Words: Naseem Tarawnah
It’s been incredibly difficult wrapping my head around the assassination of Nahed Hattar earlier today. The whole story has been baffling from start to finish, troche ailment making it difficult to string together a coherent thought.
The way the government handled his posting of a caricature on Facebook they deemed to be offensive has been a blunder from start to tragic finish. By detaining him and taking him to court, viagra buy they criminalized his action, doctor putting him in the crosshairs, and legitimized the space needed for the crazies to respond. And they did. Nahed Hattar’s brother says the Minister of Interior was informed of death threats the writer received, but the calls were apparently ignored. Unprotected and in the midst of numerous police at the gate, on the sidewalk and across the street – Hattar barely made it up the first steps of the courthouse before going down. While it was the killer who took that gun out from a plastic bag he was carrying, and while it was he who pulled its trigger three times, there has been a whole supporting environment that provided him the motive, motivation, and the opportunity to do it. And if not him – then someone else.
Nahed Hattar was someone whose ideas and beliefs clashed with my own; I don’t recall ever agreeing with anything he ever wrote or his political stances both within and beyond our borders. I mention this not as a disclaimer or beside the point, but as the point precisely. Jordanians polarize themselves into camps based on their beliefs, un-nurtured in the ability to accept the right to free speech. Because this isn’t a country where freedom of speech lives, and in recent years it has gradually migrated elsewhere, faced by significant curtailment by a State on the hunt. From amending old laws, and introducing new ones, to jailing journalists – a narrative has been framed by the State that it is in a position of comfortable power in this post-Arab Spring era; a position supported by societal silence, disillusionment, and consequently – consent.
This is important; When you cut back on freedom of the press, speech and/or expression, you end up with a very polarized society that has no national conversations or debates. And with all the knee-jerk media gag orders – it’s a society that’s also uninformed. Conversations are driven underground to fester.
So we continue to drown in this swamp of inescapable rhetoric about national unity that comes hand in hand with these events. While the sentiments of a “united Jordan†are nice, they are as meaningless as their memes. Without proactive and aggressive inquiry into all the factors fueling extremism, these acts will continue to erode us. With the rise of Daesh, many of us have called attention to these factors repeatedly. Whether it’s reforming the educational curriculum, a genuine addressing of unemployment, or economic and political marginalization, free speech, and on and on – the State has moved undeniably slow on all these issues, and is outpaced by extremism’s raging fire. It is satisfied with sprinkling nationalistic sentiments on a problem that continues to grow.
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Only a few weeks ago, a Christian boy died in a car accident and the online exchange about whether Muslims should pray for him pointed to the deep-seated problems we have. Put aside those who took an extremist position. Too many nationalists addressed this dismissively – saying ‘these people are a minority’, and ‘this isn’t the Jordan we know’.
Yes, this isn’t the Jordan we know, and this does contradict our history. But we’re not living in the 1950’s anymore. Romanticizing the past is futile and a disservice to the present we find ourselves in. There are new undeniable realities that have reshaped society, making it a comfortable nest for any extremist ideology. Sure, not everyone is hardened enough to pick up a gun, but a great number of people support the attack, and its motives, on some spectrum of justification.
Shutting up the media and sweeping this under the rug as just another phenomenon hasn’t helped. Sending out the thought police to round people up hasn’t helped. Being comfortable with our status quo hasn’t helped. Blaming the refugee crisis hasn’t helped. Comparing ourselves to our lowest common denominators in the region hasn’t either. We are living in an era where extremism isn’t just a foreign idea being imported into Jordan, but manifesting within a society that has been shaped by numerous forces over the years. The more we build up this bubble of denial, the bigger the burst.
This is bigger than Nahed Hattar. This isn’t even an issue exclusive to the Christian community as some might see it – it’s an issue facing every minority in the country. Whether you’re a moderate or liberal Muslim, a secularist, an atheist, a pluralist or progressive – you too are a minority, and you too are faced with this reality. You too live in this same environment; one with a tendency to counter new ideas or different ideas.
It is no longer enough for the King to give a speech about national unity, or for the Queen to send out a tweet, or for the government, political parties, the Jordan Press Association, the Senate, and every other State entity to come out and merely condemn this. It’s time for them to move. Move beyond appeasement, and move beyond ‘managing’ the situation by ‘regulating imams,’ throwing people in prison, criminalizing criticism, or expanding the definition of ‘sedition’ into ambiguous realms. This needs to move beyond the rigid hands of the Security State, and seep into every crack and crevice of the State, and subsequently, society at large. This needs to be comprehensive reform, and it needs to be inclusive.
Stop thinking about short-term crisis management and look at what society will look like five or ten years from now unless aggressive reform takes place. What kind of country will it be? What is being inherited exactly?
You are yourself part of the problem by claiming that this is not ‘Jordan’s history’ and that the killing of Nattar was an ‘extremist act’. When in truth Jordan has been an Islamic country for a long time, and all orthodox Muslims have and always will support such a killing, which is promoted by orthodox Islam not ‘extremism’
Shouldn’t we allow God to punish anyone that insults him? Why do we feel like we need to defend God?
Saying “Muslims” as if they are all the same. You are the bigger problem.
We can keep pretending that “Muslims” (the overwhelming overwhelming majority of them) aren’t the problem, or we can be honest about these issues for once.
Religion poisons everything. The moderates are losing.
This is an individual act of homicide. We have no proof that anyone else would’ve pulled the trigger. The State has to address his enabling environment. Did he grew up in an aggressive home that lacked empathy? Aggression at school? Was he not stimulated by his school curricula? Was he met with unemployment and poverty before becoming an imam? Did his frustrations grow from a lack of public amenities and venues that ensured a happy and comfortable living, where his tax money just evaporated into thin air? Was he angry, without a constructive outlet to vent except in hate speech, that culminated in crime?
As an adult was he fostered within an extremism peer group of individuals who also grew up with similar enabling environment?
What kind of individuals are we breeding into this world? Does Jordan not love and care for its own children, for Jordanians?
@Dana, as Muslims we should also ask what type of religious indoctrination did this man get and by who? Why did he truly believe that Islam required that Nahed Hattar be put to death? Why does a large number of Muslims in Jordan and elsewhere believe that Nahed Hattar should be put to death for sharing that cartoon? Did the assassin use his position as imam to spread an extremist ideology? Are there any other imams doing that? If so how can we combat this? So on…
The fact that Muslims after every act of religious extremism say “let’s talk about everything except religion” only shows that we are not serious about solving the problem of fundamentalism/extremism in our societies.
We have to educate our children the morals (Human morals) and also saying that all Muslims are the same is the biggest mistake even it is a huge problem in the Arab world nowadays I admit.
Dana is correct. This should be prosecuted in a court of law as murder. Don’t blame Religion. Blame people who practice a warped form of Religion, where a man is murdered because of a drawing. Shun these fundamentalists. Also where are your Religious leaders. They should speak out about these crazy acts of extremism. They should condemn. To kill in the name of God is blasphemy. I have no knowledge of your country. If you practice a Religion I do believe in enforcement of basic religious thoughts & acts. Religious leaders should state what this man did was evil. To kill another human being. And for people that preach hate, You should acknowledge incitement, & perhaps some form jof punishment. But you should not murder people because they draw a picture of God. Of course we should be sensitive to peoples religious beliefs. But this does not give them the right to kill you because they disagree with you. If you are truly religious you would forgive a person who makes slight of your religion. But I am afraid there are a lot of brainwashed people who are not in control of their own minds. I blame any Imam who incites these feeble minded people into committing murder, they should be prosecuted. Religious leaders need to step up condemn & enforce decent religious behaviour.
You mention all the ineffective measures taken so far to address this, rightfully so because obviously they’re not working and things are getting worse.
But what’s the action plan? What new measures can be taken?
“Also where are your Religious leaders. They should speak out about these crazy acts of extremism. They should condemn.”
They have. Religious leaders both in Jordan (al-Ifta’) and elsewhere (al-Azhar) have condemned the murder. The problem is that this “warped form” of religion has become widespread in our society.
Another problem is that attempts to correct people’s false understanding of Islam are seen by many as attempts (or conspiracies) to impose foreign views on Muslim societies.