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.
2 comments:
Grace, I love you. However, there is an interesting thing to note in regards the radicalization of American Muslims in relation to the rest of the world. In 2005 at the height of American arrogance and failures of the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq there were approximately 1000 radical Islamic websites in Arabic and barely a handful in English. Today, 2010, there are less than 200 such radical sites in Arabic and an ever increasing number in English.
You mention that of the 1.4 million Muslims in the United States only a handful have been found guilty of committing violent acts against Americans and if we assume that number was increased six-fold less than .01% of the Muslim population would be radical enough to commit violent acts. Yes, this is true. And in no way am I writing with the intent to slander Muslim Americans (who are some of my best friends and whose establishments I regularly patronize), I am simply trying to show that there is an increasing trend among Muslims Americans converting to radical Islam, and even if they are unwilling to commit to violent action, their message is still growing on a daily basis amongst the American Muslim population through the use of the Internet.
Therefore, even if less than .01% are able and willing to commit violent actions, an astonishing number of people might actually be complicit in their support of their efforts by being silent. The silence and lack of a dominant public voice against the goals and actions taken by radical Muslims - in America and abroad - to me, is in and of itself more dangerous than violent acts themselves.
Hey G,
Thanks for your comment!
I have no doubt that there are more extremist websites today than ever before, but my critique is primarily directed at the NY Times (and other similar news sources) which take for granted that there is “...a recent pattern of attempts by American Muslims to join militant groups fighting the United States military...” In other words, they're arguing that more American Muslims are joining to fight, not just passively support the ideals of terrorists.
If there is indeed such a pattern, the Times makes a poor case by citing only a few popular examples. The fact that there are a bunch of websites encouraging people to join the ranks of terrorists doesn't convince me either because websites can be created by anyone from anywhere around the world. Because they're in English doesn't necessarily mean that they originated in America. And if they are targeting Americans, where's the evidence that they are successful?
Very interesting point though, where did you get the information about the websites?
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