The title alludes to the fact that there are so few Muslim terrorists, as opposed to the many that we have been led to believe exist.
In the book, author Charles Kurzman shows that out of 140,000 murders in the United States since 9/11, Islamist terrorists have killed a total of 33. And about two-thirds of those were killed in a single event, the Fort Hood shooting in Texas.
So the book does a good job of providing the context of violent attacks by Muslims in the US relative to your everyday. normal murders.
The book also shows that: "Of the 150,000 people who die each day, worldwide, Islamist militants account for fewer than fifty fatalities--and only ten per day outside of the hotspots of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan." Again, this is very good context for the threat posed to us and the rest of the world.
A member of the House of Representatives from New York plans to hold hearings soon to show that Muslims do not cooperate with US authorities in terrorism investigations and thus they pose a threat to our nation. Yet, Kurzman shows that about half of all information used to disrupt terrorist attacks in the US has come from Muslim communities.
Somehow, in spite of the small threat posed to us, Americans remain afraid of Muslims and think Islam is the enemy.
This book--a form of MEDIA--will hopefully go a long way toward calming us of our unnecessary fears.
http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/
I honestly think this book brings about a lot of valid points. The enemy is not Muslims. When I was a freshman at Appalachian they made us read the book "Three Cups of Tea" and it talks about a man who built schools in Muslim countries, and it gave me a brand new viewpoint of these people and their religion. I think this is another example of how the media try to create a panic over something that is not really such a big deal. Although I will admit that even for me most of the fear comes from ignorance, which is supposedly bliss, but I don't see how in this situation.
ReplyDelete