Sex, lies and the LBC

If there is one man who wishes the earth would open up and swallow him, it is probably Mazen Abu Jawad. On the 15th of July the LBC had broadcast an interview with him on its show "Ahmar bil khat al Areed" (The Thick Red Line). During this interview, Abu Jawad talked frankly about his sexual exploits and conquests and the audience were given a detailed insight into his views on the subject. Since then, the Jeddah office of LBC has been shutdown indefinitely and Abu Jawad is languishing in a cell somewhere, wondering what will happen to him.

There will be two accounts describing this event. The first, more prominent one, will be parroted by the self-proclaimed champions of civilization, humanism and individual freedom as yet another example of an oppressive society forcing its morality down everyone's throats. They would argue that there is nothing wrong in Abu Jawad talking healthily about a subject which is natural and normal. He must be given his freedom to speak without fear and to experience sexuality with no fear of consequences. Yet in their mind, they think that the stifling oppression they are fighting, as well as its reaction in sleaze like the LBC broadcasts, is the incarnation of a Foucaltian's bad dream; A self pornographication and subsequent moral disgust in a society where the power structure has gone mad in trying to maintain itself.

In the second account, largely Islamic but also Christian and Jewish, this episode will serve as yet another example of the steadily decomposing state of morality that the region is being subjected to by the anti-culture which is seeping in through the televisions and radios. People I speak with are getting sick and tired with the sexualisation of Arabic popular culture, they are tired of sexually abusive men and women who dress like harlots and they are sick and tired of the stupid ideology of individual freedom that is parroted without understanding. The older generation tell me that there were always certain people of a particular standard and it was known that they were no good, or that there were certain areas where morality was less stringently monitored than others, but what is happening in streets across the Arab world is nothing short of bewildering to them. In short, they say, it was easy to avoid rubbish by avoiding these people or areas but today it surrounds them and it is forcing its way into their homes and families.

There is no doubt that Mazen Abu Jawad is a fool. There is also no doubt that he was exploited by a sleazy television programme for a channel which has always been known to prefer displaying women with little or no clothing. However if we think that this sexualisation of pop-culture is there because of a demand, we must think again. Hypocrisy, and this may disappoint Europeanised and Americanised Arabs who relish exposing it in the people around them, is not news. The morality of Arabs and Muslims can accomodate the adage, "It is better to have standards and miss than to not have any standards at all", as the greater evil is not hypocrisy, but corruption. I agree with the latter group rather than the former. We are not Victorians, we are Arabs and Muslims - deal with it.