Late Night Philosophy

Reflection of Sept.11 and racism

I've been meaning to write a reaction to the cataclysm that occurred on Septemer 11, some 3 weeks ago. It seems like only yesterday. Of course, my natural reaction was disbeleif and shock that it had happened; that someone was insane enough to do something like to this to innocent people whose only crime was being better off than that someone.

It also makes me wonder what kind of God those people must worship to make that kind of choice. Don't get me wrong, I know that the people responsible are not representative of the Arab, Muslim, or Islamic people. In fact, I respect the Muslim faith as I have respect for any other. Granted, I don't beleive in any of it, but is no reason to ridicule or make fun (or in extreme cases, persecute it and target it for violence) of anyone's faith. I see religious faith as a means to an end. It is a tool to find inner peace and order in the universe. Others might not share my view, but at least I'm not screaming it from the top of a roof like a madman or forcing it upon others. I mearly state what my beleifs are.

As I was saying, I saw on 20/20, they were asking airline passengers if they would be nervous about having Arabs on their flight. Of course, they only showed the ones who said that they would be. Personally, everyone has the right to fly on a plane. And frankly, if my plane is going to be hijacked and used as a tool of destruction and my own death, then so be it. I could do nothing to stop it, nor was the increased security effective. That's life/death. The s*** hits the fan and that's the end of it. That's not to say that I want it to happen, but if terrorists want to hijack a plane for destructive uses, they will eventually.

And why would they use the same plan twice anyway? Do we not see that by focusing all our attention of the air makes us blind to other possibilities? I'm not strategist, so I do not know where they will come from, but it will come from some place that will be least suspected could be used for such a dire use. Of course, the security is needed, but singling about Arabs (or people who look it), is wrong and disrespectful. I can only imagine how they must feel to feel oppressed in their own country by their fellow citizens. We whites never bother to imagine what it would be like to be oppressed to the same magnitude. Whites go to foreign countries expecting to be recieved as they do in the Americas; with open arms as a majority with all the answers for all the problems. Then the find out that they are the minority and are regarded as next to dirt by the more oppressive states. To the Taliban, Americans are the scourge of the earth with no respect for Allah or the laws of the Koran. As I said before, they do not represent the vast majority of Muslims, but it is still a truth in Afganistan.

So why do we ask the Muslim communities in the Americas to submit to what amounts to racism and racial profiling? Sure, the politians want the citizens to be safe, but the Muslims living in this country and America are citizens too and deserve equal rights as much as anyone. The only fair option is to search everyone or find some way to conduct mass-searches, or close the boarders. Or just ignore the local problem and pound the distant problem into dust so fast that the problems at home have no time to surface.

In the end, it all turns to dust.