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May-17-2008
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Idealized Codes for War
With passion one can learn to solve many problems. Wars of 21st century can’t be won by posturing on moral and ethical high grounds presented by Rajiv Malhotra in Gita on Fighting Terrorism. Passion and an appeal to a brand of moral and ethical high grounds are not sufficient for victory against a determined enemy. For a winning strategy in today’s global environment a nation must have necessary second-to-none economic and military power to confront any enemy, a realistic strategy based on current knowledge of political sciences and a clear appreciation of social, cultural, political and religious fervor that guides war euphoria.
Gita provides moral and ethical reasons for Hindu dharma driven engagement of enemy in a war. The trilogy of Islamic scriptures – Quran, Hadith and Shariah - and Greco-Roman warlord modified Christianity offers to Muslims and Christians a religious basis for war. The history for past two millenniums is replete with numerous examples showing the people of the book, especially that committed to war strategies used by Muslims and Christians are not interested in propositions of Hindu Gita as they are driven to win wars at any cost to non-believers. The doubters only have to look at the history of India from 950AD to 1947AD – a period of India’s colonization first by the ‘loot and plunder’ brand Islamists from central and north Eurasia and then by Western Europeans.
Religions offer idealized codes of conduct for war. 'Dharma' for Hindus is a spiritual framework and a set of tools for personal righteousness and spiritual quest; it is not a prophetic religion. Spiritual truths are frozen into canon for people of the book who consider themselves privileged over other ethnic groups and culture of the rest. The people of the book are taught to ignore ever unfolding spiritual truths. Hindus were slow to accept that they were not privileged just as they maintained that the people of the book were not privileged over other ethnic groups. In democratic secular nations a norm is to allow each religious and atheist groups to follow their unique culture and religion but not necessarily their outdated social and political ideologies such as political Islam and war politics Greco-Romans used for territorial expansion and destruction of Semitic Arabs and Jews.
People of the book are followers of a prophetic religion – Judaism, Christianity and Islam - and concepts of dharma are alien to them. Jesus introduced Christianity based on select Canons from Old Bible of Jews. Quran also borrowed from Old and New Testaments. Less than 17% of words in Quran are attributed to God or Allah and rest to Mohammed. At least 75% of Shariah and more than 90% of Bukhari Hadith are devoted to conduct of war against those who disobey Mohammed, a political crime.
The West moved from a medieval world view, through the renaissance and enlightenment, and into the modern age. Honor code for Muslims of the Um’mah calls for adherence to the medieval Arab tribal norms enshrined Islamic trilogy of scriptures. Muslims continue to be for Islamic dogma and traditions, not for renascence and changes needed for survival in 21st century.
Religious Wars
How the state sponsorship of Christianity by the Greco-Roman warlords starting with Constantine (3rd - 4th century) and Augustine (4th – 5th century) radically transformed Jesus Christ’s teachings (love, mercy and forgiveness) into a particular brand of Roman Christian orthodoxy (hate, intolerance of those who refuse to convert to Christianity) is documented by James Carroll in a book, “Constantine’s Sword” – the Church and the Jews: A History (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 2001). The ruthless slaughter of tribals of North Eurasia (present day Middle East) and Africa in a zeal for extra-territorial expansions was justified by Christian warlords branding tribals as pagans – Semitic Arabs and Jews - who refused to convert to Christianity.
Tribals took a revenge on Roman warlords by killing Augustine and burning down his church.
In late 6th – early 7th century Mohammed conceived and delivered Islam. Following Islamic war cry of jihad starting 7th century Islamists overran a part of Greco-Roman Empire. From 7th to 19th century with repeated invasions by Arabs, Islam proliferated to all directions converting subjugated and humiliated population, some times by the sword to spread message and teachings of the holy Prophet. Spanish Reconquista’s (722 to 1492) drove Muslims out of Spain, Portugal, etc but the Ottoman Empire (1453 – 1922) continued to dominate a part of the Greco-Roman territory through early nineteenth century. Some additional details are available in author’s blogs at http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/blog-columns-KishanBhatia-1.htm starting with Sectarian and Tribal Warfare: Political Map of Islamic Nations (2005) and Profoundly Politically Incorrect Islam (2007).
In the 1500s and 1600s, Europe and its main two religions struggled with the impact of modernization, rationalism and scientific thinking. They came to terms with the challenge of new ideas and rekindled an interest in ancient pagan Greece and Rome. Despite much bloodshed and repression, they found a way to manage these contradictions.
After holocaust by Nazi Christians the Catholic Church in 1962 convened a Vatican Council to absolve Church of its failure to condemn Nazi fascists as it had done earlier against communism. On October 28, 1965 the Church elders stated that Jews were not enemy, nor was Jew as a community responsible for death of Jesus on cross. This was an attempt to atone for nearly two millennium of hate against Jews. Christian Church has finally taken steps to stop preaching anti-Semitism and accept responsibility for corrosive influence of two millennium old promotion of hatred of Jews led to holocaust.
Islam and the Arabic-speaking world, not to mention Persian Iran and Muslims of South Asia, South East Asia and Far Eastern Origin have not yet initiated modernization, rationalism and scientific thinking on a large scale. Before there can be sustainable secular democracy in any of 56 nations of Um’mah rapid development, social progress, equal rights for women, inhibition of hate and intolerance of non-Islamic followers and other such changes have to be put in place. And the work has barely begun.
A utopian vision of righteousness and a lack of inclination to appreciate war practices of other cultures resulted in Indian warlord’s political failures. India paid dearly for not learning from political successes of other cultures. In the pre-British India absence of adequate infrastructure for higher education deprived human resources development of over 40 generation of Indians ruled by native Muslim and Hindu ruling elites, which resulted in an absence of a critical-mass of critical thinkers in South Asia. Lacking adequate abilities to master and exploit modern sciences Indian ruling elites couldn’t develop a second-to-none military power needed to defend freedoms against European colonizers.
Incompatibility of Ancient Cultural and Present Religious Practices
Note: In the discussion below I make no distinction between idols (Greek, Jews, etc) and Murtis (Hindu and all religions connected to Vedas). There are finer differences and interested readers are directed to conduct a Google search or go to www.egroups.com. For present discussion both concepts represent a three dimensional representation of an idea as God. Unlike Greek idols some Hindu Murtis represent four (Vishnu) and five (Brahma) dimensional universe; remember universe is five dimensional – space, time and energy. Some scientist can relate to four and five dimensional universe but for most others the perception is limited to three dimensions.
We learned from archeology and art history of ancient Greece and India that there were many similarities in perceptions of God in ancient Greece and Vedas. Both ancient societies and cultures had a tradition of symbolizing universal ideas in idols of Gods installed in impressive magnificent temples on hill tops. Ancient Greek Gods and Goddesses (Olympian, Titan, Primeval, Underworld, Sea, Sky, Rustic, Agricultural, Abstract, Deified Mortals and Cult of the Gods) are comparable to those of Vedic period. In both ancient cultures each society picked a three dimensional idol or murti to represent one universal idea. Greek cultural and religious practices changed once they converted to Christianity. Same is true of converted Hindus.
With arrival of Christianity, temples were replaced with churches for religious ceremonies in Greco-Roman Empire. Idols in temples were replaced with two-dimensional icons in orthodox churches. Idols representing universal ideas were discarded and new icons representing Virgin Mary, baby Jesus, crucifixion and resurrection, various apostles and church dignitaries decorated orthodox churches to become objects of admiration for believers. Unlike ancient Greeks who worshiped universal ideas Christians believe in a dogma and attend church for prayer, repentance, and meditation on the agony and suffering of Christ on the cross.
Muslims went one step further than Christians. They demolished Christian churches, Hindu temples and replaced it with Masjids or Mosques discarding both idols and icons. Culturally three dimensional representation of God was reduced to intangible, one-dimensional Allah. Muslims are commanded to gather in Mosques to pray five times a day facing Kaaba in the Grand Mosque of Mecca or Makkah. Kaaba is a black meteoric stone – an idol or murti with no face and other human features - that replaced idols worshiped by Semitic tribals, ancient Greco-Roman societies and Hindus. The prayer meetings provide unique opportunities to clerics and political opportunists to inspire and motivate believers to conduct jihad against non-believers or Kafirs in the name of and to spread Islam.
Unlike people of the book Hindus continued to worship Gods representing universal ideas. Unlike people of the book that have for centuries indulged in destruction of other culture’s religious places of worship to build their places of worship with a recent rare exception of destruction of Babri Masjid – an act of political opportunists - Christian churches and Muslim Masjids continue to exist all over India.
The USA aided Zia ul Haq regime of Pakistan during 1980s to develop a force called freedom fighters against Afghan occupying forces of USSR. Pakistan during 1990s used the same force as terrorists to destabilize Afghanistan and the commando president from 2002 to 2007 collected more than $10 billion by renting Pakistani army to fight Americas War on Terrorism in which Muslims are killing Muslims for blood money.
Pakistani dictators have followed a several centuries old tradition for power followed by warlords. The converted people of book represented by Muslim and Christian believers have no use for dharmic morals and ethics of war advocated in the ancient Vedic culture of non-believer or Kafirs. Unlike Hindus the goal of these people has been to establish monolithic religious order all across world.
As long as there are an estimated 100 million extremist Islamists overtly and covertly supported by 1.4 billion Muslims of the Um'mah to inflict psychological and physical terrorism in the name of Islam enshrined with medieval Arab tribal norms to destabilize non-Islamic nations, for any nation including all in South Asia a pragmatic policy is “two eyes for an eye, and a jaw for a tooth” in the war against terrorism.
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