US entertainment industry making Muslims look bad
US entertainment industry making Muslims look bad
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The demonisation of Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular continues to remain the easy option for some in the American entertainment industry.
The much-awaited movie Syriana, released this week to glowing reviews, features two Pakistanis living in a filthy foreign workers’ compound in an unnamed Arab oil emirate. One day they lose their jobs only to fall into the hands of a friendly Egyptian who brings them to a well-appointed madrassa where they are fed well, including roast lamb, and indoctrinated to believe that the West is the enemy of Islam and as good Muslims they should be ready to lay down their lives for their faith. The transformation of the two carefree young men into suicide bombers does not take long, which should suggest that it takes only a few lectures and roast lamb meals to turn an average Muslim into a suicide bomber.
Television is much worse when it comes to blackening the Muslim image. Sleeper Cell, a 10-hour mini-series being shown on the Showtime channel, revolves around five members of a Muslim terrorist cell in Los Angeles who are planning a large-scale attack on the city. The group is led by a Saudi by the name of Faris al-Farik who operates under the cover name of Yossi Amran, a Jewish security expert. To further polish his image, he coaches a boys’ baseball team in his spare time. The other members of the cell have been described as a “model of diversity”. Ilaja is a Bosnian whose family was murdered by Serbs. Christian is a reformed skinhead who is happy to have found his salvation in the mission he has volunteered for. Tommy is a scholar of the Quran and the child of liberal University of California professors who have neglected him. He, therefore, is planning to get even with his parents by overthrowing the “US Zionist occupational government”. Another member of the cell is Darwyn al-Hakim who is a devout African-American Muslim, and who says he has just been released from prison. His cover is a clerk in a grocery store.
He is also an FBI plant. This is the closest the series comes to implying that not all Muslims are terrorists or potential terrorists.
The group is told by its leader that it should be “ready to strike without warning, without pity”. According to a review of the TV series in the New Yorker, “The creators of Sleeper Cell, Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, set about to provide a ‘realistic’ picture of how terrorists plan an attack, and to give under-informed viewers some grasp of the nuances of Islam and of its internecine struggles. A Yemeni sheikh who comes to talk at a mosque in Los Angeles is targeted for assassination because he believes that the greatest jihad is not the one you wage with others but the one you wage within yourself. He is seen as a threat to recruitment.”
Such shows can only bring into disrepute all Muslims and make them an object of suspicion. The New Yorker noted that “the cell members hide in plain sight; they use PayPal to transfer drug money, and they pick up their packages at Mail Boxes Etc (a popular American dispatch service).
They even find a novel way to collect information about wind speed and dispersal rates – by watching children have fun. Let’s just say that you won’t look at a child blowing up soap bubbles without wondering if you should call the FBI.”
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The demonisation of Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular continues to remain the easy option for some in the American entertainment industry.
The much-awaited movie Syriana, released this week to glowing reviews, features two Pakistanis living in a filthy foreign workers’ compound in an unnamed Arab oil emirate. One day they lose their jobs only to fall into the hands of a friendly Egyptian who brings them to a well-appointed madrassa where they are fed well, including roast lamb, and indoctrinated to believe that the West is the enemy of Islam and as good Muslims they should be ready to lay down their lives for their faith. The transformation of the two carefree young men into suicide bombers does not take long, which should suggest that it takes only a few lectures and roast lamb meals to turn an average Muslim into a suicide bomber.
Television is much worse when it comes to blackening the Muslim image. Sleeper Cell, a 10-hour mini-series being shown on the Showtime channel, revolves around five members of a Muslim terrorist cell in Los Angeles who are planning a large-scale attack on the city. The group is led by a Saudi by the name of Faris al-Farik who operates under the cover name of Yossi Amran, a Jewish security expert. To further polish his image, he coaches a boys’ baseball team in his spare time. The other members of the cell have been described as a “model of diversity”. Ilaja is a Bosnian whose family was murdered by Serbs. Christian is a reformed skinhead who is happy to have found his salvation in the mission he has volunteered for. Tommy is a scholar of the Quran and the child of liberal University of California professors who have neglected him. He, therefore, is planning to get even with his parents by overthrowing the “US Zionist occupational government”. Another member of the cell is Darwyn al-Hakim who is a devout African-American Muslim, and who says he has just been released from prison. His cover is a clerk in a grocery store.
He is also an FBI plant. This is the closest the series comes to implying that not all Muslims are terrorists or potential terrorists.
The group is told by its leader that it should be “ready to strike without warning, without pity”. According to a review of the TV series in the New Yorker, “The creators of Sleeper Cell, Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, set about to provide a ‘realistic’ picture of how terrorists plan an attack, and to give under-informed viewers some grasp of the nuances of Islam and of its internecine struggles. A Yemeni sheikh who comes to talk at a mosque in Los Angeles is targeted for assassination because he believes that the greatest jihad is not the one you wage with others but the one you wage within yourself. He is seen as a threat to recruitment.”
Such shows can only bring into disrepute all Muslims and make them an object of suspicion. The New Yorker noted that “the cell members hide in plain sight; they use PayPal to transfer drug money, and they pick up their packages at Mail Boxes Etc (a popular American dispatch service).
They even find a novel way to collect information about wind speed and dispersal rates – by watching children have fun. Let’s just say that you won’t look at a child blowing up soap bubbles without wondering if you should call the FBI.”
posted by India News Watch at 10:18 AM
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