An Author and a Professor!

Being terribly fascinated with neo-conservatives, I, who normally like to curl up with my laptop and books at precisely 8 pm, decided to take my cycle and look for Leidsplein where Crea was organising a documentary show 'The Power of Nightmares'. I arrived late and found my way through a smoke-filled bar to a dingy room where the figure of Sayyid Qutb stared at me from the big screen. The docu, let me tell you, is a famous one, made by BBC journo Adam Curtis and draws a parallel between the rise of neo-conservatives in the US and radical Islamism in the Arab world.

So who is this Sayyid Qutb?

He was an Egyptian who belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, a leading intellectual who wrote several books on radical Islamism (an ideology which states that Islam is not solely a religion but also a set of political ideologies which have to be played out in the political arena) which were to later inspire many, including Osama Bin Laden's mentor and Egyptian Islamic Jihad member Ayman Zawahiri.

Sayyid Qutb (Source: Internet)

The documentary traces Qutb's disillusionment with the sexual permissiveness and liberal ideas of the American society, where he studied for a short period of time. Returning back, he endured torture and finally murder for his radical ideas. Even torture could not change him, so he must have been pretty convinced about what he wrote!?



This religious fundamentalism is then shifted to the US, where almost simultaneously, another group of radicals were taking shape – neoconservatives – inspired by the ideas of Leo Strauss, a German-born Jewish philosopher who taught political science in the University of Chicago (sounds so innocent and harmless!)

Leo Strauss (Source: Internet)

So what was Leo Strauss teaching his devoted students?



He, like Qutb, says Curtis, was disillusioned with liberalism and the consequent relativism which created a value-free hedonism in the American society. Curtis traces the development of neo conservative ideas (refer to NeoCon Duet) to Strauss. Straussian Harvey C Mansfield, who would lead the likes of neoconservatives Irving Kristol, one of Strauss's students Paul Wolfowitz, are a few of those influenced by Strauss's controversial political ideas. The gist of his ideas, if I understood it correctly, was that liberalism produced authoritarainism; this thought naturally led, as some accuse, to imperialist militarism and Christian fundamentalism as alternatives. Dangerous!



Well, Curtis had a knack for connecting the two together. It fascinated and frightened me (It gives you, if you are a religious Chrisitian or a Muslim, this creepy feeling that you are next in line to becoming a terrorist) – to watch the power of logic, the power of religious thought – both good in themselves – to be perverted enough to bring the world to where it is now: the neoconservatives in power in the US and the Islamists in the Arab world – both now party to the violence in Iraq and elsewhere.


Imagine all this from an author (Qutb) and a professor (Strauss)!

Imagine: There are 1000 events happening in the world today. What all would come into the newspapers? Who decides these are IMPORTANT? Are you reading what actually matters or just what CERTAIN people think matters?

Media is complex and operates on:

-gatekeeping
-framing (Walter Lippman)
-propaganda model (by Noam Chomsky)

Gatekeeping: Gatekeeping theory, at its most basic level, is the idea that there is selectivity in the process of determining what news stories are published or broadcast. A major point of the theory, as developed by psychologist Kurt Lewin, is that there are forces that can either inhibit or aid the flow of news items through the "gates" (Shoemaker, 1996).

A famous quote is: You cannot control what the public think, but you can control what the public think about.

Frames, frames!

Every reporter or every newspaper will 'frame' an issue in a certain way.
This affects us in various ways: for eg, the minute someone talks to you about Al-Qaeda, you think in your mind 'terrorists'.

This is because most newspapers would automatically talk of Al-Qaeda as 'terrorists'. That is framing (source: Walter Lippman). It creates a 'picture in our heads' (stereotype) about Al-Qaeda. You have to question whether this ASSUMPTION reflects reality. If so, why? Do not swallow these assumptions.

Third is Noam Chomsky's propaganda model:

The idea is simple: big newspapers and broadcasters belong to business corporates and automatically do things that favour their owners and advertisers as well as people in power. It is reflected in what is reported and also how it is reported. For eg, CNBC, MSNBC (US) are owned by General Motors, a company which manufactures weapons for the military!! Imagine the news coming out of that.

Also, Chomsky suggests that journalists tend to listen like lil lambs to people in power (such as government officials). Journalists ARE one of the most power hungry people on earth (my experience) and love the attention they get from people in power (Quote: Robert Fisk). So most news reports are filled with what government officials think, feel, will do, etc. (eg: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6346901.stm
Is quoting government officials and press conferences the right way to report? Doesn't such a preoccupation with press conferences draw an incomplete picture of reality.... a reality where common people's voices should be heard?