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Zen and the Art
of Terrorising People
 It wasn't very
comfortable decision for one of
India's most
corporatised newspapers, The Times of India, when it invited the
compassionate monk Thich Nhat Hahn as a Guest Editor one day. The
Monk who never even bought a ferrari told the market-driven teams of
reporters not to stoke feelings that are base.
And for all its
Bharat Mata Ki Jai style ultra-national stances, The Times of India
team had a lot to learn. As must we all too. Here's what the
82-year-old monk said: ''Report in a way that invites readers to
take a look at why such things continue to happen and that they have
their roots in anger, fear, hate and wrong perceptions. Prevent
anger from becoming a collective energy. The only antidote for anger
and violence is compassion. Terrorists are also victims, who create
other victims of misunderstanding.''
That his words
matter should be clear from the fact that he is credited with a big
role in turning American public opinion against the war in Vietnam —
for which Martin Luther King Jr had nominated him for the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1967. ''Every reader has seeds of fear, anger,
violence and despair, and also seeds of hope, compassion, love and
forgiveness,'' said Thich Nhat Hahn, affectionately called Thay.
''As
journalists, you must not water the wrong seeds. The stories should
touch the seeds of hope. As journalists, you have the job of
selectively watering the right seeds. You must attempt to tell the
truth and yet not water the seeds of hate. It's not what's in the
story, but how you tell it that's important,” said the world’s
greatest Zen Master, teacher, preacher, author, poet, healer of
minds and souls.
For years now,
the WSN has been advocating the line that the Monk has preached. We
learnt it from our scriptures that cam directly from the Gurus.
Sarbat Da Bhala is a motto that encompasses all that the Monk said
and goes even further.
The ones that
the Indian nation state treats as "terrorists" are also in many ways
the victims of discrimination and injustice. They lost their chance
to speak out. So we must speak out for what they suffered. The state
must deal with terrorists the way they should be dealt, but it must
deal with terrorism in a way so that there is no need for someone to
go become what newspapers like those classified under "mainstream
Indian media" are called terrorists.
"A war on terror
cannot succeed, because you cannot bomb perceptions. The only
solution is dialogue.'' This was The Monk talking. Was the Indian
Nation State listening?
There is
suffering inside a terrorist too. We need to take the suffering away
so that he can no more be seen as a terrorist. Most terrorists are
terrorists because they have been terrorised enough to become one.
The monk’s words
will be anathema to the nation states that rush to stereotype
because stereotyping involves shutting channels and your own ears.
When Thich Nhat Hahn was asked soon after 9/ in
New York as to
what he would tell Osama Bin Laden if he met him, he replied that he
would listen to him first.
Compare it to
the situation in
India where our
sense of safety comes in demanding that a person condemned to death
row on the basis of evidence questioned by
India’s
best intellectual minds be hanged as quickly as possible, and even
more draconian laws be enacted and all talk of human rights be
shunned. We talk of the terror of the Human Rights walas. The
country has had a rash of bombings and no lessons learnt. Hindutva
terrorists are killing Christians and the nation state is condemned
to debate the issue of conversions.
“Terrorists are
also victims. They are victims of the information they have got,
they are victims of their own perceptions and that is why it’s very
important that we try to understand them.” Was the monk trying to
shame India?
8 October 2008
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