Hidden Smiles

Everything in the news about Arabs and Muslims is bleak. For someone who doesn't know that part of the world or who has never encountered such dangerous and "blood thirsty creatures", Arabs or Muslims are easily synonymous of "Evil" or "Terror"

"The Manufacture of Consent" and the opinion making apparatus, have most definitely taken control over the media. The Information Technology which brought so much to ordinary people, has also been a blessing for Neo-Fascists, disguised in immaculate suits surrounded by armies of spin doctors. The Corporate Media has taken control over the minds.

Never in the past have governments had so many tools to stifle debate, to manipulate facts or to muzzle dissent.

All that Westerners know about Arabs is tragedy upon tragedy. Even the Muslim populations now living within mainly christian societies, mostly adhere to that vision.

Bigotry and barely hidden racism and Islamophobia has become a wide spread standard in mainstream media. The large Public, anesthetized by an all biased and uncritical media environment, has mostly lost his critical spirit or is incapable of going through painful contemplations on real matters. People prefer to trust their leaders and spend their dollars.

As for those leaders, the equation is simple: First you brutalize them as the matador brutalizes the bull in a Spanish arena, then you say: "see how violent they are!" Then you claim: "This is all 'evidence' we need to wage our righteous war on Muslim-Arab terrorists and their internecine blood feuds."

I despise violence. Everybody should anyway, unless he or she turns insane. But there is a golden rule which one might always keep in mind: "Injustice leads to Insanity; which leads to Violence."

Arabs and Muslims do smile, they do hope, they do joke, they do love, they make love, they do empathise and they do sympathize; they do share and care.

They are ordinary people, put under extraordinary conditions.