COMMENTARY: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” This is something our parents and grandparents said to us whenever we wanted revenge against someone who’d done wrong to us. We thought it would make the other person feel bad and apologetic, that it would make us feel better, that it would make us better and bigger.
Courtesy photo
Barbara Alvarez
Y’know, that’s not how it works. I just read about the 23-year-old kid (not man) who allegedly firebombed a mosque in the Coachella Valley. In revenge, I suspect. For the terroristic attack carried out by Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. Because. . . because. . . why?
The kid who firebombed that mosque thought he was righting a wrong, I suspect. But, instead, he was throwing a gesture back after Farook and Malik killed 14 innocent people in cold blood.
Yes. What they did was wrong, cold-blooded and they did it because of their own perception that they were carrying out a holy act. It looks something like this:
Somebody does something against someone else.
Someone from the group that was targeted does something to people from the group of people who hurt them.
Another person from the first group does something else — in revenge. Lots of people are hurt and killed.
Some people from the second group come back with something that’s “really gonna hurt ‘em!” They’re right. They hurt and kill a bunch of people.
And on and on and on and on. . . ad nauseam. Where does this end? When both groups of people hurt, maim and kill everyone from the other group? For what?
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Farook and Malik committed a huge wrong. That’s being investigated. I’m not going to give any publicity to the firebomber who “took revenge.” He thought he would exact “righteous revenge” by attacking that mosque, I suspect.
Only. . . you know what he really did? He confirmed the fact that there’s a real “them versus us.” In so doing, he fed right into that false narrative that DAESH (that group in Syria and Iraq that attacked several places in Paris) is feeding to potential recruits.
That firebomber, protesters who shout “No Muslims in (name of community),” and not a few of the Republican candidates for president are all taking actions and making statements that, in the end, only make the situation worse.
To what end? All those wrongs aren’t going to help. We’re better than this!
Alvarez is an independent writing and editing consultant living in Las Cruces. She writes articles for clients as well as creating fiction based right here in our city.