Early bird
With the terror on our doorstep...
Our world is shattering before our eyes. Or at least that is how I feel. The aftermaths of Friday´s terror attacks on the people of Paris lies heavy in our memory. Sweden´s scale of likelihood of a terror attack increased from a 3 to a 4. We are being told to live as normal as possible but to be alert. It is hard to live as normal as you can when you feel that your country and your life is being threatened. You can almost feel a thick air of fear and anxiety all around the world and then they ask us to live as normal as possible. It is hard. To live. A normal life. Today.
And while ISIS is causing fear, right-wing extremists are spreading hatred. There is a wind of right-wing extremism sweeping through Europe. This is the perfect opportunity for them to turn around and go “told you so” and denigrate Islam and Muslim’s around the world. Close the boarders and let us live free they say. So the fear we feel is justifiable. But the most important question is, how do we move on from here?
First, we must separate the two and bear in mind that the people crossing our borders are not terrorists but victims of terrorism. We must step out of our fear and open our hearts. We must not let them win. We must also live as normal as possible. We must not be afraid. If we are, not only does ISIS take our lives, but they take our freedom and we must not let them. But more importantly, fear easily leads to hatred. And hatred will do no good. In times of darkness, the people of the world must unite, no matter what race, religion, sex or colour, we must not be afraid and we must not start hating (and now, join in a circle and sing kumbaya my lord:-)).
But we also have to start accepting one another. Your truth is your truth. But your truth does not have to be your neighbour´s truth. We live in a multicultural society and we must learn how to live together. We must let our Christian´s be Christian´s and our Muslim’s be Muslim´s. We must let our neighbour be who he wants to be. If we want to live side by side, we must accept that our truth is our truth. If we don´t, we are no better than them. ISIS and the right-wing extremists that is.
If we do not unite, we will not win. And it starts with the small details. Facebook is a great forum to observe these kind of details. Initially, I was annoyed with the hashtag #prayforparis and #prayfortheworld (and to be honest, I still am) However, if you think that prayer will help, I accept that because it is the intention that matters and not the consequence* Although a detail, I saw a beautiful example of this on facebook. As Saturday went on, we could see how the French flag spread to profile pictures all over the world. It did not feel right to me so I never changed mine. And then I saw this comment. A man commented a woman who had changed her profile picture. It said something like “do something proper about the situation rather than just changing your profile picture” and she replied “Perhaps the flag is for us people who cannot express ourselves with words”. And I found her comment so beautiful. A little detail but such a beautiful detail of how we are different. There was another trend on facebook. With people being annoyed with the fact that only when the terror attack happened on our doorstep we reacted (there is around thirty terror attacks A MONTH worldwide). But the truth of the matter is that our reaction is in the nature of our being. What is close to us, culturally and geographically, will always be most important to us. Because of the simple reason that it could have been me. And the people who were killed could have been me. You might think that this section of this post is weird (if not the whole entry) but what I mean is that these details are so unnecessary. We must unite and we must let people be. Live and let live. I don´t mean that we should not discuss things with each other. All I am saying is pick your battles.
It is also time for us to look in the mirror and realize that what ISIS is doing to us, has been done to them. Don´t get me wrong, two wrongs do not make a right but no matter what your truth is, killing innocent people must be wrong. So when the U.S flew over to Syria with a plane full of bombs and attacked ISIS on Saturday, they again, killed civilians. If they did not this time, they certainly have in the past (and obviously, it is not only the U.S but the whole western civilization). And although many might think so what? A couple of civilians in the war against terror. But if we think like that we are no better than ISIS. We are exactly like them. We are convinced of our truth and we use all weapons to fight for our cause. Just like them. Remember, no matter what our truth is, we must not kill innocent people. That goes for them. And it goes for us.
So instead of letting our fear and hatred take over, we have to ask ourselves, who are they? ISIS that is. I reckon that we should start by talking about the individual rather than the group. Like all extremists, ISIS as a group is dangerous. But each individual on their own, is not. Young men and women travel from Sweden to fight for ISIS. And this is where we need to start. We need to ask ourselves who but also why somebody decides to leave Sweden to go and fight for ISIS. And perhaps more importantly, why do they return to hurt us? Because we need to understand these individuals. We will never understand ISIS, as a group they are evil. But as individuals, they are not. We need to realize that to a certain extent this is a consequence of our society where segregation is growing and the economical gaps are becoming bigger and bigger. We must ask ourselves why.
The complexity of the matter is undeniable but to conclude, we must not let our fear win. Because out of fear, hatred thrives. We have to show acceptance towards our fellow human beings in order for us to unite and not discuss petty details. We have to start self-reflect and realize that our truth is only just that, our truth but perhaps not our neighbours. We have to start live as we learn. Two wrongs don´t make a right. But most importantly, we must try to understand these individuals. We have to ask ourselves “who” and “why”. Because knowledge is the only road to redemption.
You might react to this entry and ask yourself “but what about them?”. Why should I be responsible for their actions? You are not. But you are responsible for yours. There is this golden sentence if you ever go to therapy “the only thing you can change is you”. It might seem unfair but you cannot change them, but you can change you. And you can have an impact in your life by changing you. Just like you are held responsible for your actions, so are they. But you can never change them.
With love
Rebecca
* I have to admit that I am happy that not all people decide that prayers will be the solution. I certainly do not believe that they are
