Said’s  works, Covering Islam, and Orientalism warned us to be careful of the media and how they represent Muslims and Islam. Today, we can see that he was right. The formerly laughable Fox News model has seeped into the mainstream.

Also, the spectacle of the scaffold where Muslim nations are tarred, charred, and quartered to make an ‘amende honourable’ for anything that America can come up with. If it was eye for an eye, that debt has been paid many times over. Sadly, there are few academics or intellectuals, who don’t mind wearing the ‘stupid sign’ around their necks — which is what happens when they dare to protest at what’s happening in public arena.

I agree with Said, who declared that we need a “critique of power”. He went further and insisted that it should be outside the discourse of Quran. I hate to say it, but how many texts are there in the Ivy League or beyond that will even start from the Islamic revolutionary perspective in attempting to deal with the horrible intellectual devastation of the Muslim world?

There are some intellectuals who are trying to sort out the dilemma that the Muslim world finds itself in using a syncretism of philosophy, Islam, Sharia, and media.  We find their works hidden in obscure compilations at bargain book bins or, by accident, on the Internet. And sometimes, they visit us at our universities in a seminar with only 20 minutes to speak. Afterwards, they find themselves banned from entering the US or sitting in solitary confinement.

Just when you thought Postmodernism was dead, the ‘Other’ is staring you in the face. In the beginning of the war in Iraq, Said reminded us that despite being packaged in a new colour, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were mere re-runs of old war movies. “America was launching a war against the darker skinned, wooly haired masses.” he lamented. I wonder what he 
would say now.

When our new UAE scholars come back, I hope they will join the lonely whispers of those who question some of the inconsistencies of the logic of both wars. I hope they revive the scholarly quest and become part of the efforts to bring that much-needed change. These days, frivolity has gone academic and this needs to be changed.   I hope their voices can protest the nonsense that is being passed off as facts and how the real facts are slanted so much that we can’t see them straight at all. Let’s take the example of the story of poor families in Pakistan who were being paid to send their children to learn the Quran, and the children were later put on a truck and sent to Waziristan, sold to a human traffickers to be shipped off to Afghanistan to become suicide bombers. I would think there are enough angry people in Afghanistan to do 
this job themselves.

We need intellectuals and reporters who can battle with agents of the state such as David Rohde. His predictable five part series in the New York Times is a feast for those with a xenophobic lust. He describes his captors as ignorant, religious fratricidal killers, who mysteriously let him live and go home. The story reeks of ignorance and prejudice, to put it mildly.  Another story that stinks is the one where it is suggested that when people are poor and they have nothing else to do, they take up bombs and look for an enemy.  The story about those poor kids carted off and sold is not a story about how terrorism happens; it’s a tale of poverty, human trafficking and, above all, old-fashioned exploitation. The terrorist part has yet to be proven. Where are those poor Pakistani Quran students being sent to?  What is happening to them while they are being driven off in the middle of the night without their families’ permission? One report stated that when the word got out, the kids were brought back. This is not a jihadist movement. This is a kidnapping ring. And why wasn’t it closed down when the first set of kids went missing?

Over and over again, I hear the correlation between Quran and terrorism. This begs the question: How can a place like Dubai and UAE even exist if there had been any link between the Quranic teachings and extremism? There are thousands of people who read the Quran daily in this nation. There is even a Quran award. At the same time, hordes of people flock here for fun, sun, and prosperity. Who is benefiting from the stolen kids is what needs to be found out. The rehashing of the scenario of the West African diamond wars of the late ‘90’s and beginning of this decade seems all too familiar. And it may be true, but there’s more to it than an interest in the Quran.

Where are the journalists, academics, rights activists who should be asking real questions like who the Taleban are, where they come from and what they want.  Recently, Afghan activist Rangina Hamidi, demanded answers to these questions as she watched death and destruction in Kandahar. These questions are obviously not important to the United States, United Nations, or the European Union and many around the people. All of  them know who the bad guys are: it’s that ubiquitous Muslim mafia-Islamist terror syndicate called Al Qaeda and their sponsors. They’re responsible for everything wrong with the world. And if you believe this, then, perhaps you would like to invest in a robotic snow man?

Maryam Ismail is an American sociologist and writer based in Sharjah