Role of Religion in Violence

Violence in the current day and age is generally a reaction to inequity, injustice, and disempowerment, real or perceived. Stronger nations attack weaker ones when the latter have either refused to be compliant with the objectives of the former or have actually managed to hurt their economic interests.
Examples are many and come from the very earliest times of known history. Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Persian, Arab, British, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, and Russian empires come easily to mind. WWII was fought for the resources of colonies. Post WWII, with weakening of the Colonial powers, the USA and Soviet Union took up the role. Both powers intervened directly and through surrogates.
In Urdu they say that people fight over “zar, Zan, zameen” (Gold/Woman/land). The author of this aphorism must have been a feminist. The only time a king actually went to war over a woman, was when Alauddin Khilji, invaded a state in Southern India, because a local Queen, Padmani, would not jilt her husband for him. In the event when her forces lost to the King’s, she committed Satti, along with all the court ladies.
The saying is probably meant to apply to smaller fry.
All animals practice aggression against their own kind, and against other kinds, to a greater or lesser degree. The complexity of the practice appears to be directly related to intelligence. Lower orders kill, generally members of other species, for food. Others may injure/wound a rival for the affections of a female or to control several comely ones, but generally do not kill them.
Violence for greed is the exclusive domain of Homo sapiens.
But the root cause, the genesis, of nearly all violent acts can be traced to economic factors. Religion had provided a vehicle, legitimacy, or at best rationale to aggression.
All Religions are based on the fear of the unknown.
I am not committing heresy. All non-divinely inspired religions worshipped natural phenomenon, lightening, rain, storms, earthquakes, fire, floods, sun, and moon etc. Male dominance had not taken firm roots, so they had female deities in nearly equal numbers.
Divinely inspired religion exhorts us to fear God, the Day of Judgment, reward for good, retribution for evil, sight unseen. God has sent messengers with a set of instructions on a body of beliefs, code of behavior, on how to propitiate Him, with out a word on how to find or recognize Him.
One is expected to believe in His existence with out reason or rationale. Our faculties are not developed enough or God has not endowed us adequately enough to be able to do so. God remains largely unknown.
All religions reacted to the prevailing milieu, and confronted the established order. They appealed mainly to the disempowered, the destitute and the poor. The rich, the powerful, and the learned had all the privileges already. They ignored the emergent creed, did not see any good reason for change, which would, in any case affect their interests adversely, and tried to suppress the new forces with naked force, bribes and temptation, whatever would work. The prophet of Islam was offered riches, women, and positions of authority, if he would only give up his “pointless” preaching. They failed in every instance.
Religions attempted to eradicate social evils, and economic inequities. The ruling classes took measures to preserve their authority. They controlled the “ administration, the legislature, and the judiciary” These offices did not exist in their current form but members of the ruling class did administer, make rules and sit on judgment. They treated the poor abominably, indulged in slavery, tightened their stranglehold by such measures as exorbitant interest rates, forced labor, bonded labor, serfdom, and claim on the major part of the produce of the peasantry. The ruled had no recourse. All the levers of power were in the hands of the ruling class. If they ran away and were caught, the punishment would be worse than death. In not caught, starvation would be the fate of most.
Religion did not hit at the root of privilege. It only aimed at amelioration of the living conditions of the powerless. Private property remained sacrosanct. Slavery was not abolished; the owners were exhorted to treat them humanely.
All religions frowned upon usury. Once financial institutions and banking developed, interest became indispensable. During European renaissance, financiers got around the prohibition on interest by calling it commission, cost of labor, and payment to agents etc. Witness Pakistan Government calls is “Mark UP”.
Judaism was less restrictive. Jews excelled in financial dealings. For their pain, the Popes cursed them, and Shakespeare immortalized Shylock.
Calling a person a Jew was an insult. You called them Jewish. This was in mid-sixties. Even as late as 1975, one of my patients in a Jewish Hospital in NYC, an old man of 94, told me that he was not ashamed of being a Jew!
It has only been the extended guilt trip since WWII, that the Popes and, other Christian clerics have stopped wishing perdition on the Jews and have invented the concept of Judeo-Christian civilization.
Fundamentalist Christians believe that the Messiah will not descend from the heavens till the Jews have captured all ancient territories of Judea and Samara. Only then would the redeemer annihilate all the Jews and usher in the kingdom of heaven on earth. They, therefore, support the state of Israel fervently. George W does it for the same reason, though I doubt he understands the belief system.
Jews, smart people that they are, happily accept Christian support, do not worry too much about the peril that they will be subject to, if the Christian theology were to prove to be correct, and are confident enough to let the future take care of itself.
Violence is initiated against a new faith/reformist movement to protect status quo ante.
Pharaohs persecuted the Jews, dumping them into the Nile. In their turn, Jews did not hesitate a bit, sending one of their own to the gallows. Christians were fed to the lions, and then they started burning heretics, conducting inquisitions and going on crusades, massacring Muslims till blood was knee deep in streets of Jerusalem.
A Muslim suffered the scorching sun of the desert with a heavy weight on his chest, others stood up to all kinds of physical and mental tortures, exile and privations, did not hesitate in even giving up life for their faith, but then turned around and offered the non-Muslims a) conversion to Islam with second class status relative to Arab Muslims- the relic of the practice has lasted to this day. In order to work, or do business in most Arab countries, you need a “Wali”, protector, b) payment of tribute, which would entitle them to exemption from military service, which they could in any case not enter, liberty of practice of their religion in private, family laws per their own faith, but in public domain they would remain subservient to Muslims, for example their status as a witness would remain subsidiary etc, c) the point of the sword.
Zoroastrianism was wiped out of its birthplace Iran/Persia.
Hindus, after a thousand years of Muslim rule, during which the “upper” classes adopted many mores of Iranian/Arabic/Mongol culture language, went for Muslim blood with a vengeance.
This is not to say that all the adherents of a faith in each case went berserk. There are glowing and redeeming examples in the followers of all religions. I am only referring to the dominant, albeit tolerated by the majority, trends.
After replacing one establishment, all religions organized their own hegemony. The adherents then proceeded to use the faith to advance the cause of the followers of the faith. But it inevitably develops a class structure.
Jewish priests objected vehemently and violently to Jesus Christ bucking the trend, challenging their right to privileges and a life of luxury. Voodoo practitioners keep their hold on popular mind by subjecting the deviants to exorcism. Christian priests accumulated great wealth, land, and authority rivaling that of Kings, the Popes actually had their own country, vestiges can be seen even now in the Papal state in Rome. The clergy firmly aligned themselves with the landed gentry, supported the established order, exhorting the poor to obey the ruler, suffer deprivation cheerfully, palming them of with the lure that the Kingdom of heaven will be theirs, as long as they do as they are told. It was symbiotic existence; Feudal class supported the clergy and were legitimized by the latter.
The thread of supremacy of authority runs through all religions. Islam ordains that one should obey the ruler, as long the ruler does not interfere with the private practice of the faith.
Among the divinely inspired religions, only Islam founded a political state as its founding venture. But that did not prevent followers of other faiths from going forth, marauding and plundering in the name of the faith. Conspicuous in this behavior were the Christians who openly flouted the teachings of their prophet to offer the other cheek etc.
But first in the field of colonization in the name of their faith, were the Muslims. Emerging from the wastelands of the Arabian Desert, they managed to conquer most of the known world in a matter of a few decades. They had been energized by the conviction that everlasting salvation lay in the true path. They did not object if riches, land, and women fell into their lap in the process.
The vanquished did not surrender with out a fight. Resistance was fierce. There is credible evidence that after the main battles, people fought on in guerrilla fashion. I have come across Christian equivalents of Nasim Hejazi novels in which heroines chaffed at being forced to accept Islam and were forever on the look out to reconvert to the true faith.
Communications were poor, the concepts of nationalism and patriotism were in the distant future, people accepted every ruler as long they were left alone to pursue their own private affairs, one ruler was the same as another, they did not worry too much about the rulers faith, race, nationality or color. Rulers also tended to, after gaining complete control, treat all the subjects equally well or poorly. So there were no instances of wide spread insurgency.
With decline of Muslim power, all Empires run out of steam, and nearly simultaneous European renaissance, Christian cast their covetous eyes on the riches of the East. Advent of the Industrial revolution in the same time frame made them invincibly potent. They went forth as traders for spices, Gold and handicraft. The first was critical, their own land being cold, and productive only during short summer months; they had to keep food for long periods of time. There was no refrigeration, natural ice and snow not being consistently reliable, food, especially fish, often went bad. Its odor had to be suppressed, hence the value of pungent spices.
They found riches beyond dreams of avarice. The rulers in the East were highly cultured and sophisticated, but unbelievably, in the eyes of rather coarse Europeans, indolent. Oriental potentates looked down, with good reason, on foreigners. They have derogatory terms all meaning uncouth, unlettered, and uncivilized for them.
The Europeans swooped down on the East, as well the Americas, finding rich pickings everywhere. The idea of spreading Christianity was an added bonus, but that did not keep them from using all kinds of measures and subterfuges, immoral in their own books, to subjugate the natives. The much maligned, and justifiably so, Saddam Husain, had bible toting predecessors. The English immigrants, economic, religious, and political refugees, escaping starvation, discrimination and destitution in their home countries, were welcomed by the American natives, given shelter and food, and paid the debt back by gifting small pox infested blankets to their hosts. This was the first recorded use of Biological warfare, and that too on non-belligerents. The natives not having been exposed to the virus before, had no immunity and died in their hundreds of thousands. I do not believe Saddam was rescued from certain peril by the Shias and Kurds before he killed hundreds of thousands.
Power and dominance lend legitimacy. No one talks about the genocide perpetrated by the English. It is only a footnote in history.
The Europeans captured vast colonies and exploited the resources for their own ruling class. Remember, even at the height of their power, the ordinary British citizen, often, went with out a job, food shelter or protection under the law. Debtors jails were bursting at the seams, mal nutrition common, child labor universal, twelve hour days, six and a half days a week, was the norm, bonded labor, serfdom accepted facts of life, the lord of the manor owned the peasants body and soul, often taking his pleasure in female (and male) bodies, prostitution rife, physical punishment, beatings etc permissible.
If you do not believe me, please read Charles Dickens and Somerset Maugham.
If the ruling class treated their own kind this way, you do not have to stretch your imagination too far to make an educated guess of the treatment meted out to the “natives”.
The British were the leading Colonists. It is they who left a mess behind. It is they who were primarily responsible for the creation of the state of Israel. Let us concentrate on them.
By 1850, the British had all of India in their firm grip. On paper, though, they still ruled in the name of the Moghal “Emperor” Bahadur Shah whose writ ran only in the few acres of the Lal Qila (Red Fort) of Dehli. But the Head of the East India Company had to appear before him, hat in hand, every year to pay ceremonial tribute. He had to stand during the audience, and walk back out of the sight of the Emperor. One of them requested that he be excused from making the annual appearance, or at least be allowed to sit in the presence and permitted to walk with his back to the King. Bahadur Shah indignantly turned the request down.
Indians, high and low, Muslims and Hindus, got together one last time in 1957 and nearly got the British out of the country. Mention of one of the reasons of the failure of the revolt, War of Independence if you will, is relevant to our discussion. Most of the Jihadis of Pakistan are the progeny of the Indians who had supported the British. Perhaps the historic guilt is driving them.
The British were, and are, past masters at the art of divide and rule. They had honed their skill during European wars, and patronized Hindus and Muslims in turn. After the crusades, in which the British had played a leading role too, it was they who used the religious divide as an instrument of policy. They also promoted Shia-Sunni conflict. One of their paid agents, a Maulana of the Frangi Mahal (a renowned house of Muslim Scholars) of Lucknow wrote a pamphlet in the nineteen forties that it was the Shias who had martyred Imam Husain!! He insisted on taking out a Madhe Sahaba (adulation of the first four pious caliphs of the Prophet of Islam) procession through Shia localities. A Maulana from Lahore used to accompany him. The British gave permission for the procession to parade through the route. Quite a few Shia-Sunni riots ensued.
Insiders let the cat out of the bag. The Frangi Mahli Maulana had been gifted a printing press by the British administration and was on a regular, and generous stipend.
They pitted Arabs and Jews against each other, gave mutually exclusive pledges to either party, cut and ran when the going got too tough.
Post WWII, with the Empire gone they passed on the torch to International corporate hands.
They had left festering wound behind. Chronic infections metamorphose into cancer. Kashmir and Arab-Israeli conflicts no longer need promotion and have spawned generations of “terrorists” Terrorist label, like most other labels invented by humans, has an unpredictable shelf life. Only the other day, a true blue American observer pointed out that fathers of this nation were dubbed terrorist by the British. In more recent memory, Menachim Begin, one time PM of Israel had a price on his head, after he had blown up King David Hotel in Jerusalem, and sent a number of Britishers to an unscheduled meeting with their Maker. Yasser Arafat after heading the list of “terrorists” for a considerable time was feted at the White House. US officials are trying to open lines of communications with the insurgents in Iraq.
Advent of oil and the consequent dependence of Capitalist economy on it, catapulted Middle Eastern countries into a position of consequence. These countries happened to be Muslims. The rulers, creations of colonists, one and all, were all too amenable to foreign control. But the common man, disempowered in these countries, perhaps more so than his counterparts in Capitalist democracies, has felt the wind of change. Indonesia, India and a few other countries had broken the bond of colonial rule. China had thrown out the Imperialist surrogate. They wanted to utilize their resources for their own welfare.
Their attempts were thwarted, first when the combined “might” of Arabs failed to defeat Israel. Jews were of the twentieth century. They were sincere to their cause. They had no problem defeating the poorly led, disorganized and ill-equipped Arabs, whose rulers aided and abetted the Israeli effort.
That led to the coup in Egypt. In 1956,Nasser stood up to the might of British/French/Israeli ons lought. Americans had not been “consulted”; they did not want to promote the decadent colonists. Soviet Union got into the act. The aggressors had to withdraw, inspire of the overwhelming superiority in the field.
The Capitalist Powers soon realized that retreat was a strategic mistake. They rectified it in 1967. Whether the Soviet leaders were fooled into misleading Nasser, he had left his entire Air Force planes exposed on an airfield like sitting ducks, at the Soviet assurance that Israelis would not attack, or they were the recipients of quid pro quo, is open to question.
Even before the Arab debacle, foreign agents had managed to put the Shah of Iran on the throne, as his nationalist Government had taken over the Anglo-American oil company. That led, in time, to a truly religious state. If Iran were ever to be made a target of regime change, the insurgency in Iraq will look like a children’s picnic.
A few adventurisms in Afghanistan, in critical positions, with an organized political cadre backing it, but with no popular support, decided to take over the Government. They, naturally, started squabbling among themselves. A depraved, alcoholic ruler of the soviet union, who thought he was the incarnation of Caesars of Rome, decided to intervene and establish a socialist regime in a country with 98% orthodox Muslim population, and over 90% illiteracy.
The regime could not stand on its own feet. Soviet regime had to prop it up with scarce available resources. The Americans, quite correctly, saw it as chance to exact revenge for their own debacle in Vet Nam. They poured in supplies and advice to the resistance through its all too willing surrogate, Zia who was fired by the all-consuming fire of fanaticism. To do the man justice, his back was to the wall, economic sanctions were strangling the country, he had to borrow from the late Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) to pay salaries to Government employees. He was an international pariah.
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan came as the proverbial manna from heavens.
How history repeats itself. Musharraf after overthrowing Nawaz Shareef was a pariah too. I recall a report in a newspaper, that during a UN General Assembly dinner, Clinton cut Musharraf, and the latter had to go to Clinton’s table with a photographer in tow, for a photo op for consumption back home. Post 9/11, and with his role of an effective stooge, he was entertained at Camp David, no less, much to the chagrin of Indians.
In any event, Pakistan as conduit of military, financial and intelligence aid, got its cut, came out of economic depression and worked hand in hand with its patron in supplying the resistance fighters with materiel and training.
Their patrons, in their glee at soviet discomfiture, and with exhaustion of their old foe fervently anticipated, glossed over the fact that they were nurturing a serpent in their sleeves. They were in cahoots with Taliban , the most virulent variety of fanatics (literally seekers, in common usage, of Education), indoctrinated in religious seminaries in Pakistan. To add to the missionary zeal and to give it an International color, remember all Muslims, in theory, belong to the one Ummah (Brotherhood, comrades in arms, it is difficult to transliterate) were the cohorts of Osama Bin Laden.
The policy was akin to lighting slow fuses to widespread ammunition dumps.
Al-qaida developed in the fashion of hydra heads. It is no use cutting one, another, may be many, will grow to replace it.
It was only a question of time, before it would garner adequate resources, technology and men to hit at the vitals of the “infidel”.
In the meanwhile, the erstwhile surrogate, Saddam Husain was getting too big for his britches. He had been quite effective in sapping the vitality of the Iranian revolution. He may eventually be able to challenge the hegemony of the Capitalist powers in the area. He had fairly well developed infra structure, a large cadre of scientists and funds to spare. If he was allowed to keep Kuwait, historically an Iraqi territory, and here again we have to thank the British again for Balkanizing, with the French as junior partners, the Middle East, he will cast his covetous eyes on Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. And before one could utter, metaphorically, the word oil, one would have a moderately large autocrat to deal with, for oil and sympathy. Who knows he might even threaten Israel, the darling of the Capital.
Western Pundits have a habit of over estimating Arab prowess The elder Bush, supplied with requisite spine, by the redoubtable Margaret Thatcher got international sanction, went at Iraq but wisely for Capitalist interest, left the tyrant in place. Saddam had been humiliated, his army had panicked like a herd of sheep with a wolf in its midst, he was hamstrung by sanctions, and no fly zones. No doubt, he could kill Shias and Kurds in their scores of thousands, but that of little strategic consequence.
Come 9/11, the junior was in the White House. Regardless of the genesis, and I doubt if the word is understood in ruling circles, except in its Biblical concept, the USA had to move against Al-Qaida and the Taliban. The move met universal acceptance.
But that was not enough muscle flexing for the junior. He was perhaps, still smarting against of the Wimp label adhering to the senior, in spite of the successful Gulf I. He was told that the senior had not finished the job. It was a blot on the esutcheon. True, the man had tried to kill my daddy, he responded in his “sublime’ intellectual fashion. He had a bunch of zealots to goad him on. They concocted the fairy tales of weapons of mass destruction. They were dreaming of physical, versus through surrogates, control of the richest oil resource in the world.
The international community was not taken in. For practical purposes the only power of any consequence to support action against Saddam were the British, whose status vis a vis US policy making is that of a rather weak viceroy in India, in the decision making process of the British cabinet in the days of yore.
Al-Qaida had no love lost for Saddam, he was secular after all, but the Infidels” were in the Muslim heartland. 9/11 did not have the desired consequences.
What had taken decades of planning, training and indoctrination, now bore fruit. After attacks on a war ship, embassies and consulates came the big one. There has been an uncanny regularity of terrorist acts ever since.
The pundits of all hues, leanings, and national origin are busy explaining the genesis of terrorism. The Muslim baiting cadre attributes it to: their different values, hatred of Judeo-Christian ethos, lure of paradise with nubile and willing virgins, and all kinds of thinly disguised racist attitudes.
Others dwell on desperation, reaction to historic injustices, after effects of colonialism, legacy of the Soviet Union, poverty, lack of education, indoctrination, reaction to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Success in the achieving objectives has been blamed for enhancing the fanatical fervor. Only countries of little consequence with drew from Iraq after their soldiers came under attack, till Spain gave in the aftermath of train bombings, and Italy was shaken in its resolve.
But I have yet to see a comprehensive analysis encompassing all the manifold aspects of the inspiration behind terrorism.
I think religion has acted only as a vehicle of the international campaign hitting at the vitals of Capitalist interests. Blaming religion is akin to condemning the bomb, and not the suicide bomber for the carnage.