Page 106 - Age of Peace Goodword.indd

The Evil of Selective Information



he printing press and electronic communications have
Tushered in a new age which has generally come to be called
the age of information. But the question arises: why is it that
the age of communication has brought along with it the age
of hatred?
It is evident that people of almost every group, with the
exception of the scientific community, have nothing but hatred
for each other. The reason for this is the selective information
placed in the public domain by writers and speakers. Every
group, according to its interests, gives out only selective
information for one reason or the other. That is, its reporting
about the group which it considers its rival is one-sided.
Human rights activists, social reformers, political leaders,
media reporters, professional writers, and so on—almost all
are, more or less, engaged in this practice.

One-sided reporting of this kind has made certain groups
unsympathetic towards certain other groups. Under normal
circumstances, this feeling lies dormant. But, it all too often
flares up and takes on the form of violence and terrorism. The
present-day terrorism is certainly a result of this phenomenon.
In the practice of one-sided reporting, the Muslim
community is involved to a much greater extent than other
communities are. Two examples illustrate this point. The first
is of a book authored by the Syrian Muslim scholar Shaykh
Abd ar-Rahman Hasan Habannaka al-Maydani. He has
compiled several books in the Arabic language with the title,
Silsilah Aʿdaa al-Islam (Series on the Enemies of Islam, 2000).

105