3. Discussion And Analysis
3.1 Muslim Diasporas and media consumption
Like it is the case with most of the British people who ‘spend, on average, 25 hours per week watching television’ (Livingstone, 1996: 305), mass media, and particularly television, play an important role in the life of diasporic Muslims, in terms of both the time spent watching television and the centrality of the latter in their activities at home. Indeed, all informants confirmed that television holds a central position at home since watching it is the main activity they perform with their families when they gather in evenings or at weekends. They all indicated that the coming of transnational channels transformed their viewing habits and the way they interact with media in general.
Actually, before the advent of transnational channels, diasporic Arab Muslims could only watch local channels, relying on the radio to get news about their countries of origin. Raed, a British Iraqi, says about his experience at that time:
We used to watch only BBC TV channels. There was a scarcity in news. We got news about the Arab World by listening to Arab radio stations on short waves, [which] did not have a good reputation, except the Arabic service in the BBC World service. We used to stay late in the night to listen to this channel.
Thanks to the revolution in communications technologies, Arab satellite channels using DBS and, later on, digital technologies mushroomed after the second Gulf war in 1991 (see Ayish, 2001). This provided a wide range of choices to Arab Muslims living in
I follow the news at every hour. [we watch] mainly Arab channels. I don’t mind watching English ones, but they cover events like [those of]
Television news programs provide diasporic people with more than information. For them, ‘news viewing is ritualistic, symbolic and a matter of feeling as much as information’ (Barker, 1997: 131). Watching news, mainly on Arab transnational Arab channels, helps diasporic Muslims to feel connected to their native countries and communities. It helps them also to feel they belong to a local community with whom they share common preferences and point of view on issues that interest them most. Georgiou (2004: 54) rightly notes that, ‘media reinforce a sense of belonging in a community that can exist even if its members are dispersed across different countries, even if they are otherwise very different in terms of generation, age, class, gender and sexuality’. For Muslim Arab audiences, news about the Islamic World, in general, and the Arab World, in particular hold priority over other types of news. Since most of the times local channels allocate a short time for news about the Arab world, they do not attract the attention of Arab audiences. .
However, despite the fact they share many common traits, diasporic Arab Muslims do not constitute a homogeneous audience or media consumers, in general. In fact, a wide range of factors that run across diverse modalities of gender, class, generations and education underpin their experience as consumers of media texts. The data generated by the informants’ testimonies showed that there is a wide spectrum of diversity at the level of media choices and television consumption habits. At the far end of the spectrum, some respondents indicated that they hardly watched local channels due to moral reasons. Speaking about his preferences, Hisham points out:
At home we watch only Arab channels. … We watch mainly news programs on Al-Jazeera, and religious programs on Al-Manar and Eqra’a channels[1]. We don’t watch English channels. Their channels are immoral. They show immoral things even in ads to promote goods. It is acceptable for them, but not for us. I fear about our children, and so we don’t switch to [these channels].
It is evident, then, that mass media, mainly local television channels, are considered by some diasporic Muslims as a threat to their identity and that of their children’s. It is also clear that religion is an important factor both behind the choice of programs to watch or those to avoid. While at the other end of the spectrum, another informant declared that he watched Arab channels only for a very short time each day. Because he is married to a British woman of Pakistani origin, and his children have grown up in
I am the only person at home who knows Arabic very well, and I don’t want to impose my choices on the other members of the family…so normally I contend by watching only one news hour on Al-Jazeera. The remaining time we watch English channels…I like to watch comedies, because when you start to understand the culture you enjoy them more.
The last two examples demonstrate clearly that watching television is an act that is tightly interwoven in the fabric of everyday life at home and the particularity of that experience. They also show that the act of watching television is more a collective activity than individual one, which reflects power relations between the members of the family as well as the cultural norms that govern their life (see Morley, 1986). In the former example, on the one hand, the act of watching television is strictly monitored by the head of the family and subjected to guidelines governing the home, where many diasporic Muslims try to live in accordance to the cultural norms of their native countries. Zokaie and Philips (2000: 49) note that the ‘interaction between western values and Islamic values is often seen [by British Muslims] as potentially disruptive and as something which requires constant vigilance by the parents to keep their children in control’.
In the latter example, on the other hand, the act of watching television is governed more by the experience of members of the family in the local society where they live. In fact, Raed’s case is a an illustration of diasporic experience where members of a diaspora have to find a compromise between choosing to live according to the cultural norms of their native countries and adapting to those of the dominant culture in their host society.
Furthermore, some informants declared that, though they prefer to watch Arab channels, they like also to watch local ones because the latter provide them with programs that most benefit them in their daily life. Thus, Anas, a Moroccan restaurant-owner, indicated that he followed regularly ‘Ramsey’ Kitchen nightmares’ program on channel 4 because he learns from it how to enhance the profile of his restaurant. Accordingly, though they are widely watched and in most cases preferred over other media outlets, transnational channels do not negate the importance of local media in the daily life of diasporic Muslims, as the latter help them to get integrated into the society where they live.
Besides, while they differ in terms of the type of the channels they watch, diasporic Muslims differ also in how they consume media messages. Some of the respondents showed they were active readers who process media messages critically and sceptically. Hisham, for instance, stated that he did not trust all that Arab channels said about
practice propaganda and look for sensationalism when they report news about bombings in
As Hisham discovered, transnational channels, like all media, do not reflect reality but construct it according to a particular discursive structure and ideological point of view. More importantly, he uses one medium, namely the telephone, to check the validity of messages he receives via a different medium, namely television. This shows that media do not function in isolation, but can negate, refer to or complement one another. The ability of respondents to deal critically with the media differs widely according to their level of education and social status. The notion of the active audience, however, should not be understood only in the sense of resistant readers who are able to counter-interpret media messages. As Livingston (1998: 189) notes, ‘the question of resistance […] hangs not so much on the interpretative process but on the relation between the textual and extra-textual resources drawn upon during making sense of television’ or any other mass medium. Commenting on the way she interprets both local and transnational media, Rajaa, an Egyptian and medical consultant, says:
When I want to know about something, I check the Guardian, the BBC and of course Al-Jazeera. But I trust more Al-Jazeera. I think they give complementary view… but when I read in the Guardian about
The latter example demonstrates clearly that reading a text critically does not involve only the reader and media texts. As a Muslim woman living in
3.2 Mass media consumption and identity construction
While the samples used to generate the data for the current research cannot be claimed to be representative of the Arab Muslim diaspora in
I’m a Muslim, I’m an Iraqi, too…
Other informants affirmed they viewed the Muslim identity as categorically opposed to the ‘British’ one, on moral grounds. Arguing about the dangers of living within a different cultural and social context compared to the one of his native country, Saeed points out:
It’d better if you want to keep your identity and origins not to integrate too much with [the English], because you will lose then your religion […] They believe in individual freedom. A man from us cannot do whatever he likes except according to the precepts of God. You should not have sex with a girl without marriage. They consider it as a normal thing […] you see how they became so immoral.
Saeed’s last statement reflects a clear essentialist view of religion, identity and the other. It reduces the ‘Muslim identity’ to purely moral guidelines, while it views the ‘English’ identity as diametrically opposed to and uncompromisingly different from the ‘Muslim’ one. Ansari (2003:8) rightly argues that interpretations of Islam that portray it as ‘immune to processes of economic, social, ideological and political change, have long obscured the complexities of the historical experience of Muslims in different societies’.
In contrast to the previous stance, other respondents, mainly those who stated that they preferred to watch both transnational and local television channels, and are open to Western media, in general, revealed a less essentialist view of how they regard their identity. Anas, for instance, says that although he is a Muslim, he feels his Moroccan identity takes precedence over any other form of identity:
I’m Moroccan first. Moroccan culture is deeply rooted in me. When I meet other Muslims I feel they look at me first as a Moroccan. It’s in their subconscious, and mine. My first adherence is to
Indeed, despite the importance of religion, it is far from being the sole variable shaping British Muslims identity. Though they may identify with Asian Muslims on religious grounds, Arab Muslims, for instance, may view them to be different culturally. Describing how she perceives non-Arab Muslims, mainly Asian Muslims, Rajaa points out:
When I see a Pakistani woman, I think this is a Muslim woman. I don’t think I share with her many cultural aspects, though I share with her religion. There is something that unites us, but it’s different when I think of somebody of
Indeed, the boundaries of an ethnic community are neither clearly marked nor complete, since they are constantly changing and reconstructed within the diasporic experience. Commenting on how he rediscovered his affiliation to a Pan-Arab cultural background, Anas says:
When I came to
Ana’s identity as a Moroccan is a complex articulations of Arab, Islamic, African and Berber origins, on the one hand, and Mediterranean one, on the other. His journey away from his country set him off on another journey in which he rediscovered the complexity of his cultural roots and identity affiliations. His experience reveals clearly how an ethnic group is never a closed community since it is a circle endlessly crossed by other circles that defy any attempt at imposing clear boundaries on it. His experience also indicates how diasporic experience is a constant search for stability both in the real sense and in terms of cultural affiliations. As Hall (1993:402) states, ‘diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing themselves anew, through transformation and difference’.
While the above findings may suggest the existence of dynamic relation between the way people consume and interact with mass media and how they construct their own identity, this does not mean that mass media determine how people perceive identity. What the findings may confirm is that there is a sort of an active interaction between the media and the way diasporic Muslims try to cope with their life as members of a minority estranged from their native homes and cultures. Indeed, because members of any ethnic group bring their experiences to the act of consuming media, ‘the functions and values of media and identities meet dynamically in everyday life, and although (or perhaps because) conflicts and inconsistencies exist, they achieve their compatibility’ (Georgiou, 2004: 59).
3.3 The role of religious and community institutions in identity construction: the mosque as an example
While the mass media, both the local and transnational ones, play an important role in the way British Muslims construct their identity, they are not the only institutions or systems that have that role. In this sense, there are a number of institutions that contribute enormously to the way many British Muslims construct their identity, such as Islamic societies, community groups and associations. A number of respondents declared they were members of such institutions where they share with other Muslims their experiences, organize common activities, or perform religious and cultural ceremonies. As Ansari (2003: 11-12) notes, in the experience of Muslim diasporas in
The mosque remains the most important among all these forms of organized communal life. Unlike in Islamic countries where the majority of mosques are used mainly for prayer, in Britain, mosques act as cultural and social centres that provide many services such as language teaching, social help and moral guidance for local communities, among others. Commenting on the role of the Mosque for him as a Muslim, Raed notes:
For me, [the mosque] was the place that helped me to bear the feeling of estrangement, and where to meet other [Muslim] people. The mosque organizes activities during religious feasts and vacations. In addition, it is where we pray daily and can meet each other. When I came here, I did not know many things, and I met people [in the mosque] who guided me.
Most respondents also noted that the role of the mosque has been enhanced by the religious freedom enjoyed by Muslims in
In the Mosque here, you have on Monday a religious sermon by Sheikh Judea. Tuesday, you can have a lecture, the next day another activity… you see… you sit with an Imam […] who allows you to ask any question in your mind and he encourages you to think and gives you freedom… this doesn’t existent at home. They used to teach us only ablutions and inheritance.
Indeed, religious identity for diasporic Muslim is not something they bring with them from their home countries and live by rigidly. As they discover new ways to define religion itself, they start to contest ‘what it means to be a Muslim, what Islam means and how it should be constructed and reproduced both in the West and in the rest of the world’ (Werbner, 2000: 315). In this light, it is possible to argue that mass media and ‘small’ media as systems of communication, though operating at different levels, interact dynamically with the daily experience of Muslim diasporas, and contribute to shape the latter’s way of viewing themselves as an ethnic minority.
3.4 The Representation of Muslims and its impact on diasporic Muslim’s identity construction
The data yielded rich and diverse information on how different respondents interact with various media, and the manner in which they perceive their identity. Paradoxically though, it revealed that, however problematic it is, the notion of the existence of a unified Muslim identity is shared by most respondents. In other words, if identity is discursively constructed, it is composed of complex and sometimes opposed discourses about the self, the other and the community. The data equally revealed the complexity and, perhaps, particularity of the experience of diasporic Muslims in
Indeed, while some respondents did not consider their religious background as the prime constituent of their identity, they indicated that the ‘Other’, namely the white British people regard them mainly as Muslims. Moreover, most respondents claimed that they have become more aware of the importance of their Islamic affiliations because of what they regard as a hostile attitude towards Muslim minority, either in the way the local media represent them or within society at large. Thus, Raed thinks that though Muslim Arabs differ from Asian Muslims at many levels,
It doesn’t matter for [for the British] really if you were an Arab, a Hindu, or an African. It is enough that you are different and that you are in an inferior position, and that’s the end of it. The relationship that binds you is that between an aboriginal citizen and an alien.
Despite the cultural, ethnic and even sectarian differences that divide them, many diasporic Muslims members see that what unifies them all really is the feeling of being beleaguered not only within
[1] The two channels broadcast mainly religious programs.
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