There is no cure for stupid:
To prevent homegrown Islamist radicalism, drop the media hysteria
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Kavita Bedford from the Grunard  whines about “tabloid hyping of the threat” and  suggests “why can’t we just talk about it?”
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Kavita Bedford is a Sydney writer and produces Mapping Frictions, a website that aims to provide alternative stories to counter stereotypes that exist around western Sydney
The disproportionate attention given to radicalism feeds into ongoing misrepresentations of Muslims in the west. Â How about engaging with the Muslim community instead?
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“…Can’t we just talk about that…?” (last words of Theo van Gogh, Dutch moviemaker).
The disproportionate attention given to “radicalism” on TV screens and front pages of newspapers feeds into ongoing misrepresentations of Muslims living in western nations. Although the government has assured us the latest measure does “not intend to demonise Muslim Australians”, there is no denying “radicalisation” is treated in the public debate as though it were exclusively bound up with the menace of Islamism. It’s a dangerous game fuelled by the media. The Islamic State plays on this very knowledge as part of its campaign of fear. They have been able to take advantage of the west’s fear of home-grown radicalism and
demonisation of Muslims in the media to stoke opposition.
Sam Harris
In his speech responding to the horrific murder of journalist James Foley by a British jihadist, President Obama delivered the following rebuke (using an alternate name for ISIS):
ISIL speaks for no religion… and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents. No just God would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day. ISIL has no ideology of any value to human beings. Their ideology is bankrupt…. we will do everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for. May God bless and keep Jim’s memory. And may God bless the United States of America.
In his subsequent remarks outlining a strategy to defeat ISIS, the President declared:
Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim…. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way…. May God bless our troops, and may God bless the United States of America.
As an atheist, I cannot help wondering when this scrim of pretense and delusion will be finally burned away—either by the clear light of reason or by a surfeit of horror meted out to innocents by the parties of God. Which will come first, flying cars and vacations to Mars, or a simple acknowledgment that beliefs guide behavior and that certain religious ideas—jihad, martyrdom, blasphemy, apostasy—reliably lead to oppression and murder? It may be true that no faith teaches people to massacre innocents exactly—but innocence, as the President surely knows, is in the eye of the beholder. Are apostates “innocent”? Blasphemers? Polytheists? Islam has the answer, and the answer is “no.”
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