Breaking the Violence Cycle
by Jeff Fountain
In
the face of the torture and murder of three Christians this past month
in Malatya, we must offer the Turkish people the same trust asked of
them during the Reconciliation Walk, writes Matthew Hand, a specialist
in Turkish history.
Hundreds
of Christians visiting Turkey in the 1990’s on the Reconciliation Walk
to mark the 900th anniversary of the Crusades, apologised for the
atrocities committed against Muslims in the name of Christ. Hand, Lynn
Green and others on the Walk asked their Turkish hosts not to brand all
Christians as Crusaders or associate Christ with the violence.
So
too, writes Hand, must we now accept the remarks of Turkey’s secular
and religious leaders who say that this monstrous act is not real
Islam, that murder cannot be sanctioned by Islam.
‘The
people and leaders of Turkey have spoken clearly that the murderers
betrayed Islam and dishonored Turkish Muslims,’ said Hand in this
month’s Reconciliation Walk newsletter. ‘This is hopeful, since it
indicates there is a growing understanding of the need to confront the
myth of redemptive violence, one of the primary goals of the
Reconciliation Walk.’
Unfortunately,
some reports had falsely tried to describe this horrible crime as the
natural result of Islamic beliefs, continued Hand. This crime should
not be used by anyone to demonize the people of an entire religion, he
wrote. ‘Lashing out like this may feel
good for a moment, but it is short-sighted and dangerous.’
Threat
Hand
writes further: ‘Precisely such demonizing had allowed the murderers to
think their blood-thirst was sanctioned by Islam. At sometime, someone
filled the heads of these young men with stories of the great threat
that Christians posed to them, how the Christians were out to destroy
their nation from within. Someone told them stories of vicious crimes
that Christians committed against Muslims in Bosnia, and no doubt they
also invoked the Crusades.
‘Those
who stigmatized these Christians by linking them to atrocities
committed by Christians in the past would like nothing better than for
us to follow in their footsteps by using this recent crime to
stigmatize the Muslim community. Violence thrives on such reciprocal cycles - let us
not become its slaves.
We must do all we can to put an end to the cycle of victimization and
the justification of vindictive crimes. Turning the other cheek is hard
to do, but violence is only deterred as the cycle of imitation and
retribution is turned back by a refusal to react in kind.
‘As
the Turkish press has pointed out repeatedly this week, the Malatya
murders occurred in a social environment that was open to exploitation
by rabble rousers. As freedoms for Christian evangelists have increased
in the past few years, it has become popular and lucrative to broadcast
and print salacious reports of “missionary activity” in Turkey.
‘It
is popular for the same reason that talk of “commies” once motivated
America. Today the fear of the “terrorist” is used in the same way, as
a means to stir up an unspecified suspicion aimed at justifying some
policy or deed. For Turkey, the fear of the “missionary” has equal
emotional resonance: “missionary” feels like “terrorist.” It carries
the connotation of a threat to national security and identity.
‘For
this reason Christian evangelists have to be sensitive and cautious. In
our efforts to preach the Gospel we must be very careful not to
reinforce the suspicion that shrouds the Gospel across the whole
country. This can easily happen, especially when foreign money and
peculiar western cultural practices are mixed into the process of
making converts.
Understanding
‘At
the same time the Turkish state must responsibly enforce the freedoms
of religion and speech and clarify loudly that there is no threat from
Christian missionaries to the security and wholeness of the Turkish
state. The mythology must be confronted by the secular state. It is
encouraging to see that Turkey’s civil and religious leaders have made
powerful and clear statements demanding this very thing over the past
weeks. Turkey’s senior
imam made a national speech saying in no uncertain terms that
Christians must be free to evangelize in peace.
‘One
other word about Turkish history: Newly secular Turkey was equally
guarded towards ascendant Islam. In this nation one was first a Turk
then a Muslim, not a Muslim who happened to be a Turk. Consequently,
the state banned the Islamic tarikats,
or brotherhoods, and put all religious education and institutions
firmly under the authority of the secular state. Turkey hanged its
Prime Minister in the 1950’s because he was seen to be too fond of
Islam. It is little known that the most heavily prosecuted - many would
say oppressed - religious group in Turkey, has been Muslims who
operated outside the control of the state.
‘Today,
we can add another facet to the violence inducing conflation of nation
and faith. There is now a perception in Turkey that US foreign policy
is influenced by Christian end-times beliefs. President Bush responded
to 9/11 by invoking the word Crusade.
No amount of damage control after this incredible gaffe will erase the
view that the (Bush) administration agrees with Bin Laden that the “war
on terror” is a fight between the existential Islamic and
Judeo-Christian civilizations. Christian influence on foreign and
military policy (is) a popular topic in Turkey. Turks
previously feared that Christian missionaries were a threat, but they
now suspect that the United States military is also in on the fight for
their souls.
‘The
murder of the Christians in Malatya is not a Muslim crime. Primarily,
it is the crime of the young men themselves. There is nothing that can
justify such brutality. Meanwhile, the rest of us should repent of our
complacency. We
should work hard for understanding and reconciliation. We must dispel
the poison of alienation. We urge you to join us in doing everything
within your power to speak this complex truth in the face of
deceptively simplistic mythologies.’
For full text, see: www.recwalk.net
Till next week,
Jeff
