Vol. 82, No. 90
Eugene, Oregon 97403
Friday, January 30, 1981
Muslims charge media distortion
By PAUL TELLES
Of the Emerald
The American press grossly misrepre
sented Islamic culture throughout the
hostage crisis, Muslim students and a
University professor say.
“The news media are generally satis
fied with superficial presentations,” says
religious studies Prof. Stephen Reyn
olds.
Although he doesn’t condone the tak
ing of hostages, Reynolds says the press
was mistaken when it explained the ac
tion as being an expression of retributive
and fanatical Muslim culture.
Actually, Islam encompasses too large
an area to make such generalizations
possible, Reynolds says. While the tak
ing of the hostages may have been re
prehensible, it is not consistent with
Islamic religion or law, he says.
“They (the militants who took the hos
tages) may certainly be bastards, but it’s
not because they're Muslims.”
Islamic law is the most widely
misrepresented part of Islamic culture,
according to Reynolds, who says the
press has overemphasized practices like
beheading adulterers and cutting off the
hands of thieves.
Although it is imperfect, Islamic law is
not necessarily more barbaric than any
other, he says.
“If you look at the Islamic world, you
see a lot of foibles. But I'm not sure
they’re worse than anywhere else," he
says, noting that the humanity of the
American legal system also is arguable
While cqrporal punishments
sometimes are required in Islamic coun
tries, they are a small part of Islamic law,
he says.
"A great deal of the Islamic legal sys
tem is intended for what we also regard
as humanitarian ends,” says Reynolds,
who teaches a course in Islamic religion.
For instance, Islamic law requires
Muslims to pay a tax to the poor, called a
zakat, in order to promote a fair distribu
tion of wealth. Muslims also equalize the
rich and poor during the yearly feast of
Ramadan when they fast during daylight
hours, Reynolds says.
Rather than promote retributive jus
tice, Islamic law frequently has sup
planted systems of law based on clan
revenge, he adds.
Muslim students agree the press has
taken the sometimes-gruesome punish
ments out of the context of Islamic
society.
"Islamic law isn’t a code of punish
ment,” says Aziz, a Saudi Arabian
member of the Muslim Students As
sociation. "It (the punishment) is the last
resort to put things in their right places.”
Like Reynolds, Aziz emphasizes the
humanitarian aspects of Islamic law. For
instance, he says Islamic law deals less
harshly with people who commit crimes
of necessity than with criminals whose
acts are wanton.
However, "if a person does something
like this (commits an anti-social crime),
Islam says there is no way but to get rid of
the enemy” for the collective good of
society, he says.
Although punishments like beheading
and dismemberment seem exceedingly
cruel to westerners, it is important to put
them in the proper perspective, both
Reynolds and the students say.
Ahmed Altwaijri, also a Saudi Arabian,
points out capital punishment is being
revived in America.
"It's really just a contradiction,"
Altwaijri says. “If people are directly
affected, they are all for capital punish
ment. Once they're away from it, they
philosophize.”
Americans frequently fail to see this
similarity because they mistake moder
nization for civilization and believe they
are more civilized because their tech
nology is more efficient, Aziz says.
"To me, civilization first is developing
the mentality and the personality of the
individual," he says. "If you only improve
your tools, you aren’t civilized, you’re
modernized.”
Like many aspects of Third-World cul
ture, Islamic law is facing massive read
justment problems caused by hurried
modernization, Reynolds says.
“There's going to be some obvious
need for some body of law which might
not be the traditional basis of Islamic law,
but which will be complementary to it."
The students blame the misrepresen
tation of Islamic culture on a conspiracy
between the press and wealthy Amer
icans like David Rockefeller, chairman of
the board of the Chase-Manhattan bank,
but Reynolds doesn’t agree
“I think they (Rockefeller, the multi
national corporations and the Trilateral
Commission) try to arouse the emotions
of the American people to justify any
action they take against Third World
countries,” Aziz says.
Reynolds, however, blames the situa
tion on in-group thinking and ethnocen
tric education.
Journalists come to an arbitrary con
sensus on some issue and then “find
ways of defending their opinions against
any contrary evidence," he says.
Also, the American educational system
doesn’t prepare journalists or anyone
else for contacts with other cultures, he
says.
But this doesn’t absolve American
journalists from responsibility for the
misrepresentation of Islamic culture and
law during the past 14 months, he says.
Photo by Steve Dykes
Barry Brooks (with ball) and his USC teammates found the
route to the basket plugged by Ducks, like Ray Whiting
(above), as Oregon made it two straight Thursday with a
convincing 74-67 win over the Trojans. Story on Page 8.
‘Blown out of proportion ’
Students say
anger justified
By HARRY ESTEVE
Ol the Emerald
Not everyone feels sorry for
the 52 Americans recently
released from captivity in Iran.
About 50 people attended a
two-hour “teach-in" Thursday
night in the EMU on the media
coverage of the hostage crisis
The majority of the crowd was
either Iranian students or Amer
ican Marxists who condemned
the roles of the press and the
U S. and Iranian governments in
handling the hostage situation
The Iranian Student Associa
tion sponsored the meeting.
At the end of the teach-in one
message was clear: Few who
attended had much — if any —
sympathy for the 52 freed hos
tages.
Amin, an Iranian student who
chaired the meeting, called the
initial hostage taking ‘'jus
tified."
"The Iranian people had
every reason to be angry" 14
months ago when the 52 Amer
icans were taken hostage, Amin
said. "They protested, and
that’s what happened.”
The media, he said, "has
blown the whole situation way
out of proportion."
Amin said he organized the
"teach-in” because he thought
the media waged a "tremen
dous promotion against the
Iranian people," when news of
Iranian brutality accompanied
the release of the hostages.
The media “manipulated the
American people," he said, ad
Photo by Martha Stanton
University Iranian students Amin (left) and Tooraj led a ‘teach-in"
Thursday night on media coverage of the hostage crisis.
ding that the repeated scenes of
militant Iranians burning the
American flag were designed to
provoke anger against all Iran
ians.
"Now that the Americans
have returned, there is another
provocation," Amin said
“(Reports of) torture and mis
treatment have been blown out
of proportion."
Most of the audience agreed
with him. Tooraj, another Iran
ian student who organized the
meeting, claimed the U S. media
ignored reports that Americans
were tortured in Irdn during the
Shah's regime.
“They tried to make a specta
cle of the situation,” he said
about coverage of the hostage
crisis, "like a football game."
"Both sides used us,” he said
referring to U S. and Iran
governments. "They played
with our emotions.”
Marty Heiser, a University so
phomore, drew boos and
laughter from the crowd when
he said, "The Iranian people
should apologize to the Amer
ican people
"I may be a victim of 'imper
ialist propaganda,’ ” he said,
referring to several comments
made earlier, "but I watched on
TV an Iranian stabbing the
charred remains of an American
serviceman who was sent to
rescue the hostages.
"As an American, it bothers
me that you are trying to justify
that ”
Another Iranian student, Fi
rooz, said Americans should
have supported the hostage
taking
"American people believe in
freedom," he said. "The hos
tage crisis is a consequence of
people who love freedom Peo
ple who love freedom have to
support the action.”