When it comes down to it, you, whoever you are, you must realise that the need for compassion and love outweighs allI don’t know, maybe you looked at the photos online, and clicked and swept past them as you do a funny comic or another news story. Or maybe you didn’t see them at all. It doesn’t matter, really. What I saw was liberation. I saw people together. I saw versatility. Of course, if I went deeper, I’d see how each of them had their own agendas, backed by the all-encompassing American narrative behind them, but I didn’t. In that moment, the important thing was that these people had seen what so many of us take for granted every day: An opportunity to live as we wish. Of course, freedom, like magic, comes at a price. What price these people end up paying as a result of their captivity, and their subsequent freedom, only time will tell. And democracy isn’t perfect. But theocracy, this idea of being ruled by a religion that smothers, that wishes to erase out entire peoples, this is much, much worse. This nation needs to understand that. And neither is freedom. Most of the time, we’re fighting amongst ourselves, bickering over where we should draw the line of freedom, and which version supersedes the other. This country needs to understand that too. There is a lesson to be learnt from these photos. That, when it comes down to it, you, whoever you are, you must realise that the need for compassion and love outweighs all. You must realise that flesh and blood, the quotidian aspirations of the poor man, that of food and shelter and good company, are the only things that matter. It doesn’t matter if you disagree with someone, or if someone is offending your faith. That is what people do. If you wish to be violent and angry, stop. Look at these photos, be naïve for a second, and consider how another person’s heart beats, how their mind thinks, how difference and diversity make us stronger, not weaker. Practise love as you practise your faith. There’s no definite proof that it exists, people are always telling you that you’re being silly or stupid, sometimes you have doubts, sometimes you disagree with regards to what exactly it means. But, surely, that is the only religion worth fighting for?
The recent pictures of Syrians being rescued by the Syrian Democratic Forces from IS have to be some of the moving photos I’ve ever seen.
There was one in which an SDF girl, ponytail hanging rebelliously from her head, consoles an old man in tears.
In another one, the same girl one presumes, hugs ever so tightly an old woman hidden under a niqab, with slits for eyes. And one in which a woman sets fire to a niqab playfully on the streets.
The Daily Telegraph’s headline ran: “Women rip off their burqas as Syrian residents of Manbij celebrate rescue from ISIL.”
Those of us less willing to buy into the so-called Western, Eurocentric narrative would be, justifiably so perhaps, sceptical of the happiness with which the headline and the photos choose to portray their freedom.
In one photo, another elderly woman looks defiantly at the camera, puffing on a half-finished cigarette, smoke slithering out of the wrinkled slit in her mouth.
In another, a man, with the smiliest smile, has his beard cut and shaven off.
These are the faces of people who have been “freed” from the theocratic rule of the Islamic State. Don’t let the quotation marks fool you; I am on the less sceptical side, the democratic side, the side which the Islamic State has said to be ungodly, unholy, a complete antithesis to whatever their version of Sharia Law is.
These photographs, though they can be taken out of context, can be taken with naiveté on our heels, can be a reminder that theocracy does not a happy people make.
You may call these values “Western” and “liberal” and “anti-Islam,” but, at the end of the day, when one has been oppressed to such a degree with the threat of violence, both to themselves and their families, one takes in freedom as a drowning man breathes in air after being rescued.
Here’s a hint: If you need the threat of violence to get people to follow your religion, it’s not the religion of peace and love you think it is.
In fact, ideas of love and peace, which are meant to be inherently selfless and forgiving, do not factor into the equation at all, and are religions in their own right.
You may practise love as you practise Islam or Christianity or Hinduism. You may practise peace as you may Buddhism. When defenders of religion speak, this is what they mean. They, perhaps, ignore the contradictions and the context, but this is what they mean.
All religions, if seen from afar, are religions of love. Just don’t get too close, or it’ll burn you out.
Did I see love in those photos? I chose to. Did you?
