Prison camps for Americans

What has happened to this world since 911? According to the powers that be it has become a very dangerous place to live in. We need all kinds of protection and all the measures put into place for our own peace of mind and sense of security. If we have to fly now, we need to be triple checked, our luggage is not only x-rayed; certain items needs to be placed in clear for everyone to see bags. Liquids have restriction in size and I wonder what is happening to all those nail clippers, scissors and sharp items that get confiscated everyday at security checkpoints in airports around the world?

Then we have more and more security cameras going up, people’s private lies is not private anymore. Our e-mails, voice conversations and money transactions are checked and intercepted for any “terror activities”. Expect these treatments if you are one of the “good” citizens, the treatment for “bad” ones are much worse. They get to go to prison camps without any trails or any opportunity to proof their innocence. There they will be subjected to all kind of torture methods; psychological and physical. After many years of this treatment they will surprisingly “confess” to their “terrorist” deeds and “evil” plans to the world news media after a special military court case.

Now expect this sort of treatment if you are a second rate world citizen. You see, for some reason the media will place more importance on the lives of “western people”. The number of Americans dying in their invasion of Iraq will be televised on a daily basis, the number of Iraqi’s dying will never be told. The same is happening in the Israeli conflict with its neighbors. If an Israeli soldier is kidnapped in a foreign country, they will destroy that country, killing hundreds of people as witnessed in Lebanon recently.

So what will make people say they don’t accept the treatment of war prisoners in Guantanamo Bay? How is it possible that in the 21 century; America can have prison camps and torture people? I thought places like the United Nations are there to prevent these kinds of things from happening. Why are all the governments of the world quiet on these matters? Are they all in on this; agreeing to the treatment of these people?

Maybe the world will react differently if it was Americans being held in prison camps. How would the world react if American soldiers were held in prison camps without trial and tortured in Iraq or Afghanistan for their war crimes? Maybe people are silent about places like Guantanamo Bay, because it doesn’t affect them. Maybe people believe the government’s stories. That the “bad” people are out there, they happen to be of a different race and religion. Because they are “second rate citizens” and labeled as “terrorists”; do they deserve this kind of treatment?

The risk with this view is, that maybe one day you might not agree with your government, maybe one day you will be labeled a terrorist for your disagreement, maybe one day you will find yourself at a “Guantanamo Bay”. Will other people then care about you? Will you expect other people, the UN and news media to stand up for your rights? When something like this happens to any of you out there, then I hope that there are others like me writing about it!

Fundamentalism Christianity in Sport

This weekend’s Final of the Super 14 rugby showed how extreme people’s view of religion can be. After the game most (if not all) of the winning team members commented that they want to thank God for their victory.

I need to ask the question, what made them think that God decided they should be victorious over their competitors? Were they better men? Did their God favour them over their competitors? Were their competitors’ bad people? Did their competitors sin against this God to favour the winning team? What if they have lost the game? Would they have blamed their God for the loss?

Then a player from the winning team was wearing a white shirt with the words; “Jesus is King” written on it. While the other team members appeared in their rugby jerseys during the trophy presentation, this one team member proudly made sure his white shirt was available for all the TV cameras and photographers to see.

If the same guy was wearing the words; “Allah is the Lord” or “Praise to Mohammed” or “Satan is King” or “911 was an inside job” or “Impeach Bush for the lies told”…etc, would he have been allowed to wear that t-shirt during the televised Super 14 rugby trophy presentation?

Somehow I think if he was any other religion or wanted to make any controversial statement or alternative religious view; he would have been prevented from wearing it. If he had a pro-Islam message, he would have most likely been told not to display his religious views. Some people would most likely then have labeled him as a terrorist with extreme religious views.

Why was this player allowed to wear a t-shirt with blatant pro-Christianity advertising on the field? It made me really sad to see this happening. I can imagine this player having no feelings of empathy or compassion towards anyone else’s view and he felt the need to enforce his own religious view upon others. It was a sad day for sport to see religious “scoring” being used (and abused) by fundamentalist Christians.