The American Mind

CAIR is bothered at 24 nuking Los Angeles. They must worry waves of Jack Bauer wannabes will invade their nearest mosque. The real story isn’t the advocacy group complaining about a TV show plot, but that it took them two days to do it. (And they can’t even get their day right on their statement.)

The plot of the hit Fox drama “24″ may make for exciting television, but Muslim groups fear their representation as terrorists does more than entertain - it vilifies an entire religious group.

“I think that TV has quite an effect on how people think,” said Nadeem Mazen, past president of the MIT Muslim Association. “So much of what we hear on Muslims is hearsay - an expert opinion by people with a personal agenda and not necessarily motivated by truth. And then a show like this comes along that perpetuates the ‘them’ factor.”

The plot of the sixth season of “24″ takes place two years in the future and is the most fear-mongering to date. America is being bombarded by Islamic suicide bombers, the president’s chief of staff sets up Muslim internment camps, civil rights and privacy laws are more flexible than Mary Lou Retton and the seemingly sweet Muslim teenager next door happens to be a terrorist complicit in the first nuclear attack on American soil.

Of course, it’s a show. But TV not only reflects the zeitgeist - it also influences it, some say, meaning the writers of “24″ have to be careful, said Rabiah Ahmed, spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Let’s face facts. Who attacked the United States on Sep. 11, 2001? Radical Islamic terrorists, Islamists. Who attacked two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998? Islamists. Who attacked the U.S.S. Cole in 2000? Islamist al Qaeda. Who declared war on the United States in 1998? Osama bin Laden and his band of merry Islamists.

The reason radical Islamic terror is a part of the zeitgeist is because it’s reality. As Sister Toldjah writes,

I’d love to see how they try and distinguish the Islamofascists hell bent on destroying America in “24″ from these very real Islamofascists. As far as that goes, there is no difference between the Islamofascists portrayed on “24″ and the ones in real life.

Basque separatists aren’t challenging U.S. supremacy. The IRA has pretty much closed up its shop. The Tamil Tigers keep their terrorist attacks to Sri Lanka and the Indian subcontinent.

Fox responded [via Hyscience]:

Over the past several seasons, the villains have included shadowy Anglo businessmen, Baltic Europeans, Germans, Russians, Islamic fundamentalists, and even the (Anglo-American) president of the United States. Over the course of the series, no ethnic group has been singled out for persecution or blame. In fact, the show has made a concerted effort to show ethnic, religious and political groups as multi-dimensional, and political issues are debated from multiple viewpoints.

This season of 24 already has plenty of talk about the tenuous balance of security versus liberty. Even though the Muslim detention centers aren’t Nazi-style death camps CAIR will be hard pressed to find many viewers hoping the fictitious administration filling them to overcapacity.

” CAIR: Muslims Concerned About Fox’s 24 Portrayal“