by ZS Justus

A recent audio recording from al-Qaeda #2 Zawahiri sends a series of “messages” to President-elect Barack Obama. News outlets have quickly grabbed one of the more provocative excerpts from the recording, Zawahiri’s labeling of Obama as a “house negro.” Several blogs have followed suit including hotair, gateway pundit, commentary magazine, the moderate voice, and right voices among others. I suppose the desire to label someone a “racist” is just too much to resist, but I want to urge readers to move beyond the obvious in considering the content of Zawahiri’s message. After all, are there really people out there who thought that Zawahiri was a-okay, but now that he has been exposed as a racist they are reconsidering their views? This idea that Zawahiri is a racist is not exactly news seeing as how his organization is interested in killing as many ethnic Jews as possible.

What seems to be lost on the mainstream media and many bloggers alike is that Ayman al-Zawahiri’s condemnation of Obama is based largely on policy considerations in Afghanistan. For instance, Zawahiri comments, “what you’ve announced about how you’re going to reach an understanding with Iran and pull your troops out of Iraq to send them to Afghanistan is a policy which was destined for failure before it was born.” The significant take-away from Zawahiri’s message is that he appears completely out of touch with most Muslim’s who overwhelmingly favored Obama in the last election (three to one in Palestine among those responding). Granted, some key areas like Pakistan, expressed disinterest in the election, but reporting populations in five different Muslim nations all favored Obama.

This is a strategic communication blunder by Zawahiri. The strongest arguments made by al-Qaeda have always relied on the concrete actions of the United States. Misguided as they were, these arguments were persuasive to many people who had been negatively affected by US foreign policy. Ridiculing the new American President before any concrete action has been taken runs the risk of eroding existing support for al-qaeda among local communities, many of whom seem moderatley hopeful about a new direction in US foreign policy. And opponents of terrorism we should be encouraged by this new message from Zawahiri because in his desire to keep al-Qaeda relevant he has rushed into a strategic communication blunder that could have serious negative implications for the support of organization itself.

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On September 24 Columbia University hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as part of its annual World Leaders Forum series. Past guests for the series have included leaders from both US allies and competitors on virtually every continent. Following an introduction by Columbia’s President Lee C. Bollinger Ahmadinejad’s prepared were remarks followed by a question and answer session with the audience. The event, particularly Bollingers introduction, received considerable critical attention from inside and outside the university.

In a strongly worded editorial, the New York Daily News wrote that Columbia and President Bollinger were “so damnably wrong” to host the Iranian leader. The speech itself evoked considerable controversy. From the audience attending the presentation, catcalls, hissing and laughter were audible in the background and picked up by reports of the event. A recent editorial in The New York Times, Blogging Ahmadinejad in Tehran, noted the criticism of the Iranian President’s remarks even from within his own country.

While the event itself was provocative for student and community groups alike, reaction to the introduction and remarks by Columbia President Bollinger has become a story of its own. Bollinger’s blistering fifteen and a half minute introduction preceded the Iranian leader’s remarks. Focusing on what he called “a few critically important points to emphasize” Bollinger denounced human rights abuses within Iran, Ahmadinejad’s statements denying the holocaust, and his call for the destruction of Israel. When Ahmadinejad spoke next, opening with a recitation from the Qur’an and then chastising Bollinger’s introduction, his remarks were met with cheers and jeers.

Georgetown University Professor of Law and columnist Rosa Brooks argued that Bollinger’s harsh introduction was ineffectual and crude, while the Iranian leader likely gained some domestic and international popularly as he stood up to “crass American bullies.” Given the criticism heaped upon himself and his university for hosting President Ahmadinejad, Bollinger’s introductory remarks warrant closer scrutiny. The withering charges he leveled against Ahmadinejad illustrate what the late literary critic Kenneth Burke described as “scapegoating.”

Principles

“Scapegoating” comes from Burke’s Iron Law of History, where he wrote that “Order leads to Guilt, Guilt Needs Redemption [and] Redemption needs a Redeemer” (Rhetoric of Religion, p. 4-5). The redeemer, as in the biblical story of Abraham and his son Issac, is the vessel which takes on the sins of an individual or group. Purification, or restoration of order, is achieved through sacrifice of the redeemer, or what Burke termed “the kill.” This kill can be symbolic (a “fall guy”) or material (a real, bleating sacrificial lamb).

In his 1974 book, The Philosophy of Literary Form, Burke describes the “projection device” which allows for “purification by dissociation,” whereby the failures or inadequacies of a group can be piled on an individual who is then collectively shunned Order, the Secret, and the Kill.” He argues that humans are socialized toward a devotion to the kill through language and symbol systems, that we are focused on the maintenance or restoration of Order; and that the true motives of sacrifice may be concealed or manipulated (p. 264-266). It is in the context of Burke’s notions of scapegoating and the maintenance of Order that Bollinger’s comments take on significance.

Analysis

Prior to his term as the nineteenth President of Columbia University, Lee C. Bollinger’s career as teacher, researcher, and administrator focused on the first amendment and free speech. Author of The Tolerant Society and Images of a Free Press, Bollinger’s bona fides as a free speech advocate and internationalist are without question. In 2003, he helped oversee the launch of the World Leaders Forum, among many efforts to increase Columbia’s global outreach.

The Columbia President’s credentials allow him to sacrifice Ahmadinejad – his “projection device” – to purge his collective and individual guilt over Columbia’s invitation to the Forum and his own image as a staunch free speech advocate. Noting that he is “only a professor [feeling] all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for,” Bollinger positions himself as the collective voice for those whose disdain would sacrifice the foreign leader and his ideology. He referred to the Iranian president as likely lacking “the intellectual courage” to address the issues he raised, predicted that Ahmadinejad’s “fanatical mindset” would “embarrass sensible Iranian citizens,” and forecast continued electoral defeats for the President’s party. Bollinger portrayed the Iranian President as a leader pushed out by the world community and his own nation.

Before providing Ahmadinejad the Forum to speak to the assembled audience and the world, Bollinger raked him over the coals. The significant issues he raised in his speech were contradicted by the fact that Bollinger was providing a venue for the leader’s remarks, but that very contradiction allowed him to make his “kill.” Bollinger’s disgust with Ahmadinejad was meant to isolate him and constrain his remarks. Aiming for redemption for himself and those he claimed to represent, Bollinger dissociated Ahmadinejad and made him the vessel of our collective frustrations by naming him the scapegoat: “Mr. President you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.” Through his attacks on President Ahmadinejad and his apologies to those who might be hurt by the leader’s presence and remarks on campus, Bollinger was able to restore Order for himself and his university with many communities – both foreign and domestic – who were unsettled by the guest’s appearance.

Tragically, though, his introduction may have served the Iranian President’s goals better than Bollinger’s own by amplifying the rhetorical skill President Ahmadinejad demonstrated in the Columbia forum. While Bollinger’s points were damning, President Ahmadinejad cleverly averted addressing their substance. He also contained and deflected much of Bollinger’s criticism by linking his personal treatment to that of his nation in world forums. From Ahmadinejad’s point of view, the two speeches were only further evidence of brutal American attack and heroic Muslim defense.

Bollinger underestimated the skill of the scapegoat. As I, and others, have argued elsewhere, we must very carefully listen to Ahmadinejad and then respond with closely engaged, culturally appropriate and timely strategic messages. Bollinger’s openly challenging, oppositional and isolating framework, despite being cloaked in an offer of a podium, meant only that another moment for effective strategic communication was lost.

Further reading:

• Goodall, B., Cady, L., Corman, S., McDonald, K., Woodward, M., Forbes, C. (2006, May 18, 2006). Strategic Ambiguity, Communication, and Public Diplomacy in an Uncertain World: Principles and Practices. Report #0602, Consortium for Strategic Communication.
• Burke, K (1970). The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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The film 300 has broken box office records and helped pave the way for a new type of cinema that bridges the gaps between video games, animation, and live action. The highly stylized telling of the Battle of Thermopylae has also forged an unlikely link—between popular culture and international relations.

The film tells the story of a brave collection of Spartan warriors who fight against an advancing Persian force. The Spartans number in the 300s while the Persian Empire advances in the millions. The Spartans choose a narrow ravine to make their stand as a way to increase their odds against the overwhelming numbers of better equipped Persian warriors. After several days of fighting, the Spartans are betrayed by one of their own and they all die. However, their story inspires the rest of the Greek world to unite under one flag and defeat the Persians. The retelling of the story is no doubt five parts fiction for every one part fact, but that certainly has not stopped the film from making an international impact beyond the box office.

Government officials from Iran have lodged very public complaints against 300’s depiction of ancient Persia. The Daily Herald compiled the most vibrant attacks by Iranian officials,

The movie is aimed at “humiliating” Iranians, who are descendants of the ancient Persians, said Javad Shamghardi, cultural adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The movie is “part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological warfare aimed at Iranian culture,” Shamghardi said. “Hollywood declares war on Iranians” was the headline in the Ayan Ho newspaper, while state-run television ran several commentaries calling the film insulting.

Reactions have been so severe that Iran has asked China to prevent the film from being screened within Chinese borders. The emphatic attacks on the film from abroad have been matched by endorsement from some United States Marines. The Chicago Tribune reports,

To the U.S. Marines serving at Camp Pendleton, there is much to learn from the Spartans, those heroic warriors of ancient Greece whom one might have called “the few, the proud” centuries before the Marine Corps adopted the motto. In the hit new film “300,” Marines see parallels between the current war in Iraq and the film’s story, which tells of hopelessly outnumbered Spartans fighting heroically to the death against mighty Persian invaders at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.

These disparate reactions seem to call for a deeper analysis of how a piece of popular culture has become a topic of controversy for the nation of Iran and a rallying cry for U.S. Marines.

Principles

Kenneth Burke’s theory of identification is a useful framework for understanding how people come to connect with others. Burke wrote that human beings are naturally separated. We exist within different bodies and have different interests. These natural divisions are compounded by additional separations, for instance people are part of different nations and religious groups. The purpose of studying identification is to try and understand how human beings forge connections with each other despite these differences.

One specific type of identification Burke discussed was what he termed consubstantiality. This term refers to the establishment of identification based on mutual interests. Burke (1968) writes in reference to consubstantiality that “in acting-together, men [sic] have common sensations, concepts, images, ideas, attitudes that make them consubstantial” (p. 21). The byproduct of establishing consubstantial identification is frequently the creation of separation from another group of people. This of course refers to a second concept from Burke, his description of humans as the “inventor of the negative” (1968, p. 9). In short, this framework from Burke—that humans overcome natural separation through consubstantial identification, which bonds individuals with similar interests into a group but simultaneously divides them from those who are different—aids in understanding international political reactions to the film 300.

Analysis

Working from Burke’s principles of identification and negation one can now ask the question, how did the Iranian government and members of the U.S. Marines identify within the film? The answer to this question is more complicated than it appears.

Iranian government officials identified with the Persians of 300. This reading of the film is primarily ethnic. Contemporary Iranians are descended from ancient Persians. In fact, up until 1935 or so Iran was still called Persia. Iranian leaders identified a common ethnic heritage with the Persians of 300.

The U.S. Marines took a different road to identify with the Spartans. Ethnically, very few Americans would be able to trace their family lineages to ancient Greece, and even fewer to Sparta. Instead, the Marines identified based on training and ideology. The Los Angeles Times reported on Marine reactions to viewing the film: “Some Marines nodded in recognition at lines in the movie that were familiar from their training — such as when King Leonidas instructs his son that the more troops sweat in training, the less they will bleed in combat.” In a marked departure from the Iranian government, the Marines established consubstantiality through ideology rather than ethnicity. Identifying with the film ideologically means that the nationalities involved become irrelevant.

The irony of the Marine reading of the film is that ideological identification would seem to run the other way. The Spartans represented a vastly outnumbered force, eager to die for their cause, fighting a purely symbolic battle against a collection of nations with overwhelming strength. Ideologically, the Spartans approximate to Al-Qaeda in Iraq much more than the Marines. After all, it is the terrorists who are outnumbered and waiting in line for martyrdom, and the very nature of terrorism is symbolic. Of course this reading also unfavorably positions the coalition forces as the advancing Persian army via Burke’s negation. The coalition has advanced to a foreign land with unprecedented technological advantages and personnel superiority. Yet, despite the fact that these identifications seem obvious and plausible, they are not the ones adopted either by the U.S. Marines or by the Iranian government, both of whom cast Middle-Easterners as Persians and the U.S. as Spartans.

The different examples of identification in relation to 300 could be indicators of any number of issues. First, it is possible that Iran is simply looking for a fight about anything, anytime, anywhere and that popular culture is interesting territory. If this is true then the United States should be increasingly mindful of the cultural productions from Iran and other nations of interest as they circulate internationally in response to Western cultural productions. The second issue deals with the different types of identification. Iran provides an example of identification based on ethnicity, while the Marine reading focuses on ideology. This event may point towards a tendency for the Iranian government to identify ethnically rather than ideologically. If this is true, the United States needs to capitalize on this tendency by foregoing attempts to engage Iran directly, working instead through sympathetic intermediaries that share an ethnic bond with Iran. Third, at the very least, it is certain that Iran and probably other nations of interest are watching Western cultural productions. Perhaps it is time to approach consubstantial identification strategically, by producing cultural artifacts (movies, video games, books) that emphasize the positive contributions of the Middle East and position the nations therein as allies.

Other nations are watching, trying to identify with the themes and characters of cultural production. The question that needs answering is: For the U.S. and the Middle East, will popular culture be a vehicle of alliance building or another zone of conflict?

Further Reading

• Burke, K. (1969). A grammar of motives. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.

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