Friday, January 09, 2015

Being offended as justification for murder?

I received a comment in response to my post yesterday. The commenter felt that the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo had deeply deliberately offended the Muslim community, likening their cartoons to "spitting in someone's soul" and thus 'justice' was carried out. While I understand the hurt caused when someone deeply deliberately offends you, it cannot be a justification for killing that person.

I am writing my reply here as a stand alone post, as it provides a good opportunity to cover this issue we humans have with 'being offended'.

My Reply:

Are you seriously justifying the murder of 12 people because someone was offended? I don't think we can speak for the entire collective of Muslim people because being offended is a very personal response not a general one.

I have been spat at. I didn't go on to murder those people.

I have been called a witch for what I do by members of the community in which I grew up. Of course at first I was offended, but later I learned to laugh because I KNOW who I am, I don't need to justify it to anybody. Nor do I need to murder those who do not like or understand me.

Likewise, the majority of beautiful Muslims need not be offended by someone's cartoons. For every belief, religion and cause there is someone saying something contrary that has potential to cause offense. Deliberately ridiculing a respected spiritual teacher is not something I would do nor perhaps would you, but jesters and comediennes have been doing this for thousands of years whether to make light of a situation or to deliberately provoke controversy. For every cartoonist ridiculing the Prophet, there is one ridiculing Jesus, the Buddha, God - are we to kill them too?

You can't control what someone says to you, or does to you. You can control how you respond. Murdering someone is an impulsive act of an ego that feels threatened and invalidated. It is not a powerful act. Deeply offending someone deliberately is not a powerful act either. Yet with a pen, you get it off your chest and someone who doesn't like it can throw away or even burn that paper.

As a writer, I do my best to write from my heart and wouldn't dream of deliberately offending anyone. Yet someone somewhere might be offended by something I write, and I shudder to think that some people think this is a justifiable cause for murder.

(c) Dana Mrkich 2014

9 comments:

  1. Your points are well expressed, Dana, especially as these relate to humanity's variegated responses to this particular staged event. What, to my mind, makes this slaughter particularly heinous is that it bears all the earmarks of a false flag, one neatly timed to get Prince Andrew's name off the international stage in association with pedophilia, and to teach the French President Hollande a lesson for going off script and saying nice things about Putin and Russia.

    Same very old, played out cliched game that serves up human lives a dime a dozen to provoke responses such as the one your commenter made that you responded to.

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    1. I agree that it could be a false flag as so much is these days. I didn't really want to focus on who did this, rather on humanity's response, however I do appreciate you bringing that up as it's important.

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  2. Replies
    1. Hi Anonymous,

      I choose to focus on humanity's response in these posts, rather than on who committed the act, or who orchestrated it.

      I agree that most of what we are seeing now are false flags, but as you have kindly shared with us via links - which are informative for people, so thank you - there are plenty of people writing about these events from that angle.

      Just because I wrote about it from a different angle doesn't mean I'm naive.

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  3. A Muslim once was starring at my little golden cross i was wearing in the neck
    and grabbed his groin.
    I should have killed him, right ?

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  4. What I miss mostly in the media is to read much more about positive think, that are going on in the world, like what some peoples and communities did to make the world a better place. What we focus on we bring in our reality. What are we bringing in in these days as a collective? What does fear based thinking and acting perpetuate? That are the questions I am asking myself. Why can´t we break that cycle of violence? I hope, that after this very very sad action we are able to turn around as a collective. There is a chance now as it is allways and I will never give up to direct my energy for the good in humanity, focus on what I´d love to see in the world and around me!
    Thank you so much Dana for bringing this up, it is a chance to think about our thoughts and actions and what they can move.

    Much love
    Elisabeth

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    1. Thanks Elisabeth for your lovely post. There's plenty of positive news in alternative media, but yes sadly not so much in the mainstream which is easy fast food news for the majority. But just like fast food, people are getting tired of the current media programming. Lots of love xxxx

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  5. Love this and you! :)

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