... It is 4:05 pm...

It is 4:05 p.m.: There are men of all ages, walking towards their local mosque, discussing events of the day, politics, inflation, or illnesses. The prayer begins and there is that usual scuttling of people as they make lines to join other worshippers. All of this is normal, of course. and everyone is functioning mechanically, in a fashion we are used to in our automated times.

At 4:07 p.m., all is not normal inside the building. A spine-tearing noise emanates from inside the mosque, turning human lives into a mass of rubble, limbs and cries. Half an hour later, this becomes the breaking news item on television. Location, casualties, sights and sounds surrounding the event are all taken care of by reporters. The presentation on television ends with that clichéd comment: “According to the local police, this is the sixth suicide bombing in our city since…”

Another day, another city: a five-star hotel expecting foreign visitors makes the headline. The alleged suicide bomber only manages to kill himself and one guard. The government vows to identify those responsible for this “heinous act”.

Yet another day, another city: there is heaviness in two homes that were strangers to each other until one explosion and two deaths joined them in an individual mourning. One belongs to an innocent passerby, and the other to a suicide bomber, a victim of indoctrination. And lets remember, all of this is happening in a city that has not seen war in the last thirty years.

This is nothing but a few very common myriads of human reduction. Not only is this not brand new information for you, these are anecdotes we have exhausted our nervous systems over to the point that we don’t feel inclined to ask a highly fundamental question: who did this and why?
We are breathing this very second in a modernized, restructured amphitheatre, where an unknown master of puppets decides who will be the audience, and who will be the prey in the cage. Far-fetched as it may sound, each one of us is vulnerable enough to play either role.

I suppose I must love this country, but it is a country where the term ‘enemy’ has become vague and fluid because of stratification of beliefs and confusion of loyalties. For some of us, the enemy is ruling the country; for another, the enemy is a foreign ideology; for yet another, the enemy is anyone who has more food on his table than him. Provided with the right environment, the right propaganda and tools of psychological influence and persuasion, any of these people will ripen to become carriers of grenades, and the headline of the newspaper you will hold tomorrow morning, with your cup of tea.

Pardon me for carving out such a simplistic view of things that are beyond normalcy and sanity but as we stand in the line of fire, it is imperative to review our own roles as enablers of this hysteria of deaths.