Love for Suicide Bombers

09Oct07

One of the major new story in Australia right now is the death of one of our soldiers in Afghanistan from a road side bomb. Naturally, and appropriately, the nation is concerned for the welfare of our troops and the two daughters and wife he left behind. But what does concern me is how this incident highlights the inequality of value we place on human life. Afghanis are killed from this war quite often yet we never hear of them except perhaps in the occasional statistic. One of our soldiers dies and it is front page news.

And if a terrorist, an enemy, dies it is a good thing.

A good thing.

No evil, no matter how necessary, is ever a good. It is always an evil. No evil, weather it benefits us or not, is ever a good. The death of a terrorist or a soldier both represent an ultimate, irrevocable failure in the human condition. We should mourn terrorist’ deaths and beg for forgiveness for the unfortunate punishment we have had to lay upon them just as we do for our own.

In Iraq we have definitive statistics for the number of coalition casualties. We have reasonable estimates for the number of Iraqi civilian deaths. But we never hear how many terrorists we are killing. It’s like they don’t count. They’re not human. Surely our armies would have some idea. To fight an enemy without any idea of their numbers or how effective our troops are is incompetent. It’s not like dead bodies move.

It’s that we don’t care. We don’t want to hear how many of them die. They don’t matter to us. Their lives are insignificant.

A person becomes our enemy when we de-humanize them so much we can no longer relate to the person we have produced in our mind. We forget that our enemies have mothers and fathers and sons and daughters. We forget they have favorite foods or colours. We forget they have feelings or dreams or concerns or prayers.

I cannot imagine what a mother feels like after her son has blown himself up on a buss filled with Israelis. Is she looked after or abandoned? Is she surprised or supportive? Where does she turn? Who can understand?

I cannot imagine what pain or ideal, hope or horror could compel a child to destroy them self. Were the brainwashed or did they choose out of free will? Did anyone advise them against it? Was there any other option to achieve what they hoped? How did they view us westerners?

And no, I cannot imagine what it is like to be holding my child after she was hit by shrapnel from a bomb and lays dead.

But can we see both sides of the problem here? A horror has been done to the victims. But a horror has also been done to the perpetrator. When we hate someone the first person we hurt is ourselves.

Christianity is the only world religion whose followers are commanded to “Love your enemies” (Mathew 5:44; Luke 6:27). Now I have no one who I want to kill right now, but there are terrorists who wish to kill me. They have made me their enemy by de-humanizing me. By forgetting I have feelings or family or hopes. They can only imagine a caricature of evil in place of a real person.

What would happen to that image if we met? What would happen if in some way I was able to show them love? Could they still hold me as an enemy?

I have searched to see if there was any Christian originations working in terrorist breeding grounds or with families of the bombers. I found none. I think this is disappointing because bombs wont win this “war on terror”. Aggression only serves to continue the ugly cycle that creates a terrorist in the first place. Only Jesus’ way - the love your enemies way - can undo this cycle. Only love of enemies can redeem the broken relationship. After all what is peace if not the absence of enemies?

For now lets pray that God reaches these people. That he comforts family members and that He gives a way out for potential bombers. And that the victims of attacks will not be even more damaged by the rage in their hearts.

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