Imagine this:
A young girl sits by her door on her
birthday; waiting for the girls from school to show up for her party.
Her father has cooked party snacks, her mother has helped her make fairy
bread, there is a pinata filled with lollies and chocolates hanging
from a tree in the backyard and the parcels have been wrapped for the
perfect game of pass the parcel.
All that is left is for the young girl to wait.
She waits and she waits; but no-one comes.
After she is tired of waiting she turns to her parents and asks.
'Mommy, Daddy, why did no-one come to my party?'
And
her parents grapple with the answer; is she old enough to know the
truth? How do you sugar coat the idea that so many in the community hate
you without reason? How do you tell a little girl that has never done
anything wrong in her life that the parents of her friends hate them
because of a group of extremists in a far off country just so happen to
share your religion?
How would you do it?
Tasneem
Chopra is a consultant, an activist, an author and a curator. She is
also a Muslim woman in a society that is anything but accepting of the
Muslim culture. During a recent talk given at the Bendigo Writers
Festival Tasneem gave insight into the life of a mother who knew that
her children were growing up in a society that didn't understand them.
But why don't society understand?
Many
of the human races subconscious behaviors are the result of tens of
thousands of years of survival instinct; knowing this it can be inferred
that racism is tracked back to the ancient times of tribal living. In
these ancient times survival was far more difficult than it is now,
everything either wanted to kill you, steal your food or just straight
up eat you; in these ancient times the only way to survive was to assume
that if you saw something or someone that was not a part of your tribe
it would try to kill you if you approached it.
As the
human race progressed from the ancient times we began to see what is now
known as inside-outside group bias; explained simply as if someone from
your in-group does something that you do not agree with, it is not
indicative of anyone sans themselves, they are just a bad sheep. However
if someone from outside of your group commits the same act it is
indicative of their entire group.
Look at the following:
Group
A: believes in Anti-Catholicism, Neo-Fascism, Anti-immigration,
Anti-communism. Preaches homophobia and white supremacy and at it's peak
had between three and six million members.
Group B:
believes in Salafsim, Salafi jihadism and Wahhabism and at it's peak had
a (claimed) two-hundred and sixty thousand members (accurate estimates
believe the peak may have been ninety-thousand members).
Group A is the Ku Klux Klan and Group B is ISIS.
Let
this sink in; if you were to add three-hundred new members to ISIS per
current member there would still be less ISIS members than conservative
estimates of how many members the Ku Klux Klan once had.
Never
once has anyone claimed that the Ku Klux Klan are representative of all
Christians; why does anyone claim that ISIS is representative of all
Muslims?
In the internet age it is more
difficult to ignore information than it is to learn it; so instead of
blaming nature and biology for the mindless hate; get educated.
Whilst
it is easy to dehumanize those that are different from us; it is key to
remember that the Muslim lady sitting across from you on the train is
also a human being; they also have a family, friends, a life, they are
just like you or I; they just have a different faith.
Tasneem
Chopra is an avid scholar and an intellectual; if you ask her what she
wants most in the world however her answer is simple:
'I just want my kids to be able to get on a train and not have to fear for their safety.'
Isn't that all that any mother wants?
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