Big Dogs Weblog

Muslims Don’t Like Portrayal on 24

by Big Dog on Jan 19, 2007 at 11:55 Political

The terrorist front group, The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), is upset with the program 24 on Fox. CAIR believes that 24 shows Muslims in a bad light and that prejudice will result. Though 24 has depicted people from many groups as terrorists (including the fictional President of the US) CAIR feels that showing Muslims as terrorists does them injustice:

“The raw emotional impact of fictional scenes that include widespread death and destruction in America may adversely affect the public’s attitude toward civil liberties, religious freedom and interfaith relations,” the CAIR statement said.

“The program’s repeated association of acts of terrorism with Islam will only serve to increase anti-Muslim prejudice in our society,” it added. Breitbart

I think that the hundreds of acts of violence and terrorism committed by Muslims particularly over the last 3 decades is what makes people associate Muslims with terror. In all reality, the groups portrayed as terrorists by 24 in past seasons are far less likely to commit terrorist acts than most Muslim groups. No one from the other groups flew planes into buildings and killed people (despite the conspiracy theories that Bush did it) and no one from those groups were involved in bombing the Cole. In fact, it would be particularly difficult to actually find a group of terrorists that representative the groups played on the show with, of course, the exception of Muslims.

Perhaps CAIR could spend its energy getting Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the Muslims countries to stop sanctioning and committing acts of terror. It just seems to me that if you are worried about how you are perceived then it might be to your advantage to stop real people who are committing these acts in real life. Going after a TV show for fiction when people are doing it for real is a stretch. Actually, since 24 shows Muslims committing acts of terror and Muslims actually commit acts of terror, is it realistic for us to call the show fiction?

Maybe instead of protesting 24 for their depiction of Muslims CAIR could go after the people who were filmed by Channel 4 in Britain. CAIR could tell them to stop talking about killing Jews and taking over the world. CAIR could tell them to stop advocating violence against women and children as well as those of us who are non-believers. Maybe if CAIR spent its time stopping the real people on film it would not have to worry about the pretend people on film.

My new tag line for 24. 24: Art imitating Life.

[tags]24, CAIR, terror, TV, Jack Bauer[/tags]

Tags: Political