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Calling All Moslems BY Any rational being or thinker will stop to ponder, why of the many religions of this world, Islam singles itself out for perennial tension. There are several religions on earth, but the major ones we often hear of are Buddhism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, and some indigenous traditional religions. So much so that, Islam is now associated with violence. And its members activities worldwide make news insofar as their violent or terrorist acts continue to dominate the chronicles of violence in world history.
I was in a conversation with a man I met on a seminar in New York, long before the attacks of September 11. He is Australian. When I told him that I was from Nigeria, he asked "are you a Moslem?" I answered "no." He said "good for you." I asked "why good for me?" he said "I am sorry to say, Moslems seem very easily irritated, they take their religion into every relationship. One has to be very careful nowadays what one says, else one could be threatened with a jihad."
Certainly, there must be something in Islam which makes its adherents easily agitative. It is true that violence cannot be exclusively associated with members of this religion, but what is different is that the moslems themselves immediately invoke their religion when they commit individual offense. Timothy McVeigh, we were told, was at one time or the other, a Catholic. But, when he decided to bomb the federal buildings in Oklahoma, he did not claim to have done it on behalf of Christianity or Catholicism. Contrast this with the actions of Osama bin Laden. He and his fellow terrorists find umbrage in Islam as they spread terror all over the world. They fail to take responsibility over their actions without dragging Islam into the affray. What they fail to recognize is that by so doing they give Islam a bad name. And, it seems to escape them that religion or spirituality is a private and individual matter. On judgement day, everybody will be judged according to their individual accounts while on earth, not as a group, or members of a religion. This should be very clear to fanatics who think they owe it a duty to come to the rescue of a criminal simply because he or she belongs to their religion.
Oddly enough, Islamic leaders themselves unwittingly allow these nefarious characters to keep tarnishing their religion with their violent acts. Christians did not threaten to unleash the "crusade" when Timothy McVeigh was hanged. Society simply let him drink from his own cup of hemlock. Now, we hear some Moslems are threatening the "jihad' because criminals who happen to belong to their religion committed horrendous acts against humanity for which they must pay a price. Consider that for every time a Christian commits a crime and about to be punished, Christians start a jihad, and every time a Moslem commits an offense and about to be punished, Moslems embark on a jihad, what a tumultuous world of crusades and jihads we would have.
To the best of my knowledge, all religions are spiritually-based. They all seek after good and aim at everlasting life. If everlasting life has a priori condition in the good that we must do to attain it, then violence, as espoused by those who have distorted the tenets of Muslim religion are indeed, charting the wrong course to salvation. And, their religious leaders ought to teach them so. And they ought to call their attention to the fact that theirs is not the only religion. If they hope to instill in their membership continued confidence in the peacefulness or respectabilty of their religion, and hope to recruit new members based on their shinning examples of peace ad love, the present image they are cutting is certainly not the right image they need, for by their fruits, we shall know them, so says the holy Scriptures. Ogaranya Uju Nkwocha Afulezi, Ph.D Duru Akwukwo III Ndi Umuohiagu October 2001
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