Violence and chaos are terms that are pretty well defined in society. A person tends to conceptualize events tied to such words by visualizing bombs exploding, bullets flying and all commonly associated images from the ravages of war and crime.
But violence is not limited to the media driven coverage that most often captures the readily available public examples of violence. There are plenty of examples of violence that occurs relatively unnoticed to the public eye. Violence such as the quietly executed political and religious persecution that happens in the middle of the night and well away from western cameras. Violence such as the forced recognition of Islamic law by dhimmi slaves and non-religious infidels. These examples, which have plenty of evidence to back them up, are sadly considered non-chaotic because they happen either quietly or with the acceptance of many.
Which makes the BBC characterization of the Islamic takeover of Somalia all that more appalling. Such willingness to ignore the quiet forms of violence and perpetuate the myth that there is a lack of chaos simply because certain crimes against humanity are perpetrated away from the media's selective eye is an affront to journalistic integrity.
The Beeb exemplifies such dishonest characterizations in its coverage of pirates who hijacked a United Nation ship off the Somali Coast.
A US warship is heading towards the Somali coast where a United Nations-chartered cargo ship was hijacked by pirates, say aid officials.UN staff say the hijacked ship, the MV Rozen, is at anchor after delivering food aid in north-eastern Somalia.
There have been no reports of demands from the pirates who boarded the ship armed with AK-47s. It is not known if any of the 12 crew have been injured.
Piracy was rampant in Somalia, but stopped during recent Islamist rule.
Since the overthrow of the Union of Islamic Courts at the turn of the year, Somalia has been descending back into the violence and chaos seen in the previous 16 years, and this latest incident raises fears of a resumption of lawlessness on the seas as well.
The contention here is that Somalia was relatively peaceful under the Sharia law that was imposed on the country when Islamic rebels took over the nation by force; defying international law and the Somali government that has been struggling to quell violence for almost 2 decades. This contention disregards the religious persecution of non-Muslims and others who lived under the threat of public execution for crimes such as being gay, dishonoring Islam in any number of ways and not praying 5 times a day as dictated under Sharia law.
Even worse and more intellectually dishonest is the fact that many recorded incidents of violence off the coast of Somalia at the hands of pirates were committed by guess who, radical Islamists!! How much do you want to bet that this is the case once again? If so then it is no surprise that the BBC report carries no word of the nationality or religious affiliation of the pirates. That would all but invalidate the premise of the report.
Do you imagine that we will see an update or retraction by the BBC if in these pirates turn out to be the same al-Qaeda backed Islamists that were run out of Somalia? I highly doubt it; that would fly in the face of drive by journalistic standards - or lack thereof.
This kind of bias in the media has become a recurring theme. We have seen this previously in the acceptance of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez as a democratically elected leader and Saddam Hussein’s Baath party as stabilizing force in Iraq. Chavez is ushering a new era of state sponsored socialism complete with universal health care so he is given a pass in many circles on the left despite the rampant crime in its capital and claims of political oppression by many. Saddam Hussein perpetuated some of the most vicious crimes on his own people as well as that of his middle eastern neighbors but all was forgiven when the United States decided that his influence and support of terrorism was where we were going to draw the line.
Ignoring one set of crimes as a means to further an anti-U.S. and anti-Christian agenda does a great disservice to the people of the world who suffer quietly while the mainstream media chugs along its merry propagandistic way. I can't think of a greater disservice to the world and the journalistic community.
Update: I wanted to provide the following link for completeness and correct an invalid URL: But I Thought That The Somali Islamists Were The Peaceful Type!
Terry Trippany is the editor at Webloggin.
