Arab Awakening and Western Media: Time for a New Revolutionary Discourse

Arab Awakening and Western Media: Time for a New Revolutionary Discourse
by Ramzy Baroud – July 28, 2011

[article excerpt] – “Western media and think-tanks have long presented a mistaken and divisive understanding of Arab – and other – societies. There is a discrepancy between the actual situation and indicators-driven understanding. Entire Arab societies are deconstructed and reduced into simple data, which is filtered, classified and juggled to fit into precise criteria and clear-cut conclusions. Public opinions and entire policies are then formed or formulated based on these conclusions.

The problem does not lie in academic practices per se, but rather the objective-specific understanding that many in the west have towards the Middle East. Most Washington-based think-tanks – regardless of their political leanings – tend to study distant societies only for the sake of producing definite answers and recommendations. However, providing an all-encompassing depiction of a society like Yemen’s – whose internal dynamics and complexity necessarily differs from any other’s in the region – would be most unhelpful for those eager to design policies and short-term strategies on the go.

Arab revolutions continue to tear down archaic beliefs and misguided understandings, challenging the wild theories around Arab peoples and their supposed wrangling between secularism and Islamism. Despite all of this, the self-seeking objectifying of Arabs continues in western media.

Under the all-inclusive title, “The Arab World: The Awakening”, an article in Economist Magazine (February 17) attempted to describe the upheaval currently underway throughout the Arab world. Interspersed with such predictable terms as ‘extremists’, ‘Islamists’, ‘strongmen’ and so on, the inane analysis made way for equally silly conclusions. The article, for example, suggested that the West’s decision to accommodate dictatorial regimes in the Middle East was motivated by a mix of despair and altruism: “The West has surrendered to this (Arab) despair too, assuming that only the strongmen could hold back the extremists.”

While words such as ‘extremists’, ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘terrorists’ may have their own special ring to western audiences, they could well mean something entirely different – if anything at all – to Arabs. Listening to the Arab media’s coverage of ongoing revolutions, one may not even encounter any of these terminologies. At times, they can be entirely irrelevant in terms of understanding the momentous happenings underway throughout the region.” …main article