I’m gonna try something new. Owing to the fact that I tend to read what other people in HS103 has already blogged, the choice of topics within “War and terrorism” left to blog about seem to get lesser and lesser. Thus, I shall now and maybe forevermore choose a completed blog and state my views on it. For this week’s blog posting I shall use Rachel’s entry. Found here: http://rachelchan.wordpress.com/
Thus, religion is now central to global politics, which used to be characterized by secularism. It can be destructive, threaten the balance of world power, and possibly be the core of the next large-scale global war. Interfaith dialogue is still in its nascent stages, and significant efforts on the part of religious leaders and governments in promoting religious tolerance and clamping down on extremism are necessary in order for people of different religions to peacefully coexist and thereby prevent devastating battles of religion.
The above is Rachel’s conclusion on her entry “The Religious Schism”. With all due respect to her and to advocates of such conclusions, I’d like to approach the issue of religion and its effects on the world from a different standpoint. A more positive one. And perhaps in simpler English.
First of all, I do agree that much of war is centered on religion. However, rather than being the cause of war and its driving factor, religion was just an innocent bystander. Hitler, fueled by his rage that jews – being more hardworking – were taking jobs from the germans performed one of the largest genocides of all time. The fact that Judaism teaches jews to treat working as worshiping God and thus holy became the reason war consumed them. Note that the jews at that time did not fight back. There was no cause for violence to be wrought on them.
The war on terrorism is something men, who declare themselves on the side of good should be advocating. The terrorists that the US presidents are yapping about are not men or organizations or countries that bear great offensive power. Rather, we claim that why terrorists are so scary, are because they terrorize. How does a few beheadings and suicide bombings compare to the terrors Singapore faced during its Japanese occupation or the Tiananmen square incident on June Fourth. The size and magnitude of terror overtips the scale. Terrorists just want something to go their way. Just like the US wanted the war to end by dropping the first Atomic Bomb. Only the small get labelled as terrorists.
More importantly, such fanatic actions that the terrorists have displayed are “as a result of their religious notions” and they claim it as such, terms like Jihad and the restoration of the Sharia law. These would be the beliefs of Osama Bin Laden. He, like Hitler, was also an anti-jewish, his claim being: These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next (1). Take away the fancy language and the base reasons are the same, Jews work harder.
At least modern men had the sense not to label all muslims as terrorists and start incarcerating them or worse. We began to think that he misinterpreted the Qur’an or started his own neo-islam. The danger only started when he could get the rest of the muslim community to see the way he did, much like how Bush got the US to support him in invading Iraq. No one thought that osama could be mad. Some people in US might have “said so” but not in the mentally unstable way.
Serial murderers that have been “clinically proven” to be “mentally unstable” get lighter sentences to their crimes. Why label it as the effects of religion when it could just have been a couple of mad men who were brought up wrong?
More often than not, we have our own religious views. Even atheists have their views on religion. I argue that it is not so much as what religion teaches, but how we men and our mindsets stubbornly choose to believe that lets religion make its mark on headlines. Just as we have centered wars and violence to be the cause of religious differences, isn’t religion just a sort of social upbringing? Aren’t the wars between the protestants and catholics started and persisted because of differing views? The same for violence between the different ethnic groups? Not only is classifying it as a religious war wrong, but to say that religion is the cause and drive for people to go to war is ignoring that there may be an underlying root cause of such wars. Osama’s terroristic tactics may use the muslim faith to rally the people, but it is his and his general’s ideals that promoted the strikes against the world.
Contrary and akin to Osama and Hitler, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi were men of faith. Why was so little credit given to the values of their faith in the work they have done? In my opinion and conclusion, Martin Luther and Ghandi are the proper examples to use in seeing how religion is central to global politics.
References
(1) Messages, (2005), p.190. from 53-minute audiotape that “was circulated on various websites.” dated Feb. 14, 2003. “Among a Band of Knights.”
Additional References
Rachel Chan(2008): War and Violence: The Religious Schism, Referenced on 180908 from:
http://rachelchan.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/war-and-violence-the-religious-schism/
War: Religious views of war, Referenced on 180908 from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/religious/holywar.shtml
Religion and War, Referenced on 180908 from: http://lass.calumet.purdue.edu/cca/mgv/Social_Issues/Religion/rel_war.html
Ben Hughes (2007): Religion and War: Why People Link Them Together So Closely, Referenced on 180908 from: http://religiousintolerance.suite101.com/article.cfm/religion_and_war
