Terror in the headlines
12/01/15 04:31
If you read my blog, you know that I don’t exactly sit on the edge of the latest news. I often tell stories of events that are long passed. I reflect on things that aren’t making headlines. My blog isn’t the place to turn to catch up on the news.
Part of this is that it takes me time to process the big events of the world. It isn’t that I am not paying attention. I try to keep up with the news. I read the headlines from BBC news, Haaretz, the Melbourne Herald Sun, the Tico Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and our local paper every day. But reading the news isn’t the same thing as knowing what it means. I often need to reflect on the “latest” until it is no longer the “latest” before I have much to say about it.
The first response to any act of terror is grief. How terribly tragic it is that human beings can become so confused and misguided that they turn to violence as a way of expressing themselves. And grief is not an emotion that lends itself to clear, rational thinking.
So I am often silent when others are speaking. I listen and wait. And I grieve.
How else can we respond to the events that unfolded in Paris last week? Real people died and their deaths do not make sense. Stephane Charbonnier, Bernard Maris, Georges Wolinski, Jean Cabut, Bernard Verihac, Philippe Honore, Elsa Cayat, Michel Renaud, Frederic Bosseau, Frank Brinsolaro, and Moustapha Orrad were all employees of the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. Ahmed marabout was a police officer who died protecting the cartoonists from the terrorists.
These were all living human beings, with families, and identities that were all their own. They weren’t saints. They, like us, were imperfect human beings, sometimes selfish, sometimes beautiful.
Human beings are, tragically, also, on occasion, capable of unspeakable atrocity. For whatever reasons brothers Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi became terrorists and slaughterers of their brothers and sisters.
If their intent was to uphold their religion, they sadly failed. The crime wasn’t about religion. Two of the victims, Copy editor Moustapha Ourrad and the police officer Ahmed Merabet, were Muslims who died at the hands of the terrorists.
Would that they had taken their faith seriously and studied the Qur’an instead of turning to violence. If they saw the cartoons published by the magazine as offensive, the Qur’an teaches how to respond: “repel evil with something that is lovelier.”
Bullets do not provide an answer to prejudice and offensive cartoons. The way to overcome these evils wi by embodying the qualities that transform society one person at a time.
Instead the shooters have demeaned people’s impression of the Muslim religion. The cartoons might have made some people laugh inappropriately at images that offend. The shooters have made the world associate irrational terror with a religion. They have brought no honor to their faith, only shame and dishonor.
Still, I do not know what the world has, or can, learn from this event. One lesson, as is the case in many events that garner the headlines, is that we pay attention to the things that make the news. On the same day as the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris there was another terrorist attack in Yemen - that one claimed 37 lives. A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden minibus into a gathering of recruits standing outside a police academy in the heart of Yemen’s capital. It did not attract world attention. There are no #JeSuisCharlie campaigns for those victims. Those 37 dead and 66 wounded all have names, but I cannot find them in the news reports. They all have families. They all have those who mourn for them.
One cannot read the news without being plunged into grief.
And I don’t have intelligent words with which to respond to the overwhelming grief. Somehow we humans have found more ways to go wrong and to cause pain and terror to one another than one could imagine possible.
It seems to me that it is possible that the acts of terrorists lack meaning because they are so senseless. What can you say except that they are wrong, terribly wrong, tragically wrong?
I guess the answer is that we humans are also capable of doing right by each other. We are capable of bringing our best to this world and to one another. We can behave like brothers and sisters to all of God’s children - even those with whom we disagree. We can resolve our differences without violence and we can learn to live with differences that cannot be resolved.
We are capable of sacrificing ourselves for the sake of others instead of sacrificing others for the sake of our “causes.”
In the midst of all of this, we have been called to live meaningful lives. Doing so is not always easy. It does not involved rushing to quick answers and expedient explanations. We have been granted great freedom to express our faith by living lives of service to one another. Most of us will never face a violent attack like the one that occurred in Paris. We have almost learned to take our freedom from the menace of violence for granted.
But until everyone is free, no one is completely free. And too many people live in the shadow of the threat of violence every day. Living a meaningful life means working to end violence. It means constantly reminding everyone we meet that at the core of the events of the world are real human beings. It means learning the names of the victims and not forgetting who they were.
And it means treating all of God’s children - even those we have labeled enemy - with love. Loving those with whom you agree is not difficult. Loving those with whom you disagree is deeply meaningful.
And this world is sorely in need of people who have the courage to live meaningful lives.
Part of this is that it takes me time to process the big events of the world. It isn’t that I am not paying attention. I try to keep up with the news. I read the headlines from BBC news, Haaretz, the Melbourne Herald Sun, the Tico Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and our local paper every day. But reading the news isn’t the same thing as knowing what it means. I often need to reflect on the “latest” until it is no longer the “latest” before I have much to say about it.
The first response to any act of terror is grief. How terribly tragic it is that human beings can become so confused and misguided that they turn to violence as a way of expressing themselves. And grief is not an emotion that lends itself to clear, rational thinking.
So I am often silent when others are speaking. I listen and wait. And I grieve.
How else can we respond to the events that unfolded in Paris last week? Real people died and their deaths do not make sense. Stephane Charbonnier, Bernard Maris, Georges Wolinski, Jean Cabut, Bernard Verihac, Philippe Honore, Elsa Cayat, Michel Renaud, Frederic Bosseau, Frank Brinsolaro, and Moustapha Orrad were all employees of the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. Ahmed marabout was a police officer who died protecting the cartoonists from the terrorists.
These were all living human beings, with families, and identities that were all their own. They weren’t saints. They, like us, were imperfect human beings, sometimes selfish, sometimes beautiful.
Human beings are, tragically, also, on occasion, capable of unspeakable atrocity. For whatever reasons brothers Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi became terrorists and slaughterers of their brothers and sisters.
If their intent was to uphold their religion, they sadly failed. The crime wasn’t about religion. Two of the victims, Copy editor Moustapha Ourrad and the police officer Ahmed Merabet, were Muslims who died at the hands of the terrorists.
Would that they had taken their faith seriously and studied the Qur’an instead of turning to violence. If they saw the cartoons published by the magazine as offensive, the Qur’an teaches how to respond: “repel evil with something that is lovelier.”
Bullets do not provide an answer to prejudice and offensive cartoons. The way to overcome these evils wi by embodying the qualities that transform society one person at a time.
Instead the shooters have demeaned people’s impression of the Muslim religion. The cartoons might have made some people laugh inappropriately at images that offend. The shooters have made the world associate irrational terror with a religion. They have brought no honor to their faith, only shame and dishonor.
Still, I do not know what the world has, or can, learn from this event. One lesson, as is the case in many events that garner the headlines, is that we pay attention to the things that make the news. On the same day as the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris there was another terrorist attack in Yemen - that one claimed 37 lives. A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden minibus into a gathering of recruits standing outside a police academy in the heart of Yemen’s capital. It did not attract world attention. There are no #JeSuisCharlie campaigns for those victims. Those 37 dead and 66 wounded all have names, but I cannot find them in the news reports. They all have families. They all have those who mourn for them.
One cannot read the news without being plunged into grief.
And I don’t have intelligent words with which to respond to the overwhelming grief. Somehow we humans have found more ways to go wrong and to cause pain and terror to one another than one could imagine possible.
It seems to me that it is possible that the acts of terrorists lack meaning because they are so senseless. What can you say except that they are wrong, terribly wrong, tragically wrong?
I guess the answer is that we humans are also capable of doing right by each other. We are capable of bringing our best to this world and to one another. We can behave like brothers and sisters to all of God’s children - even those with whom we disagree. We can resolve our differences without violence and we can learn to live with differences that cannot be resolved.
We are capable of sacrificing ourselves for the sake of others instead of sacrificing others for the sake of our “causes.”
In the midst of all of this, we have been called to live meaningful lives. Doing so is not always easy. It does not involved rushing to quick answers and expedient explanations. We have been granted great freedom to express our faith by living lives of service to one another. Most of us will never face a violent attack like the one that occurred in Paris. We have almost learned to take our freedom from the menace of violence for granted.
But until everyone is free, no one is completely free. And too many people live in the shadow of the threat of violence every day. Living a meaningful life means working to end violence. It means constantly reminding everyone we meet that at the core of the events of the world are real human beings. It means learning the names of the victims and not forgetting who they were.
And it means treating all of God’s children - even those we have labeled enemy - with love. Loving those with whom you agree is not difficult. Loving those with whom you disagree is deeply meaningful.
And this world is sorely in need of people who have the courage to live meaningful lives.