Text by Irene Dominioni, Italy
Photo by DW/K. Danetzki
With terrorist attacks happening more and more frequently every day, tensions over the question of migrants’ rights and far right political groups gaining increasing support through populist discourses, nations and global culture are put under stress these days.
“We are at a point where we are seeing the result of terrorist attacks as having the potential of creating fractures and divisions in our societies,” says André Gagné, Associate Professor from Concordia University, Canada, at the beginning of the panel on “Identity and diversity in the age of populism and religious extremism” at the 2017 Deutsche Welle’s Global Media Forum.
“The risk is to fall in the trap of the Jihadist propaganda discourse – that the West is actually in war against Islam. If we are not careful as societies about the reactions that we have against these kinds of events, they can create divisions. The jihadist narrative is to divide us and our liberalism at one point might become illiberal”.
Questions of identity, and especially how we belong to a single community of “westerners” or Europeans, are central in the discussion. The challenge posed by the increasing arrival of foreigners in our societies creates more tension. But the actual controversy, in the first place, appears to revolve around the very concept of European identity and how it is diminishing every day, with populists claiming superiority and citizens drifting away from a common sense of belonging.
Still, identities have multiple facets and actualizations in everyday life, relating to one another in different ways. “We, as Europeans, should embrace this diversity, because we can only gain from it. The more diversity you have, the more resources” says Laura Wagenknecht, freelance producer and editor based in East Africa. The road to integration is long and difficult, but it would be rewarding for everyone.” Still, Gagné points out, it is evident how a “clash of values” is happening.
The sensation of unrest appears pervasive, and media might be part of the problem, perpetrating biased worldviews in covering topics on top of the political agenda. Simplification of complex issues in an “us versus them” kind of rhetoric often leads to too narrow understanding of current events, providing only partial information and, therefore, fragmented truth.
“Everybody says: “We need to defeat Isis” but actually people don’t know anything about it; they don’t know what it is and where it comes from,” says from the audience Khalid Albaih, Sudanese artist and independent political cartoonist based in Qatar.
Albaih has been producing cartoons on social media since 2008, following trending topics and monitoring public opinion on the web. Based in Qatar, he has over 80,000 followers on Facebook and among his cartoon subjects (under Creative Commons) the Middle East and religious matters reoccur frequently.
“The media need to focus on the history of things – how were these enemies created?” he adds.
Disentangling years of complicated world events is no easy job, and, despite good will, reduced time and resources in newsrooms makes it less likely for the media to be able to go back to the explanatory and educating role that it used to have, before it got lost in the ocean of online news, between light-speed circulation and information hemorrhages.
From a reader’s perspective, understanding of these events takes a lot of time and energy. Being informed means more than simply following the news once a day.
The question now: Is it possible to find the time and the resources, on all sides, to reach the goal of having an informed and integrated society? The answer may lie in the evolving news business models and how the media can adapt to changes. When and how that is going to happen is another question to keep in mind.
