close
Thursday March 28, 2024

The travel ban

By Khaled A Beydoun
February 17, 2017

In his landmark work, Orientalism, Edward Said theorised that Muslims are fundamentally subjects of study and scrutiny for Western outsiders, systematically excluded from the enterprise of contributing and commenting on their very existence.

This is particularly troubling in the Trump era, and more specifically, the prolific media attention given to the immigration executive order, commonly dubbed the “Muslim Ban”.

Recent coverage of the immigration order featured predominantly white men weighing in on an issue that targets Muslims, with Muslims again watching from the sidelines.

Aligning with the spirit of the immigration order, mainstream news media effectively excluded Muslims from the airwaves. This was not exclusive to ‘conservative’ media outlets like Fox News, but even more extreme on outlets commonly perceived as liberal mediums.

According to   research        by      Media Matters for America, a progressive research and information centre, during a five-day period (January 30 to February 3) after the immigration order was signed into law, only seven of the 90 commentators CNN featured to discuss the order were Muslims.

MSNBC, widely perceived to be the most progressive of the three primary cable news networks, only had two Muslims out of 28 during that period.

Fox News, on the other hand, had the highest percentage of Muslims on air discussing the order during that stretch, with five out of the 58 contributors identifying as Muslims.

These figures offer a snapshot into the long-standing exclusion of Muslims in a space where news coverage of          Islam  and Muslims is robust, recurring, and big business.

Liberal news media remain forums where liberal Orientalism thrives – treating Muslims as subjects worthy of sympathy and pity, but ultimately, individuals unfit to add expertise on laws that directly impact their lives, offer direct testimony, and ultimately, cast them as outsiders in stories that are entirely about them and their community.

Suggesting that liberal media outlets feature a critical mass of Muslim voices, to address a policy that exclusively impacts Muslims, seems a logical request.

Yet, the exclusion of Muslims illustrates just how deeply entrenched Orientalism within liberal news media networks, driven by the belief that Islam itself is an area of intellectual or professional expertise that non-Muslim white men are more adept to speak on than Muslims themselves.

While conservative media outlets are wed to featuring specific Muslim personalities to propagate a caricature, carry forward a stereotype, or showcase a native informant bent on slandering the faith, liberal media outlets call on a small handful of Muslim voices to meet what seems to be a minimal quota while relying on white males to carry the intellectual and analytical load.

In fact, an all-white-male panel discussing a matter that directly impacts Muslims is a common sight on liberal news media outlets.

This sight is particularly concerning in the Trump era, where an endless pool of effective Muslim commentators are lending insight on mainstream print media and social media, and are within easy reach for cable news outlets and their bookers.

However, the exclusion of Muslim voices seems to be heightening at a moment when regular inclusion of Muslim voices has never been more important.

Orientalism and Islamophobia are deeply interlinked systems that dehumanise Muslims. Therefore, fending off the hateful policies unleashed by Trump must be accompanied by an institutional commitment by liberal news media to prominently feature Muslim commentators when discussing Muslim issues, and grant them the basic dignity to contribute to the very stories that directly impact their lives.

 

This article has been excerpted from: ‘Why can’t Muslims talk about the Muslim ban on US TV?’

Courtesy: Aljazeera.com