Galway Advertiser 2004/2004_09_09/GA_0909_E1_014.pdf 

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14 N E W S

Galway Advertiser

September 9 2004

Alt.com Beslan was the ultimate in
BY JEFF O'CONNELL

Sign of the times
I went into Easons last Friday for a browse. First stop is usually the big table facing you as you walk through the double doors. It's where the shop displays its discounted books or offers deals where you can pick up two, or even three, for the price of one. It took me a moment to pick up on the fact that the table was piled high with the collected works of Michael Moore, alongside half a dozen other Bush-bashing books. What's this? I asked myself. No astute bookshop is going to offer cut-rate deals on books that are supposedly selling like hotcakes. Uh-uh. Booksellers, especially big ones like Easons, are a canny bunch; they have to be sensitive to trends, aware of shifts in popular taste, even before the public is fully conscious of them. So could the Easons' discount table be a portent? Could the fact that Michael Moore's egregious, sophomoric rantings, together with all the other bandwagon anti-Bush rubbish littering the shelves, are now displayed on the 'knock-down-buy-one-get-one-free' table an indication of the political wind shifting? Well, I don't want to make too much of Easons bargain sale. But it does strike me that something is happening on the US political scene, and even in the way the media has started treating Bush as if he is not the lying, village idiot beloved of the Michael Moorists. But not all the media. For example, Robert McCrum, literary editor of The (London) Observer, last weekend had a piece in which he interviewed nine US novelists on the coming US election; McCrum's conclusion was that "Today, by some margin, George W Bush is the most despised figure in America." The timing of McCrum's piece was particularly unfortunate, coming as it did hot on the heels of two polls - one by Time and the other by Newsweek - showing Bush leading John Kerry by 11 points. Conventional wisdom has it that no candidate so far behind on US Labour Day weekend has ever won the presidential election. What has escaped the anti-Bush media, on both sides of the Atlantic, is the fact, obvious to anyone not entirely blinkered, that Bush is a very smart politician and a superb campaigner who connects with his audience in way Kerry can only dream of. I was heartened to read John Waters' column, 'Let us recognise the enemy' in The Irish Times on Monday reflecting on the horrific events in Beslan this weekend, making the obvious link to the escalating scourge of international terrorism. "In the horror of Beslan we see again the face of the enemy we first encountered three years ago ... Once again, we receive a reminder as to the nature of this foe, unlike any we have known before. And we know, surely, that if a moment arrives when he or she can wield powers of life-or-death over our own children, no mercy will be shown." Waters is at his best, however, in pointing to the dangerous frivolity of the Bush-bashing, Michael Moorists: "The force most threatening to the West today is not rhe fanaticism or the weaponry or the ingenuity of Islamism, but the simplistic sentiment of its own people, which, reducing the mystery of the human condition to a set of Pollyanna platitudes, reserves judgment and condemnation for those on its own side. This tendency arises from the belief that the world would be a nice place if everyone would just embrace the concepts of peace, love, and understanding." This naivete - criminal in the face of the threat of martyr-loving terrorists - is, of course, allied to the abuse hurled at the likes of Bush, who persists in warning us of the unprecedented evil represented by 9/11, the Madrid bombings, and now Beslan. George W Bush no doubt lacks the subtlety of the nine novelists interviewed by McCrum, or the wise-cracking irony of Michael Moore. But when it comes to recognising the appalling dangers confronting civilised society throughout the world, he demonstrates a sense of determination and a degree of moral clarity that leave his critics looking as if, even after all that's happened, they still don't get it.

cruelty says Rev Towers
BY KERNAN ANDREWS The horrific events of Beslan show how cruelty, deliberate harm against another human being, can never become the means by which political objectives are achieved, according to the Rector of St Nicholas' Collegiate Church, Rev Patrick Towers. On Saturday, large numbers of Russians and Galwegians gathered in St Nicholas' to partake in the memorial service for the victims of Beslan, led by Rev Towers and the Russian Orthodox Church's Fr George Zavershinsky. The service allowed Galway's Russian community to express their grief at what had happened to the young children and adults and provided healing and comfort from the events which have left many people profoundly shocked and disturbed. According to Rev Towers, there were two very distinct reactions from Russians during the ceremony. "The first was identity with their own people," he says. "The first day at school is a special occasion. People dress up and look forward to it, but this has left a terrible scar across a vulnerable institution. It's so awful that it makes you wonder is there any goodness in the world? "The second one is that many of these people have come to find asylum here and safety, away from the political tensions of a more explosive world. That creates this sense of fear of returning and a greater desire to have their children grow up in Ireland." At the service young children sang hymns followed by adults intoning the Russian Kontakion, a requiem chant. For Rev Towers that was the a deeply poignant moment. "The poignancy of the voice of

Rev Patrick Towers.

A grieving relative at the cemetery in Beslan this week.

seven or eight young children singing happily and then coming into the Kantakion, the adults chanting that lament unaccompanied, then back to the voices of the young children. It was awesome and frightful, but not sentimental." Reflecting on the events in Beslan, Rev Towers says it shows how the greatest vice is cruelty as it is a deliberate act of harm against another human being. He feels it is an issue the religions need to start addressing. "The Church is often less enthusiastic about putting cruelty first," he says. "It often stresses

pride or greed instead as major sins. But cruelty is an action against fellow humans which can lead to demeaning, humiliation, as well as terrible physical pain. Our revulsion from it is one of vulnerable humanity. When angry religious fervour becomes attached to a state or an organisation and becomes a political issue, it is the most dangerous of all and cruelty can become a means to an end, but cruelty can never be a means to an end. There must be political solutions to this but there also needs to be dialogue between the religions and within the religions."

Ahmadiyya Muslim cleric condemns Beslan killings
BY KERNAN ANDREWS THE AHMADIYYA Muslim community in Galway has condemned the killing of schoolchildren in Beslan, and one of its leading clerics, who visited Galway last week, said such acts transgress every single teaching of Islam and the Qu'ran. In the Menlo Park Hotel on Sunday, the Imam of the London Mosque, Maulana Ataul Mujeeb Rashed, a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, addressed a public meeting entitled What Is Islam? His address sought to dispel the ideas that Islam is an intolerant and violent faith, and to show it is built on principles of social justice, love, and equality. The terrible images from the school siege in Beslan in Russia, and the horrific beheadings in Iraq have shocked the world. Speaking to the Galway Advertiser, Imam Rashed condemned the atrocities in Beslan and Iraq. "All true Muslims must be feeling extremely sad about what has been happening," he said. "The good name of Islam has been hijacked and misused by certain people for ulterior motives who defame Islam." Some have asked could there be anything in the Islamic belief system that would drive or allow people to carry out such acts? Imam Rasheed says such acts are carried out by Muslims who are ignorant of what their faith teaches and who wilfully ignore what it stands for. "These are acts of desperate expression by people who want to be heard by the world at large, but this is not right," he says. "Every true believer must abide by the principles of Islam. Islam attaches great sanctity to human life and does not approve of breaches at any cost, under any pretext." However many in the West feel Islam has a lack of humanitarian principles, with no equivalent of the Beatitudes or a bill of rights, but Imam Rashed says a look at the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed dispels this notion. "In his Sermon of the Farewell Pilgrimage, the Prophet Muhammed gave extensive, and profound guidelines for the compassionate society, women's rights, care for the underprivileged, and the equality of mankind." In Islam there is the concept of Jihad. Westerners often translate this as `Holy War', and see it as allowing Muslims to indulge in violence, but this is a misconception. "Jihad does not mean `Holy War', it means a struggle, often a struggle towards personal betterment," says Imam Rashed. "A war of defence is the only war a Muslim is allowed to take part in. Islam says war should only be a last resort, only after every effort has been made to avoid war. Islam does not approve of aggressive wars or going beyond the aggression committed against you. Generally speaking, many of those `Muslims' involved in terrorism are acting without anything having been done against them." Imam Rashed says in order to show that Islam does teach peace, not violence, Muslim leaders must take a stand and publicly condemn atrocities like Beslan. "I feel that all Muslims, particularly their leadership, should be more vocal and outspoken in this matter," he said. "I feel that silence in their part could be misleading. As far as the Ahmadiyya community is concerned, we always denounce such actions and explain the peaceful teachings of Islam."

Ahmadiyya Muslim, Maulana Ataul Mujeeb Rashed, who was speaking in Galway on Sunday.