The War and Religious Leadership

Dead bodies, splintered limbs and bones, scattered blood. Welcome to peace and welcome to liberty. Regardless of the religious, cultural and ethnic background of dead people, the most beautiful creation of God, the one for whom the entire universe was created, the one who was the object of submission of all angels is being killed mercilessly. Children are becoming orphans and women are being widowed. The environment is being desecrated with smoke, fire and who knows what other poison. Plants and animals are dying for the supremacy of mines over mind. Welcome to peace and welcome to security.

Yet, we all speak of human dignity, and the sanctity of human life. We all quote from scriptures that every human being is entitled to a secure existence. We, the Muslims, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Buddhists and the atheists; we all repeat the divine phrase "Thou shall not kill". Yet we all kill those who disagree with us. We the best of the divine creation act in a beastly manner when we confront those who are not like us in color, ethnicity and status. Yet, the churches, the mosques, the synagogues and temples beat the drum of humanity day in and day out claming that their religion inspires them to work for peace and human dignity.

During the last 100 years, we the people of religion and non-religion have killed more of God's creation in the name of God or other secular ideologies than we ever did in our entire human history. Jews, Muslims, Christians Hindus, Buddhists even Sikhs have become the victim of those who lust for human blood and who rush for wars. In the last one hundred years, we have killed more than 100 million people all over the world.

If we remove ourselves from the de-synthesizing "Militainment" of corporate media, we must ask...In the name of our collective humanity... WHY?

We have to address this question at this juncture of our existence, not because of the war in Iraq but because of the nature of the era in which we are living in. Our world has developed weapons of mass destruction. Our world has acquired the skills of mass misinformation. A single individual or a small group of people having access to these weapons and technologies is enough to wreck unspeakable havoc to the entire humanity.

The present war demonstrates that very clearly. Neither the majority in America nor the majority of people all over the world wanted this war to be fought. Yet, a small group of people who in their own hallucinating logic determined that they had been given the task to carry on the will of God for world security embarked on a campaign of death and destruction. Powerful as they are, yet they could not stop dissenting voices challenging them openly and loudly.

What is being done by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and Wolfwitz team is not new. Throughout the last century; death and destruction has been imposed upon people by various groups who consider themselves as the voice of God or justice.

Saddam Hussein killed tens of thousands of people. He was the one who imposed a war on Iran. The Ayatollahs in Iran killed those whom they disagreed with. The Sudanese, the Nigerians, the Egyptians, the Israelis, the Indians, the Saudis, the French, the British, the Australian, you name it and you will not find a nation that has not participated in the killing or suppressing of innocent people. The response of people to these crimes depends on their interests and relationship to the victims.

For many, only the life of those who are like them is worth defending. This notion of selective defense of human life is a dangerous notion as it leads to a sense of superiority and aloofness. The present war has demonstrated that clearly. Life is sacred only if it happens to be the life of an American or an allied soldier. This is a jingoistic way of defending human life and it will lead us to nothing but violence and chaos as it has always led us in the past.

A glimmer of hope is that humanity has rarely spoken as one voice in defense of human dignity and human life as it has done with peace rallies through out the world.

The simple fact that all of humanity needs to comprehend is that every human being is created by the divine and it is the collective responsibility of every human being to defend that right regardless of the background and color of the other. Such a message is consistent with the teachings of all religions. Yet, the religious leadership has often betrayed this teaching.

This war could have been stopped if the religious leadership of the world could have put into action the stand they had taken on war. Rather than making statements on the situation, they should have stood as the first line of defense for human life in front of the invader. Only a joint action on the part of religious leadership could have forced the warmongers to think about their stand. The best defense against a military might is the weapon of courage built on moral values.

We all lacked the courage to translate the language of peace into concrete peaceful actions. We were strong in our resolves. We were determined in our values. We were right in our opposition to this war. Yet we the religious communities failed to develop a joint action in defense of human life that, we all believe is created by God.

This war like most other wars is a denial of the notion of sanctity of human life, because it believes in the superiority of some people, some races and some countries over the other. Thus the opposition to war is important not only to save the world from warmongers, but also to stand for the most essential component of our universe, the human life itself.

Dr. Aslam Abdullah, is the Editor the Minaret and the Muslim Observer