| Thursday, 19, January, 2006 (19, Dhul Hijjah, 1426) The Wrong Way to Promote OneÂ’s Cause Abeer Mishkhas, [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
| Al-Jazeera TV showed a silent film of the kidnapped American reporter, Jill Carroll, making what might have been a plea. She is not the first journalist to be kidnapped in Iraq or in other war zones; nor, sadly, will she be the last. Simply because there are criminals who think they can change government policy by
killing innocent people. Whatever their motives or their reasons — even if they are protesting occupation — the horror of their crime blackens their cause and destroys their points, if they have any. The truth is that they do not target Western journalists; they target any civilian who comes by chance in their way. In Carroll’s case, an Iraqi translator accompanying her was shot twice in the head. For what reason? No one knows. The chaos has become so widespread and so common that logic long since ceased to apply. A report by a German press agency said that Iraqi translators were becoming scarce, that most of them have decided to quit their jobs because they have become targets. Some of them have left their homes and tried to find shelter with the American forces; others simply move often from one place to another. In such a situation as this, I cannot help but think that the absence of journalists in Iraq will
obscure the facts more than ever. All will be vague and uncertain because there will be no one there to report accurately on what is going on. The public’s right to the truth will fall victim to zealots and hatemongers — and even armies themelves since there have been cases of journalists being hit by “friendly fire.” It is tragic that the zealots and hatemongers do not realize that if they do have a case, their chance to present that case to the world lies with journalists. Kidnapping and killing journalists does not topple governments; ransoms are never paid, demands never met and yet the kidnapping goes on. The kidnappers take different names — from Supporters of Islam to Revenge Brigades. The names of course mean nothing and definitely do not mean that there is an actual group which goes by that name. We simply do not know who these
people are or what they want. If they are Muslims who are fighting Americans, they negate their purposes by killing and kidnapping Muslims and Arabs. And most of the time the people they kidnap have nothing to do with the military situation; they are often people who are working on civil projects, or journalists or maybe people such as the translator who was murdered for no apparent reason. The attackers always choose a soft target; they never go for the people they say they are fighting. The easy way is to kill an unarmed person who is quietly doing his or her job, a person who might in fact believe in justice and peace and who often has no political agenda. He or she just happens to be in the place some fanatic decides to blow up. In a British magazine I read an interview with a Jordanian woman whose recent wedding was so savagely devastated by suicide bombers. She spoke of the horror of that day and of the
family members she lost. Both her parents along with 27 of her and her husband’s relatives and friends. What could possibly justify such pointless savagery? What could possibly justify such baseless carnage? Reading that story, I simply could not begin to imagine what she has gone through. Losing a member of one’s family is a painful experience and sometimes takes months or years to come to terms with. In this case, the poor woman lost her parents, relatives, family and friends — all on a day that should have been special and happy for her and them. She said that when she saw the female bomber on TV who failed to detonate her explosives, she wanted to seize her and ask why she had participated in such a thing and what she thought she was doing. Is the point to all these killings to make journalists flee Iraq and contractors, engineers and other civilians stop going there? Would that help the situation? Would it
end anything? The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued a statement demanding the immediate release of Jill Carroll, pointing out that her kidnapping will not change American policies. On the contrary, such acts will enrage the American public against Arabs and Muslims. As basic, as clear and as evident as this message is, I fear it will fall, like so many others, upon deaf ears. Source: Arab News |
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{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all."
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
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