Think Before you Tweet

For class, I'm reading Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion, which examines how the irrational construction of social perception undermines democratic governance. The entire book is very thought provoking, but I'd like to focus on one line in particular for this post: 

For it is clear enough that under certain conditions men respond as powerfully to fictions as they do to realities, and that in many cases they help to create the very fictions to which they respond [...] Let him cast a stone who never passed on as the real inside truth what he had heard someone say who knew no more than he did.

I would say Lippmann wrote this with Twitter in mind but, considering Public Opinion was published in 1922, that would've required a time machine or a favor from Nostradamus. If Lippmann expressed such pessimism for traditional media, I can't imagine the levels of despondency he'd reach contemplating social media.

Take just two recent online myths that would've had Lippmann popping Prozac. After the Bin Laden raid, countless Internet users posted the Martin Luther King Junior quote: "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." Then, a blogger's assertion that the quote is fake began to proliferate just as rapidly. Except, as it turns out, the quote is not entirely made up. We went from posting, retracting, to amending a viral meme in a matter of 48 hours.

But not all internet myths are so harmless the misattribution of quotes to national heroes. A few weeks ago, the picture below began to make the rounds. It purportedly shows an Israeli Subaru ad in which a car runs over some Palestinian kids with the caption "We'll see who can stand against you." As Iran's Press TV explains with thinly-veiled satisfication, the ad "has drawn considerable outrage for its implied promotion of running over Palestinian kids."

Except the ad's fake. A company spokesperson said, "we strongly condemn these elements that are trying to harm the good name of the company.”  And the Palestinian Authority, which condemned the ad, admitted "it is not clear whether this is a genuine advertisement or whether someone is making use of the Subaru logo." The picture, however, is not fake. It shows a well-known incident last year in which an Israeli ran over Arab children in East Jerusalem.

Both of these online myths exemplify, in Lippmann's words, "our normal human habit of trying to squeeze into our stereotypes all that can be squeezed, and of casting into outer darkness that which does not fit." We believed the MLK quote because our mythologized MLK would have said something just like that. Anti-Zionists believed the Subaru ad because their demonized Israeli would have boasted about running over children just like the ad.

To overcome the shortfalls of public opinion, Lippmann urged a greater role for experts in informing the press and policy in democratic systems. The problem of social media is that every tweet or post is an implicit contention that people can rely on our expertise or ability to identify expertise. We users therefore need to take the responsibility to act as if we were experts. We must check our sources before we share them. More importantly, when we do make mistakes, it's not enough to just delete them. We have to share our mea culpas in the same way we share everything else. And most importantly, we must think before we tweet.

Taking such personal responsibility will go a long way in resisting the internet's inherent susceptibility to myth and echo chambers. It'll also let poor Lippmann rest a little easier.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Bin Laden

There has been some controversy over the Muslim Brotherhood reaction to the death of Osama Bin Laden. So I thought it'd be useful to translate their Arabic press release and explain what's going on.

Statement from the Muslim Brotherhood on the Assassination of Sheikh Osama Bin Laden (May 2, 2011)

The entire world and especially Muslims have experienced and been concerned by a malicious media campaign that conflates Islam with terrorism and describes Muslims as violent since connecting the events of September 11th to Al Qaeda.

Today, the American President announced that special forces from the American Marines successfully assassinated Osama Bin Laden, a woman, and children along with a number of companions. We now find ourselves facing a new situation.

The Muslim Brotherhood announces that they are against the use of violence in general and against the method of assassination. They instead favor fair trials of those accused of any crime.

The Muslim Brotherhood calls for the entire world and the Western world - both the people and especially its governments - to stop tying Islam with terrorism and to correct the false image of Islam that has been deliberately promoted for years.

The Muslim Brotherhood affirms the legitimacy of resistance against the foreign occupation of any country guaranteed by divine law and international conventions. To confuse legitimate resistance and violence against innocents has been the intention of the Zionist enemy in particular.

So long as occupation remains, so will legitimate resistance remain. America, NATO and the EU must quickly announce the end of the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

The Muslim Brotherhood calls for the US to refrain from intelligence operations against its detractors and to refrain from entering the internal affairs of any Arab or Muslim country.

Eric Trager read this statement and oddly concludes "Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Sticks with Bin Laden." He goes on argue that this statement casts doubt whether the MB will "moderate" in post-revolution Egypt. As Marc Lynch tweeted, "this is a bizarre reading." But that hasn't stopped others to agree with Trager.

Let's address the statement point by point. First, there is no doubt many conflate Islam with terrorism. Now I don't think it's as pervasive as the MB implies, but no one can deny it exists.

Second, condemning assassination does not mean the MB has decided to "stick with Bin Laden" and refused to "moderate." Quite the opposite in fact. For years the MB has struggled to definitively prove it has internalized democratic principles and rejects terrorism. Their condemnation of assassination must be understood in that light. If it supports the killing of Bin Laden, why wouldn't it support the assassination of rival politicians in Egypt? Moreover, this sentiment reflects a broader Arab and Muslim feeling that while they are happy he is gone, they are uneasy in how he was dispatched. As a movement competing in elections in Egypt, we can't expect the MB or any other Egyptian party to stray from public opinion.

Third, what is extreme about asking for fair trials for criminals, even bloodthirsty terrorists? We hear the same arguments here in the U.S. all the time.

Fourth, the MB has always sought to separate "legitimate resistance" against "occupation" from Al-Qaeda style terrorism. Of course, for Israelis facing indiscriminate rocketfire or American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, this distinction is entirely meaningless. But for the future of Egypt, it's hugely important. The Brotherhood views Al-Qaeda and like-minded individuals as a threat to its mantle as the primary Islamist movement in Egypt. It considers the AQ philosophy as an existential threat and treats the group accordingly.

Fifth, the demand for withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and the recognition of the rights of Palestinians is not a unique MB demand. It's a near universal demand of Arabs and Muslims alike. The demand for the respect of sovereignty also reflects a broad societal concern over the history of colonialism and leadership pliant to foreign interests. The important question is not one of ends, but means. It's hard to criticize the MB for demanding such core planks of their political platform in a press release. The more important question is whether the MB will gain enough influence to fundamentally alter Egyptian foreign policy, and even more uncertain, whether it would choose to do so even if it did gain that capacity.

Understanding the Muslim Brotherhood is difficult enough. In fact, it's not even clear that the Muslim Brotherhood understands itself. Yet there's no doubt that hysteria over mundane press releases only makes the job harder.

Why I Won't Write about Bin Laden

I'm a member of the 9/11 generation. Like all Americans, we can remember exactly where we watched the Towers fall. For me, it was Mr. Flynn's world history class. But unlike all Americans, my generation was uniquely shaped by the horrors that day.We were old enough to comprehend the gravity of the attacks, but young enough that 9/11 would serve as the foundational moment of our lives.

Unlike our parents and grandparents, we could not compare what we saw and experienced that day to the other seminal moments of American and world history. Sure, we could draw facile connections to obvious analogies. But but we had no personal experience to draw upon. We were on our own to wrangle with and contextualize the raw emotions we felt.

Like many of my generation, we channeled those emotions into a desire to enter a life of public service. Some like myself focused specifically on the Middle East. We began to study Arabic, read about Islam and travel abroad in the Arab world. We did so for instrumental reasons. We wanted to learn what caused people like Osama bin Laden to murder so many innocent lives. More importantly, we wanted to help bring him to justice.

That's why, as an undergraduate, I hoped to one day become a counterterrorism intelligence analyst. I wanted to use my knowledge of the Middle East to protect the homeland. And as such, I viewed the Arab world largely as a security problem to be solved. But something unexpected happened: my interest in terrorism and Bin Laden faded.

I instead became fascinated for the Middle East for what it is: an immensely complex and diverse conglomeration of peoples, histories, religions and cultures. Terrorism may have brought me to the Middle East, but I have remained for wholly different reasons. I stayed partially because I thought I could help create a new beginning between the United States and the Arabic-speaking world. But in reality I stayed because I fell in love with the region - with the food, with the history, with the culture, and most of all with the people.

While the region is confronted by a host of profound problems, I have learned the region itself is not a problem to be solved. Rather, it is a wealth of potential to be activated. That's the main lesson we've learned from the Arab revolutions over the past few months.

That's also why I haven't written much about Al Qaeda previously on this blog and why I don't plan to start anytime soon. Others have dedicated their careers to solving the problem of Al Qaeda - and they deserve to be praised for their efforts to protect our immediate security. I, however, have turned my attention to how the U.S. can help the Middle East realize its full potential. It also just so happens that I believe that only then will the long-term threat of religious extremism  be no more.

Two years ago, I remember walking through a Muslim slum in Cairo when I spotted a faded picture of Bin Laden sticking out from a heap of garbage. Arabs have long ago thrown Al Qaeda into the refuse pile of history. They have shunned his murderous ideology for an entirely different narrative of hope, of pride, and of freedom. As we have seen these past few months, they are fighting bravely to actualize the vast potential of the region. In the words of Rachid Ghannouchi, a leading Islamist in Tunisia, on Al Jazeera today: "Bin Laden died in Tunisia before dying in Pakistan."

It is that struggle that will be the focus of this blog. Hopefully, it will also play a central role in my career. I cannot think of a better way to honor those lost on September 11th than by helping Arabs realize their inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Such an achievement will ensure that Bin Laden's photograph will forever remain rotting in that Cairo trash heap where it belongs.