In today's issue
Covering the hijab martyr
Bloggers across the Arab world are dismayed at the mainstream media for ignoring Marwa Al Sherbini's story.
- By Adam Flinter, Web Editor
- Published: 23:09 July 13, 2009
- Image Credit: Gulf News Archive
- The murder of Marwa Al Sherbini has sent shockwaves across the Arab world.
The blogosphere in this part of the world has been ablaze for the past week or so with coverage about the murder of Marwa Al Sherbini, who has now been dubbed the hijab martyr.
Good thing too, because the mainstream English language media hasn't exactly been covering itself in glory with its attitude to the story.
For those who don't know, Al Sherbini was stabbed to death in a German courtroom by the man she was suing over anti-Islamic comments he had made to her.
Twitter and blogs picked up on the fact that the Western media was far from outraged by the incident, with some papers ignoring the Islamophobic element of the attack completely.
The media failure has been picked up, and commented on in great detail.
The Abu Dhabi-based Chasing Jannah blog (chasing-jannah.blogspot.com) was one of a few UAE based bloggers who felt compelled to comment. She wrote: "While this story is very disturbing, why haven't we heard anything from the major newspapers? When my brother-in-law (who is studying in Germany) told my husband if he heard about this, I immediately Googled it to find one news source detailing what happened. None.
"Come on. If we switch roles and it was a German who was attacked by a Muslim, CNN and all of the media outlets would be crying MURDERER!! Headline would be like, "Muslim kills woman in courtroom attack". But for Marwa Al Sherbini it's just "woman killed in court" - nothing more. Thank God for the outcry in Egypt otherwise no one would know any more about this sad story."
Alexander McNabb (yes him again, but he is one of an increasingly rare breed of Regular bloggers in the UAE with something to say) of fakeplasticsouks.blogspot.com added: "So, once again, we have news that travelled around Twitter, Facebook and blogs, the social media I talk so much about, but that was not considered newsworthy by the newspapers and TV channels that form 'mainstream media'...
"Now, a week later, we are seeing coverage of the protests - those comforting images of screaming hundreds in the streets chanting for revenge that help people in Europe to 'understand' the Middle East.
"The real question is why we didn't get to see that a gentle woman was killed in cold blood last week, when it happened. It took Twitter and blogs to tell us about that."
Outside of the UAE, the Arabist (arabist.net) gave a slightly different point of view.
"So really we're looking at more "clash of civilisations" style victimhood. Of course the Marwa Al Sherbini case is outrageous, it is a racist murder that took place in courtroom.
"But do we have to compare it to other news stories? And do we have to ask that the mainstream media in the West (which I advise to simply stop watching, at least TV) cover it?
"There are countless racist murders and attacks around the world all the time. This one is particularly nasty, but is the most important thing to do about it protest in front of the German embassy in Cairo (as if the German government is responsible) or complain that it's not covered on CNN (although there was excellent coverage on Al Jazeera English)?
"Is it not enough that it's a major story in most Arab media?"
Moving onto the subject of UAE brands.
Moryati (dubaiconsumermirror.blogspot.com) has this rant about a recent survey of the country's most loved companies.
"the top three are: 1. Nokia, 2. Google and 3. Sony. Riiiiight. Why can't anyone say what is Dubai's worst? I mean, if Yougov's really got it, it should have the guts to reveal Dubai's three worst and most hated brands. Right, we didn't think so either.
"Let's agree on one thing. A hated brand is one that's whenever causally mentioned, you are hit with queasy gagging feeling and an urge to regurgitate your last meal. "
He goes on to name his three most hated brands. You will have to click on his blog to find out which they are.
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