(تَكْبِير) “Allahu Akbar” in deed. If in place of Allah you substitute the profane belief that “might makes right”; that the direction of violence can ever project a force for justice. Not even the most coldly ironic human can make sense of the massacre that took place in the military heart of Texas on Thursday afternoon. Yet I believe that such was bound to happen eventually. The fundamental illogic of training in the martial arts, of knowing to kill in order to deny the land to those you dislike, and to dominate and dehumanize others so that their way does not impede your way, this day is cruelly exposed like a giant raw nerve at the heart of a beast.
Can anyone condemn the soldier who turned on his mates who can also abide what those slain and unslain were either commencing or finalizing at the Soldier Readiness Center of Fort Hood, the “largest active duty armored post in the United States”? (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,572305,00.html).
If the string of domination by violence noted in the Bible beginning with Cain and his brother and continuing to Saul’s thousands and David’s tens of thousands had continued unbroken to this day, how many of us would be yet alive? सत्याग्रह Satyagraha, my gentle readers.
