Is there a pattern of Muslim-Americans getting involved in terrorist attacks against Americans? If you follow the news regularly, you might come to that conclusion.
This morning I wrote a story about the five American Muslim men that were found guilty today by a Pakistani court for terrorism-related charges. While doing my research, I noticed that almost every story was quick to point out that this was one of multiple examples of American Muslims joining arms with terrorists.
A couple examples in The Guardian and the LA Times.
The technique is frequently used by writers, including myself to convince you, the reader, to continue reading a story by proving that a single event is part of an important trend. But in using this trick, writers often fall into the tempting trap to sensationalize and simplify.
Take the NY Times for example. The NY Times reported today that “the young mens' story follows a recent pattern of attempts by American Muslims to join militant groups fighting the United States military in countries like Afghanistan.”
And to prove their point, it linked to a second article, which cites the following famous examples:
July 2009: A 26-year-old Long Island native and convert to Islam is charged with attacking a U.S. military base and working with Al-Qaeda.
Nov 2009: A Muslim Army psychiatrists opens fire at Fort Hood, Texas killing 12 people.
June 2010: And most-recently, Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty to trying to set off a car bomb in Times-Square. Shazad is also a Muslim.
I understand that these aren’t the only cases of Muslim-Americans attacking U.S. citizens. And I also understand that we will never know the exact number of Americans-Muslims that have gone to other countries to get “radicalized” and trained to kill. But even if there were say, 30 such known incidents, could we fairly conclude that there is a pattern of angry American-Muslims turning to extremism and signing up to become suicide bombers?
According to the 2008 U.S. census, there are 1,349,000 Muslims in America. That means even if 30 of these Muslims tried to attack fellow Americans, less than 0.01% would be guilty.
So why have these stories caused such a wave of excitement in the U.S.? The answer is pretty obvious- they hit home. These stories send the message that your nice Muslim friend and neighbor could be secretly plotting a terrorist attack, right under your nose. And when stories hit home, the media will cover it, and cover it until there is not a single American left in the dark (think about the current media obsession with the BP oil spill).
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but when the media engages in such story-overload, it can give the impression that a certain event is more prevalent than it actually is. That explains why Americans are more afraid of flying in planes than driving in cars which are more likely to end in a crash. And it also explains why Americans might see American-Muslims as a threat.
Granted, there has been an increase of American-Muslims turning to terrorism since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but I hesitate to accept the claim that an increase necessarily entails there is a “pattern”. Now you might be wondering why I'm making such a big deal over one word, but when one word is published in one of America's most well-respected papers, and repeated by politicians and pundits, it becomes a reality in the minds of Americans and further alienates a predominantly peaceful, hard-working population of our country which deserves nothing less than respect- even if that respect makes a news story a little less exciting.
