Opinion: Media don't get #MuslimRage
Editor's note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is a political comedian and frequent commentator on various TV networks including CNN. He is the editor of the politics blog "The Dean's Report" and co-director of the upcoming documentary "The Muslims Are Coming!" Follow him on Twitter: @deanofcomedy.
(CNN) - Newsweek's cover story "Muslim Rage" has inspired a comedic rage.
The magazine's newest issue features an article by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who purports to lecture the West on how to best handle Muslim rage. Newsweek, in an effort to promote the article, turned to Twitter, asking people to tweet their thoughts on the article, followed by the hashtag #MuslimRage.
What happened next was not what Newsweek or Ali could have anticipated or wanted. Instead of an academic discussion about the article, or hate-filled diatribes by Islamophobes, it turned into something extraordinary.
Thousands of tweets bearing the hashtag #MuslimRage filled Twitter, showcasing satire at its best - the type, by definition, which uses "wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly."
The tweets - posted mostly by Muslims it seems - are a comedic roast of the specious proposition that was peddled to us by Newsweek and Ali. Here are just a few samples:
Danya Hajjaji @DanyaHajjaji
When everyone in history class turns to you once 9/11 is brought up. #MuslimRage
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It sounds to me like anethor Huxley-derived dystopian Utopia. A great writer on this topic is Michel Houellebecq with his The Possibility of an Island. A lighthearted commercial satire/affirmation of it is Demolition Man, which portrays the neutered society of the future quite well. I'll have to attempt to watch this film again on your recommendation.My own instinct tells me that the Tetragrammaton Order is not your favorite tribe from the Middle East, but the rule of the prole. The prole wants equality; as a result, he flocks to liberal movements and empowers all kinds of shysters, most of whom are gentiles. When the prole is in charge, all quality is sacrificed for equality.
The media is fueled by trainwrecks and sensationalism. So it shall be for eternity.
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A small number of protesters should not define the entire Muslim population of over a billion. The media should know this and report the truth accordingly.
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What does define the entire Muslim population of the world, its leaders, and particularly the religious authorities of Islam is their deafening silence about the daily atrocities committed by Muslims against other Muslims all in the name of the prophet.
What defines western media is their complicity (including CNN) in ignoring this fact of Islam, and Moslem belief, yet make world headlines out of an amateurish cartoon uploaded to You Tube.
It's about time western News Media started asking the Moslem world and it leaders to explain and justify why they urge extreme protests at cartoons, yet remain silent on Syria, Bahrain, the virtual imprisonment of Saudi women in the name of the Prophet, and the harbouring of terrorist groups and governments whose sole reason for existing is to destroy those who are not of their religion.