Introduction : What is The Misrepresentation of Islam

INTRODUCTION -

What is the Misrepresentation of Islam

AndHow It Threatens Our Racial and Religious Harmony





i) FOREWORD
ii) THE ROOT
iii) THE CONSEQUENCES
iv) THE CONCLUSION



FOREWORD – The Outbursts And Our National Cohesion

When the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre burned, collapsed and then disappeared forever from the landscape of New York City, the convulsion it caused raced thousands of kilometers across the other side of the earth to shake the foundation of our own multiracial and multireligious society.

Within days, reactions to this tumultuous event were reported from within some of our schools and workplaces where religiously inflammatory comments and insinuations were directed by one segment of our population against another segment.

These non-Muslim reactions towards local Muslims were not tame or mild in the particular context of our society. Our own past experiences of racial and religious strife have made us understand that even mere remarks are simply too severe and they must necessarily be dealt with immediately and harshly.

Indeed what had made these incidences especially frightening was the fact that these incidences occurred in what we came to regard as part of our common spaces where the most active interactions between the various segments of our society occurred. Our national schools and workplaces are arguably the most important of our common spaces and as such, they should have shown the strongest immunity against any racial and religious incitements but yet they proved to be absolutely vulnerable to such influences.

Indeed it should be shocking when our own children who were being educated in the national schools verbally abused their school mates with racial and religious invectives when this is the environment where they supposedly are being taught, nay indoctrinated, with the values of tolerance and acceptance.

The seriousness of these outbursts was amply illustrated by the response of our government when it acted swiftly to confront them. The pleas for unity heard in the days of these incidences, whether it was a call for the strengthening of bonds within our diverse society or reassertions that Islam and terrorism are different, reflected its recognition of the fragility of our racial and religious harmony and the importance of preserving it.

It is obvious that it understood that these outbursts were acts which not only could have led to a more dangerous situation but that they were actually indicative of an existing weakness in our national cohesiveness.

To nullify the effects of these incidences and to minimize the impact of any potentially divisive events in the future, our government made passionate appeals for integration and implemented a strategy which is programmed to promote dialogues through interreligious and interracial exchanges and to develop activities which would encourage interaction which consequently should foster understanding.

These efforts and the general direction of our response to these outbursts indicated that we had believed that it was our lack of understanding of our mutual differences which was the agent responsible for weakening our social cohesion. And that it was this weakness, resulting from ignorance, which had facilitated those outbursts.

This conclusion is not being challenged. Ignorance certainly did play the crucial role, specifically and explicitly ignorance about being Muslim. However what is being challenged is the root of that ignorance.

There are indisputable facts, easily observable, which lead us to a different root, to what actually causes this misunderstanding about being Muslim. What causes such urgency is the fact that this root unfortunately is being dangerously allowed to continue growing, digging deeper and deeper into the foundation of our racial and religious harmony.

The continued existence of this root strongly suggests therefore that the efforts which had been implemented to strengthen whatever weaknesses facing our racial and religious cohesion might fail. Certainly those efforts might increase some understanding but they might not eliminate the particular point of ignorance which was doubtlessly the agent guilty of provoking those outbursts. This is precisely because those efforts were not geared to address this specific ignorance.

Failure in this matter is not a choice. To allow our national cohesion to continue weakening is not a choice. To allow our country to descend into irreparable chaos is not a choice.

The undeniable fact is that these incidences happened although there was not even a single Singaporean victim in New York City. We have been fortunate, thankfully, but scary as it is, the possibility exists of Singaporeans calculating family members, friends, colleagues or fellow countrymen as victims in any other future terrorist attacks. This is given both Singaporean penchant for travel and the increasing threats of terrorism. The two times that bombs rocked Bali, for example, could have easily claimed Singaporean lives. So could have the London and Delhi bombings.

Imagine then of what would happen to our racial and religious harmony. To count on mere luck that should this happen we would suffer only from verbal violence would be utterly irresponsible.

Indeed the ability of our multi-racial and multi-religious society to withstand the effects of acts, both inside and outside of our borders, which tugged at our racial and religious sentiments was questioned by our own prime minister, Mr Lee Hsien Loong. Drawing on what happened in the aftermath of the London bombings, Mr Lee warned against our complacency, acknowledging that despite efforts by the British government to repair the damage done to interreligious relations by the attacks on the World Trade Centre, religious tensions grew and hate crimes against the Muslim community in that country swelled.

It is therefore out of the same tremendous concern for our racial and religious harmony, driven by the love for this country which we call our home, that this forum seeks to share with the general public what it believes to be the actual cause of these outbursts with the hope that even mere awareness about it can somehow help to repair and preserve that harmony.



THE ROOT – Our Media and The Outbursts
Admittedly it is true that the attacks in New York were both emotionally and psychologically powerful, no doubt because they were visually consumed by the Singaporean public as they happened. It is easy therefore to suppose or claim that this event could have provoked extreme feelings which instigated extreme responses.

However this explanation would fail to explain why the local Muslim community is deemed worthy of blame.

The one undeniable fact is that the outbursts against the local Muslim community happened even though it did not commit, abet, support or condone the attacks either morally, financially or in any other capacity, either by actions or words. And before these attacks, the local Muslim community had not either through its actions or words shown any propensity for or inclination towards violence which would indicate or prove that it would approve of or rejoice in what happened.

Yet those outbursts against the local Muslim community clearly showed that there were a strong opinion or belief that it should share in the blame for the attacks, that it deserved to be condemned for what happened, that it was justified to verbally attack local Muslims for what others did. The fact that those outbursts occurred despite the absence of any provocations on the part of the local Muslim community proved that it was the victim of guilt by sheer association.

The question now is what had pushed or facilitated these non-Muslims to see or to create this link when there should be none.

It should be obvious that this is not just a simple misunderstanding about being Muslim. It is specifically a misunderstanding about being Muslim which is synonymous with supporting, encouraging and sympathizing with terrorism. Indeed having the same religion is the only connection between the local Muslim community and the alleged perpetrators of the attacks.

Based on this, we believe that the cause behind these outbursts, or the root of the specific ignorance which we blame these outbursts on, is how Islam has had been portrayed by our local media channel, especially the Straits Times and include Channelnewsasia. These images clearly link Islam with and to terrorism.

However these images of Islam are not true. Rather these images are false or wrong because they are the result of what is called the misrepresentation of Islam.
A misrepresentation of Islam occurs when issues where Islam is involved, either directly or indirectly, are unfairly and inaccurately portrayed. Subsequently and consequently, this leads to Islam being depicted incorrectly and often maliciously. These issues range from the purely religious such as jihad to political issues such as the separatist conflict in southern Thailand to social and cultural ones.

As such, Islam has for long through our mass media been made synonymous with a bunch of negative attributes including backwardness, poverty, oppression, intolerance and of course, terrorism.

Without a doubt these images could only create negative sentiments about being Muslim. This is precisely because of the natural link which exists between a religion and its followers. In the same way that the behaviours and actions of its followers would affect the image of the religion, how the followers are seen depends equally on the way the religion is portrayed. To put it differently, in the same way the image of Islam is influenced by the actions and behaviours of Muslims, so does the image of Muslims similarly influenced by how Islam is projected.

Hence in the context of Singapore, under the shadow of the misrepresentation of Islam, the image of the local Muslim community is defined by these images. What makes this a certainty are three simple facts - one, that these vile and fallacious images of Islam are communicated almost daily to the Singaporean public; two, they stood unchallenged which make them true and correct representations of Islam in the eyes of the Singaporean public; and three, the extent and frequency with which the misrepresentation of Islam occurs in our local mass media ensure that these images are continuously reinforced.

Therefore it is an observable fact, although unacknowledged and unknown, that long before these outbursts, the image of Islam fed regularly to the non-Muslim segment of our population was particularly synonymous with violence and terrorism.

What this means is that, by and large, this was the only Islam which the non-Muslim majority knew, whether through our electronic media or printed ones, and it was an image constantly propagated and consistently reinforced. The frequency with which these images of Islam were served to our public for its consumption can only be described as horrendously high that it would be bizarre if it did not manage to shape the notion that being Muslim means to preach, support and encourage violence and terrorism.

Logic dictates that false perceptions about Islam must necessarily translate into false perceptions about being Muslim. Indeed it is an established, copiously researched fact that the media has that tremendous ability to shape perceptions, and that consistent, unchallenged exposure to certain notions, ideas or opinions about a topic or subject would unfailingly influenced how it is ultimately perceived.

Therefore any argument that seeks to suggest, claim or insinuate that the way Islam is portrayed would not have any effect on the way its followers are seen is moot.

Indeed the role of the media, or rather the bad media, had been described by one of our own ministers as slow poisoning. Another minister once rebuked our media for undermining the credibility of our law enforcement team even though what the media did was to report actual crimes committed by rogue police officers. Yet another minister, on his official visit to a foreign country, bravely criticized that country’s media for what he regarded as distorted reports on Singapore.

Even our own government apparently, and rightfully so, believes in the powerful role which the media plays in shaping perceptions.

There is definitely misunderstanding about being Muslim among our non-Muslim majority and the misrepresentation of Islam definitely had played the pivotal role in cultivating it. This cannot be doubted. Indeed the fact that these outbursts happened should not have surprised us. The attacks were simply the correct catalyst.

Evidence does exist which indicated that misunderstanding about being Muslim among the non-Muslim majority was prevalent even before these attacks. This evidence came from the findings of a telephone survey conducted by the Straits Times itself which discovered that the majority of its non-Muslim respondents had overwhelmingly negative opinions about being Muslim.

These findings were gathered in the absence of any events which equaled the attacks in New York either in intensity or brutality or in the presence of any negative actions or behaviours on the part of the local Muslim community. Therefore it could not be argued that these findings were marred by any exceptional circumstances. Rather the survey was conducted in the midst of the usual misrepresentation of Islam and where it was so common before.

What these findings persuasively showed is that our national cohesiveness was not as strong as we thought or would like it to be when the attacks happened. In other words, what happened was not a case of a dam collapsing because of a sudden tiny crack but rather of a wall already weakened with holes and then hit with a giant sledge hammer.

It is worth emphasizing that these findings although serious by our own measure did not provoke any earnest search for the cause. It is fair to say that except for a little expression of concern it was essentially ignored.

It is indeed telling that we failed to locate the source of these findings only to be shock later by the outbursts provoked by the attacks in New York. What is clear is that we have made a mistake by ignoring these findings. We cannot make another mistake with these outbursts.

Therefore in searching for the root of the ignorance we believed to be the agent which has destabilized our racial and religious harmony even before the attacks in New York, it would be inexplicable to deny, dismiss or ignore the way Islam has been misrepresented by our local media channel as unimportant.

Consider these facts.

One, this image of Islam intertwined with terrorism had existed long before the attacks. Two, evidence that a misunderstanding about being Muslim was already prevalent exists. Three, that this same image was reinforced immediately in the hours and days following the attacks on the World Trade Centre. It was an observable fact that the Straits Times and Channelnewsasia were already painting the attacks in the colour of Islam even when there were yet any credible physical evidence or claims of responsibility by groups or organisations which could show that the attacks were religiously motivated.

These facts do not allow for any other conclusion except for this one - that those outbursts were the manifestations of the way Islam and its followers had been made to be seen which were brought to boiling point by the attacks in New York and the way they were reported. To put it in other words, the attacks were already emotionally provocative but the reports on them were delivered with a particular slant which could only arouse anti-Muslim sentiments resulting in already existing misconceptions erupting onto the surface as physical reactions.

Those who need more food for thought regarding the danger of the misrepresentation of Islam and its role in undermining our national cohesiveness, then they can have these to chew on. One, after the incidences in Singapore, our government issued an admonishment to our local media channel against vilification and this was exactly the word used. 'Vilification' of course means 'to attack the reputation of by slander or libel', 'to malign', 'to denigrate'. Two, immediately after these incidences were reported, there was a stream, although inexplicably short, of refreshingly objective news items on Islam by both the Straits Times and Channelnewsasia where they actually distanced Islam from terrorism.

That admonishment and that sudden change in news direction, albeit briefly, were powerful acknowledgments about the role of the media in provoking those incidences and with that the danger posed by its misrepresentation of Islam.


The possibility of the misrepresentation of Islam having played the pivotal role in the weakening of our racial and religious harmony, not only in instigating these incidences but more importantly by creating the necessary environment which is conducive in provoking them, cannot be dismissed or ignored. Admittedly it is more authoritative when compared to the causes we have held to be responsible. Unlike these other causes which are merely theoretical, the misrepresentation of Islam exists as an unquestionable fact. Between a fact and a bunch of theories, it is obvious which should have

Certainly never visiting a mosque, never having a taste of Malay culture, never taking part in the ritual sacrifice of sheep, never sharing the experience of the fasting month and never witnessing how the Muslim prayer is performed could not imaginably be the essential reasons why our non-Muslim majority would blame the Muslim community for terrorist acts which it did neither commit nor abet.

Further even if it is argued that these efforts could bear the desired healing effects, the level of their success would be questionable based on the simple, observable fact that they are severely limited in their reach. For example, how many non-Muslim Singaporeans exactly have visited a mosque since this program was instituted and among those who have how many have been successfully convinced that Islam is not synonymous with terrorism.

It is precisely because of these points that our efforts would not and could not be effective in nursing the failing health of our national cohesion because they do not address the specific concerns and fears about the Muslim community being Muslim, and certainly not when the misconceptions about being Muslim are being allowed to continue propagating themselves.

Consider the latest threat to our racial and religious harmony.

If the findings of the telephone survey proved that misunderstanding about being Muslim has existed long before the outbursts, then the recent cases of Singaporeans charged with inciting racial and religious hatred in cyberspace against the local Muslim community is a cause for us to seriously ponder this point.
We can definitely ignored them as being isolated cases of bigotry and dismissed the poison they penned as sentiments which have no connection to the sentiments found by the telephone survey and also the outbursts after the attacks in New York. And similarly we can deny the possibility that their sentiments could be shared by the silent majority among the non-Muslim population.

But what we cannot ignore, dismiss or deny is that there is a pattern and the common denominator which runs through each one of them is the misrepresentation of Islam. It was there before, during and after. It is difficult to dismiss this pattern as being the product of coincidence.

We can of course like the telephone survey swept this latest evidence of anti-Muslim sentiments under the carpet and just hope that the carpet will not be pulled from under us, yet again. Or we can be serious and sensible and treat them as an omnious sign which must be heeded, that these recently discovered sentiments indicate that we have failed to address the misconceptions about being Muslim which we know we must correct for the sake of our national cohesion.



THE CONSEQUENCES – To Our Society
The misrepresentation of Islam by our local media channel has been overlooked as one of the causes which we need to address even though there could be no doubt of its role.

Yet our survival as one family, diverse but united, many but one, depends on the strategy put in placed to protect it being effective and its effectiveness is dependent on that strategy having formulated the correct approach and the correct approach is dependent on it having reached the correct conclusion. It is debatable that it has.

The strategy which has been in used is exactly like treating a malignant brain tumour as though it is just a headache. We take the wrong medication, ignore the continuing pain, dismiss the other symptoms and in the end we suffer from a fatal hemorrhage.

Indeed we certainly are gambling on a lot.

This analogy is true even if we do not have to contend with terrorist acts within or without our borders to endanger our racial and religious harmony because what still remain firmly at stake are both our national cohesiveness and with it the civil society which we want for ourselves.

The civil society of our vision must necessarily embrace the Muslim community or rather specifically a Muslim community which actively and freely practices its religious beliefs and values, precisely because the Muslim community is equally intrinsic to the flesh and blood of Singapore and deserves equal consideration and protection as provided for by our constitution.

It is therefore a society which will not discriminate against the Muslim community for being Muslim. It is a society which will not intimidate the Muslim community to relinquish its religious beliefs in order to be accepted. It is a society which will not compel the Muslim community to diminish the importance of its religion in order to be approved. It is a society which will not make the Muslim community feels trapped or cornered for being Muslim. It is a society which will not make the Muslim community feels guilty about or the need to apologize for acts it did not commit.

However we cannot even hoped to build this society, which not only we want but which we need, when the Muslim community is continuously being portrayed negatively through the demonization of its religion.

By disseminating misunderstanding about being Muslim, the misrepresentation of Islam can only breeds distrust, intolerance and ultimately hostility towards the Muslim community. It is therefore a formidable barrier to our vision of forging a society where we celebrate our racial differences as blessings and our religious differences as our natural rights, a society where everyone has a role to play and a place to call home

In a multi-racial and multi-religious society, each and every component must play its part to build cohesiveness but it is equally true that the integration of the minority group is dependent on the majority. In other words, in a situation where the minority group wants to integrate, its ability to integrate into the mainstream is determined by how much it is allowed to do so by the majority, and that acceptance is shaped by attitudes and attitudes are shaped by perceptions.

This is similarly true in the context of Singapore where the integrative ability of the Muslim community into the mainstream is dependent on the non-Muslim majority. Under the shadow of the misrepresentation of Islam, the crucial question is how much does the non-Muslim majority wants to allow a community it has been made to see as a bunch of potential terrorists and other monsters to integrate by allowing it into the common spaces, allowing it to share the same dreams and working together with it to realize those dreams.

And this rejection or rebuff might not express itself verbally or violently in order to be dangerous. Rejection or disapproval can manifest itself in other forms such as discrimination in job opportunities and limiting participation in social interactions. What is feared is that this rejection, if not arrested, might eventually lead to unofficial but institutionalized discriminations against it where it would be acceptable to treat the Muslim community in certain ways.

Already it is a common complaint heard again and again and again within the Muslim community of incidences of discrimination in the private sector against Muslim women who wear the headscarf. This should not be happening in our society which we claimed to be based strongly on meritocracy. This is but one example.

Another possible effect of the misrepresentation of Islam is how it might help to shape the type of policies towards the Muslim community. The media can play an extremely critical role in either influencing the process of policymaking or in legitimizing the implementation of said policies, and as such this is a legitimate concern.

The possibility of a demonized Muslim community being victimized by policies which are unfair and discriminatory or otherwise unconstitutional, in the name of protecting our national security or national cohesion, is real. These manufactured images associated with being Muslim might be frightening enough to provoke or justify the implementation of policies which could ultimately restrict or infringe upon the rights of the Muslim community which are otherwise protected by the constitution.

Indeed fears, intense enough, could cause civilized men to turn into blind bigots, and ultimately they will destroy what they seek to protect. We have seen how certain European countries, which had epitomized all the ideals of pluralism and freedom, slide into anti-Muslim bigotry resulting in the implementation of unfair policies against their Muslim communities in the name of security and integration.

This is not the society we want to build, either for ourselves or our children. We cannot call ourselves civilized, democratic and pluralistic when one of our communities is singled out for exclusion or unfair punishments.

A demonized Muslim community will ultimately lead to a stigmatized Muslim community, which might react like so many a minority group pushed to the fringes. If its feels threatened or it is made to feel that it does not belong or that it can belonged only by sacrificing its religious values, it might turn inward for comfort and safety.

If the Muslim community is forced to take internal refuge, it is another unfortunate step which will create even further chasm. What we will have is two portions of our society sharing the same space but not really living together where there is limited interaction, no dialogue and both living in fear and hate for each other.

Our racial and religious harmony is the ultimate justification for eliminating the misrepresentation of Islam. To put it differently, we are fighting for the soul of Singapore; for the right to live without fear and hatred. A multi-racial and multi-religious society faces enough challenges in trying to become a cohesive, integrated whole without a demonization campaign against one segment of its population simultaneously shredding its efforts into pieces.

We can make as many trips as we want to mosques and do as much as the other supposedly enlightening activities but the point which we have to consider is the fact that without addressing existing misconceptions and eliminating the channel for new ones is to try to save our racial and religious harmony from a mark where the Muslim community has been programmed to be seen as a bunch of potential terrorists, militants and extremists.

As long as the misrepresentation of Islam exists, no matter what is done there will always be lingering doubts about the Muslim community and where there are unaddressed suspicions there can be no genuine trust. Without trust the society we can only hoped to build is one forged by forced niceties, driven by the fear of the law, rather than one created by sincere acceptance of each other, of our differences.

Indeed our court of law can only stopped non-Muslim Singaporeans from spreading their hate through blogs, online diaries, website guestbooks and such but it has no ability to demand or make them change the way they perceive the Muslim community and how they interact with its members. Our court of law has no power over the court of private and public opinion.

Indeed our court of law has been powerless to stop the incidences after the attacks on the World Trade Centre and apparently the poisonous sentiments expressed through blogs were written without any fear of legal repercussions. The question which we should ask ourselves therefore is whether our court of law would be able to keep the hate and fear imprisoned the next time a terrorist act occurred, the one which tugged so hard at our racial and religious sentiments that we could stop thinking rationally.


CONCLUSION

The Muslim community sees no other home except Singapore and it has no desire to be exclusivist and isolated from the mainstream, and therefore it is unfair and unjust to reject or punish the Muslim community on the basis of unsubstantiated fears and worries about it which are manufactured by our mass media such as the Straits Times and Channelnewsasia.

Our multi-racial and multi-religious society has been shadowed by this problem for too long to consequences which we have yet to see fully and any effort aimed at protecting our racial and religious harmony by strengthening our national integration must consider its elimination. It would be ironic if these incidences jerked us to reassess our national cohesiveness but yet we fail to eliminate what actually weakens it. It would be a costly irony, one which is too expensive for us as a nation to afford.


Its exclusion from being targeted for termination and the failure of our news providers to rectify it demands that it is exposed through other channels. The importance of creating awareness about the misrepresentation of Islam in this way is like putting a sign next to a broken bridge straddling a deep ravine, one which cannot be fixed or closed but one which must be exposed because of the danger it poses to public safety.

Indeed communicating the existence of this problem is not just for exposing its danger. There is much healing for our cohesiveness in just knowing that this threat exists. Surely to know that much of the Islam which the local media channel has been feeding us is the product of fabrication would assuage many, many pivotal concerns about being Muslim and imagine what can be achieved for our racial and religious harmony if those misconceptions were to be thoroughly discussed and disproved.

We have made a mistake with the findings of the telephone survey. We ignored them then the attacks in New York happened and subsequently we had the outbursts. By failing to locate the source of these outbursts correctly which we have, it is the same as to ignore them. Then we have the blogs cases, which we once again failed to give due attention. Obviously mistakes ignored are mistakes repeated.

Let us not wait for another bomb to explode. Let us not wait for that possible unfortunate day when a terrorist act claims a Singaporean life on holiday. Let us not wait until it is too late.



Faris Osman Abdat