....there was this kid named Jodie. Jodie was....odd. When something would upset him, he would proceed to self-mutilate. Sometimes he would claw wildly at his face, sometimes he would smash his head against the wall. Once he began to stab at his thighs with a pencil.
Jodie was clearly mentally ill, and it wasn't long before the outbursts became so serious that he was institutionalized. Eventually the doctors discovered a medication regimen that got his psychotic and dangerous behaviors under control, but Jodie never returned to regular school. He was in and out of hospitals and institutions as his illness waxed and waned, but his trigger was always the same: he would get frustrated, angry, or upset, and his first impulse would be violent self-destruction. I learned a few years back that Jodie took his own life, and while I was saddened by the news, I was not surprised.
And then it occurred to me today, isn't Jodie's behavior the exact same thing that is wracking the Muslim communities in Afghanistan right now? Some Korans are burned along with violent, extremist literature confiscated from prisoners, and the entire nation just loses its shit overnight. Rioting in the streets. Burning buildings and vehicles. More than a dozen Afghanis have been killed in the rioting, which shows no sign of stopping. Every time it does seem to be calming down, the people head into the nearest Mosque and come out an hour later whipped right back up into a Jodie-style self-destructive frenzy.
And this is far from the first or only outburst of this kind in the Middle East. Is the entire Muslim community over there certifiably insane? I don't know if the fault lies with something inherent in the actual belief structure of Islam or if this is an example of the religious leadership cannibalizing their own followers in the pursuit of power and influence, but this seems pretty common now days.
I know that if a bunch of Bibles were confiscated and burned in the USA a lot of people would go apeshit over it. They would scream and moan and complain, they would go on Fox News and explain how it was the end of American cultural independence, blah blah blah. But what they wouldn't do is hit the streets after church on Sunday and kill a whole bunch of their fellow Christians while burning down the YMCA and the rec center. I just don't understand the logic.
It's like I'm watching an entire nation of Jodies and it scares the shit out of me.