Saturday, November 29, 2008

What is Wrong With you People?

I'm sure you're all familiar with this sort of story:

Mecca pilgrims trample hundreds

At the Haj pilgrimage in Mecca each year, there is a ritual in which people throw stones at a pillar that represents the devil. But the proceedings often get out of hand, and the mob of stone throwers start trampling each other to death. At the 2001 Haj, 35 pilgrims were killed in a stampede, and in 2003, 14 more were trampled. The Moslems regard such horrors as God's will.
When I read about this, more often than I'd like, I'm revolted at the disgusting nature of humanity. People gather together to celebrate something they consider beautiful, spiritual and sacred, then they go fucking nuts and start killing each other. I wonder... What possesses people to push, to shove, to force their fellow humans to the ground, not even out of angry, but out of pure frenzy? How can they, with total, empty, disgraceful disregard, step on another man's face TO DEATH? How can they not notice the jaw cracking in half, the teeth chipping, the eyes popping, the blood welling up under their soles from the torn flesh of their fellow man? I can understand if they're fleeing a burning nightclub, or fighting a war, but when they are gathered together in peace, in brotherhood, how in God's name can this happen? Muslims must really, truly be savages...

But wait, it's not only Muslims, is it?

A human stampede occurred on September 30, 2008, at the Chamunda Devi temple in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India, in which 249 people were killedand more than 400
injured. The 15th-century temple is dedicated to the goddess Chamunda Devi and is located within the premises of Mehrangarh Fort.

About 25,000 Hindu pilgrims were visiting the temple to mark the first day of the nine day long Navratri, a major festival in Hinduism dedicated to Goddess worship and celebrated across the world.
Sick.

Aren't Hindus supposed to be peaceful, spending their time in mediation and oneness with the universe? They're not crazy and bloodthirsty like the Muslims, the desert savages, the backwards scapegoats of the 21st century. Maybe it's not about Hindus or Muslims or Christians - maybe it's about all religions. Maybe it's the passion, the excitement, the ferocity of people's love for God that carries them away to a state where they're not able to understand that they're trampling their neighbors to death.

Actually, no. A quick search on Google reveals not one single incidence of any sort of barbaric stampede or trampling at any Christian holy site. Nothing in the Vatican, nothing at Mary's house (here in Turkey), nothing even at any of the shrines down in South America. Clearly, the problem is with the rest of the world - the crazy Indians, the savage Arabs, the barbaric Africans - they just can't control themselves, they can't surpress their basest insticts when their simple brains enter into in a mad, instinctual, animal rush toward their paganistic idols. The poor fools...

On the AP wire today:

A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of
shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning,
witnesses said.

The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

“He was bum-rushed by 200 people,” said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. “They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too…I literally had to fight people off my back.”

…Before police shut down the store, eager shoppers streamed past emergency crews as they worked furiously to save the store clerk’s
life.

“They were working on him, but you could see he was dead, said
Halcyon Alexander, 29. “People were still coming through.”

Only a few stopped.

“They’re savages,” said shopper Kimberly Cribbs, 27. “It’s sad.
It’s terrible.”