The 13-year-old founder, editor and publisher of MG Magazine, Yasmine El-Safy, has competition now. Muslim Girl Magazine is threatening to upstage her modest attempt with its glossy, Americana covers.

The editor-in-chief is Ausma Khan, who believes the magazine challenges negative media perceptions “by telling the stories of Muslim teens who are proud to be American and who contribute to American society in so many positive ways”. It’s not exactly clear who writes the content, but the producers of the publication don’t appear to be Muslim, and there isn’t much information about it.

The idea is to portray the normality of Muslim girls in the US (the usual “I’m just as American as you” line). Which is fine, but the fact that such a magazine exists to cater for a specific section of the community would suggest they are different to their peers in some pretty crucial ways. And this makes me wonder what is so wrong with being different.

Then again, the webpage leaves little hope that the magazine departs too heavily from the teen glossy standard. Stories featured in the issue relate to TV show 24 and its main protagonist, Jack Bauer; there’s the “hot list” for the latest on music, film and TV; and the obligatory glossy category “Relationship reality check”.

Looks promising.

I remember, one afternoon in 2004, watching TV in my aunt’s sitting room in a small West Bank village. Much of the night before had been taken up speaking about the current toxic situation in the region, my family regaling me with tales of redemption, betrayal and fear. All told with a hefty serve of humour. I could tell that in some ways, peculiarly enough, there were people in other parts of the world who took their situation more seriously than themselves.

My feelings were confirmed when the next day I sat in front of the TV, flicking channels and finally settling on one of the many music stations taking the Arab world by storm. This one was called “Superstar”, not to be confused with the pan-Arab Idol show of the same name, and it ran music videos and concert clips 24/7, SMS messages of love and flirtation scrolling constantly across the bottom of the screen in gaudy technicolour. A family friend later confirmed that they were watching Mazzika, another of these music channels, more than Al-Jazeera. It all seemed very bizarre to me, but I concluded that in such times of trouble, no matter how misguided it seemed, music videos, with their cheeky storylines and buffed, good-looking and impossibly happy actors, obviously served as an antidote. Forget occupation and war — Nancy Ajram had a new album out.

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So there’s a new Canadian film out in cinemas at the moment called Sabah. It’s about a Muslim woman who falls in love with, wait for it… a non-Muslim man. Original, huh? It’s being touted as a serious My Big Fat Greek Wedding. (Too easy, you really don’t need me to comment on that).

Anyway, besides the romantic comedy aspect of it, I was quite amused to note Sabah’s version of hijab. She has lots of skin and hair showing, and any older she’d look like a Greek woman I used to buy lollies from when I was in school, which is apt since the film is totally like My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

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Yasmina Khadra is the pseudonym for Mohamed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer who decided to write under his wife’s name to avoid army censorship. He was in Sydney last year for the Writers’ Festival, at which he spoke about his novel The Swallows of Kabul. It was set in Afghanistan, but he confessed that he had never been there before, and I couldn’t help but wonder how he described the land and the atmosphere of oppression.

Reading The Attack, I wondered the same thing. While there is little description of surroundings, and Khadra is a very capable writer, I doubted he had ever been there. This doesn’t weaken the book so much as emphasise that his narration is an outsider’s voice. This is apt given that his main protagonist, through whom the story is told in first person, behaves very much like a neutral observer in the raging Israeli-Palestinian conflict – that is, until a horrifying event forces painful re-examination.

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Gwyneth Paltrow, beaded and adorned in clothing Africanus, looks out at us breathtakingly in the way only superstars can. It’s that sultry “bite me, you’re not this hot and successful yet still humble” look. Said look is usually accompanied by an artificial breeze.

“I am African”, declares a wind-swept Gwyneth, looking more Gucci than Ghana. Of course you are. We all are. Now, take your medication for racial dysphoria and rest a while.

To be fair, she’s not the only celebrity who took part in this monstrosity of a charity campaign, the purpose of which escapes me. All that resonates is the whiter than white faces decrying their Africanness.

While the photographs will act as little more than a reminder of how gorgeous famous people are, and just how far airbrushing has come, it thankfully provides long-lasting luvvie fodder for cynical bloggers just waiting to annihilate celebs who took the lyrics to “We are the World” literally.
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When Michelle Leslie donned a burqa while imprisoned awaiting trial in Bali last year, the responses from Australian Muslims varied from outrage and disgust to complete apathy. Many Muslims took her actions personally, offended that she may have been using Islam to guide herself to freedom. Others wisely demonstrated just how little they cared. As the Islamic Council of Victoria’s Waleed Aly wrote at the time, “it’s no fluff off my prayer mat.”

If it isn’t abundantly clear already, Muslims love their religion and they take it very seriously. We don’t want our customs, beliefs and traditions to be given un-Islamic interpretation and meaning, or given the Daniel Pipes treatment. Avoiding misunderstanding is always highly desirable. Using Islam for, ostensibly, self-serving purposes can lead to chaos.

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In 1984, the film This is Spinal Tap was released. Presented as a documentary, it followed pedestrian rock group Spinal Tap as it struggled to regain its fan base while on tour and release its new album with minimal support from their record company. It was in fact a “mockumentary”; it was presented as reality but was simply a satirical take on rock n’ roll and all of its casualties.

For those unaware that it wasn’t real (understandable given how well the actors did their jobs), the film was a confusing, neutral kind of experience.

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