Tuesday, June 12, 2007 . 6:47 PM

Media and their Social Responsibility

For the past few years, the situation of media and the freedom of expresssion while abiding social responsibility has been a hotly debated topic for the past few years, more importantly, the publishing of Prophet Muhammed as a advocate of war by the Danish newspapers has highlighted the need for social responsibility of people while in the midst of the practising freedom of speech.

Definitely, such a situation has made us learn that regardless of whether in a multi-racial society or not, we MUST practice social responsibility, for the world we now live in, being in the midst of a technological era, our world is increasingly globalised, and not just cooped up in our own countries. Whatever we say or publish, within hours, can spread to audiences at the opposite end of the world. And as a result, we must practice social responsibility while paying heed to the freedom of speech. Especially in this world of increasing discrimination and anarchy, whatever said can easily offend a party.

This "rule" must be followed, more importantly, in the way people treat the Muslims, in the era of terrorism. Terrorists make use Islam as a front to justify their war against the rest of the world and as a result, the majority of innocent and magligned Muslims become fodder for which the rest of the world starts to condemn Islam, because of terrorists, which is pretty unjust to the innocent Muslims that as a result, in retaliation, becomes cold towards the rest of the world, fostering this endless war of terror.

We must therefore, be very careful of what we say and publish, practice social responsibility in whatever we say. Only then can we hope to preserve peace in this time of anarchy of terror Torture? And to what extent is it Justified?

This topic is related to the article of link shown below, with regards to the justification of torture. In this case, the decision of US to finalize new methods allowing a wider latitude of torture tatics, such as the use water-boarding exposing them to near-drowning situations.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=10714

While the article condemns the US for it's stance on torture, we do need to see that all these are part of a vicious cycle. Torture is just like a plague, you just need one party to start it, be it the Al Qaeda or the US and the rest would follow suit. US does water-boarding, so Al Qaeda starts to saw of it's victims' heads, slowly, or vice-versa.But both sides share a common property, in an obsession to destroy or obilerate one another, they resort to torture as a source of dethroning the other. For the Al Qaeda, using torture to cut of it's victims' heads and then videoing it, they us this form of media to induce fear into the global society, in hopes of scaring and "forcing" the US to stop it's war against terror, from it's own people as well as through international pressure. From the American government's opinion, they see torture as a faster and more effective method to obtain information, a valuable tool in the war against terrorism, in hopes of toppling it.

So, what causes all these to happen? Afterall, our conscience does tell us that torture is definitely not right, regardless of the purpose, whether righteous or not. For humans are defined by their ideals and conscience, that as peace- loving creatures, such barbaric acts are not what we should do? Now then, we do have to answer, what drives us to defy such boundaries of our ideals and conscience? Which would then be most likely, our vulnerabilities to be dragged down into the vortex for revenge over the "evil rougues" that claimed the lives of our fellow countrymen, blinded by the purpose which we must continue in this bloodletting of our enemies, disregarding the slightest thought of peace and giving in to one another.

And ultimately, we all must stand together against any form of torture, regardless of water-boarding and scalding a defenceless person, for it simply goes against the ideals that governs ourselves as peace-loving creatures. Peace can be achieved- IF we want to

PS- Do note that while Al Jazzerra does give mention to US's decision to expand torture methods, we must also consider the other countries and organisations like the Al Qaeda that apply it and not just condemn only the US, when they, perhaps are the lesser of the 2 evils