The Orange Contagion

It's frightening how fast our world has become filled with intolerance and ignorance. We may not have an oppressive Big Brother constantly peering over our shoulders and censoring our information, but we still wreck havoc just fine all by ourselves. 
     Today, over six hundred cities across the world are participating in the March for Science. They are marching to celebrate science and to call for scientific evidence-based governmental policies. Science was founded to prove facts, and it is not something that can be denied once proven again and again. As such, global warming is real, and vaccinations save lives. The evidence behind these facts are indisputable, yet somehow they have become "alternative facts" that some choose to ignore.
     This is merely one example of ignorance, but it's safe to say that in our present day world, ignorance breeds conflict (both political and physical), not bliss.
     The fact that the President of the United States is a strong stander against global warming and has questioned the validity of vaccinations shows just how far ignorance has diffused into our society, and it's horrifying. That's not to mention his strong views on anti-immigration and blatant racism against Muslims, who he wrongly accuses to all be terrorists.
     Unfortunately, such extremist views have been spreading rapidly from the U.S. to other countries in the five months that Donald Trump, the orange man, has been our president. I've given this phenomenon a fitting name - the Orange Contagion.
The increasing popularity of France's far right-wing party, le Front National, or the National Front, only confirms my fear of the contagion.
     Marine le Pen is the head of the party, France's very own Trump. Not unlike her American equivalent, le Pen is advocating to ban the hijab in public places, stating that they are too "conspicuous" to be allowed. As if that wasn't bad enough, she has also asserted that France was not responsible for the war-time round-up of Jews, even though the French police rounded up about 13,000 Jews, most of whom were later deported to Auschwitz.
     Unfortunately, it seems we have brought this upon ourselves. We, as the American people, advocated for Trump long and hard enough so that he became a viable candidate, then proceeded to become president. France is faced with a similar decision, with the first round of their elections taking place tomorrow.
     These two people are armed with the weapon of fear, especially the fear of terrorism. While this is not an unfounded concern, the focus on banning religious expression and immigration only diverts attention away from the true issues. Thus, we have been "drowned in a sea of irrelevance" (Postman).
 It seems our government has no need of concealing information, as Big Brother infamously did in 1984. After all, even when the facts are presented to us, we stubbornly stick our fingers in our ears and call it a day. -MC

God bless America...

...and vive la France

For more information on the French election, watch John Oliver's latest video:
https://youtu.be/hkZir1L7fSY

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/04/10/marine-le-pen-doesnt-deny-that-french-jews-were-handed-over-to-nazis-but-she-claims-france-is-not-to-blame/?utm_term=.67c275f4667f