SOURCE: AllAfrica.com, 3/22/04
See Original Article Source

Present Islam Nigeria-UK documentary tour in Lagos

It was the turn of Lagos in the Islam Nigeria-UK tour Thursday last week. Under the British Council sponsored programme, the group were expected to visit five cities, Port Harcourt, Lagos, Maiduguri, Bauchi and Kaduna, to present talks by panelists and documentaries on Islam. The Lagos programme, which was essentially a discussion forum entitled: " Islam Nigeria-UK Tour: Representations of Islam in the Media", also showcased two documentaries entitled: "Madrasa" produced by a Nigerian and "Hajj" produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

The panelists comprise three discussants - Ajmal Masroor, a UK based specialist researcher in project development and management with interest in empowering communities to take active role in the regeneration and renewal of their own neighbourhoods and promotion of social harmony and community cohesion, Dasuki Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa, a political commentator and an entomologist with strong interest in human cultural development, especially in Islam and the media and Halimat Temi Akande, a recent graduate, consultant to the Islam Manpower Development Project and member, Publicity Committee of the Movement for Islamic Culture and Awareness (MICA).

The organisers said the objective of the project was to showcase Nigerian and UK film documentaries, portraying alternative views of Islam to audiences in both countries, to discuss how to raise awareness of and combat Islamophobia through constructive and proactive educational means and protect a more balanced image of Islam as it is practised by the vast majority of Nigerian and British Muslims.

Others were to encourage more positive relationships and dialogue between Nigerian communities and media workers, representing different religious and ethnic backgrounds and to discuss ways of making Muslim communities in Nigeria more aware of the media and more involved in engaging with, shaping and creating the media, both in Nigeria and onward to international audiences via broadcasting, civil society and the internet.

Ajmal Masroor, who took the stage first immediately after the documentaries, which essentially featured the essence of Islam and the life of a Muslim, spoke on what he termed the quagmire of Islam globally , Islamophobia.

Under what has been identified as Islamophobia, Masroor said Islam was not only being misrepresented in the press, reports on it were always bias, as no attempts were made to get the Muslim side to any issue before it was reported.

While calling for moderation, he noted also that the media, which has the overbearing power of promoting a culture of world view, creating opportunities for debates and discussions, to provide avenue for people to clarify misconceptions and make people feel empowered, were in the habit of creating stereotypes, stating that women were no subjects of Muslim men.

He said such suggestions were stereotypes the media had created over the years.

The media, he noted , create positive and negative images, but said Muslims were particularly worried over bias, negative and false reporting about the religion. Such sensationalised stories about Islam, he said, were being spearheaded by the American media.

To combat Islamophobia, Masroor said, there was need on the part of Muslims to erase such stereotypes by turning away from behaviours, which make people to have the impression of Islam they hold.

He also spoke on the need for Muslims to learn to differentiate between culture and Islam, and suggested dialogue with the movers and shakers of the media.

These, he enumerated to include publishers, and other media owners, and editors, among others.

He said while it was necessary to work with the existing media, there was need for Muslims to always respond to issues, create alternatives and be involved.

To be able to do that, he said, Muslims must not only be qualified, they must be creative.

Dasuki Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa, on the other hand, who spoke on media ownership and control vis-a-vis the effect on media reporting of Islam, said owners of the media go a long way to shape their views and positions on issues.

The same, he noted, of advertisers, who, he said, have firm control of the media because they depend on them for survival.

Ado-Kurawo, who enjoined Muslims to invest in the ownership of the media as well as go into such areas as advertising, said it had become necessary if Muslims and Islam in the country were to ever have fair representation in the media

Citing an example with the way the media, particularly handled the sharia issue in the country, he accused the media of dabbling into an issue they did not clearly understood and without ever deeming it fit to get some of their reports on the issue clarified. He mentioned the Amina Lawal case in which the media demonstrated utmost bias, stating that the way and manner the media went about reporting the case was not necessary since Amina Lawal's case was still on appeal and she had not been condemned as was being reported in the media.

However, some of the representatives of the media did not agree with them intoto that Islam was under reported and misreported in the country.

As one reporter from Financial Standard, a business and finance publication and another from THISDAY made them to understand, Muslim in Nigeria were not adequately working to aid news reporting on Islam in the country.

Apart from the fact that it was not known, where the secretariat or its liaison secretariat, if any exists anywhere in the country, of the Islamic Council of Nigeria was , the reporters told them that unlike Christian leaders, Muslim leaders were not accessible.

For instance, one reporter wonders how many news editors and religious affairs correspondents had the phone numbers of the Secretary General of the Islamic Council of Nigeria, Chief Lateef Adegbite, talk less of the National President or even know where they can be reached.

While the reporters suggested that the body engages a media officer to effectively laise with the press on issues affecting Islam in the country, they recommended that Islamic bodies in the country, like the churches, imbibe the practise of issuing press releases and making them available to the press from time to time on matters on which they seek publicity.

The reporters, most of whom were religious affairs corespondents, said they could not recall when they last attended a media briefing addressed by a Muslim leader or received a press release from a Muslim group in the country.

At the end of the programme, it was generally agreed that the forum was a good one, having for once brought the reporters and some leading Muslims together to exchange ideas, disabuse each others' opinion about themselves and provided the opportunity to exchange phone numbers and addresses.

As it turned out, it may well be the beginning, as the Muslims put it, of good and balanced reporting of Islam in the nation's media.

That again is, if they heed the reporters' suggestions, and play along.

Back to Home Page