The Boston Bombings: 18 Perspectives

7. Naming Victims and Global Media Coverage

To be fair on the Boston Authorities – I think that their choices [in apprehending the suspect] where actually limited by the extent of the media coverage. It is difficult to see how they could have responded in any other way. For me the global media coverage was the key issue – especially when compared to the coverage that western media outlets gave to the Baghdad Cafe Bombing. At its simplest you could argue that the difference in coverage is an indicator of just how deeply embedded racism is. That racism not only expresses itself in the extent of the coverage but also in quality. We know the names of the victims of the Boston bombing; we know their stories and we know about the dreams that were extinguished. But this kind of detail is missing from the global coverage of the Baghdad bombing – the stories are absent, there are no histories and no futures – simply statistics.

Mark Brown, Brighton, UNITED KINGDOM

@markliamb

8. Making Good Muslims, Taking Care of The ‘Crazies’

I’ve been observing the language used by both mainstream and alternative media when talking about the suspects’ “religiosity” and “increased commitment to Islam” as somehow natural signifiers for radicalization. Subtle, blanket statements such as ones that describe Tamerlan Tsarnev as a “devout Muslim who prayed five times a day,” or Uncle Ruslan’s alleged falling out with Tamerlan Tsarnev “over Islam,” or a neighbor commenting that Tamerlan “grew a beard” or that his wife “wore a hijab” (a fact which The Telegraph saw as worthy of its own news piece…) are particularly telling. Even now that the FBI has confirmed the suspect’s ties to “radical Islam”, media sources thought it OK to assume – in the days leading their capture – that regardless of the facts, their “Muslimness” must be it (the cover photo for the LA Time’s coverage of the FBI’s statements is a picture of Prophetic sayings to be recited after prayer in scary-looking Arabic script, with the caption: “A sign outlining “obligatory prayers” hangs on the sanctuary at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Cambridge, Mass., where the Tsarnaev brothers had attended.” Obligatory? Yeesh! Such statements and representations point to an increasing underlying stigmatization of practicing normative “dogmatic” Islam (bad) as opposed to being non-practicing and “Westernized” “cultural Muslim” (good).

Representations of “devoutness” when it comes to explaining Muslim criminal behavior is hence very similar to the claim of insanity when a white male perpetrator commits similar large-scale acts of violence. The only difference is the latter is “excusable”, while the former is reprehensible and inherently evil. It’s as if the only good Muslim – in the American/ Western understanding – is not a Muslim at all, or if push-comes-to-shove, a “watered-down” Muslim.

I just hope and pray that this trajectory of massive public fear-mongering will not translate into (further) ramped- up restrictions on the rights and civil liberties of Muslims in America. After all, murdering crazies know no religion, and it’s probably safe to assume that most people – let alone most Muslims – aren’t murdering crazies.

Farah El-Sharif, Berkeley CA

MA Candidate in Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union

9. Forget ‘White’ Privilege if You’re Muslim

The hysteria surrounding the Boston Marathon bombings has proved that in identifying a criminal, religion supersedes race as the common factor for vilification. A combination of inflammatory print and television media rhetoric and Islamophobia rampant in various blogs have led those seeking to target Muslims in the past to other brown folk, most recently Sikhs. In the Sikh temple shootings, the “brownness” and perceived foreignness of Sikhs, leading them to be confused with Muslims, led a man to shoot and kill. Their perceived identity as Muslims made them targets, although they had no affiliation with the Muslim faith. The conflation of racial and religious identities led to murder.

In the case of the Boston Marathon bombings suspects, as soon as their names and nation of origin became known, their “Muslimness” took center stage as the key identifier in media coverage. It did not matter that they were white, literally Caucasian; their classification as Muslims—even without anyone actually knowing what their level of practice was—led the press to their “Ah ha!” moment in hypothesizing and conjecturing a motive for this heinous crime. Such coverage fuels the sense of panic already present in a population rightfully defensive and fearful at a vulnerable time.

This case has proven even if your race aligns with the mainstream, if your religion does not, you should not expect any modicum of objectivity from the media.

Deanna Othman, Chicago IL

Assistant Editor of Islamic Horizons and serves on the Editorial Board of the Chicago Crescent.
@deannaothman

10. City Upon a Hill

As with any incident of this kind, initial reports can be inaccurate, leading to wrongful characterizations and stereotypes of certain groups. As a nation, it is imperative to remember our values of justice, compassion, and equal protection under the law that are for all people. For me, these values are echoed in the Prophet Muhammad’s statement: “…Not one of you truly believes until he wants for his brother what he wants for himself.” It is an ethic spoken in one hundred languages and in every conceivable form of prayer. It is an ethic central to Islam. It is the ethic central to our civil liberties that has built America. In John Winthrop’s famous City Upon a Hill sermon, the steeple of the church is seen at the center of the hill, serving as a beacon of light unto the world–a shining example of religious freedom. But we have to recognize that the church is now surrounded by mosques, where Muslims congregate to the call to prayer on Friday afternoons, synagogues where Jews congregate on Friday evenings for Shabbat services, by temples where Buddhists gather to sing their sangas, and you can still hear the church bells ringing every Sunday morning.

Mustafa Abdullah, St. Louis MO

Program Associate at the ACLU if Eastern Missouri and Community Organizer
@GlobalNomad87
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11. Czech Yourself

On Wednesday, April 17^th, the New Yorker featured an article The Saudi Marathon Man, in which Amy Davidson writes that perhaps we lack humility when we jump to labeling suspects based on the fact that they’re suspicious-looking. But then this begs the question: what makes them suspicious-looking? Is it that if it looks like a Middle Easterner, sounds like a Middle Easterner, then it must be a terrorist? Because that’s sure what it seems like. It is far more than humility that we are lacking and we must re-evaluate just how far is too far. Substantial mistakes, like the ones that occurred this past week, only fuel the fire that unfortunately burns bright throughout the world, even within our own borders. We terrorized a family whose son is still missing; we had to be reminded that there is a difference between the Czech Republic and Chechnya; and we were once again bombarded with ‘brown man’-phobia, Islamophobia, Middle-East-phobia.

Be kind, even in the midst of absolute chaos.

Chloe Rowshani, Los Angeles CA

Student at Loyola Law School of Los Angeles
Blog: ShitChloeSays
@Dandelions

12. Is My Citizenship Contingent on My Religion?

Something that really struck me about this situation was that we learned that no matter how many years you’ve spent here after immigrating, be it more than half your life or even most and even if you are a naturalized citizen, you’ve gone to school here and fully assimilated into culture, you will still not be considered an American. What baffles me about this is that most Americans are descendants of immigrants, so what gives us the right to say that this boy was not considered an American? Was it because he is Muslim? Is that what set off the rampant Islamophobia and racism against him? Does my citizenship get revoked because I’m Muslim?