The search for weapons of mass destruction is over. They were not found in underground bunkers or buried in the desert. According to the imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, they are on television. What he calls the “weapons of mass destruction that kill values and virtue,” we call reality TV shows. The imam denounced reality TV in his weekly sermon just days after the Higher Ulema Committee in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa outlawing the popular Lebanese Broadcasting Company (LBC) program Star Academy. The ruling stated that the show was banned for showing mingling between the sexes, lewdness, and “killing shame and honor in the hearts of Muslims by letting them get used to these shameful scenes.” The newspaper Al-Watan criticized LBC for airing Star Academy instead of round-the-clock coverage of the IDF attack on Hamas leader Ahmad Yassin. Other conservative cultural commentators are outraged that kids would rather watch television shows about fashion and music rather than focusing on “U.S. imperialism” in Iraq.

Star Academy is a talent contest featuring 16 young men and women living in a house north of Beirut. They take classes, cook, clean, do the wash, and show their chops on stage, a combination of The Real World and Fame. The edited version of each week’s events airs on Friday night, but hardcore junkies can get 7-day/24-hour access via the Arabsat satellite. Two contestants are voted off the show each week, until the final showdown, which took place last Friday. The winner, 20-year-old Egyptian Mohammad Attia, won a recording contract and will make a concert tour across the region. The show was a cultural phenomenon. People scheduled their appointments around the weekly broadcasts. Restaurant and entertainment business was down on Friday nights. It became a ritual to watch the contestants waking up in the morning. And the ratings have been astonishing. In Lebanon, the weekly edited broadcast drew 80 percent of the 15-25-year-old demographic, and a large portion of older people were watching too. That is a lot of folks “getting used to shame.”

The Saudi fatwa follows on the heels of the March cancellation of the Arabic version of Big Brother, which was broadcast by the Middle East Broadcasting Company (MBC), and produced in Bahrain. Twelve contestants, six male and six female, stayed in a villa on Muharraq Island. Big Brother was criticized for making young men and women live together under the same roof. In fact they were in separate quarters, but mingled in the lounge, the kitchen, and on the grounds. The women were censured for not wearing the traditional hijab. Worst of all, two contestants shared a social kiss on camera that catalyzed the opposition. In February, a group of 1,000 Bahraini extremists had to be blocked from reaching the island where the show was being filmed. MBC finally agreed to cancel Big Brother but intends to bring the popular show back from another location. Ironically, Bahrain has a reputation as the playground of Saudis and others in the region seeking to escape restrictive social mores in their home countries. I am told that one risks one’s life being on the King Fahd causeway connecting Bahrain with Saudi Arabia as the German luxury sedans rush at breakneck speed to be back in time for the Friday call for prayer.

The opposition to reality TV exemplifies a larger struggle of which the war on terrorism is a parallel and more dangerous manifestation. It is a form of cultural conflict. It does not pit “Western civilization” versus the East–would anyone call reality TV the product of civilization? Rather, it is the cultural expression of the struggle of individual freedom against theocratic control. The reactionaries see themselves defending their societies against corrupt and degrading external influences. The fatwa against Star Academy noted, “It is no secret that these programs are one of the reasons for the misfortunes and calamities that are befalling Islam and Muslims.” There are also political overtones. Star Academy and shows like it are exercises in participatory democracy. Viewers get to vote to help determine the winners. People debate the merits of their candidates in teahouses and in chat rooms. They cheer when their favorites win, and complain about rigged voting when they lose. The kids are well aware of the larger implications. Umar, a young reality TV viewer, said in an interview on al Jazeera that these programs “for the first time have given Arab youth the chance to vote for other people than the dinosaurs who govern them.”

Opposition in other countries is taking a less coercive form. Moderate Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled is seeking to produce culturally acceptable programming based on his show Life Makers, in which young people wrestle with moral issues. Lebanese socialist Walid Junblatt has called for a “national, Islamic, jihadist and Pan-Arab cultural and media response” to the problem of reality television. Competing in the marketplace of ideas is great, but presumably this type of programming is already available, and is what people are tuning out. Kids in the Middle East are interested in the things that young people worldwide are attracted to–music, fashion, and other kids. “We are seeing youngsters kissing and expressing emotions,” fumed Lebanese fundamentalist Sheikh Mohammed Hamdi, “this is indecent.” But indecency is a relative term. Arab reality shows are tame by our standards–which themselves are modest compared to European TV. A recent video matchmaking show called Hawa Sawa (“On-air, Together”) followed a strict self-imposed code: no alcohol, no tobacco, no bikinis, no visible underwear, no exposed midriffs, no sex, no violence, and no product placement. Women showcased their domestic skills to men over a video hookup. So there was no chance for hot-tub scenes ala Blind Date. On the other hand, some contestants left the show saying they were bored.

The problem is not with reality TV so much as with reality itself. At root, the clerics are struggling against human nature. People tune in to these shows in vast numbers because they want to be entertained. They want to participate too: when auditions were held for an upcoming talent contest called Superstar, 40,000 people showed up to compete for 83 slots. Left to their own devices, people like to have fun. Thus the need for the fatwa–to remove choice from the equation. But by trying to restrict what people can watch on television, the reactionaries have generated widespread discussion, both over the content of the programming, and over who has the right to censor the airwaves. Whether the religious leaders know it or not, this debate is contributing to the development of a new form of political consciousness in the young generation. Kids are being confronted with political questions that affect their lives directly. The Palestinian issue–the thing the leaders would rather the younger generation focus on–is meaningful but abstract to most of them. Canceling their favorite TV shows–that’s real.

Fortunately, most young people in the Mideast would rather watch Star Academy than become suicide bombers. They want normal lives–peaceful, productive, and happy. Given the choice, they will pick a way of life much closer to that which we live than the utopian theocracies exemplified by Iran or Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. It does not mean they will Westernize, that they will engage in “American Idolatry,” but rather that they will seek to establish systems in which they will be free to make their own choices. These young people are the future middle class, and the hope for liberalism in that region. The reactionaries can protest, they can issue edicts, they can kill–but they cannot win. The inalienable rights of man do not recognize cultural boundaries, and they are immune to fatwas.