| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Interview With MEMRI Vice President Alberto M. Fernandez: ‘The War
December 5, 2016 MEMRI Daily Brief No.111
Interview With MEMRI Vice President Alberto M. Fernandez: ‘The War Against
Jihad: What The West Needs To Understand About Middle East Islamo-Fascism’
By: Alberto M. Fernandez
http://www.memri.org/reports/interview-memri-vice-president-alberto-m-fernandez-war-against-jihad-what-west-needs
The following is the full text of an interview with MEMRI Vice President
Alberto M. Fernandez, which was originally published by World magazine on
November 21, 2016.
“Ambassador Alberto Fernandez grew up in Miami after his family members fled
Communist Cuba as political refugees in 1959. He spent 32 years in the U.S.
foreign service, including stints as director for Middle East public
diplomacy, ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, and coordinator for the Center
for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (2012-2015).
“Fernandez retired from the State Department last year and is now vice
president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a nonprofit
organization that translates Arabic and other Middle East communications
into English. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation.
“How does your Christian faith inform your work?
“I’ve served under Republicans, Democrats, godly people, and people who
disliked Christians or even despised them. I’ve tried not to be ashamed of
my faith but to be aboveboard with it. Generally those who aren’t Christians
respect people that try in a humble way to practice their faith and are not
ashamed of it.
“Why were you dubbed the ‘mouthpiece of U.S. policy in the Middle East’ in
the mid-2000s?
“There was an explosion of broadcast media—the rise of Al-Jazeera,
Al-Arabiya, and dozens of other stations. These stations wanted somebody who
could go on and express a view in the Arabic language, so I was in the right
place at the right time, and crazy enough to go live on Arabic television. I
did 500 or 600 interviews. A couple of times I may have exceeded my brief,
but that’s live television and that’s the challenge you face. Talking points
are usually good for a minute or two.
“Did you have disagreements with the Bush administration?
“Not really. The big thing with the Bush administration was an Al-Jazeera
show where I was debating a guy for an hour. At one point I said there had
been arrogance and stupidity by the United States in Iraq. Then I said,
‘But, we have to get it right in Iraq. We can’t walk away. We have a
challenge we have to beat and face. If we walk away from Iraq, it would be
bad for us; but it would be a disaster for the region.’ The press picked up
the arrogance and stupidity part. I was defending our presence in Iraq, but
that’s not the way the media played it.
“What was the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (now the
Global Engagement Center), and why did you leave it?
“In 2010 Secretary Hillary Clinton thought the U.S. government did not fully
appreciate the media battle part of the war against al-Qaeda. She was right.
It was a very small shop with little money and little clout, but the subject
became more important with the rise of ISIS. I retired because I was due to
retire, but there were major tensions between me and government in 2014.
Suddenly lots of cooks who weren’t there before would second-guess you. They
had superficial ideas about Islam, media in Arabic, or terrorism. People in
the White House and the National Security Council had their own take on
things.
“You recently wrote, ‘Mutual understanding is really unhelpful if your
adversary remains hostile.’ How so?
“Sometimes we think public diplomacy is just putting your position out
there, having it be understood—and the problem is done. When you talk about
ISIS, Islamism, or jihadism, though, you talk about people who are fanatics
or maybe somewhat sympathetic to messages. It’s an ideological struggle. You
have to not just present the facts, but try to undermine or challenge the
preconceived notions that your adversary has, try to convince them that
you’re right and they’re wrong. This is not to be arrogant: It’s to try to
change people’s perspectives on the United States.
“To what extent is the Obama administration working on that?
“Not working on it at all. The Obama administration has a fascinating
disconnect in the Middle East. It tries to portray the administration as
thoughtful and lawyerly: We’re getting out of these wars and not using
extreme language. But in the region people see the U.S. position, for
example in Syria, and believe the United States is talking out of both sides
of its mouth. They see a lot of violence, which the U.S. government seems to
approve of. So you can say there’s an Obama or administration persona in the
media, and a very different one in the region.
“What’s the most common misunderstanding about jihadi propaganda?
“The Islamic State and jihadists talk of creating a new political and
religious reality. The violence is about spilling lots of blood to have
something ‘good’ happen, like a lot of tyrants have proposed. Only a small
minority of their material is the head-cutting stuff: Most is about building
a future. The second misconception that people have is that Islamism is
about mundane factors. It’s mostly about embracing a worldview, not about
people who can’t get a job.
“Who is doing good work fighting the war of ideas?
“A myth exists that somehow the Muslim world is silent confronting this
surge of jihadism. That’s inaccurate. Especially in Arabic, people of
goodwill are challenging the discourse of the crazies, the jihadists.
They’re often isolated individuals supported by nobody. They are a minority
but come from many different motivations to challenge the discourse of
Islamist supremacists in the Muslim world. We often don’t hear about them
because they’re people speaking in Arabic to other Arabs. Part of the work
of MEMRI is to try to publicize the work of those people. We cover the
discourse of the extremists and also the reformers.
“How is the war of ideas won?
“First thing: What do you stand for? What is your worldview? The West has
lost its way. The West is like Seinfeld. It’s not about anything, or if it’s
about anything, it’s about the gods of the West – Eros, Mammon, and Molech.
False gods. We’re for a culture of hedonism and consumerism, which is maybe
OK for people on a day-to-day basis but does not satisfy. People go looking
for things. Some will find it in radical Islam. It gives them a poisonous,
diabolical purpose.
“Has the United States been out-strategized?
“Without a doubt. Great irony: The Obama administration prides itself on
great communication but has been outsmarted by not just some guys in a cave,
or by Salafi jihadists like ISIS, but also by the Russians and others who
have learned to play the influence operation game. The U.S. government sits
back in a lounge chair thinking about 2009, ‘We’ve got this covered,
everybody loves us and thinks we’re wonderful.’
“What’s ahead for ISIS?
“ISIS says, ‘By permission of God, we’re going to conquer Rome, enslave your
women, and break your crosses. We’re going to take Constantinople and paint
the White House black, by permission of God.’ Losses on the battlefield hurt
their propaganda because, obviously, there’s no permission of God. If they
continue to lose, they’re in big trouble. Their propaganda is built on
divinely mandated victory. But the larger problem of jihadism is
ideological, and we’ve hardly dented that. Even if ISIS ceases to exist
tomorrow, this ideological challenge that translates to violence on the
ground is not going to go away.”
© 1998-2016, The Middle East Media Research Institute All Rights Reserved.
Materials may only be cited with proper attribution.
Source: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=71822
