Thanks to my solitary existence, I often end up spending endless hours watching television. I keep telling myself to get a life and do something useful and worthwhile, like read a book or go for a walk. But, as many of you would agree, it's not easy resisting the charms of the so-called idiot box that has become an essential part of our lives. I am mostly hooked on Indian and international news networks and Pakistani soaps. “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones” are some of the other addictive weaknesses. They transport you to a fascinating world that is fantastic yet curiously believable. In between sometimes I tune in to Murdoch's “Star World” and its staples like “24” and “Homeland” starring Kiefer Sutherland and Claire Danes as their chief warriors, saving America — and the world — week after week. True to what has become a permanent feature and trend of Hollywood productions for many years, both these primetime dramas are inspired by America's ceaseless war on terror — or Islamic terror, to be precise. Week after week the battle-hardened crusaders of the twin thrillers put their lives on the line to go after baddies who are invariably Arabs and Muslims, and are hell-bent on wreaking havoc on poor America and the rest of the free world. Plots are almost always predictable and storylines often flimsy, playing as they invariably do on the hackneyed, done-to-death stereotypes about crazy, bigoted Arabs and Muslim fanatics whose single mission in life is to wreak vengeance on the West and blow themselves up along with the rest of the world. The slick execution and masterful storytelling by the best of these Hollywood brains ensures that the audience remains perpetually on the edge of their seats, panting for more, week after week. Of late, our own Priyanka Chopra, the Bollywood heartthrob and dusky former Miss World from India, has jumped on the bandwagon with “Quantico” in which she plays the lead of Alex Parrish, one of the few bright FBI agents training at the Quantico Base in Virginia. No prizes for guessing that the predominant theme of “Quantico” also remains the same — fighting Islamic terror. The question is why the US and its dream merchants are so hopelessly obsessed with the bogeyman of “Islamic terrorism”. You could argue that they are merely mirroring the reality of a world that is inhabited by the crazies of the Islamic State (IS) group and their cousins and their antics around the world, most recently in the cities of Paris and Brussels. Of course, it's not possible to argue with the fact that extremist violence has emerged as a clear and present danger to the civilised world. But this is not the only existential threat facing humanity. There are many more problems out there that are serious in nature and totally outweigh the threat posed by religious extremists. The threat of nuclear holocaust, for instance, hangs like Damocles' sword over the world, what with the US, its NATO allies, and Russia and China sitting on mountains of nukes. Each one of them is capable of destroying the world many times over. And we aren't even talking about late arrivals like Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea whose capacity to inflict grief isn't any less potent. Of course, no one is underestimating the threat posed by groups like IS and Al-Qaeda. But the total number of lives that religious extremists have claimed, beginning from 9/11 to the recent Brussels bombing, does not go beyond a few thousand. The twin US nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the other hand, managed to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent and unsuspecting people. Even after all the elaborate farce of nuclear disarmament agreements and non-proliferation treaties, the deadly arsenal that is at the disposal of world powers represents a threat that is unimaginable and on a scale that is incomparable to the one posed by terrorism. Yet you have no spooks chasing baddies threatening to wipe out the world with nukes, or plotting against each other's military installations and weapons of mass destruction, as was the case throughout the Cold War. Clearly, as Samuel Huntington effectively argued, with the demise of the Soviet Union and communism the only threat that matters to the West is that of Islam. Another existential threat that remains largely ignored by the creative minds of the Hollywood dream machine is that of global warming and how humanity is marching, eyes wide shut, to its extinction, thanks to the reckless abuse of natural resources by the industrialised world. The alarmingly fast rising of global temperatures and sea levels, the melting of polar ice and chaotic global weather patterns all point to the fact that our time is nearly up. Yet none of these threats seem to matter to those tasked by screenwriters with responsibility for saving the world. More important, for all the havoc unleashed by extremists, it is nothing compared to what Western wars and “interventions” have visited on the Middle East and rest of the Muslim world. The Iraq invasion alone claimed more than a million lives, leaving behind a country that is still reeling from the shock and awe of “liberation” and “human freedom” gifted by Bush and company. Second, notwithstanding America's grand, enduring obsession with “Islamist terror”, there has been no major terror attack on US soil since 9/11. Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda has been nearly wiped out. Indeed, if it's any consolation, it is Muslim countries like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and now even Saudi Arabia and Turkey that have been bleeding at the hands of extremists on a daily basis. Yet in the world of alternate reality spawned by thrillers like “24”, “Homeland”, “Quantico” and their European and Indian versions, it is always Muslims who are the aggressors and villains. There is no attempt to balance the narrative and “storytelling” either, by trying to explore and explain the motives and causes of radicalisation of these one-dimensional Muslim characters. Always fierce and fearsome, with ridiculously long beards, they are more like caricatures, forever spewing venom and mouthing hateful inanities. Following the glorious tradition of Hollywood, India's Bollywood has also been churning out similar apocalyptic fare for some years now. In the case of Indian cinema, however, the imagined threat is more immediate and from across the border. Of course, all good art is inspired by life. And it is perhaps only natural that “reel life” is beginning to reflect “real life”. However, what if this so-called reality is dangerously twisted and distorted, perpetually demonising a particular faith and community? If Islamophobia has emerged as a serious problem in the West and elsewhere a great deal of credit goes to dramas like “24” and “Homeland” and the “war on terror” Hollywood style. The history of caricaturing Arabs and Muslims is almost as old as Hollywood itself and this is no time to go into it. But right now it's as if there is a feeding frenzy, with just about everyone jumping in to fight the spectre of “Islamic terror”. The question is, how do we check this wilful vilification of an entire community in the name of fighting terror? The victims themselves have done little so far to challenge the trend, despite its visible, catastrophic consequences. There are 56 Muslim countries and there is no dearth of financial or human resources in the Muslim world either. Why then has this critical front been neglected for so long? Today, battles of perception, for hearts and minds, are almost as critical as those fought on real ground. No individuals or groups can afford to remain mute spectators as they are portrayed as bloodthirsty fiends, week after week. The writer is a Gulf-based author and columnist.
