Thursday, August 16, 2012

People From Old Prestigious Democracies Acting Like Dictators


Check this picture as it was posted on 9gag.com

http://9gag.com/gag/5059223

It was posted under the title of:

I present: Ridiculously Photogenic Syrian Rebel Fighter


Now here is the thing. Before I started studying languages I confess that I used to be somehow close minded about "The Others". I did not much about their cultures and I had pre-judgements. But after having learned new languages , having mingled with people from a lot of foreign countries and basically after travelling and living in a city where too many international students meet, I have radically changed. 

You just cant meet people, converse with them, eat , laugh , walk and travel with people without being influenced by them. After all, human beings are nice and they connect on a human level that no one can deny. 

Still when you read through the comments that follow such a picture it hits you how ignorant and snobby people can be. It is not that I want the entire world to sympathize with my Arab or Muslim issues, but it just fills me with anguish when people from other cultures fail to see the human aspect of our miseries. 

How can a father or a mother see the piled corpses of savagely killed Syrian children and not sympathize? 
Really! I am not waiting for the entire world to go out on a demonstration against the criminal regime (although I cried infront of   Tv when I saw tha Spanish demonstration in Madrid in support of the Syrian civilians) but it would be so nice if they stopped calling us terrorists. It is not a very hard or controversial case, it is just a dictatorship killing its pacific demonstrators so they had to fight back because everyone has the right of resistance.  What is so terrorist about that? 

But still this is not my point. My point is that western people in general were raised in prestigious democracies, they have always voted in civil elections and got to choose who governs them ,they grew up in an educational system that gives much importance to debate and conversation , that teaches you how to think and how to accept others even if you disagree with them. 

How can people who grew up  in such circumstances act like dictators in a simple 9gag conversation, discarding every argument "the other" has to offer? How can they judge us, judge our cases and our circumstances without even giving us the chance to explain what we are witnessing with our own eyes or through relatives and friends , and through the perspective of any media network? 

If the most civilized peoples of the world are acting this way, and reflecting that on the internet (which is humanity's only way of communication) then where is the hope of a better future?  

2 comments:

سنفورة said...

A comment not related to the post..

I love reading your blog though don't always leave comments :) your way of expressing yourself is amazing mashaAllah :)

keep it up

EvaLuna said...

I love it when people say this (my way of expression) I feel like am helping the ideas find their way from the heads of other people besides myself.

This is good to know :)
Thanks Aseel