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Representing Muslim Terrorism: A Drama
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A
constant “radical” portrayal of an opponent leads to a
misunderstanding of him.
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El
Manara
Type:
Drama, 90 min.
Director:
Belkacem Hadjadj
Language:
Arabic with English subtitles
It
is a very bad movie. Nonetheless, one must try to find beauty in everything and
make something beautiful out of every situation. And for that, I want the
attention of the reader! There are so many good things that one could come up
with though. The central quality that the movie lacks is subtlety. But
the movie is good in that it is a perfect example of how to deal with
radicalism.
The
movie Al-Manara is an Algerian movie, and is no more than dramatized
realism and a series of sharp-edged human narratives. The delicate meaning,
which I do not want to escape the attention of the reader, is how a constant
radical portrayal of an opponent (whoever yours is) leads to misunderstanding
him. Criminalizing an opponent should not go hand in hand with dehumanizing him.
The more dehumanized the portrayal is, the more we lose a proper understanding
of the opponent, and this sometimes sets the stage for fighting radicalism with
parallel radicalism. We will try to apply to this to the sensationalizing of
“Muslim terrorism,” “jihadism,” and so on—you name it! It sounds
difficult already! What we are trying to reach out for is how we, the media,
academia, art, and everyone else—whether knowingly or not—are actually
contributing to the radicalism of our opponents.
On
the professional level, going to this movie was part of my covering the Cairo
International Film Festival 2004. On the personal level, there are two things I
am trying to achieve by writing this film review. Although my point of departure
will be the movie, this will have little to do with film reviewing.
First,
I have a personal interest in effectively stopping the dehumanization of any
opponents for the sake of understanding them better and, more importantly,
understanding them on their own terms. This is the best way to learn to
understand their root problem. Needless to say, understanding one’s opponents
does not mean that one necessarily changing one’s moral standpoint against
them. After all, this strategy should be part of any solution-oriented attitude.
I am sure many readers share this view with me.
Second,
this is a continuation of a commitment to paying attention to subtle meanings.
An effective realization of a subtle meaning is always a powerful one. Because,
a stronger, more effective, and gradual realization is always related to a new
comprehension of a certain subtlety, coupled with an effective change in
attitude (be it intellectual, moral, physical, or even spiritual). Subtle
meanings open a series of consecutive doors to hidden meaningful realizations.
Subtle meanings always have a more profound effect than a radical swing between
two ends of a spectrum; after all, “easy come, easy go” dies hard. The
enlightenment brought by a certain conceptual or emotional realization is like a
glow of light in the sky of inner understanding. On watching the sun rise, it is
more authentic an experience to observe how the light disperses itself and melts
away, coloring the horizon, than to simply expose one’s eyes to the glare of
the sun straight after waking up.
Directed
by Balqasim Hajjaj, the story is about two young men and a young woman who are
all student roommates in the Algerian capital. It is the story of Algeria told
through their lives. Both men are in love with Fawzia, the young woman, but she
loves someone else; a state-bureaucrat whom she rejects on finding that he has a
role in the government violation of human right against the opposition. One of
the two men radicalizes through his attraction to the FIS (Islamic Salvation
Front), the other polarizes to the Left.
The
country enters into anarchy in the early 90’s, and the paths of the two men
radically diverge, despite having created Al-Manara together—the
project that brought the two together in a culturally enlightening association
and named after the Algerian version of the mawlid or traditional
celebration of the Prophet Mohammed’s birth. Of course, modernist and
traditional Islam clash, Left and Right, state and individual, power and truth,
doctrine and practice, black and white—all interact in an over-dramatized plot
and setting. Through disturbing realism—sometimes to an absurd extent that
makes one laugh, not cry—the story of the bleeding country is told
The
young man turned radical Islamist ends up raping Fawzia, after being taken by
him as “bounty” from her now-apostatized leftist husband. He “sees the
light” in the end and helps stop a bombing of the mawlid celebrations,
planned by the terrorist cell he belongs to.
There
was nothing profound about the script: Of course, the people who stay on the
“middle-of-the-road” are presented as the only hope. “Lovey-dovey”
utopia is the only possible conception for an uncomplicated world. The politics
of despair are what radicalize good people and turn them into terrorists. A
non-religious person can be a good person too. Of course, this is all true:
“The religious text is not wrong, it is the interpretation…Islam is
not….” All of us could tell the rest.
Nothing
was good about the movie. The acting, the lighting, the music, and even the
editing—all were bad. Sometimes, it is good to hear a story of absolute good
and evil, such as the extraordinary Lord of the Rings, for example. In
such histrionic stories, the absolute essence of good and evil is brilliantly
told. Nevertheless, the psychology of the individual, not the hero, on both
sides—good and evil—is not really dealt with. Such a world of narration, of
history, of media, is a world of kings and of heroes; not a world of people like
you and me—and the average extremist. It is a world of Bush and Bin Laden.
One, consequently, has all the right to ask, what good can come of a demonic
portrayal of a fanatical enemy?
The
fanatical Muslims in this movie are radicalized, not only in doctrine and in
acts, but in appearance too. The nasty beards, frenzied reactions, medieval
language, obscurantist tones, thick kohl around the eyes, and all the rest of
it, are an archetypical way of presenting Muslim fanatics. The argument here is
that by oversimplifying the enemy—into a clear-cut, solid, and robotic
identity—the viewer loses his ability to understand him or her.
There
is so much more, in this context to Muslim fanatics than this supra-antihuman
nature. Of course, the idea of the world of difference that can exist between
Islam and Muslims was dealt with in the movie; still, is that enough? My wife
tells me that by being too belligerent in conceiving and portraying Muslim
fanatics I lose my ability to understand them. Of course, Muslims terrorism is
ungodly, but I gained an interesting insight through both this movie and an
article that my wife translated for me from Dutch. As a Dutch anthropologist
brilliantly concludes, the main reason why Muslims turn radical is the perpetual
inquisition they are submitted to by the society around them, demanding
clear-cut and quick answers about their religion while they are still in the
process of shaping their own ideas.
Thinking
back to the movie this makes sense. The “fanatics” are drawn into giving
both “clear” as well as “holistic” answers to enlighten society’s
doubtful perception of them. My objective here is not so much to analyze the
doctrine of Muslim extremists per se, but to look into the attitude that society
creates to deal with them, subsequently, contributing to the intensity of their
radicalism. It is no surprise that in any radical attitude, its subscribers jump
into it hastily. Look around you, isn’t that so?
It
is not that this perpetual inquisition of religious beliefs by society holds no
validity; it is “how” society does it that matters. Becoming obsessed with
the issues they are continually questioned about, the believers turn to the idea
that the Qur’an and Sunnah should be “self-explanatory.” They are not.
Neither the Qur’an nor the Hadith are fully transparent and
self-explanatory, which is why there are schools of science, traditions of
exegeses, and methodological and canonical understanding that should be
followed. As many observers argue, it is no wonder that the most radical voices
have technical science degrees: Everything should be mathematically
self-evident. The word fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) literally means “subtle
understanding.” No one can just make up a fatwa that goes against the
established opinions of scholars without challenging the already constructed
meanings and realizations.
In
the circle of Islamic intellectual and legal debates, there has always been
continuous questioning of where to draw the line of “subtlety” against the
flow of time and experience. There has never been a radical revolutionary—or
even worse, as we see today, anarchist, and nihilist—change in the Muslim
order of things that went unchallenged by the ever-developing classical Islam.
In dealing with fanaticism, how we help such people radicalize is the first
question we should ask; a question that the movie, and many people, do not
concern themselves with.
As
for the “holistic” understanding, what does taking the quick and easy path
lead to? It simply leads to turning the original philosophy that radicals
represent upside down for the sake of creating an independent, “rigorous”
answer. How could fanaticism be convincing? By replacing “holistic” with
“solid.” On all levels—individual, social, and political—the
“non-fanatical life is about hard challenges and long-term pay-offs, with all
their complications, injustices, and unresolved answers. Instead of all that,
fanaticism, whether religious or otherwise, is always successful in giving a
watertight order to things; clear definitions and functions for everyone and
everything: A utopia of escapism and self-deliverance. This is why everything
that falls beyond this self-constructed world of meaning is, in the world-view
of the radical, wrong, evil, heretical, and perverted.
It
follows that a one-sided polemical criticism, textual deconstruction, or a
point-by-point argument is not the best way to deal with fanatics. The
complexity of the world around and beyond them is the start. They should not
(just) be confronted with what is directly related to their beliefs, but with
the story of the construction of their doctrine, more than the actual doctrine;
what their doctrine lacks, not just fallacy of what it offers; and the
complexity of the world which they reduce and solidify, not their worldviews.
There
is much more that could be said and done in the same vein. As someone who
denounces terrorism on all levels, how to treat people who believe that America
deserved 9/11 is more complicated than I thought it was. I believe that such
people should be dealt with like rapists or serial killers—do not befriend
them and do not invite them into your home. However, this alone is not enough.
Their convictions are criminal, but we should not dehumanize them, if for no
other reason than this makes us unable to understand them and be part of the
long process of ridding the world of them, be it Bush or Bin Laden. Now, is Bush
simply a dyslectic freak?
*
Tarek
A. Ghanem
is the editor of the Contemporary Issues Page. He has a BA in
Political Science and Philosophy from the American University of Cairo. You can
contact him at t.ghanem@islam-online.net.
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