I watched most of all the episodes in this series by the BBC call the Age of Terror. The first episode I watched was actually the 3rd episode about the plot to take down le tour effiel in Paris. Now that I have watched all 4 episodes, my first reaction was that it is a series which is very pro-Jewish and anti-Islam.
Modern history is something of a great likings to me since I began reading a lot of philosophers from the 1800s who tried to pioneer the age of enlightenment back then. The days when science can provide answers for the unanswered questions of humanity, that we truly believe that Science is the epitomes of human intellect, that we can finally rule this life with rationales rather than irrational faith. More than 200 years had past, and today more than ever, we see clashes between faiths on a personal and a society level. In fact, we see that religions found no solutions to the face of politics and contrary to most of its teachings of peace we find that we are living in a evermore inexplicable world where people fight each other to be heard. We are truly living in the age of terror.
My dad had recently made contact with a famous British Muslim who was wrongly put into Guantanamo and released. He wrote a book: Enemy Combatant. His name is Moazzam Begg. There is a big part of me struggling to stay out of this whole worldly politics of right and wrongs, the west versus Islam, terrorists taking lives of innocent people on the tube business. I really am.
Having wrote a long thesis on terrorism and war in 2002 after September 11th, I have come to touch the surface of this long battle between faiths. In my Japanese orals, I had a long conversation with my Japanese teacher about faith and struggles. In response to my speech about the influence of religion, she asked me what I felt about the ongoing wars and fightings which instigated because of religion. I told her I didn’t believe that it was the problem of religion which caused it, but that it was really the struggle for power in the political sphere in which all of these fights happen.
It almost seem like the clock is ticking by the second. You never know what will happen. I always wondered what will happen if the Central line got struck. It runs right beneath my house. I think it has come to a point where people don’t really think for themselves anymore what it is that people are fighting for anymore. Yesterday it was antisemitism, today its anti-Americanism, what will tomorrow be?
Ever since July 7th bombing, there doesn’t seem to be much happening anymore. America and Al-Queda are fighting it out in Iraq. I want to ask 1 thing though, has the world really moved on from 2nd World War? I remembered Richard and I just standing there discussing how fragile the world really is. It hasn’t been long since the Czechs came out from the dark ages of communism, nor has it been since the Berlin Walls got torn down. Its been a merely 60 odd years, and Japan has already started moving away from the pacifist stance and traces of rise in Nationalism could echo through the air. Moscow again showing off its military power to the world last weekend. North Korea is developing nuclear power.
I find it more and more dangerous that we are living in a world where we do not know we are being controlled. It hasn’t been a new phenomenon and it will be a lasting one. Societies are being polarised, politics have been polarised like never before. People are talking about global warming, anti-terrorism, economy, freeing Tibet. Then there are those who believe that they are being oppressed by these ideas and try to build up an-anti-idea to counter it. Look at this whole issue of Tibet, and I believe we can clearly stand back and look at the world for what it is rather than what we make it out to be. There are those people who truly believe that Tibet should become independent, and then there are Chinese. So, BBC and CNN has been doing what it has always been doing…REPORTING A BIASED STORY. It hasn’t been a new phenomenon, and being biased doesn’t mean that its not reporting the truth. When things become close to heart, we become sensitive to it. Ok, Chinese people can go out to Westminster and protest and say that the BBC are being biased towards to Tibetans. The Pro-Tibet groups and individuals can go out pulling torches from the bearers. BUT WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT??? Why can’t we be tolerant of each other’s views and have a truthful dialogue? We always go out to fight when it touches close to heart, but when it doesn’t concern us, we just go - “Those people are stupid”. That is why millions of people die and we just go on with our daily lives. I don’t know how many of us reading this blog really think about the mere scale of the catastrophe in Myanmar and put a human touch to it, i.e. think about the child who lost his parents?
There is no point blaming people for our misfortunes. Just like I don’t see any justification for the Chinese to boycott the French because a pro-Tibet individual tried to make a point by stealing the flame from a disabled Chinese bearer (would be such a different case if she wasn’t Chinese!) There is no moral justification for feeling oppressed when we ourselves are oppressing others, whether its the maid in your house or your subordinates.
I just wanna scream because of the on-going brainwashing we have gone through and there are so many of us who just don’t stop and think! For Goodness Sake!
See, the way I look at it is, what is happening to this world is a repercussion of all the wrongdoings of mankind. Yes, we may look at the way in which this series are filmed are pro-jewish and anti-Islam. However, can we say with our true hearts that when these events occur there wasn’t any trace of antisemitism? (One must acknowledge that the meaning of antisemitism has been transformed since the 2nd world war. It has always been around for thousands of years, just whether we acknowledge it.) True, it might not be justifiable that it is the Palestinians who have to take the price for the re-emergence of Israel through the Zionist movement, it should not be the Palestinians who should pay the debt of the Germans who are driving around in their Mercedes. But hey? Who can we blame? Allah? - For it was Him who granted the land to Abraham, but on which bloodline do we follow? Issac or Ishmael?
Just how…How can we justify what terrorism has transformed itself into? - Its no longer a political struggle but a fireworks display of human tragedy. How can we justify someone walking down the street one day and be blown into pieces or loose their sight forever. I cannot find it in my heart to justify that. I cannot find it in my heart to condone a cause for mass killings. Its enough. When will Iraq end? When will peace prevail? When will there be any happy news?