I thought I'd post some news from different parts of the world every now and then to see what peoples views/opinions on it are, so people can get an idea of what the news situations etc is in other parts of the world and not just in their own country. I hope no-one minds and I'd like to hear your views etc anyway.

Lets just hope it doesn't get overheated

Muslims have become the new 'bogeymen' of the British and American film industries, according to a study published on Friday. The report, which involved interviews with over 1,125 Muslims in England, Scotland and Wales, found evidence that all genres of film contained negative stereotypes" of Islam, Muslims and Arabs. Most Muslims surveyed found the media "Islamophobic" and felt negative images of their faith on the big and small screens correlated directly with their experiences of exclusion, hatred and discrimination in British society.

Films ranging from action movies to children's cartoons portray "crude or exaggerated stereotypes" of Muslims, who are depicted as the "enemy within" bent on attacking the Western way of life, the study by the Islamic Human Rights Commission says.
It claims that movies as diverse as The Siege, a portrayal of a terrorist attack on New York starring Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis, the British comedy East is East and Disney's Aladdin reinforce impressions that Muslims are violent and dangerous.

The Siege promotes the "monolithic stereotype" that Muslims are terrorists ready to become martyrs in the cause of Jihad, while Aladdin depicts them as "ruthless caricatures" coming from "barbaric" lands, the study says. While "good Arabs" like Aladdin are given American accents, the cartoon's bad characters have "exaggerated and ridiculous accents," it notes.

The blockbuster Raiders of the Lost Ark starring Harrison Ford also comes in for criticism: "The cultural stereotypes and scenarios are patently obvious," the report says, pointing to a street scene featuring bazaars, veiled women and bearded men in traditional dress, all set to snake-charming music.

The film East is East starring Om Puri and Linda Basset, in which members of an Anglo-Pakistani family in 1970s Britain rebel against their conservative father, "fits into many of the negative perceptions people have of Muslims," and represents Muslim husbands as a polygamous wife-beating tyrants, the report notes.

Executive Decision in which David Suchet plays one of a group of Palestinian terrorists hijacking a Boeing 747 to launch a nerve gas attack on the US capital, Washington DC, "plays on the worst fears... about a potential terrorist lurking in every Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim-looking person, and the incompatibility of Islamic and Western values," the report charges.

As well as deep unease with big screen portrayals, 62 percent of Muslims surveyed consider the media in general to be Islamophobic and 16 percent view it as racist, according to the report. Many saw the problems with cinema, TV and and also print media portrayals of Muslims to be "systemic" the report said.

"The accounts of respondents indicate that the negative portrayal of Muslims is heavily present in films produced both in the UK and US. In the movies, Muslims are mostly portrayed as terrorists who randomly kill people (usually innocents) or blow things up - including themselves - or as hijackers, misogynistic or stupid, who cannot achieve anything and are therefore in need of continuous supervision," the report states.

The report's findings showed that such negative stereotyping has been been going on for at least 20 years, long before the 11 September, 2001 attacks on the United States, said Arzu Merali, head of research at the Islamic Human Rights Commission, quoted by the Daily Telegraphy newspaper.

Well considering I posted it, I think it would be fair to also post my opinion on this article.

Unfortunatly I think it is kind of true Though this article is based on Muslims and Arabs being discriminated in movies, I also think it is those who are foreign to the movies original setting. For example, the film "Die Hard" was set in America and the bad guys were German etc. Something like that.

Anyway going back to the actual article, I do think in many cases that Muslims/Arabs are targeted to look bad in certain films I wish that wasnt the case.
The movie "The siege" I have on DVD and I have watched it with great consideration and I do think that Arabs/Muslims are targeted in this movie and it sets a bad example to the rest. Though the good police officer was Arab and his son was too, and it made you feel sorry for them at points, the actual majority of the film shows how they are "bad" etc by blowing up half of Brooklyn, NY up - -people (old and young).

This is my view anyway.

My opinion? for what it is worth, light the blue touch paper and stand well back!

seems someone wants it to be blocked before anything starts, but i disagree, as an Arab-american/muslim/middle-eatern-originating, this is very important. especially that American media controls the world. yes, every single one of you. Directly or indirectly. Directly by listening and watching to the movies/tv shows/ etc. of American origin and indirectly by the point that other international medias basically depend on american media/resources. and other foreign medias just copy from other american TVs stations... or at least mostly... growing up in the heart of brooklyn, every form of media is brainwashing and distracting to the human mind and leads to many psychological effects... from TV, Cinema, to Video games.... the latest release are those video games that show american soldiers in the middle east killing enemies and unimportant arab and muslim citizens from Turkey to Yemen, and from Marrocco to Iraq, etc. while American marines are like angels with halos on their heads for protecting "Humanity" from "terrist-nesting socity and an unnecessary civilzation". such video games increase the hatred against middle easterners whether muslim or christian, arab, turk, kurd, persian, or other. and i have no doubt america soldiers play them for fun before going to the battlefield... i mean, most of American soldirs are of 18 and 19 years old, and by time they are ready they have an imaplented mission in their head... such evidences have been seen with the few trials that we have viewed of american and british soldiers molesting, raping and abusing iraqi women and children.... true there are good people in the media, but money and interests control everything... and true many good people are there, but they are the victims of this atrocity and false-lifehood. the good people are distracted and kept away... and many have been either getting rid of. examples, John Lennon, JFK, Rafik el Hariri, Martin Luther King... and this is a innfecting disease in every society... im only accusing the US, im not actually... its just a human flaw... such thing happened during the ottoman periods...mor or less... happened during the Soviet rule in its lands and occupied territories.it's the greatest human flaw. so we can go and go and we'll return to the basic problem... we are humans? but how do we know who's evil and who's not? so why make arabs or muslim or middle easterns look evil? and the greater evil lives in everyone of us and especially in the media. some of us express it through consipracy and agression... while others leave it hidden in the unconcious {like the basic human soul at birth- so pure}... so, anyone with a solution to this hectic problem is impossible to come. God placed us on earth with something called free-will, and laws could never cgange it, unless they are enforced... and all laws today are not enforced... only the ones they suit the interests of those in power. and as a muslim, i cant say that muslims are contented with what they are accused of doing. No way, as we say "our religion is being hijacked" either by fake ideologies, or by extremists who acting due to being provoked by others and are acting with the will of the rest of the islamic nation... oh yeah, islam isnt one nation anymore. but islam is islam and its however you see it. See it as a religion of the righteous, chosen faith, a threat to you, or whatever... just let individuals do the judgement instead of brainwshing them... but as it is common... money can buy anything, by offering, or by force... you can enter my house and damage my furniture with a stack of money, or you can buy a gun and break my doors and claim i tried to hurt u.... anyway, before i start losing track of this thing...where did i start? hehe, got lost. anyway. next?

Turkiye rocks.. ... {just to relate it to the discussion somehow}

oh yeah, i guess something to say...

Americans are accusing Turkey of stabbing the US in the back for not allowing them to enter Iraq from turkish borders. i just learned that this added to the # of reasons why the EU would NEVER admit Turkey to it. the EU is looking for excuses NOT to admit it. if you watch teh show "24" on FOX. {if u have American TV}.. then u must have noticed of the Turkish Family that planned a Terrorist attack on the US west coast and kidnapped the Secretary of Defense and almost killed him, and turkish hackers almost destroyed the World Wide Web, etc... all of this, i think in season 4. Got DVD if interested . the question is:

IS IT WORTH IT TO ENTERTAIN PEOPLE ON THE EXPENSE OF THE REPUTATION OF OTHERS? EVEN IF BASED ON REAL FACTS? EVEN IF THOSE FACTS ARE EXXAGERATED BY 10 DEGREES WORST EVENTS AND MISFORTUNES? AND POST LOCAL HEROES AS SAVIORS? how silly!!!!
it started as a tradition when US hollywood started doing so to defame the soviets and since the 1970s, started with Arabs/muslims/turks... and got worst and worst.

offf! times up, i'd write the rest on myspace another time if i become this subconcious again

peace out!

I agree with Arabianofelix in some ways because it is the media etc that is effecting our way of thinking because as the saying goes "say it often and loud enough, people may start to believe you". I know in many types of media, how it effects peolpes views.
For e.g the news about the terrorist attacks on the London underground were situated with Islam, as the main front page headline says "Muslim Terrorists deny accusations" which basically puts the word *Muslim" into those minds who let it and think something bad of it.

So whose fault is it? the media for giving people the readers the idea in the first place? or the readers who choose to believe in it?
Personally I think it's both, because the media doesn't exactly help religions or different cultures (I didn't just name Islam here because there has been other cases in other religions too) when they publish their articles because many people let their mind believe what they are told.
And as for the readers, some believe it what they are being told and some do not, so it just goes to show what influence the media is having nowadays

This is a very biased survey as only muslims were interviewed! If the journalists had interviewed English, for example, we could have also claimed we are unfairly portrayed by Hollywood!

For decades the English have been portrayed badly - usually as the insane murderers (i.e. Silence of the Lambs) or the arrogant evil leader (i.e. the factually incorrect Braveheart). Horror and science fiction also use the English accent to portray the "baddie".

Hollywood uses a variety of nationalities to represent the "evil side". During the cold war it was always the USSR, and since then we have seen Koreans and South Africans fill the 'gap' (correct me if I am wrong but it was South Africans who played the terrorists in Die Hard, not muslims ).

I can count more examples of English being portrayed as the "baddies" than muslims in Hollywood films. To post this biased article on this site just adds fuel to a paranoid fire.

I know you're not saying they know HOW to speak English because they're from the UK versus English from the US.

'Cause if that's the case...I BEG YOUR PARDON!

We don't want to start that debate do we?

I personally think that Muslims have not had such a bad deal out of films and media etc, as the Germans or the Japanese have over the years. Such unrivalled hatred was generated for those two countries from the Second World War without considering the innocents. But as intellegent humans, that I hope most of us are, we should not allow ourselves to be brainwashed by the media and films.

I also think that in the UK we are very lucky that our media does in general give a wide range of views to the public to digest and make their own decision. With the wide range of newspapers we have from gutter press to the broadsheets it is easy in my opinion to make an informed decision.

Here is an interesting article about the two United States that co-exist. A good read...although relatively long.

A Tale of Two Cities
Meet the women of the richest and poorest communities in America
By Kimberly Sevcik
advertisement
America, the land of equal opportunity and a robust middle class, is an illusion facts can no longer support. In the past 25 years, the median income for the average family has grown by less than 1 percent, while the median income for the very top tier has grown by 200 percent. Not since the Great Depression has there been such a divide between rich and poor. Middle class? What middle class? Life in the U.S., increasingly, is a matter of extremes.
There’s no such thing as popping by a neighbor’s house to borrow a cup of sugar in Rancho Santa Fe. To visit fellow residents, women get in their Jaguar convertibles or Lexus SUVs and head down long, curving driveways and out mechanized gates, past ivy-covered walls and thick stands of eucalyptus trees, into the center of town. There, they might run into a few friends doing morning yoga in the airy gym at the Rancho Santa Fe Community Center. They might meet another friend at Thyme in the Ranch, a bustling café that resembles a Provençal country inn, where women gather for cappuccino and croissants. They might swap gossip when they swing by the post office to pick up the daily mail—which they do several times a week because there is no home postal service in Rancho Santa Fe, a deliberate choice that ensures residents will cross paths here, if nowhere else. “We try to maintain the feeling of a small town,” says Marian Benassi, 45, a 15-year resident.

Despite the high hedges, there is an easy familiarity among the 5000 residents, as well as an old-fashioned sense of community that manifests itself in quaint traditions like the annual Fourth of July parade, featuring tractors, 1957 T-birds, and children on bicycles decorated with streamers and flags. But this is no Mayberry, USA. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Rancho Santa Fe is the wealthiest town in America, with a median family income of $200,000 and sprawling Spanish-style homes secreted behind high stucco walls and abundant shrubbery—homes with tennis courts and infinity pools and well-tended gardens cared for by staff, with polished limestone floors and soundproofed media rooms and temperature-controlled wine cellars sheltering rare bottles of Premier Cru Burgundy.

RANCHO SANTA FE, CA (MEDIAM INCOME: $200,00 IS THE LAND OF LAMBORGHINIS AND $12 MILLION HOMES.

Bill Gates has a home here. So do seven other billionaires. Set in the rolling hills north of San Diego, the heart of “the Ranch,” as denizens affectionately call it, is the Covenant, an elite area within the town’s original boundaries where spacious homes border a world-class, 18-hole golf course designed by Max Behr. (On Election Day, locals have been known to pull up to the polls in their golf carts.) Club membership—with a $50,000 initiation fee—is limited to Covenant homeowners, as is membership to the adjacent Tennis Club. Membership to the Rancho Riding Club is open to all residents, but most do a lengthy stint on the waiting list before finally getting in.

The town has a more discreet expression of wealth than a flashy, Beverly Hills–style glamour. Women stroll around town in designer jeans and casual cotton separates; their straw mules match their straw purses, and their nails are perfectly done. But despite the everyday, informal aesthetic, Ranch residents know how to throw a party: In April, Elton John was the entertainment at the wedding reception of billionaire investment adviser Charles Brandes and his wife, Tanya. A few years ago, Paul McCartney was flown in to perform at the birthday bash of investment tycoon Ralph Whitworth’s wife, Wendy. They’ve since divorced. (“Can’t buy me love . . .”)

Privacy is critical to the residents of Rancho Santa Fe. So is taste. The town, established in the 1920s by a railroad company, was one of California’s first planned communities: a village of gentlemen’s ranches unified by their Spanish-colonial architecture. Committed to preserving a sense of continuity, residents established the Rancho Santa Fe Association in 1927 to regulate development. Among the Association’s mandates: All homes must be built on a minimum of two acres and obscured by foliage. Any new construction requires unanimous approval from the “art jury,” a select panel of residents who review such details as the ratio of house size to lot size, style, colors, and types of shrubbery planted. Such peculiarities seem to have long-term payoffs—the houses here have appreciated at a rate of 12 percent annually over the past several years. “People are drawn to Rancho Santa Fe because of the open, rural feel,” says Pete Smith, manager of the Rancho Santa Fe Association. “We have 60-acre estates here.” Safety is another reason: The town boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the country. In the past year, a total of two robberies were reported.

The restrictive building codes guarantee that the people who move here are searching for casual conversation rather than raucous parties. The pickup scene—such as it is—is also low-key. Happy hour at Mille Fleurs, a chic French restaurant on the town’s main drag, is dotted with aspiring trophy wives in tight skirts and older gentlemen with dark suits and deep pockets, whispering in each other’s ears as bottles of pinot noir pass up and down the bar.

Mainly, though, this is a family place. For married women, child-rearing on the Ranch is something of a competitive sport. “All of my friends in town had professional careers before they had children,” says Laura Glatthorn, a petite blonde mother of three who quit her job as a sales representative for Colgate-Palmolive 15 years ago, when her first child was born. Today, Glatthorn’s schedule revolves around shuttling her three children to various activities in her white Cadillac Escalade. In the summer, she drops her eldest, 15-year-old Haley, at summer school at 9 a.m., then drives Kendal, 13, to the riding club for lessons, and Jillian, 10, to volleyball practice. A couple of hours later, she collects Jillian and brings her to a soccer match, then retrieves Haley from school and deposits her at the beach.

What alone time she has is spent shopping—voraciously. Inside her room-size walk-in closet, Glatthorn keeps a cordless phone, aka the “911 Fashion Hotline,” called frequently by friends facing clothing crises—i.e., a black-tie in two hours and nothing to wear!

LAURA GLATTHORN TRIES ON SHOES IN HER BEDROOM'S WALK-IN CLOSET.

It’s true, families of such wealth (Glatthorn’s husband is a shopping-mall developer) could easily hire a nanny to chaperone the children around town, but Glatthorn takes pride in being there for her brood. At times, the commitment to parenting can be overwhelming. “Given the financial means, the multitude of choices, and the peer pressure for overachievement in Rancho Santa Fe, there is an obligation to be involved in as many different activities as you can,” says Diana Burdick, 42, a kinesiologist-turned-stay-at-home-mom with three children. As she talks, 5-year-old Christopher steers his motorized toy car around the glassy pool. “There are no slackers here. People are religious about being the best parents they can.” Hence, French class for 5-year-olds, equestrian events for preteens, and debutante balls for 16-year-old local girls almost weekly during the spring—extravaganzas that involve thousands of dollars, and hundreds of hours choosing dresses and venue/menu/guest-list planning.

But Burdick vows it’s really not a competition. “Women don’t brag about what they own or what they’ve achieved,” she says. “There’s an assumption that everyone has done well, or they wouldn’t be living here.” “Done well” may be a bit of an understatement: Lamborghinis and custom designed Bentleys cruise the freshly paved streets. Along the main street, virtually every other storefront is a real estate agency, with listings ranging from $3 to $18 million. “There are a lot of wildly successful business owners with tons of disposable income who live here,” says agent Laura Barry. “They don’t like to announce it publicly, but many of my clients pay for their homes in cash, up front.”

What grown-ups may not want to talk about, children are happy to fill in. Debbie Beran, the owner of Beran’s Jewelers, a store on the town’s main drag, considered pulling her kids out of the Ranch’s grammar school after her daughter, then 5, asked for a Hummer for her birthday. “I don’t want my kids growing up with those values,” she says. The clincher came while driving her son to football practice one afternoon and listening to his two 12-year-old teammates compare the cost of their houses, and their fathers’ cars and salaries. Beran, one of the rare divorced single mothers in town, cringed at the oneupmanship. After that incident, she transferred her children to a Catholic school in the next town over, where the students come from a mix of socioeconomic backgrounds.

The bubble effect at the Ranch is obvious: 93 percent of the population is white, and everyone except the help—nannies, chefs, housecleaners, gardeners—is affluent. (The predominantly Hispanic workers tend to live 30 minutes inland, where real-estate prices are a fraction of what they are here.) Giving back is big—women spend hours planning charity fashion shows and philanthropic luncheons, and they regularly make appearances at $500-a-plate benefits. At last year’s Kids Korps benefit, an organization for children and teenage volunteers, Larry King was the emcee and the best seats cost $1000 each.

If the Rancho lifestyle seems out of the realm of possibility for most Americans, it may be surprising to learn that at the end of the day, America’s richest women want the same things as women everywhere: good health, happy children, peace of mind. Burdick, who grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Los Angeles before launching her highly successful kinesiology practice, says life today isn’t much different than it was during her childhood—although vacations in the family camper have been replaced by four-star hotels, and today she is more likely to shop at Nordstrom than Sears. “Having money makes things easier, but it doesn’t necessarily make them better,” she says. “I may be more comfortable, but I’m not any happier than I was growing up, and I didn’t have any of this.”

SOUTH ALAMO, TX, IS HOME TO IMMIGRANTS WITH YEARLY INCOMES ($13,906) WELL BELOW THE POVERTY LINE

When Marie Delores Lopez wants to bathe one of her four children, or boil water for rice, she can’t just turn on her faucet. Instead, the 34-year-old single mother waits until after dark, when no one will see her, then creeps a few doors down to her evangelical church. There she fills up two five-gallon jugs from the church’s garden hose and lugs them home. She returns two, maybe three times, to ensure she has enough for the week. “We bathe in our yard, pouring pots of water over our heads,” she says. “But not every day. We have to conserve.”

Like many of her neighbors in South Alamo, TX, the poorest community in the U.S. (according to Census Bureau figures for populations over 150, Lopez doesn’t have access to running water because she doesn’t own the land on which her mobile home is parked. The median income for a family of four is $13,000—$3000 below the poverty line. Located 10 miles from the Mexican border, its 4000 residents live in an “unincorporated district,” meaning they don’t qualify for public services such as garbage pickup or street cleaning. Nor are there any housing codes, resulting in some wildly unorthodox construction. An odd assortment of shacks, slapped together with plywood and corrugated tin, line dusty, treeless streets.

Given its proximity to the border, South Alamo is settled almost entirely by immigrants—some legal, others not—all intent on pursuing the proverbial dream. Virgin Mary statues grace the backyards; brand-new American flags drape over chain-link fences. Ten years ago, the area was little more than a patch of scraggly earth just north of the Rio Grande. But as the flow of immigrants increased, landowners began selling off small parcels of their pastures. Exploiting the fresh arrivals’ naïveté, they reeled in buyers by asking for eminently affordable down payments of $150—then charged interest rates of 300 percent.

In a few short years, South Alamo was born—though until as recently as six years ago, the roads were still dirt. Without a sewer system or electricity, residents hooked up their lighting fixtures to car batteries and generators.

Most people barely get by. Perla Vasquez, 36, and her four children have been living on $390 a month in government aid since her husband, an undocumented worker, was caught trying to return to the U.S. from Mexico a year ago and sent to jail. Although she occasionally cleans houses for teachers in neighboring towns, Vasquez doesn’t own a car, limiting her ability to reach customers. In the months following her husband’s arrest, Vasquez fell behind on home payments; it now belongs to the government. Small towns have their advantages, however: Members of Vasquez’s church built her a two bedroom replacement house by hand.

Despite its bottom-rung status, South Alamo has a hopeful energy. People who cross the border, after all, do so to make their lives better, and many succeed. “The people here have a vision for their lives,” says Juanita Valdez-Cox, the director of La Union del Pueblo Entero, a local advocacy organization. “They worry they won’t make it, yet they persist in the face of tremendous hardship.” Glimpses of a brighter future can be found in the new businesses opening (McDonald’s and Little Caesar’s pizza), as well as in aerobics classes for women held at the Dolores Huerta Community Center.

Entrepreneurship reigns. Hand-painted signs clutter the street corners: “We do small-engine repair,” they read. “We sell sweets.” Leti Sanchez, 37, and her husband worked for a furniture maker when they came to the U.S. in 1998. After three years, they decided to open their own store. “We didn’t want to be someone’s employees forever,” she says. The first year, they barely survived. “We worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day.”

Gradually they built up a clientele, and they now earn about $16,000 a year making couches in the narrow, concrete-floored workshop beside their house. “We still work every day of the week, but we’re finally seeing the payoff,” says Sanchez. Two years ago, they bought one of the nicest houses on the block, a three bedroom prefab home. Sanchez decorated rooms with gilt mirrors and landscape prints and planted an avocado tree in the front yard.

LETI SANCHEZ UPHOLSTERS A CHAIR IN HER BACKYARD.

Like many immigrants, she wants nothing more than to give her children the same opportunities as wealthier Americans, even if it takes negotiating. When her eldest children—Sarayma, 15, and Eric, 13—expressed an interest in karate, she arranged to have them cut the grass outside the instructor’s martial-arts studio once a week in exchange for discounted lessons.

But for all the striving, South Alamo has deep problems. Only 17 percent of residents have graduated high school, and jobs are hard to come by. At night, gunshots echo through the neighborhood and battered cars cruise the streets. Last year, there were 1164 thefts in the area, making it one of the more crime-ridden regions in Texas. Local drug dealers infiltrate family blocks—next to one woman’s home, a pink concrete house reputedly served as a squatters’ den for years. Neighbors believe the dealers raped three girls there. But no one dared rat them out for fear of the repercussions.

In 2005, Lupe Treviño rolled into town as the county’s new sheriff. Treviño was determined to clean up the neighborhood. He set up a mobile police unit where residents could drop by to have a cup of coffee with deputies and share whatever was on their mind—baseball, the birth of a new baby, the state of crime in their neighborhood. “We told the folks in South Alamo, ‘You have to be our eyes,’” Treviño says. “Once we established trust in the community, residents began sharing information about drug dealers with us, and we made several arrests.”

Even as the area grows safer, many women are already dreaming of moving out and up. Still, some feel wistful about the idea of leaving. “We help one another here,” says Sanchez. “We treat each other like part of the family. How could a bigger house at a fancier address replace that?”





Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.