“Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the right wing media outlets and extreme conservative groups, began to fuel against Islam,…”
Opinion piece
By Gabriel Infante Carrillo
While Norwegians are mourning its deads and trying to overcome the tragic, caused apparently by one single man that claims that he did all this to save Norway and Europe from Marxism and Muslim colonization and to warn the danger that the continent is facing with the flux of foreigners with different color of skin and other faith, so he say, “poses a deadly threat”. We should all learn a valuable lesson from this tragedy and start questioning what brought us up to this point.
The terrorist attacks of 2001 and the London and Madrid bombing definitely marked a sadly beginning for the new century. Seeing this apocalyptic scenario was way beyond our comprehension. This evidently caused astonishment, disbelief, dismay, fear and rage. All these feelings overwhelming plus all the information and propaganda bombarded by the mass media, is obviously hard to have a clear picture of our reality and the new challenges we have to face as society of the 21st century.
Is true what they say, that the unknown causes us fear, and unfortunately, governments throughout history tend to use this so called “policy of fear” to control the masses. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, almost a decade ago, the right wing media outlets and extreme conservative groups, as I can recall, began to fuel against Islam, describing it as a huge threat to the U.S and stigmatized them as extremists and terrorists, unfortunately these erroneous views has been widespread throughout the west, including Norway.
As more we learn about Anders Behring Breivik and trying to comprehend what led him to commit such an outrageous and despicable crime —killing his own people to show what might have been an attack of Islamic extremists on Norwegian soil or elsewhere in Europe — seems he was “deeply influenced” by small groups of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the so called threat from Islam, in which he included quotations of them in his 1,500 pages manifesto and copying several passages of the Unabomber’s treaties.
There is no doubt that we are under constant threat of terrorism acts that could be carried out by extreme Islamic or Yihadist groups, but by no means this represents the views of Islam as a whole. Nor we can not say that, because of Berivik’s actions all Christians are extremists. The bottom line of all this, is that we keep forgetting that our real threat is extremism in all its forms and wherever it comes from and whom it comes, at the end terrorism is the consequence of this.
Everyone is entitled to have their own opinions and views regarding to any topic that may concerns us and freely express them, nonetheless, freedom of speech and like any other rights implies responsibilities and there are boundaries, and precisely, surpassing those boundaries is where we may find extremism. In a modern civilized society, that many of us aspire, and what we have learnt from the past, there must be no room for hatred views that could drive others to carry out an event such as the one in Norway or the spree killing in Arizona during a political rally where six people were killed and the congresswoman from the Democratic Party, Gabrielle Giffords was injured. We may not all agree with our views, but what defines a democratic society is the capability to seat down and discuss our differences in a respectful and tolerant manner, imposing our views won’t lead us to anything.
It frightens me and saddens the views expressed by far right extremists, such as the ones claimed by Anders Behring Breivik, makes it seems that all the brave men that fought and died to overthrow fascism and Nazism was all in vain. Although, all of these views are outdated and don't correspond to the reality of the 21st century and in a world which is increasingly globalized, multiculturalism and interracial relations are inevitable, that is why is most likely that Anti-Muslims, Anti-immigrants and xenophobic views will be radicalized. Our greatest challenge in this hectic times is to stop the growth of extremism views to avoid another tragedy incited by intolerance and fanaticism.
Anders Behring Breivik, Arizona, equisy, extremism, fascism, Gabrielle Giffords, Islam, Norway, terrorism, tolerance
Comentarios