alternarrative

Dan Mathewson, a scholar of religion, has published an incisive analysis on disparities between the media coverage of Dr. George Tiller’s murderer and that of the man who killed an army recuiter in Arkansas. Whereas in the case of the latter, the media has paid a lot of attention to his religious background as a convert to Islam, in the case of the former, the fact of the man’s zealous attachment to Christianity has been basically set aside as unimportant. Junaid Afeef makes the same point in his piece at altmuslim, and further asks: why has Dr. Tiller’s murderer not been charged with terrorism, even though his act seems to meet the legal definition.

Both Mathewson and Afeef argue that both men were quite obviously ‘religiously motivated’, and so the differential media treatment is unjustified. Clearly, it seems that the media perceives Islam and Christianity differently when it comes to the question of whether or not religion can be a ’cause’ or motivating factor in a murder (Hence, Mathewson’s apt title: “Muslims Murder, Christians Don’t”). But even attributing causality to religion is not straightforward business. If a religion is said to have made someone do something, why aren’t other followers of the same religion led to the same act? It also matters how we understand religion itself: for e.g. whether or not religion is something that exists independently like an object, outside of its practitioners.

Interestingly, not only is our particular perception of Islam being shaped by the events we associate with it, but apparently we now can’t even conceive a terrorist act without an Islamic vocabulary. In other words, not only Islam –> Terrorism, but also Terrorism –> Islam. And so, for e.g., the Canadian columnist Zerbisias describes the murder of Dr. Tiller thus: “Terrorism, plain and simple. The American Taliban” (Thanks to GaL for the link; click to read why she takes serious issue with this characterization).

Of course, this is all just part of the process by which we ‘make sense’ of things and attribute meaning to events. I recall someone saying, during the debates in the aftermath of the tragic Aasiya Zubair murder, that when a white man beats up and kills his wife, the ’cause’ is likely found in his being psychologically disturbed, but when a Black or immigrant man does the same, it’s enough to know that he is Black or immigrant.