeyman that emerged to salvage the ideological crises brought about by Neo - Imperialism, are Muslims and Islam.
The end of the cold war brought about a major shift in U.S. foreign policy towards Islam and the Middle East. In September 1995, in a research document published by the Middle East Policy Council in the U.S. the author, Professor Arthur L. Lowrie notes: "The end of the Cold War has changed American Foreign policy. As the sole super power, we (Americans) are free to intervene wherever and whenever we decide, constrained only by domestic considerations. New international forces have risen to the top of policy makers' concerns. Our European allies, no longer in need of a nuclear umbrella, do not follow America's lead as they once did. Trade is now as crucial to American ambassadors as it has been for our allies for years." In one of the most dramatic changes in foreign policy, the American approach towards Islam is reversing itself from a conciliatory attitude to one of open hostility.
" During the Cold War, Islam was our ally, Islamic regimes were, by definition, enemies of 'godless communism,' and the United States exploited it, .....Logic suggests that, because Muslims comprise one - fifth of the world's population, Americans would wish to establish friendly relations with Muslim (majority) countries from Indonesia to Morocco. Instead, what we see is a campaign directed at Islamic resurgence movements throughout the Middle East."
As the Cold War dissipated, the view of some Cold War warriors towards Islam changed. Samuel Huntington of Havard, in his often - cited "Clash of Civilizations" article , accepted that they in the west will " have to accommodate 'civilizations' whose values and interests differ significantly from ours." "His accommodation," however, was to prepare for conflict by maintaining "American military superiority, particularly in East and South west Asia" (The heartland of Islam)
The anti Muslim / Islam campaign is not an isolated case of religious prejudice. Rather it must be seen in the light of its historical perspective in South Africa, Western / American hegemony and in terms of the global Zionist agenda. Which is to gain international legitimacy for its continued occupation and usurpation of Palestinian lands and economic and political domination of the Middle East. At the same time, through its interventionist policies, America and the West can further the exploitation of Muslim majority countries’ natural resources and fulfil their plan of American hegemony over the Middle East and Africa.
American crises managers consider the Persian Gulf 's Islamic states as places ready for American military occupation. In the New York Times Magazine, June 28, 1970, George Ball warned that: " The tragedy of Vietnam might lead to "pacifism and isolation" at home, whereas American interests in the Middle East were so great that the president ought to 'educate' Americans about the posibility of military intervention there."
On February 6 1996 Business Day ran the following headline: "Studied silence greets article on Jewish power in the US" The article written by Philip Weiss, a Jewish writer and journalist, originaly apeared in a weekly New York magazine in the US. Business Day notes: "US magazines rarely confront the issue of Jewish influence so directly as in the eight-page 'personal inquiry' by Weiss."
Weis, a second-generation American, marshals an impressive collection of statistics. More than a quarter of reporters, editors and executives on big newspapers and television are Jewish, as are 60% of writers, producers, and directors of Hollywood's 50 biggest-grossing films.
At the leading law firms in Washington and New York, 40% attorneys are Jewish, as are 16 of the top 40 of Forbes magazine's list of America's 400 wealthiest men.
Jews represent just 3% of the US population, although at 1,6-million, there are more Jews in New York than any other city in the world. ... Weiss' 70 year-old father, a successfull scientist, cautioned him, saying: "Jews felt almost as comfortable in Berlin during the 1920's as they do in the US today."
The role of Israel in mediating Western and particularly American views of the Islamic world since World War II, perpetuates and reinforces the many illusions that exist regarding Israel as the only "democracy" in the "Islamic Wilderness" in the Middle East, and Muslims and Islam as the sole cause of global turmoil and instability.
In the first place, Israel's avowedly religious character is rarely mentioned in the Western press: Only recently have there been overt references to Israeli religious fanaticism, and all of these have been to the fundamentilist extremists of Gush Emunim, whose principle activity has been the violent setting up of illegal settlements on the West Bank. Most accounts emanating from the West conveniently omit the fact that it was "secular labour governments that first instituted illegal settlements in occupied Arab territory, not just the religious fanatics now stirring things up." Western media were also very quick to hush up the fact that Jewish fundamentilism motivated the killing of their prime minister, Yitzak Rabin.
This kind of biased reporting is an indication of how Israel - the Middle East's "only democracy" and America's staunch ally" - has been used as a foil for Islam. Thus Israel has appeared as a bastion of civilization hewn (with much approbation and self congratulation) out of the "Islamic wilderness." Israel's security in the eyes of America has become conveniently interchangeable with fending off Islam, perpetuating Western hegemony, and demonstrating the virtues of modernization. In these ways three sets of illusions economically buttress and reproduce one another in the interests of shoring up the Western self-image and promoting Western power over the Orient, viz: The view of Islam, the ideology of the West, and the affirmations of Israel's general value to the West.
In addition, and to make "our" (American) attitudes to Islam very clear, a whole information and policy making apparatus in the United States depend on these illusions (propagated by Israel) and defuses them widely. Large segments of the intelligentsia allied together to the community of geopolitical strategists deliver themselves of expansive ideas about Islam, oil, the future of Western civilization, and the fight for democracy and human rights against turmoil and terrorism - geopolitics and cold war ideology.
The Media take from these sources what most easily compresses into images: hence the caricatures, the frightening mobs, the concentration on "Islamic punishment," "the oppression of women," and so on.
All of this is presided over by the great establishments - the oil companies, the mammoth corporations and multinationals, the defense and intelligence communities and the executive branch of the government.
Zionist propaganda against Islam and Muslims appears to be in the forefront in South Africa. It is believed that Mossad and CIA agents in the country had much to do with the perceptions later espoused by the Media and the South African Military and Police Intelligence agencies regarding the socalled " Muslim Fundamentalist Threat," and Islam.
In fact, S.A. Jewish Times (Vol 3, No 2, May 1996) published an article entitled "South Africa: seedbed for Muslim fudamentalism" The article went on to implicate the intelligence community of South Africa as its source and it read: "No one knows better than the inteligence community in South Africa, where Iranian mullahs, backed by Libya and by Algerian Moslem extremists, are spearheading a major effort to bolster an embryo fundamentalist terrorist movement..."So extreme is the bulk of Moslems in the country that when Renan Ashrawi visited the country some 18 months ago, she told audiences in Johannesburg that South African Moslems are ' the most extreme racists I have ever met.' "
Not surprisingly, the South African Jewish Board of Deputies representative, Frans.E Auerbach was quick to try some damage control with an article in the July edition of the Jewish Times. Heading his disclaimer "Article on Muslim fundamentalism in South Africa exaggerated," Auerbach goes out of his way to argue away the propaganda and innuendo published in their mouthpiece, yet never denying the "Muslim fundamentalist extremist" claims made in the May edition of the S.A. Jewish Times.
Due to the close cooperation with a sister organization in the US, the IRC was able to procure a copy of a research document: "The Middle East policy Document," published by the Middle East Policy Council, in which Professor Arthur L. Lowrie submitted an article on "American Foreign Policy And The Campaign Against Islam." His paper not only portrays the US foreign policy double standards regarding Islam, but also exposes the workings of the Zionist lobby within the US government.
He notes: "Israeli leaders, threatened by the violent resistance from Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have sought to enlist the United States and Europe (and now South Africa) in the battle against "Islamic Fundamentalism" in general. Haim Baram, writing from Jerusalem, described the position of the Israeli leaders in the late 1994 as follows:
The feared and respected enemy now is Islam: the demonization of Muslims is part of the same propagandist strategy reserved until recently for Palestinian nationalism. The Likud leader Bibi Netanyahu, is currently touring the globe and spreading the new gospel. According to Netanyahu Arafat has become completely unimportant, since he cannot possibly stem the tide of Islamic radicalism generated by Iran. It is an almost risible tactic, since the Likud leader himself described Arafat, until recently, as the principle threat not only to Israel, but to the entire Western world.
Netanyahu has found a new line of reasoning for his ancient rejectionist stance. Arafat does not matter, the Islamists are going to take over from him and rule the Palestinian people, and therefore any territorial concessions are absolutely pointless. Iran ironically, is portrayed as the Great Satan, capable of threatening the west with nuclear bombs. Lebanon and even Syria will undergo an Islamic revolution very soon.
Here you have the replacement of one form of Bogeyman with another, the Soviet model with an Islamic one.
Steven Emmerson, (Self acclaimed expert on Islamic Terrorism and Fundamentalism), an author well-known for his pro Israeli views, produced the infamous PBS programme Jihad in America, (aired on November 21, 1994). The World Trade Centre bombing was its centre piece, and, while disclaimers were made that Islamic extremists are only a small minority of Muslims, the import of the programme was, in the words of Walter Goodman, TV critic for the New York Times, "That seemingly respectable Muslim organizations have ties to militants, who preach violence,"
The panic with which the United States and its allies have responded to Palestinian militancy (assertion for their rights) only shows too well that it is not the Zionists in Palestine that Muslims are facing, but the Zionists who have now acquired a greater say in major decision-making centres in the Western world. For Israel is primarily a colonial wedge put in the sacred heart of the Muslim world. Any Islaimc project that has the remotest possibility of succeeding has been viewed by the Zionists as a threat to Israel's security - even if such a project were in Chechnya, Algeria, Tajikistan, Malaysia, Kashmir (or South Africa).
The Israeli Zionists have strategised as follows:-
1] In pursuance of their dream of the "Greater Israel," they are knowingly, illegally occupying the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and part of Lebanon.
2] The occupation has to be legitimised. They therefore need to get world opinion on their side. By demonising Palestinians alone they will not achieve world sympathy. They have to demonise all Muslims so that other countries with Muslim populations will also be "sensitised" to the perceived danger that the Muslims pose to the whole Western civilisation. In the same way the perpetual propaganda of the holocaust and supposed Jewish suffering have succeeded in establishing a guilt complex which procured billions of dollars in guilt payments to the Zionists by the West.
In this way they can get away with their inhuman treatment of the Palestinians and Muslims without a harsh backlash from the rest of the world and especially their main supporter, America.
The American administration is very effectively manipulated by a strong Zionist lobby in America and many Zionists are in top positions in the American administration. Recent appointments of Jews, grossly disproportionate to the American Jewish population of 3 - 4% to the Clinton administration, shows adequately the extent to which America is controlled by the Zionist.
The following list of Clinton’s appointments is based on carefully compiled
data. (Note: this list refers to Zionists appointed in the first administrative
period = 1992 - 96). In the new 1997 - 2000 period some of the nominees
have advanced even further since the previous elections. Former US ambassador
to the U.N. Madeleine. K. Albright has been promoted to US SECRETARY of
State and William Cohen to Minister of Defence. Two other Zionists not
listed are: Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, active in the Dept of Foreign
Affairs on the American "Peace Effort" in the Middle East.
|
|
|
|
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Albright. Madeleine K. |
Jewess |
U.S Ambassador to the UN |
|
Altman, Roger |
Jew |
Deputy to Secretary Bentson |
|
Baird, Zoe |
Jew |
Attorney General (declined post) |
|
Berger, Sameul |
Jew |
National Security Deputy Head |
|
Boorstin, Robert |
Jew |
Communications Aide |
|
Boykin, Keith |
Jew |
Communications Aide |
|
Dreyer, David |
Jew |
Communications Aide |
|
Eisenstat, Stuart.E |
Jew |
Asst. Secretary of State: Security |
|
Eller, Jeff |
Jew |
Communications Aide |
|
Feder, Judith |
Jewess |
Advisor to the Secretary of Health |
|
Gober, Hershel |
Jew |
Ass. Sect. For Veterans’ Affairs |
|
Herman, Alexis |
Jew |
Sect to President: Public Works |
|
Kantor, Mickey |
Jew |
US Trade Representative |
|
Klain, Ron |
jew |
Third White House Council |
|
Kunin, Madeleine |
Jewess |
Ass, Sect. Of Education |
|
Kusnet, David |
Jew |
Communications Aide |
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Lewis, Samuel |
Jew |
Director of Strategy |
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Ludwig, Eugene A |
Jew |
Director of the Mint |
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Magaziner, Ira |
Jew |
Chief Advisor Security Questions |
|
Newman, Frank N |
Jew |
Ass. Secretary of State Finance |
|
Nussbaum, Bernard |
Jew |
White House Council |
|
Oxman, Stephen A |
Jew |
Ass. Secretary of State Europe |
|
Paster, Howard |
Jew |
Presidential Secretary Political Affairs |
|
Reich ,Robert |
Jew |
Secretary of Labour |
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Rivlin, Alice |
Jew |
Deputy Director O.M.B. |
|
Rubin ,Robert E |
Jew |
Head Counsel Economic Advisors |
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Segal, Eli |
Jew |
Director Office Nntl Service |
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Seidman, Ricki |
Jew |
Communication Aide Research |
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Schifter, Richard |
Jew |
U.S. Ambassador of Israel |
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Spero, Joan Edelman |
Jew |
Asst, Secty, State Econ. Affairs |
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Summers, Lawrence. H |
Jew |
Ass, Secty, State of Policy |
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Tarnoff, Peter |
Jew |
Asst, Secty, State Pol, Affairs |
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Waldman, Michael |
Jew |
Communication Aide |
(First Clinton administrative term 1992-96)
1] Robert Reich, 45, a professor at Havard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
2] Ira Magaziner, 45, president of SJS, Inc.
3] Robert J. Shapiro, 42, vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute.
4] Samuel R. Berger, 46, former deputy director of the State Department policy planning staff.
5] Michael Mandelbaum, 45, professor and director of American Foreign Policy Studies at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University.
NB. A sixth Zionist may have been added to the advisors group in the current - 1997 -2000 - term.
The recent increase in Media hostility towards Muslims and Islam can be traced directly to the Zionist machinations and propaganda. Hence the creation of the propagandist video "Jihad in America" and the Africa Report which found their way to the desks of many world leaders and opinion-makers including South Africa.This may be why "The Citizen" has dedicated page thirteen to Israeli politics and Zionist's propaganda against Muslims and Islam in the Middle East.
5] THE SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE.
In South Africa however, the onslaught on Islam started from the introduction of Muslims into the country via the colonial exile of Muslim activists from the Far and Middle East. The first attack on Islam was a governmental decree issued by Governor Mutsucker in the Cape under the Statutes of India issued 1642 - 1657. This ignoble decree outlawed Islam as a religion and those who were found guilty of practising and propagating their faith in public were punished with the death penalty and their priests were put in chains. This decree was only rescinded in 1804 after the British took over as the colonial masters of the Cape. Hereafter Muslims were left to practice their faith for as long as they remained subservient to their colonial masters.
The problem of demonising Islam and Muslims would resurface from time to time through the Dutch Reform Church lobby - The Founding bastion of apartheid and the State church providing the ideological rationale for apartheid. This attack on Islam and Muslims intensified during the resistance against the apartheid state. The import of the collusion of the church with the state in demonising Islam and Muslims, should not be over simplified neither excused as the workings of the white supremist regime in the "laager." In its broader context it clearly shows that while Muslim and Non Muslim activists were participating in the struggle, at no instance was the religion of the non Muslims implicated in their attempts to liberate themselves from the oppression of a Racist State.
This fact was brought into stark reality when the White DRC - Afrikaner NGK - Synod commissioned Professor Deon Crawford of the University of Pretoria in 1982, to examine and report back about the roots of the "Islamic challenge" in South Africa in particular, and the continent in general.
In October 1986 Professor Crawford tabled his report at the Dutch Reform Church General Synod in Belville, Cape Town and this had far reaching consequences for both the church and state from Muslim quarters. After deliberations on the report Reverent Stoffel Colyn, chaplain to the South African Police at that time, put forward the following resolution: Islam is to be declared "a false religion" and a "threat to Christianity." Thereafter the DRC synod adopted the following resolutions:
1] Islam is a false religion and a threat to Christianity in South Africa and the world at large.
2] Church members and officials should "witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all areas of life as the only answer to the onslaught of Islam.
3] Concern was expressed that many young black and coloured people (particularly after 1976) had begun embracing Islam as an ideology which furthered the freedom struggle in South Africa.
4] Islam was recognised as a minority religion in South Africa.
5] It warned Muslims that radical involvement in revolutionary action and incitement of people to acts of terror, would seriously harm the relationship between Muslims and Christians and endanger the peaceful coexistence of the religions. (Notwithstanding the terrorism perpetrated by the white separatist state against its non white citizens).
In an attempt to placate Muslim anger, President Botha announced that South Africa enjoyed complete religious freedom (religious tolerance), and the DRC issued a statement claiming their resolution was quoted out of context. The point is, what was the correct context ?
Exactly a year later in October 1987 Pretoria regional court Magistrate J. H. Bekker, ruled the Qur’an to be subversive in terms of verses: 4 / 74-75, 22 / 39, 42 / 39-41, and 4 / 107, which motivate Muslims to assert themselves against oppression and injustice as part and parcel of devotional services in Islam. Bekker went on to declare Ahmed Cassiem, Yusuf Patel and those who act upon these Qur’anic injunctions, as terrorists. This tirade from the Justice department only served to expose the high level of the onslaught against Islam and inspired Muslims to intensify their struggle against the repressive regime. To date, this said ruling against the Holy Qur’an by the Justice department when viewed against the bill of rights, the new Constitution and more specifically freedom of religion, has not yet been repealed and is still an indictment against the justice system.
One of the most diabolical contradictions in the Crawford report tabled to the DRC / NGK synod is that the report focussed on all the aspects of the Islamic moral and value system. Pointing out the credo of universal equality before a compassionate Lord, the richness of its corporeal and spiritual fulfilment, the intimate brotherhood of its followers, (where the grief of one is the grief of all and happiness is a gift to be shared), the unselfish sharing of wealth in terms of its charitable institutions and the divine mission and all-exclusive commitment to establish and uphold Allah’s commandments in all spheres of human activity; for Muslims are those who submit their will to Allah wherever they are. It was largely these positive elements of Islam and Muslim code of life that motivated the DRC synod to intensify their campaign against Islam; since Christianity was seen to be the religion of the colonial masters and the DRC, the Nationalist Party at prayer.
In spite of the DRC’s disclaimer that their resolutions were quoted out of context, the church went ahead with its campaign of targeting Islam as a "false religion." In October 1988 Dominee Soon Zevenste, Evangilican Reformed Church cleric and chairperson of the Anti Halaal Committee, published a vitriolic article in the Huisgenoot (The Afrikaans version of the You Magazine) against slaughtered chickens that were marked with the Halaal Stamp. In his article Zevenste equates the Halal Stamp with the sign of the beast and calls for a national boycott of all stores and especially chain stores that sell food bearing the Halaal Stamp, until Christians’ demands are met. In Christian theological terms, equating the halaal stamp with the sign of the "Beast," is tantamount to saying that Islam is a satanic faith and Christians consuming food marked with this emblem, are in fact making themselves guilty of practising Satanism.
Recently the campaign against the Halal Stamp has intensified and has spread to other church denominations and other parts of Southern Africa. "HALAL AND THE CHRISTIAN" by Dr J. L. Venter (page 22 in Issue No 24, Christian Living Today, January 1996), equates Islam with idol worship and warns Christians not to buy any food products that bear the Halaal stamp. He argues that this is an underhand way in which Muslims are propagating Islam and that the Halaal emblem may be a symbol used in witchcraft. He adds: "The Christian must be wary and aware of the systematic indoctrination of our people under the sign of the Animal from 'Revelation - 13.' As Christians we must see it as a small part of the developing forces of the Anti Christ."
In the Patriot - the mouthpiece of the Afrikaner Fundamentalists (28 February 1997) the folowing article anounced " ISLAM / MOSLEM SE HALAAL VERSUS DIE CHRISTEN" (Islam / Moslem’s Halaal Undermines the Christian.). The article identifies Allah SWT as an idol and food marked with the Halal stamp as "afgodkos" (idol's food). This campaign has now been taken up by Rhema Church in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
Apart from the daily news papers and other periodicals, the Reader's Digest has its own anti-Islam crusade. On the face of it, it is probably the most "innocent" mainstream US publication distributed in South Africa. It seems to promote conservative moral values like honesty, courage, charity, fairness and tolerance. For its milions of readers all around the world, it also has been a teacher of the English language. It packs all the prestige that such moral values, literary authenticity and a commercial success measured by a circulation exceeding 23 million around the globe can offer. ...But Readers Digest is the last publication you would expect to adopt a political propaganda mission.
In December 1993, it published "The Terrorists Amongst Us," painting a picture of thousands of blood-thirsty American Muslims out to spill American blood on its own soil. In January 1994 it published "All in the name of Islam," which reported that Muslim women are oppressed and abused in the name of religion. After reporting a case of one Saudi woman who sought asylum in Canada, the article quoted an unnamed official: "There are one billion Muslims in the world, so we are talking hypothetically of 500 million women who might want out ( to flee to the west)." In January 1995 it published "A holy war heads our way," presenting Islam as a war-mongering religion. In January 1996 it published "Islam's real agenda," which gave a liberalist view of Islam and asserted that 90% of the Sharia are mere man made rules which in any case were "temporary injunctions related to particular circumstances in 7th century desert Arabia." This time Reader's Digest had a ready-made nominee in Said Al-ashmawy, former chief justice of Egypt's Supreme Court. He wrote their article for them and gave it an "Islamic scholastic" endorsement.
As an indication of its seriousness of purpose and thought, the Digest made all of these anti-Islamic propaganda articles available for reprint.
The magnitude of the Media challenge facing Muslims and the campaign against Islam should not be underestimated. With the transition from oppression to liberation, Muslims believed that because they were part and parcel of the liberation movements at different levels and equally sacrificed in the struggle, their status as Muslims in the media would have changed. It seems though, that since the transition, the anti Islam / Muslim media campaign has intensified. In fact anti Muslim / Islam propaganda is witnessed in the Media on a daily basis. Has freedom of expression given the anti Islam lobby license ?
It is for this reason that the Islamic Research Centre undertook to facilitate the work of the Media Review Network to combat and offset the daily anti Muslim biases in the mass media. In fact, this campaign is not limited to newspapers and periodicals only. It includes non-fiction books, TV programmes, Radio talk shows and full feature films academic journals and post graduate dissertations. The objective of the IRC was to create a structured and coordinated lobby, hitherto absent in the community, that would respond to and provide an alternative perspective on many issues affecting Muslims on a global scale that used to go unchallenged in the mass media. Through the MRN Muslims are now asserting their right of rebuttal and current trends in the Media are certainly reflective of their input.
In the final analysis this discourse is only a small window looking into the major problem that is facing Muslims globally in terms of the Mass Media. There is an urgent need for more in-depth research into the relevant issues exposed in this paper. However, what stands out as a stark reality of the current situation, is that the control of the media gives the west a tremendous psychological advantage over us. This advantage is exploited to the utmost to promote their intellectual, cultural and political biases to whoever their global communication systems reach. Already the workings of the Islamophobes are being witnessed on the Internet. Cyberspace has now opened an unrestrained medium and an unlimited arena in which to propagate their Islamophobias.
Muslims on the other hand have not yet reached this level of sophistication in the information society. The result is that the Western biases often go unchallenged. Whilst they promote everything Western as "superior," it goes hand in glove with the stereotyping and demonising of Muslims the world over. The poor self image that many Muslims have of themselves has much to do with this negative impact of the media on the Muslim psyche. This invariably results in apologetics and intellectual acrobatics which contribute to the dichotomy existing in Muslim scholarship.
There cannot be any doubt that a well orchestrated campaign is in full swing to exclude Muslim opinion from any debate affecting Muslims locally and internationally in the media.The hysteria created against Islam and Muslims in the media has effectively contributed to an Islamophobia that assumes Muslims to be monolithic and unchanging, wholly different from other cultures and who use Islam mainly for political or military advantage. The Muslims are therefore, impacably threatening. The Islamophobes reject as out of hand, criticism of Western cultures and societies: They mix fear of Islam with racist hostility. However, they consider their phobia as something natural and unproblematic. Naturally enough, these features of Islamophobia "feed off each other, giving and gaining additional resonance and power."
How ? The following example illustrate the methodology applied, viz: "There is a Muslim threat to Europe" (Islam's new drive into Europe through legitimate immigration) Bulletin of the Jerusalem Institute for Western Defence, (vol 6 No. 3 October 1993). Clare Hollingsworth: "Muslim fundamentalism is fast becoming the chief threat to global peace and security: International Herald Tribune (9 November 1993) .
One only has to read any one of the local news papers to realise that a single-mindedness regarding Muslim and Islam, permeates the information disseminated. This propagates the false perception that Islam is the cause of most, if not all of the conflict and suffering in the world. The West has therefore no other recourse but to suppress this menace by any means; Sudan being a case in point.
It is of paramount importance that Muslims take an active stance in the campaign to stem the tide of Muslim bashing and demonising of Islam, so that in the interim, while strategies are still on the drawing board, the assault on Muslim integrity should not go unchallenged. Experience has proven that it is only a collective, coherent voice that will succeed in sensitising the Mass Media to Muslim concerns. The limited success that the MRN and MAN have achieved is a yardstick as to what can be reached if and when Muslims take control of their own destinies and the way it is portrayed in the media.
So far, tremendous strides have been made in community development in the fields of; social - welfare, education, economics and religion. Primarily, Muslims are a self sufficient community. It is now time that an outward expression of this translates itself into a dynamic and coherent plan to address the need of the support systems required to tackle the media onslaught head on.
In line with this aim, the IRC has established a permanent Media Desk with full time personnel in Pretoria. Community- Networks now need to be properly structured to give support to the Media Desk and enhance the utilisation of the limited community resources. Muslim activists need to be trained in professional journalism. On community level, Muslims reading their daily newspapers should read it with a critical evaluation of the content. Should they find any information that might impact on Muslims negatively, then they should take it up as an individual responsibility, to respond to it or at least inform the Media desk. In this way a new organizational mind set will emerge which can successfully combat the media onslaught and win.
You as an individual can contribute positively by:
1] Reading your newspaper critically, evaluating the information and responding by giving the correct perception.
2] Developing your writing skills so that adequate responses are formulated.
3] Keeping your responses lucid, concise, unemotional and objective.
4] Linking up with the Media Review Network if possible.
5] Remembering that the driving force behind the demonising of Muslims and Islam in the Mass Media at present, is primarily the Israeli propaganda machine.
6] Persisting in writing even if your responses are not immediately published.
7] Contacting the Editor by phone and requesting an acknowledgement of receipt if your responses are not published.
8] Sending a copy of the relevant article and your response to the MRN / IRC for archive purposes.
Just bear in mind that the only reason why they (the anti Islam / Muslim lobby) have succeeded in the past, is because their attempts at Muslim bashing and demonising Islam, have gone unchallenged on a collective basis until recently.
1]Report by The Canadian Society of Muslims, Toronto. Prepared by a committee: Anab Whitehorse, BA. Hons (Havard), MA. (Toronto), Committee Chairperson: Professor Chill Dewdney, PhD and Abrar Bhatti, Barrister -at-law. The Journal September 1980.
2] You Magazine
3] Corporate Intelligence Review - Special Focus - The Rise of Islamic Extremismin Africa p36.
4] Arther L. Lowrie: Middle East Policy Report, Volume 4 1,2 September 1995 Nubers 1,2. Published by the Middle East Policy Council
5] Sameul Huttington: The Clash of civilianisation....
6] Arther L. Lowrie: Middle East Policy Report, Volume 4 1,2 September 1995 Nubers 1,2. Published by the Middle East Policy Council
7] Edward.W. Said: Covering Islam - How The Media And The Experts Determine How The World See Islam. Chp: One. Islam As News p30. 1985.
8] Business Day 06/02/96
9] Business Day 06/02/96
10] Edward.W. Said: Covering Islam - How The Media And The Experts Determine How The World See Islam. Chp: One. Islam As News p30. 1985.
11] S.A.Jewish Times: Vol 3 No 2 May 1996
12] S.A. Jewish Times June 1996
13] Insert ours.
14] Letters to the Editor, The Washington Times, Friday May 1995. Ebrahim Hooper: Washington. National communications director for the Council on American -Islamic Relations, a nonprofit, Washington based Islamic advocacy organization. -
15] Middle East International, December 2, 1994.
16] Insert ours
17] Azzam Tamimi: Roots of the tragic conflict - When Anti Semetism Allied Itself With Zionism - . Impact International p13. April 1996.
18]The New York Times (NYT) November 21, 1994.
19] Jewish Post 16/9/92
20] Achmat Davids: Pioneers of the Cape
21] Africa Events December 1986 "Chapter and Verse" p30
22] Arshad Gamiet: Islam - What Threat ? Africa Events December 1987 p41.
23] Africa Events December 1986 "Chapter and Verse" p37
24] Insert ours
25] Insert ours
26] Professor Deon Crawford:Crawford report, "Chapter and Verse," Africa Events December 1986 p30.
27] Huisgenoot October 1988 " Hoenders: die warm stryd oor halal" p 17.
28] Dr J.L. Venter: Christian Living Today, "Halal and the Christian, Issue No 24, P 21, January 1996
29] Tinkie Viviers, Pietersburg: Patriot (Letters)28 February 1997, "Islam / Moslem se Halaal Versus die Christen" (Islam / Muslim's Halal Undermines the Christian)
30] Khalid Begg: Western Media - Readers' Digest's Holy War against Islam. Impact International p45. February 1995
31] M.H. Faruqi: Consultation on Islamophobia - If you have a view, let them know. p 17. Impact International April 1997
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