Wednesday, April 14, 2010

A Needle in a Haystack

That saying describes perfectly how difficult it is to find a positive story about a member of the Islam faith in the western media. Well, today I decided to do the hard work for you by finding one such example. It is a story run by several US TV news channels - ABC 7 and CNN to name a few. The piece can be described as one of those Christmas feel-good stories that are supposed to fill people with hope and love for each other. This frame is often used for rather superficial soft news, and one can say this (human interest) story is no different. Yet, given its rather rare message, I find it important and want to share it with you:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFc3rCXgzUQ

Watched it? What do you think of it? For those who didn't feel like watching it or don't have time to do so (in which case I thank you guys for finding time to read my blog ;-) ), here is the video's content in a nutshell: A young Jewish man is attacked on a NYC subway train by racist Christians - and is saved by ... you guessed it... a Muslim! The story is rather emotional, supplemented by interviews with both the victim and his girlfriend, as well as Hassan Askari, the Muslim hero. Here are the words of Walter Sebastian Adler, the Jewish victim:

"A Muslim American saved us when our own people were on a train and didn't do anything....someone that in the media often gets painted as the enemy of Israel and the Jews...."

In the case of ABC 7 News, the piece goes on citing a passage from Qur'an about the virtue of saving a human life, which is also commented on by Hassan Askari: "Islam teaches you to be...you know, to help your fellow man, to be kind, courteous...."

I wanted to include a story like this one as an example of a positive, pro-social media deed, which in my opinion is way too rare - to the point I would nominate it on the list of endangered species. Still, it is important to note there are stories like that in the media and we as the audience can do our part by encouraging the media people to show more of them. How? There are number of ways, but the easiest and cost-free first step could be a letter to the editor or a simple call-in to give a positive feedback if a story like the one above is shown. After all, the media need you, they need us, for their survival!

1 comment:

  1. Hello MLS,

    it surprised me. Not because I do not beleive that Muslims are able to do good deeds. But because this view is extremely atypical. You are doing right think by pointing to it.

    See you
    Takita

    ReplyDelete