Village Journals
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Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
The press and abuses of our freedom
I have no idea how the world has suddenly got so complicated. During the dot-com boom and the changing of millennium, we all seemed to be having such fun - I remember how I felt on Dec 31st 1999 - so much hope and optimism.
Yet here we are, 6 years later, the world a place turbulence and unrest; countries fighting illegal wars, journalists abusing their freedom of expression and inciting violence and extremists responding with their vile and totally disproportionate responses.
As a Muslim who has no choice in being British (I was born here, this is the country I know, where else would I go?), I attended the rally in Trafalgar Square, London on Saturday 11th February.
I attended because I wanted to express my anger at journalism?s abuse of freedom of expression and also to show the world that the vast vast vast majority of members of my faith could do so in a way that did not impose on others sense of security and freedom.
There was such an eclectic mix of protesters from every demographic, ethnicity and creed. Punk European students in skirts mingled with hijab strewn Arabian women and it illustrated to me that the vast moderate view of the world was ?to live and let live?.
Similarly, all the speakers, be they inspired clergymen from the Church, upcoming Liberal Democrat MPs or much maligned bearded Islamic scholars gave an identical message:
Freedom of Speech cannot mean freedom to blatantly offend or the world ends up in chaos. This applies as much to the people supposedly representing my faith with those heinous pro ?7/7? slogans to misguided cartoonists in Denmark as it does to idiotic British fundamentalists such as Nick Griffin of the BNP.
So all in all, it was a joyous day, lots of smiles and positive energy - I felt like we had made progress and the world was a slighter better place because of it.
I bought the UK Sunday Times the next morning expecting them to lead on this major positive story ? that in these highly explosive times, 30,000 people had come together and expressed themselves responsibly peacefully.
Imagine my horror and frustration when I saw that the front page was in fact, splashed with a headline that one individual extremist Muslim cleric was again proclaiming the virtues of ?7/7?. The concerted efforts of 30,000 people remonstrating for understanding and peace was relegated onto page 2 without even a headline.
And so it finally struck home.
Those with agenda?s only seek disorder and anarchy ? hey its sells papers so that makes it OK right? But this was the Sunday Times, a respectable newspaper not seduced by sensationalism? Wrong. How wrong could I be?
It is no longer a mystery to me why the world has ended up where it has.
And one community is to blame.
The press.
I agree that citizens have a right to express freely what they perceive to be the ills of the worlds they live in. Actually it?s the press who need to have this liberty taken away from them.
Because whether they be cartoonists from Denmark or Sunday Times editors, their views do not reflect the views of the vast decent population of this planet we live on. They cannot be trusted to use this liberty with the responsibility that we showed at our remonstration. They just incite for the sake of incitement, and we end up where we are today
Yet here we are, 6 years later, the world a place turbulence and unrest; countries fighting illegal wars, journalists abusing their freedom of expression and inciting violence and extremists responding with their vile and totally disproportionate responses.
As a Muslim who has no choice in being British (I was born here, this is the country I know, where else would I go?), I attended the rally in Trafalgar Square, London on Saturday 11th February.
I attended because I wanted to express my anger at journalism?s abuse of freedom of expression and also to show the world that the vast vast vast majority of members of my faith could do so in a way that did not impose on others sense of security and freedom.
There was such an eclectic mix of protesters from every demographic, ethnicity and creed. Punk European students in skirts mingled with hijab strewn Arabian women and it illustrated to me that the vast moderate view of the world was ?to live and let live?.
Similarly, all the speakers, be they inspired clergymen from the Church, upcoming Liberal Democrat MPs or much maligned bearded Islamic scholars gave an identical message:
Freedom of Speech cannot mean freedom to blatantly offend or the world ends up in chaos. This applies as much to the people supposedly representing my faith with those heinous pro ?7/7? slogans to misguided cartoonists in Denmark as it does to idiotic British fundamentalists such as Nick Griffin of the BNP.
So all in all, it was a joyous day, lots of smiles and positive energy - I felt like we had made progress and the world was a slighter better place because of it.
I bought the UK Sunday Times the next morning expecting them to lead on this major positive story ? that in these highly explosive times, 30,000 people had come together and expressed themselves responsibly peacefully.
Imagine my horror and frustration when I saw that the front page was in fact, splashed with a headline that one individual extremist Muslim cleric was again proclaiming the virtues of ?7/7?. The concerted efforts of 30,000 people remonstrating for understanding and peace was relegated onto page 2 without even a headline.
And so it finally struck home.
Those with agenda?s only seek disorder and anarchy ? hey its sells papers so that makes it OK right? But this was the Sunday Times, a respectable newspaper not seduced by sensationalism? Wrong. How wrong could I be?
It is no longer a mystery to me why the world has ended up where it has.
And one community is to blame.
The press.
I agree that citizens have a right to express freely what they perceive to be the ills of the worlds they live in. Actually it?s the press who need to have this liberty taken away from them.
Because whether they be cartoonists from Denmark or Sunday Times editors, their views do not reflect the views of the vast decent population of this planet we live on. They cannot be trusted to use this liberty with the responsibility that we showed at our remonstration. They just incite for the sake of incitement, and we end up where we are today
Comments on this journal
I'm glad to hear that you already sent this off to the Sunday Times. Come sunday I shall be looking out for it :)
The obvious would be that you could send a copy to the other broadsheets too. Such as the Independant, Guardian and Telegraph. That is if you see fit to do so. If you're a Londoner you could even try the Evening Standard
The Economist sounds like a good idea. Other news magasine publications that you may wish to try are News Week, The New statesmen and The week.
On another note, i find the following website quite interesting at times, you may like to take a look also.
..www.spiked-online.com
Thanks for your suggestion. I had actually sent an edited version to the Sunday Times. Lets see if they publish it this weekend ...
But you're also right that I should send it to a broader audience ... maybe the Economist tec. Do you have other suggestions?
But all the blame shouldn't be laid at their door either. The buck stops with the people. Civil society is about the people (yes, that's us!) getting involved and taking part. We do enough of that, if we start taking responsibility for the information we receive about the world (and with the advent of multiple sources via the Internet, it's not that difficult!) then the press will (a) become less powerful and (b) be forced to keep up with the demands of the people.
But we don't do that. We are lazy and apathetic, we don't take any responsibility and we totally deserve the pathetic media we get. (On a more positive note, we're a thousand times more informed than the US media!)