Who’s Afraid of the Middle East?

I’m going down to South Park to have myself a time. I’m a big fan of the show. I’ve watched it for years, but I especially love watching it when living abroad because it makes me feel connected to my “real world.” The latest episode, “200″ revisits several themes that South Park has featured over it’s fourteen-year run, including showing the prophet Mohammed on screen. Watching the show today got me thinking about Western concerns regarding Islam and how different some of those concerns can seem over here.

In the “200″ episode, Mohammed needs to show his face to save the town of South Park. This is an issue because, after the 2006 Danish Mohammed cartoon controversy, media around the world halted any depiction of prophet. That year, South Park ran a two-part episode titled, “Cartoon Wars,” which tackled the issue, coming down on the side of free speech and not letting fear rule our lives. At the end of the show, they had planned to show an image of Mohammed, but Comedy Central ultimately censored it. This was especially significant because in July, 2001, the character of Mohammed had figured prominently in the South Park episode, “Super Best Friends.” This Mohammed was not only shown in human form, but as a superhero, flame-throwing friend of Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Krishna, and other religious figures. The change in acceptability illustrates just how much the world itself has altered in the last decade. A few short months after South Park showed Mohammed as a super best friend, Western attitudes towards Muslims changed dramatically.

But you would hardly know that from living here. Dubai, of course, is a business city, which not only tolerates but courts Westerners to its sunny shores. Even Sharjah, though it doesn’t seem to like us and our values much, wants us here for economic reasons. Whereas Muslims going to Western countries face problems with visas and airport security, we are allowed to pass easily in. I do not have a residency visa, but I am allowed to stay here by hopping across the Omani border every month to renew my tourist visa. The UAE government is constantly passing laws prohibiting Southeast Asians, Indians, Pakistanis, and the other, non-Western people who make up this country’s workforce from doing the same thing. They are the ones looked upon with suspicion.

The Western media portrays us as frightened of Muslims and Muslims as full of hatred towards us. I have been to the UAE, Jordan, and Oman, and in those places I’ve felt that the two sides might not necessarily get along, but there very little flat-out hatred or fear (at least fear of suicide bombers, anyway).

In fact, the word terrorism is rarely heard here. Perhaps this is because the Arabs think the subject is too loaded to talk about with Westerners, especially with Americans, but I suspect it’s not. After all, they are willing to talk about all sorts of topics that Westerners might typically consider problematic: veiling, oil, the war in Iraq, Israel and Palestine. Their views often differ from mine. The conversations are sometimes uncomfortable, but we have them. I think that we don’t talk about terrorism because, unlike in the fear-flooded USA, it’s not something that the general population spends much time thinking about. Everyone is allowed here, as long as they speak the language of money.

Yet the shadow of terrorism and war is here. When people do talk about terrorism, they mention the supposedly secret understanding between the UAE and Al Qaeda. It is widely assumed that the UAE pays money to Al Qaeda in return for safety. Of course, I do not know if this is true or not. But I know that Iraqi soldiers live here, that countless supporters of Hezbollah and Hamas live here. My friend tutors a family acquainted with the Bin Ladens. I can never quite forget that I am just across the water from Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and down the road from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, but at the same time it feels so safe here that terrorism seems like an issue for those other places, both near and far, to deal with. Everyone acts like the UAE is invisible to the extremists on all sides.

Like terrorism, the depicting Mohammed, while it is a serious issue in the West, has not taken hold of the UAE’s public mind. This is, by and large, because the government has taken away the possibility of it becoming an issue. UAE law is more-or-less based on Sharia (Islamic) law, so it is illegal to show images of Mohammed – even his Wikipedia page is blocked. Like most things in most religions, the specifics of the rule are open to interpretation. The Qu’ran does not explicitly forbid depictions of Mohammed, but the hadith (supplementary texts) do. Historically, Sunnis forbid all representation, whereas Shi’as accept respectful depictions. The rule exists to prevent idolatry. Some Muslims take the “no idols” rule to the extent that all depictions of humans are forbidden, but UAE law does not go that far. Around my neighborhood, I often see shop mannequins with covered faces. I also often see the faces of various Sheikhs blown up to cover entire buildings and painted on mountainsides (which, to me, seems dangerously close to idolatry, but I’m not religious so what do I know?). But by limiting free speech and legally forbidding the depiction of Mohammed, the UAE has all but guaranteed that it will not happen. Some rebellious artist might one day attempt to illustrate him, but that artist would be arrested faster than you can say, “Inshallah.”

But maybe not. It is strange and ironic that issues Westerners have directly concerning Muslims are not such a big deal in a Muslim country. The UAE, however, is not your average Muslim country. Though things did not feel significantly different during my trips to Jordan and Oman, I was not there long enough to really know. The UAE straddles Muslim and Western ideas more so than Jordan or Oman; it seems that this feeling of isolation from Western fears of Muslims and Muslim fears of the West will sooner or later be challenged. Terrorists threats will become real here (Al Qaeda has referred to Dubai as a “whorehouse” in the past), or enough Western artists will want to depict Mohammed that free speech will become a center-stage issue. In the meantime, I can watch South Park through a website that the government hasn’t yet blocked and think about how different things are back home in my “real world.”

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Tags: Culture Shock, free speech, law, Media, safety, terrorism