The Age of Terror (Movie review)
The conflict occured between Palestine and Israel is just like never ending story. The background of the story is about the land that is believed as the sacred place. The land became very important to Islam, Christianity and Jews, because there lied the Rock of Dome, which is regarded as the holy place for all of those three religious adherents. It also a symbol of gloriness of Jews in the era of David and Salomon. There was a Decalogue which was contained Ten Commandment of God that has been given to Moses to be spread to Jews. The decalogue was put in a container named Ark of the Covenent. This ark used to be brought by all of Jews Kings into the battle as the symbol of power and gloriness. And after all they put the Ark back to the holy room inside the Dome of Rock. When the Jerussalem was conquered by Roman, Christianity became state religion in the era of King Agustin. The Dome of Rock was rebuilt, but then the dome was ruined in crusade war II when Islam take over the power and built the Mosque Al-aqsa. The problem is the Ark of the Covenant was left and buried underneath the mosque. Jews eager to dig it in order to get their holy Decalogue back, but from Muslim side they never let the Jews to do so, because according to Muslim the Ark of the Covenant had gone in the era of Roman.
For Jews the place is very important because they believe that if men appealed in that place, all of their hope will come true. The place is the way to encounter their god. At least they feel so very close to their God, and for that reason they will do everything to keep the land. For Moslem that land is very important since there lied the Mosque Al-Aqsa. Muslim believe that Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from that place. The conflict becomes more complicated since it escalate to identitical problem, religious problem, and political issue that is mixed up altogether. These religious historical fact raised continuous conflict till today.
The movie review
Eleven September (9/11) tragedy was one of world humanity tragedy ever happened early in this century. Thousands of innocent people died for no reason. Some who survive became handicap, and got very deep traumatic experience. So many rumors grew speculated the reason of the action, and who was really behind that tragedy. Was it really Al-qaeda or could be America it self for political interest or might be anybody else. The media kept telling us that it was Alqaeda organisation who should be blame. This constellation remind us to Reene Gerard theory of scapegoat mechanism, that there must some body or some thing to be pointed to keep the stability againts people’s curiousity.
Religion seems to be like fast food that could easily grabbed as the motivation of the action. And in so many violence happened was commonly connected to religion. Some might be true but other part is not true, means that religion has been hijacked for the interest of other.
In the early 1980’s, a group of Jew set a plan to clean up the Dome of rock from Muslim presence. Jews group led by Yehuda Etzion took the initiative in shapping the movement by creating Jews special troops in hidden operation. The movement also got supported by other Jew named Dan Be’eri who had trained his troop by collusively sent his men to the dome of rock in order to blow the temple with the bluster or bomb. One thing that could be efectively gain from this action was the massage to show that this was not Arab war, instead it was all about the ruin of the Dome that has become the symbol of Islamic domination because according to them it belonged to Jews.
Since then the tention and violence escalated between both side. On May 1980, a group of American students was attacked by palestenian with the automatic gun. Six students died and vew got injured. Etzion took revenge for that. The target was two choosen Major by instaling bomb in their car. The Major was chosen because they were the representation of palestinian people. In the end Etzion group was cautch and be punished in 1984.
In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitsac Rabin and the leader of PLO movement Yasser Arafat shaked their hand in Oslo convention. In that convention, the West side submitted to Palestenian. This agreement brought great dissappoinmemnt to Jews, because they believe that the land is belonged to their ancestor that has been occupied over thousands of years. In that place the religion of Jew and Jew’s nation were formed.
In the end of 20th century the condition getting worsed. In West side of Hebron, 400 Jews build a housing compleks among 250 thousand Palestenian. The reason was because they were willing to be closer to old graveyard of Abraham, Sarah and Ishaak where for more than 300 years called as Cave of Patriarchs.
In Purin festival in 1994, Baruch Goldstein did massacre in Hebron Mosque that killed 30 congregations and injured many other. Baruch Goldstein finally beaten to dead by other Muslim congregation. For Jews he was regarded as the hero. Baruch Goldstein motivation itself was personal revenge but still they thought that Jews got advantage from that action.
Respond
The sequence of the movie about violation above show us the fact of reality that people live, and influenced by relgious values surrounding them. As we noted, it is rooted in the core metaphor of a violent cosmic contest between good and evil in terms of wich all of reality is consciously viewed and that is derived from the ancient Israelite root of all of our religions (Harold Ellens).
The terrorists always use the extreme ways to express and to show what they really want. They want to show to all over the world what happens in their life; they were suffering, they were discriminated, and they were also alienated. By doing such an extreme acts, they want people all over the world know and feel their pain, and pay attention to them.
The reason of the terrorism activity usually could be identified as below :
1. Gaining the support from all sources
2. To attract the world tention. By doing such terror they want people all over the world to pay attention to them. For example, to attract the international media attention, particularly Western media, they try to hijack the west plane. When they were succesfully hijacking the west plane, all medias like television, newspaper, radio, and so on in the world paid attention fully to the purpose of the hijacking. Before the incident, people did not realize what happened in Palestina. But after the hijack everybody knows and pay attention to the Palestinian struggle. Media is an efective instrument that they can use to create public opinion about terrorist and their struggle.
3. Solidarity, as it was shown in the movie the PFLP hijacking the air plane and ask The england government to release Lela Hamed. This kind of solidarity is not some thing that taken for granted. It must be developed in such a long periode of time and in a certain way.
Sociologically, those who joined in the terorism is usually those who has been allienated from his or her society. And people who are allienated will hate those who are perceived to those who are allienated them and for some of them, they get together with people who are experiencing the same experience. People like this is likely to become member of teroris.
For some fundamentalist Muslim they still believe that building civil society based on Islamic values on their community is Muslim responsibility. In this kind of community religious leader also has very strong influence to his congregation. When he allows people to do such violent, they will take it for granted and use it as license to kill. Sounds that his (religious leader) permission is equal with what the God say. So the interpretation of the sacred texts by the religious charismatic leader play very big role in brain storming his congregation to become militant and the devender of they religion and nation. They are willing to die for things they believe.
As it has been explaine by Harrold Ellen about religions. Eastern religion focus on individual and intrinsic spirituality that moves toward transcendence of self, society, and world, but the western religion (Abrahamic religion) tend to externalize their values in sociocultural influences (Harold.6).
Conclusion
The global conflict between Islam and the west is started from Palestine and Israel conflict in the Middle East. This local conflict become global conflict because there are many interests involved. Things getting more complicated when America come to interfere Palestine thought that USA take a side Israel. This escalate the hatred of Islamic world in general.
Religion supposed to brings peacefullness and love for mankind no matter who or whatever they are, but reality does not say the same thing as what has become the ideal of the religion it self. Moreover, religion can be an instrument to promote peacefullnes or on contrary to create violence. What is wrong here ?, According to us it might because of the imbalance information that people get from the media or any other news sources. We could promote a better life by giving more good information the religion rather than keep releasing bad news that will give bad impact to society in evaluating or judging certain religion.
