PRAYING FOR BOTH SIDES

By Bernie Lopez

 

I got a text message requesting for prayers for the Koreans hostaged by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Why can we not pray for both side? Prior to the hostage taking, American forces running after the Talibans mistakenly killed innocent civilians using their ‘sophisticated’ ‘high-precision’ missiles. The hostage taking was precipitated by that massacre. If we will pray for Christians, we must also pray for Muslims who are both victims of war. We can take sides in a war but we cannot take sides when it comes to human lives.

It is so easy to see the sins of others against us and to be insensitive to our sins against others. It is so easy to cry out for justice (we hope it is not vengeance) and forget the injustice we have done. The killing of innocent Afghans mistakenly by American forces was featured in the Western press quickly for one day. The subsequent incident of Koreans hostaged by the Talibans was a major news featured daily. They interviewed the families of the hostages in tears lengthily but they did not interview the families of the victims of the American bombings. They failed to relate the two incidents, that one was in retaliation for the other. This type of journalistic reporting twists our perspective. We do not realize that many times the sins we do yesterday caused the sins done to us today. We see only their sins and forget ours.

American forces arrested five Iranian diplomats, whom they called ‘terrorists’ from a consulate in northern Iraq. The Western press, biased for the Americans, but trying hard to be journalistically fair, featured the incident once in the news very briefly and considered it a minor news. In retaliation, the Iranians held 15 British navy personnel in waters near the Iraqi border. The Western press featured the incident as a major news daily for a week.

CNN, BBC, Fox News and the news agency AP, AFP, and Reuters allotted a lot of time and space on the incident. They interviewed the families of the detained British, playing on the human drama of wives in tears which showed the Iranians as ‘evil’ and inhuman. But they did not interview the families of the detained Iranians. In the first incident, they featured the Americans as ‘soldiers’ arresting ‘terrorists’, which was justified. In the second incident, they featured the Iranians as ‘terrorists’ capturing ‘hostages’, which was an atrocity.

If you ask these journalists in the Western press, they do not even know they are doing something un-journalistic. It is the most natural way to do things. There is an implicit subtle unavoidable bias inherent not only in journalism but in the world. The finger points not just to the Western press but to all of us. This is true also for the Iranian press, and for that matter all media of all nations. Everybody sees things only their own way or the way they want to. I guess it is natural for us to look at the ‘enemy’ this way and to look at ourselves that way. But why is it so hard to see through this type of subtle perspective where everything the enemy does is atrocious and everything we do is justified because of their atrocity?

In the beheading of soldiers in Basilan, what we saw instantly was the atrocities of the rebels. When later news emerged that the beheading was preceded by an ambush of soldiers looking for Fr. Bossi wherein the relatives of those who beheaded the soldiers were killed, then our perspective changed somewhat. These relatives were revered spiritual leaders. We do not justify the actions of the ‘beheaders’ but now we begin to understand their blind rage a little bit which lessens our own blind rage somewhat. Relating incidents as causes and effects is critical to get an unbiased perspective.

There are so many examples in relating the evils of the enemy today to the evils we do yesterday. 911 was caused by the presence of US troops in the Middle East which began a decade ago. The Russian move to bring missiles to Cuba was caused by the presence of US missiles in Poland a decade ago. The bombings of buses in Davao was caused by military attacks on Camp Abubakar a year ago which killed the families of rebels.

This is the strange thing about the practice of rebel camps. They are virtual towns. The rebels live with their families in the camps. Today, this is the danger we face. If the military launches an attack in Basilan, there is no choice but to kill innocent civilians because they are intertwined with the rebel forces. This type of killing triggers reprisals of bombings of buses, train stations and malls for the next five years. It is a vicious circle of violence that we and the rebels perpetrate.

Without a sense of history, we are myopic and blind to the reality of things. Sometimes, it is obvious and we see it. For example, the siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad was followed by a series of suicide bombings almost daily a few days after. We can relate if the time frame is short. We must be historians if we are to see causes and effects and view the world fairly.

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