The often-heard complaint from the Western world is that the entire Muslim community does not condemn the acts of violence that are being perpetrated today in the name of Islam. No matter how many times Muslim organizations or Muslim states condemn terrorist acts committed by militants who do not represent the majority of the Muslim world the Western media does not convey these condemnations to the readers. As a result the public is kept uninformed and continues to perceive all Muslims as enemies and a threat to the Western world. Every Muslim today is being blamed for the crimes of a minority whose acts are rejected and abhorred by the majority of Muslims adhering to the true principles of Islam. There is no true Muslim in the world that condones the acts of the terrorists who claim to be followers of the faith. The fact is Muslims are a peaceful people who have been victimized in the past and are being demonized today.
The media in the US and the West claims that the entire Muslim community remains silent and indifferent to the violence that is being committed by a deviant minority in the name of Islam. That is far from the truth. Muslims all over the world have condemned and condemned over and over again through official statements by governmental and nongovernmental organizations. The media and satellite channels in the Muslim world continue to air programs that express the views of the majority of the public that condemn terrorist acts and reject the extremist views of militants in the Muslim world. Religious scholars and spiritual leaders continue to preach tolerance and give guidance to Muslim youth who remain devastated and disappointed in the whole world — disappointed in their leaders who have allowed them to be humiliated; disappointed in the injustices committed against their people while the whole world watches; disappointed in the international legal system that is inactive; and above all disappointed by the actions of the few that has tarnished their image and has given Islam a bad name.
The conflict in the Middle East, the war on terror and the clash of civilizations have been the focus of the media since the Sept. 11 2001 attacks against the US. The biased views and analyses as well as the negative coverage against all Muslims continue to fuel the West’s sentiments against the Muslim community. Of the many articles that I have read there is one that I believe has summarized the whole situation clearly and gives a lot of justice to the demonized Muslims of today.
The author of the article that I am referring to is the British writer Patrick Seale. I will conclude with an extract of his analysis.
“But events have shown that military means alone are unable to quell a shadowy, stateless organization such as Al-Qaeda or a nationalist insurgency such as the US is battling in Iraq. No effective strategy for either type of conflict has yet been devised by the US. Instead, Bush’s doctrine of preventive war — which favors armed intervention over containment and seeks to impose America’s will unilaterally — has driven a coach and horses through international legality. It has estranged some of America’s main European allies, triggering a crisis in trans-Atlantic relations, which will take years to heal. It has also enraged the Muslim world.
At the heart of America’s failure lies the administration’s refusal to recognize that the contemporary roots of Islamic terror are to be found in American policies. ...senior American officials — and particularly the neoconservative ‘friends’ of Israel among them — angrily reject any such link. For them, hostility to the US is the product of backward Muslim societies, failed states and an inherently violent religion. It has nothing to do, they argue, with America’s wars or Israel’s brutal occupation. More effort should be made, they say, explaining American values to Muslim opinion! The committee investigating the Sept. 11 attacks recommended that the US government provide much larger resources to support broadcasts to Muslim audiences, rebuild scholarship and exchange programs, help fight high illiteracy in the Middle East, do more to encourage economic development and trade — in fact do every thing except change American policies!
Not only is this approach fundamentally wrong headed, but it provides the US with an alibi for not addressing the ‘roots of terror’ — that is to say the anger, desperation and rampant political grievance which cause men and women to want to hit back against their tormentors, even at the cost of their lives. For example, instead of stopping Israel’s infamous wall and its expanding settlements — as it alone could do — the US is doing the exact opposite!”
Every Muslim today is of the writer’s opinion that calls for reassessment and change in US policies toward the Middle East. Efforts to prevent terrorism should address the root causes of conflicts that are enraging innocent civilians in the Muslim world.
Patrick Seale is one of many writers with a conscience. Pat Buchanan, Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Jonathan Power, Linda Heard, and other Western writers have been advocates of peace and are brave enough to speak out in defense of the Muslim world. However a lot more needs to be done to stop the increasing prejudice against Muslims in the West that is threatening world peace.
America please listen. No more wars. Give peace a chance.
— Samar Fatany is a radio journalist based in Jeddah.
