மேற்கில் உருவாகி வரும் கிறிஸ்துவ பயங்கரவாதம்

மேற்கில் உருவாகி வரும் கிறிஸ்துவ பயங்கரவாதம் பற்றிய மோனு நலபத்தின் கட்டுரை

Commentary: 'Christian' Wahabbis rising in the West
MANIPAL, Jul. 16
M.D. NALAPAT

Column: Future Present
What do you get when you cross Wahabbism and Khomeinism? The "W-K virus" -- a set of mutually reinforcing creeds that promote religious supremacy, the notion that the followers of a particular faith are superior to the rest. Usually this idea is extended to the persecution of other faiths or even a total ban on them, as is the case in Saudi Arabia, where a Shiite mosque, a church, a temple or a synagogue would be unthinkable.

If, despite the W-K virus, the Western world is still relatively free of jihadist violence, the explanation lies not merely in the strength of its security services. (As U.S. forces are finding out in Iraq, the best of them are powerless to smother a popular reaction to occupation.) It lies in the tolerance toward other faiths that has become a part of everyday existence within the Christian-majority countries.

It is only in Eastern Europe -- principally Poland and Russia -- that those belonging to the majority faith have succeeded in enforcing discriminatory standards on the rest. Although "Mugabism," or favoring a particular race above the rest, seems to be on the rise in an increasingly isolationist Europe, still the practice of one's faith encounters few barriers within most EU nations. The United States is even more progressive, with a liberal mindset reinforced by the needs of modern commerce within a boundaryless "knowledge economy."

Unfortunately, within this sea of tolerance there are now appearing, with the virulence of a rash, an increasing number of communities that mimic the Wahabbists and the Khomeinists in their contempt for the followers of other faiths. Sadly, several U.S. politicians, instead of discouraging such groups, have given them respectability in the name of faith.

Just as the institution of slavery was incompatible with the teachings of Jesus Christ, so too is the religious supremacist approach, demonstrated by the three hecklers who sought to prevent a Hindu priest from opening the July 12 session of the U.S. Senate by a prayer that called for reflection on "the glory of the Supreme Deity, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky, and inside the soul of Heaven." Rajan Zed of Nevada ended with the traditional Hindu invocation: "Peace, peace, peace." This is hardly stuff that can be said to challenge the Christian scriptures, but to the protestors, any "non-Christian prayer" was sacrilegious, even one that celebrated the unity of the divine.

These days, fundamentalist groups that have misappropriated the term "Christian" fund missions to India, where preachers use language against local beliefs and deities that is, to put it mildly, uncomplimentary. In this, they are following in the path of the "professors" at Islamabad's Red Mosque, who told their charges that Hindus were "pigs" and Christians "dogs."

Sadly, even within the once-tolerant Hindu faith, organized groups have appeared that talk venomously about the Christian and Muslim faiths. Even while being challenged within their own societies -- the courageous women of Saudi Arabia and Iran, including several from high society such as the al-Sauds and the Rafsanjanis, have been battling with reactionary clerics to win back the rights for women that the Prophet Mohammad ensured -- the purveyors of the "W-K virus" appear to have found new hosts to infect with their virulent concoction of hate. It is unlikely that any of the three "Christian" Wahabbis that created a commotion in the Visitors Gallery of the U.S. Senate that day had even the merest knowledge of Sanatan Dharma, the philosophy that underpins the Hindu faith.

While different paths may exist, all lead to the same goal, which is the realization of the divine. Those who seek to overturn the modern core of Western values, which is an acceptance of diversity in thinking and in people, are metamorphosing into a security risk that can place their own countries in danger of a violent reaction from those traduced and marginalized.

Interestingly, the very groups that are the loudest defenders of what they consider "Christian values" are often the most vociferous critics of the overwhelmingly Christian migration from Mexico to the United States. Clearly, there is more than religion at issue here. What is at stake is an outdated perception of humanity that refuses to recognize the "flattening" of our species as a consequence of the knowledge economy, which gives each individual the chance to excel, within his or her chosen faith.

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(Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and professor of geopolitics at Manipal University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat)