The long view
Two days ago, during a trip to Lebanon that was intended to strengthen her foreign policy credentials, the leader of France’s National Front party paid a visit to the Grand Mufti of Beirut, the country’s leading religious authority. When his secretary invited Marine Le Pen to don a headscarf, she refused. Shortly afterwards, when it became clear that the meeting could not proceed without the headscarf, Mme Le Pen cancelled her appointment. For several hours afterwards, footage of the encounter became the top trending item on Facebook’s newsfeed and it stirred up debate as to whether she had bravely spoken up for secular ideals, or merely engaged in political posturing. Mme Le Pen cleverly added to the confusion by pointing out that when she had met the Grand Mufti of Al-Azhar during a foreign visit to Egypt in 2015, a headscarf had been optional.
Irrespective of the significance of the headscarf ‒ an important question that is explored at length in the Egyptian blogger Mona ElTahawy’s thoughtful memoir
– for Marine Le Pen it was merely a prop, a convenient symbol of resistance to bolster her anti-Muslim reputation among the party’s base. Like every populist, she knew the awkward moment at the mufti’s office was a political gift that could be parlayed into a global news story.
Unfortunately modern news-gathering makes it increasingly hard to treat such events as the public-relations exercises they so obviously are. Fifty years ago Daniel Boorstin published
a damning analysis of how media-friendly spectacles were used to distract reporters from more complex and important news. Boorstin argued that these digressions had become a key part of the Nixon White House’s communications strategy. Judging from the intemperate early coverage of President Trump’s foibles, few of America’s mainstream reporters have taken heed of the warning. While focused on the President’s gaffes, temperamental tweeting and ill-advised press conferences, relatively little attention has been paid to the surging US stock market, the near collapse of ISIS and the impending power vacuum in Syria. Equally little consideration has been given to the resurgent confidence within the GOP and the behind-the-scenes confrontation between the White House and America’s intelligence community.
The magazine recently invited a professor of history and public affairs at