Posted on Sun, Apr. 22, 2007

What's life worth?

Americans are sissies. The death of 32 innocent students and faculty members at Virginia Tech, killed by a deranged student, sends us reeling. There's 24-hour news coverage. CNN sent everyone but Larry King to Blacksburg, Va., to be on-site, as did other networks.

On Wednesday, 230 innocent Iraqis were blown to bits in Baghdad, just another reminder that killers who are willing to die cannot be stopped, not by a gun control laws, not by 150,000 heavily armed American soldiers.

Yes, we're sissies, and thank God. I would never want our people to be so jaded by death that we take it for granted as a part of our lifestyle as they must do in Iraq to remain sane.

I want us to aspire to life, like the students who were calmly studying in their classrooms before the mayhem; preparing for what they thought would be a long life ahead.

I've looked at the various memorial sites. These kids had such bright futures. Such hope and promise. An environmental engineer here. A history student there. From Georgia we find a twin, Ryan "Stack" Clark, who was about to graduate with not one major but three, psychology, biology and English with a 4.0 grade-point average, according to WLTX in Augusta.

In our sissiness we trip over the odd. Liviu Librescu, a noted engineering and math professor, survived Hitler and the Holocaust, but couldn't make it past a rambling college campus just shy of the West Virginia and North Carolina borders and one sick student who happened to go to school there.

In our timidity we should remember that we are not the only people on Earth who want to live long and fruitful lives. We are not the only ones who rise each morning worried about our offspring. However, our worries are miniscule most times. If they're off at school, we wonder whether or not they ate breakfast or have clean clothes and what time they got in last night. Our minds have the freedom not to think that they might get blown up by an improvised roadside device, but now, with Virginia Tech fresh in mind, we do worry that an insane psychopath might cross their path.

It is a commonality of the human species: No one wants to die. In our country, nobody wants to think about dying. There's too much to live for. Those like Cho Seung-Hui, and other suicidal maniacs, are like a cancer - cells that don't behave normally. Something in the DNA misfired. It's beyond most of our sensibilities to even comprehend such lunacy.

But is it? We do turn a blind eye to the suffering of others. We look at the death totals in Iraq, the colleterial damage from our actions, and think nothing of it.

Sure, we worry aboutour troops and the almost 3,600 souls this wrongheaded effort has taken. Still, we have some among us who discount even those deaths by comparing them to the losses we suffered during World War II, as if that's a valid comparison.

For the most part, we dismiss the pain of others, even the suffering of our military families. It's out of sight and out of mind. We feel their pain only superficially. We accept without complaining that their loved ones will be away an additional three months after 12 months of hell as the price of volunteering to protect our worthless carcasses.

Somehow we don't equate the wails of sorrow we see broadcast from around the world with actual suffering - until we have a Columbine or Virginia Tech. Even then we feel our grief is more valid than their's. Here's news: It's not.

With or without our surge, 100 Iraqi civilians, on average, are dying each day. An estimated 70,000 have been killed since our invasion. They had families who loved them, too.

We must come to realize that death is death, and just like the loved ones of the 33 students, including the killer, who are in mourning today, we should mourn for all innocent life taken, particularly those taken because of our actions, inactions or national hubris.

Moses brought new laws and new regulations for his people. Moses (peace be upon him) not only gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites, but a very comprehensive ceremonial law for the guidance of his people.

As regards to Jesus (peace be upon him) he took a strong stand to assure the Jews that he had not come with a new religion or new regulations different from what Moses brought to the world. Jesus was quoted in the gospel of Matthew 5:17-18 saying "Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one title shall in no way pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

Mohammad (peace be upon him) took the pains to assure what Jesus had assured before him to the world. Mohammad also came to fulfill not to deny or destroy what Moses had established and what Jesus confirmed.

You can read in the Holy Quran chapter 2 verse 62 "Those who believe in the Quran, and those who follow the Jewish scriptures and the Christians and the Sabians, and any who believe in God and the last day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; On them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve."

Muslims have been warned many times in the Quran not to discriminate against any previous laws or scriptures that were revealed upon Abraham, Moses and Jesus and all must be believed in and must be admitted throughout Muslim behavior. The Quran stated in chapter 2, verse 136 "Say you: We believe in God, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Ishmail, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to all prophets from their Lord: We make no difference between one and another of them, and we bow to God in peace."

That is why there has never been quoted any statement by a Muslim against the person of Abraham, Moses or Jesus. It always has and always will be, one law and one message from the Lord of Universe to the mankind.

Ahmed Yousef is a resident of Macon.
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/editorial/letters/17002920.htm
Posted on Mon, Apr. 02, 2007