Tuesday, November 10, 2009

J word

Usually this is my platform to air my travels and experiences. But today I'm turning it over to H. We were both were saddened when we heard about the recent shootings at Ft Hood and our hearts went out to the families. And we also discussed the implication of this on the men and women of Muslim background serving in the army. Our discussion of the backlash came to fruition in various heated and inflammatory remarks found throughout the Facebook community.

Here is H's reaction, as someone looking in from beyond the borders:

Jan Autrata
November 10 at 8:26pm

"Reading all your posts makes me feel better. I'm from a country you've never heard before from the middle of the Europe. Our democracy is quite young in comparison to yours, and our constitution was based on western democratic constitutions as yours. It's nice to hear that just not in my country people are ignoring basic human rights, that they are thinking that human beings are not equal and that some religions are better than others. I thought for awhile that we have a long way to go, but I see now that we are already there or even in front of you. Thanks to xenophobic people like you we see that just having democracy for ages is not enough. You need some intelligence to use it as well. You are just like people we fought some sixty years ago. They thought that Jews were not good enough. They thought that Slavic people were not good enough. They were wrong. And that's why I can write this.

But on the another hand, It's so foolish to judge whole community by acts of a sole person. Otherwise we should have put all the Germans in jail, do not let them to live in the free world. We should have to eliminate all white people in the US because some of them were slave owners. But that would be a big mistake. Because most of them are people who are open minded. Who fought for rights and freedom of other countries. Who are not negligent. Who are trying to help other nations, communities to come over their dark present. If you think that by separating them from your lives you make world better you are wrong. You are just going to make gap bigger.....

Just want to let you know that you should read and think what you are going to post before you do that.If anyone wants to talk to me about this I would more than happy, because I don't like other people to think that they are better than anyone else and I would rather talk to people I disagree with than shoot them. I know how is to be treated like person of second class.I'm always treated like this when I go to the US .....

PS: Just want to say that I'm a white male from a country with a Christian past which is even longer than your country's history...."

Jan

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