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“Reformation” of Islam through pseudo events
By Khalid Saeed
In his article “Pragmatic Muslims of North America” Mr. Abdus Sattar Ghazali made a valid argument that the attention of the American Muslim community was distracted these days by a non-issue that is, if a woman can lead Friday prayers? This distraction is sparked by the drama of Friday prayers in New York led by a woman who says that she has problem with the Quran.
Mr. Ghazali has called this circus as non-issue. However, borrowing from the well-known American historian Daniel Boorstin, I will call this a pseudo event. In his famous book entitled “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America,” Mr. Boorstin coined the term pseudo-event to describe events fabricated for the mass media. Much of the news consists of pseudo-events manufactured by the various arms of the public relations industry. Boorstin writes that the common prefix pseudo comes from the Greek word meaning false or intended to deceive. The characteristics of pseudo-events are that they are not spontaneous but come about because someone has planned them to create a desirable effect in the media.
Mr. Boorstin pointed out that prefix pseudo comes from the Greek word meaning false, or intended to deceive. He gives the following example to explain his point:
“The owners of a hotel, in an illustration offered by Edward L. Bernays in his pioneer Crystallizing Public Opinion, consult a public relations counsel. They ask how to increase their hotel's prestige and so improve their business. In less sophisticated times, the answer might have been to hire a new chef, to improve the plumbing, to paint the rooms, or to install a crystal chandelier in the lobby. The public relations counsel's technique is more indirect. He proposes that the management stage a celebration of the hotel's thirtieth anniversary. A committee is formed, including a prominent banker, a leading society matron, a well-known lawyer, an influential preacher, and an "event" is planned (say a banquet) to call attention to the distinguished service the hotel has been rendering the community. The celebration is held, photographs are taken, the occasion is widely reported, and the object is accomplished.”
The circus of holding this prayer at a Church amid focus of TV cameras and presence of mainstream media shows the motives and designs of the perpetrators of this stunt and their backers. This occasion was a pseudo-event as it illustrates all the essential features of pseudo-events as described by Mr. Boorstin: (1) It is not spontaneous, but comes about because someone has planned, planted, or incited it. (2) It is planted primarily for the immediate purpose of being reported or reproduced. Its success is measured by how widely it is reported. The pseudo event Friday prayer in the New York Church was well publicized in advance and it was given wide publicity afterwards.
I fully agree with Mr. Ghazali’s argument that the status of woman in Islam is now being used by many “independent” think tanks and neo-Orientalists to defame Islam and promote western political objectives. No doubt If there is a problem with the Muslim women but it is not because of Islam. A recently released UNDP report on Arab Human Development gives some clue to the lack of social and human development in the Arab world.
Under the subtitle, Towards Freedom in the Arab World, the report describes the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and the occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies as violations of freedom and obstacles to human development there and in the region. The U.S. response to the September 2001 attacks on the United States added to the ambiguity in the Western attitude to human rights in the Middle East, it said. "The 'war on terror' has cut into many Arab freedoms... An unfortunate by-product in some countries has been that Arabs are increasingly the victims of stereotyping, disproportionately harassed or detained without cause," it said. "The fact that some Western countries ... have taken steps widely perceived to be discriminatory and repressive has weakened the position of…reformers," the UNDP report added.
Ironically release of the UNDP Arab Human Development was delayed because the United States had reservations about some of the report findings.
Khalid Saeed is the American Muslim Voice Director for Northern California.
April 19, 2005
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