[Islam-Online- Politics]

The distortion of the image of Islam and Muslims by the global media takes a variety of forms. Occasionally, distortion results from reporters' ignorance of Islam and their tendency to extrapolate from their particular experiences of religion and religious groups in western society to Islam and Muslim groups. Very often, however, distortion represents a deliberate effort by certain news agencies and reporters who, out of malice and ill will, use several tactics to discredit Islam and defame Muslims. Four tactics may be pointed out:
a. Distortion of Islamic worldviews and practices
Western media reports are rampant with distorted views about Islam. However, a few examples should suffice to demonstrate this point. In a news feature published in its 15 September 1990 issue, under the title "Arab Christians Exodus," The Economist endeavored, albeit in a very subtle manner, to link what it referred to as "Christian exodus" to the dominance of Islam in the Arab world. The opening paragraph put the issue in the following dramatic terms:
In fact, Christianity is dying in the land of its birth. Christians are leaving Palestine and Lebanon in such numbers that local churches fear for their future. In all the Arab lands, it seems, only Egypt's Christian community is thriving.
But, rather than attributing the Christian "exodus" to deteriorating economic and security conditions caused by Zionist and Maronite excesses in Palestine and Lebanon respectively, the article points a finger at Islam, citing alleged Muslim "revenge on all Christians" following the defeat of the Crusaders, and alludes to the emigration of many Christians to Europe and the Americas, following the colonial powers' withdrawal from Muslim lands.
The article fails to point out that Christian communities continued to thrive in Muslim societies before, during, and after the Crusades, even after the brutal "ethnic cleansing" of the Muslims of Spain by Christian gothics. Neither does the article state that many of the emigrants who left with the colonial powers were Muslim collaborators who feared retribution for having supported invading forces.
In another article published in June 1995 in the same magazine under the title "Islam's Dark Side," The Economist called upon the "international community" to give the Sudanese opposition-most notably the rebels in the south-"whatever help it needs to remove Mr. Turabi." While The Economist cites what it refers to as an "economic disaster" in Sudan-of course forgetting that such "disaster" is created by the western embargo on Sudan-as the reason for its anger with Turabi, it could not hide the fact that the Islamic orientation of the Sudanese government is a major source of its anger, particularly the government's efforts to implement "shari`a law" and its attempt "to export its version of Islam."
b. Associating Practices of Radical Muslim Groups and Individuals with Islam
Not all global media activities take the form of an open distortion of facts and views. A great deal of the media campaign against Islam involves subtle messages and tactics. Using the adjective "Islamic" to describe terrorist acts conducted by radical individuals or groups is widely practiced. A headline announcing that "[a] trial in France is showing how difficult it is to pin down the blame for Islamic terrorism" is not uncommon. Of course, violence by Jewish or Christian individuals and groups can never be referred to as Jewish terrorism or Christian terrorism. The phrase "Catholic terrorism" would never come across the mind of The Economist's editors when describing car bomb attacks by the Irish Republican Army. Such practice is reserved solely for Islam. Even when an article is not particularly hostile to Islam and Muslims, hostile titles are used, such as "Islam arrow of death" and "A religion with many faces."
c. Presenting Islam as a Source of Threat and Menace to Western Society
In an article published in the Herald Tribune in its 6 July 1995 issue, Richard Cohen examined the rising popularity of the Welfare Party in Turkey. In assessing the growth of the Islamic presence there and its implications for the West, Cohen had the following to say:
For the West the stakes here are enormous and the threat of Turkey going the way of Iran has given the country an importance it has not had since the cold war ended. . . . Should Turkey become an Islamic republic, no Iranian containment policy could succeed-nor, probably, one directed at Iraq. Turkey would leave NATO, in a sense fleeing Europe for the Middle East. Undoubtedly, it would join the anti-Israeli bloc of Islamic nations. What it would do in Bosnia, and to the sleep of the Greeks, is not hard to guess.
The above words are quite revealing. Although the Welfare Party cannot be accused of militancy or violence, its Islamic orientation is sufficient to make the prospect of an Islamic Republic in Turkey alarming. For, as Cohen put it, in this case Turkey would be "fleeing Europe to the Middle East" and hence cannot be relied upon, as it would be supporting the interests of the Muslim Middle East, rather than those of Western Europe.
The same approach was used by American media after the car bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995. On 20 April 1995, the Seattle Post-Intelligeneer quoted Robert Heibel, former FBI director of counterterrorism, who said: "My feeling is-if it looks like a duck, talks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck. . . . [C]ar bombings are the tool of Islamic fundamentalism." On the next day, The Wall Street Journal published the following statement on Muslim communities in the United States: "Growing Muslim communities in other areas of the US, such as in New York, Detroit and Oklahoma City, also include some extremist members who could provide support for terrorists, analysts say."
d. Justifying Imposition on, and Aggression Against, Muslims
Another tactic used by the global media is to justify acts of aggression against Muslims. Again, one can find many examples of this kind of tactic in the western press. In an article published in Le Monde on 13 September 1994, which reappeared in English in the Guardian on 25 September, Robert Sole defended the move by certain French schools to prevent Muslim girls from wearing a hijab (headscarf). While conceding that Christian and Jewish pupils are not prevented by French schools from wearing religious symbols such as a crucifix and kippas, he took exception with Muslim attire. Wearing hijab, as he saw it, is neither a simple act of displaying religious symbols, nor one that aims at maintaining Muslim modesty, but rather an act that "symbolizes the inequality of the sexes and the confinement of women." And so, rather than attributing repression to schools, which prevent Muslim girls from practicing an important religious duty, repression is strangely attributed to the victims of an act of aggression.
Another example of justifying aggression against Muslims can be found in a report published in the 26 December 1994 issue of Newsweek Magazine under the heading "Retreat." The news report examined the effectiveness of the United Nations mission in Bosnia, and concluded that the mission has been disastrous. However, rather than calling for tougher measures against Serb aggression, the article insisted that sending peacekeeping troops and declaring certain Bosnian cities "safe areas" can only contribute to prolonging the agony of the Bosnian people. As Kenneth Auchincloss, the author of the article, puts it:
And in retrospect, it's not at all clear that anything the Western nations might have done-short of an all out armed intervention that none of them was willing to undertake-would have stopped this war; it springs from ancient hatreds that outsiders can't suppress or assuage. What is clear is that half measures like arms embargoes and so-called "safe areas" have very likely prolonged it. The blue helmets have helped relieve some of the horrors in Sarajevo but their very presence reinforces the stalemate that makes the siege go on-and this is hardly a favor to the beleaguered citizens. What lies at the heart of the miscalculations about Bosnia is a kind of sentimentality to which the West is particularly prone. We rush to make humanitarian gestures without thinking very much about the consequences. When confronted by the spectacle of human suffering, we feel an immediate impulse to try to help. When the suffering occurs in a war zone, the only way to send help is under cover of an armed force. And when an armed force is sent, it inevitably gets drawn into the battle but lacks the strength to stop it.
A similar article published in Time magazine on 26 June 1995 under the title "Why Peacekeepng Doesn't Work" made even a more outrageous suggestion. Henry Grunwald, the author of this article, proposed that a "peacekeeping" force should not be committed to areas such as Bosnia and Somalia, where Muslims are slaughtered, but rather to places where dictators are involved in power struggles with Islamic groups in order to support the former against the later.
With or without the U.N., under what circumstances should the U.S. intervene? All right, not Somalia, not Bosnia-but where and how? In some cases it must limit itself to humanitarian aid and avoid military involvement. In other cases, intervention by the U.S. and its allies may be necessary. For example: aggression or nuclear threats from Iraq, Iran or North Korea; eruptions of Islamic fundamentalism, which are even now destabilizing Algeria and could threaten Turkey, bringing intolerable pressures on Europe; "local" wars, like those in India and Pakistan, that might turn nuclear. Neither the White House nor its critics are educating Americans about how such events-and others-would affect U.S. vital interests. This kind of crisis would certainly require more than "peacekeeping." Thus some new words have entered the conversation: peace making, peace enforcing. But perhaps we should revive the term pacification, in the sense the Romans had in mind when they "pacified" the unruly Germanic tribes, or the British when they "pacified" the Northwest Frontier. This is not to prescribe a new imperialism but to recognize that sometimes peace requires adequate force. `

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