Vilifying Muslims
By Mazen Chouaib

Published in The National Post - Letters to the Editor - October 4, 2004

On September 21, 2004, the Globe and Mail published an opinion piece I authored (CanWest: Don't Vilify Muslims) criticising CanWest Global publication for its injection of the word “terrorism” when Arabs and Muslims are involved, and not necessarily with other groups from other regions of the world who use similar tactics. I also argued that this revelation was one more example in a pattern of anti-Arab and Muslim bias that permeates the company's editorials, columns and news reports. It is intolerable.

In making my case I quoted several instances of blatant verbal attacks from CanWest publications on Islam and Arabs.  I admit that I committed a technical mistake by not writing out the entire two lines of a quote (though the message of the quote remains the same) from a piece published by George Jonas in the Post on June 8, 2002. The National Post chose to focus on this and ignore my main thesis and the rest of the quotes that promote blatant Anti-Arab and Muslim views.

I quoted the following sentence: “Islam is at fault for blowing up civilians, including women and children."

Jonas's exact quote is the following: "The collapse of the Soviet organizing principle in multi-ethnic regions of Russia created a vacuum for Islam to fill. Islam can't be faulted for doing so, only for blowing up civilians, including women and children, in the process.” [emphasis inserted].

My second line reads: "[Islam] is the new evil empire".

This is what Mr Jonas had to say: "The point is, the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis isn't the cause of the clash between the Islamic and non-Islamic world [my underlining].  It's merely a flash point on a long front that extends from the Black Sea to the Altai mountains, and from Kashmir to Kosovo.  Though this larger battle [emphasis inserted] dares not speak its name, it will probably define the coming period, just as the previous period was defined by a clash between Nazi- or Soviet-type systems and the free world.  The evil empire hasn't vanished, only changed its address." [emphasis inserted].

I would like to challenge CanWest to honestly address the issues I raised in my column: Why the double standards in applying the word terrorist? Why paint the Arab and Muslim communities as fifth columnists in Canada? Why does it consider the Arab Middle East “barbaric” (April 2, 2002, National Post and Edmonton Journal in an editorial entitled “Apocalyptic Creed”)? And how can the Post make the claim that “a small but a substantial number of Arab and Muslim Canadians are willing to assist terrorist operations” (October 15, 2001, National Post)?

Mr Jonas's unabated tirades against Arabs and Muslims continue. On July 19, 2004 he explained that the conflicts in the Arab/Muslim world are a result of “… the profound backwardness and dysfunctionality of the Arab/Muslim world, not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that causes such wars, invasions and massacres.”

Contrary to what Mr Jonas claims in his editorial of September 27, 2004, my problem is not with Jewish ownership of media. I do not subscribe to such abhorrent views. My problem is with the editorial license that media concentration affords to those who preach that a “little dose of bigotry” is necessary in the fight against terrorism (Jonathan Kay column, National Post, Oct 18, 2001).

Rather than owning up to their responsibility CanWest chose to whitewash the issue by focusing on a technical mistake that, I repeat, did not change the idea of the quote .