Sadly, I feel as a society
we have pushed deeds and actions to a secondary consideration and far too often
we jump on a person’s beliefs as a signal to attack them.
The one thing social media
has exposed is people's bias. It's scary at times. To some, every LNP voter is
scum. To others, every Labor or Greens voter is a terrorist supporter or raging
socialists. To some, if you condemn the killing of innocent people in Gaza, you
are a Hamas sympathiser. To others, if you support Israel you are condoning
genocide. To some, if you follow Catholic teaching you are part of the paedophilia
cover-up. To others, if you follow Islam you must be lying in wait for the
signal to slaughter the infidels; us. To some, if you voice concern about
raping and polluting of the planet, you are immediately branded a raving
Greenie or Climate Change champion, when in fact your only interest and concern
is protecting the environment. Having concern
for the environment does not automatically mean you support the Climate Change
con!!! To some, if you were born in
certain countries you are not worthy of living in this country. To some, if you
follow certain religious festivals you are scum, but if you follow those they
'approve' you are must be a good egg. It just goes on and on and on.
The latest of course is
the ISIS debate. There is no question
that this group are murderous criminals who should be rounded up, brought
before the International Court to answer charges of crimes against humanity. We, you and I, have every right to judge them
and to voice our opinions based on their proven deeds and their intent which
they have openly stated. But that right should be utilised in a constructive manner
if in fact we want our voice to be heard. We should be rightly concerned about
youths here, who have left the country to fight with these murderous so called
freedom fighters. We should be equally concerned about those, who have remained
here and who condone the behaviour of a group of lunatics who are slaughtering
innocent people based solely on their BELIEF's or their HERITAGE.
In the case of the ISIS
debate, what really frightens me, living in Australia, is not the fact that
ISIS sympathisers will commit an act of terror here. Although, like many I'm
concerned about it, I'm not terrified as some appear to be. I trust our
security personal to be on top of extremist activities. I also trust there are
many others who keep our security personal apprised of activities within their
communities.
What concerns me is that
innocent people are being subjected to unrelenting attack. Not every Muslim
supports ISIS or other form of terrorism and not everyone who voices their
concern about the unrelenting attack on a group of people based on their
religion is a sympathiser. We are just advocating
balance; judge individuals by how they live their lives not their religion. And that due to this increasing level of
intolerance and the frenzied whip up by the media (which is getting out of
control), people will start taking things into their own hands. We don't want to see the emergence of
far-right fascist gangs as they have in the UK and Europe either. They are as
bad as many of those on the other side.
We've already had a recent
report of one young man losing his job due to inflammatory derisive postings on
his Facebook page, which he didn’t make because his page had been hacked!!! Despite
his statements to that effect, the right-wing ADL swung into action. The young
man in question was reported to his employer and he was fired. People in Nazi
Germany did things like that. Remember,
it was only a short while ago that a member (since left) of the ADL accused
Muslims of trying to shoot him. It was
all over the news and other media. Of course, when the police proved the idiot
himself fired the shots; deafening silence.
But of course the damage had been done.
A read through the
comments on any far-right wing, anti GMO, Climate Change deniers, peace advocates,
pro Middle East peace sites etc. highlight the level to which we have generated
as a society. I’m deeply saddened by
what I observe and I shudder in horror at times thinking that I am walking the
streets with people who think like that about their fellow human beings. If I owned up to them about being a person who
wants to see the world in a healthier state; environment, human rights, religious
tolerance, fairness etc. I would be condemned, verbally attacked and possibly beaten-up.
That's my greatest concern. That really frightens me.
We desperately need more voices
of reason in this world; people who judge others by their actions not by their
political or religious leaning. We should also consider that just because
others don’t shoot their mouths off on social media doesn’t mean they are
supporting particular actions. It simply means they have chosen to deal with it
in their own way, or to stay out of it.
