Reflection 9: Covering Religion, Terrorism, and Peace
The documentary, Constructing the Terrorism Threat, shows how a Islamic Muslim group is marginalized for past situation involving their group. The situations like 9/11 and other terrorist-related attacks impacted the view of Islamic individuals in America.
Because of these problems, dehumanization is real to me and how our reaction as an society to the issue also contributes to dehumanization. As a society, we perceive violence from terrorist threat as a "social constructed process." The documentary reference a book "Policing the crisis" that discuss the social history toward Americans' thinking process. I
t said that we are prone to "moral panic" as a society. "Socially appear to ismbe subjected, every now and then, to periods of moral panic - a condition, episode, person, or group of persons, emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values." I mentioned about events like 9/11 which relates to this quote as a message that terrorism is a subject of moral panic which fuels dehumanization.
With the results of dehumanization of moral panics, comes the result of waging war between the groups of white americans and Islamic people. The dehumanization could also take a sacrifice in panicking over racial discrimination of perceiving muslim Americans as terrorist.
My view on demonetization is that it's very difficult to put into words because it happens with the news and in media. For example, movies or shows like Family Guy would stereotypically demonetize Muslims as threats to America's well being. I buy the argument because there have been examples and research that support the thinking of moral panic and dehumanization.
Terrorism is defined textually as politically violent, killers, and extremist. As for the terrorist term, they are labeled as rebels, bandits, and guerrillas. In the media, terrorism and terrorist creates fear for the country economically and for humanity's destruction which the government have to quickly resolve.
They are also defined as a stereotype of having light brown skin with turban clothing wrapped around their heads and living somewhere in the Middle East. Most news media tell the viewers about terrorism is usually associated with discrimination.
It have been the case for years until recently where I saw CNN covered the Capital Riot this past year with white Americans being described as home-grown terrorists in their own country. There is something missing with defining terrorism would be people with an extremist or hatred mindset because we don't want to focus solely one group who are well known from being the stereotypical terrorist.
I believe terrorism to be "misunderstood" because most Americans don't understand the main causes with the misconstruction of the belief of the concept. Like I said about light brown skin individuals, they are stereotypically judged as terrorist which creates them being misunderstood.
Our perception of judging Islamic people because their associated with their religion of muslim would automatically believe their is a terrorist. The misunderstanding with their looks are almost always questioned with different job opportunities marginalizing them for their looks of having long beards or wearing a religious hat.
The argument of "clash of civilization" is that culture is the driving force of seven or eight civilization with their own culture which conflict is inevitable. The term contributes to the culture of Islam which the documentary states it's "barabic, misogynistic, and static place."
The documentary cited Bernard Lewis' article about clash of clization with culture being the root to the conflict between nations The article states, "Western ideas of individualism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state, often have little resonance in Islamic ... cultures. "
Hollywood support the argument by movies like The Fury when Islamic individuals creating harm to people on the beach while riding a motor boat to shore. It also shows in the movie "To Live and die in L.A." when a Islam citizen shouts anti American speech to an American trying to stop and blowing himself up.
I feel the status quo could change if we broaden our exemption level of different cultures in to our society instead of following a political or economical agenda. We would have to change our mindset of terrorism by finding the root to the problem that resides in the political economy.
The other step is to humanize to dehumanize aspects of American society by understanding the past history of anti semitic issues and learn from them. I can personally do is to change my habits of misunderstanding muslim culture and support the unbanning of Trump's executive order by protesting.
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