One Big Happy Family

We don't hear too much about the Global Village these days. Global initiatives are very much alive and well in the business sector but as far as being a part of everyday conversation, we're all a bit leary of talking about our connection to people all over the world. Terrorism is the major topic of the day. It has hit the entire world and we're realizing that no nation is immune to it. Even Canada feels threatened.

Just today I had a conversation with a co-worker about the insurgence of cultures into Canada and how these developing communities are known to house terrorists. In fact, some of the 9/11 terrorists did reside in Canada prior to their heinous act of terrorism on the world symbolized in their attack on the World Trade Centre. Canada, among other places, has become a refuge for people harbouring desire for revenge on the Western World.

When you begin to delve into the issue, you realize that terrorism is birthed and sustained in the religious convictions of people. From my limited understanding on why certain Muslims decide to blow themselves up and take others with them, it seems that the desire is to rid the world of evil. In fact, these militant muslims believe that the Western World has contaminated their culture and their world with evil. Some, if not many, feel that this is a ridiculous premise for such hate and revenge to be poured out on innocent people. But are 2 billion people who make up the muslim world all painted with the same terrorist brush?

The more I understand Muslim culture the more I see that they are people like you and I with families. They go through the same struggle and challenges. They try to sustain their way of living and look to meeting the everyday needs of life. In their families there are parents who care for children, teenagers who struggle with the angst of puberty and adolescence and young adults who seek to carve for themselves a career and a future. There are people who live behind the caricatures that we construct of muslim life and culture. We have to be honest that sometimes, if not all the time, our caricatures are influenced by our media. Its too easy to paint all muslims as militant revengeful terrorists. Its easy to look at someone driving next to you on the highway who looks like they're from a muslim country and label them as a terrorist. But if we are honest, most of the muslim people we know are decent human beings. Yes, they look different, smell different, talk different, worship differently but so did my relatives when they came to Canada from Italy - did that justify a consideration that they were a threat to Canadian society? [don't answer that!]

Muslims have family values that are decent and honourable. If we look at them like people [of which the last time I looked I fell in the category as well] then we need to realize that they are trying to live a good life. In the living of that life, sometimes some of their young people go astray; so do ours! Sometimes in living that life, some of their young adults do heinous things; so do ours! [Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka] Sometimes in living that life their seasoned people fall to corruption; so do ours! [Enron, Nortel, WorldCom] We've got to stop pointing the finger and saying, "Look at them." Remember; they think that our culture is hurting theirs. Think of our youth culture in particular. Think of MTV. Think of the drug abuse and sexual promiscuity. Think of the deterioration of values and the lack of integrity in the leadership of our country. We feel our own culture is threatening our families. Why are we so surprised that outsiders feel the same way.

The future, if its going to be a promising one, needs us to stop caricaturing and letting media shape our views of others. We've got to be smarter than that. We've got to be more realistic than that. Most prejudice is rooted in a lack of knowledge or misunderstanding. But we live in a society where information is readily available and facts can be determined for certain. Maybe we need to shut the TV off a bit more and do some more reading. Maybe we need to spend some time learning what are truly reliable sources. Maybe we just need to talk to our foreign neighbours more about life in general. After all, they are people, just like you and me.