How easy it is to put hatred on a map

Robert Fisk: How easy it is to put hatred on a map

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2323413.ece

Our guilt in this sectarian game is obvious. We want to divide our potential enemies

Published: 03 March 2007 

 Why are we trying to divide up the peoples of the Middle East? Why are we trying to chop them up, make them different, remind them - constantly, insidiously, viciously, cruelly - of their divisions, of their suspicions, of their capacity for mutual hatred? Is this just our casual racism? Or is there something darker in our Western souls?

Take the maps. Am I the only one sickened by our journalistic propensity to publish sectarian maps of the Middle East? You know what I mean. We are now all familiar with the colour-coded map of Iraq. Shias at the bottom (of course), Sunnis in their middle "triangle" - actually, it's more like an octagon (even a pentagon) - and the Kurds in the north.

Or the map of Lebanon, where I live. Shias at the bottom (of course), Druze further north, Sunnis in Sidon and on the coastal strip south of Beirut, Shias in the southern suburbs of the capital, Sunnis and Christians in the city, Christian Maronites further north, Sunnis in Tripoli, more Shias to the east. How we love these maps. Hatred made easy.

Of course, it's not that simple. I live in a small Druze enclave in the west of Beirut. But my local grocer and my driver are Sunnis. I suppose they have no business to be in the wrong bit of our map. So do I tell my driver Abed that our map shows he can no longer park outside my home? Or that the Muslim publisher of the Arabic edition of my book The Great War for Civilisation can no longer meet me at our favourite rendezvous, Paul's restaurant in east Beirut, for lunch because our map shows this to be a Maronite Christian area of Beirut?

In Tarek al-Jdeidi (Sunni), some Shia families have moved out of their homes - temporarily, you understand, a brief holiday, keys left with the neighbours, it's always that way - which means that our Beirut maps are now cleaner, easier to understand. The same is happening on a far larger scale in Baghdad. Now our colour-coding can be bolder. No more use for that confusing word "mixed".

We did the same in the Balkans. The Drina Valley of Bosnia was Muslim until the Serbs "cleansed" it. Srebrenica? Delete "safe area" and logo it "Serb". Krajina? Serb until the Croats took it. Did we call them "Croats"? Or "Catholics"? Or both on our maps?

Our guilt in this sectarian game is obvious. We want to divide the "other", "them", our potential enemies, from each other, while we - we civilised Westerners with our refined, unified, multicultural values - are unassailable. I could draw you a sectarian map of Birmingham, for example - marked "Muslim" and "non-Muslim" (there not being many Christians left in England - but no newspaper would print it. I could draw an extremely accurate ethnic map of Washington, complete with front-line streets between "black" and "white" communities but The Washington Post would never publish such a map.

Imagine the coloured fun The New York Times could have with Brooklyn, Harlem, the East River, black, white, brown, Italian, Catholic, Jew, Wasp. Or the Toronto Globe and Mail with French and non-French Canadian Montreal (the front line at one point follows the city Metro) or with Toronto (where "Little Italy" is now Ukrainian or Greek), and colour the suburb of Mississauga green for Muslim, of course. But we don't draw these Hitlerian maps for our societies. It would be unforgivable, bad taste, something "we" don't do in our precious, carefully guarded civilisation.

Passing a book stall in New York this week, I spotted the iniquitous Time magazine and there on the cover - and this might truly have been a 1930s Nazi cover - were two cowled men, one in black, the other largely hidden by a chequered scarf. "Sunnis vs Shi'ites," the headline read. "Why they hate each other." This, naturally, was a "take-out" on Iraq's civil war - a civil war by the way, that America's spokesmen in Baghdad were talking about in August 2003 when not a single Iraqi in his worst nightmares dreamt of what has now come to pass.

Buy Time magazine, dear reader, turn to page 30, and what will you find? "How to Tell Sunnis and Shi'ites Apart." Helpful, uh? And after this, are columns of useful, divisive information. "Names," for example. "Some names carry sectarian markers... Abu Bakr, Omar and Uthman ... men with these names are almost certainly Sunni. Those called Abdel-Hussein and Abdel-Zahra," (I have never in met an "Abdel-Zahra" by the way) "are most likely Shi'ite." Then there are columns headed "Prayer", "Mosques", "Homes", "Accents" and "Dialects", even - heaven spare us - "cars". The last, for those readers not already reeling in disbelief, tells us which car stickers to look out for (spot a picture of Imam Ali and you know the driver is Shia) or which licence plate (Anbar province registrations, for instance) means a probable Sunni driver.

Thanks again. I don't know why the American military doesn't just buy up this week's edition of Time and drop the lot over Baghdad to help any still ignorant local murderers with easy-to-identify targets. But will Time be helping us to identify America's deeply divided society (who has most rubbish in their gardens in Washington, which bumper stickers to look for in Dearborn, Michigan)? Will they hell.

I, too, am guilty of playing these little sectarian games in the Middle East. I ask a Lebanese where he or she comes from, not to remember the mountains or rivers near their home but to code them into my map. But I easily come unstuck. The man who tells me he comes from the Lebanese south (Shia) turns out to live in the southern Druze town of Hasbaya. The woman who tells me she's from Jbeil (Christian) turns out to be from the town's Shia minority. Oh, if only these pesky minorities would go and live in the right bit of our imperial, sectarian maps.

And we go on talking to our Sunni monarchs in the Middle East - we listen to their raving about the "Shia crescent" - no wonder we hate Shia Iran so much. And we go on dividing and scissoring up the lands, and printing more and more of our racial maps and I do wonder most seriously if we wish to promote civil war across this part of the world, and you know what? I rather think we do.

Robert Fisk Website: http://www.robert-fisk.com/

 

In the Hands of the Taliban: From Captive to Convert

Yvonne Ridley

In the Hands of the Taliban: From Captive to Convert

An interview with Y. Ridley

Publication time: 3 July 2006, 20:44

Website: http://www.yvonneridley.org/index.php

http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2006/07/03/4891.shtml

Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4929046509315492036&q=Islam

YVONNE Ridley made headlines when, following the September 11th attacks, she was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

While investigating for a story, the British freelance journalist had wandered into the hands of, what much of the world called the most brutal regime on earth. Freed after ten days of captivity, she returned home a public figure.

Almost two years after that, the multiple award-winning journalist and author again made news. On June 30, 2003, Yvonne accepted the faith of her captors -- she became a Muslim.

In the following interview, she speaks of her experiences and her thoughts on the state of Western journalism.

Tazin Abdullah (TA): What took you to Afghanistan after September 11th?

Yvonne Ridley (YR): I was working as the chief reporter for the Sunday Express newspaper published in London. I was writing a humanitarian report about the hopes and fears of the Afghan people. I had been in Afghanistan for two days when I was captured by the Taliban and held because I had entered the country illegally and without a visa.

TA: What happened afterwards?

YR: At first they thought I was a spy and interrogated me for six days before moving me to a prison in Kabul. Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban, released me on humanitarian grounds on October 8 2001.

The release came as a huge shock to the West as the US and Britain had launched the war on Afghanistan the day before. When the bombs began dropping in Kabul, no one thought they would see me alive again!

TA: You have repeatedly emphasised that the Taliban, the "most brutal regime on earth", treated you with "courtesy and respect". Tell me about your captors.

YR: I expected to be executed and each day I thought was going to be my last. It was a terrifying ordeal. Yet, throughout my captivity, the Taliban treated me with courtesy and respect.

I went on hunger strike for the full 10 days. Apart from this action being the only type of control I could enforce, I told the Taliban I would not eat until they gave me a telephone to call home. This action caused my captors great distress and over the first few days they tried several different inducements to encourage me to eat including the offer of wine with my food.

Despite this I maintained my hunger strike and in spite of my best efforts, they laid a cloth on the floor morning, noon and night offering freshly cooked food. Each mealtime, they made a point of washing my hands and telling me I was their sister and their guest. Never once did they threaten me physically. In spite of this, I resolved to be a difficult captive and acted in a very aggressive, non-co-operative manner!

TA: Upon your return, what was the general reaction?

YR: Headline writers across the Western world, anticipating what I was going to say, had words like 'torture', 'abuse' and 'rape' prepared. Journalists and politicians were shocked by my remarks. Everyone wanted a victim. They wanted to hear tales of torture, beatings and brutality. After all, you can't drop bombs on nice people and Bush and Blair had done quite a job demonising the Taliban beyond recognition.

I have to say at this point, I could not endorse what the Taliban stood for, nor could I sanitise their movement, but I have to speak the truth about their treatment of me.

TA: Did your experiences with the Taliban lead you to question your own perceptions on the Taliban themselves and by extension, Islam?

YR: I certainly began to examine the demonisation of the Taliban.

I had given an undertaking to a Taliban cleric that if they released me I would read the

Qur'an and study Islam. At that point, I would have said anything to get out of jail! But once I was released, against all odds, I decided to keep my word.

I was engaged covering events in the Middle East so it was only natural that I should read up on Islam.

TA: What attracted you to the faith?

YR: I found the words of the Qur'an breathtaking and as relevant today as they were the day they were written. Furthermore, the word has not changed at all. I learnt that the Qur'an makes it clear that woman are equal in spirituality, worth and education.

TA: Turning now to Western media and particularly its coverage of the Muslim world -- do you see a general bias against Islam?

YR: There is a Western media bias against Islam but much of it stems from lack of knowledge and general ignorance towards Islam by Western journalists.

TA: Is it a deliberate attempt by reporters to write/broadcast stories that toe the official line or the gullibility of some reporters? Or is it simply reporters acting out on culturally inherited values/perceptions and seeing what they want to see rather than what is happening?

YR: Some journalists are gutless, lily-livered, spineless individuals who prefer to be spoon-fed by the governments who like a tame news source. Some journalists are gullible and some are simply ignorant of the power of the propaganda they are asked to repeat. I wouldn't single out the embedded journalists most were making the best of the situation in which they were placed.

In the US after 9/11, anyone who dared question the Bush administration was called unpatriotic. There are some good journalists around and, after a recent trip to America, it appears the American media is now waking up to its duties.

TA: From your experiences in Afghanistan, can you give us examples of reports from Afghanistan that painted a picture of the situation contrary to what was really happening?

YR: The so-called liberation of Kabul revealed a shocking aspect of media lies and manipulation giving a false

image to the West. Women were pictured burning their burqas while men shaved their beards what the cameras failed to show were the offers of money given to these people by the dollar rich western media which wanted to give 'happy' pictures to the people back home.

Enterprising Afghanis were not slow on the uptake and lots of false documents began emerging outlining Al-Qaida's nuclear secrets. One foolish journalist parted with 500 dollars for Osama bin Laden's nuclear plans ... they turned out to be the contents of a physics student's text book!

TA: In the current occupation of Iraq, do you see most of the media still toeing the official line?

YR: The media is slowly beginning to break ranks and report on the Vietnam-style quagmire that has emerged in Iraq. For example, the dangerous talk of a civil war.

Where has this come from? Paul Bremer, of course. It is in US interests to promote this but the reality is there has never been a civil war in Iraq no conflict of Shi'a against Sunni. Yet the media are falling into the trap of picking up the American whispers and are printing reports using the explosive phrase 'civil war'. If they don't stop it could became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Journalism is a powerful tool and can be a weapon of mass deception in the wrong hands. This has not been lost on various leaders including Saddam Hussein and George W Bush, who both were determined to win the battle over the war of words. In many ways, it is as important as the military campaign.



Yvonne Ridley lives in Central London and is the author of two books "In the Hands Of the Taliban" (Robson Books), a factual account of her experiences and "Ticket To Paradise", a fictional thriller with the real backdrop of 9/11 (Dandelion Books).

Source: Thedailystar