(By Juan Cole)
The Associated Press article on the Ukrainian hijacker who tried to divert a plane to Sochi on Friday is interesting for the words it does not use. (I’m not picking on AP– all the other articles on this subject are like this one in this regard.)
This Ukrainian man had political discontents about his own country of Ukraine, which appears to be one of his motivations in trying to grab the limelight in Sochi. He told the crew that he had placed a bomb on the plane.
The crew of the airplane cleverly diverted to Istanbul and told the hijacker it was Sochi. Negotiators then got him to let the passengers go. Security men mingled among the departing passengers and then grabbed the hijacker. They found no sign of a bomb on the plane.
Note that this Ukrainian, presumably an Eastern Orthodox Christian, threatened to blow up an airplane full of innocents.
He was foiled by Turkish Muslims.
The articles on the Ukrainian hijacker do not refer to him as a “terrorist,” even though threatening to blow up a plane in order to make a political point is clearly terrorism by most definitions of the word.
If the hijacker had been a Muslim, the press would certainly have declared him a terrorist and the fact that he threatened to bomb the plane would not have been taken lightly.
Now it is being said that he was very drunk. Next we will begin hearing that the Ukrainian hijacker is mentally unbalanced. But Muslims who act in this crazy way are never viewed as troubled loners even when it seems pretty obvious that that is what they are.
That Muslim Turks are among the heroes of this story won’t be mentioned explicitly by any of the Islamophobic web sites who constantly stalk innocent Muslims.
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p.s. The Liberty City Seven “terror” bust was by far the best example of the federal govt. and media working together to spread propaganda and put fear of terror attacks in the public’s mind.
GONZO even went on the tube to announce the bust of these poor Haitians before they could do some VOODOO JIHAD in Chicago.
They were gonna walk from South Florida to Chicago. Their version of the LONG MARCH. :)
I am glad to see you have written about non-Muslim, non-Islamic terrorist. I am noticing it since long.
American & Western news media never mentions religion if a Muslim is not involved. When a small plane was smashed in an IRS building in Texas or in so many school shootings, the person is never identified by his religion or his color if he is white, unless he is a Muslim.
I clearly remember there were 3 planes high-jacked same day in the 70’s. The news man said a plane high jacked in Europe, 2nd one high jacked in Latin America & a 3rd one high jacked by Islamic terrorists in the Middle East.
You might also have mentioned that the airline is a Turkish airline, so we would seem to have an Orthodox Christian committing a terrorist act against Muslim company.
@NoonArabia a terrorist is a terrorist regardless of skin color or religion.
People need to report that and stop with the religion
[…] This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page. […]