I expressively forbade myself to write about anything related to the Middle East, mainly because of the quite bad experiences I had during the two years I worked in matters related to the region. Nevertheless I have so many things to say about this Charlie Hebdo issue that remaining silent is not an option anymore. I would like to invite all of my readers to not interpret anything that goes out of place, because since in this topic of Islamic extremism I have zero tolerance (for the same reason of my previous experiences), the least I want is to be called or be considered a racist. I do not (and will never) imply that anyone or anybody from a specific region is inferior (this fits to the definition of a racist) or, that ALL people with certain characteristics should be disappeared from the face of Earth.
The Charlie Hebdo incident goes beyond of being a problem regarding freedom of speech, because it has translated intolerance (and a huge lack of criteria as well as sense of humour) to a context where the differences in culture and education, in spite of being contained within the same boundaries, have become more prominent.
In this sense, unless people live in North Korea, or live under a very restrictive occupation where they are not allowed to go anywhere, no one is forcing anybody to live in Europe, and most importantly, nobody is forcing anyone to live under their rules. As far as I know, Europe is open for both entry and exit. Now, if you do not like a place, or if you hate the West and/or people who do not look like you or who do not believe in what you believe, the first question is, what are you doing there?
I believe that the most alarming matter around what happened in Paris and also what happened in London some years ago, is the fact of the perpetrators being residents. Sadly, people who are born in Europe (or in any other developed country) whose family comes from a country where corruption, poverty and war prevail, they hardly know what a difficult life is like, I call it the 'Golden Cage Syndrome', where people have everything (home, health services, education, food, etc) at the moment they are born without doing any kind of effort, and this seems to give them some extra time to look for a reason to hate others who are not like them. I believe this might be one of the main reasons why most of Al Qaeda (et.al.) and ISIS militants are European citizens, they just do not know suffering and their families take for granted the fact of their European-born relatives to be as thankful as they were at the moment they were taken into the country. I cannot say that everybody is the same, because most of the times it is just a matter of education.
Nobody is born hating the world, they learn to hate the world. Therefore I wonder, where were the families of all these people who are now investing their time in killing and hating? Where did the values they carried from their countries of origin go? From where did they take that nefarious attitude of believing that the country owes them something and even have the gut of being abusive? Nobody can say that this is not true, because I have proved this first hand while I lived in London, where I was harassed by non-British people, and where I saw the British being harassed by the non-British. I also proved this in Finland, where somebody spent more than an hour speaking badly about Finns and who also had the nerve of telling me that 'Nobody works here, we live from what the Finnish government gives us'. Where is the sense of gratitude!? They were welcomed and is this the right way to answer?!
Now, as I stated before, not everybody is the same, because there are also grateful immigrants who are always giving their best, like in the case of my own people, whose sense of hard work is remarkable (and the best proofs are the indicators in Canada and the US). I have also seen this attitude of being hard working and grateful in many people from Southeast Asia.
European nations in general should also be critical with their own decisions and most importantly, with their alliances. They cannot continue in getting involved in situations that on the long term will not bring anything except a bunch of angry people full of rancour. Development and growth cannot be achieved by supporting dictators or, by interfering in internal affairs, or simply put, by stepping on others. The very same goes for the United States. Stop grabbing fights and problems that are not yours, trust me that doing things (and getting what you want) in the right way is easier and better on the long term.
I believe that up to this point, the tone of my words sounds quite harsh, but on a more personal stance, I was outraged at this matter because hundreds of journalists (and newspapers) are killed or attacked and threatened (normally two of these) in my country everyday just for doing their job. It is quite annoying to see that these 12 innocents were killed for something as stupid as a cartoon when the murders I have seen in my own country are because journalists uncover corruption, criminals, deals between government and criminals, etc. what I mean is, SERIOUS matters. What happened to Charlie Hebdo is an insult to journalism itself. Those 'jihadists' have no idea of what being killed for important things is like. If they cannot stand this, I would not like them to see how we laugh at religion in my own region. What, are we back to the Middle Ages where religion has become a reason to kill?
My last question is, where are the Islamic countries? Are they still waiting for the rest of the world to continue having a negative opinion about Muslims or they are intending to do something to stop the negative stereotype from prevailing? Something that scares me to no end, is the fact of the biggest and worst radicals being young people (in places like Saudi Arabia, it seems that young people are busier praying and radicalising themselves than studying), and secondly, even though I have read the Qur'an, the fact of Muslims themselves allowing their religion (which used to be progressive and which gave a lot of good things to the world in many fields) to rot and become an excuse for terrorists to do whatever they like.
Something I truly dislike not only in Muslims but of people in general, are double standards, which are found in every religion: Christians used to say that Christianity is a religion of peace on one hand, and then on the other, you had the Crusades and then the horrible Holy Inquisition. I would like to know, where did some Muslims read that exterminating all non-Muslims is the right thing to do? I never heard of that inside the Shari'ah. It would be good to follow the values that the Prophet taught (among those values, there are three called RESPECT, TOLERANCE and being THANKFUL) instead of making tales out of the Qur'an, because it is leading Allah's followers to destruction and making us, the non-Muslims regard them as the emissaries of Hell. It only depends on them to stop this from happening.
Please, stop blaming the West, Israel (sometimes I wonder myself if they, alone, are the source of all problems in that region...) or whoever but yourselves of what is happening. Additionally, do not forget that some countries in the Middle East also have a foreign policy line similar to that of the U.S. ('I have no friends, just interests'). Stop being apologists. I also hope that Islamic countries focus on giving all good things and opportunities to their youth, because if things continue like this, depending on foreigners and non-Muslims will be their life-long tragedy.
Islam can be positive. You do not need religion in order to be a good person, because values are not exclusive to any religion. Respecting others is just part of being human, and it goes beyond of being a Buddhist, a Christian, or whatever.
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(c) Newseveryday
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| (c) Daily Mail United Kingdom |
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