On September 1, 2015, a young Syrian boy from the city of Kobani, was discovered washed up on the shore of the Turkish resort town of Bodrum. The family was fleeing ISIS and were trying to reach the Greek island of Kos. They were promised refugee status by the Canadian government if they could make it to Kos. Unfortunately their flight to freedom ended in disaster.
This comes at a time where we see an escalation of police violence against American citizens. As of September 5, 2015, there have been 807 Americans killed by police. This number does not factor in who was unarmed or ethnic group member the victim was in that was involved in the shooting.
As a result of these shootings and the media focusing on the shootings against just African-Americans, it is seemed as only the Blacks have been targeted for violence. In most cases they are right. I am convinced African-Americans and Latinos are targeted disproportionately by the police. However, since the passing of the NDAA there has been an increase of violence against Americans in general, and many Whites have been killed as well.
The media’s focus on blacks killed by the police has created a new movement #BlackLivesMatter. The Latino American population quickly followed up to this with #LatinoLivesMatter. Due to the popularity of these hashtags, another was quickly made #AllLivesMatter and it was created with the intent to show that police violence has escalated against all Americans and not just minority groups.
The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag has since become a movement seen by blacks as a way to show that no lives matter until black lives matter. This is their way to bring attention to a system that has been structured for them to not be successful and to be targeted by police. The Latino community has since taken the same stance.
Some black supremacist groups are using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter to make a stage to incite violence against Whites. Louis Farrakhan has publicly called for 10,000 adherents to rise up and kill Whites. Being the front man for the Nation of Islam, many people believe that his group the NOI is an Islāmic group, but in fact they have nothing to do with Islam at all. There will be a follow up article discussing this difference.
The #BlackLivesMatter brings a good point that black lives do matter, but the black community themselves must believe in this. The number one cause of death for black men is murder by the hands of another black man. Think about this fact for a second.
Now some people might say that I should not speak about this because I am White and that my opinion will be skewed because I am White. I would like to say that I am a Muslim and I view this topic from the view of a Muslim and I think about what the Qur’an tells us and that is, “If you murder one person it is like murdering all of mankind, and if you save the life of one person you save the life of all of mankind.”
So I believe that all life is sacred, and while we are having this debate, there are real genocides taking place in other parts of the world. As a result of these genocides we are now seeing the largest refugee crisis since WWII. Refugees are fleeing genocidal groups at a record pace. The Kurds are fleeing from Iraq and Syria because of ISIS. Boko Haram has caused many Nigerians to flee. There are many refugees from Somalia and Sudan as well.
There is also the killing of the 18 month old Palestinian baby that was burned alive last month, but American media hardly made a peep. So we can say #PalestinianLivesMatter, or #KurdishLivesMatter? There are many groups facing oppression around the world, and as long as one group is facing oppression then we are all facing oppression.
The media wants us to be divided. They want us to hate each other because of our differences, regardless if they are religious, ethnic, or otherwise. Who benefits from us fighting and hating each other? We need to seriously think about this.
There is an Arab proverb that describes our current situation perfectly. There were three bulls; a red bull, a white bull, and a black bull. There was a lion that approached the red and white bulls, and he told them, “If you two let me kill the white bull, I will let you two live because I am big and I am strong, and I can easily kill you two.” So they agree to it.
Two weeks later the bull, he goes to the black bull and he says, “If you let me kill the red bull, I will let you two live because I am big and I am strong, and I can easily kill you.” So he let the lion kill the red bull.
A few more weeks pass and then the lion approaches the black bull with death in his eyes and he said, “Surely I died when the when the white bull died”.
So what should we do to regain our humanity? We need to come together, put aside our difference, and collectively expose and fight against all injustices? If one person suffers then we all suffer.
Can we do it? That remains to be seen, but with tools like the internet that allows us to have a voice and to organize, then I cannot see why not.