Tyrants and Terrorists; the Brutalization of Meaning

Tyrants and Terrorists; the Brutalization of Meaning

“O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be against rich or poor, Allah is nearer to them both in compassion; therefore do not follow low desires, lest ye swerve, and if ye distort justice or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.” (4:135).

The Tyrants of the world –how do they do it? Is there a special psychology of amorality? As the Poet W.H. Auden wrote, in Epitaph on a Tyrant: “Perfection, of a kind, is what he was after; And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand; And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter; And when he cried, the little children died in the streets.”

Tyrants recognize no law; or if they do, they use the laws of God and Man towards their own ends. And power corrupts even the well-meaning. Writer Isabel Hilton of The Guardian wrote last July, ''The delusion that officeholders know better than the law is an occupational hazard of the powerful and one to which those of an imperial cast of mind are especially prone.”

Surely we can name at least half the leaders of the world as tyrants. And even here at home, the US government is on the verge of one of the biggest oil and gas giveaways in U.S. history, some $7 billion over five years. We see (and don’t see) their manipulations of power in the backrooms and the boardrooms and the tax-free havens guarded by Halliburton and KBR. And President Bush and Vice President Cheney claim unprecedented new powers based on a Congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against the threat of terror. Watch out whom they target next! Duck and cover!

But sad to say, some of us may wish to be like them “when we grown up.” Of course we won’t make the same mistakes, of course we will have our cake and eat it too. Yes of course. But even among us Muslims we have our fair share of petty tyrants with their eye on power. Why do you think so many Islamic organizations are so closed? Why are the walls so high? Is it simply a sense of modesty?

However, some wise men say we should be happy to face the challenge of a petty tyrant in our daily lives—it is a wonderful tool to help us grow in patience! And yes, it is important to conserve and manage ones spiritual energy when faced by a negative force. We should accept the challenge to our self-importance! Ouch!

Yet at the same time, justice must be done. Justice differs from revenge in that the response is objective and correct. It feels different too. Therefore, let us not distort justice or decline to do justice! For others may follow our poor example!

As Erich Fried writes, “Those who loved freedom got me with their sweat in the sleepless nights of their dungeons and dingy rooms/ those who loved freedom fed me with their blood, taught me to stand and walk on their bones./Those who loved freedom called me to the capital, bore me into the palace, placed me on the throne? Now I am free to rule in their spirit; I stick very closely to what they taught me./I still tread their bones underfoot; I still drink the blood of those who loved freedom.”

In this way, because they are not genuine, but tragically imperfect, Western efforts to democratize the Middle East seem to be leading to more politicized Islam and also more instability and sectarian tension, and to one of the worst signs of a tyrant; human rights abuse.

This problem is growing in the USA; however, it is an old brutality in many countries that claim to be Islamic. And how do educated men, with children and nice clothes and nice cars, how do they do it? And how do people turn aside and accept this in their name?

''Torture is an unqualified evil,'' Britain’s Law Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood declared; ''It can never be justified. Rather, it must always be punished.'' Yet is it always punished or rarely? Of all the charges of torture deaths in the US military, the closed system of “military justice” has only prosecuted 15; and, as the New York Times reported last week, “Five of those have pleaded guilty to assault and other crimes; the stiffest punishment any of them have received has been five months in a military prison. Only one soldier has been convicted at trial; he was not imprisoned at all.”

Moreover, no higher level officers have been charged; and “for reasons that are unclear, it was not until April 2004 —16 months after the two deaths — that investigators even began to question officers who had served on the command staff at Bagram.” Wow! So how do otherwise honorable military officers justify this behavior?

Albert Bandura of Stanford University has studied the psychology of moral behavior for many years and has identified eight mechanisms frequently used to justify Immoral Behavior; these include: Moral Justification; Euphemistic labeling; Advantageous comparison; Displacement of responsibility; Diffusion of Responsibility; Disregard of Distortion of Consequences; Dehumanization; and Blaming the Victim.” Islamic psychology has identified the same misuse of the human mind and spirit. This is important material to study. What words to we use to justify injustice?

Indeed, as Salman Rushdie has observed, “''Aha!'' we are encouraged to think. ''Obvious bad guy! Render his sorry butt anywhere you like! Yet beyond any shadow of a doubt, the ugliest phrase to enter the English language in 2005 was ''extraordinary rendition.'' To those of us who love words, this phrase's brutalization of meaning is an infallible signal of its intent to deceive.
Language, too, has laws, and those laws tell us that this new American usage is improper - a crime against the word. Every so often the habitual newspeak of politics throws up a term whose calculated blandness makes us shiver with fear - yes, and loathing.

Brothers and sisters in Islam-- let us be more conscious of the words we use and the tone of voice that resonates in our body as we speak. Do the vibrations heal or harm the world? To know hope for future peace, we must listen to each other more deeply; and listen to ourselves more truly too.