The pitfalls of the Passenger Profiling Mindset
As Jack Straw made his comments last week asking Muslim women to remove their veils, two men in his home county of Lancashire were charged with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose. Twenty two chemical components were recovered by police and are believed to be the largest haul ever found at a house in this country. A search of the home of one of the men also uncovered rocket launchers, and a nuclear biological suit.
The two men were white.
They also happened to be members of the BNP and one of them had stood for election as a BNP candidate.
How did this story escape the attention of the mainstream press? The media loves events that are "the largest ever..." and include rockets and things that could explode. So, at a time of heightened sensitivity to all things violent and terror-related, this should have been headline news.
None of the papers splashed it on their front page. The BBC didn't run it, and it wasn't picked up by PA, nor BBC Radio Lancashire. The Evening Standard said that they had run it on page 20. It was an "editorial decision" they told me.
Why was the public not told about this incident? We have the right to know. Was the story deliberately not escalated? And if so, why? Was the "veil equals the end of multiculturalism" story more important, or was the media agenda that the veil story peddled, suddenly threatened by white people potentially being terrorists?
The terms I'm using are quite stark, and I'm pulling no punches. This is not a story that lends itself to gentle navel gazing. It demands us to ask difficult questions. Was media interest so low because the men didn't match the shape, size and colour that we expect those who inflict terror to come in? Was it because the men were white and not Muslims that they were charged under the Explosives Act and not the Terrorism Act? How did this (non) event compare to the media frenzy at the stake-out in Forest Gate, which yielded nothing but a wounded innocent?
Most likely, the political and media climate has conditioned everyone - even journalists - into a Passenger Profiling Mindset. That is, terrorists are Muslims, they are brown men with beards who go to a mosque. Or there's maybe a chance that they are little women who hide rocket launchers under their headscarves and veils? Have we stereotyped terrorists so we only see those capable of terror if they fit into a particular mould?
If we fall into this simplistic mindset then we're vulnerable to a huge number of dangers we complacently dismiss. Finding two white middle England men with a stash of explosives demands that we re-open the one-dimensional approach to passenger profiling and the in-built prejudices to policing including stop and search. These men would have breezed through, but could have wreaked havoc.
Is this blatant discrimination and vilification of the Muslim community? Are there double standards at play? (Watch the politicians squirm to avoiding answering that question). The Muslim community is seething at the injustice. Incidents like Forest Gate cause huge long term damage to community relations, and shine a harsh spotlight on Muslims. Stories like this could balance the media focus by putting a stop to the barrage of negative coverage that is being inflicted on Muslims. By avoiding the investigation of incidents which challenge these hardening stereotypes we are accelerating a downward spiral of virulence and demonisation of the Muslim community,
We can't accept a media that is selective about what is or isn't news, based on our prejudices and misconceptions. And a liberal free press also needs to hold itself to account for the failings that this story has exposed.
The two men were white.
They also happened to be members of the BNP and one of them had stood for election as a BNP candidate.
How did this story escape the attention of the mainstream press? The media loves events that are "the largest ever..." and include rockets and things that could explode. So, at a time of heightened sensitivity to all things violent and terror-related, this should have been headline news.
None of the papers splashed it on their front page. The BBC didn't run it, and it wasn't picked up by PA, nor BBC Radio Lancashire. The Evening Standard said that they had run it on page 20. It was an "editorial decision" they told me.
Why was the public not told about this incident? We have the right to know. Was the story deliberately not escalated? And if so, why? Was the "veil equals the end of multiculturalism" story more important, or was the media agenda that the veil story peddled, suddenly threatened by white people potentially being terrorists?
The terms I'm using are quite stark, and I'm pulling no punches. This is not a story that lends itself to gentle navel gazing. It demands us to ask difficult questions. Was media interest so low because the men didn't match the shape, size and colour that we expect those who inflict terror to come in? Was it because the men were white and not Muslims that they were charged under the Explosives Act and not the Terrorism Act? How did this (non) event compare to the media frenzy at the stake-out in Forest Gate, which yielded nothing but a wounded innocent?
Most likely, the political and media climate has conditioned everyone - even journalists - into a Passenger Profiling Mindset. That is, terrorists are Muslims, they are brown men with beards who go to a mosque. Or there's maybe a chance that they are little women who hide rocket launchers under their headscarves and veils? Have we stereotyped terrorists so we only see those capable of terror if they fit into a particular mould?
If we fall into this simplistic mindset then we're vulnerable to a huge number of dangers we complacently dismiss. Finding two white middle England men with a stash of explosives demands that we re-open the one-dimensional approach to passenger profiling and the in-built prejudices to policing including stop and search. These men would have breezed through, but could have wreaked havoc.
Is this blatant discrimination and vilification of the Muslim community? Are there double standards at play? (Watch the politicians squirm to avoiding answering that question). The Muslim community is seething at the injustice. Incidents like Forest Gate cause huge long term damage to community relations, and shine a harsh spotlight on Muslims. Stories like this could balance the media focus by putting a stop to the barrage of negative coverage that is being inflicted on Muslims. By avoiding the investigation of incidents which challenge these hardening stereotypes we are accelerating a downward spiral of virulence and demonisation of the Muslim community,
We can't accept a media that is selective about what is or isn't news, based on our prejudices and misconceptions. And a liberal free press also needs to hold itself to account for the failings that this story has exposed.
posted by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at 21:17
2 Comments:
Nice one S.
This incident in Lancashire shows how much government policey is radicalising Muslims. What the media have failed to do is to understand why people have taken this of action rather than sensationalising the story. It can also be argued that the media coverage of this "incident" (no-one has been convicted of anything) is another way in which the zionist press are demonising Muslims as part of the war on terror.
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