Muslims Portrayed

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By Ghali Hassan
17 July, 2004
Countercurrents.org

"The damage caused by the Crusades was the poisoning of the Western mind against the Muslim world through a deliberate misrepresentation of the teachings and ideals of Islam". Mohammed Asad, The Road to Mecca.

Given the relatively low frequency of reporting on Muslims and Islam in
general in the media, it is not surprising that the Western media displays a
distorted image of Islam and Muslims. Television programs and the print
mainstream media have perpetuated the stereotypes of Islam and Muslims for years. Media images of Islam are omnipresent and are part of Western culture of racism and imperial design. Islam has always been seen in the West as violent, barbaric, anti-democratic, anti-human, anti-rational, etc. The aim is to turn Muslims into an enemy people, to be regarded collectively with contempt and scorn.

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In Australia, Muslims have been subjected to unprovoked racist attacks. Muslim women wearing traditional clothes were spat upon, physically assaulted and had their scarves ripped from their heads. Mosques were firebombed and Islamic schools and other community facilities vandalised or deluged with hate mail. Following the Bali bombing, the Liberal government of John Howard saw an opportunity to inflame the situation by targeting innocent Muslims as "terrorist suspects". Without any substantiated evidence, homes of Muslim students in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth were raided by Australian Federal Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, seizing properties and interrogating terrified Indonesian families. Muslims are the only people who remain whom one can indulge in bashing with impunity.


A study on racist attitudes conducted by the University of New South Wales in 2003 found one in eight Australians interviewed admitted they were prejudiced, particularly towards Muslim Australians. The study, conducted by a team led by geography lecturer Kevin Dunn, also found some Australians were living in denial of such prejudice though 80 per cent of those surveyed recognized racism was a problem.

Dr. Dunn writes that Australia has a "hard core of racists" and that some of
the country's worst racism is found especially in more "working class"
suburbs of Sydney and Brisbane. However, this is not the case. Racism in
Australia is institutionalised and systemic. It is not only just confined to
working class Australians. It is like blaming the abuse and torture of Iraqi
POWs by US occupying forces on "a few bad apples". Furthermore, while there remains "persistent intolerance" to Aboriginal and Jewish Australians,
anti-Muslim sentiment is "very strong", the study observed.

Racism in Australia is not new phenomena, and it is not prompted by the 9/11 or the Bali bombing, as suggested. Racism is a diet feed continuously to the public by conservative political parties and mainstream media. Evidence of surveys carried out in Australia in the late 1980s found Muslims are the most discriminated and victimized Australians.

http://www.countercurrents.org/hr-hassan170704.htm

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1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[iconoclastic cat]

2. Reactionary rants are not helpful.

Instead of verbally lashing out, perhaps you could put together a reasoned criticism of the correlation of Islam's "image" and its traditional practices.