Death of Reason

Violence, of course, is the theme of the day. And nothing but a loud and clear condemnation of the base and vile act of the slaughter of the men, women and children who lost their lives on the seventh of July would suffice. Men, women and children who might have stood shoulder to shoulder with millions of other Londoners to tell Tony Blair that his vile aggression against Iraq is not acceptable. Nothing but the clearest exposure of the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of those involved in this senseless killing would suffice, just as nothing short of a clear exposure and condemnation of the slaughter of innocent, men, women and children in Falluja, Baghdad, Basra, Kirkuk, and hundreds of other small towns in Iraq will suffice, to bring home the tragic reality of those whose lives have been extinguished through barbaric bombardment by the American B-52 bombers that would fly out of British air bases during that atrocious manslaughter planned and executed in cold blood by Bush and Blair.

Nothing really dies without spreading death on this ravaged planet; this is the most basic existential truth that humanity has learned through its own experience. Those who have been napalmed out of existence and those who have been “taken out” by precision-guided missiles have merely disappeared from our sight, leaving behind traces of their lives which continue to haunt the killers.

Violence begets violence and robs us of our humanity. This is another of those time-tested, veritable truths that humanity has learned through experience. No one can kill another, without simultaneously robbing us all of a part of our humanity. In an age ripe with violence, those who initiate the chain of violence must bear the prime responsibility for its profusion throughout the lands. When violence spreads on earth, no one remains safe. Violence knows no other definitions; it does not recognize the sophistry which makes hollow distinctions between “institutionalized violence” and its other, rawer, form. Violence has a force of its own which recognizes neither the moral bankruptcy of states which perpetuate invasions and occupation in the name of this or that ideology, nor that of individuals who walk into tube stations with rucksacks full of explosives; in both cases, it spells death and destruction.

Violence is borne out of Reason’s grave. Thus born an adult, it has possibilities of further growth, because once Reason dies, nothing remains sacred, nothing makes sense anymore and our most basic understanding of primary truths disappears; then, it is only violence and its grieshoch that remains.

Of course, pundits have written much about Islam’s inherent condemnation of violence and friends and foes have joined hands to “de-link” the two, but the claim that those who blew themselves up along with other innocent travellers in London were Muslims remains a prominently displayed theme across the media, whereas those who dispatched thousands to unnamed graves in Falluja, Baghdad, and Bosra remain anonymous entities, men and women without a religion, without even faces. This is violence of another kind, a tyranny of power that makes media its bedfellow and attempts to rob us of our Reason.

When Reason departs, it leaves behind a flawed and distorted perception of reality which perpetuates violence of yet another kind. This is the violence that makes aggression and its progeny acts of liberation. This is the violence that calls men who were until yesterday thugs, killers, and paid agents of the CIA and FBI “voices of Afghanistan and Iraq”. This is the violence that attempts to hoodwink sensible men and women. This is the violence that attempts to exploit softened hearts and justify contemptible acts of aggression against other nations. This violence appears in photographs: a Hamid Karzai standing next to a Tony Blair who calls him “the voice of Afghanistan”.

Violence of yet another kind fills the public sphere: everyone is now eager to ride on the bandwagon of the anti-terrorism drive—from the “leaders” of the Muslim population of Britain, to self-appointed presidents who violated the sacred trust and the Constitution of the land and robbed us at midnight. Among, of course, scores of other illegitimate regimes. All are now eager to show the world that they are cracking down on terrorists, yet they are in fact perpetuating violence by committing violence. When men and women are picked up from their houses at midnight, when careers and lives are destroyed on mere suspicion (as is the case with the Egyptian chemist), when draconian laws are passed in the name of security, seeds of violence are sown and then it is merely a matter of time until we harvest the bitter fruit of this violence.

Fortunately, truth has an inherent power that cannot be wiped out by any amount of sophistry; truth always remains true, for that is its inalienable property. Thus, no matter what twist tongues give to truth, it remains clear to millions of human beings around the world that one cannot turn a country into living hell and escape the inferno. Iraq has been made into a living hell by an illegal and violent invasion and its inferno is devouring lives everywhere. Death knows no borders or boundaries. No matter how many times it is repeated by twisted tongues that there are no links between violence committed in London and the violence being committed in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Palestine, the truth remains clear: violence is being committed at a very large scale in Muslim lands, and those who are committing this violence as well as those who are standing in the wings sending orders, cannot escape it.

Yes, the vile acts of July 7 need to be condemned, but the fact that this terrible crime is but one of many being committed against innocent men, women and children remains an important, powerful, and relevant truth that needs to be simultaneously recognized. Those who were directly responsible for 7/7 have gone beyond our human reach; those who are responsible for the crimes in Falluja, Guantanamo Bay, Basra, Baghdad, are still around; when will someone take them to a court of justice, ending this violence and resurrecting Reason, so that we can live in peace?

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