Janak Raj Sapkota

MAY 07 -
In a contemporary world governed by electronic media and communication, a large number of media channels are reaching out to the wider mass with instant news and information from all across the globe. Depending upon the nature and urgency, some news items become instant headlines and attract immediate attention, while others are ignored and easily forgotten. Most often, news items are interesting, shocking, entertaining, controversial, or appalling. The interest or the shock value of such items often becomes the reason why they are highlighted in the first place.

Last week, my attention was drawn to a news item in which an Iranian cleric blamed women for earthquakes. Major (Western) news channels quoted Hojatoeslam Kazem Sedighi who said, “Many women who do not dress modestly…lead young people astray, corrupt their chastity, and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes.”

The last earthquake in Iran, which occurred in 2003, killed more than 31,000 people and experts there are constantly warning future quakes could be more disastrous than the last one.

I was stunned and shocked to read the news. How could a learned priest outrageously blame women for a natural catastrophe like an earthquake? The news detailed the religious law of Iran and explained that in Iran—as in many other Islamic republics—women must cover their body from head to toe. However, younger and educated Iranian urban women do not follow the strict dress code. They wear modern dresses; instead of traditional veils, they use colourful headscarves, often revealing their ears and hair.

To my surprise, most news channels covered the news with additional information on Iran, women and the Islamic religion. Its wide circulation has provoked fuming comments from readers across the world.

My initial shock turned into surprise and I wondered what was so important in this news that major media channels picked it up? This was not the first incident in which a religious minister accused people for a natural calamity. American televangelist Pat Robertson had made similar comments on Jan.14 through his Christian broadcasting network, in which he had said that the devastating Haiti earthquake was because of a pact Haitians had made with the devil to throw off the French in the 18th century. Though Robertson’s spokesperson later tried to mend it by saying that Robertson was simply referring to a Haitian legend, University of Miami researcher Kate Ramsey criticised Robertson for the offensive sermon. Unlike the comments of the Iranian priest, Robertson’s comments did not create uproar in the international media because it was not highlighted in major news channels. Therefore, it was either ignored or forgotten by most readers.

Indeed, it is a matter of discussion—why does some news get wider circulation while others, similar in nature, remain unimportant? Why did the controversial comments of the Iranian priest get unnecessary attention in the Western media whereas Robertson’s comments were posted as an inconsequential news item? Reading the readers’ comments followed by the news concerning the Iranian priest, I could sense that media coverage concerning the event created a biased understanding of the Islamic country and instigated aversive and repulsive feeling among non-Muslim readers.

Was this indistinct media propaganda or was this a covert but insistent assertion of cultural superiority? For the non-Muslim readers, references such as ‘veil’, ‘women’, and the ‘hard-line religion’ are, to some extend, abstract metaphors; they recognise these terms as the media promulgates them. Differences in culture can carry antagonistic forms of inner dissonance and can mutate intricate webs of surreptitious cultural values. In this case, the news channels not only highlighted the cleric’s contents unnecessarily but also pointed out to the cultural otherness of the Muslims. In directly, such representation depicted Islam as an orthodox religion compared to the “secular” religions of the West. In addition, it also imagined Islam in terms of its radical otherness; as a religion that does not allow women to come out of the veil and prohibits them to be independent in comparison with women from the privileged Western

culture.

It must be remembered, however, that words like ‘veil’, ‘hard-line religion’ and ‘women in Islam’—like women in Hinduism—create a homogeneous picture of an irrational, uncivilised East creating a stage of ‘religious oppression’ and articulate imbalance of power generated by religious thought. The arrangement of these words in the news coverage perpetuates stereotypical images of Islamic women by representing them as oppressed.

In the Western discourse, the veil has been discussed as the most tangible sign of women’s oppression, and all Islamic clerics are described as ‘fundamentalist’. Indeed, the politics of media can build up propaganda that can kill two birds with one stone: it can do so by showing Islam as a backward and misogynous religion, and secondly, by accentuating the callousness of men who use Islam for political aims. Such biased views have made it acceptable to hail the war in Afghanistan as a war that ‘liberates’ women.

In Orientalism, Edward Said pointed out how the Occidental (West) ways of depicting the Orient (East) are often polemic or provocative. He talked about the knowledge and power in the relationship between the ‘West’ and ‘the Orient’. Although, as a scholar of contemporary literature, Said took his critical material mostly from literary texts and symbols, one can still read his analysis in a political context. Following Foucault, he argued that ‘knowledge is power’. Since the Orient was ruled by the West, the West came to know the Orient through its description in the Western discourse. In a later work, Covering Islam, Said again discussed how Islam has been represented in Western academia and in Western societies at large. He pointed out the connection between the contemporary stereotyping of Islam and the oil supply from the Middle East.

To me, it seems that the stereotyping and labelling has not ended; it still continues in the news coverage and in media imagery.

News coverage does not just broadcast news; their so-called “neutral” coverage is often underlined by ambiguous messages. Therefore, readers need to ask questions—why are some news items given more space than others? The media can use a covert system ranging from deception to illusion which shapes the understanding of contemporary realities. For this reason, we, as readers, need to be sceptic and willing to apply one’s analytical skills before coming to specific conclusions

archanathapa00@hotmail.com

Source ; The kathmandu post

may, 8 2010

http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/advanced-search/?date_from=2010-05-08&date_to=&reporter_name=Archana+Thapa&reporter_id=735&cat_id=13&btnSearch=Search