Posted by
Rob on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 2:22:25 PM
There's been a
vigorous debate whether Hasan was a terrorist or just criminally insane. Some might say there is no difference, but to read the newspapers, the
T-word is completely absent. Why?
Some have pointed out that "terrorism" goes against the American religion, known as "diversity" or "
political correctness". The more cynical among us might say that the MSM is covering for Obama to continue the Bush tradition of denying any terrorist plot on our soil since 9/11. The paranoid among us might see the MSM as colluding with Islam in their war against Christianity, perhaps even pointing to Saudi oil support of the MSM.
For the rest of us, what is all the flap about? Perhaps it is because a terrorist, like a suicide bomber (which
Hasan clearly considered himself) lives by a different creed. The insane, we imagine, have lost touch with reality and are pitiable. But the apostate, the infidel, the heretic we assign to the lowest levels of hell. Humor me briefly, and imagine that Hasan was a Hindu extremist, a member of the group that invented suicide bombing in India. (Remember Rajiv Gandhi's end?) Would it have made any difference in the way newspapers reported his rampage?
I didn't think so. The problem is that newspapers don't understand religion.
I feel like a broken
record, but it is important to understand the
difference between a martyr and a suicide. Islam has intentionally polluted the well, recruiting disillusioned youth and convincing them that to die with a bomb strapped to their chest was the ideal way to pay back the world for its contempt. (Not that such satanic behavior is unique to Islam, witness the effect of
Darwinism on teenagers.) The only thing more despicable than a suicide bomber, is the suicide trainer/recruiter. May they spend eternity entertaining demons.
Gilbert Keith was a sensitive chap, and in his youth struggled mightily with suicide. He knew that his Anglican faith held it to be a mortal sin, guaranteeing exclusion from Paradise. On the other hand, martyrdom achieved benefits in heaven all out of proportion to the cost. Yet both actions resulted in death. What was the difference? Here's what Chesterton
wrote in his later, and wiser and more established years.
Paganism declared that virtue was in a balance; Christianity declared it was in
a conflict: the collision of two passions apparently opposite. Of course they
were not really inconsistent; but they were such that it was hard to hold
simultaneously. Let us follow for a moment the clue of the martyr and the
suicide; and take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the
brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost
a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a
readiness to die. "He that will lose his life, the same shall save it," is not
a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice
for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill
book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or
quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will
risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A
soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a
strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not
merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He
must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not
escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he
must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I
fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I
certainly have not done so. But Christianity has done more: it has marked the
limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the
distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the
sake of dying. And it has held up ever since above the European lances the
banner of the mystery of chivalry: the Christian courage, which is a disdain of
death; not the Chinese courage, which is a disdain of life.
Upon completion of his Walter Reed residency as a psychiatrist, all the residents gave
presentations. Hasan's was
bizarre:
50 slides about jihad, ending with the quotation, “We love death more then (sic) you love life!".
Chesterton tells us exactly what Hasan meant.
So it comes as no surprise when Nidal Hasan wrote on his business card "SoA(SWF)", an acronym
expanding to "Soldier of Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala), which translates "Glory to Him, the Exalted" and usually follows mention of Allah's name. But from his actions, we now know what he really meant: "Soldier of Abaddon, seeker of death." For Chesterton was indulging his alliteration when he wrote "Chinese courage", when he obviously meant "Oriental courage", "Muslim courage". Hasan could not rise above his Arabic roots, he could not understand the calling of the Galilean, who loved life so much he disdained death, even a shameful death on a tree.
For only through that martyr's death can we be free.