In keeping with this weeks theme of giving voices to unheard people, I have decided to share a website by a photojournalist, Susan Meiselas, who attempts to give a minority population an outlet for collective memory.

akaKurdistan is a website where Meiselas attempts to create an open space for the people of the oppressed Kurdistan population to share their stories. Unlike many other photojournalists who go into countries and snap photographs without ever knowing the stories of the people Meiselas creates a space for Kurds to represent their own nation and their stories. The photographic national archive is important to the reassertion of the collective identity of the nation as it builds a shared history. The Kurds are nation without a voice or political representations, yet this website gives them a space to be heard.

What is also important is that although Meiselas

is a western photographer she removes her Orientalist lens by allowing the people to represent themselves. She recognizes that the western gaze constructs an “other”. However, I also must question whether the idea of a nation or a national archive is a western construction being imposed upon the Kurdistan people? Even though that may be the case, the modern nation-state is the best way for minority populations to gain be represented.

The stories uploaded to the site show a people in transit without a home. The most recent story shows a Kurdish village during herding season. The people like the sheep are in constant flux, as they are homeless. Although, the people live as a part of Turkey, Iran, or Iraq, they are depicted as separate with their own stories and identities.

Link to the website: http://www.akakurdistan.com/

Linktv.Org: Middle Eastern News Compilation

Taking a break from my criticism of American media, I have decided to discuss one of my favorite news sources for Middle Eastern politics. Linktv.org is a nonprofit news organization whose mission is to ‘provide powerful stories and unseen perspectives’ and to give ‘voice to people without and voice’. Their stories reflect their ideologies as their award winning programs, such as Mosaic News, which provides various perspectives on news stories from countries in the Middle East.

Comparing the Mosaic news representation of Islam versus the western media narratives provides an interesting insight into how western media choose to frame particular stories and groups of people. For example in the video, the program provides different Middle Eastern perspectives into the Israeli conflict over its decision to make Jerusalem its’ national priority implying it wants to expand its’ settlements within the city. What the video does well is it provides different points of view from inside Israel to the Palestinian Authority and BBC. By providing various viewpoints, Linktv.org gives voices to underrepresented people such as the Palestinians struggle to heard against the dominant pro-Israeli narrative in Western media sources.

Not only does the multi-perspective structure create a more credible news site, it also gives the people the power to represent themselves within conflicts. No longer are Muslims shown as violent mobs in news stories, rather, many of the videos show politicians in peaceful dialogues working in a parliamentary type setting much like showing US congress. It also interviews individuals in each country giving them a voice in the conflicts, which at the same time, combats the universalizing western conceptions of Muslims. Because of this, Linktv.org is an important news site in providing imperative Middle Eastern viewpoint on their own conflicts without the western orientalist lens obscuring the stories.

Juan Williams Fired

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/10/21/christian-whiton-juan-williams-fired-npr-oreilly-muslim-islamism-airplane/

In recent news, a radio host, Juan Williams was fired from NPR for making statements regarding his fear of Muslims and being a proponent of the idea that Muslims are attacking America. Here is what he said:

"But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

It’s hard to even know what he means when he says ‘they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims”. Is it a problem that people identify themselves as Muslim? What identity is being Muslim supposed to come second to?

Williams says his statement is taken out of context, as what he is truly saying is that Americans need to heed the growing Muslim bigotry. Yet he himself is contributing the bigoted media narrative against Muslims. He statements indisputably are inherently racist. To him the Muslim identity should be suppressed making it inferior to other identities. It is only after this that Fox News defiantly decided to expand his role at their news station sympathizing with his absurd anti-Islamic sentiments.

Glenn Beck Video

In continuing my critique of the anti-Islamic narrative in American conservative media, I have come to the television personality Glenn Beck. As an avid Tea Party supporter and proponent on television, Becks programming is the most absurdly malicious and deceitful ‘news program’ on television. Can his show even be called news as he contaminates the airwaves with conspiracy theories, opinion and lectures on what it means to be an American?

One video in particular caught my attention regarding a conspiracy theory involving President Obama, his Muslim Kenyan heritage, and colonialism. The basis of the argument comes from a book written by Dinesh D'Souza who has been called one of America's most influential conservative thinkers and one of the nation's 500 leading authorities on international issues. His book is titled “The Roots of Obama’s Rage”. Sound familiar? The title draws from Bernard Lewis’ essay “The Roots of Muslim Rage” a fellow former policy advisor to the Bush Administration who was the first proponent in the idea of the ‘clash of civilizations’ between the US and Islamic forces.

The titles are exactly the same except that change from Muslim to Obama. Implicit in the changing Muslim to Obama is the suggestion that in fact Obama is a Muslim. This equation groups Obama into the conservative media stereotype of the uncontrollable, infuriated blind rage of the ‘dangerous’ Muslim who is against the United States. This is exactly the narrative that Glen Beck is attempting to construct by having D’Souza on the show.

D’Souza’s theory is that Obama is a threat to national security because he is an anti-colonialist who wants to pull out of the Afghan war, reduce our energy consumption so other countries have more, and tax the rich because the obscene money they make comes from American colonial exploitation. How is it that Obama’s promotion peaceful solutions to Global problems be turned into an obscure political conspiracy based purely off opinionated statements of two conservative policy makers?

Well for Glen Beck and D’Souza to be anti-colonial is to be anti-American as America is still an oppressor— made explicitly clear in Beck’s large red ‘Fact’ dot next to America as a colonizing entity. Thus, Glen Beck seems to be saying that to be an American the people need to be neo-colonialists who destroy and oppress the lands of others. It is disturbing that these dated narratives still fester in the minds of our political leaders and disseminate to the American people through trivial talks shows under the guise of legitimate ‘news programs’. Although Beck and D’Souza make explicitly clear that their statements are opinions, they are drawing the dots for people to make a particular connects between Obama, Muslims and an anti-American political agenda.

Tea Party Videos

Here are some of the Tea Party Videos:

Like the great political commentaries of our day John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, I am enthralled with exposing the absurdities of our modern media spectacles. So I am dedicating this space to the revealing of propagandist tactics employed by news programs and to a general commentary on the nonsensical state of media in the United States in relation to their perpetuation of an anti-Islamic narrative.

First I would like to begin with a fury of media that has been released regarding a new political phenomenon in the United States. The Tea Party is a new United States party rooted in Christian fundamentalism and dated political theories. Their absurdly conservative agenda and blatant anti-Islamic propaganda have lead me to their website to attempt to understand more about their parties manifesto.

Upon doing this I discovered an entire collection of videos devoted to an anti-Islamic narrative. With ridiculous post titles such as “Could BHO [Barak Hussein Obama] be a Saudi Plant in the White House?’ , “Beware the Deception of Islam” and “Middle School Students Learn to Pray to Allah (WTF)”, can this truly be a rapidly growing party vying for political power in the United States? This group claiming to be “upholding the grand principles set forth in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights” is completely ignoring the fundamental basic rights the United States was founded on, such as freedom of religion and speech. How is it that this movement is able to gain such traction under the false pretense of American Patriotism and who are the people behind this anti-Islamic propagandist media?

The answer is Dale Robertson the founder of a Tea Party, who is described on their website as an outstanding military officer who is not enjoying his military pension, His battle team apparently was “first to the scene on 9/11 as well as the first to launch an offensive in Afghanistan”. Understanding the foundation of the Tea Party as one based in militant ideology is critical to realizing why the group is perpetuating the “clash of civilizations”. They want to fight. They want the American people to keep thinking that Islam is a threat to the nationally security. So everyday they disseminate anti-Islamic propaganda from news programs to keep the American people in constant fear. While in reality the United States is bombing and attacking innocent Muslims every single day.

Maybe Mr. Robertson should just go back to enjoying his cozy military pension and stop disseminating lies to the American people under the guise of “Patriotism”.