 |
| "Yes, I have dark skin...Okay, of course I can play a Muslim." |
Another Muslim character suffers a narrative fate similar
to Ahmed Amar.
At 7am, we meet Walid
Al-Rezani, head of the Washington D.C. Islamic-American Alliance (a thinly-veiled
pastiche on the CAIR), and boyfriend of Sandra Palmer, the President’s sister.
Harry Lennix, a Chicago-born American of Creole ancestry, plays Walid with
sympathetic calm.
The FBI arrives at the IAA to
background check its workers. Sandra tells them, “You’re in the wrong place. There’re no terrorists here.”
Walid wants to cooperate. “We can’t pretend we’re not under
attack,” he tells her.
Sandra calls her brother, outraged. “I’m not some
idealistic flag-burner and I understand you’re going through a very complicated
situation, but once you start ethnic profiling it’s a slippery slope.”
Later, the
FBI returns to the IAA with a warrant and Sandra erases the IAA employee
computer records. Instead of arresting her, the FBI detains Walid and takes him
to one of Tom Lennox’s secret detainee camps.
While being registered, Walid prevents an American soldier
from harassing a Muslim who refuses a cavity search. As a result, the soldier
beats Walid. Later, as he walks the detainee common area, Walid meets the man
he saved, Salhib.
“Have you talked?” Salhib asks.
Walid replies, “I have nothing to tell them.”
Salhib mutters, “I’ll tell you something, brother. Before
this day is over they will all pay.”
With Salhib exposed as a potential threat, Walid turns
informant.
 |
| "Hey, guys. What's happening? So, hey, are any of you, like, terrorists?" |
Here, 24 misses
a crucial opportunity to dissect the mandates once proposed by the Bush regime
and expose them as civil rights abuse. Instead, the show justifies the Bush
claim that the threat of terrorism exists everywhere. The detainee camp is not
a springboard for even-handed political examination, but a paranoid playground
populated by seemingly average Muslims like Salhib, who are in fact terrorists.
After
joyfully beating Walid to “create his cover,” the FBI forces Walid to wear a
wire. Then, Walid joins Salhib’s friends in the camp. When Salhib asks what the
FBI wanted, Walid tells him they demanded information about Abu Fayed.
Suddenly, Salhib’s group is a militant band of brothers, united and ready to
strike the American enemy. When Walid spots one of the men talking suspiciously
on his cell phone, it dawns on the FBI, “He must be talking to Fayed!” Walid
pickpockets the phone and discovers the man had only been accessing Arabic
websites reporting Fayed’s activities. “These men aren’t terrorists,” Sandra
tells the FBI. Yet what the show leaves unsaid is that while these men are not
physically involved, they ideologically support Fayed. This perpetrates the
myth that violence against the West is a Muslim way of life.
 |
| Walid, here comes the pain. |
Of
course, Walid is caught slipping the phone back into the man’s pocket. Salhib
hisses, “You’re spying on us? You’re worse than they are!” The group of exposed
terrorist supporters pummels Walid until the FBI intervenes and rushes him to
the hospital.
Thus
ends Walid’s storyline and all hope that 24
would examine Lennox’s detainee camps with any critical insight. The CAIR was
especially disturbed by this. Its Los Angeles representative, Sireen Sawaf,
told the BBC News, “I do realize it’s a multi-dimensional show that portrays
extreme situations…[but] the overwhelming impression you get is fear and hatred
for Muslims…Watching that show, I was afraid to go to the grocery store because
I wasn’t sure the person next to me would be able to differentiate between
fiction and reality.”
24 tried
to claim it made Walid sympathetic to Americans. Yet, in his last scene, after
being beaten by Salhib and his cohorts, his loyalty to America is broken. “I’m ashamed
for spying on those men,” he tells Sandra. This is the last the viewer sees of
him. Sandra goes to the White House bunker and never mentions him again. Like
Ahmed, Walid is forgotten.
In
Part 5, I’ll discuss Hamri Al-Assad, 24’s
most interesting Muslim character.
 |
| Walid: "I'm ashamed of spying on those men. And this band-aid is real itchy." |
Bibliography
“Day 4.” “Day 6.” 24.
Fox, 2005, 2007.
“24 Under Fire from Muslim Groups.” BBC News. BBC News, 19 January 2007.
Armstrong, Stephen. "Rough Justice." New
Statesman 136.4836 (2007): 36-38.
Bauder, David. “TV Torture Influencing Real
Life.” USA Today. 11 February
2007.
Dougherty, Michael Brendan. "What Would Jack Bauer
Do?" American Conservative 6.5
(2007): 8-10.
Flynn, Gillian. “24: TV Review.” Entertainment Weekly. 11 January 2007.
Halliday, Fred. 100
Myths About the Middle East. Los Angeles: University of California Press,
2005.
Irwin, Robert. Dangerous
Knowledge: Orientalism and its Discontents. New York: Overlook
Press, 2006.
Lewis, Bernard. From
Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004.
McCormick, Patrick. "The Torture Show." U.S.
Catholic 73.5 (2008): 17.
McDermont, Jim. “A Trojan Horse.” America 196.7 (2007): 23-24.
Rossi, Melissa. What
Every American Should Know About the Middle East. New York: Plume
Books, 2008.
Said, Edward. Orientalism.
New York: Vintage, 1978.
Yuan, Jada. “The White-Castle Ceiling.” New York Magazine. 4 March 2007.
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