Disappointed

Christopher

Yeah, I don't post much here, because the blog's not normally for me.  But there's a lot I feel the need to get off my chest, and I think this is a better place to do it than anywhere else.

I'm angry.  I'm angry, and I'm disappointed.

The attacks in Paris were monstrous.  They were terrible.  There's no question about that, nobody who has any sense of humanity should question that.  But... that's not what I'm going to be talking about.  What I'm going to be talking about is how people are reacting to this, and how they are reacting to every single terrorist attack... no, wait.  That's a lie.  How they react to every single Muslim Extremist attack.

I dug in today and got involved in a few debates on FaceBook.  I learned a few things while I was doing that.  A few very important things.  Less than 2% of all terrorist attacks in the world are done by Muslim fundamentalists.  Less than 2%.  You know why you don't hear about the other ones?  I can guess.  They raise uncomfortable questions.  A guy in Norway kills Muslims in the name of Christianity and his country, and he gets labelled a Christian terrorist.  People freak out - how dare they call this person a Christian!  Christians don't do that!  Yeah.  They don't burn down black churches either (they do), or skin cats and hang them by the front door of pagans (they do).  Jews don't go into Palestine and burn down Christian churches (they do).  Buddhists don't try to kill Muslims (they do).  Asatru don't go beating on black people and spout racist slogans (they do).

But, if you point this out, you get the No True Scotsman argument.  "Oh, that's not a real member of our faith."  I won't apologize.  That's bull.  You don't get to dictate who's a "true" representative of your faith.  They say they're doing it in your name, then it's on you.

And you know what?  You shouldn't have to apologize for them.  If some Christian fundamentalist ass decides to burn down a church?  You don't have to apologize for it.  If some bastard decides to kill a doctor because he's doing abortions?  You don't have to apologize for it.  Why?  Because it was not your fault.  And that applies to Muslims.  They should not have to apologize for the actions of Muslim extremists.

Every group has its nut jobs.  Whether it's by religion, race, or nationality.  Somewhere out in the world, at any time, someone's doing something horrible - and you're associated with it by faith, race, sex, political leaning, wealth, or nationality.  Should you have to apologize for every wrong done?  No.  Of course not.  Then you shouldn't expect anyone else to have to either.  And you shouldn't be so damn smug and self-righteous if someone decides they will show sympathy, and actually say "I don't agree with what these people are doing".

ISIS.  People think that if we bring in refugees, that there's going to be secret members of ISIS there.  They're ignoring the fact that ISIS is killing Muslims.  Why?  Because ISIS wants there to be "us" and "them", and any moderate Muslims need to be killed.  And they'll continue to do terrorist attacks, because they want "not Muslims" to be united against Muslims.  They don't want cooperation and goodwill.  They don't want tolerance.  They want "us" and "them".  And every ass who doesn't want to help a Muslim because he might be a terrorist is doing their dirty work for them.  And, as I will point out earlier, less than 2% of all terrorist attacks are done by Muslim extremists.  But that almost never makes the news.  Because it raises uncomfortable questions.

---

Yeah.  This is really eating at me.  I'm disappointed in the... casual racism in my family.  I thank the gods I'm not walking that path.  But it's really starting to hurt me.  I don't want to hear them mixing up Sikhs and Muslims and thinking 'they're the same thing'.  I don't want to hear words like "raghead".  I don't want to hear "they should act like Canadians".  I don't want to see family dismiss the suffering of others, because of something as bloody stupid as "my tax dollars shouldn't go to them."  You don't get to put a price tag on someone else's life.  Do you have any idea how callous, how inhuman, how awful it sounds?

Imagine if you woke up one night, to see people in your own community kicking down doors, and shooting people they didn't think were "Canadian" enough, or "Christian" enough.  Imagine you didn't have a gun to defend yourself, or that if you even thought of going for it, you'd get shot.  Imagine this happened across the whole country.

There's now hundreds of thousands of people - being forced to live the way these people demand you live.  There's executions every single day.  The only chance you get is to grab anything you can, run for the border, and hope you and what's left of your family survive.

Now, imagine you get there, and they don't want you.  "How do we know you've not brought any of those Canadian terrorists in with you?"  "You're Christian?  We don't want you here."  "If you're going to be here, you have to act like we do."

How awful is that?

How awful is it to blame hundreds of thousands of people for the actions of a dozen people who are killing them?  How awful is it to paint these people with the same brush as the murderers?  How awful is it to demand they shed their identity, or to just dismiss them because ... well, what is it?

It's racism.  That's all it is.  It's "they're not us".  It's "I don't want to have to understand them."  It's a complete lack of humanity, of empathy.

I'm on my last straw.  I'm fed up.

I'm very, very disappointed.