Dear Gayle Williams –
Posted on October 21, 2008
Kabul, Afghanistan
Gayle Williams, 34, who had dual British and South African nationality, was shot dead on Monday by gunmen on a motorbike in Kabul.
Dear Gayle Williams –
I know you cannot read this letter now, but I am writing to you as though you can, as though you are still here somehow, and because for some reason you are still here with me. I have written two articles about you now. Articles about how you were killed and why. Especially the why. The why is what this is all about, isn’t it? The why is why you died, why they killed you. The why is what’s important, yet so impossible to comprehend.
I have tried in these two articles to express some of the anger, the outrage and the disbelief that so many of us feel, but it’s impossible. There aren’t the right words. I couldn’t write this if I thought too hard about your grieving parents right now. I’d feel foolish and intrusive, because I’ve never even met you. But for some reason I realize now that those two articles just weren’t enough. I don’t know what would ever be enough, but that wasn’t it. You deserve more. Your death deserves more. And I’ll try very hard to say what’s in my heart at this moment.
“She was a person who always loved the Afghans and was dedicated to serving those who are disabled…Needless to say, we are all in shock.”
“…one of the inspiring people of the world who truly put others before herself.”
“She was killed violently while caring for the most forgotten people in the world; the poor and the disabled,” the statement said. “She herself would not regret taking the risk of working in Afghanistan. She was where she wanted to be — holding out a helping hand to those in need.”
This is what they’re saying about you now, Gayle Williams. Now that you’re gone. How ironic that you who lived your life so unobtrusively, so quietly and humbly are now famous in your death. Thousands, perhaps millions, of people all over the world now know your name and have looked at your face in that picture.
We are in a great war of shadows. Our enemies are illusive and indistinct. Only occasionally — such as at times like this — do we see them clearly. They have deftly hidden themselves beneath innumerable veils of half-truths, clever rationalizations and devious obfuscations. Our enemies have sought and gained sanctuary in the sacred temples of religion. Thus, to many, they remain inviolate and unassailable. Our enemy is great but amorphous, a master of disguise. Their greatest disguise is complete invisibility. This is the nature of our war of shadows.
Only half of us can actually see them. They have successfully convinced the others that they don’t exist, that they are merely fictional villains, hypothetical constructs of our overwrought imaginations. This is who we are fighting — or almost fighting. We’re not sure yet. We’re besieged with doubts and mired in confusion. Is our enemy Islam? Or just some small fanatical core of pitiless brutes who have perverted the great message?
We’ve been taught to be tolerant of others, to be especially tolerant of other people’s religious beliefs. To attack someone because of their religious beliefs goes against everything that we hold sacred. And our ruthless adversaries have used this innate civility to their infinite advantage, haven’t they? Coming from the very highest authorities in our own government we have been admonished to not hold the entire religion of Islam accountable for the brutal actions of a few. We have been advised by our experts that Islam is a religion of peace, a great religion which has been hijacked by a few crazy fanatics.
But then there is you, Gayle Williams. And you are immense now. You are a scathing indictment that cannot be answered. You are the truth. Inarguable, unassailable truth. The men who took your life were not fanatics, they were the personification of the purest and most uncorrupted form of Islam. They were most closely following the Prophet’s commandments. They are Islam with all the veils removed. Your killers were not perverting the message, they were delivering it.
One of the reasons why we have been so shamefully ineffective in this great war of shadows is our inability to comprehend the enormity of this truth. That one of the world’s major religions could be the source of the world’s most menacing evils. It is too much to grasp. We seek solace in our delusions. We use metaphors and euphemisms to almost but not quite describe our enemies. We comfort ourselves with the unsustainable hypothesis that most Muslims are good. That Islam itself is not the problem.
But then there is you, Gayle Williams. And you are immense now. How can our homegrown Islamist apologists and multiculturalists answer your scathing indictment. Did you, by ministering to the poor and disabled in Afghanistan bring it on yourself, as we purportedly brought the events of 9/11 on ourselves? How will they argue for your culpability in this crime as they did ours? The very thought of this is sickening to me.
If the purest of all forms of Islam could call for your death, you who have done nothing but give of yourself in your kind quiet way, then who among us is safe? Who among us can argue for tolerance and understanding of the bestial religion that murdered you? Who among us can still not see beneath those veils, even after you have pulled them away.
These are the best words I can come up with, Gayle Williams. This is the best I can do. I wish I could do more. I wish we all could do more. - rg
http://radarsite.blogspot.com/2008/10/taliban-kill-christian-aid-worker-in.html
http://radarsite.blogspot.com/2008/10/reclaiming-power-of-hate-revisted.html
» Filed Under Culture of Death, Domestic Enemies, Foreign Policy, History, Islam, Islamicfascism, Moral Relativism, Multiculturalism/PC, War On Terror, religion, terrorism
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6 Responses to “Dear Gayle Williams –”
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Gayle “tree” Williams
A photograph flashes in my mind when I think of Gayle and 7 cousins sitting around a picnic table on the banks of the Kariba Lake ranging in height and age all discussing how many fish we each planned to catch and the art of threading a mud worm onto a hook, as parents busied themselves with making sure sunscreen and hats where all on, no-one thought that one day we would all be on different corners of the world.
As we all grew up Gayle’s Mom always spoilt me as the son she never had. It was Gayle that started horse riding at a young age in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and got me hooked on what was to become my passion and later become my service back to society by training policemen to ride. I always remember that first ride. Gayle got a pony called Bronwynn (a grey Shetland) that loved ducking under fences and leaving her jockey behind. Gayle used to hate getting this pony but she hung in and mastered the ability of ducking. How many afternoons did we get yelled at as my mad passion for horses and show jumping had all the children skipping around the garden jumping the flowers as if we where horses!
At this time memories like Gayle Tamsyn (her middle name) Williams begin to flash back when she now did not like her middle name anymore and wanted to be called Gayle “tree” Williams. No matter how much her mom told her Tamsyn was a wonderful name “tree” seemed to stick!
Years later after immigrating to the UK, Gayle, Karen (her sister) and her mom came back to live with us in South Africa. I clearly remember this tall skinny athletic girl running me backwards and forwards across a tennis court with the ability to hit any ball from any man. For pocket money she came to work for my as a bar lady in the hotel night club and always had that smile that was Gayle. She was very into aerobics and went onto study in the field of sports and bio kinetics and was always competitive, latter getting into mountain biking.
Years later she returned to the UK and went off to the East again (Pakistan and Afghanistan) to do charity work. There was trouble and she managed to get out safely after a long hike through the mountains and across borders with women and children in tow! I am glad her fitness paid off. I remember after I had returned from 4 years in Africa as an expat, having escaped some close calls in different dark corners of the continent, how we had a heated debate about the existence of God and if he had turned his back on some areas. I said, “God had got fat and lazy and couldn’t see over his tummy the continents of Africa and Asia that feel into shadow under him and so ignored those areas!” – always looking for an argument, Gayle was not swayed and never took the bait, she never deemed to judge you or convert you, so claims of proselytisation are nonsense! She simply held her ground and was humble in her beliefs.
A little over 2 and bit years ago I was flying around the world on business and bumped into Gayle & her Mom in London and heard she had decided her true calling was to go back to Afghanistan and help the disabled via a charity organisation. When you speak too many of the family they will all tell you we thought she was much bigger then any of us. Often people look to the easy route with offers of – do something locally – do something in your own back yard – build a career and give a donation if you want to do some good - why go all that way when it’s not safe?
Gayle was due to return home for Christmas and I was eager to debate the book I had written about “Faithmentalism” and the holes in the catholic and Islam thinking around marketing and their use of media when it benefits them. It would have been a debate of note!
Gayle sense of adventure and calling to help out a group of people whom she held no malice and no judgement of their religious choices or lifestyle but simply to offer her time, her love and her skill was the greater force in her life. A selfless soul who didn’t deserve to be used as a cheap PR move that does nothing for anyone today. I truly hope that Gayle will find peace wherever that may be and that she will not be forgotten when the press dies down. What angers me most is that Islam does not preach killing, only fundamentalists interpret this for their own selfishness!
Beliefs & Doctrine of Christianity & Islam
view of the other religion
• Islam is respected as a fellow monotheistic religion, but Muhammad is not seen as a true prophet
• Christians are respected as “People of the Book,” but they have mistaken beliefs and only partial revelation
We miss you and we will never forget your smile!
Love Ed and family!
Thank you Mr. De Lange for these wonderful personal remembrances. I have posted your comments and my reply in a new article.
http://radarsite.blogspot.com/2008/10/dear-gayle-williams-wonderful-update.html
Gayle is now in heaven with the God she had an undying faith, love and belief in. She never failed to rise to a dare or challenge and we spent many hours talking and getting in trouble together, but thats what family is about. There are 7 cousins and we are all spread around the world, but thanks to email, facebook and phones we manage to stay in contact and up to date. Gayle started a newsletter when she went back to afghanistan and the joy, happiness and peace she felt showed in each and every newsletter, she was doing what she loved and that is something many strive for all their life, Gayle was doing what she wanted to do. How many of us can say that? She called the newsletter One Drop, and I know that I loved hearing about the people she met, the culture and barriers she encountered and the excitement that came across, I shared those newsletters with so many people and have saved them all to share with the younger generations of our family. The people who perpetuated this terrible act will one day answer for what they did and if my aunt and cousin (gayles sister) can forgive, how can we not. Forgiving does not mean we forget, it just means we dont understand but we hope that you find the peace and love Gayle has.
Bridgette.
“Attacking Islam as a whole is not the answer.”
This just shows how little you know about the subject of Islam. Attacking Islam as a whole is precisely the answer; but people like you will continue obscuring this unwelcome truth.
Unlike you, I will not presume to judge Gayle’s intentions or those of the agency who employed her.
Roger certainly laid out the facts. “You don’t know anything. Attacking Islam is the answer.” Irrefutable counterpoints.
Christians have long used the misery of others as a catalyst for indoctrination. I hate the violence in the world, but playing the “innocence” card is not the answer. They don’t Hate us for our freedoms or any of that BS that this administration feeds us. Let’s read a little about history and religion and our past policies in dealing with the middle east from non-biased sources before opening our mouths. I have.
My mother is a Muslim. She doesn’t agree with the violence. But if you think for one second that when America was part of the 3rd world, if Muslim “missionaries” came over and tried to convert Christians that htere wouldn’t be violence, you’re dead wrong. After 9/11, the amount of hate crimes against Arabs and even Indians, and other darker colored races that had no affiliation whatsoever with the countries of the hijackers skyrocketed.
We, as Christians have a more extensive history of violence than Muslims, but, as the U.S. and other largely-Christian nations are currently in control, we see fit to point fingers. I wish teh people of this country woudl smarten up, because only when we take a good look inward will we start to find solutions to our far-reaching problems.
May Miss Williams rest in peace.
John Jones — Do you really feel as though you have said something new and important here? That’s the same old liberal anti-Christian anti-Western Islamist hogwash. All religions are the same, Bush lied and thousands died, everyone hates America, Christianity has killed more people than Islam — save it for someone who hasn’t read western history or studied the Koran.
Islam is a horror show. Islam is the enemy of everything modern western civilization has accomplished. With almost no exceptions, every terrorist attack perpetrated in the world in the 20th and 21st century was committed by your peaceful Muslim brothers.
The same Muslim brothers who committed this brutal and senseless murder. And you dare defend these monsters.
You are not the injured victim here. The injured victim is the subject of this article. You are a propagandist and an apologist for the bloodthirsty cult that committed this outrage and continues to commit these outrages around the world.
I refuse to engage you in a debate about Islam.