ADC Communications Director, Hussein Ibish to Yemen Times: “I think that it is the most racist movie against Arabs that has ever been made by a major Hollywood studio.” [Archives:2000/18/Interview]

Hussien Ibish is the Communications Director of the Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the largest Arab – American membership organization in the USA. The committee has generated the strongest response strong against the Paramount movie, “Rules of Engagement” that has damaged the image of Yemen and the Arab world in general. The ADC has organized a number of demonstrations and protest activities against the movie. During his stay in Washington last week, the Chief Editor of Yemen Times participated in one of the demonstrations that took place in front of a Cinema Theater in Washington, D.C.’s Wisconsin Avenue. The editor was delighted to have met with Mr. Ibish during the demonstrations, in which he was also a participant, and filed the following interview.
Q: One of your activities is to try to prevent any discrimination acts against Arabs. Can you tell us more about this.
A: We have to monitor the media in order to make sure that the news coverage of the Middle East is fair and balanced and that there are not excessive defamatory representations of Arab countries, cultures or societies in the entertainment industry. So, it is our major role as civil right organization in the US because so much of the discrimination against us is based on the wrong, misleading, unfair images of Arabs and Arab countries created by movies and television in this country.
Q: I believe you have been very active recently in regard to the movie ” Rules of Engagement”. You have indicated that it is truly a racist movie. What else can you tell us about it?
A: I think that it is the most racist movie against Arabs that has ever been made by a major Hollywood studio. I have never seen anything like though I have been watching these movies for years. I thought I had seen it all after watching ‘True Lies’ and ‘The Siege’ which were truly racist. However, when I saw ‘Rules of Engagement’, I realized that it truly can be much worse. This film crosses the line by taking a whole society, the Yemeni society and depicting every body in it as violent anti-American fanatic including men, women and children without distinction. Even a handicapped 5 or 6-years-old girl in crutches was seen carrying a gun that looked half her body weight. Ridiculously, they open fire on American soldiers which is absolutely amazing. We have never seen a movie, before that was so dedicated to thoroughly vilifying an entire society. Very few movies in history have done that; one is the first feature movie of Hollywood for 1917 ‘Birth of Nation’ that does this with black people, another is a movie made by the Nazis called ‘The Eternal Jew’ which does this with Jews and now we have the one made by Hollywood, in 2000, that discriminates against Arabs and Yemenis in particular.
Q: In regard to Paramount, have they ever thought that this movie would do such damage? Have you warned or told them of the bad consequences that the movies could cause?
A: Yes, we definitely did. We approached Paramount formally. Our President Dr. Hanna Abu Hsoud wrote a formal letter to the Chairman of Paramount Pictures, in January 2000 saying that we are very concerned and that the we think this movie was bad. We stated that we have real problems with this movie and that we want to see it and have a dialogue. In case there is a problem, we could avoid them. However , they did not respond to us. The first formal response we received was a short letter which we got few days before the film was released. The letter said two things: the film was shot in Morocco and two, that the film was not offensive and there is nothing wrong with it. They did not even give us the elementary courtesy of pre-release screening and we never had a studio treat us like that before. In retrospect, we all know why they did not want to talk to us. They made a movie that is completely indefensible in its portrayal of Yemenis, Arabs and Muslims. It was just outrageous and no wonder they refused to talk to us. I would not want to talk to people I was about to slander and insult like that. But, we have to attempt to start with them again because they are going to make more movies. As a matter of fact, I can tell you that we are very concerned to know that the Director of this movie, William Freidkin, who married the CEO of Paramount, is negotiating now to make a movie based on the 1972 Israeli book ” Old Jerusalem” which is a Israeli book about the 1948 war in Palestine. So this could, probably, be worse because it is about a true event and would be very damaging and very bad. We feel very strongly that we need to oppose this movie because it is outrageous and because Paramount may make more movies like that. It is incredible how racist Hollywood can be.
Q: Did they respond to the demonstrations that took place, and to your reactions towards the movie?
A: No, they just issued few denials without any details saying there was nothing wrong with this movie. It does not disparage any group, individual or government. They were just blatant lies. Frankly, they have depicted hundreds and thousands of Yemenis. They showed that every single Yemeni is bad and that most of them are anti-American fanatics, murderers, part of a mob, crazy and violent which is ridiculous. Then, those who are like police and doctors are all liars and have lied to cover up the whole incident.
Q: Did the embassy here try to do something in this regard? And as I can see, there are some embassy members here. So is there any formal response?
A: Well, from the embassy I do not believe that there has been one and if so, then I have not seen it. However, I do know that the ambassador went to see the movie with John Donnelly who then wrote an article in the Global about the experience of watching the movie with the ambassador of Yemen. I think that there are a lot of discussions going in here about what the government wants to do, but I do not think that this a position that the Yemeni diplomats have found themselves in, in the past. So, I believe they are not trained to deal with Hollywood movies and I do not think any diplomats are trained for this. We as a civil rights organization in the US have experience and know how to respond to such matters. We have organized demonstrations all around the country and we try to do what we can to draw people’s attention to it without calling for censorship or suppression of this movies. We just call for Hollywood not do this to anybody again and try to shame them.
Q: So, you believe you would not go to the extent of suing them legally?
A: There is no legal remedy. In the US, this is something that is not very well understood by the Arab-American community is some cases and certainly not outside US. US is a strange country in terms of freedom of speech. The first am to the US constitution protects all kinds of speech. It is a remarkable grant of liberty of speech. So, for example, it is lawful to be racist and insight hatred. In order to break the law you need to specifically call for a specific harm for a specific individual or group of individuals and that harm has to be eminent. So, if you wrote that Yemenis generally should be attacked it would be hard to make a case against you unless there Yemenis in one side and a group of anti-Yemenis mob in the other side. In brief, there is no legal recourse against a movie like this. In the end, I am not sure that we would benefit if there was one. Honestly, we have seen evidence of restrictions on speech in the US from time to time and usually it goes badly for the minority groups that want it. We should also remember that in this country the laws are one thing and then the enforcement of the law another.
Q: Do you have plans in the near future to hold seminars or any other activities in regard to this movie?
A: I’m sure we will be talking about it and writing about it continuously. I have already given a number of speeches and presentations in different places in which I talked about racism and discrimination against American-Arabs and Arabs in the US. I saw the film on Monday and on Tuesday I gave a speech in the university in front of several students about hatred crimes and discriminations and most of my speech was about ” Rules of Engagement”. I mean it is an important artifact of hatred in the US. Definitely, we will be talking and writing about. We have sent a letter to Paramount’s CEO after the release of the film which is a detailed criticism of the movie. As far as I know, it is the most thorough critique of the film and I believe many people including journalists have been reading it.
Q: What do you think of the Americans’ public reactions towards this movie?
A: I do not know really what the public opinion is. I think that the public is probably confused and goes to movies like this mainly for entertainment and they do not think much of what they are seeing and they just do not take it seriously. Well, I think the press is different, especially due to some critics, because they have to respond right away. We have seen over the 1990s, as we have been striving to make people aware of the anti-Arab racism in the US, an increased sensitivity on the part of some people like some critics. For example, when ” True Lies” came in the mid 90s, very few critics said that it was a racist movie although it was a very racist movie. By the time “The Siege” came, in December 1998, we found that lots of critics were condemning this movie as a racist movie and dismissing as well as attacking it. Now, with “Rules of Engagement”, we see a very big group of critics, may be 25% or more, reviewing this movie for major publications, broadcast and TV saying: “Look, this is a racist movie”. In addition to saying that this is OK, a bad or a good movie, large numbers of critics said that it was a racist movie and that it was terrible that Hollywood would make such a movie. Now, this is the result of our continuous efforts and work talking about it.
One of the questions that we keep getting asked: “Why are you complaining? You draw more attention to the movie! This increases their profits! People will see it because you are asking why don’t you ignore it? Well, because there is no other way for us to educate other people in the US, like critics and others, about the problem of anti-Arab racism in the US. By protesting this very loudly and vigorously, recognizing that there is no legal recourse, we create sensitivity of this problem as well as more negative views and invite more positive coverage of Arab issues.
Q: Would you like to add one final word to our readers?
A: I feel that there is one more thing. I think that what is important for Arabs in the Arab world and Arab-Americans is to have a sense of solidarity. Very often people only care about their national group or their sub-group. So, solidarity between Arabs and Arab-Americans is extremely important. The fact the film was made in Morocco is disturbing. I think that Arab states need to be very very cautious before cooperating with a Hollywood studio making a movie about an international issue. They need to be very careful because they do not want to be responsible for cooperating with a movie like this about another group of Arabs. Similarly, in the US we have to have to work together all over the communities, no matter which nation we are from. I think, in order to defeat Hollywood, Arab unity is extremely necessary. We cannot be cooperating with Hollywood in anyway. We cannot be indifferent. We cannot say I am not a Yemeni, I am a Lebanese, but Yemen is also my country. I think the next movie could bash Tunisia or Djibouti. They can do it to any body. So we need to be very careful because in the end they chose Yemen because it’s an Arab country. They did not choose it for any particular reason about Yemen, but because Yemen is an Arab and a Muslim country, which according to these people should be bashed. Therefore, we must have solidarity against them as they have when bashing us. It is solidarity what is missing, and it is what would have made this crowd much more in number than what it is today.

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