Bias and Double standard in the coverage of terrorist attacks worldwide -By Labaran Yusuf

Terrorist group Al-Shabaab.

The Saturday, 14 October twin bombing in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, the deadliest attack ever in the Horn of Africa country, which claimed over 300 lives and injured hundreds more, but sadly, it garnered little western media attention – compared to the fatal mass shooting on concert-goers in Las Vegas a few weeks earlier, that claimed the lives of 58 people.

Like normal and as expected following the Somali bombing incidence, there wasn’t any 24-hour media coverage or updates in the western press – and social media did not trend #We-are-all-Mogadishu, nor were western capitals rallying for Somalia and lighting up landmark monuments in the color of the Somali national flag.

For them, the Somali story was just another normal story – native to the Middle-East, Asia, and Africa, that’s not newsworthy to be front page of papers, but instead, it’s one to be hidden in pages 15 and above. After all the victims were not opportune to be white people, since the attack was not in Brussels, London, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, or New York – so, therefore, no flags were flown at half-mast on government buildings as an act of respect for the victims.

In contrast, the mass shooting in Las Vegas carried out by Stephen Paddock, a high-stakes gambler, and son of an indicted bank robber who was one time on the FBI’s 10 most wanted people, made front pages and got live coverage around the world. The story trended on social media, received solidarity statements from western capitals and garnered the public’s reaction as opposed to the tragedy in Somalia. Thanks to the attention displayed in the media – and again, all the victims were white, not black as in the Somali atrocity.

The only hurdle faced by the western press in reporting of the Las Vegas attack was the identity of the shooter – of not being one of the casual suspects. The suspect turned out to be a 64-year old white, wealthy and retired accountant, not the usual: immigrant, Muslim, black gangster, Mexican rapist or drug dealer that Trump’s desired wall was supposed to keep out. The shooter was none of these. In fact, the profile he fits in is a Trump voter – an all-America American.

This bias and double standards in the media has been going on for long. Since after 9/11, the brown Muslim man became the new terrorist, why? Because the media has exclusively and solely associated terrorism to the “Peaceful” religion of Islam, which is an unfair political creation chose to demonize an entire religion. In post 9/11 America, speaking Arabic in public might land you in jail or get you thrown out of planes, while the real threat facing the US today is white supremacists terrorism.

President Trump and his friends in Fox news and its likes, have claimed that Islamic extremists have infiltrated the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Pentagon and other government agency; asserted that there are “no-go zones” in Europe where non-Muslims including police are afraid to enter; and even suggested that there is a Muslim plot to impose Sharia law on US courts. These claims, along with many others, have been shown conclusively to be false.

This misinformation and hateful rhetoric have consequences. When huge numbers of Americans believe that a majority of Muslims are terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, it can hardly be a surprise that some percentage of them engage in hate crime attacks (like the ones carried out by white supremacist terrorist in US cities). After all, they learned of the threat they believe Muslim pose from sources who were presented by the media as authoritative experts.

But the numbers do not lie, as Trump and his folks do. According to the FBI, 94 percent of all terrorist attacks in America are perpetrated by non-Muslims. These include the under-reported and unreported attacks as: the May 26, commuter train attack in Portland, Oregon, by a knife-wielding white supremacist that killed two men and severely injured another while the three tried to prevent him from harassing a Muslim woman in headscarf; the February 10, 2015 cold-blooded murder of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina by Craig Stephen Hicks, a white supremacist (an incident described as hate crime by US media, instead of the terrorist attack it is); the June 17, 2015 Charleston church massacre of nine people, by Dylann Roof, a 21-year old white supremacist, in South Carolina among many others.

In conclusion, the media should remain the watchdog of the society, their job is to report the facts and keep the public aware of everyday occurrences, not to serve as platforms to demonize a particular race, color, religion or sect of people. Acts of terrorism must be condemned and reported collectively, because terror is unacceptable in any form anywhere in the world – not just in Europe and America, but also in Africa, Asia, and the Middle-East.

Labaran Yusuf is a freelance writer and researcher from Jos, Plateau State.
chatwithlabaran@gmail.com