Muslim world is more peaceful than media would have us believe

The Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 8/25/2003 | Gwynne Dyer

[Utah Girl]

Sitting in Cairo in a flat borrowed from a friend. Turn on the TV and catch the news on BBC World: six stories in 15 minutes. Iraqi guerillas blow up a couple of pipelines. European hostages released by Muslim guerillas in Mali. Nigerian peacekeeping troops in Liberia. Rioting between Muslim sects in Pakistan. Iceland resumes whaling. Islamist terrorists arrested in Indonesia. End of world news.

Four out of six: that's how many of the stories were about Muslims who do violent things. That would make sense if two-thirds of the world's people were Muslims, and most of them were violent. Because only one-fifth of the world's people are Muslims, and many of them don't even spank their children, it calls for an explanation. Especially because the international news is like this most of the time.

BBC World is not particularly bad. In fact, from Minnesota to Moscow to Manila it is the preferred source of TV news for people with an interest in the world, a knowledge of English and access to cable. It is serious about delivering "balanced" news to a multi-national audience, and yet it is doing an absolutely terrible job. Why?

Consider the four "Muslim" stories among the BBC World six I listed at the top of this article. The Iraq story is legitimate. When the world's greatest power is sinking into a political and military quagmire, it is going to get coverage. But why Muslim hostage-takers in Mali rather than politically motivated kidnappers in Colombia? Why sectarian clashes between Muslims in Pakistan rather than inter-caste violence among Hindus in India?

The story of suspected terrorists arrested for the Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta is of legitimate interest, but there's a lot less follow-up when suspected Basque terrorists are arrested in Spain, or when a resurgent Sendero Luminoso blows something up in Peru. The BBC is not anti-Muslim, but it is responding to a definition of international news that makes "violent Muslims" more newsworthy than violent people in other places.

It is largely a Western definition, following an agenda set mainly by the dominant U.S. media. It is rooted in Western perspectives on the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict, and has been vastly strengthened by the Islamist terrorist attack on the United States two years ago. It is also a steaming heap of horse-feathers.

I am not preaching pious nonsense about Islam being a "religion of peace." The only peaceful religions are dead religions. And I am not denying that the Muslim world has a big historical chip on its shoulder. Having run one of the most powerful and respected civilizations on the planet for the first 1,000 years after they burst out of Arabia and conquered large chunks of Europe, Asia and Africa, Muslims have spent the past three centuries being overrun, colonized and humiliated by the West. But the image of Muslims that the rest of the world gets through international news coverage is deeply misleading.

For the past month I have been wandering around the Middle East with eight other members of my extended family. For some, it was their first time in the region; others of us have lived here or visited often enough to be able to lead everybody astray. And we gave less thought to our personal safety -- and much less to petty theft -- than we would have done on a comparable trip across America, or even through Europe.

I won't go on about how kind and friendly most of the people we met were, because most people are like that everywhere. I would point out that every single person I discussed current events with was against the U.S. invasion in Iraq, but that I nevertheless encountered no personal hostility although I am easily mistaken for an American. (Would an Arab doing a similar trip around the United States have the same experience?)

If Iraq gets completely out of hand, the patience and tolerance that still prevail at street level in the Muslim Middle East will be severely eroded, and even Asian Muslim countries may end up taking sides against the United States and Britain. But for the moment Samuel Huntington's nightmare vision of a coming "clash of civilizations" is still a long way off, and the most striking thing is the sheer ordinariness of daily life in the Muslim world. Don't be misled by television.

[Axenolith]

The "Christians have killed more people" is a stale line of bull dude. Christians in general, while having done their share of killing, are pikers in the historical sense. You can bone up on the stats here among other places...

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html

Now, back to your weak rhetoric, you've yet to point out where NOW, in the 20th century, (or for the last 200 some odd years for that matter) a CHRISTIAN church, denomination or organization has sanctioned the killing, or waging of aggressive war, on others. Aside from an occasional nutcase you're either going to see the light here or spend a lot of time fruitlessly searching...

The Quaran preaches it and Allah apparently rewards its fruits. It is specifically stated in approximately a dozen Surahs commenting on harassing, taxing, enslaving and killing infidels.

The Alabama case, BTW, is being argued as a states rights issue by most folks. Remember the 10th?

[Lion in Winter]

Are you so rude as to case a BARF response.... WHY, YES YOU ARE!!

[MERCEE4U]

HAVE ANY OF YOU STUDIED THE KLORAN AND IT'S MISSION. THE RID THE WORLD OF ALL PEOPLE WHO DO NOT BELEIVE THE WAY THEY DO. HAMMAS AFTER HE WAS ELLECTED STATED THAT THE JEWISH NATION WOULD BE NO MORE BY THE YEAR 2032. SO IT SEEMS AS THOUGH WE SAY, AH, THEY WOULD NEVER, THE ( IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN TO ME STATEMENT) AHD BETTER BECOME THE( WE BETTER BE READY) STATEMENT. THE LORD IS HIS WISDOM HAS GIVEN HSI ANSWER TO THIS. HE WILL REACH DOWN AND FIGHT FOR THE JEWISH PEOPLE ONE MORE TIME TO PROVE HE IS THEIR GOD... TAKE TIME TO PRAY, RED HIS WORD AND BE READY FOR THE END......