Our Failing “Counternarrative”
This morning President Obama noted the following regarding the planned Koran burning to be held at the Dove World Outreach Centre in Florida:
This is a recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda. You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities.
I just hope he [Dove World Pastor Terry Jones] understands that what he is proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans, that this country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance.
True. Of course. But it should also be mentioned that the other expressions of vitriol, religious intolerance, and blatant racism that have surrounded the whole Ground Zero mosque issue as well as the generally side-stepped “revelations” that many Americans do in fact actually dislike or distrust Muslims do all of the same things. Yes, Koran burning is easier to speak out against because it happens to be strategically counterproductive, blatantly racist, and demonstrably crazy. It’s important to consider, though, that this only the symptom of a fairly serious problem that fuels and will continue to fuel the fire of extremist rhetoric if not dealt with sooner rather than later.
Islamic extremist believe and preach that the United States is at war with Muslims and with Islam itself. To say that stories, or eventually video footage, of Americans burning Korans – or for that matter stories of American political figures comparing Muslims to Nazis, Americans stabbing Muslim cab drivers in the neck, Americans burning mosque building sites, or of Muslims being afraid to celebrate their biggest religious holiday for fear of harassment or intimidation from the communities in which they have lived for years – fuels this perception is an unbelievably obvious no-brainer. The question is, what are we going to do about it. We continually talk about controlling the narrative and convincing Muslims at home and abroad that the U.S. means no harm, that the U.S. is not at war with Muslims, that U.S. policies – including the overt and covert wars being conducted throughout the Muslim world – are generally defensive, targeted toward extremists, necessary, and/or benevolent, and that our periodic paroxysms of naked racism are not signs of widespread hatred or intolerance. Well, as “death to America” demonstrations at the U.S. embassy in Kabul have pretty clearly shown, if there was any chance or indication that that “counter-narrative” stuff working before, we are now in the process of seriously blowing it.
Emphasizing that antipathy toward Muslims is a fringe opinion, besides apparently not being true, is obviously not working. Maybe instead of only trying to focus on making the world’s Muslims understand our “narrative” we should also focus on working with the American public and its opinions and perceptions to try to bring that narrative closer to being, or at least looking, even remotely true. As a political aide to Dwight Eisenhower once said, “There is no such thing as effective political propaganda in the absence of sound policy.” We can say America doesn’t hate or discriminate against Muslims until we’re blue in the face, but unless we do some work to actively educate the public enough to make that at least somewhat true, we might as well be talking to no one.
Can we stop people from being intolerant and racist and from shooting our already fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants counterterrorism strategy in the foot? Probably not. Is it worth a try? Probably as least as much as trying to tell the world’s Muslims that we are on their side when 49 percent of the American public clearly states that they’re not. I just think it’s important that this “narrative” go just as strongly in all directions if we have any hope of making any strategy against radicalization or terrorism in general work in the long run. Until it does, we will be spinning our wheels waiting for the next Najibullah Zazi or Times Square Bomber to tell us, or show us, that our attempts at narrative shaping really aren’t doing squat. Given that our reaction to a successful attack will more than likely make that narrative even harder to credibly support, inaction on this issue is really something we cannot in any way afford.
