The current Spiegel Geschichte, Der Spiegel’s bi-monthly history special, is all about “Caliphs, War, and Struggle for Freedom”. And it has a cover of the worst kind: orientalist, chauvinist, and most of all depicting Arabs as barbaric and chaotic. It makes me want to choke.
Linda Steet, in her excellent book “Vails and Daggers, wrote that “What signifies the best of the Arab world, as we have so often seen, was the period of the Arabian Nights and what conjured up within Orientalism.” The fairy tales of Thousand and One Nights draw the positive image of the Arab: romantic and beautiful women, depicted in the Spiegel Geschichte cover as a magnificent arch and young women. Everything else about the Arab world is -in the White Christian Male (WCM) depiction which Der Spiegel follows- barbaric and reactionary, well summarized in one of the article’s title: “The Muslim is not modern.” Consequently, the cover is full of a dark collage of slaughter, veiled women, yelling, revolution – and even a flying axe. As if there is nothing bright, nice, and postive to say about Arabs.
The particular dangerous about this (and similar) illustrations is their claim to be objective and scientific. Der Spiegel Geschichte is published by a respected (though notorious) publisher and creates credibilty by (pop-)scientific self-conception and the prominent placement of a story about “What Europe learned of the Arabs” on the front page. I haven’t read most of the articles in the magazine but I am honestly not motivated to spend time with gibberish teased with “The French wanted to turn Arabs and Berbers into “Modern Humans”.” (about the Algerian War of Independence), “League of the Lame” (about the Arab League), “a World Going To Pieces: Backward Orientated, Divided, Suppressed – for Centuries the Arab Countries are lagging.” (about the Arab Spring).
The magazine’s cover collage says it all; this publication is yet another example for the visual language that sub-consciously reconfirms negative stereo-types about Muslims and Arabs in the West. ‘Slaughtering with axes, veiling and suppressing women – The Arab can’t be anything but a primitive’ is the unequivocal message this illustration conveys. It is yet another brick for the construction of the WCM-world view in continuously-colonial, chauvinistic tradition. Thank you Spiegel-Geschichte Team. I ward you the first Schock am Montag award for your sincere efforts in promoting the clash of culture.
