The Hindu mind, it has been said, is subtle when it analyses, simple when it believes. Though intended as a barb, the statement has some merit. Hindu intellectual subtlety is without parallel; surrender to the Divine is the hallmark of faith. The American mind presents a stark contrast: crude when it analyses, gross when it believes. Anyone doubting the veracity of this view may read the piffle being peddled in the CIA-funded Rand Corporation report, “Exploring Religious Conflict,” authored by Gregory F. Treverton, Heather S. Gregg, Daniel Gibran and Charles W. Yost.
The report reveals America’s anxiety to protect White Christian nations from an adamant Islam with a demonstrated ability to strike predetermined targets globally. Despite the Yale Divinity School finding “stridently evangelical themes” advanced and religious expletives used against non-Christian cadets at Colorado Air Force Academy (The Denver Post, 28 June 2005), Rand eulogizes America as “a religious country (like India) with a very secular tradition of government (like Sweden).” Despite America pressurizing Sri Lanka to permit freedom to evangelists in tsunami-hit areas, Rand pretends that the shock of 9/11 alone compelled Uncle Sam to look at “religious motivations in international politics.”
Still, the Rand report is important because it signals America’s desire to unfurl a primitive crusading Christianity with the goal of world dominion. Islam is the stumbling block in this “cosmic war,” which is “physical, not metaphysical,” because it has an equal ambition. My own assessment of the report is that America has not overcome its Vietnam Syndrome, and dares not face psychologically unbeaten opponents. Hence, though it will enter Muslim countries as necessitated by its global ambitions, Washington will also try to placate Islam and purchase peace. This may involve seriously compromising Jewish interests, something hitherto unthinkable in US foreign policy.
This can be discerned in the warning that “the use of military force as a tool for combating cosmic war could be counterproductive; force could perpetuate the perception that a religious group is under attack and must fight for preservation of the faith.” The analysts suggest that in dealing with the “perceived clash between Islam and current US foreign policy,” attempts should be made to blur the historic conflict between Islam and Christianity/ the West and emphasize possible points of convergence.
Since there is no talk of mitigating this “historic conflict,” we may reasonably expect it to continue. In such a scenario, “points of convergence” can only mean concord on regions where both sides can scramble for spoils without mutual conflict. This is a remake of America’s Open Door Policy in nineteenth century China, which historians called “Me Too” imperialism. In its twenty-first century incarnation, Washington will want India to engage the fury of Islamic fundamentalism solo, while it scrambles for souls on the same soil, in preparation for the final showdown.
My suspicion that Washington may jettison the Jews requires explanation. Rand has a bogus section on New Religious Movements. In America, it highlights an obscure Christian Identity movement, which claims northern Europeans are the real lost tribes of Israel. It believes “non-White races evolved from animals and are categorized as subhumans” (such enlightenment) and that “biblical covenants apply only to the White race.” It has intense hatred for “deceptive and evil” Jews and Judaism, and favours battle between the “true” tribe of Israel and its enemies.
There seems little purpose in this nonsense unless the intention is to plant the seeds of thought (read propaganda) in the assertive Bible Belt that wants to teach the Biblical Creation as Science in schools! Certainly, rabid anti-Judaism is consistent with the crude Christian fundamentalism resurfacing in America under President Bush. Historically also, Judaism is Christianity’s First Hate; the Jews by and large ignored the early Christians. No wonder Rand did not think fit to study the Moral Majority and Neo Conservative Movement!
Rand says 9/11 identified religion as a source of global violence. It adds, but fails to substantiate, that religious violence is “so deeply interwoven into other sources of violence – economic, ideological, territorial, and ethnic – that it is difficult to isolate.” I view this as reluctance to engage with the Koran’s injunction for jihad. Ironically, the report admits that Al Qaeda sees America as a “paper tiger” because it quit Lebanon and Somalia. America is therefore being targetted so that it lets Al Qaeda “get at the corrupt regimes in the Middle East and return the region to Islamic glory.”
The core of the Rand report deals with the twin threats posed to US hegemony by the Sunni Al Qaeda and Iraq’s rising Shia leadership. Al Qaeda resents Christian invasion of Muslim lands. European colonial powers split the geo-cultural continuum that could have made Jordan, Iraq and Kuwait a single political entity, and further humiliated the Arabs / Muslims by creating Israel. Al Qaeda resents Egypt’s pro-Western rulers, as also Turkey’s abolition of the Caliphate in 1924. It aspires to restore the Caliphate, unite the Ummah by abolishing borders, and expel Western invaders from Muslim soil.
Rand feels that though America toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, the “war on terror” was partially successful as Al Qaeda’s network of non-state actors poses a serious threat to the superpower. The report opines that Islam in Europe is a threat to the US, because Muslims do not perceive themselves as Europeans, but as Muslims first. Even the Europe-born younger generation exhibits strong affinity for Islam, which has been accentuated by the perception that America is waging a “war against Islam.”
Policy makers in India and Sri Lanka should note that Rand categorically admits that conversion to Islam in Europe and America is a matter of deep concern! The reasons are not far to seek – any dilution of White Christian identity will impact upon national identity and national security on both continents. So conversion is not simply a matter of individual choice; loss of religion involves loss of culture and loss of identity even in the United States, and causes anxiety to its “secular” government!
Iran’s 1979 Khomeini revolution gave the hitherto quietist Shia Islam a political radicalism that quickly spread in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. Though the deeply revered Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani is a moderate, the challenge to America comes from the hugely popular, youthful and radical Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr. The latter believes that Shias should fight for State power and condemns the US occupation. Sadr’s popularity caused America to execute a warrant for his arrest in March 2004, which he defeated by hiding in the sacred shrine of Najaf, and letting the subsequent worldwide Muslim outrage impose discretion upon the superpower! America’s retreat fuelled Shia political assertion in Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon and naturally, Iraq.
Rand claims Christianity and Islam comprise 40 percent of the global population, but are mutually wary of each other. Christians fear Islam’s expansion in the West; Muslims hate the war on terror. Rand’s solution is that America “give less pride of place to electoral democracy and more to religious freedom.” This is an euphemism for accommodating rising dictators in the Islamic world, and focusing evangelical activities outside each others’ territories. America will seek sacrificial goats to appease Islam as it tries to postpone the inevitable clash between the two. The resilience of India’s dharmic traditions challenges both; we must be doubly vigilant.
The Pioneer, 23 August 2005