Long ago, I escaped from what I had abhorred for as far back as I could remember while growing up in Japan. Violence.
It was perpetrated against my mother by my own father. Except for once, his violence was never directed against me. Yet, observing violence, I grew up with a deep sense of anger – first toward the perpetrator, followed by just about everything else in life. Once reaching adulthood, even though I lived as far away from that unbearable environment, it took a few decades before violent thoughts finally began to subside from my head. This is what repeated violence does to an indirect victim of violence, such as myself. I cannot begin to fathom how anyone can cope when being the direct target of violence – as you see in “Escaping ISIS.”
The documentary aired on Frontline on July 14, 2015. What ISIS is doing to Yazidis is no different than what Nazi Germany did to Jews or what Japanese military did to whomever they considered enemies.
Violence is a cancer of humanity. More often than not, it is multi-generational. My only brother, who grew up in the same household, and still lives in Japan, made a conscious decision not to have children so as to stem the tide of violence in the family.
Theocracy is a system of government in which priests rule in the name of God or a god. Theocracy is a bad idea for humanity. That is precisely why, in the U.S., there is a separation of church and state. Those who are born into a theocratic society are inculcated to believe, erroneously, that the so-called “enemy” is evil. Most of them do not realize that they are being manipulated.
Not too long after the U.S. black ships tried to pry open Japan for trade in 1853, Japan quickly developed its military capability to fend off any potential threat of invasion. Before long, the military chose to make the country into a theocratic society by hijacking Shitoism, and making the Emperor its highest priest. They did so in an attempt to dominate the world by manipulating the masses to help achieve their goals. Eventually, the Japanese military, along with Hitler’s Germany, was brought to its knees.
Since 9/11/2001, the evil of theocracy has begun manifesting itself in the form of Muslim extremists. The West began to understand what the rest of the world already knew, which is that Muslims have been promoting and practicing violence – for centuries – against anyone who does not agree with them. All along, their goal has been world dominance. Muslim extremists are not only brainwashed but encouraged by their leaders to execute evil acts – not unlike Japanese and German soldiers during World War II.
These extremists are likely to have come from a violent family environment. They are likely to have lost hope about life at a young age because life has offered them nothing but pain and misery. They have no clue what love is; nor what peace feels like. Under such circumstances, it makes perfect sense for them to choose to become suicide bombers. Thinking of my own teen-age years, I can relate to how they think. The only crucial difference between Muslim extremists and myself is that they are likely to have never been given a chance to think things through for themselves or to listen to their own heart. In post-WWII Japan, thanks to the influence of the Allied Forces, school children were taught to think for ourselves.
There is absolutely no excuse for anyone to terrorize others, be it a perpetrator of domestic violence or a Muslim extremist. To help protect the future of humanity, Muslim extremists and their theocratic leaders – the most deadly cancer cells of our society – must be wiped out from the face of the earth BEFORE they kill the rest of us.
