We keep hearing on the news: “Why don’t most Muslims condemn terrorism?” The short answer is that they do (obviously). It’s a stupid, stupid question. The REAL question is “Why don’t we hear the voices of these Muslims clearly?” This commentary tackles that question.
This entry was posted on Monday, November 27th, 2006 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
That commentary really hits the spot. It’s true that the media dont really cover the muslims that well. In canada, we see once in a while a muslim condemning what the terrorist do, but that doesn’t really stand out.
its mostly due to the surge of american media infiltrating our system and infecting some people with ignorance, and the new conservative gov’t doesnt help. But Applegeeks is the good kind of infiltration XD, excellent link Ananth
Negativity sells more ads than the positive stuff. That’s what it all boils down in the media industry. The longer the mainstream media continues to believe they can make more money with negative news, the less chance the good has getting mentioned.
The problem is that often when these muslim groups condemn terror, they don’t define terror the way most Americans do.
Most Americans do not make exceptions for “legitimate resistance” in the territories or in Iraq. Most Americans condemn any violence which targets civilians anywhere. Most Islamic condemnations seek exceptions for terror other than 9/11. The media doesn’t cover these announcements because they know they won’t help negative feelings towards muslims in America…
just my $.02
Just to clarify, you’re saying that the media doesn’t cover these Islamic condemnations because the media feels that it won’t make a difference for Muslims, one way or the other? And because Muslims don’t condemn Iraqi terrorism the same as other terrorism?
It sounds like you’re talking about resistance fighters in Iraq. Condemning terrorism doesn’t have anything to do with Iraq. I realize that saying that may have put us at irreconciliable odds, though, but the fact is that there’s a world of difference between an unprovoked attack (9/11) and attacks against Americans perceived as occupying forces in Iraq.
As I see it, It sucks that they’re there, and Iraq would be better off as a democracy because of American intervention, but the reality of it is that those fighters aren’t terrorists - they’re fighting invaders from a foreign land on their own soil. Iraqis haven’t done terror strikes in the US, in the air, or abroad in the name of Iraq, and it’d be naive to think that every Iraqi in the country would take to such changes that easily.
The article I linked only touches once on Iraq. It mostly refers to Bin Laden, Zarqawi, and terrorism. To pair terrorism and Iraq is a mistake - the bloodshed in Iraq has more to do with reaction to occupying forces than terrorism.
I agree there is a lot of misinformation in the american media, and its very sad that they are more than eager to jump to conclusions and prejudices rather than actually doing a bit of research about the subject before proclaiming themselves experts on the subject. I have never seen even the slightest mention on the effects of western colonialism, and I dont believe many people understand the concepts of nationalism and the search for cultural identity, nor the changes many countries have gone through.
I think itrs really very sad, the lack of information in the media and in the attitude of the public, andt there is genuine harm being done by that sort of prejudice and lack of knowledge. The word terrorism is very loosely applied by the media, and people are all too eager to tag it to anything they see going on, even if it is, as has been stated previously, reactionary resistance.
Hopefuly, people will begin to get informed, and form their own opinions, instead of just mubmbling whatever they hear on the tv. It doesnt hurt to pick up a book every once in a while.
Shyeah…America is all like “One of them blew up the twin towers, that means ALL of them are terrorists”… That’s one of the reasons i’m a little anti-american =/
dear Stopa, I’m just commenting to say that I agree with your sentiments, but I would point out one thing:
“Shyeah…America is all like “One of them blew up the twin towers, that means ALL of them are terrorists”… That’s one of the reasons i’m a little anti-american =/” the American media accurately reflects the ideas of most American citizens about as well as they reflect the ideas of most of the muslim world. basically, what I’m trying to say is hate the media, not the people.
Yes, part of the problem is that American media does a sad job of promoting the anti-terrorist, moderate Muslim veiw. However, some blame should be placed on the shoulders to the moderate muslims as well. These scholars and philosophs are a small vocal number in an otherwise silent group. Muslim culture in general is quite secretive and exclusive when it pretains to outsiders. Due to the history of the middle east since the dawn of civilization and the dozens of conquering marauders, the Arabic peoples have learned to distrust foreigners, and it is still a practice in use today. If moderate Muslims want their veiws known, there needs to be a greater effort on both sides to reach out to each other.
Samar is pretty awsome. She hosts a radio talk show here in Tampa called True Talk. It focuses on these issues as well as many others. You can listen to it live or archived at wmnf.org.
Typical. To be honest, if taken by religion, who ahs killed more. We shoyudl be looking at the chirtians. The crusades have taken up more lives that teh muslims. I’ve seen the koran. Only briefly. And I see so many things that are paralelle.
Typical. To be honest, if taken by religion, who ahs killed more. We shoyudl be looking at the chirtians. The crusades have taken up more lives that teh muslims. I’ve seen the koran. Only briefly. And I see so many things that are paralelle to the bible.
Speaking as a moderate Christian, I can empathize with the majority of Muslims. After all, I hate having to explain that my religious views have nothing to do with Jerry Falwell (manipulative windbag), George Bush (political opportunist), the crusades (hypocritical genocide), or Pat Robertson (Jabba the Hutt), the same way that their religious views have nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden or Zarqawi.
The results of this informal experiment scare me! How long will people insist on being blind to the terrible results of “passive” hate?