Once the Simpsons now they are called the Omars

[Jabhad]

The Simpsons convert to Islam

 

Worst of American TV always popular in Arabia

 

Ray Hanania | Creators Syndicate

Posted October 27, 2005

 

 

E-mail this article

Printer friendly version

Most e-mailed articles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why am I not surprised that among endless reports from the Middle East of mass murder, carnage, civil-rights abuses, violations of international law and name calling, a story will slip through that is even more shocking?

 

A sanitized version of the adult cartoon The Simpsons will be broadcast to Arab audiences.

 

 

It isn't a part of the official American propaganda machine that now publishes a fluff magazine, broadcasts rock and roll music by radio, and fills the TV screens with happy talk news.

 

The show has been rebranded as The Shamshoons carried by Dubai's popular MBC satellite network.

 

The Arab TV version of the outrageous, near-X-rated show will downplay things like drinking beer and eating pork. But classic phrases that have made Americans laugh will remain.

 

Homer Simpson, the ****** fat and bald American father, has been renamed Omar. He drinks soda, instead of beer, and chomps down on beef sausages from Egypt instead of pork hot dogs.

 

It's all re-dubbed in Arabic.

 

The Simpsons' conversion to Islam follows a growing trend not just in the West but among the American intellectuals who see everything that was once "Arab" now in terms of only "Muslim."

 

Arabs will watch it, and it will probably get good ratings. And even though they deleted the content that offends the Islamic lifestyle, and even some political satire demeaning to Arabs and Muslims, audiences will still find enough to criticize.

 

Arabs and Muslims can be like that. Very judgmental.

 

Yet the sad truth is that the new program may portray a seamy side of American culture and society, even with the sanitized changes.

 

But it will speak more to the failures of the Arab and Muslim worlds to translate their own creative talents into something worth watching on TV. Something besides the usual menu of boring talking-head news programs, censored news reports you know don't offer the complete story, and belly dancing, sex and sheesha pipes -- the very icons that Islamic extremists use to rally public anger against their secular governments.

 

The Arabs and the Muslims are used to being told what is important and what is not by non-Arabs and non-Muslims, especially in the West.

 

Although the Arabs and Muslims constantly and rightly denounce the American media for its biases and lack of balance, they continue to tune into American news stations like CNN and even the Fox Network.

 

Hollywood continues to churn out anti-Arab and anti-Muslims films, most of which are rebroadcast in the Arab world. And the Arab and Muslim worlds have failed to create their own movie industry, at least an industry that would have as much influence on Americans as the American industry has had on everyone else.

 

Al-Jazeera, the first real effort to provide balanced content to the rest of the world, stumbled when it was mercilessly assaulted by its Western rivals, mainly in the United States. The Bush administration has given the all-Arabic-language news-satellite station such a public drubbing that it delayed plans to create an English-language broadcast site for years -- years that cost it public credibility.

 

Even if Al-Jazeera manages to get an English-language broadcast off the ground, most Americans won't watch it. They have been brainwashed into believing that somehow when Al-Jazeera shows images of dead Americans, that's hate, bias and part of the Arab and Muslim culture.

 

When American TV broadcasts images depicting Arabs and Muslims in insulting situations and the mangled bodies of dead Arabs and Muslims bloodied in conflicts with American Marines, that's OK.

 

The Arab and Muslim worlds still haven't figured out that communications is the key to power in the world. "The pen" -- a metaphor for Hollywood movies, radio, TV, newspapers, magazines and the book publishing industry -- is mightier than the sword, yet the Arabs and Muslims continue to cling to the sword in their fight for justice. Instead of achieving justice with the sword, of course, they only reinforce the animosity they face.

 

While Arabs and Muslims have easily learned English and therefore have detrimental exposure to the full span of the American communications monolith, the Americans have no desire to learn Arabic.

 

The Arabs must one day recognize that they have to stop producing media that reach their own community. They must produce English-language content for the West that is both professional and creative and honest.

 

Until then, the Arab and Muslim world markets will always be fodder for rehashed trash from American TV and a legion of media products that are so clever in their anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate that Arabs and Muslims feel as if they can't do without that noxious diet.

 

Ray Hanania is an author and former national president of the Palestinian American Congress. He is managing editor of TheArabStreet.com. He can be reached at RayHanania@aol.com.

[Tuujiye]

Waraa sxb Carabta waa u dhatay oo gaal jaceel nimadooda saan aa u danbeysay. Mar dhaw babe watch on the sahara aa rakee..lol.. I wonder what they will call it.. Camel watch...loooool..between two qamiis weynayaal...beynaka cuudu bilaah..

 

Wareer Badanaa!!!

[Child of Dune]

:confused:

[Jabhad]

Baywatch can be watched by the Arab World true satalite. America finally has the best weapon to corrupt the Arab World as well as the Muslim world.

[Qandalawi]

Arabta are going way too far!

 

Why you guyz focus on only Carabta, while this Americanization culture is being introduced and affected the Muslims and world in larage scale.

[Animal Farm]

We have this problem because we don’t have many Muslims venturing out into the media industry, I remember a lecture by this prominent scholar who gave a talk this summer at the Ottawa mosque. He argued that we needed an Islamic television, where people can lean more about the religion, for a global audience, and he gave statistics on how many people were converting to Islam.

 

Clearly, this case illustrates cultural imperialism, we need to fix this by producing content geared towards Muslims on a global scale.

[Jabhad]

As long as dictators are leading the muslim world, there is gonna be difficult for the muslims to be creative in media or any other field.

[Cara.]

Why am I not surprised that among endless reports from the Middle East of mass murder, carnage, civil-rights abuses, violations of international law and name calling, a story will slip through that is even more shocking?

You think that the advent of "The Omars" is more shocking than mass murder, carnage and so forth?

 

Anyway, the only thing sadder than Arabs copying Americans is Somalis discussing it.

[N.O.R.F]

Well i have been living in the ME for 2 months now and have found it surprising just how much they love American products/shops/shows etc. They are not as informed as one may originally think.

 

As for the Omars, what would a Somali family be called? The Abdis? :confused:

[Lake]

Originally posted by Animal Farm:

We have this problem because we don’t have many Muslims venturing out into the media industry, I remember a lecture by this prominent scholar who gave a talk this summer at the Ottawa mosque. He argued that we needed an Islamic television, where people can lean more about the religion, for a global audience, and he gave statistics on how many people were converting to Islam.

 

Clearly, this case illustrates cultural imperialism, we need to fix this by producing content geared towards Muslims on a global scale.

That's sounds a great idea..but Why don't you consider to making that happend

 

put your enterpreneur caps on