Behind the Pictures

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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John Simpson is probably one of the most famous news reporters the BBC has got. This excerpt is from his book which I found very interesting:

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Instead, we headed for Peshawar, which at least had the merit of being only thirty miles away from Afghanistan, and where trouble was expected. I was certain of it myself, and went round telling everyone to be very careful once it started. It wouldn’t do to have Western cameramen on the streets when the demonstrators were angry, I said.

I was wrong. There was indeed a certain level of genuinely violent passion: the terrible, pointless murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi a few months later showed that. But the demonstrations in the streets of Pakistan’s cities always looked a great deal worse than they actually were. The morning after we arrived from Chitral there was to be a big demonstration in the old centre of Peshawar, starting at one of the mosques - it was a Friday - and parading through the city.

**It would have seemed completely uncontrolled and frightening, except for the laughter on the faces of the demonstrators. Yet when the pictures were shown around the world, they were used to illustrate the extent of the violent hatred towards the United States. **

Not, I have to say, in my report that night; I made it clear that the whole event had been deliberately staged for the cameras, and that it was part of a ritual of anger and abuse which did not necessarily involve violence at any level except the purely verbal one. It didn’t matter. These pictures were used on television channels around the world for weeks afterwards, because they seemed to be emblematic of public anger in the Islamic world. They reinforced Western notions of Muslim savagery and brute ferocity

**In fact, of course, it was probably more dangerous to be an Arab, or anyone whom an ignorant passer-by might mistake for an Arab, in New York or London or even Sydney, than it was to be an American or an Englishman in Peshawar or Kabul. Sikhs were regularly beaten up in America, merely because they wore turbans; there were even some deaths. Perfectly innocent refugees from Afghanistan, who had fled the religious extremism of the Taliban, were attacked and insulted. So were Muslim girls and women who thanks to the religious freedoms we are so proud of in the West, wore the veil in the streets of Western cities. **

**A despicable and cowardly form of mob rule occasionally comes over Americans and Europeans at times when we feel our societies are under threat; and at the very moment when you might hope that we would most demonstrate the qualities we profess, we often behave the worst. **

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[quote]
**In fact, of course, it was probably more dangerous to be an Arab, or anyone whom an ignorant passer-by might mistake for an Arab, in New York or London or even Sydney, than it was to be an American or an Englishman in Peshawar or Kabul. Sikhs were regularly beaten up in America, merely because they wore turbans; there were even some deaths. Perfectly innocent refugees from Afghanistan, who had fled the religious extremism of the Taliban, were attacked and insulted. So were Muslim girls and women who thanks to the religious freedoms we are so proud of in the West, wore the veil in the streets of Western cities.

A despicable and cowardly form of mob rule occasionally comes over Americans and Europeans at times when we feel our societies are under threat; and at the very moment when you might hope that we would most demonstrate the qualities we profess, we often behave the worst.

This is less often the case in Islamic countries. I have noticed many times how Westerners are treated as individuals, rather than as representatives of and potential scapegoats for their governments' policies. Perhaps Muslims tend to be less tribal than Westerners; perhaps it has something to do with having been colonized, so that they feel that no ordinary person has any say in government or any control over the policies of the officials who run their lives, and that it would be unreasonable therefore to attack an individual for what is done in his or her name.

Perhaps it is simply because Muslims still regard foreigners as guests, and guests as people to be looked after and respected. Whatever the cause, in September 2001 it was better to be a Westerner in a Muslim country than a Muslim in a Western country. **
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hm.
Really interesting read. Thanks for posting, Zakk.

(Waisay, sorry because this is off-topic - but i couldn't help noticing that Aziz chap sounds so interesting in his own right as well. That farm, that quiet type of lifestyle Simpson was describing... that would make an interesting book on its own!).