So who who were these people ? who are these people that we so easily brand as fanatics and terrorists, or muslim extremists ? It is so easy to hide behind ‘isms’ and tribalism. I saw only one picture of a young man that looked barely 19 years old. He looked like a boy who I would expect to see in college in Mumbai. I put myself in his shoes – and at 19 I was barely discovering the meanings of my life and was spending most of my time coming to terms with myself. What motivated this young man to come out with an AK 47 and a few hand grenades and kill innocent people indiscriminately ? Its easy to write someone off as a muslim extremists and fundamentalist. That is usually a mind that is looking for simplicity and easy answers. Unfortunately that is exactly the mind itself falls prey to fundamentalism, of any kind.
\nThe search for simplicity and the inability to look at life in it’s complexity is often mistaken for the search for purity. It is not. Purity is far more deep and far more complex than simplicity and can only be arrived at through compassion. I am not saying we should be soft on terrorism. I am trying to fathom it.
\nThe world is in turmoil. We cant just write of everything as fundamentalism. We need to understand why it happens, and strike at the root cause. The root cause cannot be Islam itself. It is the deviant expression of a religion that leads to such acts of barbarity. Such barbarity was prevalent even in Christianity n the dark ages – just look at the horrendous stories of the crusades and the Spanish inquisition. It has occurred often in Hinduism too.
\nWhat goes on in the mind of a 19 year old when he decides to kill innocent people indiscriminately ? Knowing that he will probably die doing this himself ?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So who who were these people ? who are these people that we so easily brand as fanatics and terrorists, or muslim extremists ? It is so easy to hide behind ‘isms’ and tribalism. I saw only one picture of a young man that looked barely 19 years old. He looked like a boy who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"yoast_head":"\n