ISLAMOFOBIA, IRANOFOBIA & OTHER PHOBIAS

ISLAMOFOBIA, IRANOFOBIA & OTHER PHOBIAS

By Hugo Adan.  Marzo2-2015

This is just a brain-storm, nothing theoretically elaborated.

The fact that there are phobias in the mind of uneducated caucassian against Muslims, is real, but phobias cannot be used to hate any nation. There were phobias against blacks & it still is a problem in the US. It only means that we have to continue fighting phobias here and worldwide.

Any phobia is part of a cultural heritage, and most people have them. The problem is when they  became violent and criminal as it happens with the KKK in America or Nazism in Alemania (where they came to power). In America they never came to power, instead RACISM and xenophobia  was prohibited after the 1960s (though some of them infiltrated the police and other institutions).

In my original country Peru there is special appreciation for blacks, people believe blacks are blessed by God, otherwise how to explain that they endured the horrible pains of enslavement, they argue. The two most venerated saints in Peru are black (el Sr de los Milagros y San Martin de Porres). In  South Peru  people consider that if you bring one black to your family they will bring you lack. In my town 2 fathers of 7 seven children suddenly die in an accident. Several middle class family wanted to adopt one of the kids and I got the one who was a student with me in high school. All my family loved him. Once he finished high school he went to the military academy, I guess he is now a General, I lost contact with him.  

Regarding Muslims, yes there is a criminal phobia against them world wide. The fact is that Saudis, Qatar, Oman converted many young people into mercenaries (they couldn’t offer them a decent job) and they used the religion in such endeavor. Among the mercenaries in ISIL some of them (maybe most in some groups) are Muslims, that is a fact and it is a fact that those Muslim Kings are financing the genocides of ISIL. This is that most people in the West detest. It is certainly unfair to blame all Muslims for the mistakes of few of them,  but it is also unfair  what Saudis, Qatar..  are doing in favor of the US-NATO rulers.

Iranians may not like this reality, they said that “islamofobia” is an insult. The crimes of ISIL are also an insult to ethics and decent behavior in current times. Iranians can reject the word “islamobobia” for religious, or semantic reasons, but this  bla..bla, is not going to change reality. The reality is the uses of horrible criminal violence (butchering & even anthropophagi) by Muslim mercenaries.

The only way to solve this problem is to offer ex- “mercenaries”  rehab, free scholarship in Univ and jobs. Better if we can offer  them a secular education since this is the realm of ideologies. They will not be changed by Laws or any decree and not by the same religion with the same authorities. We have to offer them a real economic future and imaging a transitional path to secularism. If they want to keep their religion, they can do it at home and inside their temples but not in public places like schools and hospitals. If a State wants to preserve freedom of religions no one in particular should be protected nor financed. If a person do not want to have any religion at all, his/her right should be protected by Law too, as it protect the freedom to have it. No State has the right to enforced any particular ideology at all.

I noticed in my house and in Pitt Univ that some Muslims changed little by little their customs (not dressing tools if they are MD Students and are inside hospitals with patients, for instance: they won’t be trusted. Not body forced them to do so. There is not law on this regard.  In my opinion all is a matter of imagining a transition from religious dogmas to secularism, as it happens in Latin America or here in the US.

Students in Peru are assigned by default to Catholicism, but they have the chance of skipping religion classes if parents wanted so. It happens to me, I’m pagan (they called me that way, a word that is derogative) but I didn’t care. My family has quechua origin and we do believe in two Gods, the Sun and mother earth and we have our special holyday 24^th of June. My grandma and my mother use to say that they are 99% Catholics, but they do not believe in the pope, bishops, priest and my wife not even in nuns. My family all go to the Cathedral for mass one time a year (in Christmas eve) to meet other people and do the bla-bla about  the holyday. My wife never went to the Catholic church in front of my house. I did it when some people die in my hood and when some Muslims in my house wanted to see the rituals inside, I had not problem in taking them inside, and no problem in visiting myself other churches, if they invited me. I remember a Pastor breaking pieces of wood with his hand to prove the power of god. My  daughter start laughing, shh I said to her. But this is karate, nothing to do with faith.. she told me. You are inside their temple and you should respect it, I said. My wife is the type of Catholic that sometimes pray during night –when she is worry- and wanted me to hold her hand during her pray. I use to do it. She believes that it is energy that we built together and I’m the type of pantheist that also believes in such energy.

It is the social environment & culture that recreates our religious believes, rituals and dogmas. But persons and families have the chance to adopt and adapt them to their specific family tradition. It is with family consent that we do such adoption and adaptation. This is the case of Christmas holyday for instance, our Christ is not while with blue eyes, our camels & kinds don’t come from the ME, we use Incas and llamas, vicuñas and Alpaca ornaments.  We do love to dance after eating  the turkey and we hare best memories of the year the funny ones, we all family enjoyed. We don’t pray before eating as some Christians does, but we don’t matter if someone does it in our house. 

Religious difference is not a problem at all, to have or not have religion does not matter. Religion is not a source of ethics at all, the worst horrible crimes in human history has been committed by religious people and it continue be the case. We do believe in ethics without dogmas.

Religion is a customs malleable and we accepted that way. If a priest goes to the Andes where quechua people live, they better bring his wife and kids if they want to have authority to talk about family matters, or women and children. Many priests like this tradition and bishops and cardinals make a blind eye on it. Of course they preferred so instead of pedophilia and the barbary of hundreds  of fetuses found in the secret passages that connected temples with convents in Arequipa, Peru.

Religion is a cultural matter and we lucky and happy to have a multi-cultural society.  We wish the same for all nations, including Iranian, where I have very nice friends. And SALUD to them with the wine from Iran that we can find it here, not in Iran, my friend said. It is good to drink it with jam, I said. He didn’t want to eat it. It stands to reason, not good jam.

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NOTE:

I’m tempted to get some money for Nazanin Armanian –the Iranian-Spanish writer to whom I admire for her clarity & courage- I want she come to visit the “land of the freedom”.. there are some freedoms here that cost to common people a lot-of  life to achieve it.. but more important than  “freedoms” here..  is the beautiful people in this country. They cannot be blamed for the “phobias” and horrible crimes committed by owners of big corp and crook millionaires.  Paloma San Basilio –the Spanish singer- have a song on this matter “America tiene Amores”. America has it. I’am one of them. I love this nation as much as I love my original country, Perú.  Nazanin may like America too and perhaps the red wine originally from Iran, now produced in Spain .. I promise I will get the ex-Iranian wine & good jam for her, if and only if she wants to eat it. My specialty is fish, salmon, that I cooked at a Russian style, as a lady taught me when rented a room in my house, with red wine is so delicious. If she say YES to my invitation I will write to Soros, he like freedom in journalism and I guess he will be happy to pay her round trip ticket from Spain to the US. I personally disagree with Soros political views , but philanthropy has nothing to do with politics. Ethics is a branch from philosophy, not from politics and nobody cares if E. Kant like or disliked the German politicians of his time.

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