Weapon in hand, angry words of peace on the tongue

I had written about how fake, hypocritical, and inconsistent an ideological discourse anti-war sentiment is. This piece of mine has badly enraged those who present themselves as "anti-war."

It has enraged them so much that if they got their hands on me, I would probably barely escape with my life.

Looking at the ugly expressions and insults pouring from their tongues and the belligerent biographies on the profiles of nearly every one of them, no other evidence is needed to prove what we said.

These so-called anti-war people, all of them so spiteful, all of them so full of hatred and enamored of violence, sufficiently reveal that they use the anti-war ideology merely as cheap material for their own dirty and hypocritical wars.

Even while saying "No to war" they attack shouting slogans peculiar to war. Even while saying peace they throw themselves into brawls with a ravenous lust. Is it possible for any empathy, any peaceful approach to come out of this aggressive discourse?

Yet was this not exactly what we said as well? Anti-war sentiment is, at best, a naive discourse oblivious to the reality of the world. In the form in which it confronts us today, it is generally a cheap psychological weapon of a side that is fighting, and moreover fighting unjustly.

All my life I have never coveted such cheap weapons. I know and see clearly, as plainly as my own name, that unjust and aggressive parties generally resort to these discourses at the moment or in the position in which they are weak.

Indeed, those who most favor this discourse today are the circles sympathetic to the PKK and PYD. For years the PKK and its political extensions never let the word "peace" drop from their tongues. A weapon in their hands, the blood of innocent people on the barrel of that weapon, but peace constantly on their tongues as if reciting a litany. As though they were very far from peace. Yet peace was always just one step away from them. Putting down the weapon in their hands, plunging into the wide political field opened before them and mixing with Turkish society, already ready to embrace them, would have been more than enough to reach peace.

Yet the only reason the peace that never left their tongues did not materialize was none other than themselves. In Turkey the government, admitting the likely mistakes of past years, took toward them a step as politically risky, courageous, and full of peace as the "solution process." The only thing expected of them was to lay down their weapons. Had they laid down that weapon, they would have attained the peace they fraudulently gave the impression of loving to death.

Yet they used even this opportunity, in the meantime, to arm many more girls, boys, and young people and draw them up to the mountains. If you were so fond of peace, why did you kick away this opportunity for peace that had come all the way to your feet?

If you were so fond of peace, why did you arm so many children and people? Did you dig those trenches for fun?

If you are so in love with peace, what do you intend to do with the weapons America gave, 5000 trucks and 2000 plane cargoes full?

Come, be honest. If you are going to fight, fight like men. When cornered, do not cry hiding behind words like peace, democracy, and brotherhood, and do not fight treacherously by turning them into poisoned arrows. If you have rancor, do not hide it behind fancy words. Say like men whatever you think, whatever you feel.

As Muslims, of course, our fundamental pursuit is peace, the establishment of concord and salaam among people. We are commanded not to fight those who do not fight us, those who do not wrong us, and not to wrong anyone. Even if the ultimate pursuit and goal is peace (salaam, Islam), we must not ignore realistic knowledge and foresight about the course of the world. And that is that as long as the world exists, injustice, tyranny, usurpation, and violation of rights among people will not disappear. And the indispensable condition for establishing law is having a power able to enforce sanctions.

That is why in the Holy Qur'an it is commanded "if two groups among the believers fight each other, to try to reconcile them and make peace between them." But immediately following in the same verse it is also commanded, "if one of these groups wrongs the other and does not approach peace, to join with the other side and fight against it" (Hujurat 9).

There is no approach here that could mean "absolute pacifism." There is an invitation to be aware of human reality and to be prepared accordingly. The possibility that someone will commit injustice is always there, and we see this by living it again and again throughout history, throughout our lives. Peace must be sought with justice and measure among parties fallen into dispute. A peace built on injustice potentially gives rise to greater problems.

Today the word peace has been covered over by the war-mad bandits of the world. Evidently in their language peace is seen as an effective weapon that works only against those waging a just war.