Every culture and creed has extremists; why does the media focus on a select few?
By Mohamed Sheriffdeen
Image by Ben Buckley
On the morning of Oct. 9 a Taliban gunman stopped a school bus full of children in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. He climbed aboard and ordered, “Who is Malala Yousafzai?” Malala, age 14, stood up and identified herself. She was promptly shot in the head.
You’ve no doubt heard the story. An activist for women’s rights in the secular Muslim nation, Yousafzai was taken to a hospital in Peshawar where doctors removed the bullet and have stabilized her condition. She is a recipient of the National Youth Peace Prize condemned to death by radicals for “promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas.” If she survives, they have vowed to finish the job.
Deservedly, the Taliban has been eviscerated in global media in language plain and colorful. A dangerous tipping point, however, comes when commenters on Western outlets associate extremist principles with all Muslims. Such blanket condemnations are as divisive and damaging as the Taliban itself. People have always used suppression and misinterpretation of knowledge to further personal agendas and consolidate power; this phenomenon is not unique to the Middle East.
Take this statement made by Mitt Romney on Oct. 10 at the Virginia Military Institute: “I believe the leader of the free world has a duty . . . to use America’s great influence . . . to shape events in ways that secure our interests, further our values, prevent conflict, and make the world better — not perfect, but better.” Romney, and innumerable politicos before him, insists America is the pre-eminent nation and moral authority on the planet. It doesn’t matter that its global standing has been eroded by internal accusations of an illegal war and a poor credit rating. But this tired, retrograde imperialist perspective is regularly trotted out during election cycles, preying on a jingoistic sense of cultural superiority for votes.
If the world’s perception of all Americans was painted by KKK propaganda — violent, alcoholic, hate-mongering people with a white-supremacist agenda — would it be accurate? Most Americans today disavow the Klan as fanatics intent on racial enslavement. But theirs was common policy in Western nations for hundreds of years. One hundred and fifty years elapsed before America granted women equal political status. In Canada, the remorseless and systematic genocide of First Nations culture was official policy just 50 years ago. Islam is labeled a “religion of the sword” by Christians whose papacy led bloody wars into sovereign nations claiming the supremacy of its religious views. Whither morality then?
Of course, we live in modern times. But these Islamophobic knee-jerk responses separate us from the enlightenment we aspire to. Constructing barriers based on political, religious, social and cultural leanings ensures no one occupies a position of absolute good. Finger-pointing, distrust and hate simply deepens divisions.
All Muslims don’t condone the actions of misguided individuals who believe violence against innocents ensures passage to Heaven — this guarantee isn’t in the Qura’an. However, the Holy Book affirms: “Verily, those who have believed and (those who were) Jews and Christians and Sabians, those who believe in Allah and the Last Day and act piously, there is for them their reward with their Lord. Neither shall any fear obsess them, nor shall they grieve. (2: 62)” How many fanatics acknowledge this?
The psychopaths don’t represent us. Remember Malala — her spirit and efforts cannot be isolated from the thinking of all Muslims, nor should they be homogenized with the Taliban’s and other dictatorial regimes. Their beliefs are not mine. I am a Muslim. So is Malala. And so are a billion other flawed, but inherently good, human beings.
