Pakistan

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Norway: The Western media is fueling xenophobia

Britain's best-selling newspaper The Sun portrayed the terrorist attacks in Norway through its headline as ‘Al-Qaeda’ Massacre: NORWAY'S 9/11. Brown University historian, Shiva Balaghi described this as a “tragic day for Norway, shameful day for journalism”. Latter on it was evident that these terrorist attacks were the work of a xenophobic Christian fundamentalist.

The Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg failed to depict these attacks as an act of terror according to transcripts on the website of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He portrayed these attacks as “shocking, violent and cowardly” but not as terrorist attacks.

On the other hand Australia Broadcasting Corporation also failed to describe these attacks as an act of terrorism in a story in one of its programs claimed as “one of the grand institutions of Australian public broadcasting”. The Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard as well failed to describe terrorist attacks in Norway as an act of terrorism however she portrayed these attacks as “the brutal and shocking”.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy labeled terrorist attacks in Norway as “odious and unacceptable action”. However, he fell short to describe these attacks as terrorist attacks.

The Former Norwegian Prime Minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik described the 7 July 2005 London bombing as “terrorist attacks on innocent civilians” and suggested that “we must continue to fight terrorism with determination and resolve” in a letter to then British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2005.

Why the Current Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg failed to described the tragic events in Norway as terrorist attacks?

Meanwhile, the Western media as usual is trying to depict Anders Behring Breivik - the master mind of terrorist attacks in Norway, as a lone gunman and a psychopath.

Lecturer in the Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University, Waleed Aly said, “If you stop describing it as terrorism and you start describing it as being the work of a crazy madman, a lone gunman, as though we can we can kind of dismiss it or write it off as some kind of aberration, then we run into problems. We're unable to formulate meaningful analyses of terrorism because we just factor out all these important episodes and really it just compromises our entire discourse and our policy response.”

It is evident that the Western media is fueling xenophobia and spreading lies through its news outlets. On the other hand, the Western leaders such as Stoltenberg, Sarkozy and Gillard have failed miserably to call these attacks as an act of terror because these terrorist attacks are the work of a xenophobic Christian fundamentalist acting along with right wing groups in Europe.