Religions and the clash of civilisations

How do you cure a man filled with missionary zeal to kill in the name of God? Before you try to make sense of the blasphemy that purposes that God takes delight in human blood, “The pace and scope of the killing are dizzying,” is how a documentary article titled “The Human Toll of Terror” […]

How do you cure a man filled with missionary zeal to kill in the name of God? Before you try to make sense of the blasphemy that purposes that God takes delight in human blood, “The pace and scope of the killing are dizzying,” is how a documentary article titled “The Human Toll of Terror” in New York Times of  July 26, 2016 puts it: “Some 300 members of families blown apart by bombs as they celebrated the end of Ramadan in Baghdad. Forty-nine dead at Istanbul airport; 40 more in Afghanistan. Nine Italians, seven Japanese, three students at American universities and one local woman brutalized in the diplomatic quarters in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The bodies piled up on a bus in Somalia, at a mosque and video club in Cameroon, at a shrine in Saudi Arabia. All that carnage was in a single week – a single week of summer in what feels like an endless stream of terror attacks. Orlando and Beirut. Paris and Nice and St. Etienne-du-Rouvray, France. Germany and Japan and Egypt. Each bomb or bullet tearing holes in homes and communities.”
The documentary noted that within two weeks in March this year, there were high profile terrorist attacks that commanded headlines. In many places these attacks have become almost routine. The week opened with an attack on March 13 in a public square in Ankara, Turkey, killing 36 people. On that same day, 19 others fell in attacks on three beachside hotels in Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast. By March 27, extremists affiliated with Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Islamic State and the Taliban would hit a mosque in Nigeria; an Istanbul street popular with tourists; a soccer stadium in Iraq; a bus in Peshawar, Pakistan; the park in Lahore, Pakistan, where the Naveeds were strolling that Sunday; and the Brussels airport and subway station.
That rhythm of terrorist attacks has continued to define the narrative of world disorder and global insecurity. Only last week, on July 26, an 86 year-old Catholic priest, Father Jacques Hamel had his throat slit by violent extremists in St. Etienne-de-Rouvray, France, while celebrating Holy Mass. It was almost like his blood being mingled with the blood of the Christ in the chalice. ISIS claimed responsibility for it. Dominique Lebrun, archbishop of the diocese of Rouen to which Father Hamel belongs, heartbroken by the senseless act, said: “I cry out to God with all men of goodwill. I would invite non-believers to join in the cry! The Catholic Church cannot take weapons other than those of prayer and brotherhood among men.” Immediately he left Poland where millions of young people gathered for the World Youth Day and headed back to his diocese in France.
All over the world, we are witnessing staggeringly new incidents of violent atrocities committed in the name of God. For prophets of doom, our civilisation is on the verge of collapse. They say we are hurtling towards the suicide of civilisation as violent religious extremism sets the stage for the eventual showdown of conflagration. The hurtful impacts are all there for us to see: charred dead bodies littered all over the place, cut limbs in horrible pain in hospitals, fields and streams of blood, and hundreds of surviving relatives who have lost parents, spouses, and children. Their language of mourning translates across borders in indescribable symphony of pain.From Orlando to Surakarta, Paris to Baghdad, Brussels to Ankara, Iskandariya to Istanbul, and Dhaka to Monguno, the language is the same: blood and tears. What former American president George W. Bush tagged the “axis of evil” in the aftermath of 9/11 has now found a breeding ground for human immolation in epicentres of human civilisation.
How do we respond to the episodic incidents of violent religious extremism? Are we going to preach hate, retaliation, and vengeance? If we take this path, we will only end up feeding into the narrative logic of the terrorists. If we preach “an eye for an eye” and “a tooth for a tooth,” we would only give the merchants of death the assurance that they have succeeded in their mission and won. That is the logic of violence: to get the victim to become like the aggressor. To fall for this is to give the aggressor a reason to smile.
In his 2016 Easter Day UrbietOrbiMessage, Pope Francis urged Christians all over the world to become apostles of the civilisation of love and peace. He called on us Christians to overcome the weapons of violence, terrorism and bloodshed with “weapons of love.”
Now is the time for us Christians to summon all our spiritual, intellectual and moral energies to dislodge the seeds of hatred in the hearts of the merchants of death. Let us continue to promote the dialogue of civilisations, religions and cultures, showing the apostles of Babel that we are apostles of the civilisation of love. Let us stand by Jesus and the tenderness of his teaching on the revolution of love. In that great moment of abandonment bearing the excruciating pain of crucifixion, beside the derision of bystanders, he had to confront the last temptation, which is to come down from the cross, to confront evil by might and to show the face of a powerful God. “Jesus, however, even here at the height of his annihilation, reveals the true face of God, which is mercy. He forgives those who are crucifying him, he opens the gates of paradise to the repentant thief and he touches the heart of the centurion. If the mystery of evil is unfathomable, then the reality of Love poured out through him is infinite, reaching even to the tomb and to hell. He takes upon himself all our pain that he may redeem it, bringing light to darkness, life to death, love to hatred” (Pope Francis, Passion Sunday homily, March 20, 2016).
Our Christianity is attractive and persuasive because it responds to the profound need of human life, proclaiming convincingly that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of humankind. This proclamation remains as valid today as it was at the origin of Christianity. It is from the depths of this proclamation that the Master said: “You have heard that it was said: Love your neighbour and do not do good to your enemy. But I say to you: Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven. For he makes his sun rise on both the wicked and the good, and he gives rain to both the just and the unjust” (Matt 5:43-45). This is not an easy Commandment. But the Lord gives us the strength to overcome the machinations of evil. Let us never yield to pessimism, that bitterness that the devil offers us every day. Let us never yield to that pessimism, which the apostles of Babel want to sow in our midst. But let us go forth with the confidence that the Lord never abandons his people.
Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Ojeifo is a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja.