{"id":24168,"date":"2013-06-30T01:23:31","date_gmt":"2013-06-30T01:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=24168"},"modified":"2013-06-30T01:23:31","modified_gmt":"2013-06-30T01:23:31","slug":"videos-the-counter-nasheed-and-some-dancing-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=24168","title":{"rendered":"Videos, the counter-nasheed and some dancing girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> — further notes from the frayed edges of what’s significant ]
\n.<\/p>\n

Okay, you all know I’m interested in the graphics of terrorism and their symbolism, and only a day or two ago I posted Of dualities, contradictions and the nonduality<\/a> on the two into one<\/em> phenomenon — well, here’s an addendum:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

The upper image, showing the Jabha al-Nusra<\/a> logo — Sunni, left — alongside the Hezbollah insignia<\/a> — Shi’a, right — morphs into the single image in the lower panel, thereby resolving the sectarian conflict in Syria by filmic means.<\/p>\n

The video from which these two shots were taken, alas, was the work product of the US Government, as part of an effort of outreach by the little-known Digital Outreach Team<\/a> at the State Department, who at the time of writing appear to have 193 videos uploaded. <\/p>\n

The BBC notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

According to the Associated Press news agency, the 50-member Digital Outreach Team tweets, posts Facebook updates and uploads video to YouTube in Arabic, Punjabi, Somali and Urdu, in a bid to counter the radical jihadist message. It seems it’s even had exchanges with terror suspects such as US-born militant Omar Hammami, a former member of Somalia’s al-Shabab.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The two images above were taken from a video titled Secret meeting between Hassan Nasrallah and al-Zawahiri<\/a>, but the Beeb’s article focused on what it termed a “spoof Al-Qaeda video”, which I’ll call Pharaoh Ayman speaks to the dancing girls<\/a> for want of a better name: <\/p>\n

The team’s al-Zawahiri spoof opens with a notice that “fizzy drinks should be consumed while watching this production” – a twist on the usual message at the beginning of al-Qaeda videos saying “it is not permitted to add music to this production … Taking the classic preaching-to-camera format, the three-minute clip features a voiceover in which the Egyptian-born militant repeatedly bungles his speech by saying things like: “The butchers, ahem, sorry, I mean the mujahideen”. In the video – issued by the US State Department’s Digital Outreach Team – al-Zawahiri is backed by punkah-wallahs. The clip then cuts to a shot, as though from behind the speaker, to reveal a troupe of dancers performing in front of him.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But see for yourselves, punkah-wallas<\/em> and all:<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For your further Sundance consideration, and from the same studios, you might also like the lowest and slowest nasheed<\/a> ever recorded.<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

Speaking of graphics — coming up on ZP when I have had a chance to read a little more of El Difraoui<\/strong>, reviews of:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

  • Beifuss<\/strong> and Bellini<\/strong>, Branding Terror<\/a>\n
  • Abdelasiem El Difraoui<\/strong>, Al-Qaida par l’image. La proph\u00e9tie du martyre<\/a><\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [ by Charles Cameron — further notes from the frayed edges of what’s significant ] . Okay, you all know I’m interested in the graphics of terrorism and their symbolism, and only a day or two ago I posted Of dualities, contradictions and the nonduality on the two into one phenomenon — well, here’s an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133,526,644,464,670,418,139,67,480,473,775,693,271,691,440,1,259],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book","category-charles-cameron","category-graphical-thinking","category-hezbollah","category-lebanon","category-logic","category-media","category-movies","category-music","category-propaganda","category-prophecy","category-social-media","category-state-department","category-symbolism","category-syria","category-uncategorized","category-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24168"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24230,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24168\/revisions\/24230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}