Christian Ethiopians on Good Friday. Gazetegnaw Zega/Demotix. All rights reserved.
The killing was
horrific for anyone with enough resolve to see the video footage. Killing a
defenceless human being with no military training, with no gun or weapon in his
hand, for the colour of his skin, his country of origin and/or religious faith
has been the hallmark of the Islamic State (IS).
In places such as Libya
and Iraq being white has become a license for being kidnapped, then tortured.
The colour bar, however, has not prevented IS from further killing. The latest
victims are black Ethiopians who are adherents to Christianity. The 29-minute
videos which IS released show a barbaric scene where poor migrants, as
defenceless as their white counterparts, are shot and beheaded while a caption
reads, “ followers of the cross from the enemy of the Ethiopian church”.
Their crime is nothing
other than being Christian and belonging to the Ethiopian church which has
hardly gone out of its way to attack IS in any manner. Killing members of a
poor minority for the faith that they are practicing does not have any honour.
The many sympathisers of IS found in Africa, Europe or elsewhere in the globe
should once again closely question the values that they are upholding. Every
single gesture of admiration that is given IS either implicitly or explicitly,
every “ like” clicked on Facebook pages, pulls the trigger on innocent
Christian Ethiopians who have been butchered.
Confronted by the unprovoked
attack on the Ethiopian church, IS and its followers wherever they are should
pause for long enough to ask also whether the Ethiopian church and the
Ethiopian state has been their enemy at all?
Yes, the Ethiopian
Christians that they killed today belonged to a land that is famed for its
monasteries and rock hewn churches. But it is not only monasteries and churches
that Ethiopia is known for. Ethiopia is also a land where Bilal al-habesha, the
first caller to prayer in Islamic history has come from. It is also a land
where its Christian king received the prophet Mohamed’s family and companions
when they were persecuted for practicing their newly found religion, Islam, by
local tribesmen.
The land of Ethiopia
which is now portrayed as the enemy by IS is where the first timber was used
for the construction of the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site. At one point in time
the carpenter who helped in rebuilding Kaaba was Baqum al Rumi an Ethiopian
foreigner then living in Mecca.
The Deir Sultan
Monastery in Jerusalem which is owned by the Ethiopian orthodox church and
which existed before many parts of the world had become Christian has been able
to exist as a result of the decision of the Calif Omar, the second calif of the
Islamic empire, who following the conquest has conferred an Ethiopian orthodox
presence on the holy land.
The pages of history
also tell us that Ethiopia had an intrinsic relationship with the Muslim land
which IS purports to be fighting over. For example, the writing of the tenth
century Baghdad-born scholar Abu al-Ḥasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Masudi,
attests to this in his description of the commercial relation that the
Yemeni sultan had with the land of Ethiopia. In his book entitled Murūj
adh-dhahab wa maādin al-jawāhir al-Masudi tells us that “ chief of Zébid is
Ibrāhīm, son of Ziyād, known as the master of el-harmali. By virtue of the
treaty of friendship between the two countries, its ships sailed ceaselessly
from Arabia to Abyssinia, to where they transport tradesmen and merchandise”.
The migrants that
Islamic State has killed this week are the people who came from this land that
we now call Ethiopia whose history has been linked to the Muslim world and
whose Christian king rescued the family of the Prophet Mohamed by granting them
refuge in their land. So many centuries later, IS disrespects the Islamic
tradition and the place that Christian Ethiopians have in the Islamic world.
They have butchered defenceless migrants with empty pockets, a hungry belly and
nowhere to go just because they are Christians. This is an unforgivable and shameful
act.
Their killing, despite
the pain and the outrage that it triggers should not turn us into one of them.
Our response should be measured and rational and one that remains true to a
future of humanity in which a different creed allows people to co-exist on the
single planet that we all inhabit.
In this time of sadness
it is easy for emotions to run high and for polarisation to occur. After all,
what IS wants is to create a polarized world of Muslim vs Christians by tapping
into local discontent of various sorts. Such an outcome is however only
possible if emotions take over from rationality.
This message should be
heard particularly loud and clear in the context of Ethiopia where despite some
past conflicts that occurred between Christians and Ethiopians, the two
communities have by and large left each other alone. Local, historically
specific conflicts should not be linked to current events in a manner that
generates hatred and division between Christians and the Muslim community of
Ethiopia who live side by side in densely populated neighbourhoods throughout
Ethiopia.
The barbarity of a
group who does not know their own root and history should not be allowed to
tint the history of Ethiopia, Africa or Muslims and Christians in the world. May
the soul of those who have been massacred in Libya rest in peace.