As British intelligence services disrupt a terrorist plot to hijack planes and cause “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” I find myself concerned that these latest revelations will spark a new round of hatred that is essentially racism born out of fear and ignorance.
Take for example an email which I was forwarded yesterday evening by my friend Josh. It wasn’t created in response to the recent plot revelations, but it might well find a new lease of life in the wake of that news.
The email, entitled ‘Scary’, shows pictures of Muslim extremists who marched on the streets of London in February of this year in response to the overblown scandal that surrounded the Danish cartoons which depicted the Muslim prophet Muhammad in an unfavorable light.
The email is headed with the line “ALL AMERICANS NEED TO SEE THESE.” Followed by “Scarey isn’t it!!!” Then in bold blue and red text the author continues. “Below are actual photos of Muslims who marched in the streets of London during their recent Religion of Peace Demonstration.
“These photos have never been shown in any American newspapers or television news programs because we want to be careful not to offend the Muslims.”
The author of the email makes no mention of the facts behind the pictures included which show Muslim extremists holding up banners with slogans like “Behead those who insult Islam” and “Europe you will pay. Your 9/11 is on the way.”
The email takes on a rather ironic feel because presenting the pictures in this way without even the slightest shred of context would suggest an attitude as hateful and closed minded as the sentiments behind the banners held by the people in the pictures themselves. This was very clearly not a ‘Religion of Peace Demonstration’ as the author suggested, and to claim it was is clearly a cynical attempt to stir a reaction of anger.
In claiming that the pictures had never been shown in any American newspapers or television news programs the author may indeed have hit on an even more worrying truth that the American news media is essentially rubbish! News is often branded and packaged into nice little easy to consume morsels and then spoon fed to the masses between commercials for S.U.V’s, toothpaste and fizzy drinks.
Perhaps the author should be more afraid of the fact that maybe the media and the powers that be are indeed keeping things from him, and manipulating information to keep him docile, obedient, and afraid. That revelation should surely scare the author of the email more than a few angry Muslims taking part in a small march in London more than six months previously.
American TV news networks are awful, but in their defense I might suggest that the reason they didn’t carry these pictures way back in February (if indeed they didn’t, and that is unconfirmed) was because the march was on a very small scale and was somewhat overblown in the UK media who were themselves hungry for news relating to the equally as overblown Danish cartoon scandal.
In the end though I would imagine that anyone who forwards this despicable email on will have little concern for the facts behind the pictures or the context as to the extent of any reporting that surrounded them. Instead the email will find it’s way from inbox to inbox eventually fading away when people of good sense deliver it to the only place it belongs… the trash.
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Muslim leader condemns protesters
Cartoons and the globalisation of protests
The truth behind the email
Wrote the following comment on Aug 12, 2006 at 9:20 am
I fear we are now in a self perpetuating cycle. The war on terror is turning more and more moderate Muslims in to radical ones, who are prepared to blow themselves and others up. The world is arguably a less safe place since we began this war. The more we demonise and persecute Muslims, the more we marginalise them, they will shrink back in to their communities, it is here that there anger and resentment will fester, they will become ripe for radicalisation.
Of course some will argue that we didn’t start this war, terrorists did on September 11, that Muslims want to impose Islamic law on the world. However, its important to look at what the aims of the likes of Al Queda are. Their anger has always been about the US’s interference in the Middle East, in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Palestine. The US and now to a greater extent Europe are percieved, and rightly so, to be biased and not even handed.
The west needs to get serious about resolving the causes of anger in the Middle East, if we’re not careful we will end up with a war between Islam and Christianity, oh hang on, thats what the terrorists want.
Wrote the following comment on Aug 12, 2006 at 1:56 pm
I see this so called ‘War on Terror’ more like the cold war. In other words I do see an end to it. The problem with such a war though, is that it can never be won, rather like Reagan’s ‘War on drugs.’
I do think that we should work hard to combat the growth of Islamic extremism, but the budgets for peaceful programs to do this should be at least in the same ballpark as the military budgets being used to fight this war on violent levels (the USA spends $200,000,000 a day on the war in Iraq).
Wrote the following comment on Aug 14, 2006 at 1:52 am
“News is often branded and packaged into nice little easy to consume morsels and then spoon fed to the masses between commercials for S.U.V’s, toothpaste and fizzy drinks.”
Aye. Well said, that.
Wrote the following comment on Aug 14, 2006 at 1:55 am
Thanks you. I call it Newsetainment.
Wrote the following comment on Aug 14, 2006 at 2:00 am
Yes. Sad that we often become too mentally lazy to even consider challenging what is spoon-fed to us. Everything should be questioned, and examined carefully. Nothing should be accepted without such examination. This applies whether your political persuasion is left or right, whether you are “religious” or an atheist. It’s a crying shame how blindly accepting we humans can be of everything we read or hear.
Wrote the following comment on Aug 14, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Yes, the media here in the States can be quite biased and redundant to say the least. Which is due in part by the fact that I rarely, if ever, watch the news anymore. I still read articles and hear opinions from friends but I mostly now get my news from blogs of soldiers or newscasters in the Middle East or from my Uncle who is currently serving in Baghdad right now.
I agree mostly with the sentiment behind your post. Though one part of it I would like to address. To say that the author of the email should be worried about the media keeping things from him to keep him docile is exactly why I think he would of written an email like that in the first place.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is, what are you more interested in? Some guy taking a rally out of context and spreading half-truths around or having no news about that get out at all?
How do we go about letting the masses know about the latest “incidents” without having a biased slant?
Wrote the following comment on Aug 15, 2006 at 12:19 am
Good question Sharon. I suppose the news will always have a slant. Fox news for example is appallingly slanted, so much so that I wonder how it can even still claim to be ‘news’ when it would be more accurately described as ‘just our opinion’.
And while you may well decide to reject the mainstream news media in favor of a soldiers blog or what your uncle says, I would also say that those two sources are just as biased, if not more so, than the mass media.
Instead I with that with the power of the internet at our fingertips, people would perhaps seek out the truth a little more. Personally I read the BBC, CNN, Fox, and Al Jazeera. The latter being a thoroughly excellent network that often presents our filtered news without the same filters and for a very different angle.