Earlier this month (December 13-15) we were privileged to participate in a “The 2nd International Conference on Islamic Media” sponsored by the Saudi sponsored Muslim World League (MWL, Rabita al-Alam al-Islami) and the Indonesian Ministry of Religion in Jakarta Indonesia.  Tension between the co-sponsors was evident in the selection of participants, the themes of formal presentations and in social interaction over the course of the conference. Differing perspectives on religious inclusivism, freedom of expression, social media and gender were especially apparent.

The conference theme was “The New Media and Information Technology.” Approximately 400 delegates and guests from 39 countries in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia were in attendance.  Jakarta was chosen as the conference venue because it was the site of the first conference that was held in 1980.  Many observers noted that the timing of the two conferences was not coincidental.  Both were held shortly after social and political upheavals that presented serious challenges to Saudi Arabia – the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the Arab Spring of 2011.

Indonesian participants noted that the pairing of MWL and Indonesia’s Ministry of Religion was “peculiar” because of their very different orientations and agendas.  MWL is an international organization founded by the Saudi government in 1962 with the purpose of globalizing Saudi Wahhabism and countering other understandings of Islam and secularism. The Indonesian Ministry of Religion has a more inclusive understanding of Islam, and unlike MWL, actively promotes democracy and freedom of expression.

The Guest List

MWL selected conference delegates from the Middle East, Africa and Europe who share the leadership’s Wahhabi orientation. Efforts to secure a similarly sympathetic Indonesian contingent failed. The Indonesian Ministry of Religion delegated responsibility for inviting participants to academics in the Islamic University system, who invited Muslim scholars, journalists and activists with diverse religious views. The result was that while delegations from Middle Eastern, European and African countries supported the MWL agenda, the Indonesian contingent was less sympathetic. While participants included representatives of Dewan Dakwah Islamiyah Indonesia, and other Indonesian organizations affiliated with MWL, none were invited to make formal presentations.

Most of the Indonesian participants were university lecturers with religious orientations very different from their Saudi hosts. This led to a marked contrast in the themes of formal presentations and a combination of humorous remarks and sometimes bitter comments about the implicit Saudi agenda.  Some found it ironic that Muslims who Wahhabis think of as kafir (unbelievers) because they engage in “deviant” forms of religious devotion including the veneration of saints, were invited at all. There were many sarcastic comments about the contrast between the pious pontificating of Saudi delegates and the burgeoning “temporary marriage”/sex tourism trade catering primarily to Saudis centered in Bogor, only a short distance from the conference venue. Others were angered by what they saw as Saudi arrogance and their exclusivist, self-referential use of the terms Islam and Muslim. One described Saudis as “colonialists,” echoing a theme discussed previously on this blog.

Formal Presentations

The conference included formal remarks by political figures, academic papers, mostly by Indonesian scholars, triumphalist, self congratulatory presentations by representatives of WML sponsored Islamic television networks in the United Kingdom and South Africa, speeches by WML officials calling for Muslim unity in efforts to counter western moral decadence and the destabilizing effects of the “New Media.” There was a consensus that there are positive and negative sides to New Media, and that the negatives include its use as a tool for the dissemination of radical ideologies and pornography. Indonesian speakers tended to embrace New Media because it promotes democratic change and freedom of expression. WML speakers expressed concern about it for exactly the same reason.

The disconnect between Saudi and Indonesian perspectives was apparent throughout the conference.  An editorial in the December issue of MWL Journal, distributed at the conference, summarized the Saudi position:

If the changing dynamics of media are not understood in its proper perspectives and an effort is not made to discipline the youth, it can create havoc in the society, as is being witnessed in many places.

Indonesian Vice-president Boediono opened the conference with a speech in which he stated:

The emergence of social networking media has created  new social institutions, in the forms of new social networks that bypass social borders and strata, creating virtual horizontal relationships. This New Media also helps to strengthen civil society and allows everyone access to it, greater freedom of expression and freedom of speech, including direct and open criticism of the Government.

Governments that have not been willing to allow greater democratic   participation and failed to respond adequately and in a timely manner to democratic voices have found themselves in difficulties or even been forced out of power by popular movements, the people’s power. Government’s control over media, is no longer effective. Gadgets, small yet very high-tech devices that can provide any information at any time, are easily available everywhere. Information has become a public domain. This is the new reality that we all have to adjust to and live with.

Social networking media can produce enormous benefits for the society. This is the experience in this country. The practice of democracy in Indonesia has been enriched by the development of social networking media.

He also called on Muslim religious authorities to issue “contextual fatwa (legal opinions)” to counter the influence of Internet based extremism. In Indonesian Muslim discourse “contextual” refers to a mode of legal reasoning that uses general principles abstracted from sacred texts to arrive at solutions to contemporary problems. This discursive style is an anathema to Saudi scholars who insist on literal readings. These are very different understandings of Shari’ah. The conflict between these positions was evident throughout the conference.

MWL General Secretary At-Turki

Presentations by General Secretary Abdallah Ben Abdel Mohsen At-Turki and other MWL speakers reiterated the themes of the MWL Journal editorial. They emphasized the dangers that global news and entertainment media pose to “Islam and the Muslims.” They stressed the need for government to government cooperation in efforts to establish “Muslim” alternatives to both existing Old Media and New Media. One speaker proposed creating a “Muslim” alternative to Facebook. Several speakers were critical of (unnamed) individuals who have declared the Internet to be haram (forbidden). They stressed the point that technology is morally neutral and should be used to promote Islamic values. Several presentations focused on the importance of satellite television as a communications medium. They indicated that television is the preferred medium because it can be used to deliver standardized content in multiple languages.

In their formal presentations WML delegates tended to speak of “Islam,” “The Muslim Community” and “The West” in monolithic ways. There were frequent references to “genuine” and Islamic teachings and the need to “correct” deviant tendencies. These statements reflect WML’s concerns with establishing Wahhabi orthodoxy and combatting other forms of Islam, especially Sufism and the Shiah.  “The West” was described as being anti-Islamic and as a source of moral corruption. “Western media” were often mentioned as engaging in conspiracies to corrupt Muslim youth and ultimately to destroy Islam. In general, portrayals of the West were far more negative than those in WML English language publications.

WML delegates we interviewed seemed not to understand the dynamics of New Media. One spoke of establishing an on line international Muslim media clearing house complete with electronic versions of “authentic texts,” and encouraging young people to study Information Technology as strategies to counter “anti-Islamic forces and influences.”  He did not appear to grasp the point that New Media is user driven. One of the editors of MWL Journal stated that he used e-mail and that some of his children had Facebook pages but that he did not really understand it. Another expressed confidence that if they were given proper Muslim educations, young people would watch “Muslim” programs on satellite TV instead of the frivolous entertainment programing offered by conventional media.

Presentations by Indonesian delegates echoed Boediono’s embrace of the democratizing power of New Media.  Parni Hadi, one of the founding editors of the Indonesian Islamic daily Republika, spoke with great passion and idealism about the constructive role of the New Media. In his remarks he mentioned links between technology and democratization, pointing to the role New Media in the Arab Spring movements that led to the overthrown of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. He called for the development of a “Prophetic” journalistic ethos and practice  based on freedom of expression with “no oppression by whosoever, government and religious authorities as well as media owners.” He called on journalists to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad in efforts to promote “dignity, devotion, tolerance, mutual understanding, mutual respect and non-violence.” He was also critical of government attempts to control print, broadcast and on-line media.

In general Indonesian participants were far more open to changes wrought by the New Media than their Saudi counterparts. They tended to emphasize the opportunities rather than the dangers of the emergence of citizen journalism. They were less inclined to paint monochrome portraits of either “The West” or “Islam.” They also had a more expansive visions of “Muslim” media. In his address Professor  Azyumardi Azra, Dean of the Graduate School at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Jakarta, called for a pluralistic understanding of Islam. He later observed that Muslim media can, and should be more than sermons and that there was nothing “un-Islamic” about media coverage of the Manchester United football team, a perennial favorite in Indonesia.

The Social Dimension – Exclusivism and Gender

International conferences are complex social events in which cultures sometimes collide. Gender was an especially divisive issue at this conference. Men and women mix freely at conferences sponsored by Indonesian Islamic Universities. There are always women on the program. Seating is gender mixed, women and men converse freely and join each other for meals and coffee breaks.

Saudi and other MWL organizers were clearly uneasy about these aspects of Indonesian Muslim intellectual and cultural practice. There were no women in MWL sponsored delegations. Of the approximately 200 Indonesians invited by the Ministry of Religion, at least half were female, but in deference to Saudi concerns, none were asked to make presentations. Gender issues were not addressed in any of the formal presentations. The Indonesian organizers did not compromise on gender integrated seating and meals. Saudi and other WML sponsored delegates did not, however, speak with Indonesian women when they could avoid it, much less join them for coffee or lunch.

Inayah Rohmaniyah Occupying the Podium

Many Indonesians, men as well as women, found the absence of women from the program to be unprofessional and insulting. When Labibah Zain of Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University raised the issue in a question and answer session, the Saudi response was that the question could not be answered. After the session ended, but with at least a hundred people still in the room, she and Inayah Rohmaniyah, Senior Lecture in the Department Quranic Exegesis and Hadith Studies at the same Islamic University “occupied” the podium to which they and other female scholars had been denied access.  The Saudi English language Arab News mentioned her “protest” but described her only as a blogger and social activist.  It did not mention the act of symbolic resistance that followed the non response to her question.

Final Thoughts – New Media, Media Events and the World Muslim League

The Muslim World League describes itself as a non-governmental organization. While this is technically correct, it functions as a public diplomacy arm of the Saudi Arabian State. Its publications depict the Saudi State, the king and the Saudi religious scholars as patrons and defenders of Islam and denounce their opponents.  It supports the spread of the Saudi version of Islam by funding schools, mosques and media outlets in many countries. It sponsors international conferences that usually unanimously endorse directives from the Saudi religious establishment. These conferences are as much media events, promoting Saudi claims to leadership of the global Muslim community, as they are forums for intellectual discussion and debate.  The 2nd International Conference on Islamic Media was intended to further this agenda and to formulate strategies to control opposing voices in the New Media. The conference approved a resolution establishing a “code of honor” for Muslim journalists and media organizations emphasizing their responsibility:

…… to affirm a belief in the moral principles and values of Islam, to safeguard the Islamic identity from the negative effects of globalization and westernization and to ensure freedom that is responsible and disciplined by Shari’ah guidelines; confront atheism and all other anti-Islam tendencies that spread hatred against Islam and Muslims.

It was, however, clear that the Indonesian Muslim establishment, including the Ministry of Religion and the Islamic University system and many Indonesian Muslim intellectuals do not share the Saudi desire to control either the Old or the New Media or to counter the role of New Media in democratic change. They clearly do not share Saudi perspectives on gender. WML publications often include photos of conferences in which no women appear. There were no such “photo ops” at this conference. One account of the conference, including quotations from Parni Hadi’s address, can already be found by searching 2nd International Conference on Islamic Media on Facebook. There will, no doubt, be others.

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* Mark Woodward is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University and Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University. Inayah Rohmaniyah is Senior Lecturer of Tafsir and Hadith at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University.

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Have you seen this picture?

Last Friday the always-excellent PBS Newshour ran a story that left me floored.  It featured interviews with several ordinary Afghans who were handed pictures of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack. Of a dozen or so people asked, only one man (a police chief in Marjah) knew the story behind the pictures. All but one person said they had never seen the pictures before and did not know what they represented.

The conclusion of the segment mentioned a report published last November by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS).  It is odd that we were not previously aware of this report, and that it seems not to have gotten much play anywhere in the strategic communication blogosphere. It paints a concise picture of our narrative problems in Afghanistan.

One thousand participants from Helmand and Kandahar provinces were shown pictures of the 9/11 attacks, and asked if they recognized the pictures. About two-thirds said yes.

But then they were read the following story of the 9/11 attacks:

On September 11 2001, Al Qaeda attackers hijacked planes in the United States which were full of ordinary passengers, including women and children. They flew these planes, full of people, into two tall buildings in the city of New York. They destroyed both buildings, which were full of ordinary people. The attacks killed 3000 innocent citizens, including Muslims. They were organised and directed by Al Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden, who was then living in Afghanistan protected by the Taliban government. The American government asked the Taliban to hand over Osama Bin Laden. They refused, so the Americans and their allies NATO attacked the Taliban, and came into Afghanistan to look for Osama Bin Laden and overthrew the Taliban.

When asked “Did you know about this event which the foreigners call 9/11?” only 8% responded “yes,” 11% responded “no,” and 81% responded “no answer/don’t know.”

There could hardly be a more stark illustration of the essential strategic communication problem of the Afghan conflict: Huge swaths of the population have seen foreign troops enter their land and launch attacks for 10 years but seem to have no idea why they are there. Since nature abhors a narrative vacuum, this is fertile ground for the development of alternative stories about what we are doing there.  These integrate to form a narrative that is not favorable to our interests.

In the same study ICOS asked participants: “Why do you think the foreigners are here?”  Here is a graphic I produced based on a table from their report (click to view full-size):

Half of respondents either don’t know why we are there or think it is for “evil” reasons–my term for a set of responses.  Only half think we are there for benign reasons (consistent with the narrative we favor).

Looking at the breakdown on the right, we see that of the respondents who see “evil” motives, around three-quarters believe we are there to create mayhem (terrorism?).  A bright spot is that few participants think we are there to destroy Islam, but the “evil” set overall is consistent with our opponents’ narrative that we are crusaders.

Among other interesting results in the report is the belief that foreign forces kill around two times as many civilians as the Taliban.  These figures are almost exactly opposite those released by UNAMA at around the same time, which show that anti-government forces kill twice as many civilians as pro-government forces (i.e. ISAF plus the Afghan military).  As I have argued before, we are missing a significant opportunity by allowing such beliefs to persist.

The ICOS study shows, and the more recent PBS interviews reiterate, that our narrative in Afghanistan remains remarkably murky.   Only a small number of people in that country know the story of 9/11.  As for why we are there, the reason that actually aligns with our domestic narrative–namely that we are there for self-defense–is believed by only one out of six respondents.  Over twice that many believe we are there for reasons that align with our opponents’ “crusader” narrative, and that we are killing most of the civilians.

This makes it pretty easy to understand why people there would support an insurgency.  As the tenth anniversary of our invasion of Afghanistan approaches, we still have a lot of  ‘splaining to do.

Update 9/7/2011

A colleague from the UK informs me that a book just published by Frank Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan (Yale, August 2011) has a whole chapter on this subject and that the book “makes very sober reading.” Here is a reviewer who says it is “one of the most upsetting books I have read about Britain’s part in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Update 9/9/2011

A colleague forwarded me this link to a related story that ran yesterday on National Public Radio.

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If you’ve read our book Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism then you already have a solid understanding of the major master narratives employed by Islamist extremists in their communications. For example, you’re able to recognize the significance of a Pharaoh reference when an extremist is condemning a world leader. Or you’re able to see the apocalyptic scheme articulated in Ahmadinejad’s praise of the “Lord of the Age” (which is not a reference to Allah). However, it becomes more difficult when the master narratives are implicit and the fragmentary references in an extremist text are more obscure. When this is the case, it can be much easier to miss them. Let’s look at a recent example.

On July 10, 2011, a statement was posted online announcing the creation of a new extremist website and forum (or “network”). The new website is called “Al-Fida Islamic Network.” The word al-Fida’ means “sacrifice” in Arabic. The announcement included the following passage:

O proud Islamic ummah: Even though the slaves of dirham and dinar allied with the servants of the Cross under the leadership of the brothers of apes and pigs in order to stifle and silence the voice of jihad, they will fail to do so because this religion is supported by the Lord of all creation.

In the above passage, there are three master narratives that stand out to me. Let’s go through each of the three and see how these implicit master narratives can be unpacked for further analysis.

We can see from the start that three distinct groups are being mentioned in relation to each other, as indicated by the words “slaves,” “servants” and “brothers.” It’s the modifiers tied to these three groups that reveal the master narratives.

1. Let’s take the easy one first: “the servants of the Cross.” As we know this is a reference to the Crusader master narrative, a really common framework used by extremists to quickly depict the United States or Western Europe for their audiences.

2. The second one is trickier: “the slaves of dirham and dinar.” This is a reference to the Arab or Muslim leaders (and their security forces) that are cooperating with the United States in military operations against the extremists. The specific choice of the currencies “dirham” and “dinar” could refer to specific countries, such as Morocco and Iraq, but this is unlikely and the phrase is likely a general one. The claim is that these “slaves” (i.e. Muslims) are not “true Muslims” and they betray the ummah for the sake of money and wealth (e.g. U.S. financial aid). To emphasize this point, the word abd or “slave” is used to describe these enemies, because a “true Muslim” is the abd of God (Allah) Almighty and serves no one and nothing but Him (recall the pious name Abdullah or “slave/servant of God”). The extremists are implicitly invoking the Hypocrites master narrative here, which consists of a ruse story form and includes an archetypal traitor and imposter, to characterize their troublesome adversaries within Arab and Muslim countries as disingenuous or false Muslims.

3. Finally, the third master narrative  is evident in the phrase: “under the leadership of the brothers of apes and pigs.” This is a direct reference to verses from the Qur’an, which states that God (Allah) punished a group of Israelites (i.e. Jews) for breaking His commandments, apparently those related to keeping the Sabbath and banning graven images (i.e. idols), by turning them into apes and pigs. Some Muslim exegetes interpret these verses in a metaphorical sense, meaning that the offenders were henceforth unclean and base creatures excluded from God’s grace.  However, that is not how the verses are typically understood by extremists (they usually read it literally). The reference (“brothers of apes and pigs”) is intended to denote “the Jews” and more specifically those Jews leading the “servants of the Cross,” which is a reference to the common “Zionist-Crusader Alliance” trope found throughout Islamist extremist texts. That last bit, expressing the relationship between these two groups in the statement, clarifies that this reference is about Zionism and therefore the Nakba master narrative and not the Khaybar master narrative (both of which relate negative Muslim experiences with Jews).

These are the three master narratives implicitly invoked through fragmentary references in a single sentence of this extremist text. In doing so, the extremists associated with al-Fida’ are positioning themselves within an existing scheme of a global conflict underway. Readers know precisely who al-Fida is opposing or fighting in their “internet jihad” without any further necessary exposition. The amount of master narratives condensed into a single sentence, presenting the three groups as a single alliance, also conveys a sense of urgency. In other words, the forces aligning against the “true ummah” are so vast and ominous that al-Fida‘ is a vital endeavor that others should become involved in immediately.

For further reading and more details about the different master narratives I mentioned in this analysis, I invite readers to consult chapters 9, 5, and 12 in Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism.

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As details pour in regarding this past weekend’s daring raid in which U.S. Navy SEALs  killed elusive al-Qaeda leader and world’s most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden, the exact details of the events keep changing slightly. The New York Times titled an article covering a recent revision to the sequence of events and details about the operation as “White House Corrects Bin Laden Narrative”.

I would argue, however, the “Bin Laden Narrative” that matters most is not the play-by-play account of what happened, and in what sequence, in that Abbottabad compound. (In fact, I wouldn’t even call that sequence of events a “narrative” in order to avoid confusion about that term.)  While the details of who was shot first and where are important, the bigger narrative concern is what happens now that Osama bin Laden has been killed. And, my interest here in this piece is not an operational question, i.e. will Ayman al-Zawahiri take over as the leader of al-Qaeda or will another figure assert leadership of the terrorist network. No, my concern here is: How will the U.S. (collectively both the government and the populace) frame, conceive and think about the contemporary world order now that the number-one-most-wanted-terrorist story has come to an end.

In an earlier post I noted that narrative is more than simply the recounting of events. Stories and events are crucial parts of narrative: They are parts of the system that is narrative. And, systems are more than just assemblages of their parts. Systems have emergent properties, and in the case of narrative, one of those properties is sense-making.

Narrative, fundamentally, is a method of making sense of a body of information that includes actors (entities that act, not Denzel Washington or Natalie Portman), actions/events,  settings and even stories. Sometimes a narrative is a system comprised of actual events, real actors, and a collection of stories told about them. Other times, a narrative is a fictional construction. The factual and fictional domains can also overlap and influence on another. America is famously a world leader in generating moving image narratives (films and television), so I use examples from that art form in what follows.

As Americans, we tend to organize the world in the most simplistic of narrative structures, the binary. In a binary narrative there is one protagonist who is understood as the good guy.*  This is usually “us” or “America” or our hero-du-jour, be it John Wayne, Tom Cruise, General MacArthur, President Abraham Lincoln, or James Bond (never mind that he’s English). The hero represents all that is good and right about us. The good guy is opposed by the antagonist “bad guy.”

The original Star Wars film offers a readily accessible example of how the binary offers a simple and air-tight understanding of a world. In a galaxy far away, a young man (Luke Skywalker on behalf of “The Republic”) enters into battle with an archetypal enemy (Darth Vader, dressed ominously in black and leading the forces of the evil “Empire”). Understanding this world is simple. There are those allied with Luke and the Republic and there are those allied with Vader and the Empire. It is a black and white world.

Our predilection for formulaic, familiar and always-resolved narratives is evident in the overwhelming popularity of police and medical “procedurals” on American television. While these shows might appear on the surface to be more complicated than the binary just described, at base they are just that.

In most police procedurals (think the CSI franchise, the Law and Order franchise, and the host of newer shows like Castle or the newly remade Hawaii Five-0.), the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are clearly delineated. The police (and prosecutors) represent the forces of good, normative American society opposing a criminal element—classical bad guys whether they are on-screen shooting at police or the off-screen subject of a mystery investigation.

In the medical procedurals (think House or Crossing Jordan as well as the reality-based medical/crime crossover shows like, Dr. G: Medical Examiner and Forensic Files), the intelligent and committed medical practitioners battle their enemy, disease or mystery, and the disease’s ever-present ally of the ticking clock.  All of these shows, whether fictional or reality-based, share the common traits of a clear protagonist (individual or group), a clear antagonist (criminal or disease) and, most importantly for what I see as the dominant form of narrative in the American psyche, a clear resolution.

So, what does all this have to do with Osama Bin Laden? For more than 10 years, Osama bin Laden has been the Darth Vader leading an evil empire of al-Qaeda, Taliban and miscellaneous Islamist extremists. The antagonist umbrella even covered Iraq and Saddam Hussein for a period of time (before the lack of narrative coherence finally separated Iraq from the bin Laden/al-Qaeda menace). The binary narrative structure in which the U.S. fights bin Laden and his allies actually simplifies a complex geo-political landscape into a format already familiar to the American public—the Cold War.

A classic binary narrative structure, the Cold War narrative neatly divided the world into good and evil, protagonist and antagonist, and made understanding simple. With the demise of the Soviet Union, that binary narrative structure was disrupted until the advent of bin Laden. While both President Obama and President Bush have repeatedly asserted that the U.S. is not at war with Islam or the Arab people, neither would have had to say this if the binary narrative that offers only two options (you’re with us or you’re against us) had not been dominating the American psyche.

Iraq was a sub-plot, one that we tried to force-fit into the fairly simple binary narrative pattern of protagonist vs. antagonist. The lack of unity in accepting the Iraq campaign illustrates that it did not cohere with the overall narrative system. This is a good illustration of the narrative comprehension process. Data is received (actions, events, actors) and a template (such as the binary structure here described) is applied. If the data fit the template, a concise comprehension is achieved. If they don’t fit, back to the drawing board. The situation in Iraq has never conveniently fit the binary template, which gave rise to the considerable contention, confusion and lack of understanding surrounding that ongoing episode.

With clear resolution being one of the hallmarks of the binary structure (House cures the disease, Benson and Stabler catch their criminal, Luke Skywalker defeats Darth Vader), what happens to our narrative understanding of the world now that resolution of this narrative is at hand?  With bin Laden dead, does the narrative end and the credits roll?  Hardly.

The geo-political landscape is just as complicated and unsuited to a binary narrative today as it was a week ago (not to mention 10 years ago). It seems to me that we have two options. We can take the “24 approach” and simply discover a new antagonist. This path elevates Ayman al-Zawahiri (or perhaps, as our friend Jarret Brachman suggests, Abu Yahya al-Libi) into the antagonist role. Then we could continue comprehending the contemporary moment as one of conflict between the U.S. and al-Zawahiri (or whatever new figurehead represents the evil empire of Al Qaeda, Taliban, AQAP, AQLIM, etc.).

Alternatively, we could jettison the binary narrative structure, its simplicity of conflict and its obvious path to resolution. Perhaps it is time that our mainstream culture and mainstream media recognize what our troops on the ground in Afghanistan already know and deal with everyday. There is no simple us vs. them arrangement in Afghanistan, or across the Middle East. Pakistan seems to be playing both sides of the fence. The Taliban is only one of at least five different insurgent groups in Afghanistan contesting the American presence. The Arab Spring has displaced leaders like Egypt’s Mubarak (who by virtue of the binary structure became an ally but who is now revealed as a less-than-savory bedfellow), and has left only questions in the wake of the uprisings. I’m not saying there isn’t evil in the world that needs to be opposed by American will and American military might. But I am saying that in the complicated geo-political and socio-cultural landscapes we face, an overly simplistic and binary organization of people, events and actions into some sort of uber-narrative structure is problematic and unhelpful.

The considerable gnashing of teeth occurring right now over Pakistani complicity or incompetence in bin Laden’s concealment illustrates the flaws of the binary that has dominated American culture. Why?  Because we had assigned to Pakistan the ally role in our binary narrative. Discovering the archetype of evil residing in relative comfort 60 miles from the capital of an ally does not comport with a simplistic understanding of “us vs. them”. Politicians across the political spectrum are grand-standing and calling for investigation in the $4 billion of foreign aid provided to Pakistan annually, claiming, essentially, some sort of breach of contract.

The reality is twofold. As a single nation-state entity, Pakistan has multiple interests (deter India, collect U.S. aid, limit anarchy in the northwest, deter further extremist attacks inside Pakistan, assert Pakistani sovereignty, develop relations with Russia and China, etc). As a fractured, barely functional government, different factions exercise different agendas and thus the government may not act in a consistent manner. This reality means that elements in Pakistan might have known of bin Laden’s presence and some may have aided him, but it does not mean that Pakistan is secretly a member of bin Laden’s evil empire. It also means that Pakistan is not always a stalwart ally. Complicated.

What to do then? We live in a complex world and it is time for our mode of understanding to embrace that complexity rather than try to over-simplify. Rather than imposing one, dominant and over-arching narrative to explain all things, we should embrace the systemic (recognize that sub-components of narrative such as stories, actors, events, settings may play different roles in multiple smaller narrative systems), multi-layered (rather than one dominant explanation that all components fit under, recognize that narratives exist in parallel and at multiple levels) and intersecting qualities of narrative.

These qualities are increasingly apparent in popular culture in the field of transmedia storytelling. Stories that share some common elements are told across a variety of media platforms. The recent glut of comic book hero movies exemplifies the trend. Spiderman begins as a comic book (one with multiple titles, no less), then movies and video games (and an animated television series with an oh-so-catchy theme song, lest we forget) proliferate.

The stories told on these different platforms sometimes integrate, and sometimes contradict. Add in fan-generated fiction from fan sites, and the system of stories, actions, events, actors and settings proliferates in a complex and tangled web. Yet, despite contradictions, the Spiderman universe remains eminently understandable. Complementary (and complimentary) stories add to Spidey’s heroism, while contradictory stories can be held at the same time by the reader/viewer. These add nuance and multiple facets to characters and situations without compromising understanding. This is precisely because these seemingly contradictory elements are part of smaller narrative systems that are flexibly interlinked into a broader system, rather than components being force-fit into a single, simplistic, binary narrative structure.

From cowboys vs. Indians to Axis vs. Allies to the Cold War, American culture has been fond of its simple, binary narratives. This same, familiar pattern has been applied to America’s conflict with terrorism and Islamist extremism, but now with bin Laden’s death perhaps we can put an end to this detrimental over-simplification. Again taking a cue from pop culture, our political communication can embrace the complexity of narrative structure that the culture is clearly capable of managing, and drive towards a more nuanced understanding of the complicated world around us.

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* it is almost always a guy or a team that collectively constitutes the good team. Female-lead fictional narratives tend towards structures other than the binary.

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3. The Iranian Narrative Landscape Stirs by Jeffry R. Halverson Recently, the Islamic Republic of Iran...

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The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia last week beget further democracy uprisings in Egypt and Yemen this week, as well as protests in Jordan and Mauritania.  If the protesters are finally successful in Egypt and President Hosni Mubarak is forced out, this eruption of game-changing scenarios inspired by deep conflicts between the people and their leaders, and enabled by the velocity and spread of social media, poses a whole new set of communication and policy challenges for the United States.

For most Americans these developments are news items that we watch until we tire of the images on the screen and turn the channel or click onto another website or decide to check our email or post a change to our Facebook status.  I doubt many of us could locate Tunisia on a world map.  I know most of my students can’t.  But beneath that surface of relatively uninformed curiosity about the unfolding rebellion lies a deeper empty well of cultural ignorance.  Put simply, most of us couldn’t say why, or how, the words “Pharaoh” and “tyrant” used to describe Mubarak are such powerful narrative IEDs dropped into an already turbulent environment.

Here’s a brief version of the backstory, which you can read more about in a new book, Master Narratives of Islamist Extremism, to be released next week.  (Full disclosure: I am one of the authors.)  The Pharaoh, a tyrant believed by many Muslims to be Ramses II, rejected the Word of God despite being repeatedly being shown signs through Moses who was acting as God’s agent, was drowned in the sea with his army while pursuing the Israelites.  Just before death, the Pharaoh accepted the God of Moses but it was too late.  God did not save him.  Instead, God promised to preserve the tyrant’s body for all time, so all could see what fate awaited those who reject God’s signs.  The body of Ramses II is, in fact, remarkably well preserved and on display in Cairo today.

That is where the Old Testament/Qur’anic story ends, but it is not the end of the story.  Master narratives derive their enduring cultural power over time and across geographies.  So it was that the story of the Pharaoh was used to discredit Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and to cast him as a tyrant.  As we recount it in the book:

On October 6, 1981, President Anwar Sadat was reviewing a military parade commemorating Egypt’s ‘victorious’ campaign in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  While television cameras captured the event, four men emerged from a truck and approached the viewing stand. When Lieutenant Khalid al-Islambouli, the leader of the assassination plot finished firing his weapon at Sadat, he cried out: “I have killed the Pharaoh!” Sadat was shot thirty-seven times. Thereafter, videotapes of the bloody televised spectacle fetched huge prices on the black market and it remains readily accessible online today.

Similar tyrant/Pharaoh accounts and images exist on the Internet and are distributed in pamphlet form for other perceived tyrants, including Ariel Sharon, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.  In each case, the master narrative is appropriated as a sign of history repeating itself and used to influence perceptions of the targeted leader/ruler.  It doesn’t matter that there may be no direct correlation between the Pharaoh, who was not an elected official, and today’s leaders.  Nor does it matter that thus far no Moses has appeared before the cameras to claim he or she is acting as God’s agent.  What does matter is that once a leader is branded a “tyrant” and called “the Pharaoh,” the details of the old story matters less than the idea that an injustice of historic proportions exists and must be remedied by true believers.

For those of you who may be thinking, “but this democracy uprising has nothing to do with radical Islam or even with religion in general,” that fact doesn’t make the interplay of a powerful set of rhetorical figures well known within and across cultures any less viable.  If anything, it only broadens the appeal.  For it is not just Muslims who are in the streets of Cairo or Tunis, but a diverse array of Arabs, Muslims, Christians, and Jews, who all know the old story of the tyrant known as “the Pharaoh” who dared to challenge the God of Moses.

In the case of Egyptian dictator Mubarak the comparison is made more relevant by his refusal to yield to the will of his people.  And it is underscored by his friendship with U.S. leaders and our continuing support of his regime.  Regardless of religion, the overt support of the U.S. is often associated with the use of our military and economic power to influence events and protect our interests in the region.  The irony, of course, is that while we officially endorse democracy everywhere in the world, this democratic uprising places our official position in conflict with the support of a major ally in the region.  Do we side with the people who are organizing for democracy, or with a stubborn dictator well past his sell-by date who has been tarnished with the tyrant label?

As Reuters reporter Amr Abdallah Dalsh on the scene in Cairo put it yesterday:

The Administration is caught in a bind, but it’s more strategic than just moral: Supporting tyrants loathed by their own people but willing to do Washington’s bidding in international matters is a decades-old U.S. tradition in the Middle East, as well as in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The problem with Mubarak is not simply that his methods are at odds with professed U.S. values; it’s that his brittle autocracy appears to have entered a period of terminal decline, with the U.S. potentially on the wrong side of history.

Being “on the wrong side of history” is a narrative we can little afford.  Yet no matter what we may or may not do in response to this and other popular uprisings, the perceived lack of U. S. support for the protesters and continuing support for Mubarak does evoke another historical parallel.  Aladdin Elaasar is the author of The Last Pharaoh: Mubarak and the Uncertain Future of Egypt in the Obama Age, and in a op-ed piece published today, he writes ominously of Egypt’s uncertain future:

It is possible to find parallels in Egypt to pre-revolutionary Iran. Given the social ills engendered by extended unemployment, especially among the qualified young; aggravated social polarization in which ill-gained wealth, insolently displayed, stood out against the growing misery of the rural and urban population; and generalized corruption spreading right up to the highest levels of society and state. Indeed, many U.S. analysts acknowledge Egypt’s instability. “It will rock the world,” wrote Michele Dunne, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace scholar. “Octogenarian Mubarak, will leave office, either by his own decision or that of providence.” Instability in Egypt may become an international security concern. There is no clear chain of command or civil society base to facilitate the transfer of power to the next president.

Does the reference to “providence” call up the association of divine will bringing an end to the rule of a tyrant? Perhaps.  But dictators rarely die peacefully in their sleep.

The irony of the U.S. response is not lost on the rest of the world.  As Richard Grenell, Spokesperson for the United Nations, put it in an article earlier today:

[Vice President] Biden’s support for Mubarak in the face of his falling regime sends a powerful and unfortunate message to the Arab world that their freedoms are negotiable. While American interests in the Middle East must obviously be protected, America’s credibility to support democracy for everyone everywhere is crucial. WikiLeaks have already shown American ambassadors and foreign service officers criticizing governments privately but publicly saying very little. How can VP Biden ever talk about the importance of fighting for freedom and democracy again if he chooses to support a corrupt dictatorship at the very time its being so strongly challenged from within? The vice president’s absolute show of support for Mubarak is unfortunately being heard throughout the Arab world. The people of Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Cuba and North Korea are listening. It’s too bad that Vice President Biden can’t find a way to support everyday Egyptians’ pleadings for more freedoms.

Finally, with the master narrative in the backstory and the label of tyrant firmly in the foreground of published reports used to describe Mubarak, there can be no doubt about the message of the looters who broke into the Egyptian Museum last night and “destroyed” two Pharaonic mummies.

Democracy has proven to be a many-splintered thing in the Middle East and elsewhere, whether it arrives with an invasion that forces a regime change or by the will of angry mobs who threaten to topple a dictator. Regardless of method, the U.S. should pay greater attention to the language used to define the conflict and what the meaning of terms such as “Crusader,” “tyrant,” and “Pharaoh” conjure up for populations who are schooled to respect their histories.  The use of the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter, is not the reason the people have taken to the streets.  These devices are only distributors—and effective ones—of messages that are deeply rooted in culture and time.  What moves people to action is not the technology of rebellion, but the narrative that shapes it and the words used to define it.  Master narratives are powerful because they provide answers to essential questions of identity as well as what it takes to live a just and meaningful life.  As such, they serve as calls to action.  Because, to paraphrase the philosopher Alistair MacIntyre, in order to answer the question “what am I to do?” requires first being able to explain what narratives we are part of.

The Pharaoh is a master narrative throughout the region and most of the world.  We would do well to remember that when we begin formulating what our next move will be.

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Since November of 2006, the State Department has taken its public diplomacy efforts into the online arena of Arabic, Urdu, and Persian discussion boards. Heading this effort is the Digital Outreach Team (DOT). According to DOT member Muath Alsufy, the initiative began after the realization that “there was a lot of misinformation about the US, mainly foreign policies, and there was a void… no source on these forums and blogs that would identify this misinformation and somehow correct it.” Thus, the DOT’s mission to correct these misperceptions was born. Research and analysis for this post, however, suggests that DOT efforts could actually be producing negative results.

At the outset, the DOT’s efforts were met with mixed opinions. A 2007 New York Times story cited a number of positive reflections by analysts, including that “they had been surprised by the positive response, with people seemingly eager to engage [on the forums].” It also said that the DOT’s work “helps to counter one source of radicalization — the sense that Washington is too arrogant to listen to the grievances of ordinary Arabs.”

In a previous post on this blog, Steve Corman defended the DOT against David Axe of Danger Room labeling the State surfers as “trolls.” Matt Armstrong, however, gave “no applause” to the team for misunderstanding both the audience and the nature of online discourse, criticizing the fundamental approach.

That criticism may be valid. Recent research produced by Brendan Nyhan of the University of Michigan and Jason Reifler of Georgia State casts serious doubt on the effectiveness of efforts to correct political misperceptions based on either false or unsubstantiated beliefs. Their study involved subjects reading mock news articles that included misleading claims and also corrections, a format very similar to the way forum users read information.

Contrary to what we might assume, “results indicate[d] that corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the targeted ideological group.” In fact, they found “several instances of a ‘backfire effect’ in which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.” While the experiment does not exactly mimic the environment and conditions in which the DOT tries to correct misinformation, it does call into question the premise on which it is based.

Having now reached its fourth birthday, researchers are taking a closer look at the effectiveness of the DOT program. Two recent examples are of particular interest. Lina Khatib of Stanford University is currently leading a project asking whether or not the DOT is a “useful complement to more traditional forms of public diplomacy.” While Khatib and her team have not yet published any findings, her presentation at Georgetown University in March painted a less than rosy picture. Some of the problems are predictable, such as forum users accusing DOT staffers of being traitors or conspirators.

In addition to that, Khatib reportedly two more interesting challenges. First, teams of forum users have organized to oppose DOT members’ posting activities, composing about half of the negative feedback on their posts. Second, Khatib argues that “in many instances the logic and rationale of the responses backfires as they address conspiracy theories with either ridicule or belittling the critics,” therefore undercutting the outreach effort.  Lastly, Khatib describes the lack of consistency between posted statements and policy realities as a major undermining factor.

The second example is found in a recent report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Released on October 19^th, it states that over their nine-week observation period of the DOT in action on Palestinian forums, the “State Department’s efforts to influence the online discussions were largely ineffective.” FDD suggests that while this may be the case because of the team’s relatively small staff, the most limiting factor, in their opinion, is that the DOT identifies themselves as State Department employees. “To be effective, the outreach team must not advertise its presence.”

While this call for the DOT to “go dark” is at odds with principles of public diplomacy, it reflects one of the biggest challenges that the DOT faces: credibility. Even on general interest forums, such as Aljazeera Talk, DOT posters face consistent insults and accusations. In addition to that, threads started by the DOT appear to act as magnets for insults and accusations against the United States and its policies.

During a 2008 NBC Nightly News story on the DOT, Marc Lynch commented that he thought it was “worthwhile, as long as you don’t have too high expectations.” While not appearing overly optimistic, Lynch seems to affirm that there is some intrinsic value to the program despite its limitations. During the same segment, NBC correspondent Mara Schiavocampo further downplays the mixed expectations for success, suggesting that “when you’re fighting the war of ideas, showing up is half the battle.”  Seconds later Brent Blaschke, Director of the DOT, affirms that statement saying, “We can’t guarantee that by going online and engaging we’re gonna change—influence anybody, but I can guarantee you if we’re not there we won’t influence a single soul.”

This leads to a fundamental question that seems to be missing from the discussion: What if the DOT’s online efforts are actually harming the image of the United States by creating even more unfavorable discourse? As already noted, forum users with opposing viewpoints are making a concerted effort to post “counter-arguments” to any DOT posts. These replies often include personal insults and attacks, tempting the DOT poster (acting as a representative of the US) to respond in kind. In one example a DOT member repeatedly told forum user that he should think twice and form better arguments before hitting the “reply” button.

More significant than exchanging personal insults, however, is creating the appearance of a win for the anti-American posters. While it is impossible to judge how these online exchanges affect readers’ opinions, it seems difficult to believe that American posters are more skilled at navigating the narrative terrain than the opposing side. And success requires a dialogue. It appears that in many cases, the challenges of users against the United States go unanswered. Though this is likely because of the DOT’s small size vis-à-vis the entire Arabic forum and blogosphere, it gives the impression of acquiescence.

One clear example of failure to respond can be found here on al-Saha, a general Arabic-language discussion site. A DOT staffer started a thread about the United States’ true intentions in Afghanistan and includes a video of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Negative comments appear within minutes, including a personal attack against Secretary Clinton and her ability to control “a country like Afghanistan and Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban.” More significantly, the last comment declares  that “America’s goal in Afghanistan is to kill Muslim civilians and the establishment of a true Islamic state.” No response to this or any other comments on the thread was made.

Missing a rebuttal on one thread is likely of small significance. But if this style of posting without follow-up is a trend, it could become hugely detrimental to the DOT’s mission. Through my examination of the communication patterns of the DOT on a few Arabic-language sites, I found mostly discouraging evidence. This is based partly on threads like the one mentioned above. Even in threads where DOT staff responded, however, their voice was outnumbered by many more negative responses from forum users. The fact that those negative responses often included personal attacks and sensational photos of civilian casualties makes the hill that the DOT must climb even steeper.

Unfortunately, I cannot currently draw any hard, overall conclusions as to whether or not the DOT is succeeding in its mission. Such a definitive statement would require sophisticated research and tracking of the posts, comments, and dialogues generated by the DOT and other forum users. Perhaps Lina Khatib and her team have such a study forthcoming.

Regardless, it seems clear that the assumption that “any action is good action” must not be made. Given the real chance that, despite good intentions, DOT operations could actually be doing more harm than good, a serious and thorough review of their strategies, tactics, and results is needed.

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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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This series has examined the reaction, mostly in mainstream news sources of foreign Muslim societies, to the recent surge in anti-Islam events in the United States. Part I focused on the Park51 (or Cordoba House) project, the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque.” In part II we looked at the controversy surrounding the “International Burn a Qur’an Day,” previously scheduled for tomorrow. Part III examined various other  incidents involving Muslims (actual or imagined) and mosques. In this final installment, we analyze common themes from the incidents discussed in the first three parts, and suggest implications for how these kinds of events could be better handled by the media and government.

Before turning to our analysis, here are updates on some of the events we’ve covered.

Park51 Update

The Siasat Daily, a newspaper in Hyderbad, India, carried a story reporting the condemnation of anti-Muslim sentiment from the Hindu American Foundation (HAF). The story also discusses the other incidents mentioned in this blog series. A representative of the HAF is quoted as saying: “‘If Americans adamantly reject any particular community, what makes them different than Saudi Arabians who don’t allow any other place of worship or the import of any other religious item other than what their Wahhabi leaders allow?”

Qur’an Burning Update

Earlier in the week more high ranking government officials added their voices condemning the event. President Obama said it could “increase the recruitment of individuals who’d be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities,” and that it is contrary to American values. Secretary of State Clinton called the planned event “disgraceful” and said it doesn’t represent who we are. Sarah Palin and David Axelrod have also made statements condemning the plan. State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said Clinton had instructed diplomats to reassure foreign leaders that the event does not represent American values.

The proposed Qur’an burning got increasing coverage in Indonesia, in both mainstream and extremist media. An element of the coverage focused on reactions in other predominantly Muslim countries, such as this story in the English-language Jakarta Post. It focused on Bahrain and Pakistan, and included a conspiratorial anti-Zionist rant.  This story from Islamist Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia covered a demonstration in Kabul where an effigy of Terry Jones and the American flag were burned. Much of the coverage also noted the Vatican’s recent condemnation of the event.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to prevent the burning, and several stories question why the U.S. is not stopping Jones: “United States, don’t pretend to be a stupid nation by not banning or taking strong action against Terry (Jones). What will be done by Terry (an insult to Islam) out in the open, he has to be sentenced to death under Islamic law,” said Secretary General Muhammad Al Khaththath of the Muslim Community Forum.

Christian groups, wary of retaliatory violence given Indonesia’s past and recent sectarian violence, continued to release public condemnations of the event. Indonesia’s Minister of Religious Affairs, Suryadharma Ali, issued a statement for Indonesians not to be provoked, but notes that “Whereas only a small group of Muslims committed acts of terror, how could it be that they have given rise to hatred towards millions of Muslims throughout the world?”

Perhaps as a result of this pressure, Terry Jones announced yesterday that he would cancel the event based on assurances that the Park51 project would be moved, and said he would travel to New York to meet with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, leader of the project. This is a bizarre development because to our knowledge Jones never previously linked the Qur’an burning event to the Park51 project, and because Imam Rauf said he didn’t know what Jones was talking about.

Now there is a new report that Jones believes he was lied to by Imam Muhammad Musri of Florida who brokered the erstwhile deal, and that the burning event is only “suspended,” not canceled.

Meanwhile, a report surfaced that another minister, Rev. Bob Old of Springfield, Tennessee, planed to burn a Qur’an at his home on Saturday and post a video of the performance on the Internet. Other Tennessee religious leaders immediately condemned his plans: ”The guy is a nut,” said Rev. Larry Herbert of Faith Covenant Church in Springfield.

Assorted Incidents Update

The Ahlul Bayt News Agency out of Iran carried a story on the vandalism of a mosque under construction in Phoenix, Arizona. The article is a standard news report taken from the local CBS affiliate.

Building a Narrative

Beyond opposition in the Muslim world to the events we’ve reviewed, there is reason to be concerned about the larger narrative they create. A narrative is a system of stories that relate to one another and provide a coherent view of the world. Since narratives are collections of stories, the bigger the collection, the more weight the narrative will have.

We find clear evidence that the anti-Islam events that we have described are being linked by foreign sources to form such a system, especially the Qur’an burning and the Park51 project. This Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia story, for example, references the Qur’an burning, the Park51 project, and Qur’an defiling actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. This story on Sybab links the Qur’an burning with recent vandalism in mosques in New York and California in the context of “Islamophobia.” Another Hizbut Tahrir story condemns a “wave of Islamophobia” in the U.S., “peaking” with the 9th anniversary of 9/11 and cites the Park51 project, the Qur’an burning, and the stabbing of taxi driver Ahmed Sharif as evidence. Despite the condemnation of some religious groups, it continues:

Anti-Islamic sentiment in the U.S. continues to grow in recent weeks… the alliance of Zionists, Christian fundamentalists, neo-conservatives and American racist groups continue to revoke the political and social rights of millions of Muslims in the land that “protects” religious freedom.

With yesterday’s developments, we see that some of the players in the U.S. events are now providing linkages too. Terry Jones has implied that his Qur’an burning event was linked to the Park51 project by announcing that his cancellation was due to a decision to move the project. Rev. Old, who has announced a personal Qur’an burning, is located only 60 miles from the site of the construction site vandalism in Murfeesboro, Tennessee.

Linkage to a Master Narrative

A master narrative is an enduring system of stories that is deeply embedded in a culture. In a forthcoming book we describe master narratives that support the causes of Islamist extremists. One of these is the Crusader, which depicts Muslims as under attack by hostile foreign forces bent on subjugating them and destroying their religion. This is not only about the actual Crusades, but later events which many Muslims view as analogous.

There is evidence that recent events are being tied to this larger master narrative. Numerous stories emphasized the idea that Christian political forces in the U.S. were inciting anti-Muslim sentiment for larger ends, perhaps reminiscent of Pope Urban II’s incitement in the 11th century. Many of them used the word “crusade” explicitly.  There is further evidence in reader comments that the analogy to the Crusades was being made.

In Indonesia, several stories have explicitly referred to the Crusades in their coverage of the events that we have chronicled in this series. The English-language extremist blog Prisoner of Joy notes that terrorism is the “counter reaction from (sic) the global colonization carried out by America and Co,” and argues that the Qur’an burning is a sign that the West is at war with Islam and has already been defeated intellectually.

Narratives–either master narratives or the less grand kind–start with a desire rooted in conflict, and create a trajectory of events that promise satisfaction of the desire. The danger is that for Muslims, these recent events will signal a trend of hostility toward Islam in the United States. Extremists will work to relate such perceptions to the larger Crusader historical pattern. If Muslims view this as the conflict they will desire safety, and a logical narrative trajectory will be to defend themselves against the attackers. This is, of course, exactly what the extremists want. We concur with Marc Lynch, who said in a recent post:

By fueling the narrative of a clash of civilizations and an inevitable war between Islam and the West, this unfortunate trend is empowering extremists on all sides and weakening moderates.

Other Notable Patterns

There are some other regularities in the coverage we reviewed. One is attempts to connect the events with Zionist interests. An Iranian government spokesman sought to link the Qur’an burning event to Zionist interests. In the Park51 case, there was an attempt to create a double bind by saying Jewish supporters of the project were part of a conspiracy to inflame U.S. passions against Muslims. In this case the U.S. is in a no-win situation: If the project goes forward it serves Zionist interest, and if it does not, it is evidence of discrimination against Muslims. The Zionism linkage, incidentally, invokes another master narrative, al-Nakba (the catastrophe), which is about the loss of Palestine to the Israelis.

We also found a pattern of selective attention in the reports. There was an effort to identify opponents of the project as Jewish while overlooking the fact that Michael Bloomberg, an outspoken supporter, is also Jewish. Foreign sources failed to mention available evidence that Jewish groups were supporting Muslim interests–for example that the Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned the Qur’an burning event. Foreign media neither depicted the opposition of Veterans’ and mainstream Christian groups to this event, nor emphasized that the Dove World Outreach Center is a fringe group consisting of only about 50 followers.

Another clear pattern is that most of the foreign Muslim media sources reported on these events by relaying U.S. mainstream media stories. These were often re-published verbatim, but were sometimes enhanced to sensationalize the incidents. For example, two sources included pictures of a bloodied Ahmed Sharif in their reports on the attack against the taxi driver.

Implications

Official U.S. policy in both the Bush and Obama administrations has been that the United States is not in a conflict with Islam or all Muslims. Yet the events we reviewed form a coherent narrative suggesting the opposite. This is undermining U.S. policy toward the Muslim world, widening its say-do gap, and diminishing its already low credibility with mainstream Muslims.

It is tempting to conclude that some of the players in these incidents want to undermine U.S. policy in this area, and stoke conflict with Muslims. For those of us in the majority who are interested in supporting U.S. policy, there are some implications about how events like this could be better handled in the future.

First, the mainstream media in the U.S. plays a key role in diffusion of these stories abroad. As we noted, most of the foreign reports were straightforward relays of stories in U.S. news outlets. Accordingly, the way U.S. outlets report these stories from the beginning is very important.

Critics (for example, Jackson) believe that the media have an interest in sensationalizing stories, amplifying the controversy they contain and/or emphasizing actions designed to gain attention. This is indeed what seemed to happen in much of the reporting we saw. For example, until recently stories about the Qur’an burning event did not emphasize the obscure nature and small congregation of the Dove World Outreach Center. Nor did they position it within the spectrum of Christianity in the U.S., or feature the negative reaction of other secular and Christian groups to their plans. Early reports on the Park51 project focused on opposition to, rather than support for, the project.

We suspect that most members of the domestic media view their audience as primarily made up of domestic readers and viewers. But in controversies involving Islam or Muslims (if not in other cases) this is a mistake. The domestic media outlets are the primary conduit through which impressions of the U.S. are created abroad. Reporters and editors should bear this in mind. When reporting stories that they know (or should know) will inflame foreign audiences they should take care to put them in context, and seek out commentary from less extreme and/or opposing viewpoints.

A second and related implication has to do with timing. A clear pattern we see is that these controversies arise, are reported, and diffuse in foreign sources, while it takes time for opposing points of view to develop and be reported. Yet it is well known that attitudes are resistant to change once they are established. Accordingly the opposing points of view may have relatively little impact once they are reported (if indeed they are), given the context created by the original reporting. This was the case with the story of the militia group that planned to provide armed protection for the Qur’an burning event (which was reported) but later decided this would be un-Christian (not reported). Those interested in supporting U.S. policy should therefore be more proactive in getting in front of these issues when they emerge, ideally within the same news cycle.

Much the same can be said for U.S. public diplomacy efforts, our third implication. We applaud Secretary Clinton’s recent instructions to diplomatic personnel to fan out and denounce the Qur’an burning event. But had Jones not canceled, it may have been too little, too late. It would have been much better to start this effort when the event was announced earlier this year and was beginning to diffuse in foreign media.

We saw a pattern of willingness to cover U.S. diversity of opinion on these controversies in many cases. The State Department should take advantage of this by playing a more proactive role in detecting the early up-trend of these controversies, encouraging early pro-policy statements by U.S. groups, and drawing the attention of foreign media to these statements.

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A new “strategic framework” for U.S. Public Diplomacy has at long last been released. Oddly, it is a slide show rather than a paper, but perhaps that’s because it is to be the basis for a briefing today. My colleague Phil Seib has already expressed disappointment in the new proposal:

It is so lacking in imagination, so narrow in its scope, and so insufficient in its appraisal of the tasks facing U.S. public diplomats that it is impossible to understand why its preparation took so many months.

One particular way in which this is true is the plan’s conception of narrative.

The number one objective in the strategy is to “shape the narrative.” Its authors reckon that we are not dealing effectively with new media, that inaccurate information shapes our story before we have a chance to do the shaping ourselves, and that too little information is available to audiences around the world. Accordingly it specifies the following tactics (paraphrasing):

• Rapidly respond to inaccurate information and shape stories through engagement with international media
• Expand platforms for shaping dialogue, communicating our perspectives and countering misinformation
• Use new modes of communication

The slides say these goals are the first phase of developing a more detailed plan, which will be taken up by working groups. Fair enough.  But the framework will guide the way the working groups think about the problem, and the guidance seems to be based in an outdated message influence model of strategic communication that fails to take account of the rugged landscape on which U.S. public diplomacy operates.

First, the framework clearly conceives the narrative problem as one of inaccurate information. But this misses the point; narratives are not about facts, they are about how facts are framed and interpreted. Extremists work tirelessly to tie U.S. actions in the Middle East to a master narrative of the crusades. The facts of the crusades are not really in dispute. Western/Christian powers aimed to seize lands from the Arab/Muslim people–especially Jerusalem–and in doing so served their economic and political interests.

Many facts of present day U.S. actions in the Middle East resonate with this account. We provide military and economic support to Israel, which is determined to keep Jerusalem out of the hands of the Arabs. We have recently invaded an Arab country and maintain a large number of troops in the region for the purposes of protecting our interests. Our leader said in 2001 that we were on a crusade. Our soldiers have bible references inscribed on their weapons. I have first-hand reports that active duty military personnel are wearing this patch on their uniforms in Iraq, and maybe Afghanistan too. None of these facts are inaccurate.

The U.S. offers a couple of counter-narratives against the crusader portrayal. One is that we are involved in a fight between Good (represented by us) and Evil (represented by violent extremists). But one can imagine crusaders saying something similar, and the extremists simply argue that these roles are reversed.

We also say we are trying to bring democracy and freedom to the lands where we are fighting (something reiterated in the new framework). But extremist ideologues like Abu Yahiya al-Libi, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, and Abu Bakr Basyir argue forcefully that democracy is a form of polytheism that is part of the crusader plot to weaken the foundations of Islam.  Thus they turn our “gift of democracy” narrative against us.

Second, “shaping the narrative” is the wrong concept to use in the new strategic framework. It imagines that we can take an existing narrative and gradually use messages to alter its form. But in the case of the crusader narrative this is more akin to shaping a balloon. We press in one place and the balloon expands in another place to compensate. When we let go of the spot where pressure is being applied the balloon snaps back to its original shape. This happens because, as we have argued, the communication system has taken on a great deal of inertia such that new messages are readily assimilated to the existing structure.

A better goal would be to try to disrupt the existing narrative system–to pop the balloon–so a new narrative could be formed where our messages could get some purchase. With respect to the crusader narrative, a significant disruption would be some kind of breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would demonstrate that we are no longer complicit in the long-term project of the crusades. Needless to say, that is a tough nut to crack. But such is the nature of the challenge, and this or something like it is the only realistic way of changing the narrative.

Finally, the strategic framework seems to rely heavily on the idea of mastering the means of transmitting messages. It calls for better application of the tools of marketing, better utilization of new media platforms and social networking technologies, and better coordinated communication efforts. None of these are bad ideas in themselves. But they imply that the main problem is that we are not good enough at sending messages through newly available channels. If we could only do this better we would be more successful at shaping narratives. Yet in the absence of a more fundamental change in our communication strategy it is unlikely to do much good. Indeed it could make things worse if we more efficiently deliver messages that can be assimilated to the crusader narrative.

The narrative gap in the new stragegic framework lies in its assumptions that the problems are inaccurate information, lack of  shaping efforts, and inadequate use of media channels. In reailty the problems are that existing facts resonate better in the target audience with a crusader narrative than the alternatives we are offering, that the communication system is locked in a pattern of iterpretation that favors the extremists, and that just doing a better job of sending messages will do nothing to change things.

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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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