The Ugly Result Of Mass Hysteria.

As i woke up in the early morning of the 17th of September i switched on my TV and saw “Breaking News” basically on all television stations here in Australia. Words scrolled underneath about “overnight terror raids” in my city of Sydney. Images of sirens flashing and men handcuffed and restrained whilst on their knees. Their faces blurred with only their distinguishable features being their thick beards. As i went to work i saw peoples faces glued to the television sets, making comments among one another and certainly i saw the fear creeping up to their eyes after hearing about these ISIS supporters planning a random beheading in the streets of Sydney, and after what happened in the streets of London, for a moment i understood their concerns.

One of the terror raids convicted (and later freed)

Yet three days after the attack and these horrifying images being plastered all over our Television Stations, Radio channels and front page Newspapers more information had come into light about what exactly happened and how extensive this threat was to my fellow folk in this wonderful city. In total 27 properties were raided with up to 800 police involved in total from all departments. Initially 15 people were arrested, which seems like a significant amount. Yet today only ONE from the initial 15 people arrested remains in custody.

The Media titled this “The Biggest Terror Raid In Australia’s History” and these words echoed through so many mouths and it became a haunting testament to the “threat” that we have from extremists here in Sydney. Yet now that we have filtered through those initially charged, we find that the actual threat came from a single individual. Indeed there must have been a better way that this threat could have been handled, yet instead the events that morning became a perfect setting for Mass Hysteria that added fuel and lit the match to a relatively stable society. Certainly if the threat was realistically from one man, it could have been handled without the hundreds of policemen, dogs, helicopters and photographers.

Some (non convicted) men claimed to be beaten and injured by policemen during the raids.

During these raids there was information that people, that were never charged, had been beaten and assaulted. The next morning 200 Muslims gathered at the War Memorial in Lakemba to demonstrate against the harshness of the raids and the police officers rough treatment. One protester (14 years of age) who had his home raided shouted “They (police) had no decency to at least knock, they just broke in. My mother was screaming. My mother was half naked. They punched her on the ear as she covered herself with a blanket and they restrained me to the floor whilst the dog [policeman] held me down with his boot on my neck.“.

During this period it appears that the worst of society come out to play. We either have those sympathizers of extremism or those that already had their hatred for Muslims amplified by these “findings”. Where does that leave us level headed people? In the middle ground of reason. Ever since this raid on Sydney within just a few days we see that everyday innocent Muslims are paying the price for the few crazies within their community.

Immediately after the raids threats were sent by the ADL to Muslims- including threats to bomb mosques.

Since the raids Mosques have been desecrated and have received death threats by the ADL (Australian Defense league)- including open threats of calling to bomb Lakemba and Auburn mosques. Heated protesters attended two proposed mosque sites in Currumbin and Maroochydore in the Australian state of Queensland shouting “We don’t want Muslims here” and yelling “They will kill us all.“, whilst also sending threats of rape to the mayor who was in support of the Mosques.

 We have also had cars of which are driven by Muslims vandalized with graffiti that says “F*cken Muslim” and we have many independent reports of women being both physically and verbally abused on the streets- including a Muslim woman having coffee thrown at her face from a car, south of Brisbane. There was also an Imam being held in Sydney airport for 2.5 hours with no reason causing him to miss his flight (and not be reimbursed) and not to mention those “suspected” and not convicted of terror have supposedly been abused and mishandled.

This is all a clear result of mass hysteria. When all Australian eyes were glued to the media all they saw was ISIS, Muslim men on their knees, police raiding homes and eventually all of this imagery does and will cause people to “react”. I had people on my Facebook news-feed calling on us Sydney siders to “be vigilant” and the Anti Muslim posts that was being shared i had never seen before in my history on the social media website. It was EVERYWHERE.

Muslims had their cars vandalized after the raids in Liverpool. (“F*ckin Muslim”)

Yet the timing of this Raid is oddly suspicious in my eyes and hear me out for a moment. I don’t like conspiracy theories but the skepticism from the community is not nonsense, nor is it far fetched when you think about it. The series of events that led to this raid was nothing more than a gradual heating of an oven set to explode. Only a week or two before “The Biggest Terror Raid In Australias History” we had the government speaking about “Team Australia” and indicating that it sets to propose new terror laws, some very questionable new terror laws. 

One of the new terror laws that the government is attempting to introduce in haste is to give police the power to interrogate people “suspected” of terrorism and keep them detained for two weeks without actually being charged for anything- and also, only in the case of “terror suspects” the government wants to be able to charge someone as “Guilty until proven innocent” which goes against the fundamental and crucial worldwide law concept of “Innocent until proven guilty”.

Muslims were, and are concerned these new laws would target them and lets not beat around the bush, most terror related suspicions do involve Muslims. The scary thought is that with these new laws, perhaps even my own blog could label me- in the eyes of police a “terror sympathizer” for being against American foreign policy and for being pro Gaza. It’s rather quiet frightening. These anticipated laws led to a lot of suspicion from Muslims and disbelief from liberals.

This Mass Hysteria causes the worst of society to come out and play.

Not only that shortly after these New terror laws were spoken about the government suddenly decided to raise Australias terror threat from MEDIUM to HIGH. Ah yes, the deep red indicator that symbolizes to the public that a terror attack is “highly likely”. Then days after the threat is changed to HIGH we see “The largest terror raid in Australias history” which would now in essence, in the eyes of the public, make the governments new Anti-terror laws suddenly feasible because lets face it, we all truly, madly deeply want our heads attached. Could have all these events been a political move to sway public opinion?

Now don’t get me wrong, we all know that indeed there are extremists out there, sure i can give you that one. Yet why is it so unbelievable to people out there that there is an individual that thinks it is okay to behead a random person? Sydney is host to many crimes and criminals. Some individuals and groups think its okay to beat, shoot, stab, torture and kill both random and non random innocents- regardless of beliefs. Yet those people do not need helicopters, dogs, an 800 strong police team, raids and the media to keep their intended crimes under control.

The map highlighting the Sydney Suburbs raided in order to formally charge one person.

To all reasonable and logical people out there, continue living your lives in this beautiful country and do not fear. Please, do not fear because that eventually causes a schizophrenic irrationality where people suddenly think its okay to hold up signs that say “Burquas(sic) or Bikinis- you decide“. PEOPLE actually believe this! That 2% of the population will suddenly overpower them and force them to don a Burqa on the Golden sands of the Gold Coast. The Qur’an has a very famous and often repeated quote that we could all dwell into and understand– regardless of our beliefs- or lack thereof.

“And every soul earns not blame except against its own self, and no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another. ” (Quran 6:164)

So let us stop regular every day people bearing the burdens of extremists. We are all individual. It’s as simple as that.

Peace, Salam