A hatred based on ignorance

This time last week, I attended a Muslim festival.

A local school about 2km from where I was staying had been completely taken over by colourful food stalls, clothes stalls, children’s amusements, and temporary concert venues.

There were about 400 islanders milling about the place – and maybe ten tourists.

The welcome we received was incredible. Villagers were dressed to the nines for the three day festival and had a huge welcome for the two big Irishmen who arrived on motorcycles to see what all the fuss was about.

Koh Lanta is a pretty unique place. It had no electricity until 1997 and, before the tourists arrived, the population was a mixture of Muslim villagers and sea gypsies.

It’s been developed at an incredible rate since I first landed on Saladan pier 15 years ago, but still retains the kind of charm which has seen Thai Buddhist, Muslim, gypsy, Chinese and ‘farang’ (white foreign) immigrants live side-by-side in harmony for the past two decades.

My travelling companion had never been to Asia before and was blown away by the welcome of the ordinary people we met during a fortnight on the island, which has a popluation of about 30,000.

As we browsed through the market, people invited us to check out the home-made fare on offer. A young woman offered us a cup of tea, not looking for a cent in return.

The language barrier did not seem to matter, people genuinely wanted us to check out local hand-made goods and home-cooked foods, to make sure we were having a good time.

We had some wonderful banter with a group of young lads when I decided to buy a Liverpool FC beach towel and enjoyed sampling some of the local dishes as we made our way around the festival site.

This being 2016, the era of the mobile phone, we were able to meet a couple from home in the island’s only Irish bar a couple of hours later.

Long Beach, Koh Lanta

But, that night, so many of our preconceptions were blown away. 

We saw that ordinary Muslims love to dress up for special occasions, like most people do, and that the locals have a huge welcome for foreigners despite how much tourism has changed their island over the past two decades.

Even within Thailand, Koh Lanta is a special place. For over a decade now, Muslim separatists have been battling Thai Government forces in three of the nation’s southern provinces, but those hostilities have never reached the islanders on the Andaman Sea.

The warmth we experienced at that festival – even though we could have felt completely out of place – got us to thinking about people like Donald Trump and the irrational fear of the Muslim world they are trying to spread across the globe.

People like Trump don't want us to visit Koh Lanta or Malaysia, to see that ordinary Muslims are just like us, with hopes and dreams for peaceful, happy lives. That doesn't fit the current narrative.

A few days later, at the end of a fantastic holiday, I found myself back in wet and dreary Dublin only to be told that a new Islamophobic group called Pegida was about to hold their first public meeting in Ireland.

I was too jet-lagged to attend the counter-demonstration as I made my way home to Galway, but it was awful to think that people with racist or even fascist ideas were assembling in the capital of my country.

Ireland, more than any other country, has sent so many of its people away to live all across the globe and now people want to close our borders to troubled people who are fleeing persecution and slaughter in countries such as Syria and Iraq.

Thankfully, very few turned up to support the extremists' cause on Saturday.

I’ve seen the images of the clashes on social media and it’s clear that the fascists were put in their place.

The few who turned up were even chased by anti-fascists into a two euro store, as a large crowd chanted "Fascist scum off our streets".

For me, racism is based on ignorance.

The welcome my friend and I experienced from local Muslims on Koh Lanta last week was in complete contrast to the Islamophobia which seems to be sweeping across Europe and the US at the moment.

Instead of blaming the refugees for our nations’ ills, we should ask why our leaders are bombing the hell out of their countries and why so many have been displaced from their lands.

It’s a pity that the demonstration in Dublin ended in violence and that the Gardai drew their batons on the protesters.

It would be better if children could be brought along to an anti-fascist rally and that people could celebrate diversity in peace, harmony, and with a sense of fun.

Just as the lovely people on a Thai island made us feel so welcome 10,000kms from home.

The violence was regrettable. But at least the Islamophobes got the message that they are not wanted in this of all nations, the one which has exported so many of its people through good and bad times.

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A life without fear

If I had one wish for 2016, it would be for a life without so much fear.

Not just for myself, but for the whole wide world.

Because fear seemed to overwhelm too many people over the past year. Fear of change, fear of failure, fear of the unknown.

I have quite a few scuba diving friends who usually travel to Egypt or Thailand in search of sunshine and fun at this time of year. Now, for obvious reasons, they are abandoning their sense of adventure this time around.

People don’t want to travel in the face of the threat posed by ISIL terrorists, and who could blame them in the wake of attacks in Paris, Tunisia, and Egypt over the past year? 

Nobody wants to risk their life for a holiday and the fear is understandable following the appalling scenes in Paris in November. But it seems so sad that people are letting fear rule their lives.

By not travelling, they are not meeting ordinary Muslims, which is scary too at a time when xenophobia and racism are on the rise across Europe and North America.

How can we possibly understand each other if we never interact any more?

The saddest image of 2015 was that of a three year old boy from Syria washed up on a European beach in late August. His family’s bid for freedom, their desire for a new life, ended in appalling tragedy.

In the wake of the subsequent outcry, it was hard not to forget that some of the newspapers who raised the most concern had been referring to “swarms of migrants” only a week before.

Some papers used the migrant crisis, caused by military intervention by the West, as an excuse to generate fear.

Across Europe, people were being told that the migrants entering Europe included ISIL terrorists determined to cause havoc.

The reality was that toddler Aylan Kurdi and his family were fleeing fierce fighting in the northern Syrian town of Kobani. His parents took desperate measures in a bid to escape terror and to build new lives in Canada.

In my own case, fear dominated life far too much and curtailed my ability to live in the moment. I had a seven month battle with the MRSA bug, only getting the all-clear in late May, which seemed to be incredible timing just after I took voluntary redundancy from a job I’d held for 22 years.

It’s too easy to let fear take over, to worry about an uncertain future, when none of our futures are set in stone.

During my daily visits to the clinic in Galway, I built up a huge affinity with a small group of community care nurses who did wonders to boost my spirits and speed up my recovery.

When the nurse who took care of me most dropped dead suddenly, leaving a devastated husband and three young children, I had more time to contemplate how fleeting or temporary life can be.

I will never forget how much care and attention I received from that nurse during one of the most troublesome periods in my life.

She taught me a lot about acceptance and the importance of focusing on the positives in life.

During 2015 I completed courses in digital marketing and TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and I’ve experienced new jobs.

And yet I’ve allowed the judgement and uncertainty which followed the redundancy to dominate my life and take away from my sense of fun and adventure.

It’s too easy to close your mind, to allow your world to shrink.

It’s too easy for Europeans to distance themselves from ordinary Muslims, to build up an irrational fear of the unknown. Terrorists don't represent ordinary Muslims any more than the kind of people who shoot up US abortion clinics represent Christians.

And I've been guilty of my own irrational fears.

It’s too easy for someone who has been made redundant to despair that he or she will not find a rewarding job.

We all have spontaneity, adventure, bravery and excitement within us, if we don’t allow our lives to be dominated by fear. 

So that’s my only wish for 2016, not just for myself but for everyone on the planet . . . that our lives won’t be dominated so much by fear and that we will see the huge possibilities out there in this crazy, cruel, but wonderful world.

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Treasuring the simple things

“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”
― John O'Donohue

Over the past couple of weeks, I have taken to making midweek arrangements to meet up with two of my former colleagues who left work on the same day as me at the end of September.

It gives a focus to our days, to meet up in Salthill once a week, enjoying a walk along our city’s wonderful seafront promenade, before adjourning for a leisurely lunch to swap information and share our experiences of joining the ranks of the newly unemployed.

The one hour walks along by the seafront have flown by, because we have so much to tell each other about how our lives are progressing since we opted for voluntary redundancy.

As one who has complained bitterly about Irish winter weather for way too long, I have been delighted by how much I have enjoyed our weekly walks in the cold and the chance to share our fears and hopes for the future.

Today, Galway Bay was flat calm. There was a serenity and peace about Salthill, which made me appreciate how lucky we were to have our health and to have such stunning scenery as a backdrop to our conversation.

Sometimes, it really is a good thing to focus on the simple things in life.

Both of my former colleagues, both younger than me, have inspired me with their positivity and desire for change.

Whereas I have faced the future with a degree of anxiety and dread, both of them have embraced change with an enthusiasm which has lifted my spirits during our weekly meetings. One of them has opted to return to college, while the other is in the early stages of setting up a new business of her own.

All three of us have helped each other, in terms of how we have dealt with bureaucracy or new clients now that we are out there in the big, bad world.

When you are in the same job for a long time, you don’t realise what is involved in seeking new clients or pitching for work. You learn that people can make promises and then let you down. 

And small companies tend to give very little support to departing workers even though a redundancy can become one of the most stressful events in a person’s life.

Both of my former colleagues have given me enormous support, and excellent advice, and I hope I have been able to reciprocate in my own way. We are learning from each other and, surely, that’s what life is about . . . learning, growth, and change.

Both of them have embraced change with open arms, causing me to question why I am so fearful of an uncertain future after leaving my job of 22 years. 

The weekly walks along the prom have taught me the value of celebrating the simple things in life, such as beautiful scenery, the benefits of a brisk walk, and the joy of good conversation over a cup of coffee.

Normally, after a hard year’s work, I would be soaking up the sun and scuba diving in Thailand, Egypt, or Nicaragua – on holidays – at this time of year. 

It probably still hasn’t sunk in yet that I can go wherever I want or opt for any one of a myriad of options as I face into an uncertain 2015. 

But, thanks to my colleagues, I am seeing new possibilities open up and I’m beginning to realise that I have confused excitement with fear.

Life changes every day, but too many of us grasp for the familiar and even hurt ourselves by resisting change. For me, this process of moving on or changing career might allow me to follow my dreams or passions in the long-term.

Each of us has a magic spark within us, but sometimes it seems hard to dance, or play, or live life to the full. It can seem impossible to turn our dreams or passions into rewarding lives or well-paid careers.

Too often, and for obvious reasons such as mortgages and young families, we settle for the familiarity of the 'comfort zone'.

But my two former colleagues are well on the way to finding the magic and today I found just a pinch of fresh inspiration as we talked along the familiar promenade I have walked 10,000 times. 

Even though I still have a way to go before I learn to live "like a river flows"!