On 6/5/06, Colin Brace <cb at lim.nl> wrote:
> False prophets
>
> The US loves listening to its Arab/Muslim 'reformers'. And they love
> telling the US just what it wants to hear.
>
> Brian Whitaker
>
> June 5, 2006 12:00 PM
>
> For a long time now, I have been meaning to take a cool, reflective
> look at Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji. The ordeal of keeping calm
> long enough to write about them and avoiding serious damage to my
> blood pressure at the same time was mainly what prevented me.
>
> Now, thankfully, someone else has done the job. There's a long essay
> about them in The Nation magazine and, considering the subject, its
> restrained tone is admirable.
>
> Hirsi Ali and Manji ("the Muslim refusenik") are the most prominent
> among several "reformers" of Arab or Muslim origin lionised by the
> American media and in Britain by the likes of Melanie Phillips.
>
> Editors and TV producers love 'em. Their strident views make for
> entertaining television and, of course, the things they say are
> generally what the US public wants to hear. The trouble is, their
> approach is so simplistic and confrontational and so insensitive
> towards the culture they are trying to change that it does more harm
> than good. Among ordinary Muslims - the people they are supposedly
> seeking to help - their credibility is virtually zero.
>
> In the academic world, people like Hirsi Ali and Manji are known as
> "native informants", though Issandr el-Amrani of the Arabist blog has
> another term for them: "courageous reformist Arab personalities
> (CRAP).
>
> Being a CRAP is quite lucrative - Manji reportedly charges $7,500
> (£4,000)an hour for giving a talk. If you fancy joining them, there's
> a bit of advice here on how to do it. From a media point of view, it
> helps if you're a woman. And the latest female addition to the CRAP
> stable is Wafa Sultan, an ex-Syrian who shot to prominence as a result
> of some shrill remarks on al-Jazeera television that were then brought
> to an American audience via Memri.
>
> It is the male native misinformants, however, whose advice is more
> often listened to by the Bush administration. Prominent among these
> are Fuad Ajami (an associate of Bernard Lewis, the neocons' favourite
> historian) and Iranian-born Amir Taheri. Last month Mr Taheri wrote an
> article saying the parliament in Tehran had passed a law that would
> require Christians, Jews and other religious minorities to wear
> distinctive clothing: "Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of
> cloth sewn in front of their clothes while Christians will be assigned
> the colour red."
>
> This, echoing the practices of Nazi Germany, was a classic piece of
> anti-Iranian propaganda - and sections of the media readily lapped it
> up. Unfortunately for them, the story was wrong.
>
> Unfazed by that, less than a fortnight later, Taheri and Ajami trotted
> along to the White House to give President Bush their views on Iraq.
> White House spokesman Tony Snow described their meeting at a press
> conference:
>
> full: <http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brian_whitaker/2006/06/native_misinformants.html>
>
> --
> Colin Brace
> Amsterdam
>
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>
-- Jim Devine / "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." -- Oscar Wilde