I read a rather sad article on the BBC today, read on:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Swedish police link 'racist' shootings to lone gunman
Swedish police fear a lone gunman may be behind a spate of racially-motivated shootings in the southern city of Malmo.
Detectives say they are linking up to 15 gun attacks in the city over the past year that have targeted people of immigrant background.
The investigation comes amid growing tension in Sweden over immigration.
In elections in September, 20 members of a far-right anti-immigration party won seats in parliament.
However, Swedish media report that they include one fatal shooting - a 20-year-old woman last October who was sitting in a car.
In recent weeks, two men of ethnic minority background have also been shot and wounded while waiting at bus stops in the city.
And on Thursday evening two women described by police as "immigrants from a European country" were wounded after being shot through their apartment window.
"We have established a special unit here in Malmo to investigate between 10 and 15 similar crimes," police spokesman Lars-Haakan Lindholm told AFP news agency.
"It does appear there are racist motives. We are receiving help from profilers from the national police force. This is our number one top priority right now."
The investigation has revived memories of a spate of racially-motivated attacks in and around the Swedish capital Stockholm from August 1991 to January 1992.
John Ausonius, now 57, killed one person and wounded 10 others. He was jailed for life in 1994.
Malmo, which has a significant immigrant population, was the scene of riots in December 2009 following the closure of an Islamic centre.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is this a sign of things to come? I pray not but I fear it may be. As more and more hate is generated, as more and more idiots keep poking the pot, the more things like this are likely to happen. I've already read of a nutter in the USA admitting that he was influenced by Fox News and David Horowitz’s web sites, I am sure he is not alone, in fact after reading some of the comments on Horowitz's sites I *know* he is not. Sure, some guys don't take much to push them over the edge but there are plenty of 'normal' people being fed this stuff day in day out and what's more they are believing it.
This really is not any different to 'Islamic' extremism, people being fed junk day in day out, as Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, once said, "A lie repeated enough times becomes the truth". There are people out there on both sides prepared to take a gun and go and kill others and so long as the lies keep being repeated that number will grow and grow. Of course, other factors are involved but the fact that there are people on both sides spewing out this is a major one. People are angry and there are those that are giving these angry people their targets, their scapegoats, and in the end blood get's spilled. It is easy to blame others, but hard to solve problems.
If hate propaganda like the stuff I see circulating today carries on being read, believed and in some cases acted on then the danger of repeats continues, it grows day by day. I hate to say it, but the rise of Hitler started in a similar way, slowly to begin with, but after a few years of lies, hate and propaganda being pumped out it didn't take long for the whole terrible series of events to unfold and it could happen again. Dehumanizing one set of people and blaming them for our problems is how genocide begins. One side get's all the blame for the worlds ills and are dehumanized so much that they are seen as lesser, deserving of death, the world would be better without them. This could happen here, we only have to look at history to see where this has happened before, I will call up the Holocaust as the best known example. The outlines are there, rise of the far right and rise in hate crime is just the beginning, we must stop it dead in it's tracks.
If hate propaganda like the stuff I see circulating today carries on being read, believed and in some cases acted on then the danger of repeats continues, it grows day by day. I hate to say it, but the rise of Hitler started in a similar way, slowly to begin with, but after a few years of lies, hate and propaganda being pumped out it didn't take long for the whole terrible series of events to unfold and it could happen again. Dehumanizing one set of people and blaming them for our problems is how genocide begins. One side get's all the blame for the worlds ills and are dehumanized so much that they are seen as lesser, deserving of death, the world would be better without them. This could happen here, we only have to look at history to see where this has happened before, I will call up the Holocaust as the best known example. The outlines are there, rise of the far right and rise in hate crime is just the beginning, we must stop it dead in it's tracks.
The only way to fight this is truth, rational thought and peace as well as to stop blaming others for things we really should be handling ourselves. If we, all of us, don't stand up to the people spewing this hate then this could be the beginning of something terrible. I'll admit it, I really do fear for the future, I really do, but while there are still good people on this earth I have hope, so should you. So let us stand together against this sort of hate and end it once and for all, the future is in our hands.
Peace
Jack
No comments:
Post a Comment