March 8, 2006
Media
Won't Report Radical Islamic Events
By Tony Blankley
Denial is an often useful innate human trait. Few of us would be
able to function in the present if we did not put out of mind many
unpleasant realities -- such as our inevitable death. The Woody
Allen character in the movie "Annie Hall" stated the comic
extreme version of not using the denial mechanism when, as a child
he refused to do his homework because in 5 billion years the sun
would explode, "so, what's the use?"
But when
a person, or a society, denies emerging or imminent dangers, the
peace of mind it gains will be extremely short term, while the
harm may be sustained or fatal.
Most of
the world today not only is in denial concerning the truly appalling
likely consequences of the rise of radical Islam, it often refuses
to even accept unambiguous evidence of its existence.
The latest
minor example of the latter is occurring at University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. As has been generally reported, an Iranian
Muslim student drove a jeep into a crowd of students, causing
only minor injuries. He turned himself in and informed the police
and the media that he was trying to kill the students to "avenge
the deaths of Muslims around the world."
Neither
the university nor most of the media has been willing to characterize
this event as a terrorist attempt by a radical Muslim. Mr. Colmes,
on "Hannity and Colmes" seemed to express genuine puzzlement
as to why it mattered whether we called it that or merely an act
of violence. Similarly, the attack at the Los Angeles International
Airport a few years ago was for nine months just called a violent
attack, before it was finally characterized by police as a radical
Muslim act of terrorism.
I have been
in contact with British politicians who tell me that there is
increasing radical Muslim street violence in Britain that is explicitly
motivated by radical Islam but is not reported or characterized
as such. Even in its cleansed versions, I am told, these incidents
are being extremely underreported.
In Antwerp
last month, according to the reporter Paul Belien, rioting Moroccan
"youths" went on a rampage destroying cars and beating
up reporters, but the police were instructed not even to stop
them or arrest them. According to an anonymous policeman, "An
ambulance was told to switch off its siren because that might
provoke the Moroccans." This event, too, was under reported,
or not reported at all in American media.
And of course,
last October in Paris and other French cities, hundreds of buildings
were torched and tens of thousands of cars burned by Muslim "youths"
through weeks of rioting, while both the French government and
most of the "responsible" experts denied there was any
radical Muslim component to the greatest urban violence to hit
France since World War. It was all to do with poverty and teenage
angst and alienation.
Of course
poverty and alienation can't explain the Iranian student in North
Carolina. He has just received one of the finest educations available
to a privileged American. He reportedly has received advanced
degrees in philosophy and psychology from one of our top universities.
The media
has pointed out that there is no evidence he was connected to
Al Qaeda or another terrorist cell. But that is exactly the point.
As I discussed in my book last year, the threat to the West is
vastly more than bin Laden and Al Qaeda (although that would be
bad enough.)
The greater
danger is the ferment in Islam that is generating radical ideas
in an unknown, but growing percentage of grass-roots Muslims around
the world -- very much including in Europe and, to a currently
lesser extent, in the United States.
A nation
cannot design (and maintain public support for) a rational response
to the danger if the nature and extent of the danger is not identified,
widely reported and comprehended.
What are
we dealing with? A few maladjusted "youth"? Or a larger
and growing number of perfectly well-adjusted men and women --
who just happen to be adjusted to a different set of cultural,
religious (or distorted religious) and political values. And does
it matter that those values are inimical to western concepts of
tolerance, democracy, equality and religious freedom?
The public
has the right and vital need to have the events of our time fully
and fairly described and reported. But a witch's brew of psychological
denial and political correctness is suppressing the institutional
voices of government, police, schools, universities and the media
when it comes to radical Islam.
As the danger
grows but is not publicly described, the public will first be
ignorant and fail to demand sufficient remedial action.
But as incidents
and rumors are encountered over time, the public mind will inevitably
suspect the worst and demand the strongest action. Demagogues
will emerge to gratify that vox populi. (The Dubai port deal is
a small example of such a process -- although in that incident
the threat is real and there are many sincere and rational voices
amidst the many demagogues.)
Institutional
voices are not being responsible by suppressing honest description
of radical Islamic events. Denying the existence of evil (or refusing
to be judgmental about it) has never proved a reliable method
for defeating it. Hell is presumably filled with souls who didn't
understand that point.
Copyright
2006 Creators Syndicate
