On November 1st, an Associated Press analysis article on the terrorist attacks in France threw an argument about “why France is always targeted by Muslim groups”. The article was criticized by a lot of people in social media shortly after it was posted on Twitter, and asked for delete the post and modify it.
According to the author looking through the comment area and the comments of readers, this article is controversial, one is the content of the article itself, and the other is the introduction written by the Associated Press editor when it was forwarded.
In the first paragraph, the author throws out such a thesis: “So many Western countries allow the prophet of Islam (that is, Muhammad) to be satirized, why is France always targeted?”
Then, the author summarized four reasons for France : A history of brutal colonial rule, armed interference in Mali and Syria, strict secularism, and a president who “daunts”.
If you look at it from the macroscopic and centuries-long perspective, this summary actually has certain reasonableness.
For example, hegemonism and power politics have indeed given birth to terrorism. France has not been successful in handling issues such as accepting refugees and coexisting with domestic ethnic groups.
Its government’s repeated groundless accusations on China’s Xinjiang issue are even more typical of “double standards.”
But for the French who have just suffered two terrorist attacks in their country, discussing the above macro topics at this time and criticizing the “historical issues” of the French government that has announced high-profile anti-terrorism seems a bit harsh.
What’s more, the United States itself is far worse than France on the “problems” listed by the author: on brutality, the violations of human rights in the United States in foreign wars are countless; on armed interference, the number of US wars and stationing in the Middle East The size of the army far exceeds that of France; when it comes to “the president’s dare to speak”, the “big mouth” of US President Trump is even more unsurpassed.
Therefore, the Associated Press, which is the representative of the US national news agency, has taken out a few areas that the United States has not done very well, and described them as “unique problems” in France, which naturally seems unconvincing.
Soon after this article was published, many netizens in France and other countries criticized this article in similar ways. Some critics criticized the article for “victim blame”, thinking that such a “Mother’s Heart” could not prevent the spread of terrorism; others pointed out the “bad things” that the United States had done, and let the Associated Press “take care of itself” “.
If the article itself has been unacceptable to readers, then the lead word written by the official Associated Press Twitter when reposting this article is simply “holding a gasoline barrel to the scene of a fire.”
When the article was first published, the lead of the Associated Press stated that Macron was “dare to speak and has no empathy for Muslim beliefs” and also used the phrase “France has incited the anger of the Muslim world.”
For French netizens, this expression is not quite right: it is obvious that ordinary people in France have been attacked by terrorists.
Why are we still being said to be the “inciting” party?
Even the famous American psychologist Jeffrey Miller couldn’t stand it any longer. He launched a poll in the comment section to let readers choose their own understanding of the Associated Press lead.
As of the time of publication, 71.7% of readers thought that the meaning of the introduction sounds like “France should pick things first and deserve to be attacked”.
In the second reissue, Associated Press deleted the phrase “no empathy”, and changed the expression “incitement” to “why is France always targeted”, and put one in the comment area.
Explain that he did not mean to blame France.
However, most readers do not pay for the Associated Press’s remedy. In addition to condemning the wording of the article in the comment area, some readers also found out the personal recommendation of the author of this article and the Associated Press’s Paris editor Angela Charlton. Special account and found out another report on her about this terrorist attack.
The report she turned out was about the pressure that French Muslims encountered after the attack. From the full text, the author has a more sympathetic attitude towards the criticism and marginalization faced by the Muslim community in France. Similar to the controversial article above, many readers also think her attitude is “hypocritical” and “out of date”.
Emotionally speaking, most Chinese people, including the author, should understand the anger of French netizens. After all, when reporting several terrorist attacks in China before, many Western media, including The Associated Press, were very Our slander is worse than it is.
However, compared with the Associated Press’s attitude of deleting posts and explaining this time, these Western media are far from showing such a strong desire to survive when responding to the anger of Chinese readers.
It is worth mentioning that, at least from the current commentary area, many foreign netizens have not begun to understand our difficulties because of the same experience as China. On the contrary, many Western netizens still have such a voice that makes the Chinese shout “The pot comes from the sky”: Why don’t extremists target China?
One of the netizens understands that because China has “tough means”, even though China is engaged in “colonialism” and “cruelly suppressing religion,” extremists who bully and fear hard work dare not act.
Another set of dialogues is even more interesting. When a comment asked “Why Muslims dare not attack China, which is engaged in the’holocaust'”, it was a netizen from the UAE who refuted the so-called “Muslim” Rumors of genocide.
