dignifying death
...only when we respect living can we dignify death
News headline: 44 killed in Quetta...closer read...over 44 shias were killed...in an imambargah while they were praying…
...what is it with us? why do we value life so little?...yes there are other hot spots in the world...Liberia, ruwanda, southern phillipines, chechenya, iraq, but am more concerned with paksitan...what is it with us?...we respect neither the living nor the dead...and we are so intolerant to boot...
...asked this question a year and half ago to a room full of post graduate students of the islamic studies department at a major university in pakistan...why are we so intolerant?...earlier i had illustrated intolerance by giving an example...sometime earlier...in the city of lahore the sunnis had sprayed machine gun fire in a shia graveyard where some 40-50 mourners gathered to bury the dead were killed...the next day the shias attacked a gathering of sunnis praying inside a mosque...tit for tat...wonder if the sunnis and shias prayed to sunni and shia Allah?...
'why are we so intolerant?' drew no answer from the otherwise voluble students...the silence was deafening...
...life is a precious gift…an imanat...a trust...we cannot violate that trust...last night had visitors...i recalled that poet who had written a poem praising the palestinian suicide bombers...and my dismay upon hearing it...life is precious and should never be given away so violently no matter what the cause...this visitor said he understands playing with life in certain cases…like what?...oh the fedayeen in Kashmir...you mean the terrorists? no, fedayeen...i reiterated...no cause is worthy enough to give one’s life...then he said it has been done all through the ages...give me examples...masada, gallipolli, khemkaran, the Indian assault on point 428 (or some other hill) and other names he reeled off...i countered that dare-devil attacks against formidable enemy presence with certain death staring in the faces is not suicide bombing...that is a different...it could be an offensive or defensive act for the sake of nation or even a cause...but there is a difference between strapping explosives and blowing yourself up and assaulting an enemy position when you are outnumbered...
...only when we respect living can we dignify death...
News headline: 44 killed in Quetta...closer read...over 44 shias were killed...in an imambargah while they were praying…
...what is it with us? why do we value life so little?...yes there are other hot spots in the world...Liberia, ruwanda, southern phillipines, chechenya, iraq, but am more concerned with paksitan...what is it with us?...we respect neither the living nor the dead...and we are so intolerant to boot...
...asked this question a year and half ago to a room full of post graduate students of the islamic studies department at a major university in pakistan...why are we so intolerant?...earlier i had illustrated intolerance by giving an example...sometime earlier...in the city of lahore the sunnis had sprayed machine gun fire in a shia graveyard where some 40-50 mourners gathered to bury the dead were killed...the next day the shias attacked a gathering of sunnis praying inside a mosque...tit for tat...wonder if the sunnis and shias prayed to sunni and shia Allah?...
'why are we so intolerant?' drew no answer from the otherwise voluble students...the silence was deafening...
...life is a precious gift…an imanat...a trust...we cannot violate that trust...last night had visitors...i recalled that poet who had written a poem praising the palestinian suicide bombers...and my dismay upon hearing it...life is precious and should never be given away so violently no matter what the cause...this visitor said he understands playing with life in certain cases…like what?...oh the fedayeen in Kashmir...you mean the terrorists? no, fedayeen...i reiterated...no cause is worthy enough to give one’s life...then he said it has been done all through the ages...give me examples...masada, gallipolli, khemkaran, the Indian assault on point 428 (or some other hill) and other names he reeled off...i countered that dare-devil attacks against formidable enemy presence with certain death staring in the faces is not suicide bombing...that is a different...it could be an offensive or defensive act for the sake of nation or even a cause...but there is a difference between strapping explosives and blowing yourself up and assaulting an enemy position when you are outnumbered...
...only when we respect living can we dignify death...
posted by temporal at 8/28/2005
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