CHRONICLING THE CARNAGE

The Following was first published on Christmas Eve, 2004.

Those of us who follow events in the Middle East                                                                                                                                                                                              closely, do so because we are intensely curious about human social, religious and political beliefs, and there is no part of the planet that better reflects both our history and the human condition. It’s the wellspring of much of the world’s religious life; and with spiralling intensity – especially there – religion seems to be playing an ever-greater part in the behaviour of nations and groups.

The very essence of what humankind hopes or claims to be is concentrated in these countries and especially in the so-called "Holy Land." To be a student of events unfolding in places like Jerusalem, Baghdad, Beirut and Damascus is to be a student of the best and the worst of God’s handiwork and of the whole range of human behaviour. One wonders just how disappointed the Lord might be with what’s been happening there for the past few centuries.

Acts of savage cruelty are perpetrated daily by men and women who insist that what they do is done "in God’s name." The perpetrators of these acts have been allowed – and sometimes encouraged – by certain religious authorities to believe in the holiness of their action, whether it’s the beheading of innocent men and women, the destruction of churches, the massacring of innocents in a mosque or the murder of civilians on a city bus. Almost every atrocity and almost every act of war is carried out with the imprimatur of some God upon it – whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim.

Every one is a news item.

Equally, the leaders of powerful nations and empires have, throughout the ages, caused rivers of innocent blood to flow through the nooks and crannies of the streets where the spiritual legacies of Jesus, Muhammad and Abraham are venerated. And these nations and empires have always acted in the name of a God. They have advocated the exclusion, conversion or killing of "heathens" and "infidels."

This is the stuff of history and fodder for what has become, in our time, a kind of chronicle machine.

Along with the slaughter of innocents by religious zealots of whatever stripe goes the political and economic power that flows from war making. War with a holy blessing is the zealot’s stock-in-trade; power, whether personal, political or economic, is the zealot’s reward. When religion is distorted and is used to justify war, the religious zealot is glorified; evil becomes good, hatred is buttressed by faith.

As the decades and the centuries go by, and the history piles up, countless lessons are taught and reported on in the Middle East but seemingly never learned or taken to heart. We as human beings continue making the same mistakes and the same wrong assumptions again and again.

The Middle East is, in so many ways, the very crucible in which the great battles of the human race originate and are fought. It is the place where the great questions of what is right and what is wrong are asked and debated. It’s where the great religions have clashed over biblical and Qur’anic truths. And it also happens to be where oil – the lifeblood of Western industry and commerce – is found.

All of these factors weigh heavily in the reporter’s work. To report on the events in a place where the world’s attention is so keenly focused is exciting; to try to sift the grains of truth from the mountains of propaganda and outright lies is a heavy responsibility. Mideast journalism is a thrilling and often dangerous vocation. Countless reporters have died over the years in the Middle East in the search for what is true.

It’s a powerful and volatile cocktail, this mixture of religion, money and politics. And in a world where greed and power rule the roost, we’ve all known for a long time that sooner or later the whole concoction would go critical. Politicians spent the 20th century experimenting, carelessly assembling and mixing all of the ingredients, and we journalists reported it every step of the way.

Then, Osama bin Laden lit the fuse.

At the beginning of this millennium, the first big bomb exploded in New York; the second in Baghdad. There are undoubtedly more bombs yet to go off. It seems there is no respite from the onslaught and almost always the outrages can be traced to the nature of religion and to religious politics.

This is the time of year when Jews and Muslims are confronted daily by the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, a Jew, revered by Muslims as a prophet. Still, religious Christians focus on the proposition that theirs is "the one true way."

Even the most highly-trained observer finds it impossible to know what’s true and what’s not. It’s even more impossible to discern why religious and political leaders behave the way they do.

But every now and then there are signs of hope, even in the midst of the carnage. Acts of incredible bravery and love are carried out daily by followers of all religions, despite their leaders’ rigid beliefs. Somehow, in spite of the religious and political manipulation that goes on, individuals manage – occasionally – to triumph over pressure from the top.

The public might be well served if journalists spent as much time chronicling and sharing the stories of individual goodness as they do the stories of destruction, violence and hate.