As a people, we suffer from serious amnesia and as a result make these crass statements based on the news of the day.
We forget that 70 million people were killed over six years during World War II, of whom around 60% were civilians. We forget that the twentieth century saw 160 million people killed in war.
We would rather ignore the estimated 40,000 in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq who were killed as a result of two US-led invasions.
Already we have forgotten the horrors of Abu Ghraib, Camp Whitehorse, Qaim and Samarra. If what happened a decade ago can be forgotten so easily, what hope do we have to recall the older crimes and abuses which litter our own history, stretching back over the past century alone?
Muslims, Muslim leaders and religious authorities have consistently condemned violent extremism for years and years.
We can’t place all the blame on the Press for not reporting this: the Guardian, Independent, Times, Daily Mail and BBC have all published articles on condemnation of ISIS by Muslim leaders and imams.
At some point, do we not have to acknowledge that we filter the news we read through our own prejudices and beliefs? If we do not want to hear of a fatwa condemning terrorism, we will not hear. If we do not want to hear of the work of peace keepers and aid workers, we will not hear.
If we only want to see darkness in the world, then that’s what we will find. The world is a mirror.
Our senses, notably our eyes and ears, are gateways to our hearts.
In an interview, recorded just hours before his execution in 1989, serial killer Ted Bundy, spokes of the pervasive influence exposure to extreme, violent pornography had on him. While not abdicating responsibility for his actions, he nevertheless acknowledged the power of an addictive force. It is an incredibly important observation for our times, for what is being said here applies not just to this type of extreme media, but to numerous other influences from the benign to the dangerous.
On the benign end we have shiny gadget syndrome, Technolust and obsessive devotion to a football team. Each become all-consuming because we choose to expose ourselves to images, words and sounds which reach into us.
But as to the dangerous: I have absolutely no doubt about the internal processes that occur in those who expose themselves to the gratuitous violence of warfare. The shock of a solitary photo on Facebook depicting horrific destruction in Gaza, followed by the stream of ever more extreme imagery, gradually, stage by stage, transform the viewer’s heart.
Responses are not uniform. The natural reaction of some will be to avenge for the wronged, to send aid to the oppressed or even to fight on their behalf.
But others, who expose themselves to the actions of other avengers, may be to perpetuate such horrors themselves. If you expose yourself to the actions of the supposed liberators, as they execute their prisoners and meet out punishment on those who oppose them, will a time not come in some, when a line is crossed, somewhere deep within?
This is an extreme example, but we are living in extreme times. We have witnessed once sensible, polite, kind individuals suddenly thrust upon us in the newspapers as terrible supporters of barbarity.
It is crucial that we recall the wisdom of Lower Your Gaze in a time of all-pervasive imagery.
Nobody in 1989, could have imagined the world as it is today, with such extreme imagery on tap. The days of debates about the effect of the video tape, satellite TV and the arcade game are long gone. All of that seems tame now — although it wasn’t of course. We have just lost touch with reality.
It has become apparent to me for a couple of years now that there is a real and urgent need for a fiqh and adab guide to navigating the Internet, particularly for the Internet generation.
I am alarmed by online discourse surrounding the ISIS phenomenon, as well as other issues. I am not sure that the upcoming generation is equipped to negotiate the competing truths presented to them on social media, with all its graphic imagery and persuasive argumentation.
We need to present faith-based guidance to the upcoming generation which addresses the contemporary context — the ever-present news feed on a slab of glass in every pocket, the demands of constant immediacy, unimpaired access to horrific scenes of conflict and brutality, the rise of anonymous influence and typing thumbs the new tongue.
I need to start fleshing these ideas out, somehow, inshallah. We really need a Guiding Helper for today; a Book of Assistance for the age of the internet. Who will help me make it happen?
We’re living in an age of such extremes that many of us haven’t realised we’ve become extremists.
It will be another 20 years before we know what’s really happening today, but by then nobody will care; it will all be ancient history. By then we will be engaged in new conflicts, more terrifying than ever before, and our leaders will be telling us once more, “We have learnt the lessons of the past. Standards were different back then. We would never play unethical games like that in this day of age.” And we, the gullible, will believe them.
Is it possible for us to support the needy today without being entertained? The best charity, we believe, is that given in secret. And yet my news feed brims each day with a multitude of activities and events designed to encourage me to give publicly to all kinds of worthy causes — and they are all worthy causes — under the assumption that adequate funds cannot be generated by beneficent giving alone. So we must be invited to bazaars, jumble sales, three course dinners and concerts. We must sponsor our friends for climbing a mountain, riding a bike, jumping out of a plane or flying across the globe for the adventure of a lifetime. Even our children come home from school laden with sponsorship forms. Perhaps it is the only way. Perhaps we must be compelled to give more than we would ordinarily give, because the needs of the needy are simply just too great. Perhaps. One thing is certain: all this entertainment is depriving us of the blessing of charity done in secret.
Today we must protest the misrepresentation of Muslim flags. That white Arabic script on a black background is merely our testimony of faith, cry the wronged. That white circle inscribed with calligraphy is merely the seal of the Prophet, peace be upon him. This is simply the flag of the early Muslims, whimper believers, feeling under attack once more.
But is any of this really true? As I understood it, the first flags used by the Muslim community under the leadership of the Prophet, peace be upon him, were a plain black standard and a plain white banner. The black flag with the shahada on it seems to be based on the green Saudi flag, which is less than a century old.
If we’re honest, in recent times, the black flag with the shahada on it has always been associated with political movements such as Hizb-ut Tahir and Muhajirun. Current reactions to the flag popping up in peaceful communities are hardly surprising then.
There is nothing sinister about words of faith printed on a piece of fabric, but everything has a context and connotations. If the so-called Islamic State had instead chosen $ as its logotype, perhaps we would be having another discussion. But they didn’t and we’re not.
Once more we run headlong into an emotional defence, forgetting to ponder history, ancient and modern, to appreciate the perceptions of others, not just our own.
Every generation sees signs that they’re living in extraordinary times. If only those that come after would ask those that came before. Keep on planting seeds; don’t slash and burn your crops.
Why do those who commit enormities occupy themselves with the trivial faults of others? In their ravaging rampage, spilling the blood of innocents without pause, they have become a parody of righteousness. We must invest more in Mental Health care.
If you bomb people back to the stone age, don’t be surprised if they start acting like cavemen.
Now that they have received written confirmation from Asda that it does not have a policy of barring entry to customers wearing their t-shirts, perhaps it’s time the t-shirt company updated the article on their website which first highlighted the alleged incident, rather than leaving this information buried in the comments thread.
As for the social media fire they’ve sparked: no idea how they’ll put that out. What a vast amount of timber can be set alight by the tiniest spark.
The past century has witnessed such extreme violence, with 160 million people killed in war, that our leaders are incapable of taking a stance based on morality.
70 million people were killed over six years during World War II alone, around 60% of whom were civilians.
900,000 people were killed during Rwanda’s civil war in 1994. 75,000 people were killed in the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea between 1998 and 2000.
The war in Congo has left 3.8 million dead since 1998.
An estimated 40,000 died as a result of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan; 160,000 as a result of the invasion of Iraq.
300,000 killed over six years in Darfur. 38,000 in Pakistan’s war with the Taliban. 130,000 killed in Syria since 2012.
Staggering figures – and still only a small sample of recent and current conflicts worldwide. The bloodshed of the current era is without precedent.
The age of morality has long since passed. Our leaders can only take a stance based on strategic interest today; civilian lives are expendable in an era in which millions have already died.
Discovering that a few of the dead had lives, loves and dreams is simply an inconvenient truth: momentarily our leaders may squirm uncomfortably in the face of human reality, but ultimately the dead are merely statistics amongst hundreds of thousands already deceased.
We, the people, may lament the cold indifference of our leaders and their certain hypocrisy, but our politics have already been stamped with moral bankruptcy: vacuous platitudes about human rights can do nothing to bring millions of innocents back to life.
The hearts of our leaders are already dead. There is no morality here, no right and wrong or good and evil. There is strategic interest, money, power, greed and the domination of finite resources.
How can we explain to our leaders that all life is sacred? That to save one life is as if to save all humanity? Global society needs a reboot.
Social media might represent the greatest driver to true democracy, but without without a moral basis which causes individuals to act with integrity and honesty, it is just as likely to lead to anarchic chaos.
Last year, photos of the 2012 Istanbul Eurasia Marathon were shared all over the the internet amidst claims that they represented mass anti-government protests.
These claims were easily debunked, but others based on traffic accidents and earlier incidents were more difficult to verify and separate from genuine news.
In every conflict there is truth, truth mixed with falsehood, and straight falsehood.
In 2012, early in the Syria conflict, the BBC used a 2003 photo from Iraq to illustrate the Houla massacre. If their photo researchers can get it so wrong, what about us?
Please think twice about sharing photos of conflict if you have no idea where they come from.
The victims of the bombardment of Gaza will not be helped by the distribution of photos from 2009 and 2012, and from Syria, Iraq and other conflicts.
The victims of horrific violence need justice and aid, not advocacy based on partial misinformation. Be witnesses to truth.
