Mr. Karim will read from his award-winning book, Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence, at the Ottawa Public Library at noon Thursday. In light of the war in Afghanistan, he says it's an opportune time to challenge and reflect on portrayals of Islam in the media.
"The situation of Sept. 11 caused a lot of fear, and fear is often the cause of hatred and mistrust. Again and again, we see the misuse of the word 'Islamic,'" says Mr. Karim from his office at Carleton University's school of journalism and communication.
Mr. Karim worked as a reporter for the Rome-based Inter Press service and also reported for Luxemburg-based Compass News Features, supplying Canadian wire news to developing countries. "It helped me understand how the media work from the inside and the kind of constraints journalists face."
The media's "24-hour cycle and the immediacy of television media takes away opportunities for journalists to carefully think about what they're covering," says Mr. Karim. Misconceptions, he says, arise from a general lack of knowledge and understanding of Islam in the western world.
"Certain anchors do not seem to know the difference between Arab and Muslim. There is a general tendency to use 'Islamic' too loosely."
Mr. Karim argues that the news media tend to treat
"Islamic" terrorism differently than other religiously driven events. For example, he notes that David Koresh, of the Davidian Christian sect, was not referred as a "Christian fundamentalist," but the men on trial for bombing the World Trade Center parking lot were often referred to as "Islamic fundamentalists."
"In the mainstream, there seems to be an over-eagerness to use the word 'Islam' and link it to terrorist acts," says Mr. Karim. "There are exceptions, of course. But there are also evident trends."
Islamic Peril received the 2001 Robinson Book Prize for writing in the communications field. "The prize was gratifying and completely unexpected," he says.
Between 1989 and 1998 Mr. Karim worked for the federal government's multiculturalism program as a senior policy officer. During the Gulf War he worked on projects to facilitate co-operation among Muslim, Jewish and other Canadian ethnic communities.
He is associate director of Carleton's school of journalism and communication, where he teaches courses on communication and social relations.
He plans to work on another book that "gets to the roots the problem of misunderstanding and suggests ways for it to be overcome."