Grief should not be by religion

Every time a terrorist attack is perpetrated by Islamists, especially in the West, Islam and Muslims are placed under a microscope and expected to make statements condemning the act, take action to distance themselves from the attackers.

Common before, among umbrella organizations and bodies claiming to represent the Muslims, this expectation now seems to have been extended onto ever day individuals.

While this attitude is understandable, perhaps in Europe and America, where Islam is a minority religion and suspicion against new Muslim immigrants are still relatively fresh. Surprisingly though, this belief is also beginning to present itself in countries where Muslims have been around longer and form a larger segment of community, like ours.

The attack on France and Lebanon just adds to this ever growing, unceasing and seemingly uncontainable problem of global terrorism.

Like all terrorist attacks, the one in France a few days back was barbaric, cruel, and unjustified.

There can never be an excuse to taking the lives of innocent people – whatever your problem with their government or ideology is.

People who inherently have a problem with Muslims and Islam would of course jump on this opportunity to bash the religion.

Religion bashing is religion bashing. It doesn’t matter if you do it rudely or masked behind a sympathetic, intellectual mask – like with a one liner from the Quran exhorting acts of violence.

Others would of course denounce the act and state their solidarity in grief with the families of the victims.

To me, this is the only acceptable human response.

Of course, there will then be others who would drop a half-hearted ten word message of sympathy followed by a hundred word rant on how the world practises selective grief and how it ignores other affected terrorist targets, or other tragedies that occur just because the country is poor, black or Muslim.

Really? Can we not choose a better time to talk about this?

A time like… when those incidents actually occurred?

There is no need to qualify your sympathy or justify the actions of the terrorists.

How much have we done to assist those countries and oppressed citizens before making statements like ‘the world ignores them’?

Aren’t we just as much citizens of the world as France or the US? So why is the responsibility solely theirs?

To me, to label a terrorist organization ‘Islamic’ or any religion for that matter, is not quite right.

It doesn’t matter if the label comes from the organization itself, from the media or from intelligence agencies or foreign ministries.

The Ku Klux Klan does what they do in the name of Christianity though there’s nothing Christian about hating blacks or Jews.

The Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, accused of child labour and crimes against humanity, also professes to be Christian. Yet, we rarely hear the term “Christianist”.

In India, Hindutva followers have been known to perform violent acts bordering genocide in the name of religion.

In 1999, a Christian missionary was burnt to death in an act of ‘saffron’ terror.

In 2007, Hindu nationalists claimed responsibility in blowing up a train, in which 68 people died from the ensuing fire. Yet Hindu terrorism is not something you read about.

So if the world does not expect every Christian to answer for the actions of a few, or every Hindu to answer for the same, why does it expect that from Muslims?

Religion and terrorism in the name of it, may sound divinely inspired, but at the root of it all are very human problems, and equally human emotions in response of those problems.

Problems like poverty, social inequality, war and hunger.

Solicit responses like jealousy, hate and anger.

Desperate people will believe anything and what better way to put the fear of God in people than using God himself?

There seems to be a cycle to this. An attack targeting innocent lives, an outpouring of grief and solidarity, expressions of outrage, military retaliation, eventual defeat of the enemy, an announcement of hollow victory, a temporary respite.

But it goes on – with a different name and in a different form, but with the same vengeful and malevolent hate that drives it.

We’ve been fighting it for years now with little success. Perhaps it’s time to try a different approach, by asking not only when or how terrorists (Muslim or otherwise) resort to acts of terror.

But also why.

In the meantime, offer our support in any way possible, unqualified, and unconditionally to those affected. As we would expect when we lose family and loved ones.

And if you cannot do so, perhaps the best thing is to maybe not say anything stupid, so as to, in the very least, not add to their already heavy grief. – November 17, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.