A few days ago I got two group emails from a conservative family member. This family member and I are known to have very different views of the world, and these messages were definitely an example of why we don't agree on politics. Both emails were about Muslims, and although I won't repeat the idiocy of the messages, let's just say that they were filled with a lot of very negative thoughts that would encourage uneducated and uninformed people to be fearful of or hateful toward Muslims.
After reading the first email, I sent back a polite (I thought) reply, in which I pointed out the five pillars of Islam are all very peaceful directives that shouldn't bother anyone, and I also stated a core belief of mine - terrorists and extremists don't represent ANY religion of the world except their own religion of hate and violence. Osama bin Laden was no more representative of Muslims than Timothy McVeigh is representative of Christians. I noted in my response that I have worked with, gone to school with with, and lived next door to Muslims, and all of them were good, kind people who are also appalled by evil such as that perpetrated by The Taliban or Al Qaida.
The second email talked about the death of millions of Jews during the Holocaust and how some people want to pretend it never happened. It summarized by saying, "How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States?"
This email was even more offensive to me than the first because using the Holocaust as an excuse to vilify another group of people is oxymoronic.
I responded by asking not to receive any more anti-Muslim propaganda.
The family member who sent the emails wrote back and said she was sorry for accidentally including me on the list (not that she was sorry for spreading ignorance about an entire class of people or for insulting my Muslim friends, who are US citizens just like her) and she'd make sure not to send me any more emails like that.
But then one of the other email recipients sent me the following message:
"To hide from reality is your choice, just as the Germans did before and during WW2. Islam is not a religeon (sic), it is a social culture imposed on people by chauvanistic (sic), male leaders."
HUH?!? Doesn't he have that backwards? I was the one speaking out for level-headed thinking and tolerance, not mass hysteria against an entire group of people. He was the one hiding from reality and just going with the blood-thirsty group mentality. It is the people who spoke out AGAINST the oppression of the Jews during WWII who did the right thing, not the ones who went along with genocide.
On one side of the ocean, over 6 million Jews died because some crazy person decided he didn't like their religion, and perhaps an additional 5 million gypsies, gays, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses and others perished along with them.
On the other side of the ocean, in a country that likes to pride itself on being the "land of the free," over 100,000 Japanese Americans were "interned" (which is a nice way of saying "thrown in prison camps."). About 62% of those interned were American citizens. Yes, citizens.
Haven't we learned anything from these events? We were wrong. Hitler was wrong. And the person(s) who wrote and sent the emails I received were wrong. There is NO class of people on this planet who should be lumped into one group and systematically discriminated against, terrorized or exterminated because of their race, creed or religion.
If someone is blowing up buildings and killing innocent people, yes, by all means, we should stop them. But just because a radical extremist claims to act in the name of the Quran, the Bible or any other holy book does not mean we should vilify and spread hatred about every other person who belongs to the same religion as the terrorist.
Shouldn't that be obvious to everyone???
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