Source :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/12/15/aleppo-is-about-the-sanctity-and-dignity-of-each-and-every-human-life/
The tragedy - no, the genocide - in Aleppo is unfolding before
our eyes. Less than a generation after the Srebrenica massacre and
Rwanda, after "never again". Here we are again. And yet there is
also something different about this genocide. I don't recall
another that had so many ardent supporters on the two sides.
A Turkish friend wrote on my Facebook wall: "May Allah destroy
all who help this massacre happen - Iran." I reminded him that the
destruction of a whole country is tantamount to genocide, but there
was no retraction.
An Arab friend, a leading scholar of Islamic law, has gone on
repeated anti-Shi'ite, anti-Iranian and anti-Family of the Prophet
(Ahl al-Bayt) rants on his Facebook wall. Again, no retractions.
Some Iranian Shi'ites have not fared any better, resorting to
anti-Sunni, anti-Arab rants. No retractions.
As a Muslim, I am particularly agonised by this. We are a people
who have been raised to speak out for justice, even if our voices
shake. We are a people who are to speak the truth and stand up for
justice even if it is against ourselves, against our parents and
against our community. What a lofty and beautiful moral stance, and
how short we have fallen of that moral high ground.
I see most of us supporting the "side" that lines up with our
sectarian affiliation and geopolitical interests. The Muslims who
view the crisis of Aleppo as primarily a Russian/ Iranian/Bashar
al-Assad genocide of a defenceless population have been sharing the
"final messages" of people of Aleppo.
On the other side, Muslims who have celebrated President Assad's
victories as "liberating" Aleppo from Islamic militant groups
(Nusra/Jaysh/FSA) have resorted to quoting freelance journalist Eva
Bartlett, who is featured on Russian-backed sites RT.com and
Sputnik. They have taken to questioning the "final messages" from
Ale ppo.
Something about all of this seems rotten. We are determining our
moral stance on a genocide based on our geopolitical commitments.
Somewhere we were told that every human life is sacred, that every
life has the breath of God inside. Somewhere we were told that to
take one human life is as if to take the life of the whole of
humanity, and to save one human life is as if to save the whole of
humanity. Somewhere we were told that the life of a human is more
sacred than the Kaaba itself.
Syrians in a rebel-held area of Aleppo being evacuated to a
rebel-held territory in the west of Aleppo province yesterday. If
we cry out against the victims for one side, and have not a
mumbling word to say about the other victims, our partial mourning
is rooted in a flawed sectarianism, says the writer.
And all along, hundreds of thousands of Syrians die.
If your stance on Syria is shaped by whether the killing is
being done by Russia/Iran/Assad's genocidal government, or by
Nusra/Jaysh/FSA genocidal forces, you still haven't got the part
about the sanctity and dignity of each human life.
If we cry out against the victims for one side, and have not a
mumbling word to say about the other victims, our partial mourning
is rooted in a flawed sectarianism. It's not the identity of the
killers that makes it a crime. It's the humanity of the victims,
the dignity that each of us is afforded by the virtue of having the
breath of God inside us.
Let us never succumb to lining up our moral commitments with
geopolitics of a nation-state. It's the geopolitical politics that
have to line up with dignity of human lives, not the other way
around.
May it be that we stand up not for Iran, not for Turkey, not for
Saudi Arabia, not for Russia, not for the US, but only for justice.
This is not about Sunni and Shi'ite, Arab and Iranian. It's about
right and wrong. It's about human dignity.
As a Muslim, I find my community in selective outrage. The same
desire for moral consistency applies to us as Americans. I watched
with admiration the powerful words of Ambassador Samantha Powers
speaking at the United Nations, addressing Russia and Iran: "Are
you truly incapable of shame?... Is there no act of barbarism
against civilians, no execution of a child, that gets under your
skin, that just creeps you out, just a little bit?" Yes, these are
powerful words. I found myself nodding in agreement. Yet I wonder
where the same moral outrage was in our own country's use of drones
against Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Iraq and
Syria. Where was the same outrage when we bombed wedding parties
and blew grandmothers to smithereens? Where was this moral display
in Abu Ghraib and the forced feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba?
Where is the moral speaking to power when we destroyed Iraq and
Afghanistan, enable the Israeli occupation of Palestine by
providing both military and political cover for Israel, and
expedited shipment of weapons to Saudi Arabia to wreak havoc on
Yemen?
As an American, I find the US in selective outrage. We are
shocked that the Russians would interfere in US elections, when
Americans have a long history of regime change in Iran (1953),
Chile (1973) and elsewhere. We are aghast that the Russians would
bomb defenceless populations, when we have bombed civilian
populations for so long in so many places that it is not an
aberration: it is tradition.
As the home to both Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, the US
has always been both a dream and a nightmare, particularly towards
poor and marginalised people inside US borders and in the global
South. I want us as Muslims to be a moral people. I want us as
Americans to live up to the meaning of our creeds.
No, I don't know how to stop the bloodshed in Syria. Yes, we
feel helpless, angered, sad, devastated.
Let us do whatever we can to alleviate the suffering of Syrians.
And let us become a moral people who put human dignity above
geopolitical and sectarian interests.
WASHINGTON POST
•The writer is director of the Duke Islamic Studies Centre.
Source :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/12/15/aleppo-is-about-the-sanctity-and-dignity-of-each-and-every-human-life/
