Norway & The Media

I have to admit that there was a huge part of me on Friday that prayed all day that the events that took place in Oslo, Norway, and at the island camp nearby was not the work of yet another so called Muslim, another extremist.  And I have to also admit that there is a tiny part of me that has some satisfaction that he has been labelled a Fundamentalist Christian extremist.  Yet, what is not surprising is that Fox News still needs to bring Islam and Muslims into the equation.  In fact, on their website at the moment that I am writing this, the very first sentence, that sentence that actually shows on the home page immediately labels him as someone who has "anti-Muslim" beliefs.  Had it been a so-called Muslim who had perpetrated this act instead of a so-called Christian (and I say so-called because if those of either group were to perpetrate this madness, they are not real, true, followers of their faith) they would have had, in big letters, "Muslim Terrorist Assassinates Campers and Blows up Government Buildings!"  In fact, currently Fox News has not one single mention of the fact that this man has, apparently, stated his fundamentalist Christian, anti-immigration beliefs.

Those of us that have always stated that when a Muslim commits a terrorist act that religion is the first thing brought up, but if a Christian were to do something of that magnitude that religion would be brought up much later, not at all or to a lesser degree are being proven quite correct in our beliefs.  In few, very few, articles that I have read this man being a practicing Christian hasn't been brought up.  Why is that?  Because Christians run the media?  Because Christians "just wouldn't do that?"

I don't want religion brought up in any act like this.  As far as I'm concerned, no person that would voluntarily take a life, to create such chaos, who believes that others should die, not one single one of them should ever be related to any religious group.  There is no true religious group, there is no group that is truly following the real tenants of their faith if they commit acts like these.

Yes, I am frustrated.  I am frustrated that the first thing that was brought up with "which Muslim group did this?" when in fact it was a home grown, Christian, Norwegian that perpetrated this act.  What happened in Norway yesterday was horrible.  Awful.  Something that should never happen anywhere.  But one thing it has taught us is that not only do we need to immediately look at the "traditional" terrorists but we need to look within as well.