The Cause of the Tsunami

Apparently some really awful people are using this terrible tragedy to manipulate people's thoughts. This article in the Washington Post this morning contains the following quotes from Indonesia's Banda Aceh.

"God is angry with Aceh people, because most of them do not do what is written in the Koran and the Hadith," the collected sayings and actions of the prophet Muhammad, explained Cut Bukhaini, 35, an imam. "I hope this will lead all Muslims in Aceh to do what is in the Koran and its teachings. If we do so, God will be merciful and compassionate." Imams in last Friday's sermon and in statements since then have said the disaster should be a lesson to Muslims to more closely observe Islamic laws, including those governing consumption of alcohol and relations between the sexes, according to Aceh residents who attended weekly services in their mosques. "I think people were making love before marriage, doing bad things, forgetting to pray to God," said Jack Solong, 25, a waiter and dishwasher at a popular Banda Aceh coffee shop. "God punished us. I believe that." "Before the tsunami, all the people were full of bad conduct," he said. "Boys were sitting close to the girls. There was corruption in the government. This was God's punishment." "We have to make a lot of changes in our lives, and this is God's way of letting us know," said Hetty Meutia Dewy, an agriculture student at Bogor University and a member of the Islamic Association of Students. "The imams have said it was a warning. They said God loves the Aceh people, but the tsunami was a warning to be better people. Neva Zarlinda, an 18-year-old high school student camped beside Baitush Shakhir Mosque, said she also viewed the disaster as a warning from God and, as a result, planned to be more observant. "I hope that I will pray more now, because I have done a lot of wrong things," she said, hanging around the government-provided tent where she, her mother, her father and her five siblings have taken up residence. "I seldom prayed. God willing, I will pray more." Ansufri Sabow, 34, another member and college lecturer on mathematics and Islamic studies, said the tsunami could "cleanse the sins of the people" as well as caution them. "God has warned us," he said. "Wake up. Wake up. Wake up."

I certainly hope that people are not as gullible as these quotes would suggest. Albeit I'm sure that there is a tendency to reach for your God in times of trouble and wrestle with understanding. I suppose to 'rationalize' or explain something that is unexplainable or random at best is a part of human nature but I do wonder if we would do the same thing in the United States faced with a tragedy of this proportion.