Daily Times

Sitting outside a London café in summertime. It was a few days after 9/11 and some British friends and I were trying to come to terms with what had happened. The un-general consensus among our small group was that America’s hand had been forced. Afghanistan would be bombed, there really wasn’t any choice. My voice begged to differ as the horror for me went beyond that day, which was at once both targeted and indiscriminate.

For one thing, I was in rather regular touch with my left-swinging student self of yesteryear. Meaning not only was I to be found nodding my head in vigorous agreement as Morrissey belted out Meat is Murder — I happily lip-synced along to those heartfelt words: “death for no reason is MURDER”. And for another, I was a committed devotee to the concept of collective responsibility. Though truth be told, my faith in the latter may or may not have been sparked by a coming-of-age rebellion, an un-muted response to having grown up in the Thatcher era. Which, of course, was marked by a never-ending party celebrating the new age of individualism repackaged for mass consumption, all the while dancing on society’s grave.

Viral snapshots routinely do the rounds of European Muslims hugging white non-Muslims after every terrorist attack. The story is, sadly, much the same here when it comes to offering solidarity to our own minorities

Naturally, back then, in the immediate post-9/11 environment we didn’t know what we now know. Namely that war had just gone global. Indeed, it was a time of relative innocence as compared to today. To be sure, in the run-up to the deadly bombing of Afghanistan, Muslims were seen on the streets of London Town and elsewhere denouncing the terrorists who had struck at the heart of the American empire. Yet fast-forward 16 years to today and the scene remains unchanged. In London, Paris, Brussels, Barcelona. And so the list goes on. As does the roll call of nations caught up in the diversionary flight path of US military might.

The mainstream media at home and abroad has failed its own test of unbiased reporting and commentary when it comes to covering terrorism. Meaning that when western media outlets skip over possible linkages between a militarised foreign policy and radicalisation, between murderous remote-controlled warfare and equally bloodthirsty retribution — they risk standing guilty as charged. Of being compliant mouthpieces of respective governments or regional power players. Al Jazeera has from the start dared to talk censure to power. And we have all seen how that has panned out. The big boys of the Middle East along with a certain unquiet American have done their utmost to have the channel turned off and tuned out.

What we have presently is social media stepping in to bridge this gap. And this has proved, in the short-term, invaluable to European Muslims, who are now routinely liked-shared-retweeted-hashtagged as, after each terrorist attack, they offer hugs to white non-Muslims. These viral snapshots of a people trying to heal make everyone feel better about themselves, even if they smack of casual tokenism of a different kind. Meaning that skin colour and religious identity remain the branded markers of ‘otherness’. What such images have yet to do is challenge the mainstream. At best the latter picks these up as human interest stories, as if by this alone their job has been done.

The story, sadly, is reflected here, more or less, across this side of the North-South global divide.

Last year, most of us were reeling in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bombings. Against Christians. Except that not everyone was happy at the latter being identified as the intended target. Observations were made that more Muslims than otherwise had died in the attacks here in the Islamic Republic. Proffered as a means of countering what is widely seen as concerted efforts by the mainstream global media to reduce all Muslims to nothing more than terrorists wandering in search of the latest bloodlust.

Regrettably, local media did nothing much to offset this, aside from reporting that the group responsible confirmed it had, indeed, been an act of anti-Christian terrorism. Thus it was once more left to social media to step in. And thus images were shared of Muslims forming a human chain outside one of Lahore’s grandest churches to protect Christians while the latter bravely returned to pray following week. Yet even these were insufficient to prevent those who spoke out against anti-minority targeted killings being labelled anti-state and anti-Pakistan. Almost worse were certain conversations in activist circles in the immediate aftermath that chose to focus on what Pakistani journalists should or should not be ‘allowed’ to write about in the American media. Such censorship was deemed imperative to protect western-based Muslim communities from backlashes of all kinds.

Perhaps it is not society but, rather, the media that should be pronounced dead on arrival.

The writer is the Deputy Managing Editor, Daily Times. She can be reached at mirandahusain@me.com and tweets @humeiwei

Published in Daily Times, August 27^th 2017.