This was the farthest thing from my mind when I tried to brainstorm things to blog about.
An update on my edit of book two of Beneath. How excited I am to finally be heading back to Australia for a month. How miserably I’m failing my reading goals of 2019 and it’s only March, or how much I’m in love with Goodreads. The fact I made an instagram account for a dragon funko.
All of those were the things I thought about first, but it all sort of pales when you read news headlines like ‘Christchurch Massacre’, or ‘49 Dead’.
And for what? Because they prayed to a different God? Worshipped in a different temple? There is no justification for this kind of cowardice. This kind of hatred. There is no point to be proven, no fight to be won, when you take weapons in to a place of worship and gun down innocent men, women and children. That’s not a battlefield. That’s butchery.
Since the news reports began there has been a steady stream of horrors and hopes.
The slaughter was live streamed. Uploaded to Facebook as it was happening. On the go, high def massacre. As frantically as FB, Twitter and Youtube worked to remove it, it continued to re-spawn, driven by the morbid and macabre souls out there that want to know what mass murder looks like. Sounds like.
These videos on FB aren’t the only problem on the site though. It’s groups that spout the same ideologies of the gunmen - this toxic mentality of rejecting and removing anyone from the country that follows a different creed or religion.
Islamophobia.
Let me be very clear here. Fear does not equal, nor justify, hatred. And it’s not a phobia.
You’re just an asshole.
Blaming an entire religion and its innocent followers for the actions of the extremists is also, simply put, bullshit. We do not blame all Christians for pederast priests, the KKK or the Westboro Baptist Church. We don’t blame all Germans for Hitler. How then can we blame all Muslims for radical extremists? For terrorists?
A man uses a BMW car to run down pedestrians; are all BMWs bad? And I’m sorry to equate an entire faith to an automobile, but when you break down an argument to the very basics, don’t you realise how ridiculous it sounds?
Also, in case anyone was thinking about jumping on the ‘well the Quran teaches them to murder infidels’ argument like it’s some magical life raft to carry you to a better debating platform, just don’t. The Bible hates shrimp, doesn’t want you wearing two different kinds of fabric blended together, is totally cool with murdering your son if he’s a disobedient shit, and has zero problem with you owning slaves. And that’s just the mild shit. I’m not even getting to the parts about two of every animal repopulating the earth’s numbers or a talking snake promoting health foods. My point is that there are things in every book that aren’t the greatest selling points, but apparently society can ignore Christianity treating the Bible like a buffet while harassing everyone else.
I was going to reference the verse used by Senator Fraser Anning, to segway into a very sarcastic paragraph about his moral character, but I’m kind of tired and I just don’t want to give him that much effort.
For the record, his disgusting statement is posted below, and you can read an article about him here.
Suffice to say, if it were possible to give a commendation to the young man that smashed an egg on his skull, rest assured I’d be doing just that. Not all heroes wear capes. If you missed the politician copping it, here’s a link to that too.
Not to mention, here's what Will Connolly, aka: Egg Boy (and my new idol), had to say afterward.
That Fraser Anning holds a seat of power in my government, in however small a fashion, is a source of shame no doubt to me and many other Australians. I hold high hopes that the good people of QLD will ensure he no longer serves in parliament as soon as possible, and that he’ll take his bigoted, hateful ideologies for a long walk off a short pier.
Note: I’m not going into any discussion about President Cheeto. Frankly, I don’t have all day. His policies aside, his behaviours and history more than speak for themselves.
Hope arises when you hear words from Waleed Aly - when you hear the break in his voice as he fights through such emotional turmoil to remind us to come together, to stand together against those who would divide us. If you haven’t watched his moving statement on the Project, you really should.
Hope is there when you see the outpouring of love and support for NZ, Christchurch and the Muslim community. When terrorism screams at the world and the world stands fast and screams right back. When love is everyone’s answer to senseless hate.
As an Australian, I abhor the actions of the perpetrator in NZ. I won’t name him. It’s not his name that should be remembered. As an Australian, as a human being, I give my love and support to NZ, Christchurch, and to my Muslim brothers and sisters suffering after this despicable act.
That man does not speak for the many, he does not represent who we are.
Stand strong in the face of hatred, of fear mongering and terror.
Be the change.
Embrace one another.
Love.
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