Fox's hit show "24" took a giant leap into fair and balanced portrayals of Muslim characters in a well-directed episode this week, which featured two secular Muslims who aid Jack Bauer and his rival (romantic) to defend themselves against a gang of mercenaries.
This does much more in creating fair perceptions of Muslims than inane PSAs and balances the central Asian Muslim family in the show, who turn out to be sleeper terrorists, out to destroy the social fabric of their adopted society.
Secularism and Exclusivism have constantly battled it out in Islamic history. Traditionalists define the conflict as that between Islam and polytheism. Modernists have sought to embrace progressive thought, such as Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey.
When Mustafa Kamal (Ataturk) founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923 (he was its president until his death fifteen years later), he set as his main objective the modernization of the new republic. His preferred means was speedy, intensive secularization and, indeed, every one of his reforms was tied up with disestablishing other Islamic institutions from their hold on Turkey's politics, economics, society, and cultural life.Under his guidance, elected parliaments (comprising the only legal party, of which he was the chairman) passed, in rapid succession, a number of daring laws. Among these, probably the most revolutionary were those on education and the legal system. The former uprooted the religious element from all schools, making secularized instruction compulsory; this meant a completely new set of curricula, textbooks, and teachers. The latter abolished all religious courts (Islamic, Christian and Jewish), setting up instead secular courts with sets of laws and procedures based on Western European, largely Swiss, models; this implied the preparation of new laws and the training of new judges. To understand the boldness of this move, it should be remembered that in some of the other successor states of the Ottoman Empire, religious courts were abolished only much later - in Egypt, in 1956 - while in others they are still active, as in Israel and Lebanon.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
That was an absolutely great episode of 24 - I actually just saw it last night because of the Rock Hall thing Monday. And I agree this integration of "normal" Arab-Americans into the plot is much more effective than dopey PSA's with Islamic Eskimos.
Very fine, important post Aaman - I too hope, and after the positive events of the last couple of months, now believe that the rationals will win in the end. But we aren't there yet and neither is Jack.
2 - Temple Stark
I didn't really think of them as secular - we don't really know that. They certainly weren't extremist - and I thought just presenting them as regular Americans doing what any American would hope they would do in the same situation, was great.
There are more Muslims - secular or otherwise - who don't act like Al Qaeda. That's reality.
Thanks for doing this post. I thought about it but had other priorities.
3 - Eric Olsen
I don't think they ever identified themselves as Muslim at all - they said "Arab"
4 - Aaman
I'll need to watch it again closely - but it was implicitly intended as Muslim
5 - Eric Olsen
I agree it was the implication
6 - Aamir Ali
A devout Muslim is not automatically a crazy criminal neither is a secular Muslim an angel. That is a foolish way of thinking. You should just people on their behavior not on some abstracts like "secularism" or "traditionalism". That villain family on Fox is simply a criminal not a "Muslim criminal" family.
7 - Tristan
Eric was absolutely correct--
I rewatched it 4 times: they said only that they were Arabic--nothing was said OR IMPLIED about the word MUSLIM...........
That's kind of like assuming that every single white person you see is a xtian--they're NOT!
LABELS again~~stereotypes......
8 - Aaman
Tristan,
Coming from India, I would no more apply a stereotypical label than accept one. The individuals were Arab Americans, I accept. Nevertheless, the 24 episode guide from the Fox site is telling in intent
The key point of the post is that it is commendable that media is acknowledging, belatedly, that there is more than one type of Arab out there - not a startling revelation to the well-informed, but important nevertheless.