The Iran Hostage Crisis was displayed as one of the first incidents that involved radical Islam. The September 11th attacks were some of the first big terrorist attacks on the United States of America that involved Muslim extremists. The first attack occurred at the pentagon around 8 or 9am, by a plane referred to as plane 77. The plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was one of the only planes that stopped the terrorists from getting to their destination, which was the White House. The passengers being held hostage inside the plane sabotaged the terrorists and ended up causing the plane to crash. The two main attacks were the crashing of the two planes into the twin towers, which ultimately made the two buildings collapse, taking the lives of thousands of Americans. These extreme disasters were the main cause of racial profiling of Muslims in Amer-ica today. The stereotypes that American individuals place on Muslims in public areas is another consequence of these events. People are usually frightened when they witness a Muslim in public places and already have negative connotations of them based on the events of the September 11th attacks and the Iran hostage crisis. Events such as The Iran hostage crisis and the terrorists’ attacks on American soil that happened on September 11, 2001, opened up opportunities or ave-nues for the media to negatively portray the people of the Middle East in a stereotypical way in-ternationally.
The Iran Hostage crisis involved students from Iran and American Embassy workers in Teheran, in which many Americans were taken hostage due to the problems that the Iranian gov-ernment had with the United States of America (Farber 45). Following these attacks people ulti-mately reveal cultural stereotypes when violent events occur that involve one culture. Poole states that “Muslims are most likely to be represented as terrorists or cited as terrorist sources, whilst ordinary Muslims are marginalized” (Poole 5). It is contradictory that people around the world do not value the lives of Muslims on a social standpoint, yet they are also viewed as an enemy. It will be difficult for a Muslim in America to change the views of other people when they are being labeled as a “terrorist” or a “threat” to those around them. The world we live in today has become deluded by the reports made by the media that they never tend to think that Muslims are regular people who happen to live in a different part of the world. Muslims and Middle Easterners are usually harassed by officers at checkpoints while traveling. They, in some cases, are treated like dogs and people grow distrust for them. Middle Eastern people usually can’t practice their own culture freely in America because others might automatically view and confuse this as an act of terrorism.
The Iran hostage crisis was America’s first encounter with radical terrorism and sparked issues that involved other countries. People often use the events that happened dealing with Is-lamic cultures to generalize Middle Eastern countries as a dangerous and terroristic place. The events that led up to the worldwide opinion on Muslims first began with the Iran Hostage Crisis. The Iran Hostage Crisis occurred in the late 1970s when Iranian Students stormed the U.S. Em-bassy in Tehran and took 60 American hostages (history.com). The Iranians kidnapped the Americans because of the actions taken by the U.S. that allowed the casted out President of Iran to receive poor health treatment in the United States (Nacos 35). The Iranians took the hostages for a period of four hundred forty days in which different methods were taken to try and get them back (Houghton 45). The event itself would ultimately make Muslims an easier target for the la-bel of terrorists, because when people view only a couple of extremists causing harm they tend to generalize the population in which they came from as a dangerous and terroristic community. Mahan states, “In the search for a simple explanation, the idea that the media are the contagion of terrorism has been widely heralded. According to the theory of contagion, terrorism is cultivated and spread by media coverage.” The author speaks of the perspective of terrorism and the mo-tives of the media when displaying terrorist attacks. The purpose of the media displaying images of terrorism and political violence is to cause anxiety in viewers, in order to spark a reaction out of Western people. The author stated that the media does this in hopes that people in the West will shun and turn away from Islam people since they are looked at as a threat (Griset 224). The media portrayed the event as the Iranians taking the Americans hostage as a terroristic attack, but in reality it was a retaliation that the Iranians took due to what America had done to Iran and its political influence. The real reason on the kidnapping of those Americans was not included in the media’s report of the situation.
The media often portrays events that happen such as terrorist attacks and actions as a one-sided ordeal. They often never state the real reason on why attacks happen, the events that led up to the attack, or why the countries such as the Middle East are fed up with the U.S. The mass media is made up of wealthy people who use the news, and internet to their own advantage with-out any care for the lives of other people. Mahan states in her work about the way that the media uses terrorist attacks in order to gain money from anti-terrorism groups. In no way shape or form do the government or mass media corporations care about the outlook that people have on Mus-lims who are trying to live normal lives in Western countries (Mahan 229). The media is the main reason why the Islamic culture is looked upon as a terroristic society. The media has a great amount of influence on the way the world functions and views of the world. The media only gives out what they want people to see, such as only displaying the negative aspects of Muslims, but in reality, the word Islam means peace. In truth there are more Muslims that have nothing to do with terrorist activities than the actual terrorist groups but people choose to only see what the media shows and displays to them. Some of the news that the media plays out is not true or hardcore facts. People don’t often realize that they live their life by the news and act out their dai-ly activities based on what they see in the news. Sometimes it’s as if the media aims or points out more of the other countries terroristic events than our own countries. The Western and different parts of the world has shown that we can also be xenophobic in the way that we look at Muslims in an alienated type of way (Griset 35). The media often shows a misrepresentation of Muslim and Islamic people and that allows us to think what they are showing is how most or all of Mus-lim/Islamic people act. In the book Muslims and the news media Elizabeth Poole states, “The EU heads of state, senior police officials and civil servants, through forums such a Trevi, have sent out a strong signal to security services that foreigners, and particularly foreigners from the Islam-ic World”(Poole 37).
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the media has ultimately placed the label of Mus-lims as terrorists. In text, Muslims and the news media Elizabeth Poole states “Following the events September 11, the federal government introduced a system of computer scanning for Is-lamic terrorist. But instead of compiling records on individual suspects with a proven connection to terrorism, the security services literally trawl for information on Muslims”(Poole 37). The ef-fects of the event that happened on September 11 have shown that the media portrays Muslims as a terroristic culture or terroristic society. Mahan states, “In the United States, the media are re-sponsible for vast and intractable errors because of their highly skewed perspective about the Middle East and the Southern Hemisphere. A preeminent belief in Israelis as victims and a pat-tern of prefere
nce for ne
ws… the media perspective in the United States obscures the complete picture that readers deserve” (Griset 224). The media picks and chooses what to display and the audiences that they chose to display it to. Whether these things are done intentionally or not, it still taints the names of the Islam people. Most Muslims feel as though they can not get out of the stereotype that some of their fellow members of their society has put in the mind of the world-wide media. Since 9/11 happened people have always had a suspicion when they see Muslims at the airports and airways. The media has a way of using brainwashing strategies and it’s illustrat-ing, anytime there is an event dealing with terrorism and harmful actions. The society we live in today is generally scared of Muslim people because of the way the media usually portrays and displays them. The Muslim people are feeling the effects of the stereotyping because there have been many mosques being raided because they have suspicion that they are doing terroristic things and activities in countries that have been associated to Al Qaeda (Poole 39). The fact that this is not only a problem in our country shows that the racial profiling of Muslims and Islamic people has become an international issue.
As stated by Poole, “The German system of building-up religious profiles in the Muslim community has had a direct effect on the policing of the community and leading to widespread alienation.” The policing in different countries have changed since the terrorist attacks and racial profiling is in full effect. Homes have also been raided due to the suspicion that the government has held against Muslims. This has affected the lives of families and even split families apart. The widespread difference of the ways Muslims are being viewed has been changed in a way that portrays them in a way of a terroristic means. Since the attacks on the U.S. the United States has killed more people in the Middle East for no legitimate reasons but feelings towards Middle Easterners caused by stereotyping and racially profiling them (Nacos 45). Muslims usually have fear of being racially profiled while wearing their religious garments. The oppression of Muslim people across the U.S has risen substantially throughout the years due to the mixed media forums portrayal of the Muslim culture (Griset 67). They are often misconceived as violent and radical when in fact what they want most is to be accepted.
The United States has been known to be a melting pot of so many cultures and religions. People come to build a better life for their families and to be accepted when in reality it is just the opposite. Generations of Muslims and Islamic people have been living here in the United States for years to only still not be full accepted by society. The terrorist attacks from radical groups of the Muslim faith have only helped to create the bad image for all the people that prac-tice the religion. People associate actions from small groups of the religion with people as a whole and Italy goes back to the deeply rooted prejudice that people can hold. There have been recent events in the United Stated that has caused Muslims to receive unfair treatment in Western countries. Poole states, “In response to the ‘terror threat’ Home Secretary David Blunkett’s Se-cure Borders, Safe Haven” (2002) White Paper called for the implementation of citizenship cer-emonies and the necessity for all migrants to Britain to obtain English language skills” (Poole 39). These laws implemented in Britain were a response to the September 11th attacks in the United States. Prejudice cannot easily be erased and typically comes from a general ignorance of a concept or a group of people and the media has caused these stereotypes to be accepted widely. When a group of people have been alienated in such a fashion, it becomes difficult for others to relate to them and to reach out. People tend to fear things that they do not know. The problem with this is that an entire culture becomes misunderstood and information becomes changed. Or-dinary people watch the news every day and they pay more attention to all the bad things going on in other parts of the world than the positive things. However, the media does not usually tell the stories of positive things happening in Middle Eastern countries, it is very rare that one will hear of something good going on in the Middle East when turning on the television. The news also rarely portrays anything peaceful happening because these are not topics that people will find entertaining or will enjoy talking about for a long time. Over all Islamic and Muslim cul-tures have continuously been oppressed for years due to the way they have been shown to the public. This is an issue that the citizens of America and other countries tend to ignore because cultural stereotyping is not of importance to them (Poole 39).
In conclusion the media has been one of the main reasons as to why Muslims are looked at as a problem or a threat. The events that happened dealing with the Islamic extremists has tainted the name of Muslims around the world. This has also opened up a doorway for the media to label Muslims as Terrorist and Radical Islamics. The media portrays the culture in a negative way and since the news displays to people how the media desires, people see them and treat them in a disrespectful way based off the bad stories they see in the news. There has been proof that different organizations or security stations often are in the search for Muslims without knowing any information on who they are or where they come from. The media doesn’t care to think about how that affects the Islamic culture. People sometimes only choose to look at the racial profiling issues connected with African Americans and other minorities, but in truth there is a large issue with the racial profiling on the Islamic culture that they fail to discuss.