MORE than a decade ago, "Afghanistanism" appeared in the vocabulary of the media, particularly in the United States. The word was used to denote the habit of some lazy journalists who wrote about issues far from home such as the Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation, in order to evade reporting or commenting on the hottest items of the day. The term was also applied for the practice of commenting on or reporting foreign news if there was nothing newsworthy on the domestic scene.

Today, the word might yet acquire new meanings.

All over the world, it would seem, no paper claiming a readership exceeding the number of its writers and editors can do without an article or more on the ongoing US bombings in Afghanistan. In the Philippines, too, not only the national broadsheets, but also even local tabloids carry one or several items on the subject lately.

Hitherto employed to deprecate an escapist tendency in journalism, the word Afghanistanism may yet resurface as something akin to sensitive reporting or commentary. For the general public, though, that would be no cause for worry.

Another kind of potential Afghanistanism could be more terrifying, albeit avoidable.

Thanks to irresponsible media people, inadequately informed policymakers and jingoistic elements of society, a wave of strong emotions for or against Afghanistan is in the air. Only a little bit more circumspection, a little bit more caution, a little bit more restraint from all these sectors can stem this wave.

For instance, Muslim jingoists across the globe projected the US air strikes on Taliban targets in Afghanistan as a war against the Afghan Muslim people. Worse, against both the sacred religion of Islam and the Muslim World. In Muslim Mindanao, we do not run out of such characters.

Whether in mosque pulpits or announcer's booths, they try to adduce Qur'anic verses to call for religious violence in the name of jihad.

Acting as if they have a monopoly on the interpretation of the faith, these demagogues justify the acts attributed to Osama bin Laden as central to or, at least, part of Islam.

They also characterize the terror regime of the Taliban as Islamic government. "Jihad," they say, "is incumbent upon every Muslim since Islam and our brothers in faith are under attack."

As if this were not enough, some Christian reporters and commentators in print and broadcast media tried to justify the US attacks as necessary "to curb the rise of Islam which is threatening the Western democratic way of life."

To generate more vitriol, these anti-Muslim individuals and groups attempted to present Islam as a threat to peace and civilization. For example, a writer in another Manila-based paper of national circulation took pains to "prove" that Islam is a theology of hatred. Quoting verses from the Qur'an out of context, the lunatic in the guise of a writer went on to conclude that only a concerted effort to combat Islam will save the free Christian world and its democratic tradition.

Others recommend the wiping out of Afghanistan from the world map. As if the people of Afghanistan--the first and worst hit victims of the Taliban--are guilty of the crimes perpetrated by the Taliban rulers against them and against the world. This, at a time when sympathy is the least that the poor Afghans expect from us, instead of malicious and false accusations.

All of these inadequate, fallacious, or downright malicious comments and reports for or against Afghanistan converge to mold an amalgam of vitriol necessary to tear the Muslims from the rest of the world.

Acting as a fiery fuel for an anti-Islam and anti-Afghanistan bandwagon, these have the imminent potential of making a new kind of Afghanistanism among the 1,000 million Muslims: an irrational and misplaced sympathy for those wrongly portrayed as defenders of the Afghan Muslims such as the Taliban regime and the arch-terrorist Bin Laden.

That, of course, will not do any good.

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