When Fear Becomes Racism; the Erosion of Human Rights

Stardate 4564.3

Empires need scapegoats. They unite the majority (or even sometimes the minority as was the case in apartheid South Africa) against common "foes" thus solidifying a country and it's citizens. It has happened many times in the course of history, and usually, it is based upon two things: religion or color.

The germans under the watchful eye of such monstrous leaders as Himmler, massacred millions of Jews, who they claimed were a threat to the Fatherland. They herded them into camps, and gas chambers, and did unspeakable acts upon them. It united the German people, sure, but at what cost?

It happens today in Europe and many other parts of the world. Israel and Palestine have been waging a war of stupidity on each other for decades. The Serbs were massacred, and even in our wonderful country, we herded the native Indians onto reserves and locked them away...

On September 11th, 2001, something profound happened in the US. The terrorist attacks hit home very hard, and made a lot of people realise that the mighty USA was just as susceptible as any other nation to these attacks. Of course, the people rallied under their glorious leader, Mr. Bush, and willingly, they plunged their youth into a war against the Taliban. Thus the "War on Terror" had begun.

Realising that the attacks originated from Saudi Arabia, Mr. Bush made the next, logical move in attacking Iraq. Basically, he was now 0 for 2 in actually getting the people responsible for the attacks. Sure bin Ladin was hiding in Taliban ruled Afghanistan, but the funding and manpower had come from Saudi Arabia. Is it any wonder that Arabs and Muslims are pissed off now?

So what happens next? Well, as with any Empire, a scapegoat is needed to unite the people, and bind them against a common enemy. Reading a recent article in The Daily Tar Heel by the now fired columnist, Jillian Bandes, made me realise how close this is to happening again, just like in Germany. She seems to have gone to the school of Ann Coulter fan-worship, and mixing that vehemence and narrow minded supremist attitude with the shock of Howard Stern, she opens her article with this:

"I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport.

I don’t care if they’re being inconvenienced. I don’t care if it seems as though their rights are being violated."

No, you wouldn't care. Even though you come back and list the people you do care about, like your own life, your family and friends, and the lives of Arabs and Arab-Americans you are privileged to know.... Next, she concludes that Arabs are part of an ethnic group responsible for most of the terrorist attacks against the West in recent times. So instead of solving this problem, namely terror attacks, and not Arabs, she decides that sadly, they should all be lumped together and strip searched no matter what.

Further down the column, she goes on to say:

"You can debate a lot of things about post-9/11 foreign policy, but one thing you can’t debate is that taking out terrorists — or blatant human-rights violators — is a good thing.

You also can’t debate that of the 19 hijackers on those planes, all 19 were Arab.

And you can’t debate that while most Arabs are not terrorists, sadly, most terrorists are indeed Arab."

This stunned me for a second. After all, who has a whole boatload of people being held in prisons right now, with no charges, no lawyers, and no rights? Who has turned the rules around by twisting the truth, and making it all up as they go to justify the end? Why it is the good ol' boys in Washington. So by her own admission, the Bush administration should be taken out!

However, it all comes back to Arabs. All of the 9-11 hijackers were Arab. So guess what? We had best conclude that Arabs are bad people as a general rule. No that isn't the truth at all of course, but it is what SHE is saying. By making every Arab at airports give up their rights and get probed, while all of the good white folk walk on by to board their planes secure in the knowledge that the brown guy next to them was cavity searched, she is saying that.

Of course, her column gets even better...

"When asked if she had a boyfriend, Ann Coulter once said that any time she had a need for physical intimacy, she would simply walk through an airport’s security checkpoint.

I want Arabs to get sexed up like nothing else."

Yeah... just like the ones at Abu Ghraib. They got sexed up really good. Most of those people (you remember the pics) had not been charged. They were just "enemy combatants" or "suspected militants" or any one of another handful of snazzy names. In fact, they were all brown though. And now that same mentallity strikes home.

The US administration is faltering. Especially after the Hurricane, the President himself is in serious trouble in the polls. The people no longer believe in the President or their government's ability to protect them. The next logical step is to have a common enemy. Muslims, Arabs... they will do. Take away their rights and strip off their freedoms (and clothes) and the foundation of what the country was built on collapses. Well it is happening now. Some people, like Jillian Bandes, are so afraid of Arabs now, that they will be willing to do anything to protect themselves. Even if it means throwing away freedom and democracy and the rights of fellow men. What's next? Farms? Free lands to live on? Just go into that building to get cleaned up first, and we'll get you shipped off to the promised land. Don't laugh, it could happen easily.

Naturally, racial profiling is not the answer. It simply cannot work. If arabs are all screened at the gates, why wouldn't Al-Qaeda send the white members in? Or other races? They can't be that stupid... and they surely have other non-arab members. So there is no point in stripping every arab at the gates. All it does is serve to erode Western society further, and this is likely the goal of the terrorists they are trying to stop.


Thanks to Jesus General for the link...