I want to point out what I perceive as an unbalanced pattern of reportage by the mainstream media with respect to religious crisis in Africa, not that I support the Kenya bus attack or lack sympathy for the victims. I sincerely and vehemently criticize and condemn the Kenya bus attack. No innocent defenseless civilian should be killed simply for his/her belief no matter his/her creed. What Al Shabab did was cowardly, disgraceful, irreligious and utterly violates the code of conduct for warfare in Islam and goes against everything that Islam stands for. Then again why are reports of criminal activities like this consistently unbalanced by the mainstream media. Muslims have long ago been victims of bus attacks and have never received such attention by the media. Gonin Gora for example, a christian village along Abuja-Kaduna highway has long been notorious for blocking the highway repeatedly and separating the Muslims from the Christians then hacking the Muslims to the death. At one incident the site was simply described as a cemetery. Aside a single relatively paltry report by the Trust Media none of these spates of gruesome murders ever received media attention or sympathy. There are many of such christian villages unrepentantly engaged in such discriminate gruesome murders along Zaria-Jos highway yet the public is hardly told of their nefarious crimes. Why? Is the blood of Muslims any less sacred or what? The beautiful thing out of this hideous reality is that the Muslim communities equally situated along the highways were not incited to carry out reprisal attacks. I recall several years back in the wake of one of the Jos crises Hillary Clinton then US secretary of state demanded explanation from the then president Umar Musa Yaradua for the massacre in a Christian community perpetrated by Fulani nomads. The odd thing here is that a few days prior to that unfortunate incident a Muslim community in Kuru in the same state was ruthlessly massacred and annihilated and it did not attract Mrs. Clintons attention neither did it attract the attention of the mainstream media like Al Jazeera that gave the latter incident extensive coverage including the mass that was held for the victims (not that it was not deserving of it). My point here is that in our efforts to discourage religious animosities and such heinous murders we must be impartial. We cannot keep focussing on the immediate circumstances and turn a blind eye to the remote causes simply because a different set of people were the victims. It is only when we identify the cause(s) of a problem (both immediate and remote) that we can proffer a lasting solution to it; and we can only do that when we allow objectivity to prevail.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 07:21:09 +0000
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