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... e quently viewed life depicted on television as a direct conflict with traditional Islamic moral values. They upheld television as the most imposing threat to their own culture. This organization originally supported and cooperated with Nasser's government (Muslim Brotherhood), but their issue with western influence eventually led to complications between the Islamic fundamentalists and Nassars government (Sayyid Qutb). The important theoretician of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood[, ] Sayyid Qutb[, ] fused together the core elements of modern Islamism (Sayyid Qutb).
For Qutb, Islam is a universal system of life and meant for the whole world (Khatab 342), and aimed to bring together all mankind into one moral and spiritual framework guiding people to be mutually assistant to one another on a universal scale (Khatab 345). Qutb believed Islam to be supra-national (Khatab 343), in that it is the primary identity of all human beings of different ethnicity, languages, territories and beliefs (Khatab 342). This means that the nationality of all human beings at birth is Islam (Khatab 342) whether they are enlightened or not. The term jahiliyyah, was originally implemented to denote the state of ignorance rampant before the world of Islam (Khatab 346). In todays context it is considered to be an ailment, or disease of the mind, possessed by people who participate in capitalistic social institutions (Jahiliyyah), much like affluent.
Because this force poses such a threat to fundamental Islamic traditions, it has led to the permission of real Muslims to attack Muslims who have succumbed to Jahiliyyah (Jahiliyyah). This way of thinking fueled the Muslim Brotherhoods justifications in its intent to overthrow Nassars government by assassination, as a means to limit or cease the social poisons forged through the cultural imperialism of television. Nasser used the national anger against the Muslim Brotherhood [following his much debated assassination attempt] that resulted in his program to eradicate the group (Muslim Brotherhood). After its second time being outlawed, 4000 of its members including Qutb, were incarcerated and tortured.
This treatment strengthened Qutb's stance that the Egyptian State was totally invalid and needed to be overthrown. Later he was tried for treason and summarily executed for his crimes of plotting against the Egyptian government (Sayyid Qutb). After Qutb's, death his teaching continued to influence others who perpetuate the battle against this gauntlet. His ideas lived on in one such follower, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who in the 1980 s journeyed to Afghanistan to participate in the mujahideen against the Soviet Unions occupation [and] met Osama bin Laden (Ayman al-Zawahiri). These two eventually organized the group, al-Qaeda, who was blamed for the demolition of the World Trade Center buildings in 2001. It has been noted that the attacks of al-Qaeda motivated in part by a reaction to perceived US imperialism (Cultural Imperialism).
It is widely accepted that the representations of people or animals are forbidden by the prophet, Mohammed, (Adams 10) who Muslims base their religion on. When a strict interpretation of the Koran, like the one al-Qaeda uses, is applied television can be seen as the great Iconoclast; television programming threatens the very threads of traditional religious societies by portraying and glorifying conflicting ideals, such as affluent. Since it is the bringer of the idolatrous worship of consumption, which is defiantly not of any monotheistic god, television champions a value system in which mankind is a selfish creature. From their fundamental Islamic point of view, this backward way of thinking threatened to destroy the shared values that held society together (Power of Nightmares: Part III, The Shadows in the Cave). The very things that, on the surface, made the [US] look prosperous and happy, Qutb saw as signs of an inner corruption and decay And he became determined [from very early on] to prevent this culture of selfish individualism [from] taking over his own country (Power of Nightmares: Baby Its Cold Outside).
What is being battled by al-Qaeda terrorists is a war of ideologies. They view the culture and values, portrayed on television, as such a threat to their supra-natural solution for humanity that retaliation becomes a necessity. Because of their nature, terrorist attacks often make the evening news in America. However, the terrorists stance and the issues which they are combating do not. Most Americans have no interest in Islam; this is most evident by the fact that out of 774 interviewers, only 10 can speak Arabic (Hess 2 - 3). The real problem is that Americans are unable to constructively criticize ideologies portrayed in television (Scholes 623) since they are so desensitized by it (Thomas).
Terrorism makes news but what is the news made of? Scholes warns that the conservative agenda for this country has been conspicuously anti critical, [and that] in this age of massive manipulation and disinformation, criticism is the only way we have of taking something seriously (Scholes 623). Americans who have trouble understanding the reasons for growing Anti-Americanism abroad, should begin by taking a critical looking in their own living rooms. Perhaps, eventually, they will see beyond the illusion created by the boob tube and seek the true understanding which lies beneath the pleasure and surrender of the video text. Works Cited Adams, Laurie Schnieder. Art Across Time: Volume I, Prehistory to the Fourteenth Century.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002 Affluenza. Scott Simon. John de Graaf. John de Graff and Visit Boe. Documentary.
KCTS/Seattle, 1997 Affluenza. Wikipedia. 20 April 2005 < web > Ayman al-Zawahiri. Wikipedia. 20 April 2005 < web al-Zawahiri Boyd, Douglas. Broadcasting in the Arab World: A Survey of Radio and Television in the Middle East. Philadelphia: Temple Press University, 1982 Consumerism. Wikipedia. 20 April 2005 < web > Cultural Imperialism.
Wikipedia. 20 April 2005 < web imperialism> Egypt. Wikipedia. 20 April 2005 < web > Gamal Abdel Nasser. Wikipedia. 20 April 2005 < web Abdel Nasser> Hess, Stephen and Marvin Kalb. The Media and the War on Terrorism. Washington D.
C. : Brookings Institution Press, 2003 Jahiliyyah. Wikipedia. 20 April 2005 < web > Khatab, Sayed. The Concept Of Jahiliyyah In The Thought Of Sayyid Qutb. University of Melbourne, 2002 Muslim Brotherhood. Wikipedia. 20 April 2005 < web Brotherhood> Power of Nightmares: Baby Its Cold Outside.
Adam Curtis. Documentary. BBC Two, 18 January 2005 < web > Power of Nightmares: Part III, The Shadows in the Cave. Adam Curtis. Documentary. BBC Two, 20 January 2005 < web > Productivity.
Wikipedia. 20 April 2005 < web > Sayyid Qutb. Wikipedia. 20 April 2005 < web Qut Scholes, Robert. On Reading a Video Text. Literacies: Reading Writing, Interpretation. Ed. Terence Bank, Suzanne Diamond, Priscilla Perkins, and Ken Smith. 2 nd ed.
New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2000. 619 - 623 School, Juliet. Whats Wrong with Consumer Society? Competitive Spending and the New Consumerism. Consuming Desires.
Ed. Roger Rosenblatt. Washington, D. C. & Cover, CA: Island Press & Seawater Books, 1999 37 - 50 Thomas, Bella. What the Worlds Poor Watch on TV. 20 April 2005 < web model. cfm?
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