Current Events
Monday July 16th, 2012
I came across this article a few days, dated from
Thursday July 12th:
It explains how a Canadian woman of Syrian origin, Thwaiba
Kanafani, left Canada to go fight with the Syrian rebels against the dictator
Bashar al-Assad, (the Syrian rebels rally under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, or FSA). She is an engineer and a mother of two.
Now, it is common knowledge that there are several brave
and selfless foreigners that are fighting with the Syrian rebels, but most of
them are men from other Arab countries. I’ve never heard of a Western woman
joining them yet; Kanafani is the first. After I was done reading the article,
I thought “Wow this woman is really flippin’ cool. She leaves the comfort of a
peaceful, 1st world country to go and help people halfway across the
world achieve freedom and democracy. She is not required to do this at all; she
goes there on her own free will to help in a fight where she has no stake in
whatsoever. She is the very definition of selfless because she has absolutely nothing
materially to gain from this.”
What really disturbed me was when I read some of the
comments on the article. Here is a few of them:
“Good to know that Canada is NOT your homeland, now you
stay where you are you've shown your true colours. You earn your living
here you raise your kids here &
still doesn't feel this country to be your homeland -how ungrateful you could
be. We don't need people with deranged mentallity to be Canadians. Our
immigration system is broken it needs to fixed.”
“Don't come back ! I do not want my tax money ( Canadian
Medicare ) to pay for your Syrian injuries. Syria.....your homeland......give
me a break ! Why did you leave ? Go home.”
“Hopefully she bought a one way ticket and took her kids
with her. She was obviously welcomed in
Canada, but has no loyalty to the country.”
“Hope she stays there forever.”
When I read these I literally had a WTF moment. How the
hell can these people sit there and say such horrible things about this woman,
who did something so dangerous that I bet NONE of them would ever have the
courage to do so. They are the biggest internet trolls I have ever seen. They
sound like they have something lacking in their lives, so they just get on the
internet and take out their frustration on someone like Kanafani who did
something so brave and self-sacrificing. I also suspect that there might be
some racist reasons involved in this as well. It’s not for certain, because I cannot
read their minds, but it certainly sounds like it. They’re calling her “not a
real Canadian, a Canadian by convenience.” This echoes of the mindset decades
ago of the British deciding that only white people could be British citizens.
My three points about what they said are:
1.
Just because she goes
and fights in a war that Canada is not involved in, that has nothing to do with
her loyalty to Canada. The two things have no rational/logical connection to
each other. That’s like saying “Oh, since the sky is blue, that’s the reason
why this safe is steel plated.” She is going overseas to help people who very desperately
need anyone’s help who is willing to give it. Even if she is not a front line
combat soldier, she is an engineer, which is very valuable for a rebel army to
have. Also, since she is a woman, she will be better able to understand and
work with women civilians who have been caught up in the conflict. Good men
will try their best of course but sometimes a situation needs a woman-to-woman
approach to fix it, (like if a woman got raped by a Syrian soldier, she’d much
rather talk to a woman about that than to a man).
In the past, when someone has helped somebody else fight
against a tyrannical or oppressive government, that person is looked upon as a
hero, a caring person. An example would be like the French soldiers who helped
fight alongside the Americans against the tyrannical British government. Or the
American soldiers who helped Europe fight back against the Nazis. Their
service, their sacrifice in battle, was never, ever looked upon as being
disrespectful or insulting to the country that they lived in. This concept is
also portrayed in countless movies, video games, and books. Were the Americans
doing disservice to America by helping to liberate France and Belgium? Of
course not!!!
She is not a mercenary; she is not getting paid to fight in
this war. All of this is on her. She is a volunteer. Why is it that when a person
volunteers to join the military of his/her county, he/she is “patriotic, brave,
noble,” etc, but when another person wants to help people in another country,
then suddenly that is dumb, ungrateful, or fanatical? Canada’s military is not
in Syria, so she had no way of helping the Syrians if she joined the Canadian
military.
2.
I also read, on
another article on the same story, that many posters called her a slut or a
whore for joining the Syrian rebels. This is disgraceful to all women who have
ever served in any military. Their libelous comments are only reinforcing the
hateful stereotypes that women who join the military are just looking for men
to sleep with. Maybe some of them are, no one knows because you can’t read
all of their minds. But certainly not all of them are, that is an insult to the
women who want to join the military to protect their country, make a better
life for themselves, etc etc.
3.
One last point is
this: In many of those comments they call Kanafani a “Wahabi/Salafi militant,”
or a “Islamofascist.” These insults are within a larger problem, which is a lot bigger than this one post can cover. The problem is that many
Westerners have this the paranoid xenophobic fear that all Muslims who take up arms
to defend themselves and other civilians are without doubt Islamic terrorists.
To them, Muslims are sub-human, and therefore, do not deserve the God given
right that all humans have: to defend themselves and others who cannot defend
themselves. These insults are only used to try and delegitimize the Syrian
rebels. Are there radical Islamists fighting in Syria? Of course there is some.
But does that have anything to do with the legitimacy of regular, ordinary
Syrians who are fighting for their families, liberty and freedom? Uh, no.
Radicals are always drawn to conflicts because
in the chaos they can try and establish a foothold. You better damn well better
believe that, for instance, if the U.S. descended into chaos, that there would
be some white-supremacists who would take advantage of the situation and start
to go around to kill African Americans, Hispanics, Muslims etc. There would be
racists from all races, taking advantage of the situation.
These internet trolls are just stupid, spiteful people.
Plain and simple. There’s no way around it. It is sad that some people have
lost the ageless concepts such as honor, sacrifice, selflessness, and bravery
in the face of tyranny. I guess those concepts are too higher levels for their
pea brains. They see something they don’t understand, and then automatically
call it deranged, idiotic, or morally wrong. They couldn’t be farther from the
truth.
(Picture is from Thwaiba Kanafani's profile on Facebook).
(Picture is from Thwaiba Kanafani's profile on Facebook).
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