WAR WITHOUT END
In my view we are heading into a religious war the end of which we cannot foresee. The parties to the war are Christianity and Islam with Judaism remotely connected. Syria is not the remote cause of the massive refugee problem the world is witnessing. Syria, coupled with the carnage in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are the immediate causes of the current upheaval and not the remote cause.
They say religion is the opium of the masses. Religion is described as the belief in an unseen being. Religion is simply indoctrination. Everybody born into a religion is indoctrinated from birth to believe in a particular seen or unseen being. For the Christian, for instance, it starts from infancy, from churching to baptism to confirmation and so on, praying to your God when you wake up in the morning, before eating, before nearly everything you do, before going to bed at night. Your religion is you. It is a drug administered on you from birth and you are with it to death. I believe the same is true of Islam. Adherents are indoctrinated from childhood. They even pray a prescribed eight times a day. Religion is supposed to make the world more orderly. Indeed I believe that without religion the world would be a terrible place to live in.
There are all sorts of religions in all parts of the world, in Europe, the Far East, Africa and the Americas. But all the others put together do not go near to causing the level of confusion these three religions that originated from the Middle East cause the world.
JUDAISM
This is the religion of the Jews, of about fourteen million people. God adopted the Jews as His favourite children and gave them a large portion of the Middle East as their inheritance even though there were people already there. From that moment they have been at war with their kith and kin, the Arabs, the Islamists, to enforce their inheritance. Since then they have been killing the Arabs and the Arabs have been killing them. Eventually the Jews found themselves in exile, scattered all over Europe. They remained in exile for two thousand years. In Europe they were ill-treated and persecuted wherever they were found. But despite all that they prospered. And they stuck to their religion. Eventually Hitler decided to eliminate them completely and killed over six million of them.
It is possible that after the Second World War the Europeans were so filled with guilt over the maltreatment of the Jews that the League of Nations decided to resettle the Jews they could find exactly where they had been plucked from two thousand years ago and brought them to what is now called Israel. The Arabs, their mortal enemies, rejected that resettlement and several wars have been fought to remove the Jews from the face of the earth. But Israel has been resilient, indestructible and after each war captured more Arab territory. Those wars resulted in a massive refugee problem with up to three million people now in refugee camps in full-time planning of how to wipe out the Jews. If anybody wants to know how terrorism came to be he should look no further than the Arab – Israeli wars and the refugees resulting there-from.
I stand to be corrected but I believe Al Qaeda, ISIS and all the other weird and murderous gangs operating around the world perpetrating heinous crimes like the 9/11 US bombings, the British bus and train attacks, the recent massacre in Paris, the bombing of the Russian plane, the Nairobi US Embassy attack, the recent Mali Hotel incident and so many other wicked acts of terrorism have their root there. The present mass unrest and refugee crises swamping Europe are remotely connected to the everlasting feud between the Arabs and the Jews.
ISLAM
Since the coming of Prophet Mohammad Islam has been a fractured religion, like a house divided, with many sects fighting themselves as to the best way to get to Allah. Islam is like a headless body, without an acknowledged leader. Where is the rallying point? You cannot pinpoint anybody as the person who can call the majority Sunni sect to order. The two countries with the largest Sunni population are Turkey and Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia is basking in the glitter of being the leader of a coalition using, to quote CNN, `young Arab girls shedding stereotypes’ and flying frightening American war planes to bomb the Houthi of Yemen and whoever else is unfortunate enough to be in the way to pieces. It does not matter that the Houthi are fellow Muslims. But they have committed the unforgivable crime of being Shiites. Worse than that, they have allegiance to Ali Khamenei, the Supreme leader of Iran, the hated leader of the second largest sect in Islam. On its side Turkey is sitting on the fence not wanting to get involved in the war in Syria even when they know that the various factions, ISIS, Nusra Front and others are Sunni. On its side Iran the leader of the Shiite sect is busy fighting expansionist wars. Iran has seized the major opportunity of global recognition in teaming up with Russia to support the recognised leader of Syria against Sunni terrorists.
What is happening in the Middle East can be traced back to the unfinished and seemingly everlasting war between the Arabs and Israel that started centuries ago when God bequeathed a large swathe of the region that included Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine to the Jews as an inheritance. A pointer is that after concluding the recent historic nuclear deal with the major world powers the Supreme leader of Iran and the Shiites, Khamenei, came out to say publicly that Israel will be wiped out within twenty-five years. This suggests that he was, and may still be, building nuclear capacity to wipe out Israel. It seems clear that his intention is to get full control of the Arabs to be in a position to wage the `final’ war, Jihad, with Israel.
Now European countries and the United States of America have fully been on the side of Israel in their war of survival. America arms Israel with the latest weapons of mass destruction. Any American president or presidential candidate that does not support Israel will fail for Jews are in control of America and most of the financial institutions of Europe. Of course another main reason why the West supports Israel is religion! They have large populations of Christians, at least on paper. Of course there are many atheists. But in case of emergency atheists will fight for their countries. Virtually every Christian has affinity to Israel, answers a Jewish name, or wants to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. My Vicar’s name is Israel. One day I will ask him why he answers that Jewish name even though he knows that the vast majority of Jews are not Christians. But I can guess that the name identifies him with Israel’s invincibility.
Terrorism seems to be the way of Muslims to demonstrate their frustration against all those who have been unflinchingly on the side of Israel, those who have been against their avowed ambition to wipe out Israel. The theme is revenge, hatred.
Of course even though this write up has tried to identify the remote cause of terrorism, certain actions of Russia, Europe and the United States of America in more recent times have played a major role in the globalisation of terrorism. Russia and the United Sates played war games in Afghanistan with largely Christian soldiers in a Muslim country for years obviously trampling on the customs and traditions of the natives. The United States are still there fighting the Taliban. Obviously lives were lost and everlasting enemies were made and are still being made. The United States and her allies were deceived into going to trample over Iraq, a Muslim nation, to remove Saddam Hussein, the `oppressor’ of his people and to introduce democracy. They left Iraq in pieces, in worse condition than when they went in. Obviously they made a lot of enemies and more terrorists were born. Then NATO, supported by the United States, went into Libya, another Muslim nation, and removed Gaddafi, `the oppressor’, and it is now a failed State with weapons everywhere. Libya is now a play ground for ISIS and other wicked terrorist organisations. With no leader in control it is also now a gateway for African refugees trooping into Europe.
CHRISTIANITY
Christians believe that the only way to get to God is through Jesus Christ, born a Jew. The Jews regard Jesus as the son of a carpenter. 95% of them do not believe in Him. But 2.1 billion humans believe in Him. At the beginning there was persecution in Christianity hence the splintering from the Catholic Church into so many Protestant Churches. But there is now order in Christianity which is virtually pacifist with the doctrine of love and forgiveness, turn the other cheek when you are slapped. Christianity is a religion with known leadership. The Pope controls the Catholics. The Arch Bishop of Canterbury controls the Anglicans and so on. The Pope recently had a wonderfully successful trip to the United States of America. He has been touring the world preaching peace and love. He has just concluded his recent tour to Africa with the same message, peace, love and togetherness. All the other Churches have known leaders and meet often for the peace of the world.
Christians are like the people caught in the middle of a murderous fight. ISIS have been slaughtering them wherever they have found them, the Yazzidi, the Coptic Christians. The Mali gang that seized the Raddisson Blu spared the Muslims who could recite the Quran and slaughtered the Christians. Muslims have been periodically murdering Christians in Northern Nigeria. The Muslims do not preach peace and love. Khamenei and his Iranian subjects keep chanting `Death to the Americans’, `Death to the Jews.’ At the slightest provocation Muslims resort to violence. The sad case of Akaluka is still fresh in my memory. The young chap was beheaded and his head impaled on a stake and carried round Kano some years ago. The reason for the barbaric act was that he desecrated the Koran. A Saudi Arabian poet has just been sentenced to death for insulting Islam!
THE WAY FORWARD
The Russians are right. Assad is the world recognised leader of a sovereign country, Syria. The Americans are wrong in insisting that Assad must vacate power before peace can reign which relegates them to supporting one gang of the many terrorist gangs fighting Assad’s world recognised government. Who is to say that if the particular group succeeds in toppling Assad they will have the overall support of the country and the war will end?
The Sunnis, the largest Islamic sect are in disarray and want to drag the rest of the world into its confusion. The flood of refugees trooping into Europe will completely disorganise Europe and extreme right wing leadership that will oppose absorbing refugees into Europe may begin emerging in countries all over Europe. And this will bring more confusion into Europe and set each country against itself. My sympathy goes to Europe particularly the small countries some of whom are 100% Christian. If they are forced to admit a chunk of refugees, mostly Muslims, by quota, they are being asked to overnight become multi-religious countries. It is like redistributing trouble. Soon they will begin having religious problems. Furthermore, it can be seen from the example of the Paris bombings that suicide bombers and other societal misfits may be admitted into otherwise orderly societies. Europe is therefore in trouble. It cannot completely shut its borders. On the other hand it cannot open its doors to all and sundry.
The United States of America and Russia and the European countries must get together, forge a defensive union, and compel the Arab countries especially those dominated by the Sunni to raise a Sunni army to help the Sunni sect clean up its act in Syria. The Europeans must not allow themselves to be drawn into a situation in which they send their soldiers the majority of whom are likely to be Christians into a direct ground war with Muslims within Muslim countries. By all means provide the advisers and weapons but let the Muslims fight their own war.
There has to be a platform, or an international movement whose task is to convince Khamenei and the other Arab nations to sheath their swords and let Israel be for the sake of world peace. They should be told that they cannot destroy Israel. The world will not let them. They should publicly recognise the existence of the country called Israel. They should use their money to improve conditions for their deprived and starving citizenry rather than throwing it away on a futile adventure. On the other hand Israel must be persuaded to stop further settlements in the West Bank of the Jordan. Palestine must have its independence from Israel. The situation where one country has captured millions of Arabs in Palestine and Gaza and treats them like prisoners cannot be allowed to continue for long. Can you imagine that Gaza is in shambles and blockaded while the world looks on. Once in a while Arabs from Gaza shoot catapults and throw stones into Israel and Israel replies with bombs. And the world is looking on and doing nothing.
In the end one thing is certain. This Third World War is not ending soon. The Western world can, from now, never sleep with two eyes closed. Yes, Islamist extremists have succeeded in dragging the whole western world into its war. Yes, Europe, Russia and the United States might coordinate the removal of ISIS from Racca and Mosul and from other cities of Iraq and Syria. But ISIS is here to stay just like Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda has not been wiped out after so many years after 9/11 and so many other atrocities despite drone strikes. Nobody knows exactly where they are but they are everywhere! And these clever terrorists may soon devise a way of dragging even China into their war having already spread their terror into India. The opium of the masses is another name for war everlasting.