ADVERTISEMENTA television advert in which the victims of a terrorist encourage society to “bomb hatred with love” has sparked a debate online.
What is the video all about
The video starts off showing a man building a suicide belt in a dingy-lit room. As he prepares his instrument of death, the video cuts to a man and woman preparing their wedding, an elderly man playing with a child and children playing football.
All this takes place to the background of a child saying: “I will tell God everything. That you’ve filled the cemeteries with our children and emptied our school desks…”
At several points in the video, victims of terror try to win over the attacker. When, for example, he says on a bus that “there is no greater god but Allah” a passanger carrying a child responds: “You who come in the name of death, he is the creator of life.”
As he tries to get away later, victims urge viewers to respond to terror, with leniency, love and kindness.
Why the debate?
The video makes reference to many atrocities carried out by Al-Quaeda or ISIL, such as a 2005 bombing at a wedding in Amman that claimed the lives of 60 people.
Some, like Mohamed Serhine say it is too simplistic and condemn the use of a boy actor to play Omram (pictured below). As many point out, he was wounded by an airstrike by the regime of Bashar-al-Assad. Serhine says the firm that made the video should apologise.
This boy Pulled from under the rubble (hush-hush; after a Russian airstrike) on Qaterji district in Aleppo todaypic.twitter.com/cl6DOoNQ6J
— Mannfred Nyttingnes (@MannfredNikolai) 17 août 2016
One viewer called Synos001 said: “As a christian, I think this is the most beautiful and inspirational thing to come out of Islam since the architecture and science at the height of the Islamic Golden Age. I hope it can be the seed for a new era in Islam.”
Many others, such as Abdulqader Abu Qasam noted, say we are all against terrorism but “ignoring the root cause and forcusing on the outcome is the reason why we have reached we have today”.
Who released the video?
It was done by a Kuwaiti telecommunications company called Zain and has racked up alsmost almost 3 million views within days of airing on Youtube.
Its airing coincided with the start of Ramadan.