In Continuum.

Mr. Yossef is a Muslim, while his wife is a Jewish and a Christian Orthodox who migrated to America from Czehchoslovakia a few decades ago. They are registered citizens of America, raised three children who went to American schools over the past three decades, and have been living next to an Amish community for an equally long period of time. They, like any other registered American, have the right to their own opinions and their own right to vote. They have just as much right as anybody in the country to vote for the next president of the United States, and yet this was found in their front yard one morning - a swastika spray-painted onto the Obama sign they own. More than just the fact that Obama is black, it seems to have been targeted at Maria and Kamal, who is a Jewish and a Muslim respectively. You'd think that in the twenty-first century, such things would not occur in a "civilized" country like America. It's America after all, and it is supposed to be the role model for the rest of the country, right? 

Something has been bugging me ever since this morning when I saw a couple of videos over at Huffington Post. It's not exactly the most objective source of information, but videos can't exactly lie now can they? Before I get to the videos I saw this morning that deeply disturbed me, I remember that other day when Felicia's car drove by a mini-van on the expressway with a giant swastika sign on top of the dashboard. There isn't anything wrong with a swastika sign, there really isn't. It is supposed to symbolize victory, prosperity and good luck in many world religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. In truth, though, this symbol actually dates back all the way into the Neolithic ages, and not something that is the brainchild of Hitler. What he did was to paint the swastika black, tilt the sign a little, placed it in the middle of a white circle and then placed the circle on top of a sea of red. Then everything related to his party, the Nazis, had that symbol, and we all know what they did to the Jews and the homosexuals in the 1940s. That is also why it has been misunderstood to be a symbol of racism, or racial hatred. That, the Nazi version of the swastika, was also the one that the driver of the van used. I really should have taken a picture and sent it to Failblog.com, what a failed opportunity. Epic fail, on my part. 

I suppose he didn't exactly know the differences between the original swastika and the one the Nazis used. He probably just thought that it looked neat in his windscreen, or was a deeply religious and stupid person at the very same time. Either way, it was amusing and strange to see that sign, the Nazi version, being paraded around a country like Singapore. It's Singapore after all, the epitome of racial harmony. We even have a day for racial harmony in Singapore, and every major holidays in this country has a theme for racial harmony one way or another. You see indian kids, chinese kids, malay kids, all dancing and singing together during the National Day parade, and you are never going to see an uniformed skin color in any column of the marching contingent. It is all planned, and for a good reason too. If there is one thing that I applaud what the local government has done, it'd be how they've successfully created a society whereby people of different skin-colors are living peacefully together. You see indian families hanging out with caucasian families, and both families hanging out with chinese families downstairs on weekends. I don't suppose it gets any clearer than this - Singapore is the pinnacle of racial harmony. 

But racism is still a problem in many countries, and a bigger problem if the country thinks that they are free from the grasp of it. If you can see and hear the problem, no matter how serious it is, you can find a way to solve it if you try hard enough. But when a problem is inherited, when realizing the problem also means that you are already too late in realizing it in the first place, you have a great big problem. Demographically speaking, America may be the most culturally diverse country around, and it is definitely ranked up there when it comes to the racial composition. I mean, when you have a state in your country with more hispanic people than all the other races, you know that your country is where all the immigrants are going to. With that said, however, that does not necessarily mean that America is also the most racially harmonious country around. You cannot exactly blame the country or the government for the state that it is in now, it's just more difficult to govern a country that is also a continent at the very same time. I think racism is very much alive in the American society, though I haven't had that thought before today. You see, they always say that competition can bring out the best in people. Can we not also say that competition brings out the worst in people? I believe strongly in that, and a part of me just want this election to end as soon as possible. 

I believe that humans are all racist, in a way, to varying degrees. Some of us were probably taught to hate a certain race, while some of us were probably conditioned to think that they are less than us, that we are more superior. This ethnocentric view of the world doesn't necessary need to be the result of socialization, of conditioning, but it could exist within us naturally. My mother was telling me the other day about how she used to bring me downstairs for a swim, during the first days I was in Singapore. I was five years old, and I've just came from Taiwan, unaware of many things in this world. Yet, when an indian boy jumped into the swimming pool, I jumped out from the other side and refused to go back in, because I didn't want to share the pool with a dark-skinned person. My mother was confused back then, and I am very confused about it myself right now. Nobody taught me to be a little racist boy back then, my mother certainly doesn't have any grudges against members of another race. The fact that, as a young boy, I ran away from that indian kid just makes me think about how racism could be inside all of us, one way or another. I truly believe in that idea, though, I think we all grow a little wary of members of the a different gender that we do not know very well.

I admit it, even now, I am more careful when I am going home late at night, and the foreign workers around my house are gathering in groups around me. I grab onto my bag a little tighter, or I am on a higher alert in my head, ready to make a dash or put up a fight. Of course, nothing has happened so far, and I am thankful for that. In fact, those foreign workers seem to be the nicest bunch of foreign workers I have ever met, seeing how they treat the members of the public with so much care and respect around the construction site. Despite that, I cannot help but label some of them as being "potentially dangerous" at times, since my friend was assaulted in a lift a few years ago by the same group of people. Still, I do not consider myself as being racist-racist, if you know what I mean. I do not put on high white hats and burn crosses, nor do I jump out of swimming pools whenever an indian boy jumps in. In fact, some of my best friends are malays and indians right now, and I have no problems with them whatsoever. When you live in such a diverse society, you get used to seeing deeper into a person, and the skin-color then slowly dissipates. You overlook what is on the skin, and you look deeper into their hearts and souls. 

But this election thing in America, this whole thing about Obama being black and "supposedly muslim", what happened America? These people are the same group of people that make me lose faith in humanity as a whole, and it further perpetuates my theory that we are going to be the death of our own. The videos below were filmed outside a McCain and Palin rally, and you can't help but feel disgusted and repulsed at the things that they are saying. Some of them are basing their judgments on him just because he might have been brought up in a muslim school, while others are calling him a potential terrorist because he "has the blood line". FIrst of all, I have many muslim friends, and they are just like all the other friends that I know, if not better. In truth, I feel that the essence of Islam is just peaceful and calming, and not all Muslims are terrorists. You can't help but stare at these ignorant bigots in disbelief, thinking that they all have the right to vote and the ability to pro-create. All of them have the ability to give birth to the next generation of racist little children, to be brought up as racist little teenagers, and then turn into idiotic yokels just like their parents. It is a vicious cycle, this rage and hate in a country that is supposed to be "modern" and "civilized". What happened, America? 

These Obama haters scare me, they really do. It just feel as if we are in the dark ages, and I am half expecting them to fish out their torches and their pitchforks soon. These people are talking about killing Obama, calling him a "Communist", and then some of them are also spreading racist things about him all over the country. That was probably the motive behind the vandalism shown above, the big fat swastika on his campaign sign. These imbeciles are going to have the same right to vote just like everybody else, and they are also responsible for the 20% or so supporters of Bush right now. These people should really have their own country, or their own planet for that matter, and they can kill each other with their racial hate while they are at it. Seriously, if our species is the best that a superior being can do, I am not impressed. Just look at this mob, look at the way McCain is stirring up this racial hate and then using them to push his campaign forward. On one hand I really want Obama to win the elections, on the other I know that it is seriously going to cause a great racial divide in America when he wins. People like these idiots are going to spread their ideologies even further, their backwards thinking, and everybody is going to move only backwards. 

It's just sad, it really is. The way that humans label something innocent as being the epitome of evil for no apparent reasons at all. Something as innocent as a swastika sign could become a symbol that we all grow to hate and fear, while someone like Obama could be labeled as being a "terrorist" just because he is black, or a muslim. I don't want to say that I hate these people, that they should be wiped out from the fact of this earth. That would make me in league of their narrow-minded worldview, their ancient views of the society that are irrelevant in today's context. I shall just sit here, be amused by how stupid the substantial part of the American population is, and then feel sad for the human race. It further supports the point that human beings are stupid, the majority of us, how we become so easily brainwashed and manipulated. People don't stop and think just how crazy they sound. At the end of the day, most humans are never going to understand both sides of the coin, the dual-meaning behind the swastika and what it actually symbolizes. People are always going to have an one-sided view of things, a narrow perspective, and you can't help but give up on trying to save the world. Because really, sometimes when you think about it, with people like that amidst our ranks, the world really isn't worth saving after all.