I had previously written We, the Greatest – a lighthearted rant on human bigotry – but since then, my tune has been overlapped by despair because even satire can’t convey the depth of evil humans are capable of.
On April 25, 2015 – Nepal was dealt a 7.8 magnitude earthquake and left over five thousand people dead under the rubbles of mother-nature itself. You’d assume things like compassion and productive aid would be the first on everyone’s mind because we humans pride ourselves with this thing called “civility”. Luckily, I don’t buy into that nonsense so it was no surprise when I saw people immediately shaming the Hindus and Buddhists as pagans who needed to find the “one true god” and began selling their own religions. Go on Twitter, and type in a god’s name and the religion it represents along with “Nepal” – and you can view some of the most repulsive tweets.
Personally, all religions are a joke to me because it criminalizes nature and enforces irrational policies that abuse human rights. But I will never flaunt my disbelief in god to people of a nation facing a humanitarian crisis because my disbelief in their god is an irrelevant issue to the crisis itself. So why did Pakistan, a proud Muslim nation with an openly contemptuous attitude towards Hindus, send “beef packets” to Nepal, the only Hindu state in the world? If non-Muslims had sent “pork packets” to an Islamic nation as aid to a humanitarian devastation – hell would break loose, literally. The “offended Muslims” would have committed another Charlie Hebdo-like massacre because it “insulted Islam” and the pseudo liberals would show their outrage by condoning the violence as the fault of those who sent the pork packets. So while religion itself is ridiculous – would you ridicule people for their faith by utilizing a tragedy? Will you actually prioritize your contempt for someone’s religion at a fragile time like this?
Others resorted to phony condolences such as “I’ll pray for them”. It’s an insult to human life every time someone desperately “prays” to a delusion that prioritizes Matthew McConaughey winning an Oscar above the 20,000 children that die daily from preventable catastrophes such as famine. God will give the rich men their celebrity appreciation above saving women and children trafficked and raped – so how can you put faith in such a being in the wake of any tragedy? The audacity in calling for a god that is only conveniently present in your own success while silently insinuating those suffering just aren’t “trying hard enough” is narcissism at its finest. By fleeing to your god in the wake of someone else’s loss – you are being selfish.
Those who fight for human rights should be the most celebrated, and yet – they are the most endangered people on earth. People like Avijit Roy and Washiqur Rahman were murdered by ideological fanatics who believed they were morally superior as they hacked two people to death for merely expressing opinions that were dangerously perceived to have “insulted” Islam. So in the name of an invincible creature the assailants obsessively adored – they resorted to kill another human being and many applauded their narcissism as bravery. These are the same narcissists that insult other religions and yet it was wrong for anybody else to be legitimately critical of their own religion that is responsible for centuries of colonialism, rape, enslavement and slaughter.
One of the recent losses that had devastated the humanist community is the assassination of Sabeen Muhmud. What was her crime? What exactly was she guilty of that she deserved to be shot? As a beloved human rights activist – she went where many Pakistanis dared not to go – she encouraged a discussion on the persecution of the Baloch minority who has been overwhelmed by the silence extending from the government of Pakistan itself. She defied fascism – that was her crime. So she was made an example to represent what happens when you fight for the rights of minorities – even if the minorities’ name is embedded in the identity of the nation that is committing genocide on them. The very persecution of the Balochs should be deemed an act of treason – if you ask me, Sabeen Muhmud did the most patriotic act by addressing the issue but was punished for it anyway because of the hypocrisy of some nationalists’ pride.
USA has more maternal death rates than Saudi Arabia – which is a terrifying contrast given the lack of rights women actually have in Saudi Arabia. But isn’t it hilarious that Americans pride themselves as the land of the free while sentencing women and girls to death over preventable complications all due to selectively neglectful appropriation of funding resonating from misogyny and sexism? Women and girls’ rights are under constant threat in the land of the free – it is nearing a two-step program into becoming a Saudi Arabia for half of its citizens. But many Americans have no qualms about the gender-apartheid in their own land but will be critical of Islamic nations [which is well deserved, but it doesn’t absolve USA of its own faults regarding the war against women and girls].
In the West, we have racist anti-racist campaigns and sexist anti-sexist campaigns while only the white men and women get told to check their privilege as the East freely discriminates people of dark skin from India to Pakistan to China to Philippines and Japan to even Brazil and Portugal, etc. Those with more melanin levels are scorned and abused as low caste, dirty, uneducated, savages, etc. Where is the outrage for how Eastern and Latin nations treat people of dark skin? How many Africans and dark skinned Asians are respected in Asian and Middle Eastern countries? Even though Asian Caucasians represent a minority – they are embraced as the national faces of Asia and Latin America but the social justice warriors of the West will never complain about this because then they would have to admit power and privilege isn’t a travesty of justice perpetuated by European Caucasians alone.
Nepal itself won’t open the gates for the survivors of the earthquake – so why expect the world to show compassion? If a Nepalese business won’t spare even the slightest of kindness during a national tragedy – can we criticize Pakistan for sending ‘beef packets’, which by the way is a source of food nonetheless from a humanist perspective? If thoughtfulness is disregarded by a Nepalese hotel – let’s not expect a higher form of respect from the international community. This is why I constantly emphasize on the fact that we are all living in a singular society where one person’s actions will directly affect the next person across the world. Our words and actions educate the future generation – and when humanism is lacking, it is the ugliness we pass onto our children and the world they must survive in.
Bud Light had no idea its dudebro statement regarding "no" and "alcohol" had any correlation to rape culture. They live in a cave apparently. Of course they aren’t claiming you’ll get magically laid by erasing “no” from the vocabulary – they weren’t suggestive of it in the least! They merely meant you can do whatever you want under the influence of their brand (Ha!). What’s bitterly amusing are the arrogant and ignorant troops of people outraging over the outrage – they claim feminists are just “overreacting” [we’ve never heard that before!] because they [the troop] can’t seem to understand how the statement of “The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night” is a rapey innuendo that suggests after drinking Bud Light, a person you want to have sex with will not say “no”. You must be well below the level of bigotry to not grasp the message and why it is appalling to many.
People like Max Blumenthal are part of the circus of unicorns. Their moral hypocrisy is a special kind of bigotry. Here you can see Blumenthal actually complain that Israel had rescued 24 Jewish infants born to Indian surrogate mothers. He is devastated that Israel prioritized its own citizens during a natural disaster and did not kidnap the surrogate mothers who are not from Israel back to Israel along with the babies – outrageous! What Blumenthal conveniently disregarded was this statement at the bottom of the article, “We're talking about babies for whom every hour and minute is critical to their life and development. They're in a life-endangering situation." So according to Blumenthal – he is upset that his anti-Israel sentiment was not appeased by how Jewish newborns were not buried alive beneath the rubble – as when Israeli children die – it’s no biggy for him. He also left out the part in the same article that stated “Two Israeli aid planes were to leave for Nepal on Sunday carrying 95 tonnes of humanitarian aid and a team of 260 people to help with the rescue efforts, among them 122 doctors, nurses and paramedics, the army said.” The article also said, “They will set up a field hospital capable of treating 200 people per day.” – But mad-Max was triggered by a lack of dead Jewish babies instead – what a champion of morals!
And lastly, we have the Baltimore riots – an outrage created by the death of yet another black man [Freddie Gray] who had died while in police custody. As much as racism is a violent reality affecting millions of African Americans in the USA – should we really condemn or condone the violence erupting from centuries of racial hostility? How do we achieve equality and justice when opportunists actively use the death of a black man to loot, destroy, set buildings on fire and endanger the innocent? Of course windows can be replaced unlike the spine – but are you really going to be happy about having the costs of the Baltimore riots billed to your name? Did Freddie Gray die just so you can use his name to steal and commit chaos? Isn’t racism alone chaotic enough? You are not entitled to steal, destroy and endanger other people’s lives just because you’re outraged. While bigots like Rania Khalek will condone it by claiming destruction is a historical part of riots and therefore “riot shaming” must end – I can assure you rape and murder is also historical just as the KKK burning their crosses but they are all condemned for a glaringly obvious reason – they are simply vile and dangerous.
In my previous article regarding the sense of entitlement, I had discussed how racism and religion make people feel entitled to things they are not. I had concluded, “Extreme injustice results in extreme aggression in the demand for justice – I get it. But what the world needs is another Selma to Montgomery – not a different sense of cross burning and racial segregation. Champion the unity uttered by Martin Luther King – not decimate it with narcissism. So if you want to be a revolutionary – judge a person by the content of their character instead of their skin colour. This means you don’t appease someone based on their skin colour, religion and/or gender either – you value them by how and why they do what they do instead of how they look, dress, and physically appeal to you.”—and what Baltimore and the rest of the United States of America needs is just that – another Selma to Montgomery. Please don’t destroy the efforts of people like MLK and tell me that your narcissism is far more important than the humanist approach MLK had repeatedly exhausted on society until his last breath.
We are given false security and hopes by erasing critical thinking – the very fiber of our survival instincts are muted with fallacy – which turns any influential facts that trigger honesty into an attack – ergo – people start foaming with asinine statements of disapproval and victimhood.
Pseudo liberalism is part of the belly of the beast housing the abused with a violent euphoria that instills dangerous ideas against actual liberal values. What’s outrageously conflicting is the constant contradictions displayed by the moral hypocrisy in the hearts of every “social justice warrior” parading their political correctness that is a product of a broken telephone, where the original words and meaning were utterly lost.
If only people are as resolute in other people's rights as they are of their own – this world will have a fighting chance to experience true equality and justice. The biggest satire of all is the existence of humans – we are intelligent and yet we use intelligence to create destruction than solutions. We are scavengers who prey on the vulnerable and naïve – there’s very little to be proud of. We want our colour, religion, gender, personal contempt and values to outshine the next person’s – we want to destroy and dominate. We comfort this hunger with the very destructive zeal embedded in the animals that we are by finding faults in unity and solidarity – so before you look at another person’s skin colour, religion or how they dress and sing and drink and talk or dance or love, etc. – take a look inside the evil you abhor for another person who has done you no harm. If your indignation is the result of moral hypocrisy – you are endorsing injustice – you are part of the very pernicious problems you righteously condemn – and that is precisely why no amount of protests and riots will ever settle the score or relieve the world of violence, inequality and hostility.