The call comes from Malaysia, but it is in response to the “Western media’s misrepresentation of Islam.” Only in the eighth paragraph do we get any hint of the possibility that Muslims, and not just the Western media, might be responsible for some of the negative perceptions non-Muslims have of them.
But the key element of this story is that the proposed Whitewashing Islam courses, which is of course what they would be, given that they’re coming from people who believe (or would have us believe) that negative reporting is responsible for Islam’s poor image, would be compulsory. The coercive aspect of Islamic “tolerance” once again makes itself known: of course Jews and Christians are free to practice their faiths in the Islamic state, as long as they accept a humiliating second-class status, and if they protest, their “protection” is removed and they’re liable to be killed. College students must be forced, similarly, to learn how Islam is peaceful and tolerant. They should not be free not to learn this.
“Call to teach journalism students proper reporting of Islam,” from Bernama, July 30 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
Reporting on Islam or religion should be developed as a compulsory subject by institutions of higher learning in light of Western media’s misrepresentation of Islam.
University Technology Petronas lecturer Prof Dr Ahmad Murad Merican who proposed this idea, also suggested the setting up of a centre to look into news reports on Islam and other religions, and rectify misconceptions.
He said currently the method of reporting news on Islam and other religions, was too westernised in nature because contemporary media had its roots in the Industrial Revolution.
“News reports and media began during the Industrial Revolution. The revolution emphasised materialistic concerns. The values journalists hold in their profession today reflect on timeliness, the now, to sell news, and news must have conflict to make it interesting.
“These are very capitalistic values. Religion, on the other hand, have opposite values, which are timelessness, transcendence, and peace as opposed to conflict.
“We need to learn how to report Islamic news or religious issues from an Islamic or religious point of view,” he said when presenting his paper titled “Orientalism, the Reportage of Religion and Journalism Education: Expanding the Space in the Dialogue of Civilisations”. Ahmad Murad, who spoke on the second and final day of the International Conference on the Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Media (ICORM08) today, said no university had offered this much-needed subject.
“For so many years not one university in the world has a course called “Reportage of Islam or Religion”. Yet this (misrepresentation of Islam or religion) is the problem we face today, everyday. I know a university in India had it in the 1950″s but I don’t know what has happened to it,” he continued.
He then asserted that the misrepresentation of Islam could not be accorded solely to the Western media since Muslims too had damaged their own image….
No kidding, really?