Page 253 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

242 Public religious culture post-09/11/01

movements. However, the moral critique should not be seen in terms of its
consumption by followers “in the street” as an ephemeral matter. Mark
Juergensmeyer, author of a definitive work on religious terrorism, observes,
of the images of the West consumed in the Islamic world, “It is difficult for
those of us in the West to appreciate how these people [Islamists] feel
shamed by what they know of the West. They feel personally responsible to
do something about it.” This echoes of course the kind of moral critiques
24
that frequently erupt in the US, and to a lesser extent elsewhere in the West,
over “immoral” film, television, books, or other media. Religiously
inflected critics here are seemingly highly motivated to address such things.
That people several steps removed from this context are also watching, are
also similarly offended, and are moved to action is a new and unprece-
dented reality of the media age. Islamists also share in common with certain
of their Christian Fundamentalist counterparts a sense of persecution.
Religion scholar Elizabeth Castelli’s recent work on the so-called
“Persecuted Christians” movement has demonstrated how legitimate cases
of persecution have been conflated in some Christian circles with presumed
“oppression” of Christians in the Christian West. 25 For Islamists and
Christian Fundamentalists alike, claims to oppression and persecution can
be powerful in building common purpose and solidarity.
In both cases, the media can be powerful contexts for the realization of
the condition of oppression. Fouad Ajami quotes an Islamic preacher,
Sheik Muhammad Ibrahim Hassan, commenting on the connection
between this sense of oppression and 9/11:
“Oppression leads to an explosion,” he said angrily. “Under the cover of
the new world order, Muslims in Chechnya and Iraq have been brutal-
ized. . . . Any Muslim on the face of the earth who bears faith in God and
his Prophet feels oppression today. If a believer feels oppression and
thinks that no one listens to him and that power respects only the mighty,
that believer could be provoked to violent deeds. We saw things –
horrors – in Bosnia that would make young people turn old. . . . Where
were the big powers and the coalitions and the international organizations
then? Where are they now, given what is going on in Palestine? The satel-
lite channels have spread everywhere the knowledge of this oppression.” 26

What is most significant about this situation is not, of course, the politics
and balance of power, things that are immemorial and universal. Nor is it
surprising to hear such a critique of US and Western policies and practices
from a religious figure in the Muslim world. What is just beneath the
surface is the reality that the media age has made these symbols and these
issues real in a way that brings them directly to the fore in the lives of indi-
viduals and movements. As the Sheik notes, the media have made these
images, symbols, and struggles available everywhere. The two valences of