In Pakistan’s Daily Times, a very unusual op-ed by Razi Azmi on the Islamic “image problem,” daring to suggest that the negative image of Muslims may be due to the actions of … Muslims: Image Mirrors Reality. (Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch.)

Muslims of all hues and lands protest their so-called image problem, blaming it not on themselves, but on their detractors and perceived enemies, specifically the much-maligned Western media. It does not occur to them that their negative image could, by and large, be a reflection of reality. They should know from daily experience that a good object will always sell itself, while a bad product will flop even with the best packaging and the finest advertising. Image is always a reflection of substance, however distorted or imperfect. Why blame CNN, BBC, New York Times or Le Monde? One only needs to read a Pakistani newspaper on any given day, or the editorials on March 23 or August 14, to get Pakistani perspectives on the state of the nation. I mention Pakistan because it is one of the few Muslim countries with a relatively free press.

Take the most recent example of the image problem, although I doubt that Muslims would have seen it in this light: armed Iraqis holding daggers and knives to the throats of three abducted Japanese civilians, including a woman who went there to help Baghdad’s homeless children, and threatening to slit their throats amid cries of “Allah-o-Akbar.” It was no figment of the “infidel” West’s imagination, the film having been made by the abductors themselves and proudly passed on by its producers to the Arab Al-Jazeera television to be shown to the world. Ten thousand speeches about peace and tolerance in Islam will not be able to undo the damage done by this odious sight projected worldwide as wished by its Muslim producers.

Witness the images from Gaza, Chechnya and Kashmir, where, more often than not, violent acts are packaged in Islamic garb and slogans, portraying them less as liberation struggles than as elements of a universal effort to establish Islamic hegemony. Or the successive Osama bin Laden and Al Zawahiri tapes taking credit for 9/11 and swearing to wreak havoc and destruction on the “infidel West” unless it cowers before their threats.