How to Stop the Killing

I heard this story on National Public Radio yesterday while driving home from work. The violence, alas, is nothing new; the part that caught my attention was the claim that sectarian violence in Iraq is even more of a threat to democracy and peace than the insurgency is. (Here is further detail on the same story.)

It brings to mind an incident from the life of Mahatma Gandhi.



Without mistaking movie scripts for historical analysis, the fact is that shortly after the British withdrew from India and left it to divide itself into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, the Hindus and Muslims began killing each other in really atrocious numbers as they moved from place to place.

For Gandhi, who had spent much of his life dreaming of an independent homeland, this must have been so devastating as to be physically painful. So he began to fast and said he would not eat until the killing stopped.

He nearly died, but it worked. To this day, despite the ongoing war over Kashmir and other sporadic violence, Hindus and Muslims in that part of Asia no longer murder each other wholesale.

In Iraq, on the other hand, murder is an ongoing event. And these aren't Hindus and Muslims, these are two sects of the same faith. If history didn't teach otherwise, you'd think it would be fairly easy to establish peace among two groups of Muslims, or Christians, or Jews, for that matter.


So where is the Iraqi Gandhi who will refuse to put up with it?

Benshlomo says, I want a hero.