Letter to the editor: Look, Muslims! #soscary

In this country, over a hundred years ago, Prime Minister Henry Parkes ran a huge, unjustified scare campaign against Catholics. They were legally and socially persecuted, leaving divisions in our society for generations. (I still remember the way my grandmother would lower her voice and say, "But she's Catholic", as though the lady in question had a particularly pernicious STD.)

In the 1930s, a huge, unjustified scare campaign was run against Jewish people. In the 1960s, a huge, unjustified scare campaign was run against communists.

Now it's Muslims.

In all these cases, politicians have started the whole thing and/or supported it and exploited it for personal gain.

Surely we're smarter than this by now.

Muslim people, on the whole, work as hard, love their families as much and contribute just as much to our society as any other social or religious group.
The "Islamic State" blowhards no more represent Muslims than the Westboro Baptist Church represents Christians, or the few violent, racist monks in Burma represent Buddhism.

Treat criminal acts by a few as just that: they're criminals. But don't give in to artificially-created fear and hysteria, and allow our government to demonize an entire religious or ethnic group.

Location:Renmark, South Australia