Başlık: Nuances of ‘Culture’, ‘Islam’ and ‘Conflict’: a selective qualitative analysis of ınternational newspaper discourses in the year 2008Yazar(lar):MINTEANU, DinuCilt: 4 Sayı: 2 Sayfa: 045-078 DOI: 10.1501/Iltaras_0000000098 Yayın Tarihi: 2006 PDF

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(1)45. Nuances of ‘Culture’, ‘Islam’ and ‘Conflict’: A Selective Qualitative Analysis of International Newspaper Discourses in the Year 2008 Dinu Minteanu. Abstract. Following a discussion of the theoretical and practical ambiguities/dilemmas posed by the topic at hand, this paper applies framing-analysis and cultural discourse analysis unto a sample of International news-media articles, in order to investigate the conceptual mechanics specific to the manner in which the term ‘culture’ is globally employed by journalists, in relation to the words ‘conflict’ and ‘Islam’. Having used a constructivist approach towards the subject matter, the author concludes that the literal presence of the term ‘culture’ or ‘cultural’ in the articles’ headlines is a likely indicator of nuanced, rather than polarized discourses involving ‘Islam’ and ‘conflict’. The notions of ‘nuanced’ and ‘polarized’ narratives will be defined, exemplified and highlighted throughout the paper, in an effort to provide a complementary methodological-hermeneutical system to that of quantitative, statistically-driven analyses. Keywords: Islam, conflict, discourse, newspapers. ¶.OWU·¶úVODP·YH¶dDW×üPD·$UDV×QGDNL1DQVODU<×O×6HoLOPLü 8OXVODUDUDV×*D]HWH+DEHUOHULQLQ1LWHOLNVHO$QDOL]L Özet. %XPDNDOHDODQGDNLNXUDPVDOYHX\JXODPD\DGDLUEHOLUVL]OLNOHUHLNLOHPOHUHLOLùNLQELUWDUW×ùPDoHUoHYHVLQGH NOWUNDYUDP×Q×QNUHVHORODUDNJD]HWHFLOHUWDUDI×QGDQNXOODQ×OPDELoLPOHULQLQNDYUDPVDOPHNDQL]PDODU×Q× ¶oDW×ùPD·YH¶÷VODP·NDYUDPODU×LOHLOLùNLOHQGLUHUHNXOXVODUDUDV×KDEHUPHG\DV×PDNDOHOHUL|UQHNOHPL ]HULQGHQoHUoHYHOHPHDQDOL]LYHNOWUHOV|\OHPDQDOL]LX\JXOD\DUDNDUDùW×UPDNWDG×U(OHDO×QDQNRQX\D LOLùNLQLQùDF×O×N\DNODù×P×Q×NXOODQDUDN\D]DUJD]HWHEDùO×NODU×QGD¶NOWU·YH\D¶NOWUHO·V|]FNOHULQLQ NXOODQ×P×Q×Q÷VODPYHoDW×ùPD\×LoHUHQNXWXSODùP×ùELUV|\OHPGHQGDKDoRNLQFHIDUNO×O×NODUDLùDUHWHWWLöL VRQXFXQDXODùP×ùW×U0DNDOHGH¶LQFHIDUNO×O×NODUDVDKLS·YH¶NXWXSODùP×ù·DQODW×ODUQLFHOLNVHOLVWDWLVWLNVHO DQDOL]OHULWDPDPOD\DQPHWRGRORMLNKHUPHQHXWLNELUVLVWHPVXQPDoDEDV×\ODWDQ×PODQDFDN|UQHNOHQGLULOHFHN YHYXUJXODQDFDNW×U Anahtar Kelimeler:÷VODPoDW×ùPDV|\OHPJD]HWHOHU. LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿

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(3) 46LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. Nuances of ‘Culture’, ‘Islam’ and ‘Conflict’: A Selective Qualitative Analysis of International Newspaper Discourses in the Year 2008. 7KH&XOWXUH5LGGOH$1HFHVVDU\,QWURGXFWLRQ The central focus of this specifically targeted, exclusively qualitative investigation into the written discourses of several English-written newspapers is the concept of ‘culture’ — more precisely, the manner in which this cardinal notion is constructed, used, or taken for granted by various journalists, in relationship with two other key words — ‘Islam’ and ‘conflict’. Before going into the methodological and empirical details of this analysis, several preliminary, general parentheses drawn around these key concepts will not only prove fruitful, but will also play an essential role in anticipating the methodological choices later made by the author. ‘Culture’, perhaps more in the 21st century than during the one preceding it, is a notion that has clearly become politically, socially and psychologically charged, as Westerners live and vote in a context of global eth(n)ical uncertainties. Liberal democracies across post-modern Europe are faced with a number of trials, attributable as much to the economic vagaries of a globalized financial system, as to the mutating social fabric of the world itself. Liberals and conservatives alike seem to acknowledge the dilemmas posed by such socio-political challenges as mass immigration, youth unemployment, demographic downturns, or the many blurry issues of ‘multicultural’ societies. Although solutions put on the table by various parties (political or not) differ considerably, formulations of many of these problems are frequently articulated using key notions such as ‘culture’, ‘civilisation’ or.

(4) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 47. ‘identity’. To these terms, popular labels such as ‘Islam’ or ‘Western’ are frequently attached and counterpoised, marking the birth of particular rhetorical discourses, the details of which we will examine shortly. Yet before reviewing a process that was made transparent by Edward Said (1997) well before my own modest analysis was conceived, one should take the time and reveal the intrinsic ambiguities pertaining to what I would call a complex constructivist algebra generated by such a seemingly simple term as ‘culture’. Firstly, although it may appear somewhat axiomatic when formally stated out, it might nonetheless prove instructive to briefly consider the fact that, more so today than ever before, the world takes an enormous amount of things for granted. Interestingly enough, the more “civilized” — or, as Ingleheart (2008) would put it — the more post-material a society is, the more it seems to rely on presupposed physical and mental structures. Surely enough, we value and use credit cards not because of their explicit value (as would have been the case with a Medieval golden coin), but because of certain implicit attributes with which this ubiquitous piece of magnetized plastic is associated (such as bank account balances, credit thresholds or access to ATM machines). Furthermore, knowing how something functions is not a necessary condition for us claiming it for usage and expecting it to perform adequately. This observation obviously concerns, but is not limited to the technical repertoire of the modern world (computers, mobile technology etc.); it also covers much more abstract, yet none-.

(5) 48LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. theless influential, central structural notions of our daily lives. ‘Democracy’ is one such notion, and ‘culture’ is another. These two concepts, the former serving as an auxiliary example and the latter being of direct interest to us, are undoubtedly familiar and are generally taken for granted by most people. However, on a closer mental inspection, both will generate highly complex dialectics and will prove to be equivocal, and thus difficult to exhaustively define. Democracy is, of course, much more than a political system in which leaders are appointed by popular vote. While scholars such as Held (2006) continue to articulate the complexities, limitations and manifold implications of various democratic models (for it is, indeed, more sensible to talk about democracies than about ‘democracy’ per se), such academic ventures do not lessen the sharp relevance of what Winston Churchill once said: “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter”. Keeping the same undertone, one may argue that an equally strong argument against culture (or at least against some customary aspects of it) is a five minute talk with a contemporary European right-wing populist1. Such things considered, one should tread carefully when trying to grasp what ‘culture’ actually is. The distinguished cultural anthropologist and proponent of symbolic anthropology Clifford James Geertz sees culture as a “historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of intended conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life” (Geertz, 1973: 5). The problem with such a broad definition is that it allows itself to be stretched to the point when almost everything and anything can be considered ‘culture’. Not surprisingly, other scholars adopted a differently divergent approach, which resulted in the formulation of 1. See Betz and Johnson (2004) and Cuperus (2003) to understand how the notion of culture has implicitly and explicitly been used by contemporary right wing populist parties throughout Europe to sketch out simplistic, uncompromising ethno-national policies in a world in which such solutions do not only fail to resolve crises, but are often a product of media use-and-abuse and of the shallow forms of “symbolic” politics..

(6) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 49. over 150 definitions of ‘culture’, ranging from “learned behaviour” to “intrinsic ideas of the human mind”, a “construct of logical nature”, “psychological defence-mechanism”, “statistical fiction” etc. (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952, cited in White, 2003: 2). To lessen the confusion and nonetheless add to the complexity, one should also keep in mind that ‘culture’ may well be seen as one of Gallie’s (1964) ‘essentially contested’, or fundamentally controversial notions: it is highly complex, it contains an evaluative element, is susceptible to being defined divergently, and can trigger new debates as historical contexts change.. 7KH&RQWHPSRUDU\,QWHUSOD\RI. &XOWXUH·¶&RQIOLFW·DQG¶,VODP· Narrowing down the definition of ‘culture’ according to how it is portrayed and used in present-day political and social affairs will not only bring us closer to the topic of this research paper, but it will also provide a hermeneutical basis for understanding the analyzed newspaper narratives themselves. Raymond Williams (1995) discerns three connotations of culture that seem to have melted together in today’s public perception: culture as civilization, culture as way of life and culture as monument. Culture thus becomes a complex system of values, ideas and practices. It is prevailing in its specificity and tends to be discriminatory by nature. It creates a polarisation between those who belong to it and those who do not (hence the apparent strong validity of the “cultural conflict” construct, i.e. the ‘democratic West’ vs. a ‘violent Islam’ — an issue that will be specifically addressed later on). That is to say, “people fall back on these elements to reflect on their identity and position” and to react to societal and political changes (Koenis and Roder, 2008: 5). Shortly after the fall of the Iron Curtain, in a keen anticipation of emerging political and ideological uncertainties, the well-known Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington (1993) suggested that the murky waters of international politics need not and, indeed, will not prove to be that murky after all. Huntington sketched out a post-Cold War globe distinctly divided into several “civilizations” (Western, Islamic,.

(7) 50LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. Hindu, Confucian, Latin American, Slavic-Orthodox and possibly African), all implacably ordained to clash with one another, due to their essential and irrevocable cultural2 differences — ‘Islam’ and the ‘Western World’ are especially seen as antagonist future forces, in a scenario that is basically reduced to a ‘West against the rest’ story-line. In putting forward his now (in)famous Clash of Civilisations thesis, Huntington not only sparked a lively debate3 among social and political scientists, but also became influential on a wider political scale, especially following the September 11, 20014 terrorist attacks on American soil. It was not uncommon during the following years for high-level American officials to allude to Huntington or to his paradigm when referring to the (ongoing) global war on terror, its implications, causes or ramifications. Alongside Huntington, Princeton University Professor Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes (director and founder of a Middle East Forum think tank and an influent scholar of Middle Eastern history) are two more eminent members of what Gerges (1999) identifies as an erudite, “confrontationalist” camp of American scholarship activists who firmly believe that “political Islam” (an ominous, yet somewhat obscure idiom) and “democracy” are incompatible realities.. 2. Ideological, economical and even fundamentally geo-political state-dynamics are more or less shoved aside, in the face of what for Huntington seems to be the exponentially increasing relevance of “civilizational” rifts and incompatibilities. For a brief summary of alternative explanations put forward by other scholars, see Munteanu (2008).. 3. See, for example, Huntington et al. (1996), Brown (1999) or Holton (2000). Even the Encyclopaedia Britannica Editorial Board appointed Harvard Professor of Anthropology James Watson (2003) to update their article on globalization with a section called Emergence of global subcultures; the text extensively quotes Huntington’s work, while taking a consistent, nuanced and highly critical approach towards it.. 4. The September 11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by terrorist organisation al-Qaeda upon the United States of America, on September 11, 2001. Nineteen terrorists managed to crash two commercial airplanes into the Twin Towers of the New York World Trade Centre (which consequently collapsed), and a third airliner into the Pentagon..

(8) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 51. It is interesting to observe how Huntington manages to interchangeably use the highly intricate notions of ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’, and how he tends to overlook hundreds of years of history5, in the process of creating conflicting islands of civilizational distinctiveness. Moreover, it remains curious that, despite elaborate and rather exhaustive critiques (e.g., Wedeen, 2003; Said, 2001; Huntington et al., 1996) and empirical refutations (Fox, 2005; Mungiu-Pippidi and Mindruta, 2002; Henderson and Tucker, 2001; Russett et al., 2000), his ideas surface, in one form or another, on the political or mental agendas of global political actors6. A long time critic of the Huntingtonian paradigm, and an outspoken proponent of Arab issues, Edward Said (2004) claimed that not only is the Clash of Civilisations thesis a “reductive and vulgar notion” (p. 226), but it is also an illustration “of the purest invidious racism, a sort of parody of Hitlerian science directed today against Arabs and Muslims” (p. 293). In this sense, Said’s monumental works on (anti-)Orientalism, cultural imperialism and the politics of dispossession might have raised several important critical questions for at least some of Huntington’s readers. Also because his observations are directly relevant to our research topic, Mr. Said’s work is worthy of being quoted at large: “My concern […] is that the mere use of the label «Islam», either to explain or indiscriminately condemn «Islam», actually ends up becoming a form of attack […] «Islam» defines a relatively small proportion of what actually takes place in the Islamic world, which numbers a billion people, and includes dozens of countries, 5. Explicitly referring to Huntington, Amartya Sen (1999) points to the fact that “diversity is a feature of most cultures in the world. Western civilization is no exception. The practice of democracy that has won out in the modern West is largely a result of a consensus that has emerged since the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and particularly in the last century or so. To read in this a historical commitment of the West — over the millennia — to democracy, and then to contrast it with nonWestern traditions (treating each as monolithic) would be a great mistake” (p. 16).. 6. For example, in Belgium in texts signed by populist Filip Dewinter (Vlaams Belang), and in the Netherlands in political statements by Christian politician André Rouvoet or VVD party-leader Mark Rutte (Stoffers, 2008: 9)..

(9) 52LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. societies, traditions, languages and, of course, an infinite number of different experiences. It is simply false to try to trace all this back to something called «Islam», no matter how vociferously polemical Orientalists […] insisted that Islam regulates Islamic societies from top to bottom, that dar al-Islam is a single, coherent entity, that church and state are really one in Islam, and so forth.” (Said, 1997: xvi) Indeed, as early as the 1970’s scholars such as Abu Zahra argued that Islam vastly varies contextually and historically. Sections from the Koran that assert equality for men and women have been pointed out and, most importantly, warnings have been issued regarding the very significant gaps that may (and do) exist between erudite, theologically nuanced readings of the Koran on one hand, and widely-held popular views and practices on the other. Also, embracing an already problematic “bulk” of Islam as an explanation for social and cultural phenomena might not only prove unproductive, but is also a rather flawed endeavour, since it ignores or neglects specific state-policies and interventions (Zahra, 1970, cited in Goddard et al., 1994: 66). Moreover, even decades after being formulated, fundamental questions such as what Islam means for Muslims themselves in the modern world are still “an issue for debate and action in the context of the politics of nation states, the struggle for energy supplies, superpower rivalry, and dependency. What is the «umma», the Islamic community, and how and where is «ijma», or consensus to be formed?” (Gilsenan, 1982, cited in Lukens-Bull, 1999: 15, added italics). Similar arguments have been woven around the term ‘fundamentalism’, a “slippery concept […], and word that has come to be associated almost automatically with Islam, although it has a flourishing, usually elided, relationship with Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism” (Said, 1997: xvi). It has been suggested that “the deliberately created associations between Islam and fundamentalism ensure that the average reader comes to see Islam and fundamentalism as essentially the same thing” (Said, 1997: xvi). Indeed, Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Tunisia have a hard time fitting into Huntington’s fierce Weltanschauung, while his.

(10) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 53. prediction that Turkey might decide to follow some sort of imperial past becomes less plausible by the day, as even newly elected “Islamic” Turkish conservative leaders turn towards Brussels, and not Tashkent, when contemplating foreign affairs.. 0DVVPHGLDDQGWKH'HSOR\PHQWRI7UXWKV $7KHRUHWLFDO)UDPHZRUN While I subscribe to Olivier Roy’s observations (2004: 10-11) regarding the striking character of how ready-made clichés regarding ‘Islam’ have permeated both academic and political mediums, another fact is at least equally confounding. The above quoted French author’s surprisingly comprehensive and balanced covering of “globalized Islam” does not mention it explicitly7, but one can hardly ignore how major news-outlets perpetuate exactly this type inexact, uneducated formulas regarding ‘Islam’, ‘culture’ and ‘conflict’. In a fast-pacing, almost runaway world of instant information delivery, editorial deadlines, global media coverage and massive media dispersion throughout society, the importance (hegemony?) of what is now already an international news industry can hardly be understated. Even long before the Internet arouse as the inexhaustible, highly flexible and constantly changing information platform that it is today, scholars were pointing out the fact that “things like newspapers, news and opinions do not occur naturally; they are made, as the result of human will, history, social circumstances, institutions, and the conventions of one’s profession” (Said, 1997: 49). Therefore, aims such as press objectivity, factuality, realistic coverage and accuracy may also be seen as “highly relative terms, [expressing] intentions, perhaps, and not realizable goals” (Said, 1997: 50).. 7. Roy’s own engagements with journalism might have something to do with him not attacking or questioning the way in which the news industry (dis)functions. Of course, it is also true that one can only adequately address a limited number of isVXHVLQDERRNDQG5R\·VHIIRUW

(11) GHÀQLWHO\DGGVXSWRRQHRIWKHEHVWDQGPRVW authoritative volumes on “real-world” Islam today..

(12) 54LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. Processes of deliberate selection-and-expression in media coverage may be inevitable, but they should not be taken lightly or at face value, especially if we set out to qualitatively analyze newspaper discourses. For example, even in the midst of the Cold War, Robert Darnton (1975) described the “symbiosis as well as antagonisms that grow up between a reporter and his sources” (p. 183), the “pressures of standardizing and stereotyping” (p. 188) and the way in which journalists “bring more to the events they cover than they take away from them” (p. 192). I thus believe that a constructivist approach to all journalistic subject-matter is the sensible way to proceed, as this permits a multifaceted understanding of the contingent relationships between ‘culture’, ‘Islam’ and ‘conflict’. Taken for granted assumptions concerning values, attitudes, identities and other collectively shared expectations do not follow a logic of consequentiality, but rather one of moral or social appropriateness (Campbell, 2002: 23-24). In the case of newspapers, such normative frameworks may converge and form what constructivist theorists have simply called frames, denoting “normative and sometimes cognitive ideas that are located in the foreground of debates, with the purpose of legitimization” (Campbell, 2002: 26). Having roots in cognitive psychology and anthropology, the definitions and practical implementations of framing-analysis are quite eclectic8, and there are currently no uniform methodological standards governing them. What is relevant for this research is that framing also covers the connection between the journalistic shaping of news “within a frame of reference and according to a latent structure of meaning” and the “stimulation of the public to adopt these frames and to view reality from the same perspective as the journalists do” (McQuail, 2000, cited in Gorp, 2005: 485). Examples of popular works that make use, at a meta-level, of this type of constructivist approaches, include Said’s acclaimed volume “Covering Islam — How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World” (1997), or Lewis’s 8. See Gorp, 2005: 484-485, for a brief discussion regarding this issue..

(13) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 55. (2005) acute observations regarding the role of media and culture in global terror and political violence. However, the academic forum does not abound with empirical analyses concerned with how the concept of ‘Islam’ is employed in and by various newspapers around the globe. There are, of course, islands of sober analysis, such as John Richardson’s “[Mis]Representing Islam: The Racism and Rhetoric of British Broadsheet Newspapers” (2004), in which the author exposes how Britain’s right-wing press perpetuates an ontological framework in which “Islam equals backward, and the West equals progress” (p. 101). The same Richardson (2001) applied a rather elaborate type of argumentative discourse theory (to be more precise, pragma-dialectical argumentation) in scrutinizing British “letters to the editors”, in which Islam and/or Muslims were cited as actors, and the “letters represented an example of a discourse of spatial management — the national space being the space in question, and the managers being the dominant elites, as represented by the broadsheet newspaper readership” (p. 143). Other studies concluded that ‘Islam’ was being marginalized and instrumentalized by the press in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia (Garon, 1997), or that the perpetuation of stereotyped ‘enemy images’ obstructed journalists from analytically covering various international conflicts (such as the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980 or the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990) (Ottosen, 1995; Karim, 2000). Similar conclusions were formulated in the case of German newspaper articles by Hafez (2000), while Poole (2002) argued that Muslims and “British” moral values were portrayed as incompatible in several media outlets. In analysing post-9/11 representations of Islam in the American elite press, Mishra (2008) exemplarily uses the hermeneutical framework provided by Said’s critical work on Orientalism, while also drawing on Foucault’s more philosophical, yet nonetheless relevant writings on the concept of discourse9, defined as “the location where power and knowledge are joined together” (Foucault, 1990, cited in Mishra, 2008: 160). Mishra’s recent study revealed a generally unipo. ,QWKLVVHQVH/XNH

(14) KDVDOVRH[SORUHGKRZWUXWKVDQGSHUFHSWLRQVDUHÀUVW FRQVWUXFWHGDQGWKHQWDNHQIRUJUDQWHGVHUYLQJDVWRROVIRUIXUWKHUGHÀQLWLRQVDQG popular points of reference..

(15) 56LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. lar, indiscriminate U.S. elite press, which consistently portrayed any politically assertive role for Islam, violent or peaceful, as a threat to Western civilization and democracy (p. 171). Intense debates such as those regarding the role of secularism10 in constructing a viable democracy, or the finer nuances between temperate traditionalism and uncompromising fundamentalism were not adequately explored (or even touched upon), the press often assuming that “any visibility of religious commitment in the public and political spheres automatically implied a lack of commitment to democracy, human rights, and women’s rights” (p. 173). Distinguished journalists from newspapers such as The New York Times or The Washington Post did not hesitate to prescribe formulas for the reformation of Islam, a process which was often defined as a “journey from Islamism to secularism, from tradition to Western modernity, from anti-Western to pro-Western attitudes” (p. 173).. 5HVHDUFK$UJXPHQWDQG0HWKRGRORJ\ I have so far sketched out the controversial, intricately divisive relationships that exist between the notions of ‘culture’, ‘conflict’ and ‘Islam’. Needless to say, my analysis strives to harbour a neutral, academic point of view, and this rather exploratory endeavour was built upon a paramount qualitative, constructivist approach towards these texts. Being aware of the evasive aura that covers the concept of ‘culture’, I aimed at understanding how those articles that included the word ‘culture’ or ‘cultural’11 in their headline present themselves. Of course, the in-text markers of ‘Islam’ and ‘conflict’ were also included in the search, in an attempt to investigate how these three keywords 10 See, also, Fox’s (2006) analysis on separation of religion and state into the 21st century, or Esposito’s (1999) work The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? Burleigh’s (2006) Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda also provides a useful, yet at times fuming perspective over similar issues. 11 Although I have initially expected for the keyword “cultural” to predominantly yield articles covering cultural events such as art exhibitions, this has not proven to be the case. Even when this did happen, I found the respective articles nonetheless relevant for the analysis..

(16) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 57. shape the content of media narrations, and whether this constellation increases or decreases the possibility of framing ‘conflict’ and ‘Islam’ in a polarized, antagonist manner. Therefore, an important methodological aspect of this research focuses on headline probing. Today, information not only abounds, it virtually floods almost every aspect of our modern lives, from the isles of supermarkets to the invading, ubiquitous commercials or the millions of online-accessible information pools. Print, film, magnetic, and optical storage media produced approximately 5 exabytes of new information in 2002 alone (Felföldi, 2004). Suffice to say is that if we would digitize (with full formatting) the seventeen million books in the U.S. Library of Congress, we would contain about 136 terabytes of information. Five exabytes of information would cover the information contained in approx. 37,000 new libraries the size of the Library of Congress book collections (Felföldi, 2004: 3). This creates a context that makes Herbert Simon’s famous observations no less relevant today that they were thirty years ago: “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” (Simon, 1971, cited in Davenport and Beck, 2001). Newspapers too have to compete for attention, and the construction and diffusion of headlines are among the first and foremost means employed by editors and reporters to contend for readers’ attention. Added to this is the obvious importance of the actual location of an article within the publication’s body — front page, book review sections, local news or comment-and-debate pages all imply their own force field of rhetoric, influence and attention-grabbing. Some articles are contributed by “regular”, professional journalists, other by academics, and other by anonymous readers. As will be evident in the interpretation of the results, I have taken these factors into consideration, where applicable..

(17) 58LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. Again, this is an exclusively qualitative approach to primary-sources research. While statistical or other similarly “flattening” methods have the practical advantage of providing centralized, easily manageable (and thus apparently ready-to-interpret) results, they often miss out on important nuances. In the less felicitous of cases, establishing arbitrary search-and-selection criteria will result in generating outcomes that are, to say the least, obtained via a semiotically dubious framework. This, in turn, produces empirically debatable (incomplete or biased) conclusions. Take, for instance, the study conducted by D’Haenens and Bink (2007), which focused on how ‘Islam’ (added quotation marks) was covered by the popular Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad in the period between 1998 and 2004. The methodology employed by the authors may be flawed at several levels. Firstly, in searching for the words “Islam” and “fundamentalism” in the headlines, one does more than probing into how journalists approach the issues at hand — one actually frames12 the search process itself. That is to say, the construction of the keywords themselves is biased, and the presumption that “this procedure would yield the bulk of the articles with Islam as key topic” (p. 138) may prove inexact. As the previous chapters of this paper tried to demonstrate, both “Islam” and “fundamentalism” are two contestable constructs that, when used in contemporary discourses, have proved perniciously standardized and prejudiced. When looking for such cues in newspaper headlines, one is indeed prone to finding “conflict frames” more often than not (which, incidentally or not, the above-quoted study did). While this may describe a section of the press, it may also disregard more nuanced articles, which precisely because of their nuanced nature, do no use such headlines. Secondly, another questionable variable which the authors employed in their analysis was that of “Muslim actors” (these were defined as “speakers on behalf of Islam”, p. 140). Three objections can be addressed here: (1) it may be possible that not all Muslims’ comments are argumentative or well informed; (2) even if 12 In this case, if I am allowed to express myself somewhat metaphorically, it is like swimming in the ocean with a freshly amputated foot, wondering if the sharks will bite or not..

(18) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 59. they are, the actors may fail in getting them across to the newspaper and (3) Muslims themselves may be biased towards ‘Islam’, which makes the appointed title of “speakers for Islam” altogether contentious; surely using such an ethnically-defined filter for academic research is at least as risky as it is in contemporary international relations.. ,QWHUQDWLRQDO1HZVSDSHU6DPSOH I have employed the professional LEXIS NEXIS® ACADEMIC International Newspapers search engine, using the Boolean13 search string [HEADLINE (culture) OR HEADLINE (cultural) AND (conflict) AND (Islam)], ranging from 30/11/2007 to 01/11/2008 (the latter date being the point in time when the analysis started). The following international newspapers are included in the Lexis Nexis database: The Australian The Canberra Times Daily News The Daily/Sunday Telegraph The Express Financial Post Investing Financial Times The Guardian Wall Street Journal. The Herald (Glasgow) The Independent International Herald Tribune The Irish Times Los Angeles Times The Mirror The Moscow Times The New York Times USA Today. The Observer The Straits Times The Sun The Sunday Express Sunday Herald The Sydney Morning Herald The Times and Sunday Times The Toronto Star The Washington Times The Washington Post. Out of this database, the following relevant hits were extracted (the number placed between parentheses denotes the initial number of articles matching the search string criteria):. 13 A Boolean search strategy for information retrieval refers to a logical combinatorial system (e.g. Boolean algebra) that symbolically represents relationships between entities (in this case, semantic units)..

(19) 60LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. The Australian (5) The Guardian (London) (5) The Observer (England) (4) Korea Herald (3) Financial Times (London) (2) Omaha World Herald (2) The Straits Times (Singapore) (1). The Canberra Times (1) The Daily News of Los Angeles (1) Global News Wire (1) Herald Sun and Sunday Herald Sun (Melbourne) (1) Independent on Sunday (1) Los Angeles Times (most recent 6 months) (1) The Washington Times (1). Out of the initial number of 30 matching news articles, six of them were clone hits (i.e. the same article published on consecutive days, yet registered as separate entries). Another article from the cultural section of The Australian was left out, being a review of one of Salman Rushdie’s latest novels, which proved to have no relevant connection with our research topic. The rest of the data has been carefully analyzed.. ,Q'HSWK$QDO\VLV We shall start with the five pieces from The Guardian, not only because they distinguish themselves through a typically well-phrased, elaborate journalistic style, but also because they display a highly analytical attitude towards contemporary political and/or social “cultural” stereotyping. Especially resolute and strongly connected with the ideas elaborated earlier in this paper is Gary Younge’s article. He bluntly states from the title that believing in a “European utopia before Muslims arrived is delusional” (p. 26), and that it is pernicious to consider prejudiced views within migrant communities as exclusive to them or their cultures. He accuses Europe’s political class of being voided of any “sense of humility, self-awareness and historical literacy”, when acting as though immigrant communities “not only manifest homophobia, sexism, anti-Semitism, political violence and social unrest, but also as though they invented them and introduced them to an otherwise utopian continent” (p. 26). He continues by dealing with and deconstructing various examples of conservative or populist cultural stereotyping throughout Europe (from England, to France, to the.

(20) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 61. Netherlands), while exposing the Western public’s double standards when dealing, for instance, with child sex abuse cases in the Catholic church14. Using a less subtle undertone, Cambridge lecturer and constant Guardian contributor Priyamvada Gopal urges Britain to engage in a “nuanced language to debate race, class and culture, away from headline-grabbing, superficial provocations” (p. 34, added italics). She directly addresses the issues of cultural discrimination and boldly applies them to the context of the prestigious academic institution that she herself belongs to, noting that “we at Cambridge are too polite and politic to acknowledge, let alone address, awkward hierarchies of ethnicity, class and culture” (p. 34). The article discusses what for Gopal is a predictable, superficial “race row”, pick- your-side reactions that George Steiner15 (also a Cambridge academic) provoked when braking the “Oxbridge silence on race and class” (p. 34). However, much more than being a piece of well-phrased ironies, Gopal’s article touches on topics of direct interest to our paper, when suggesting that “putatively daring truth claims («Islam is the problem», «Racism is natural») allow for silences to be broken dramatically and temporarily, while closing off the possibility of sustained and knowledgeable debate. Pronouncement, outcry, apology — so unfolds the soap opera after which we return to business as usual” (p. 34). Furthermore, she connects this type of attitudes with “the kind of spurious legitimation that underlie […] bogus theories of the 'clash of civilisations' which both sides use to justify violent contemporary conflicts” (p. 34, added italics). In another, more technical article of the same Guardian, Polly Toynbee argues that a “my-rights culture” (p. 41) could eclipse the 14 In this sense, the journalist interestingly claims that “no one who wants to be taken seriously has tried to hold each Catholic collectively responsible for these abuses or claim Catholics are inherently predisposed to child abuse, or that the abuse was essentially religious. Even as these scandals have run parallel with the war on terror, no one is claiming that Catholicism represents a threat to our civilisation” (p. 26, added italics) 15 Steiner publicly suggested his aversion to “acquiring noisy and «fecund» Jamaican neighbours” (cited in Gopal, 2008: 34)..

(21) 62LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. needs of people deserving an urgent protection of the state; she touches not only upon the problem of immigrant communities which are neglected or harassed by Western governments, but also on the problematic extension of the “detention without trial” time periods, in the wake of recent terrorist attacks. Jim Al-Khalili, professor of physics at the University of Surrey, contributed an enlightening Guardian article on how “in this era of intolerance and cultural tension, the West needs to appreciate the fertile scholarship that flowered with Islam” (p. 25). Being on a declared mission to “dismiss a crude and inaccurate historical hegemony and present the positive face of Islam” (p. 25), Al-Khalili reminds the world not only that Arabic was for over 700 years the international language of science, but also that fundamental works such as those of Copernicus, Newton or even Darwin were not entirely new, and definitely not a monopoly of Western thought16”. Two relevant book reviews belong still to the British newspaper landscape. For The Guardian, Giles Foden discusses Michael Burleigh’s Cultural History of Terrorism. Based on similar points underlined by us in the first chapter, Foden critiques Burleigh for not clearly defining the concept of “cultural history” (p. 10, added italics), and especially its representations in terrorism. Aside from suggesting that the portrayed relationship between Britain and Ireland is “unbalanced to the point of perversity” (p. 10), he also notes that Burleigh openly ignores many conditions and structural factors that drive desperate people to terrorism, and that the “more nuanced approach of [other] writers could have helped broaden his education on the subject” (p. 10). A similar (celebration of) nuances seems to define Jason Burke’s (The Observer) review of Lawrence Freedman’s A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East. Burke notices how the author “elegantly negotiates the 16 Symbolically, we are reminded that even the genius of Leonardo da Vinci had been at least equalled centuries before, by the Persian scholar Abu Rayhan al-Biruni. Not RQO\GLG%LUXQLPDNHVLJQLÀFDQWEUHDNWKURXJKVDVDEULOOLDQWSKLORVRSKHUPDWKHPDtician, astronomer, theologian, linguist, historian, geographer, pharmacist and physician, but he is also considered to be the father of geology and anthropology..

(22) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 63. Shia-Sunni split and its (fantastically complex) effect on local, regional and national politics”, or his articulacy in suggesting that a lesson which the world has repeatedly learned the hard way is connected with the fact that America “has difficulty coming to terms with the limits of power” (p. 26). We are left with the impression that the book is reasonable, balanced and worth reading. Another quite original and nuanced article is contributed to The Observer by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. He suggests that a way out of the “culture of blame” that we live in (p. 33, added italics) can be found in the Easter story. Discussing how “the Bible shows the (arbitrary) way in which groups and societies work out their fears and frustrations by finding scapegoats”, he suggests that contemporary “cultural” conflicts can be understood in similar terms, and may be defused by mutual understanding, spirituality and self-acknowledgment. In this sense, he points out the flaws of scenarios developed by “repressive and insecure states in the Islamic world, (who) demonise a mythical Christian ‘West’, while culturally confused, sceptical and frightened European and North American societies cling to the picture of a global militant Islam, determined to «destroy our way of life»” (p. 33). Rowan Williams is known for his ecumenical approach towards religion, social and political affairs, which is why he is sometimes accused of being too much of a progressive, or liberal cleric. However, his articles provide valuable insight and alternative viewpoint in a world which seems to profoundly miss such options. Concurrently, The Financial Times features an interesting “letter to the editor”, in which a reader deplores, along the same lines as Williams does, the “culture of fear” that, according to him, dominates US and Italian realities. In the published piece, Mr. Antonio suggests that this culture of fear “is aimed at hiding the real problems of the two countries behind a «we-must-defend-ourselves» façade”. The article from The Daily News of Los Angeles covers the lives of Israelis and Palestinians in Los Angeles, and concludes that working towards peace and accord is gradually becoming possible, after the sparked mutual criticisms and community rifts following the 9/11.

(23) 64LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. attacks. Rabbi S. Diamond, executive vice-president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California is quoted saying: “Living here in Los Angeles is a long way away from Jerusalem and Ramallah […] We are guilty of woeful ignorance of each other’s faith traditions. We are guilty of resorting to naive and often dangerous stereotypes of the other — anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, to name but two of the most pernicious forms of hatred” (p. 1). Other articles obviously deal with more prosaic cultural issues, such as artistic events. These accounts prove nonetheless worthy of investigation, for they too fit into the nuanced discourse portrayed above. The Strait Times (Singapore) features an article entitled “power through culture” (p. 22), in which maverick American filmmaker Spike Lee suggests that America’s global influence is not connected with military power, but rather defined by the dispersion of “Hollywood, Coca-Cola and Mickey Mouse”. In talking about (American) pop-culture and how it has influenced global opinion, Lee nonetheless mentions that Americans’ sometimes inadequate understanding of the world proves to generate unfortunate stereotyping — the fact that “«terrorists» and people from Islamic or Arabic states” (p. 22) become the villains in Hollywood movies is specifically addressed and critiqued. The Omaha World-Herald (Nebraska) described a picnic event which “helps area Muslims demystify their faith while having fun and showcasing the «diversity of Islam»” (p. 8). Two days earlier, the same journal covered a public speech (by John Nielsen), which was aimed at “stressing cultural bridges”, enhancing the public’s perception of how various people lead their life, and explaining (in a very American style) that “many (immigrant) groups retain elements of separate identities while being unified by common language and social assumptions in the way a salad dressing binds the lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms and croutons” (p. 1b). The Korea Herald showcased an Arab culture festival, arguing that (South) Koreans need to familiarize themselves much more with what Arabic or Islamic countries mean, and need to shake off negative connotations such as Islamic funda-.

(24) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 65. mentalism and the Middle East war. The same paper also dedicated a large (2500 words) piece on how ‘culture’ should be the basis for Korean ties with the Middle East. Seo Jeong-min suggests that “without mutual understanding17, it is unrealistic to hope for reciprocal respect for each other’s history and culture”, and urges Korea “to move beyond negative stereotyping and discrimination” (p. 1). The Financial Times (London) published an article regarding Baalbeck, the oldest cultural event in the Middle East, who “thanks to Hezbollah pragmatism” (p. 8) is back to reawaken Lebanon’s cultural life. Although Palestinian militants did not miss the propagandistic chance of opening a “Hezbollah” museum nearby, they nonetheless showed definite interest in attracting the Lebanese-born, famous Western pop-singer Mika to sing at Baalbeck. In practical, yet nonetheless cultural cases such as this, one finds it, indeed, hard to identify Huntington’s civilizational rifts, or their predicted manifestations. The Observer dedicates some space on their foreign-news page to cover the gloomy situation that Iraqi artists face in their home-country. In adding to the nuances necessary to understand global conflicts, such reports provide much needed “real-world” glimpses into countries such as Iraq, where a top-to-bottom, Western-inspired democratic system proves yet unstable. Numerous examples of killed Iraqi artists, especially singers, are stated. The surviving ones are planning to flee the country, and one of them, Muthana al-Jaffar is quoted saying that “people had stopped listening to music in public because of fears they would come to the attention of the extremists; […] we are packing and next Monday I should be far from Iraq, a country that one day inspired my songs but today is just a disgrace” (p. 41). Indeed, it is also mentioned that the Iraqi Ministry of Culture estimated that about 80% of Iraqi singers and other artists have fled the country. 17 Pointing out to the serious need for knowledgeable, real experts on the region, the reporter mentions the case when the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade sent Arabic language professors to Afghanistan in order to collect information regarding the situation of the 23 kidnapped Korean citizens in that country. Rather embarrassingly, The Ministry soon realized that it was not Arabic, but Pashto that is spoken in Afghanistan..

(25) 66LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. One of The Australian’s weekend-editions proposes an article dealing with the film Fitna (released by right-wing Dutch politician Wilders), and manages, despite the paper’s right-wing oriented editorial policy, not to lose itself in a free-speech-against-all-odds rhetoric. Nuances such as Francesco Merlo’s following comment were firmly articulated: “promoting mediocre works of art, films and books that are gratuitously blasphemous […] lifts unsavoury characters such as Wilders to the rank of persecuted artists, [and] is a way of killing freedom of expression”; the article ends with an equally challenging question: “How many innocents have to die before the European governments decide to rein in the sick men who have made a career out of their pathological hatred for Islam and Muslims?” (p. 28). Canberra Times also features an analytical article, signed by the award-winning journalist Irfan Yusuf, titled ‘Sidelining the loud-mouthed cultural warriors’. The author deplores the artificially constructed, defective bipolar image of clashing civilisations: “as time goes by, the loudest voices from both camps are the most extreme. Caught in the middle are the vast majority of people, who just want to get on with their lives and who are quite happy to live with people who don’t share their culture or religion” (p. 2). He further explores and exposes the twists of the “prejudiced, ignorant views” that fit the ideas of the contemporary “cultural warriors”, ranging from Daniel Pipes’ “lunar right” America, to radical and obscure Al-Qaeda-supporting Arabs (p. 2). In a less belligerent manner, The Strait Times (Singapore) presented an article in which the reporter, Tan Shzr Ee, phenomenologically describes the experience of an Easter dinner date “with cultural tolerance” (p. 1), where devout Christians (including himself) and practising Muslims sat together at the dinner table and eventually ate together a “giant organic, halal chocolate Easter bunny from Marks and Spencer” (p. 1). The fact that they all “could sit down together and have light-hearted conversations about religion, in a city where religious fundamentalism and terrorism continue to be real issues” struck him as “both a miracle and a comfort of the everyday” (p. 1). On a more rarefied level, however, the reporter still expresses his doubts that this rather elite religious cosmopolitanism (which, we are also.

(26) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 67. warned, runs the risk of “shoving things under the carpet”, p. 1) could prove to be a realistic solution to the much more complicated challenges of global sectarian strifes. Finally, the Independent’s February 10th 2008 Sunday edition included a report regarding the recently declassified “culture apprehension manuals” that were handed out by the British Ministry of Defence to soldiers deployed on Middle-Eastern fronts. In what seems to be a crash-course in Western imperialism and Middle-Eastern history, gun-yielding readers are informed of precisely the nuances that we have portrayed, discussed and exemplified throughout this paper, such as the fact that “Westerners are often perceived as [sic] culturally ignorant, regarding their culture as inherently superior to that of the Arabs”, or the fact that “Western pronouncements against the human rights records of Arab governments […] ring hollow for many in the region when held up against what are perceived to be the gross human rights abuses committed against the Palestinian population, apparently with the sanction of Western governments” (p. 6).. 3RODUL]HG1DUUDWLYHVWKH¶&XOWXUH:DUV·&DPS Three articles stand out from the rest, their discourse being similar to that underlined by Mishra’s (2008) study, and use an antagonistic, polarising approach towards the notions of ‘Islam’, ‘conflict’ and ‘culture’. One of them is from The U.S. capital’s dominant newspaper, The Washington Post. It took two particular individuals, Nir Boms (the vice-president of the ‘Centre for Freedom in the Middle East’) and Jonathan Spyer (senior research fellow at the ‘Global Research in International Affairs Centre’), to build up an 800 word attack directed against Unesco’s decision of appointing Damascus as the Arab Capital of Culture for 2008. In a language that is eerily reminiscent of U.S. “special reports” prior to the invasion of Iraq, the article viciously condemns Damascus for being a nexus of terrorist organisations, headquarters of Hamas and the centre for an otherwise left undescribed “Islamist Jihad” (p. A19). Using the obscure tags of “U.S. defence and intelligence reports”, or simply quoting “other reports”, Damascus is.

(27) 68LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. painted in a pitch-black narrative of violence, conspiracy and anti-Semitism — even the “active chemical weapons program” and the “clandestine nuclear program” (p. A19) wildcards are deployed, in a flamboyant attempt at “exposing” Unesco’s dubious decision-making. Not one moment do the distinguished authors stop and think that Unesco’s goal is not to grind any sort of political axes, but to — quite literally — promote international collaboration in education, science, and culture. Among the ancient urban centers of the world, Damascus is perhaps the oldest continuously inhabited city (Devlin and Houghton, 2003). Its name is of pre-Semitic etymology, dating back to a time before history was even recorded. Even prior to becoming the monumental capital of a luxurious, enlightened and extensive Muslim empire in 661, it was a thriving metropolis of the Hellenistic world for almost a millennium. In the face of such acknowledgeable cultural heritage, the pettiness of the “Islamist Jihad” argument becomes apparent — in a way, it resembles the judging of an elephant’s weight by the dirt hanging on its tail. Another article that takes for granted the notion of “cultural war” is the one belonging to a weekend edition of The Australian. Candidly titled ‘Uni row the new front in culture war’, the reporter asks himself whether “a postmodernist interpretation of terrorism is brainwashing our next generation of military leaders” (p. 1). This seemingly philosophical dilemma stems from the appointment to the Australian Defence Force Academy of Professor Anthony Burke. Burke came under heavy attack from fellow academics (and, considering the tone and placement of quotations18, from the reporter as well) when he published apparently “unpatriotic” ideas regarding the contentious nature of today’s cultural war dialectics (happily, no similar accusations were ever directed towards the author of this article, although he seems to be doing the same thing as Prof. Burke). Statements that 18 Although maintaining the obligatory aura of “objectivity” in providing information from all sources involved in the debate, not only are Professor Burke’s points of view inserted fragmentarily throughout the article, but the news-piece ends with a SHFXOLDUO\ORQJDQGYLROHQWTXRWDWLRQIURPRQHRI%XUNH·VÀHUFHVWRSSRQHQWV.

(28) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 69. should be self-evident for any fair-minded cultural anthropologist or constructivist psychologist (such as the fact that “national values and way of life are vast ideological abstractions”, or the fact that “enemies of freedom” are constructed, and do not exist by themselves) were nevertheless depicted as possibly brainwashing material. A last piece of journalism the headline of which hangs on the implicit assertion of “culture wars” (in this case enriched by the adjective “global”) is an editorial page of the Los Angeles Times, entitled ‘Adding to division. The tensions within the Anglican Communion are a reflection of the global culture wars’. Curiously, the main body of the article pertinently discusses the Anglican Communion’s recent, once in a decade congregation, explaining how the differences of opinion (mainly regarding same-sex marriages and the ordaining of gay clerics) were handled and how a schism over homosexuality was averted. However, during the last paragraph, as if realizing the article’s title did not fit too well into the argument, the journalist briefly notes that consequences of globalisation and tensions between “the West and Islam” (p. 18, added italics) put African Anglican Bishops on a somewhat defensive position, since they fear that “an endorsement of homosexuality by Western churches puts Christians at a disadvantage with Muslims”. It seems that in putting the issue of sexual orientation on the table, the reporter was nonetheless simultaneously framing it within the “global cultural wars” context.. 5HVXOWV2YHUYLHZDQG&RQFOXVLRQV From a geographical dispersion point of view, the search results have yielded a heterogeneous sample of journalistic narratives, spanning across four continents (Europe, North America, Asia and Australia). From a discourse-related point of view, it appears somewhat surprising — considering much of the reviewed literature — that almost all of the analysed articles are eligible to be included into what I would call a highly nuanced, well informed, multilevel approach to ‘culture’, ‘Islam’ and ‘conflict’. With the exception of what have been identified as three “culture war” articles, the remaining pieces draw.

(29) 70LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. away from the Huntington-like typecasting of ‘Islam’, while many go one step further and outspokenly criticize such stereotyping, while steadily exposing Western biases towards the intricacies of ‘Islamic’ realities. As we have seen, many alternative explanations regarding ‘Islam’ and ‘culture’ are discussed, and the subterranean social, political or anthropological issues behind them are highlighted. The preoccupation for nuances evident in much of the articles sampled here is an interesting phenomenon. It will take further, more substantial and long-term analyses to make any sort of empirically valid regressions or chartable observations. A possible explanatory factor accountable for these results is the hypothesis that, when used in headlines which are not stereotyped (the cliché-like use of the “culture wars” syntagma was evident in two of the articles), the word, as well as the concept of ‘culture’ is employed authoritatively, at length and in a nuanced manner. In other words, the journalists in question seemed to be aware of the conceptual aura of ambiguity and complexity that the notion of ‘culture’ generates, and, consequently, dealt with it accordingly. This is not to suggest that the frequency of biased articles has changed in 2008 (it was not my goal to determine such a thing; it would, however, prove to be a viable question for further research, provided that sensible search criteria are developed), but I would dare to forward the general assumption that such stereotyped or stereotyping articles did not use the word ‘culture’ in their headline. The articles that did contain this keyword in their title, however, proved to be critical of the insular perception of a global, monolithical Islam. Another explanatory factor could be connected with a possible revitalizing impact that recent books such as Davies’ (2008) Flat Earth News: An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media might have had on news production worldwide. One may go one step further and assume that Edward Said’s lifelong work dealing with the post-colonial clichés involved in the covering of ‘Islam’ by journalists has been (re)read by an increasing number of reporters..

(30) Minteanu1XDQFHVRI &XOWXUH ,VODP DQG &RQIOLFW 71. It is also worth mentioning that the British daily newspaper The Guardian lived up to its standard of taking up an independent editorial policy, liberal stances and great width and depth in news coverage. In this sense, a relevant observation concerns the fact that four of the five (one was a book review) articles from The Guardian were published in the comprehensive “Comment and Debate Pages” section, with two of them having been contributed by academics. Out of the widely-read American publications analysed, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times yielded two articles that did use the concept of culture and Islam in a polarized, stereotyped manner (backing up Mishra’s 2008 study results). However, two articles from the modest, less influential Omaha World Herald (Nebraska) took a pacifist, constructive and explanatory attitude towards ‘Islam’ and ‘culture’, in attempts to demystify the faith and maintain a proper understanding of (already well-adjusted) American Muslim immigrants. The one polarized article in The Australian, which presented constructivist definitions of ‘terrorism’ or ‘freedom’ as possible brainwashing material for the patriotic troops engaged in Iraq, can probably be integrated into what some regard as The Australian’s tradition of relying on “Orientalist tropes such as that of «Oriental despotism» and the «Clash of Civilizations»”, instead of fostering “varied debate and discourse on the democratisation of Iraq, especially given Australia’s involvement in the «Coalition of the Willing»” (Isakhan, 2008). However, although Australian newspapers, especially those owned by the media mogul Rubert Murdoch have been described as displaying “an intellectual orthodoxy and an ideological uniformity that is remarkable, overt and long-standing” (McKnight, 2005, cited in Isakhan, 2008: 2), I did find information in The Australian and The Canberra Times that displayed less partiality in covering controversial issues such as the anti-Muslim short film Fitna or the complexities of multiculturalism. In this respect, analyses and comparisons should best be made on a case by case basis..

(31) 72LOHWLÁLPDUDÁW¿UPDODU¿. In sum and to a large extent, this study revealed several instances (and I believe these to be examples of a generally valid rule) that suggest that such a superficially constructed idiom as ‘cultural conflict’ surfaces and gains momentum only when it is, quite simply, taken for granted, rather than self-consciously (de)constructed. It is only when one analyses the multiplicity of elements that supposedly add up to these ‘conflicts’, that it becomes evident how the terminological appendix of ‘cultural’ is an excessively vague pseudovariable of an already ambiguous equation. As the majority of the analyzed newspaper narratives have shown, there is no simple explanation to account for how ‘Islam’ and ‘conflict’ are woven into the tapestry of modern (Western and non-Western) cultural perception(s). What do exist, however, are a series of ready-made answers, ranging from Huntington’s precariously unequivocal ‘Clash of Civilisations’ thesis, to Al-Qaeda’s bizarre combination of defunct Marxist-Leninist (in truth, ‘Islamized’ rather than authentically Islamic) ideas, calling for a revolutionary vanguard meant to evaporate the inauthentic otherness of a deprived, idolatric and imperialist Western world. Ironically, these two camps fuel each other’s prophetic illusions. In practice and in theory, both of these simplistically prescriptive pseudo-ideologies are based on the presumption that ‘cultures’ or ‘civilisations’ exist in and by themselves, serving as a fundamental explanatory basis for all societies or human endeavours. This is, of course, a non sequitur, and the bulk of news-articles examined here exposed this falseness’ simplicity from multiple angles.. %LEOLRJUDSK\ Betz, H. G. and C. Johnson (2004). “Against the Current — Stemming the Tide: the Nostalgic Ideology of the Contemporary Populist Right.” Journal of Political Ideologies 9(3): 311-327. Brown, C. (1999). “History Ends, Worlds Collide.” Review of International Studies 25: 41-57. Burleigh, M. (2006). Sacred Causes: Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda. London: Harper Collins..

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