Sunday 22 November 2015

Thoughts: The Slow Erosion of Tolerance

It's begun, right here in New Zealand, and it makes me sad.

I saw a Facebook post by a New Zealander, shared by someone I know, suggesting that New Zealand place a ban on Burka's. And why? Well, because France and the Netherlands have done it, so it must be the right thing.... right?

This is the start of the decline, people. All of a sudden anger, hatred and mistrust start to erode our tolerance for other cultures and for religion. But it's all so misdirected! Can't you see that these people, people who happen to follow the Muslim religion of Islam, are as innocent of the world's problems as you and I are?

The perpetrators that carried out the attacks around the world on Friday the 13th November (yes, there was more than just Paris) are NOT Muslim, they do not follow Islam. Oh yes, they proclaim to be, but the religion that they pledge their lives to is not one that you will see a church or temple or mosque for as you drive down any street in New Zealand. If you don't understand Islam, or simply know nothing about it I recommend you educate yourself. If you don't, if you choose not to, then you have no right to speak out about something you know nothing of.

Look, the answer is really quite simple. If we do not come together as a people - and I don't explicitly mean just New Zealand here, but the world - if we maintain divisiveness then we will surely walk down a dark and dangerous path. The same path that led America to civil war in 1861 (primarily over slavery and sectionalism), the same path that led to the persecution and extermination of millions of Jews in the 1930's and 1940's and brought the world to war. It's the same path that led to apartheid in South Africa and the violence that ensued for years in that nation.

Do you see the connection in all these things? Conflict.

The people who perpetrate acts of terror around the world, or perhaps more accurately - those who claim responsibility for them - want to incite conflict. They want to divide the world. Do you know why? Because unless the do they will lose. They do not have a large army. They do not have a massive military industry producing weapons for them. They do not have trillions or even billions of dollars with which to purchase weapons. They scrounge what they can. They raid areas where they believe they can win. Oh, they have some backers, sure, but how long do you think those backers will continue to support them if they are failing in their mission and while the well-equipped nations of the world are blowing them into yesterday?

It's just business for those backers and if business isn't good you invest elsewhere. But if the tide looks to be turning and the innocent Muslim population of the world are being driven out and persecuted then we have a very different picture.

The women who wear Burka's down your street are not your enemy. They don't even know you. They just want to get on with their lives, like you and I do. They want to raise their children right, like you and I do. They want to have financial security, like you and I do. And they feel pain at seeing innocent people killed, just like you and I do. Don't deny them their rights and don't deny them their religion.

Understand them and accept them. You'd probably be surprised by just how much you actually have in common. But if you can't do that, if your stubbornness runs that deep, then just ignore them because they're not doing you any harm. Get on with your own life and leave them to get on with theirs, if that's the best you can do. No one will blame you for that.

But do not hate them for wanting to choose their own religion and do not, for the sake of all that you hold dear, DO NOT teach your children to hate them. Set an example for your children of tolerance and acceptance as best you can because, one day, your children might be in the same position these Muslim people are in now - eyed suspiciously because they "look different", because they wear the same clothes as those killers did.

Well you know what, you wear the same kind clothes that Charles Manson did. Think about it.

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