Allegra
Garrett
Jihad/Terrorism
in the Media
April
5, 2012
Fox News recently published an article about a French Muslim
gunman named Mohammed Merah who is believed to have killed at least seven
people on film. He is believed to be connected to the notorious Al-Qaeda
organization. The link to the full article is below:
Mohammed
Merah, a 23-year old Frenchman, who is also Muslim, was killed by police in a
shoot-out after a 32 hour stand-off on March 22. The Al-Jazeera News Network
received a video tape in the mail of suspect Merah’s attacks and murders of
three paratroopers, three Jewish schoolchildren, and one rabbi. The videos were
filmed from the murderer’s perspective, seemingly from a camera that had been
hung around the perpetrators neck. Al-Jazeera decided not to air the tapes.
One of
the big questions that the French police have is “who sent the tapes”? They
believe that Merah was probably not the sender of the videotapes, the main
suspect being his brother. The contents of the tapes, besides graphic killings,
include “religious songs, and recitations of Quranic verses laid over the
footage,” with screams from the victims and the murderers voice being heard
during other parts. Merah’s father, who does not live in France, was upset by
the fact that his son was killed by police instead of being taken in and
“judged.” President of the French government, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, has
explained that he will take measures to stop the spread of “radical ideas” and
to “[penalize] those who regularly consult websites that promote jihad”.
In this
particular article, there are no redeeming qualities applied to Muslims and no
actual explanation of what jihad is. In my opinion, this article relies mostly
on stereotypes of violence coming from Muslims. Discrimination against Muslims
is very high in France, which is where this article comes from (Paris to be
exact), the article ending with explanations from Sarkozy to basically try and
“expel radicals” and keep them out of France. This article is from Fox News,
which is known to have American, right-wing bias, being recognized to have
portrayed Muslims in a negative light more often than not (i.e. Bill O’Reilly).
Perspectives of other French Muslims, the majority of whom are not violent or
associated with Al-Qaeda and who happen to be a large part of the population of
France, were not at all interviewed and not really mentioned in this article.
The perspectives of the controversial president Sarkozy and the views of the
police are essentially the only ones elaborated on.
No comments:
Post a Comment