Terrorist and Terrorism

In light of recent events it seems that Terrorist is the perfect book to be reading.  Sadly though the book does not provide much insight into what real terrorists are like.  The book is filled with stereotypes that reinforce a negative view on terrorists; Updike paints terrorists to be Islamic fundamentalists that hold intense resentment for the American culture and society, which is partially true.  The book is wrong in the fact that terrorists are all under-privileged kids who are lashing out because of forces that seem to be out of their control.  While their are a few grains of truth, I think Updike focuses too heavily on the aspect of religion and fundamentalism.  A large portion of terrorists are actually wealthy middle class individuals who are resentful of American values because they differ so much with the views of Islamic people, especially extremists.  You can see from the Boston Marathon Bombings that not all terrorists are Islamic extremists out to ruin America, they can be from anywhere and of any ethnic background, the only common ground is the intense hatred for American values and governmental system.  I think we can learn a lot from the media coverage of the terrorist attacks.  We spent a majority of the class today talking about the misrepresentation of Islamic people in the news, and how terrorist attacks trigger people to accuse Islamic people of things that have nothing to do with them.  While the two brothers did have ties to Islamic groups, they are not considered to be traditional Muslims, and as the reporter from The Daily Show claimed, it confused everyone to see that these terrorists are from a Russian state and are as white as they come.  I think that the media needs to focus more on the objective facts and less on speculating how much religion is to blame for these attacks.  I understand in this post 9/11 world that everyone wants to jump to blame Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, but in reality terrorism comes from a deep rooted hatred for our lifestyle, not from a religious fanaticism.  "Terrorist" really portrayed terrorists in the wrong light, not that there is a good light to shed on terrorism, but he definitely weighed too heavily on the stereotypes.  This made his novel seem ignorant, even if he did this with the intent of sounding ironic, it comes off as ignorant.  Like we said today in class, people who have not read other texts on Islam or studied the media's obsession with it would read this and assume that all terrorists are made this way.  That is worse than just plain ignorance, Updike is spreading his ignorance to his readers and it is prolonging the misconceptions that most Americans have about Muslims.  The novel read nicely at times but was riddled with far too many ridiculous stereotypes on both sides.  The Jewish guidance counselor is more of a stereotypical Jew than Woody Allen and Ahmad could not be any more of an Islamic fanatic searching for a reason to die for his cause.  Shaikh Rashid is way too much of a potential father figure for Ahmad who turns him down the wrong path, it just generalizes all Muslims who have lost their fathers into a category of terrorists.  These things are all very wrong, and I think our society really needs to take a step back and figure out why it is we take such a harsh approach and how we can fix it to achieve peace and to stop terrorists.