Those of you who know me know that I am a huge rally racing fan. All year long I look forward to January because I know the Dakar is coming.
For those of you who don't care about rally racing or sports in general please bear with me; this is going somewhere. Just feel free to skip the following paragraph.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Dakar Rally here is what it is all about: The Dakar Rally is biggest rally event in the world. Hundreds of racers on motorbikes, SUVs, and big semi-trucks embark on an epic 20 day race across 6000 kms of desert. This year they were to begin in Lisbon, Portugal and travel from Portugal through Spain, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, and ending in Dakar, Senegal. The video below (although it's a few years old now) should give you a good idea of what I'm talking about.
Welcome back to those of you who skipped the previous paragraph. The reason I'm posting about this topic is because of the reason why this year's Dakar Rally was cancelled: the race was being targetted by terrorists linked with Al-Quaeda.
The ASO (the governing body of the Dakar Rally) received threats from an extremist Islamic group saying that they would attack the participants and spectators of this year's Dakar Rally should it go ahead. So the race was cancelled. Read all about it here.
Whenever things like this happen it is frequently noted that "the terrorists win."
I hate that. Fear should never win.
Simply by threatening; by injecting fear into the populace they can shut down our way of life.
How can we combat fear?
John says that "perfect love casts out fear" (1 Jn 4:18) but how does that work itself out with terrorism and fear-mongering?
Was cancelling the race the right decision? Why?
Was Mitsubishi going to win again or did Volkswagen have a chance?
7 comments:
Wow, I watched that video and it looks like some sort of super video game. Awesome! It's sad they had to cancel it, why couldn't they just do it somewhere else?
Things like the Dakar Rally make me want to have a satellite dish and a TV. So maybe it's good they canceled it. But fear is a powerful weapon that strangely enough only goes one direction. The people who are striking fear into the hearts of the world have no fear themselves of the great military powers. They have no fear of death or anything really. I like the verse you quote (1 Jn 4:18), and perhaps we should send Al-Quaeda a message that we have perfect love and we are not afraid to use it. But I guess that wouldn't have the same effect as their messages to us. God is mysterious. In reality, God is the ultimate power and He chooses to come in a whisper, a tugging on our heart. But the world shows it's "power" by fear, destruction, force and intimidation. How do we deal with that?
Tim S.
I choose to eat sugar-free turtles. That's how I deal.
The maddening thing is that terrorists don't even have to be planning an attack, they just have to say they are, and that's enough to shut things down. From the perspective of the Dakar rally, it's one thing to overcome your own fear and be willing to take the risk, it's another to be responsible for risking other people's lives. It's a tough one.
That's the thing; from the angle of the terrorist, what they've done is quite brilliant. They've taken advantage of what makes our culture distinctive.
We value freedom. The terrorists take advantage of that freedom to move freely within our societies until the time is right to blow themselves up.
We value the sanctity of human life. So all they have to do to disrupt our lives is to threaten that sanctity.
But, for us to remain distinctive we have to maintain our values... which still leaves us vulnerable.
Does that make any sense?
There is something intrinsic about Christianity that makes us vulnerable. We who commit to speaking the truth seem more vulnerable than people who lie. If we trust people we are at risk of being taken advantage of. If we help people who say they are in need we may be supporting a drug habit or a "bum". Forgiveness seems weaker than revenge. Much of what God asks us to do makes us vulnerable in a world that doesn't commit to truth or right. That's how Jesus ended up on a cross. I guess the encouraging part is that doing right is a good end in itself and in the end right will win.
Hey Timmy,
I get your point of 'fear should never win', but, in this situation, what else would you suggest they do?
Or do you agree with cancelling it, and you're just choked that it had to happen--and choked that fear often seems to win?
Is it really fear that's winning in a situation like this? My mind just flashes back to historic events that had tragic results because people/cultures just wanted to prove they weren't afraid. They wanted to show they were noble/valiant/honourable...in short, they wanted to show they were tough, and it often ended/ends horribly.
Is it really fear that's winning, or is it a value system (sanctity of life vs. not so much) that's winning--'winning' because it's so incredibly different?
In other words, as Christians, how do we combat/defend against a value system that is so different from ours? Can we? I definitely don't think we always can. Or at least I definitely don't think we can always win in a way so that the majority of the world would classify it as a win. And I don't think we're supposed to.
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