Hey look, it is me again with another rant about serious issues topic. I'm sure you guys are beginning to work out what sort of person I am now.
This installment of things mde2001 is getting really annoyed about focus' around racism specifically towards Islam.
What happened in Paris recently was an awful tragedy and unacceptable in every way possible. I understand hating the people who took part in the attacks. I understand that these people were Muslims. However, what I cannot tolerate is people grouping all Muslims into one group who are defined by these terrorists.
People who do this are in my opinion completely stupid and ignorant. Society seems to judge some groups by the worst members of a community while other groups worst members are referred to as unusual cases. Muslims fall firmly into the first category. For some reason as a society we seem to have decided that all members of a certain religion have the exact same beliefs and have the same attitude towards terrorism. This is completely untrue. The western world does not judge all Christians for the actions of groups like the KKK or the Westboro Baptist Church so why should it be acceptable to judge all Muslims on the actions of ISIS/ISIL? The answer to that question for me is clearly that we shouldn't.
What set me off on this rant was talking to someone who I considered a friend and him telling me how everyone who believed in Allah being the only god deserved to be killed. It took me a good 15 minutes to explain to him that Allah was not a symbol of terrorism but a God in the same way the Christian God is a God. Even then he continued to support his idea of bombing/ nuking all of the Muslim countries in the Middle East in hopes of it wiping out ISIS. He then realised this was unacceptable (partially because of me yelling at him) so changed his mind into the masterful plan of get all of the good Muslims out of the Middle East and not tell ISIS then blow it up. He didn't seem to realise this was impossible.
When I told him that his first plan (of nuking all of the Middle East) was pretty much genocide he denied this. Then I asked him the question of what would make us any better than ISIS if we were killing people based on religion. This was a question that he could not answer so proceeded to start crying and accusing me of being a dickhead about. However he eventually came up with two reasons why we would still be better. Firstly, they don't matter as much of us and secondly, they started it.
This was the point where I nearly wanted to slap him. The first point is a sad fact of society. Many people seem to believe that a Western life (or even just a Jewish or Christian life) is worth more than a different life. It saddens me greatly but many people seem to believe this. We see it in news reporting and in people's attitudes.
The second point is so complex that I didn't even bother responding to it. No-one knows who started it really. It depends how far we go back. What actions are considered aggression and which ones aren't. There isn't a definitive answer to this question really but it annoyed me that immediately it was all their fault.
That's another thing- the developing us vs them mentality. I understand an us vs ISIS mentality but a western culture against Muslim culture is dangerous. Not only is it discriminatory and wrong it also is just going to radicalize many young, reasonable Muslim men and women. If we develop a mentality where we don't like Muslims as a whole group then how can we expect them to live happily in society. If they are lower beings because of their religion then we can't expect an equal society nor say that everyone is equal.
Now with that rant off my chest I return to exam study. I'd be interested to see whether people here agree with me on these things or not...