The various topics reported by the media are crucial in shaping the opinions of society on various issues. A vast majority relies on the media like print media, television, or the radio for news and analysis of social, political, and economic events. The media’s impact on shaping the overall perception of Islam is consistent all over the world. Specifically, the media has caused an emergence of Islamophobia, caused by false generalizations by the Western Media that depict Islam negatively. However, the media has individually associated Islam with extremism, violence, lawlessness, and lack of democracy. The role of the media in negating the widespread perception of Islam in lousy faith is actually questionable, as seen in the article, “Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again,” by Johann Hari in the Voices section of The Independent.
The article’s first paragraph correctly shows how the journalist perceives Islam. Although his article seeks to explain how Islam has changed to the better, it already begins by depicting them negatively. He emphasizes the fact that ever since he started meeting young British Muslim young men, he uses the term “Jihadists,” which is a derogatory term that the Western media have repeatedly used to depict Islam in a negative light, leading to association with violence and extremism. Johann also alleges that bearded young men were shouting outside the library violating democratic rule and campaigning for what he calls “the rule of God.” The careful choice of words like bearded youth, death to democracy, and the rule of God by the journalist is a continuation of the widespread stereotyping. The Muslims who often adorn long beards and believe in the worship of one God-Allah while using the Quran to self-govern within their religion are not for democracy. The author appears to have already believed the mistaken perception, spread by Western Media from the beginning.
Further, in his next paragraph, the author criticizes the congregants in the mosques across the city. However, rather than report that Muslim young men have filled mosques to fulfill their religious obligations, Hari notes that the youth are in his words “dreaming of flocking Afghanistan to resist.’’ Through creating such a narrative, the journalist intentionally uses the media to spread Islamophobia. Any reader of the article is easily convinced that Muslim young men congregating in the mosques end up in Afghanistan, an accusation that is shockingly untrue since, from the paragraph, no evidence that the journalist was in the mosque and can support his statement. Besides, he could have even interviewed one of the mosque attendants to understand why they were flocking mosques. Ideally, it could be that the day was a Friday and Muslims congregate on Fridays (Goitein).
Besides, the journalist discusses a conflict between immigrant Muslims from Bangladesh, India, Somalia, and the British Islamists. He alleges that the immigrant Muslims find it bizarre that in their search for a stable place to work and settle, they encounter Native British Islamists. The analogy created by the journalist is that the British Islamists are violent extremists. In the same paragraph, the author also discusses the 7/7 suicide bombings, which young British Jihadists executed. I find this misleading. Being born in Britain and subscribing to Islam should not be equated to violent extremism. Therefore, articles such as these are to be blamed for the widespread reinforcement of Islamaphobia. Displaying the British born Islamists as Jihadists without evidence makes the journalist a generalist. While one or two of them could be accused of violent extremism, it does not qualify the remaining minority as extremists.
Moreover, the journalist states that his attempt to interview young Muslims at the Finsbury Park Mosque after the 11th September terrorist attack in the USA failed, making him question his journalism skill. In my view, the journalist was not prepared to have a successful interview. He states that his objective was not to interview young Muslims and understand their perspective on the widespread radicalization, but to seek to understand what they think and their plans on the radicalization issue. Further, he refers to the Finsbury Park mosque as “their notorious London Park,” which shows the level of dislike that the author has for their place of worship. Journalists who take a position while reporting such an emotive issue often find their arguments filled with bias, which makes their work misrepresentative of facts. Hari’s work, in this case, shows the grudge he holds for Islam and extends it to their mosques and the Quran.
Additionally, the journalist adopts a different style in his narration. He admits that journalists might have failed to establish answers to critical questions on Jihadists, violence, and Islamist extremism, which gives him a “rare opportunity” as he has been in contact with young British Islamists fighters, who had withdrawn and converted into anti-jihad crusaders. In the preceding paragraphs, Hari gives an analysis of his interaction with the former jihadists to search into the reasons as to why they opted for jihadism and whether they could help to resolve British born Islamist-led jihadism.
Essentialy, he begins his analysis with an Imam, a worship leader who had withdrawn from his jihadism. The journalist uses the interview with the former jihadist to validate his claim on violence created by Muslims. He reports Usama Hassan, his employee stating that he is frequently threatened by his former jihadist colleagues for continuing with being an Imam even after leaving their movement. Similarly, he notes that every Friday, the colleagues stand outside the Wahabi mosque, warning congregants that they risk their prayers not reaching Allah for listening to a reformed Jihadist. The journalist notes that Usama had been receiving death threats from jihadist colleagues. While it could be true, the emphasis by Hari by corroborating the account of the woman in Hijaab, the fear of Imam had been picking his call, to cautiously agreeing to an interview, and the Imam’s story, he succeeds in showing the fear that the jihadists have instilled in the region of East End.
Arguably, Usamah describes his journey to radicalization. He explains to the interviewer in detail how he was born to an Islamic religious father who had been sent by the Saudi Ministry of Religious Affairs to advance his Puritan Islam concept all over the world. The interview shows what the Puritan desert strain type of Islamists advocated. Usamah notes that they did not have the freedom to watch television or even listen to Western music, perhaps to prevent them from influence by Western education. Further, he reveals that the ideals of the Puritan Islam drilled at a junior age where young Muslims start to be radicalized. At only 10, Usammah had already memorized the whole of the Quran in original Arabic as recommended by Jihadists, and knew he had to be separated from girls. At the age of 13, the interviewee reportedly joined Jimas, an organization of Islam Fundamentalists where he was radicalized and trained as an Islamist fighter. Arguably, at this point, Hari interrogated the reason for engaging in extremist violence. He learned that the training instilled through the radicalization process is that Muslims are being persecuted all over the world, necessitating the need to retaliate. Usamah calls this a fake conspiracy that urged them to rise and protect themselves from imminent annihilation. However, this validates Hari’s claim that the Muslim youth cannot even engage in the interview he had attempted with them at the Finsbury Park mosque.
Conclusively, the journalist’s use of an ex-prisoner, Maajid, affirms the hopelessness that the former Jihadists feel. In the case of Usamah, he had initially thought they would establish a mighty Islamic State in Afghanistan that would spread to the rest of the world and conquer it. However, he realizes that it was not possible and he backed off. Interestingly, he notes that what he expected was indeed wrong as Muslims were resulting in killing one another. On the other hand, Maajid, who had been radicalized in prison admittedly denied on BBC, where he quit not only Jihadism, but also Islam. In his words, “Fundamentalist Islam has not only damaged British society but has also damaged the world” (Hari). Therefore, the creation of the media of Islam as a violent and extremist religion is well exemplified in this article, which in my view, bears half-truths.