Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| U.K. Paper Says Western Media Ignorant About Muslims |
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| bhaloo |
| 08/15/01 at 09:27:44 |
| slm http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2001-08/15/article5.shtml U.K. Paper Says Western Media Ignorant About Muslims LONDON, August 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Ignorance and prejudice sour the West's view of Islam, said an editorial in the U.K. newspaper, the Daily Telegraph Tuesday. John Casey, a writer at the Telegraph, said that biased reporting in Western media has become an indisputable norm and that Islam is viewed as an "enemy". "A former secretary general of NATO, Willy Claes, claimed that, after the fall of communism, Islam is our new world enemy. Anyone who writes sympathetically about Islam in the press is likely to get a letter or two informing him of the worldwide Muslim conspiracy," said Casey in his editorial. He explained that there is a Western Islamophobia, with liberals and feminists denouncing the position of women in the Muslim world, and that Muslim communities are misunderstood for being male chauvinistic, and even terrorists. Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo recently accused the BBC Corporation, one of the U.K.'s most prominent media gurus, of "hypocrisy". This came after its Assignments Editor, Malcolm Downing, circulated a memo asking reporters not describe Israeli crimes against Palestinians as "assassinations". Instead, the reporters were told to use Israel's own euphemism for the murders calling them "targeted killings" and to save the word "assassinations" for high-profile political assassinations, citing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's murder as an example. BBC's bias against Muslims in general, and Arabs in particular, has been evident in terms it uses to refer to Palestinians, calling them "militants", and referring to Palestinian political parties as "Islamic militant groups". "It is quite acceptable - almost de rigueur - to express vehement anti-Muslim sentiments in polite society without being accused of racism. Indeed, to disagree with these sentiments is to invite suspicion," said Casey in his article. It is for these reasons, added Casey, that Muslims warmly greet any attempt by a Westerner to better understand their religion. In his article, Casey pointed out the close relations between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, saying, "The Kaaba in Mecca is reputed to have been built by Abraham; Abraham's non-sacrifice of his son inspires one of the great Muslim feasts; and Jesus is received as prophet and Messiah." He also explained that at its most culturally glorious period - around the 10th Century, Islamic advances in mathematics, astronomy, medicine and philosophy were vastly superior to anything going on in Europe. "In Muslim countries, Jews and Christians were recognized as genuine, if imperfect, believers - an attitude reciprocated by Christianity only very recently. "The capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders - in which 70,000 Muslims were slaughtered and the Jews burnt alive in their synagogue - contrasts with the re-taking of the city by Salahudin, when religious freedom was proclaimed for all 'peoples of the Book'," said Casey. When talking about Islam, Casey urged the media to be free of the miasma of prejudice. Only then will they be able to discuss "the fact that current religious revival in Muslim countries has not been accompanied by any equivalent intellectual or cultural renaissance" or that "modern textual scholarship in studying the Qu'ran has begun actually to go backwards in some of the great centers of Muslim learning," he explained. Concluding his article, Casey urged U.K. Muslims not to become what he called "too English", and to keep a sense of their worldwide community, its astonishing history and its current intractable problems. "The cost of becoming comfortably 'normal' might be to become less interesting," he said. |
| NS |
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