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<%-- Page Title--%> Musings <%-- End Page Title--%>

<%-- Volume Number --%> Vol 1 Num 146 <%-- End Volume Number --%>

March 19, 2004

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The Globalisation of Hate

An Alien's Perspective

AASHA MEHREEN AMIN

If I were an alien being with an assignment to figure out what this strange planet Earth is all about, I would probably tear out my hair (or whatever aliens have on their epidermis) in utter despair. Nothing would make sense. But during my search on, Galactonoogle.com, the alien version of google.com, I might regularly come up with two words. One is 'globalisation' and the other is 'hate.'

But here my alien brain (OK, maybe two brains) would get even more frazzled than it already is. Globalisation is described in the Cryptic Alien to English Dictionary (CAED) as a buzz-word in the twenty-first century used constantly by humans in political rhetoric and as an excuse to grab the resources or assets of other less fortunate humans. The (CAED), let me inform my human counterparts is not a fat book with umpteen number of pages, but a kind of inner vision, hologram if you will, installed in our alien brains. So when we just think the word 'globalisation' all kinds of information and images appear inside our heads, not necessarily in any logical sequence. This, in addition to Galactonoogle.com, pretty much gives us a comprehensive description of the word or concept.

Anyway, enough of technicalities. The second word 'hate' brought out about a few trillion entries, so I chose to 'think' about it through the CAED. Well, basically it means 'an intense human emotion of extreme distaste or dislike for something or someone. In 21st century terms it means the driving force behind all wars -- civil and international, political squabbling, violence and abuse -- in other words, the true essence of this other weird globalised concept 'HUMAN MISERY'.

Ok now let's get back to some examples of 'hate', which in my view is the most global thing in the earthly world. It is something humans seem to be exchanging, sharing and perpetuating with a zeal never before seen in the history of the universe. In the West, the latest hatred is against the Muslims, or Moslems, as they like to call it.

Ever since the historical Twin Tower disasters, bombs are the latest weapons of mass destruction; in particular they seem to always be traced to what some humans like to call 'Islamic fundamentalists' or 'Islamic terrorists' or just plain 'Islamists'. Another important global feature is the epidemic of suicide bombing whereby frenzied, misguided individuals blow themselves and a large number of innocents to smithereens to make one single statement: "We Hate You". Apparently these suicide bombers are Islamic terrorists who hate the 'decadent West', for their loose ways, their flaunting of wealth, their exploitation and oppression of less fortunate people of the world. What really confuses my alien mind is how humans can tell that there's been a suicide bomber at work from all the bits and pieces of human remains and non-living debris. It's quite bewildering how when planes crash into buildings and there is not a shred of anything intact, these amazing humans actually find passports of the very Islamic terrorists who went on their suicide mission (because they just hated American foreign policy).

Ok now let me get this straight. These 'Moslems' hate 'Jews' and possibly 'Christians' too, even though their religion, 'Islam' (according to my Galactonoogle search) endorses tolerance of people of other faiths? Now it seems even these 'Moslems', or as my CAED points out, 'Muslims' are beginning to hate each other too. The Sunni Muslims, for example, have historically been suspicious of the Shi'a Muslims because they don't agree on certain religious points. Hey, but don't they believe in the same creator of all beings? Then why do suicide bombers (it just beats me how these guys just know that there were self-annihilating humans among the rubble) blow up their fellow Muslims when they gather for prayers. One of the latest bombings was in Iraq, another global obsession. The human news networks just cannot get enough of this place. And the humans of the present day Roman Empire just can't get out of it. Or maybe they don't want to.

These interfering, occupying humans are really crazy. First they hire a virtual nobody as a glorified thug, train him, give him a car and a flat, install him in the country, turn their faces away while he terrorises people, kills, usurps the country and then after he has reached the zenith of monstrosity and made about a dozen copies of himself, they make him into a globalised enemy. They stamp their boots and insist the guy has horrible weapons to exterminate the human race so they must get in there and do some bombing of their own -- a term they call 'kicking ass.' Meanwhile they have already crippled another Muslim-crazed country called Afghanistan, hoping to catch yet another monster they created and who they say is behind the Twin Tower episode (because he hates them decadent Westerners).

Now I'm beginning to understand why the story of 'Frankenstein' has always been such a hot favourite of the West. Now the ripple effect of all this is the globalised stigma all Muslims are stuck with. In the Western Hemisphere, any human Earthling with a Muslim name is regarded as a potential suicide bomber. So they are deported, sent to prison, or just sacked from jobs. It's funny how all these poor fellows are being lumped together as a terrorist force while acts of sabotage by other groups are categorised into specifics.

Do you see now why my heads (Ok, I have two) are spinning with excruciating bewilderment?

So this 'hate' thing is like their 'AIDS' thing. It just spreads like wildfire. Victims are caught unawares; they have many kinds of ailments that lead to death. Also it seems to be quite contagious. The religious extremists hate the Western way of life and hence, the Westerners, the Westerners hate the Easterners for their dark skins, their backward ways and mostly if their religion is Islam. Sunnis hate Shi'as, some Sunnis hate Ahmadiyyas, (who they say are fake Muslims) and in general Jews hate Muslims and vice versa. Even Christian Earthlings have found ways to fight amongst each other.

While hatred in developed countries is a little more focused, in developing countries it is just like a melting Jell-O pudding, spilling all over the place. Here I can only illustrate by focusing on a teensy weensy country called Bangladesh. Here hate is in many forms. While Muslims religious extremists have kept up their globalised tradition of hating anyone who does not conform to their Talibanic school of thought, yet another Frankenstein of a superpower, one that (relies mainly on the oppression and humiliation of female humans), there are many other layers of hate in this minuscule land of a monstrous population.

No two political families could hate each other more than the ones called ‘BNP’ and ‘AL’, not even the famous Montagues and Capulets -- cooked up by that wonderful bearded bard of the 16th century. Unfortunately there is no lovesick daughter in love with a lovesick son. Rather there is a venom-filled daughter in hate with a frothing widow who reciprocates the loathing with equal passion. So while the religious terrorists have a field day trying to blow up writers, the BNP flexes a muscle or two spreading hate among their lapdogs (called police) which swoop on whatever non-BNP scent they can find. While the AL is the most favoured bait for the BNP hounds, second place is bagged by journalists, students and third -- former BNP aficionados who have gone off in a huff and are now playing their own game.

These Bangladeshis must be crazy. More than half of their people are dying of hunger or disease or poor health care, there many more child humans on the street than in school and all the powerful and rich can do is hate each other to death. Then they stand on stage to say that they will save the country from the rival party's 'misrule!' The way things are going I'm beginning to think that this hate thing is like a global fad -- it is 'in' to hate, it's cool to self annihilate and even cooler to kill or dismember human bodies. Because they are expendable? Because they are collateral damage? Because material gain and political power are more valuable than a few thousand human lives? Now I'm really confused. Better do another Galactonoogle search. This time I'll look up the word 'love' and 'happiness'. I believe they are just about to become humanly extinct.

 
         

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