I'm in avoidance mode ... seeing lots of headlines in news media and posts on friends walls about 'Anti-Muslim Protests' and 'Anti-Racism Protests' ... but can't bring myself to read them. Do I have my head in the sand? Probably. I'm hoping when I take it out the grotesqueness of these issues will have disappeared from our Australian community ...
Without reading these articles I'm dangerously making a few assumptions:
1. There are people who are lumping all Muslims with the extremists who hide under the 'banner' of Islam.
2. There are people who are frightened of extremism - lots of us in fact.
3. There are people who know our lands history i.e. stolen by racist British Governments and attempted genocide of the original people of the land.
4. People are confusing racism and nationalism ... i.e. The Australian Flag represents a Nation, albeit one created through theft and genocide, not a race.
5. Muslims are not a race, they are part of a religious belief system.
6. Extremists who hide under the banner of a religion i.e. Islam, Judaism, Christianity - are criminals not religious people.
7. Ignorance is rife in Australia, no more so than when Australians claim that our Nation is a Christian Nation ... hmmm ... 500 Aboriginal Nations with their own belief systems, a First Fleet with a broad range of passengers (voluntary and involuntary) of various religious beliefs. The truth is that since the arrival of non-aboriginal races in this land it has been more commonly those of Christian beliefs who have held power in our Governments ... perhaps indicative of the extremists hiding under the banner of Christian Religions.
8. If people want to fight/protest for what they believe they should first make sure they are doing so based on facts, all of them, not just the ones they may know and definitely not by picking and choosing facts to support their ill found opinion.
9. This isn't an assumption - it is my opinion - WTF is happening in our Nation? Have we learned nothing from our own history?
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