War-Cry ?

Last weekend we got a flier in the mailbox. An event called War Cry scheduled for today (March 21), arranged by some Christian groups. Their aim according to the flier was to take back the country from the criminal and immoral elements. A good cause? yes definitely. Good execution, definitly NOT. For example, in the road march which followed, there were no banners or placards stating their anti-crime message.

Let me give some background on this little island, we are a Christian country, we have the largest number of churches per square mile than anywhere else in the world. We also have one of the largest crime and murder rates in the world.

During Easter (The Christian holidays), we have Jamaica Carnival (Bacchanal), loud music, half naked people parading and gyrating to this music in a series of build up events culminating in the actual carnival. The carnival involves trucks with lots of loud music (some questionable lyrics, promoting all sorts of promiscuity etc, but that can take up another post), and of course the carnival revellers in glittery bikinis and tight shorts. The Christian community has always condemned the events but have never been able to stop it.

This War-Cry seems to be a pre-emptive response to the upcoming carnival and with all good intentions they have gone wrong. It seems like an 'if you can't beat them, join them' mentality. I am writing this while the music is pounding at my head, since they are just now passing my neighbourhood. The music sounds the same like a carnival or dancehall show, just different lyrics, I mean I heard them mention 'Jesus Christ' and 'war cry' a couple of times but the music itself is overpowering their message. I mean why do they have to imitate the people they are 'condemning'? What do they hope to accomplish? They are apparently trying to get the young people involved by enticing them with music and revelry, but imitation is only a form of flattery. This group, however, unlike their carnival counterparts, was uniformly dressed in modest tee shirt and jeans.

The next point is, what's with the name War-Cry? couldnt they have called it Peace-Cry? That seems more fitting . Imagine if us Muslims staged a march called War-Cry? I'm sure the police, the army and maybe even the CIA would be down on us trying to shut it down.

Christianity started out by trying to cater to the masses by changing the laws of Jesus and Moses to suit the pagan Romans and Greeks of the time, bringing in the concept of 'Son of God' and the 'Trinity' so it wouldnt seem quite so different than what they were used to with their many gods and sons of gods. It continues to pander to popular thought and behaviours to get people on their bandwagon. Come on people this is not a popularity contest. Truth is plain from falsehood and no amount of innovating and pandering will make a lie become the truth.

Like I said I am not condemning their intentions, and well-meaning Christians will say, that at least they are doing something, and ask what the Muslim community is doing in protest of crime and immorality. I am not making any excuses because I do think we need to be doing something, but right now we are less than 1% of the population. I think our best action is to do dawah and let people know that there is an alternative, remembering that the best dawah is our own actions and how we treat other people. Thats all for now, the war-criers have moved on and its quiet again.