Every year has its share of repugnant events but the one that we saw this week caps them all. Over 140 people dead, most of them children, in a brutal and bloody attack on a school in Pakistan.
This is not the first time that children have been targeted by terrorists. In a similar attack in Beslan in Russia a few years ago, 385 people, mostly children, were killed. And there have been many more.*
Terrorism, the beast nurtured by people of every faith to serve the narrow interests of a political or religious community, has turned on everyone, irrespective of gender or age. It has begun to increasingly resemble a mythical figure from Jewish folklore - a golem - that once struck terror in the hearts of many. A creature of magic and the inspiration for several literary works, including Frankenstein, a golem is a shapeless mass of clay that can be moulded to resemble man. Its creator, usually a rabbi, brings it to life by inscribing the word Emet (Truth) on its forehead. He can make it do his bidding and disable it by removing the 'E' to leave the word Met (Death) on its forehead.
A story about the menace of the golem, which is commonly told even today, is set in Prague. On a street corner in the heart of what was once the city's Jewish ghetto and is now a spot on every tourist's itinerary stands the Old New Synagogue. It dates back several hundred years and has weathered many an anti-Semitic storm. And in its attic inside a box lives a golem.
The golem of Prague once walked the streets, killing those who attacked, humiliated and killed Jews. But it soon spun out of control and began hunting its own. After a great deal of struggle it was captured in front of the synagogue where it crumbled and turned back into the clay it was made from. The rabbi packed it back in the box and stuffed it in the attic where it lives even now.
Fanaticism has bred a band of hate-spewing, murdering golems. But there is no box that can hold them because their creators have neither the power to control them nor the wisdom to end the destruction that they have unleashed. They seek solace from their misplaced religious beliefs. But read the stories and legends that make up the rich tapestry of mythology across civilisations and it is clear that this is a crime that no religion pardons nor does it ever go unpunished.
In the Mahabharata, King Kamsa, Krishna's uncle, went on a child-killing spree because he feared dying at the hands of his nephew. Having failed to crush him to death after he was born, he sent an army of demons to the village where Krishna had been hidden by his parents. All children of the same age as Krishna were hunted down and killed. But Kamsa was destroyed by Krishna. A similar story is that of Moses and the pharaoh who wanted all Hebrew children dead because it was prophesied that one such child would bring about his end. Moses' Jewish mother floated him in a basket to save him. In the end, the pharaoh was killed and Moses became a prophet and saint not only for his own people, but also for Muslims and Christians.
In creation mythologies too, the creator god who eats his children is always destroyed. Uranus locks up his children in the underworld because he does not want them taking over his world. But his son Cronos castrates him and frees his siblings. In the Enuma Elish, a ritual text of ancient Babylon, we see a similar pattern with Tiamat and Apsu. Together they created the universe but Apsu, annoyed by the noise his children make, wants to kill them. For that he is killed by Anu, one of his great grandchildren. Similarly Tiamat, when she tries to get rid of her unruly children, is vanquished by Marduk, her great grandson. Child killers have never been condoned nor encouraged by any civilisation, and yet the barbarians use religion to justify their cause.
