Islamophobia and Media Influence
Today from CNN:
When we reported the unprecedented suicide bombings of the London underground trains and buses in 2005, we were shocked beyond words that young British Muslims, born and bred here, would go to that extreme.We could not understand what would drive them to kill themselves and their fellow citizens.
And so we started to investigate what we call "The War Within."
And what is fueling the "War" going on inside of Britain?
What struck us most was how deeply the Iraq war has radicalized today's generation of young Muslims in Britain. Whether extreme or mainstream, they are angry about the war, angry that their country so devotedly follows U.S. foreign policy, angry at what they see as a worldwide war against Muslims and Islam.
Yet another victory, another mission accomplished by our wonderful president. This travesty aside, what else is going on in the minds of the Muslim youth?
Before we go any further, one should keep in mind that all of these are recent developments. There is not this long-standing feud or bad blood between British Muslims and Christians. A group of people have been motivated. They have been given a rallying cry that they are responding to in large numbers.
What is fueling the sentiments that could drive one to not only listen to such rhetoric, but to be driven to violent direct action?
Answer is, there is none. At least not on a large scale anyway. There are 13 million Muslims across Europe, and there is no large scale jihad being brewed up to wreak havoc across Western Christendom. Instead,
"But then now you've got another threat," Hanif Qadir told me."The new threat is radicalism. It's a cause. Every young man wants a cause."...
Some mosques in Britain, while publicly agreeing to cross-cultural tolerance, in fact sometimes host preachers from both Britain and abroad who rail with hatred against "kafirs" (infidels), against homosexuals, against democracy and even against women.
Extremists and radicals are very adept at playing the media's game. Even though they are a minority, a small number of them can gather on a corner, hold a protest or demonstration and get a massive amount of media attention and air time. That's because today's mostly tabloid media culture in the UK has sensationalized the "Muslim issue" and focuses only on the extremists, rarely finding the facts, context and texture beneath the surface.
Today's tabloid media.
Lately, as I've been attempting to book my speaking tour, I've come to see a recurring theme in dealing with religious nonprofit organizations: budgets are strapped, so whoever they bring in has got to bring in either tickets or members, because each quarter can be sink-or-swim, financially. If I'm not as valuable in a certain market, even the most righteous rabbi or imam is not going to book me, it just does not make sense financially for their institution.
Why would these mosques book these people? Obviously Imams who book such speakers think they will be a draw, that they will draw many Muslims to the walls of their masaajid or at a minimum, get people on their mailing lists, etc. Assuming sublime motives (as opposed to just trying to amass a fortune from membership dues), each speaker must provide a return on investment, otherwise, the masjid in question could be in dire financial straits come next quarter or next fiscal year.
What gives a speaker added value? A deluge of media attention and photo ops.
So it comes out, that the media is actually contributing to the booking schedules of these mosques. Why is the message of extremism getting out to the youth? Because it's all over the TV and the newspapers!
However, one can't absolve the extremists themselves of responsibility, especially considering:
We found a deep sense of Islamophobia on the rise here in Britain and across Europe. The European Monitoring Center, which tracks religious and ethnic bias, says Muslims regularly face abuse, threats, attacks and misunderstanding.And as we discovered talking to a cross section of Muslims around Britain, many of Europe's 13 million Muslims said that since 9/11 they have been made to feel like terrorists. More than ever they feel like second-class citizens in their own countries.
[Extremist] hate-speech and the attempt by extremists to recruit young disaffected Muslims on London's deprived streets and even on university campuses is beginning to motivate the "other voices of Islam" to try to seize back their religion, which they say has been hijacked.
Made to feel like 2nd class terrorists. And that's what the extremists have achieved by playing the "media game." They got blown up. All over the media. Every single outlet contained a photo of one of their members in a suicide belt, a threat against the kuffar, a decrying of democracy and call for sharia. And the media listened. And how. And now they're riled up the non-Muslims -- under a rallying cry of Islamophobia.
So shall we brush this off and say that it is a journalist's responsibility to report whatever he or she finds significant?
I applaud all mainstream Muslims (not "moderates", but "mainstream") and all true Muslim fundamentalists who want to bring back the ideals of peace and co-existence to Islam.
If Islam is "the religion of peace" it must have been declared to be so by Muhammad, and if that is the case, is emulation of Muhammad not going to make one, at a minimum, not a terrorist?
