THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
We need a renewed approach to fight against prejudices and hate crime
#bondibeach shooting incident in #australia has resulted in killing of 16 innocent #jews who were there for the celebration of #jewishcommunity festival #Hanukkah. The killer duo, a 50 years old father and his 21 year old son actually were said to be on a tourist visa to Australia from #Pakistan. It is surprising how can a person get such guns on a tourist visa. Anyway, the #newsouthwales police in #sydney is treating this as the incident of #MassShooting and have avoided the term #Terrorism or #terrorviolence. Even the term for the terrorists is being used as #gunmen and #gunmenattack Yes, many called it #antisemitism and #hatecrime.
With in a short period of time, when the police were investigating the crime, #Lalamedia had jumped into the story witih their favorite angle. Focus were on the name of the #terrorist. When the local police was investigating and international media was still avoiding use of heavy loaded term, #IndiaToday was quick to highlight #NaveedAkram ‘boldly’. The focus was not on the incident but more on how committed the crime. Australia as well as #Middleeast are celebrating the heroics of #ahmedelahmed, who daringly attacked the terrorist and got hold of him despite getting himself wounded in the cross fire but helped other people to get away from the place and ultimate arrest and killing of these two individuals that came to Australia from Pakistan. Now, #Pakistan has to respond as why it still is the headquarter of the global #IslamicTerrorists.
On #SkyNews, their reporter too spoke to a local person who was shocked but refuged to blame the entire community. Yes, this was a criminal act of terror committed by two individuals and that’s it.
Another incident happened in the #brownuniversity campus of the #UnitedStates in which the #MassShooter killed two innocent students and several others got injured. So far the police has not been able to arrest the #gunman. An innocent person #benjaminericson aged 24, was a former member of US military was earlier arrested but nothing could be proven in the last 24 hours and hence he has been released.
The silver lining here is that #Muslims across the world have condemned this violence without any ifs and buts. It is no secret that it was a Muslim Australian or Australian Muslim who risked his life when he snatched the gun from the terrorist. I am still wondering why this incident is not considered as ‘terrorist violence’. It is also important to invetigate the entire issue as why people coming to Western countries, enjoying economic bounties still not able to mix up with their way of life. Why is that people go to these countries and yet remain confine to their own ‘ghettoes’. This reflect the failure of the Western democratic model and their so called ‘inclusive’ politics. Some how, they were pushing their own agenda in these countries and attempted to create a small elite of these countries for their own purposes yet it failed miserably. The fact is that most of the immigrants who are actually moving towards western democratic countries are not going there out of love for the society but purely their own economic benefit. Most of them have their first love to their societies, the begotry and prejudices. It is equally important that focus should be given to the political as well as cultural diversity and how the issue of inclusion is being addressed in these socities. Most of the time, the dictators or anti democratic fascists got Westernn support because they allow the western private corporation to suck their country resources. As long as western agenda in the former colonies or in the global south is confined to exploit their natural resources, they will never get a faithful immigrants in their countries. It is time to think beyond.
The reporting of the mass shooting in Bondibeach has been by and large responsible and not loud but unfortunately Indian media from the very beginning started exploiting the issue politically. If we condemn Muslim fundamentalism, we can not ignore the fascist tendencies in elsewhere. We can not condone the violence against innocent Muslims in other part of the world where they are a minority. That is why, I say, it is time for reconciliation, to open up the interfaith dialogue in true sense and stop victimisning the entire community for the sins of the criminals belonging to the community.
The one thing that the #casteist #communal #manustreammedia in #India must learn a few things. It must not jump into conclusion as it is habitual of doing so for years. Allow the authorities to work on the things and not allow your tommies to bring an angle on anything. There is no doubt that prejudices and indocterination is growing everywhere with injection of feeling of denial of justice and rights. It is not that things happen out of blue. The growing disparlity, religious discrimination , caste prejudices, racism and state led wars against people and communities are responsible. Indocternation succeed where we fail to build an inclusive society. Unfortunately, democratic system world over are not speaking about inclusion, diversity and mutual respect but targetting the entire communities for the act of a few and that is helping to escalate the polarisation in the society where each community is looking at it from the ‘wounded’ and ‘hurt’ narratives. The elite among them is fueling this idea and the result is growing number of youths who just grow with one kind of thought process that vilify others.
Yes, it is time, we devise idelogy of inclusion which is not merely encouraged though our respective constitutions but also made way of life. Most importantly, there is need to provide media guidielines of how to report and discuss such issues. You can not allow your platform to vilify and abuses. We need to categorically mention the names of the organisations or individuals or countries to reflect the identity of the persons. Yes, it is important to understand that while #Afghanistan is learning its lesson but Pakistan has failed to do so. Why ?
An open and candid dialogue between nation states as well as various communities will help reduce these kinds of acts. They will help communities to understand each other. More and more interfaith understanding need to be developed while allowing the authorities to work against the criminals and thugs engaged in such crime. Let the media just report the thing and speak about a solution which does not come by exterminating a community or villifying it but engaging with the like minded people and isolating the criminals and terrorists who develop such hatred and prejudicces. Ofcourse, our syllabus and curriculum must include and involve all otherwise we only help these prejudices and hatred to grow silently.
We condemn the killing of innocent people in the #MassShooting in #bondibeach and hope that the #Australian authorities will investigate deeply the root cause of this hatred and the real perpetrators behind the scene whether in Australia or Pakistan where these two killers hailed from. Let the people unite and speak up against killing of any innocent person. Let us not try to theorise all these criminal acts of violence. They are pure hatecrime and must be condemned and taken to logical conclusions.
