Normalising brutality….. because of war

You have heard all of the comments defending Israeli government.

It is either the nonsensical self-defense argument, even though IDF clearly targets unarmed civilians and aid workers, or the belief that all Palestinians are animals who deserved to be wiped out from the face to earth. Yadda yadda yadda, they are disturbing as they are old and predictable.

On some occasions, people defend the brutality because they believe it is a wartime necessity, something which we won’t understand if we have never endured wars ourselves.

Now, for the sake of the argument, I am going to pretend there is no genocide and what is happening between Israel and Palestine is indeed a war, an armed conflict in which both sides are on an equal plane.

The argument still doesn’t make any sense. If anything, it makes zionists sound even more disturbed.

For mentally sound minds, the violent and dehumanising effects of armed conflicts genuinely terrify us; they compel us to avoid armed conflicts as much as possible, to not escalate already-existing conflicts.

But, not to those particular zionists. They think those tendencies should be justifiable in a wartime, as if they are already normal inside their heads.

They insinuate a wartime is a perfectly acceptable living condition, a living condition equals to peacetime. They insinuate hating on wars is the same as hating people for loving pineapple pizza. For them, it is just a matter of trivial differences.

No, I am not reaching with my observation.

Understanding why people behave the way they do is one thing. Supporting them is another.

If it is truly about understanding them, you would objectively enunciate the explanations, without trying to put a positive spin or argue for the moral necessity. You wouldn’t side with those bloodthirsty warmongers. You wouldn’t take offense when they get themselves rightfully condemned.

I shouldn’t be surprised by this. As a group, zionists – especially the non-Israeli ones – often overlap with neoconservatives. Ones I have interacted with are supportive of America’s violent and warmongering foreign policies.

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Zionists’ virtue signalling

I acknowledge there are anti-zionists who love to blame all Jews for the actions of Israeli government and who think Hitler was right. Their anti-semitism is very blatant, they never bother to be subtle about it.

And yet, zionists love to ignore them.

Every time they throw anti-semitism accusations, they never target those people. They prefer to target anti-zionists who chant things like ”Free Palestine”.

Now, I do believe we must be able to read between the lines. Sometimes, words do have extra or opposite meanings, depending on the contexts. But, those zionists have no ground to stand on.

If there is something to read between the lines, then you have to prove it exists; you have to prove those pro-Palestine chanters have also insinuated that all Jews are evil.

Obviously, that’s not the case here. They are called anti-semitic….. simply because they have the gall to condemn Israel and humanise Palestinians. In fact, the zionists even attack anti-zionist Jews, including Holocaust survivors and their children, for supposedly being self-hating Jews.

Those zionists can be infuriating with their slanders. But, the fact that they ignore actual bigots and choose to attack people who may or may not be bigoted…. it is bewildering.

Actually, no. I take my words back. There is nothing bewildering about it.

Those zionists never care about anti-semitism. They are virtue-signaling.

Those non-Jewish zionists don’t care about the well-being of their Jewish brothers and sisters, they only care about simping for their favourite foreign country. They are comparable to weeaboos and koreaboos who think Japan and Korea are the perfect countries that can do no wrong, respectively; the main difference is they are more blood-thirsty, more genocidal, than the other two.

As someone who is not Jewish, I understand why a Jewish person would have an emotional attachment Israel, the only country where they would not endure anti-semitic discrimination and violence.

But, at the same time, there is difference between empowerment and identity politics. The former does not require you to put others beneath you. The latter does require you to do that; you need to perceive your identities as the only ones worthy of protection, worthy fighting for.

Some of those zionists Jews embrace the latter. They don’t care about creating a safe haven for fellow Jews and even themselves, they want the power to be discriminatory and even violent against certain “others” (e.g. Arabs and/or Muslims)… and the existence of Israeli government gives them the catharsis.

Those particular zionists were also silent about the anti-semitism of the alt-right and Qanon movements….. and they also love Donald Trump, a pro-Israel political figure who literally got open endorsements from the KKK and Neo-Nazis.

With all of those facts combined, it is hard for me to not see them as psychotic virtue signalers who hide under the guise of Jewish empowerment and acceptance.

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Some notes for my fellow non-Jewish critics of Israel

Let’s start with these questions:

Why do you hate the Israeli government?

Is it because of it commits human rights violations seemingly without repercussions and it just happens to be Jewish?

Is it because you believe it is the worst, if not only, human rights-violating government on earth?

Or is it simply because you hate anything Jewish?

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For me, there is nothing wrong about being emotional attached to certain issues.

In the case of Israel-Palestine, you may be of Palestinian descent or know someone who is, you may be a Jewish person who is horrified by atrocities done under your name…. or you may be someone who is angered by Israel’s impunity on the world stage.

It becomes a problem when you start acting like this is the only issue that matters… or when you believe Israeli government and its allies are the only evil governments in existence…… or, this is unfortunately common among my fellow Muslims, when you believe your fellow believers are free from problems (and the ones that exist were created by Mossad).

Of course, those are bullshits.

Other issues are just as important (no, we cannot quantitatively measure importance), other governments have also committed evil… and yes, the Muslim world has problems, many of which are partially or entirely faults.

You use this opportunity to virtue signal on the world stage AND to avert the global attention from your degenerate fellow Muslims.

And now, about the Jewish people themselves.

We must remember two things: Israel is the only Jewish-majority country on earth and anti-semitism is a disturbingly global phenomenon.

While you can criticise zionist Jews for their uncritical and zealous support of the government, can you really blame them for having emotional attachments to the only country on earth where they are not a marginalised minority, vulnerable to discriminations and pogroms?

Unless your cultural and religious identities are as demonised and marginalised as the Jewish ones, it is so easy for you to dismiss zionist Jews’ emotional attachment to the world’s only Jewish state.

Like you, I am also infuriated by some zionists’ use of the anti-semitism card, who think humanisation of Palestinians is anti-semitic. They are psychotic virtue signalers who will do anything to smear people who dare to not loving their favourite country.

But, I am not going to pretend some of my fellow anti-zionists are any better.

You cannot hide forever. If your anti-Israel sentiment is driven by anti-semitism, you can only hide under the guise of human rights for a while. Sooner or later, your true colours will inevitably escape the facade and you will start spewing remarks like “Hitler was right after all”.

If you are not anti-semitic, you would never think Israel is what Jewishness and Judaism are all about….. and you would never think ALL Jews are responsible for the Israeli government’s action, not even for a second.

You would also acknowledge that many zionists are not Jewish… and many anti-zionists are Jewish.

And no, there is nothing logical about anti-semitism. If you think demonising all Jews helps fighting Israel, does that mean you accept the only way to fight Islamic extremism is to demonise all Muslims?

Considering many of you are my fellow Muslims….. of course not, you fucking dolts!

My point is, I want you to fuck off.

There are people who genuinely care about the Palestinian causes and we are continuously frustrated about getting slandered as terrorism-sympathising anti-semites by those virtue-signaling blood-thirsty cunts.

Because you claim to be one of us, you douse the most incendiary fuel onto their fire of fanaticism. You are making those cretins even more fanatical. You are giving them more excuses to slander us.

Palestinians are already having a hard time getting global support and, thanks to your selfish virtue signaling, you are making it even fucking harder for them.

In fact, I would not be surprised if any of you turn out to be zionists’ plants.

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The historical and religious justifications of Zionism (and why they suck)

I am not going to argue whether Jews are entitled to a place called Israel not. Jews are an an ethno-religious group with deep attachment to a specific land while I don’t belong to anything similar.

I am a Muslim and Islam is not an ethnic religion. I am an Indonesian who does not identify with an ethnicity in which a specific religion is inseparable from the ethnic identity and I certainly do not identify with an ethnicity that harbours deep attachment to a specific land (I don’t identify with any ethnic groups, really).

Even though not all Jews are indigenous to Israel/Palestine, I do not have enough perspectives to critique the claim of land in a nuanced manner (no, “nuanced” is not the same as “neutral”). But, I can definitely point out a few things, specifically about certain zionists.

While not all of you do this, I do notice some of you disrespect the indigenous peoples in your own countries, namely the US, Australia and Canada.

You love diminishing their sufferings throughout the years, using them as exotic props, saying they should be lucky to live in such developed countries, even though they are deliberately excluded from the developments… and, most bewilderingly, slandering all indigenous empowerment movements as anti-white bigotry. You treat them like they are invaders of some kind.

If you can believe all Jews – including European and North American ones – have the right to claim the land in Israel/Palestine, then why can’t you do the same with indigenous peoples in your own countries?

In fact, if you believe the Palestinians are thieves and deserve to be kicked off the land, then you should also believe white people in the Americas and Australasia are also thieves and deserve to be kicked out as well.

Then, there is the religious justification.

Some of you – the more religious ones – have used your scriptures to justify Zionism. But, at the same time, I have noticed some of you have condemned Islamism.

Here’s a question: why do you oppose Islamism?

Personally, I am opposed to it because I am opposed to religious political ideologies in general, regardless of the foundational religions. Not only they disregard the existence of non-believers and compel governments to take their rights away, they dictate the believers on how to be religious… and I hate having anyone – state or no state – dictating the validity of my religiosity.

I know you don’t share my reasoning.

You oppose Islamism not because it is bad, but because it is the wrong religion; it is neither your religion nor a religion you like. You support Zionism because you believe you have the right to shove your favourite religion down everyone’s throat.

And let’s not pretend Zionism is all about Jewish empowerment. Those Christian Zionists, what do you think their religious-driven embrace of Zionism is about?

They embrace it because they believe in the biblical prophecy which foretells not just Jews’ return to their “homeland”, but also their denouncement of Judaism and conversion to Christianity. They are Zionists not because they care about Jews, but because they hate Jews.

Yes, what I am saying is some of you are anti-semitic and are comparable to Islamists.

And yes, you can condemn both Hamas and the Israeli government at the same time.

And yes, you are genocidal. I don’t know why I have to mention indigenous Americans when you drool over the sight of dead Gazan children and think crying about their deaths makes one pro-Hamas.

And yes, I am lumping all of you into one. Frankly, my fellow Muslims – despite our many flaws – are way better in condemning Islamic extremism than you Zionists in condemning each other.

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No, you don’t need those shock videos

I am certain some of you are familiar with the concept of lost media, in which works and records have no existing copies. They may be lost because of deliberate destruction of every known existing copy or through pure negligence.

There are lost media which may not be technically lost, but more accurately hidden; they record the audio and/or visuals of actual violent deaths, some of which were unusually brutal murders. They may be kept as evidences by the authorities 0r they may get banned from being uploaded to websites.

And I am one of the people who are glad such media is “lost”. Yes, “one of the people”. That means there are people who are sad about it.

They believe watching such content grounds us in reality. And I can bullshit on that.

No, you love watching those videos because they entertain you. Not even the most violent films can satisfy you. You can only be entertained by actual gore. Don’t act like gore is what reality all about.

You claim those videos do not shock you. Okay, so what? If gore doesn’t shock you, it doesn’t mean you are mentally stronger than everyone else, it means you are an edgelord who is more mentally fucked than everyone else.

But, what if those videos do make you snap out of your lala land? Well, it is not a testament of the benefits of such content, it is a testament of how sheltered your upbringing was, so sheltered you need gore for your awakening.

Now, I am going talk a bit about “LOL Superman” as a specific example.

In case you didn’t know, it is the title of an alleged online video of 9/11 “jumpers”; it is infamous because not only it shows them falling/jumping to their deaths, it also shows their bodies impacting the solid grounds, turning into unrecognisable mess of flesh and blood. As you expect, if that video did exist and was not just a false collective memory, I certainly would not mourn its lost status.

Unsurprisingly, you gore lovers have made those aforementioned arguments regarding this video. But, you also accuse people like me of wanting to erase history. Of course, it is just virtue signaling on your part.

If we truly want to erase history, we would have targeted every single documentation of 9/11, including every news reel, amateur footage and even memorial. But nope, we only target videos like that one..

And how can you erase 9/11, anyway?

It happened twenty-two years ago, it is still relatively recent. Some people directly affected by the attacks are still alive today; the survivors, those who lost loved ones, the American and American allies’ soldiers who got severely injured and the innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians whose unstable homelands became even more unstable, in the name of avenging the death of innocent Americans.

Even if they are not directly affected, many people also grew up hearing about the 9/11 and the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Many around the world – including myself – watched the second plane crash on live TV broadcast (I watched it on Indonesia’a Metro TV, relaying the CNN broadcast).

There are also countless footage of the attacks available online; someone even made a ten-hour compilation on Youtube. You can also easily find non-gory footage and photos of the “jumpers”… which include The Falling Man, arguably one of the most memorably haunting photos of the decade.

With the abundance of living memories, photos and other videos, why the hell do you need “LOL Superman” to preserve this specific history? You know, other than to justify your sick entertainment preferences.

That video is also disrespectful. Not only it has a mocking title*, it is also insulting to the victims’ families. Do you seriously believe they are okay with the possible gory footage of their loved ones’ deaths becoming a source of morbid amusement of the masses?

If you truly care about the truth, you would be mindful of the prevailing pain.

Let me tell you four anecdotes.

I am from Indonesia. The late 90’s is a dark period of this country’s history, with May 98 as darkest month. Economic crisis, political discontent and bigotry accumulated into days of nationwide riots; ethnic Chinese-Indonesians – the country’s most visible ethnic and racial minority and often mistakenly perceived as 100% affluent – were targeted by rioters.

Many of the women were victims of sexual violence; that meant nothing to my young self because I didn’t know what rape was. But, hearing about the violence and my country’s seeming descend into lawlessness was already horrifying enough.

When I was eight or nine, there was gas station where my mom regularly bought fuel from. Typical of her, she loved striking conversations with anyone and she ended being friendly with the staff.

One day, the staff revealed a horrifying news: an employee died in a tragic traffic accident…… his head was squashed by a tire. While I already knew traffic accidents exist, this one felt close to home.

And, of course, 9/11**. It happened a month after my ninth birthday.

I mentioned about how I watched the second plane on live broadcast. Weeks or months later, I watched a documentary about the attacks and, for the first time, I learned about the “jumpers”. Two footages sticked with me the most.

One showed a “jumper” moments before they hit the ground; while I didn’t see the impact (I think firetrucks blocked the view), I could hear the sound. Another footage showed a person holding onto some kind of cloth, probably wanting to move to a lower floor; unfortunately, their hands slipped.

Those events (is it an appropriate word?) taught me that life isn’t always pretty. Enjoyment of the sunshine and rainbows does not mean I should ignore the existence of its darker side. They are teachable moments because I am compelled to offset my positivity with healthy dose of negativity. I don’t end up suffering from forced positivity.

And I certainly didn’t need gory imagery.

Meanwhile, my fourth anecdote is far from a teachable moment. It was the 2004 earthquake and tsunami.

For some time, Indonesian TV and newspapers kept plastering the media landscape with images of rotting corpses, strewn all over the hit areas. Yes, they were uncensored.

The tragedy should had taught me about the unpredictability of nature and how lack of preparedness could lead to suffering for many human lives. But, I didn’t learn any of those.

While I didn’t suffer from nightmares, I certainly couldn’t get the gruesome imagery out of my head for a long time. Thanks to the media, I associated the tragedy with rotting corpses… and nothing else.

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*The title is supposedly based on the words uttered by the cameraman. I understand people can react inappropriately when witnessing something horrible. But, sooner or later, you have to take heed of the inappropriateness of your reactions…. and broadcasting them to everyone adds another level of your inappropriateness.

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**Even though I am a Muslim myself, 9/11 didn’t affect my religious identity. I am from the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country; I am not a religious minority in my own homeland and I didn’t have to grow up experiencing anti-Muslim sentiment. My spiritual crises also occurred in small bouts throughout many years, none of which was triggered by 9/11.

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Oppenheimer: not warmongering, but still feckless

I am not going to debate the veracity of the accounts. Therefore, I am going to treat the story and its characters as entirely fictional.

No, this film does not glorify wars. The titular character is frequently shown feeling guilty about his contributions to weapons of mass destruction. While he is not necessarily depicted as a hero (he can be a dick to everyone around him), he is depicted as a deeply flawed man with conscience.

In fact, instead of depicting Harry S. Truman – who coldly dismissed Oppenheimer’s concern about war victims – as a heroic figure, the film depicts as a callous monster who thinks having conscience makes you whiny.

But, at the same time, the film is also too cowardly with its anti-war sentiment.

While it does acknowledge the sufferings of the ordinary Hiroshima and Nagasaki citizens, it refuses to visualise them. It refuses to show the survivors’ injuries in graphic visual details; the bodily horror is only meagerly described in a handful of dialogues.

If the film genuinely believes nuking civilians is immoral, having a character with constant moral musing is not enough; it needs to show why doing so is bad.

The depiction’s absence makes me difficult to take the conscientious dialogues seriously; for me, they end up sounding like moralistic rants of an attention-seeking virtue signaler who cannot stand their ground.

The reactions to the film are “interesting”. On one hand, people hate the film because they see it as pro-war. On the other, people love the film because they see it as pro-war. Both camps love and hate the film for the same reason.

And it is also obvious both are delusional; they see and hear what they want to see and hear. They think a film espouses a certain belief when it clearly espouses the exact opposite. But, I do wonder: what if the bodily horror is visually depicted?

I am certain the message would be even more unmistakable and people would have a harder time distorting it to further their agendas.

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We should hand it to warmongers

No, I am not being facetious.

A war is a conflict which not only results in destructions of human properties, but also the brutal, violent deaths of innocent human beings, physical and psychological trauma of the survivors and the possibility of long-term geo-political instability, which may lead to even more violence.

To describe it as hell on earth is an understatement.

And yet, despite what we know about wars, warmongers have successfully convinced the world that killing innocent human lives, physically and/or psychologically scarring the survivors and destabilising the entire region are a must. Why? Because the hypothetical liberation promised by the so-called freedom-loving invaders.

What I just described does not make any fucking sense. And yet, warmongers have successfully convinced people to embrace that nonsensical belief.

One may argue I am giving them too much credit. Some people are so gullible, it does not take much to persuade them. In some cases, that is definitely the case: all you need to do is to say things, no techniques needed. But, the more I interact with people, the more I see the complexity.

Not all of the people who fall for the warmongering are stupid. In fact, I have seen some whose intelligence is above average, who are capable to process complex thoughts with great ease.

It is infuriating how warmongers can convince even the most intelligent people to believe nonsensical bullshit, while war-opponents are unable to persuade even the most gullible people.

This is just another reminder that simply knowing the truths and having the morality isn’t enough. If we want to spread our values, we must have the skills to do so and we must be great at them.

Obviously, this judgement of mine has been clouded by cynicism. But, I cannot help noticing how the more immoral and/or reactionary people are, the more likely they are to be accomplished in organisational and communication skills.

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Can we stop pretending that every person who helps Ukrainian refugees is moral?

If you help people regardless of backgrounds, then you do have kindness in your heart.

But, we can clearly see people – in this case, westerners and their governments – are picky.

Not long after Russia started invading Ukraine, Europeans were quick to aid the incoming Ukrainians on the borders. The governments were on it to, with high-ranking officials showing supports for the refugees; even the Polish government sent veterinarians to help anyone who brought their pets.

And it is not just Europeans. Other countries like US and Canada also flocked to help. Even their firefighters donated equipment to their Ukrainian counterparts!

And the public discourse – unless one includes Tankies and Putin’s cocksuckers in the picture – is entirely sympathetic to the plight of Ukrainian people. They are perceived as human beings undeserving of such dire situations. No one was making a fuss about the refugees’ age and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Overall, the humanitarianism was unconditional.

Compare that when brown, non-western refugees were involved.

I acknowledege that many people did welcome them with open arms. But, there were also as many as people who greeted them with dehumanising hostility.

They constantly suffered violence on the hands of border patrols of the so-called civilised European countries. Many still live in refugee camps. Countries like Australia and the US think asylum-seeking is a crime comparable to murder. Denmark wanted to take refugees’ possessions as “payments”. Far-right ideologies became even more popular.

And the discourses are just as bad.

There were so many dangerous misinformation about the refugees. When certain refugees committed atrocities, the rest had to endure guilt by association. People genuinely believed the refugees had to stay in their own countries and risked their lives fixing the problems, especially if they were young men (because, even in dire situations, arbitrary gender roles must stay upheld). People would lose their shit when they saw refugees with mobile phones, laptops and expensive watches (because we all know those protect us from violence).

Some people suddenly argued we should focus on more important issues like women’s rights, children’s welfare, homelessness, LGBT+ rights, religious extremism and veterans’ welfare, even though none of them couldn’t give less fuck about those issues prior the brown refugee crisis (and they didn’t seem to mind having white Christians as religious extremists). They tried hiding their lack of humanity by putting on pragmatic or moral masks….. and fucking morons fell for it.

I almost forgot to mention how joyful people were when refugees got killed, almost killed or tortured. A Syrian family lost of their children to a house fire? Less Muslims to worry about. Refugees almost drowned? Funniest shit ever. Refugee children traumatised after getting caged? Womp womp.

I don’t know why I have to compare it to the Middle Eastern refugee crisis. Even the Ukrainian one has bigotry issues.

Non-white people in Ukraine – foreign or not – were prohibited to leave. There were even cases in which black, foreign men were given guns and told to fight for Ukraine. How the fuck is it okay to force foreigners – some of whom never planned to stay in Ukraine permanently – to fight for a country that is not even theirs and yet you allow the white citizens of said country to fucking flee for their lives? One white dead body is too many, any number of brown and black dead bodies is acceptable.

My point is I wish people are honest with themselves. If you hate your fellow human beings simply for being different from you, just say it!

The selectiveness of your empathy, your support or excuses for far-right ideologies, your penchant to fall for misinformation about non-white refugees, it is so obvious you have biases against certain races, cultures and religions. So, why bother putting up that translucent facade of yours?

And no, you don’t need to fear.

If governments implement anti-brown-refugee policies and mainstream media spreads anti-brown-refugee rhetorics, shouldn’t you feel at home in the mainstream society? I mean, it sure sounds you are one of the “normal” ones.

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So, you think the Russians are complicit?

If so, why?

Why do you think the ordinary Russians are guilty of the wars? Do you realise that not only the war has low support among them and the soldiers, they also live under an authoritarian regime and therefore, rendering them politically powerless? Do you realise that speaking out against the government can get you jailed and even killed?

I have to state the obvious because some of you still don’t get it and I don’t know why. Maybe you are a privileged fuck who spent their whole life in a liberal democratic bubble and don’t know how it feels to live under political repression. Or maybe, you are a bigot who will do anything to justify your dehumanising hatred of the Russians, regardless of the facts.

If you are the former, you probably think the Russian people can easily form paramilitary units and topple the government in days. You probably think the Russian people are lazy people whose desire for liberty is as paper thin as your desire to understand fellow human beings.

You probably think The Arab Spring and the fall of the USSR are great examples of how easy it is to defeat authoritarianism, even though the reality shows otherwise.

(I don’t know why I use the word “probably” when you motherfuckers explicitly spew those beliefs)

The Arab world are still packed with tyrannical leaders, Syria and Libya become plagued with instability, Russia in the 90’s was full of political and economic crises and it ends up with a post-Soviet tyrant anyway.

Basically, not only there is no guarantee of better lives, there is also high possibility of even worse ones; those who spend their lives in liberal democracies don’t know the feeling.

As you can see, I believe it is stupid to hold all Russians accountable. But, even if I believe such intellectual retardation, how does that make Americans and their allies?

Americans have way more freedom to oppose the establishment. But, the majority of them chose to support the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, happily consumed pro-war media content and even reelected their president! Even to this day, many Americans still make excuses for the invasions and American media has yet to acknowledge their past sin.

And American allies …

Some actively supported America in the invasions and even committing their own war crimes. Those who were not busy participating could have easily boycotted America and other war participants… and yet, they did none of those.

Despite having the freedom to publicly oppose the wars, to vote every single war-mongering politician out of office, to put every single war-mongering media outlet out of business and having the power to boycott entire countries, they voluntarily choose to support the wars, vote for the war-mongers and keep making them extremely rich and let the war participants unpunished.

I don’t believe all Americans and all citizens of their allies are complicit, just like I don’t believe all Russians are. In this regard, I am consistent. But, some of you clearly aren’t.

If you believe all Russians are complicit, then you should also believe all Americans and their allies are blood-thirsty war-mongers who want their children and children’s children aroused by the sight of white people turning brown people into mutilated corpses.

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So, you think you are anti-bigotry and extremism?

If I ask you what bigotry is, I am sure your answer would be something like, “the demonisation of (an) entire group(s)”. If I ask you what extremism is, I am sure yours would be something like, “the embrace of extreme views and/or actions”. Everyone can get the gist what both words mean.

Well, not really.

If you condemn someone for demonising an entire group of distinct human beings, then you are anti-bigotry. If you condemn someone for justifying the brutalisation of innocent people just for achieving certain goals, then you are anti-extremism.

Well, not quite. You are anti both IF you apply those attitudes to literally every person, including yourself.

If you condemn certain Muslims for being extremists and yet you justify the killing of innocent Muslims by American government OR you condemn American foreign policy and yet you justify the deaths of Americans in 9/11, you are not anti-bigotry and extremism.

Not only you see those groups as nothing but giant monoliths, you believe it is acceptable for anyone to kill the people simply for sharing “membership” with the bad apples. Not only you are anti to neither, you embrace them.

So many people have accused me of complicity to bigotry and extremism. Why? Because I defend not just myself, my fellow Muslims, my fellow Indonesians, but also non-Muslim and non-Indonesian fellow human beings from proudly malicious generalisations.

My accusers believe the only way to fight bigotry and extremism is to stereotype and even incite violence against entire groups. When I call them out, they always deny it. But, they always throw the accusation at me only after I denounce their stereotyping and incitement, not because I explicitly and implicitly justify the evil they supposedly condemn.

Yes, supposedly. It is very apparent they hate the immorality only when it is perpetrated by the wrong crowds; if the perpetrators are the “right” people AKA their allies and themselves, they would paint their immorality as praise-worthy, truth-telling politically incorrectness.

Call me radical. But, you cannot be anti-something when you love embracing that something.

Oh, and I also acknowledge both words are loaded. I do agree they shouldn’t be thrown around easily. But, I am confident I am utilising them appropriately.

I have encountered so many people who insist someone cannot be bigoted if they are not violent. Thankfully, unlike them, my standard isn’t that low.

If you have dehumanising beliefs about the “others”, you are bigoted. If you believe the end justifies even the most violent means, you are extremist.

If you are neither, why are you okay with such thoughts nesting in your thinking organ? Heck, why are they there in the first place?

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