veiled4allah: what TV teaches about "the enemy"

Why are some Muslims so upset about a TV show?

Now, on the Fox network's new season of its beat-the-clock crisis jamboree "24," America's evil du jour appears in the person of the jihadists next door. Inside a swell suburban home in America lurks a Turkish family whose hearts belong to an extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism. They may share your zip code, your paperboy, your cable line and your lawn-care specialist. But behind closed doors, they are plotting to bring America to its knees. "This year we deal with it," the show's co-creator Joel Surnow told Frank Rich of The New York Times. "This is what we fear - Islamic terrorism. This is what we are fighting.

What strikes you about Surnow's comment is not so much its relationship to the truth, which cannot be argued, but its combat readiness.

Call it state-of-siege license.

In choosing to capitalize on Americans' fears of Islamic fundamentalists, the "24" creators have accomplished two things: One is to draw a critical outcry from interest groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The other is to boldly lay claim to America's (and the rest of the world's, for that matter) not-so-proud history of demonizing various ethnic groups for the sake of our national amusement.

Remember "the Injuns"? The "Nips," the "Japs" and the "Riceballs"?

The "Commies" and the "Reds"

"Charlie" and the "Gooks"?

Although the Turkish family and their partners in crime on "24" are given the dignity of being referred to as individuals with names and not by an ethnic pejorative, their treatment at the hands of America's entertainment industry thus far is not so different from what was accorded this country's enemies of yore...

...Each week, Americans are tuning in to see their biggest fears unfold in carefully selected colors. As the spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations worries about a show that is "casting a shadow of suspicion on ordinary American Muslims," Americans of paler complexion don't seem to mind too much. If they do, they are not speaking up very loud.

"Don't watch it," a friend said. "Why support it?" But, the requirements of my job aside, changing channels does not fix the problem.

Other people are watching. The representation of Muslims in our popular culture is an exhibition of American insensitivity and bigotry, false antidotes to the climate of fear and retribution that have sprung up in the aftermath of 9/11.

So into a vacuum where the few Muslims visible in our culture are generally seen under FBI wanted signs, "24" has dared to tip the scales by feeding the fears of a worried population. The structure of "24" - with its ticking clock and frenetic pacing - is an unlikely format for a nuanced portrait of "the enemy." Even if the end result of this "24" season is to balance the representation of Muslim characters, it can be argued that, culturally speaking, we are retrograding.

What is in danger of being lost is a sense of fairness. In any honest story line, villainy almost always has more than one face, and human evil or error is never confined to one side, one faith or one skin type.

By the way, re "what we fear is Islamic terrorism" (emphasis added), have we given up on other forms of terrorism, committed by non-Muslims and are only concerned with terrorism committed by Muslims now? Does that mean that the definition of terrorism is not what act you commit but what religion you are while doing it? Has anybody ever explained why non-Muslim terrorists get a free pass?