Media’s approach hurts Muslims
DONNA MOJA Bargues against a Western media narrative that she says vilifies Muslims and blames Islam wrongly as an inherently violent ideology.
Robert Fisk, one of the most notable British war correspondents, in his comment on Charlie Hebdo, writes in the British newspaper The Independent: ‘‘Maybe all newspaper and television reports should carry a ‘history corner’, a little reminder that nothing – absolutely zilch – happens without a past.’’
The recent barbaric acts of terrorism in Paris and Copenhagen have been mostly reported – and debated – as attacks on Western culture and freedom of speech. Islam-bashing quickly followed and continues.
Fisk writes, ‘‘Long before the identity of the Charlie Hebdo’s murder suspects was revealed . . . I muttered the word ‘Algeria’ to myself’’. Why? Because, as Fisk says, he is interested, not only in ‘‘who’’ and ‘‘how’’, but also in ‘‘why’’.
Of course, the ‘‘why’’ in the Charlie Hebdo story does not fit conveniently into a paragraph or two and the people who commit themselves to explaining the ‘‘why’’ risk being accused of acting as apologists for the terrorists, as I have been in the past.
So, the end result is that we do not hear much about the brutal French imperialism in Algeria or learn about the 1.5 million dead Arab Muslims who fell victim to the Algerian war of independence.
You see, the Kouachi brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre, were not born evil and it is unlikely that the parents who chose to name their sons ‘‘noble’’ and ‘‘happy’ (that is what Cherif and Said mean in Arabic) intended for them to grow up as violent terrorists.
The reality is that the bitter history of 5m Algerian Muslims in France has left an unresolved residual anger that festers the minds of those marginalised by the society. It is the blatant injustice and the resultant accumulation of bitter resentment that have led to violent extremism of so many Muslims.
The appalling treatment of Palestinians since the late 1940s, the hypocrisy of the West in crushing budding democracies (think Iran in 1953), creating and arming extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and their support for corrupt dictatorships that subjugate their Muslim populations in places like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, have all led to Muslim anger.
It is certainly true that the literal interpretation of Islam, like most religions, can be used to validate some expressions of violence, but it is a grave mistake to assume that the journey to extremism starts with the belief in Islam.
No one knows this better than, Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and divinity graduate from Harvard. Hedges, who speaks Arabic and has reported from the world’s most war-ravaged regions, confirms the limited religious knowledge of most Islamist fighters.
In interviewing a group of young Al-Qaeda members, Hedges found that he was the only one who had read the Koran.
Hedges says, ‘‘We have decapitated, through our drones, our aircraft and our missiles, far more people, including children, than Isis has ever decapitated and when you brutalise people to that extend, they become brutal’’.
While there can never be any excuse for barbaric acts of terrorism, the proper analysis and historical context matter because without them, Muslims are falsely perceived as inherently violent people whose religion and values cannot coexist peacefully with the West.
We need to debate and understand the root causes of terrorism before we can tackle it successfully. Aimless attempts to chop back its branches will only result in a stronger growth in future.
It is not just the crucial historical context and analysis that are missing from our news; lack of balance in reporting is of concern too.
Nicholas Kristof, an op-ed columnist for New York Times, reminds us that ‘‘journalists cover planes that crash, not planes that take off’’. So, naturally, if everything you knew about planes came from the media, you might assume that every plane crashes.
Given the state of the current reporting on Muslims, and the fact that non-Muslims who carry out terroristic acts are not called terrorists, is it any wonder that so many falsely assume that all terrorists are Muslims?
It was easy to completely miss the few lines of news that appeared here and there about the murders of three young and promising American university students who happened to be Muslims.
The execution-style murders were carried out on February 10, 2015 by an atheist white American man in Chapel Hill, a quiet neighbourhood in North Carolina.
The barbaric killings of Deah Barakat, Yousar Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha could not have been, as reported, solely motivated by a parking dispute. It is more likely that the murders were caused by the bigoted assumption that Muslims cannot be reasoned with that the only way of dealing with these people is to give them a bloody nose; or in this case, a bullet in each of their young, brilliant heads.
The victims’ family were adamant: ‘‘This has hate crime written all over it’’.
According to Marwan Bishara, a senior political analyst at AlJazeera, at least 2m people tweeted their outrage on the media’s silence over the shootings in Chapel Hill; a silence that sent a clear message to Muslims around the world: you are only newsworthy when we see you behind the gun, not in front of it, being gunned down.
We did not see – as was the case with Charlie Hebdo and Copenhagen – splashed all over our newspapers and TVs, the beautiful and endearing faces of these American Muslim victims and the full coverage of their murder. Why not?
What made the callous killings of these three innocent Muslims any less newsworthy of media coverage than the senseless shootings of two Danish people in Copenhagen?
The reality is that the Copenhagen shootings provide a perfect fit for the current media narrative that vilifies Muslims and blames Islam as an inherently violent ideology.
Craig Hicks, the Chapel Hill gunman, did not meet the media’s racial and religious profiling of a terrorist and so was of little interest to the media.
Muslims as victims, did not fit the media’s narrative either and therefore were not viewed as newsworthy. What an insult to us Muslims!
Do the manufactured perception of Muslims reflect the reality? Do Muslims, more than others, faithfully follow the teachings of their scripture? Are Muslims inherently more violent than followers of other religions?
The answer is ‘‘yes’’, if all you knew about Muslims came from the mainstream TV and newspapers, a big ‘‘no’’ if you considered the facts.
Whilst it is true that the majority of the global terrorism today is carried out by Islamist groups, 50 or 100 years ago, it was communists, anarchists, fascists and others who resorted to terrorism to achieve their goals. That is according toMSteven Fish, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Are Muslims Distinctive?
Fish, who draws on global data, in his recently published study, reminds us that the victims of the majority of Islamist attacks are Muslims themselves and that attacks on non-Muslims living in Western Hemisphere and Europe are extremely rare.
Between 1994 and 2008 they accounted for only 3 per cent of the overall terrorist attacks in those countries.
When it comes to other forms of violence, the picture changes. Fish proves that Muslim societies are, in fact, less prone to political and criminal violence.
On commenting on his study of the global data for criminal violence between 1946 and 2007 Fish writes: ‘‘The murder gap is immense. Murder rates average 2.4 per annum per 100,000 people in Muslim countries and 7.5 in nonMuslim countries. Further statistical tests confirm what is obvious from these raw data: more Muslims, less homicide.’’
Fish concludes by saying, ‘‘the evidence on homicide reveals that non-Muslims have something important to learn from Muslims. What makes Muslim societies less murder-prone? Greater authoritarianism in Muslim societies does not explain the Muslim advantage, since my statistical analyses show that level of democracy does not influence murder rates. Social scientists have not yet closely examined why Muslims are less likely to commit murder, but it is a question that we would be wise to investigate’’.
It appears that much of what we believe about Muslims is based on impressionistic, rather than empirical, evidence.
My own lived experience of religion and growing up amongst ordinary Muslims bears no resemblance to the general Western perception. Not a single Muslim I know has ever prayed five times a day or paid any attention to the literal instructions of Koran. Almost all Iranian Muslims I know trust the guidance of Hafez (yes the 14th century Persian poet with poems about religious hypocrisy and the joys of love and wine) equally, if not more, than the Koran.
Many of us do not define our Islamic heritage through religious knowledge or practice but through our experience of Islamic arts, architecture and also the spiritual connection that brings us succour at the time of need.
Does that mean that we are not real Muslims? No. Because nobody should dictate to us how to experience and live our own religion, and if they do, then they are no better than Isis.
AmI saying that there are no fanatics? No again. The fanatics, compared to 1.6 billion Muslims, are tiny minorities that have been exploited by those who have gained considerable access to political power and resources by using arcane ideologies (Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism) and modern weaponry supplied to them by the very same people who are now fighting them.
The way the media reports the news is hurting Muslims. The lack of historical context, the absence of balance and a genuine attempt in countering the bad with the good, create poor perceptions of our religion and culture.
It contributes to Islamophobia and the ongoing bigotry that puts a dark veil on our real enemy that is, foreign invasion and meddling, dictatorial regimes and also the social, economical and cultural despair that is felt by so many.
Many of us do not define our Islamic heritage through religious knowledge or practice but through our experience of Islamic arts, architecture and also the spiritual connection that brings us succour at the time of need.
Donna Mojab (Donna Miles) is a British-born, Iranian-bred, New Zealand citizen with a strong interest in human rights, justice and equality issues. Mojab worked as a senior mathematics lecturer in the United Kingdom for 10 years before migrating to New Zealand as a new mother and setting up a small business in Christchurch. She is a prolific letter writer to The Press. A fraction of the approximately 100 letters she has submitted in the last year have been published.