The recent current events of the Middle East have resulted in a number of unlikely people voicing their political and religious views on facebook, and although I am usually all for this platform being used as a facilitator for communicating thought provoking ideas, I must admit I have been amused by the emergence of so many self proclaimed geo-political theorists and commentators who, normally, use facebook to show off their new louboutin heels or check in to the gym to ensure we do not lose sight of how shredded they are. What has particularly amused me on this fine Friday afternoon is the many under cover Muslim haters who have so successfully blossomed into very vocal and self righteous speakers of religious hyperbole, using but of course, ISIS as a validation for what is essentially nothing but hate speech, poorly masked in internet memes. A lovely meme that surfaced today showed some soldiers kicking down a door with the caption Knock knock! Who there? 72 Virgins Motherf*cker... You will have to excuse me since the wit and humour of this one somehow seems to have escaped me. So I have a few issues with this, other than the fact that there is a clear religious connotation here that provides the paradigm as bad guys = Muslims, good guys =Christians, there is a collective umbrella like grouping of all Muslims under the category of Terrorists. This includes Shia, moderate Sunni, Alawi, etc, 1.Palestinians the victims of siege and occupation at the hands of non-Muslims, 2.Bosnian Muslim women- victims of institutionalized rape as a well documented tool of warfare at the hands of non-Muslims 3. Genocide of 1.5 mil Bulgarian Muslims at the hands of non-Muslims, 4. Purges of Cambodian Muslims at the hands of non-Muslims, 5. Slaughter of minority Sufi Chinese at the hands of non-Muslims, 6. Those butchered during the Sabra and Shatila massacres or 7. The massacres of Myanmar Burmese Muslims at the hands of non-Muslims. So not only do memes or sweeping statements like this discount the atrocities faced BY Muslims at the hands of non-Muslims (and these are just a handful of modern examples) but give a very simplified linear look at Islam and victims of religious persecution; which is irresponsible at the very least. Now lets put aside the ramifications on world history or how these posts may obscure the notions of good and bad and demonise those that have done no wrong, and lets talk about these people...People who have no issue dating and accepting designer bags from Muslim boyfriends, and yet will use current world events and manipulate them to re-brand themselves and recreate their tainted image into some holy crusader of human rights....or those guys who have a hundred Muslim mates and will shake their hands Sup bro! but hold indoctrinated superiority complex because they arent one of those evil Muslims. Now these altruistic *Note sarcasm* self appointed political journalists were awfully quite while the Assad Regime butchered in the most heinous way possible 200,000 innocent Syrian civilians...maybe because they were Muslim victims? These defenders of human rights *yes please note sarcasm again* werent terribly active on social media when Lieutenant Lindi England was pictured in Abu Ghraib prison with a leash around the bruised body of an Iraqi prisoner? Or confessed the most sadistic forms of torture imaginable, also repeated in Guantanamo bay... no no my friends, these were times of peace through the land where facebook was used to document nights spent on the laps of old men with money at the Ivy penthouse, or conversation was around which girl they demolished on the weekend But God forbid a masked bandit declaring himself Muslim beheads a Western Christian journalist (Lets be clear here I am not defending this, I mourned James Foley- freelance and brave journalist) all of a sudden the under cover Muslim haters have a free pass and a mandate to share these fundamentally Islamophobic memes and make comments seemingly in Jest but quickly take a step back with their well rehearsed disclosure statement Nah! Not all Muslims are like that though, I have lots of Muslim friends The Jews faced this for decades, manifesting in blood libel type sentiment, in less hostile form known as antisemitism. But I wonder how these Christians (whose day to day actions are about as sacrosanct and holy as a Nicki Minaj video clip) would react to a meme of oh I dont know, perhaps a Catholic Priest and a 7 year old boy..caption: Dont need to wait for heaven for my virgins or maybe a delightful depiction of the terrorist group the KKK with the caption: Mark 6:11 in practice! So here is my take on this. Whether your view may be seen as politically incorrect or contentious is of no issue to me, coming from somebody who does not subscribe to any of the 3 Abrahamic faiths, this is not a rant out of a knee jerk reaction due to my personal affinity with Islam. If you would like to debate about the scriptures, be my guest. BUT Lets be open and honest about this. If you would like to denounce and demonise an entire religion, be my guest, but maybe please think about refraining from shaking that hand and calling that Muslim brother or sitting on that **** for a new LV bag. Have whatever damn opinion you want, but have a backbone about it.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 09:43:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015