The great deception is a propaganda which a devious section of the west is doing against the religion of Islam in all spheres of life. The gist of the propaganda is that Muslims are terrorists, savages, extremists, they do oppression against women and above all, they violate basic human rights.
The association of Islam and violence is a common misconception that the general Western public has been led to develop about Islam. Islam is “news” of a particularly unpleasant sort. Muslims are described as fanatics, irrational, primitive, belligerent, and dangerous.
In reality, this negative attitude is undeserved and is not based on solid facts. Halliday distinguishes two types of anti-Muslimism: a ‘strategic’ and a ‘populist’ variant. The first mentioned originates in the United States and is related to and fed by issues such as oil supplies, nuclear weapons, and terrorism. It dates back to the 1970s and is primarily the result of the OPEC prices rise, the Iranian revolution and the hostages crises of the US diplomatic personnel in Tehran, the bombing of the World Trade Centre in 1993, and the subsequent prejudiced analysis of these events by the press.
Although this type of anti-Muslimism can also be found in Western Europe, the populist anti-Muslimism is otherwise the predominant type in this part of the world. It has emerged as a reaction to and is concerned with issues related to the presence of Muslims in Western societies such as assimilation, integration, race, veiling and so forth. By doing so, they try to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In recent years, this approach has led to the emergence of “Islamophobia”.
A survey by Jack Shaheen in his book, “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies People”, found that the vast majority of Arab characters in 900 American films were outright racist characters. Images of common day life and ordinary Muslims in their countries are almost non-existent or distorted in the western media.
After 9/11 the terms “Muslim” and “Terrorist” became synonymous in many western countries. Since this event, many experts and activists in the field of human rights have warned of the escalation of Islamophobia and racism against Muslims in many western countries.
Islam is the fastest growing religion in the West. Nevertheless, the West has many stereotypes and misconceptions about Islam that are due to the media, prejudice, and ignorance. Islam is often looked upon as an “extremist”, “terrorist”, or “fundamental” religion. Many people hate Islam and do not want to acknowledge its true teachings. This “radical Islam”, a stereotype common to Western thought, portrays Muslims as fundamentalists or potential terrorists.
The media then develops a distorted image of Islam than Western culture. Adding to the fact that the media creates inaccurate ideas about Islam, the Western media is also very influential to its audience in making negative Islamic stereotypes, such as the assertion that all Muslims are fundamentalists.
The term “fundamentalist” is actually a term that is interpreted by the media. A fundamentalist, in fact, only represents a normal Muslim who follows his or her religion. Some biased reports come from negative images that have happened in the Muslim world in the past like the hijacking of airplanes by Palestinians, the occupation of the United States Embassy by students in Tehran, the fact that there are no democratic governments in most Islamic countries, and the Gulf War. For most of these events, the media has misrepresented them.
The media sometimes unintentionally blows things out of proportion, sometimes because of biased feelings toward Muslims. However, many positive developments in the Muslims world rarely go noticed. Some inaccurate representations of Islam are often due to the media’s incorrect representations of Islamic countries, such as jihad, or Islam women’s rights.
Another great misconception that exists is the truth about Jihad or “holy war” in Islam… The Quran (Muslim Holy Book) says “Fight for the sake of Allah to those that fight against you, but do not attack them first. Allah (God) does not love aggression”. A Muslim is permitted to take up arms only as an act of self-defence. A Muslim has the right to defend his life, and his property.
The association of Islam and violence is a common misconception that the general Western public has developed about Islam. An example of this kind of misconception is that the Western media and some historians often say that Islam was a religion spread by the sword, meaning that Muslims went from one end of the world to the other forcing people to either convert or die.
For instance, what Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq, did in the Gulf War was not Islamic and totally wrong (to attack other people for no reason). But the media still makes reports about Islam and how Islam is made of war-crazed people. For example, to help, put things into perspective, Hitler was a person of the Christian faith. This does not mean that all of his actions were consistent with the Christian beliefs. Likewise, Saddam Hussein is of the Islamic faith, but all of his actions do not necessarily represent Islam. So you can see that the media’s reports about “war-crazed Muslims” are incorrect.
As well as creating inaccurate images about Islam, the Western media usually identifies Islam in Muslim conflicts. The media hardly points other religions out in their conflicts. For example, the news would say, “Five Israelis may have been shot, but they were shot by five Muslims”, instead of saying “Five Israelis were shot by five Palestinians”.
The media often reverses this action when a conflict is against Muslims, for example the news would usually say “Bosnians are being killed by Serbians”, but instead rarely say, “Muslims are being killed by Christians”. In addition to the media’s inaccurate representations about Islamic conflicts, human rights of women in Islam, such as women veiling and women authority are big topics that Western media often confuses and misinterprets.
The media often represents Islam as a male dominant religion where Muslim men have complete authority over all groups of people. The media often says that Islam discriminates against women, and that women have no power or authority. However, it is ironic of what the media represents, that the Prophet Mohammed was one the greatest reformers for women. In fact, Islam probably is the only religion that formally teaches women’s rights and finds ways to protect them. When Islam is practiced correctly, it becomes the best example of an equal gender society.
As Islam came around, traditional pre-Islamic roles of women were replaced by new Islamic roles that women followed. Islam allowed women to have the right to be educated and the right to participate in political, economical, and social activities in their community. This created upward mobility in their communities. Women were also given the right to vote, something the U.S. did not allow until 1919.
Women were given the right to inherit property and take charge of their possessions. While most of these rights are denied to Muslim women today as a result of cultural tradition, one should not associate this with Islam, because they do not correlate with it. Islamic women wearing veils is a commonly misunderstood concept in the West. Westerners often think that this is a harsh custom that Islam requires of women. Westerners often say these women have no freedom or dignity for wearing these veils.
But in fact, these veils actually help protect women and help them remain in chastity. In Islamic societies there are very few rape cases and AIDS victims as opposed to the Western societies, where there are thousands of rape cases and AIDS infected victims a year. But in some countries, like Saudi Arabia, women are forced to wear abbeys (floor length veils). Such excessive forms of these kinds of dress are not mentioned in Islam. Islam requires women to wear a veil for their own safety, but if a woman chooses not to wear it, it is her choice and it is between her and her God. God will do anything He wants to her in this world and the after.
What I am saying is that negative images of Islam are very much more prevalent than any others, and that such images correspond, not to what Islam “is” but to what prominent sectors of a particular society take it to be. Those sectors have the power and the will to propagate that particular image of Islam, and this image therefore becomes more prevalent, more present, than all others.
John L. Esposito’s book, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality, states the question, is Islam a threat to the West? He tells us that the answer lies in the West’s views. He says that if the Western powers continue to defend the unjust status of the Middle East in the name of an illusory or fleeting stability, Islam will be a threat. “But if the Western powers begin to appreciate the legitimacy of grievances in the Middle East, the West and Islamic movements will get along peacefully”.
With the Western media’s spotlight and some Western governmental attitudes, the West is a place where Islam is a name of negativity. The Western media has contributed a great deal to this negative image of Islam. The media often misrepresents and inaccurately explains Islam and its manifestations public gets. Sometimes the media seems to be biased against Islam. When the media distorts the image of Islam, the general public tend to believe it, because the media is a major source of information to them about Islam.
This ignorance that the West accumulates from the media leads them into making stereotypes about Islam and associating all Muslims and Arabs together. The West often times views Islam as “fundamental” “extremist” or “discriminatory”, but all of these terms have been manipulated, purposely because of biased feelings and or because of ignorance, by the media to present a negative image of Islam.
Islam is actually a peaceful and fair religion that most often does not correspond to how the media portrays. As Islam grows more and more in the West, Westerners will eventually learn the truth about Islam and find out that these negative stereotypes are incorrect. As more people follow Islam, the media will start to learn about it, understand it, and report about it in positive ways.
