It Depends On Who’s Being Killed
There’s a war on, remember? As far as Canadians are concerned, it’s the war in Afghanistan. As far was the world should be concerned, the occupation of Iraq is quickly approaching its sixth year – that’s longer than the Second World War for those of you playing along at home.
Over the last week, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been lost in the back pages - not that they haven’t been sliding into them for some time now. But it shouldn’t be overlooked that as soon as a conflict erupts that involves Caucasians, much of the Western world’s attention immediately shifts and the degree to which gasps of concern can be heard is considerably amplified.
Let’s face it – insurgents in Iraq (and by that I am referring to guerrilla forces opposed to foreign occupation, not what is painted as al-Qaeda in Iraq by the Western media) are popularly thought of as terrorists. South Ossetian separatists aren’t, despite the fact that there is a significant Muslim minority in South Ossetia. It doesn’t matter that actual parallels can be drawn between the goals of South Ossetian separatists and Iraqi insurgents fighting to oppose a foreign power occupying their country. What does matter is the racial and religious context involved and the massive stereotyping of those of the Islamic faith since 9/11.
If you think that such an assertion ridiculous, look no further than what is currently atop the New York Times best sellers list - The Obama Nation, by Jerome R. Corsi [1]. In it, Corsi, who was also a co-author of 2004’s Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, spends time criticizing Obama’s supposed past links with the Muslim faith, attempting to make a case that it renders him unfit for the Presidency. The book has already been widely assailed as misleading and replete with falsehoods…
“The Times further noted that while Obama is a Christian, the book contains statements indicating he has “extensive connections to Islam”. One of Corsi’s statements is that Obama’s childhood friend, Zulfin Adi, had stated that Obama was a practicing Muslim; this claim has been refuted by multiple newspapers and people close to Obama.”
The question is, what would it matter if Obama had, as a child, been a practicing Muslim, or even simply been exposed to the faith and then converted to Christianity? Even though it’s a baseless accusation, why is it something that would have to be politically denounced with regards to securing the White House? When, exactly, did Islam come to represent such a negative that a Presidential candidate has to defend himself against such literary detritus? Which leads to the inevitable question – why has Islam been denigrated in the West to the point of being viewed as universally dangerous and how, exactly, did that happen?
Well, wars need opposing ideologies to be fought, and to complicate matters only leads to the diminishment of public support. Therefore a blanket enemy ideology is something that must be promoted. To claim that 2 billion people are bent on global dominance through the employment of violence is, of course, ignorant beyond reckoning. And yet that is precisely the image that has been constructed over the last seven years and, to a significant extent, swallowed whole. That is certainly not to say that there aren’t radical elements within the Islamic world that are troublesome, but to paint an entire faith with a single brush to support an aggressive foreign policy agenda is another matter altogether – one that is mired in an evil all its own, and one that ensures that through the employment of such propaganda paints Islamic moderates into a corner.
How many innocent Iraqis and Afghans have perished since 2001 and 2003? Every time a report is released that attempts to address the realities of the civilian costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan they are immediately challenged or dismissed as overblown. And yet it is somehow perfectly reasonable to decry the loss of civilian life in Georgia as monstrous and entirely criminal in just seven days.
The United Nations is reporting that some 100,000 people have been displaced because of the recent conflict in Georgia. In comparison, as of May of this year, some 1 million Somalis were internally displaced as fighting between ICU insurgents and US backed Ethiopian forces, bolstering the forces of Somalia’s new government, continued to clash. According to Oxfam, at least 4 million Iraqis have been displaced since the 2003 invasion, some fleeing the country altogether, some relocating to other parts of it.
That’s 5 million or more people whose plight has gone largely overlooked in the West. And that’s not even counting those displaced in Darfur, the Western cause du jour.
While it might sound callous, Caucasian refugees tend to get more press, especially when it suits the political ends of Western governments. That’s just reality.
1. In the case of the sales figures of Corsi’s book it should not be overlooked that it is very common for right-wing organizations to buy such publications in bulk and then distribute them for free, rendering the actual sales figures misrepresentative.
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August 15th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Agreed.
Considering, here in the West, we commend ourselves on being free of prejudices and racism…it just goes to show that were not all free thinking and understanding as our governments would like to make it out that we are. The unfortunate part, it’s the government that produces more racism and prejudices while the rest of society is learning to move forward…oxymoron(s) anyone?
August 15th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
sigh…this is why i prefer to stay an open-minded agnostic…doesnt mean agnostics are untouchable in the media, etc. but none of us agnostics are starting wars over our lack of faith and whos more hardcore about it…
forget Islam, what about fucking Scientology?!!! L. Ron Hubbard would have made a horrible president…but given the current situation in the white house and who occupies it, maybe horrible isnt the word..
August 15th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
“that’s longer than the Second World War for those of you playing along at home. ”
Boy you sure know how to bring things into perspective Matt. Fuck me, if I had my way, everyone would live in a tent on the beach. Sorry if this sounds flippant; it’s not meant to be for sure.
August 15th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
The Obama thing is strange. Denying the false accusation in a way further solidifies the accusers’ implication that Muslim = bad. You want to set the record straight, but saying “No, it’s a lie, he’s not Muslim!” makes it sound as if it’s a horrible thing for him to be mistaken for one. It’s like the old Seinfeld episode where Jerry keeps denying he’s gay: “Not that there’s anything wrong with that…”
As for the Western world being more concerned with Caucasians dying or being displaced… there is probably an ugly element of truth to that, but I tend to think it’s more that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and Darfur have been going on so long that people are just numb to it now, it doesn’t register, because it’s become just an accepted part of our lives. People become accustomed to horrible situations fairly easily, which I think is part survival mechanism. Were the conflict in Georgia to drag out for six years, you can bet that it would merit just a blurb on page A10 of the daily paper.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
In her book, Violence, Mourning, Politics (2004), Judith Butler asks: “Who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives? What makes for a grievable life” (20)? Butler’s argument bring about the realization that “certain lives will be highly protected… [while] other lives will not find such fast and furious support and will not even qualify as ‘grievable’… A hierarchy of grief” is thus established (32).
An excellent book for those interested..
August 15th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Ali is beloved by Americans - I always wonder how he’d fair now.
He’s got the credentials of a great president. Well spoken, motivated, charismatic, a womanizer. But he’s Muslim.
August 15th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
This is shaping up to be lots of fun.
And, I can’t say anything about taking your deceased pet to the cemetery on public transportation, even if he is stowed in a suitcase, but here’s Bigfoot in a cooler from the Washington Post. It’s that liberal news media at it again . . . .
August 16th, 2008 at 7:24 am
This kind of crap always makes me think of a little piece I’ve read by Hunter Thompson about the 64 Presedential race. It was what amounts to the beginning of professional shit-slinging in Presidential Campaign’s. One of Lyndon Johnson’s factotum’s game up with the idea of accusing Johnson’s opponent of having had sexual relations with a pig. Johnson said no one would believe it, to which the aid replied “Yeah sure they won’t, but let’s make him deny it anyways!” And so they did.
Politics is the art of controlling your environment.
Keep their heads spinning with the minutae. The masses will neglect to notice the trully important.
See: John Edwards for more on this.
As to Islam being vilified, anyone remember the “Red Menace”? Ducking under desks at school in case of nuclear attack? Evil Russian Empire?
Same shit, different pile…
August 16th, 2008 at 11:51 am
But… but… if Obama’s Muslim, he’s a terrorist! Or worse, a Manchurian Candidate (which I have actually heard suggested).
(Mind you, the fact that McCain was captured and detained for years makes him a much more likely fit for that scenario, but whatever…)
August 16th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Yeah, were we not supposed to see this build up and get worse? Momney probably would have won the Republican nomination if he wasn’t a Mormon.
How many Muslims have died during all of this directly or closely to this war? And then look at WWII, how many Jews died at the hands of Hitler and the Nazis? I don’t think we are there yet. But with things going the way they are it could get there.
I mean the public opinion of them, at least here in the States, is getting bad enough to where you could say we are gullible enough.