Western media has failed to mention that both shooters were Christians, and one of them wanted to sue his family, which he ended up killing, because he wanted to retrieve a family Bible, which would insinuate some religious association to his faith.
Let’s imagine for a second that these gunmen were Muslims. Would they still be mentioned by their nationalities only? Or would their religion — Islam — make the headlines?
Okay. Let’s go over this
one more time.
The media of Western countries is, like the governments of those same countries, entirely secular. This means they no responsibility whatsoever to report of any religious matter of any kind, except what they consider to be noteworthy.
Even though they are not required to, often there is some compelling reason to mention religion in newspapers or magazine articles. Maybe they sell more copies that way. I don’t really know. But sometimes it does happen. A quick search for internet-posted news articles shows that when a news story directly involves religion (in other words, when the people profiled in it are motivated by their religion), then the religion will be mentioned. This happens to Christians as well as Muslims. Look at these stories that I found after a 2 minute Google search and you will see how your assumption is not exactly true:
Christian conflict in Ireland
Religiously-motivated anti-abortion violence from Christians
Ugandan Christian “Resistance Army” attacks Juba villages in Southern Sudan (reported by the BBC, probably the best known media organization in the Western world)
“Army of God” terrorist group mails anthrax to abortion clinics (this happened only a little while after 9/11/2001)
So you see, Muslim Woman, there is not really a concentrated effort to keep the religion of people who are committing crimes out of the media, if it is relevant to the story. If it is not relevant to the story, then it will probably not be included. If Muslims find themselves more often offended by the mention of a criminals’ religion when that criminal is a Muslim, maybe Muslims should not commit so much crime that directly relates to their religious identity (killing of “kufar” in Assyria, kidnapping of Christians in the majority-Muslim and succesionist-minded island of Mindanao in the Philippines, etc).
I will tell you something that maybe you do not know: Until relatively recently, the majority of US-born Muslims were African Americans in the “Nation Of Islam”. The first Muslims that I ever became friends with were raised in this group, and I didn’t know that they were Muslims until I had known them for a few years already and it didn’t change my feeling about them. Anyway, because they are black and American-born, they are generally treated as any other black American is (I’ll leave that to others to interpret as they wish), and if one of them commits a crime, it is generally treated by the media the way any other crime by a black person is, which is to say that the TV report will say “police are looking for a black male ages ____ to ____”, NOT “police are looking for a black MUSLIM male…” This is probably because the most recognizable/stereotypical features are listed, not the things that people likely would not notice.
So, while I agree with that the image of Islam in the Western media is often negative, I disagree that this constitutes any kind of bias by the Western media against Muslims. When a carbomb explodes in a Shia neighborhood in Iraq and Sunnis claim responsibility for it, then that is how it is reported, because that is the relevant facts of the event. It would not make sense to say instead: “Car bomb goes off in Muslim neighborhood; Muslims claim responsibility”. That does not tell us anything about the context of the event or the possible motive for it. Similarly, when a Christian’s religion is mentioned in connection to a crime, it is because that Christian did the crime out of his sense of religious motivation or obligation. Things like the example you gave about the German Christian who killed people and wanted to sue his family for possession of an old Bible are not good examples, unless it can be proven that he killed his family BECAUSE of the contents of the Bible itself. That is not the case, so really it doesn’t matter to the motive. You could replace “Bible” with any object (a rubber duck, a soccer ball, an umbrella…anything!), and the story would essentially the same, because there is no evidence that the man’s religious conviction influenced his desire to kill people.
Contrast that, if you please, with the many videos coming out of Iraq, Palestine, and other places that are unforunately very violent. These videos will begin usually with the words “Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem…” and have some more reading from the Qur’an or saying other Islamic things before the person in them decapitates or stabs to death another person, or before they commit a “martyrdom operation” like killing innocent people on a bus.
They’re not at all comparable. You are wrong.
I think its the Western governments and the EU who are curling their tails in between their legs - for fear of being castigated by the “international community”. By “international community” i mean of course, the rising number of Muslims around the world and Western empathizers such as Karen Armstrong, the liberal media, etc.