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Good afternoon. I will use my fifteen minutes to briefly share with you a short story that happened to one my friends, and then to touch upon a number of remarks on the media after Sep. 11. and are intimately related to our discussion this afternoon.

To start with the story: A few months after September 11, an American couple in their mid fifties visiting the UK were waiting for train at Waterloo Station in London to take them to the South. The lady was so excited and made everybody around know that this was her first visit outside America. She smiled and greeted whoever gets an eye contact with her. The husband was almost silent. A friend of mine was sitting next to the lady, and was bombarded by showers of unstopping questions. My friend is a Palestinian who was married to a British and whose appearance and excellent English and accent would confuse her with any British woman. After talking to my friend about weather, trains and the marvels of London, the American lady asked: are you British? My friend replied, well I consider myself half British as my ex husband was British and my daughter was born here eight years ago, and I too was educated in this country. What is your other half then, asked the American lady. I am Palestinian, my friend replied. All the smiles and cheeriness have disappeared immediately, and the American lady was spontaneous in saying: oh .. you are from the land of terrorists who hit our twin towers. Calmly, my friend who is media broadcaster and accustomed to this kind of prejudice replied, no it is not a land of terrorists, and to your knowledge no Palestinian was involved in what happened on September 11. Surprised by this, the lady turned to her husband seeking help and confirmation. The husband said: yes darling, there was no Palestinian with the terrorists who hit our twin towers. The lady continued her talk to my friend, well, I meant they were from that area, you know, Iraqis and other terrorists. My friend replied: I'm afraid you are wrong again; there was no Iraqi in that group. Irritated by being refuted twice in one minute, the lady turned to her husband asking confirmation, and for her disappointment he said there was no Iraqi among those terrorists who exploded themselves against 'our twin towers'. The lady exclaimed: then how on earth they keep telling us it's the Palestinians and Iraqis who are the 'baddies'? Yet, after that the lady did not even care to apologise to my friend, who in turn save no chance to lecture on the lady about not accusing people and make prejudices. When their train arrived, the same one that my friend takes everyday, the furious American lady was unhappy to board the same train with my 'Palestinian' friend. And said to her husband: darling, better we wait for the next train!

This is an informative story, and not a unique one. It is representative of many others that have encountered thousands of Muslims in the West after 9/11. It summarizes many points that I would like to raise. These points include that the criteria of assessment of assessing Western media should be rigorous; that the performance of Western media in post 9/11 has become less scrupulous and scrutinizing, and marred by decontextualization; that populist Western media coverage and discourse has become more reductionist; that populist Western and Islamic media enhances segregation and isolation of Muslim communities from their host societies and that many Western media outlets have succumbed to official narration.

First of all is that the impact of western media after 9/11 has been, and is still, so damaging unfortunately. In some ways, I would say that after 9/11 many Western media outlets, namely populist media, have acted as a third world media, but in an elegant disguise. Maybe they are sophisticated enough, brighter and smarter in delivering their message, but the essence of that message is more or less the same as any other authoritarian media. And after the war against Iraq, this trend has been perpetuated.

Now, moving on with my four points and the concluding fifth one, I start with the first one that is applying strict criteria in assessing the performance of Western media. We have to assess this media against the criteria that have been set by this very same media, by the same: against the principles of the freedom of expression, neutrality, objectivity, and all kinds of professionalism. In many countries around the globe, journalists and media people have learned these principles from western media, and they aspire to apply them. And I would say that all those criteria, all of the bright achievement, not only of media, but also of Western civilization and ideals, are suffering from doubts and scepticism in the eyes of many people. These principles and ideals have deteriorated to something extremely sad and not only sad in the normative sense, but also at the practical level as this does have practical implications. On the side of Arab and Muslim media, if the "model" is going that course of deterioration then this leaves us with more excuses to act non-professionally. If any criticism is mounted against the Arab world or Muslim, or Al-Jazeera or any other media outlet to that matter, they would say "Listen, just see the CNN, the BBC, or Fox News." If you compare us to them, we will be even much better. We have press conferences on our screens for the Americans and the British more than the CNN or the Sky News. And this is unfortunately or fortunately true. So, some Arab and Muslim media outlets would point out to the practices that are taking place within western media as an excuse to lay back and justify some of their non-professional practices too. There are several exceptions, as it is not fair to generalise. We have exceptions on both sides of the fence, western media and Arab and Muslim media. But generally speaking, the picture that we have is a bleak one, in particular to what relates to our subject in this conference. In other words and more directly, the media is a crucial factor in damaging the relationship between Muslim communities and their host societies. All the sincere efforts, such as this conference and many others that take ages to organise, are easily offset, easily damaged, by a bad 30 minutes piece on a popular TV network. All the insightful talk tonight or tomorrow, and all these in depth and objective books that are published, are compromised by bad, biased or stereotyping coverage about Muslims that finds its way to the screen of the BBC or the CNN. At the same time maybe some people would say, "Well, the Arab and Muslim media are doing equally bad". I would not disagree. I would say, "Yes that's fine, but at least if you judge and assess both media according to the criteria that was set by the environment and the climate within which that media is functioning, you will end up criticizing western media more, because Arab and Muslim media are functioning in extremely unhealthy conditions. We have dictators, and not only authoritarian politics, but also social and cultural limitations from within society itself." The ceiling and room for manoeuvring is really narrow, and we don't have the same conditions as in the west. Western media does have healthier conditions whatever the criticism is made of this media, and there is no comparison between the two ceilings for freedom. I am saying this because whenever I speak, whenever I judge or discuss with people the performance of Western media, people would immediately argue and say 'look at what you are doing, on Al-Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV or other Arab media'. I say yes, and agree straightaway, I am not arguing that. So I admit it. But at the same time look at the experience, look at the historical contexts differences and also current conditions, then if you want to be fair and just you have to take all these into account. And, at the same time, when Donald Rumsfield said, justifying the looting and all the huge chaos in Iraqi, "Well they have been liberated and this is a sign of liberation." Are you serious? Then we might follow that and say that what people would criticise in Arab media performance is just the symptoms of new liberation as well, at least for part of them!

Another point is that we have noticed that after September 11 is the media have become less scrupulous and less scrutinizing. Many of the high standards and respected codes of practice and manners have disappeared under the banner of patriotism. And when this banner is raised blindly, entail immediate consequences. Between blind patriotism and patronising the other is a very thin line. This line was crossed of course and ignored, during the sharp rise of the fanatical political discourse of the current American administration. The message that was channelled from top down was simple but powerful and in the form of concrete dichotomy: "Us and Them" - Either you are with us or you are against us. This dichotomy, expressed and adopted by a large sector of Western media, was so brutal and un-compromising to the extent of including France under the category of 'against us'. This radical message, the dichotomization of evil and good of people all over the globe, the civilized against the barbarians, was immediately slipped into the media discourse and we could find it everywhere. This message has revived the reductionist and neo-orientalist discourse, or maybe bringing to mainstream media discourse what already exists on its fringes. Reductionism is easy to apply, for it groups people, phenomena, ideas, histories and other complicated and overlapped conceptions and processes into contrasted binaries: Black and white. Gray color is tedious and unwanted. Black and white are the best, for they are easiest and short way to reach the audiences and recipients. All the sophistication that we used to see, and the insightful analyses that we used to read became rare to find in the Media.

In addition to that, and this is my third point; a very harmful practice of what I call the "decontextualization" of the event took place. This means to take a singular event (of terrorism or violence) out of its context, and to heavily focus on it. To throw the light on it, as if it is just a mere madness sprung in the desert without any root causes, without any socio-political and economic conditions. This madness does have socio-political and social pressing conditions. It is a natural, if not accepted of course, reaction. The central question that was not paused by the media in dealing with 9/11 and its aftermath is that what would you do if you were them? This central question, either in the case of suicide bombings in Palestine, or any other radical acts, has not been raised or, at least, in full or scrutinizing way. This question will make people think, and stop demonising the 'other' as if this 'other' operates outside the realm of rationality and common sense. If your country is ripped off and you have a foreign intervention on a daily basis, backing the local dictatorship in your country, continuing doing that for two centuries, what would you do? What would your reaction be? Living under a multiplicity of oppressions spilling from all over the place, from outside, from inside, from harsh rulers, from harsh socio-cultural conditions, would create excessive responses. Of course, it will drive people to the extreme manifestation of radicalism or act even or actions. Now to overlook all those conditions, and simply to make a quick jump to the event of 'terror', or its perpetrator to try to 'understand' what happened is a bare simplification and very harmful. For example, look at the media treatment of Muhammad Atta, the leader of the group that was behind the terrorist acts in 9/11. That treatment revolved around the question of why such a nice person, architect, successful in his career, everybody likes him, out of a sudden became a terrorist? Without relating him, and his acts, to the long surrounding circumstances, we cannot understand what has happened, and will happen again.

This practice of de-contextualization, and to have the full focus on the person, brings a damaging effect. It means that every single Muslim, normal, nice guy, around the globe does have a potential terrorist inside him. I am talking to you now, but I am a potential terrorist! I will have my bombs then I will explode this hall! So it means that if you talk about them as good guys, they are normal, what's wrong with them? The recipient, now the audience, can't find an explanation for the 'sudden transformation' that took place from 'normality' to 'terrorism' but the cultural background of that person. The immediate conclusion is that because he is a Muslim, and his violent religion leads him to that. When we cut off the political, economic and social conditions that have shaped this individual, then we will end up with one interpretation: the religious and cultural background. Reductionist, orientalist and harming.

I'll try to summarize, by outlining my last point. It is to relate all that to our subject: Muslims in Europe after 9/11. I would say that the impact of media is so negative and damaging. And it increases the already existing gulf between Muslim communities and host societies. At the same time, and in tandem with this, we have on the rise Arab and Muslim satellite broadcasting that is coming from across the borders. And because Muslim communities don't find themselves in Western media, they can't see their issues, their concerns, they don't feel the warmth of this media, they simply switch to overseas media, to Al-Jazeera, to Abu Dhabi and others. This is a process that is already taking place among Arab Muslims in Europe and the West in general. If in two years time Al-Jazeera channel starts broadcasting in English it will also attract Pakistani, Indian and other non-Arab Muslim communities. The implication of this in my view me is mixed, good and bad at the same time. The good thing is that it will provide them with a voice, with a sort of window to breath non-Western media that presents the other side of the story. The bad thing is that it will further increase the segregation and the isolation of these communities within Europe and within the West. Moreover, it will set the agenda for them indirectly, which is a different agenda from the societies in which they live. So you will end up with people, ghettoes of Muslim communities, having completely different agenda from the society they belong to. Last year, I did a small pilot survey amongst Arab audience in London who watch Al-Jazeera. And I was surprised to discover that many Arabs have even followed the British elections on Al-Jazeera. The vast majority of them followed this major local British event on Al-Jazeera. Many of them don't know even the name of the candidate in their constituency, but the overall process was followed and watched on Al-Jazeera. This is very alarming, I think. Thank you.