Heston Allred
Eng 102
Section 76151, Online
Sept
Propaganda, the Media, and Politics: Controlling Public
Sentiment Towards Islam.
There are about 1.57 billion people in the world who practice
Islam. How do these people think? What do they value? How do they
connect with us as the western world? This papers researches and
evaluates the way in which the western worlds perception of Islam
is being negatively affected due to the manner in which public
policy and media coverage portrays Islam as a whole.
Look at how some articles in opposition to anti-Islamic
attitudes are written. These particular ones are about how Islam is
portrayed in relationship to the September eleventh incident. In
this article from The Journal of Communication Inquiry. the
following quotes are from the article where the author quotes and
comments on statements made by some of the most prominent political
figures of the west. He first comments on a quote from President
Bush from his 2006 address to the nation. A new Muslim enemy is
beginning to be constructed. Bush stated,We face an enemy that has
an ideology. They believe things. The best way to describe their
ideology is to relate to you the fact that they think the opposite
of what we think.(Kumar p.) I personally would agree with the claim
made in the article that a new Muslim enemy is being constructed
but in this particular instance it seems to be beside the point.
The quote as far as I can tell is taken out of context. This is
because the author fails to note that later on the term enemy
mainly has reference to Al quada, which is considered by many to be
a terrorist organization and a radical and militant faction of
Islam. The article however seems to imply that President Bush is
promoting anti-Islamic attitude and I think the author is right. It
is interesting to note the word usage in this particular extract of
the address and also to look out the order certain ideas and claims
are presented. Part of the presidents definition of what the enemy
is includes h the statement,they think the opposite of what we
think. Why should there necessarily be a problem with a group of
people, especially one that comes from a different part of the
world than us, are part of a different culture, and could very well
have a different outlook on what makes a belief or ideology
valuable than us, be a problem? Why should the word opposite need
to be used and why should the claim need to be included in the
address. I believe this is a form of propaganda. It may be
considered nothing by some and I will admit it is rather subtle but
I think it is propaganda. This propaganda or viewpoint as far as I
can tell of presenting fact as opinion and opinion as fact is
further perpetuated by other corporations and prominent figures in
the media which then affects the attitudes and beliefs of the
general population. Take into account this definition of what
democracy is given by Noam Chomsky. One conception of democracy has
it that a democratic society is one in which the public has the
means to participate in some meaningful way in the management of
their own affairs and the means of information are open and
free(Chomsky p.). To be fair however Bush early in the address says
he is referring to parts of radical Islam, specifically Al quada
and Taliban, but the fact that they think differently than us, why
should there be an issue with that? The United States has no
inherent right to control what others think or even how they act
that I know of and this is talking about people who live in the
here in the United States. The Constitution guarantees them this.
Now there are certain things done in parts of Islam that might not
be construed as legal under US law but these people do not live in
the US. Therefore they have no obligation to honor of follow our
laws or ideology or our constitution. We most definetly have no
right to tell people how to live who live in a different country
not to mention hemisphere than us. This is of course, unless their
actions interfere somehow with ours.
Here is data from a survey done on Muslim prejudice using
participants from over 30 countries. This particular set compares
the difference between the percentage of people not willing to have
immigrants as their neighbors and the percentage not willing to
have Muslim immigrants as their neighbors. The findings seem to be
quite pertinent and are very interesting. In Romania the people
polled were 10 percent less willing to have Muslim immigrants as
neighbors as compared to immigrants in general. The Netherlands and
Iceland were 7 and 8 percent higher respectively. Malta topped the
list at a little higher than 12%. Obviously what is so interesting
is that prejudice on average in those three countries is higher
towards Islam than towards other immigrant populations. What is
astonishing though is that out of the thirty countries polled
everyone had a higher percentage against Muslim neighbors except
for three. The survey polled 18 countries from western Europe and
12 from Eastern. If you consider these as representative of Europe
as a whole then the entire continent of Europe on average is
prejudiced towards Muslim neighbors. Why should that be? Why should
Europeans dislike or not want Muslims for neighbors rather than
South Americans, or Canadians, or Australians? Here are some
excerpts from the Discussion and conclusions section of the
research article with the findings of the above survey in it. The
absence of association between a high proportion of Muslims in a
country and a heightened level of prejudice is an especially
interesting finding, and deserves some elaboration. A classical
argument in conflict theory is that the potential for conflict
increases correspondingly with an increase in size of the minority
population. However, this argument is based on an other things
being equal assumption. We can think of at least two different
situations which might lead to the absence of association between
the proportion of Muslims in a country and the countrys average
level of anti-Muslim prejudice. The first is that countries with
larger Muslim populations are stimulated to do a better job in
integrating this group into mainstream society and promoting
tolerant attitudes among the majority population. The second, less
optimistic possibility is that international events are a major
source of negative images and views of Muslims and that these can
lead to an increase in prejudice in a particular country, fairly
independent of the presence of a sizable Muslim population in that
country. When we find that a proportion of the respondents not
wanting a Muslim as a neighbour is somewhat larger in Finland which
practically does not have any Muslim population than in France with
its largest proportion of Muslims in the West Europe and some hotly
debated issues related to the Islam, we are inclined to believe
that other issues than real ethnic conflict are of decisive
importance in the determination of anti-Muslim sentiments. The
conclusion on the research seems to assert that international
events could be the cause to increased anti-Muslim prejudice as the
article puts it. What are some international events connected with
Islam that have recently occurred? The answer seems somewhat
obvious. They are referring to things like the War in Iraq, the
September 11th terrorist attack, and most likely public policy and
political opinion towards the Middle East in general.The answer
seems fairly apparent. The public mind is being stimulated and
breed into a state of what can correctly be referred to as
Islamophobia.Islamophobia or a fear/hatred of Islam and Muslims.
Its main form in public life is the supposed threat of terrorist
activities.. Because the general populace identifies Islam with
violence and suspicions of attack combined with the fact that most
have a limited knowledge of Islams tenets and thinking they
generally do not like Muslims. It is a classic case of fear based
teaching and thinking. The media presents images, articles, etc.
that portray what could be referred to as an Arabic. Take for
example these articles and images. In October, 2005, when The
Progressive ran a cover article that internalized the clash
argument, the cover page featured a bearded, turbaned man
brandishing a scimitar amd waging a fight against a puny White
character. A Washington PostWorks Cited
Kumar, Deepa. Framing Islam: The Resurgence of Orientalism
During the Bush II Era. Journal of Communication Inquiry. July 2010
vol. 4 no.3. 3 Sept. 2010
