If Hutus And Tutsis Were Muslim Media Would Say So
WASHINGTON, DC, December 10 -- If the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda were Muslim the media would have said so. Repeatedly. Islam and Muslim would have become synonymous with evil.
Perhaps you haven't noticed this recurring pattern of the media identifying Islam at every negative opportunity, while not identifying the religion of non-Muslims. One could cite statistics of the number of such occurrences, but the disparities are so great that a few examples should suffice.
Oklahoma City: When terrorism "experts," based upon little or no evidence, blamed Middle Eastern terrorists for the bombing of the Murrah building , Muslims were immediately accused. Following the capture of the alleged bomber, The Washington Post, April 22, 1995, carried a story titled "Muslim's Burden of Blame Lifts," but that burden was not placed upon Christians.
World Trade Center and Tokyo Subway: The bombing of the World Trade Center was apparently directed against U.S. support for the policies of the Egyptian government. It was identified as the act of Muslim fundamentalists. Contrast this with the poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway which was identified as the act of a "cult," but not as a Buddhist or Hindu cult which it appears to be.
Bosnia and Chechnya: The genocide of the Bosnians was described in terms of Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. Why not Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, and Muslims, or Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians? The brutal massacres of Chechen civilians by the Russian military was portrayed as Russia versus the Muslims of Chechnya, and not the Russian Christians against the Chechen Muslims.
TWA Flight 800: Within a week of the downing of TWA Flight 800, CNN identified Middle East terrorists as the likely perpetrators. The Washington Post in its July 23 editorial wrote that while the "evidence of terrorism is not yet there," that "courtroom-type proof" may be hard to come by, that "international validation before the act of punishment would be the best way to go, but if that is not feasible a national decision by the injured party, the United States, ought to suffice." Regular CNN viewers and Post readers have long been conditioned to believe that means Islamic terrorists and a Muslim country.
Afghanistan and Rwanda: The veiling of women, and keeping them from work temporarily, by orders of the Taliban in Afghanistan were identified by the media with Islam. Never mind that veils probably began with the Byzantines, and Islam is unequivocal in the equality of all mankind. Meanwhile, the brutal rapes and killings in Rwanda are merely the acts of Hutus and Tutsis.
Rwanda, according to the CIA World Factbook, has a population of 8.6 million which is 90 percent Hutu, 9 percent Tutsi. The religion of the people is one percent Muslim, 25 percent indigenous beliefs, 74 percent Christian.
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