Thursday Doors – February 2, 2017

Québec City – How My Heart Aches

Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time), by using the blue link-up button below. 

I warn you now that this is not going to be one of my typical #ThursdayDoors posts.

#ThursdayDoors is meant to be fun but I’m sorry friends, this week I’m not feeling it.

If you’re wondering why the pics below look familiar, it’s because I have posted all of them previously.

I’m reposting these shots showing some of the beauty of Québec City, in contrast to the ugliness we saw there this past weekend 😦

Through the doors we post here, we show and discover places we find interesting; places that are dear to us, places of historical, cultural, architectural or artistic beauty and significance. Places that are worth shining a light on.

I promise I’ll get back to that next week, but right now I’m having a helluva time processing recent events here.

If you haven’t heard, Evil reared it’s ugly head much closer to home than we’re used to in our part of the world.

Of course we do have crime here too: murders, robberies, rape, domestic violence, drugs and organized crime, just like everywhere else.

But compared to many parts of the world, crime rates are lower in Canada. Take Québec City for example. Our provincial capital, located a little less than a 3-hour drive from where I live, has a population of about 550,000. It is considered one of the safest small cities in North America, having registered a grand total of two murders since 2015.

Until this past Sunday night that is, when a deranged individual became unhinged enough to march into a suburban Québec City Mosque with guns and began firing indiscriminately at people.

Dozens were injured and up to now six have died. Fathers that will never go home to their families, shot in the back while they prayed.

The individual who was arrested and charged is a twenty-seven-year-old white French Canadian male; not a Moroccan immigrant as was previously and incorrectly reported by some news agencies.

Sadly we see terror attacks and hate crimes like this or worse on the international news almost every day.

It’s always ‘somewhere else’ isn’t it?

We feel a sense of sadness for the innocent victims of course, but it’s kind of detached no? I mean, just look at where it’s happening: Karachi, Mumbai, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Baghdad… yes it’s terrible what a few deranged, brainwashed individuals can do, “But you know ‘these places’…well they’re known for this stuff.”

But then Paris, Brussels, Charleston, Orlando..say what now?

Québec City – WHAT THE FUCK!?

The sad truth is that it takes a horrific event close to home before it finally registers and sinks in: Evil has no nationality.

It has no favorite religion, no preferred language, culture, or race.

No one group has a monopoly on Evil. Over the course of human history some individuals have exhibited an acute ability when it comes to Evil behavior, but make no mistake, it is a ubiquitous disease of the human mind and the human soul that knows no borders.

Like any disease Evil spreads when we do not take the necessary steps to prevent it.

It propagates itself  on the wings of microbes like fear, ignorance, mistrust, hatred, racism, and intolerance.

When we jump to conclusions or make negative assumptions that label entire groups of people, not only do we do ourselves a disservice, we disrespect those ‘others’ who are really just people trying to get through life – just like us. But most importantly we also spread a little more fear, ignorance, and mistrust out into the world.

We all do it, or we’ve all done it at one time or another – I know I have; unfairly forming negative generalized stereotypical impressions of others based on any number of our differences – skin tone, sex, age, nationality, language, sexuality, education level, socioeconomic standing, religion, occupation, political affiliation, appearance, how they dress…shall I go on?

When our political leaders are so hungry for power that they toss aside their moral compasses in favor of the rhetoric of ‘them versus us’ identity politics, we all lose.

True leaders lead by example. Scoring political capital by pitting people against each other is cowardly and downright reprehensible, and judging by the social and political climate we see around the globe, it’s catching on too.

We need to demand better of our leaders and of ourselves, because we all deserve it, and because our collective well-being and survival as a species depends on it.

We’re all human. We make mistakes. In stressful situations we make snap decisions about others, say things that we regret, and pass judgment without seeing the whole story or the whole person.

But when we allow those negative impressions to turn into ongoing systematic intolerance, discrimination, and hatred – for those deranged, unstable, impressionable individuals whose minds are infected by this Evil, the line between right and wrong disappears and acts of horrific violence and cruelty become downright justifiable.

Right now I am angry and I am hurt. In the aftermath of this event, the mean-spirited, outrageously racist, ignorant comments, and deliberately incorrect statements shared by so many on social media are truly disheartening.

I am upset that so many people who should know better, people who have so much and came by it so easily relative to the rest of the world, could give in to their basest fears and show such resentment towards others for committing the terrible sin of simply being different from them.

For those small minded people who spew venom, resentment, and hatred towards others online insisting on their right to ‘express their opinions’ here are some examples:

“I love chocolate.”

“I hate brussels sprouts.”

Those are opinions you fucking idiot!

They are based on personal firsthand knowledge and experience and they use actual quantifiable data and provable facts.

Chocolate tastes good, makes me feel good, and makes me smile.

I find brussels sprouts watery, they leave a bitter aftertaste in my mouth, and they make my pee smell funny.

However if you find yourself saying things like:

You know black people are…this…

And all Muslims…that…

Yeah but Jews are always…

See a pattern here?

Those are not opinions, those are generalizations. They are based on prejudice, ignorance, and when they are negative, a desire to devalue or dehumanize others, often to compensate for one’s own perceived shortcomings.

Unless you’ve actually met and spoken to ALL black people, or ALL Muslims, or ALL whoever you choose to malign, when you make proclamations like this you are simply proving to the world that you are a racist! Not to mention a pretty pathetic human being.

The annual Québec City winter carnival starts this week, though I suspect this year it won’t be as festive as previous ones.

People are funny that way; they tend to have a difficult time having fun when they see Evil flourishing around them.

Now somebody please, click on the blue button below and show me some of the beauty in this world. I know there’s lots of it out there; I’m just having trouble seeing it at the moment.

Thanks for putting up with this rant, I’ll be back to normal next week 🙂

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