Hoaxes: No, Sunita Williams did not convert to Islam. Picture: www.efesbev.com
Mahmood Sanglay
CAPE TOWN
Saturday, October 20, 2007

ARE you among the sundry souls who received this message via SMS or email?

"Dear All, Assalamu alaikum...! An important message to all Muslim brothers and sisters: Sunita Williams (First Indian woman who went on a space journey few months back) accepted 'ISLAM' Masha Allah, bcoz when they were on the moon, they saw towards EARTH, the entire EARTH looked dark, but 2 places on the EARTH GLITERING & looked like SPARKS (Roshni). They were shocked to see that and saw them with the help of telescope and came to know that those two places were 'MAKKAH' and 'MADINAH' Masha Allah! Then they decided that after reaching to earth they'll accept 'ISLAM'. Thats y they reached safely following this glitering light. So be proud to a Muslim and forward it to all like fire. Allah Hafiz...!"

"bcoz when they were.." Now isn't that cute? Humbug! Over the past few months this hoax traversed the planet like a rampant virus on Prozac and elevated the spirits of countless gullible Muslim folk who lapped up the sweet nugget of untruth like a juicy date at iftar.

Sunita Williams is an American astronaut of Indian origin. She holds three records for female space travelers: days in space flight (129), number of space walks (4) and total time spent on space walks (29 hours). And let's not forget, she's also served as a helicopter combatant in Operation Desert Shield in 1990 for the USA in Kuwait, at the invitation of the Saudi regime. These are the facts gathered from actual interviews with Williams and can be further verified by visiting authoritative and reliable sites like Nasa.

Of course, Nasa's not going be generous with the truth about the American government satellites' intelligence missions, but we can reasonably expect them to tell the truth about their astronauts' religious beliefs, especially if it can be corroborated by other conventional sources such as the world's leading media, even if we have reason to be suspicious of CNN and BBC.

The important point, though, is that no remotely credible media has reported her reversion to Islam. If it were true, such an event would certainly be newsworthy. But the world media completely ignored it. So shall we now leap to the equally asinine conclusion that the world media have conspired not to report this auspicious event? Or shall we simply be reasonable and conclude that it is a hoax?

Some nut has concocted this hoax with the glee of a mischievous boy who tears off a fly's wings, and waits, and watches in anticipation. Equally nutty bloggers, and sms senders join the line of fools and spread the virus, some yelling "Is it true, mashallah, may she be blessed" as they go along.

This is one of the many problems with the information explosion associated with the Internet, the digital age and multimedia. The average citizen is amidst this mass of information like a traveler moving at high speed through an incredibly vast and dense forest. The trunks, branches and leaves flit past as you successfully negotiate your way through, or they hit you in the face if you don't. To succeed you need the tools and the ability to navigate effectively. Of course, to be hit by a leaf or two could be embarrassing. To be hit by a trunk could be fatal.

And then there are a myriad lies and misinformation in this wilderness. Add to that countless agents who fabricate these lies for various reasons, some harmless pranksters, others agents of misinformation with more serious agendas like provocation to incite violence. They're the ones setting up trunks.

And then, finally, we have the information consumer. There are many types here too, but the above is a typical one to Muslim communities globally. It is the average faithful believer with a fair measure of access to email and a cell phone. This Muslim can be the target audience of the harmless prankster or the serious agent provocateur.

What really matters here is how we navigate through the dense forest of information and misinformation. And there is no rocket science to this. You don't need a university degree to use common sense, even when it comes to popular hoaxes — or, rather, full-fledged forgeries — like the book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

You don't need an anti-Semitic book, discredited by credible anti-Zionist scholars like Ilan Pappe, to prove that Israel is a racist occupier perpetrating gross human rights violations with the backing of the USA. And it has done the advocates of justice for the Palestinians a disservice, yet some Muslim scholars have endorsed it mainly because it advocates a conspiracy theory of Jews undermining civilisation to take control of the world.

There is nothing more foolish than to be led like sheep by falsehood in the service of the truth. Take the boycott of Coke. This product should be boycotted because of its substantial investments in Israel, its labour practices in Colombia and Turkey and its environmental record in India. In India, Coke's water-intensive plants threaten to deplete and contaminate groundwater resources in communities that struggle to meet even local drinking water and agricultural needs.

However, there are detractors who imagine that a mirror image of the Coca-Cola Spencerian script designed in 1886 reads La Muhammad, La Makkah ("No Muhammad, no Mekah"). Although the conservative Egyptian Grand Mufti Nasser Farid Wassel in 2000 dismissed the alleged conspiracy as nonsensical, the damage done to the credibility of true opponents of Coke's aggressive capitalist enterprise is not easily undone.

So whether it is Sunita seeing the light of Islam or Coke attempting to eclipse to the light of Islam, the ordinary Muslim must bring some discretion to bear when negotiating the jungle of misinformation.

The writer is a Cape Town media activist. His email is mahmood@mviews.co.za.The Brunei Times