Hello to all my friends. This past September 11th, all our lives have been touched in a way that could not be fathomed prior to that date. Whether we personally knew someone directly affected by the tragedy or not did not seem to matter. Indeed, whether one even lived in the United States did not even matter. The innocent lives lost are being mourned the world over by all of those with a shred of human decency.
However, blaming the religion of Islam or those that follow its teachings is just plain WRONG. Islam is not to blame, your Muslim neighbors and friends are not to blame.
Many Muslim countries believe that America wants to root out their religion and destroy it. But we Americans are really about freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of government. But, every time one of our citizens takes out their aggression on an Arab in this country, our actions speak louder than our words. We are giving the radical causes one more reason to believe their skewed vision is true. If we Americans truly want to show the world who we are, then we must as a whole stop persecuting our own citizens simply because their heritage or basic religious beliefs are the same as the monsters that perpetrated this atrocity.
We must also start caring more about our friends, our neighbors, the world. For too long, America has kept itself apart from the world, as if somehow immune to its problems. But ignoring the world's problems did not make them go away. September 11th showed us how wrong we were about that. Now is the time to act, not react. We need to join hands with the world to stamp out the hidden evils that reside in its shadows. We must all work together, all races and religions, in order to restore the peace the world has long sought.
And lastly, we must overcome the great sadness and fear tht overshadows all we do. We must dig in our heels and show everyone what we are made of. We cannot let fear dictate our lives. We must move forward; rebuild; be stronger than ever before. And it is in that light that I have returned to this humble website. Sure, it may only be a fan site about a movie, but that is not the sum of its parts. Here within these pages, we have laughed and cried, shared our hopes and dreams with one another, we have become a family. Let's not let the devestation of the past interfere with that sense of unity, of family that we have created here.
NBK Online is still open to new ideas, and have incorporated many visitor requests to make your time at our site more enjoyable. So if you have any suggestions or comments, please do not hesitate to e-mail the Webmistress with any ideas you have. Thank you.
