Tweets for good

All our emotions are fried.

All our tears are at fume stage.

All our thoughts and prayers are for the victims and their families.

It becomes very difficult to write about anything, be it leadership, motivation, financial markets, e-commerce, social media, etc when over the last 48 hours one’s mind has been stuck and sinking in the quicksand of death and destruction.

How and why does this re-occur, and how can we collectively figure a way out?

* Beirut: 50 victims
* Baghdad: 30 victims
* Kabul: 20 victims
* Paris: 150 victims

Many of us have consumed, condemned and contributed (via social media) to the news about the loss of life.

One of the comments that stuck out was, in paraphrase, "There are 1.8 billion Muslims – if they all had same ideology of hate, death and destruction, the world would have ended."

Muslim world leaders have said what is expected of them:

The grand imam of Al-Azhar University called the attacks "odious" and called on the world to unite to face this monster.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the attacks a crime against humanity.

Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah described them as "heinous", and Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister declared they were "in violation and contravention of all ethics, morals and religions".

Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body said terrorists are not sanctioned by Islam and these acts are contrary to values of mercy it brings to the world.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said, "Indonesia condemns the violence that took place in Paris."

Pope Francis appeared to echo their rejection of Isis's religious claims, saying that he saw the violence as part of a "piecemeal Third World War". He said "there is no religious or human justification” for the attacks".

Seeking insight

In trying to obtain fresh insight and understanding on this fear and hate, I came across Australian Susan Carland – who calls herself "hijabulous" – and found her analysis and approach extremely refreshing:

"Their online abuse ranges from requests to leave Australia, hope for my death, insults about my appearance (with a special focus on my hijab), accusations that I am a stealth jihadist, and that I am planning to take over the nation, one halal meat pie at a time.

"As I browsed some of their Twitter timelines, I noticed just how many of the tweets they sent out were full of rage, scattered at any recipient they could find.

"It seemed that as people so full of darkness, they could only see darkness in others… They (men) just send out a lot of hate to a lot of people. They are at their core very unhappy people.

"People who are happy and secure just don't do this sort of thing – they don't send out machine guns of hate."

To cut a long story short, what Susan has done, from her Twitter account, @susancarland, is this: "I donate $1 to @unicef for each hate-filled tweet I get from trolls. Nearly at $1,000 in donations. The needy children thank you, hater!"

"In response to all the hate I receive simply because I am Muslim, it was only natural that my response would be rooted in the fact that I am Muslim," she wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald, quoting a passage from the Quran that reads, "Good and evil are not equal. Repel evil with what is better."

I find her approach a brilliant business plan, but one issue raised by her husband in tongue and cheek manner is that their personal contribution for this good cause could bankrupt them. I suggest we all think about contributing.

Why brilliant?

* It's financial "emotional innovative disruption", a derivative of "fintech" disruption, turns a negative to a foundation of positive for others to build up.

* It's being an active stakeholder and doing something versus the predictable (but necessary) comments from above-mentioned leaders.

Actions always speak louder, broader and deeper than words.

* Susan becomes the spark for others to undertake similar and more innovative approaches to turn hate into contributions for good.

* It's finding a silver lining of productivity and good from hate and bigotry based on ignorance and closed hearts/minds.

* It becomes purification, borrowing a concept and terminology from Islamic banking and investing, where you take impermissible income (in this case hate) and donate to charity (in this case needy children).

* It sends a message of hope to the "haters", including the extremists, asking that they reflect on their foundational belief system, its source, its objectives and so on.

Hopefully, it makes them to think how different (or similar) they are to those who have perpetrated acts of terrorism.

Terrorism is intended to cause fear and chaos, and such hate-filled messages do the same to those who look like or are Muslims.

* We all acknowledge "terrorism has no religion", but in the name of out-of-context religious verses, religion is used to make people undertake acts that the creator has clearly prohibited, the killing of his most perfect creation: man.

Maybe "tweets for good" can become a "force for good", hence balancing hate with compassion.

How do you "tweet for good"? – November 18, 2015.

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