Apart from torture being inhuman it also escalates violence to a new level. If we can justify torture to catch those whom we call criminals what right will we have to complain if someone who considers us "criminals" and uses torture against our soldiers or citizens?

Violence will dispel violence only when darkness can be dispelled by darkness. True measure of civilization is not how low we can stoop to deal with an enemy but how high can we raise our enemy so that we can see eye-to-eye.

I think we must first and foremost be thankful for life. Second we ought to be thankful for family and friends but these are becoming rare commodities. Many families are broken up and friends are like autumn leaves delicately poised to fall with a whiff of wind. But, we do have life and we have intelligence and we should be able to make a resolve to strengthen our bonds with family and friends and eventually with all of humanity. If we continue to label and stereotype people we will alienate them, but if we begin to respect people as human beings whoever they are and wherever they come from then creating a bond of friendship will become easier.

I am reminded of my grandfather, Mahatma Gandhi's, words: No one can oppress us more than we oppress ourselves. By submitting to tyranny, to thoughtlessness, to downright injustice and to senseless intolerance we are only encouraging the maniacs on the fringes to hijack our societies and our religious beliefs.

This is what I meant (in my earlier submission) by the Culture of Violence that pervades human society. We tend to look at violence only in terms of its physical manifestation and ignore the violence of thought, word and deed. It is this "passive" violence (or non-physical) that eventually lserves as fuel to spark physical violence. So, stopping physical violence requires us to acknowledge and eradicate the "passive" or non-physical violence that we commit in society all the time. For peace to prevail we need harmony in human society and to achieve harmony we have to build relationships that are based on respect, understanding and acceptance. If Islam is hijacked by a small group of inhuman and radical elements it is for the larger Islamic society to wake up and do something about it.

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