CAPTIVES AND THEIR MONSTERS: USE OF CAPTIVITY
NARRATIVES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE IMAGINED MUSLIM
MONSTER
A Thesis
Presented to the
Faculty of
San Diego State University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
in
History
by
Mary Ellen Stout
Summer 2016
iii
Copyright © 2016
by
Mary Ellen Stout
All Rights Reserved
iv
DEDICATION
This work is dedicated to my father Wray Allen Stout, who instilled in me the love
and curiosity for learning. I wish he were here to see what he inspired. It is also dedicated to
my boys, Adam and Paul Clipper, who have sacrificed to support me in my goals. I hope that
they have learned along the way that they too can accomplish their goals through hard work
and sacrifice.
v
ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS
Captives and their Monsters: U.S. Media use of Captivity Narratives in the
Construction of the Imagined Muslim Monster
by
Mary Ellen Stout
Master of Arts in History
San Diego State University, 2016
Popular culture and mass media in the United States during times of crisis, anxiety,
fear, and emasculated frustration have constructed and perpetuated the Muslim male as the
monstrous other in order to regain national masculinity, spur patriotic military action, and
justify atrocities that would otherwise be outside the realm of morality and social norms.
Monsters historically have been constructed to explain the unknown, the unexplainable, and
the intolerable. They mirror societies’ greatest fears. Monsters have also been used as a
warning to society, as an explanation for an unexplainable creature or human defect, or to
incite violence against an enemy. In times of war, the adversary is often presented in the form
of the monster to dehumanize the enemy. While this phenomenon has been exacerbated in the
aftermath of 9/11, the monstering of Muslims has existed since before the time of the
Crusades. Using Jeffrey Cohen’s Monster Theory, as well as Michel Foucault’s theories on
discourse, power, and knowledge and the critical theories of Edward Said, this thesis unveils
the power of the media on multiple levels to incite public discourse and use the abject to
construct Muslims as the enemy. This research focuses on the use of captivity narratives in
the periods surrounding the Barbary Wars, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the “War on Terror”
by print media, art, academics, television news, and movies and reveals that in times of
national crisis against the Muslim adversary, U.S. popular culture and mass media
constructed the Muslim male as a monster in order incite and justify violence, war, and
torture.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS................................................................................................ v
LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................................ vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................. viii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER 2: THE MONSTERS OF THE BARBARY ........................................................ 15
CHAPTER 3: THE MONSTERS OF RADICAL ISLAM ..................................................... 53
CHAPTER 4: THE MONSTERS OF THE WAR ON TERROR ........................................... 91
CONCLUSION: THE DANGER OF CREATING MONSTERS ........................................ 124
BIBLLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................. 131
vii
LIST OF FIGURES
PAGE
Figure 1. Barbary Pirate… ...................................................................................................... 35
Figure 2. Abduction of a Herzegovenien Woman…..................................................................... 36
Figure 3. Fisherman and the Genie… ..................................................................................... 38
Figure 4. America Held Hostage, Day 11… .............................................................................. 70
Figure 5. America Held Hostage, Day 442… ......................................................................... 70
Figure 6. Iran Hostage Crisis .................................................................................................. 86
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work would not have been possible with out the patience, support, and expertise
of the History faculty at San Diego State University. They have all contributed of their time
and knowledge and provided an environment, which encouraged historical exploration. In
particular, I must acknowledge a select few who have had a significant impact on my work.
Dr. Paula DeVos supported my intellectual curiosity, which spanned not only continents and
time periods but also ventured in to other disciplines. She encouraged me early on to pursue a
Master of Arts in History and was always there to provide much needed guidance. Dr. DeVos
gave me a solid foundation in historical theory and the mechanics of writing history. She
was my tireless editor and has read way too many versions of this research. I will be forever
grateful for all of her tireless work, guidance, and emotional support.
Dr. Eve Kornfeld introduced me to post-structural analysis of primary sources. I was
a slow learner and it took me much of one semester to “get it”, but once I did, it changed my
approach to the study of history. Dr. Kornfeld helped me understand that the use of popular
culture as primary sources was a valuable way to find the voices of those left out of history.
Her guidance has significantly altered the way that I approach historical research and more
importantly, how I view the world. Her patience, wisdom, and innovation in the classroom
provided me with a role model that I only hope to emulate.
Dr. Shapovalov, in the Department of European Studies, introduced me to Monster
Theory and this changed everything. It completely transformed my approach to my research
and provided a new lens to view the construction of Muslim men throughout U.S. history,
which went beyond accepted theories of othering, Islamaphobia, and Orientalism. Her
encouragement to approach this research from a different angle has been invaluable.
My soul sister, best friend, and academic partner, Ann Linnea Zeinner, has been with
me every step of the way. From the first day of our Master’s program, we connected
intellectually and have worked in partnership ever since. She has read every word of this
research in all of its evolving forms and has been present at every presentation to provide,
ix
technical and emotional support. I could not have made this journey without her. We have
laughed, cried, screamed, cursed, and somehow evolved into professional historians.
1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
A young, masculine, Arab Muslim, dressed in an all black Arab-style robe and
headdress, holds a drill to the head of a small child, no more than 6 or 7 years old, who is
lying in the dirt. As the child screams and cries in vain, the scene switches back and forth
between the child’s parents and the hero, the American sniper. The child’s father is being
lightly restrained by two men but is incapable of saving his child; he is stripped of his
manhood in his inability to protect his family. The female members of the family passively
stand and cry, are not restrained in any way, but still make no attempt to save the child. The
Muslim kneels on the child, pushing his head into the dirt as he wails. The onlookers cover
their mouths in horror. In the background, a dog is barking, machine guns are firing, and
people are being shot dead on the street. We hear the screaming of the child and the grinding
of the drill as it enters the child’s skull. The father finally breaks away, but is shot dead. The
Muslim, snarls, while holding up the bloody drill, and warns in Arabic, “You talk to them,
you die with them.” The enemy, known as “The Butcher” has now been introduced to the
American sniper; this monster is his target.
On a street in Iraq, reduced to rubble by U.S. forces, “The Butcher,” is constructed as
the latest incarnation of the Muslim monster. This scene in the movie “American Sniper”1 is
an example of the way that Muslim men have either been emasculated, as in the case of the
child’s father, or, constructed as a monster to be destroyed. The sniper is clearly the hero of
the film, praised for his hundreds of kills, and the movie never challenges the legitimacy of
the war in Iraq, nor does it give agency or humanity to the Iraqis fighting against an
occupying force. While it may be tempting to dismiss this abject imagery as artistic license or
Hollywood marketing, it is much harder to dismiss the actual images and reports of U.S.
abuses from the Iraqi prison in Abu Ghraib.
1
American Sniper, Dir. Clint Eastwood. By Chris Kyle and Jason Hall (Milano: Mondadori, 2015). DVD.
2
U.S. military used the Abu Ghraib prison, during the Iraq war, to not only detain
prisoners of war, but also to torture and sexually degrade them. U.S. military guards took
over eighteen hundred pictures of prisoners, who were tortured, raped, sodomized with
objects, presented naked in front of the opposite sex, forced to masturbate on camera, walked
naked like a dog on a leash and collar, and stripped naked and forced into homosexual
scenarios,2 These photographs were evidence of the complete domination by the military
over the “inhuman” Iraqi prisoner and “the violent act of unveiling, stripping and penetration,
the ultimate act of cultural and sexual domination over an emasculate Iraqi other.”3 The
actions violated international law, the Geneva Conventions, and military protocol, and
although the U.S. government “officially” condemned them, they were excused and
minimized as an isolated incident. The atrocities at Abu Ghraib were quickly ignored by the
media for the argument remained that the treatment was justified as these were the enemy;
the monsters who attacked America.4
This thesis will examine the ways that U.S. mass media and popular culture have used
captivity narratives to construct Muslims as monsters. While the research covers the entire
span of U.S. history, the focus will be on times of crisis between the United States and a
Muslim adversary: the Barbary Wars, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the War on Terror. The
way that Muslims are portrayed in the U.S. media has a profound effect on public perception.
Using propaganda in time of war to elicit support for military action against an enemy is not
uncommon or a modern phenomenon; however, the “monstering” of the Muslim spans the
entire history of their existence.
States Government Taguba Report on Abu Ghraib, in Isis Nusair, “Gendered, racialized, and sexualized
torture at Abu Ghraib” Ed. Robin Riley, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, and Minnie Bruce Pratt, Feminism and
War: Confronting US Imperialsim, (London: Zed Books, 2008) 189.
2 United
3 Isis
Nusair, “Gendered, racialized, and sexualized torture at Abu Ghraib” Ed. Robin Riley, Chandra Talpade
Mohanty, and Minnie Bruce Pratt, Feminism and War: Confronting US Imperialsim, (London: Zed Books,
2008) 184.
4
Ibid. 190.
3
Since the emergence of Islam from the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century,
Christians in the West have imagined Muslims as the anti-Christ, inhuman, and monstrous.
The Prophet Muhammad was depicted as a heretic, schismatic, anti-Christ, or even a dog-like
monster. 5 Medieval Muslim monsters were most often Arab, African, or grouped with the
Jews and included the giant, man-eating monster, the Cynocephalus (dog-headed man), the
Black Saracens, and dark-skinned Arabs shown killing or harassing Christ or Christian
martyrs.6 Thus the Christian Church played a prominent role in the creation of the Muslim
monster, as the discipline of the body was the dominant mode of power.7 Dogma informed
imagery; imagery shaped belief.8 Sophia Rose Arjana explains:
If we think about this theoretically, employing Foucault and Bourdieu, the church
disciplined the body and the mind, as well as supporting the artists who manufactured
Muslim monsters (fields), creating an environment (episteme) in which people could
not help but believe in an imaginary Islam (phantasm), for what other alternative did
they have (habitus)?9
This discipline of the body by the Church continues through modern times and continues to
inform the fear of contamination of the body through miscegenation.
With the First Crusade in 1095, a conflict between Christian armies of Western
Europe and Muslim Turks holding Jerusalem, the Muslim began to be portrayed as a monster
in order to inspire military action. In 1095, the Muslim, Seljuk Turks were threatening the
empire of Alexius I, the Emperor of Byzantium and head of the Greek Christian Church. The
Turks had already captured Jerusalem and it seemed that he was helpless to stop their
advance. In an act of desperation, he called upon the head of Latin Christendom, Pope Urban
II, for help. He hoped that the Pope would be able to influence the Christians of Western
5
Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in Western Imagination. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015). Print. 23.
6
Ibid. 19.
7
Ibid. 23.
8
Ibid.
9
Ibid.
4
Europe to send a military force to hold off the Muslim invaders. At the Council of Clermont,
on November 27, 1095, Urban did exactly that. According The History of Robert the Monk,
Urban addressed the audience and in order to rally the enthusiasm of the knights and
noblemen he told them that the Muslim Turks,
…throw down the alters after soiling them with their own filth, circumcise the
Christians, and pour the resulting blood either on the altars or into the baptismal
vessels. When they feel like inflicting a truly painful death on some they pierce their
navels, pull out the end of their intestines, tie them to a pole and whip them around it
until, all their bowels pulled out, they fall lifeless to the ground. They shoot arrows at
the others tied to stakes; others again they attack having stretched out their necks,
unsheathing their swords to see if they can manage to hack off their heads with one
blow. 10
In addition to painting a picture of their adversary as an inhuman monster, Urban assured the
knights and noblemen that they could slaughter the infidel in the name of Christ with no fear
of penance, for crusading against the Muslim to free the Holy city of Jerusalem from the
Muslims was penance itself.
When Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, the Turkish Muslim monster was
added to the Western imagination. The Arab, African, and Black Muslim monster did not go
away; the Turk was merely added to the mix. The Turk was a lighter skinned, but still brown,
turbaned version of the monster that was often depicted as a sexually deviant, wild beast, and
a personification of the devil.11 The Turkish Muslim monster continued to make his
appearance in religious paintings of the crucifixion and executions of the saints.12 During the
Elizabethan Age, rising out of Orientalist Romanticism, came Gothic horror, which produced
literary Muslim monsters like Zofloya, Vathek, and Dracula:
Zofloya is a Moorish Satan, Seductive and attractive, he is simultaneously repulsive
and desirable. Vathek is queer, and when egged on by his dark-skinned Indian
Robert the Monk’s History of the First Crusade, ed. & Translated Carol Sweetenham
(Ashgate, Aldershot, 2006). 79-80.
10 Robert,
11 Arjana,
12
Muslims, 58-59.
Ibid. 63.
5
lover…, he becomes a sadomasochistic pedophile, murdering young naked boys in a
homo-erotic carnival of horror.13
The fear of miscegenation continues with Dracula, a Muslim from the East, who not only
sucks the blood of his victims, but also copulates with humans, which carries the threat of
contamination and monstrous offspring.14
The age of exploration to the Americas and increased scientific classification brought
a greater number of monsters that appeared in the Western imagination. Other dark-skinned
monsters joined the Muslim monster, including: Native Americans, South Pacific Islanders,
and with the advent of the Barbary Wars, a conflict between the United States and North
African corsairs, there was a “re-emergence of the Black Saracen.”15 The Barbary monsters
dominated popular culture and political discourse, which helped to “establish Islam as a
foreign religion that was initially connected to hatred against Africans.”16
Following in the legacy of their European forefathers the United States in times of
crisis, anxiety, fear, and emasculated frustration has created the monstrous other in the form
of the Muslim “monster” to regain national masculinity, spur patriotic military action, and
justify atrocities that would otherwise be outside of the realm of morality and social norms.
This research will illustrate how during these times of American military impotence against a
Muslim adversary, there has been a resurgence in the construction of the Muslim monster in
popular culture and mass media, which has magnified existing mainstream religious and
racial ideology and constructions of gender to perpetuate a xenophobic hatred of the ultimate
other, the Muslim monster.
Monsters have been constructed in an attempt to explain the unknown, the
unexplainable, and the intolerable. They mirror societies’ greatest fears. Monsters have also
13
Gil Anidjar, The Jew, The Arab: A history of the Enemy, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 34.
In Arjana, Muslims, 106.
14 Arjana,
15
Ibid. 6.
16
Ibid.
Muslims, 106.
6
been used as a warning to society, as an explanation for an unexplainable creature or human
defect, or to incite violence against an enemy. Xenophobia has bred its own form of
monsters to reinforce the fear of the “other” and justify racial domination. In times of war,
the adversary is often presented in the form of the monster to dehumanize the enemy. This
polarization places society in opposition with the “other,” painting the other as the monster.
This becomes the fundamental battle between the known versus the unknown, us versus
them, faithful versus the infidel, and ultimately good versus evil.
Since the focus of this thesis is the construction of a monster, it is also necessary to
demonstrate how the imagined Muslim monster fits the characteristics of the monster found
in popular culture. Jeffery Jerome Cohen establishes the characteristics of the monster in his
book Monster Theory.17 The first characteristic is that the monster is a social construction.18
The monster resides in the space between the self and the other. It incorporates the fears,
anxieties, desires, and insecurities of the society that creates it. In the case of the Muslim
monster, the construction has been in times of fear, anxiety and crisis when the United States
has been under attack by a Muslim adversary. The Muslim is depicted as a monstrous being
during times that the nation has felt the most helpless. Second, the monster always escapes.
No matter how many times the monster is killed or in what manner, “the undead returns in
slightly different clothing, each time to be read against contemporary social movements or a
specific, determining event.”19 Much like the vampire, who always returns, the Muslim
monster reappears during times of crisis just in a slightly different form, from the Barbary
pirate to the masked Islamic terrorist, it is the monster all the same. Third, the monster
refuses categorization, “because of its ontological liminality, the monster notoriously appears
at times of crisis and problematizes the clash of extremes.” This difference tends to be
17
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Monster Theory (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.1996) Print.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid. 5.
7
cultural/religious, political, racial, economic, or sexual.20 The Muslim monster symbolizes
the polar opposition of all of these. Fourth, the monster polices the border of the possible
(and the prohibited). “Whereas monsters born of political expedience and self-justifying
nationalism function as living invitations to action, usually military, …the monster of
prohibition polices the borders of the possible, interdicting through its grotesque body some
behaviors and actions, envaluing others.”21 The Muslim monster is the ultimate rebel,
lawbreaker, anarchist, and infidel; he is everything we are warned against but often cannot
resist. Those rejecting current societal conditions are drawn to this monster. Finally, the
monstrous lurks somewhere in that ambiguous, primal space between fear and attraction. The
linking of monstrosity to the forbidden makes the monster all the more appealing as a
temporary egress from constraint. It will be shown in the following chapters how the monster
has been constructed during times of conflict between the U.S. and a Muslim enemy. This
can be seen in all forms of media and popular culture; however, this research will focus
specifically on the ways that the narrative of captivity has been used to construct and
perpetuate the Muslim as a monster.
This thesis examines the construction of the Muslim as the ultimate “other,” who is
constructed as inhuman, evil, ungodly, and dangerous. Visual and textual examination
through a post-structural lens, using critical theories of Edward Said and Michel Foucault, as
well as monster theory of Jeffery Cohen, show the ways that Western societies have
constructed a monster called the “Muslim Terrorist.” Although exacerbated in the aftermath
of 9/11, this phenomenon has existed since before the time of the Crusades. By analyzing
images presented in popular culture, including art, literature, cinema, and mass media, this
research shows that the West has consistently made the Muslim into a “monster.” While
monstering is prevalent in all forms of media and popular culture, the limits of time
20
Ibid. 6.
21
Ibid. 12-13.
8
and space have forced a narrowed focus on the use of the captivity narrative as a tool of
popular culture and mass media in the monstering of Muslims in the U.S.
Chapter 1 will focus on the development of the first American captive narrative,
which emerged during conflicts with Native Americans in the Early American colonies. It
will then show how during the first altercation between the U.S. and a Muslim enemy, the
Barbary war period (1776-1815), the captivity narrative was again used to show the
adversary as a monster. This time, the monster is the Barbary pirate in North Africa. An
examination of the Barbary captive narratives will reveal the intentional representation of
North African Muslims as barbaric, savage, sexually depraved, idiotic, animalistic, and
ungodly. The influence of these captivity narratives on the construction of the Barbary pirate,
as a monster, will be seen in Orientalist art of the 19th century and the highly biased and
inaccurate portrayal of North African Muslims in the historiography of the Barbary Wars.
Chapter 2 will examine captivity narratives of the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979-1980.
Once again Americans were at the mercy of a Muslim adversary when American citizens
were taken hostage in Iran. Television nightly news programs constructed a new version of
the American captive and the monstrous Muslim captor. Now, the entire nation was held
captive and the monster was not just the captors, but instead all Iranians. Upon their release,
the captives also told their stories of captivity and an analysis of their narratives shows how
the captors are dehumanized and stripped of rational thought and agency. This monstering of
the Iranians expanded to all Muslims in the resulting political commentary of “experts” who
felt the need to explain the “Muslim problem.” It was during this period that the Muslim
monster evolved into the Muslim “terrorist”.
Chapter 3 confronts the “War on Terror” in the aftermath of the attacks on the United
States on September 11, 2001, by Muslim extremists, and analyzes the ways that the captivity
narrative is played out in journalism, television documentaries, and film. An examination of
the case of Jessica Lynch, a female soldier, illustrates how the U.S. government and the
media used the familiar captivity trope in order to gain national support for an unpopular war
9
by presenting to the public a carefully fashioned image of Iraqis as dangerous and inhuman.
When the roles were reversed and the Muslim was in American captivity, the inhumanity of
the monster was used to justify torture and atrocities that are not only outside of accepted
social norms, but also against international law.
Ultimately, this thesis will show how during times of crisis, the captivity narrative has
been used to construct the Muslim adversary as a monster in order to spur military action and
justify atrocities that are normally outside of socially accepted norms. The use of abject
imagery and textual representations, designed to elicit outrage, has influenced U.S. public
opinion and ultimately, foreign policy.
In order to understand the influences on the society that created the Muslim Monster,
it is important to look to the research done in the field of Orientalism, which was introduced
by as a field of study by Edward Said22, in 1979. Said examined the ways that the academic
discipline of Middle Eastern scholars (Orientalists), portrayed the Orient. He argued that the
West constructed the East in opposition to the core values and beliefs of Europeans. If the
West is portrayed as civilized, moral, educated, cultured, pious, and most importantly
superior, then the East must be barbaric, immoral, uneducated, uncultured, heretical, and
inferior. In Orientalism, Said challenged the way that scholars looked at the study of the
Middle East and criticized the academic discipline of Oriental Studies, which consists
primarily of the study of the Arab/Muslim world. He argued that beginning with the
documentation that came out of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, the Arab/Muslim
world has been portrayed in history, literature, art, and popular media, in a way that turned
Muslims and Arabs into the Other; a group of people who are fundamentally different from
and inferior to people of the West. Said explained that Orientalist scholars have continued to
use Orientalism systematically to, “manage and even produce the Orient politically, socially,
militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post Enlightenment
22
Edward W. Said. Orientalism. (New York: Vintage, 1979.) Print.
10
period.”23 This form of scholarship has allowed the justification of Western colonialism,
which continues to the present day. Said’s work has since been translated into thirty-six
languages and continues to be a subject of debate and research. Said’s specific focus was on
British and French academics; however, in the following decades research on Orientalism has
continued with an emphasis on public perception of the East in politics, literature, art, and
popular culture.
David Vitkus,24 fundamentally agrees with Edward Said but believes that Orientalism
started much earlier in Europe than Napoleon’s invasion into Egypt. He argues that there is
evidence of Orientalism in literature, art, poetry, and theater in Early Modern Europe and
gives examples of how the genre of fictionalized captive narratives during the Early Modern
Period were used to show how the “Good Christians” overcame the “Bad Muslims” in the
end. He also uses literature, both fiction and biographies, to show how the beliefs of Islam
and the life and character of the Prophet Muhammad are misrepresented. Vitkus argues that
during the Early Modern Period the “European attitude toward Islam and its people is
manifest, not only in descriptions of Islamic theology or Turkish belligerence, but as part of a
whole set of stereotypes found also in literature and art, most of which represent the
“oriental” Other as an external enemy.”25 Vitkus concludes with the assertion that
“Unfortunately, the demonization of Islam and misunderstanding of Islamic society and
religion that this essay recounts are still prevalent in the dominant ideology of the West.”26
Ultimately, Vitkus is in agreement with Edward Said on the continued prevalence and danger
of Orientalism in Western society.
23
Ibid. 3.
Vitkus. “Early Modern Orientalism: Representations of Islam in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century
Europe.” Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Perception of Other. Ed. David R.
Blanks and Michael Frassetto. (New York: St. Martin’s, 1999.) Print. 209-230.
24 David
25
Ibid. 218.
26
Ibid. 226.
11
In the U.S., the development of an Orientalist mentality grew out of its European
roots but took on a character of its own. Fuad Shaban and Douglas Little provide great
insight into the development of American Orientalism. Faud Shaban in, Islam and Arabs in
Early American Thought: Roots of Orientalism in America explains that the religious origins
of the U.S. had a great influence on Americans’ view of the world. He states, “It is indeed the
Puritan beginnings of the American nation that we should look for the formative factors
which shaped America’s image of itself, its self-awareness and analysis, and, by contrast, its
awareness of and attitude towards the Arab world, its land and people.”27 He explains further
that the Puritans and Pilgrims saw their immigration to the American colonies as a
providential plan given to them by God. They had a conviction that they were God’s chosen
people and, therefore had a covenant with God as partners in a divine mission to create a
community of God’s people. Shaban also argues this “covenant implied the awesome duty of
enlightening and saving the rest of the world.”28 These ideas were fundamental in shaping the
American belief that their nation was the “true hope for humanity” and they had the
responsibility to spread this hope to the rest of the world.29 This early foundation in religious
beliefs caused many writers of the Early American period to interpret even the most secular
events in a religious context.
Douglas Little30 agrees that the Puritan religious ideology had a significant impact on
American thought regarding the Middle East. Post-revolutionary America, following thirty
years of conflict with the Barbary States, was indoctrinated with orientalist images through
captivity narratives and plays such as the play Slaves in Algiers by Susanna Rowson.31
27 Fuad
Shaban, Islam and Arabs in Early American Thought: Roots of Orientalism in America. (Druham, NC:
Acorn, 1991) 1.
28
Ibid. 2.
29
Ibid. 6.
30 Douglas
31 Susanna
Little, American Orientalism (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 2002.) Print.
Haswell Rowson. Slaves in Algiers Or, A Struggle for Freedom ; a Play. Interspersed with Songs, in
Three Acts. As Performed at the New Theatres, in Philadelphia and Baltimore. (Philadelphia, PA: Wrigley and
Berriman, 1794). Print. In Douglas Little, American Orientalism, 12.
12
Americans were continued to be fed a diet of anti-Muslim messages in literature and media
ranging from the fantasies in Thousand and One Arabian Nights32 to the white, western,
racial superiority over Arabs exhibited in T.E. Lawrence’s Revolt in the Desert,33 which Little
describes as “an overnight bestseller in U.S. bookstores, providing American readers with a
predictable portrait of the Arabs as brave and brutal primitives, noble savages, badly in need
of Western guidance and tutelage.”34 He argues that American Orientalism grew out of the
established roots of British Orientalism writing, “For British Orientalists, Ottoman
despotism, Islamic obscurantism, and Arab racial inferiority had combined to produce a
backward culture that was badly in need of Anglo-Saxon tutelage. With the waning of
Britain’s power and the waxing of America’s after 1945, something very like Said’s
Orientalism seems subconsciously to have shaped U.S. popular attitudes and foreign policies
toward the Middle East.”35
Melani McAlister in Epic Encounters: Culture, Media and U.S. Interests in the
Middle East since 1945 greatly expands the work of Douglas Little by arguing that culture is
not merely a reflection of events and attitudes; instead it is an active participant in shaping
history.36 McAlister examines the intersection between popular culture and U.S.-Middle East
by analyzing, news accounts, novels, films, advertising, and museum exhibits. She makes the
connection between these cultural products, the development of U.S. foreign policy, and
Benedict Anderson’s argument that “nationalism is a cultural development. Nations are
‘imagined communities’ rather than natural entities, and as such they depend on cultural
32
Geraldine McCaughrean. One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999). Print. In
Douglas Little. American Orientalism, 11.
33 T. E.
Lawrence. Revolt in the Desert. (New York: George H. Doran, 1927). In Douglas Little. American
Orientalism. 17.
34 Little,
35
American Orientalism, 17.
Ibid. 10.
36 Melani
McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East Since 1945,
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). 5.
13
articulation and construction.”37 She shows the crucial role that cultural products during
different periods after WWII have formed a national identity and how that identity influenced
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. McAlister’s work is vital for understanding the
importance of popular culture and media in creating a national identity that drives U.S.
interaction in the world.
While these scholars’ extensive research explains the development of American
Orientalism and the “othering” of the Muslim, it does not address the extreme construction of
the Muslim as a monster. Sophia Rose Arjana, however, takes the othering of Muslims
beyond Orientalism in Muslims in the Western Imagination, which is an extensive
genealogical and anthropological study of Muslim monsters, as they exist in the Western
imagination.38 She argues, “that imaginary Muslim monsters have determined the
construction of the Muslim in Western thought.”39 In her examination of Western art and
literature, Arjana exposes how Muslim identities have been discursively created in the form
of a monster. Ordering her chapters by historical periodization, she shows how the historical
context of each period explains the religious and racial fears that drive the xenophobic
treatment of Muslims in Western culture. Arjana’s extensive documentation of these
monsters over a period of thirteen hundred years provides the historical foundation for the
cultural construction of the Muslim monster and greatly informs my work; however, it does
not address the trope of the captivity narrative in creating Muslim monsters. This is the gap
that this thesis will attempt to fill.
Like all historians, my work is built on the foundations laid by those who came
before. This work is greatly influenced by the theories of Michele Foucault, Jacques Derrida,
Edward Said, and Jeffrey Cohen. It is my hope that I will expand on the work of
37
Ibid. 5.
38 Arjana,
39
Ibid. 1.
Muslims, Print.
14
contemporary scholars of American Orientalism: Douglas Little and Fuad Shaban, and
Religious and Cultural historians: Melanie McAlister and Sophia Rose Arjana.
Throughout this work, the term “monster” or “monstering” are used as a verb to
explain the action of constructing a human as an inhuman beast that has the characteristics of
a monster, either real or fictitious. This is not Islamaphobia, which is described as a fear or
anxiety of Muslims, this is as Sophia Rose Arjana, so perfectly describes, is the action of
constructing Muslims as “uncivilized, hyper-violent, permanent foreigners, who, despite their
global geographic distribution, ethnic and cultural diversity, and large numbers are reduced
and essentialized to a caricature of ridiculous proportions.”40 This action makes the targeted
human, or humans, into something that no longer deserves the rights normally attributed to a
human, is not under the protection of God, is an enemy to mankind, should be kept separate
from innocent people, and needs to be destroyed at any and all cost. This is beyond prejudice
and beyond “othering”. This is an extreme marginalization and dehumanization. This is
monstering.
40 Arjana,
Muslims, 2.
15
CHAPTER 2: THE MONSTERS OF THE
BARBARY
“The monster’s body quite literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy…, giving
them life and an uncanny independence. The monstrous body is pure culture.”41
The United States’ first national encounter with a Muslim adversary coincided with
its creation as a nation. By throwing off the shackles of Great Britain, the United States
suffered the unanticipated consequence of war with the Barbary States of North Africa.
Barbary corsairs or pirates, captured unprotected American merchant ships and held their
crews captive. Through the captivity narratives that emerged from this crisis, popular culture
in the United States constructed the Barbary corsairs and their leaders as the first Americancreated “Muslim monster”. Carefully crafted tales of the barbarity, savagery, and inhuman
nature of the Barbary pirates were told in the pages of captive narratives and acted out on the
stage for public entertainment. Images of the Barbary pirate monster appeared in Orientalist
art during the 19th century that purposefully depicted the horrific sexual nature attributed to
the Muslim foe. These cultural products were exaggerations or pure works of fiction, created
to elicit outrage against an enemy; however, in the end, these narratives and images informed
the academic writing of U.S. historians who in turn educated the public about the Barbary
corsairs, solidifying the Muslim monster identity in the American imagination.
Barbary Wars and the Pirates of the Barbary:
In 1801, the United States, having just won its independence from Great Britain,
began a new war. The fledgling nation fought its first war on foreign soil against the semiautonomous regencies of North Africa known as the Barbary States (Morocco, Algiers,
41 Jeffrey
1996), 4.
Jerome Cohen, Monster Theory: Reading Culture (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press,
16
Tunis, and Tripoli). The Barbary Wars, a series of conflicts between 1801 and 1815, were the
result of predation on U.S. merchant ships by corsairs of the Barbary States, which began in
1776 when these ships were no longer under the protection of the British Navy.
Revolutionary America was largely made up of farmers and merchants who were dependent
on oceanic trade for their survival. The trade routes that the newly formed country depended
upon for transporting their goods were not only in the Caribbean, but also the Mediterranean.
Prior to 1776, merchant ships were able to sail confidently and trade their goods in both
eastern and western ports unmolested as they were under the protection of the powerful
British Navy.42 Barbary corsairs were privateers who sailed from the independent state of
Morocco and the semi-autonomous Ottoman states of Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, located
along the North African coast referred to as the Barbary Coast. During the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, the corsairs captured European ships in the Mediterranean and either
sold the crew into slavery or held them for ransom. Many of the European trading nations
had entered into treaty arrangements with the Barbary powers, which required the payment of
an annual tribute. The British colonies of the New World had benefited from these treaty
agreements and were generally left alone. Once the United States declared its independence
from Britain, these treaties no longer provided protection and American merchant ships came
under attack; the ships were captured and the crews imprisoned and held for ransom.43
The newly formed nation was in no position to resist militarily as it had no navy, nor
the ability to create one. In addition, the new nation fresh from battle with Britain was deeply
in debt and did not have the funds to pay the ransoms or the annual tribute required by the
Barbary powers to enter into treaties. This situation caused great debate both in the
government and amongst the public. The merchants would be bankrupt if they were not able
to trade their goods in the Mediterranean, the public was outraged at the idea of Christians
being taken as prisoners and slaves by Muslims, and government officials could not agree
42 Richard
Parker, Uncle Sam in the Barbary: A Diplomatic History (Gainsville: University Press of Florida,
2004). Print.
43
Ibid.
17
how to stop it. Over the next forty years, American diplomats tried to negotiate with the
Barbary powers, the U.S. eventually agreed to build a navy, and, in the end, fought two wars
with the Barbary States ending in 1815.44 Many of the American captives were held in North
Africa for over a decade.45
The Barbary corsairs, who are often referred to as Barbary pirates, have been
demonized in both popular culture and history books as unlawful, barbaric, Christian-hating,
Muslims, who were acting out a centuries-old revenge against Christians. Corsair activity,
however, had been a part of the maritime culture since ancient times in the Mediterranean.
Fernand Braudel calls “privateering, an ancient form of piracy native to the
Mediterranean.”46 Privateering was endemic to all groups of people and ports in the
Mediterranean during the 16th century. The difference between privateers or corsairs and
pirates is consent from a government, normally a city like Algiers or Malta, but later from
nations like France, Britain, and Spain. Corsairs operated under contract or letters of marque,
which allowed them to attack enemies of the issuing government. Privateers or corsairs
shared the booty with the government. Pirates, in contrast, operated outside of the law and
kept all of the confiscated booty. Western historians often chose to focus on the Barbary
corsairs, the pirates of Islam, alone; however, even though Algiers was known as a
prosperous port of corsairs, its fortune was not unique as Christian corsairs also operated out
of Mediterranean ports. “Malta and Leghorn were Christendom’s Algiers, they too had their
bagnios, their slave markets, and their sordid transactions.”47 As commercial trade in the
Mediterranean expanded and European shipping technology advanced, Europeans tried to
exclude the Muslim countries from commercial trade in Europe through regulations, laws,
and tariffs. Bouanani argues:
44 Hossel,
45
The Articles of Confederation (Chicago, IL: Heinemann Library, 2004) Print.
Ibid.
46 Fernand
Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (New York: Harper
& Row, 1972), 867.
47
Braudel, The Mediterranean, 867.
18
[B]y the mid-1620s, the Americans and British had become active in Mediterranean
and Atlantic piracy, attacking all nationalities, Moroccan and French, Algerian and
Spanish. The urge to dominate North Africa’s resources imperially and commercially,
including human resources, continued until 1670 when they finally dominated both
the sub-Saharan and North African slave trade.48
In addition, he argues that Americans, as well as the Europeans, were “capturing Muslims
from all around the Mediterranean to sell into their slave-markets.”49 It was not until these
American sailors lost the protection of Britain that they became “victims” of the Barbary
corsairs.
Although both Christian and Muslim countries throughout the Mediterranean were
carrying out corsair activity, the emphasis in the Barbary captivity narratives was only on the
Muslim pirates who took Christians captive.
Foundation of Captive Narratives:
Orientalist perceptions of the Barbary “pirate”50 as a Muslim monster began to take
form in Barbary captive narratives, both real and fictionalized, that came after this crisis with
the Barbary States. Barbary captivity narratives followed the form created by European
captivity narratives that went back for hundreds of years. British, Dutch, and Spanish
captives of the Barbary told their tales including Miguel de Cervantes, author Don Quixote,
who told a fictionalized tale of his actual 16th-century captivity, in The Captive’s Story.51 The
American version of Barbary captive narratives also grew out of the Early American public’s
fascination with the American Indian captive narratives.
48 Bouanani,
“Propaganda for Empire: Barbary Captivity Literature in the US”, Journal of Transatlantic Studies
(Vol. 7, No. 4, December 2009), 402.
49
Ibid.
50 As
noted previously, most of the Barbary corsairs were operating under letters of marque, which made their
activity legal, so they were not by definition pirates. The word pirate is used in this work to emphasize the
demonization presented in the narratives.
Miguel de Cervantes, “The Captive’s Story” Trans. Thomas Shelton., Don Quixote of the Mancha (New York:
P.F. Collier and Son, 1937), 391-430. Originally published in 1605.
51
19
The United States, in the post-revolutionary period, needed to create a culture and
national identity separate from Britain. As Eve Kornfeld notes in Creating an American
Culture, Noah Webster, along with other intellectual leaders, believed there was a need to
create an independent American culture that included language, literature, education, and
history that was unique from England.52 This was especially challenging in light of the
diverse culture that made up the regions of the United States.53 These intellectuals discovered
that it was necessary to define who they were not, as opposed to who they were. They had to
create the “other”. As Kornfeld explains, encountering the other became crucial to U.S. social
construction. Captivity experiences became an important element in this process. The other
had to be terrible, inferior, dangerous, and threatening, but it also had to be alluring.54 The
threat of domination and repression of prohibited desire was a necessary element in creating
a national cultural identity that was morally superior. In addition, they framed the narratives
in religious terms, which credited God for their survival and freedom from the “monstrous,
cowardly, ignoble, and sexually deviant’ captor. Similar to the Native American captivity
narratives, in the Barbary captive narrative, the North African Muslim was also accused of
being ignorant of democracy and freedom.55
In addition to a unique cultural identity, the United States needed to create a national
identity to present to the world. The political elite had to decide what kind of nation it would
be. They wanted to represent freedom and democracy, but also have the power to enforce
their right to exist amongst the world powers. In the process of creating this unique national
identity, the United States used captive narratives as propaganda to differentiate itself as
racially superior, morally pure, and the promoter of freedom and democracy. Captive
52 Eve
Kornfeld, Creating an American Culture 1175-1800: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/
St. Martins, 2001), 3.
53
Ibid. 3.
54
Ibid. 66-67.
55
Bouanani, “Propaganda for Empire”, 401.
20
narratives were effective as they focused on the barbarity, bestiality, and promiscuity of
unchristian Native Americans, Black Africans, and later Barbary pirates.
American Indian captivity narratives became popular after King Philip’s War
(1675-1676) and remained, along with Barbary captive narratives, popular well into the 19th
century. In a last ditch effort to drive the English out of the southern part of New England;
Pokunoket Chief Metacom (King Philip) led a coalition of tribes against the English settlers.
This offensive, known as King Philip’s War (1675-1676), was a response to expansion of
colonial territories and a breakdown in trade. During the fourteen months of fighting twelve
frontier towns were destroyed and many captives were taken.56 One of these captives was a
Pastor’s wife, Mary White Rowlandson. She was taken captive along with her children and
others from her village. During this same period, Amerindian women were captured by
English settlers and forced into servitude. Written in 1682, Mary Rowlandson’s narrative
related her experiences as a captive of an Indian tribe during King Philip’s War.57
The account is significant for its representation of Puritan religious values.
Rowlandson attributes her captivity as a test from God and her release as a reward for her
unwavering faith. Gender is also a major theme in her account as she juxtaposes her role as a
good Christian wife to the role of the females within the tribe. Although she never challenges
her role in her writing, her behavior during captivity moves her outside of her subscribed role
as a Pastor’s wife as she engages in both the trade of goods and services and negotiations
with tribal leaders for the release of herself and others. In addition, Rowlandson writes and
presents her story publically, although, Puritan women were generally prohibited from
speaking in public. Additionally, Rowlandson maintains throughout her narrative that her
virtue was never violated. Her Christian virtue sets her apart from the representation of the
promiscuity of the unchristian Indian.
Eric Foner and John A. Garraty. “King Philip’s War.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 15
Oct. 2014. http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/king-philips-war.
56
57 Mary
Rowlandson, A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Rowlandson (New York: Garland
Pub., 1977), Print.
21
Rowlandson’s narrative goes beyond a mere narration of events or a diary of her
captivity; she uses language throughout the narrative that represents the Indians as less than
human. When describing the attack on her village, she writes, “Thus were we butchered by
those merciless heathens, standing amazed, with the blood running down to our heels.”58 She
goes on to describe the attack in a way that would lead the reader to believe they had been
attacked by wolves or some other pack of wild animals, stating, “It is a solemn sight to see so
many Christians lying in their blood, some here and some there, like a company of sheep torn
by wolves, all of them stripped naked by a company of hell-hounds, roaring, singing, ranting
and insulting as if they would have torn our very hearts out.”59 As an example of the othering
described by Kornfeld, throughout the text Rowlandson sets herself and fellow Christians
apart from the Indians who have captured her by describing their differences. Even as they
show her kindnesses, such as providing her with a bible to read, she still constructs Native
Americans as the other by juxtaposing their lack of Christian beliefs and their odd rituals
against her piety and restrained conservative behavior. She is defining who she is by
simultaneously defining who she is not.
Similar to the American Indian captive narratives, Barbary captive narratives
represent a struggle between the white, Christian American and the other who is racially and
religiously different. This trope continues throughout the captivity narrative genre, which
paints both the Native American and the African Muslim as sex-crazed, immoral, dishonest,
murderous, cruel, animalistic, and less than human. Rape or the threat of rape, pedophilia,
prostitution, and homosexuality are themes that run through the Barbary captive narratives
and continue in the demonizing of Arabs and Islam into the 21st century.
These narratives also project a position of racial superiority on the American reader.
In his article, “ Propaganda for the Empire: Barbary captivity literature in the US,” M. A.
Bouanani, argues that:
58
Ibid. 3.
59
Ibid. 4.
22
The writers who produced Barbary captivity narratives—consciously, I submit—
participated in the campaign to vilify Arab-Muslims as ‘Barbarians’, whose
despotism, immorality and captivity was likewise surmounted by faithful Christians.
Thus, the Barbary captivity narrative was developed concurrently with the Indian
captivity narrative to serve the same propagandistic purposes of nation-building and
empire.60
He argues that early Americans practiced a unique form of Protestantism that invented
enemies often in the form of Satan and that writers of captivity narratives capitalized on these
religious values and perception of exceptionalism by promoting propaganda that emphasized
the “bestiality, and promiscuity of unchristian Native Americans and ‘Black’ Africans.”61
These proclivities set them apart from the enemies, which they had created. Paralleling
Rowlandson’s Indian captivity narrative, American writers of Barbary captive narratives
“most often framed their narratives in religious terms, and in the course of celebrating God’s
hand in the preservation of the captive, the narrator often denounces the African captor as
heretical, monstrous, cowardly, ignoble, and sexually deviant.”62 This monstering of the
North African Muslim reinforced the religious belief of God overcoming Satan. Captivity
narratives were immensely popular and they certainly pandered to their audience; however,
although these narratives were sensationalized to sell books, they are still a valuable source
of information regarding the author’s perceptions of religious ideology, race, and gender.
Barbary Captive Narratives:
Barbary captivity narratives came in a variety of forms: memoirs, letters, books, and
even a fictional play; each gives an insight to the representation of the Muslim by the author.
In his memoir, In his memoir, Sufferings in Africa,63 James Riley, the captain of the American
60
Bouanani, “Propaganda for empire”, 399-412.
61
Ibid. 401.
62 Paul
63
Baepler, “The Barbary Captivity Narrative in Early America”, Early American Literature (30, 1995), 96.
James Riley, Anthony Bleeker, and Gordon H. Evans. Sufferings in Africa: Captain Riley's Narrative...
(New York:C.N. Potter, 1965) Print.
23
merchant ship Commerce, shipwrecked in 1815, recounts the hardship faced by him and his
crew as they not only survived a walk across the Sahara Desert but also endured the
hardships of slavery in North Africa. James Leander Cathcart was an Irish immigrant to the
United States, who by the time he was twelve years old was working as a corsair on an
American privateer ship. Within a few years, he was captured and imprisoned by the British
on a prison ship from which he escaped. By 1785, Cathcart was serving on the crew of the
American merchant ship The Maria Boston, which was captured by Algerian corsairs on its
way to Cadiz. He was taken captive, along with twenty other sailors, enslaved, and held for
ransom. In his memoirs and letters, compiled and published in The Captives: Eleven Years a
Prisoner in Algiers (1899)64, he tells the story of his eleven years in captivity and his rise in
wealth and status during this period. William Eaton, a military officer and diplomat who
served as the Consul to Tunis from 1797 to 1803 wrote another narrative. He was never a
captive but was involved in negotiations with the Dey of Algiers and attempted a military
coup in Tripoli when negotiations failed. Eaton was a prolific and colorful writer and many
historians have used his descriptions of the Muslim leaders of the Barbary. Finally, Susanna
Haswell Rowson was a British-born American writer who wrote plays, poetry, and novels
during the early 18th century. She was extremely popular with the public as her novel
Charlotte Temple65 was the best selling novel in American literature until the publication of
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin66 in 1852. Rowson’s play Slaves in Algiers67
(1794) is a fictional dramatization of Americans held captive in North Africa. Her story
romanticizes two American women as captives who are able to outwit their captors and gain
freedom for themselves and the men being held with them. While Rowson’s play is pure
64 James
Cathcart, The Captives: Eleven Years a Prisoner in Algiers, Edited by J.B. Newkirk (La Porte, IN:
Herald Print, 1899), Print.
65
Susanna Haswell Rowson, Charlotte Temple and Lucy Temple (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1864), Print.
66
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (London: T.C. & E. C. Jack, 1906), Print.
67 Susanna
Haswell Rowson, Ed. Jennifer Margulis and Karnen Poremski. Slaves in Algiers or a Struggle
for Freedom (Acton, MA: Copley Pub. Group, 2000). Print.
24
fiction by the author’s own admission, the demonization of both the Jews and the Muslims in
this play and its popularity, makes it a valuable source for investigation. The “monstrous
Muslims” constructed in these Barbary captivity narratives were used to justify the need for a
standing military and the use of military force during the Barbary wars and later against other
Muslim adversaries.
Similar to the earlier American Indian captivity narratives, the captives of the Barbary
asserted their identity as Christians not only to designate their religious and national
affiliation, but also as a reason for their survival. In many of the captive narratives, the author
explained the horrific circumstances that he barely survived and most of the time attributes
his survival to divine providence or the grace of God. For example, James Riley, a captive in
the Barbary in 1815 wrote of his trek across the desert after his ship was wrecked on the
African coast and he and his crewmates were taken captive. He wrote extensively about the
hardships and near death from the sun, as well as a lack of food and water. In this passage
both Riley and his captor gave the credit for his survival to God:
Praised be God, the most high and holy! for his goodness :" then addressing himself
to me, he remarked, " You have indeed been preserved most wonderfully by the
peculiar protection and assistance of an overruling Providence, and must be a
particular favourite of heaven : there never was an instance (added he) of a Christian's
passing the great desart [sic] for such a distance before, and you are no doubt destined
to do some great good in the world ; and may the Almighty continue to preserve you,
and restore you to your distressed family.68
In the same way, James Leander Cathcart, an American captive in Algiers from 1785 until
1796, who kept a journal and wrote extensively about his time as a captive, attributed his
ability to earn money and help his fellow shipmates held captive in Algiers to the grace of
God, which allowed him the ability and opportunity to provide help, “…and had it not
pleased God to have placed me in a situation to have assisted them, they would certainly
68
Riley, Sufferings in Africa, 119.
25
have been worse off.”69 This attribution to survival and/or good fortune to providence is a
theme that runs through many of the narratives and testifies to the perceived favor of God for
Christians as opposed to non-Christian Muslims.
“Christian values” were also a frequent topic of discussion in the narratives. The
authors often refer to their Christian values either to explain the good that someone was
doing or out of disgust at the poor behavior of a Christian who was acting outside of the
perceived values of Christianity. James Cathcart, for example, wrote about his disgust that
the British Consul was using fellow American sea captain, Richard O’Brien as slave labor. In
this excerpt he explained how this went against Christian values that they supposedly share:
We could not refrain from tears at viewing their humiliating situation which affected
us the more as they suffered this indignity from a person, (the British Consul), who
ranked among Christians and gentlemen, was of the same religion and spoke the same
language, and from whom a more humane treatment might naturally have been
expected.70
Riley was arguing that Christians deserved better treatment because they were superior
individuals. Riley also expressed his disapproval of those that claim to be Christians in North
Africa, but did not live up to the ideals of Christian values. He wrote of some Christian
missionaries that he encountered and questioned them about their ability to actually do any
work in Muslim lands:
I asked him of what use he could be in Barbary to the cause of Christianity, since he
dare not even attempt to convert a Moor or an Arab, or mention the name of the
Saviour as one of the Godhead to either, or even to a Jew? " None at all" said he, " but
still we bear the name of missionaries at home, to convert the heathen: our allowance
of money is ample: we live well, as you see, (he was indeed fat and in fine order,)
laugh at the folly of our countrymen, and enjoy the present as well as we can.71
69
Cathcart, The Captives, 138-139.
70 Ibid.
71
24.
Riley, Sufferings in Africa, 249.
26
These examples from the narratives show how moral values were attributed to Christianity
specifically, and not assumed to be values shared or attainable by all religions or cultures.
The significance of the attestation of Christianity, the protection of God, and the practice of
Christian values is in how it presumably differentiates the Muslim captor from the Christian
captive. As noted previously, part of creating a national culture lies in determining what you
are not. In this case, Christianity set the captives apart from their non-Christian captors. The
difference however, was more than just religious; the Muslims were often represented in a
way that dehumanized them to the point of monsters.
William Eaton’s depiction of the Dey of Algiers is an example of this Muslim
monster construct. Eaton was a U.S. Army officer and consul to Tunis (1797-1803) who also
led the military assault on Tripoli in an attempt to overthrow the Pasha. Although he was not
a captive himself, he was sent to negotiate their release, so his descriptions of the leaders and
people of the Barbary are quite valuable. William Eaton wrote of his first meeting with the
Dey of Algiers, describing him as some sort of an animal, writing:
And entering the cave,…we were shown to a huge shaggy beast, sitting on his rump
upon a low bench covered with a cushion of embroidered velvet, with his hind legs
gathered up like a tailor, or a bear. On our approach to him, he reached out his fore
paw as if to receive something to eat…72
This degrading rant is an example of Orientalism, which as noted by Edward Said, presents
the Arab male as “Associated either with lechery or bloodthirsty dishonesty. He appears as an
oversexed degenerate, capable, it is true, of cleverly devious intrigues, but essentially
sadistic, treacherous, low, slave trader, camel driver, moneychanger, [or] colorful
scoundrel…”73 These are certainly examples of that type of portrayal. It is also an example of
monstering, which constructs the Muslim as something less than human, that can be replaced
or destroyed.
72 William
Eaton, and Charles T. Harback, Life of the Late General William Eaton (Brookfield: E. Merriam &,
1818), Print. 59-60.
73
Edward Said, Orientalism, (New York: Vintage, 1979), 286-287.
27
William Eaton, who had failed to negotiate the release of the American captives, and
decided on another course of action; replace the existing leader with one who will be more
cooperative. In 1805, in an attempt to overthrow the Pasha of Tripoli, Yusef Caramelli, Eaton,
along with the deposed brother of the pasha, Hamet, eight U.S. Marines, two Navy
midshipmen, and an unknown number of Arab mercenaries crossed 600 miles of desert from
Alexandria, Egypt to Derne, Tripoli. While Eaton was successful in his battle to take the city
of Derne, he was unable to overthrow the Pasha. Simultaneously, unbeknownst to Eaton,
U.S. Consul-General Tobias Lear was negotiating peace with Caramelli. Eaton was
understandably bitter that he was not able to complete his mission and this bitterness was
reflected in his letters; however, it is not his bitterness over the treaty that is most revealing;
instead it is his description of the Arabs, even those that fought with him, that reveal his
animosity toward the people of the region. He described them as, “…and the desert Arabs,
like ravens and vultures of our wilderness, handing on the rear of both armies, [who] devour
everything which is left defenceless…”74 Throughout the letters written by Eaton, he
complains about the Arabs, often describing them as animals or deriding their character;
using every chance to show how different they are from Christians/Europeans. As noted
earlier, Eaton had very few (ten) Americans with him on his campaign across the desert to
overthrow the Pasha of Tripoli. Without the Arab members of his crusade he would surely
have been slaughtered when they attacked Tripoli; however, Eaton constantly devalues the
Arabs:
From Alexandria to this place, we have experienced continual altercations,
contentions and delays among the Arabs. They have no sense of patriotism, truth or
honor; and no attachment where they have no prospect of gain, except to their
religion, to which they are enthusiasts. Poverty makes them thieves, and practice
renders them adroit in stealing.75
74
Eaton, Life of the Late General William Eaton, 284.
75
Ibid. 312.
28
William Eaton was a soldier and diplomat, who had a particular hatred for the people of the
Barbary. Because he was also a prolific writer, historians use his work extensively, therefore
repeating his prejudiced view into the 21st century.
The stories and letters written by captives of the Barbary were often written with the
purpose of eliciting sympathy, ransom, and military action to facilitate their own release, or
the release of fellow Americans, from captivity. Consequently, the narratives often contained
passages to show the imminent danger they faced by remaining in the captivity of Muslim
monsters. In many of the letters and narratives from captives the authors used a tone of
desperation and recounted the barbarity and cruelty of the captors. It is certainly true that the
captives were being held against their will, often for years at a time, were forced to provide
labor, and often lived in very poor conditions; however, it is important to identify their
intended audience and the purpose of their correspondence as well. In the case of the letters
written by James Cathcart, the letters were written to the American public, U.S. government
officials or Congress in order to plead for the payment of ransom for their release and thus
exaggerated the conditions they were enduring. In this excerpt, James Cathcart was writing to
the American people, lamenting the atrocities that he and other American captives were
enduring. His hope was to gain the sympathy of the American public and get them to
pressure Congress to provide money for ransom:
For eight years have I been exposed to every indignity that a Mahomedan could
invent, to render the life of a Christian captive truly and sentimentally miserable;
destitute of friends to console me in time of affliction—at times without either meat,
drink or raiment, but the small pittance of black bread, olives and horse beans allowed
us by the Regency of Algiers,…ever since September, 1789, and no notice whatever
taken of us for years, except that now and then some person would ascertain the sum
demanded for our ransom, which for a time would revive our hopes, but ultimately
would sink us into the abyss of despondency and despair, when we found that the
report of our redemption being new would die away “and like the baseless fabric of a
vision leave not a wreck behind.76
76
Cathcart, The Captives, 143.
29
This description stands out in Cathcart’s account because he often talked about the fairly
good relationship he has with the Dey of Algiers and the moderate level of comfort that he
enjoys. It was in the passages meant to evoke sympathy from those who could bring about
his release that he emphasized the hardship of his captivity, in doing so he monsters the
Muslim captors to make them appear more dangerous.
These captive narratives were based on the letters, journals, and recollections of men
who were actually in the Barbary. They were often compiled and published many years later.
These narratives continued to be released to the public throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
While there is no way to know if all of the content is true, we can assume that it was based on
their actual experiences. Slaves in Algiers by Susanna Haswell Rowson, however, is pure
fiction. She acknowledged in her introduction that she was never in North Africa and that she
based her play on the fictionalize captivity of a Spaniard held in Algiers in the 1570s, “Some
part of the plot is taken from the Story of the Captive, related by Cervantes, in his inimitable
romance of Don Quixote, the rest in entirely the offspring of fancy.”77 The fact that it is pure
“fancy” does not negate its use to recognize attitudes about race, religion, and gender, as well
as the construction of the Muslim as an enemy in early America.
Susana Haswell Rowson in her 1794 play Slaves in Algiers capitalized on the national
frustration with the U.S. government’s inability to force the release of Americans captives in
Algiers.78 Rowson’s fictional play depicted female captives held in Algiers using their
feminine virtue to do what the men of America were incapable of doing, defeat the Muslim
despot and free the captives. At the time the play was written and being performed, there
was no hope of rescue for the Americans taken captive in Algiers. This play was both an
attack on the masculinity of the nation, as well as a critique of the role of women in
revolutionary America. Slaves in Algiers highlighted the prominent social discourse of both
gender and race in Early America. Douglas Little notes that Rowson set her protagonist in
77 Susanna
Haswell Rowson, Ed. Jennifer Margulis, and Karen Poremski, Slaves in Algiers Or, A Struggle for
Freedom (Acton, MA: Copely Pub Group, 2000) Print. 6.
78
Rowson, Slaves in Algiers.
30
Algiers as a captive of the Barbary; however, the goal of the play was to argue for the
inclusion of women in the freedoms and rights granted to white men in the new nation. Linda
Kerber, in Women of the Republic, presented the gendered space of the public and private
spheres. The male inhabits the public sphere in work, politics, and public discourse and the
women inhabit the private sphere of the home, taking care of the family and most importantly
teaching proper morals to the children.79 While it is clear that Rowson is entering into the
conversation regarding women’s place in the new nation, she, like other female authors of her
time, is not stepping outside the social bounds of propriety. She is not demanding the right to
vote but is gently challenging the role of women in early American Society. The main
characters of the play are American, Christian women and although they are under constant
threat of rape, they maintain their virtue and use their intelligence and cunning to escape
captivity. As Jeffrey Cohen argues, the monster (in this case the Muslim captor) is a tool of
sexual prohibition. He explains: “The monster embodies those sexual practices that must not
be committed, or that may be committed only through the body of the monster.”80 In their
captivity, sexual contact with the Muslim monster would be so taboo because it violates the
norms of race, expectations of sexual purity, and religion. Both of these women prove to be
of higher moral character than the man who holds her captive, because of their Christianity
alone. They are also of higher moral character than Fetnah, the daughter of a converted Jew,
who gives in to her captor. In contrast, Rebecca, the American woman, is portrayed as the
moral teacher to Fetnah, the daughter of her captor. Fetnah states, “it was she who nourished
in my mind the love of liberty, and taught me, woman was never formed to be the abject
slave of man. Nature made us equal with them, and gave us power to render us superior.”81
Fetnah goes on to explain that Rebecca “…came from that land, where virtue in either sex is
79 Linda
Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Norton: New York,
1986), Print.
80
Cohen, Monster Theory, 15.
81
Rowson, Slaves in Algiers, 16.
31
the only mark of superiority—she was an American.”82 With these two lines, Rowson not
only challenges the position of women in American society but also contrasts American
women against women of the Barbary who are shown to be enslaved by men both as wives
and as captives. This, in turn, challenges the American male reader to grant American women
an equal role in order to maintain their superior position over the uncivilized and barbaric
men of the Barbary.
While Rowson argued for the rights of American women, she also reinforced
perceptions of race and perpetuated stereotypes of Muslims. Ben Hassan, Rebecca’s captor
was presented as a Jew turned Muslim, who not only abandoned his faith out of convenience
but also was of the lowest moral character. He was portrayed as lawless, licentious, faithless,
and untrustworthy. He cheated Rebecca out of her ransom and her freedom and sold his
daughter into slavery. In this example Hassan was shown to be the greedy Jew saying to the
audience, “Her ransom arrived yesterday, but den she don’t know it—Yesh, here is the letter;
ransom for Rebecca Constant, and six other Christian slaves; vell, I vill make her write for
more, she is my slave, I must get all I can by her.”83 His speech, in the dialogue of the play,
was written with a heavy Yiddish accent with poor grammar. This is significant because the
other characters in the play, who are Algerian or Spanish, do not speak with a marked accent.
With this presentation of the Jew, Rowson is entering into the national conversation about the
place of immigrants in U.S. society. Jennifer Margulis and Karen Poremski, in the
introduction to Slaves in Algiers, argue, “The play’s anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant components
suggest that Rowson believed, like others of her time, that the influx of Jews and other nonAnglo immigrants could only weaken the United States.”84
Rowson’s anti-Semitic slant in the play is highlighted by the monstering of the
Muslim Algerian leaders. In the very first act of the play, Fetnah describes the Dey, named
82
Ibid. 17.
83
Ibid. 22.
84
Ibid. xxv.
32
Muley Moloc, (an obvious play on the word Mullah, which is a religious teacher in Islam) as
an inhuman animal. “He is old and ugly; then he wears such tremendous whiskers; and when
he makes love, he looks so grave and stately, that I declare, if it was not for fear of his huge
seymetar, I shou’d burst out laughing in his face”.85 She explained that the only reason she
was in his bed was out of fear, “…he made me go to him, and when I went trembling into the
room, he twisted his whiskers and knit his great beetle brows…And then he gave me such a
fierce look, as if he would say, and if you don’t love me, I’ll cut your head off.”86 This kind
of description was not only reserved for the Dey, the other Algerian character Mustapha was
described as “that great, ugly thing Mustapha” and “the horrid looking creature.”87 These
descriptions of the two male Algerian characters reinforces the perception of the Muslim as a
non-human creature that it far inferior to the civilized Anglo-American. Even in the end of
the play, when the Dey was swayed by the virtues of the American heroine, Rebecca, and
saw the error of his ways stating, “Stay Fetnah—Hassan stay—I fear from following the
steps of my ancestors, I have greatly erred: teach me then, you who so well know how to
practice what is right how to amend my faults”88, the American male captive, Henry,
responds stating, “…let your future conduct prove how much you value the welfare of your
fellow-creatures…”89 The continued use of the word creature in reference to the Algerians
shows the inferior, non-human position in which they were viewed by Rowson. In addition to
Rowson’s commentary on gender, racial prejudice, and American Christian superiority, her
play highlighted the emasculation of the nation, which in the 35 years following the Algerian
crisis American men rallied to redeem their lost honor both in military and captive narratives.
These captivity narratives show how the Muslim monster, who was so prevalent in
European Art and Literature was reborn in an American form. The rebirth of the Muslim
85
Ibid. 14.
86
Ibid. 15.
87
Ibid. 14-15.
88
Ibid. 74.
89
Ibid.
33
monster in an American setting came about because the U.S. was facing its first military
crisis with a Muslim adversary at the same time that it was creating its unique cultural and
national identity. Jeffrey Cohen explains,
The monster is born only at this metaphoric crossroads, as an embodiment of a certain
cultural moment—of a time, a feeling, and a place…the monster signifies something
other than itself; it is always a displacement, always inhabits the gap between the time
of the upheaval that created it and the moment into which it is received to be born
again.90
The monster is created as a didactic tool, which exaggerates the cultural differences to a point
of aberration. As Cohen notes, this phenomenon is not new, the most famous distortion
comes from the Bible, “where the aboriginal inhabitants of Canaan are envisioned as
menacing giants to justify the Hebrew colonization of the Promised Land (Numbers 13).”91
In the representation of another culture as monstrous, the displacement or extermination of
the monsters is not only justified but also deemed heroic. 92 The monstering of the leaders of
the Barbary States was used to justify the U.S attempt, for the first time in its very short
history, of a forced regime change. As will be seen in future chapters it was not the last time
that the U.S. was involved in the overthrow of a Muslim leader.
Barbary captivity narratives had far greater influence than just entertainment for the
public. They were integral to the creation of a national and cultural identity through the
construction of the other in juxtaposition to the moral, upstanding, democratic American.
They created an enemy, the Muslim monster, which has been used over the next two
centuries to justify military action against a Muslim foe. U.S. historians have long used the
captivity narratives uncritically, as source materials in the historiography of the Barbary
wars. By using these captivity accounts uncritically, historians reinforced the often-erroneous
allegations against the Barbary corsairs as fact that was used throughout U.S. history to
90
Cohen, Monster Theory, 4.
91
Ibid. 7.
92
Ibid. 7-8.
34
justify action against Muslims who have been constructed as barbaric, Christian-hating,
sexually deviant, captive taking, monsters who were, and are, a threat to freedom and the
American way of life. Throughout these narratives, we see the repetition of the innocent,
Christian, white American (or European) captive, held by the frightening, dark, inhuman,
inferior but brutal, heathen/Muslim captor/monster. This is a trope that continues in the
cultural monstering of Muslim men during times of crisis. In the aftermath of the Barbary
Wars, the use of the captive and the monster was repeated throughout popular culture and
academia, including art and historical monographs.
Orientalist Art:
In addition to captive narratives, monstering is present in the Artistic representations
of Muslims, which began to appear in European paintings after the military excursions into
Egypt by the French army, led by General Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1798. Prior to this,
Europeans had little personal experience in the Middle East. During the 19th century,
Europeans began to travel in the Middle East and North Africa, opening up the Orient to the
western imagination. Out of these travels emerged Orientalist painting, which represented
exotic scenes of harem women, slave markets, Arab warriors, and depictions of the Barbary
pirates. French artists such as Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) and Jean-Leon Gerome
(1824-1904) painted beautiful exotic scenes that were aesthetically pleasing and wildly
romanticized the people of the Middle East. While some of the paintings were merely an
imaginative fantasy of the prohibited, others fueled the hatred of the Muslim male by
depicting him as a monster.
Many of these orientalist paintings portrayed the captivity narrative by depicting
women being held at the mercy of Muslim captors, either in the slave market or aboard ship.
The artistic depictions of 19th century Barbary Pirates shown below are examples of
monstrous looking Muslim men ravaging white European women. This is a continuation of
the captive and the monster discourse that came out of the captivity narratives. In this first
35
example (Figure 1) of European orientalist painting by an unknown artist, the captor is
depicted as a pirate and is shown with dark skin, exaggerated more so on his face. He is
barely dressed, hypermasculine in his build and wearing stereotypical gold hoop earrings,
turban, and gold pointy toe shoes. The woman, who is naked, fully exposed and obviously
being ravaged against her will, is pale white and obviously European.
Figure 1. Barbary Pirate93
In the second example, “Abduction of a Herzegovenien Woman”94 (Figure 2), we once again
see the dark, hypermasculine and beastly, Arab male attacking the pale, white, European
woman. She is once again naked, exposed, and totally vulnerable.
93 Unknown
94 Jaroslav
Artist
Cermak, “Abduction of a Herzegovenien Woman.” (1861) on http://paper-bird.net/2014/06/16/isisin-iraq-real-atrocities-and-easy-fantasies/
36
Figure 2. “Abduction of a Herzegovenien
Woman”95
Both of these examples show the ways that 19th-century orientalist art depicted the Arab male
(Barbary pirate) as the beast, attacking the vulnerable European (or American). This is
representative of the vulnerability felt by Europeans and Americans against the
uncontrollable, Barbary pirate. These representations are also harkening back to the
descriptions of Turks by Europeans. The French Renaissance philosopher Michel Baudier
wrote, “18 out of 20 Ottoman sultans abandoned themselves to the love of boys and used
them as women.”96 Religious leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, accused the Turks of
being sexual deviants. Pope Pius II “accused Turks of being ‘wallowed in lust’ and ‘addicted
to prostitution and rape.’” Luther accused Muslims of “dog-marriage”.97 This prejudiced
mindset in repeated in Orientalist art, which not only reinforces the imagery of the innocent,
white, captive being ravaged by the inhuman, dark, sexually deviant, Muslim monster, but as
95
Jaroslav Cermak, “Abduction of a Herzegovenien Woman.” (1861).
96 Arjana.
97
Ibid.
Muslims, 59.
37
we will see in future chapters, these images will also be used in response to future conflicts
with Muslim adversaries as proof that Muslims have always been predators.
This style of art was adopted and adapted by American Orientalist artists, some who
studied under French artists. American orientalist paintings often focused more on the
landscape and the imagined holy land; however, American orientalist paintings were not
innocent of monstering Muslims. The engraving “Fisherman and the Genie” (Figure 3.) by
American John LaFarge (1835-1910) draws on the Arabian Nights fantasy with a picture of a
genie emerging from a clay pot. The genie is a menacing creature that appears to be coming
out of a storm. The fisherman in dressed only in a loincloth and turban and the landscape is
barren and foreboding. This scene clearly depicts the Middle East as a Medieval place of
magic, and danger, reinforcing in the American imagination that the Middle East and its
people are backward, non-believers, who are fundamentally different and ultimately,
dangerous.
38
Figure 3. “Fisherman and the Genie”98
Orientalist art did not always depict Muslims as scary monsters like the examples
shown, often it is of luxurious palace scenes or of Bedouin tribal life; however, it always
exaggerated the differences between the East and the West. Orientalist imagery does not have
to depict the Muslim as a monster in order to accomplish its task; by the mere act of
contrasting the Arab/Moor/Turk/Muslim as fundamentally different, the job is almost done. It
is not such a large leap for the viewer to construct a monster out of the other. The portrayal of
Muslims in popular culture in the form of captivity narratives and art as monsters was carried
over into academia in the form of historical monographs.
98
John La Farge, "Fisherman and the Genie," (1868).
39
Barbary Monsters in Academic Literature:
Since the late 19th century, U.S. historians writing about the Barbary Wars have
repeated the argument that the origin of the Barbary corsairs was the fall of Granada, which
was the final phase of the Spanish Reconquista, reclaiming the Iberian Peninsula from the
Muslims. These historians assert, in one form or another that thousands of Muslims returned
to North Africa with no skills, no jobs, and a vengeance against Christians that forced them to
turn to piracy out of both religious revenge and economic necessity. In addition, later authors
go so far as to argue that this military defeat, planted the seeds of Muslims’ long jihad against
Christian Europe and later, the United States. This argument, despite its long tradition, is
rooted in Orientalist discourse, is grossly inaccurate, and perpetuates the image of the
Muslim as an unholy, infidel monster.
This argument regarding the religious origins and motivations of the Barbary corsairs
has existed in the historiography for over a century. It began in the work of 19th century
British historians such as Robert Lambert Playfair, in The Scourge of Christendom: Annuls of
British Relations with Algiers Prior to the French Conquest (1884)99 and Stanley LanePoole, in The Barbary Corsairs (1890)100, who inaccurately argued that the Barbary Corsairs
were Moorish exiles from Spain who turned to piracy out of economic necessity and
religious revenge. Over the 20th century, U.S. historians writing about the Barbary Wars have
perpetuated this argument. For example, in 1945, Louis Wright and Julia Macleod, wrote in
their book, The First Americans in North Africa: William Eaton’s Struggle for a Vigorous
Policy against the Barbary Pirates, 1799-1805:
When finally, the Moors were driven from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492,
many of them settled in the ports of the Barbary and immediately set about fanning
the flames of the native Islamic hatred of all Christian nations. To the natural desire of
99 R.
Lambert Playfair, The Sourge of Christendom: Annuls of British Relations with Algiers Prior to the French
Conquest (London: Smith & Elder, 1884), Print.
100
Stanely Lane-Poole, The Barbary Corsairs (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1890), Print.
40
the corsairs for booty was now added the further incentive of Moorish vengeance and
Mohammedan fanaticism.101
Although there are major problems with the accuracy of this statement (including the fact
that Muslims were not expelled from Spain until 1609), subsequent historians continued to
repeat it. In the introduction of his book, Tripoli and the United States at War: A History of
American Relations with the Barbary States, 1885-1805 (1962), Michael Kitzen writes, “In
1492, Ferdinand and Isabella consummated the dream of a united Spain by capturing
Granada and expelling the Moors. Thousands of Moors passed across the Strait of Gibraltar,
bitter against the Christians who had driven them from the land…they turned to piracy out of
vengeance and economic necessity.”102 In 2003, Robert C. Davis wrote in Christian Slaves,
Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy,
1500-1800, “In their traffic in Christians there was also always an element of revenge, almost
a jihad—for the wrongs of 1492, for the centuries of crusading violence that proceeded them,
and for the ongoing religious struggles between Christian and Muslims…”103 These are only
a sample of many quotes from U.S. historians who emphasize a hatred of Christians by the
Barbary Corsairs.104 The basic argument made by U.S. historians writing about the Barbary
wars can be broken into three parts; first, Muslims/Moors were expelled from Spain in 1492
by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand upon the Fall of Grenada; second that these expelled
B. Wright and Julia H. Macleod, The First Americans in North Africa: William Eaton’s Struggle for a
Vigorous Policy against the Barbary Pirates, 1799-1805 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945.), 3.
101 Louis
102 Michael
L. S. Kitzen, Tripoli and the United States at War: a History of American Relations with the
Barbary States, 1785-1805 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc. 1962), 3.
103 Robert
C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast,
and Italy, 1500-1800 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. 2003), 2.
104 The
following U.S. Historians have repeated the argument that Moorish exiles from Spain were carrying out
a religious revenge against Christian nations in the form of Barbary Corsairs: Gardner Allen, Our Navy and the
Barbary Corsairs (1905) 3., Ray Irwin, The Diplomatic Relations of the United States with the Barbary Powers
(1931) 2., Louis Wright and Julia Macleod, The First Americans in North Africa… (1945). 3., Michael Kitzen,
Tripoli and the United States at War… (1962) 3., Glen Tucker, Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the
Birth of the U.S. Navy (1963) 50., Donald Barr Chidsey, The Wars in Barbary: Arab Piracy and the Birth of the
United States Navy (1971) 7., A.B.C. Whipple, To the Shores of Tripoli (1991) 5-6., Max Boot, The Savage
Wars of Peace (2002) 8., Joseph Wheelen, Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror (2003) 711., Robert
C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters (2003)xxv.
41
Moors resorted to a life as corsairs out of economic necessity and religious revenge; and
finally that this military defeat planted the seeds of Muslims’ long jihad against Christian
Europe and later, the United States.
The accepted argument that the Barbary corsairs during the Barbary War period were
motivated primarily by religious revenge can easily be disproven through the examination of
primary documents including: captive narratives, diplomatic correspondence, and U.S.
military and state archives. Although historians of the Barbary Wars have used these sources
extensively, few U.S. historians have used them to argue against the accepted narrative that
dehumanizes and demonizes the Muslim corsairs and their leaders. The evidence provided in
these limited primary sources disproves the argument that the Barbary corsairs were acting
out of religious vengeance. Instead, it shows that the Barbary corsairs were predominately of
Christian European origins. They were men who converted to Islam and worked under the
direction of the Barbary Powers for a profit. There is no evidence of religious motivation in
the primary sources, and the preponderance of evidence points to economic incentives. This
argument is invalid and the current conflicts between the U.S. and the Middle East do not
have their origins in this “religious war” against Christian nations that began with the
expulsion of Muslims from Spain.
While the details of disproving this argument are outside the scope of this work, the
importance of exposing this error in the historiography is in the use of this ideology of
religious vengeance in order to monster the Barbary corsairs and their leaders. By asserting
that the Barbary corsairs were operating under a jihad or a holy war the argument can be
extended that Muslims have always been anti-Christian, jihadists and therefore, violence and
evil are a part of their character. Beyond the error in facts, the language used by many of
these historians is specifically monstering the Muslims. In the mid 20th century historians
began to provide histories with a more narrowed focus such as biographies of specific
diplomats, and detailed accounts of specific battles. Several historians have used the
captivity narratives, diaries, letters, and personal papers to present the biographies of
42
diplomats who were sent to negotiate with the powers of the Barbary States. Louis Wright
and Julia Macleod focused on the career of William Eaton in their book The First Americans
in North Africa: William Eaton’s struggle for a vigorous policy against the Barbary Pirates
1799-1805, published in 1945.105 William Eaton was a soldier from New England who was
sent by President John Adams in 1799 to Tunis as the first American consul to this North
African state. Wright and Macleod’s tone, throughout the book, mirrors Eaton’s disdain for
the Barbary powers. The use of language in referring to the Arabs as “scoundrels, gangs of
petty sea rovers, cutthroats, greedy, barbaric, and cruel” shows that they are not only
presenting Eaton’s opinions, but that the also view them in the same light. Although they
acknowledge throughout the book, that the practice of capturing ships, taking the crew as
hostages and slaves, procuring the cargo, and demanding ransom and tributes was a common
and accepted practice for centuries between many of the merchants of the Mediterranean,
including the great naval powers of Britain, France, and Spain, they continue to portray the
Barbary corsairs as barbaric and shameful while failing to produce any evidence of why they
were any worse than the other naval “pirates” operating in the Mediterranean.
Similar to Wright and Macleod, Milton Cantor106 focused on a specific diplomat and
wrote a dissertation and a series of journal articles about Joel Barlow, the American consul to
Algiers (1795-1797), and his attempts at diplomacy with the Dey of Algiers, Baba Hassan.107
In his 1963 journal article published in The Historian, “Joel Barlow’s Mission to Algiers”108
Cantor concentrates on the diplomatic relationship between Joel Barlow and the Dey of
Algiers in the period between 1796 and 1797. Cantor describes the relationship between
Barlow and the Dey as volatile and complex. He quotes Barlow as describing the Dey as “an
ignorant, ferocious, unmanageable savage, capable of every form of deceit, given vent to
105 Wright
and Macleod. The First Americans in North Africa, Print.
106 At
the time of publication, Cantor was an Associate Professor of History at Williams College and had
received his PhD at Columbia University in 1954.
107
Baba Hassan was the Dey of Algiers from 1791-1799.
108 Milton
Cantor. "Joel Barlow's Mission to Algiers." The Historian (25.2, 1963): 172-94. Print.
43
generosity, caprice or unbelievable rage as the occasion might demand.”109 Because the
details of the negotiations are based solely on the recollections of Barlow, this is no other
perspective. We don’t know if the Dey of Algiers was unreasonable or just a very tough
negotiator who knew how to apply pressure in order to get the desired results. This one-sided
narration of events is also indicative of an Orientalist presentation, for what it is missing is
the Arab voice. Nowhere do we hear the side of the Barbary leaders, in these narratives they
have no voice and no agency. They are merely, something that needs to be dealt with; a
problem to be overcome.
In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, there has been a surge of books
published on this first crisis between the U.S. and Muslim rulers. In 2002, Max Boot,110
presented the Barbary Wars as one of many “small wars” that moved the United States into a
position of power, in his book, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of
American Power.111 Using primary documents from the U.S. Office of Naval Records, and
the personal papers of captives of the Barbary contained in James Cathcart’s papers, The
Captives, Eleven Years a Prisoner of Algiers;112 Paul Baepler’s, White Slaves, African
Masters;113 and John Foss’s, A Journal of the Sufferings of John Foss,114 Boot recounts the
events of the Barbary Wars against the powers of North Africa. In his introduction, Boot
argues that it is the small wars during “times of peace” that began to establish this role for the
United States. Boot published this book just one year after the September 11, 2001, attacks
109 Barlow
to Monroe, September 6, 1796, Barlow as cited in Milton Cantor. "Joel Barlow's Mission to Algiers."
The Historian 25.2 (1963): 187.
110 Max
Boot received a M.A. from Yale in Diplomatic History in 1992 and is the Jeane Kirkpatrick Senior
Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
111 Max
Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (New York: Basic,
2002), Print.
112 James
Leander Cathcart, The Captives: Eleven Years a Prisoner in Algiers, In Paul Baepler, ed., White
Slaves, African Masters (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1999), Print.
113
Paul Baepler, ed., White Slaves, African Masters (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1999), Print.
114 John
D. Foss, A Journal of the Captivity and Sufferings of John Foss (Newburyport, Mass.: n.p. 1798). In
Paul Baepler, ed., White Slaves, African Masters (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1999), Print.
44
on the United States by what have been referred to as Islamic extremists and he begins his
preface with the following: “The first airliner slammed into the World Trade Center at
precisely 8:46 A.M., the second 15 minutes later.”115 He continues on to recount the day and
the impact that this attack had on the United States and the world; however, he later warns
against comparing the Barbary powers of the 18th and 19th century to “modern Islamist states
that preach and practice jihad against infidel unbelievers.”116 He argues that the powers of the
Barbary States were not particularly fundamentalist or xenophobic; to the contrary, they were
quite tolerant of other religions and very cosmopolitan.117 He argues that their motives were
strictly economic. This, of course, raises the question of why he makes a connection between
the events of September 11, 2001, and the Barbary powers in the beginning of the preface
only to move away from this argument when the evidence does not support it.
Joseph Wheelan118 tries to draw comparisons between the leaders of the Barbary
States during the late 18th and early 19th centuries with the Islamic extremists of the 21st
century. Wheelan, in his 2003 book Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror
1801-1805, argues that the Barbary Wars are fundamentally the same as the United States’
“War on Terror.”119 He states his argument, “As will be seen, the war that President Thomas
Jefferson, the U.S. Navy, and the Marine Corps waged against Moslem Tripoli—led by
Edward Preble, William Eaton, Stephen Decatur, Jr., Andrew Sterett,120 and Presley
O’Bannon121—was not so different from today’s war on terror. In truth, the Barbary War was
115
Max Boot, Savage Wars, xiii.
116
Ibid. 8.
117
Ibid.
118
Joseph Wheelan was a reporter and editor for the Associated Press for 24 years and wrote several books on
U.S. history.
Wheelan, Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror 1801-1805 (New York: Carroll & Graf,
2003), Print.
119 Joseph
120 Andrew
121 Presley
Sterett (1778-1807) U.S. Naval officer during Barbary Wars.
O’Bannon (1776-1850). U.S. Marine Corps officer during First Barbary War. Presented Mamluke
sword for his part in attempt to restore Hamet Karamanli to the throne of Tripoli.
45
America’s first war on terror.”122 Wheelan compares the Barbary powers with al-Qaeda by
stating that they are “Moslem adversaries who targeted American civilians;” although he
does acknowledge that they have differences as the Barbary powers were not pursuing
political objectives, but states, “Yet, it was terror nonetheless, prosecuted cynically in the
name of Islamic jihad,”123 He argues that “America’s response in 1801 was the same as
today: ‘to repel force by force,’ as Jefferson put it succinctly.”124 With the last sentence of his
book, “Jefferson and his fighting sailors and Marines had freed America and Europe from
The Terror,” he tries to strengthen his argument that the war against the Barbary powers was
the same as America’s “war on terror” today.125
In 2005, Richard Zacks126 revisited the topic of diplomacy with the Barbary powers in
his book, The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the first Marines, and the Secret Mission of
1805.127 Contrary to the title, Zacks does not focus on Jefferson, rather this is a biography of
William Eaton who he makes out to be a heroic, although flawed diplomat and soldier who
almost saved the Middle East. Zacks’ unwritten argument is that if only Jefferson had let
Eaton complete his plan to overthrow the leadership of Tripoli and set up a puppet
government, the United States would hold a much different position in the Middle East today.
Zacks is significantly different from early writers on Eaton and Barlow as he blames
the uncivilized nature of the Barbary leaders on their religion. In the prologue of the book,
Zack writes that the Koran (Sura 47) “allowed these Moslem attackers to enslave and ransom
any of these captives.”128 Unlike earlier historians, he makes no mention of European
122 Wheelan,
123
Ibid.
124
Ibid.
125
Ibid. 368.
Jefferson’s War, xxii.
126 Richard
Zacks graduated from the University of Michigan and Columbia School of Journalism. He is a
popular writer of history.
127 Richard
Zacks, Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, The First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 (New
York: Hyperion, 2005), Print.
128
Ibid. 2.
46
Christian powers that captured ships, cargo, and slaves for ransom during this same period.
Zacks does not call the action of the Barbary powers a “jihad;” however, he goes out of his
way to portray the Muslim men as debase and vile. Even to the extent of calling the Bey of
Tunis a homosexual without providing any citation for a source of this knowledge, writing,
“…since the Bey made little secret of his preference for men over women…”129 While earlier
historians have included the capture of women and children in their narratives, Zack focuses
on this, as well as highlighting Eaton’s chivalry, by including a story of a 12-year-old Italian
girl who was taken captive and ransomed by Eaton with borrowed money. Again, he makes
no mention of the women and children who were taken captive by European (Christian)
powers during this same period, but includes a disparaging quote, from the Dutch consul,
Antoine Nyssen, in Tunis stating that the young girls were selected “to serve their filthy
desires, and the most disgusting forms of volupte were their past times during their
voyage.”130 Another point of contrast is his attempt at showing how much worse the Muslim
slave traders were than American slave traders by writing, “Unlike slave auctions in the
southern United States, male buyers here openly acknowledged lustful desires for their
human purchases; matrons inspected the women, and virgins were sold at a steep premium,
often with a written guarantee.”131 Edward Said states, that “the major component in
European culture is precisely what made that culture hegemonic both in and outside Europe:
the idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the non-European
peoples and cultures.”132 Zacks reinforces this Orientalist ideology of European superiority
with his argument that slavery by Europeans (Whites) is somehow less repulsive than slavery
carried out by non-Europeans.
129
Ibid. 6.
130
Ibid. 3.
131
Ibid. 4.
132
Said, Orientalism, 7.
47
Not all post 9/11 historians of the Barbary Wars support the argument that these men
have made. Both Richard Parker and Frank Lambert argue against this point of view. In
2004, Richard Parker133 wrote his book Uncle Sam in the Barbary: A Diplomatic History in
response to the public comparison of the post 9/11 “war on terror” to the Barbary Wars.134
He states in his preface that in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, “a number
of commentators…have cited America’s experiences with the Barbary pirates as an example
of how it must deal with terrorists today.”135 He responds that these writers, and the general
public, have a poor understanding of the details of the Barbary Wars and argues that although
Decatur’s victory in 1815 put an end to the American problem with the Barbary States and
showed the “usefulness of force properly applied,” the war with Tripoli and the crisis with
Algiers was ultimately solved through the use of diplomacy.136 He disputes the attempt to
compare the Barbary “pirates” to Islamic “terrorists” of today stating, “the corsairs were not
terrorists as we understand that term today. They were not involved in random killings for
political ends. They were interested in booty and ransom money, and there was nothing
clandestine about their actions.”137 He argues that unlike “terrorists” they did not operate
outside the law, were operating under the control of “recognized governments,” and
moreover were operating under rules accepted by the United States and European powers.138
Parker also used many of the same primary sources as earlier historians to document
the events of the United States interactions with the Barbary States including: American State
133
Richard Parker was a United States Foreign Service officer who had been the Ambassador to Algeria
1973-1977 and Ambassador to Morocco 1977-1978. He taught at the Univ. of Virginia, Johns Hopkins
University, and Lawrence University.
134 Richard
Parker, Uncle Sam in Barbary: A Diplomatic History (Gainsville: University of Florida, 2004),
Print.
135
Ibid. xiii.
136
Ibid. 172.
137
Ibid. xiv.
138
Ibid.
48
Papers in The Emerging Nation: A Documentary History of the Foreign Relations of the
United States Under the Articles of Confederation, 1780-1789,139 and the Naval Documents
Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers.140 For information about those
held captive during the time he used captive narratives in, H.G. Barnaby’s The Prisoners of
Algiers141 and, unlike any of the earlier historians, for insight into the Algerian perspective he
cites the memoirs of Ahmad Sharif al-Zahhar (1781-1872) as the only contemporary Arabic
text that he was able to find. Like earlier historians, Parker places much of the failure of
early diplomacy on the facts that the U.S. did not have established diplomatic channels in
North Africa, it had very limited funds for the payment of treaties, ransoms, and tributes, and
most importantly the did not have a means of military force. While his documentation of the
events and the diplomacy involved is quite detailed, what is more significant about his work
is how he relates its relevance to the post-9/11 era. He argues that the events of the Barbary
Wars established the ideology that “the United States must not negotiate with terrorists or pay
them ransom for the release of hostages.”142 He states, however, that while this is a
“principled position” it has been violated more than once by U.S. administrations.143 Parker
also argues against the idea that the Barbary Wars shaped American’s attitudes towards Arabs
and/or Muslims. He states that most Americans do not have enough knowledge about the
Barbary Wars to shape an opinion; the anti-Arab/Muslim attitude has been shaped to a much
greater degree by the events that have accompanied the Israeli/Palestine conflict.144
139
American State Papers: Foreign Relations. Vols. 1-2 (Washington D.C.: Gales and Seato, 1834), Print.
140
Naval Documents.
141 H.G.
Barnby, The Prisoners of Algiers: An Account of the Forgotten American-Algerian War 1785-1797
(London: Oxford University Press, 1966), Print.
142 Parker,
Uncle Sam in Barbary, 159.
143
Ibid.
144
Ibid. 172.
49
Similar to Parker, Frank Lambert,145 also responds to some modern authors who have
written about the Barbary Wars in the past 10-15 years in his 2005, book The Barbary Wars:
American Independence in the Atlantic World.146 He states that many of these writers have
used the Barbary Wars in order to provide context for the West’s violent interactions with the
Middle East including: the 1986 bombing of Libya, the 1991 Gulf War, the attacks of 9/11,
and the resulting “war on terror”.147 He criticizes writers who used modern circumstances to
frame the Barbary Wars. He gives the examples such as A.B.C. Whipple, who in his 1991
book, To the Shores of Tripoli: The Birth of the U.S. Navy and Marines, presents the Barbary
Wars as “a holy war of Muslims against the infidel invaders”149 and the war with Tripoli “as
an example of American moral, technological, and intellectual superiority in toppling a
ruthless enemy.”150 Lambert strongly criticizes these writers for ascribing “…to the pirates
of the late 1700s and early 1800s the same zeal that they claim motivates twenty-firstcentury anti-American ‘holy warriors.’”151 He specifically calls out Rick Forcier, who wrote
in his 2001 article “The Tales of Terrorism,” in the Newsletter of the Christian Coalition of
Washington State, that the Barbary pirates were “similar to the al Qaeda, Hezbollah, or the
Palestinian Liberation Organization, some of the Mohammeden terrorists operated from
145 Frank
Lambert received his PhD. From Northwestern University in 1990. Teaches history at Purdue
University.
146 Frank
Lambert, The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World (New York: Hill and
Wang, 2005), Print.
147
Ibid. 7.
149 A.
B. C. Whipple, To the Shores of Tripoli: The Birth of the U.S. Navy and Marines (New York: William
Morrow and Company, Inc., 1991), 5.
150
Lambert, Barbary Wars, 8.
151
Ibid., 8.
50
seaport fortresses throughout the Ottoman Empire.”152 Lambert argues that the evidence does
not support this position; to the contrary, that the Barbary powers and the pirates working
under their control were much more motivated by “taking prizes than in waging holy
war.”153 Lambert uses detailed evidence to document the diplomacy and eventual war with
the Barbary powers to dispute these assertions and argue that “the Barbary Wars were
primarily about trade, not theology, and that rather than being holy wars, they were an
extension of America’s War of Independence.”154
Lambert uses many of the traditional sources to gather his evidence including:
Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, Journals of the Continental Congress, Journal of
the House of Representatives, Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the
Barbary Powers, and the papers of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Jay, John
Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Alexander Hamilton. He concludes that neither the
Barbary powers nor the United States saw this dispute as one of religion. As previously
noted, he argues that for the Barbary powers it was economic; the major form of income and
control of trade in the Mediterranean. For the United States, he argues that religion was
specifically kept out of the negotiations by both President John Adams and the U.S. Senate,
who in the “Treaty of 1797 explicitly declared that the United States was not a Christian
state.”155 He acknowledges that although the dispute was primarily political and economic,
there were certainly cultural issues. He argues that by examining the writings in
contemporary U.S. newspapers, dramas, speeches, and sermons, it can be seen that many saw
the Islamic world as very foreign but ultimately the concerns that they had about “jihads” or
the Pasha’s “seraglio” were often used as a mirror on the shortcomings of the United States.
Discussions of Islam would also turn to “a scrutiny of religious intolerance among certain
152 Rick
Forcier, “The Tales of Terrorism,” Newsletter of the Christian Coalition of Washington State,
November 2001 as quoted in Lambert, Barbary Wars. 8.
153
Lambert, Barbary Wars, 8.
154
Ibid.
155
Ibid.
51
sects in the United States” and criticisms of the captivity and enslavement of Americans
inevitably turned to a conversation about the “barbaric, un-Christian slaveholding in the
South.”156
All of these historians relied at least in part on the captivity narratives written during
or after the Barbary wars and greatly influenced the way that the African Muslim male was
imagined. The histories that were written during the first half of the 20th century about the
United States relations with the Barbary States often present the Barbary and its people with
a traditional Orientalist view. They are portrayed as inferior, uncivilized, dirty, barbaric, and
cruel. Those who rely on William Eaton’s papers to describe the Barbary mirror his dislike
for the people and the region. We see this in Eaton’s description of the Dey of Algiers as “a
huge shaggy beast” and Cantor’s description of his temperament as “a man of unpredictable
moods and ungovernable passions, a ruler whom the most experienced of diplomats would
have found difficult” In the late 20th and early 21st centuries this Orientalism takes on a new
level. Whipple and Wheelan both tried to frame the Barbary Wars in a modern religious
context as Wheelan called it “terror nonetheless, prosecuted cynically in the name of jihad.”
Zacks portrayed Barbary piracy as a Qur’an authorized endeavor and highlighted the
enslavement of girls for the enjoyment of lecherous Muslim men. Leiner and others
continued the often-repeated story that Barbary piracy is rooted in religious hatred that goes
back to the 1492 Muslim expulsion from Spain. Parker and Lambert, on the other hand, both
argue against the comparison of Barbary pirates to modern Islamic extremists and against the
reference to the Barbary Wars as comparable to the United States’ current war on terror.
While these two scholars argued against the Orientalist narrative present in the other scholars
work, the traditional narrative overwhelmed it. In addition, the arguments that Parker and
Lambert made did not support the argument that many scholars maintained; Barbary pirates
were acting out of religious revenge. As Americans continued to face future conflicts with
Muslims, these representations of Muslims as monsters, constructed doing the foundational
156
Ibid. 13.
52
period of the nation’s birth, continued to not only be perpetuated, but also built upon during
future conflicts with Muslim adversaries.
53
CHAPTER 3: THE MONSTERS OF RADICAL
ISLAM
“The monster is transgressive, too sexual, perversely erotic, a lawbreaker; and so the
monster and all that it embodies must be exiled or destroyed. The repressed, however, like
Freud himself, always seems to return.”157
The Barbary powers were finally defeated when the United States was able to build
and launch a Naval fleet. This brought an end to the Barbary pirate as a threat. However, true
to monster theory, the monster was not dead, it would return in another form.
On November 4, 1979, Americans turned on their television sets and witnessed an
unthinkable sight: thousands of Iranians rioting in the streets of Tehran and the U.S. Embassy
under siege by revolting students. On this night, and every night for nearly 15 months,
images of rioting Muslims, burning U.S. flags, bearded, medieval looking mullahs, and
helpless American hostages would dominate their television screens. Most Americans could
not fathom why the people of Iran, our friend in the Middle East, had so suddenly and
violently turned and had taken America hostage. In the absence of an understanding of
American involvement in Iran over the preceding decades, the only possible conclusion was
that something evil had taken over in Iran. That evil was the Islamic extremist Ayatollah
Khomeini, and his vehicle of evil was the Muslim mob. The media carefully crafted the
nightly news, hostage narratives, and popular culture to create outrage and reinforce this
conclusion. In the following decades as the clashes with the Muslim adversary became more
frequent, the narrative of captivity perpetuated the identity of the Muslim as the ultimate
other, the monster.
Before addressing the role of the media during this period, it is important to examine
the U.S. involvement in Iran that fueled the resentment of the Iranian people and made the
157
Cohen, Monster Theory, 16.
54
U.S. the target of their revolution. In addition, it will address how one event traumatized the
American people and drastically altered U.S.–Iranian relations. In order to understand how
the U.S. became the target of the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979, there must be an
examination of prior involvement of the U.S. government, as well as private citizens, in Iran.
More importantly, we must investigate how these actions bred contempt and resentment
against the United States, transforming the United States from the friendly benefactor into the
“Great Satan”.
In order to provide this historical context, this research draws from the work of three
experts in the field: Gary Sick, who was present during the Iran Hostage Crisis as the
principal White House aid for Iran on the National Security Council staff, a direct advisor to
President Jimmy Carter and an eyewitness to U.S. government and diplomatic events;158
Richard Cottom, who leading up to the Iranian Revolution, was a specialist on Iran at the
University of Pittsburgh and was in close contact with the Iranian opposition including Dr.
Yazidi, the representative of the Ayatollah Khomeini in the United States;159 and Amir Taheri,
who not only provides an Iranian perspective, but also valuable evidence of U.S. activities in
Iran through the use of confidential diplomatic documents seized from the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran.160
Prior to World War II, the United States had very little involvement in the affairs of
Iran. There was a limited presence of missionary and charity workers who built schools and
tried to relieve poverty.161 These Americans were viewed, both by Christian and Muslim
Iranians, as benefactors and representatives of freedom and social mobility.162 Britain and
Russia; however, used Iran as part of their “Great Game” to maintain a balance of power in
158
Gary Sick, All Fall Down (New York: Random House, 1985), viii.
159 Richard
Cottom, Iran and the United States: A Cold War Case Study (Pittsburgh, PA: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1988), Print.
160 Amir
Taheri, Nest of Spies: America’s Journey to Disaster in Iran (London: Hutchinson Ltd, 1988), 3.
161 Taheri,
162
Ibid.
Nest of Spies, 9.
55
the region and to control the abundant oil resources. After an abundant supply of oil was
found in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, Winston Churchill, in 1911 converted the British
Navy from coal to oil. The unjust oil concession imposed on Iran gave Britain full control
over the oil industry and robbed the Iranian people of the profits.163 In a continuation of the
Great Game power balance between Britain and Russia, in 1921, in the aftermath of the
Bolshevik Revolution, Britain tried to shore up Iranian alliance by trying to turn Iran into a
British protectorate. In opposition, Reza Khan Pahlavi, was named prime minister by the
parliament and the presiding monarch Ahmad Shah was forced into exile. This was the birth
of the Pahlavi dynasty, which lasted until the Iranian Revolution in 1979.164 In an effort to
modernize Iran, Reza Shah was a proponent of industrialization and sent many young
Iranians abroad to study science and technology in the United States. 165 Despite this
arrangement, Reza Shah was reserved in his relations with the United States and in the years
leading up to World War II there was a freeze on diplomatic relations between the two
countries.166
Due to this chill in relations with the U.S, Britain, and Russia, Reza Shah was open to
an alliance with Nazi Germany as a way to ensure protection from both Britain and Russia.
By 1940, there were thousands of Germans working in Iran and Iranians were attending
colleges in Germany. Ultimately, this alliance did not have the desired outcome for Reza
Shah. In 1941, the Allies invaded Iran and the “British and Soviets deposed Reza Shah and
installed his twenty-two-year-old son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on the Peacock Throne.167
Reza Shah was forced into exile until his death in 1944.168 During World War II, the allies
came together to oust Nazi Germany from control in Iran. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin
163
Ibid. 11.
164
Ibid. 12.
165
Ibid 14.
166
Ibid. 15.
167
Sick, All Fall Down. 5
168 Tehari,
Nest of Spies. 15.
56
met in Tehran and the United States led the Allies to support a formal declaration by the three
major powers to ensure Iran’s independence and territorial integrity.169
Up to this point, there was very little U.S. interest in Iran and the American people
knew it only as an exotic location of Oriental fantasy. However, during the Allied occupation
Britain and the Soviet Union resumed their competition for control in Iran through politics,
infiltration of labor, propaganda, and bribery. The United States also extended its
involvement with an expansion of diplomatic and intelligence activities. The result was the
presence of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and later the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) in Iran from 1941 on.170 After WWII, Iran became an important geographical barrier in
the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States and was used as a pawn for
both. During this period, the Soviet Union began Anti-American propaganda against
“American Imperialists”.171 With the end of WWII, the Allies removed their troops from
Iranian soil, but this certainly did not end foreign influence in Iranian affairs.
Mohammad Reza Shah, who had replaced his father on the throne, was determined to
foster a relationship with the United States as Iran’s protector, as well as to build a large army
strong enough to protect them from both domestic and foreign enemies. He quickly
established a friendship with President Truman who saw the value of a reciprocal relationship
that prevented the expansion of Soviet influence into Iran.172 While this may have seemed
like the perfect match to Truman and the Shah, there were those in Iranian politics who
wanted to reduce foreign involvement, especially British control over oil. This included Dr.
Mohammad Mossadeq, a parliamentary leader who came to power as the democratically
elected Prime Minister on April 28, 1951. A mere three days later the parliament
169
Sick, All Fall Down. 5
170 Tehari.
Nest of Spies, 17.
171
Ibid.
172
Ibid. 20
57
unanimously voted to support his proposal to nationalize the Oil industry, canceling the
concession with Britain. Mossadeq saw this as a way to bring Iran out of poverty. This
move was initially supported by the Truman administration. Taheri notes “that the United
States wanted Mossadeq to succeed was demonstrated by the increase in American Aid
from $500,000 in 1950 to nearly $24 million two years later.”174 However, along with this
aid came American managers to run the aid projects, which were resented by many
Iranians.175 The American support of Mossadeq shifted with a change in administration in
1952 to Republican leadership. The Truman administration saw reform and modernization
as a defense against communism in Iran; Eisenhower, on the other hand, favored stability
and was open to Winston Churchill’s overtures to remove the destabilizing threat posed by
Mossadeq and his Nationalist party.
Churchill and Eisenhower were old friends who shared a common vision of walling
off communism. Eventually, the U.S. changed its position on Mossadeq and supported his
removal. The joint covert operation was known as “Operation Ajax”. This operation between
U.S. and British Intelligence was eventually successful in removing Mossadeq from power.
The U.S Government managed to help keep the British in oil and the Shah in power, but the
damage done to America’s reputation as a benefactor was severely damaged in the eyes of
the Iranian people. According to Gary Sick:
Whatever interpretation one chooses to place on the objectives and consequences of
Operation Ajax, it abruptly and permanently ended America’s political innocence
174 Taheri,
175
Ibid.
Nest of Spies. 27.
58
with respect to Iran…the direct intervention in 1953 cast the United States in the role
so common in Iranian history of the cynical external power prepared to manipulate
Iranian political circumstances for its own benefit.176
In reality, the U.S. primarily provided technical and financial support, however, some of the
CIA agents involved, including Kermit Roosevelt, Miles Copeland, and Donald Wilber
greatly exaggerated their roles in the coup. Taheri notes that even though evidence now
shows that the role of the U.S. CIA was greatly exaggerated by these men, the Iranian people,
unfortunately, believed the mythology:
The extravagant claims made by the CIA about Operation Ajax in later years were to
have disastrous effects for future relations between Iran and the United States. They
also did irreparable damage to the position of the very man the CIA pretended to have
supported. For from the 1960s onwards, the legitimacy of the shah’s regime began to
be increasingly questioned as CIA leaks, magnified by opponents of the monarchy as
well as Soviet propaganda, claimed that the monarch owed his restoration to a few
American super spies.177
This U.S. involvement in Iranian political affairs, no matter how small, fueled Iranian
resentment and gave legitimacy to those who later called for revolution and removal of
foreign influence.
U.S. involvement in Iran continued to increase in the 1950s with a monumental
foreign aid project pumping more than $400 million into the Iranian budget between 1953
and 1956, which was more that their total oil exports during that period. By the end of the
decade, the U.S. had provided more than $1 billion in aid and installed more than 300
American workers to head projects building schools, roads, and medical clinics, as well as
training the army and police force.178 Because at least half of this money was used to train
and build the army, many people felt that the U.S. government was strengthening the Shah’s
monarchy. In addition, the CIA helped create the Shah’s intelligence agency, SAVAK, which
176
Sick, All Fall Down, 7.
177 Taheri,
178
Nest of Spies, 39.
Ibid. 44.
59
was soon used to retaliate against pro-Soviet and pro-Mossadeq activists. Thousands were
imprisoned and dozens were executed in what would become a practice of political
repression against the Shah’s adversaries.179 Many in Iran saw this repression, as well as
censorship of the press, restriction of trade unions, and banning of all political parties, as the
direct result of American support of the Shah and his hardline policies.180
American culture was also exported to Iran during this period. Between 1953 and
1963, movies, music, literature, food, and even blue jeans began to infiltrate the cities and
villages.181 Along with this influx of American culture was a rise in emigration to the U.S. by
middle class, mostly pro-Mossadeq and pro-Soviet Iranians who felt repressed by the Shah.
Not all Iranians, however, saw America as the ideal to be emulated. The mullahs and bazaaris
often saw the growth of American culture in Iran as a challenge to their traditions and more
importantly as a threat to Islam.182 By the early 1960s, the mullahs began to make their
opposition known. The religious leaders, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, were opposed to the
Shah’s Westernization policies. Specifically, they objected to the redistribution of land,
granting women the right to vote, and giving limited-immunity rights to U.S. military in
Iran.183 While both the U.S. government and the Shah were aware of the agitation caused by
Khomeini and his followers, neither considered it much of a threat.184
During this same period, the Shah was cultivating a friendship with an up and coming
politician by the name of Richard Nixon. Nixon made several visits to Iran as a guest of the
Shah and the Shah even was reported to have contributed to Nixon’s presidential campaign.
When Nixon won the presidency in 1968, the Shah gained more than a friend and ally in
power, he also gained access to all the weapons he needed to realize his dream of a powerful
179
Ibid. 44.
180
Ibid. 44.
181
Ibid. 45.
182
Ibid. 48.
183
Ibid. 52.
184
Ibid. 53.
60
military. Prior to Nixon’s presidency, under Eisenhower and Kennedy, there was limited
military assistance to Iran totaling $829 million in aid and $1.3 billion in sales of military
weapons in the period between 1950 and 1963.185 In 1972, Nixon pledged to supply Iran with
any and all military weapons it wanted, without question, with the exception of nuclear
weapons.186 Nixon and his National Security advisor, Henry Kissinger, met with the Shah in
Tehran in May of 1972 and forged an agreement that fundamentally changed the relationship
between the two nations; the U.S. agreed “to increase substantially the number of U.S.
uniformed advisers and technicians living and working in Iran, and guaranteed the shah
access to some of the most sophisticated non-nuclear technology in the U.S. military arsenal.
The Shah, in turn, agreed to accept a principal role in protecting Western interests in the
Persian Gulf region.”187 In the four years following this agreement, “the Shah ordered more
than $9 billion worth of the most sophisticated weaponry in the U.S. inventory.”188 In this
unprecedented agreement, the United States agreed to “accede to any of the Shah’s requests
for arms purchases…(other than some sophisticated advanced technology armaments, and
with the very important exception, of course, of any nuclear weapons capability…)”189 This
pledge was honored throughout the Nixon and Ford presidencies. The Iranian oil industry
provided the funds and the Shah’s relationship with the United States now provided
unlimited access to American weaponry.
The oil revenues of the 1970s supported the Shah’s program of military expansion.
However, while he had the money for the weapons, he did not have trained personnel to
operate the highly technical systems. This meant that many more Americans were brought to
Iran to provide training and support. Many Iranians resented that the military advisors often
appeared in public in uniform. In addition, the increase in modernization and Westernization
185
Sick. All Fall Down, 8.
186 Taheri.
Nest of Spies, 57.
187
Sick, All Fall Down, 13.
188
Ibid. 15.
189
Ibid. 15.
61
brought “a disturbingly large number of unscrupulous merchants, fixers, influence peddlers,
layabouts, adventurers, smugglers of antiques and drugs, and at times even characters linked
to the Mafia.”190 The Americans loved their liquor, loud parties, and to flash their money,
which also bred resentment amongst the population, who were neither seeing the profits from
oil, nor valued as workers or soldiers; the Shah could bring in foreigners to provide all the
needed labor and expertise. By the end of the 1970s, on the eve of the Iranian Revolution,
the U.S. was Iran’s primary trading partner; 25% of Iran’s imports came from the U.S. and
more than 500 American companies were trading with Iran. The U.S. was no longer
concerned with improving the lives of Iranians through developmental aid; instead the U.S.
was profiting from the trade of goods and weapons. 191
In addition to disillusionment with Americans, many Iranians were becoming
increasingly critical of the immorality, corruption, and ostentatious behavior of the monarchy.
According to a U.S. Embassy report, there were serious charges of corruption, against
members of the Shah’s family including a prince who was accused of stealing archeological
objects and selling them in Europe. There was an opinion that the royal family was “corrupt,
immoral, and largely uninterested in Iran and the Iranian people”. 192 The Shah was not
immune from rumors of immorality, as accusations were made in the embassy that the Shah
was having an affair with a young woman.193 While many of the people were still struggling
economically, the Shah was throwing ostentatious parties for American visitors. Some were
political figures such as President Nixon and his wife and daughters, Ladybird Johnson, and
Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Others were American celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth
Taylor, Gregory Peck, Farah Fawcet, and Lee Majors. Financial moguls also made a presence
190 Taheri.
Nest of Spies, 74.
191
Ibid. 76-77.
192
Ibid. 80.
193
Ibid.
62
in Tehran. The Rockefellers, for example, were close friends with the Shah and therefore,
Chase Manhattan Bank was chosen to handle Iran’s massive oil revenue.194
In the three decades leading up to the Iranian revolution, there was a considerable
American presence in Iran. The unlimited sale of weapons and American military training
provided the Shah with a powerful army to repel both internal and external challenges to his
power. American culture tempted the people with an alternative lifestyle that some believed
was in opposition to the traditions of Islam. The vast population was not benefiting from the
wealth from oil or the programs of modernization; however, they were witnessing the
extravagance of the monarchy and Americans growing rich at their expense. There is
certainly room for debate about the extent of U.S. control over the Shah and his military,
which may have been exaggerated. The level of control that actually existed, however, is not
important in this case; what is more important is that the people of Iran believed that the U.S.
was controlling their internal affairs.
While the Iranian Revolution is dated to 1978-79, the protests against the Shah and
his policies began much earlier. In 1963, the Shah imposed a program of reforms called the
“White Revolution”, which among other things, redistributed land holdings (some of which
were held by religious foundations), and allowed religious minorities to hold public office.
The Ayatollah Khomeini a Shia cleric led opposition to these reforms. He was arrested for his
outspoken opposition, which resulted in three days of rioting leaving numerous protestors
dead from police gunfire. Khomeini was released but rearrested again for his continued
agitation against the Shah. In 1964, he was exiled from the country for 15 years. Khomeini
continued to call, from exile, for the overthrow of the Shah and the removal of foreign
influence from exile, often through cassette recordings smuggled into Iran and played in the
mosques and religious schools. Khomeini and his supporters continued to see the Shah’s
modernization and Westernization programs as a threat. Gary Sick wrote in a memo to the
State Department in 1978:
194
Ibid. 86-87.
63
The reactionary Muslim right wing, which finds his modernization program too
liberal and moving too fast away from the traditional values of Iranian society. This is
a serious problem and one that is extremely difficult to control. The word is spread
from the pulpits, and the religious hierarchy provides a backbone, which is
formidable indeed.195
Khomeini and his religious followers were not the only ones opposed to the monarchy. Other
opposition groups included Marxist organizations such as the Tudeh Party of Iran, the
Fedayeen guerrillas, and the leftist-Islamist group the People’s Mujahedin. These groups
supported the overthrow of the monarchy for a socialist government but did not support a
religiously controlled government.196 There were also constitutionalist liberals such as the
Islamic Freedom Movement of Iran and the secular National Front. They did not support the
overthrow of the Shah; instead they wanted him to adhere to the 1906 Iranian constitution.197
There was division, even amongst the mullahs as some supported socialism, others a
democratic revolution, and those who supported Khomeini in favor of an Islamic revolution.
Khomeini, however, was able to unite much of his opposition behind him to support
the common revolutionary cause by focusing on the problems that they agreed on, such as
socio-economic problems, corruption, and repression while avoiding specifics that might
divide them-specifically his plan for clerical rule. 198 As the protests intensified during the
late 1970s, it was clear to those in the U.S. State department that Iran was in crisis, but there
was a cognitive dissonance that kept politicians from believing that a monarch who was
modernizing his country, who had so much power and such a powerful army could fall to a
religious zealot who wanted to reverse modernization and Westernization. Sick notes that in
the Western cultural tradition, our accepted concept of revolution is one that moves away
from a religious theocracy to a secular form of government. He argues, “this tension between
195
Sick, All Fall Down, 35.
196
Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran (Harvard University Press: Boston, 2004), 144-146.
197
Ibid.
198
Ibid.
64
the secular and the religious was a major contributing factor to the failure of both Iranians
and Westerners to recognize the revolution in its early stages and to gauge properly its actual
course and eventual outcome.”199 This was uncharted ground for U.S. politicians,
“unfortunately, there were no relevant models in Western political tradition to explain what
we were seeing in Iran during the revolution.”200 Consequentially, the only conceivable
option seemed to be support for the Shah.
During the crisis of 1978-79, the United States continued to support the Shah,
encouraging him to control the protests and even supplying him with tear gas to subdue the
massive crowds. Advisors were sent to work with the military to stave off a military coup.
Even when it became clear that the tide had turned against the monarchy and that the Shah
was not willing to use military force against his people, the U.S. government did not reach
out to meet with Khomeini. There was still the belief that more moderate groups would come
to power. The dismissal of Khomeini as a serious threat to the monarchy had an obvious
impact on post-revolution U.S-Iran relations.
Even with the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979 and the exile of the Shah,
Americans continued to provide him with support. His personal relationships with powerful
Americans, including the Rockefellers, provided him with resources to live in exile in
Mexico and later to receive medical care in the United States. This relationship with
Rockefeller and Chase Manhattan Bank proved to be especially problematic as the new
government of Iran accused the Shah of stealing financial assets belonging to Iran. Since,
Chase Manhattan Bank handled the Iranian Oil Revenue, the American connection to these
stolen assets was inescapable. The revolutionary government in Iran called for the return of
the Shah for prosecution and the return of the money he was hiding in the United States. The
United States initially refused to honor either of these demands.
199
Sick, All Fall Down, 164.
200
Ibid.
65
When the students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Iran, Khomeini could have ended the
siege immediately; however, he took the opportunity to teach the United States a lesson.
Khomeini’s fundamental position was based on two assumptions: “The shah’s policies had
‘destroyed’ Iran; and the origin of those policies could be traced to external interference,
particularly by the United States.”201 While he did not plan the takeover of the embassy and it
is doubtful that he envisioned a protracted siege, for Khomeini this was a perfect opportunity
to consolidate his power by driving the more moderate opposition groups out and show the
populace that he was in charge. As Richard Cottom notes, Khomeini used the power of the
mob and the opportunity of the embassy hostages to lead “quite possibly the most popular
revolution in human history.”202 This event allowed Khomeini to hold one of the most
powerful nations on the planet, the United States, hostage.
The Iranian Revolution and the resulting violence, culminating with the taking of
American hostages, did not come out of nowhere. This crisis must be viewed in the larger
context as part of a growing popular revolt against socioeconomic and religious change
within Iran. The causes of this revolution, like most revolutions, were rooted in the deep
resentment of a repressive government that was inattentive to the needs of the people.
However, with this revolution, the resentment extended beyond the repression of the
monarchy, to external interference from foreign powers. The populace was not only calling
for a change in their own government, but also the removal of foreign influence in their
country, which they saw as contrary to their traditional ways and religious beliefs. While
many of the intellectuals of the revolution wanted a reformed government that gave the
people a voice, many religious leaders saw this as an opportunity to reject modernization and
Westernization and return Iran to the “old ways”. Ironically, these religious leaders were
able to utilize a tool of modernization, the media, to rally support for the revolution and
market their ideas. Ultimately, the taking of the U.S. embassy was a symbol of anger towards
201
Sick. All Fall Down, 144.
202
Cottom, Iran and the United States, 3.
66
U.S. intervention and support of the deposed monarchy and the media made it possible for
the Ayatollah Khomeini to capitalize on the crisis to increase his position of power in
opposition to the great power of the United States.
This brief summary of the events leading up to the capture of the American Embassy
and the holding of the hostages is far from a thorough survey of the revolution. It was much
more complex. This background is intended to provide a framework for the anger of the
Iranian people against American interference and an attempt to explain the surprise and
confusion that Americans felt when their friend in the Middle East betrayed them and turned
from friend to foe.
Media: America Held Hostage:
With the capture of the U.S. Embassy and the Americans held hostage in Tehran, the
trope of the captive and the monster had returned to American cultural imagination. All at
once, America was the captive and not only the Ayatollah Khomeini but also the Iranian
mobs, were the reimagined Muslim monsters. This trope was used to the fullest extent by the
nightly news. “America Held Hostage” was the title of the special nightly news segment on
ABC that ran for the duration of the crisis. Crisis journalism geared up to capitalize on the
national interest. Other news specials used similar titles, such as Crisis in Iran: The Turmoil
Spreads (NBC, 1979), Crisis in Iran: Where Do We Go From Here? (NBC 1979), Day of
Crisis (CBS, 1979), A Year in Captivity (CBS 1980), Families Held Hostage (ABC 1981),
The Ordeal (CBS 1981), and Home at Last (CBS 1981).203 The significance of the titles of
these news broadcasts is in the power of language on public emotion. The titles repeatedly
reinforced the “crisis” and the “captivity” of the American people.
The news media returned to the discourse of the captivity narrative from earlier
centuries in the United States; a return to the polarization of the white Christian captive
203 Hamid
Naficy, “Mediating the Other: American Pop Culture Representation of Post-revolutionary Iran” In
The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception, edited by Yahya Kamalipour (Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1995), 78-79
67
versus the brown, heathen/Muslim captor. As McAlister notes, “The hostages in Iran, like
those early captives, came to represent an entire nation in its conflict with another culture; the
public concern over their captivity was part of a larger story about national identity, foreign
policy and racial constructs.”204 By placing the captives in the role of innocent, family men
and women, the news media placed them in a feminized role regardless of their biological
sex. The captives were now residing within the private family sphere, no longer in the role of
Marine, diplomat, or spy. This use of the captivity narrative moved beyond the hostages and
constructed the U.S. as “a nation of innocents, a family under siege by outside threats and in
need of a militarized rescue…”205 The hostages represented the American people as not only
being held hostage but also being emasculated as a nation. The news media was telling the
viewers that as long as the hostages remained under the control of the monsters that held
them, all of America was held hostage.
The role of the television news was paramount to this construction of the captive and
the monster. The authority of the nightly network news was already established at this point
in the late 1970s. More Americans got their information about foreign affairs from television
news than from print media. The Iranian Hostage Crisis solidified this position. According to
a national survey in 1980, “77 percent of the respondents indicated that they had been getting
most of their news about the crisis regarding the American citizens being held in Iran from
television, compared with only 26 percent who cited newspapers as the major source.”206
Television news was able to reach millions of viewers on a nightly basis, the popular ABC
nightly news program “America Held Hostage” aired every night for the duration of the
crisis, almost fifteen months, and had an estimated viewership of twelve million viewers
204
McAlister, Epic Encounters, 199.
205
Ibid. 201.
206 Television
Information Office. “Public Finds Television News Is Presenting Iran Crisis Objectively, Coping
Well with Manipulation Efforts.” News release, New York, March 13, 1980. In James F. Larson, “Television
and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Case of the Iran Hostage Crisis” Journal of Communication (36.4, 1986) 108-130.
68
every night.207 Because of the extensive reach of television news, especially during times of
crisis, the power of the imagery presented repeatedly, had a profound effect on not only the
national identity, but also on the construction of the captive as the innocent and the Muslim
as the enemy.
During the Iran Hostage Crisis, the television news coverage on Iran jumped from an
average 1% of all news coverage each week to approximately 30% of weekly coverage.208
Coverage of the hostages took up the majority of this time, averaging 20% of all news
coverage in 1980.209 This frequency and repetition was instrumental in creating the image of
the American as the captive and the Iranian Muslim as the monster. The hostage was
portrayed as the innocent, American. The fact that the hostages were mostly diplomatic staff,
CIA personnel, or military members, was largely overlooked. The story about a hostage
might mention the position held at the embassy, but no specifics were given about the job
they held or the role that they played in Iran.210 Shortly before the embassy was taken over,
all non-essential personnel had been sent home, therefore, it is reasonable to believe that the
remaining staff was deemed essential to the diplomatic effort. Additionally, the documents
seized from the embassy by the Iranian students provided proof of the U.S. intelligence
efforts in Iran.211 Although many of the hostages played a role in espionage activities, the
media downplayed this; instead the hostages were identified by the role they played in their
families, removing them from the position of combatant or spy and placing them firmly in
the domestic sphere. The hostages were connected to their families through emotional
personal interviews with their wives and children, highlighting the fear and suffering of the
family back home. The imagery of the hostage was even more powerful. The photo of a
hostage identified as Barry Rosen blindfolded and at the mercy of his captors was shown
207
McAlister, Epic Encounters, 205.
208 Larson,
“Television and U.S. Foreign Policy,” 118.
209 Naficy,
“Mediating the Other”, 73-90.
210
McAlister, Epic Encounters, 207.
211 Taheri,
Nest of Spies, 4.
69
repeatedly, nightly, as the backdrop to any news story about the hostages. He became the
image of the helpless American captive even though it turned out that the hostage was
misidentified. In her account of his time as a hostage, Barbara Rosen, wrote that she had
notified the news agencies that this was not her husband, stating “I called ABC News and
asked to speak with the producer, who assured me that one of their correspondents who had
worked in Iran had made a positive identification.”212 Even when she argued that she knew
her own husband and that was not him, they never made a correction. She adds that for
months she notified multiple news agencies including the New York Times and it became
clear that they did not care about accuracy. This brings into question, the cultural work that
was done by identifying the emasculated hostage as a Jew. Why did the news refuse to
correct the error? The image was just too powerful. It created the iconic symbol of the
American captive, while still protecting the masculinity of the real hostage.
The repetition of images is an especially powerful tool in constructing public
perceptions. “The continual circulation and repetition of representations of the others of the
society so strongly influence our perceptions and actions that those representations become
reified and assume a reality of the own—a reality that forms the basis for many of our
individual and national decisions.”213 An analysis of footage from ABC News “America Held
Hostage” shows how the intentional repetition of words and images in reference to the
Americans held in the embassy portrays them only as innocent victims. The words used over
and over to describe the Americans include: blindfolded, handcuffed, overrun, marched out,
paraded, prisoner, captive American, bound, innocent, loved ones, families, and prayer.214
These words were then reinforced with images of blindfolded hostages, burning U.S. flags,
Barry Rosen, and George Feifer, The Destined Hour: The Hostage Crisis and One Family’s Ordeal
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1982), 144-145.
212 Barbara,
213
Naficy, Mediating the Other 73.
214 "The
Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage." Prod. Roone Arledge, directed by Roger Goodman. (American
Broadcasting Company. November 8, 1979 - January 20, 1981). DVD.
70
bound hands, chains, distressed families, and a Christmas celebration in captivity.215 The
iconic image of the captive American was that of the blindfolded hostage, which the media
was determined to name Barry Rosen. This image, along with the day of their captivity, was
shown as the backdrop behind the news anchor, every night.
Figure 4. “America Held Hostage”, Day 11216
Figure 5. “America Held Hostage”, Day 442. 217
215
Ibid.
216 “The
217 Ibid.
Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage.” DVD.
71
This repeated use of language and imagery left the public with only one conclusion; the
hostages are innocent family men and women who were merely in the wrong place at the
wrong time.
Just as important in this description of the captives is the silence; what is not said.
There is no discussion of the actual duties of the hostages or their involvement in any
espionage activities. There is no discussion of the long history of U.S. political, military,
financial, and CIA intervention in Iran. More importantly, there is no discussion of the very
real grievances that the people of Iran had against the Shah for his long-standing record of
human rights abuses. While it was made clear that the students were angry that the U.S. was
protecting the Shah, the media portrayed the deposed Shah as a victim in this crisis as well.
There is also very little video coverage of the Shah during the Iran Hostage Crisis, but
what few images that were shown on ABC News’ “America Held Hostage”, are of the
deposed Iranian leader with his wife, smiling and waving or drawings of him in his sickbed.
The language used to describe him revolved around his alliance with the U.S. and his illness.
He was repeatedly referred to as a friend to the U.S., an ally in the Middle East, a man
without a country, an unwanted guest, sick, ill, cancer, suffering, hospitalized, dying, etc. In
one segment, Barbara Walters, a well-respected female journalist, reported on her personal
interview with the Shah, confirming that he was indeed ill and receiving necessary medical
treatment.218 This garnered sympathy from the American public; how can one not have
sympathy for a dying man with no country to call his own? Students and military members
were interviewed and asked if the U.S. should be protecting the Shah? Overwhelmingly, the
footage shows young people supporting his protection and stating that he should not be
returned to Iran.219 Nowhere is the argument made that he should have to be held responsible
for his actions in Iran. The American viewers were not told that:
…the Shah’s record of human rights abuses was one of the worst in the world and
had, by the early 1970s, been well documented by such diverse organizations as
218 Ibid.
219 Ibid.
72
Amnesty International, International Association of Democratic Lawyers,
International Federation of Human Rights, International League for the Rights of
Man, International Commission of Jurists, Writers and Scholars International, and the
International Red Cross.220
Additionally, there is coverage of his long-time friends, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, and
Norman Rockefeller, who all worked to find him a safe haven and secure his medical care.221
This media representation ignores the very real charges waged by the Iranian people and
paints the Shah as a victim along with the American captives.
Equally powerful at influencing public perception was the imagery used to depict
Iranians as the irrational, violent, fanatical, Muslim monster acting out a religious jihad.222
When describing the Iranian captors or the crowds of protestors, ABC News’ “America Held
Hostage” repeatedly uses the words: fanatical, terrorists, zealots, extremists, militant,
irrational, mobs, revolutionaries, religious fundamentalists, and, of course, captors.223 The
images are dominated with the storming of the embassy, burning U.S. flags, chanting mobs,
and self-flagellating religious rituals.224 The descriptions of the Ayatollah Khomeini are even
more derogatory and extreme. In one broadcast, the anchor quotes a U.S. Intelligence
physiological profile of Khomeini calling him xenophobic, narcissistic, naïve, non-western,
mentally degenerate, implacable, and incapable of negotiation. Later it is noted that in an
attempt at diplomacy Khomeini did nothing more than utter monosyllables. 225 A video is
shown of an interview with Anwar Sadat, a fellow Muslim and friend of the U.S., who
220
Naficy, Mediating the Other, 93
221 “The
Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage.” DVD.
word Jihad means “struggle” in Arabic. This can be either an internal or external struggle to stay true to
one’s belief in Islam. It can also be a struggle against enemies of Islam. Modern usage by predominately
Western sources use the word to mean “holy war”.
222 The
223 “The
224
Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage.” DVD.
Naficy, Mediating the Other, 74-75.
225 “The
Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage.” DVD.
73
denounced the Ayatollah and called him a “lunatic”.226 Any discussion of Khomeini is linked
to his religious position and his fundamentalism, ignoring the political arguments that he
presents. Even Lillian Carter, President Carter’s mother, chimed in. The news anchor quotes
her as saying, “If I had $1 million dollars, I would pay someone to kill the Ayatollah
Khomeini.”227 Providing justification for the public, especially good Christians, to hate the
Muslim monster, for if this sweet, little old lady, a known Christian, somebodies’ mother,
could wish death upon a man, he must be truly evil. These representations make it clear to the
viewers that Khomeini cannot be reasoned with for he is an irrational, inhuman, religious
monster.
American attitudes towards race and religion were a justifying factor in the response
to Iranians and Khomeini during this crisis. As Jeffrey Cohen asserts, “From the classical
period into the twentieth century, race has been almost as powerful a catalyst to the creation
of monsters as culture, gender, and sexuality. Africa early became the West’s significant
other, the sign of its ontological difference simply being skin color.”228 Arabs and Persians,
like all monsters, straddled the border of Africa and skin color. Arabs/Persians were most
often not African and they were not black, but they were from the borderlands, and they had
darker skin; they were still the other. In the United States, the definition of race for Arabs
has been rather murky. Unlike Jews, who since 1890 have been legally designated as white,
the racial status of Arabs has been unclear.229 Up until 1952, U.S. law regarding the
naturalization of immigrants was restricted to “free white persons and person of African
nativity or descent.”230 This left Arabs in a position of debate and their “whiteness” often
depended on their geographic origins and, more importantly, their religious affiliation. While
226 “The
Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage.” DVD.
227 “The
Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage.” DVD.
228
Cohen, Monster Theory. 10.
229 McAlister,
Epic Encounters. 37.
230 McAlister,
Epic Encounters, 37 footnote 88.
74
Christian Syrians were most often considered white and able to assimilate into American
culture, Palestinian Muslims were labeled non-white and too closely tied to their home
culture to assimilate. They were too much of an outsider.231
This focus on religious affiliation is not a small matter when examining the creation
of the Muslim as an outsider in the United States. As noted in the introduction, since the first
Christian/Muslim clashes, and most prominently during the crusades, religion has been used
as a vehicle of monstering. While U.S. recognition and support of Israel during the previous
thirty years is outside the scope of this thesis, it is important to note that in addition to Cold
War concerns, Evangelical Christian beliefs were fundamental to U.S. support of Israel. The
belief that the return of Jews to Palestine and the creation of Israel was necessary to bring
about the end of times, colored political support for Israel. This also removed Jews from the
role of the other as they shared a common Judeo-Christian heritage and were instrumental in
the bringing about the prophecy told in Revelations.232 Therefore, the Palestinians who were
fighting against the Jews in Israel, must be the enemy; not only of Israel, but also of
Christianity. Religion was used throughout media reports about Iran to show just how
different they were from us. Images of rioting Palestinians and suicide bombers became the
signifier of the Muslim terrorist monster. During the Iran Hostage Crisis footage was
repeatedly shown of Shi’a Muslims symbolically self-flagellating in remembrance of the
martyrdom of Hussein, during a religious holiday. This looked very strange to American
audiences and reinforced the otherness of the Muslim. Martyrdom was used frequently to
drive home the threat posed by the fanatical Muslim who was apparently, willing to die for
his faith. The week of November 26, 1979, both Time and Newsweek published articles
regarding the frenzy of martyrdom in Islam. The Time article “An Ideology of Martyrdom”233
231
McAlister, Epic Encounters, 37.
232
“Revelations” The Holy Bible (N.P.: Cambridge UP, 1987) Print.
233 “Nation:
An Ideology of Martyrdom” Time (Time Inc., 26 November, 1979) http://content.time.com/time/
magazine/article/0,9171,946389,00.html
75
and the Newsweek article “Iran’s Martyr Complex”234 both emphasized an obsession of Shi’a
Muslims with martyrdom based on the actions of the grandson of the Prophet, who martyred
himself for his cause. The Time article led with the following:
Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!" The Arabic pronouncement that "God is great"
sustained the Iranian revolutionaries as they marched through the streets of Tehran in
demonstrations against the Shah. The invocation was heard again as students attacked
the U.S. embassy, and as mobs last week marched about the captured compound,
demanding death for the hostages.235
These articles did not emphasize that the Shi’a sect of Islam is a minority and that even
within this small minority, martyrdom is only advocated by extreme groups of militants.
Instead, these articles painted Islam as a religion of extreme, violent, zealots willing to die for
their cause. Without any verifiable evidence, CBS News, in order to link the Palestinian
“suicide bomber monster” to the radical Iranian captors at the embassy, reported that the
Palestinian Liberation Organization, along with communist forces, were involved in the
planning the capture of the embassy.236
Journalists during the Iran Hostage Crisis seemed unable to differentiate between the
vastly different societies within the Muslim world. To most, Muslims were reported as a
homogenous group of brown skinned, Arab, religious zealots. The fact that there were vast
ethnic, cultural, and religious differences throughout the Muslim world was lost in their
reports. Edward Said explained that Western journalists, no matter how professional or well
meaning, are limited in their ability to report accurately on stories in the Muslim world due to
a lack of language and knowledge of the culture and religious beliefs of a specific group.
Accurate, nuanced reporting is hindered by news people:
Whose awareness of the non-Western world is essentially determined either by crisis
or by unconditional ethnocentrism, whose ability to build an elaborate structure of
234 “Iran’s
Martyr Complex” Newsweek (November 26, 1979) http://www.newsweek.com/topic/newsweekarchives?search=November%201979
235
“Nation: An Ideology of Martyrdom” Time.
236
CBS Nightly News, December 12, 1979
76
information for itself out of quickly gathered clichés and narrowly defined selfinterest is remarkable, and whose history of interaction with the highly diverse
Islamic peoples has been shaped recently only by oil and rulers (like the ex-shah)
whose alliance with the United States brings the limited, badly under examined
rewards of “modernization” and anticommunism.237
Economic factors also impede the accurate, nuanced reporting of the Middle East. It is
expensive to keep journalists living around the world, therefore, during an international
incident; they often rely on rapid, superficial research and too often U.S. government press
releases. Both the silence in reporting U.S. involvement in Iran, as well as the Shah’s human
rights abuses, and the regurgitation of U.S. government press releases, produced a one-sided,
U.S. biased narrative. This resulted in a homogenous depiction of a very diverse region. With
an inability to differentiate between the diverse communities, all that is left are the apparent
commonalities, the color of their skin and their religion. They all become brown skinned
Arab Muslims; fanatics, zealots, terrorists, jihadists, and monsters.
Hostage Narratives:
In the first few years after the release of the captives, the New York Times, as well as
several of the hostages, published personal captive narratives. In the first of these narratives,
No Hiding Place, journalists for the New York Times interviewed the hostages and wrote
about their experiences.238 The book runs through the hostages’ time in captivity and
highlights the narrative with anecdotes and quotes from the captives. Some of the stories and
quotes are attributed to a specific person and many others remain anonymous to “protect” the
privacy of the people involved. While this book is superficial in the treatment of the subject,
it is very useful in identifying the reemergence of the captive narrative as a rhetorical device.
237
Said, Covering Islam, 107.
238 Robert
D. McFadden, Joseph B. Treaster and Maurice Carroll, No Hiding Place: Inside Report on the
Hostage Crisis (New York: New York Times Company, 1981), Print.
77
Soon after, in 1981, Richard Queen wrote, Inside and Out239 and in 1982, there was Guest of
the Revolution240 by Kathryn Koob and The Destined Hour241 by Barbara and Barry Rosen.
The following years brought the publication of several more: The Ayatollah in the Cathedral
by Moorehead Kennedy (1986)242, and after the attacks of 2001, Guests of the Ayatollah
(2006)243 by Mark Bowden. This is not a complete list of the books written by former
hostages about their time in captivity, but it will provide a broad base for analysis.
Throughout this new generation of captivity narratives we see familiar themes, which
paint the hostages as strong, patriotic, and righteous, while at the same time removing them
from the role of combatant and placing them in the role of the emasculated, helpless captive
who is somehow at the mercy of their inferior, uncivilized, savage, insane, and of course,
monstrous captors. The narratives are used as a rhetorical device to establish the superiority
of the captives over their captors. The captive is clean and tidy; the captor is filthy and
practices poor hygiene. The captive is smarter, psychologically and physically stronger, more
religiously pious, and certainly more civilized. The captive is patriotic and loyal to his
country; the captors are blindly following a religious zealot. The captors are described as
barbaric, stupid, uncivilized, filthy, and disgusting. The captives are always far superior to
their monstrous captors.
Early on, the authors of No Hiding Place establish both the innocence and the valiant
resistance of the captives. The authors were very careful not to validate any of the Iranian
accusations of espionage involvement by the hostages. They identify those who are
“accused” of being spies but never even insinuate that this might be an accurate charge. The
239 Richard
Queen and Patricia Cecil Hass, Inside and Out: Hostage to Iran, Hostage to Myself (New York:
Putnam, 1981), Print.
240 Kathryn
Koob, Guest of the Revolution. (Nashville: T. Nelson Pub., 1982) Print.
Rosen, Barry Rosen, and George Feifer, The Destined Hour: The Hostage Crisis and One Family’s
Ordeal (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), Print.
241 Barbara
242 Moorehead
Kennedy, The Ayatollah in the Cathedral (New York: Hill and Wang, 1986), Print.
Bowden, Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam (New York:
Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006), Print.
243 Mark
78
masculinity and courage of the hostages is also carefully protected. When describing the
takeover of the embassy property the authors describe three Marines who were surrounded
while unarmed, “But the Americans did not give up without a fight. Fists began flying, and
all three landed punches. Two Iranians tumbled to the ground and a third, as a Marine put it,
was plastered to a wall.”244 Others excused their capture because they were out-gunned: “I
got a sawed-off shotgun in my face.”245 Other hostages were described as heroically trying to
escape through the violent mobs on the streets of Tehran. Throughout the narratives, there
were the recurrent themes of innocence and courage. The hostages were never revealed to
have been involved in any activities that would give the Iranians reason to be angry, when in
fact most of the hostages were either involved in or supporting, intelligence, military,
business, or cultural involvement in Iran, precisely the issues that the revolution was
resisting. The courage of the hostages was reinforced throughout the narrative as they
recounted the ways that they rebelled against the hostages refusing to do as they were told,
resisting interrogation, breaking the rules, and even suffering punishment for their actions.
And, like most captive narratives, the threat of death at the hands of their captors is always
present.
Most of the narratives refer to the threat of death perceived by the hostages. Many
used an event, which occurred in February of 1980, that they call the “mock execution”.
Moorehead Kennedy describes the experience: “Blindfolded and led out into the freezing
corridor, we were told to undress down to our shorts, and were lined up with our foreheads
and hands against the wall. Behind me I could hear the students chambering their
weapons.”246 Others wrote about their resignation that they would die in captivity. Richard
Queen wrote of his last will and testament in a letter to his family, “ I don’t expect to ever be
seeing you again; the little I have is yours. There is a will I wrote, before I left the States, in
244
McFadden, et. al, No Hiding Place, 18.
245
Ibid.
246
Kennedy, The Ayatollah in the Cathedral, 111.
79
my safe-deposit boxy. I love you more than I can say. Thank you for being my parents.”247
While most of the captives wrote of their fear of being killed by their captors, they also knew
that the students were under orders to keep them alive and healthy. Queen complained of the
quality of medical care that he received but acknowledged that the students made sure that a
doctor saw him and when it became clear that he was seriously ill, he was sent home.248 The
threat of death at the hands of their captors existed; however, like all hostages, they were
only valuable while they were alive.
A familiar theme is an emphasis on Christianity and sexual purity during the ordeal.
Katheryn Koob, described how her Christian faith sustained her and was a source of strength.
Her captivity even allowed her to enhance her religious practice, “Something I’d always had
questions about was the life of contemplatives…I felt well, here's your chance to try it. So I
set up a schedule of devotion.”249 She also states in her own narrative, Guest of the
Revolution, that it was her belief in a guardian angel and her faith in God, that got her
through, “I was reminded that I had a guardian angel who watched over me and kept me. And
moreover, at this moment he was also a messenger angel reminding me of the Comforter, the
Holy Spirit, God’s presence on earth.”250 The vast majority of Koob’s narrative is devoted to
the ways that she remained faithful to her religious beliefs and how that faith sustained her.
Throughout No Hiding Place, the religious faith of the captives is brought to the forefront,
whereas the religious piety of the captors is only challenged.
Cohen argues that monsters operate as a “vehicle of prohibition” in order to enforce
social norms.251 In this case, the monster is enforcing the prohibition of interracial sexual
contact. In order to show that the captives were not sexually corrupted by the Muslim
captors, the authors of the narratives go out of their way to emphasize that the women were
247
Queen, Inside and Out. 62.
248
Ibid.
249
Ibid. 38.
250
Koob, Guest of the Revolution, 44.
251
Cohen, Monster Theory, 15.
80
not sexually assaulted and the men were not engaged in homosexual activity: “There were
not reports of homosexual encounters among the 50 male hostages held throughout captivity.
The two women, who were always separated from the men, reported no instances of sexual
harassment.”252 This prominent denial of sexual interaction reinforces the idea that the
Iranian students were the monsters, which prohibited interracial sexual relations. While it
would not have been outrageous for the captives to have heterosexual relations with each
other, it would have been taboo to have relations with the monsters.
The captors constructed their own self-identity in the narratives that placed them in
contrast to their captors. Kathryn Koob was the religiously pious, peacefully, contemplative,
sister. Richard Queen, as the martyr, who bravely persevered through his debilitating illness.
Barry Rosen, was the token Jew and intellectual, who understood the mind of the Iranian
better than others. Some fashioned themselves as the resistant, prisoners of war, who never
gave in to the captors. Moorehead Kennedy, became the captive writer, in the company of St.
Paul, Cervantes, and Marco Polo, who all wrote during their captivity.253 They portrayed
themselves as the ideal Americans, religious, patriotic, brave, resistant, intelligent, and far
superior to the monsters who held them.
The hostages continued to be situated in the domestic sphere in the personal
narratives. The attachment to family is emphasized over and over in their stories. The most
prominent is the narrative of Barry Rosen and his wife Barbara. In their book, The Destined
Hour: The Hostage Crisis and One Family’s Ordeal, the narration alternates between Barry’s
story in Iran and Barbara’s story waiting for his release at home. Barbara’s story revolves
around the anguish of the families. She writes of her own fear and anxiety, as well as the
uncontrollable emotions of her mother-in-law, who slept with the radio on, cried
uncontrollably, and fought with her over control with the press. Even the subtitle, “The
Hostage Crisis and One Family’s Ordeal” reiterates the claim that the families were being
252
McFadden, et. al., No Hiding Place, 52.
253 Kennedy,
The Ayatollah in the Cathedral, 133.
81
held hostage as well. Kathryn Koob, also repeatedly described her concerns for her family
back home and how they must be suffering from the uncertainty of her fate, “At night my
pillow was often wet from tears as I thought about my family—my sisters, their husbands
and children, and my parents.”254 Moorehead Kennedy dedicates his book “To my family, the
outside hostages,” which again reinforces the idea first present by the news media that
“America” was being held hostage.255
The captivity of the hostages was described throughout the narratives with the same
language seen in both early captive narratives and in the news coverage of the Iran Hostage
Crisis. The recurrent use of words such as: bondage, prisoner, handcuffed, tied, bound,
blindfolded, isolated, torturous, imprisoned, captive, hostage, etc. were used to identify the
hostages as innocent victims in a political game. They were identified briefly by their
“official” job description, but more closely linked to their personal lives at home; again
taking them out of the role of combatant and putting them into the domestic sphere.
The captors, on the other hand, were described as religious zealots, who were either
misguided, or insane. Richard Queen described the Iranian crowds protesting outside the
embassy, stating, “ They looked crazed—that same unnerving look Khomeini has—dark,
piercing, demonic almost. We knew they were out for blood…”256 Barbara Rosen, while
discussing the images of the Iranian crowds she watched on television, described them as
“demonic,” stating, “one crazed man with blazing eyes yelled, “America will lose, Islam will
win. The American Hostages will be destroyed!” Barbara went on to describe the profound
influence that this had on the family, “ My grandmother shook. I could think of nothing
except when the rape would end.”257 This passage is significant because it not only shows
the fear that the family was facing, but it also shows the effect that the nightly news programs
254
Koob, Guest of the Revolution. 78.
255 Kennedy,
The Ayatollah in the Cathedral. Dedication.
256
Queen. Inside and Out. 41.
257
Rosen, Rosen, and Feifer, The Destined Hour, 124.
82
were having on the families. Because of this imagery, Barbara was describing the Iranian
people as demons and the taking of the hostages as a collective “rape”. All of this continued
to place the hostages and America as the collective hostage in a feminized role. The nation,
by being taken hostage and worse yet in its inability to free the hostages was emasculated,
once again by the Muslim foe.
In his post-9/11 monograph, Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s
War with Militant Islam, Mark Bowden, dismissed the Iranian revolutionaries’ political goals
by immediately, in the first few sentences of the book, placing their actions in a religious
context, writing:
Before dawn Mohammad Hashemi prepared himself to die. He washed according to
ritual, then knelt in his dormitory room facing southwest towards Mecca, bent his
head to the floor, and prayed the prayer for martyrdom. After that the stout, bushyhaired young man with the thick beard tucked a handgun in his belt, pulled on a
heavy sweater, and set out through the half darkness for a secret meeting.258
This along with his subtitle, “The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam,” makes
it clear that this was not a just revolution, based on a political movement against a brutal and
oppressive dictator, but instead it was a religious jihad carried out by fanatical Muslims. It
reinforced the image of the Muslim as outside of civilized society and placing him in the
borderlands where monsters live.
Cleanliness versus filth was another comparison used in the narratives to show the
captives superiority to their captors. One hostage stated that there was “a total lack of
understanding of hygiene among the terrorists. No concept of dirt or filth.”259 Richard Queen
establishes very early on how disgustingly filthy both Tehran and its residents were by
writing:
Drainage ditches, called jubes, ran along the sides of the streets, and when it rained,
incredible filth floated down—dead animals and garbage. Often the jubes overflowed
and the stink was horrendous. The real nightmare, however, what the number of
258 Bowden,
259
Guest of the Ayatollah, 3.
McFadden, et. al., No Hiding Place, 116. Unnamed hostage.
83
people who used the jubes as a source of water—to drink, to cook with, and to wash
in.260
Later in the narrative, Queen repeatedly pointed out how obsessed he and the other hostages
were about keeping their bodies and their surroundings clean. Moorehead Kennedy stated, “
I made up my mind I would keep myself and my things clean and tidy, that I’d keep myself
as presentable as possible, sort of like the British dressing for dinner.”261 Personal grooming
was a frequent topic of critique by the hostages. Kathryn Koob in her narrative, Guest of the
Revolution, states of the students that initially took her captive, “I’ll never get accustomed to
this unshaven appearance, even if it is in emulation of the Prophet’s son-in-law.”262 This
constant referral to poor hygiene, bushy beards, and shabby clothing, only reinforced the
image that these people were from a previous time; uncivilized and medieval.
The narratives of the interactions between the hostages and their captors, often
emphasized how stupid, gullible, and incompetent the captors were. Richard Queen described
the Iranian guards incompetence with firearms stating:
There were shots almost every night, most of them, I’m sure, accidental. Once I heard
the sound of submachine gun fire at night, which was a little unnerving, especially
since very few of the revolutionary guards doing the firing knew anything about
weapons. They always seemed surprised at the cause and effect of a finger squeezing
the trigger of a loaded gun.263
In another story he recounted how they had difficulty finding a working vacuum cleaner
because the Iranians were so stupid they broke everything. “The Iranians all claimed to be
engineers or engineering students, but it seemed to us they broke everything they touched.
For example, when the plug didn’t fit the socket, they’d cut off the wire instead of trying a
260
Queen, Inside and Out, 19.
261
McFadden, et. al., No Hiding Place, 103.
262
Koob. Guest of the Revolution, 31.
263
Queen, Inside and Out, 17.
84
new plug.”264 There were several stories recounted by the hostages about how they were able
to outsmart or intimidate their guards. William Koegh bragged, “Once we got over the initial
pushing around, we established early on that this was not the thing to do.”265 He went on to
explain how he taught the other hostages how to manipulate their captors:
I spent quite a bit of time instructing people on certain things they should know: How
to push the limits, explaining to them treat Iranian students understand confrontation,
that we should be training the students, that we should be capturing the students
rather than having them capture us.266
In No Hiding Place, Robert Blucker states, “ I had them so scared they were afraid to come
into my room…I yelled at them or I snarled at them. You could get to them by bitching at
them.”267 What is so interesting here is that the Iranian students who were guarding the
hostages were portrayed as, stupid, naïve, gullible, and incompetent, yet none of the hostages
were able to successfully outsmart their captors in order to escape.
The captors were given very little human identity. We learn next to nothing about
their real names, the reason for their involvement, their religious devotion (beyond religious
extremist), or their family status. Richard Queen explains the practice of the hostages in
giving their captors nicknames, “Naming the guards was a way of passing the time—albeit in
a negative way. A guard only received a nickname if he was gross enough to deserve it, either
physically, morally or mentally.”268 Therefore, the guards were not mentioned by their real
names; even in the narratives they are called, “Weasel, Hamid the Liar, Old Stoney, CroMagnon Man, Gap Tooth, and Bulging Eyes”. 269 Kathryn Koob, also refrains from calling
them by name, using nicknames like “Queenie” or “Scarecrow” or referring to their gender
264
Queen, Inside and Out, 139.
265
McFadden, et. al., No Hiding Place, 103.
266
Ibid.
267
Ibid.
268
Queen, Inside and Out, 67.
269
Ibid.
85
by calling them one of the brothers or sisters.270 Very little was reported about any personal
interactions or conversations with the captors except for examples of how the captives
resisted or fought with them. A few anecdotes recounted niceties from the captors, but
nothing that humanized them in the same way that the captives were given humanity in the
narratives.
In the end, the captors were denied any humanity or agency; they were reduced only
to the position of the inferior other, once again the captor became the inhuman, monster.
The following excerpt from the end of No Hiding Place, reveals the ways that the captors are
“monstered”.
Their ordeal was over at last. For 444 days they had been captives of a nation that
seemed determined to turn back to an ancient world. They had lived in conditions of
primitive barbarism. They had been guarded by people who repudiated Western
civilization and modern culture, the world that the Americans knew and loved. 271
One of the hostages stated: “When we got off the plane, we set our watches ahead 2,000
years.”272 This view of the Islamic world as stuck in the Middle Ages is an argument of
Orientalism, as Edward Said explains:
Among the many illusions that persisted in modernization theory was one that seemed
to have a special pertinence to the Islamic world: namely, that…Islam existed in a
kind of timeless childhood, shielded from true development by an archaic set of
superstitions, prevented by its strange priests and scribes from moving out of the
Middle Ages into the modern world.273
By placing Iran in the Middle Ages, the narrative paints a picture for the reader; it is not hard
to imagine that these poor hostages were certainly held in Dracula’s castle.
270
Koob, Guest of the Revolution.
271
McFadden, et. al., No Hiding Place, 145
272
Ibid.
273
Said, Covering Islam. 30.
86
Other Media:
In the aftermath of the Iran Hostage Crisis, the Muslim continued to be viewed as the
dangerous “other.” In this political cartoon, both the Muslim religious leader and the Muslim
mob are portrayed as monstrous threats to Americans.274 According to the creator of the
cartoon, Dave Granlund, the cartoon was an Opinion page feature in over 700 newspapers
across the U.S. in February 1983 after the release of the hostages.
Figure 6. “Iran Hostage Crisis”275
The solidification of the Iranian as a monster in the captive narratives from the Iran
Hostage Crisis informed the continuation of Muslim monstering, which expanded to include
all Muslims as the monstrous terrorist in print media and popular culture. This national
obsession with the Muslim as the dangerous monster was reinforced by the mass media. For
example Orientalist historian Bernard Lewis published “The Roots of Muslim Rage” (1993)
274 Dave
275
Ibid.
Granlund, South Middlesex Dailey News (1983) www.davegranlund.com
87
in The Atlantic Monthly.276 In this article, Lewis argues that the root of all Muslim anger is in
the soil of religion and there has been an unending war between Islam and Christendom since
the emergence of Islam, writing: “The struggle between these rival systems has now lasted
for some fourteen centuries. It began with the advent of Islam, in the seventh century, and has
continued virtually to the present day. It has consisted of a long series of attacks and
counterattacks, jihads and crusades, conquests and reconquests.”277 He uses this article to
dispute all of the possible reasons for animosity against the West, disregarding resentments
against colonialism, imperialism, as well as economic and political interference. He even
disregards U.S. support of Israel as irrelevant. His main argument is that because the Islamic
world did not go through something akin to the Protestant Reformation they have not become
secularized like the Christian world. Muslim’s lack of secularization and their rejection of
modernization created the jihadist mentality. He argues that even though Muslims are known
for being humble, dignified, and courteous, “…in moments of upheaval and disruption, when
the deeper passions are stirred, this dignity and courtesy can give way to an explosive
mixture of rage and hatred…”278 Lewis concludes that this conflict is inevitable because it is
“no less than a clash of civilizations.”279 Lewis painted the entire Muslim society as an
uncontrollable mob. The mob becomes the monster, which is depicted in news photos of
protests from Iran, Egypt, Syria, and Palestine.
Bernard Lewis promoted the ideology of a clash of civilizations, which was adopted
and advanced a few years later by Samuel Huntington in his popular article "The Clash of
Civilizations?".280 Huntington argues, that after the end of the Cold War the world would
move from conflicts over economic and ideological factors to a clash of
276
Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage, The Atlantic (Sep.1990; 266, 3: ProQuest), 47-60.
277
Ibid. 49.
278
Ibid. 59.
279
Ibid. 60.
280
Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs (72, no.3, 1993) 22.
88
civilization. He argues throughout the article that the West and other non-Western
civilizations will be adversaries, not because of political, territorial, or economic issues, but
because of cultural and specifically religious issues. He places the non-Western world in the
category of the other, stating:
Civilizations are different from each other by history, language culture and tradition
and most important, religion. The people of different civilizations have different
views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen
and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the
relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and
hierarchy.281
With this statement, he declares that people of other religious beliefs are so fundamentally
different that the Western world can never make peace with them. While he does look at
Latin America, China, Japan, India, and Russia, his main focus is on what he sees as
irreconcilable differences with Islam. He frames his prediction of future global relations on
the simplistic history that Islam has ALWAYS fought against Christians and ALWAYS will.
As Huntington, runs through his list of reasons that the West will always be at odds with
Islam including the animosity held by certain factions in the Islamic world, he quickly
dismisses any post-colonial reasoning or the actual harm that has been done by Western
imperialism. His stance is one of Western superiority and entitlement. It is clear that
Huntington feels the West has every right to rule the world and the way to do this the need to
make friends with those most like the West, namely Latin America, Eastern Europe, Russia,
and even Japan; get China to fight against Islam; support any civilization sympathetic to the
West; and maintain military superiority against the Islamic world. Huntington is so convinced
that the Islamic world is so fundamentally different that it is impossible to reconcile with any
part of this civilization.
281
Ibid. 25.
89
In Edward Said’s critique of this work, “The Clash of Ignorance”, he criticizes both
Lewis and Huntington for reducing all of the Islamic world into a homogenous culture,
stating:
Certainly neither Huntington nor Lewis has much time to spare for the internal
dynamics and plurality of every civilization, or for the fact that the major contest in
most modern cultures concerns the definition or interpretation of each culture, or for
the unattractive possibility that a great deal of demagogy and down-right ignorance is
involved in presuming to speak for a whole religion or civilization. No, the West is
the West, and Islam, Islam.282
Both Lewis and Huntington, supposed experts on foreign the Middle East, placed all
Muslims in the position of the other, that were so fundamentally different that they were
beyond reason, beyond negotiation, unreasonable, uncivilized, and ultimately they needed to
be destroyed. In the aftermath of the U.S. crisis with Iran, these experts exploited the
prejudicial treatment of the nightly news and the hostage narratives and monstered all
Muslims and the collective enemy of the west.
While the monster that was the Barbary pirate died off years before, with the Iran
Hostage Crisis, the monster reemerged in new clothing. As Cohen so eloquently describes
the immortality of the monster, “No monster tastes of death but once. The anxiety that
condenses like green vapor into the form of the vampire can be dispersed temporarily, but the
revenant by definition returns. And so the monster’s body is both corporal and incorporeal;
its threat is its propensity to shift.”283 In this case, with the crisis of the American hostages in
Iran, television news programs and hostage narratives shifted the body of the monster from a
small group of Barbary pirates, who had ultimately been subdued, to all Iranians. Then, in an
extraordinary leap, the expert commentary of Lewis and Huntington, constructed ALL
Muslims as the new monster. This monster is now known as the “Muslim Terrorist.” This
282
Edward Said, “The Clash of Ignorance” The Nation, (October 22, 2001).
283
Cohen, Monster Theory, 5.
90
monster is the scariest by far; he is so difficult to identify, that it is necessary to assume that
the monster hides within the body of all Muslims.
91
CHAPTER 4: THE MONSTERS OF THE WAR ON
TERROR
“Every monster is in this way a double narrative, two living stories: one that describes how
the monster came to be and another, its testimony, detailing what cultural use the monster
serves.”284
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Americans awoke to news of a horrific attack
on U.S. soil and images of crashing planes, fiery explosions, collapsing buildings, and people
leaping to their deaths, dominated their television screens. These images, along with those of
heroic police and firefighters, flag-draped coffins, and mourning families, played over and
over, day after day for months and years, reminding the nation of the terror that had struck
the U.S. Within hours of the attacks, U.S. intelligence had identified those responsible.
Nineteen members of al-Qaeda, an Islamist organization led by Osama Bin Laden, had
planned, trained, and carried out the attacks. The hijackers had perished in the attack, but
Osama Bin Laden was still at large. Due to media and popular culture representation, the
Muslim monsters, already so deeply ingrained in American imagination, had returned once
again to victimize the nation, this time in the form of al-Qaeda hijackers.
In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, U.S. media and popular culture continued to
use the captivity narrative to reinforce the fear of Muslims in the imagination of Americans.
The Barbary captive narratives first laid the foundation for an American version of the
Muslim monster; the Iranian Hostage Crisis further expanded the definition of the Muslim
monster to include all Muslims; however, it was during the War on Terror that the media and
popular culture, informed by the U.S. government, created a version of the Muslim monster
so frightening that many felt it needed to be destroyed at all cost. This chapter examines the
role of media and popular culture in the presentation of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch, the
284
Cohen, Monster Theory, 13.
92
photographs of Abu Ghraib, and the justification of torture in film, which all justify warfare
and further monster the Muslim male. An analysis of media coverage of Pvt. Jessica Lynch,
the initial 60 Minutes II report of the photographs of Abu Ghraib, documentaries Standing
Operating Procedure and “Secrets, Politics, and Torture,” and the movie Zero Dark Thirty,
reveal that between 2004 and 2014, U.S. media and popular culture, often informed by U.S.
Government sources, used the captivity trope to justify war and eventually torture by
representing Muslims as monsters who did not deserve basic human rights.
Osama Bin Laden was well known to U.S. Intelligence, as was the Taliban who were
believed to be harboring him in Afghanistan. The United States government became
acquainted with both the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden during a Cold War conflict with the
Soviet Union over control of Afghanistan. During the 1980s, the Soviet Union had occupied
Afghanistan and installed a communist puppet government. However, there was widespread
resistance from the Afghan population, and for the United States it was a strategic Cold War
position to help the Afghan resistance fight Soviet occupation. For Arabs, Persians, and
others in the Middle East it was a fight against foreign occupation. For fundamentalist
Muslims, it became an opportunity to create a conservative religious theocracy. The
mujahedeen, a Muslim fundamentalist group who led the fight against the Soviets received
widespread support, even from the United States, which provided billions in cash, weapons,
and training to the anti-Soviet forces. Support came from other sources as well including the
Chinese government and Islamic traditionalists like Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi billionaire
who donated money and recruited men throughout the Middle East to fight against Soviet
occupation.
When the Soviets were finally driven out of Afghanistan in 1989, the vacuum of
power resulted in a civil war for control, which was divided along, ethnic and tribal lines.
This battle for control continued until the Taliban emerged as the strongest faction and gained
control of Kabul in 1996. Once in power, the Taliban instituted a strict Islamic code of law,
forbidding the impurities of modern society and Western influence. Osama Bin Laden, who
93
supported these same ideas, was allowed to set up training camps in the mountains of
Afghanistan in order to wage war against western occupation of the Middle East. His goal
was to drive the United States, its allies, corporate interests, modernization, and Christianity
from Islamic lands.
After 9/11, President George W. Bush vowed to go after both the terrorist networks
and the governments that harbored them. So when the Taliban refused to cooperate with U.S.
efforts to locate Osama Bin Laden within Afghanistan’s borders, Bush declared war and
invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. The invasion, known as Operation Enduring
Freedom, included massive air strikes on the capital city of Kabul and the major Taliban
cities of Kandahar and Jalalabad. This was followed by a land invasion that was greatly
assisted by the Taliban’s domestic adversary, the Northern Alliance. After five weeks, the
Taliban had been driven out of Kabul and the Northern Alliance was installed as the new
government. This quick victory, however, did not last as the U.S. and the Northern Alliance
encountered long-term resistance from the Taliban and other ethnic and tribal groups who
opposed U.S. intervention and forced regime change. Even though the Taliban had been
dislodged from power, Osama Bin Laden remained in hiding and the search to find him
continued. By the fall of 2002, President Bush began talking about expanding the War on
Terror.
President Bush blamed Iraq for supporting al-Qaeda; guilty therefore of harboring
terrorism. In addition, he accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of building, biological,
chemical, and nuclear weapons, which violated the terms of the ceasefire at the end of the
1991 Gulf War. President Bush had an adversarial relationship with Saddam Hussein that had
historical ties to his father George H. W. Bush, who was president when Iraq invaded Kuwait
in 1990. Claiming historic territorial rights over much of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein invaded
Kuwait, a small nation with very little military defense. This violated international law in
place since the end of WWII that prohibited the invasion of a sovereign nation. With the
support of the United Nations the U.S. and a coalition of international forces forced Hussein
94
to retreat from Kuwait. The resulting ceasefire, imposed an economic stranglehold on Iraq,
subjected the country to U.N inspections for weapons of mass destruction, and instituted nofly zones within Iraqi air space enforced by U.S. and allied aircraft. For some, including
George W. Bush, this was not enough; Saddam Hussein should have been forced from power.
By January of 2003, President George W. Bush and his advisors had built a case for
war against Iraq based on the accusation that Hussein was harboring terrorists and building
weapons of mass destruction. In his State of the Union address, President Bush argued that
Hussein was amassing a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, and was planning a
conquest of the Middle East, stating,
Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and
the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological
weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror, and mass
murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use
them without the least hesitation.285
He asserted that it was the responsibility of the United States to stop Saddam Hussein. On
March 19, 2003, he made good on his promise and launched a first strike, which he justified
by stating that it was protecting national security. It was later revealed that neither of these
accusations were true: there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had anything to
do with the attacks of 9/11 and UN inspectors were never able to find any evidence of
weapons of mass destruction. While this topic is beyond the scope of this project, it is
instructive to the skepticism that many in the U.S. and the international community held
regarding the legitimacy of the War in Iraq.
The United States did not have U.N. support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, nor did it
have an international coalition. Britain, Australia, and Poland were the only countries to send
a limited number of troops. Nevertheless, within a month, Baghdad was under U.S. control
and Saddam Hussein had gone into hiding. As with Afghanistan, this appeared to be a quick
and decisive victory; however, the resistance of the diverse populace kept U.S. forces under
285
George W. Bush, “State of the Union Address” (January 28, 2003).
95
fire for years and the attempt to institute a democratically elected government dissolved into
civil war. Many in the public, both within the U.S. and internationally, were either skeptical
about or opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. There were many public protests against the
war, as well as outspoken celebrity and political commentators who voiced their disdain for
the war. To counter this opposition, the U.S. government actively launched a campaign to
change public opinion. President G. W. Bush was very vocal about his desire to hunt down
the terrorist, stating on December 12, 2001, "Make no mistake, the United States will hunt
down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.”286 In addition, to outspoken
rhetoric from the President, the U.S. government used the press and popular culture to alter
public opinion.
For example, the news media and film industry were used as tools of the United
States government during the decade following the attacks of 9/11. Captivity narratives were
employed by the news media and popular culture to perpetuate misinformation, garner
support for the invasion of sovereign nations, the removal and execution of a foreign leader,
and continued to monster Muslims in order to justify atrocities, such as torture, which
violated international law and accepted social norms. The captivity narrative, manufactured
by the U.S. government and then disseminated by the U.S. news media, of the capture and
rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch, is an example of the way that the U.S. media monstered Iraqi
Muslims in order to gain support for the U.S. war in Iraq.
Jessica Lynch Captive Narrative:
The captivity narrative of Jessica Lynch was manufactured and disseminated by U.S.
Government sources in order to garner support for the unpopular U.S. invasion of Iraq. The
U.S. Government provided inaccurate information to U.S. media, which with no evidence,
accused unknown Iraqi men of brutally beating and raping her. In addition, they arranged and
video taped a night rescue by U.S. Special Forces, which was shown to the U.S. public. All
W. Bush, “Address to the U.S. Public” (Sept. 12, 2001). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article71888/ Bush-We-hunt-terrorists.html
286 George
96
of this represented Iraqi males as dangerous and brutal enemies, continuing the monstering of
the Muslim male.
Pvt. Jessica Lynch was sent to Iraq as part of the U.S. invasion in early 2003. She was
attached to the 507th Ordinance Maintenance Company working as a supply clerk. On March
23, 2003, she was injured in a motor vehicle accident after her convoy came under attack.
Pvt. Lynch was taken by Iraqis to an Iraqi military hospital were she received care and was
then transferred to a larger hospital were they could perform surgery to stabilize her
injuries.287 Lynch was officially a POW as she was in the care of the Iraqi military hospital.
Lynch publically thanked the Iraqi doctors who treated her and credited them for saving her
life.288 She claims that she was scared and in pain but never mistreated by the Iraqis while
she was under their care and protection.289 During this time, the U.S. military did not
initially know her location or status, so Pvt. Lynch was reported in the media as missing.
After learning of her location from an Iraqi doctor, on April 3, 2003, a team of combined
U.S. Special Forces rushed the hospital and “rescued” Pvt. Lynch. The media representation
of these events in the following months and years was used to perpetuate public support of
violence and warfare against Muslim adversaries.
In the decade following Lynch’s rescue, there was much scholarly interest in the
media treatment of this story. John W. Howard III and Laura Prividera argue, “Private
Jessica Lynch was singled out for extensive media coverage because she could easily fit a
submissive female archetype.”290 The authors show how the Jessica Lynch’s behavior during
the firefight, as well as her persona during her private life, made her an example of the
submissive woman who should not be fighting in war. In addition, they argued that the two
W. Howard, III and Laura C. Prividera, “Rescuing Patriarchy or Saving “Jessica Lynch”: The
Rhetorical Construction of the American Woman Soldier,” in Women and Language (Fall 2004; 27, 2),
Proquest. 92.
287 John
288 Rick
289
Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 123.
Ibid.
290 Howard
and Prividera, “Rescuing Patriarchy".
97
other women involved in the firefight, unlike Pvt. Lynch who was injured in a vehicle
accident and never engaged in battle, Specialist Johnson and Private Piestewa, “violated the
paradox” because Specialist Johnson was involved in the gun battle and injured by gun fire,
which showed traditionally male heroism and Piestewa was killed in action. Shannon L.
Holland asserted that the media presentation of Lynch was used to argue that women do not
belong in combat, stating, “popular representation of Lynch’s natural femaleness rearticulate
the seemingly biological distinctions between male and female bodies and suggest that
women are inherently ill-suited for combat operations.”291 Stephen Gallagher argued that
Lynch was Simulacrum for the “American Hero” that the nation was desperately searching
for in the aftermath of 9/11. For Gallagher, President George W. Bush had cut loose the need
for truth in manufacturing stories to induce support for the war in Iraq and the American
people did not want to see reality; they preferred the simulation. According to Gallagher,
“Jessica Lynch as simulacrum “works” for everyone in the loop. The media is consciously
complicit in the deployment of the government-manufactured simulation. The American
public is complicit in the unthinking consumption of the simulation. No one is innocent.”292
Bruce Tucker and Priscilla L. Watson argue that the “spinning and counter spinning” of the
Lynch story was an attempt to obliterate “hierarchies of race, gender, and class at home,
while setting Lynch in a foreign land where she was threatened by male, Arabic Soldiers.”293
This study examines the way that Lynch’s gender and race were used to create a media star
and how the racial identities of the other female soldiers, Johnson and Piestewa, were used to
show racial equality in America, but at the same time they did not become the media focus.
The authors cited Melani McAlister’s NY Times op-ed that places the Lynch story in the
291 Shannon
L. Holland, “ The Dangers of Playing Dress-Up: Popular Representations of Jessica Lynch and the
Controversy Regarding Women in Combat.” Quarterly Journal of Speech (Vol. 92, No. 1, February 2006),
27-50.
292 Stephen
Gallagher, “Jessica Lynch, Simulacrum” in Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice (19:119-128)
Print. 126-127
Tucker and Priscilla L. Walton. “From General’s Daughter to Coal Miner’s Daughter: Spinning and
Counter-Spinning Jessica Lynch.” Canadian Review of American Studies (36, No. 3, 2006). 311-330.
293 Bruce
98
genre of captive narratives, but they pointed out that Lynch, as the captive in the story, “did
not create her own narrative. It was written for her, and, as the media invented and reinvented
her persona…it may well have moved the captivity narrative into a new form of imperial
myth making.”294 While these scholars looked at the media treatment of the narrative and
examined the motivations including military propaganda, women’s place in the military, and
even the role of race, there has not been an examination of the monstering of Iraqi Muslim
men that was perpetuated by this captivity narrative. An examination of media coverage, both
television and print, as well as Jessica’s personal narrative in her biography, reveals how the
fabricated and exaggerated rescue reported by the military and perpetuated by the press, and
the unsubstantiated report of her rape, constructed the Iraqi, as a monster to be feared and
destroyed.
The captivity narrative of Jessica Lynch follows many of the same themes of the
earlier narratives examined in this study. How her story differs is that it was manufactured by
the U.S. government and then sold by the media, in order to perpetuate support for the
invasion of a Muslim nation. Stephen Gallagher argues that the Lynch story was used as part
of a propaganda campaign by President George W. Bush, which abandoned all pretense of
truth, in order to gain national support for the war in Iraq, “Bush’s one, overarching genius is
his ability to use American symbolism, the elements of the American mythos, to give
Americans an alibi. If the greatest country on Earth is engaged in a battle to the death with
Pure Evil, then all constraints are lifted. Anything is permitted.”295 The narrative of her
capture, victimization, and rescue dominated headlines. In the first year, between March 23,
2003 and January 13, 2004 there were over 218 news stories about Jessica Lynch. The three
major news networks aired 188 of these stories; others were reported on cable news, news
magazines, and newspapers.296 Although much of the information was untrue, unproven, or
294 Ibid.
325-326. Melani McAlister. “ Saving Private Lynch” New York Times (6 April 2003) 13.
295 Stephen
Gallagher, “Jessica Lynch, Simulacrum” in Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice (19:119-128)
Print.
296 Howard
and Prividera, “Rescuing Patriarchy,” 91.
99
exaggerated, the American public was given “proof” that the Iraqis were monsters just like
those Muslims who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
On April 3, 2003, a U.S. military spokesman, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, held
a news conference in Qatar, reporting to the press that U.S. Special Forces had rescued an
American POW, Pvt. Jessica Lynch, stating,
Coalition Special Operations Forces did stage an operation last night into the town of
al-Nasiriyah. It was in the Saddam Hospital in al-Nasiriyah, a facility that had been
used by the regime as a military post. We were successful in that operation last night
and did retrieve Pfc. Jessica Lynch, bring her away from that location of danger,
clearing the building of some of the military activity that was in there. There was not
a firefight inside of the building, I will tell you, but there were firefights outside of the
building, getting in and getting out. There were no coalition casualties as a result of
this.297
At the request of a CNN reporter, he showed a video that had been taken of the
rescue. The CNN reporter’s request seemed to be on cue as the video was ready to be played.
The video footage was shot in night vision green and showed what appears to be a heroic
rescue attempt of an incapacitated soldier. The Brigadier General, a man of authority, told the
international press a story about a heroic rescue team that in his words had to fight their way
in and out of the hospital as they came under fire. This report led the public to believe that
dangerous men, who did not want her to be returned to the U.S. military, had been holding
Jessica Lynch captive.
Following the news conference, The Washington Post published an account of
Lynch’s capture and rescue reporting that according to U.S. officials, Lynch had “fought
fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers…continued firing at the Iraqis even after she
sustained multiple gunshot wounds…She was fighting to the death…She didn’t want to be
297 Associated
Press Archives, “Qatar/Iraq: POW Update” (April 3, 2003 4:00am)
www.aparchive.com/metadata/ Qatar-Iraq-POW-Update
100
taken alive…Lynch was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in on her position…”298 It
would turn out that all of this information was inaccurate. Lynch disputed the report in her
book stating that her gun had jammed at the beginning of the fight and she had not fired a
single shot.299 Instead, she “crouched in the backseat, her arms around her own shoulders, her
forehead on her knees…”300 Lynch woke up three hours later in an Iraqi military hospital. It
was later determined that although she sustained multiple serious injuries consistent with a
motor vehicle accident, there was no injuries consistent with a gunshot or stab wound as had
been reported. The U.S. press ran with this story, but internationally the story was not
accepted at face value.
The British Broadcasting Channel (BBC) reported on May 18, 2003 that the official
story given by the U.S. military was flawed. Reporter John Kampfner asserted that her story
“is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived.”301 He retold the
highlights of the U.S. military version of the story:
Private Lynch, a 19-year-old army clerk…was captured…nine of her comrades were
killed and Private Lynch was taken to the local hospital, which at the time was
swarming with Fedayeen [resistance fighters]. Eight days later US Special Forces
stormed the hospital, capturing the “dramatic” events on night vision camera. They
were said to have come under fire from inside and outside the building, but they made
it to Lynch and whisked her away by helicopter. Reports claimed that she had a stab
and bullet wounds and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and
interrogated.302
Kampfner continued on to quote witnesses, including Harith a-Houssona, a doctor at the Iraqi
hospital, who stated that she had not been shot or stabbed and only had severe injuries
Schmidt and Vernon Loeb. “’She was Fighting to the Death’ Details Emerging of W. Va. Soldier’s
Capture and Rescue.” Washington Post Archives (3 April. 2003). https://www.highbeam.com/doc/
1P2-254710.html
298 Susan
299
Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 71.
300
Ibid. 78.
301 John
302
Ibid.
Kampfner, “War Spin”, BBC 2, aired 18 May 2003. Transcript http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk
101
consistent with the auto accident. The witnesses also stated that “There was no military, there
were no soldiers in the hospital.” In addition, “Two days before the snatch squad arrived,
Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance. But as the
ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, approached a checkpoint, American troops opened
fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital.”303 Kampfner argued that this was not merely a
case of the fog of war; instead it was a carefully designed strategy to mislead the public. He
asserted that the Pentagon had enlisted the help of Jerry Bruckheimer, the Director of “Black
Hawk Dawn” and the primetime television series “Profiles from the Front Line”, which
followed US troops in Afghanistan. According to Kampfner, this was not mistaken facts, this
was an intentional “Hollywood” influenced production of a heroic war story. This
“production” of news by the Pentagon, not only provided the American public with a hero to
rally behind, but it also gave justification for an unpopular war: even if there were not
weapons of mass destruction, there were “monsters” in Iraq that were dangerous and needed
to be destroyed.
After Lynch’s rescue, the media also focused on her gender and her vulnerability to
sexual assault. On April 8, ABC News speculated about sexual assault without specifically,
mentioning rape, asking, “Really, what happened throughout her ordeal? They say Jessica has
not talked about that yet, and nobody wants to ask her…”304 Then in an April 14, 2003
article, Newsweek, stated: “the possibility of mistreatment had been very much on the mind
of President Bush…”305 With the concern about the possibility of sexual assault firmly
planted in the American imagination, the public readily accepted the story told in November,
2003, when, violating journalistic ethics against reporting the names of sexual assault
victims, ABC reported that “some intelligence reports that she was treated brutally and a
303
Ibid.
304 “War
with Iraq: Pfc. Jessica Lynch’s family speaks out.” Good Morning America. (New York: American
Broadcasting Service, 8 April 2003).
305 J.
Adler, “Jessica’s Liberation.” Newsweek, (141) 42-48.
102
medical record which says, in the book, that she was a victim of sodomizing rape.”306 Time
magazine also reported Lynch’s supposed rape on November 17, 2003, “Sometime after the
crash and before she was delivered to Nasiriyah hospital—a period that could have been as
long as three hours—she appeared to have been forcibly penetrated by someone or something
—the exam indicated that the injuries were consistent with possible anal sexual assault.”307
Neither of these reports, or the reports that followed, questioned the validity of her rape even
though Lynch repeatedly stated that she had no memory of the three-hour period between the
firefight and waking up at the Iraqi military hospital. Even her biographer, Rick Bragg, took
this report at face value, with no corroborating evidence.
Lynch was taken to Landstuhl military hospital in Germany. The American doctors
reported that gunfire, stabbing, or stomping, as had been early reported, had not caused
Jessica’s injuries; instead they were consistent with the wreck of the Humvee.308 The doctors
did not mention injuries consistent with rape; however, military psychologists met with
Lynch and her parents and told her “about what happened in those lost hours.”309 Even
though Bragg admitted that Lynch had no memory of the missing time, there were no
witnesses, and the reports from the Iraqi hospital state there was no evidence of rape, either
vaginal or anal, Bragg reported the rape as fact in her biography.
Rape or the threat of rape, as noted in earlier chapters, is a consistent theme in
captivity narratives. It is used to further monster the captor. In this captivity narrative Jessica
Lynch, portrayed by the media as a young, sweet, innocent, small town girl with blonde hair
and blue eyes, who could be any white American’s daughter is the archetype of the
submissive female; the most outrageous victim for a rapacious beast, embodied here as the
unknown Iraqi soldier. In this case, it is used as justification for war and later for torture.
306 “Jessica
Lynch: Ordeal details revealed.” Good Morning America. (New York: American Broadcasting
Service, 6 November 2003).
307
N. Gibbs. “At Home: The Private Jessica Lynch.” Time. (162, 24-32).
308
Bragg, I am a Soldier, Too, 164.
309
Ibid. 170.
103
Persons in authority told Jessica Lynch, while she was in a vulnerable state, that she had been
raped while she was unconscious. While there is no way to know exactly what happened
during the missing three hours, there is no proof that she was raped or beaten by enemy
soldiers. What is known is that she was taken to a hospital, provided care, and protected until
she was returned to the U.S. military. This is certainly better care than was given to the
Muslim prisoners of war, held by U.S. troops in Abu Ghraib prison.
Torture at Abu Ghraib:
President Bush’s hope that the U.S. would quickly gain control of the population in
Iraq and institute a democratically elected government, disappeared quickly as large groups
within the population began resistance movements. As Charles Tripp explains, although Iraq
has experience colonial occupation in the past and revolted against the British in 1920, it was
not until after the 2003 invasion by the United States that a full-scale armed resistance
emerged. While there were several movements, operating separately, sometimes in
opposition to each other, they were united in their determination to disrupt and resist the
foreign occupation of the Untied States and its allies. The violent nature of the resistance was
in direct response to the violent occupation of the country, which led to a cycle of reprisal
and retaliation.310 As Tripp argues this only reinforced the rhetoric of the insurgency, who
convinced “many in Iraq, that the United States was determined to inflict collective
punishment on the Sunni Arabs because of the role that they were imagined to have played
collectively under the Ba’thist regime.”311 This feeling of disenfranchisement was reinforced
by the “dissolution of the 350,000-strong Iraqi armed forces and security services in May
2003.”312 This meant that there were now 350,000 young men who were unemployed, angry,
trained to fight, and well armed. As Tripp notes, “the U.S. administration had not simply sent
310 Charles
Tripp, The Power and the People: Paths of Resistance in the Middle East (New York, NY:
Cambridge UP, 2013), 38.
311
Ibid. 39.
312
Ibid. 42.
104
home angry young men armed with small arms when it dissolved the army. It had also failed
to prevent the clearing out of the massive arsenals accumulated by the previous regime
around the country.”313 In addition, arms and fighters flowed in across unguarded boarders to
support the resistance to foreign occupation. For many in the Middle East this was just
another example of western colonialism, no different than the occupation of Israel in
Palestine, where Europeans (with U.S. support) invaded and colonized Arab lands during the
20th century, displacing and subjugating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Very early on, the United States had large-scale armed resistance working against
them. By November of 2003, there were over 1,000 attacks on coalition troops occurring
each day.314 In an attempt to curtail the resistance and to find the leadership, including
Saddam Hussein who was still in hiding, the U.S. began to round up thousands of men and
boys for interrogation. These prisoners were taken to places like Abu Ghraib where they were
interrogated and tortured in an attempt to gain needed information. The Muslim “monster”
was now the captive in the narrative and Americans were the captors.
In the fall of 2003, “Abu Ghraib contained within its walls…well over eight
thousand Iraqis.”315 According to Mark Danner, “American soldiers, desperate for ‘actionable
intelligence,’ spent many an autumn evening swooping down on Iraqi homes, kicking in the
doors, and carrying away hooded prisoners into the night”, arguing that “between 70 and 90
percent” of these men were arrested and held by mistake.316 What happened behind the walls
of Abu Ghraib was meant to be kept secret from the American public; however, on April 28,
2004, in a story first aired by CBS 60 Minutes II, the secret was revealed.317 This information
313
Ibid. 45.
314
Ibid. 45.
315 Mark
Danner, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror. (New York: New
York Review Books, 2004) 3.
316
Ibid.
317 “Abu
Ghraib” In 60 Minutes II, (28 April 2004, CBS News).
105
was revealed because of photos taken and shared by young soldiers assigned to guard the
prisoners at Abu Ghraib. These photos, that showed the degradation and humiliation of
prisoners in U.S. care was only the tip of the iceberg. The resulting investigation revealed
that prisoners were routinely tortured by interrogators in violation of the Geneva Conventions
signed by the United States and the approval had come from the highest levels of
government, up to and including President George W. Bush.
The justification for torture and permission to ignore international law came from the
President of the United States. In a Presidential memo dated February 7, 2002, President
Bush notified the top levels of government that Article 4 of the Geneva Convention did not
apply to Taliban or al Qaeda detainees. His justification was that they were “unlawful
combatants, and therefore, did not qualify as prisoners of war.”318 The memo gave no
guidelines for the determination of how prisoners were determined to be unlawful
combatants and who would make this determination; therefore, the label was widely applied
to detainees in Cuba, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
While there was an initial negative reaction by the public and an expression of
outrage by many regarding the photos, the reaction quickly turned to one of justification of
torture in order to save American lives and destroy terrorists before they destroyed the U.S.
The focus of the blame was put on the photos, which many argued should never have been
taken. The young, low ranking soldiers, were the ones given prison sentences, while no one
above the rank of staff sergeant was given any jail time.
Scholars have studied Abu Ghraib from a military and political perspective, as well as
examining the racial component. Melani McAlister, examined the role that the revelations
about the torture at Abu Ghraib had on the public and furthermore how this drove foreign
policy.319 Sophia Arjani discussed the influence that the photos from Abu Ghraib had on
reinforcing the construction of the Muslim monster in American imagination; however, none
W. Bush, “Presidential Memo of February 7, 2002”. In Steven Strasser, The Abu Ghraib
Investigations, Appendix B.
318 George
319 McAlister,
Epic Encounters, Print.
106
have studied the way that the photographs and torture of prisoners continued to dehumanize
and demonize Muslim men in a way that justified the violation of international law and the
abandonment of social norms.320
60 Minutes II:
The release by the U.S. media of photographs taken of Muslim male prisoners at Abu
Ghraib in Iraq further monstered Muslim men by revealing the dehumanization,
demonization, and sexual depravity that was represented in the photos. The captivity
narrative was used once again; furthermore, even though the captivity was inverted and the
Muslim male was now the captive, he was still represented as the monster. The photographs
were leaked to the press by U.S. government sources. Once again, the U.S. Government was
providing the narrative to the press. Dan Rather, of CBS news, was used as the middleman.
He presented the photographs with appropriate outrage, but then allowed a U.S. Army
spokesperson to provide damage control and down play the significance of the photographs.
Dan Rather, a trusted name in journalism, revealed to the American public that an
investigation was underway by the Army regarding the “mistreatment” of prisoners at Abu
Ghraib. On April 28, 2004, CBS News aired the story, which showed pictures of male Iraqi
prisoners held by the U.S. in a prison near Baghdad. They showed Iraqi men, stripped naked.
Some men were forced into humiliating sexual positions. Others were forced to simulate
masturbation or homosexual acts. One was shown naked, crawling, with a leash and dog
collar, while a female soldier held the leash and gave a thumbs up. Rather reported on these
photos with a very serious demeanor and never showed anything but disdain for the abject
photos. However, what the news broadcast did was place blame on a “few” soldiers for
taking photos. The army provided a spokesperson for the segment, General Mark Kimmett,
who repeatedly asserted, “all of us are disappointed at the actions of a few” and begs the
public “Don’t judge your army on the actions of a few.” Rather assured the audience that the
320 Arjana,
Muslims, Print.
107
Army was taking swift action, as six soldiers received prison sentences and the General in
charge of Abu Ghraib had been relieved of duty. 321
Of greater concern at Abu Ghraib were the allegations of torture at the hands of those
doing the interrogation within the prison. The official reports on the prisoner abuse in Iraq
found the following violations of military and international law: physical abuse, use of dogs
to threaten and terrify, humiliating and degrading treatment, nakedness, photographs,
simulated sexual positions, improper use of isolation, failure to safeguard detainees, and
failure to report abuse.322 Rather mentioned that military intelligence, as well as CIA, FBI,
and civilian contractors were operating out of the prison and asking the army reservists to
prepare the detainees for interrogation. The army investigation found that criminal acts that
violated international law had occurred at Abu Ghraib, as well as other detention facilities
and that this was done with the knowledge and approval of the chain of command going up
to the level of the President; however, this was not the focus of Rather’s story, nor did it
become the focus of any of 60 Minutes’ follow up stories.323 Instead, the focus remained on
the photographs that should not have been taken and the “actions of a few.”
Rather not only down-played the magnitude of the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib,
but he also reminded the audience of the monster that the United States was fighting, by
beginning the story with an introduction to Abu Ghraib as the “centerpiece of Saddam’s
empire of fear.” The prison under Saddam Hussein was a place where prisoners were tortured
and hung. Those who escaped told “nightmarish tales”. Families were too afraid to approach
the prison under Hussein to ask about their family members. They flocked there to ask
questions now.324 Rather was somehow, saying that it was better for Iraqi families under U.S.
321 “Abu
Ghraib” 60 Minutes II, (28 April 2004, CBS News).
322 Strasser,
323
The Abu Ghraib Investigations, 111-115.
Ibid.
324 “Abu
Ghraib” 60 Minutes II, (28 April 2004, CBS News).
108
occupation, because at least the U.S. was not as bad as Saddam Hussein. He subtly reminded
the U.S. public, of the monsters that they were fighting.
The attempt to downplay and limit the damage of the dissemination of these
photographs was of greater concern to both the government and the media than to deal with
the complex crimes revealed by the pictures. As Susan Sontag noted in her op-ed in New
York Times Magazine on May 23, 2004, “The administration’s initial response was to say that
the president was shocked and disgusted by the photographs—as if the fault or horror lay in
the images, not in what they depict.”325 She also noted the absence of the word torture in the
official language, for to “acknowledge that Americans torture their prisoners would
contradict everything this administration has invited the public to believe about the virtue of
American intentions and America’s right, flowing from that virtue, to undertake unilateral
action on the world stage.”326 President Bush sold the war on the ideology that the United
States was ridding Iraq of its tyrannical leader and the terrorists he harbored; providing them
with freedom and democracy. Torture did not fit into this scenario.
The official Army spokesman did not accomplish the spin on the torture at Abu
Ghraib; instead, the spin was provided by popular culture. Movies such as Standard
Operating Procedure327 and Zero Dark Thirty328 used the prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other
facilities to rewrite the captivity narrative. This time, however, in an attempt to “keep the
U.S. safe”, the Muslim monster was the captive and U.S. soldiers, were the captors.
Standard Operating Procedure:
Errol Morris’s documentary Standard Operating Procedure (2008), used the
photographs from Abu Ghraib to expose the greater issues of torture at Abu Ghraib and elicit
325 Susan
326
Sontag, “Regarding the Torture of Others” New York Times Magazine (May 23, 2004. 24. )
Ibid.
327 Erol
Morris, Standard Operating Procedure, (Sony Pictures, 2008). DVD.
328 Mark
Boal, Dir. Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty (Columbia Pictures, 2013). DVD.
109
sympathy for the soldiers who took them; however, it also further monstered Muslim men be
showing the male prisoners in degrading, sexually deprave, and inhuman scenarios. The men
in the photographs were stripped of their humanity and shown to be dangerous animals or
monsters. In addition, the narrative in the documentary, insists that the mission of the prison
was to keep other U.S. soldiers in Iraq safe. Ultimately, the film argues that the activities
occurring at Abu Ghraib, while abhorrent, were necessary to find terrorists and keep
Americans safe from Muslim terrorists (monsters).
Film is a powerful tool of propaganda due to its wide reach and its ability to influence
public perception. Even with the competition from other forms of entertainment, film
continues to be the most publically accessible form of art, which can reach the largest portion
of the population. According to the Motion Picture Association, films took in over $34.7
billion in box office receipts in 2012, which was an increase of 6% from the previous year.329
Film has the ability to influence the perception and opinion of the audience “because of its
ability to provide information and pseudo-experiences” and “unlike other art forms, film has
the ability—particularly in the cinema setting—to engross the audience and to
comprehensively capture the senses of sight and sound.”330 Of all of the forms of art and
popular culture the film is “among the most psychologically persuasive.”331 The films
Standard Operating Procedure332 and Zero Dark Thirty333 are an excellent examples of the
psychological manipulation of the audience to change the public perception of a
governmental policy.
329 Michelle
C. Pautz, “Argo and Zero Dark Thirty: Film, Government and Audiences” Political Science
(January 2015)
330
Ibid.
331
Ibid.
332 Morris,
333 Boal,
Standard Operating Procedure, DVD.
Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty, DVD.
110
Standard Operating Procedure attempted to humanize the captors of Abu Ghraib.334
The documentary interrogates the photographs taken of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the
soldiers who took the photos. The photos are shown, explained, and placed in context by
many of the young soldiers who took the pictures or appeared in them. Specifically, the film
elicited the sympathy of the viewer for the young, low-ranking soldiers, who were, as the
film argues, put in a bad situation. They were living in the middle of a combat zone, far from
home, with inadequate training, too many prisoners to guard, and an unclear command
structure. “ We were miserable, scared, and homesick…we had to live in horrible
conditions…we lived in prison cells ourselves.”335 The low ranking soldiers that were
charged and served jail sentences because of the photos from Abu Ghraib, were interviewed
in the documentary in a manner that showed them as the kid next door who just got caught up
in a bad situation. Each soldier attempted to explain to the camera the situation that they were
in and how they had just been doing their job. The movie was successful in showing the
untenable situation that these soldiers were placed in and while it certainly didn’t excuse the
behavior, it did show the viewer the degree that these soldiers were used as scapegoats to
divert attention away from the extent of criminal acts that were occurring at Abu Ghraib.336
In an attempt to excuse their own behavior, the soldiers provided damning evidence
in order to place the blame on interrogators at the prison. Stating that military intelligence,
CIA, FBI, and civilian and Other Government Agencies (OAG) came in and out of the prison
with prisoners, some of whom they were not even allowed to log into the paperwork. They
were told that these were “high value” detainees. They were the people on the “most wanted”
deck of cards. By helping to soften them up, the soldiers were helping them “save American
lives.”337 While none of this is new information, it has all been documented in the official
334 Morris,
335
Ibid.
336
Ibid.
337
Ibid.
Standard Operating Procedure, DVD.
111
investigation on Abu Ghraib; it presents to the public the extent of the torture that was being
carried out at prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba.338 It may be expected that this kind of
evidence would elicit outrage from the viewer; instead the main purpose of the film was to
elicit sympathy for the jailers and to justify the use of torture by the interrogators.
Although the testimony of the soldiers about the danger of the detainees is persuasive
in convincing the viewer that the prisoners were the enemy who needed to be broken in order
to “save American lives,” it is the photographs themselves, shown over and over, that did the
most damage. Not to the soldiers as one would expect, but to the Muslim men in the images.
The Muslim captives are stripped of all humanity in the photographs; reduced to animals.
They are photographed mostly naked, often on their hands and knees, always chained to
something. They have hoods over their heads that make them look more dangerous and
devoid of a human identity. The only identity they are allowed is what is given to them by
their captor. They are identified as rapists, perverts, terrorists, and monsters. They are forced
to display sexual depravity in the photos that further separates them from the social norm;
photographed with their genitals in their hands, or in another prisoner’s face. They are
stacked into a pyramid of naked bodies with their sexual organs exposed and touching the
buttocks of another prisoner. The bodies have become devoid of all human identity and
therefore, the soldiers feel no shame for the acts that they are photographing.339 The fact that
the female soldiers in the photos show no embarrassment about being around them while
they are naked further shows the viewer that these are not regarded as humans so there is no
need for embarrassment. In addition, it shows the Muslim men in the pictures as weak. They
are not only at the mercy of the U.S. but also at the mercy of female soldiers. The visual
representation of the Muslim men in the photos reinforced the idea that they were not human;
instead they were dangerous monsters.
338
Strasser, The Abu Ghraib Investigations. Print.
339 Morris,
Standard Operating Procedure, DVD.
112
The Muslim captives in this narrative are not given a voice. Even though there is
evidence documented in the investigation taken from Iraqis who were prisoners at the time,
the documentary never attempted to gain an Iraqi perspective. In the end, this captivity
narrative does more to justify the actions of the captors and reinforce the image of the
Muslim male as a monster that needed to be destroyed. Arshin Adib-Maghaddam argues that
“Abu Ghraib could have not happened without a particular racist current in the United States,
that individuals who committed the atrocities against the detainees were not isolated, and that
they were part of a larger constellation with its own signifying ideational attitudes toward
Muslims and Arabs.”340 Susan Sontag also argued that the photographs that came out of Abu
Ghraib are reminiscent of “photographs of black victims of lynching taken between the
1880s and 1930s, which show small-town Americans grinning beneath the naked mutilated
body of a black man or woman hanging from a tree. The lynching photographs were
souvenirs of a collective action whose participants felt perfectly justified in what they had
done.”341 In the first decade of the 21st century this was not what Americans wanted to
believe about themselves. They wanted to believe that as a society they had moved past that
kind of racism; however, in the aftermath of 9/11, the bigotry shown towards Muslims
revealed that this was not the case. The depiction of Muslim men as dangerous monsters by
media and popular culture provided many in the U.S. public with justification for their
bigotry.
The U.S. government continued to publically deny that prisoners were tortured under
the Bush administration because to acknowledge that Americans were violating international
law and human rights would violate the premise that the United States was fighting for
freedom, God, and American values abroad. However, four years later, the movie Zero Dark
Thirty no longer denied that Americans tortured prisoners, instead it argued that it was a
340 Arshin
Adib-Moghaddam, “Abu Ghraib and Insaniyat” Monthly Review (Dec 2007; 59, 7) ProQuest. P
20-36.
341 Sontag,
“Regarding the Torture of Others,” 27.
113
necessary evil to keep Americans safe and that terrorists were not human, they were monsters
and therefore did not deserve basic human rights.342
Zero Dark Thirty:
Jeffery Cohen argues, “ monsters born of political expedience and self-justifying
nationalism function as living invitations to action, usually military (invasions, usurpations,
colonizations).”343 The monsters created after 9/11 did just that, they provided the
justification for the invasion of sovereign nations and the overthrow of their governments, as
well as discarding the values of freedom and human rights that the United States purportedly
upheld. The movie Zero Dark Thirty is a story, which according to the filmmakers is based
on actual events. It portrays the events leading up to the capture of Osama Bin Laden. The
main character is a young, female, CIA agent who goes to the Middle East to interrogate
prisoners in order to obtain information to locate and capture Osama Bin Laden. She is the
captor and the Muslim prisoners are the captives. Even if she is not personally performing the
acts of torture, she is condoning them with the justification that torture will garner valuable
information. The use of imagery in the film is reflective of the photographs of Abu Ghraib
and continues the process of dehumanizing and ultimately monstering Muslim men.
The promotion of the film Zero Dark Thirty included the promise that the CIA had
allowed the filmmakers access to their files to tell what really happened in the hunt for
Osama Bin Laden.344 “Behind the scenes, the CIA secretly worked with filmmakers to
present the agency’s controversial program of “enhanced interrogation techniques”—widely
described as torture—as a key to uncovering information that led to the killing and finding of
Osama Bin Laden.”345 There are many, however, who disagree with the presentation of
342 Boal,
343
Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty, DVD.
Cohen, Monster Theory, 13.
344 Boal,
Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty, DVD.
Feinstein in, Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser, “Secrets, Politics and Torture,” Frontline (Public
Broadcasting Service, 19 May 2015). http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/secrets-politics-and-torture/
345 Dianne
114
events in the movie and consider Zero Dark Thirty a propaganda tool, to once and for all end
the question about the use of torture to save lives. Senator Dianne Feinstein is one of those,
who stated, “I walked out of Zero Dark Thirty…because it is so false.”346 Others criticized
the film for endorsing torture. In response, director Kathryn Bigelow, argued that the film
was intended to present torture in a way, which “questions the use of force.”347 There are two
competing versions of history the one presented by the CIA in Zero Dark Thirty, which
maintains that torture was an effective means of getting information out of detainees and
therefore, saving lives, and the one generated by the Senate Intelligence torture report
released in December 2014, which found “that the program was brutal, mismanaged and—
most importantly—didn’t work.”348 Presented here are those competing versions, first the
evolution of the CIA torture program presented by Frontline349, and then the way that Zero
Dark Thirty,350 justified torture and continued to monster Muslim men.
In response to the release and critical acclaim of the movie Zero Dark Thirty, the PBS
new program Frontline, released a broadcast called, “Secrets, Politics, and Torture,” which
documented the evolution of the CIA Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT) program and
provided another version of the history than that presented in the movie.351 Along with
expert journalists, Jane Mayer, Greg Miller, and Dana Priest, the Frontline broadcast
interviewed former CIA members John Rizzo, CIA lawyer from 1976 to 2009, John
McLaughlin, Deputy Director of the CIA, Former FBI agents, Ali Soufan and Mark Rossini,
Richard Clarke, Chief counter-terrorism advisor National Security Council 1992-2003, and
Senators Diane Feinstein and Mark Udall, Former Chairmen of the Senate Intelligence
346
Ibid.
347 Kathryn
348
Bigelow, by Jessica Winter, “Kathryn Bigelow’s Art of Darkness” Time (January 24, 2013)
Ibid.
Kirk and Mike Wiser, “Secrets, Politics and Torture,” Frontline (Public Broadcasting Service, 19
May 2015). http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/secrets-politics-and-torture/
349 Michael
350 Boal,
Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty, DVD.
351 Kirk,
Wiser, “Secrets, Politics and Torture,” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/secrets-politics-and-
torture/
115
Committee.352 The following is the version of events presented by Frontline and the Senate
Intelligence Committee.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, as John Rizzo, lead Attorney for the CIA,
watched the television footage of planes slamming into the World Trade Center in New York,
he wrote down the words, “capture, detain, interrogate”. In less than a week those words
were transformed into the beginnings of an interrogation and torture program run by the CIA
that was unprecedented in the United States. On September 7, 2002, President George W.
Bush signed a covert action giving the CIA previously unheard of counterterrorism authority,
which allowed them a nearly unlimited role in interrogating prisoners. The greatest concern
for the CIA at this time was the unknown; would the terrorists strike again, and where? The
program designed to elicit information about future attacks from suspected terrorists did not
take shape until the capture of the first high profile prisoner in March of 2002.
353
Abu Zubaydah, was thought to be an al-Qaeda member with knowledge about the
attacks of 9/11. He was captured in Pakistan and moved to a “black site” in Thailand. The
CIA did not have prisons and according to John McLaughlin, Deputy Director of the CIA, no
country wanted to allow the CIA to bring their prisoners to their facilities, so they created
secret sites around the world to interrogate suspected terrorists. The CIA had never held and
interrogated prisoners, so they turned to the FBI to conduct the interrogation of Abu
Zubaydah. The FBI sent Ali Soufan, an experienced interrogator, who was also a Muslim,
spoke Arabic, and had extensive knowledge of the culture within Islamist movements.
Soufan used traditional tactics of gaining trust and building a personal connection with the
prisoner to garner information. This seemed to be effective as Zubaydah identified Khalid
Sheik Muhammad as the mastermind of the attacks of 9/11. This was new information, as the
352
Ibid.
353
Ibid.
116
CIA and FBI did not know that Khalid Sheik Muhammad was even a member of al-Qaeda.
This information was gathered by questioning alone. 354
Back at CIA headquarters they wanted more. They were convinced that Zubaydah had
more information about future attacks and was holding back. They were also convinced that
traditional interrogation techniques would not work on “someone like him”. They described
him as “remorseless and canny”. “We needed to try something more aggressive to get more
information.” 355 It was decided that psychologists, James Mitchell and his partner Bruce
Jessen were the men for the job. They were both former Air Force psychologists doing
contract work for the CIA. They were considered experts on torture as they had run the
SEREs program for the Air Force, which trained pilots to survive, evade, resist, and escape
(SERE) if captured in enemy territory. Their knowledge of torture came from the research on
Chinese and Korean methods of torture and that used against U.S. prisoners of war in
Vietnam. James Mitchell arrived in Thailand and began the process of using physical
violence and psychological techniques to break Zubaydah. FBI interrogator, Ali Soufan was
so distressed by what he was seeing that he placed a call to the FBI, threatening to arrest
Mitchell and the CIA operatives for what he saw as illegal acts. Soufan was pulled from the
assignment and brought home. The new interrogation techniques continued.356
Mitchell and Jessen presented a list of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques to the CIA
for approval for use in interrogating “terrorists”. These techniques included, sleep
deprivation, nudity, loud music, withholding of food and water, hitting and slamming the
prisoner against a wall, and waterboarding. Waterboarding is a technique where a towel or
cloth is placed over the prisoners face and water is poured in their mouth and nose. This is
supposed to cause the sensation of drowning without actually killing the prisoner. The
legality of these methods were questioned at the highest levels in the CIA. While
354 Kirk,
355
Ibid.
356
Ibid.
Wiser, “Secrets, Politics and Torture.”
117
international treaty prohibited just about everything on the list, it was John Rizzo’s job to get
them approved by the White House. John Mclaughlin, stated that there was question about
the morality of the program but “wouldn’t it be equally immoral if we failed to get this
information and thousands of Americans died?”357 Rizzo went to the Department of Justice
first and convinced them that these techniques did not inflict any lasting emotional or
physical pain. The Department of Justice, therefore, deemed that it was legal. Rizzo then
went to the White House. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney,
and President George W. Bush were briefed on the program. President Bush asked only two
questions, “is it effective, and is it legal?” Rizzo assured him that it was effective and the
Attorney General of the Untied States assured him that it was legal.358 Both of these
determinations were challenged in the future. While internal CIA documents show that these
techniques were ultimately ineffective on getting information from Zubaydah or Khalid
Sheik Muhammad, the program was expanded and used at other secret sites around the world
and at prisons holding U.S. prisoners of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Cuba. Mitchell and his
partner made over $81 million from the CIA for their role in developing and training the CIA
on the use of EIT.359
The Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT) program continued in secret and
virtually unchallenged until the use of torture became public with the release of the
photographs from Abu Ghraib in 2004. This brought about not only debate from the public,
but also debate in Congress. Senator John McCain, a victim of torture during the Vietnam
War, was adamantly opposed to any use of torture.360 In response to concerns about public
backlash to the program, the CIA ordered the destruction of videotapes of the interrogation of
Zubaydah. In addition, in June of 2006, the United States Supreme Court ruled that it was
357
Ibid.
358
Ibid.
359
Ibid.
360
Ibid.
118
illegal for the President of the United States to authorize the use of torture on prisoners. All
prisoners, including detainees that the President had deemed outside of the Geneva
Convention because they were “unlawful combatants,” had to be covered by the protection of
the Geneva Convention. Consequently, all persons involved in the program, including
participating CIA operatives, could go to prison and face life sentences for their involvement.
This ruling brought greater pressure to end the program.361
In response to the Supreme Court ruling, Condoleezza Rice, who initially supported
the program, was now pressuring the President to end it. In a meeting with the President and
all members of his cabinet, the issue was put to a vote; all members supported Rice in ending
the program except Vice President Cheney, who loudly said “No! I vote No!” In response,
Rice responded, “Mr. President, don’t let this be your legacy.”362 In the following days
President Bush, spoke to the nation and the world; he did not end the program as Rice had
hoped, instead he defended the program, arguing that the EIT program provided valuable
information and the it was not torture, stating, “The United States does not torture, it is
against our laws, and it is against our values, I have not authorized it, and I will not authorize
it.”363 He did not end the EIT program; instead he claimed that the program did not consist of
torture. He went on to explain how essential the “questioning” of detainees was to save
innocent lives. In addition, the President demanded that the Republican led congress legalize
the program so that “those questioning terrorists can do everything within the limit of the law
to get information to save American lives.” Not only did the congress pass this law, but they
also provided amnesty for anyone, up to the level of the Vice President, who was involved in
the EIT program.364 The program continued.
361
Ibid.
362
Ibid.
363
Ibid.
364
Ibid.
119
In 2007, the press found out about the tapes that had been destroyed by the CIA.
Congress had never been made aware of the tapes or their destruction and was incensed by
the apparent cover up. The Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Democratic Senator
Dianne Feinstein, decided to conduct an independent investigation of the program, its
legality, and its effectiveness. They examined of 6 million pieces of CIA documentation and
in a 450-page report they determined that the program had not been effective in eliciting
needed information from suspected terrorists.365 President Barack Obama ended the EIT
program officially in 2009. The debate over the program seemed to be over, until Navy Seals
captured Osama Bin Laden in May of 2011.
The portrayal of the events leading up to his capture were presented in the movie Zero
Dark Thirty, which allowed the CIA to present its version of history to the public and make
one last attempt to justify the use of torture.366 Zero Dark Thirty used two specific tactics to
justify the use of torture. The first was to make it clear to the viewer that the only way to stop
the terror attacks against Americans and other Western targets is to use torture to get
information. The second was to portray the detainees being tortured as inhuman monsters
that do not deserve basic human rights. The movie began with a black screen and only the
audio of 911 calls coming from victims of the attacks of 9/11.367 This reinforced the terror
that people were feeling during the attack, as well as the fear of the unknown. During the
attack, no one on the ground knew what was happening, if it was over, or if another attack
could occur at any time. That fear of the unknown is emphasized by the black screen and by
the terrified voices on the audio. A scene of an Arab, Muslim, man being subjected to torture
and interrogation followed this immediately.368 The methods being employed closely
resemble those seen in the photographs from Abu Ghraib. Nudity, chained arms, sleep
365
Ibid.
366 Boal,
367
Ibid.
368
Ibid.
Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty, DVD.
120
deprivation, dog collar and leash, starvation, and humiliation in front of a female. The scenes
so closely resemble to photos from Abu Ghraib that it is hard to argue that this was not an
intentional attempt to justify the images that had disturbed the public, eight years prior.369 In
a further attempt to justify the torture, the female CIA agent, a young, attractive woman was
present and although the agent was obviously uncomfortable with the torture, she supported
its use.370 This gave moral approval to the act of torture, because women in U.S. society have
been constructed as the protectors of morality. The use of torture must be justified if this
young woman was giving her approval. The importance of the use of torture to gain
information is driven home by the connection of failed interrogation to terrorist attacks.
Throughout the first hour of the film, scenes of torture and interrogation are swapped
back and forth with scenes of terrorist attacks. The CIA operatives torture a detainee and get
some information, but not enough, then the scene switches to a terrorist attack or bombing
that kills Americans or other Westerners. This sequence happens multiple times throughout
the movie. The connection between the lack of information and the next terrorist attack is
made quite clear to the viewer. The frustration of Maya, the female CIA interrogator,
increases with each attack, culminating with the death of her friend and partner by a terrorist
bombing. After this she is obsessed with getting the information to lead them to Bin Laden.
The film makes it clear that the ability to get information has been greatly hampered by the
ending of the “detainee program” by President Obama, with one agent expressing his
frustration, stating, “You know we lost the ability to prove that when we lost the detainee
program. Who am I supposed to ask, some guy in Gitmo that’s all lawyered up?”371 The film
implied that losing the ability to torture detainees slowed down the ability to catch Bin
Laden, and that Bin Laden was the one directing attacks on the United States. Maya argued,
“He is the one telling them to attack the homeland. If it weren’t for him al-Qaeda would still
369 Mark
Danner, Torture and Truth, 217-224.
370 Boal,
Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty, DVD.
371
Ibid.
121
be focused on overseas targets. If you really want to protect the homeland you need to get
Bin Laden.”372 The movie made a clear argument that the only way to keep the people of the
United States safe was to get Bin Laden, and the use of torture in interrogation was the most
effective way of accomplishing this goal.
The monstering of the Muslim men in the film Zero Dark Thirty justified their torture
by removing their humanity and reducing them to the position of animals. This was done
predominately through the use of imagery. The prisoners were shown, naked, filthy, and
shackled. In one scene the prisoner was stripped naked from the waste down, covered in his
own feces, and displayed to a woman, to whom he begged for help. He was then forced to
wear a dog collar and crawl naked across the floor, while the interrogator said, “you're my
dog, I got to walk you.”373 The man was not only stripped of his humanity, he was stripped
of his masculinity as he begged the woman to help him. The Arab Muslim prisoners were
always shown, as dark, dirty, unshaven, shabbily dressed, and in chains or cages. The cage
became a significant visual device as the camera showed one of the interrogators feeding his
pet monkeys, which lived in a group of outdoor cages at a CIA black site. In the next scene,
the audience was shown identical cages holding Muslim prisoners.374 Monkeys live in cages,
so do Muslims. Several scenes showed prisoners who had been starved of food, eating with
their hands and shoving the food in their mouths just as the monkeys did. The connection is
clear that the detainees were no more important than the monkeys. In fact, less so as the
interrogator was heartbroken when the authorities came and killed his monkeys out of fear
that they would escape. There was no such concern shown for the well being of the
prisoners.375
372
Ibid.
373
Ibid.
374
Ibid.
375
Ibid.
122
Zero Dark Thirty made no attempt to hide, down play, or deny the use of torture in the
interrogation of prisoners in the Middle East. Instead, the film argued that the use of this
torture, first exposed in the photographs from Abu Ghraib, was justified and effective in
keeping Americans safe from future terrorists attacks.
Just how much of a role torture played in the capture of Osama Bin Laden is still
unknown. As seen here there are competing versions of history. Most recently, an article in
the London Review of Books, “The Killing of Osama bin Laden” asserts that Bin Laden was
not captured by tracking his couriers as the CIA claims; instead his location was provided by
a “senior Pakistani intelligence officer who betrayed the secret in return for much of the $25
million reward offered by the US, and that, while Obama did order the raid and the Seal team
did carry it out, many other aspects of the administration’s account were false.”376 While the
real story of the capture of Osama Bin Laden is beyond the scope of this research, the story
provided to the filmmakers of Zero Dark Thirty is certainly suspect. It is, instead, an example
of propaganda used to monster Muslims and justify the use of torture, a violation of
international law and the social norms of the people of the United States.
The captivity narratives produced by the news media and the film industry in the
aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, used misinformation provided by the U.S. government to
exaggerate the threat faced by an American POW and the imagined bravery that she
exhibited in fighting the enemy. The media also used misinformation to claim that this same
female POW was raped and beaten by Muslim men while she was their captive. While all of
this information was either found to be false or unproven, it was used to gain support for the
invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and to further monster Muslim men. In addition, the news
coverage of the Muslim captives held by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, initially exposed
torture and violations of international law, but then played down the torture and placed blame
on a “few” who had taken pictures. The CIA used the film industry to change the narrative
regarding torture from one of denial to a narrative of justification. By providing the
376 Seymour
M. Hersh, “The Killing of Osama Bin Laden,” London Review of Books, (21 May 2015) http://
www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden
123
filmmakers of Zero Dark Thirty with access to intentionally selected CIA records, the
government agency was able to write its version of history. The film industry, ultimately
justified torture as the only means of “saving American lives” from the Muslim terrorist
“monsters”.
124
CONCLUSION: THE DANGER OF CREATING
MONSTERS
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And
when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”377
The movie American Sniper, presented its audience with a Muslim male, referred to
as “the Butcher,” who has all of the characteristics of a monster.378 He is terrifying and
brutal, his wrath has no boundaries, and he will kill a child in the most brutal fashion
possible, in public, with the child’s parents watching. The movie constructs the most horrific
version of the Muslim monster in order to provide a target for the hero of the film, the
American sniper. This film is based on the autobiography of Chris Kyle, titled American
Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.379 Kyle is a
former U.S. Navy Seal, who is credited with having the most kills as a military sniper. The
book and the movie glamorize his role in killing as many Iraqis as possible and it
accomplishes this by presenting his targets in a similar fashion to “the Butcher,” as monsters
that need to be destroyed in order to keep the U.S. safe. The movie never questions the
validity of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq or the morality in killing Iraqis on their own soil;
instead it reinforces the heroism and necessity of killing monsters. How did U.S. society in
the early 21st century become so accepting of such brutality? Popular culture and mass media
in preceding centuries had laid the foundation of the using captivity narratives to monster
Muslims, which informed the American public’s imagination in a way that it was willing to
377 Friedrich
Nietzche, Trans. Hollingdale, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146 (1886) https://
en.wikisource.org/wiki/Beyond_Good_and_Evil
378
American Sniper, dir. Clint Eastwood, (2015). DVD.
379 Chris
Kyle, Scott McEwen, and Jim DeFelice. American Sniper: the Autobiography of the Most Lethal
Sniper in U.S. Military History (New York: W. Morrow, 2012) Print.
125
accept bigotry and brutality toward Muslims when it was no longer acceptable toward other
minority groups. Why did U.S. Society create this monster?
Scholarship has addressed the bigotry towards Muslims over the past 50 years,
beginning with Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1979, which began a long and often
contentious discourse over the validity of his theory.380 Ultimately, Said’s theory regarding
Orientalism brought significant attention to the bias of Western scholars and literature in
regard to the East and particularly the representation of Muslims. Scholars such as, Fuad
Shaban and Douglas Little who confronted American Orientalism applied Said’s theory to
U.S. bias.381 Melani McAlister was able to connect the role of Orientalism in popular culture
to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and argued that popular culture not only reflected
events in history but also drove foreign policy by creating public pressure to act against an
enemy, either real or perceived.382 Most recently, Sophia Rose Arjana provided a
comprehensive history on the construction of Muslim monsters.383 She argued that Western/
Christian societies have constructed Muslims as monsters since the emergence of Islam in the
7th century. Providing examples of Muslim monsters throughout various periods of world
history, she proves that the monstering that is exhibited in the aftermath of 9/11 is not new or
exceptional; it is expected. In spite of all of the scholarly attention to this topic; however, it
does not address the trope of the U.S. captivity narrative in the creation of the American
version of the Muslim monster.
This research examined three periods of U.S. history when the U.S. was in conflict
with a Muslim adversary, where popular culture and/or the media used the captivity narrative
trope to construct Muslims as monsters. Examination of the period surrounding the Barbary
Wars, the Iranian Hostage Crisis, and the War on Terror reveals that during times of crisis, the
380
Said, Orientalism, Print.
381
Shaban, Islam and Arabs. Print; Little, American Orientalism, Print.
382
McAlister, Epic Encounters, Print.
383 Arjana,
Muslims, Print.
126
captivity narrative has been used to construct the Muslim adversary as a monster in order to
spur military action and justify atrocities that are normally outside of socially accepted
norms. In addition, the use of abject imagery and textual representations, specifically
designed to elicit outrage, has influenced public opinion and ultimately, foreign policy.
Some may argue that this is nothing more than Orientalism, prejudice, stereotyping,
or Islamaphobia, but I argue that it is a phenomenon that is far more dangerous. The
construction of the American version of the Muslim monster coincided with the early
formation of a unique cultural and national identity and was used to juxtapose the Anglo,
Puritan Christian identity against the Eastern, non-Christian, non-white, identity of the
Muslim. The creation of an “other” that was inferior, dangerous, and threatening was crucial
to the creation of a national identity in the United States.384 The Native American and
Barbary Muslim both took on this role in the American version of captivity narratives. In
addition, throughout the conflicts presented in this work, the use of captivity narratives to
construct the Muslim as a monster became more extreme with each crisis. In the end,
Muslims were represented as non-human and undeserving of accepted human rights or the
protection of God. This construction presents Muslims as an enemy to mankind, who should
be kept separate from “innocent” people and destroyed at all cost. This construction is
beyond Orientalism, othering, prejudice, or even Islamaphobia; this is monstering.
This research has shown that in an attempt to create its own unique cultural and
national identity, the United States used literary sources such as Native American captivity
narrative to set itself apart from its enemies. When the U.S. came into conflict with a Muslim
adversary during the Barbary Wars, the captivity narrative genre was adopted and adapted to
reflect the racial and religious differences that distinguished the American Christian from the
North African Muslim. The use of monstering to make the Barbary Muslim not only fierce,
savage, and frightening, but also inferior and inhuman, created an American form of the
Muslim monster, which had dominated the European imagination since the emergence of
384 Kornfeld,
Creating an American Culture, 66-67.
127
Islam in the 7th century. The creation of this imaginary Muslim was prominent in popular
culture during the 19th century, not only in captivity narratives but also in art, theatre, and
merchandising. The image of the Arab and the Turk were used extensively to sell the exotic,
from tobacco to coffee to clothing. While not all of this directly incited hatred or violence, it
did continue to perpetuate the idea that Muslims were fundamentally different from white,
European, Christians. The uncritical use of exaggerated and sensationalized Barbary captive
narratives as source material by historians has produced a historiography of the Barbary
wars, which is inaccurate, and perpetuates hatred towards Muslims into the 21st century.
During the Iran Hostage Crisis, the captivity narrative was appropriated by the nightly
news using titles such as “America Held Hostage,” which insinuated that the entire nation
was held hostage, not just the 52 Americans held in Iran.385 The news coverage of the crisis
was biased and one-sided, presenting the hostages as innocent victims and ignoring the
grievances of the Iranian people who were revolting against a repressive corrupt government
and foreign interference. The Iranian revolutionaries were presented as irrational and
religious extremists. Visual representations reinforced the captive/captor narrative by
repeatedly showing the American hostages blindfolded and handcuffed juxtaposed to images
of the Iranian captors, dressed in black and wielding guns. Religious extremism was
exploited in the newscasts with videos of religious festivals and pilgrimages, which showed a
small minority sect whipping their backs in a form of penance. The captivity narratives
written by the hostages after their release did nothing to challenge this representation. They
denied the Iranian students who guarded them any identity by referring to them only by
nicknames and ignoring their motivations and beliefs. In the aftermath of the crisis, “experts”
on the Middle East began to write about the “Muslim problem.” Although none of these
experts were from the Middle East and they had very limited understanding of Islam or the
vast range of Middle Eastern cultures, they told the U.S. public that Muslims were a problem
that needed to be dealt with. The “experts” turned a regional conflict with one country in
385 "The
Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage." Prod. Roone Arledge, directed by Roger Goodman. (American
Broadcasting Company. November 8, 1979 - January 20, 1981). DVD.
128
revolution into a problem with an entire religion; constructing all Muslims as monsters to be
controlled, contained, or destroyed. Popular culture reinforced the Muslim terrorist monster
construct with movies and television shows, which showed Muslims in roles as the hijacker,
guerilla fighter, suicide bomber, and religious zealot. This type of imagery in television and
film continued throughout the second half of the 20th century. Therefore, the Muslim monster
construct was already deeply ingrained in the American imagination when a group of
radicalized Arab Muslim men attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11 during the War on Terror, the monstering of
Muslim men was exacerbated. The use of the captivity narrative was used by both the media
and popular culture, often informed by U.S. government sources, to justify U.S. invasion into
foreign countries, the removal of foreign leaders, and the torture of Muslim prisoners. The
Jessica Lynch captivity narrative provided by the Pentagon deliberately provided
misinformation, which was disseminated by the U.S. press to garner support for an unpopular
war. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not supported internationally and many in the
U.S. public were either opposed or at least skeptical. The Lynch narrative provided the public
a hero in the U.S. Special Forces, a female victim to be saved, and a monster to be destroyed.
By creating a narrative, which showed the Iraqi men in the tale as brutally violent rapists,
who beat and raped a young woman serving her country, the U.S. government intentionally
used the news media to sway public support for the war. It did not seem to matter that the
majority of the information, including the alleged rape, was either fabricated or unsupported.
The captivity narrative was inverted when the torture at Abu Ghraib was revealed; now the
Muslims were the captive and the U.S. soldiers were the captors. The initial news reports,
which were also informed by U.S. government sources, attempted to limit the damage of the
images by downplaying both the torture, calling it “abuse” or “mistreatment” and by blaming
“a few” bad soldiers for the misconduct.386 Eventually, the torture at Abu Ghraib and other
386 “Abu
Ghraib” In 60 Minutes II, (28 April 2004, CBS News).
129
facilities around the world was justified in movies such as Standard Operating Procedure387
and Zero Dark Thirty.388 By 2014, Zero Dark Thirty no longer denied that Americans tortured
Muslim prisoners; instead it argued that torture was the only way to capture Osama Bin
Laden and keep Americans safe. In addition, through the use of visual representation it once
again constructed Muslim men as monsters.
The significance of this research lies in its contemporary relevance. In a world that is
fractured by civil war in the Middle East, which many argue was caused by the U.S. invasion
of Iraq, there is increasing anti-Muslim rhetoric that continues to inflame the public. During
the 2016 Presidential campaign, some candidates use the fear of Muslim terrorism to rally
supporters by suggesting the control or destruction of Muslims en masse. In addition, experts
and scholars still use erroneous information provided in earlier captivity narratives to support
their arguments that Muslims have always been driven by religious motivations and are
continuing this jihad against the Christian West. By using this flawed argument they
disregard the actual problems that uprisings in the Middle East are attempting to address. The
monstering of Muslims in television shows and film is so pervasive and accepted that it often
goes unchallenged and even unnoticed. There is further research left to do on this topic and it
is my hope that this project will lead to further scholarship that reveals the monstering of
Muslims present in other areas of U.S. society including: video games, social media, cable
news programs, and conservative Christian movements.
In the end, this and future research is an attempt to question why Muslim monsters
are created. Jeffrey Cohen argues, “Monsters are our children,” they are an attempt to place
our own society in history. If we look close enough, we can see how we misrepresent the
other in the construction of the monster, to create our own identity. The monsters that we
create force us to question how we perceive the world. “They ask us to reevaluate our
cultural assumptions about race, gender, sexuality, our perception of difference, our tolerance
387 Morris,
388 Boal,
Standard Operating Procedure, DVD.
Bigalow, Zero Dark Thirty, DVD.
130
toward its expression. They ask us why we have created them.”389 The Muslim monsters
instilled in the American imagination by media and popular culture in the U.S. during times
of crisis with a Muslim adversary, magnify existing mainstream religious and racial ideology
and constructions of gender in order to perpetuate hatred of the Muslim other. The use of the
captivity narrative provided a familiar trope. In addition, abject imagery and textual
representation, was specifically designed to elicit outrage. The captivity narrative produced
by the U.S. media and popular culture created an imaginary Muslim monster that was used to
spur patriotic military action, and justify atrocities that would normally be outside the realm
of accepted morality and social norms.
389 Cohen,
Monster Theory, 20.
131
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