Head To Head
Log In
Register
U-Know! Forum »
I'm so confused.....
Log In to post a reply

121 messages
Topic View: Flat | Threaded
Sin Agog
Sin Agog
2253 posts

Re: I'm so confused.....
Nov 14, 2015, 22:37
Smegging hate typing on an ipad, but I still don't have a working computer, but...

My neighbour's son went to join IS (their name keeps getting shorter) in Pakistan last year. His family, who are pretty close friends of mine, will probably never see him again. He was a sweet kid; intelligent, well-read but obviously someone whose world carried a much heavier gravity than most. He was and is a kid, though. We're knee-deep in the end of a thorough and systematic dehumanisation campaign against our enemies, when it's always of paramount importance to not turn them into one faceless mass of concerted evil. I recall watching a doc made in the mid '70s that featured a Vietnamese general meeting an American general and both of them exasperatedly confessing they knew precious little about the other as actual persons. Whether they do so or not, we have to look at the etymology, the background, the underlying humanity of these people, if we want to potentially salve the wounds of these continuous conflicts. It's too easy to turn people who bother us into one craven voice, rather than delve below the present surface and realise these are actual people here, some broken, some misguided, and some who believe they are just following their morals, but people. I saw my neighbour's boy grow up, had water fights with him and his sisters, even had chats about how cornered he was feeling whenever he looked at the newspaper headlines. Evil is a concept that exists to exonerate ourselves of carrying the responsibility of holding common humanity with the people we hate. It's much harder to think of them as wayward children far closer to us than we like.
Topic Outline:

U-Know! Forum Index