REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, By: Akromi Mashuri (Islamic Political Observer)

A sad news came from Paris, France, on 13th November. For the umpteenth time, the world was shocked by brutality that killed hundreds of innocent people.

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack. It made the world stunned and momentarily speechless.

Shortly after the terrorist acts, expression of grief and sympathy of the world became a trending topic in various print and online media.

Besides expression of grief and sympathy from the world, the Paris tragedy led to various reaction and speculation. Condemns reaction against the terrorists did not just come from western countries, but also from the Middle East countries such as Iran, Palestine and Lebanon.

For the Muslim community, this incident certainly raised awkward or uncomfortable feeling, because acts of terrorism were always associated with terror groups in the name of Islam. There was also cynical response came from a group of people who concluded that this incident was manipulated by American and Israel. Is that right?

Conspiracy theory

Former employee of National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States (US), Edward Snowden, stated that ISIS is an organization formed by cooperation of intelligence of three countries.

Snowden statement was revealed in the wire from the Global research, an independent media research organization in Canada. According to Snowden, British intelligence unit (M16), the US (FBI-CIA), and Israel (Mossad) worked together to create a "Caliphate State" which is now called ISIS.

According to Snowden, intelligence agencies of the three countries formed a terrorist organization to withdraw all extremists from around the world. They called such tactics as "beehive".

Documents of NSA released by Snowden showed how the "beehive" tactics was made to protect the interests of the Zionists by creating slogan of Islam. Based on these documents, the only way to protect the interests of the Zionists was: create an enemy at the border.

The tactic was made in order to put all extremists in a same place, to become easy targets. Not only that, ISIS presence would prolong instability in the Middle East, especially in Arab countries.

Still based on the documents, leader of ISIS, Al-Baghdadi, got a full year of military training from Mossad, also got courses of theology and rhetoric of the Zionist intelligence agencies.

For many people, Edward Snowden was a hero. For the US government, he was considered as a traitor for exposing internet wiretapping conducted by secret service of NSA. Snowden, the "whistleblower," was adored as hero on one side but hounded by the authorities of his own country on the other side.

In many cases, a whistleblower usually would not be forgiven by those who feel uncomfortable and threatened by its existence. In the case of Snowden, the US as the injured party until now continued to pursue Snowden and tried to catch him.

Then, where are Snowden now? Lately, there were not much news related to  Edward Snowden, the whistleblower of NSA secret documents that had shocked the world. Since 1st August 2013, he received political asylum in Russia for one year.

Until now, it was unclear how was the status of Snowden in Russia and what was being done by Snowden over the years. Did he work in one place? In which sectors?

The emerging of Snowden seemed to be justification for the conspiracy theorists that the West (read: the US and its allies) was the conspirators behind the scenes who manipulated a series of political events that linked Islam with terrorism.

The West was also deliberately pitting and dividing the unity of Muslims. The theorists also believed, for example, that the tragedy of 11th September in WTC had been designed in such a way by the US under the regime of George.W. Bush as a political justification to the invasion of Iraq.

The question is, is it true that the theory does exist? If the conspiracy theory was associated with the little things happened everyday, then the theory is true.

It could be proven, for example, when we play poker with five players, then we can do conspiracy against three other players, so the result of one player that lost, who is potential victim of conspirators, can be divided into four. It was usually done by famous gamblers.

Referred to Edward Snowden who revealed the West and ISIS manipulation as justification, and the fact that conspiracy is true in human life, then the complicated things would appear to be simple.

For conspiracy theorists, without support of strong arguments, facts accurate, scientific data, verifiable truth, and real people involved, great tragedy in WTC and in Paris seemed to be a tragedy that the victim and the perpetrator is their own (by design).

They were usually reluctant or lazy to examine the issue more deeply. They would easily conclude and the evidence would be sought later.

Anti-Western propaganda that continually blew, would only give acute hatred. If we imposed a way of thinking that Western countries was in behind the tragedy of Paris, and ISIS is a creation of the West, so that it means France was conspired to kill its own citizens.

Is that such a terrible if French government against its own citizens? We could not ensured whether the tragedy in Paris was the result of western manipulation. If so, why should the West that has always been associated with a conspiracy theory? Why not Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Qatar?

If we want to be fair, Saudi Arabia and its allies also could be suspected to be the mastermind behind the terror acts committed by ISIS. Why? Because the Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or Qatar also have an interest in running a proxy war against Assad and his ally, Iran.

Saudi Arabia and its allies might be using ISIS Sunni to kill Syria under the Assad regime who were Shiites. Saudi Arabia was also very capable to finance all the necessary logistics of ISIS. However, classifying the West and Islam was only going to make us fall in Occidentophobia (hate the West) and Islamophobia (hate Islam).

Learning compassion

Regardless whether there was Western conspiracy on terror in Paris, Muslims need to be wise in dealing with the phenomenon of terror that took the name of Islam.

It was not funny if we compared two tragedies happened in different places. Humanity could not be differentiated through religion, place, or statistics on the number of victims.

Humanity came from nature and awareness. We should certainly empathize with sincerity and condemn the terrorist acts. Even if there were attitude or treatment that discredited Islam by a group of Western society, we do not need to be provoked.

We need to learn about the principles of compassion, exemplified by many historical figures, such as Isa a.s. who said "give your left cheek if your right cheek was slapped," or Gandhi which prohibited "eye for an eye", because if it is done, the world will be blind.

The principle of compassion that was taught by Isa a.s. and Gandhi was obviously needed to address blind egoism that occurred around us.

We fully understood that the series of brutal acts committed by ISIS deeply hurt the feelings of Muslims throughout the world, and of course increasingly brought Muslims in a very difficult position, especially Muslims who live in Europe.

In this difficult moment, we did not necessarily loss our humanity. The West was not always wrong, and vice versa. Did Prophet taught us to take a lesson from anyone, despite the lesson is coming from the infidels?

We were all united by humanity instead of the divinity, because every human being has his own assumptions about God. Wallahu a’lam.

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