Recycling hatred

By Azmi Ashour

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The communications revolution has shortened distance and time, keeping us in constant touch, turning the world into practically one big neighbourhood. But strangely enough, instead of learning more about each other we developed a taste for stereotyping. We let the media sell us its glamorised version of horrors and we believed it. A bombing may happen and in a flash the entire world will know about it. Things that should be limited in scope get blown out of proportion. Take, for example, this region where people denounce terror with vehemence. Westerners don't see that. They only see blood and gore. No wonder, they live under the impression that our region is swarming with bloodthirsty rogues.

There is a cottage industry in the West about terror, one that flourished after 9/11. The basic assumption of that industry is that Muslims and Arabs want to impose their lifestyle on the rest of the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. And yet images relayed daily over television networks make this conjecture believable. People are gullible in their attitude to the media. They have no time to question. As a result, every lie turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Radicals in the East and West are the ones who benefit from the current wave of disinformation. The media is interested in the exotic, and violence is more exotic than peace. Misconceptions are a growth industry. They have a life of their own. What's worse is that academics begin to fall for the same half-truths relayed by the media. Academics in the West have become more hostile to Islam, influenced no doubt by the public mood. And in the absence of real dialogue between East and West, misunderstandings are likely to get worse.

This week's Soapbox speaker is managing editor of the quarterly journal Al-Demoqrateya published by Al-Ahram.