Terrible Violence: Question and Answer

Extracted from BBC News: Thailand's shadowy southern insurgency

Someone is killed on average every day in the provinces on the Thailand's southern border with Malaysia, where a shadowy group of Islamist extremists are stirring up a deepening sectarian divide.

"So many of my relatives have been shot and killed I feel bitter inside. I want to know how to shoot, so I can help people in the village."said Monthira Peng-Iad, a 40-year-old farmer.

In a community in which Muslims and Buddhists used to live side-by-side in peace, her rhetoric shows how divisive the insurgency has been. In just five years 3,800 people have been killed and more than 6,000 injured. But what they want is not totally clear and no group has ever publically admitted they carried out an attack.

"My house was burned down, my husband was shot dead, my daughter was shot and my son disappeared," said Kuang Narumon, a 52-year-old Buddhist.

I do not have time to talk about the atrocities and violent deaths in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other parts of the world.

What could possibly drove a man to carry out acts of senseless violence? How can cruel violent acts such as the Holocaust, Khmer Rouge massacre and Rwanda genocide be possible?

Remember the days of old? "Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways" - Genesis 6:11-12

Ever since the fall of Mankind, sin has spread, deepened and got worse.(Gen 3-6) The only possible answer to horrendous acts like the bombings and killings is sin. There is no satisfactory explanation to why a thinking person would kill himself so that he could kill others - whether those killed are babies, innocent children or bystanders. There is no satisfactory explanation to why a thinking person would smash dead a baby, chop up a child with a machete or shoot an innocent man at pointblank range; except for the fact that it is the wickedness of sin at work.

I know of no other way to deal with this problem the world is facing than to point to that one way. "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord," Acts 3:19-20, and to "love one another as I have love you," John 15:12.

But who will go?

Who Calls the Shots?

Human Rights & Religious Rights - Who calls the shots really? Is there really such a thing as human rights or religious rights? In today's postmodern world, such rights are relative; the governing bodies call the shots. You can end up with rights that have become useless; just a front to show that you deserve some form of (controlled) recognition.

Take for example, the recent case of Malaysian authorities confiscating 15000 Bibles because those Bibles use the word "Allah" to describe God.

The government, which is dominated by Muslim Malays, claims that the word Allah is Islamic and that its use in Bibles could upset Muslims. So are the authorities saying Muslims have been happy with the usage of "Allah" in the Bible for decades but now they have the potential to get upset? Or is it because the authorities are really the ones upset? (or is it more likely a case of "showing of care & concern" to garner some brownie points and the favour of the Muslim community?)

Anyway, the word "Allah" is the Arabic word for God and Arab Christians have been using it for centuries even before Islam was founded. Just do a wiki search or a read up of History books for it.

Coming back to these Rights issues with a religious tinge to it, Switzerland and Italy had some recent issues regarding Islamic minarets and Crucifixes too. Read the full story of this issue at BBC UK News - Faith Diary: Whose God is Allah?

Who is the Real Cause of the Problem?

Senator J William Fulbright in "The Price of Empire", page 172:
"It is understandably difficult... to get off to a good start with a new revolutionary regime when you plot to kill its leaders. If we plan to assassinate leaders we don't like, as the CIA is believed to have done with Castro, you are only asking for trouble. It's self-defeating. It is against our interests. I don't think it ever succeeds. It gives others an excuse to engage in terrorism, to kill our ambassadors or citizens travelling abroad[or at home]. You start a process of terrorism that has far-reaching and unpredictable consequences. There is a good case to be be made that we initiated it. We and some of our friends have initiated some of the worst aspects of modern terrorism."

Sometimes, we thought the problem is out there. But often, upon reflection, the problem begins in-house; in the heart, in the mind and in the supposedly benevolent action. Can we blame terrorism totally on one party? Who actually 'created' them? It's really no use pointing the finger now. I read with much sadness news about lives that are innocently lost in senseless bombings. A week ago it was Pakistan, today it was 90 lives and more in Baghdad. We have not heed the full extent of the phrase "You reap what you sow", especially when it comes to using force and violence as a problem solver - it never truly solves any problem.

Not too long ago, a man stood on stage and in a reflective tone spoke about the problem of 'rice christians' and 'christian workers with shallow roots' in an asean nation. Were the local people the problem? Who 'created' these different 'types' of christians? He concluded by saying, "We(the foreign force) are the cause of it". Let us not repeat the mistakes we have learned the hard way.