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I want to ask a question that may sound very, very stupid. Nevertheless, this question is at the heart of the frustration that I have been feeling for many weeks while I read the mainstream press coverage of the bloodshed in Iraq.
A few years ago I was in Czech Republic to witness the baptism of a dear friend. We went to Kutna Hora, home to the beautiful Sv. Barbory (Saint Barbara) Cathedral, one of the most famous Gothic churches in Europe. From Jan Svankmajer’s film, I knew of an ossuary nearby that I wanted to visit. Hana repeatedly told me that I shouldn’t go, but I insisted.
More and more Americans don’t like Muslims, says a Washington Post-ABC News poll, and one-third of all Americans hear prejudiced comments directed against Muslims.
Some roots are shallow and weak. They do the everyday job of holding their plant in the ground, but when given a slight yank of the wrist, they come right out of the ground.
It will be interesting to see how media coverage of yesterday’s unfortunate event in North Carolina develops. Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, an Iranian-born man raised in Charlotte, drove an SUV into a crowd of students at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. No one was killed and a handful were injured. The local ABC affiliate explains:
Another cartoon controversy involving religion has popped up in the news. This time it involves an American educational institution (Radford University in Virginia) and a student-run Internet magazine (Whim). There’s been no talk of censorship, according to administration officials, despite some protests from students. Another installment of the cartoon tilted “Christ On Campus” is supposed to be launched Friday by sophomore Christian Keesee.
Anyone who knows anything about global religious-liberty issues has known for several years that Nigeria is a bomb waiting to go off. In the north, Muslim states have pressed for sharia law. In the largely Christian and animist south, leaders have struggled to embrace the rule of law, as defined in the West. The two legal doctrines cannot, by definition, coexist and, thus, Nigeria has been sitting on a legal and religious landmine.
I know that the following op-ed piece isn’t hard news, but it is opinion about the shaping of the news. And I do think that some very interesting people are getting upset about the same things.
I’ve noticed a shift in the cartoon coverage and in many bloggers’ attitudes toward the image-inspired violence and arguments over whether the images should have been published by media organizations. This shift has been driven largely by events on the ground that are just too huge to ignore, particularly as the “Furor Over Cartoons Pits Muslim Against Muslim,” as a New York Times headline writer phrased it Tuesday.
