22nd May, 2013, London. Two men behead a British
soldier in Woolwich. They shout ‘god is great’ in Arabic. They were Muslim
converts who had contacts in the banned UK organisation Al Mujaharoun and the
Somali organisation Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (Al-Shabaab), which means ‘Mujahideen Youth
Movement’. ‘Mujahiddeen’ means ‘those who struggle’ and ‘Jihadi’. Jihad basically means struggling for what is
spiritually good.
23rd May, 2013, Idlib, Syria. A young
British-Asian Muslim from Willesden dies while working in a field hospital. Dr
Isa Abdur Rahman was volunteering as a doctor in a country where medics
treating civilians have been tortured and killed. Hospitals are routinely
attacked and there is a dire shortage, therefore, of medical staff willing to
work under such circumstances.
Isa was my nephew. He was 26. His name means ‘Jesus’, who is
also named as a prophet in the Quran. In the Quran, Jesus’ death is different
but he still dies a young man striving for good. My nephew felt that he
absolutely had to go to Syria and that he would awful as a qualified doctor to
not go to a region so in need of his skills. He was supportive of the toppling
of the dictators in the Middle East but was not fighting as a rebel but as a
medic treating the sick and wounded. He was trying to do what he knew best to
help out in a hard situation a very, very long way away from home. Trained as a
doctor at Imperial College London, he put his career on hold to help the
charity Hand in Hand, one of the few charities still getting aid through to
Syria.
Isa felt this was his ‘jihad’, his ‘struggle for good’. It’s
hard to imagine two actions so different committed in the name of god, the one
in Woolwich and the one in Idlib. Hard to imagine two Londoners with such a
different vision of what their faith means to them.
Isa wasn’t a British
soldier, he wasn’t white, he wasn’t a murderer who was also a ‘troubled young
Muslim man’ and he wasn’t a young man in ‘crisis’ with his masculinity any more
than any of us are at crisis with who we are. He was a young Muslim man who had
kind parents, four brothers and sisters and a young wife.
We feed our fantasies with images, plug ourselves into the
internet until we’re bursting with criticism, anger and helplessness. But our
lives are better than those of many. We’re the lucky ones. Our children are
lucky. Where there’s life, there’s hope… but we don’t celebrate it.
My nephew did what he felt was right and kind. He cared for
strangers in trouble.
I want people to stop and think. It’s not just some Muslims
who kill people; it’s people who join gangs, who believe in attacks and
reprisal attacks. Can we really keep just blaming religion per se when so many
young Muslim men lead good lives and the use of knives and machetes in London
are actually prevalent in forms of gang culture that have nothing to do with
religion? I was struck by how the men in Woolwich tried to film their actions
on their and other people’s mobile phones. It’s, well, very much like what
gangs do – film awful things on their phones and upload them onto YouTube. To see the phenomenon as just ‘Islamic’ with
no holistic view is crazy. It’s undeniable that certain groups are deeply
problematic and this needs to be tackled, but it is them who (like the EDL and
the BNP) actually want an ‘us’ and ‘them’ war to erupt, and we can’t let
humanity lose out to that view. It would let them win.
My nephew was an amazing young man. It’s so hard to lose
someone so young. But I’m proud of him and I’m also proud of all my nephews and
nieces. If we are the ‘responsible adults’ in society, let’s celebrate and love
and nurture our youth – not just our own children. That’s what real love is and
that’s the real ‘jihad’ that my nephew fought, the real ‘struggle for what is
good’ in the face of adversity: saving lives, valuing lives, respecting lives.
True terrorists do
not recognise the existence of ‘innocents’ in societies they don’t like. Don’t
be guilty of the same thing.
My nephew died saving innocents and he was just 26
year old. He gave up his future for them.
As I write, civilians continue to be killed in Syria with
little international support. Donations are welcome to the charity Hand in Hand
and any other charity getting aid through to Syria.
RIP, Dr Isa Abdur Rahman (1986 – 2013)… a young man who helped
because his open eyes could see no other way.