Video game developers too quick to stereotype Muslims

Video games share the mainstream media depiction of Muslims as terrorists, but Romana Ramzan say it is time to tell a different story.

Pep Montserrat for The National

When some people in the West think of Islam in the post-September 11 era, they often equate it with violence, fanaticism, extremism and intolerance.

The disparaging language and continuous reinforcement of stereotypes in much of the mainstream media means that too often the terms “Muslim” and “terrorist” are used as synonyms.

With this anti-Islamic rhetoric dominating, it is easy to forget the significant contribution Islam has made – and continues to make – in countries where it is the majority faith and also to western civilisation in general, in the fields of health, education, science and culture, to name but a few. For the diverse followers of this religion to be reduced to narrow stereotypes is a travesty.

Three weeks ago, I was part of the panel at the Game Developers Conference, the biggest annual gathering of video game developers, in San Francisco. The panel’s topic was the current state of Muslim representation in video games. It produced thought-provoking discussions and highlighted how the negative connotations associated with Muslims in the media seep into games. This has resulted in the inaccurate portrayal of characters and also in the imagery attributed to the Muslim world.

Games such as the Call of Duty franchise are a prime example – they are filled with villains of Middle Eastern descent and in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, the city of Karachi has signs written in Arabic. It won’t come as a surprise to anyone with the vaguest knowledge of Pakistan, but Arabic isn’t the language spoken in Karachi: it’s Urdu and English.

It’s important to add that this stereotyping isn’t exclusively reserved for Muslims. It also happens to Russians, as well as other ethnic groups, and can be largely attributed to the current political climate.

One thing that was abundantly clear from this panel, and the two-hour question and answer session that followed, was that a conversation about Muslim representation in video games was both long overdue and much needed. While there was a fairly good mix of developers, academics, students and members of press in the audience, the overwhelming majority of people who stayed for the question and answer session were Muslims.

It felt almost like a support group because the conversation moved onto the various challenges we, as Muslims, face in the games industry. It was clear we need to establish ourselves as a group so that we can advocate on issues that affect our community. That motivated me to share my views, including this article.

The narrow lens through which most of the media projects Muslims to the world fuels this hateful ethos. It shapes the attitudes and opinions of the public, which in turn sets the tone for what is popular in terms of consumable media and what succeeds.

When it comes to video games, the way in which Muslims are depicted usually exploits typical clichés and generalisations. In games, Muslims are usually relegated to the role of “other” – dark-skinned characters running around the screen, brandishing assault rifles or throwing a bomb while yelling “Allahu akhbar”. They are, in short, targets that need to be exterminated.

What people forget is that Islam and its followers – all 1.6 billion of them – are geographically, racially, linguistically and culturally diverse. Much of the media conveniently forgets this fact, which is why “Muslims” becomes entrenched as an amorphous single entity in many people’s minds.

Why are Muslims the only group of people who need to be identified in games by their faith? Why can’t games, as well as other media, create rich and diverse characters who represent cultures and nationalities more realistically and where religion does not take centre stage?

Faridah Malik, a central character in the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution, is a better example from an existing game. Yes, she plays to the stereotype of what it means to be a “good Muslim”’ but the part about her being a Muslim is something that’s revealed through the backstory.

If games want to feature characters focusing on religion, they should create a range highlighting each faith’s diversity instead of trying to encapsulate several stereotypes into one character, as happens with Islam. If it really is deemed important for a game to focus on religion as a source of violence, there are many examples of atrocities committed by extremists of other faiths.

Games are a powerful medium that can deconstruct the position of Muslims as the “other” and show them as a diverse group of people who share universal human values. Games should not legitimise the ideologies of terrorist groups that want us to see the world as “Islam versus the West”. It doesn’t have to be that way. Games don’t have to make Islam synonymous with hate or Muslims as “the baddies”.

This is a story we’ve heard over and over. We need to change the dialogue – but how do we do this? Diversity. Creative diversity is a theme that keeps cropping up and it will continue to do so until things change.

If we want to tell stories that go beyond sound bites that legitimise the voices of extremists, then surely we need to show a wide spectrum of characters. Instead of glorifying wars and violence, why can’t we show the human cost of war? People have become desensitised to killing, especially the killing of Muslims.

As my co-panellist Rami Ismail said: “Muslim blood is cheap.” The hundreds of children being killed in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan barely make the headlines, but an attack in Brussels or Paris reverberates through the media for months. It is acceptable for death and violence to be the norm in certain parts of the world but unacceptable in others.

This bias and partiality is polarising. Contrast, for example, the game Medal of Honour: War­fighter, which used Karachi as the backdrop for war with terrorists, against the game Six Days in Fallujah. Western audiences considered the latter, based on the personal accounts of the soldiers who took part, to be an open wound where the human cost of war was real. It was deemed insensitive because the wounds were too fresh in people’s minds.

Karachi, on the other hand, was seen as if it was a fictional location and the lives affected by the war on terror didn’t seem “real” to the West and thus didn’t evoke the same emotion.

The problem is that many developers in the video games industry are white and live in the West. We need to change the ratio, so if developers want to make games about people from minority groups, they need to include members of these groups in the conversation to ensure they are represented accurately. Let’s be open and welcome new voices.

This is a great opportunity to provide a wider world view. The games industry in the Middle East is starting to take shape, with developers like Mahdi Bahrami from Iran and Prince Fahad Al Saud from Saudi Arabia are helping change the limited way Muslims are portrayed.

Let’s make games that embrace the wonderful diversity of the human experience rather than the narrow channel of extreme Islam.

Dr Romana Ramzan is a game design lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University