The press and the prey

The way Muslims and Islam is handled by the media the world over is simply commendable!

As they say,

“All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims�

These people very cleverly ignore the red brigade, the ETA, the PKK, irgun, kach, IRA and the recent ones being LTTE, ULFA, Maoists, babbar khalsa, bajrang dal and the naxalites.

Terrorism is simply a destructive ideology. They can use anything and everything to achieve their goals but not even once in the history of mankind, terrorism was associated with any religion the way it has been associated with Islam. So much so that today, Islam is taken to be synonymous to terrorism.

The saffron brigade in India uses religion too; to achieve their political ambitions but no one links terrorism with Hinduism, the religion they claim to follow!

Even I, don’t associate saffron terror with Hinduism, it’s simply insane to taint a religion because a wild mob quenches its thirst of human blood in a vulgar show of communalism.

Millions of people lost their lives in the war of terror waged by the empire. But who cares!

A Muslim’s life has a cheaper MRP than the lives of his counterparts.

This is the picture in Iraq…

“Of the total 655,000 estimated “excess deaths,” 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.â€?

“The Department of Defense always regrets the loss of any innocent life in Iraq or anywhere else,” said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros. “The coalition takes enormous precautions to prevent civilian deaths and injuries.”

I was more than agitated when I read this article published by BBC, which is known as the fairer of the fair in terms of media reporting.

I guess, BBC needs to read this.

“The right of minorities to live in the country as equals was increasingly undermined by both state and non-state actors, despite it being clearly asserted in the Constitution. Religious minorities, particularly Muslims, were increasingly targeted for abuse. In Gujarat, Muslims were victims of massacres allegedly masterminded by nationalist groups with the connivance of state agencies. New and stringent security legislation, which gives wide powers of arrest and detention to the police, was misused to target political dissent in areas of armed conflict and elsewhere. Human rights defenders were frequently harassed by state and private actors, and their activities labelled as “anti-national�. The criminal justice system remained extremely slow, under-resourced and difficult to access for people from socially and economically marginalized sections of society, including lower castes and women. Security agencies continued to enjoy virtual impunity for past abuses, thanks to specific provisions contained in security legislation and to political protection. International human rights monitors, including UN independent experts and international human rights organizations, were de facto denied access to areas of armed conflict and were granted only very limited access to the rest of the country.�

May be, this one as well.

The country who was shouting in one voice “release Sarabjeet Singh� hindus and Muslims alike, changed its tone hypocritically when the fate of Afzal Guru was being written by the supreme court of India. Sarabjeet Singh allegedly exploded a bomb in Pakistan. In other words, a terrorist for Pakistan who allegedly claimed innocent lives there. People cried on top of their voices, if Pakistan won’t spare Sarabjeet Singh on humanitarian grounds then India should shun all the diplomatic ties with Pakistan! Surprisingly, Pakistan delayed his “phassi�. And when, Afzal’s case was being considered, people started shouting, in the same vigor… “Hang him without delay!�

Without even knowing, that he is a surrendered militant. Here’s Arundhati Roy’s take on Afzal. We are not asking to spare a terrorist. We are only asking to make sure if he’s a terrorist or not!

“It is Afzal’s story that gives us a glimpse into what life is really like in the Kashmir Valley. It’s only in the Noddy Book version we read about in our newspapers that Security Forces battle Militants and innocent Kashmiris are caught in the cross-fire. In the adult version, Kashmir is a valley awash with militants, renegades, security forces, double-crossers, informers, spooks, blackmailers, blackmailees, extortionists, spies, both Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies, human rights activists, NGOs and unimaginable amounts of unaccounted-for money and weapons.â€?

I don’t remember even a single time when a criminal who happens to be a follower of Hinduism or Christianity or any other faith for that matter was caught, and his religion was the first thing that was mentioned unlike the case with the so called “Islamic terrorists�. It’s pretty disgusting when terrorists are given a community name like that of kashmiris. No religion is criminal in its purest form. The adulterators make it corrupt. So, does that mean the religion or the community in itself is corrupt?

It’s always easy to put the blame on someone without even realizing its pros and cons. We Muslims are a family of around 1.4 billion now; irresponsible is such a small word to define the negligence of the media!

One Response to “The press and the prey”

  1. waqas Says:

    bushra i think this is the best blog u have written so far ………………

    yar the main problem we all muslim are facing today that we have to justify our position every where in the world ….. like musharraf , arab league iran etc that we are not terrorist … we have few problems but it not phenomenal and unusaul ….

    before 9/11 incident even most of the Muslims living in the western world were trying to adopt the ways of western life blindly. even once a pakistani school boy was asked in uk that what is the name of ur last prophet he replied … muhammad ali jinnah ….
    even most of the people could not recite holy quran, lack of knowledge about the basic faiths and beliefs of islam ……. even one of my freind’s cousin living in hong kong is fond of pork; arabs are also addicted to this haram …. they would make a mockery of islam’s injunction by saying that it was haram at that time coz there was no proper forms and unhygienic conditions but now the conditions have changed and proper cattle forms are for pigs so its mest is now halal.
    when pakistani living abroad would come to pakistan they used to criticize every thing duly or unduly ….. and harping the virtues of western society its civil liberties and provision of facilities would their favourite pastime. even most of the people were ashamed of the fact that we hailed from pakistan or we are muslim even….

    but after 9/11 every thing drastically changed

    there was separate line for green passport(color of pakistani passport) at major airport of west (vip treatment ….. lolz ) physical checking…… u can imagine the gravity of the situation by the fact that the members of delegation with prime minister of pakistan, were asked to remove clothes and they had to pass through physical checking at New york airport ……. the governor of NWFP province who is retired Lt General also who was on official visit to America on the invitation of some Ameican general ( i think general john abe zayad) was phsically checked and were asked to remove his socks …………..
    and the misery of common is many times more ………………..
    inspite of the fact that pakistan is one most “sincere” and “obedient” ally …… in afghanistan america cant survive without the support of pakistan ….. for alqaeda and other mujahid organisations pakistan has accepted whatever america demanaded but still pakistan is considered to be the country who supports terrorism

    as rightly mentioned in the quran:

    “these jews and Christian will be not happy with u (muslims) untill u will become like them( means leave islam).

    and pakistan is exactly facing the same situation.

    i pray that allah give strenght to our leaders to stand firm agianst kafirs and to work for creating awareness about islam in the non muslims. For common muslim to lead a life as demanded by islam so that they can be succeed in this world and also in “hereafter’

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