Muslim Should Not Equal Villain

[RelexCryo]

Muslims in My Monitor

From Prince of Persia to the recent Medal of Honor news of playable Taliban, the depiction of Muslims in videogames hasn't been any more even-handed than American TV or movies. Saladin Ahmed is one Muslim gamer who'd like to see that change.

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The picture you used was of a non-Muslim Arab. We know Jafar is not Muslim because he practices forbidden arts. He is Arabian, yes, but not Muslim.

Moreover, while Aladdin's religion is never specifically stated, it is possible he actually is a Muslim.

In essence, you are complaining about Muslims terrorizing Whites in American media, but you used a picture of a non-Muslim Arabian villain who is overcome and defeated by an Arabian, possibly Muslim hero.

Simply put: Epic Fail.

 

[theultimateend]

Is it honestly a big surprise Muslims are being villified when extremists blew up a couple of American buildings in the name of their god? Every time some group does something to the US that the US, as a whole, doesn't like it gets villified. Right now that group is the Muslims, and in 10-15 years someone else will do something and they will be the target.

My money is on Canadians when they try to raise prices on their sweet-sweet-syrup.

We will drop the hatred bomb on them so hard that they'll barely be able to get off two thank yous.

A: Good for you.
B: The Hadith are the foundation upon which Islamic law is based. This is why Islamic countries use their religion to justify the murder of rape victims, homosexuals, atheists, people who leave Islam, 'witches', etc. etc.
C: According to you Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia, Sudan, & so on aren't Muslim because they practice capital punishment as described in Islamic law (predominantly but not exclusively the Shi'a sect of Islam) which is based on Hadith.

The examples cited of the state-sanctioned murder of rape-victims & so called 'witches', etc. where given to illustrate how Islamic states use their religion to justify the most sickening of atrocities. Not only are these countries so backward & socially retarded that they still impose the death penalty for some crimes, they even impose their murder on the victims of some crimes (e.g. rape). My disgust is directed towards anyone who would subscribe to or defend such behaviour.

You finished with "Do you play tennis? Cause you just got SERVED!"

I do play tennis, although I prefer team games like rugby. I fail to see why you asked, or why you say that I've been 'SERVED'. Served with what? Or are you saying that you're acting as some kind of servant?

Most christian hate groups in the US would murder people if they could get away with it still. It's the fear of persecution that keeps them at bay...well some of them. Others still bomb abortion clinics and drag homosexuals behind their pick up trucks till they die.

Once enough people in these other areas become as intolerant of batshit insane faith murder the Islamic Hate groups will look exactly like the christian ones. They'll make signs, talk about how other people are unclean heathens who will burn in the endless fires of hell (or what have you) and we'll all act like in the past they never ran around the rest of the world murdering anyone who didn't share the same taste in literature as them.

[ and now for something different ... ]

The reality is that it is less the faith than just assholes in general. MOST people in MOST faiths are nice folks who just like the good parts of the faith they are a part of. But then assholes get involved.

Assholes ruin everything. They are in your xbox live, some are police, some are judges, some become world leaders, many become senators.

It isn't that any of the groups they are a part of are intrinsically bad, it is that they are bad people. Police in the US aren't crazy tazering monsters, assholes who become police are. XboX Gamers aren't all shitheads, assholes with xbox live subscriptions are. Same can be said about the judges who rule on the side of bigotry or of world leaders who think its cool to slaughter millions of people or randomly invade and bomb places (of which most countries with bombs have had at least one leader do).

I guess what I'm getting at is. I have yet to read a text of faith that didn't have quite a few passages about murdering in it for stupid reasons. But that's because those pieces were written by assholes.

The only people that listen to those parts are assholes.

So in the end, yes Muslims are not villains, neither are christians, or any other faith or job profession, the only villains are villains (or colloquially "assholes").

I'm hoping I don't get probation for using that word so much. But I do think at this point it is a specific genre of people. :/

 

[Nieroshai]

Funny how this thread turned into a "are or aren't muslims evil" thread instead of a "are or aren't muslims unfairly portrayed as viillains" thread. And once again I respond: I see terrorists being portrayed as villains, but I don't see any portrayal of all muslims as terrorists in games. Like I said, show me one instance of Islam in general and not just terrorists as the enemy in a game, and prove it.

 

[Kenko]

Without reading the slew of comments before this nor wanting to spend a bunch of time before a powerhappy moderator suspends me for this post, let me just be blunt will all capital letters.

AS A WHITE AMERICAN, I HAVE BEEN APART OF SO MUCH HATRED COMING TOWARD ME AND NOT FROM ME. HOWEVER, MY PEOPLE DON'T LIVE IN A SHITHOLE OF THE WORLD AND ***** AT OTHERS WITHOUT TAKING A MINUTE TO REALISE THAT MY BELIEVES MAY BE WRONG OR AT LEAST UNPOPULAR BUT INSTEAD IS WILLING TO MAKE OUR LIVES BETTER THROUGH HARD WORK AND DETICATION TO OUR HOMELAND INSTEAD OF KILLING OTHERS OR ACTING PISSY OVER MILD INFRACTIONS OVER RELIGIOUS DOGMA THAT IS THOUSANDS OF YEARS OUTDATED. I AM TALKING TOWARD NATIONAL POLICY AND CUSTOMS SUCH AS THE TREATMENT OF WOMEN, NOT RELIGIOUS DOGMA RIGHT NOW.


Sure, I could go on and on about how we built this nation and how I am annoyed with the south of our border not really trying and also the worlds garbage that goes with ignorance. I could also mention some of my cultures problems like spending all of our money on bullshit and UNNEEDED wars over bad ideas or not helping those who truly need help on our own home land.

(A quick disclaimer)While it is true that even the Bible is based toward women and believe in stuff like slavery and executions over mild infractions, we as a nation do not believe nor rule our people this way and this is what I am referring to now. I am not bashing the muslim religion in this post, just the bullshit way of thinking of the muslim world and how they treat people now.

-------------------------

My point is, we are all responsible for the actions of our people and if my people were dumb enough to commit acts of terror and not have the military force to stand up for ourselves, we deserve to have our nation taken over and changed in THEIR and not our interest. If we act like assholes and do not think about our actions affecting others of our own kind, its OUR fault and not anyone elses for the response OR HATRED BACK toward them. This is the same with us as well. If I went somewhere and mentioned I am from the US, I could get the backlash of the crap that I HAD NO FUCKING RESPONSBILITY OF MY COUNTRIES actions.

HOWEVER, once again in all capital letters to FUCKING STRESS THIS POINT AS MANY OTHERS JUST DON'T GET IT AND CRY ABOUT INEQUALITY SUCh AS THIS BULLSHIT TOPIC ON THIS THREAD.
-------------------
I AM ABSOLUTELY OFFENDED BY THIS TOPIC. I AM OFFENDED ON HOW IT IS OKAY TO HATE WHITE PEOPLE AS I HAVE HEARD COUNTLESS TIMES ABOUT HOW GREEDY, SELFISH AND SELF-CENTERED WE ARE WHEN I MYSELF DO NOT THINK THIS WAY. I AM SO GOD DAMN ANNOYED ON HOW IT IS OKAY TO HATE THE MAJORITY BUT IT IS NOT OKAY TO GET THAT FEELING BACK, LIKE THE KIND OF SHIT THIS TOPIC TALKS ABOUT. FOR INSTANCE, I AGREE WITH AFFIRMITIVE ACTION ON GETTING JOBS BUT IF ONLY A FEW JOBS ARE AVAILABLE, IT SHOULD GO TO THE BEST WORKERS AND TO HELL WITH SKIN COLOR. BUT MOST OF ALL AND ABOVE ALL ELSE, I AM SO SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING SHIT LIKE THIS POST. SO, ITS OKAY TO HATE WHITE PEOPLE FOR SLAVERY FROM WAY LONG AGO OR HATE THE GERMANS FOR WWII OR EVEN HATE STOREOWNERS FOR HOW THEY TREAT EMPLOYEES (as I am NOT a store owner but a simple college student/factory worker.) BUT IT IS NOT OKAY TO EVEN SAY I AM ANNOYED AT PEOPLE WHO REFUSE TO SPEAK ENGLISH IN PUBLIC, PEOPLE WHO HATE MY KIND AS WELL OR THOSE WHO THINK WE MUST FEEL BAD FOR THEM FOR SOME ARBITARY AND BULLSHIT REASON.

Most of all though, Muslims have the option to NOT be religious and they also have to understand that maybe it is okay to have others annoyed with you and not write bullshit topics such as this story crying about it. For instance, I used to be a Luteran (Kind of a Catholic/Christian mix.) but I am sorry for the Crusades and so on from our history but for fucks sake, I am not going to cry if someone badmouths Jesus or hates me over BULLSHIT I HAD NO PART IN.

In conclusion, and I am saving this to post later if deleted, STOP FUCKING CRYING OVER LITTLE SHIT AND REALISE THAT NOT EVERYONE SHOULD JOIN YOUR CRUSADE IF PEOPLE ARE MAD AT YOU OVER SHIT THAT HAPPENDED A LITTLE WHILE AGO. The terrorist attacks were awful AND FUCKING POINTLESS and did nothing but piss us off to destroy two countries that really nobody gave two shits about before hand. However, as my people were responsible for interning every Japanize American during WWII during that war, afterwords, I really don't have a right to ***** if one of the newly freed Japanize people were upset with me after the war. However, I do have a right if people still hated me after all of these decades later. All in all, so do Muslims over this crap and they should just shut up about it. They have to understand that I can be tolerant of their religion as I am BUT I HAVE EVERY FUCKING RIGHT to be upset when they want to build a Mosk (Mispelled, shut up.) on the "Ground Zero" terrorist attack site.

Im not american, but yeah im also tired of the whole "Its okay to hate white people" bullshit. Aint only in america either, muslims in Europe in general are xenophobic hatemongerers (Yes I know good people whom are muslim to but they are a minority, a very small minority who get shunned by the muslim community for being friends with white non-muslims).

But yeah, what he said. *Points at quoute*

 

[Mitchell Smith]

alright.....

Muslim = A Religion (like Christianity and Buddism [not scientology that is a sci fi club])
Arabic = A Race (u'know like cacasian or african)

Alot of comments comparing this issue to say Germans in world war 2.. But how can you compare a race to a reglion??

It's a matter of context and unfortunetly some confusion.

In a WW2 games the germans are the bad guys.. but they are never refered to as Christians, they are just zee Germans. Thats how it was, WW2 germans where the enemy.

So now, with MOH they are setting the game in the current conflicts in the world. In this case Afganistan which just so happens the Afganies are of Arabic descent and may be Muslim...

So what, do we really think that its all about an attack on Muslims? Isn't just a factual representation of a struggle that exsists in the world? The fact the the bad guys in the struggle might just be Muslim has nothing to do with the content.

Unfortunetly the extremist Muslims (you may now spamming me hate) have dragged the whole Muslim community into the lets say "Negative Perspective" basket, and this unfortunetly is how things sit now.

I will say that the extremist groups that scare me the most are the Christain ones like the Evangelical people (yes you are extremist, also faith shouldn't cost money but thats not the point) and the ones that sing and dance around alot, going down the street telling everyone how they love jesus and how they worship him (Look up Matthew 6:5-8 before PM me some crap)

I am accually looking forward to MOH as indeed i have been interested heeps in the general setting of it. It's taking a conflict all but removed from our minds and our TV's and plonks you right in the middle of it and says "Here you go, this is whats going on in the world now you experience it".


Also lay of the white american crap... its old hat, yes some are ignorant... but hey so is the entire media system there so whatever

 

[SwagLordYoloson]

Saladin Ahmed is a awesome name, i think im going to name my kid saladin

 

[Kumomaru]

The fact that this article's title presents muslims as arabs is more disturbing than any 'villian stereotype.' Partly because the stories i can think of that have an arab as the bad guy either also have an arab as the GOOD guy, or do a well enough job of separating the soldiers from the citizens in my opinion.

Sure, you never actually SEE the citizens but should you really NEED to, if you know they're separate entities?

 

[hem dazon 90]

You win with this article

 

[Ilyak1986]

You know, I'm currently reading The Arabian Nights as translated by Husain Haddawy, while the morals on display are certainly a little...outdated, (see: King Shayrayar and King Shahzaman killing their wives for cheating on them, and then being forced to have sex with the wife of a demon...yeah, which of course is only the prologue, and starts off Shayrayar's subsequent new wife killings and meeting Shahrazad. Fun stuff though.) it'd certainly be something fascinating to tap into and make a videogame out of, maybe a RPG?

Okay..maybe not the best source to get a 'good' Arab character out of (though there are plenty), but, at the risk of sounding like I'm against the idea (I'm not), it seems the general advice given to artists of any kind is to write/draw/create what you know. However, this advice is clearly both held to and ignored at the same time, with creators at once creating only solid, well thought out characters that they can relate to, that share their skin colour or culture, while at the same time, trying to paint what cultures or persons they may not have very good knowledge about as being only bad guys.

You know though, if you were looking for a representation of good Arab characters, personally I thought Blizzard did an excellent job in Lut Golien in Diablo 2. The entire chapter of course loosely based on everything Middle Eastern, yet without relegating the NPC's in the area to outright stereotypes.

I was going to say Lut Gholein as well. Admittedly, Act 2 is my least favorite act because you HAVE to put the damn staff together each and every time instead of being glitch-rushed through it with some person going and smacking the high council/TPing you to Meph's durance like in act 3. But that's a tangent. Good point about Lut Gholein.

And in all honesty, cut me a break. Hey, look, I'm Russian. So shouldn't I have the right to whine that so many Ace Combat games have the protagonist flying an iconic U.S. jet, and the main enemy squadron (if an iconic one exists) always flying Russian-made jets (always from the Su-27 family...be it 27s, 33s, 35s, 37s, 47s, or maybe the Pak-fa coming up)? Nah.

What about Germans always being portrayed only in ww2 games and only as Nazis? You don't see articles whining over that, do you?

So why all of the moaning over shooting terrorists? That there are no "good" Muslims portrayed? Well, where are the good Germans, the good Russians, etc...? And riddle me this: what would happen if there was a "good" Muslim portrayed that helped out the western forces hunt down terrorists?

 

[gamer_parent]

I think it's funny how all conversations about Islam is automatically equated to conversations about the Middle East, when the largest muslim populations are actually in south and southeast Asia like say, Indonesia, Thailand, etc. And how about that, the majority of muslims in these countries are moderates!!

It's like equating all Christians to Westboro Baptist Church. "Hey guys, let's have the radical extremists define that entire subgroup for us!!"

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

One strange thing. The only two games I know that portrayed Americans as villians in an international conflict were bashed constantly by most game critics, with one being abandoned by the publisher as a result of poor sales and the other being saved only by its multiplayer but still labeled the worst in the series as far as its story is concerned. They are Alpha Protocol and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.
Two games,6 Days in Fallaujah and Escape from Guantanamo, were even cancelled because they may have American as not the best guys in an international conflict. I am surprized that Command and Conquer Generals was allowed to be released without problems.
And yet any game that portrays Arabs or Muslims or Russians or Mexicans or Cubans as steriotypical villians without personality or properly explained motive can easily get away with it and may make millions like Call of Duty 4 or Splinter Cell series (except Conviction) or Rainbow Six. Even a sympathatically portrayed Muslim villian would be fine by me but atleast show as more than one dimensional America-hating villians. COD 4 had given Al-Asad one line to this effect, didn't elaborate on it and then showed him as a coward when facing the SAS.

 

[bfgmetalhead]

I really liked this article, the guy has a point. Hell think of C&C Generals, if thats not a stigmatizing game I don't know what is

AK47'S FOR EVERYONE! love that overpowered angry mob

 

[catalyst8]

One strange thing. The only two games I know that portrayed Americans as villians in an international conflict were bashed constantly by most game critics [...] And yet any game that portrays Arabs or Muslims or Russians or Mexicans or Cubans as steriotypical villians without personality or properly explained motive can easily get away with it and may make millions like Call of Duty 4 or Splinter Cell series (except Conviction) or Rainbow Six. Even a sympathetically portrayed Muslim villian would be fine by me [...]

Isn't that exactly the point? Game-producing companies are in the business of making money after all. In order to sell their product their market must want to buy it. Unfortunately two massive markets (US & to a lesser degree the EU) are so brain-washed by propaganda that anything which doesn't support the tabloid conditioned reflex of hatred/demonization simply isn't viable in the medium, or any current Western media for that matter. You said it yourself, 'stereotypical villains', & that's just it:

The last thing the propaganda machine wants is its uneducated audience to actually think about the views they're told to have.

Ahmed has already pointed this out in his article, where he mentions the general depiction of Arabs as terrorists in Hollywood films. Admittedly this is much rarer in European & British cinema where character development & intellectual honesty tend to shine more brightly (e.g. East is East) than vapid low-brow sensationalism (e.g. the already cited True Lies). Chris Morris' Four Lions goes even further & humanizes (mostly) English-Arab want-to-be terrorists, while at the same time mocking their hypocrisy & stupidity, especially in their dealings with the Qur'an & Islam. But these are incredibly rare examples, & in any contemporary medium the market is driven by what the populace is led to believe.

Currently the US & much of the UE populace is saturated with the message 'Muslim = Terrorist'. Some countries swallow the brain-washing more easily than others, but a sufficient number swallow it hook, line, & sinker without even realizing. It's shameful, but it's a fact of life. Is it the game producers', or the news papers, or the television companies' & film makers' fault? Not so much as we'd like to believe. It's more ours for allowing the deceit to perpetuate by funding them to lie to us.

 

[Do4600]

I have to say I'm very surprised by the negativity of the comments on this thread. I guess I just expected escapists to be more open minded than 4 Chan.

I seem to be immune to the recent American "EHRABS R BAD" movement. It's just another on a long list of stereotypes that are unfounded. I think I can say with certainty that extremism or really any ism that's strong enough to cloud reason isn't a good influence on society.

As far as video games go, I'm with you. This obsession with the middle east has gone on rather long and not only has it helped to damage the image of Arabs amongst 13 year olds screaming into their mics, it has also led to stagnancy within the video game industry.

 

[jSalamanca32]

In Orientalism (1978), his landmark study of Western attitudes toward the Arab and Muslim worlds, the late Columbia English professor Edward Said defined "Orientalism" as Western culture's tendency to depict the Middle East through "a series of crude, essentialized caricatures." Some of these caricatures "present [the Islamic world] in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression." Others are more positive, but still treat the Middle East as an exotic land perpetually stuck in the past.

Said 78 is the best card in the Security K. It only really applies for the topic for last year

(High school policy debate ftw)

 

[Paladin Anderson]

Now, to be fair, Americans demonize or belittle, at some level, everyone who isn't middle aged, christian, white, and male. It's not just a Muslim thing, though they get more than most.

It's not an issue of "America hates Muslims" as much as "America hates EVERYONE who thinks, looks, or acts differently than the controlling majority" and I doubt very much that this is a problem only in America. It's probably a bigger problem here than in most civilized nations, yes, but not a problem unique to us alone.

 

[LadyDeadly]

I liked this article. It was very intresting

 

[reachforthesky]

pro-tip: If you want Americans to have a better outlook on muslims and arabs, it might be a good idea to not treat horrific acts like 9/11 as a PR disaster for Muslims.

 

[nathan-dts]

There is a reason that the worst, most savage and most primitive places in the world are in the middle east.

 

[wearesoneutralthatithurts]

pro-tip: If you want Americans to have a better outlook on muslims and arabs, it might be a good idea to not treat horrific acts like 9/11 as a PR disaster for Muslims.

Jeah, and all Cristian like they abortion doctors english-bloody inside, but burned outside.
And all jews think, baby killing and 3-jear old raping is okay.
all hindus burn their wifes, [better they let burn their wifes, zombi-hindus seem scary. but well, maybe they incarnate fast enough to help..]
and all buddhist-well, tibet is way too feudal with all that scary body-penalties-jeah, is sorta sharia extreme-someone who stole a ghee-lamp of a temple was sewn in wet leather, then the punishers waited for the leather to dry and contract and then the leatherbag was trown offa big cliff. Very nice, isnt it? this occured until the chinese invaded tibel-now they kill people by shooting them-dunno if thats nicer.
, buddha is nice, but woman ordination? forget it. and the only buddhist nuns in china exist but the male buddhist try to avoid any sign of them...


so. all these bad examples and if i search more, i´ll find more. the sad 30-jear war in europe, the ireland conflict and all these problems between protestants, catholics, orthodox etc etc..

bla. people are dumb and cruel. you found this out, all on you own. applause for this. maybe you´l find out that people are individuals who can act as they want and not as you think they have to. Much of them are dumb, i am included, you too-everyone has its own personal dumb moments, some are severe, some more or less awkward..
so not every muslim is a terrorist-not even every muslim is a salafi. [saudi arabia] or a 12-shia-type[iran] there are more than white bearded mullahs[SA] and Ayatollahs but sadly, those are the ones with the most noise and most disturbing sad sick ideas [well, not every mullah and not every ayatolla. butt well, i dont like the idea of clerics, whether they are called clerics or ulama..i have my own brain. i hope]

bombending das.^^

[i am german, in our country, the word Bombe can mean bomb, but also Wonderful, great-but its a kind of youth slang so if something is bombig [bomb like, not bombed] ist great and cool] this leads to wonderful jokes.^^