Return of the Crusades: Is It Islam Vs. the Others?

The crusades (1095 - 1291) or “Holy wars” are but a bitter reminder of mortification & wanton destruction that followed the fights for supremacy amongst the leading religions of the world - Islam & Christianity. It started with Pope Urban II’s call to the faithful to liberate the Holy Land – Palestine - for which he proffered an irresistible reward:  heaven to the martyrs. The rise of Church reformation movements in the 16^th century led to the reduction in papal authority & the growth of scientific temper & democratic values led to a more liberal political & religious thought that we witness in Europe today. The Muslim world has not seen such a transition yet. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism today & the lethal war cry “Jihad – Holy war” is based on the same concoction & the familiar reward: HEAVEN. Are we therefore seeing the resurrection of the crusades?  Regretfully: YES; The only difference: It is now a fight not restricted to 2 religions alone.

Of the population of over 7 billion that inhabits the world, 2.2 billion practice Christianity, 1.6 billion profess Islam, 1 billion follow Hinduism & 0.37 billion have embraced Buddhism & the popular current narrative is that all the others are arraigned  against Islam. Animosities amongst religions are not uncommon for sectarian clashes abound: Hindus vs. the Mohammedans in South Asia; Buddhists vs. the Muslims in Sri Lanka, Myanmar & Thailand et al. The Charlie Hebdo cartoons case, perhaps, was a case of journalistic indiscretion but the massacre soon unleashed - by the Islamic terror groups in France - cannot be condoned either. This is but only one manifestation of the resurrection of the crusades.

The Iranian revolution in 1979 & the rise of the Shia cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, created shock waves in Saudi Arabia which started propagating the most virulent Salafi/ Wahabi Sunni form of Islam as a counter, more to protect the Royalty. Western Christian states, especially the US, found it convenient to support such a venture to take on the Ayatollah in Iran & the Soviet Union in Afghanistan through the Mujahedeen.  Later, Taliban was a force created through religious indoctrination in Islamic seminaries – madrassas – in

Pakistan which today has become the epicentre of world terrorism. It is the Taliban regime that had seized power in Afghanistan in 1996 that was responsible for the destruction of Buddhist statues of the Bamiyan, in 2001, about 6 months before the dastardly events of 9/11 in America. Afghanistan was a secular country till the 9^th Century AD hosting Hindus, Buddhists & Muslims when persecution of Buddhists by Sunni Turks forced them to finally settle in modern day Tibet. That set the Buddhists against the Muslims. Centuries later, the persecution persists; in 2010, in the Tanjung Balai, Indonesia, a Buddhist statue was forced to be removed from a rooftop after complaints by an Islamic organization while In 2012 Islamists attacked a national museum & destroyed Buddhist idols in the Maldives.

While the attacks against Buddhists need to be condemned, they are not entirely peace loving either. In Sri Lanka the Buddhist brigade – Bodu Bala Sena – has unleashed a war against Muslims purportedly with federal support during the Rajapaksa regime. Likewise in Myanmar, Buddhists under a religious leader Ashin Wirathu have railed the Muslims. The dispossession of the Muslim Rohingyas in the Rakhine State, near the Bangladesh border, has created

a humanitarian crisis with refugees rushing either into Bangladesh or trying to escape into Malaysia or Indonesia by boats many of which have capsized in the high seas; countries refusing to accept these refugees has accentuated the situation further. The fight between Buddhist Thailand against their Muslim minority in their southern provinces demanding a separate state is but another example of distrust between these two religions.

Post the crusades & Christian reformation one would have expected Western Christian nations to encourage Islamic reform too. Regretfully it was not to be; on the contrary fundamentalism was encouraged to achieve geo-political objectives which succeeded initially but now the protégés have turned against the patrons.  During WW I, Britain encouraged “Jihad” against the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. Likewise, Al Qaeda - a CIA creation during the cold war – perpetuated  9/11 which led to a “either with us or against us” stirring speech by the then US President George Bush Jr. & the “global War on Terror” that soon followed was used as a pretext to invade sovereign nations: Iraq & Afghanistan. Stangely “weapons of mass destruction” were never found in Iraq & sadly the Middle East is now a seething cauldron that has given rise to the ISIS (Islamic Republic of Iraq & the Levant) – a terror outfit which has a state & resources of its own. Human Right violations – largely of Muslims - happened at

“Guantanamo Bay & Abu Ghraib” which is now well documented by the US Senate.  Mira Nair’s Movie “The reluctant Fundamentalist” or closer home Kabir Khan’s “New York”, allude to how circumstances force even liberal Muslims to convert to fundamentalism. If Islam was seen as the perpetuator of the 9/11 crime & condemned, the unbridled Western Christian retaliation cannot be seen as Kosher either.

While the persecution of the Muslims listed above calls for a sympathetic response, Muslims are not the victims in all cases. Post the independence of India in 1947 & after accounting for the transfers of people across the borders, Hindus accounted for 15% of the population in Pakistan & 22% in Bangladesh; the corresponding fig today is 2% & 10% respectively achieved through forcible conversions & decimation, highlighted by knowledgeable & sensitive writers like Taslima Nazreen for which she endures a death threat which has forced her to remain incognito away from her homeland Bangladesh. Contrast this with liberal India where the Muslim population has grown from 9.8% in 1951 to 14.2% of the population in 2011. Perhaps, Islam too would gain through reforms just as Christianity did post the 16^th century & beyond.

Is the situation therefore a fight between Islam & other religions? The answer is: NO, for that would be a simplistic explanation to a complex problem.

The rise of the ISIS has been a subject of much consternation & debate but is a by-product of the geopolitics in the Middle East & the fight between the Sunni block led by Saudi Arabia & the Shia bloc led by Iran. Initially the rise of the ISIS was credited to Saudi Arabia with an intention to force a Shia regime change in Syria. For details see

http://meetrk.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-middle-east-conundrum-diplomatic.html

Retired Indian diplomat Mahesh Sachdev in an article in The Hindu avers that Islamic terror is not monolithic since ethnicity, caste & tribal affiliations play a major role. The core of the Boko Haram in Nigeria consists of the Kanuri tribe which is spread across Nigeria & its neighbours – Niger, Cameroon & Chad; the efforts of its leader, Abu Bakr Shekhau, to expand appeal using the regional lingua franca – Hausa – has not been successful. Similarly, the Shammar tribe forms the core of the ISIS in the Middle East; the tribe is spread across Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iraq & Turkey which is the area where the Daesh (Arabic acronym for the ISIL) is most dominant. While both these outfits are Sunni outfits & Saudi Arabia’s support for the ISIS is well documented, the Hezbollah in Lebanon is a Shia militant outfit which active support from Iran. Hopefully the new Iran deal enforced by the P5+1 would bring a modicum of stability to the Middle East. Ultimately, only a shift from monarchy or a dictatorship to democracy – even if the transition is uneasy – amongst Muslim nations coupled with religious reforms shall provide a lasting peace.

Conclusion

Islam is widely bandied about as a violent religion & the cause of all religious problems plaguing the world, forgetting that Sufism – a strand of the same religion - preached pacifism & co-existence of all faiths. The evangelical zeal by proselytizing faiths with financial support from across the borders has vitiated the situation in many countries leading to violent responses from the other side, largely ignited by politico- religious outfits on the induced fear of the majority being swamped by the minority. Perhaps non-use of religions for geo political gains would serve all actors well. The growth of nationalism is fine as long as it does not turn fanatical into “majoritarian nationalism” which ails many parts of the world today. A deeper understanding of Islam, debate rather than an absolute ban on the use of hijab under the grab of gender equality or prevention of terrorism – as has unfortunately happened in many European nations - & support for liberal Islamic forms like Sufism would help in reconciliation.