Deadly news on Easter Morning

Yesterday morning, when the world woke up to celebrate Christ’s Resurrection, Bahrain woke up to mourn some heartbreaking deaths.

When from the Vatican, the world around was hearing the news of Pope Francis’ Easter message of peace, we in Bahrain were hearing the news of tragic deaths that once again shattered peace.

I was shocked to learn that two teenagers died when a car exploded in Muqsha village located on Budaiya highway because of a homemade bomb.

If you did not read yesterday’s news, maybe a little explanation is necessary.

Ahmed Abdul Rasool, 17, and Ali Abbas, 18, were burnt down to nothing more than skull and skeleton inside the gutted car, while the third person identified as Abdulla, 22, was reportedly thrown out of the car in the impact of the blast.

The injured is being treated at Salmania Hospital, and the full details of the tragic incident are slowly coming out.

Now, my big questions are these – what do you mean by homemade bombs? Why are they making such bombs? And how did the two young friends Ahmed and Ali get involved.

As police investigations continue, as they certainly will, I am sure my answers will not come quickly.

If young people were near the bombs or were transporting bombs – that are so deadly that they only leave bodies as skeletons – there is something terribly wrong with the way things are going.

If bodies and bones cannot be identified without DNA testing, there is something terribly wrong with the way we are raising young men.

Instead of teaching young men and women the virtues and values of dialogue and peace, many are being taught the ills of sowing hatred and raising anger.

I think it is the parents who must take responsibility for the actions of their children, whether good or bad.

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”, says the Bible in the Book of Proverbs. Whether to be positive or negative are not merely choices but ways of upbringing.

We hear that training in many cases these days, is the kind that is divisive in its ideology and detrimental to the well being of the nation.

Just think. Is not making bombs for the purpose of hurting and killing is a serious crime? And if men and women, young and old, resort to making bombs, and preaching violence – should they not be strictly dealt with?

I believe they should.

I am deeply saddened and fully sympathetic towards the families of the two young men who died, but I am also deeply angered and completely upset at the way many parents seem to be allowing young men to go the way of violence, as if it can bring solutions.

No., it will not.

It never did. And it never will.