A young man was shot dead today, branded a terrorist that killed many beings. We also lost a cop who was instantaneously glorifed as the hero. A marked difference in their deaths. The next day we read about a brother’s tale of grief while he reclaimed the ‘depraved’ terrorist as his brother and came forward to claim his dead body. A story of humanization of terrorism. I felt immeasurably sad. Have we all not somewhere conspired to make this man a terrorist somehow. Uncomfortable truths of society are for the sake of convenience swept under the carpet. Did we not fail to question the methodology of uncovering the crime and criminals by the police only because the young man was a Muslim.
I am a Hindu, not so pro Muslim in general. I admit my own failings in this regard. But for a change, it made me stop and wonder Jihad for what and against what. A friend of mine pointed out to me that we are the kafirs and for the modern Muslim, the holy war has lost its glory of waging a war for the religion to waging a war against all those who refuse to accept the supremacy of our religion. A kind of fight for superiority and imperialism in religion. For the sake of sanity it a crazy war. I am a woman and cannot advocate the sanity of any war. All wars that employ killing and advocate macho societies and theories are crazy. Period. Okay guys, you all can call me a feminist bitch, anti Muslim if you like, anti war too…please add that.
The Muslims waged a war on kafirs and we too all turned around and in reaction gave them tit for tat and proved ourselves as the reasons that they should call us kafir. We did not stop for once and advocate love for hate. We did not shame them to silence, we triggered a much larger war. A war that promotes masculine principles of honour and glory and even virgins in another life! Can it get more crazy?
They are at fault, so are we. When did we introspect that indeed the Muslim communities are indeed the poorest and most backward. Those who advocated reservation for Muslims became a person trying to encash Muslim votes, others who didn’t, did nothing for the cause of backward communities. Unsolvable dilemma.
The solution to me is only that we maybe becoming the most advanced techinically, but we are losing human values completely. We came out of the jungle and are advancing back to it. The solution lies in love, compassion, and kindness. I do not hate the word terrorist. To me it is a person who is misled and lost in their struggle for identity. Our religions today do not provide for unemployment. There is an underlying social evil created by industrialization, unemployment. When Hindu religion provided for the caste system, it did not provide for unemployed people. Where do they fit in? Does it mean that there were possibly no employed people? Most likely. When humans lose their value in a community, it can only undergo despair. Such angst leads to terrorism. Possibly these young men were not unemployed, some may argue. Its true, but the economic meltdown the world over is showing a very high possibility of such. When unemployment and retrenchment becomes the rule of the day, does that mean we have more terrorism to cope with. I think so.
I do not know in my personal capacity what can I do for generating employment. But I can definitely help in a social cause by first extending my condolence to the families of the dead, both the mindlessly blown away as well as the ones who mindlessly blew away, losing their lives too in process. I feel sad. I am not the mother of any child, but I weep for both as a mother would whose one child kills the other and whom the law of the land fetches to punish. I respect the laws but the one wronged is dead, the wrong doer is dying. In a ending like that of King Lear, everyone who can be, is dead. A land of nihilism.
Perhaps somewhere I fail to understand the agony of the families who lost people to terrorist acts or mindlessness. I apologise if I wronged them by my insensitivity.
Perhaps somewhere I also fail to understand the agony of the person who realizes that the little boy who lived with them as the angel of the house was in fact a dreaded hideous monster, a slayer of innocent people. I apologise if I wronged these families too by my lack of sensitivity.
I am an ordinary human trying to understand both sides. Its my first step, if I totter, please help me back to my feet. I will learn to walk.