Talk is cheap

The stampede that killed hundreds of Shiite Muslims in Baghdad was reportedly triggered by a rumor that zapped through the crowd that suicide bombers were in their midst. If the report is correct, then the rumor killed more than what a suicide bomber could have hoped to kill then.

But why is a suicide bomber so terrifying that even an unverified rumor could provoke such blind panic that people who do not know how to swim would actually jump off the bridge they were on and down into the swirling Tigris River to drown?

The answer is because a suicide bomber is not a figment of the imagination. It is real. And while it is definitely an abomination of human character, it is nevertheless an abominable reality that the world must learn to contend with.

What makes a suicide bomber so abominable is the utter willingness of a real live human being to die, a human being who, from the moment he or she was born, was raised on the notion that life is beautiful and precious.

Suicide bombers, we are told, do not hesitate to die because they believe dying for their faith ensures salvation and a place in heaven. But that belief is not shared by many of the same faith, or at least not shared to the extent that they would also blow themselves up for a cause.

Surely, to many, there is not one path to heaven but several, and these paths can be traveled by anyone, and the destination successfully reached, provided certain criteria are met, such as that one must be good, humble, and willing to help others, etc.

If there is a path to heaven that requires violence, especially violence toward innocent human beings, as in blowing oneself up to inflict as much carnage as can be possible, certainly it must be a path of least priority, a path that is meant to be least traveled, if at all.

Unfortunately, there are certain segments of the world population today that seem to promote the use of this violent path. These segments are mostly religious zealots, Islamic militants who seem bent on provoking religious confrontation.

It is to the eternal credit of the other religions, especially the Christians, that they have so far managed to absorb, with great patience and sacrifice, the provocations that now seem to happen daily.

The Christian world seems to have been too willing to bend over backward one wonders why it has not snapped. Maybe it is because the Christian world rightly sees that taking up the provocation lends more senselessness to an already senseless act.

To be sure, many in the Islamic world also see rightly that these violent provocations are senseless, as would be any response to them in kind, especially on a religious note, as by Christians.

But other than obtaining a clear discernment of what is right and wrong, many Muslims are not playing as active a role as a world that prefers peace would have expected. It seems only Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is aggressively cracking the whip against Muslim terrorists.

Much of the Muslim world, while condemning terrorism, condemn only in words, in a situation that clearly demands more than mere verbal calisthenics. Muslims who truly value peace and peaceful coexistence must be told that talk is cheap. Definite action is needed.

Yet, there are, even at this moment, supposedly respected and honorable Muslim officials who are getting away with official inflammatory rhetoric such as one of the presidential candidates in Egypt.

This presidential candidate is running on the platform of future Muslim domination of the world. True, he is not likely to win over the popular Hosni Mubarak, or even clear the other runners.

But to allow such a candidate with such an agenda is to open the gates to more rabid firebrands who will not give up trying until they eventually succeed when the situation is ripe. First, Egypt. Then the rest of the Muslim world.

This world is meant to be shared by all in peace. It is too beautiful to waste precious time that is better spent appreciating it on unproductive and destructive activities like staring in belligerence across a line that divides us all according to religion.