A new website called mideastyouth.com has been created to allow young Muslims to have their say. Many of these young people feel that they are being treated very unfairly by the media in the west and so aim to use social media as a way to redress the balance. It is hoped that this new website will encourage Muslims to join in the debate and will hopefully increase their participation in other social media outlets. This approach makes a lot of sense because it is only by people talking to people that we can get past the media filters that create distorted pictures of other groups.
The recent carry-on in New York with a proposed mosque near the old site of the Twin Towers shows just how much misunderstanding there is between Muslims and the rest of the world. The media has to be viewed as paying a huge role in this recent hysteria and at present the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is probably the lowest it ever has been – at least since the crusades anyway. The only way to get beyond these misunderstanding is by encouraging communication; something that the media seems to fail miserably at doing.
I think the problem with many groups in the world is that we just don’t understand one another; we fail to see our common humanity. One of the great benefits of social media is that it breaks down barriers and allows us to see where each other are coming from. Hopefully in the coming months we will get to hear what young Muslims have to say and this way there will be less need to rely on stereotypes. There is little doubt that Islam had been demonised in recent years, but hopefully the tide will turn in the not so distant future.
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