Somewhere in a cramped room with a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, a young man sits hunched over, clutching an object he believes will make him a hero. His eyes burn with a strange fire, the fire of someone convinced that destruction can somehow lead to glory. He’s been told his name will be remembered. He has been told that his family will be blessed. He has been told that by blowing himself up he will blow open the gates of heaven.
If he only paused for half a second, he would hear the sound of a whisper. Not from an angel. Not from God. A whisper from his own conscience asking a simple question: “Is this what God wants?”
But that whisper is drowned out by louder voices. Voices that tell him thinking is unnecessary. Voices that have carefully removed the very instrument that makes us human: the ability to reason.
You see, the suicide bomber does not walk or drive into a marketplace or a school or a station because he has thought deeply.
He has stopped thinking altogether. His so-called mentors have taken away his mind, packed it away, tied it up with ritualistic slogans, and replaced it with hatred disguised as faith.
In his imagination, he sees himself rising in heavenly glory. He sees light. He sees applause. He sees himself embraced by celestial beings. But in reality, what awaits him is a flash, a sound, a cloud of smoke, and then silence. No applause. No glory. Only shattered lives, broken families, and maybe a mother who will never understand why her child turned himself into a weapon.
The tragedy is not only the death he causes. The tragedy is that he dies believing a lie. He dies thinking that God delights in violence. He dies thinking that the Creator of the universe needs the help of a confused youngster carrying a carload of explosives. He dies thinking that heaven is a reward for harming the innocent.
What a terrible miscalculation.
All because someone more cunning than him convinced him that the greatest act of devotion is to throw away the very gift God gave. The gift of life!
What can be more wrong than that?
And as we watch the aftermath on television, as we hear the sirens and see the blood on the pavement, we should remind ourselves that the war against terror begins long before a button is pressed. It begins when a child is taught hate instead of compassion and when religion gets twisted.
The suicide bomber thinks he will be celebrated in heaven. But heaven does not celebrate murder. Heaven celebrates mercy.
If only that doctor knew this truth, he would have unclenched his fists, untied those hateful thoughts, and stepped into the world with hands that were meant to heal not destroy…!