Islamic Unity Week (5): Western media’s support for Takfiris

Welcome to the 5th episode of our special 6-part programme being broadcast daily on the occasion of the annual Islamic Unity Week that spans the two dates of Rabi al-Awwal marked by Sunni and Shi’a Muslims respectively as the birthday of the Almighty’s Last and Greatest Messenger, Prophet Mohammad (Blessings of God upon him and his progeny).

Sunni Muslims, as per the reports of the Prophet’s companions who became acquainted with him in the last years of his life, claim that he was born on the 12^th of Rabi al-Awwal. Shi’a Muslims, on the basis of the accounts of the Prophet’s blessed household, the Ahl al-Bayt, consider family reports to be more reliable and mark the Prophet’s birthday on Rabi al-Awwal 17. The Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (God bless his soul), in order to gather Muslims on a single platform, above trivial differences, initiated the Islamic Unity Week in 1979, which has since gathered momentum and is spreading the message of solidarity around the world, despite the intricate sectarian plots of the enemies to splinter Muslim ranks by creating cannibalistic Takfiri terrorist outfits, such as Daesh, al-Qa’eda and their offshoots. Today we shall talk about mainstream Western media, and their role in helping Takfiri terrorists (particularly ISIS or Daesh) spread their message of hatred, and helping them to recruit more members. Stay with us.

A glance at the mainstream Western media shows how happy they are in broadcasting the propaganda videos made by the Daesh terrorist and other extremist groups, masquerading as Jihadis and Islamists, in a bid to tarnish the image of Islam and dent Islamic unity. It is also obvious that the Western media is helping Daesh and other terrorist outfits recruit young people. This is part of an intricate plot that started over two-and-a-half decades ago, following Iran’s prominent role in promoting Islamic unity in the region and the world. The West didn’t like this idea, nor did its clients in the Muslim, especially Arab states that were bent upon creating sectarian divisions. Just after the First Persian Gulf war in 1991, when  the United States headed an international coalition to drive out Saddam’s forces from Kuwait, the French author, academic and sociologist, Jean Baudrillard, published a book, titled: “The Persian Gulf War Never Happened”.  The best-selling book took a very different look at was happening in Iraq and Kuwait. Baudrillard’s book looked at the media war which was being fought alongside the conventional war on the ground. According to Baudrillard, the American public, the European public, and even the Iraqi people’s knowledge of the war in their country was essentially only as much as the information they were being fed  by mainstream Western media, such as CNN and BBC and various satellite channels. This information was almost always, incomplete, biased, one-sided, highly selective, and in some instances, totally wrong and highly misleading.

Jean Baudrillard was right in that the war on the ground in Iraq was very different to the war which media outlets such as CNN and the BBC reported on, and he gave many examples of this in his book. Baudrillard concluded by saying that the media war being conducted by Western media against Saddam’s Iraq, laid the groundwork for a full military assault on that country by conventional military forces. A similar thing is happening in the Middle East right now. The Western media do not want their viewers to see the real face of Daesh, an-Nusra Front, FSA or the so-called Free Syrian Army, and other terrorist groups which are active in the Levant. Rather, they just want their viewers to associate terrorism with Islam, and portray Muslims as insane terrorists. They just want to destabilize and break-up Islamic countries of the region, such as Syria and Iraq.,

Germany's public international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, has been referring to Takfiri terrorists active in the Middle East as “jihadists” or “Islamists” for many years now. Deutsche Welle refers to Daesh terrorists in particular, as a “paramilitary group calling itself ISIS or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”, and sometimes it refers to them as extremists. Britain’s national broadcaster, the BBC, which often criticizes the human rights situation in Middle Eastern countries, totally ignores the human rights of the victims of Daesh terrorists, and refers to ISIS terrorists as “Jihadist paramilitaries”. The BBC also refers to Daesh terrorists as “Sunni forces” or “Sunni fighters”, while this is not true, since all schools of Sunni jurisprudence, including Egypt’s prestigious al-Azhar, have refused to consider Daesh and all other Takfiri groups, as well as Wahhabis and Salafis, as Sunni. The Voice of America (VOA) refers to Daesh terrorists with phrases such as “Sunni Group ISIS or Daesh” and “Islamist paramilitaries ISIS” and “extremist paramilitaries ISIS”.

It is quite clear that the refusal of BBC, VOA, and, Deutsche Welle, to label ISIS (or Daesh) as a terrorist group, is a form of open support for this terrorist organization. It is not altogether surprising, since ISIS terrorist were created, trained and funded by Western Intelligence agencies, such as Britain’s MI6 and America’s CIA. Virtually, all the weapons captured from ISIS terrorists in the Middle East are American weaponry, many of them standard US Army issue!

The Takfiri terrorist group, Daesh, is arguably the most media-savvy terrorist outfit in the world, and quite possibly the most media-savvy terrorist organization in history. Daesh has a particularly violent ideology, and calls itself a caliphate.  Members of this group are simply terrorists and it is wrong to think of them as Muslims at all. The group's financing, management, and organization, and its savvy use of social media for recruitment and fundraising all point to the fact that the group was created by Western Intelligence agencies, such as Britain’s MI6 or America’s CIA, and members of this terrorist group were specially trained by their Western masters to use the power of digital media for recruitment, and expansion of their terrorist activities, and dissemination of their hateful and extremist ideology.

Daesh has tried to maximize its reach by exploiting a variety of platforms: social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook, peer-to-peer messaging apps like Telegram and Instagram. On the one hand, the group uses the internet and mainstream Western media to attract potential recruits, and to spread its message of hatred, and on the other hand it also tries to portray a human face – “the soft side” of itself. For example, many ISIS videos have been uploaded onto YouTube which show members of this terrorist network feeding animals, or eating chocolate, or eating lunch, or just chatting to one another. On one such video, a Daesh terrorist looked directly at the camera and said: “We have families, just like you, we have sisters and brothers, just like you. It is wrong to portray us as wild animals”.

Thus Daesh terrorists are pursuing a two-track approach in their “media war”. On the one hand they are trying to instill fear into the public, by uploading videos of their horrendous and vicious crimes, and on the other hand, they want to show a human face -- the soft side of themselves.

Arguably, the social media network, Twitter is Daesh’s most valuable and effective media tool. In all the years that Daesh has used Twitter to spread its hateful ideology, the top management and owners of Twitter have never tried to shut down the group’s activities in their site. There is a huge amount of evidence which shows Twitter has knowingly provided material support to Daesh by permitting its terrorists to use its social network as a tool for spreading their extremist propaganda. One can seriously ask given the fact that Daesh and other terrorist organizations have proven adept at using social media to disseminate propaganda and incite fear, why haven’t platforms like Facebook and Twitter aggressively and methodically delete such content, and ban those who post it Isn’t there something these American companies (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) can do under existing law to shut down Daesh, an-Nusra Front, and other Internet sites belonging to terrorist groups?

Obama administration officials claim that it is not that simple. According to Obama Administration officials, the problem lies in the global nature of social media, the reliance upon self-policing by users to identify objectionable content, and the fact that many of those banned simply open a new account and continue posting their hateful Propaganda. According to Obama administration officials, legislation about free speech, and also America’s Constitution, prevents them from shutting down websites relating to Daesh, an-Nusra Front, etc. While, this argument may seem logical and coherent, it has one fatal flaw! Websites belonging to Palestinian activists and human rights activists have been shut down for years, without any warning, and without any official explanation from US authorities.

US authorities have shut down Palestinians Websites for years, if not decades. These websites reveal details of crimes and atrocities committed by the Zionist regime of Israel, against innocent Palestinians. Websites operated by non-Palestinian human rights organizations detailing Israeli atrocities have also been routinely shut down. 

So it seems legislation about free speech, and the US Constitution, applies to Daesh and an-Nusra Front terrorists, but it does NOT APPLY to Palestinians and various human rights organizations which are highlighting the Zionist regime’s atrocities. It seems that because Daesh and an-Nusra Front, are working in America’s interests and are killing large numbers of innocent Muslims in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, they can continue to use the internet and social networking sites, quite freely, and without any restrictions. But because Palestinians are highlighting Israeli regime crimes and atrocities, and the Zionist regime is a key ally of the United States, their activities on the internet are carefully controlled, highly restricted, and monitored by the US regime. The Obama Administration makes a clear distinction between who is a friend and who is not. Friends of the US regime have no restrictions on their free speech, even if they happen to be Daesh and an-Nusra Front terrorists. Those who are not regarded as “friends” of the Obama Administration, such as the Palestinians, do not have any right to free speech, and their use of Internet and social networking sites is restricted and carefully monitored. So Daesh and al-Qaeda can go on happily uploading their vile videos onto YouTube!! Some of these videos have had more that 3 million viewers, according to figures published on various internet sites.

One final word. It is a sad fact that in the Islamic world, particularly academic institutions, universities and think-tanks in the Islamic world, do not make good use of Internet and digital media to strengthen friendship and ties between different Islamic denominations, and also to educate the public about the divisive policies of the enemies of Islam. Islamic Unity Week is a great opportunity for academic figures, ulema, and leaders of the Islamic world to get together and think of ways to rectify this situation.

AS/ME