This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Andyzero: I am highly aware that this is a sensitive trope, and could turn ugly should individuals not handle it maturely. I mean NO disrespect to any culture or race, and should any occur, I will delete this entry myself.
osh: What about Northern Ireland?
Gus: Sure, they were the bad guys for a while. This is a Cyclic Trope. The current value of is-a-bad-guy is "terrorist". The bad-guy identifier being the Arabic phenotype has been overused, and is cycling through other phenotypes. The next cycle value for is-a-bad-guy will be "excessive-anti-terrorist", with varying identifiers.
BT The P: So, you suspect a wave of General Ripper wannabees?
Ununnilium: Makes sense to me.
Gus: That's my bet. On such shows as 24 and The4400, we have already been shown Homeland Security people who have a tendency to break into a goose-step whenever it comes time to march.
Sebastian If I might suggest one clarification: severe racial prejudice against blacks and hispanics is still common in the United States and prejudice towards Arabs/Moslems is quite common and commonly very intense. I think a little research on the topic would suggest that the media executives are more worried about contributing to harassment, intimidation, bullying, and lynching, then they are about ratings points. Over all, Americans who might like to see Arabs getting beat up probably outnumber those who would be offended by it by an order of magnitude, so you would probably gain more ratings points from showing cops killing Arab terrorists than you would lose. The violence and torture scenes in 24 have been mentioned as a positive example by talk show hosts, pundits, congressmen and senators, the president, and at least one supreme court justice in arguments.
Zeke: I think you're dead wrong about Americans, Sebastian. And I think that's as far as either of us should go, because getting into a political argument here has "bad idea" written all over it.
Fake Nog: Attempted some clarifying edits, including a reminder that Muslim != Arab. Didn't want to get too preachy about it, but also snuck in a link to Least Common Skin Tone because I think it's a critical aspect of why we see Western Terrorists. I mean, it mightn't be so offensive to see an Arab villain if we ever saw an Arab anything else, right?
Darth Fanboy: "Naturally some writers still managed to get it wrong - Tom Clancy has portrayed the (nationalist) PIRA as Commies more than once." Technically the IRA were/are commies, in as far as they desire(d) the overthrow of the Republic of Ireland and the removal of British rule to create a unified socialist state.
Silent Hunter: Were they are actually Marxist-Leninists, though?
Purplecat: The old "Official" IRA were, but the "Provisional" IRA (the ones that actually carried out all the bombings) were just pro unification, with a little bit of left wing rhetoric to appeal to the poorer sections of the community. This is probably a massive oversimplification for the sake of not writing 5000 words on it, so here's a link to the other wiki's
take on it.
From current revision: "The comic version of the franchise portrayed COBRA as tapping into the frustrations of lower to middle-class white Americans, even making Cobra Commander into a former used car salesman.". Would that make it a kind of pre-Fight Club Project Mayhem? —Document N
- Don Quigleone: IRA being Communist? Sorry but no, they are, and always have been a primarily nationalist organisation. They do have socialist policies, but they'd be more accurately described as Left Wing Nationalists (with marxist tendencies). They've never been part of any international socialist organisation.
- Dammerung: What exactly is "Islamic" terrorism? Is there such thing as "Hindu terrorism?"
- Fighteer: Hindus do kill Muslims, mainly in India, but it isn't generally called terrorism in the press. "Islamic" is used to describe a brand of terrorism prevalent today, mainly perpetrated by people identifying themselves as Muslims and using suicide tactics. Do you actually not know this or are you being deliberately obtuse to make a point?
- A Hindu terrorist is who killed Ghandi
- Fighteer: Hindus do kill Muslims, mainly in India, but it isn't generally called terrorism in the press. "Islamic" is used to describe a brand of terrorism prevalent today, mainly perpetrated by people identifying themselves as Muslims and using suicide tactics. Do you actually not know this or are you being deliberately obtuse to make a point?
- Dammerung: I think there is a prevalence of "Muslim" terrorism for a small handful of reasons:
- People don't realize there are as many Muslims in China, SE Asia, and Indonesia as the Middle East
- It's mainly Arab-Muslim countries being bombed and invaded, first by the Soviet Union and then by the USSA. Most countries get the social/civil clock turned back a hundred years when used as a staging ground for war
- Media bias reports criminal incidents committed by muslims as "terrorism," and by americans as "crime."
- America arms and funds the abomination of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia (Israel is a distant second.) Saudi Arabia is the biggest sponsor of whacked-out Wahhabi bullshit ever. Saudi Arabia funds all kinds of madrassas in Sunni states like Egypt, Pakistan, and Afganistan, and since that's the only place many young men can afford an education, they get taught fucked up versions of Islam totally incompatible with the civilized world. And every time you fill your tank, you pay for it
- Fighteer: The Saudis are bad, but I think you're conveniently forgetting about Iran. And as for "media bias", there seems to me to be a minor qualitative difference between suicide bombing a bus terminal and robbing a liquor store. "Crime" and "terrorism" have fundamentally different motives. Lastly, there's that whole "openly advocating war against anyone who isn't a Muslim or even looks at them funny" issue.
- Dammerung: Civil rights RE: Iran are about equivalent to the Western world. Sure, it's retarded to punish women for "improper hijab," but it's just as retarded to lock people up for "indecent exposure." It's stupid to ban alcohol, but just as stupid to ban weed. As to funding "terrorism," most Lebanese people including Christians and Druze support Hezbollah, and Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinians. I'm not sure where you get your assertion that Iran, or indeed any Muslim country wants war with all non-Muslim people. Iran is in a strategic alliance with Russia, a predominantly Christian nation, for instance.
- What's the difference between bombing a train station in Haifa (Hezbollah) and bombing an apartment block full of children in Qana (IDF) for instance?
Fighteer: What in the name of [Insert Deity Here] happened to the example sorting on this page? Someone seems to have gotten carried away and dropped a bazillion things into the TV section. I fixed a few blatant examples but it needs some additional love.
- Dammerung Sorry didn't know what media many of the examples were so I left them at the bottom.
Should DS 9 really be on here?
I hope it's alright but I deleted some blatant bigotry. One troper was talking about in a film how a Bosnian Serb tried to detonate a suicide vest in NYC, and how they personally didn't find it plausible since it wasn't a Bosnian Muslim. I left the original trope in, I just took out the 'Well if it isn't a Muslim I don't believe it' attitude.
