During the weekend someone set fire to Peterborough’s sole mosque.
Police are investigating the arson as a hate crime and while there is no proof it was some kind of response to the horror that unfolded in Paris last Friday that it took place the following day seems to place it outside the realm of coincidence.
A message to the misguided arsonist or arsonists: Know that while you somehow think you are fighting against those responsible for the attacks in the Paris you are actually letting them win.
You are letting them win because this is exactly what they want. Fear chaos and destruction.
While the terrorist group that took credit for the Paris attack is called the Islamic State it has nothing to do with Islam.
Islam like the world’s other major religions teaches peace love and acceptance.
ISIS which is a relatively small group of mainly deranged and brainwashed young men is as representative of Islam as hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Westboro Baptist Church are of Christianity.
If you are reading this and you don’t know that you are letting them win.
If you are uneducated enough on the crisis that’s been unfolding in Syria for the past five years that you cannot distinguish refugees from terrorists and you cannot trust your own country’s screening process then you are letting them win.
Innocent men women and children are being slaughtered. They cannot go home because they no longer have homes to go to.
Syrian refugees are not terrorists. They are running from terrorists.
If Canada a country that likes to pride itself for being “strong and free” closes its doors to Syrian refugees if it lets a small group of people with vile hate and death in their hearts begin to dictate its policy then it is letting them win.
Because this is what they want. They want us all scared paranoid and suspicious of the other. They want us spewing uneducated vitriol at people who have done nothing wrong. They want us setting places of worship on fire.
Responding to their hate with hate is exactly what they want. That’s the whole idea.
If you can’t see that you are letting them win.
