Writers Toolbox

The narrative power and dramatic appeal of the composite Arab-Muslim "character"

Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence
By Karim H. Karim
Black Rose Books,
204 pages, $24.99.

Reviewed by Susan Korah

The author argues that to ignore the diversity and complexity of Islamic cultures … fuels the very violence that destabilizes our entire way of life.

The apocalyptic scenes of death and destruction, which exploded across our TV screens on September 11, and perhaps shattered some of our fundamental assumptions about life in North America, will be seared forever in our collective consciousness. In the wake of that horrific catastrophe, another wave of violence and vendetta, and yet another reign of terror has been unleashed on our global village.

Karim H. Karim's Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence was published a few months before that fateful day, but its message has taken on a more forceful sense of relevance and urgency in the aftermath of the crashes that literally shook the world. A Canadian Muslim scholar with impeccable Western academic credentials (Columbia and McGill Universities) and a moderate stance on the Islamic question, Karim makes a reasoned but powerful plea for more sensitive and insightful media coverage of the complex international phenomenon dubbed "Islamic fundamentalism" and "Islamic terrorism" by most journalists in the Western world.

The author argues that to ignore the diversity and complexity of Islamic cultures and to go blindly with the flow of the "global media narrative" is a dangerous and potentially explosive exercise because it fuels the very violence that destabilizes our entire way of life.

Karim demonstrates how simplistic stories of the 'good guy' (Western people and cultural values based on Christianity or secular liberalism) versus the 'bad guy' (Muslims, all of whom come from the same sub-human school of barbarism and fanatical religious fundamentalism) have immense narrative power and dramatic appeal. Yet they have obscured the complex web of socio-political issues that have led a small minority of Muslims to use a twisted version of their faith as an opium to dull the edge of their own alienation and despair.

Karim argues that centuries of conflict and misunderstandings between European culture, perceived as rational, ordered and Christian; and "Oriental" (middle Eastern) culture, interpreted by European scholars as barbaric, excessively prone to violence and lechery, and underpinned by Islam, have left a legacy of images and stereotypes in the Western mind. Through countless, vaguely absorbed and half-remembered stories, songs, movies, plays and other cultural productions (Arabian Nights, Blue Beard, the Elvis Presley movie Harum Scarum, to give a few examples), a composite Arab-Muslim "character" had been created as a kind of cultural bogeyman that haunts the Western imagination.

This has prepared media audiences and readers in the Western world to be extremely receptive to stories of evil Muslim characters. Thus all Muslims become tarred with the same brush. In the minds of the Western public they all become terrorist leaders such as Osama bin Laden, or fanatical suicide bombers high on a dose of religious ecstasy, or "sleepers" who blend in with the rest of us and descend on innocent Western victims with the ferocity of a pack of wolves coming down on the fold.

While challenging Western journalists, commentators and opinion leaders to change the pattern of this misleading "global media narrative," Karim does not fall into the trap of writing a piece of propaganda for the "other" side. Giving credit where it is due, he praises the work of several Western journalists such as Robert Fisk and Gwynne Dyer who consistently swim against the current of the dominant media discourse and provide thoughtful, insightful analyses that challenge the consensus.

He also emphasizes that it is by no means a centrally orchestrated media conspiracy, but rather, a common "field of meaning" shared by storyteller and audience. He also challenges Muslims to examine their own negative stereotypes about Western people and to play a more active role in initiating dialogue with Western societies.

The one weakness of the book is that the chapter on the concept of jihad (Chapter 2) and its diverse range of interpretations among Muslim groups is a little too technical for the average Western reader with little or no grounding in the history of world religions. It might be heavy reading for non-specialists. Nevertheless, it is an important book and is highly recommended for all media practitioners.

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Susan Korah is a freelance journalist who has just completed her Master of Journalism degree at Carleton University.