Date: 26/06/2014
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A PC( politically correct) ISLAM FOR JOURNALISTS
Please read the article below. It tells once again how misreading of Islam leading to rise of situations like Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,ISIS which is said to be more dangerous than Al-Qaeda.
In order to be politically correct , even after 9/11/2001 attack which provided ample evidence as to how Jihad works , even the august members of well noted think tanks that are supposed to educate,inform both public and politicians so that correct policies could be formulated, were going around telling audience like cadets of Naval Academy in US, that Islamist ideology has nothing to do with religion of Islam, that was unleashed against US.
May be, after all Islam is a peace loving religion. But then is it not the job of think tankers who are well paid to do thinking to elucidate the reasons behind events ? Have they done any honest research to conclude like they did? Or for that matter have they at least study Koran and Hadith or researched history as to how Jihad over centuries was carried out ? All of these could have helped us to separate the religion of Islam from violence . Either deliberate or out of political correctness ignoring all these aspects have lead to surprise after surprise since 9/11 which have clearly laid out ideology, motivational springs for Jihad for policy makers and planners in world's most powerful nation. Sadly that part of the ' war' on terrorism is missing. In fact now PC calls for not even calling free nations' struggles against world wide Islamist terrorism as 'war'.
In fact in India, though not part of any well paid think tank, instead even persecuted for calling a spade a spade, real thinkers Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel , fearlessly leaving aside political correctness have clearly laid out the road map of Jihad from its origin to date, its ideological fountainhead.
Many think that Islam is some sort of monolithic entity, as such misjudge the internecine feuds among Moslems based on their sect or cult with in Islam. Wahabi ideology is different from Sufi though both proclaim to be Moslems. So is Sunni-Shia divisions. Ramswarup and Sita Ram Goel wrote about Wahabis the danger they pose to civilization long before Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,ISIS arose to bring yet another true, pure Islam to states in middle east.
ISIS is nothing but practical form of Wahabi ideology like its parent Al-Qaeda coming from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab States to extend their Sunni Domination. They consider Shias as apostates and treat them as such , witness persecution of Shias in S Arabia, Pakistan etc all Sunni dominant areas.
ISIS is said to be more brutal than Al-Qaeda, another Saudi originated outfit that spectacularly brought Jihad to American shores. What happened to US on 9.11.2001 though shocking and surprising to Americans, is not new to India which suffered such attacks 1000 of times, over 1000s of years with best of constructions of Hindu civilization, architecture,engineering art and science leveled to the ground.
And some thing that happened in India is yet to take place in US. In all sites Jihad has visited in India, there is a mosque, the construction of which at such sites it appears obligatory to serve as 'ocular manifestation' of triumph of Islam over Kufrs. It is not for lack of trying such phenomenon did not take place yet in US. In fact it almost succeeded. The ardent, devout and peace loving Islamic Organizations wanted to do just that, put up a mosque right where World Trade Center bombed with live jet planes to the ground. However public sentiment being what it is in US still, next best thing was to have a mosque in the vicinity which was granted by NY city government as well as blessed by White House. However hue and cry against this gesture by public in US which still remains uninformed about 'giant contributions of Islam' made all around world appears to have put a stop to this project, perhaps temporarily. Temporary because there are intense efforts being made to educate ignorant Americans about beauty of Islam of beloved Prophet. In spreading this message learned professors are recruited . For instance here are some samples from a lesson to Journalists as to how to write about Islam accurately.
For instance, 'it is wrong to equate Jihad with violence', instead 'jihad is a positive exercise, a "struggle for God" so says a guide published by Edward R . Murrow College of Communication. It is also claimed that terrorist Hamas opposes Jihad and that HIV/AIDS is bigger threat than terrorism.( Editorial, IBD, April 10,2014)
We gullible Indians thought that only secular elite in India specialized in highlighting virtues of Jihad, Shariat incorporating some of their provisions into Constitution of India through amendments, while informing the equally ignorant public in India about , 'giant contributions of Islam' made to India. But we are very mistaken. Virtues of Jihad and Jihad itself for that matter remained strange to West. Even stranger because of specious apologia provided by thinks tankers, politically correct journalists ended up distorting the facts further.
However there are still some in west as well who came to same conclusions more or less like Sitaram Goel and Ram Swarup, that it is ideology that is responsible for violence of Jihad, Islamist terrorism. Majority of people calling themselves Muslims may be moderate , law abiding and peaceful , like say majority Germans , Russians, or Chinese yet Nazis, Stalinists, and Maoists from them as Ms. Brigette Gabriel pointed out carried out pogroms,genocides affecting millions on a large , continental scale. Such majorities of moderates are useless in preventing holocausts unless motivational ideologies are neutralized. Political Correctness, PC, is a major hurdle to that process.
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PS: It may be noted foreign policy of a developed nation like US can turn on dime. Yesterday Iran remained a pariah. To day the same Shia majority state is being sought to fight the ISIS, a menace to both US and Iran interests. Some of India are still arguing about visa denial to Modi to reject invitation of President Obama. Fortunately Narendra Modi is a mature leader , he readily accepted it.
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“Islam for Journalists”: Journalists for Sharia censorship
Robert Spencer Apr 8, 2014 at 4:55pm dhimmitude, journalistic bias, Useful idiots 83 Comments
http://www.jihadwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/islamforjournalists.jpg“A commitment to press freedom is in my blood,” Lawrence Pintak insists in Islam for Journalists, which has been heartily endorsed by Hamas-linked CAIR. Then he proceeds to qualify his commitment to press freedom right out of existence. Referring to the Muhammad cartoons and the Muslim riots that followed them, he says that “many Muslim journalists simply couldn’t understand why Western news organizations would republish the offensive images just because” of a legal right, for “journalism is not supposed to be a weapon”; it is meant “to inform, not inflame.”
This amounts to an endorsement of the idea that Western journalists should censor themselves in accord with Sharia restrictions on criticism of Islam, so as to avoid using journalism as a “weapon” that might “inflame” Muslims. And many eagerly do censor themselves. One university held a seminar on the Muhammad cartoon controversy, they wouldn’t show the cartoons themselves. A publishing house put out a book about the controversy — without reprinting the cartoons. This is not “informing” rather than “inflaming”; it is abject surrender to Sharia blasphemy restrictions.
“Islam for Dummies: A Journalist ‘Guide’ Whitewashes Islam,” by Andrew Harrod in The Blaze, April 8:
“[U]ninformed, inaccurate or consciously provocative journalism” concerning Islam worries Lawrence Pintak, founding dean of Washington State University’s Edward R. Murrow College of Communication.
Unfortunately, Pintak’s remedy to this problem, the online guide “Islam for Journalists” edited by Pintak, betrays an absurdly benign understanding of an Islam whose apparent only fault is being slandered by others.
“Across the Muslim world today,” Pintak’s introduction notes, “extremists are wielding their swords with grisly effect, but the pen…can be just as lethal.”
The 2012 “lewd cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad” in the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, for example, receive Pintak’s censure while, like many journalists today, he uncritically applies the honorific “Prophet” to Islam’s founder. Charlie Hebdo’s editor had condemned the weapons used in violent reactions to the anti-Muhammad “Innocence of Muslims” internet movie trailer preceding his cartoons. Yet the “weapon he controlled can do far more damage,” Pintak warned in equating speech with the violent reactions of others, then “evident in the conflagration…erupting across the Muslim world.”
“A commitment to press freedom is in my blood,” Pintak qualified against suspicions of censorship. Yet speaking of the 2005 Danish Muhammad cartoons and their violent response, Pintak showed sympathy for those who refused their publication.“[M]any Muslim journalists,” Pintak related in denying these “Motoons” any news value, “simply couldn’t understand why Western news organizations would republish the offensive images just because” of a legal right. Yet “journalism is not supposed to be a weapon” but rather “to inform, not inflame; to understand, not distort,” in contrast to “propaganda.”
The Danish cartoons exhibited “in our increasingly interconnected world,” writer Jonathan Lyonssimilarly relativized, “a number of central issues.” These included the “proper extent of press freedoms; minority rights; the shifting landscape of blasphemy laws and prohibitions; and the history of Muslim grievance toward the West.”
Rather than criticize Muslim rioters, Lyons complained that “almost no one reported on…the Danish media and its supporters as cynical provocateurs motivated by domestic political concerns.”
Beyond free speech controversies, “Islam for Journalists” favored Islam with numerous biased and false statements.
After discussing how Islam “roughly translates as ‘surrender’ or ‘submission’…to the will of Allah,” Pintak noted that Muhammad in Islam, “although he is not divine, he is considered ‘the Perfect Man.’”
“By imitating him,” Pintak stated without any critical questioning of Muhammad’s example, “Muslims hope to acquire his interior attitude—perfect surrender to God.” Pintak also takes an uncritical approach towards Muhammad’s migration or hijara to Yathrib (Medina) in order to escape his pagan opponents in Mecca.
“Muslims interpret Muhammad’s decision to embark on this exodus as a teaching that they should not live under tyranny,” Pintak proclaims, omitting any controversial discussion of the Islamic law Muhammad developed.
Western “notions of Islam,” meanwhile, Lyons dismisses without explanation. These include “irrational; spread by the sword and maintained by force; and sexually perverse and abusive toward women” as well as “unsuited to democratic institutions, science, and modernity.” Such views “had their origins as wartime propaganda, dating to beginning of the Crusades,” Lyons asserts, ignoring Western hostility towards Islam originating in centuries of pre-Crusades Islamic aggression.
“Innocence of Muslims” “drew on Crusades-era propaganda to slander the Prophet Muhammad,” Lyons further claims, even though canonical Islamic accounts underlie this poorly-made film.
In all, the “West had had no direct experience or knowledge of Muslim beliefs, practices, and lifestyles at the time that it established its comprehensive vision of Islam as a deadly, existential, and essentially immutable threat.”
Apparently for Lyons, ongoing Muslim invasion and subjugation of Christian societies dating from Islam’s beginning is not direct enough….
In the West, meanwhile, the real threat is apparently an often “lucrative…anti-Islam movement” whose “goal is to prohibit the free exercise of Islam,” journalist Bob Smietana warns….
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