Incitement

A story about a women’s shelter in Afghanistan should be an opportunity to showcase what can really drive progress. It could be a chance to commend those handling the day-to-day operations. It might be an

opening to demonstrate what role Islam plays in women’s lives who, although they have been victims of a brutal misogynist tradition, have not abandoned their faith. It can be a chance to show that, despite our preconceptions, within every women’s group are religious Afghan men.

Instead, NBC Nightly News ignored all these opportunities and simply reverted to western stereo types and fears.

Anchor Brian Williams introduced the “In Depth” story:

“[I]n Afghanistan today, 300 women came together in

a protest march, something just about unheard of there. They were demanding the repeal of a new law imposing harsh restrictions on women’s rights.

But then the marchers were set upon by about 1,000 men, yelling insults, terrible insults, and threats.”

(Sadly, MSNBC.com had an AP internet story the same day about the Afghan men who joined the pro-women march – but this wasn’t worthy of being included in the TV broadcast. After all, Afghan men protesting side-by-side with Afghan women don’t fit our Western narrative of a Muslim male out to oppress women and decapitate the infidel.)

“Though things got better there briefly, women’s rights are again under fire in Afghanistan by Muslim extremists, but some women are fighting back at great personal risk.

The story you are about to see is a tough one, and fair warning, what follows is not suitable if you have little ones in the room.

But we agreed with our chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, that the story needed to be told…”

Thus, in the introduction, NBC has framed the story against a backdrop of Western fear and hatred of Islam. (And if you are a “little one,” the seed has been planted: all you saw was a burqa and heard was that it had something to do with “Afghanistan,” “women,” and “Muslim extremists” before you were promptly sent to your room.)

Engel’s story itself detailed the horrors – the beatings, the forced prostitution, the abandonment of children. He makes one woman hyperventilate after asking about her sons she left with her homicidal husband (he says he “regretted” asking, but kept the shot in the final cut – he couldn’t have regretted it too much).

He even finds one “modern” spokeswoman (with a western accent) from the Women for Afghan Women center who addresses the camera without so much as a headscarf, reinforcing the idea that women’s rights are all about the veil.

Thus, NBC’s “In Depth” was far from deep – it had only two truly Afghan voices, both edited to support the premise that Afghan men are evil and abuse women (unspoken, yet insinuated, is that Islam is the reason).

And of course, there was the obligatory blurb from an Afghan ex-pat that grew up in the U.S. telling us “how it really is in Afghanistan,” because we don’t really believe those people until we hear it from one of our own. That’s how Orientalism works, isn’t it?

Am I to believe that none of these women – when asked “How do you cope?” – ever mentioned their faith? None of them once uttered “I trust in Allah to take care of me?” Even American Idol has gratuitous sound bytes of the winner proclaiming they “just put their trust in God.” But apparently these Afghan women are so secular that they put their trust in…what…? Democracy?

And where are the men? Are we to believe there were NO men at this center? No guards? No lawyers? No assistants? None? Nada? Zip?

I call bullshit.

I’ve spent time with Afghans working for women’s rights. They aren’t secular feminists ready to join the Western tirade against all things Islam. On the contrary, it is precisely their religion that motivates them.

Every women’s center, NGO, and educational group that I visited in Kabul and surrounding provinces relied on men. I asked these men the same question: Why do you risk your life for women’s rights?

All of them immediately gave me the same answer:

Islam demands it.

These Afghans that see Islam as the foundation of social justice aren’t an aberration. I heard it from young teachers, office administrators, lawyers, sharia scholars, and even a mufti. I listened to the same message from students, security guards, and drivers.

Which is why it is impossible for someone to do a story about women’s rights in Afghanistan and not hear the same thing.

Matthew Fisher of Canwest News Services heard them:

The nearly unanimous view on the campus — arguably the most progressive institution in Afghanistan — was that the West should not involve itself in the country’s cultural and religious affairs.

“This is not a good law. Women should be allowed to do what they want,” said Hamida Hasani, 18, a [female] architecture student at Kabul University…“But we do not want total freedom. We wanted it to be limited and to be within Islam.”

…“[Westerners] don’t know anything about us and our problems,” [Hasani] said. “If they faced what we have faced with hunger and war, they’d realize what is most important to fight for here. Before they come here they should . . . experience our difficulties.”

…“There is change in Afghanistan today,” Riosi [an 18-year-old female student of literature] said. “There is respect for us if we are educated or if we work.

“But westerners want to change Afghanistan for their benefit, not for ours. They have a bad view of our culture. Some of our women imitate their clothes and their ways. Our freedom must come within Islam.”

While loyal readers of the Vancouver Sun can actually be proud that their small media outlet has the ethics to print truth, the media conglomerates of the U.S. continue their propaganda battle.

For NBC to run a story about women’s rights and not have one person referring to their faith as a guiding force for good, or omit any men who defend women’s rights because of their religion, can only be deliberate.

To tell the viewing audience about 300 women protesters without acknowledging that some Afghan men were in their midst is a calculated choice.

To publish an internet article “Key to women’s rights in Afghanistan: men” and not once mention Islam or religion is premeditated.

NBC’s story wasn’t intended to promote more shelters, encourage donations from wealthy viewers, and certainly not to show what role Afghan men, much less religion, could play in Afghanistan’s future. It appears the only purpose was to incite more hatred of Muslims.

Which brings me back to NBC’s claim:

“This is a story that needed to be told…”

What, exactly, is that “story?” Because the only story that NBC ran was propaganda aimed at stirring up anger, hatred, and violence toward “others” that think, live, and believe differently than ourselves. Is that what “needed to be told?” Was the country running low on Islamophobia?

NBC’s “story” about Afghan women served no useful purpose other than to darken the lenses that Americans use to see the “other.”

Misguided and false perceptions of Muslims have persisted for centuries. In a globalized world, where information is exchanged freely and we interact with people from opposite sides of the world, can we afford to continue to be so ignorant?

Wil Robinson
AWOP International Contributing Editor
Author of International Political Will Blog

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Guest Voice: News Writer analyzes Jim David Atkisson's terrorist manifesto

I'd like everyone to meet News Writer, a journalist with an excellent blog Stop the Press. With an inside track to last summer's terrorist attack at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Tennessee, News Writer draws some chilling conclusions about hate speech, incitement to violence, and the role of right-wing media.

To Whom it May Concern
by News Writer

Jim David Atkisson's manifesto:

I guess you’re wondering why I did this. Well, let me explain in detail.

Over the years I’ve had some good jobs, but I always got laid off. Now I’m 58 years old & I can’t get a decent job. I’m told I’m ‘overqualified,’ which is a code word for ‘too damned old.’ Like I’m expected to age gracefully into poverty. No thanks! I’m done!

I’ve always wondered why I was put on the earth. For years I thought I was put here to die as cannon fodder in VietNam but somehow cheated the devil out of it. Lately I’ve been feeling helpess in our war on Terrorizm. But I realized I could engage the terrorists allies here in America. The best allies they’ve got

The Democrats! The democrats have done everything they can do to tie our hands in this War on Terror. They’re all a bunch of traitors. They want America to loose this war for reasons I can not understand. It makes me soooo mad!

In a parallel train of thought: It saddens me to think back on all the bad things that Liberalism has done to this country. The worst problem America faces today is Liberalism. They have dumbed down education. They have defined deviancy down. Liberals have attacked every major institution that made America great. From the Boy Scouts to the military, from education to Religion. The major news outlets have become the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party. Liberals are evil, they embrace the tenets of Karl Marx, they’re Marxist, socialist, communists.

The Unitarian Universalist Church

Don’t let the word church mislead you. This isn’t a church, it’s a cult. They don’t even believe in God. They worship the God of Secularizm. These sick people aren’t Liberals, they’re Ultra-Liberals. This is a collection of sicko’s, weirdo’s, & homo’s. The UU church is the fountainhead, the veritable wellspring of anti-American organizations like Moveon.org, Code Pink, and other un-American groups.

These people are absolute Hypocrits. They embrace every pervert that comes down the pike, but if they find out your a conservative, they absolutely hate you.

I know. I experienced it.

I can’t for the life of me understand why these people would embrace Marxism like they do.

I’d like someone to do an expose on this church, it’s a den of un-American Vipers.

They call themselves ‘Progressive.’ How is a white woman having a niger baby progress? How is a man sticking his dick up another man’s ass progress?

It’s an abomination.

It takes a warped mind to hate America.

It makes me so angry. I can’t live with it anymore!

The environmental nuts have to be stopped.

Know This If Nothing Else

I. This was a hate crime:

I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them.

II. This was a Political Protest:

I’m protesting the liberal Supreme Court Justices for give the terrorists at GITMO constitutional rights. I’m protesting the major News outlets, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, PBS for being the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party. It’s criminal what they’re getting away with. They’re traitors! They must be stopped!

I’m protesting the DNC running such a radical leftist candidate, Osama Hussein OBama, yo Mama. No experience, no brains, a joke. Dangerous to America. Hell, he looks like Curious George!

III. This was a symbolic killing.

Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg’s book. I’d like to kill everyone in the Mainstream Media. But I knew these people were inaccessible to me. I couldn’t get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chicken shit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It’s the only way we can rid America of this cancer, this pestilence.

In Conclusion:

No one gets out of this world alive so I’ve chosen to skip the bad years of poverty. I know my life is going downhill fast from here. The future looks bleak. I’m sick & tired of being sick & tired. I’m absolutely fed up.

So I thought I’d do something good for this Country. Kill Democrats til the cops kill me.

If decent patriotic Americans could vote 3 times in every election we couldn’t stem this tide of liberalism that’s destroying America.

Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them. Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather.

I’d like to encourage like-minded people to do what I’ve done. If life ain’t worth living anymore, don’t just kill yourself, do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals.

Tell the cop that killed me that I said, ‘Thanks, I needed that.’

I have no next of kin, no living relatives. If you would take my sorry carcass to the body farm or donate it to science, or just throw me in the Tennessee River.

Sincerely

Jim David Atkisson

On July 28, 2008, after he wrote that, Jim David Atkisson went to the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church near Knoxville, where a children’s performance was taking place. He shot seven people, killing two. But instead of being killed by police, the East Tennesseans at the church took him down themselves, without weapons. They did break his arm. but they took him down, got the children out of the hall and called police.

On Monday, Jim David Adkisson pleaded guilty to the murders of Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger and was sentenced to life in prison.

Yesterday, I spoke briefly with one of the four people who were in critical condition after the shooting. She told me she is doing much better than anyone thought, considering she took five bullets to the head. But she can see, speak, walk, and do nearly everything she could do before.

But she is angry, angry because the local newspaper chose to focus on Adkisson’s manifesto — it was released yesterday — instead of on the healing that has taken place in the church.

I can understand that. But I also think it’s important that we read Jim David Atkisson’s words very carefully and taken them to heart. Because I’m angry too.

Jim David Atkisson didn’t just get up one day and decide gee, I’m having a bad day. Think I’ll go kill me some liberals. He didn’t just suddenly decide the liberals at the TVUUC were his enemies. He was told repeatedly, for years, that they were his enemies. That all liberals are his enemies. That all Democrats are his enemies. That they are traitors. That they are unpatriotic. That they hate America. That they are socialists. That they are allies of terrorists.

That they don’t deserve a place at any table.

Now, where would he have an idea like that?

Limbaugh. Malkin. Goldberg. Coulter. Savage. Hannity. O’Reilly. Not to mention Bush. Cheney. McConnell. Kyl. Cornyn. Cantor. Boehner.

Actually, there’s far too many to name here.

Right wing radio talkers incited a man to commit an act of terrorism, ladies and gentlemen, aided and abetted by the previous administration and Republicans in Congress.

It’s no wonder they’re terrified the Fairness Doctrine may return (although Barack Obama has said he doesn’t support that).

But if I were them, I’d be much more worried about what might happen if the Obama administration decides to crack down hard on terrorism and those who fuel its flames.

Inciting acts of terrorism sounds like a valid crime to me.

Stop by Stop the Press for more. Many thanks to News Writer for contributing this guest voice at AWOP TeamZine.

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