ABC primetime had a very interesting and moving segment tonight. It was a social experiment taking place in a bakery. A Muslim woman (ABC’s actor) dressed with a head dress wanted to buy something and the clerk (also ABC’s actor) was refusing her on the grounds that she was a terrorist, non-american and was being insulting. Here is the interesting part as they did experiment several times: 22 customers said nothing, 6 sided with the clerk and 13 stepped up and defended the customer.
As I watching this, it certainly saddened me to see ignorance and/or indifference when a human being is treated that way. It also reminded of a more tragic fact. In this case, let’s assume the by standers were apathetic or sided with the clerk because of ignorance and understood all Muslims to be terrorists because of the actions of a few rotten eggs. At least they had ignorance or being misinformed to blame it on.
What about all the Baha’is in Iran who have been and are being terrorized in countless ways? How can recognition of mankind to be one and wanting to unite all the people and races of the world possibly be used as a reason for persecution, imprisoning and killing? Further, how can this be justified to systematically vilify and subject innocent children to cruel treatment??
At least when I grew up in Iran, the government just expelled me from primary school (for being a Baha’i) and that was the end of it, rather than now humiliating and ostracizing in different ways before expelling.
Make no mistake, this is not prejudice. This is certainly not ignorance. This is nothing other than systematic attempts to eliminate human rights, and force people to stop believing in oneness of mankind, oneness of God and oneness of religion.
