No yoga and muslims in the media

A little slack is all I ask you for. Yesterday, I was smugness personified when I vowed to be up in the early hours to practice yoga. (Head hangs in shame) I am sorry to say that the yoga mat continues to sit dejected in the corner of my bedroom and that I have not even come close to taking exercise today. BUT, in my defense - it's been snowing and thus, I hope you'll agree, it is far too cold to strip off into the clothes necessary to stretch!! Plus, I spent the first hour that I was awake filling out an online application to take my not-so-friendly-local-electrical-retailer to the small claims court - oh yes, I want cold milk on my muesli and I'm willing to go legal on their asses to get it!

But enough of this waffle, I must return to the task at hand - uncovering the true purpose of our existence, that is.

Lately, I've been attempting to give a little thought to faith and to the rainbow spectrum of religious belief that we, as a species, embrace. I've touched on Catholicism, tiptoed around Hinduism and made mention of Buddhism (although apparently Buddhism isn't actually a religion). It's come time to speak of Islam.

Here's the problem with that: I am ignorant when it comes to Islam. Since September 2001, Muslims have been discussed more widely and more often than any other religious community. The undercurrent of these discussions is often terrorism or violence. Aside from such news stories, I have read and viewed little about this community.

Recently, I met a friend for coffee and we tumbled into a conversation about the portrayal of Muslims in the media. Without citing specific examples, we agreed that the media tends to discuss groups of people associated by a shared religion without focusing on individual stories and that, in so doing, it communicates (albeit inadvertently) that the entire community can be painted with a single brush.

A news story may not claim that Muslims generally hold extremist views, however when the only stories that are told about people identified as Muslims are stories about people with extreme tendencies, negative dispositions will form.

Ireland is a predominately Christian country and although I am aware of a large mosque that is situated not far from my home, in my daily life I have little contact with people I know to be Muslim. Neither do I have much contact with people that I know to be Jewish or Hindu or Sikh. This is not a choice, it's just the way that things are.

At this juncture, I'd like to make an aside and to tell you a story that I think most Irish people will identify with. When I was eleven years old, my school took my entire class on a trip to England. After a fun-filled and educational few days in and around Chester we began our return journey with positive views of the United Kingdom. However, when boarding the ferry home, security guards asked several students (please remember that these were polite and probably pig-tailed 11 year old girls) if they had bombs in their rucksacks. I'm sure that this was meant as a joke but it was also highly prejudiced and unprofessional. In the twenty years previous to my school trip, the United Kingdom had witnessed many vicious attacks at the hands of the IRA, who claimed to be fighting for a united Ireland. However, the IRA did not represent all, or even a majority of, Irish people and I had never met anyone who supported their campaign of violence. That I or my friends were associated with the murder of innocent people, any people, disgusted and shocked us.

I imagine that the same thing has happened to children from various faiths and in countries all over the world and that it happens today. The simple fact is that we're often suspicious of what we don't know or understand and especially when that something is a community of people who believe that they have something powerful in common.

When you meet people as individuals the labels don't matter and the preconceptions don't apply. In most cases, when I've met people who follow the Islamic faith I've quickly forgotten what religion they were and I remember instead that they are the owners of a hotel that I stayed in, or that they are great conversationalists, or that they wore fashionable running shoes that I was jealous of.

It's notable that before I began to learn anything about Islam I felt it relevant to first write this posting. I haven't felt the same need to discuss prejudice or the media portrayal of a community before discussing aspects of other religions. However, this is the world we live in today; it's a world that is smaller and more connected than ever before but one that is as divided, if not more so, than ever.

I don't know much about Islam but I've heard plenty about Muslims over the past few years. Little of what I've heard or read has taught me anything about this major world religion or the practices of people who follow it.