Dec. 1994 Slander!! The Muslim Response

By Norma Tarazi

"It was team work. When we work together, with selfless interest, it pays off, declared Br. Souhail Khan. The greatest united effort of the entire Muslim community of Central Ohio took place with a phoning and writing campaign to WOSU's channel 34. This was done to protest the airing of "Jihad in America", a propaganda film designed to encourage distrust of all Muslims, disguised as a documentary.

As early as 2 months ago, information about this film started circulating around the country and the Internet started buzzing warning signals, but the leaders of our community understood that national Islamic organizations like CAIR, [the Council on American Islamic Relations], ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] and ICNA [Islamic Circle of North America] were handling the problem with the national headquarters of Public Broadcasting system. PBS, however, refused to recognize Muslim interest in the film, and insisted on relying solely on its own internal board of review which, in turn, refused to recognize the implicit slander of the 'documentary'.

When all efforts to discuss the issue were rudely thrown out, the national organizations sent the message out on Internet to local Muslim communities all over the United States, warning them of something bad coming down the pike. Still, responsible people want to protest responsibly. The community had a general idea of what the slander was, because of the reputation of the producer and those around him.

Some two years ago, a documentary about the Intifada was aired on PBS, but, because of protest, a panel was allowed to discuss the film before and after its airing, and money was allocated to produce this second 'documentary' ,"Jihad in America" which had to be aired to compensate for allowing the Palestinian documentary on the air. But, until about a week before public airing, nobody had actually seen the response film. Then PBS allowed a group of journalists to see the film, and, Alhamdulillah, one journalist happened to be a Muslim. He took notes of the film and passed a summary of it onto the Internet. Muslims responded all over the country. In many cities, like Detroit and Dayton pressure caused the local PBS station to cancel airing the show. In other cities, Muslims were offered the right to have a panel discussion after the show.

Here in Columbus, responsible Muslims were a bit slow to respond. We waited to have the Internet summary before spreading the news. However, the news spread. The problem was brought up at Isha prayers. It was the central focus of the Friday prayer khutbah. Networking occurred spontaneously. Each brother or sister who heard, passed the word to others. The telephone number and even the fax number of the local program director, Mr. Willis Parker became known to all interested Muslims overnight.

Channel 34 was swamped with hundreds of phone calls and over 80 faxed letters of complaint. People voiced their concern about negative stereotyping of Muslims as terrorists in the media at large and asked the station to cancel the program or delay it until we could prepare a good response. Brothers and sisters included their personal stories of the frequent harassment that comes with living in this country and being Muslim. WOSU people were impressed but relied on the parent organization, PBS, and its internal advice that the film was not biased.

Brother Brian Clouse, of the MSA Public Relations Committee, prepared the formal letter of complaint from the whole Muslim community to the president of OSU; as the overall sponsor of WOSU. Brother Souhail Kan, of IFCO, on top of his efforts to inform Muslims, notified a variety of influential organizations outside of the Muslim community and urged them to respond. At the end of Friday, Mr. Parker told people to watch the film on Monday night, and see what it was, and then an appropriate response could be considered. Saturday and Sunday the phone calls and faxes continued. Monday morning at 9 a.m. Mr. Parker phoned the leaders of the community and asked them to assemble a panel of 4 to 5 people to discuss the film after its presentation.

This was really last minute. We had a few hours to find a panel of prepared people able to come at last minute notice, from our community which has not had great media experience. Those panelists had to view the film, and put together a response on the fly, to be aired immediately after the show, (at 11 pm when most of the people watching the show would have gone to bed.)

Lists of potential panelists were made and an emergency meeting of the Columbus Muslim Council was called that afternoon to organize the response. (The Columbus Muslim Council is a coordination group of representatives of IFCO, Masjid AI-IsJam, lSGC, and the MSA.) At this meeting it was decided to have Brother Tariq Jalil represent the MSA and Brother Brian Clouse represent both ISGC and IFCO. Brother Emil Bashir of Masjid AL-Islam was unfortunately unable to participate due to time constraints. Brother Khaled Farag (the MSA President) particularly voiced his regret to Brother Bashir's absence.

One problem seemed still unsolvable even during the last hours before the show. The Islamic community leaders had little background data about the film. Proper defense required full knowledge of the truth about what the attacks were. Brother Hani Sakr phoned ISNA in Indianapolis and got them to send us Brother Shakir El Sayed. Brother Shakir EI Sayed is the Director of Islamic Education for ISNA, and has spoken in public here in Columbus, and all over the United States. He also happened to have ISNA's background research about the film and had been helping CAIR in their efforts to negotiate with PBS on the national level. A friend in need, he came immediately upon request.

Five brothers went to WOSU studio and viewed the film an hour before it was aired to the public. They just had that hour, while the public viewed the film, to prepare their presentation with moderator, Mr. John Brodie, who was described by the panelists and the Muslim viewers as sympathetic and helpful.

A copy of the film and the discussion afterward is available at the mosque for those who missed it. A number of criticisms were leveled at the film by our panel, the first being the misuse of the word jihad, which has never meant "holy war" to Muslims. Jihad in Islam means struggle for the cause of God, toward self improvement, toward harmony n the family, toward protecting the rights of the poor and the oppressed anywhere in the community or in the world.

Among the criticisms was also that the film compared the righteous struggle in Afghanistan and Bosnia to the bombing by strange radicals of the New York City World trade Center. [At this time the people of Afghanistan were fighting the Soviet Army and the Bosnians were fighting for survival against the Serbs and Croats. ed.] The film also slandered numerous Muslim charities, insisting, without proof, that money donated for hospitals and refugee camps was being spent on arms.

The film also took clips of demonstrations in Iran years ago, and said these demonstrations happened in the U.S. recently. It used interviews of former FBI and State Department people, with the false implication that these people were spokesmen for their former employers. In fact, their testimony was their own personal opinion, nothing more.

The film also took short film clips of Arabic speeches and used sinister 'translator' voices, as it labeled one after the other as a 'known terrorist'. Innuendo and slander were rampant in the film, and the conjectures as to the motives of every Muslim shown were continually negative, without any proof.
What apparently blinded the PBS internal advisory board was a disclaimer at the beginning and end of the film that only fringe groups were being attacked. However, the overall effect of the film was to render the disclaimers empty. Many brothers and sisters who viewed the discussion have expressed their pride in our representatives on the panel and their strong response.

Inshallah, we have made our point with PBS. As we responded in community, so did all the brothers and sisters who made the effort to express themselves, to phone or write in. The leaders of our community worked hard to get positive results from this case. Inshallah, when we speak in the future, we will be better respected. We made valid points and were generally well received by Mr. Parker and the staff of OSU, especially Mr. John Brodie.

For the future, Brother Souhail Khan is planning a discussion on media relations December 4th, entitled Analysis and Discussion of, and Lessons from the Documentary: Jihad in America, at the Islamic Center.

Suggestions of known videos that PBS might air about Islam have been presented and need to be considered. It is possible that PBS might authorize a grant to a Muslim film producer to make a new documentary material about the silent majority of normal Muslims.

Brother Brian Clouse and Sister Hiba Nasser of the Public Relations Committee are interested in hearing from anyone who wants to help on media relations and follow-up of this event. For the time being, they have sent thank you letters for all the people at WOSU who were cooperative with us on this issue.
Generally Muslims here in Columbus can benefit from such an incident by trying harder to learn about Islam and spread the true image about our great religion. We should be more and more involved with the activities our Islamic organizations are organizing throughout the year.