Terror sidelines ‘noble cause’

Sandile Dikeni

The death of more than a hundred people is not a joke. Nor is the death of one person a laughing issue. It therefore only right for me to voice my disgust at the deaths in France. I don’t have all the details of the incident but, strangely, I don’t care. Whatever the ‘cause’, it is disgusting to observe the death of more than a hundred people in a civilised country like France.

The perpetrators must know that whatever cause it is that you tried to highlight, the murder of innocent people will never help your cause. The only thing we remember is the death of innocent people.

However noble your fight, the killing of innocent souls does not help us to see your cause. It blinds us to it. All we see are the many dead bodies on your killing field. The human being in its complexity refuses to deal with the end of life. I am such a human being.

Mind my delight when President Jacob Zuma, at the G20, made a comment condemning the murders in France. It made me happy to be South African with leaders of the calibre of Zuma.

I am proud to be South African during a time when the world admires our humanity. This nation, in my opinion, is currently showcasing the importance of that beautiful thing called life. I have said it before but let me say it again, I am proud to be part of this essence. I am proud because I am of the opinion that we possess a tremendous beauty – a poetic beauty.

As people of the world, we should continuously condemn murder. And mass murder does not make us hear you. It saddens us. It sadden me intensely.

In this, my country, we live together as different people because that is what life is. I am extremely conscious of the cultural differences we might have, but I am happy that we exhibit this through our many different artistic ways.

The complexity of the human soul is for me a triumph that I shall not abandon. We all have been tasked with educating the world’s people about the beauties of the human soul. We are also therefore obliged in our daily practices, to exhibit the many magnificent corners of this thing called life.

It is a deep feeling, in me, that speaks endlessly about the fact that we are a beautiful people – complex but beautiful. It is my opinion, no doubt, that the many narrow corners of the world will one day be able to see our tenderness as we exhibit our beautiful soul.

Our exhibition of the beauties of life is sometimes bothered by statistics on crime but stubborn, as we are, we dismiss these as an exception rather than the mainstream of South African livelihood.

Let me be quick to point out that the current statistics on murder in our country are not my highlight of this nation and the role we should be playing in the world. But let me be quick to note that I am aware of the many attempts that the people of this country are making to demonstrate the many deep insights that we have as people who are able to love. I sometimes become scared of an unconscious arrogance when I narrate this character of South African life.

It is for the world to view the French murders in a way that says to humankind – “murder is not a solution”. It is also for the world to say we have heard and, importantly, “we shall not repeat”. The world needs to hear that, but more importantly it must not be just a saying in clever-polite tendencies. It must be meant. Meant deeply.

Love is not a difficult thing. It is also a common understanding that the many tendencies of narrow hatred and malice are not building blocks of our humanity.

It is internationally known that the French and Europeans are not necessarily a reflection of compassion for humanity. But the rest of the world has the task of saying that murder should not be allowed by the human entity.

The fact that Europe has, through the centuries, been responsible for the demise of many people of the world does not say to me that the world should imitate that narrow tendency.

I am warning that narrow tendencies are not a true reflection of the deep beauties of people. We, as the many nations of the world, have the enormous task of sending daily messages that exhibit the depth of understanding to each other.

South Africa has the enormous task of teaching our continent and the world that hostility which leads to murder is not part of humanism. I guess the reason for my shivering is the fear that the people of the world might lose confidence in the beauty and humility of the human soul.

I might be exaggerating, but I really do think that the world needs extra-vigilance on matters such as what should be seen as a massacre in France recently. And we should condemn it.

I don’t mean just ‘just condemn’. We should send a serious message across the globe that what happened there is not viewed as a mere terrorist activity in France. It is an attack on the many complex beauties of the human soul. We are alarmed not by the cause of the assailant but by the fact that the human being has been killed. Simple as that.

It is alarming that in 2015 people have not come to see that destroying human beings does not help us solve those deep problems that, ironically, have been caused by us.

It is not a great moment for those of us who are believers that life is better experienced in its humility.

This is, I plead, a call to the human being all over the world to demonstrate a deep admiration for the love of life.

We can, to sound idealistic, move the human essence away from the many points of self destruction. The Paris attackers did not teach us about the arrogance of the French, but about the a disdain for human life. It suggested to us that the kind of arrogance in their possession is dangerous for human life.

It also says that their disrespect was not only limited to the narrow confines of world politicking, but to life itself.

How then are we expected to show respect to people who do not know how to respect life? It is common sense that the beauties that we fight for must be understood by the human sensitivities of the people of the world.

I plea that we become more committed to life than inexplicable death. It is my heart calling for human hearts to see that life is a moment that deserves its experience in life.