On March 5^th, 2012 the non-profit organization Invisible Children (IC) released a short film which quickly went viral. Kony 2012 is the name of the film and campaign by Invisible Children to raise the profile of Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).  However it does more to publicize IC and its leaders than to expose Kony.

Founded in 2004, IC’s mission is to make people aware of the conflict in Uganda and influence policies that can aid the Ugandan people. They have done this by organizing a number of events such as the Rescue in which people would be symbolically “abducted” and then “rescued” by a celebrity or politician. This obviously attracted a fair amount of media attention due to the celebrity involvement. They have also had a sustained effort to get people to contact their senators and representatives and express their concern about the Uganda situation to them. Most notably they have made a number of short films depicting life in Uganda. Kony 2012 is the latest and most popular thus far.

The video is well made and emotionally impactful. It shows the narrator, and one of IC’s founders Jason Russell, explaining to his five year old son who Kony is and showing pictures of some of Kony’s victims. We meet Jacob, formerly one of Kony’s child soldiers, and can clearly see the emotional toll that the LRA has had on him. The intent behind Kony 2012 is to introduce the viewer to Joseph Kony, explain his criminal conduct and get people to participate in the Kony 2012 movement. The film asks that people contact the twenty Culture and Policy Makers, people such as George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, John Kerry and Condoleezza Rice, and get them to use their notoriety and influence to raise awareness about Kony’s activities. The ultimate goal is ensuring a continued presence of U.S. military advisers on the ground in Uganda (U.S. troops have been there since October, 2011) and the eventual arrest of Joseph Kony and trial in the International Criminal Court.

The problem is that the film seems more about the filmmakers then it does about the victims. One of the more prominent features on the IC site, which currently features a splash page about the film, is a large “donate” button.  The film itself does not really educate the viewer about Kony or the LRA. It spends more time talking about the IC organization and what it has done in the past. The take away is that there is this bad guy in Uganda who does some horrible things and if we tell Taylor Swift then maybe we can stop him. They communicate a message but offer no explanation behind that message.

The Ugandan military makes up the bulk of the African Union forces fighting in Somalia, an undertaking supported by the U.S. government. Uganda fighting in Somalia and the U.S. advising on the ground in Uganda demonstrates the somewhat complex web of foreign relations that exist between the two countries. No discussion of this relationship takes place. Human rights abuses committed by the Ugandan government are not mentioned.

The quasi-religious origins of the LRA are not examined. The ethnic tensions at play between the LRA and the Ugandan government are not addressed. Kony’s motivation for committing these atrocities is not examined. Is he attempting to take over the country? Is he a religious fanatic? Is he simply a madman? What exactly is the Lord’s Resistance Army? None of this is discussed in the film.

The campaign they seek to establish seems trendy (the Action Kit that you can purchase comes with bumper sticker, bracelets, posters and buttons) and intended to make people feel good about themselves rather than be an effective examination the Uganda situation. During the 2009 protests in Iran, Facebook became a means of organizing on the ground activities of protesters. During the Arab Spring of 2011, Twitter and Facebook were used to galvanize the protest movement. Art inspired by activities in Iran, Egypt and Tunisia became popular and made the rounds through various social media sites. Invisible Children has it backwards. They have created art, created slogans, and are big on Facebook and trending on Twitter. They are attempting to tap into this era of protest without the protest happening organically. In Iran, Egypt and Tunisia social media facilitated the movement, they did not create it. There have been a number of anti-Kony 2012 pictures going around these same social media outlets illustrating the naiveté of the Kony 2012 campaign.

The hearts of the Invisible Children organization are in the right place. But the Kony 2012 film and movement seem like a missed opportunity. They are correct in stating that most people in the U.S. are not aware of the situation in Uganda, but Kony 2012 does a poor job of educating. Telling the story of the Lord’s Resistance Army is an admirable idea. Explaining who Joseph Kony is a worthwhile endeavor. This film does neither.

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Indonesian Islamist extremist supporters ar Rahmah posted a story today (2-13) on their website and Facebook page about the hacker group Anonymous’ plans for a cyber-attack on Israel. The story (here) links to the Anonymous YouTube video announcing their plans.

While ar Rahmah undoubtedly supports the effort, the article quotes the video as a declaration of a “Crusade” (perang salib) against Israel. The Crusade narrative is the second most frequently invoked among Islamist extremists to describe western actions in Muslim lands, so it is somewhat surprising to see ar Rahmah’s emphasis of the term (although the Crusades targeted Jews as well as Muslims). The most frequently invoked narrative is Nakba (“catastrophe”), which refers to Palestine.

In this case, it appears that for ar Rahmah, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In the video, Anonymous criticizes Israel for its perceived hypocrisy, claiming to be democratic while “carelessly trampling the liberties of the masses.” While Islamist extremists have no pretensions to support democracy – rule by anything other than clerically mandated sharia is forbidden in their eyes – they have no problems jumping on the criticism of Israel if that’s one of Anonymous’s points. Anonymous’ recent cyber-attacks on the CIA and state of Alabama likely bolsters ar Rahmah’s opinion of the group.

On Facebook, ar Rahmah’s posting of the story had 135 “likes,” 14 “shares,” and eight comments as of Monday afternoon (CST). This isn’t a lot of reaction to the story, but that’s understandable due to ar Rahmah’s limited appeal to Indonesian Muslims. The original YouTube video posted by Anonymous, however, has over 120,000 views and counting, and over 2000 likes and 1000 dislikes. I perused some of the over 7000 comments, and found most of them to be anti-Semitic and anti-Israel ranting, conspiracy theorizing, and some in defense of Israel or against the bigotry.

I suppose a common hatred of Israel and Jews makes for some strange bedfellows, and I shouldn’t find it surprising that groups such as ar Rahmah support this effort by Anonymous. I wonder, however, if and when Anonymous will turn its sights toward Islamist extremists, who have become increasingly sophisticated in their abilities to spread their agenda via the internet. Perhaps that’s just a matter of time.

Related posts:

1. Extremists Stoking Religious Violence in Indonesia by Chris Lundry Violence between Muslims and Christians broke out...
2. Yes, Extremists are Paying Attention by Chris Lundry Last year, my colleagues Steven Corman, Jeffrey...
3. Another Bombing in Indonesia, Another Struggle over Framing by Chris Lundry On Sunday, September 25, a lone suicide...

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It was bound to happen: London’s Daily Mail reported yesterday that the face of Osama bin Laden appeared on a Londoner’s piece of toast. I have been fascinated with how the image of Osama bin Laden became a pop cultural phenomenon after 9-11 in some parts of the Muslim world (including Indonesia, where I do much of my work). The image was usually intended to shock rather than express true solidarity with the terrorist leader, and I liken it to college kids with Che Guevara posters or t-shirts, or even early punk rockers adopting nazi symbolism.

The punk rockers were not Nazi sympathizers, and the college kids aren’t communists. The imagery of Che Guevara has become cliché, however, and turned into an internet meme: witness Colonel Sanders or Homer Simpson as Che. It’s lost its ability to shock. Nazi symbolism, however, continues to shock – just think back to some recent events, such as Jesse James’ ex-girlfriend/stripper Michelle McGee wearing Nazi gear in photos, or Prince Harry appearing at a party in a Nazi uniform.

Which will be the eventual fate of Osama bin Laden imagery? In the west, with bin Laden dead, it’s clear that his image has lost much of its ability to shock, and is now, rather, simply viewed with derision. The Daily Mail story misses no opportunity for a pun: “From terror to toast!” “One sandwich short of a picnic!” “Worst thing since sliced bread!” Puns such as these were unthinkable in the weeks following 9-11.

As one would imagine, the story found its way onto Islamist websites (I found it first through looking at arrahmah.com, an Indonesian extremist site). The puns from the Mail story are lost in translation – likely right over the head of whoever translated the story. But the end of the Mail story, where the death of bin Laden is discussed, has been replaced with the following in the arrahmah.com posting:

Whether or not this matter is true, whether or not there is an element of purpose in the appearance of the “face” of Sheik Osama, as a Muslim there is only one thing we can acknowledge as truth, that is that during his lifetime Sheik Osama was known as a warrior in the fight against the enemies of Islam to enforce the profession of faith in Allah on earth.

One group’s joke becomes another’s call to arms and faith.

After showing my colleagues the story, we noted that in the image the beard does not quite join at the chin, giving the appearance of mutton chops, and bringing comparisons to a salty sea captain or a 1970s British pub dweller. In the west, I think it’s safe to say the image of bin Laden following his death is no longer shocking. People claim that images of Jesus Christ have appeared on a piece of toast, and later on all sorts of other things (an iron, a potato chip, a pancake). These images have become internet memes, copied and rearranged for a variety of figures. Where will the next image of bin Laden appear? And will it too spawn spoofs?

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A couple of weeks ago as I skimmed the news, I saw the freshly-released images of the Park51 Community Center (colloquially known as the “Ground Zero Mosque”). In the same sitting, I also performed my semi-regular check of a former professor’s co-authored blog, No Caption Needed. Perusing the two in such short succession inspired reflection on the nature of the image in strategic communication – and more specifically, the nature of the image in the conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terror, as well as that conflict’s implications in contemporary American public culture. Strategically, images make claims concrete. Curiously, in the case of the Park51 project, even the mere promise of images was worthy enough to create front-page news.

Park51 Street View Concept

According to the Park51 Blog, on September 28, 2010, three “renderings” of the proposed community center were released. As of October 3, 2010, no architectural brainstorms had been added to this slim posting. The computerized images look light, airy, and labyrinthine. The colorless interior and exterior of the building form what appears to be the frame of an empty mosaic. Though interesting, the renderings are far from blueprints and there are very few of them. Why, then, did they command enough attention to be featured as one of CNN’s top stories on October 3, five full days after the images were posted? And is it mere coincidence that after the images were released, we began to hear stories break about the community center’s supporters being under threat?

There are several plausible explanations for the images’ catalyzing force. First, the “renderings” of Park51 move the center’s existence from the realm of the hypothetical to the realm of the eminently plausible. Although images can inspire dialogue, they do not require it – an image exists because someone thought to bring it into being, not necessarily because a group engineered its appearance. This has implications for the efficacy of strategic communication more broadly. Images can often signal quick forays into the public dialogue, and like all other forms of communication, they can take on a life all their own. In other words, by presenting a public with an image, that public is encouraged to discuss what they are seeing – and yet the creative processes behind the image’s genesis need not be the result of discussion itself.

Second, when used and regarded strategically, images evoke things they do not visibly picture. These preliminary sketches of the community center are not simply musings about a building. They represent an implied victory in a very prominent public conflict. With these images, plans for Park51 publicly move forward – in contrast with plans to rebuild the World Trade Center, which have repeatedly stalled. Apart from and intertwined with the controversy itself, the images evoke a residue of terror and anguish. Therefore, despite the largely unimpressive nature of the architectural plans themselves, Park51’s blog posting was quickly catapulted to national and international news levels.

Strategically, the use and analysis of imagery has tremendous potential to alter the ways we think about contested spaces. Fundamentally, many of the ideological conflicts we try to mitigate are spatial as well. In the case of the “Ground Zero Mosque,” for example, the issue of location plays an incredibly prominent role.  This conflict is not about the existence of an Islamic community center per se, but rather the center’s proximity to the World Trade Center site. Visual depictions of what the community center might look like are actually inserted into the Manhattan landscape. In terms of public debate, it hardly matters that the landscape is fictitious.

Acts of terror are also territorialized, and can be thought of as contests over space. Competing ideas of what should be done with different locations permeate much contemporary conflict, so we can think of space and imagery as (potentially) persuasive. Spaces can be engineered, manipulated, and captured graphically. That instance of manipulation can, with the split-second click of a mouse, be globally transmitted.

With reference to Park51 and the project’s ability to communicate strategically, the entry of images into the public conversation has certainly sped up the rate of dialogue. Though groups in conflict can quite notably use imagery to draw attention to their specific causes, images can also have messy and unintended consequences. Such images can call up intimations of the very phenomena they are trying to usurp, in this case, terrorism.

To clarify, I do not believe the community center bears any resemblance to an act of terror, but rather that even peaceful architectural sketches can implicate such far-removed phenomena as the former “Global War on Terror.” Images direct our minds rapidly and in many directions. They should be both used and analyzed with care.  In the case discussed here, it is necessary to question not only the images, but why they became so popular.  The questioning should take place in specifically public contexts, not just individually in the privacy of our own spaces.

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Apparently I wasn’t the only one thinking about the diplomatic potential of Muslim hip-hop when I posted a blog about it for COMOPS Journal back in September of 2009. Recently we heard from Tyson Amir, one of the Muslim artists that I featured in the blog, and he had some interesting news to report. Amir is from San Jose, California, and currently performs with the Remarkable Current Musician Collective, founded by Anas Canon in 2001. As described on the group’s website, Remarkable Current is “an American artist collective consisting of musicians, writers, and producers who are bonded not only by their love for music and art, but also by their shared Islamic-American tradition.”

“Some of the artists that I work with,” wrote Amir, “have actually submitted a proposal very similar to what Jeffry Halverson articulated in [his] article to the US government.” Unfortunately, the government has thus far been unresponsive to the group’s overtures. Amir further added that: “We hoped the US government would be open to allowing us to utilize our art to try to bring about some type of change in the world.”

Tyson Amir in Morocco

In the meantime, Tyson Amir and his colleagues have been going forward without government support. They were on tour in Turkey in 2009, where they recorded a music video for a song entitled “Granada Rap,” a reference to the Andalusian city where Muslims, Christians, and Jews coexisted together in southern Spain before its downfall in 1492. And if you’d like to see the way American hip-hop can appeal to Muslim youths, just take a look at the Turkish kids in Amir’s video: LINK.

“The entire proposal,” Amir further explained, “was based on the State Department’s usage of Jazz musicians in the late 1950s for the purpose of diplomacy; the first artist they sent was Dizzy Gillespie.”

In 1956, the State Department under the Eisenhower administration sent Gillespie to bring the uniquely American art form of jazz to the Middle East, Southern Europe, and South Asia during the height of the Cold War. Other Jazz ambassadors soon followed, including Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis. As Dr. Curtis Sandberg of the Meridian International Center has noted: “In this battle for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the world’s peoples, the United States developed an unlikely but remarkably effective response to Soviet initiatives: building international friendships through jazz.”

As Tyson Amir sees it: “In the 1950s we used Jazz ambassadors, today we need hip-hop ambassadors.”

I couldn’t agree more.

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Meh!

Readers of this blog may have followed the story this week of death threats issued by the website Revolution Muslim against South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for their inclusion of supposed images of the Prophet Muhammad in part one of a cartoon first broadcast last week.  In response to the threats Comedy Central bleeped-out mentions of the Prophet’s name and made other changes to part two, broadcast this week.

Part one featured a group of “super best friends” (born in a previous episode that is mysteriously unavailable on the Comedy Central website) made up of other religious figures including Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, Moses and Santa Claus.  When the group was shown, Muhammad’s image was covered by a black stripe and the word “censored”–presumably as a poke by Parker and Stone at Muslim sensibilities about showing His image.  He later “appeared” as the unseen occupant of a van and later a bear costume.

That episode resulted in a now-defunct website in New York, resolutionmuslim.com, issuing a thinly veiled death threat against the cartoon’s creators, including a picture of assassinated Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh with a knife sticking out of his chest (see what’s left of the post here, H/T Mark Stoudt).

In this week’s follow-up episode, all mentions of the Prophet’s name were bleeped out.  In what can only be regarded as shoddy reporting, the Guardian said this may have been the work of the creators of the series.  But later reports by AP and the LA Times made it clear that the changes were made by Comedy Central executives, without the consent of Parker and Stone.  Besides bleeping Muhammad references, Comedy Central also deleted a segment in which the character Kyle made a speech against intimidation and fear that didn’t even mention Muhammad’s name.

Comedy Central is refusing comment on the incident.  Too bad.  Among other things, I would like to know:

• If their concerns were for the sensibilities of religious communities in the US then why didn’t they censor the first episode?
• For for that matter why didn’t they censor the depictions/names of the other religious figures in the second episode, which were surely offensive to the Christian and Buddhist communities?
• Why did they censor a speech against intimidation and fear?  Because they support intimidation and fear?
• Why are they kowtowing to a Takfiri fringe group when peaceful Muslims in the US have not complained (as far as I am able to tell)?

Unsurprisingly, said fringe group seems to be emboldened.  Revolutionmuslim.com released a rambling statement on April 21 “clarifying” their position on the South Park episode.  As justification for their complaints about the episode it invokes the master narrative of the crusades and the rhetorical vision of Islam under withering assault from those who would see it destroyed.

Extolling the virtues of free speech they say:

the principle of free speech, as envisioned by the founding fathers of the United States and by wise men and women throughout the ages, is a universal principle that may protect citizens from political, economic, or religious persecution.

Of course they declined to apply this weapon against religious persecution five months ago when their comrades in Africa prayed “Oh Allah, allow the mujahideen to strike Jews, Christians and their apostate agents!” (from partiislamique.blogspot.com, 11/30/2009).

Undermining the claim that their original post was not a death threat, they say:

As for the Islamic ruling on the situation, then this is clear. There is no difference of opinion from those with any degree of a reputation that the punishment is death. Ibn Taymiyyah a great scholar of Islam says, “Whoever curses the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) -a Muslim or a non Muslim- then he must be killed…and this is the opinion of the general body of Islamic scholars.”

So here is a group that hides behind freedom of speech to promote violent ideology and make death threats against people, while denying the same right to others who engage in nothing more harmful than religious satire in an animated cartoon.  And Comedy Central hands them a victory, basically saying that they’re right.  Way to go guys.

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In his book Fighting the War of Ideas like Real War: Messages to Defeat the Terrorists, J. Michael Waller argues that the United States already has a “secret weapon worse than death,” and it is cheap, readily available and easy to deploy. That weapon is ridicule.

Although the suggestion that ridicule and satire are legitimate tools of strategic communication might receive some – dare I say it – ridicule, Waller’s argument is a good one. Ridicule and satire have a long history in warfare, and they have been deployed both offensively and defensively. In the U.S., ridicule was used in the Revolutionary War, both to mock the British troops and to raise the morale of the American fighters. In WWII, domestic use of ridicule targeted Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito. In a more contemporary example, Waller cites Team America: World Police as an example of effective parody of Islamic terrorists and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.  While a movie that features graphic sex between puppets might not have universal appeal, Waller is correct in pointing out that prior to the movie, American audiences would likely not consider the Korean dictator someone to laugh at.

Nor is humiliation merely a Western conception. In pre-Islamic society in the Middle East, law breakers were often mutilated – either whipped or dismembered – as much for purposes of humiliation as pain. They became living symbols of what befell criminals in the community. Ridicule was also used as a weapon of war in both pre-Islamic and early Islamic society and poets were often assassinated because of their power to create and spread ridicule. Today, Waller argues, “many extremists equate ridicule with pain or death.” Bin Laden himself has been quoted as saying he fears humiliation more than death. Well known strategic advice says ‘know your enemy.’ If your enemy fears humiliation over death – which would serve to make him a martyr – then the use of ridicule seems highly appropriate:

In nearly every aspect of society and across culture and time, ridicule works. Ridicule leverages the emotions and simplifies the complicated and takes on the powerful, in politics, business, law, entertainment, the media, literature, culture, sports and romance. Ridicule can tear down faster than the other side can rebuild. It can smash a theoretical or intellectual construct (p. 95).

Jarret Brachman makes a similar argument:

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about jihadis in my career it’s this: they are our secret weapon in the fight against jihadis… they are more than happy to point us in the directions of their weaknesses.

Brachman has coined the term ‘jihobbyists’ to refer to a growing number of armchair terrorists, who cheer on extremism from the web. The term, and the attitude that accompany it, have ‘stirred the pot’ in a most revealing way: “What you find by doing this is that the jihadis can’t not respond. And what they respond to is what they are most sensitive about.” And as Brachman points out, what really gets under the skin of these jihbbyists is not an insult to their ideology or religious beliefs, but the suggestion they still live in their mother’s basement. After all, it is very difficult to maintain a serious and terrifying self image when you get compared to this guy.

Waller’s suggestions regarding the strategic use of ridicule are an expansion of arguments he and others have made about the importance of language use in ‘the war of ideas.’ In ‘buying into’ terrorist’s language – especially by using terms such as jihad and mujahidin – Waller argues that the U.S. and its allies, “ceased fighting on our terms and placed our ideas at the enemy’s disposal” (p. 54). If this is a war of ideas, and words are weapons, then we need to be using the right ammunition, so to speak. More than that:

Being a declared adversary – even enemy – of the United States is a status symbol among the world’s terrorists, dictators, and political extremists. By taking that enemy too seriously, by hyping it up as a threat, the United States is unintentionally credentializing a heretofore insignificant individual or group, and giving it the stature it needs to rise above its own society, establish itself, attract recruits, and gain influence. Ridicule can cut the enemy down to size (p. 104).

According Waller (p. 109), ridicule is vital because:

• It sticks;
• The target can’t refute it;
• It is almost impossible to repress;
• It spreads on its own and multiplies with each re-telling;
• It boosts morale at home;
• Our enemy shows far greater intolerance to ridicule than we;
• Ridicule divides the enemy, damages its morale, and makes it less attractive to supporters and prospective recruits; and
• The ridicule-armed warrior need not fix a physical sight on the target. Ridicule will find its own way to the targeted individual. To the enemy, being ridiculed means losing respect. It means losing influence. It means losing followers and repelling potential new backers

While Al Qaeda and its ideological offshoots are certainly not insignificant, one recent event that would seem to support Waller’s case and would have been an excellent opportunity to ‘deploy’ ridicule is that of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, commonly known as the ‘underwear bomber.’ Although nothing these days drives the current 24-hour news cycle like the mention of terrorist activity, the facts are that the would-be bomber of the Christmas day flight quite literally sewed explosives into his underwear… and then couldn’t ‘get it off.’

Also, given Waller’s arguments, the appropriate response to Bin Laden’s (alleged) praise for the attack – nearly a month after the fact when intelligence analysis suggested that the video was an example of Al Qaeda struggling to maintain relevance – came not from major media outlets, but from The Daily Show. Snore indeed.  Another, more general example of ridicule that is aimed at the idea of the suicide bomber is a ventriloquist routine by comedian Jeff Dunham, titled Achmed the Dead Terrorist, an example Waller points to in his own blog.

This is not to suggest that the threat of terrorism is non-existent or a call to underestimate Al Qaeda’s ideological appeal or material capabilities, and Waller is quick to point out (correctly) that ridicule can be as dangerous as any kinetic weapon when improperly deployed. In the nine years since September 11, however, far more people in the United States have died of heart failure, diabetes, or car accidents than terrorist attacks. Given this, pointing out that Americans statistically have more to fear from a cheeseburger than a ‘guy in a cave’ is not only true, it’s good strategy.

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In the war of ideas for the “hearts and minds” of the Muslim world, cultural diplomacy can go a long way. The US government may not be very popular abroad, but our cultural products certainly are. Many Muslims hate our policies, but they still love our movies, listen to our pop music, and cheer for our athletes. Extremists, on the other hand, actively try to disseminate monolithic images of “the other” to their audiences. Al-Qaeda loves to reduce Americans to the archetypal “Crusader” with a singular malevolent purpose. Our films, music, arts, and athletes, can profoundly disrupt and subvert such efforts.

In the age of twenty-four hour news networks, websites, blogs and YouTube, there is no shortage of information out there for inquiring minds to consume. To command a sizable audience amidst such a saturated media landscape (mediascape), many outlets have resorted to promoting outrageous opinions and personalities to garner public attention (i.e. ratings and readers). Thus, the outrageous polarized voices of inflammatory right-wing pundits and snarky left-wing cynics have become a daily fixture of our mediascape and the “old school” journalism of Walter Cronkite has been relegated to the News Hour on PBS.

Even a casual glance through the headlines of the major news sites and magazine stands reveals a disturbing preoccupation with stories about people with names like “Snookie” or “J-Lo.”  Judging by these sorts of headlines, one might not think there’s much going on in the world. But according to UNICEF, some 16,000 children die every day from hunger-related causes (1 every 6 seconds). The world spends well over $1 trillion dollars each year on military expenditures.  Every twenty minutes another species goes extinct. And despite the recent attention, people were suffering and struggling in Haiti long before the devastating earthquake on January 12, 2010. So why is the vapid cast of “Jersey Shore” still getting front page attention when the world has no shortage of urgent and horrific matters to report?

People love (even worship) celebrities.

This is nothing new, of course. Some celebrities have even used their cultural deification for good in the world and lent their names and images to important causes. Some of them might adopt causes for publicity or to fix a sullied public image (e.g. Paris Hilton), but I like to believe that most do it out of real compassion for their fellow human beings and the environment they live in. I guess I have “faith” in a few of these “gods.”

Last month, I was part of a planning committee for a grant proposal that would create a major conference on our campus featuring keynote speakers from academia, government, journalism, and the wild world of celebrity-activism. The core idea behind the conference was making specialized academic expertise about Islam accessible to public policymakers and the public-at-large. The inclusion of a celebrity-activist in our proposal was a response to the public’s preoccupation with celebrity-culture and how “ivory tower” intellectuals struggle to get their ideas and perspectives out into the crowded mediascape. After all, how many Americans would even know where Darfur is located if George Clooney hadn’t traveled to see Sudanese refugees with a film crew following him? The “bread and circuses” of the first world are too distracting for most people.

Communicating to a large public audience seems to require the aid of a celebrity spokesperson, ideally one with some credentials and intellectual clout who cannot simply be dismissed for adopting a “pet project.” A lot of NGOs and charities understand this concept. So why doesn’t our government?

No matter how hard they try to be “stars,” congressmen, senators, governors, and other politicians, are not “real” celebrities – although some admittedly exist in both worlds (e.g. Schwarzenegger, Franken, Reagan). President Obama certainly has celebrity status. But if the United States is truly interested in reaching out to the everyday people of the Muslim world and subverting the “clash of civilizations” rhetoric of Bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Awlaki, we need to bring out the big guns of celebrity firepower through cultural diplomacy.

Even people who hate the U.S. government and its policies love American cultural products, including our movies, music, and athletes. It’s easy for Bin Laden to talk about waging holy war on the land of the “Crusaders” George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but it’s another thing to convince a kid in Cairo or Riyadh to wage jihad on Leonardo Dicaprio, LeBron James, Will Smith, and Johnny Depp. People in the Muslim world, many of which remain under authoritarian regimes, are understandably distrustful of governments and politicians. It’s easy for the Arab and Muslim street to dismiss the promises and claims of a Secretary of State or U.S. Ambassador reading a speech off of a teleprompter beside representatives of an unelected regime. An American movie star visiting a Muslim city with a charming smile and polite handshake would probably do a better job at disrupting the “Crusader” image constructed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates than a thousand government speeches and photo-ops. In 1971, we used table tennis or “ping-pong diplomacy” to improve U.S.-Chinese relations; what are we doing in the Muslim world today?

I propose a large-scale U.S. cultural ambassador program to university campuses and cities throughout the Muslim world. In 2007, the State Department conducted a program in China that featured Cal Ripken Jr. and organized youth baseball clinics in four cities. This was too brief to be truly effective. And as much as I love baseball, it is not a popular U.S. export to the Muslim world. So an extension of this program to a country like Syria or Jordan would likely be ill-advised. In terms of athletes, we’d be better off sending stars from the NBA – maybe the kids in Amman would enjoy seeing a dunk contest. Basketball is much easier to set-up and play than baseball – especially in crowded, impoverished and arid cities. Movie stars also need to be enlisted. American movies are everywhere. When I lived in Cairo, there were American movies on broadcast television a couple of times a week. The biggest obstacle might be convincing American movie stars to participate between awards ceremonies.

It is equally important to point out that this sort of cultural diplomacy needs to go both ways. There are a lot of people in the United States who – out of fear, ignorance, or anger – carry disturbing attitudes about Muslims that influence our public discourse and the conduct of our elected government (for the worse). These folks likely won’t listen to an informed professor down at the local university or pick up a copy of his or her over-priced academic hardcover at the bookstore, but they might show up to hear Natalie Portman talk about these issues and share her personal insights as someone who has worked and lived in the Middle East (Portman is Co-Chair of a village banking program with Queen Rania of Jordan). People might also sit down in a theater together to watch a play performed by American and Muslim actors, like the brilliant Ghassan Massoud of Syria. American audiences would undoubtedly find it hard to see the zealous jihadi of their fears in an actor creating a work of art on stage beside their fellow countrymen.

In all, the last thing America needs to do is allow U.S.-Muslim relations to be dictated by or restricted to the events on the battlefield when we are all a part of so much more than the characters imagined by both sides of the “War on Terror.”

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In an AP wire story picked up by numerous print and online media, Russell Contreras writes about discovering the “new movement” of Muslim-Hindu punk bands (including Boston’s the Kominas). The implication is that we are witnessing a new youth music movement that might serve as a challenge to religious fundamentalism and its extremist outcomes.  It’s a great bit of publicity for the band, but it reflects the author’s lack of prior awareness about the music rather than a description of a breaking music movement.  In fact Muslim punk is nothing new.

Punk rock was invented by New York’s The Ramones, who took a couple chords, played them loud and fast, and added lyrics that reflected their comic books and B-movies sensibilities. After the Ramones played an early show in London, with future members of seminal British punk bands the Clash, the Damned, and the Sex Pistols in the audience, the music and movement quickly bloomed there. It went through the first of many changes, however, as British punk was more political (reflecting the direr economic situation there), and people such as Malcom McClaren linked it to colorful, shocking fashion and art. Musical skills increased on both sides of the Atlantic, but in the United States the bands began to eschew what had become peacock-like fashion for a simpler look and sound that lost some of the pop tinges of of both the Ramones and British punk, and thus “hardcore” was born. Punk rock and hardcore branched out in all sorts of directions: new wave and post punk, straight edge (whose adherents foreswear sex, alcohol and drugs), vegan hardcore, Krishnacore, emo, pop-punk, grunge, crossover and thrash (punk fused with heavy metal), and even so-called Christian punk, to name just a few.

All of this occurred mostly under the radar of mainstream media, until the early 1990s (or, as some state more precisely, 1991, “The Year Punk Broke“). Bands such as Sonic Youth and Nirvana played punk-influenced music that was radio friendly, and hence radio stations played them and they became huge. There were plenty of earlier bands that got some limited radio airplay in the United States, most notably the Clash (albeit far past their prime); in the late 1970s British punk bands were all over the British charts. Most of punk remained underground (although subjected to more outside attention that usual), but plenty of bands formed to play radio friendly pop with a “punk” edge and look, and this genre of music is now well established. It was also around this time that “jocks” stopped beating up “punks” and joined them at concerts.

Why the brief history of punk? Because throughout this entire evolution, punk bands formed all over the world, including Hindu and Muslim countries, and including Hindus and Muslims — nominal and practicing — in the United States, consistent with the DIY (do-it-yourself) ethos of the movement (often there was a time lag, but always there were local musical and cultural elements). Maximum Rock and Roll, the standard bearing ‘zine for hardcore and punk (published since 1982, with roots to 1977), published “Scene Reports” from around the world that chronicled bands and the scenes that supported them. Muslims playing punk rock is not a new phenomenon. Rather, it is the environment today (or post 9-11) that is new.

Popular and “underground” music has always had an air of rebellion; punk rock merely turned up the volume. Music has provided a space for young people to express themselves and their identities, to question the cultural assumptions of their environments and to push for social change (COMOPS Journal has already published blog posts on heavy metal and rap). Social commentary and criticism has a long history in American music (from slaves’ work songs to Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” to punk tours such as Rock Against Reagan).

So what about the Kominas and the so-called “Taqwacore”? To my ears half of their music stands close to the radio friendly side of punk, with others a bit noisier (some songs can be heard on their myspace page). Their tunes blend funk and ska, and borrow heavily from their forebearers. “Sharia Law in the USA” is derived from the Sex Pistols “Anarchy in the UK,” for example, and “Suicide Bomb the Gap” echoes the Big Boys’ taste for funk (and Kool and the Gang). Some of their music blends South Asian elements, but this isn’t new (remember the Rolling Stones “Paint it Black” and the Beatles “Norwegian Wood”?).

The notion of Taqwacore is interesting, although this is still American music played in the United States. They may face derision from some Muslim members of their audiences, but they won’t face beheading for apostacy. With the expansion of new media and the ease of global communication, it would be interesting to see if the Kaminas had any influence on bands elsewhere — I’m sure they’ve got fans whose only connection to the band is the internet. What would be infinitely more interesting, however, would be to see how punk bands made up of faithful Muslims are faring in Muslim countries with oppressive social environments and strong pressure to conform. They do exist — I’ve seen them in Indonesia and Malaysia in the 1990s — but it’s much harder for westerners to gain access to their music or to be able to gauge their impacts.

Interesting though this may be from a cultural point of view, the fact is that Muslims punk has been around for years.  It’s doubtful that this latest spurt from the movement signals anything new with respect to resisting extremism or the religious establishment.

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Dwarfed by the stories of the earthquake tragedy in Padang, yesterday Indonesian media picked up a sensational statement issued at the Jakarta police headquarters. According to police spokesman Nanan Sukarna, police investigators have discovered evidence that the corpse of Jemaah Islamiyah’s Noordin Top showed signs of anal trauma consistent with sodomy, leading to speculation that he might have been bisexual.

The article (published by inilah.com) began curiously by differentiating investigatory police and police doctors, and stated that “information that the terrorist Noordin Top enjoyed relationships with men should not be spread to the public.” (All translations in this piece by the author). The story ended with a quote from Nanan: “This is the doctor’s secret. Indeed I do not know who was stating this. It has to be kept secret, it cannot be announced. There is a code of ethics, it is a problem of visum etrepesum (sic: repertum).”

Yet for whom was the article, which reported details of the investigation, intended if not the public? How many nods and winks were shared between reporter and spokesman, the understanding that this “news” would of course be disseminated? Disseminated it was, with slight variations. Surya online was more discreet, but quoted University of Indonesia forensic specialist Dr. Mun’im Idris as saying there were “peculiarities.” The flagship paper of eastern Indonesia, Pos Kupang, also quoted Dr. Mu’nim but more directly: “Yes, there is damage to Noordin’s anus.” Perhaps the best example of the nod-and-wink game is the reporting from Kompas, Indonesia’s most respected national newspaper. “Nanan: The Matter of Noordin’s Anus has to be Kept Secret” the headline blared. To its credit, Kompas got the Latin for autopsy report correct.

As to be expected, today the story was picked up and broadcast by blogs and other online sources, including those outside of  Indonesia. “Fact! Noordin was Frequently Sodomized!” screamed Malaysia’s Topix.com, which was the first response to the author’s Google search of “Noordin Dubur (anus).” Blog comments are multiplying rapidly, with sides being chosen. “Character assassination!” screamed one, as though being gay (or sexually deviant) was worse than being a murdering terrorist, and implying that Noordin had any character left to assassinate.

The latent conflict between Malaysia and Indonesia the author described in a previous blog post is surfacing. “Noordin Top Appears to be Homosexual (a Reflection of the [religious] Hypocrisy of Malingsia Society),” screams another Topix.com report. The author described the term “Malingsia,” combining the word for “thief” with Malaysia, in a previous post, but this news has brought to the fore another derogatory term for Indonesians to refer to Malaysians: “Magaysia.”

The story was also broadcast on television. Jakarta’s Metro TV reported the story with footage of Dr. Mun’im.  The report also stated that a spokesman for Noordin’s family in Malaysia, Badarudin Ismail, denied the report. In a Detik.com story, Badarudin argued that it simply was not possible; after all, Noordin had wives and children. The naivete in this statement boggles the mind.

Of course this kind of report does not necessarily mean that if it was indeed sex that caused the “irregularities” that it was necessarily sex between Noordin and another man. That being said, Dede Oetomo, among Indonesia’s best known and widely respected gay rights and political activists, has spoken to me about gay sex in the context of pesantren (Islamic boarding school) dormitories, arguing essentially that what else would one expect when pubescent boys are sequestered with other pubescent boys in tight quarters.

Homosexuality in Indonesia and Malaysia has a dual nature. On the one hand, transexuals and transvestites (“banci” or “waria”) are openly tolerated as they sing or play instruments and busk in public. On the other, however, discourse dominated by religious conservatives condemns homosexuality and has led to anti-gay violence. Gay activists, such as Dede, continue to struggle for their rights and recognition.

A report today by the English language Jakarta Globe speculated that the forensic results could have been caused by hidden explosives. Regardless, the tactics of the Jakarta police — to announce something publicly as a something that must be kept secret — shows how they are willing to use the information to further discredit Noordin and his terrorist ilk. True or not, this raises the question of whether he needed further discrediting following his heinous acts of terrorism.

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