The Easter massacre victims: They are part of me

Indonesian Muslim students show their solidarity to the victims of the Sri Lankan blasts in the aftermath of deadly suicide bomb blasts that killed nearly 360 people on Easter Sunday. (Pic by Juni Kriswanto/AFP)

As the country has been plunged into chaos and the people are struggling to recover from the shock of Easter Sunday’s terrorist carnage, my pains are multiple. 

It pains me to watch television news on the cold-blooded massacre, to which my Christian brothers and sisters became victims. Just as every festival of different communities, Easter, too, makes me happy. Men, women and children, in their best attire, trek to the churches, with their faces exuding happiness and hearts beaming with love for God’s fellow creatures.  This fills my heart and I become one with them. 

When, on Sunday April 21, the beasts unleashed their terror on the innocents, who are a part of me, I was devastated. Their pain is my pain. Their loss is my loss.

The moment I learned about the terror attacks, my journalistic instincts told me it could be the work of the so-called jihadists.  The terrorism bore the hallmarks of church attacks that take place in countries like Egypt, Pakistan and Nigeria.

It was on 2017 Palm Sunday that terrorists blasted two Coptic Christian churches and killed some 45 people in Egypt. On 2012 Easter, Nigeria’s Boko Haram carried out a car bomb attack on a church and killed 41 people. And again it was on Easter, that a terrorist group carried out suicide blast at a public park in Pakistan’s cultural capital, Lahore, killing 75 people. In May last year in Indonesia, a radicalised family carried out a series of suicide attacks on churches.  

You may wonder why I have not identified the terrorists as Islamic terrorists and have added the adjective ‘so-called’ to describe the jihadi terrorists. This is because my Islam condemns terrorism; my Islam, like Christianity, the Dhamma and other faiths, promotes love and human fraternity and stresses on Akhlaaq, which means exemplary conduct. The Prophet Muhammad said that the Muslim is he who by his actions, words or thoughts will not harm another human being. He said, “Those who are merciful will be shown mercy by the Most Merciful. Be merciful to those on the earth and the One in the heavens will have mercy upon you.”

Muslims pray five times a day.  We end our prayers by turning our heads to the right and then left, while saying Assalamu Alaikum warahmathullah, peace and God’s mercy be upon ‘all of you’. Thus they greet the entire humanity. So, I do not know how the terrorists give a violent interpretation to the message of peace. It pains me to know that they have hijacked my religion to carry out acts of terrorism in its name and call it Jihad, whereas Jihad refers to the struggle one undergoes to reach high spiritual status.  

Don’t call them ‘Islamic’ terrorists or Jihadists. When these terms were first used by the Western media, concerned Muslims protested, pointing out the incompatibility between Islam and terrorism.  But our campaign suffered in the face of continuing terrorist acts by the hijackers of Islam. 

The Muslims have a name for them –we call them Kharijites (Khwarij). Kharij in Arabic means “seceder” or “the one who exits the community”. 

Minutes after Sunday’s blasts, we were at a shop in Wattala. My wife, who covers her head, heard a conversation between two Christian men were in the shop. The news was still sketchy. 

Pointing at my wife, one told the other, “If this is not the work of politicians, it must be the work of these people.”  He was spot on, you may say. No, we do not share anything with the terrorists. They are not ‘us’. For us, the ‘us’ is the 359 people whose lives along with their dreams were ended by inhuman brutes. For us, the ‘us’ is the 500 plus people who were wounded, the thousands who survived the horror and the millions who identify with the victims. 

We have nothing to do with these Kharijite terrorists, who discard the Quranic command to protect places of worship, especially monasteries, churches and synagogues where God’s name is invoked. 

The terrorists such as ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and National Thowheed Jamath founder Zahran Hashimi are our enemies. They come after us, for we reject their interpretations. They kill Muslims in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and other countries, for the simple reason that a majority of us reject them.

They brand us ‘kafirs’ or non-believers – or as collaborators -- for the simple reason that we do not subscribe to their satanic interpretation of Islam.  We now realise that the Kattankudy’s Muslims were right when they held a protest in 2017, calling on the authorities to arrest “Shaitan (Satan) Zahran”, the treacherous mullah preaching a murderous creed.

It is because of the terrorists’ devilish interpretations of the scripture that there erupt, time and again, calls to ban the Quran, the Muslims’ holy book.  True, the Quran explains laws on warfare in verses revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, when the embryonic Muslim community came under attack from the city state of Makkah, the Prophet’s birthplace from where he was forced to flee. But each of these verses is accompanied by instructions that exhort peace, patience, forgiveness, justice, moderation and virtue. 

The Prophet had been grateful to the Christians, who, according to the Quran, are spiritually and in terms of friendship the closest to the Muslims. When the Muslims were being persecuted in Makkah, it was Christian Abyssinia which gave them refuge. During our five daily prayers, we recite the Muslim version of the Lord’s Prayer. We call it ‘Surah al-Fatihah’. In it, we praise God and beseech God to guide us on the straight path – the path of those on whom God has bestowed His Grace. Now when the Prophet Muhammad recited Surah al-Fatihah, who did he think of as the people on whom God had bestowed His Grace? They are those who came before him – Jesus, Moses, Jacob, Isaac, Ishmael, Abraham and others. 

It pains me to know that the terrorists had dealt a severe blow to the spiritual bond the Muslims shared with the Christians. Yes, we have differences; we Muslims do not believe in Jesus being the bigoted son of God.  We respect him as one of the mightiest prophets of God, whom we call Allah. By the way, Allah is an Arabic word with Semitic origin. It means The (al) God (Ilah) --  Eloah or Eloahim in Hebrew. Eloi in Aramic, the language Jesus spoke. 

But our differences should not be an impediment to our friendship built on many theological and spiritual concepts we share. It pains me to know that the April 21 terror attacks have damaged this special bond we have been sharing for 1,400 years. It pains me to hear that the country’s economic progress had been pushed back by the kind of terrorism we never thought would devastate our country.

It pains me to feel that the terrorists have made us hang our heads in collective shame, though they are not ‘us’.  All Muslims have become suspects.  We can’t look at the face of our Christian neighbours. We wonder whether the love and respect the Christians and others had for us are still there. But I am full of confidence that soon, we will be one with each other once again.

It’s not about Sri Lanka, It’s about me

by Mirza Yawar Baig

My mind is numb, my heart is heavy, the tears have dried. Yet the day dawns and life must be lived, Unanswered, unanswerable questions, Actions, reactions, a vicious cycle that must be broken.

As I sit down to write this, my biggest struggle is with myself, ‘Should I write this or not? What use is it? Surely the next planner or executor of the next atrocity is hardly going to ask – Let me see what Yawar Baig has to say before I do this. So why write?’ It is easier to simply do nothing. Withdraw into my shell and hope that one day what happened in Sri Lanka yesterday, doesn’t happen to my own loved ones. How then did I break out of this stupor of grief? By reminding myself of one thing: Those who were killed in Sri Lanka were my dear ones, because anyone who is killed because of his/her religion, race or nationality is my dear one. So, I will speak. I will raise my voice. And I will do it, even if I am alone. Especially if I am alone.

In my view the real purpose behind these actions is not the elimination of any population. That in today’s world is literally impossible. The real purpose is to sow discord and hatred, so that we are all reduced to the same level as the perpetrators of these crimes. Then we become malleable and controllable and are controlled through fear. Fear of our own neighbors, brothers and sisters, fear of our own family members in the global family of humans. This is done by first focusing on the differences in our diversity and then teaching us that these differences are things to hate. That leads to the logical conclusion of hating the person and the entire group that he/she belongs to. It is an age-old tactic, the only thing remarkable about which is that it still works. This is what was used against the Jewish people for centuries in Europe and Russia which led to their ghettoizing and eventually to Hitler’s infamous Final Solution, which educated, moral and (presumably) kind people, watched in silence. Today Muslims seem to be in that boat. It is salutary to note that Hitler’s gas chambers were built by highly educated engineers and scientists. So, for those who think that large scale violence amounting to genocide is something that is left to Attila the Hun, it may be shocking to see that education as we know it is not the solution to our problem. Because our problems are moral and ethical. Problems of our humanity. Not problems of not knowing enough math and science. There are lessons in history and one of the most powerful ones lies in the Jewish Holocaust. It is essential to learn the lessons because nations that don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

As I mentioned earlier, the main purpose of hate attacks is to cause chaos and disruption of society and turn one person against another. This creates a smoke screen which hides real issues. When people are immersed in grief and anger and are looking to hit back, they are not thinking clearly and all they need is a target. That is provided by implying that anyone from the community, religion, ethnicity, race or nationality of the criminal is like him and so can be made a victim in ‘retaliation’. That allows people to vent their anger on innocent people, creates an atmosphere of terror and buys time for those who want in reality to draw the curtains over their own faults and deficiencies i.e. the failure of leadership to solve people’s real problems of hunger, unemployment, lack of access to public health and education, lack of clean drinking water and housing. The issues vary from nation to nation, but it is always a mix of these. Don’t solve real problems, divert people’s attention to hating others, allow them to vent their anger on those who are helpless, and you buy some more time. Those who should really be held to account, voted out, removed from leadership and made to pay, are let off free to plan the next episode in this macabre horror drama called ‘Life in the Modern World’.

But all this will happen, only if we allow it to happen. That is the key and the reason we must ask ourselves, “Do I want this cycle to continue?”

Given that this is a no-brainer, what is the solution? Let me tell you about a unique experience I had just two days ago, on Saturday, April 20, 2019. I was invited to a Passover Seder dinner by some very dear Jewish friends. This was the first time that I was going to a Passover Seder and so I was very interested in what I would see and experience. To accommodate my inability to participate in a meal during which wine would be served, in a completely unprecedented and totally gracious gesture (very pleasant surprise for me), this family made the meal completely alcohol free and drank pomegranate juice instead of wine. This they did despite the fact that drinking four cups of wine is a part of the Passover Seder ritual. What amazed me even more was that the Rabbi who led the proceedings, also accepted this accommodation. Truly a most gracious gesture which left me feeling so very valued and appreciated.

The Passover Seder is about the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt, which is a story that as a Muslim, I grew up with. The story of Musa (Moses) and how he liberated the Jews from the slavery of Pharaoh, is familiar to every Muslim child. It is one of the major stories in the Qur’an as Musa (Moses) is one of the major prophets of Islam, believing in whom is a part of our creed. But what was new to me was the whole Seder meal and what is read during it. The overall theme of the readings was thankfulness. Thankfulness for all the bounties of God that He gave the Jews and of course all of us. What struck me the most was the song of fifteen stanzas each line of which ends with the word, Dayenu (meaning ‘it would have been enough’), but He gave more. This struck me because this is precisely the Muslim understanding of God (Allahﷻ) and His Grace, Mercy and Generosity, that He gives without counting. The overall and overwhelming sense that I came away with that night was that of belonging, not of difference. Strange thing perhaps to hear from a Muslim talking about a Jewish household and ceremony in today’s times. But that is how I felt, the warm glow of which remains with me.

Why is this important and why am I mentioning this here?

It is because in this lies the seed of the solution to hatred. Hatred comes from not knowing about each other, which leads to the situation among most people of being able to believe the worst about them. This is the way stereotypes are formed and strengthened until they become ‘THE TRUTH’, to be believed unquestioningly. On the other hand, when we take the time to learn about each other, we are often faced with some startling facts, which lead us to question our blind beliefs and stereotypes and hopefully allow us to change our stances. I recall my childhood where I grew up among Marwari Hindus as neighbors and went initially to a Christian (Anglican) Missionary school and began my day singing the Lord’s Prayer in the Chapel. I come from a family of practicing Muslims and so my own religion was always familiar. As a result of this eclectic upbringing, I didn’t convert to either Christianity or Hinduism but grew up learning a lot about both religions and communities, by living with them. We lived in each other’s homes, ate together (keeping to our own food laws strictly), celebrated each other’s festivals and didn’t feel that our own religion was threatened by this mutual understanding. I have written about this in detail in my book, ‘It’s my Life’ and so won’t repeat it here. Please read the book. You’ll enjoy it.

I am speaking of this here because the one big thing that happened thanks to this upbringing is that today, when someone tries to tell me about how bad and vicious Hinduism or Christianity are, I have the frame of reference of both from my own life experience against which to check what I am hearing. I reject these messages because I didn’t experience these religions or those who follow them, in that way at all. Ditto Judaism, from my experience which I described above. Therefore, the first and most important thing to do is to ensure that we get to know one another, personally, experientially and closely.

I am therefore able to distinguish and differentiate between the action of someone who professes to belong to a particular religion but does things that are prohibited in that religion. That, in my opinion, places that individual, outside his religion. He is not a representative of his religion and his actions are the result of his rejecting his religion, not of practicing it. So, I reject that individual and his actions, not his religion. In my view, in the case of those who are responsible for the mass murder in Sri Lanka that happened on Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019; those people are criminals and must be treated as such. They must be caught and punished to the full extent of the law. On no account must we accept their professed logic of representing this or that religion and on that account buy into the negative, toxic philosophy of hating that religion or its adherents, who are our neighbors and family. We must do this because we must defeat this hate-filled thinking that is sought to be imposed on us. We can only do this if we reject it. Not if we buy into it.

I am reminded of a story I heard in 1997, about the man who used to stand before the White House every night holding a candle, in his struggle to have the UN sanctions against Iraq, lifted. One night, it was cold and wet and windy. But the man was there in his place, holding an umbrella and trying to protect his candle from the rain.

The guard at the gate, who used to see him every day, came out to him and said, “Tell me why do you do this? Do you really think you can change them?”

The man replied, “I don’t do this to change them. I do it so that they won’t be able to change me.”

It is very important that we speak out. The time for silence is over. The time for action is here.

Mirza Yawar Baig is based in Hyderabad, India and is the founder and President of Yawar Baig & Associates; an international leadership consulting organization.