Lies They Tell.

You will prepare and submit a term paper on The Lies They Tell. Your paper should be a minimum of 1500 words in length.

Here, Americans are supposedly witnesses to people who call themselves Moslems fighting and killing in the name of religion. But the truth is that these images that they see do not represent Islam and the Moslems. Rather what they see is confusion, hatred, and, in some cases, ignorance. These Moslems that they see on television have turned Islam’s ideals of peace and harmony on its head and they are not a significant number at all of the Moslem population. The media reporters and commentators rarely mention that such actions are not permitted by religion and have no place within Islam.

In Quran, the primary meaning of jihad is not “holy war” but “struggle” It refers to the hardship and effort that is needed to put God’s will into practice at every level of people’s lives – from personal, to social and political.Unfortunately, the way jihad is being portrayed in the media has much to do with the negative perception of Islam. The present portrayal of jihad by “terrorists” has great audience appeal and that it allows for media twists and their hunger for controversy and drama.

The issue of “jihad” brings us to another perspective about violence and bloodshed. At the end of World War II, Germany had much of Norway under siege and occupied. It was little. The Norwegian resistance movement was launched and that brave Norwegians blew up ships, railroad, and the German military infrastructure. History called these Norwegians as saboteurs and freedom fighters. They are hailed as heroes today. Now, is the struggle by the brave Norwegians against the occupying German forces any different from the Moslems in Palestine, Somalia.

Chechnya, Kashmir, Iraq, and Afghanistan? The Moslems in these countries are merely resisting in order to keep their lands from foreign invaders. Some of them are just defending their homes and their families. Unfortunately, people who are resisting an occupying military power are branded as terrorists instead of freedom fighters. Since 9/11 the media has consistently pumped us with information fear-mongering that led to this kind of thinking.