When it comes to putting words down onto paper I don’t usually struggle, well not as much as you’d think I would. It’s like I have a light bulb go “ping” and before I know it, the new blank page is full of little black words bouncing off one another and turning themselves into what becomes my column.
This week I’m in a bit of a sticky one, as the last few weeks have been more than overwhelming and shocking to say the very least. We all know of the awful attack that was carried out on the magazine Charlie Hebdo and the following which have occurred in the aftermath. If you don’t, then do yourself a favour and read at least two articles before you carry on reading this please.
I’m a Journalism graduate, I’m also a columnist and a Muslim, but all of those aside, I’m just like you, I too am a human-being. So when it comes to trying to find some sort of justification for killing somebody for whatever reason – excuse my French – but there is neither f**king justification nor a reason!
Whether this is for religion being used out of context, discrimination against any race or gender or whatever else that is offensive, killing is not and should not be an option. It’s not like playing a computer game or dead lions, it’s taking a life away which you have no right in doing so, how dare you? What makes you any better than those who are offending? I’m in some sort of battle in my mind at the moment, because when 12 people including journalists and cartoonists were killed last week it was like a time-bomb was set off across France, this rapidly then spread across the world. What I’m battling with is the everyday killings that we don’t seem to be batting an eyelid at. The attacks in Syria, the innocent children being killed as I write in Iran, Iraq and Palestine, isn’t that murder too or can that be ignored because, surprise surprise, all the countries I just listed are Muslim? No of course not, what society or government would allow such a thing, right? Well the way I see it, all of them.
I condemn the horrific killings that took place at Charlie Hebdo and those which followed, I condemn the killings happening across the Middle East and I still can’t stop questioning why Barack Obama wasn’t at the mass world protest of solidarity. Everyone else seemed to make it, several world leaders from Germany to Turkey all managed to stand in unity, but where was the “United States of America?” Why weren’t they there? If someone knows, please don’t hesitate to email me because it’s really got me thinking.
Terrorism has been in our lives since the 9/11 bombings, since then every attack has pretty much pointed at terrorism and screamed “Muslim” and “Islam” Want to know my opinion? What a load of crap! No human being who kills can be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist or even have a belief; I don’t even think they can be much of a human. Why? Because nowhere in any Religion or book does it state that murder or any crime is okay, it isn’t and nobody has the right to take someone else’s life.
I can’t seem to write anymore but even if you aren’t religious, let’s do a bit of homework for next week and see if we can find anything about cruelty to each-other? As one of the Ten Commandments goes: “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. Which part of it did you not understand?
