Research Log 3- Moral Panic

Article Written By Andrew Brown

Published in the Guardian newspaper/online website 5th November 2014

'Why I don't believe people who say they loath Islam but not Muslims'

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/nov/05/islam-muslims-hate-ideology-racism

'It is psychologically unnatural to claim that you hate an ideology without hating the people in whose lives it is expressed'

• Muslims I think this is a quote that is very eye opening and thought provoking, in society today a large majority of the public would probably admit they do hate the Islam faith (an ideology that has been around for hundreds if not thousands of years) however, they don't admit to hate those who worship it; this is impossible the faith of Islam is the people- without them there would not be a faith to hate. Although, I believe it's actually not the faith they hate because what people see is not the true representation- they actually hate the stereotypically, mediated version that they are presented with.

'50 or 60 years ago racial prejudice was an entirely natural part of English life. In order to change that, it was necessary to mark it as a uniquely dreadful and disfiguring condition: racism became a kind of moral leprosy.'

• This is quite a worrying idea. Yes, we are aware that in the 1950's and 1960's racial prejudice was seen as normal not just in English life but America also, but this suggests that so we could carry on applying racial prejudice in our day to lives we had to make it necessary danger almost; to fear it, see it as a threat mark it as a disease 'moral leprosy'. Linking to my essay this gives the alternative idea that it's not just the media that presents the moral panic of Islam, it's us; the people in society, the audience.

'Stalin and Mao would have enthusiastically endorsed Sam Harris when he wrote that “there are some beliefs so terrible that we are justified in killing people just for holding them”, just as they would have endorsed his defence of torturing prisoners.'

• This is a prime example of a moral panic in the media- people only say these things about whichever moral panic because of what they are presented with because 99% of the time they have seen it in it's primary source, they don't have the chance.