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Stop Using
Millenary Religions as a Scapegoat for the Crimes of
Modern Imperialism
By Kim
Petersen
But if
they incline to peace, you (also) incline to it,
and (put your) trust in Allah. Verily, He is the
All-Hearer, the All-Knower.
— The
Noble Qur’an, Al-Anfal, 8.61
Jihad
The
most excellent Jihad is that for the conquest of
self.
The ink
of the scholar is more holy than the blood of
the martyr.
–
Sayings of the Prophet
July 16,
2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Dissident
Voice" -
Respected writer William Blum understands US
hegemony and imperialism on a global scale. In his
important book Rogue State, he provided a
comprehensive account of US imperialism around the
world.
Recently,
Blum wrote a trenchant
article that compellingly ridiculed the nonsense
that Donald Trump is a greater evil than Barack
Obama. Blum tore the veneer off the Democratic Party
and corporate media’s hypocritical demonization of
Trump. As a clincher, Blum finishes his piece with
sarcasm: “And if you like Barack Obama you’ll love
Hillary Clinton.”
Trump,
Obama, and Clinton are three evils. Of the three,
Trump is the lesser evil. What is important is that
come election time, the ballot is not confined to a
lesser-evilist choice. The Green Party’s Jill Stein
is not evil.
In the
otherwise excellent piece by Blum appears a
paragraph that I find superficial, void of
historical validity, and above all, it seems to be
repeating indoctrinating patterns typical of
Islamophobia:
Obama’s
declaration that ISIS “has nothing to do with
Islam”. This is standard political correctness
which ignores the indisputable role played by
Islam in inspiring Orlando and Long Beach and
Paris and Ankara and many other massacres; it is
the religion that teaches the beauty and
godliness of jihad and the heavenly rewards of
suicide bombings.
Does Islam
play a role? Blinkered proponents of US and Israeli
imperialism consistently blame Islam for the
commission of terrorist acts. Blum is not such a
proponent. However, framing Islam as “the religion
that teaches the beauty and godliness of jihad and
the heavenly rewards of suicide bombings” decidedly
opinionated and pre-restructured approach that
deliberately ignores the Islamic teachings of peace.
If Islam is the motivating source for terrorism,
then how does Blum explain that there was not any
act of so-called jihadist terrorism in the period
1945-1967 (from the end of WWII until the Israeli
war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan)?
Logically
therefore, Arabs, be they mixed Christian and Muslim
(the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
once lead by the late the Christian Orthodox George
Habash; the Democratic Front for the Liberation of
Palestine led by the Catholic-Marxist Nayef Hawatmeh)
or predominately Muslim (such as Hamas and
Hezbollah) have all used violence as counter
measures to the US and Israeli violence. To call
their violence “terrorism” while calling western and
Israeli violence a “responsibility to protect or
humanitarian intervention”
is an utmost act of malediction.
As for the
word “jihad” [used to express a struggle for
anything (life, work, family) — including, of
course, the early Islamic struggle to spread the
word of Allah (God Almighty in Arabic)] — there is a
story to tell. After the defeat of the crusaders in
Syria in 1187, the word was used sporadically by the
Ottoman Turks to recruit Muslims for the conquest of
Europe. Politically that word generally disappeared
from the popular usage (except from national
movements seeking to use Islam as a rallying cry of
battle as in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighting
the occupiers of Palestine) until former national
security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Wahhabi
Saudi regime resurrected it to fight the Soviets in
Afghanistan.
Surprisingly, unmentioned in Blum’s piece is the
“teachings” of violence by Blum’s people
in the Torah or the Bible’s teachings of violence.
For example, do the teachings of Rabbi Col. Eyal
Karim that it is
okay to rape Gentile women represent an
indisputable role of Judaism that teaches the beauty
and godliness of raping non-Jews or does it
represent individual extremism based on lopsided
interpretation?
I am very
familiar with the greetings exchanged by Muslims: “As-Salaam-Alaikum”
(“peace be upon you”) and “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam”
(“and peace upon you”). I know peace to be
emphasized by Islam. However, just like in the Bible
where one finds invocations to peace, one also finds
commands to commit violence. I asked if Blum had
read the Qur’an, but he did not reply to this
question. I asked if he had lived in a Muslim land?
To this he did not reply either. I humbly submit
that I have read the Bible, Qur’an, hadiths, and
The Life of Mohammed among other texts. I have
lived a number of years in Muslim countries. In
Jordan and Egypt, Muslim people proudly recited
stories to me of the prowess, tolerance, and virtue
of the Muslim sultan and military leader Saladin who
defeated the Crusaders, retook Al Quds (Jerusalem),
and showed great mercy to his Christian and Jewish
opponents. However, I am far from an expert on
Islam.
I wrote to
Bill Blum.
Kim Petersen:
I just have to add since you took on Islam that your
article would have read less tendentious if you had
noted that the Bible’s God smites first born
children, urges God-fearing people to commit
genocide, condemns homosexuals, etc, etc — the point
being that Christianity has nothing over Islam; they
are both vile.
William Blum:
But one is carrying out horrible terrorism today,
even as we speak, threatening you and I. The other
is ancient, ancient history. If in fact it ever
happened.
KP:
With all due respect, are the predominantly
Christian nations not carrying out horrible
terrorism today? And does not state terrorism dwarf
retail terrorism?
And to be
clear, it is not a religion carrying out acts; it is
supposed adherents of the religion carrying out the
acts in the name of their god/allah/yahweh. All are
deplorable.
Blum
responded in the email separately to each of the
above preceding paragraphs.
WB:
The Christian nations are horribly violent, but they
do not purposely bomb crowded restaurants, or behead
people, or purposely destroy ancient buildings, or
ban education for women, sex and music.
It’s the
teachings of Islam that inspire the Islamic
terrorists to carry out jihad and suicide bombings.
Why else are they doing these things? If they hate
US foreign policy why don’t they attack US military
installations and American embassies, not people and
targets with no connection whatsoever to any
government. That’s terrorism by definition.
KP, additional comment:
“If they hate US foreign
policy why don’t they attack US military
installations and American embassies”: They do, for
example, the 1983 bombing of a US military
installation in Lebanon demonstrates, but it does
not matter what the target is: any act of resistance
to the primordial acts of violence, even by a
foreign interloper will be labeled terrorism. This
is a label that is not applied by the same corporate
media to the aggression of the US or its western
acolytes.
Moreover, Blum seems in contradiction with himself.
Earlier he blamed US violence rather than Islamic
teachings for terrorism.
Why do
terrorists hate America enough to give up their
lives in order to deal the country such mortal
blows? Of course it’s not America the terrorists
hate; it’s American foreign policy. It’s what
the United States has done to the world in the
past half century — all the violence, the
bombings, the depleted uranium, the cluster
bombs, the assassinations, the promotion of
torture, the overthrow of governments, and more.
The terrorists — whatever else they might be —
are also rational human beings; which is to say
that in their own minds they have a rational
justification for their actions. Most terrorists
are people deeply concerned by what they see as
social, political or religious injustice and
hypocrisy, and the immediate grounds for their
terrorism is often retaliation for an action of
the United States.
It is
assessment with which I agree.
Next, I
respond sequentially to each of two preceding
paragraphs where Blum writes 1) that Christians do
not purposely commit horrible acts and 2) Islamic
teachings serve as a fillip to terrorism.
KP:
Christian nation nations do not drop nuclear weapons
on civilian cities (Hiroshima and Nagasaki)? Do not
firebomb civilian cities (Tokyo, Dresden)? Do not
place a city under siege and bombard it (Fallujah)?
Lynch and scalp non-White peoples? Purposely destroy
hospitals (Afghanistan), the cultural heritage of a
country (Iraq)?
Christianity and its teachings, as self-servingly
interpreted by zealous western Christians, are
deeply permissive and supportive of the West’s
capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism that have
caused far more destruction and death than a
revanchist Islam that rose in resistance to western
hegemony and terrorism. Based on available
literature, it is known that Al Qaeda is a response
to US military in Saudi Arabia and US support of
Israel’s slow motion genocide (state terrorism)
against Palestinians and their neighbors. Daesh was
spawned by US militarism against Iraq, Libya, and
Syria.
*****
I could
have listed plenty more examples of murderous US
imperialism, but I am talking to the expert on the
topic. See Blum’s
Master List.
Moreover,
persuasive evidence suggests that Daesh is a US
creation to further discredit Islam thus giving US
imperialism more pretexts to attack Muslims.
I am in
solidarity with the bulk of what Blum writes. He is
exceptional when it comes to perfidious American
policy and actions abroad. However, blaming Islam
for the acts carried out by people is misdirection.
Accounts vary somewhat, but in general, Muslims
believe the Qur’an is Allah’s word relayed by the
archangel Jibreel (Gabriel) who enabled the
illiterate prophet Mohammed to read Allah’s message.
Each person derives the meaning of the verses
through his own interpretation or acceptance of
another’s interpretation.
I agree
that religion can inspire people to evil. Islam is
not unique in this regard; this applies equally to
Christian-inspired evil or nationalist-inspired
evil. It is entirely possible that Islamic
“teachings” can be bent to inspire/manipulate men
into violent acts, but it is entirely possible that
benevolent “teachings” of Islam can draw people
toward peace. There are several ideologies that can
be warped to untoward ends among susceptible people.
However, in
the absence of imperialist evil wreaked against
them, would these people professing to be Muslims
have been inspired/manipulated into violent
reprisals?
And why is
religion or an ideology being used to spur people to
violence? If the radicalized teachings are a
reaction to injustices against a people, it seems
unreasonable to focus blame on a religion rather
than the injustices that brought about the
radicalized teachings.
Nonetheless, whatever is cited as a motivating
factor, the acts are solely the responsibility of
the perpetrators of the acts.
People who
claim to be Christians have launched crusades, set
up Inquisitions to fight heresy, wrote Papal Bulls
to allow dispossessing non-Christian Indigenous
peoples of their territory, and started world wars,
among other grave crimes. People professing to be
Christians continue, to the present day, to wreak
genocidal wars throughout the world.
I have no
intention to indict any religion because the main
issue is those who use religions as alibis for their
actions and policy.
Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam are beliefs. People choose
to adhere to whichever one of these monotheisms (or
other theisms) based on faith — or are more likely
believe they were divinely led to the true belief.
All three of these monotheistic religions contain
“teachings” of violence and peace. Thus, to ascribe
terrorism solely to the “teachings” of one religion
is biased and wrong; and it leads to questions as to
what is the interior motive driving such summary
judgement without addressing the basic issues that
generate terrorism.
To iterate,
it is plain wrongheaded to criticize Islam – and
Islam exclusively among religions – for spurring
terrorism. To gain understanding, it is crucial to
put terrorism and violence in proper context since
terrorism against the West did not arise out of a
vacuum. Neither does the Qur’an instruct Muslims to
attack friendly nations. So-called jihadist
terrorism is in response to the far greater
preceding terrorism and unremitting oppression from
the Christian West and the Jewish Israel. By way of
simple analogy, if someone punches you in the face
without reason, and you punch that person back, yes,
you used violence, but who deserves greater
condemnation: the initiator of violence or you who
responded to the violence with violence? Or should
you and the initiator of violence be equally
condemned? And if you had turned the other cheek to
the person who first punched you, what lesson would
that impart? Would the perpetrator be deterred from
punching you again?
Finally,
among religions, it is predominantly — and
unquestionably — the nations and people that profess
Christian beliefs that have wreaked and spawned the
most horrific terrorism throughout history,
including today. Nonetheless, I do not believe
Christian “teachings” have much to do with US
genocide against Arabs. US elitists are spurred by
greed for control of resources, territory,
information, and power. When elitists use religion,
nationalism, and terrorism against other peoples to
kill, rob, occupy, humiliate, and oppress them, why
place the culpatory focus on the violence in
resistance to the initial violence of forces
manipulated by western elitists? The victims of
violence, of course, must be accorded the right to
resist violence.
Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of
Dissident Voice.
He can be reached at:
kimohp@inbox.com.
Twitter:
@kimpetersen. |
