Ayatollah Qassim: The opposition and the clerics have always condemned violence
The decision of the people is to demand their rights as long as they are alive…what is on the ground is the contrary of reform
Ayatollah Qassim: The opposition and the clerics have always condemned violence and the authority is requested to condemn violence and stop it
The second part of Friday Prayers Sermon for Ayatollah Shaikh Isa Ahmed Qassim Imam of the Grand Mosque in Duraz (Imam Al-Sadiq Garand Mosque) 29th Muharram 1434 Hijri / 14th December,2012.
What is the path? What is the goal?
The people of Bahrain have a clear path and clear goal, which is “change is a must, and reform is a must”. The political opposition parties have expressed their views on the ceiling of the reforms deemed necessary, committing themselves to peaceful means, and renouncing and rejecting violence from all the parties, emphasized through two declarations, Manama Declaration and Non-violence Declarations
The demands of the Bahraini opposition and the Manama Document make the minimal among all the Arabic movements. No movement has committed to the peaceful approach more than the Bahraini movement. No one has emphasized on the peaceful approach more than the clerics, political societies and many political figures in Bahrain.
While, no government is more extreme and stringent in confronting the fair demands and suppressing the peaceful pro-democracy protesters in all Arab countries that witnessed ongoing popular movements, like the government of Bahrain – till date .
What about the path the government chooses? And the goal it chooses? And the ending it chooses for the crisis in the future?
A foreseen reform has its indications – if it was close it would have had indications- and its evidence, but there is nothing of such on ground, and all of what is on ground is closer to the contrary.
The deferred reform to the long-run, and which is in the nonexistence – if there were intentions of reform in the long run, they would be in the nonexistence- as a result, the door is wide open for state violence. This will put the whole homeland at risk as it will destroy all bridges, it will incite more hatred and destruction that will block the way to reform- the deferred reform to the long-run will block the way on itself-.
What is the solution?
For the mercy and sake of this homeland, for what is demanded by reason and wisdom, and what is necessitated by justice and what is inevitable by truth; an immediate, genuine, and honest reform is the only good that can be done, or else, the government is abandoning the means to secure this homeland forever.
The authority should establish foundation for a new relationship with the people on the basis of new vision for high value of the people as well as their main position in the political process, a view that is homogeneous with the religion and with human dignity. The authority should also recognize the right of the people, and should accept the idea that the people have the priority to select the path of life and self-determination, and they are the origin and base of the political relationship between the two sides. This is what political relationships are based on in all developed countries, and where political life is heading to in this era.
The authority can no longer go by the old notion of its possession and absolute control of the land and people, in which it forcefully and repressively imposed itself and gave itself the right to manage wealth and human as it wished. This old perception is no longer accepted today in any place on earth by any people.
Leaving Bahrain without reform, depriving its people from their will and right to self-determination, neglecting their opinion and criminalizing them for just demanding their rights. All these will make Bahrain look like an odd country in the world as if it doesn’t belong to this era and is living in some other century.
When a nation decides to reject war, violence and terror, and decide, nonetheless, to live with dignity or die with dignity and to sacrifice their lives for their dignity and pride, then cannot be blamed nor criticized, nothing can prevent them from realizing their aims and they will never be defeated.
The decision of the people is to set against terror, and not rely on violent means and to continue to demand for their rights as long as they are alive. To insist on real and genuine reform, while committing themselves to the harmony of their religion alongside their adherence to a peaceful and civilized approach of movement.
This nation insists on realizing victory, which comes by reclaiming their rights, establishing justice and equality for all citizens, entrenching Islamic and national brotherhood in this country. And by referring to the popular will and not the authority’s will as a fundamental basis, the authority must not have comprehensive guardianship and mandate, and absolute obedience of the people.
It is a victory for all people and for the homeland, not on the expense of anybody, it is a victory that does not mean oppressing anybody, does not mean persecuting anybody, nor destroying anybody, nor dehumanizing anybody. A people having such intention, aim and insistence cannot be blamed or defeated, their victory is surely granted by God.
All attempts to block the way of this victory have failed, and all other attempts will fail by God’s will.
The policy of creating a thousand problems to later solve some of them and dismiss the real serious solution to the original crisis that is the source of all problems and corruption and political disagreement, this policy has proven to be a failure and of no impact, it will not succeed with the people.
Creating more sub-problems will only motivate to strongly focus on solving the original political crisis.
Regarding condemnation of violence, the condemnation has been repeatedly made by the opposition parties before and after the Nonviolence Principles Declaration, and now the authority is demanded to stop violence, which is practised by its security services. The authority is demanded to frankly condemn the violence of its forces, the one who is demanded to condemn violence is the authority, the opposition has always condemned violence through its history. The history of all opposition figures, clerics from the opposition condemns and rejects violence, many repeated declarations are reported regarding this issue. The authorities are demanded to denounce and stop the violence of their forces.
Many calls, by the opposition, have been initiated, to end the crisis through reform and theses calls now await the government to respond without any delay.
If the serious dialogue is a crucial introduction to reforms, according to the authority, then the opposition is still calling for it and has been calling for it for years, even before and during the last popular movement and they still are.
If the authority does want to end the crisis, then it has to seriously respond to the dialogue issue, and create the suitable atmosphere for it to be successful. The authority must have the courage to overcome all the odd calls from inside which are not in favor of dialogue and try their best to scramble any coming solution to tighten crisis and set the whole homeland on fire.
Regarding the cleric Sayed Ahmed Al-Majed, his health condition is so worrying for all of us, for those who respect the citizenship, human dignity, freedom of speech and values of humanity, faith and knowledge.
About the demolished mosques, one meter of any mosque can’t be replaced with a thousand meters of other land which is not assigned as a mosque. Mosques are not for sale or to be part of any trade. Their places can’t be compensated with any other place whatever a strategic location it has.
Before we look at the historic side of any mosque and its old age, and despite the special subjective and distinguishingly valuable indications, we have our focus on the sanctity of the mosques which must be nourished by all Muslims.
