The death of eight Filipino OFWs in Algeria

  No one talks about it anymore. Just like the fading memory of those who were killed in the Maguindanao Massacre and Atimonan Massacre, the eight Filipino oilfield workers who were recently killed in an Algerian hostage-taking incident by allegedly Islamic militants led by Moktar Belmokhtar, leader of the Al-Mulathameen Brigade associated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb region of northwest Africa are also slowly being forgotten too. I wish I had known them and I could make sense of their deaths in the hands of terrorists. All I know is that the eight Filipinos, like many of our compatriots pushed out by scarcity and want, had to leave the country to stick their necks out in strange lands for the chance of financially supporting their loved ones back home. I wish I had known their families, relatives, and friends and I could give an easy explanation as to why they had to die in the Algerian siege by militants. All I know is that, while it’s desirable for families to be together, they really have no choice but to take the sorrow of separation for the sake of meeting their rudimentary financial needs. I wish I could tell them the encouraging news that there is a way to put an end to their unwarranted sufferings in foreign lands.  And most of all, I wish I could tell them the good news that there is a way to put an end to their leaving the homeland. Unfortunately, words are inadequate to comfort them in their mourning.  There is nothing for me to say that can change their family life situations nor bring their loved ones back to life.  For how can one make sense of senseless deaths?  Or find meaning in meaninglessness? No one can.  Not even for those who think that the Filipino workers were simply caught in the crossfire because they were there at the wrong place at the wrong time.   Nor for those who think that God has a plan and there’s something good that can come out of it. The fact is, the preoccupation of making sense or finding meaning out of an unprovoked terror in the desert is not only a displaced pursuit, but also, a relativist matter of disparate perceptions. Consider this. On the one hand, if the jihadists do find a purpose in killing the so-called infidels in the name of their only true god, well, the fatalities don’t.  If the extremists do find a religious imperative in assassinating foreigners, well, the casualties don’t. On the other hand, if families of victims do find some sort of let’s say, Christian, Hindu, or Shinto meaning in the premeditated murder of their loved ones, well, the Islamic militants could care less. That is why I find myself having an aversion towards efforts of sentimentalizing the senseless tragedies that smack of divine meaning or religious significance.  For me, the indiscriminate killings must be primarily understood and treated as a very basic, sentient, matter-of-fact issue of human rights and justice that cries out for swift action against the perpetrators.  Nothing more, nothing less. Still, I am drawn to the effort of its sentimentalization as a matter of ideology---that is, finding the rationale that makes one’s belief and action comprehensible. There are many interpretations on this matter but for me, the case of the Islamist militant ideology represents a retrogressive culture lag in contemporary society.  It is a problem associated with everything related to the so-called crusade against the much abused and misunderstood consequences of inevitable social change, particularly, the impact of progressive secularization.  And so when religious men and women find themselves unable to keep up with emerging institutional and cultural change, they defend their inflexible traditions by all means, even with violence. But most importantly, the religious extremist ideology represents a violent counterculture intended to create a fundamentalist view of the world.  It is a religious movement committed to the establishment of an Islamic state based on the strictest imposition of the traditionalist view of the Sharia Law.  In cases where it is buttressed by state–supported terrorism, the consequences can be lethal. Thus, killings of the so-called unbelievers and foreigners may just be the costly price of extremism that innocent victims like our eight Filipino workers have to pay with their lives.