Close the Hate Factories

In Peshawar days must be dawning and evenings falling with the same pace. People would have started picking up the threads of their lives, but some lives would have changed for all times. Mothers of those children who departed maybe still crying with throats parched and eyes swollen, fathers may be having the listlessness of controlling their emotions for the sake of the other family members and yet having a burning volcanoes buried in their chest of not been able to do anything.
Those who did this heinous crime against children were taking revenge they said. Revenge from whom those unknown children and unknown families. How could they fill up so much of hatred in the minds of some young minds for committing a beastly act? Did they ever read the story of Prophet Mohammud? Because Prophet Muhammad was spreading the word of God, many disliked Muhammad and planned to kill him. Every time they tried to kill him, they failed. Many people started harassing him. One old woman made a habit of throwing rubbish on Prophet Muhammad when ever he passed from her house. Muhammad had to pass that house daily on the way to the mosque. Even when the old woman threw rubbish on him, he would pass silently without showing any anger or annoyance. This was a regular, daily event.
One day when the Prophet was passing by, the woman was not there to throw the rubbish. He stopped and asked the neighbour about her well-being. The neighbour informed the Prophet that the woman was sick on bed. The Prophet politely asked permission to visit the woman.
When allowed he entered the house, the woman thought that he had come there to take his revenge when she was unable to defend herself because of sickness. But the Prophet assured her that he had come to her, not to take any revenge, but to see her and to look after her needs.
The old woman was greatly moved by this kindness and love of the Prophet. Those with minds full of hatred and revenge should take a leaf from the life of prophet.

Close the Hate Factories – We have reached the brink – A Clarion Call for the world’s Religious and Political class

There is a time in the history when if a mammoth action is not taken, the time comes to a stop for a civilisation and leads it to self-destruction. Today we are standing on that point in the history.

The ghastly killing of children and their teachers at Army Public School Peshawar is a most horrible and condemnable incident. Those innocents died without blooming. They had done nothing to deserve that kind of death. What had the teacher done to be burnt alive? What had the children done to face the bullets and see their friends being butchered?

Who could do these beastly actions? What kind of psyche plans this?

These are products of hate factories. The people running these hate factories fuel their factories with propaganda and false religious bigotry and make young gullible youth as their cannon fodder with indoctrination of the worst kind. They kill the sensitive emotional hearts of these foot soldiers of the hate factories. We are left with the names of those who were the foot soldiers but who and what destroyed their psyche. Not the foot soldiers but the owners of these hate factories need to be worked on.

The cries of the parents of these children are making the heavens tremble. The heaven that these hate mongers promise themselves. The need today is for every religious leader to wake up and spread, if they have the capacity, the spirit of understanding, compassion and love. From Pope to Muslim Clerics to Hindu Gurus to Buddhist monks let each one throw a current of love, a spirit of peace to extinguish the fire and smoke of hatred emerging from these hate factories. Let the whole religious and political leadership take it as a clarion call to take a united action of going deep into this problem and resolving it in such a way that those with devious minds may not be able to recreate such incidents.

Let all parents and teachers of the world unite in this moment of grief and take pledge of spreading peace around them for the sake of our future generations. Our prayers are with the parents of these children and others whose life has been cut short.