Muslims and the Media Last night I met with some American friends on Mill Ave. Starbuck for a late night coffee. And, as we were chatting we were also gliding through the pages of ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Arizona Republic‘. 'Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Terrorism, Iraq-Vietnam, Hezbollah, Jerusalem, Gaza, what else is new?' one said. Idriz,' Actually, there is: President Bush keeps enriching the English language by inventing new words and that's always good because 'childrens do learn' the most when they listen to our great leader.He also mentioned 'V-A-D-A-B-L-L-I-N-G'. Nobody knew what it meant but Jay Leno was trying to figure it out on the Tonight show. Maybe they should consult a speech pathologist. By the way, I was scrolling through e-mails today and a friend of mine asked if there was ‘Christian Terrorism‘. George, 'Of course there is. You have terrorism in every religion.' Idriz,' Exactly, as a matter of fact, here is a Jeopardy question for all of you: Do you know who invented suicide bombing?' Sarah, 'Palestinians, I would say.' Idriz,' Good answer but give me a better one.' John,' Sarah, Daniel Steel is your favorite writer. The category is Politics for 1000.' Idriz,' Yes, but she is ASU graduate, remember.' Steve,’ What is: Hamas?' John, ' You went to University of Las Vegas. Jack Daniels suma cum laude.' (laughter...............................) Idriz,' Is that your final answer?' Steve,' Yes, Alex.' Idriz, ' Wrong. Tamil Tigers, my good American friends. They were the first to use suicide bombing and still do. Also, each rebel, male or female, carries a cyanide capsule to commit suicide in case they fall in enemy hands. They never surrender.' Steve,' They're not French.' Idriz,' No, they're not. They're tough, let me tell you.' George,' We don't even hear about them.' Idriz,' Oh, yes we do George, but not in the sports section. I saw them once on ‘60 minutes‘ and The New York Times always writes about them. We just hear about Islamic terrorism, but truth of the matter is: there is terrorism in every corner of the globe, regardless of religious convictions. For instance: (A) Here we have Tamil Tigers fighting the Sinhalese government of Siri Lanka, Buddhists killing Hindus and vice-verse. The Press writes about 'Tamil Tigers’,’the Rebels'. (B) A little bit further up the Indian Sub-Continent, you have for years Hindus killing Muslims and the other way around. In Ajodhya, Hindus destroyed a XV century mosque and killed over a hundred Muslims. A pregnant woman was beaten to death by an angry crowd, her belly sliced open with a sword.‘ Sarah, ’Jesus Christ!’ Idriz,’ Hindus didn't want another Muslim ever to be born in India. The incident was covered in the media extensively but they were referred to as 'Hindu Nationalists'. (C) In West Bank, an Israeli gunman with M-16, goes to a local mosque and kills 17 worshipers and wounds twice as many. He was described as a 'Deranged Gunman'. (D) At a checkpoint in Chechnya, a Russian with AK-47 mowed down a whole bus of elderly men, women and children running away from Grozny. In the Press, he was called 'a Vodka-drinking Russian'. (E) Oklahoma federal building, Timothy McVeigh, ‘the Marlborough Man’, and a truck-load of explosive fertilizer. Hundreds of innocent American children dead. However, we hear a lot more about school children of Beslam killed by 'Ruthless Muslims’,’Chechen Islamic Terrorists'. Moving along to Europe: (1) In Former-Yugoslavia, Arkan slaughtered hundreds of defenseless Bosnian and Albanian Muslims during the Balkan War. He was called 'the Bank Robber’, ’the Baby Face’, ’the Leader of the Serbian Militia'. (2) The Members of ETA terrorized Spaniards for quite sometime but we all knew them as ‘the Spanish Separatist Group’. Whereas, when the Madrid trains exploded, they were masterminded by ‘Muslim Terrorists’, ’Islamic Militants’. (3) Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland are always at war and the IRA bombed London for years. Yet, the bombings of July 7, 2005, were perpetrated by ‘the Muslim Fanatics of European Breed’, ’ Islamic Terrorists from Londonistan‘. Also, we always hear about Syria, Iran, Libya and Sudan for supporting terrorism. Never about Armenia which is a known country that sponsored state terrorism. ‘Armenian Thugs’ assassinated a Turkish diplomat in Belgrade and an American diplomat and CIA operative in Athens. The French National Assembly passed a bill deeming it ‘ a crime and you can be arrested if you deny the Armenian genocide committed by Ottoman Turkey’ almost 100 years ago during WWI. Nevertheless, France does not want you to know history about the genocide they committed in Algiers. Sarkozy, when asked about the tragic 10 years (1952-1962) of Algerian struggle which left 2.5 million Algerians killed, for which the Algerian government has repeatedly asked for an official apology many many years, said: “I told Abdelaziz Belkhadem (Algeria’s prime minister) that you can’t ask sons to say sorry for their fathers’ mistakes”. Furthermore, why doesn’t France make Germany pay for the sins of WWII Nazis committed in France? And, since when the French people became so concerned about crimes against humanity? Where was France when the killing fields of Cambodia shocked the world and in 1994 when Hutu massacred a million Tutsi in Rwanda genocide? As a matter of fact, France used to supply weapons to the Hutu rebels, let a lone stop the massacre. As a democratic society if it’s all right to limit freedom of speech in one area, then it is all right to do it in other. If denying the Holocaust or the so-called Armenian genocide is a crime then devote Muslims argue that we want insulting the Prophet Muhammad to be made a crime. Unfortunately, Africa almost daily reminds us of a yet another endless human misery developing in the Sudan region of Darfur. And the media is quick to point the finger at the ‘Janjaveed’, ’ Bands of Muslim warriors murdering and terrorizing the Christian South while the fundamentalist Islamic government of Omar Al-Bashir in Khartoum does nothing to stop the killing‘. I still remember Jill Carroll from Christian Science Monitoring dressed in hijab and pleading for her life but more than anywhere else in the world you have kidnappings in Colombia. We hardly hear about those kidnapped Americans. And the Press never calls them terrorists. They are ' the Drug Cartels‘,’ the Leftist Guerrillas'. True, some of them are drug dealers, but not all of them. Some of them are fighting for a cause they believe in. When the Americans fly planes over Japan and nuke citizens still at sleep in Hiroshima and Nagasaki causing hundreds of thousands of casualties, they call it a ‘WAR’, but when Mohammad Atta flies a plane into a building, the Western media calls it ‘ISLAMIC TERRORISM‘. Regardless, when it comes to Middle East or Muslims anywhere in the world, the rhetoric is totally different. We are talking about ‘TERRORISTS‘, ’ ISLAMIC FANATICS‘, ‘ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS’, ‘ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISTS‘, ’ MUSLIM FUNDAMENTALISTS‘, ’ MUSLIM EXTREMISTS‘, ’MUSLIM FANATICS‘, ’MUSLIM TERRORISTS‘. All Muslims are guilty. Blame it on Islam. Even when the spaghetti is not cooked, some blame it on the Muslims. Well, I have a shocking revelation to make: Every MUSLIM is not a TERRORIST, though according to the media, every TERRORIST is a MUSLIM! I agree , there are people who distort Islam to achieve their political goals, but to characterize a great religion by the actions of a few extreme members of radical Islam is wrong. Different ideologies have resulted in terrorism in the past.Thirty million people were killed during Stalin's bloody reign in the Soviet Union for falling foul of communist ideologies. Suicide bombs and other attacks that are said to be in the name of Islam are contrary to what the religion actually stands for.God Almighty! We just had an uproar about a copy of Koran found in a restroom in Guantanamo, Cuba, then the Danish cartoons came and set the Muslim world on fire, now Pope Benedict XVI - a holy man. Instead of building bridges of friendship between religions, he burned the midnight oil in a Vatican library and went as far back as a VII centuries digging for dirt about Islam. Later, after enraging the Muslim world, he blamed the Byzantine emperor for the statement ’ which was taken out of context ‘. Once a journalist for a European newspaper asked the late PLO leader: ’ Do you consider Americans to be your enemy?’ Jasser Arafat replied ,‘ Not at all! Americans are not my enemy. My biggest enemy in the West is THE MEDIA.’ Get a load of this, in a New York Community Park, a young boy was attacked by a savage dog. A passerby happened to see that and came to the rescue. He tackled the dog, strangled it to death, and saved the young boy. A reporter for a newspaper watching all this, took snap shots for a front page picture. Approaching the hero he says: ‘Your heroic deed will be published in tomorrow’s paper under the headline - Brave New Yorker rescues boy’. ‘I’m not from New York‘ replied the brave hero. ‘Oh, in that case we’ll change the headline to - Brave American rescues boy from savage dog’. ‘I’m not American either’ replied the brave hero, ‘I’m a Pakistani’. The next day the headline on the front page of a local paper said: ’Muslim Fundamentalist strangles an innocent American dog to death in New York park. FBI is investigating possible link to Al-Qaeda.’ Bush says,’ I hear you, and they will soon hear from us.‘ The UN says,’ Wait, Mr. President, North Korea is the problem. Pakistan is on our side and there are no WMD in the Middle East. Saddam Insane has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda.‘ Bush, replies, ’Yes, yes. We have classified intelligence, take a look at this top secret report,’ There is a ’Q’ in Iraq and a ‘Q’ in Al-Qaeda,’ the CIA discovered. See the connection? Let’s bomb those ISLAMIC FASCISTS. Wherever they’re hiding, we’ll smoke them out of their spider-holes.‘ George,’ Wow! How do you know all this?’ Idriz,’ The media, my friend. THE MEDIA! Watch, read and listen to the media but be aware and be astute. Watch satellite TV. Read from multiple sources. Listen to many reporters. Do not obey propaganda! Do not believe everything you hear! Be open minded, selective and read between the lines! We live in the age of global telecommunications, information superhighway. ‘The World is Flat,’ by the way, have you read that book by Thomas Friedman?’ George,’ No!’ Idriz,’ You should, it’s a good book. Also, did you see Hugo Chavez when he called Bush ‘the Devil’? He had Noam Chomsky’s ’Hegemony or Survival’ displaying it to the UN members. Now this book went from 26,000 to # 1 on the selling list at Amazon.com. Let me get another double latte, any body wants anything?…..’ Sarah,’ Can you get me another chai tea, please?’ Idriz,’ For you, my dear,.. anything.’
