Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Sven Torfinn/IRIN

Girls abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army are beaten and sexually abused.

OCHA IRIN | In-depth | Life in northern Uganda | UGANDA: Overview

Since 1986, northern Uganda has been racked by insurgencies. The latest and longest of these rebellions, that of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has devastated Acholi, an area close to Uganda’s border with Sudan, and has now spread to the neighbouring subregions of Teso and Lango. No one knows for sure how many people have died, but estimates run into the tens of thousands.

The war between the LRA and the national army, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) has had a telling effect on the inhabitants of northern Uganda. The three districts of the Acholi subregion, Gulu, Kitgum and Pader, have been particularly hard hit. Death and disease rates are high, and food is scarce. About 80 percent of Acholi’s people live in “protected villages” and camps for IDPs, which are often overcrowded, and lack adequate water, sanitation and health services. Devoid of any means of livelihood in the camps, a people of farmers and cattle rearers have been reduced to near-total dependence on donated food and other humanitarian aid.

Child abductions have long been a major feature of the conflict, but the number shot up after the UPDF launched an offensive against the LRA in March 2002. The rebels kidnapped more than 10,000 children between June 2002 and October 2003, up from 101 in 2001. This brought the total number abducted by the LRA since the start of the conflict to more than 20,000.

Abductees are made to carry heavy loads over long distances. Those who lag behind or fall ill are beaten or killed. Some are forced to kill, maim, beat or abduct innocent victims, or to look on as such abuses are committed. Sexual violence against girls and women is rampant. They are used as domestic servants or forced into sexual slavery as LRA commanders’ ‘wives’. They are subject to rape, unwanted pregnancy and the risk of infection, including HIV.

USG Open Source Center summary and partial translation of Bin Laden’s tape of December 29, 2007, as posted on Juan Cole’s blog Informed Comment on December 30, 2007

On 29 December, a participant in a jihadist website posted several links to a 56-minute audio message by Al-Qa’ida Organization leader Usama Bin Ladin entitled “The Way to Foil Plots” produced by the Al-Sahab Media Production Organization, the media arm of Al-Qa’ida Organization.

The audio recording plays against the background of a still image of Bin Ladin and a map of Iraq.

Bin Ladin begins his message by addressing the Islamic nation in general, the “patient and steadfast people in Iraq’s fronts and fortress towns,” the “leaders of mujahidin groups and shura councils,” and “the chieftains of free and proud tribes.”

Bin Ladin says: “My talk to you is about the plots that are being hatched by the Zionist-Crusader alliance, led by America, in cooperation with its agents in the region, to steal the fruit of blessed jihad in the land of two rivers, and what we should do to foil these plots. It is no secret that America is using all military and political means to entrench its troops in Iraq. Having realized its military failure, it stepped up its political and media efforts to deceive Muslims. One of its wicked schemes was to tempt the tribes and buy their allegiance to form the councils of dissension, which they termed as awakening councils.”

He notes that “many” tribes refused to form such councils. He beseeches God to help these tribes to adhere to this stand. He accuses late Abd-al-Sattar Abu-Rishah, founder of Al-Anbar Awakening Council, of “betraying the religion and nation.”

Pew Global Attitudes Project: III. Islam, Modernity and Terrorism: The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other, June 13, 2007

In Jordan, confidence in bin Laden has plummeted since May 2005. A year ago, 25% of Jordanians said they had a lot of confidence in bin Laden to “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” while another 35% said they had some confidence. Today, almost no Jordanians (fewer than 1%) express a lot of confidence in bin Laden, and 24% say they have some confidence in him.

In Pakistan, confidence in bin Laden also has fallen, though not quite as dramatically. In May 2005, a majority of Pakistanis (51%) expressed at least some confidence in bin Laden; that number has declined to 38% in the current survey.

To be sure, bin Laden still has followers in the Muslim world. Fully 61% of Muslims in Nigeria express a lot of confidence (33%) or some confidence (28%) in bin Laden; that represents a significant increase from May 2003 (44%). Bin Laden’s standing in Pakistan has eroded, but more Pakistanis still express at least some confidence in bin Laden than say they have little or no confidence in him (by 38% to 30%). And a third of Indonesians continue to express at least some confidence in the al Qaeda leader.

Among European Muslims, only about one-in-twenty Muslims in Germany and France express even some confidence in bin Laden to do the right thing in world affairs. But that figure rises to 14% among Muslims in Great Britain, and 16% of Spanish Muslims.

aljazeera.net, December 29, 2007, بن لادن يدعو “لرفض خطة أميركية للسيطرة على نفط العراق”

دعا زعيم تنظيم القاعدة أسامة بن لادن العراقيين لرفض “خطة أميركية بتشكيل حكومة جديدة من أجل السيطرة على إمدادات النفط وبناء قواعد عسكرية والهيمنة على المنطقة”

وقال بن لادن في تسجيل صوتي على شبكة الإنترنت إن من يشاركون في الخطة “يخرجون من ملة الإسلام”, مشيرا إلى أن الهدف من الخطة هو إعطاء الأميركيين كل ما يريدونه من نفط العراق

وكانت الجزيرة بثت في أكتوبر/تشرين الماضي تسجيلا صوتيا منسوبا لزعيم تنظيم القاعدة حمل عنوان “رسالة لأهل العراق”, دعا فيها تنظيمه والجماعات المسلحة إلى نبذ التعصب وتوحيد صفوفها وتغليب مصلحة الأمة الإسلامية على ما عداها وتحكيم شرع الله في كل أمر.

Bin Laden Discusses Iraq and Israel, AP, New York Times, December 29, 2007

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Osama bin Laden warned Iraq’s Sunni Arabs against fighting al-Qaida and vowed to expand the terror group’s holy war to Israel in a new audiotape Saturday, threatening ”blood for blood, destruction for destruction.”

Most of the 56-minute tape dealt with Iraq, apparently al-Qaida’s latest attempt to keep supporters in Iraq unified at a time when the U.S. military claims to have al-Qaida’s Iraq branch on the run.

The tape did not mention Pakistan or the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, though Pakistan’s government has blamed al-Qaida and the Taliban for her death on Thursday.

But bin Laden’s comments offered an unusually direct attack on Israel, which has warned of growing al-Qaida activity in Palestinian territory. The terror network is not believed to have taken a strong role there so far.

”We intend to liberate Palestine, the whole of Palestine from the (Jordan) river to the sea,” he said, threatening ”blood for blood, destruction for destruction.”

”We will not recognize even one inch for Jews in the land of Palestine as other Muslim leaders have,” bin Laden said.

In Iraq, a number of Sunni Arab tribes in western Anbar province have formed a coalition fighting al-Qaida-linked insurgents that U.S. officials credit for deeply reducing violence in the province. The U.S. military has been working to form similar ”Awakening Councils” in other areas of Iraq.

Indian police shoot three dead, BBC, December 29, 2007

Police in the eastern Indian state of Orissa shot and killed at least three people on Thursday in continuing communal violence, officials say.

Police opened fire on a large crowd of Hindus after a village police station was set on fire.

The crowd had been complaining about a lack of protection after Christians set fire to several Hindu homes.

Christians had retaliated after 19 churches were destroyed in violence that began on Christmas Eve….

Members of the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) said Christians sparked the violence by attacking one of their leaders, Swami Laxamananda Saraswati, on Monday.

Hindu groups also accuse Christian missionaries of forcing tribal people and low-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity.

But Christians deny the claims and accuse the Hindus of objecting to them celebrating Christmas.

Pakistani former premier Benazir Bhutto (L) and party vice president Makhdoom Amin Faheem (R) look on during her last election campaign rally in Rawalpindi 27 December 2007.

Photo from Getty Images by AFP/Getty Images – Daylife, December 27, 2007

Gideon Levy: Twilight Zone / Deer hunters – Haaretz, December 28, 2007

According to the IDF, “the incident was investigated at all levels of command, and the lessons will be learned and applied. The findings of the investigation will be conveyed to the Military Advocate General’s Office.”

Antigona Ashkar, from the human rights organization B’Tselem, who also investigated the event, wrote to the chief military prosecutor, Colonel Liron Liebman, saying: “The soldiers opened fire at Jamil, Baha and Firas suddenly, with no prior warning. The three were sitting on a boulder and looking at the view, and did not endanger anyone. They were surprised by the emergence of the soldiers from between the trees and remained where they were until the soldiers started shooting at them.” B’Tselem requested a Military Police investigation of the circumstances of the killing.

The B’Tselem field-worker in the Ramallah region, Iyad Hadad, said this week at the site of the killing: “It was a hunt. Those soldiers went on a hunting expedition. They killed Firas the way you hunt a deer or a stag. They couldn’t have had any other reason for shooting him.”

Jamil added: “What did the soldiers see in his hand? What did we do? Did they see a weapon in his hand? Was there a demonstration going on? Did we throw stones at anyone? They just shot us without batting an eyelash.”

In the village of Batir, Firas’ widow, Majida, in black mourning clothes, sits in her small, simple home. She is holding her infant daughter Sadil. At three months, Sadil’s father has been taken from her. The other two girls – Latifa, four, and Naama, two and a half – wander restlessly about their meager living room, blowing soap bubbles, until the whole room is filled with them.

Perrspectives Blog: Huckabee Proclaims Ignorance of Iran NIE, Evolution, December 5, 2007

As the Arkansas Times detailed in 2006, the teaching of evolution in state classrooms reached a crisis of biblical proportions (pun intended) during Huckabee’s tenure as Governor. One teacher reported his public school prohibited the use of the “e-word” and that “I am supposed to say that these rocks are VERY VERY OLD…but I am NOT to say that these rocks are thought to be about 300 million years old.” In a survey of public school instructors attending professional science education workshops in Arkansas, “80 percent of the teachers surveyed are not adequately teaching evolutionary science.”As the Arkansas Times detailed, then Governor Huckabee claimed not to know that schools in his state were pressuring instructors not to teach evolution in the classroom. In its article titled “Scientists Discover That Evolution is Missing from Arkansas Classrooms,” the paper documented this shocking July 2004 exchange between Huckabee and a pupil on “Arkansans Ask,” his regular show on the Arkansas Educational Television Network:

STUDENT: Many schools in Arkansas are failing to teach students about evolution according to the educational standards of our state. Since it is against these standards to teach creationism, how would you go about helping our state educate students more sufficiently for this?

HUCKABEE: Are you saying some students are not getting exposure to the various theories of creation?

STUDENT (stunned): No, of evol…well, of evolution specifically. It’s a biological study that should be educated [taught], but is generally not.

MODERATOR: Schools are dodging Darwinism? Is that what you…?

STUDENT: Yes.

HUCKABEE: I’m not familiar that they’re dodging it. Maybe they are. But I think schools also ought to be fair to all views. Because, frankly, Darwinism is not an established scientific fact. It is a theory of evolution, that’s why it’s called the theory of evolution.

Adi Schwartz, A courageous journey, Haaretz, December 27, 2007

“The Himmler Brothers: A German Family History” by Katrin Himmler, translated from German into English by Michael Mitchell, Macmillan, 352 pages, 14.99 pounds sterling

The media in the United States recently reported the story of an elderly American Jew, a Holocaust survivor, the resident of a well-to-do California suburb. One day a new tenant, also elderly, moved into the house next door, beyond the small garden. Courteously, the Jewish man decided to call on the new neighbor and perhaps greet him with a warm apple pie. But the moment the door opened, the Jew recalled that he had already seen this person. It was then, back there, more than 60 years ago, on the train platform at Auschwitz – a German facing a Jew, an executioner facing a victim. More than 60 years had elapsed, but the Jew’s heart began to beat wildly….

Katrin discovers the fact that never, until their deaths in the 1970s, had any of that generation of the family expressed any sign of regret for the disaster they had brought upon their country and upon humanity.

From the author’s hands has emerged a fascinating document reminiscent of Christopher Browning’s book “Ordinary Men.” Instead of dealing with the institutional aspect of the slaughter of the Jews, Katrin Himmler tries to follow the dynamics and psychology of the ordinary German – the one who was in the party “like everyone else,” who perhaps had not been at Hitler’s side from the Beer Hall Putsch on, but ultimately impelled him to help make the terrible disaster possible….

This story has a fascinating final note: Katrin Himmler is in a relationship with an Israeli man, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, and the couple has a son. At the end of the book, the author writes that she is still afraid of the moment when her son discovers that one side of his family had done everything it could to kill the other side.

Ira Moskowitz, Giddy about killing, Haaretz, December 28, 2007

There is a well-known Talmudic story suggesting that any celebration of victory should be tempered when it comes at the cost of human life. In this story, God scolds the angels for bursting into song after the Israelites’ miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, which then crashed down upon the Egyptians: “The work of my hands is drowning in the sea and you want to chant a song before me?”

The giggly banter on Army Radio about the killings in Gaza expresses the dehumanization of God’s handiwork, a process that has fueled wars throughout human history. After all, it is easier to kill our enemies if we regard them as less human.

In fact, most people must be trained to disregard the humanity of others in order to be capable of killing them, argues Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a former U.S. Army paratrooper. In his book, “On Killing,” Grossman cites studies indicating that only 15-20 percent of American riflemen in World War II actually fired at the enemy in combat situations. His conclusion: “There is within most men an intense resistance to killing their fellow man.”

According to Grossman, the U.S. military developed sophisticated methods of training soldiers to overcome this instinctive aversion, and firing rates reached 90-95 percent among American combat soldiers in Vietnam. Part of this process, which he calls “psychological warfare conducted upon one’s own troops,” involved dehumanizing the enemy. This included replacing bull’s-eye targets in marksmanship training with man-shaped silhouettes, and screening films that desensitized recruits to violence and indoctrinated them with contempt for the enemy.

Indian Christians held candles during a demonstration yesterday in New Delhi against the recent violence on Christians and their churches on Christmas in the Indian state of Orissa. (Manish Swarup/Associated Press)

Gavin Rabinowitz, Hindus, Christians torch homes and churches in India, AP, Boston Globe, December 28, 2007

NEW DELHI – Hindu extremists torched nearly a dozen churches and the home of a Christian leader yesterday, defying a curfew imposed to quell three days of religious violence in eastern India. Christians retaliated by setting fire to several homes belonging to Hindus.

Police have been unsuccessful in halting the attacks and the federal government announced it was sending in a paramilitary force.About 19 churches, most of them small mud and thatch buildings, have been razed since violence broke out on Christmas Eve when long-standing tensions between the Hindu majority and the small Christian community erupted over conversions to Christianity.

Hindu groups have long charged Christian missionaries with trying to lure the poor and those who occupy the lowest rungs of Hinduism’s complex caste-system away with promises of money and jobs.

Yesterday, a group of Hindus burned down the house of Radhakant Nayak, a member of India’s upper house of parliament and a Christian leader in the area, Nayak told the CNN-IBN news channel.

Also, 11 churches were ransacked and burned in Kandhamal district of Orissa state, the Press Trust of India quoted unnamed police officials as saying.

Superintendent of Police Narsingh Bhol said several prayer houses were ransacked and some were set on fire, but he did not have the exact number.

Meanwhile, in the village of Brahmangaon, a group of Christians burned down several Hindu homes in an apparent retaliation for the attack on churches. Angry Hindus then burned down the village police station….

Orissa has one of the worst histories of anti-Christian violence. An Australian missionary and his two sons, aged 8 and 10, were burned to death in their car in Orissa following a Bible study class in 1999. Orissa is the only Indian state that has a law requiring people to obtain police permission before they change their religion. The law was intended to counter missionary work.

Christian Parenti, Congo’s crisis, Congo’s history – International Herald Tribune, December 27, 2007

The horrors of violence in the eastern Congo demand some explanation. Reports from the ground paint a picture of a hell on earth, one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. But too often these reports, providing little context, can leave an implicitly racist aftertaste. The implication seems to be, “Well, these people are just savages.” Some history makes the madness appear slightly more logical, if no less evil.

Several months ago, I visited Goma, a city on the Rwandan border. The surrounding countryside of North Kivu Province is the epicenter of Congo’s violence. In the lush mountains outside the city, UN troops and the national army – such as it is – face an array of competing militias. Among them are General Nkunda’s Tutsi forces, who fight against elements of the old Hutu Interuwama of Rwanda (the FDLR). Nkunda also fights the government’s army: a largely unpaid force of ragged former militiamen and boys. The government and the UN want Nkunda to disband his forces as part of the peace process.

Further north are the Mai Mai, some of whom began as followers of the leftist independence leader Patrice Lumumba, but that was long ago. These days they fight naked, protect themselves against enemy bullets by washing in water, and commit atrocious human rights abuses. Around the time I visited Goma, a band of Mai Mai raided a village and systematically raped scores of women – a crime all too common. The International Crisis Group estimates that throughout the Congo “over 1,000 people continue to die each day from conflict-related causes.”

Many of the militias finance themselves by exporting illegal timber, diamonds, gold and other resources to Rwanda and Uganda. Both countries export these products in amounts that seem to far exceed their own natural supplies. This traffic in “conflict resources” makes the elites of Rwanda and Uganda rich, and helps the general development of both economies.

“In my view, Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan Valley is a Jewish state,” said Shaul Goldstein, mayor of a group of settlements that form the Gush Etzion Regional Council, at his home in Neve Daniel.
(Ilan Mizrahi / For The Times)

Richard Boudreaux, A West Bank struggle rooted in land – Los Angeles Times, December 27, 2007

Goldstein is a tall, energetic and articulate defender of the settler movement and one of its more moderate leaders. He boasts of “very good relations” with his construction company’s Palestinian employees and most of his Palestinian neighbors, and says they must be accommodated in what he calls the land of Israel.

But he complains that his initiatives to cooperate with Palestinian village mayors on issues such as earthquake preparedness and water purification have been vetoed by the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. He depicts the Nassar family’s legal battle, which blocks his settlement’s expansion, as an example of the same rejectionist stance.

“It is very difficult to make coexistence and civil relations with people who consider themselves part of a society that declared war against you,” Goldstein said.

Israel says it has a special claim to this part of the West Bank, dating to David’s biblical kingdom.

Norman Levitt, What a Friend We Have in Dawkins, and Michael Shermer, Arguing for Atheism, Skeptic, January 31, 2007

Discourse in this country is sometimes held in such a death-grip by religion that a genial “up yours” directed thereto is, perhaps, the only way to initiate a meaningful conversation on matters theological. Dawkins certainly supplies one in his recent book, The God Delusion. He is the Voice of Faith and Inspiration (as a fundamentalist radio station in my neighborhood used to style itself) though the faith, of course, is in the penetrating power of human reason in the absence of any cosmic Imaginary Friend, while what he inspires is chiefly a determination not to be intimidated by the religiosity that saturates our culture.

Dawkins is a wondrously efficient and beguiling writer — colloquial, unpretentious, and direct, notwithstanding his deep erudition and the exacting reasoning he continually deploys. The obvious comparison is to Bertrand Russell, a thinker with similar views and a similar gift for turning a devastating phrase. But Dawkins’s virtues also include easy familiarity with popular culture, American as well as British. He cleverly uses it to gain the ear of an audience that, perhaps, would be a bit put off by a purely academic style.

It is greatly encouraging to note that this book has been on the New York Times bestseller list for over four straight months (as of January, 2007), and that this is not just a one-shot deal. It’s a good bet that ten or fifteen years ago, that wouldn’t have been the case. Until relatively recently, most mainstream publishers would likely have treated any work heaping scorn on conventional belief as pure poison, commercially. Why has the climate changed so much? My own guess is that the surge of the religious Right into the corridors of power has put many heretofore diffident unbelievers into a position where a fight-or-flight choice has to be made. Many — not only those who write in defense of godlessness, but also a wide spectrum of literate intellectuals — have chosen to fight, disdaining the notion that tactful silence best serves the right to unbelief. In any event, the infidels are now out in force to an extent not seen since the glory days of Ambrose Bierce and H.L. Mencken. Today’s primus inter pares amongst the paladins of rationalism is Dawkins, who, though British down to his toes, fights brilliantly on American soil.

The ideal readership for The God Delusion consists neither of grizzled old infidels like me nor of those still clinging to the frayed shrouds of faith who might be persuaded to turn them loose by a few more well-honed arguments. Instead, the book is best suited to a rather young reader — in the 15-to-30 demographic, say — who has recently discarded religion (or simply realized that it was never part of his or her makeup) and whose major need is for an arsenal of conceptual and rhetorical strategies to deal with peer hostility, cultural and political pressures, familial unhappiness, and so forth.