The Press Views the World – Muslim vs. Christian

I saw an article in the Saturday 12 October, 2006 edition of the Appleton Post~Crescent stating that Turkey is “the first Muslim country to contribute ground troopsâ€¦” for the United Nations peacekeeping forces. This Associated Press article by Zeina Karam, has been widely reprinted.

I am concerned with the characterization of Turkey as a Muslim country. The government is secular. One of the “four pillars” of the Turkish Republic is Secularism. Yet, the usual press characterization is that this is a Muslim nation. So were the troops and support from western nations characterized as from Christian countries? What would these stereotyping press writers do with a country like India? Would that become a Hindu country.

To be more specific, is Italy a Catholic country and the United States a Protestant country? Will the United States be divided by Catholic states and Protestant states; then subdivided into evangelical and traditional Protestant states? I thought the red and blue labels were artificial and misleading. The tendency for the western press to automatically slot countries as a certain religion and conflicts as automatically religious is prejudgment and stereotyping. This is bad reporting.

This is not the first time this has occurred nor will it be the last. This is a consequence of how we obtain and retain knowledge. Here even rudimentary research would show the Turkish Republic legal system and constitution as secular.

We humans get much of our knowledge through absorption. We also tend to think of our knowledge base as authoritarian. We seldom make an effort to verify what we think we know. Questioning what we know is a painful process.

There is always a repetition that is apparent in press writing. A while back almost every reference to Apple Computer included the obligatory “beleaguered.” Disaster reports include the parenthetical “including women and children” when referring to victims. Reporting about helping trouble children will emphasize the need with “especially girls.”

It would be good if people would read a biography of Ataturk or read the history of the so-called great powers mucking up the world. The ignorance and policies of nations that lead to two World Wars is still present and accepted.

I don’t expect news reporters to provide solutions for the turmoil of today. But, knowledgeable reporting will go a long way to helping people understand. And, it might even help prevent the wall building mentality of today’s governments.