Thursday, May 06, 2010

Infected With Rage: Or How Zombies Showed Me The Light

I am furious right now. So furious I can't type properly. Furious like the zombies in 28 Days Later, but with a just cause.

There is a certain woman that keeps sending me chain emails full of hatred. I think I've mentioned her on here before. At first the emails made me shake my head. One made me weep. Several, including this latest one, have filled me with rage.

I don't understand how anyone who calls themselves a Christian can stand behind words of such hatred. The emails she sends out talk about how we should just kill all the Muslims by bombing the hell out of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan - kill their women and children because 'they've done it to us'. They celebrate a professor at Michigan State because he told all the Muslim students to go home. They justify bigotry and racism because 'we are in a war'. (A war that was made up for political gain in my opinion, a war that hasn't fixed anything, a war against an act of terrorism that happened almost ten years ago and hasn't been repeated...but that's all irrelevant to the email campaign of hatred and fear, dressed up in patriotism and the love of God).

Even if it was an active war and people were being killed in America every day by terrorist bombs (I realize it happens more often overseas, but since it kills 'them' the emails ignore it), even then I couldn't advocate racism as an appropriate response. How does painting every Muslim with the same fanatical brush help anything? How does judging someone on their skin colour or ethnic heritage keep us, or anyone, safe?

I notice that she never sends out emails condemning all of Christianity because of the fanatical actions of certain sects of the faith.

She never sends out harsh words towards those who bomb abortion clinics, or beat homosexuals to death. Oh, right. Those people deserve to die because they're sinners. Unlike us.

Why can she judge Islam by the actions of a fundamentalist few and keep such a blind eye to the sins of her own professed faith?

Next she'll be saying we should round up the Jews for killing Christ.

I could let this ruin my day.

Or I could let it inform the actions I make in my own life. I could take a look at myself and see where I am blind, where I am a bigot, where I judge harshly without reason.

Maybe after I calm down I will. As much as I would rather just keep pointing a finger of righteous anger at her because it's easier, that doesn't help the world become a better place either.

This is the truth that I want to live by: "The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border." Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that. An Egyptian by birth, named for the Muslim prophet, he may be Jewish but I don't know if that matters or not when a person is filled with hatred towards everyone who isn't perfectly Aryan.

And one could argue that our primary allegiance is to God - but I think this quote falls under "Love thy neighbour as thyself".

I'll settle for the world learning the second half of the commandment. It's a bitch to do. I certainly wouldn't risk my life to save this particular woman from zombies. (You'll know who really loves you when the zombies attack. True friends don't trip you when they're running away.)

Shoot. All my anger is deflated now that I realize I'm not living the commandment myself. Well, fuck.

True to form, it took a zombie reference to point out the truth of my own life to me. So now I'm going to go away and swear a whole lot and finally accept the fact that this woman, despite herself, has given me an opportunity to grow further into the Light.

Fuck.

2 comments:

Erin said...

Sounds like some of this rage could be channelled into a character. What makes someone be like this? And what would it take to make them stop hating...?

And seriously, The War of Art. Read it. If your library doesn't have it, let me know and I'll send you a copy. For reals.

Peace.

Pru said...

I'm 17th on a list at the library to get it! I just did the math to see how long that'll be to get and assuming no renewals it's going to be a year. Maybe I should take you up on your offer...