What has the world come to?

I have been wanting to post pictures of Peterpan and change my blog layout and design, but there had never been time and I have not been in the mood to do so. Why so? Feeling peeved, disappointed with the world at large. Sad, ashamed, the whole plethora of negative feelings.

Read the papers or listened to the news lately? Nothing very pleasant in it. Danish newspapers printed 12 degrading cartoons of the Prophet. Euro countries backing them up by reprinting these cartoons and citing freedom of speech and democracy. Terrorist groups, bombings, cults and the works.

I am angry with those who misuse religion for their own gains and I pity those who were misguided. I am ashamed when I read articles or news of what my fellow brethren have done to hurt the world. Not ashamed of being a Muslim; I celebrate my Muslim identity; but ashamed at those who caused fear in the name of the religion. There are better ways to get justice, be heard or noticed, whatever it is they want. Lately, this whole cartoon thing has made me really disappointed and angry. No, I dont want to take up arms to show my feelings. I just want to say my piece and be heard.

To uphold freedom of speech and democracy should not be used as a reason to do something that can incite anger, prejudice or discrimination. To my knowledge, democracy has evolved over the ages. In the beginning, democracy was not for the common man nor for the women. Only for the male aristocrats. A far cry from what the ideology has evolved to today. Is it a good sytem of government? Undoubtly, but is it flawed? Yes, very much so. What good is it if it means dividing people into different camps and beliefs? Am I against democracy? Not in my deepest, darkest dreams. I have lived my entire life in this system and I am happy with it. But, have people taken this ideology and cast it in stone and are people so inflexible to realise that perhaps they need to ponder about it for the sake of peace and harmony? Isn't there a better way to make one's points clear without being offensive? And the Arab newspapers with anti-semitic stuff they have published should share the blame for this incident, i believe. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. They should have seen it coming.

Perhaps, I am just idealistic. So much talk about racial harmony these days because of things that happened around the world. School is going very NE. A necessity for my students. They are after all our future leaders. In todays' ST an article entitled Racism - a citizen's apology, Kwek's reactions to the cabby's seditious remarks "Where and how do you begin unravelling such deep-seated prejudices? Whatever the reservations, my silence was a momentary paralysis of civic duty." How I do understand his predicament. Many a times I have felt that way. Let's not keep silent anymore. Let's dispel myth and laugh at stereotypes. Let's learn and teach. Let us all be friends. Let's look for similarities and celebrate differences. Let's treasure peace and harmony above all.