I was angry on Friday, angry without direction, angry at the world. It’s hard for me to find the words for my anger or even try to hone it into a direction, but I’m going to try. I’m going to work through each thing that makes me angry and see if I can’t find some way to understand.
The first target of my anger is probably obvious, as it is likely the same for almost everyone who responds with anger to such things. I’m angry at the organizations behind such monstrous attacks. Often times you hear people blame the whole group, but many of those groups are just ignorant, uneducated people roped in with nationalist or spiritual propaganda. Many of the ‘soldiers’ that make up the groups have little to understand what they're actually doing and often can’t even think about things the way we do. It’s impossible for them to even see what they are doing as wrong when they have it so ingrained in them that it is right, and aren’t given even a portion of the education needed to question it, and told over and over again, that questioning it is wrong.
How many Nazis must have lost the ability to tell the similarities between the average German and the average German Jew? The leaders of the party made up fictional reasons to justify the atrocities committed, fictional characteristics that only applies to Jews, and the average soldier so manipulated that they began to see these characteristics though they were never there. Another example would be Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the movie Django Unchained, Calvin Candie, who stated African-Americans were predisposed to servitude and slavery. We know these things aren’t true, but that wouldn’t have stopped the average Nazi soldier, or slave owner from telling you otherwise, they wouldn’t know any better.
All that said I can’t find it in me to be angry at the average ‘soldier,’ I pity them. I wish there was a way to free them from their way of thinking. Educating the people would help, but it would require so much time and patience. So much effort, willingness and want on the side of the people to be educated.
The leaders, however, the horrible evil bastard who run such organizations, There is a rage in my heart for them. A fury I cannot put into words. Sending people to die to cause countless deaths. The senseless violence of it all just makes me feel mad. How can anyone condone such rampant murder, for what? For God? I’m sorry maybe it’s just the Atheist in me but, if your god is all powerful, then he sure as fuck is able to fight his own fucking battles. I mean, you have a fucking holy book loaded with stories of him doing exactly that.
They need to meet the same fate as Osama Bin Laden, to be hunted down, and buried at sea, don’t give their followers a martyr with a grave to worship or a death location they can look to. Let them fade into history with a push to educate the people. Of course, they don’t need to be educated by The United States, hell I wouldn’t even blame them for refusing to let us help; we don’t exactly score the highest for our education, and forty-something percent of the U.S. population believe a fairy tale as fact.
These things give us a path to peace, a path that makes me hopeful for the future. I can only dream that we’ll make it there one day, where people don’t cling to petty hatreds and enforce division rather than embracing similarities.
The next thing that angers me is the western media double-standard, that we see the Paris attacks and react, but the attacks elsewhere in the world are barely even acknowledged. Often the Islamic State group’s targets are in the middle east, and more often than not, its victims are Muslim. These attacks happen often, and yet, here in the west we either rarely hear about them, take them as business as usual for the region, or frankly don’t care. That upsets me, it angers me that I have to sift through the news to find anything going on in the non-U.S./western Europe part of the world. It’s maddening, lucky for me I’ve got Facebook friends from outside that group so it’s not always difficult for me to hear anything. Doesn’t stop the double-standard of western media from angering me, because I see so many of my friends ignoring or misrepresenting facts because they heard it from a western news source.
Another thing to anger me is the adherence so many in the U.S. have to "us versus them" mentality. The belief that the U.S. is flat out good and Islam is the big, scary menace ready to take all your American freedoms away. Most people in the U.S. don’t realize Muslim extremists make up less than 2% of terrorist attacks in the U.S. and Europe.
I’ve seen a video where someone explains the commands given to Muslims from the Qu’ran, and how it is different from the Bible or the Torah. This was used to show how Islam is not a religion of peace because it has violent commands. Yet, all those same commands are in the Torah and Bible. He stated that the Bible and Torah were simply collections of parables and stories not to be taken seriously like Sharia Law, without mentioning that Torah, literally translates from Hebrew as “Law,” and has many statements about law and ethics. Most importantly in case you didn’t know, the Torah is used as the Old Testament, in the bible. So they’re all there as well. So if you thought the Bible, Torah and Qu’ran are drastically different you’d be sorely disappointed if you actually did your homework and realized they are all mostly the same. The only argument that can be made is that many Christians and Jews no longer see their holy book as 100% true. You could say that, but then there are all those Christians pushing that we teach creationism in school alongside evolution as though they are comparable in validity, or Christians opposed to gay marriage. Apparently I’m supposed to accept that a Christian is allowed to follow and enforce biblical law on others, but I’m supposed to be afraid of the idea of a Muslim doing the same with Sharia. Sorry, but I don’t work that way. The first amendment says that both religions are equal, so sorry, I don’t want either of you enforcing your laws on me.
I also get pissed with "us versus them" because I mean seriously, do Christians really see themselves as that different from Muslims? I mean they believe in the same god, Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet and not the son of God, that like literally the major difference between the two religions. which actually makes them close than Christianity is to Judaism, as the Jewish people believe Jesus is either not a real person or a false prophet. For had Jesus Fulfilled the Jewish prophecy, they wouldn’t still be waiting for it to be fulfilled. Though the Jews and Muslims both believe Jesus was, in no way, the son of God.
I despise the fact that so many seem to think we should back Israel no matter what. Expected to completely ignore the schools they bomb or the cease-fires they refuse to hold to. The Israeli government is really fucked up in the way they treat Palestine and it pisses me off.
Something else that makes me mad is the way that so many attack the victims, blaming the Syrian refugees, or in one special case, blaming the french. People who blame the victims always piss me off.
The refugees from Syria are running from the Islamic State group, they want nothing to do with them and simply want to not be in danger. In case you missed it, there’s a civil war in Syria, and the U.S. is partially responsible for how much of a mess Syria is right now. A lot of the people dying in Syria are people caught in the middle, civilians, people who would, understandably, feel the need to flee. Yet when they do, we try to turn them away, for no more reason than the fact that they come from Syria, where the Islamic State group, has a hold.
We refuse the refugees because we’re afraid of terrorists, ignoring the fact that fear is the terrorists' goal. If we’re afraid of them, they win. Even if the U.S. defeats the IS group the U.S. isn’t the ones to put Syria back together, that’s the Syrians. Do you really want the Syrians to rebuild their country in the wake of their civil war remembering how the west rejected them, and treated them like criminals?
We’re all here on this Earth together, and I feel it’s more than past time we started acting like it. There is nowhere else for us to go, we have to start learning to get along and taking responsibility for our actions or one day there won’t be a world left for us anymore.
Random list of things I used:
The double standard in western media.
http://news.yahoo.com/world-mourns-paris-many-mideast-see-double-standard-190640668.html
All Terrorists are not Muslim.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/14/are-all-terrorists-muslims-it-s-not-even-close.html
Christian Terrorist groups you've probably not heard of.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danthropology/2015/04/christian-terrorist-groups-exist-and-we-often-simply-ignore-them/
Why women's health clinic that offer abortions need buffer zones.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/01/15/3163761/abortion-clinics-need-buffer-zones/
And a Pastor blaming France for being French after the attack of Friday.