Crazy religious beliefs can be very strong motivators. IMO we all *NEED* to gain an understanding of things like this, including the motivations.
Let me start of by saying I never thought I’d be sharing a story this personal on a public detailing site but I’ve come to know that it’s much more than that. What we have here is a community that I appreciate and respect (a home away from home for me).
YES, Accumulator we need to gain more of an understanding!
Some years ago I worked as a manager for a tech support company with 300+ people fresh off the boat from Afghanistan, Syria, and Algeria (etc.). People from these countries have been flooding into Montreal since before 9/11 (mainly after) and I took it as an opportunity to get to know more about their culture, religious beliefs, and motivation (I mainly thought it would help me become a better manager, at the time).
It wasn`t long before they started hitting me with their propaganda, first about my beliefs (I`m not religious and they found that very threatening), then about my American citizenship (many despised that I thought of myself as American), and lastly about my belief in evolution (as none believed in it). I was appalled at the level of brainwashing these people had been subjected to. Anything I showed them they condemned because it wasn`t Muslim. They truly believed that I was just trying to assimilate them. That’s when things turned hostile and one told me "if you were in my country I`d kill you". Most people would take this deeply personally but I didn’t because he was lost and clearly had more to say. I took it as an opportunity to learn about the ones that hate us most for no logical reason, so I offered the guy a ride home and he accepted, oddly. On our ride I ask him why he had said that to me and he proceeded to tell me the story of his terrible childhood growing up in Afghanistan. His parents were murdered by Soviets when he was only 8 years old. He was trained to fight by 9 years old and was taught to work in the fields growing poppies (there`s a lot of detail I`m leaving out here). He started to cry and asked me to pull over so he could get out, I apologized for any offense I may have caused and he said my only offense was my ignorance to what`s happening to other people and how I could just laugh and be happy not knowing. He never returned to work, and I never saw him again.
Unfortunately the majority of people from these countries just outright hate us. To such an extent I don`t mention that I`m American to some people because it sparks anger and distrust.
I will say this, not all of them were like this but the ones that weren`t kept to them self’s for fear of being singled out and did not speak with me openly. Only a very few (foreign) devout Muslims have ever confided in me so I`ve only seen the tip of the ice burg. Just to get the story straight this "hate" didn`t have to do with religion or nationality it was mostly what I`d consider "brain washing/mental conditioning" done over decades while we focused our efforts elsewhere. It’s their society that gets exploded and used to manipulate them that’s what makes it hard to paint a target, they’re like zebra stripes to a lion (I know the Zebra thing is a myth but you get what I’m saying).
Another important point about our ignorance of their culture became obvious to me when the city of Toronto commissioned a Muslim artist to paint a mural but he painted a Jihad (apparently a holy war against non-Muslims). No one realized what it said/meant at first, but it wasn`t long until someone wrote into the news. I think Toronto should keep it up as a reminder of their objective and as a symbol of what to look out for in their culture. It`s also a reminder of how much these extremist have already infiltrated us and are exploiting the freedoms in our culture.
I`m so sorry for all the lives lost in Orlando, it`s truly a tragedy. It`s deeply saddening and terrible.
