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Public religious culture post-09/11/01 241

these terms, and these terms were rooted in a sense that the overall
struggle was between the moral claims of the two worlds: Al-Qaida’s
particular (and to most Muslim authorities heretical) claims about Islam –
morally superior to the depraved West.
Where do these ideas about the West come from? As has been widely
noted, the media are of course the primary context within which “they”
could know about “us.” In an analysis of the influence of satellite broad-
casting in the Arab world, Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami describes an
advertisement for a Western product appearing on Al Jazeera, the satellite
network widely viewed across the Arab world.

One ad offered a striking counterpoint to the furious anti-Westernism of
the call-in program. It was for Hugo Boss “Deep Red” perfume. A
willowy Western woman in leather pants strode toward a half-naked
young man sprawled on a bed. “Your fragrance, your rules, Hugo Deep
Red,” the Arabic voice-over intoned. I imagined the young men in Arab-
Muslim cities watching this. In the culture where the commercial was
made, it was nothing unusual. But on those other shores, this ad threw
into the air insinuations about the liberties of the West – the kind of liber-
ties that can never be had by the thwarted youths of the Islamic world. 20

As anyone who has observed the media scene in non-Western contexts
knows, this is but one example of the kind of anachronism one regularly
encounters there. The political economy of Hollywood-based media
production is such that foreign distribution is often the most profitable
outlet for films or videos that would never make it in their home markets. 21
Most often, these films – along with the major features that have a life
both at home and abroad – contain large amounts of sexuality and
violence, things that sell well globally. What this means is that in much of
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the developing world – and significantly in the Middle East – what is seen
of the West is a picture that few people in the West would wish to have
identified as emblematic of Western values of either sexuality or violence.
The ubiquity and instantaneity of global media mean that we are no longer
able to have a private conversation, or to keep our national cultural mate-
rial to ourselves. Others are looking in, and they are drawing their own
conclusions. This plays into the events of 9/11 in a profound and funda-
mental way, in that Al-Qaida’s critique of the West is less theoretical and
more concrete to its followers and potential followers. Combining the
Islamist reading of history in terms of a global struggle between two
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worlds with a moral critique that provides followers and supporters with
concrete and galvanic images of the West, clerics and other leaders have
given their masses some powerful ideas and motivations.
These trends should not be difficult for those of us in the West to under-
stand, parallel as they are to our own reactionary and Fundamentalist