TOWARDS GLOBAL PEACE

happened due to peaceful work. But in the books of history written by Muslims, there is little or no mention of this. Developments that came about through peaceful efforts have not found a place in these books, whereas only events like wars and political victories are related. This is selective reporting. This trend continues even today and we are victims of such selective reporting. An interview with a Muslim news journalist is an example of this attitude. His questions were all about Muslims being allegedly oppressed across the world. In response to the questions, his attention was drawn to the fact that his source of information about such oppression was the media and he was quoting what he had read or heard in the media. The media is an industry of selective reporting. It highlights sensational reports, and ignores other news. The Muslim media claims that Muslims are being oppressed and besieged by others etc., but this is totally baseless. There are ninety nine good things happening with Muslims, but the media ignores these to focus on the one negative news. And that one piece of information is highlighted in such a way that people assume, it reflects the totality of the Muslims’ reality. This is the damage caused by selective reporting. In 1992, the Babri mosque was destroyed. The whole world knows about it. People keep talking about it. But do people know that there are still some 5,50,000 mosques intact in India, where prayers are offered and where the azan, the call to prayer, is given, five times every day? No one wants to talk about this! There’s no media reporting about these 5,50,000 mosques, but there is a great furore in the media about just one mosque. In another example of selective reporting, a newspaper carried reports of communal riots in a city in northern India. Upon visiting the city it was observed that people were, going about their business as usual. Where utter chaos was expected in the entire city, there was nothing of the sort. Upon enquiry about the location of the riots, it was found out that it had happened in a small locality but the newspapers gave out the news under a sensational heading "Riots rock the city”. There is only one option for Muslims now—and that is peaceful settlement of disputes. The option of war has ended.