When Haq is Right; When Haq is Wrong

Time for Healing: When Haq is Right; When Haq is Wrong


Seattle police say Pakistani American Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, held a young girl at gunpoint to force his way inside the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, killing Pamela Waechter.

Mr. Haq had suffered from mental illness for about a decade and that he took medication, including lithium, for a bipolar disorder. There are many millions of Americans and many American Muslims who suffer from stress and mental illness. We deny that fact at our peril.

Faced with current events, with media poison and widespread fear and anger, how many more violent outbursts might there be? Who will be next to snap from stress? How will you avoid it?

For more information, you may wish to consult the site www.muslimmentalhealth.com and many other sources of care and healing in your area.

Like individuals in psychic pain, some nations may need a strong dose of lithium, and a individualized program of prayer and reflection. Reflection may help us question this delusion of a bipolar world of East against West; Us against Them. Reflection may help us create space for the Other, not as a demon but as a fellow human being. It may help us adhere to our statements about ceasefires and humanitarian corridors.

Similarly reaching out in their hour of sorrow, Mr Haq’s parents Mian and Nahida Haq hand-delivered a letter of apology to Congregation Beth Sholom in Richland and Temple B’nai Torah.

If only nations could make such humble and dignified gestures! But there is so much ego in nationalism of states and also non-state entities. So much reactionary thinking! Each nation and group believes that it is on the edge of extinction and that it must fight for its life. Israel and many Jews have a deep fear of extermination. Iran’s irresponsible rhetoric has had a high cost.

And increasingly Arab nations and Muslims share that fear. Pakistan has a plan to vastly increase it nuclear bomb production. US Congress is considering allowing India to develop it arsenal as well. This terrible news despite the fact that neither nation has signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Of course—they each imagine they are fighting for mother and her samosas against the void. But Mother and her samosas are in danger everywhere.

Like Israel, will other nations destroy civilian infrastructure and civilian lives? In Lebanon Israelis bombed the port, the Airport, the Red Cross Ambulances, factories, the Mdeirej Bridge and at least 61 other bridges, the Jiye power plant and the Dair al-Zahrani sewage plant. And in villages like Qana, buildings are bombarded into the ground, killing mother, father, grandmother and all the children among the bricks and dust and tears. But Shock and Awe is nothing compared to the will of Allah. Let us have faith in His Mercy.

Why is the world out of balance? Can it be in part due to the number of individuals who are out of tune and out of hope? We have a responsibility to maintain our community’s mental health.

Yesterday a delegation of Muslims and Arabs from Arab-Amerian Anti Discrimination Committee, Muslim Consultative Network and Arab Amerian Institute, among others, visited the office of a New York City Congressman who was opposed to much to the post 9/11 crackdown against our communities.

We expressed deep disappointment with his one sided and unconditional support for Israeli actions. We wanted to ask him to find his balance. We disagreed with him when he said, “Since when should a response to aggression and murder be proportionate?”

But balance and proportion are the essence of law. Without this we have a nuclear arms race and sudden death of nations. As Muslims and as Americans, we cannot allow the law of the jungle to spread its rot and shadow over all things.

America used to be a nation of laws, international treaties and local ordinances. But now apparently we are a nation of blind, bipolar baboons, lurking in the shadows. Where are we going? We are being led over the cliff by a big baboon. Hurray for our side! Watch us fall, we are the best!

So let the rallies begin. There must be public and private response. But what will the message be and will these rallies take us towards or away from that fearful drop to death below? Will madness mislead us? Will shame and fear keep us in the dark? Will we seek the delusion that we are holy martyrs and persecuted heroes?

And Israel seems to imagine it can destroy Hezbollah without creating new levels of resistance. That is Hezbaloney. And some Israelis are asking about the human rights disaster of law, the lack of law and proportion that Jewish tradition requires.

Writing in Yediot Aharonot newspaper, well-known journalist Nahum Barnea affirmed that “ a blanket directive regarding the entire civilian population of southern Lebanon and the Shiite neighborhoods of Beirut is a hasty and lightheaded act, which courts disaster. We saw the outcome of this yesterday, in the bodies of the women and children that were taken out of the bombed house in Qana.”

If like the elder Haqs you are reaching out to officials please email me and let me know (iamourhaj@aol.com). If you are planning trouble like the younger Haq please do not let me know.

Let us remember those weak in mind and spirit and watch over them with compassion and responsibility. Let that soul heal even in the midst of tragedy, and not imagine that terror and hate crimes can bring us out of our shame and anger. But compassion heals.