Don't associate terror with Islam - Voice of America
I read the Daily Pioneer when I want the
nationalist perspective on things. It is the only English language newspaper in India of high integrity which has not sold out to anti-national vested interests. Today, Editor Chandan Mitra had an article on the Voice of America curbing its press freedoms.
Excerpts:
Here is a memo sent out to staffers by Jennifer Janin, the head of Voice of America’s Urdu service, informing them that the “editors & I have come up with the following guidelines on usage of words & phrases related to terrorism & violence”:
So, VOA will not, for instance, mention the name of Ajmal Ameer Kasab while reporting on the Mumbai terror attack.
“Islamic terrorists: DO NOT USE. Instead use simply: terrorist... Sometimes even the names of the accused themselves point to the identity, and there is no need to specify.”
In conformity with this guideline, a VOA report would say, ‘Violence in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, left 173 people dead and 308 wounded.’
“Terrorism/ terrorist: AVOID OVERUSE. Listeners get tired... Militant, militancy, violent etc can be used descriptively as appropriate.”
“Islamic Fundamentalism/ Muslim Fundamentalists: AVOID... The use of such expressions, more exclusively in case of Muslims, adds to existing misgivings in the Islamic world of an anti-Muslim sentiment ... better to use ‘conservative’... ”. VOA report from Swat: ‘Conservative’ Muslims have decreed that girls can’t attend school and victims of rape will be stoned to death.
“Islamist: NOT NECESSARY... Muslims perceive that it has been ‘intentionally’ rhymed with ‘Fascist’, ‘Communist’ or ‘Anarchist’... We just don’t need this short cut in our reporting.”
Now tell me - isn't the job of the press actually TO uncover such causes of various global events? Or is it to hide them? Isn't the press obliged to the public to tell them things as they are? Or is it to deliberately keep the public in the dark?
These terrorists ARE muslims. They ARE motivated by Islam's ideology of Jihad - they say so themselves! It is the job of the press to tell us everything it knows about terror and its ideological roots, especially when the terrorists are telling us loud and clear "We are waging JIHAD on you kafirs."
This is like the Indian government's infamous circular asking the national textbooks board (NCERT) not to mention anything about atrocities on Hindus during the period of Islamic rule. Not to mention that thousands of Hindu temples were demolished and replaced by mosques. Not to mention any of the massacres. That is as ridiculous as asking the state of Israel to never tell young Jews that the holocaust happened. It is only in India that we do this negation of Hindu suffering. No one else, had they suffered like we did, would have kept so silent. Are we created by God merely to be butchered by these Islamic Jihadis? If not, then let us stop behaving like we are.
I will reproduce the Indian government memo to the textbooks board on this blog soon.
