There is a group of people in Europe, mainly in Germany but now also active in The Netherlands that is called ‘Pegida’, which stands for ‘Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of The West (Des Abenlandes, in German).
Their discourse is super racist and discriminatory. Anyone involved with that group and the like is utterly insane in my humble opinion. They basically are saying: “We are white, we were here first, we have our culture based on Christianity and whatever you do and whoever you are, please fuck yourself, and get lost to where you belong”. End of discussion.
They are scared, they are intolerant to anything that is different, they are so-called Patriotic, they are for a boring monoculture with only potatoes and sausage from pork. And drink beer, and get fat, and stay stupid.
Sorry, I am upset. I don’t have any other words for that particular group of people feeding fear, aggression, segregation, racism, and discrimination into very diverse societies.
They are provoking, pissing people off, stepping on other people’s toes, well, no, not stepping, jackhammering is a better description. They get their media attention with their arrogant and selfish actions. They are ‘allowed’ to organise and to send a message in the name of free speech.
But, oh dear! Whole societies start jumping up when Muslims organise and spread their message. And I am not talking about the terrorist groups or terrorist allied people at all! That’s a whole different category. I am talking about Muslims, you know, people, who have their jobs, go to school, attend universities, go out, have fun, and currently are fasting in this month of Ramadan. You know, that overwhelming large group of people who don’t harm, who blend in, who you don’t see or hear.
Of course, there are some low-level street bullies, uneducated, not willing to live according to societies’ norms and values who are making life difficult. That’s a society problem, not an Islam problem.
Muslims in many European countries purposely, through institutions, are being marginalised, are being shut off, are being discouraged from participating in society. They are denied higher education, better-paid jobs because of their looks, their names, and their religion. There are so many prejudices against Muslims, so much fake news and even if there is a Muslim telling, like, hey wait a minute that’s not entirely true, being humble as we can be, then we are getting a shitstorm of violent arguments over our heads, and we are the bad guys anyway.
Muslims are not the antagonist! Pegida-pigs are! It is not that all the Muslims in Europe (8,1% in countries with the highest Muslim density in the West and 0.1% as lowest) are bad and are pro arms chopping off, etc! Still, Pegida believes that all Muslims in western Europe are violent and conservative and the Islamic version of the Christian KKK. Well. No. The Hanbali school is 15% of all the Sunni Muslims (mainly in Saudi Arabia). They take the Islam literary as it is written in the Quran, but 85% of the Sunni Muslims follow a different school in which the outlook on the Quran is very different! But, as the Pegida-pigs don’t know that and are that ignorant to put all of us under the same denominator, they are harming more than they are aiming for.
Why I call them Pegida-Pigs?
That’s why. Some silly looking people with a pig head as brian. That intelligent they are. Well, I prefer seeing a good-looking woman wearing a hijab!
These are the faces, your neighbours, your community members who are touring around major cities in the Netherlands to have a Pig Barbeque in front of a Mosque, during Ramadan, our holy month, at the evening prayers when we are breaking our fast. How lovely. Well done, bravo, excellent action and congratulations how you are showing your stupidity. (Read about it here for the Dutchies)
I used to grow up in a world in which we were taught to at least be tolerant, to at least talk to your neighbour, to at least agree to disagree, to at least be open for differences, to at least show compassion and move forward for all of us, so everyone got a piece of the economic-growth-pie-of-the-1990ies.
What Pegida and the like do is pure evil racism, and that is dangerous; it is harming streets, communities, societies and, no, people don’t leave the Netherlands for it. I did. But not because of them, though, I am glad to be 10.000 km away from those pigs.
But, as it is Ramadan, a spiritual and religious journey, to pray, to fast, and to embrace all the good Islam can bring, I cannot be angry at them forever. I know only in part, I cannot judge, I cannot look in their homes to understand their fears and the ultimate question: why they would use their human capacity to do harm while so much good can be done as well.
We need to talk. Come together, sit down, eat good food (yes you can have your pork if you want to) and learn through experience to discover that we all are human who all have the same wishes. Living life without fear and living with dignity are already two of them.
Daniel Arendzen 