In a time of crisis, it is natural human nature to imply the finger of the blame at whoever is the closest. Regardless, it is one thing to merely think about it, but an entirely different thing to publish your beliefs.
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, all fingers have been pointed at the Muslims. The newspapers have lowered their standards of decency in regards to what they will print in their pages.
It would be considered completely absurd to publish racist comments normally in our day and age, so why are we allowing discrimination and ignorant thoughts to be delivered to our doorsteps in the paper.
Canadians pride themselves in being objective in their news coverage. However, the Toronto Star is guilty of allowing letters and articles that give a misleading impression of Muslims to be published.
Newspapers regard this as exercising freedom of speech. But at what cost? People are not born racist, it is taught. By allowing absolute rubbish against Muslims to be published, we are teaching our childhood that it is okay to hate a group of people based on their religion alone.
Media ethics need to be at their absolute highest right now because many people do not understand Muslims. It is the job of media representatives to represent them fairly and truthfully. They must give a more balanced view of Muslim civilizations.
In the November 2, 2001 Letters page of The Star, there was a very ignorant letter by Mike Michaels published. In this letter, Michaels claims that it is true Muslim fashion to oppress non-Muslims.
Historically, it is easy to see that Michaels is gravely misinformed. Islam was able to spread into India and the Iberian Peninsula in Europe within a short few decades. This would not have been possible without the support of the Christian population, which suggests that the Christians were more suppressed under Christian rule than under Muslim.
I expect the Star to have a better awareness of historical facts. It was after all Muslim land that the Jewish migrants from the collapsing Islamic Spain went to rest while escaping the Christian armies.
Not only did The Star publish a letter which was racist-driven, but they also allowed a skewed a version of the facts to be put out to the public.
If the Star wants to publish letters like this, then they should also include a religion page in their newspaper to maintain objectiveness. For most of the general public, myself included, the Muslim religion and history is an area that we know little about. It is not fair to the Muslim community and unsuspecting readers to only be given a tilted version of the facts. It is not the reader's task to check the validity of information published within a newspaper, it is the job of the newspaper.
In the November 5, 2001 publication of the Star, ignorance made the front page. An article was published that referred to Pakistans bombs as the Islamic world's first nuclear bomb. How can a bomb have a religion? You don't ever hear anyone say that a nuclear bomb is Christian. Why is there so much concern about the religion of Pakistans nuclear bomb?
By doing this, the Star is making a direct correlation between nuclear bombs and the Islamic religion. It is almost brainwashing the public, by putting the two words together. Pakistans bomb, I'm afraid, doesn't have a religion; it never did. It is a Pakistans bomb. Period.
This type of direction, as small as it may seem, instructs to the kind of racist attacks that we have seen since the September 11,2001on Canadian Muslim groups.
It puts fear in the mind of the reader, by almost implying that if you are Islamic then you must condone nuclear bombs, otherwise, it would not be an Islamic bomb.
Be guided everyone, stayed safe by having a nice reading of my article.
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