It was heartbreaking to see how a white Australian origin
terrorist mercilessly killed innocent and harmless Muslims at Christchurch, New
Zealand who had gathered to pray before the common God of Christians and
Muslims. The terrorist carried out this inhumane act of terrorism after months
of planning to advance his political and social agenda i.e. to get rid of “invaders”
in the West- and identifying Muslims as “invaders”. These attacks on the house
of God has not been the first attack on a religious place of worship as there
had been 25 incidents where terrorists, both Muslim and non-Muslim, had
attacked the houses of God – Mosques, Churches and Synagogues, killing scores
of innocent worshipers.
I watched a few western TV channels and was taken aback to
see that Western media has been downplaying the attack by identifying the
killer as ‘shooter’ and not ‘terrorist’. The world community must realize that
different categorisation of acts of terrorism would further widen the gap
between Islam and the West and provides tools to extremists to radicalise by
citing the stances taken by the Western world as discriminatory. The
politicians, media intellectuals and opinion makers must be careful while
talking about any religion due to the complexity and impact that their words
can have. We all must work at all levels to advocate for interfaith harmony and
brotherhood. Let us call a spade a spade, and this attack an act of terrorism.
The statements by different world leaders have compelled me
to wonder if these leaders have different meanings of terrorism – a different
code for Muslims to demonising them and different label for non-Muslims. We
have seen that an isolated act of terrorism by a “Muslim terrorist” would be
used to condemn the whole peaceful Muslim community but this has never been the
case with any act carried out by a white person. Needless to say, all such
attacks are carried out with a predetermined agenda and are thus equally liable
to be condemned in the same fashion.
In order to understand the difference between “shooter” and
“terrorist”, I refer to the Oxford dictionary. According to the dictionary, a
“shooter” is “a person who uses a gun either regularly or on a particular
occasion”. The dictionary defines “terrorist” as “a person who uses unlawful
violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of
political aims”. The media has reported that the terrorist Australian Brenton
Tarrant, 28, had been planning the attacks for months and had posted his
manifesto on the internet, a copy of which has reportedly been received in the
office of the New Zealand Prime Minister a minute before the attack. The
manifesto was filled with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hatred. He had carried
out terrorism to achieve his political goals and thus very rightly falls under
the definition of “terrorist” and not merely a shooter. The Western media and
some leaders, therefore, need to be revisiting their approach to the incident
and the perpetrator.
The irony is that the Muslims are called terrorists but one
of the victims of this tragedy, a 71-year-old Afghan refugee Dawood Mohammad
who escaped terrorism in his own country couldn’t escape the terrorist attack
in New Zealand. He was the first victim who stood at the front, opened arms to
welcome his Christian Brother saying “Hello brother” but was gunned down right
after.
Let us not turn a blind eye to the rise of far-right, racist
and supremacist terrorism in the world. It is as dangerous for world peace as
was the Al-Qaeda, Daesh and any other terrorist organisation. The terrorist who
appeared in the court today made a gesture associated with white supremacy,
indicating his affiliation. It is time that the whole world community must get
together to work for interfaith harmony or else civilisations would be at the
course of a clash. As defined by the United Nations observers of interfaith
harmony, we need to promote the common basis of “Love of God and Love of the
Neighbour”. The message invites everyone, excludes no one, and is purely
voluntary. I think these volunteered clauses must become compulsory to be
adopted as part of enactment by respective member States, just like the law on
terrorism and money laundering.
In spite of rapidly increasing white supremacist terrorism
around the world, US media and political elites spend a considerable amount of
time discussing alleged “Islamic terrorism” alone, which only adds fuel to the
already increasing menace of Islamophobia. White supremacist terrorism is far
more common than alleged Islamic terrorism in which the Muslims are not even
spared by white supremacist children, a disproportionate of whom commit school
shootings in the name of racism and white nationalism.
According to our Islamic teaching, a white person doesn’t
have superiority over a black person, as we all are one before God. The global
models of governance are based on the ideology of equality and nobody has the
right to impose the self-created right of privilege of superiority on others.
I foresee that if the ideology of supremacist is not
adequately contained, there could be serious clashes between pseudo-Muslim
terrorists and White Supremacist terrorists in the future. Western countries
and the United Nations must move to avert such a clash on an urgent basis- this
conflict could be the basis for the next civil war in the United States.
The Article was published in The Nation on March 18, 2019.
Link to the article is : https://nation.com.pk/18-Mar-2019/shooter-vs-terrorist
