Once upon a time, the truth was simple. It was clear what was true and what was false. Now, in the 21st century, I'm not so sure we can say the same about truth anymore. I'm not sure we can say it's as simple and clear as it was before. This week in class we discussed the attack of 9/11 in detail. We also discussed the long lasting impacts it left on the country that still effect us today. On 9/11, two sad things happened: 1) 3,000 Americans died, and 2) 1.8 billion Muslims were labeled as "terrorists". There is no doubt that the attack was truly devastating, and it fueled an immense amount of grief in all the people. But unfortunately, it seems like the people chose to convert all this grief into anger, and searched for something to direct all this anger at. And they chose the religion of Islam. Now airport security has been extremely heightened, and there are "random" checks performed on people that all happen to have Arab names. A general sense of hate has been conjured for Muslims in America, and is promoted massively by the media.
Now all negative actions of Muslims are highlighted, and are all tied back to the "violent" religion of Islam. I find this particularly ironic because the word Islam is the Arabic word for "peace", and so associating things like terrorism and violence with the religion of peace just shows us that people really need to look into what they are saying, instead of just "going with the flow". Groups like Al-Qaida and ISIS commit actions that go against the teachings of Islam, and so therefore cannot call themselves true Muslims. They are no more Muslim than the Ku Klux Klan were Christians. They simply borrowed the symbol for its power, but twist it to satisfy their own needs. That, my friends, is the truth.
I can definitely with you Arsh. It is definitely unfortunate when any extremist group or person tries to pervert any religion in order for it to suit their agendas or try to benefit from it's influence. Many people do express Islamophobia and it is often exacerbated by the media. A question I would like to ask you is about comedy. In the media, networks such as SNL have used comedy in order to combat fear and to degrade extremist groups but at the same time it has caused controversy as well. To what extent do you think that comedy regarding ISIS is effective in combating fear and isolating Islam from extremist groups?
ReplyDeleteIf I were to give groups such as ISIS or tell there religion, never in a trillion year would I think they are Muslims. If one looks and reads about Islam not even go too deep into it, they would immediately think these people are simply blind and cant read what Islam really is about. However the people needed someone to blame for this, if we didn't then we would not be those Humans that populate the world (we would not be considers normal (normal is bad)). The point you made about 3k Americans died and then 1.8 billion Muslims are now considered terrorists.
ReplyDeleteI definitely 100% agree with what Arsh said here, but I would like to give a little bit of insight to the other perspective in this conflict. If you noticed during the news broadcast of 9/11 that we watched in-class, the biggest emotion that everyone was portraying had to be confusion. The reporters constantly were trying to label some sort of an answer to this tragedy. The same thing was going on with the Bush administration. They were shocked and they needed someone to blame, that blame was put on Osama bin Laden. And in sequence was put on Muslims in general. So yes, I still agree with you that the media does not have knowledge into Islam. That all of the people who label Muslims as terrorists do not have knowledge. It is still important to understand why all of this happened.
ReplyDeleteMaaz, we should be clear about the fact that Osama bin Laden WAS to blame for 9/11. His organization recruited and trained the participants, and on his orders. He was not a scapegoat for 9/11, he was the cause. That he was considered a template for all terrorists, and that the most superficial characteristics of that template were highlighted in popular media is a tragedy in itself; however, the tragedy of 9/11 was bin Laden's child.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Osama bin Laden was labeled as the model of terrorist, that arguably, is the bigger tragedy. Hundreds died on 9/11 definitely one of the worst days in US history. And one of the worst days for the world, as it led to this search for "weapons of mass destruction" that never seems to end. And that has spiraled out of control to create all these different organizations ISIS Boko Haram. This event of 9/11 has all created this.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Osama bin Laden was labeled as the model of terrorist, that arguably, is the bigger tragedy. Hundreds died on 9/11 definitely one of the worst days in US history. And one of the worst days for the world, as it led to this search for "weapons of mass destruction" that never seems to end. And that has spiraled out of control to create all these different organizations ISIS Boko Haram. This event of 9/11 has all created this.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Osama bin Laden was labeled as the model of terrorist, that arguably, is the bigger tragedy. Hundreds died on 9/11 definitely one of the worst days in US history. And one of the worst days for the world, as it led to this search for "weapons of mass destruction" that never seems to end. And that has spiraled out of control to create all these different organizations ISIS Boko Haram. This event of 9/11 has all created this.
ReplyDelete