I was tagged

This morning I was tagged in a status on Facebook together with 49 other people. It said: 

 "Moderate muslims.....ermm..you know any?
Well yea...ask the neighbours of the couple that killed the policewoman in France and killed hostages..."They were a lovely normal couple"..Haha..errmmm..MODERATE RIGHT..
The brothers, although the police knew they were terrorists, the people around them knew them as normal..DJ and delivery man...Noooo they are MODERATE....IN ISLAM THERE CAN NEVER BE MODERATE , CAUSE THEIR TEACHINGS, THEIR BOOK AND THEIR WHOLE CULT IS EXTREME, AND EVIL...SO EVEN IF THEY WISH TO VE MODERATE...THEY ARE NOT...
YOU MIGHT THINK...ERMMM...BUT THE WOMAN IN OUR APPARTMENT...ERMMM SHE DOES NOT EVEN COVER HER FACE..SHE IS VERT POLITE, NICE TO TALK TOO ....YOU MIGHT NEVER THINK SHE WILL BLOW UP AND KILL .....THEN U WOULD SAY LIKE THE NEIGHBOURS OF THIS LOVING COUPLE ARE SAYING..NEVER IMAGINED THEY WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS...OOOOÒOOHHH"

I was not pleased at all.

I later read this article by Saviour Balzan:

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/comment/blogs/48274/nous_sommes_une_mauvaise_imitation_de_charlie_hebdo#.VLYsLHtq1eT

He talks about satire and how courageous the people at Charlie Hebdo were and still are and how they would have long been shut down if they were in Malta. 

He also makes this statement:  "It comes at a time when the left and liberals are struggling to find a good enough reason not to box Moslems as one of a kind."

He's right, it does come at a time when we are so shaken to our core by such an atrocity that we struggle to make sense of people and to control our urge to retaliate in the same manner. Kick all the bastards out, burn them alive, stone, spit and curse them all to eternal damnation.

But we don't and it's for good reason.

Racism is for the ignorant, generalisations are for the lazy and we really should avoid this line of thinking. I would not like to be put in a box labeled Maltese therefore "prone to swearing, road rage, over speeding, ripping off tourists, misogynist, incapable of giving good commercial services, hot headed, bird killing, tree chopping, horse burning mainiac." Because that is the way I would be thought of if someone took all the bad things about us and labeled me with them. 

Meanwhile I do have a great Muslim neighbor and I would protect him from such hate any day. He might not know this, but I would and so should everyone else. Let us not be as bad as the people hurting us, they have their own reasons for behaving so despicably. The reasons might be completely alien to us and their actions certainly unacceptable but no one wakes up one day and decides to kill mercilessly, it's a long long road to that state of madness. 

                                                            -----------------------------------

Meanwhile here's on of my favorite paintings, something I think is a much lovelier subject to focus on