Sunday, July 24, 2011

Terrorist

According to the Oxford Dictionary:
terrorist |ˈterərist|
noun
a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims.

However, judging from the media as of late, nowadays Western media uses the word 'terrorist' only when it comes to Islamist/colored person who uses terrorism. They are reluctant to apply it to blond-conservative-Christian-member-of-Freemason-killer even though he clearly terrorized not only Norway with his acts, but also the world & was also charged by the Norwegian police for acts of terrorism.

I didnt hear anything about his rampage until Saturday late morning. In the first articles I read there were notions that the perpetrator was Muslim radical(s). There were even some Islamic groups claiming it was theirs. Later on, as it turned out, it was Anders Behring Breivik, a puur blood Norwegian psycho, who has no remorse of what he had done. He even thinks that it was not against the law! The sad part was, some media still tried looking for anything to link him to radical Islam.

These atrocities remind us that terrorist comes in many colors. We need to learn not to jump into conclusion based on our own assumptions.

My heart and prayer goes out to the victims and their family.
Norge, mitt hjerte er med deg!

6 comments:

David said...

The IRA were always labeled 'Terrorists' by the western media, unless they were sympathetic, in which case they were labeled Freedom fighters.

I think, a one-off act out of the blue, as shocking and terrifying as it is, doesn't really equate with 'Terrorism' in the formal media sense of the word until there becomes a process or history of similar acts in the name of the 'cause' by which the act was committed. If others were to commit to the same cause as this person and threaten similar actions, then they would be considered 'terrorists'.

Unknown said...

This tragedy shows that religious and political fanaticism is very
dangerous.

colson said...

Don't take me ill for slightly disagreeing, but actually mr Anders Behring Breivik is being referred to as "terrorist" in all the recent articles ( and there are a lot of them) I read in the media. Of course with the exception of the rubbish published in some social media by a number of Anders''soulmates'. To them he is a hero.

Immediately after the bomb-blast the possibility of a Al-Qa'ida related attack was a realistic hypothesis. For instance Floris van Straaten wrote an article on that in the NRC on Saturday. Which after similar previous attacks ( London, Madrid) which actually had that signature, is not too far-fetched, I guess. But as soon a the Caucasian suspect had been arrested, papers like de Volkskrant and NRC ( and quality papers in the est of Europe) correctly reported the facts.

triesti said...

@david if you think about it.. most acts of terror are one-off, unless the perpetrator wasnt capture after the first act.

@harry That's the thing, it seems like media equate terrorism only with Islam and forget that anyone can be a terrorist.

@colson at least in the western media that I read (such as NYT) I still see the reference to Islam/Al Qaeda even after they found out it's Breivik. I could understand the reference before they found out, but keeping it after that, to me, it's like trying to perpetuate the belief that ISLAM=TERROR alive.

David said...

Of course, all events are one-off. But in general, you will usually only hear the media refer to terrorism when their is a clear history or 'campaign' of repeated and similar acts by a particular individual or group for a common cause. Thus a lone gunman massacring innocent people no matter how terrible, is usually labelled a 'gunman' until there seems to be a link to an established campaign. I don't think there is any media bias against Muslims in this case.

triesti said...

I agree with her: http://swampland.time.com/2011/07/29/bill-oreilly-anders-breivik-and-the-hubris-of-judging-faith