Glenn Beck and Islamophobia

As usual, Mr. Glenn Beck of the Fox News Network is poisoning the public atmosphere with his hate, biases and ignorance. Unfortunately, his listeners and followers spread his biases and irrational thinking.

Mr. Beck’s recent ignorant blunder is that 10% of the Muslim population are “terrorists”. Personally, I do not even listen to the Fox News Network at all for a number of reasons that I do not want to go into in this post. Nevertheless, watching Fareed Zakaria’s GPS program (12-13-10) he referred to Mr. Beck’s remarks that “10% of Muslims are terrorists”. I wonder if Mr. Beck is aware of the fact that there are 1.57 billion Muslims around the globe, which is nearly one-fifth of the world population.

If Mr. Beck’s estimate is correct, then he is saying that there are 157 million Muslim terrorists around the world. in previous posts, I have focused on the FBI definition of terrorism to shed light on this topic. During 2009, 11800 acts of terror took place worldwide, according to an FBI report on terrorism against non-combatants resulting in over 54,000 deaths, injuries and kidnappings. 40% of these attacks or 4,600 cases occurred in the Near East, with approximately 5,500 fatalities or 35% of the worldwide total reported for 2008.

On the other hand, violent crimes committed in the U.S. during 2009 was estimated at 15,2441 murders. Mr. Beck should focus on crime rates in the U.S. and the factors contributing to them. By focusing on such problems, he will be doing himself and his listeners a big favor. I wonder if Mr. Beck is objective and capable enough to do that instead of spreading false information about Islam and encouraging Islamophobia.

I regret to say that Beck’s strategy complement R. Murdock’s blue print, that he sets for Fox news network.