A horrific event happened in Nice, France during the Bastille day celebration. About 84 people were killed and 50 people are in critical condition. This is the third biggest terrorist attack in 19 months. The terrorist ran people over with his truck zig-zagging to take out the most people as he shot at the crowd as well, the name of the terrorist was Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel.
French president Francois Hollande was quick to label this as “Islamic terrorism.” This might seem true, however does terrorism have a religion? Hollande Stated in response to the carnage that: “All of France is under the threat of Islamic terrorism.” After the Orlando club attack, presidential candidate Donald Trump said that This problem of Islamic terror will continue as long as Obama doesn’t recognize the terrorism as Radical Islamic terrorism. As a response to this Obama said such a stance would “make us less safe, fueling hatred toward us.”It also makes “Muslim-Americans feel like their government has betrayed them.”
I think Obama’s reply to Trump was very well said. Hatred and otherization makes the society “split” and causes an internal conflict between groups . The last thing the world needs is a conflict like this.
Terrorism is not a new thing, terrorism in America has been happening since 1837. However to understand terrorism, we need to look at the dictionary definition of the word. Terrorism literally means: “The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes”, so basically it’s “war” fought by people that aren’t representing a country. In the 21st century, the term that comes to mind when the word terrorism is heard, is “Islamic Terrorism”. However does terrorism have a religion? Does Islam or any other religion provoke terrorist approaches?
No religion would order a person to massacre people. The whole idea of religion is happiness here and hereafter. Religion gives something that one can be devoted to. In no religion does it say to go out there and massacre tons of people. Religion is an excuse used by terrorists and an explanation to terrorism used by governments. If we take a look at any book from the three Abrahamic religions, we can clearly see that killing of the innocent is a HUGE sin, and what most terrorists are doing is just that.
“…Anyone who murders any person who had not committed murder or horrendous crimes, it shall be as if he murdered all the people. And anyone who spares a life, it shall be as if he spared the lives of all the people. …” [Quran 5:32]
“There are six things that the Lord hates, …a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,” (Proverbs 6:16-19)
“Thou shalt not murder.” (Ten Commandments)
Murder cannot be justified by something that condemns murder. People like Hitler didn’t kill millions because of their religions, it was their own ideas that drove them to do these things. People’s ideas are to blame in situations like this, not religion. For, if one classifies a type of terrorism as religious terrorism it’s like putting every person from that religion under the same roof.
Yert's Corner 