Spot'd(evelopment)

two things: that anti-islamist video ‘Fitna’ and an internship in Kabul.

A former program director relayed on a message from his former student, there is an opening for an internship in development based in Kabul, Afghanistan for 2 months. I am tempted, and if only I can figure out what I could do to my ongoing degree in the 2 months that I am gone I would send in my application in a heartbeat. The prospect is exciting, though I wouldn’t have any inkling how I would eventually break the news to my parents. It is not the safety there that worries me so much, rather causing unnecessary worry to my parents.

An internship in Kabul would still be absolutely awesome.

On to the second topic, I just saw the much talked about ‘Fitna’ video on youtube. Of course such a movie is bound to provoke all sorts of reaction in my mind, for being a Muslim myself, I thought the portrayal of Islam and images used as representation of my beliefs was awful, disgusting, ethnocentric, and completely biased. I can sit here all night and write out all the debates that are going on in my head at the moment.

Yet when I saw one of the images of a man speaking segregating the differences between Jews and Muslims, it made me think of the causes of such a reaction. Could it be perhaps the classic story of the repressed retaliating against a supreme global power? Could it be an injustice undocumented towards Islam, and more closely his family that had resulted in this big insurgent of reaction.

It made me think, what had caused the woman to the voice that taught the 3 year old girl to think of Jews as apes and pigs. What drove her to do so? A reason that we can never understand or a mere blind faith of accepting what others told her when she was younger?

It made me think, development when left to reach such unequal heights becomes fertile breeding grounds for radical mentality. And do you blame them so? I don’t. Far from saying that it is okay to teach prejudices to 3 years children, I do not think the blame should be painted into such an ugly picture as that movie. There are other better ways to speak your mind, your opinions and your thoughts. Creating your own brand of prejudice is not one of them.