Cahaya's Rants

KUALA LUMPUR, July 27 (Bernama) — The Western media’s generally biased reporting on Islam and the Muslim community and how it has affected the Muslim world will be the main topic of discussion at next week’s international conference on representation of Islam and Muslims in the media.

The two-day conference entitled, ‘Representation of Islam and Muslim in Media’ and attended by communication scholars, is held at Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) here on Tuesday.

Organised by the Department of Communication Kuliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), the conference will look into various aspects of how Islam and Muslims are represented in the media.

Head of IIUM Department of Communication, Dr Azmuddin Ibrahim said among areas to be looked into included the reporting on war and conflicts in Muslim countries and Islam in non-main stream media in Muslim and Western societies.

He said the conference would also touch on Islam in the orientalist literature (past and present), fictional representation of Muslims, Islam and the new media, Deconstructing and Reconstructing Islam, Representation of Islam as a Civilization and Media Framing of Islam.

“From this conference, we hope to see whether there is really biasness in media reporting on Islam and Muslims…from there, we hope to get ideas on how to put things in place (proper perspective).

“Probably, we could suggest more studies be done so that we can get the true picture of what is happening. Otherwise, it is not fair for Islam and the Muslims,” he told Bernama here today.

Dr Azmuddin said the generally negative reporting on Islam and Muslim by the Western media worsened, particularly after the 2001 Sept 11 incident, whereby Islam and Muslims were usually associated with backwardness, extremist and fundamentalists, threatening and other negative images, thus putting Muslims under scrutiny by others.

Is reporting the truth on what goes on with Islam and Muslims bias? Take for example the following stories.

Muslims storm Protestant school in Jakarta, injuring 265 students

Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Police evacuated the Christian Theological Arastamar Institute (STT SETIA) which is located in an eastern district of the Indonesian capital after it suffered damages during clashes between Christians and Muslims over the week-end. At least 1,500 students were moved to nearby police headquarters and a local Christian-based political party. The situation remains critical and further violence between opposite factions cannot be ruled out.

“The school foundation urged us to intervene to protect people,” said East Jakarta District Police Chief Senior Superintendent. “For this reason we moved everyone out.”

Last night hundreds of residents from the village of Kampung Pulo had taken up arms threatening to storm the school after being instigated by an imam at a local mosque who claimed that a bunch of Christian gangsters were coming to “protect” the school after it was attacked on Saturday by a Muslim mob, causing damage to the building and hurting hundreds.

Full story here.

Bali terrorist: “For Islam, dying by decapitation is a blessing”
Jakarta (AsiaNews) – According to Islamic law, it is better “to die by decapitation than by gunshot”, and no “repentance or regret” must be shown over violence committed “in the name of holy war”. This is the “spiritual testament” of Imam Samudra, one of the three people responsible for the massacre in Bali in 2002, in which more than 200 people died. The three are awaiting judgment from the Indonesian authorities.

“Until I die, I will show no repentance for my actions”, the terrorist is believed to have said to his brother Lulu Jamaluddin during a recent conversation at the maximum-security prison on the island of Nusakambangan, in central Java. He also added that a holy war, conducted through “the use of bombs” and suicide bombing attacks, is “blessed by God”, for which reason he will never make “appeals to clemency” to avoid the death penalty.

Full story here.

How do folks participating in the international conference propose the western media report these stories? Pretend that the people who storm the Protestant school were not Muslims? That their actions were not religiously motivated?

How about the Bali terrorist’s remorselessness? Should the media pretend that his heinous act had nothing to do with his faith?

The media’s reporting of Islam will only change if there are less violence perpetrated by Muslims especially on non-Muslims.