As a French student, I have been given the opportunity to teach an evening class of French conversation for adults. My students are great: many have traveled and they are all eager to enlarge their cultural knowledge.
A slight incident troubled this merry experience two weeks ago. We had all agreed to dedicate a session to the presentation of the post Sept. 11 international perspective in French newspapers. I made a selection of articles, drawn mainly from Le Monde, France's most famous and uncontroversial newspaper, and we were all looking forward to what was to be one of the most stimulating sessions of the course.
This session turned out to be disappointing and uneasy for all of us. Many of them were painfully surprised by articles reporting on how UN officials and humanitarian specialists are criticizing the U.S. dropping of food in Afghanistan as unorganized, inefficient and quantitatively insignificant, and how the Afghanis, by the way, do not seem to appreciate peanut butter. They were irritated, more generally, of what has been labeled as U.S. "double standard" policy in the Middle East, regarding the Bush administration's handling of the disproportionate Israeli repression of the second Intifada in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. They were also bothered by the discussion of the one million Iraqi civilians dead because of the U.S. embargo on Iraq.
I found myself in the uncomfortable situation of having to explain why articles accused of "justifying terrorism" could be published in France's most respectable newspaper. Once this session was over, we got along as greatly as before. I think we would all agree that, in spite of the surprise and hurt feelings, it was a fruitful session.
This incident, however, made me consider with increased scrutiny the differences between French and American media coverage of the present international situation.
Articles I had selected precisely for their representativeness and banality in the French context, made mentions of "collateral details" which, as such, very rarely find their way into the simplistic, general presentation of the Middle East in newspapers like the New York Times or the Washington Post.
If one compares Le Monde and the Washington Post, one will find the latter gives an utterly simplistic (with very few exceptions), homogenized, generalizing picture of the Middle East.
As a foreigner, I appreciate the American vigilance concerning all forms of discrimination and awareness of political correctness, which, unfortunately, hasn't found its way in France yet. But I am equally surprised that this discourse that promotes close scrutiny of the way in which judgments about groups of people are formed often does not apply when Middle Eastern civilizations and people are concerned. Sadly, I agree with Edward Said when he says that "What is said about the Muslim [or Arab, or Middle Eastern] mind, or character, or religion, or culture as a whole cannot now be said in mainstream discussions about Africans, Jews, other Orientals, or Asians."
How is such a gap between French and American newspapers possible? France has not been spared murderous terrorist attacks from people claiming to act in the name of Islam in the last 20 years. French soldiers, French hostages have died in Lebanon; terrorists related to Algerian fundamentalism have hijacked planes and put bombs in the Paris metro. More generally, the relationships between France and the Arab countries are not, and have certainly not been, perfectly serene. France represents to them a violent colonial history, and the success of Jean-Marie Le Pen's infamous and fascist Front National shows that a significant part of the French population is still ready to endorse anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism as a political program. Yet, precisely because of this colonial history, and maybe because of this old French gimmick, namely universalism, which insists not so much on the respect of cultures as on their dialogue, the French media seem to be more readily receptive to discourses about the Arab world and particularly about the Middle East, which do not repress all that, for the worst but also for the best, binds us together.
France has certainly not been indifferent to the recent tragedies that occurred in New York City and Washington D.C., and to the threat bin Laden and his gang represent. On Oct. 4, Le Monde's editor criticized the French government for pussyfooting around and called for a more active engagement of French troops besides the U.S. in its fight against Al Qaeda. But Le Monde and other French newspapers keep on thinking, and actually demonstrate, that it is necessary, maybe more than ever, to account for the extraordinary geographical, social and cultural diversity of the Arab and Muslim world, and for the recent developments of its relationships with the U.S. and Europe.
There seems to be something frighteningly wrong with the American media when it comes to the Middle East. The monolithic, generalizing discourse I can read almost everyday in The Washington Post (and, sadly, that I have read more than once in the JHU News-Letter) would not find its way in France, except in extreme-right, overtly racist publications. Are the Americans ready to recognize this? Or are The New York Times or The Washington Post ready to publish articles written by Arab intellectuals and democrats, like Le Monde does on a regular basis, next to articles translated from American newspapers? Is any dissenting voice, American, European or Arab, a "justification of terrorism?" How willing are the Americans to know what's going on in the Middle East ?
Sylvain Perdigon is a graduate student from France. He has lived, worked and traveled in the Middle East.
Sources include Edward W. Said, Covering Islam.
