Control of the preferred narrative is essential in today’s instant-news political culture. This has been particularly true since 9/11, as the United States government and the cooperative media have worked together to make sure that a series of enemies are identified and then attacked as a response to what has been shaped as a global terrorist threat. Narrative-shifting also protects against failure, by making it more difficult to advance any actual inquiry either to learn what motivates terrorists or to explore the apparent inability of the federal government to respond effectively. The best known attempt to shift the blame and thereby redirect the narrative was President George W. Bush’s famous assertion that “those evildoers” of 9/11 “hate us because of our freedom.” Other, more plausible motives need not apply.
Later this year PBS will release to its affiliates a documentary film that it co-produced called “Valentino’s Ghost.” I recently watched a preview copy. In its full version it is 95 minutes long, and it lays out a roughly chronological account of how Muslims, particularly Arabs, have been perceived in the West since the 1920s. Written and directed by Michael Singh, it includes interviews with a number of well-known authorities on the Middle East, including Robert Fisk, Niall Ferguson, John Mearsheimer, and the late Anthony Shadid, the New York Times journalist killed in Syria last February. The film explores the political and cultural forces behind the images, contending that the depiction of Arabs as “The Other” roughly parallels the foreign policies of Europe and America vis-à-vis the Middle East region. The title of the film is taken from the first great cinematic “Arab,” Italian Rudolph Valentino, who starred in the 1922 silent film “The Sheik.” When asked regarding the plausibility of the script, in which English aristocrat Lady Diana falls for the “savage” Sheik, Valentino responded “People are not savages because they have dark skins. The Arabian civilization is one of the oldest in the world…the Arabs are dignified and keen brained.”
Related Posts:
- Fawaz Gerges: The “Obama Doctrine” in the Middle East
- Taking Shots at Those Who Call the Shots: Muslim American Political Cartoonist Katie Miranda Speaks Up
- Joel S. Migdal on “Shifting Sands: The United States in the Middle East” (Book Q & A)
- The Perils of American Muslim Politics (Abdullah Al-Arian and Hafsa Kanjwal)
- Oscars Buzz on Argo, Buzkashi Boys, 5 Broken Cameras, The Gatekeepers, and Zero Dark Thirty
Tags: 9/11, AIPAC, Al-Jazeera, Anthony Shadid, CIA, Colin Powell, Council for the National Interest, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Israel, Israeli settlements, John Mearsheimer, Michael Singh, Niall Ferguson, Palestine, PBS, Philip Giraldi, Robert Fisk, Rudolph Valentino, The Sheikh, US Arabs, US Muslims, Valentino's Ghost
- See more at: http://islamicommentary.org/2013/02/philip-giraldi-why-we-hate-them-arab...
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