A question of martyrs
A question of martyrs
Posted 11:56pm (Mla time) Mar 17, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 18, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
A FOREIGNER once held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf probably expressed what many Filipinos feel. Callie Strydom in South Africa said of Ghalib Andang, alias "Commander Robot": "He probably got the death he was seeking. I suppose in the end he got what was coming to him." Any pity for the fate of the Abu Sayyaf leaders killed in last Tuesday's storming of Camp Bagong Diwa is tempered by a recollection of their dark deeds.
This is a distinction, however, that ignores other realities that serve to overshadow the event. Those killed at Camp Bagong Diwa were buried yesterday in a manner that was intended to proclaim them as "martyrs" for Islam. Instead of being washed, the bodies of the 22 slain were left bathed in their own blood, anointed in the sanguinary proof of their martyrdom. For every "Commander Robot" or "Commander Kosovo" killed, there are cases such as that of Hadji Ahmad Opao, at 75 the oldest fatality and, by all accounts, a man overdue for release on humanitarian grounds. He was said to be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease and was bedridden, and he died because, perhaps in an instinctive reversion to the warrior traditions of his youth, he got to his feet when the shooting started.
For many Muslim Filipinos, it is not the supposed poetic justice of a "Commander Kosovo's" death that will seize their imagination, it is the far more common and far sadder realities of the fate that befalls people like Hadji Ahmad Opao. The workaday experience of many Muslims is filled with false accusations, brutal imprisonment, rough and ready persecution masquerading as the justice of the Republic. Filipino Christians can surely understand why experiences and examples such as Opao's can turn even the deaths of notorious kidnappers and bandits (such as the Abu Sayyaf) into martyrdom.
Governor Parouk Hussein of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has tried to explain as much by pointing out that not everyone killed in Tuesday's assault were members of the Abu Sayyaf. There were those who got killed in the attack because they happened to be in jail on account of false charges made by their Muslim or Christian enemies or because of the slow and inefficient workings of our justice system. It is these cases that will resound, those deaths that will be mourned, those examples that will overshadow the deaths of known members of the Abu Sayyaf.
Of greatest concern now is the increasing criticism of Muslims by their Christian brethren for not speaking out more against the Abu Sayyaf, and for giving those killed the benefit of Islamic burial rites and of being mourned by the Muslim community. No one begrudges a Christian the burial rites of his religion, whatever his crime, and no one should criticize Muslims for burying their dead according to the rites of their faith. As for calling upon Muslims to provide a united front in criticizing the Abu Sayyaf, this ignores the larger and smaller dynamics of Muslim society in our country. Larger, because the Abu Sayyaf, for all its bloodthirsty abuses, is a manifestation of Christian policies of repression, neglect and exploitation in Mindanao, and smaller, because the ties of blood and family can eclipse all other considerations.
For now, the Abu Sayyaf continues to look like a winner: it now claims martyrs, and has planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of at least some who suspect a government rubout. Its members went out in a manner of their own choosing; they have been buried in a manner that inspires romance and admiration among their followers. The government is now faced with the Herculean task of trying to change public opinion not among Christians, whose biases at least make them somewhat impervious to romanticizing the Abu Sayyaf, but among Muslims, who are torn between admiring their obviously reckless courage, and the realization that in the face of Christian guns, there is no distinction between the bad Abu Sayyaf and elderly prisoners like Opao.
The only way to seize momentum is the hardest: to slowly, but surely, eliminate all doubts that those in jail deserve to be there, and aren't imprisoned because of bad luck, poverty, the enmity of others or, worst of all, their religion.
Posted 11:56pm (Mla time) Mar 17, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 18, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
A FOREIGNER once held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf probably expressed what many Filipinos feel. Callie Strydom in South Africa said of Ghalib Andang, alias "Commander Robot": "He probably got the death he was seeking. I suppose in the end he got what was coming to him." Any pity for the fate of the Abu Sayyaf leaders killed in last Tuesday's storming of Camp Bagong Diwa is tempered by a recollection of their dark deeds.
This is a distinction, however, that ignores other realities that serve to overshadow the event. Those killed at Camp Bagong Diwa were buried yesterday in a manner that was intended to proclaim them as "martyrs" for Islam. Instead of being washed, the bodies of the 22 slain were left bathed in their own blood, anointed in the sanguinary proof of their martyrdom. For every "Commander Robot" or "Commander Kosovo" killed, there are cases such as that of Hadji Ahmad Opao, at 75 the oldest fatality and, by all accounts, a man overdue for release on humanitarian grounds. He was said to be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease and was bedridden, and he died because, perhaps in an instinctive reversion to the warrior traditions of his youth, he got to his feet when the shooting started.
For many Muslim Filipinos, it is not the supposed poetic justice of a "Commander Kosovo's" death that will seize their imagination, it is the far more common and far sadder realities of the fate that befalls people like Hadji Ahmad Opao. The workaday experience of many Muslims is filled with false accusations, brutal imprisonment, rough and ready persecution masquerading as the justice of the Republic. Filipino Christians can surely understand why experiences and examples such as Opao's can turn even the deaths of notorious kidnappers and bandits (such as the Abu Sayyaf) into martyrdom.
Governor Parouk Hussein of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has tried to explain as much by pointing out that not everyone killed in Tuesday's assault were members of the Abu Sayyaf. There were those who got killed in the attack because they happened to be in jail on account of false charges made by their Muslim or Christian enemies or because of the slow and inefficient workings of our justice system. It is these cases that will resound, those deaths that will be mourned, those examples that will overshadow the deaths of known members of the Abu Sayyaf.
Of greatest concern now is the increasing criticism of Muslims by their Christian brethren for not speaking out more against the Abu Sayyaf, and for giving those killed the benefit of Islamic burial rites and of being mourned by the Muslim community. No one begrudges a Christian the burial rites of his religion, whatever his crime, and no one should criticize Muslims for burying their dead according to the rites of their faith. As for calling upon Muslims to provide a united front in criticizing the Abu Sayyaf, this ignores the larger and smaller dynamics of Muslim society in our country. Larger, because the Abu Sayyaf, for all its bloodthirsty abuses, is a manifestation of Christian policies of repression, neglect and exploitation in Mindanao, and smaller, because the ties of blood and family can eclipse all other considerations.
For now, the Abu Sayyaf continues to look like a winner: it now claims martyrs, and has planted the seeds of doubt in the minds of at least some who suspect a government rubout. Its members went out in a manner of their own choosing; they have been buried in a manner that inspires romance and admiration among their followers. The government is now faced with the Herculean task of trying to change public opinion not among Christians, whose biases at least make them somewhat impervious to romanticizing the Abu Sayyaf, but among Muslims, who are torn between admiring their obviously reckless courage, and the realization that in the face of Christian guns, there is no distinction between the bad Abu Sayyaf and elderly prisoners like Opao.
The only way to seize momentum is the hardest: to slowly, but surely, eliminate all doubts that those in jail deserve to be there, and aren't imprisoned because of bad luck, poverty, the enmity of others or, worst of all, their religion.
posted by Dante at 12:00 AM
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