It’s going to sound strange from me, a former theology
student, to say this but Minnesota’s former governor, Mr. Jesse Ventura, had a
point when, in an interview with Playboy Magazine, he described organized
religion as the root of all evil. The
God who sent his begotten son to die for the sins of mankind has been one of
the largest causes of human misery as people have fought over the various
interpretations of what they thought he wanted and it continues to this day.
The examples are plentiful. There’s Jerusalem, which is the
Holy City of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Holiness of the City has made
a flashpoint between three religions. Nearer to home, we have Myanmar or Burma,
the place where a Buddhist Nobel Laureate does not speak out against the slaughter
of a defenseless Muslim minority. Humanity’s ability to slaughter itself in the
name of the All Mighty also extends to adherents of the same faith. I lived in
the United Kingdom in a time when the Protestant Ulster Men and the Catholics
of the Irish Republican Army couldn’t even live on the same street. Today, in
the Muslim world you have the brutal slaughter of innocent people in Yemen and
Syria because Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shite Iran can’t agree on who the Prophet
Mohammad chose to be his successor.
The point about our inability to get along was brought home
most cruelly on 15 March 2019, when a gunman entered two mosques in Christchurch,
New Zealand and opened fire. The gunman didn’t even bother to run or hide. He happily
posted a live feed of his actions and at the time of writing has happily
dismissed his lawyer and declared that he will defend himself. More details of
the story can be found at:
What is clear is that the perpetrator did what he did to
make a statement. The objective here is to go on trail and to say something to
the world’s cameras. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that a young brute is
going to try and proclaim himself the defender of Christian Values against an
invasion of evil Muslims.
Unfortunately for the young man, his claim to be the
defender of Western Civilization was taken by Australian Senator, Fraser Anning,
who blamed the shooting on New Zealand’s lax immigration policies, which
allowed in “Muslim Fanatics.” According to Mr. Anning, the shooting in
Christchurch was simply part of “White” New Zealand wanting to take back
control of their homes. More on Mr. Anning’s remarks can be found at:
Mr. Anning is factually wrong. Islam is the faith of around one
percent of New Zealand’s total population and more interestingly, New Zealand’s
immigration policy towards Muslims from Africa the Middle East, isn’t the open
invitation that Mr. Anning made it out to be. More can be found at:
The shooting in Christchurch was a crime. As New Zealand’s
Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, rightly said, “This is an act of terrorism.”
The gun man, like the perpetrators of the September 11 massacre took away human
life and wanted (still wants) attention.
Thankfully, the reaction from the majority was the correct
one. Ms. Arden, did what good leader should do, she went down to the site,
dressed as Muslim woman, showed sympathy to the victims and condemned the
horrible act of violence. I’m also happy to say that the majority of people I
know sided with the victims.
One of the best postings came from a friend of mine, who
posted the reaction of a British soldier (squaddie) who lost his leg in Iraq,
to people who expected him to be “Anti-Islamic” and to have issues with “Ragheads”
and “Pakis.” The post can be found at:
I am, however, a little disturbed that intelligent people I
know, and I believe there are plenty more whom I don’t know, thought this was a
time to complain that we were only making a big deal about the Christchurch
shooting because Muslims were the victims and there was total media silence
about a massacre of Christians in Nigeria. As expected, Breitbart News proved
to be exceptionally reliable getting its agenda across:
In fairness to Breitbart News, they actually made one
valuable point – New Zealand is a first world country and Nigeria is a third
world country. Things like this are not supposed to happen in New Zealand, and
when it does, it does make the news. Nigeria is a third world country, with a
history of communal violence. When violent massacres happen in Nigeria, they
don’t grab the attention of the international media.
This is morally wrong. We should care about the fate of Black
Africans living in a Black African country as much as we do about the Brown
People living a “White Persons” country. I’ve said it before when everyone was “standing
with Paris” but not with Burkina Faso. To paraphrase Donald Trump – Nigeria is
a “Shithole,” so nobody cares. New Zealand is not and so everyone cares. This isn’t
fair and it isn’t right that we get worked up over New Zealand but we don’t bat
an eyelid when it happens in Nigeria.
However, I do take issue with Breitbart News making this
about religion. From having a valid point, Breitbart proceeded to destroy its
function as a medium by stating that we’re worked up over Muslims in New
Zealand dying but not over Christians in Nigeria dying because its part of an
evil liberal political agenda to discredit Christians. Erm, no, I don’t think
that’s the case. As the Christchurch shooting shows, terrorist come in all
shapes and colours. While Muslim terrorist get the attention of the world’s
press, they are by no means the only terrorist around. Terrorist actions aren’t
exclusive to any particular religion or race. I grew up in England when you had
Irish Catholic terrorist and it took a while for the British government to
acknowledge there was a Protestant variety. Sri Lanka had a Tamil variety and
the Sikh’s had their version too and Let’s forget that two Israeli Prime
Ministers (Menachim Begin and Yitzhak Shamir) belonged to an organization that did
“terrorist” things (Irgun was quite happy to claim responsibility for blowing
up the King David Hotel).
It should be clear that Muslims do not have a monopoly of
the world’s nut cases and I’ve lived long enough to see Muslims getting along
with people of different faiths well enough to understand that people are not
inclined to try to kill each other. In my daily life, I see ordinary Muslims
like my barber and tea seller get along with pork-eating, fornicating Chinamen.
When horrible things happen, one shouldn’t play to what the terrorist
want. Why fan the flames of a conflict that only a few nut cases are keen on? As
someone who has managed crisis, I believe the key is to take the emotion out of
a situation so that people can work things out in a somewhat rational manner.
Yes, by all means, point out that its unfair that we give more
airtime and ink to the awful things that happen in the first world than we do
in the third but for God’s sake don’t fan the flames of something ungodly.
You cannot drive out hate with more hate just as you cannot
drive out darkness with more darkness.
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