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Censorship in Islamic Societies

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"Censorship in Islamic Societies" by Trevor Mostryn, who taught at Algiers University before joining the Middle East Economic Digest c. 1990s. The author complains about the various `censorship' regulations in economic, political, editorial and social subjects throughout the Middle East. He argues that Muslim countries need to curtail their anti-free-speech attitudes in order to enable the `rebirth' of an intellectually uplifting Muslim mind. Written in 2001, he denounces all of the Arab dictators throughout the Middle East. But to show that he is a good Muslim, he denounces Israel for worrying too much about Islamist terrorists - although he acknowledges that "censorship is a much greater problem for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza" than in Israel (p.87). He details how various Muslim countries have either enacted formal legislation that stifles free-speech, or kowtow to religious authorities who are opposed to the intellectual questioning of Islamist doctrine. Chapter titles include: The Islamic World Confronts the Monster West; Islamic Tolerance and the Seeds of Despair; A Satanic Mess; Iran's Media Frenzy; Islam's Creative Centuries and the Age of the Courtly Poets; The Eternal Problem of Palestine; Democracy and the Sharia: Torment or Justice?; Women: Conundrum or Contradiction?: Trouble with the Mystics; Who Thinks for Islam"; Western Misperceptions of Islam: Islamophobia; the Role of al-Azhar University; Fatwas, Publish it Not: Media and Censorship; The Averted Gaze: Love and Death in Iranian Cinema; Censorship and Human Rights; Saudi Arabia; Awaiting the Imam: A Golden Age of Tolerance. Given his extensive reporting throughout the Middle East -- and once you get past the author's anti-Israel diatribes -- the author provides many insights and examples about censorship throughout the Middle East (prior to 2002). The author believes that the Islamist `extremists' need to be rejected by moderate Muslims, but he provides few details as to how that might happen. All too frequently the author is apologetic about the `shortcomings' of some Islamic custom: condemning it, but trying to smooth an ashamed Muslim by claiming that such shortcomings occurred in Western nations previously. One does not see the author as being a total free-press libertarian, after all, one has to be mindful of Muslim `sensibilities' regarding their ahadith heritage. At his book's end he does acknowledge that the Muslims' censorship problems are of their own making.