Yes, and how many ears must one man (sic) have / Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows / That too many people have died?…
Yes, and how many years can some people exist / Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head / Pretending he just doesn't see?
-- Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind," The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, 1963
Just outside Cleveland, Ohio, in the liberal, quasi-integrated suburb where I grew up, overtly bigoted racism was frowned upon -- unless it was directed against Arabs or Muslims.
Both my public school and temple school inculcated racist lies: "You can never trust an Arab;" "Muslim men are brutal;" "Muslim women are passive;" "Violence is the only language Arabs understand." In public school, the Crusades were taught from an entirely Euro-Catholic point of view. In my Jewish Sunday school I remember being taught that "Moors" welcomed thousands of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't understand that Moors were Muslim until I was in college. My guess is that earlier teachers didn't mention the truth of Muslim solidarity and generosity because it might have undercut the pro-right-wing-Israeli-government line about "inherently evil Muslims" that we were constantly fed.
The media diet I imbibed was no better. Jack Shaheen, a Professor Emeritus of Mass Communication at Southern Illinois University and author of Reel Bad Arabs (2001) surveyed the portrayals of Arabs in over 900 US films over the course of more than a century. He rated fewer than 7% of the portrayals as "positive" or "balanced." In his latest book, Guilty: Hollywood's Verdict on Arabs After 9/11 (2008), Shaheen contends that Hollywood's racism has not abated. Shaheen claims that anti-Arab media portrayals greased the path to war in Iraq and rendered many of us insensitive to Iraqi casualties. I believe another effect is to encourage many non-Arab Americans to approve US torture.
When corporate media sources report on what "Cairo" or "Damascus" is thinking, they are referring only to the views of the dictatorial governments in charge. Like my teachers, most mainstream reporters and "experts" ignore nonviolent Muslim activists who challenge their repressive governments -- and who, by their very existence, shatter racist stereotypes.
Unfortunately, there is also relative silence on the part of many US peace activists about repression against nonviolent Arab and Muslim dissidents. Some people argue that speaking out against repression in certain places is disrespectful of the cultural values of the country in question. Yet slavery has a centuries-long cultural tradition in European and American society (and continues here, primarily in the forms of prostitution, trafficking, prison work-gangs, and exploitation of immigrants, to this day). Shouldn't everyone everywhere denounce it? Amartya Sen argues that it is racist to assume that the repressive characteristics of a culture are its defining ones, and emphasizes that every culture also has traditions honoring freedom and tolerance.
Sometimes, people don't speak up out of a justifiable fear that the US government will use publicity about actions taken against dissidents to amplify propaganda for war. Yet, the government will pump out pro-war propaganda whether we speak out or not.
I believe, in order to be anti-racist, we need to reject analyses that make our solidarity with jailed nonviolent activists conditional based on current global politics. As a corollary, I also believe that to speak up for the human rights of Arabs and Muslims only when the perpetrators are Israeli Jews is anti-Semitic.
Won't we be more morally consistent (and I believe more credible and effective), if we champion the brave actions of nonviolent democracy advocates no matter where they live and which government persecutes them?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
-- Sam Diener, Co-Editor
(I'm reposting this editorial, which I originally wrote for the June 2008 issue of Peacework Magazine, which focused on questions of nonviolent intervention, and contained a section of articles on Arab dissidents, because I hope it also speaks to our present moment.)