But how do I know that your words are the same as mine? I don’t of course and it is unlikely that given time to come to our own conclusions, thinking back on our own experiences and ideas and prejudices that we would think the same thing about a photograph. But what if that photo was printed on the front page of a newspaper along with commentary telling you what the reporter/editor/sub editor thought the photo was about. How would that change your thoughts about the photo? What if you hadn’t seen the photo before, if you aren’t a big user of Twitter as a lot of people aren’t. How many people would accept that definition without thinking about it?
I’m talking about the photo of a small child at the Sydney protest yesterday. He is a child of ‘Middle Eastern Appearance’ or a child with tan skin, brown eyes and brown hair. If he wasn’t standing near a woman in a headscarf you’d probably be pushed to assign a definite ethnic or religious identity to him. He is holding a sign saying “Behead all those who insult the Prophet”. The current meaning being given to this photo is that Muslim children are being taught to hate young.
Is this necessarily true? I won’t link to the photo, a google search for the Sunday Telegraph will find it for you. The things I am wondering about the photo are: is this child able to read the sign he is holding? Does he really believe this or is he holding up the sign so someone can take a photo of him? Did he want to hold up the sign and have his photo taken because other people around him were having their photos taken or holding up signs? I assumed the young woman in the headscarf near him and the child in the stroller next to him is their mother. But I don’t know this for a fact. She may be a sister, friend, family member, carer or completely unrelated. She might just have seen the little boy standing there and asked him to hold the sign while she took his photo. Did his family bring the sign with them or did he find it discarded by someone else? Just like my tweeps every so often say “A RT is not an endorsement” how do we know that a small child holding a sign is an endorsement of what is written on it? How can we look at one child and assume that he is representative of all children whose parents are Muslim?
I also wonder if he consented to having his image used, sold and commented upon by thousands of people. Did his parents? What far reaching effects will this photo have not only on this child but other children who might look like him? How are people whipping up hate around what they think this photo represents any better than the handful of protesters who got violent yesterday?
Make no mistake, the majority of people at the protest yesterday were peaceful. Others who were around but not involved said up to 1/3 were women and children who left quickly when the small group of troublemakers started causing trouble. A member of the protest who got up to chide the troublemakers for causing trouble in the name of Islam was attacked. The troublemakers were there to make trouble. They do not represent the Islamic community, just as the troublemakers at Cronulla aren’t representative of people who go to Cronulla.
Categories: Culture, law & order, media, Politics, religion, social justice, violence
Hoyden About Town 
thank you for writing this. i guess this press release is somewhat related to the post, in that it shows the results of the kind of reporting you describe on real people’s lives:
“In one example, up to thirty police officers, many of whom looked like military commandos with their heavy armour, barged into the house of a local family, shouting orders and intimidating the occupants. The family inside this house consisted of six young children, aged between three and fourteen, and their frightened and confused mother; the father was overseas, and the police were aware of this fact…
“Carpets were torn out of the floor in the house of another family and ceilings damaged; cash – not belonging to the suspect – confiscated in yet another; a woman was denied the right to leave her house; children were forced to dress and undress in the presence of police; some women whose houses were raided were asked to become spies for ASIO; and general degrading treatment and language was experienced throughout. Importantly, most of the houses raided contained children, who, having been violently awoken at dawn by gun?wielding police – armed with semi automatic military style weapons – were obviously traumatised as a result. Many of the other family members also reported feelings of shock, anxiety and trauma, and are too scared to even seek professional help. One mother, whose house was raided, suffered a stroke and was taken to hospital for treatment.”
Thanks for this thoughtful post, Mindy. This whole situation demoralises me terribly – the level of deceit undertaken by the Coptic fellow in California in having this movie made to a non-sacreligious script by Americans who didn’t realise what he was going to overdub in post-production, so that America would be blamed; what is probably about to happen to Coptic communities around the world now that his identity is known; the appalling cynicism of timing the release on YouTube just before the anniversary of 9-11 when emotions everywhere were high; that a terrorist cell took out the embassy in Libya after months of pre-planning but the rioting over this movie has been a huge confounding factor in tracking down those terrorists – it’s all just such a huge mess of hate.
To then see a similar cooptation of children in order to get media hits, whoever it was that did it? Utterly appalling, but it’s not the children’s fault.
My mind is wanting to tie this into the reaction in the UK when they were looking into the home of the Iraqi family who were executed in France last week – the shed had chemicals in it (later determined to be part of the wife’s dental practice) and the local police called in the bomb squad once they saw them – would they have done that if the family had been Anglo-Celtic?
There’s just so many biased judgements flying around, based on superficialities.
Best article on the subject:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/the-incredible-muslim-hulk-proves-to-be-no-friend-of-islam-either-20120916-260e8.html
There were multiple photos of different children carrying a sign with the same message going around Twitter. One of them I saw had the child posing with the sign for a photo for what I assumed at the time was his mum, but could have just been a fellow protester. I don’t think it was just a one-off photo distorting what happened because it wasn’t just a single child or single photo.
Some of the children pictured I think were too young to fully understand the message if they could read it at all. But then I think this is a general problem with taking young children on protests – whether it be this one, or one for action on global warming. I tend to wonder if its something they really believe (do they have the capacity to make an informed judgement?) or if they’re just repeating what they’ve been told by people they trust.
However, regardless of whether the children understood and believed in the message I think it still is of great concern. Some of the children were simply too young not to have a parent or guardian nearby. And by not removing the signs from their children I think they are endorsing the message.
To me, the images of the children marching with these signs was more concerning that the actual violence (which is not that uncommon during protests). Because I think it does indicate these children are at the very least growing up with people who believe in beheading people who insult their religious beliefs, if not actually being indoctrinated in that attitude.
On the upside apparently there were only about 400 protesters and the number participating in the violence was around 100. So we’re talking about a very small minority.
You could perhaps argue that the mainstream news should have pixeled is face out, but he was in a public place so I doubt consent is legally required. And the images were pretty much viral on Twitter and had a huge amount of exposure anyway, so its questionable how much extra damage has been done.
I was thinking more of the damage that could be done in the future Chris, when this photo continues to do the rounds and perhaps comes back to haunt him.
Mindy – he wasn’t named though was he? Hopefully he won’t be recognizable as the child in the photo when he’s older. But with social media, images of children who participated are going to be around for a long time no matter what the paper published. They’d better hope that facial recognition technology does not advance too much in the next decade or so. I think the parents have to bear the bulk of the responsibility for what happened.
I read the editorial linked in comment #3, and was disappointed. If this is truly the “best article on the subject,” as cady says, then things are in a pretty pathetic state.
The article basically criticizes muslims, especially those protesting this film, for taking offense and reacting reflexively with anger, and for turning everything that upsets them into “insulting Islam.”
If this had been printed by a newspaper in a majority-Muslim country, especially one which had had a lot of these protests, there might have been some point to it, especially if the article had gone beyond mere criticism to do something like point out more effective ways to respond to Western gestures of contempt.
However, this was published in a newspaper in a (culturally) Western country, the sort that the movers and shakers in its country will read first. The target demographic of such newspapers is the demographic least likely to appreciate the background of that anger and most likely to be complicit in the causes of that anger.
Given that context, the editorial came across as basically telling the world’s ruling class that they can freely dismiss the protests as yet another example of how Muslims are too irrational to be dealt with on an equal basis. Since that’s already the default attitude in the West, I don’t see it as helpful.
The article basically criticizes muslims, especially those protesting this film, for taking offense and reacting reflexively with anger, and for turning everything that upsets them into “insulting Islam.”
Um, yes, that’s kind of the point of the article. That religious fanatics taking offence at any and every perceived slight is kind of a bad thing?
The target demographic of such newspapers is the demographic least likely to appreciate the background of that anger and most likely to be complicit in the causes of that anger.
No-one is “complicit” in anyone’s else’s anger. People are responsible for controlling their own emotions. Then again, religious extremists are infantilised to such an extent that you could almost forgive them for thinking otherwise.
especially if the article had gone beyond mere criticism to do something like point out more effective ways to respond to Western gestures of contempt.
I’m not sure what you mean by “Western gestures of contempt.” Please elaborate.
Given that context, the editorial came across as basically telling the world’s ruling class that they can freely dismiss the protests as yet another example of how Muslims are too irrational to be dealt with on an equal basis.
Except maybe it wasn’t directed at “the world’s ruling class.” Okay, maybe it would’ve reached its fanatical fringe in an Islamic magazine. But the smh has a much bigger readership than some obscure religious publication. And look, I’m not someone who thinks that a progressive believers’ first response to the poor behaviour of lunatics who share their faith should be, “But *they’re* just the fundies! Our faith does *not* have a problem!” Sorry moderates, yes it does. And Waleed Aly’s words are vital in reinforcing the need for rational thought rather than emotional over-reactions and blind attachments to dogma (he rightly points out that most protestors hadn’t even seen the film that so raised their ire). If Aly’s article gives one young man pause and puts him on a questioning path that prevents him from becoming radicalised, then it has done its job.
I used to roll my eyes when Richard Dawkins said religion was a form of child abuse, but at its most extreme, it’s hard to disagree.
They do not represent the Islamic community, just as the troublemakers at Cronulla aren’t representative of people who go to Cronulla.
No, they don’t. However, just as Cronulla’s violence was a sign that Australia had unexamined areas of racism and intolerance, so too did this worldwide protest reveal the need for religious extremists to grow a thicker skin. And in both cases, righteous indignation, denial and blame-shifting were the wrong responses. The only “pathetic” thing about Aly’s article is that there weren’t more like it.
Major italics fail. :S
AMM @ 7 – that article was written by a muslim who has in the past been a spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria. I’d imagine that the target audience is as much the wider Australian community as it is the Muslim community. And I think its good that a Muslim gets a prominent voice in the debate rather than just non-muslims talking about muslims….
Great post Mindy!
I read enough of the article to wonder what would need to be changed if you were to talk about the reaction to the New York attacks, given the date. I don’t think I found much.