A Critique By A Leading Academician Causes A Rash Of Public Debate. By James DiGiovanna Covering Islam, by Edward Said (Random House). Paper, $13. ON THURSDAY OF last week, Amnesty International released yet another report on the Israeli government's use of torture. The United Nations responded by calling on Israel to stop its abuse of prisoners and blatant disregard for human rights. That night, on the ABC Evening News, Peter Jennings reported on this story with two sentences on the Amnesty International report, which were used solely as a means to introduce a lengthy story on the way the Palestinian government treated prisoners. This story included the standard images of wailing women in traditional Islamic garb, heavily armed Arabs, and alleged Arab terrorists. It is this bizarre and bizarrely acceptable prejudice against Islamic peoples by the American media that Edward Said has documented and analyzed in his newly reprinted Covering Islam. Said is a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, and is one of America's most respected academicians. He is also an expert on Western perceptions of Islam, and this has made him something of a media figure. On the day of an Oklahoma City bomb blast, he received 25 phone calls from newspapers, networks and independent reporters who all assumed that, since there was an act of terrorism, Muslims must be involved and therefore a comment from Said was in order. This is one of many incidents Said mentions in his new introduction, meant to update the 1981 book for a contemporary audience. What is perhaps most interesting is the extent to which the book requires no update. While the last 16 years have been marked by an increase in sensitivity towards many ethnic, racial, and sexual minorities, the easy acceptance of stereotypes and prejudices in the portrayal, depiction of and reporting about Islamic peoples has remained largely constant. Unfortunately, the incidents analyzed by Said in the body of the text are all at least 18 years old. He does effectively show the media biases of the late '70s and early '80s through a variety of images: Consolidated Edison's early '80s television ad featuring stills of "robed Arab figures" and a voice-over saying "these men control America's source of oil"; the film Death of a Princess (about the execution of a Saudi Princess and her commoner lover) and the controversy surrounding it (as Said points out, this brutal portrayal of Islam was likely the only film about Muslims the average viewer was to see); the coverage of the Iranian hostage "drama"; and other, less obvious representations of Islam. Said is expert at pointing out the way the American media show only the most alien and violent aspects of the Islamic world, creating an unrealistic image of the Middle East. He's sensitive to the realities of terrorism and oppression in that part of the world; but, unlike the American media, he is also sensitive to the complexities of the Muslim states, and he makes a strong case that the slanted presentation of Islam is more than an accident, if less than a conspiracy. It comes out of a long tradition of conflict between Europe and the Islamic world, and serves as propaganda for the continuing cultural and actual warfare between the Christian West and the Muslim East. What is most distressing about this, for Said, is that the image of Islam as irrational and violent prevents dialog between East and West that could serve to diminish conflict and enhance understanding. And, as Said points out, this conflict has been most devastating to the Muslim world. While there are indeed acts of terrorism committed against Western powers, they are more than matched by the wholesale slaughter of civilians during such actions as the "Gulf War." By merely calling attention to the unfair treatment of Muslims in our media, Said has proved his point by becoming the subject of extremely hostile attacks. There have been protests outside lectures he gave in New York, he's been harassed on Nightline and vilified on Sunday morning "public affairs" shows; and at Books, Manhattan's leading academic bookstore, the proprietors were forced to put a sign on the shelf under his works that reads, "Please do not throw the Edward Said books on the floor."

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