In his first comments about the horrific bombing in Boston, President Obama stated that it was a “heinous and cowardly act”, and offered prayers and condolences from himself and Michelle to people of Boston.
Speaking in his familiar function as the nations’s Pastor-in-Chief, the President beautifully articulated how this nation’s hearts turn toward Boston, and we all share our prayers and condolences with the victims, their families, friends and loved ones.
Obama then went on to say something so powerful and poignant, that I wonder how it has escaped political and religious analysis so far. The President added:
Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.
Mr. President, I wonder if you realize how right you are.
Like all other Americans, we have been grieving the human suffering in Boston. Like all other Americans, we too have been sending our prayers and condolences. We too have been remembering Martin Richard, and Krystle Campbell and Lu Lingzi and marveling at the tales of heroism that have emerged from Boston.
And yet unlike all Americans, we as Muslims have the sad déjà vu experience of having seen this horrific story before. Those of us who keep one eye in our home here in America and one eye on the rest of the planet know that these explosions—and worse—happen far too frequently in Syria, Pakistan, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.
Here is the hard part: how do we urge our fellow Americans to expand the circle of their concern, and see our suffering HERE as being connected to the suffering THERE without trivializing the suffering of our Boston community?
How do we make a point about our shared humanity without belittling the humanity of our neighbors here?
My hope and prayer is that the cry of my own heart is not read as an attempt to engage in a calculus of suffering (“my people have suffered more than your people”, etc.) but rather a passionate plea to realize that we are all children of the same God, that each of our lives all over this small planet is sacred and sacrosanct.
How do we make the point that the lives here are sacred, dear and precious, and so are the lives over there?
And Mr. President, how do we tell you as clearly and passionately that you are right, but you do not realize how right you are?
Mr. President, it was our own American government that in 2002 dropped bombs on a wedding party in Uruzgan (Afghanistan), and killed thirty people and wounded ninety more. The residents in that city in Afghanistan said: “”There are no Taliban or al Qaeda or Arabs here. These people were all civilians, women and children.”
Mr. President, you said “Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.” Any time, you said, Mr. President.
So were we involved in an act of terror then, Mr. President?
No need to go back to 2002. Let’s take this past weekend, the one whose conclusion saw the horrific explosions in Boston, with 3 dead and 176 wounded. Mr. President, our own government led an air-strike on a home in Afghanistan that was caught up in a battle between the Taliban and the U.S.-supported Afghan government. President Obama, we dropped a bomb on this house, and we killed children. Mr. President, you speak so eloquently and passionately when it is our children in Chicago, Newtown and now Boston. President Obama, do you have any words of condolence to offer these Afghan families whose children died because we dropped bombs on them?
“The lifeless bodies of Afghan children lay on the ground before their funeral ceremony, after a NATO airstrike killed several Afghan civilians, including ten children during a fierce gun battle with Taliban militants in Shultan, Shigal district, Kunar, eastern Afghanistan, Sunday, April 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Naimatullah Karyab)”
Mr. President, you said: “Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.”
We dropped these bombs on innocent children.
Is this an act of terror, Mr. President?
Or is it an act of terror only when it’s done to us and our allies?
President Obama, I know you to be a committed Christian, and I can imagine that some will respond to the above by callously stating that such things happen in war. Remind them, Mr. President, of Dr. King’s bold words about why he, as a Christian, had to be just as concerned about American lives as he was about Vietnamese lives:
Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men — for communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them?
Are you, and we, willing to follow the footsteps of Dr. King, and see this message of good will, love, and concern as one that goes beyond our nation’s borders and interests and encompassing the whole of humanity?
Mr. President, I write not as one of your haters, but as a patriotic American who loves this country but does not love what we have become, loves our ideals as a Republic but does not love the empire that we have turned into. I write as a human being, an American, a father, a son, a teacher, a Muslim, a friend, a citizen, as one who wept for Newtown and weeps again for Boston—and weeps for Syria, for Iraq, for Palestine, for Afghanistan, for Israel, for Iran, and for Yemen.
I write to remind you that actions are to be judged on their own merits, and not based on wealth, race, or nationality of the actions’ perpetrators or victims.
You were actually right, Mr. President: “Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.”
I wonder how right you are, and whether you realize what that says about our own country when we are the ones dropping bombs or using drones.
Mr. President, you know that in our faith traditions there is a rich legacy of reading out the names of victims and the deceased, and pausing to pray for them. Out of respect for that tradition, here is a brief list, Mr. President.
The first three are our names, names of people who died in the horrific actions in Boston.
The rest of the names are our names too, the names of people in Afghanistan and Pakistan who have died in our drone attacks.
May we grow to the point of extending the same love, care and grief that we show towards our victims — to all God’s children.
USA
Name | Age | Gender
Martin Richard | 8 | male
Krystle Campbell | 29 | female
Lu Lingzi | 23 | female
PAKISTAN
Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male
YEMEN
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19
Compiled from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports
[The Bureau has received the Amnesty International Digital Awards the last two years running. List is generated by Jungwon Kim.]
May all of these souls be blessed, may they be received into God’s mercy, and may honor of their lives by repenting from the violence that led to their death.
Afghanistan casualty image is from here.
Boston Cop hero image is from here.