Another brick in the wall

After the release of the movie Fitna, made by Mr. Wilders who is a member of the Dutch parlement, I was a bit shocked by the way of portraying Muslims in this movie. Mr. Wilders used old news footage like the famous 9/11 images in conjunction with verses of the Koran to"warn" the Dutch for the danger of Muslims. Like every Muslim would be a terrorist (happens to be that most terrorists now a day seems to be Muslim, but that doesn't mean that this is also the truth the other way around).
After the release Mr. Wilders announced to be ready to have dialogue with the general Dutch public. Including the Muslims who live in the Netherlands. But what happend? Mr. Wilders was invited to come in a tv-show to have dialogue with the audiance. He declined and sent a party member to tell in this show the official view of Mr.Wilders and the party. This party is called PVV, Partij Voor de Vrijheid (Party For Freedom). For those amongst you who are not knowing who Mr. Wilders is, Mr. Wilders is an extremist and anti-Muslim. I think you could qualify him as the kind of party leader like Adolf Hitler, Mussolini or any other right winged dictator history provided us.
This man really scares the hell out of me. Why? I can't give you a simple answer to that. Let's keep it to the fact that at least some people actualy learned from the past. When I hear this man speech, I get images of the movies The Wall (Pink Flloyd) and The Wave in my thoughts. I guess those who are old enough to remember those movies know what I'm talking about. We all have seen happening this before. In the past it where the Jews who had done it, now it's the Muslims, who's next? The Buddhists?
When people don't know their neighbors and don't know the culture of these people, it's very easy to see them as a danger to you. But when you start talking to them, respect them as a human being and see them as such, you often find out that other cultures are in many ways similar to ours. They believe in the same gods, have the same interests, are nice and friendly, love food in the same way as we do even discuss the same issues as we do. They are just like us and that is scary. People are people no matter what they believe in, look like or eat. It doesn't matter what color your skin is, underneath that skin we all look the same. Our blood is red and without skin all tissue is red and pink.
In my personal past I had Muslim, Jewish and Christian friends. We often discussed religion and we came to the same conclusion each and every time. No matter which Holy book we read or to who we prayed, God, Allah or Jaweh, They all are 1 and the same God we prayed to each day. Even our Holy books are, for most parts, the same. So why we say that we're so different? Our answer was fear for the other person. The other one looked funny, talked another language, ate other things or just didn't prayed in the same way as we did. But we all believed in the same God(s).
Yesterday evening I was watching the movie "wind talkers" about the Navajo code talkers who the military used during the 2nd WW in both the Pacific as in the European theater. At one point one of the code talkers is confronted by some redneck marine that he looks Japanese and that the only difference between being a good guy and being the ad guy was the uniform he wore. At first this Navajo is frustrated and angry about it but later he uses this point to the advantage of the marines when he saves them from friendly fire by imposing a Japanese soldier and by doing this, he's able to get to the radioset of the Japanese positions and directing the fire on to those positions. Thus saving his mates lives. After this his friend saves the same marine who discriminated earlier from being killed. This redneck marine changed his point of view after that. Telling that he was tought that killing Native-Americans wasn't a bad thing and that his grandfathers were payed to do so and that he feld ashamed of his ignorance. He simple didn't know better till he started to know some Native-Americans himself.
If one man can change his point of view by experiencing how the other is like, why can't we then? it only takes a friendly word and a well meant smile and some time to know each other. Once you know each others customs and way of living, even if we disagree on it, it's much easier to understand one another.
Think about it, Nichiren Daisonin, and before him Shakyamuni, told us the same things. When we are as one in mind, many in body we can truly live together as one big family.
Greetz,
André