Christian Ethiopians on Good Friday. Gazetegnaw Zega\/Demotix. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n
The killing was
\nhorrific for anyone with enough resolve to see the video footage. Killing a
\ndefenceless human being with no military training, with no gun or weapon in his
\nhand, for the colour of his skin, his country of origin and\/or religious faith
\nhas been the hallmark of the Islamic State (IS). <\/p>\n
In places such as Libya
\nand Iraq being white has become a license for being kidnapped, then tortured.
\nThe colour bar, however, has not prevented IS from further killing. The latest
\nvictims are black Ethiopians who are adherents to Christianity. The 29-minute
\nvideos which IS released show a barbaric scene where poor migrants, as
\ndefenceless as their white counterparts, are shot and beheaded while a caption
\nreads, \u201c followers of the cross from the enemy of the Ethiopian church\u201d. <\/p>\n
Their crime is nothing
\nother than being Christian and belonging to the Ethiopian church which has
\nhardly gone out of its way to attack IS in any manner. Killing members of a
\npoor minority for the faith that they are practicing does not have any honour.
\nThe many sympathisers of IS found in Africa, Europe or elsewhere in the globe
\nshould once again closely question the values that they are upholding. Every
\nsingle gesture of admiration that is given IS either implicitly or explicitly,
\nevery \u201c like\u201d clicked on Facebook pages, pulls the trigger on innocent
\nChristian Ethiopians who have been butchered.<\/p>\n
Confronted by the unprovoked
\nattack on the Ethiopian church, IS and its followers wherever they are should
\npause for long enough to ask also whether the Ethiopian church and the
\nEthiopian state has been their enemy at all? <\/p>\n
Yes, the Ethiopian
\nChristians that they killed today belonged to a land that is famed for its
\nmonasteries and rock hewn churches. But it is not only monasteries and churches
\nthat Ethiopia is known for. Ethiopia is also a land where Bilal al-habesha, the
\nfirst caller to prayer in Islamic history has come from. It is also a land
\nwhere its Christian king received the prophet Mohamed\u2019s family and companions
\nwhen they were persecuted for practicing their newly found religion, Islam, by
\nlocal tribesmen. <\/p>\n
The land of Ethiopia
\nwhich is now portrayed as the enemy by IS is where the first timber was used
\nfor the construction of the Kaaba, Islam\u2019s holiest site. At one point in time
\nthe carpenter who helped in rebuilding Kaaba was Baqum al Rumi an Ethiopian
\nforeigner then living in Mecca. <\/p>\n
The Deir Sultan
\nMonastery in Jerusalem which is owned by the Ethiopian orthodox church and
\nwhich existed before many parts of the world had become Christian has been able
\nto exist as a result of the decision of the Calif Omar, the second calif of the
\nIslamic empire, who following the conquest has conferred an Ethiopian orthodox
\npresence on the holy land.<\/p>\n
The pages of history The migrants that Their killing, despite In this time of sadness This message should be The barbarity of a 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nalso tell us that Ethiopia had an intrinsic relationship with the Muslim land
\nwhich IS purports to be fighting over. For example, the writing of the tenth
\ncentury Baghdad-born scholar Abu al-\u1e24asan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Masudi,
\n\u00a0attests to this in his description of the commercial relation that the
\nYemeni sultan had with the land of Ethiopia. In his book entitled Mur\u016bj
\nadh-dhahab wa ma\u0101din al-jaw\u0101hir<\/em> al-Masudi tells us that \u201c chief of Z\u00e9bid is
\nIbr\u0101h\u012bm, son of Ziy\u0101d, known as the master of el-harmali. By virtue of the
\ntreaty of friendship between the two countries, its ships sailed ceaselessly
\nfrom Arabia to Abyssinia, to where they transport tradesmen and merchandise\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nIslamic State has killed this week are the people who came from this land that
\nwe now call Ethiopia whose history has been linked to the Muslim world and
\nwhose Christian king rescued the family of the Prophet Mohamed by granting them
\nrefuge in their land. So many centuries later, IS disrespects the\u00a0Islamic
\ntradition and the place that Christian Ethiopians have in the Islamic world.
\nThey have butchered defenceless migrants with empty pockets, a hungry belly and
\nnowhere to go just because they are Christians. This is an unforgivable and shameful
\nact.<\/p>\n
\nthe pain and the outrage that it triggers should not turn us into one of them.
\nOur response should be measured and rational and one that remains true to a
\nfuture of humanity in which a different creed allows people to co-exist on the
\nsingle planet that we all inhabit. <\/p>\n
\nit is easy for emotions to run high and for polarisation to occur. After all,
\nwhat IS wants is to create a polarized world of Muslim vs Christians by tapping
\ninto local discontent of various sorts. Such an outcome is however only
\npossible if emotions take over from rationality. <\/p>\n
\nheard particularly loud and clear in the context of Ethiopia where despite some
\npast conflicts that occurred between Christians and Ethiopians, the two
\ncommunities have by and large left each other alone. Local, historically
\nspecific conflicts should not be linked to current events in a manner that
\ngenerates hatred and division between Christians and the Muslim community of
\nEthiopia who live side by side in densely populated neighbourhoods throughout
\nEthiopia. <\/p>\n
\ngroup who does not know their own root and history should not be allowed to
\ntint the history of Ethiopia, Africa or Muslims and Christians in the world. May
\nthe soul of those who have been massacred in Libya rest in peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"