After being wounded, it is natural to feel bitter towards the person who caused the pain. However, learning to manage this impulse is a part of learning to live. People who cannot move on from an injury are a danger to themselves, to others, and to all of humanity. Furthermore, anger at the perpetrator of a crime should not extend farther than that person. It is unjust to blame their family, their kinsmen, their countrymen. To do so is more than bigotry; it perpetuates a climate of anger and revenge.
After the attacks on Paris last month, together with other attacks in Lebanon, Nigeria, and the never-ending onslaught of Daesh’s atrocities, the world is rightfully hurting. Most mourn those who are gone. There are a few who, like an injured mongrel who will bite friendly and cruel hands alike, turn their indignation against the innocent. These are the racists, the hooligans, the warmongers. They have no real grief for the dead, nor do they care for the living.
It is these monsters who attacked a mother with her small children in Toronto, only a few days after the shootings. Brutes, ignorant and vicious like the wild pigs that they are, they cause nothing but devastation and are themselves the terrorists they claim to hate. Those who burned down the mosque in Peterborough – they, also, are Daesh. The criminals who attacked a woman on a train in England and threw rocks through the windows of a mosque in France – they are the allies of the forces who attack civilization.
There is no excuse whatsoever for these hate crimes, not even a plea of ignorance. Daesh themselves have expressed satisfaction and pleasure: every curse, every blow, every cowardly insult furthers the agenda of terror. This, not the Koran, not propaganda, is the force that causes radicalization. No one hates a benefactor. Welcome guests do not become enemies. And these thugs, who lay violent hands on women in broad daylight, how dare they claim outrage for the dead? They are no better than their murderers. They are the valued soldiers of the enemy.
Even now, as thousands are fleeing the war in Syria and the radicals who impose their self-serving version of Islam on the people living there, there are people, even respectable ones, who claim that the refugees are untrustworthy because they also are Muslim. As if those happy under Daesh would leave in droves! There are well over a billion Muslims on earth – are these all responsible for the attacks? Are all theists, or all humans? Are we not all, all the living and all the dead, responsible for the world as it is today?
Revenge is worse than worthless. It does nothing for the past, destroys the present, and ensures ruin for the future. The response to acts of terror should be acts of love. Terror thrives on destruction and hate, and the innocent always suffer. Just as we loathe Daesh, we should also loathe our own extremists and bullies. We should not only defend our countries, but also the vulnerable in our midst. These criminals should be prosecuted and treated as the enemies that they are. Canadians are not radicals. We do not force minorities to bend to our will. We do not dehumanize outsiders. We are not terrorists.
Leave a Reply