Külügyi Szemle - A Teleki László Intézet Külpolitikai Tanulmányok Központja folyóirata - 2003 (2. évfolyam)
2003 / 1. szám - KÖZEL-KELET - Csicsmann László: Az "iszlám versus Nyugat" diskurzus a globalizálódó médiában
Résumé The "Islam versus West" discourse in the globalizing media According to a number of analysts, it is the differences among the civilizations that define the international developments in the 1990s after the collapse of the bipolar international order. The deepest such fault line can be found between the Islam and the West. The essay explores the impact of the ever globalizing media in the question and wishes to find an answer to the question wheter the media facilitate the dialogue between the civilizations or not. The author comes to the conclusion that the Western media idenitfy Islam with extremism, terrorism and violence and, thus, do not make it possible for the public to get to know the other. It is primarily the common interests of the national foreign policies and the economic actors that can be found behind this impact of the media. The 'containment' of the Soviet Union has been replaced with that of the Islam in the foreign policy of the West, especially in that of the U. S. Author Edward Said, who is of Palestinian origins, writes in his work published in the 1970s that while the Orientalists submitted the knowledge of the Orient to the interests of colonization in the 18th and 19th centuries, that is, they identified Islam with 'barbarism' and backwardness, the pake of Orientalists have been taken over by the media in the 20th century. The media has become a pioneer in the fight against 'global intifada' and the 'green threat', that is, the 'containment' of the Islam. There are four simplifications behind this assumption: 1) there exists an Islam unity, djihad against the West; 2) fundamentalism is compared with anti-Semitism and Nazism; 3) Islam constitues a monolithic unity; and 4) the cause of the Islamic religion is the civilizational backwardness of Islam. The author discusses the attitudes towards Islam on the basis of the Anglo-Saxon and the Hungarian printed press with regard to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It seems that a vigorous dialogue started about the Islam in West, but the Hungarian press continued to write in stereotypes. However, research has proved the existence of the four simplications regarding both the western and the Hungarian press. The programmes and analyses about the Islam is embedded in a framework which is defined by the most turbulent historical periods of the West and the Islam, such as the crusades and the expansionist attempts of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. However, the greatest challenge is posed by breaking down this framework so that a communication might be started which serves the dialogue between the civilizations. The goal would be to live in az age in which the press writes about a Jewish-Christian- Islam culture - though it seems a utopia at the moment. 2003. tavasz m
