Just yesterday, in my weekly tarjuma class, we were speaking of how all requisites for life are available for us without question and without fail. We breathe we eat; the fact that we are face water shortages or our ozone layer is depleting is directly correlated to how we've abused these resources. But I'll leave it to Al Gore to cover that one.
What we do to human life, that's another battle. We have bomb blasts and shootings left, right and center, not only in Pakistan but in Mexico and the Dominican Republic and everywhere else. What's that about? What brings a man/woman/child to the point where all they can think of to make their lives more peaceful, is to blow themselves up and "If I'm going down, I'm taking everybody with me." What does it take? Poverty and the frustration that comes with it? Brain washing of some bizarre kind? How much of that washing is required and what is it being washed with? I fail to understand the seventy-two virgins and how appealing they possibly could be. I'm a firm Believer, in that I love God and I pray to Him five times a day; I believe that I'll be reprimanded and rewarded for everything I do. I believe, til kingdom come, I am being tested. That said, it would naturally follow that I wouldn't believe that I am ready to blow myself up in oblivion for want of the streams of milk and honey (yes, it is the food that is luring me); I would always need that one extra day/hour to do that one act of kindness that will tilt my scale favorably. It also naturally follows that when my time is up, no number of security detail or cordoned neighborhoods are going to protect me. But I'm sure others, like myself, would appreciate some calm and dignity until that time comes, instead of dying and reliving every time we hear a rickshaw backfire because it could just as easily have been a bomb.
I don't buy the fact that this genocide is in the name of religion; neither does anyone else for that matter. Now, what other myth could we propose to veil these "acts"? God is testing us, sure, but we'll pick up our pieces and live on, but those behind these atrocities, how are they picking themselves up every morning? My friend W.A. once lost his nail in a soccer match and he had issues swallowing the fact for days. How can you obliterate structures, homes, lives, children, mothers and brothers and think "Maybe a second blast would've proven more effective, challo next time"? I fail to grasp what this thought process could entail or where it stems from.
I watched "Paradise Now" with my aunt in Dubai and as we walked out of the cinema we discussed how it was intriguing how brainwashed this man was into becoming a suicide bomber. I take it back. "Brain washed" would innately imply a brain to begin with. There are no extra-credit points for returning to God with a completely "washed" brain, "Brand new, Allah, not used at all! Feel free to recycle". No; I'm sorry, what in the sweet Lord's name are they using to wash it so that there are no remnants of common sense, courtesy or dignity? The debates of morality and religion have echoed for eons but no one can dissuade from believing that lying, stealing and killing are a no-no from Tennessee to Timbuktu; whether you follow Budha, Darwin, Jehovah, Jesus, Ram, or no one. Life is always sacred.
Living in Lahore has brought me full circle, from being confused, to being angry, to being sad and now I'm back at confused again. All these "episodes", all these places, all so close to home. Today, practically in my back yard. And why? We'll never know and we'll keep wondering, instead, how to better our youth by detaching their cell phones from them and by filing law suits against the Government for some obscure form of what we like to call blasphemy. Again, in the name of religion. I'm glad we're at least focused.
"God, guide and protect us. When we're wrong, correct us." - Bob Marley.
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