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THINKING ALOUD: Politics, elections and God —Razi Azmi

Muslims have yet to learn the lesson the Europeans learnt long ago, namely, that religion and politics don't mix well. Since the so-called Islamisation carried out under Zia ul Haq, Pakistan has steadily gone down the road of sectarian strife and violence

Religion and politics make for a very lethal combination, not just for others but also for the very society in which this occurs. Pakistanis have witnessed its malignant influence for many years. Now, the Israeli ‘settlers’ — numbering no more than two hundred thousand out of a total Jewish population of five million — are holding society and state by the throat, claiming a biblical prerogative. Territorial expansionism directly stoked by religious conviction is now out to devour its own mentor, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Opposition leader Shimon Peres fears that radicals might try to kill Mr Sharon, just as the then prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated in 1995 by a young Israeli opposed to an interim peace agreement with the Palestinians. Police have reported numerous death threats against Mr Sharon, once a champion of the settler movement and now denounced by settler supporters as a traitor and Nazi collaborator.

Orthodox Jews refer to the occupied territories by the biblical name of Judea and Samara. Many have forsaken comfortable and secure lives in Western countries to live there, encircled, despised and threatened by the surrounding Palestinian population. Although a vast majority of Israelis support the partial pullout proposed by Sharon, settlers and their allies describe it as a forcible expulsion of Jews from areas they see as part of their biblical birthright.

Prominent rabbis have called on religiously observant soldiers to defy orders to evacuate the settlements, saying that carrying out such commands would violate Jewish law. Army chief of staff Lieutenant-General Moshe Yaalon said such resistance “endangers us as an army, as a society and as a state”.

In the United States, God appears to have joined Bush’s election campaign, in violation of the American constitution. [The article was written before election results became available.] “God is out there, actively campaigning for President Bush”, said Beverly Ryan, a retired legal secretary and born-again Christian. Referring to the military invasion of Iraq, he added: “George Bush did what God wanted him to do. Who cares what the rest of the world thinks?” Indeed, with God on his side, why should Bush care about anything at all!

Whatever his personal religious convictions, by invoking religious symbolism to win the votes of the 40 million Americans who consider themselves evangelical Christians, George Bush has set a precedent that is full of perils and betrays a total disregard for the lessons of history. Barry Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister and the executive director of the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said: “It is, I think, extremely dangerous for people to believe that God is a Republican or a Democrat or a Naderite or even a Libertarian.”

In last year’s Malaysian elections, Nik Aziz, the spiritual leader of the Islamist PAS Party, didn’t beat about the bush. He declared that those who would vote for his party would go to heaven and those who did not were destined for hell. In the event, it is a pity that relatively few Malaysians chose to book a bed in paradise by voting for his party. As Mr Aziz has had the benefit of higher studies in Islam in Pakistan, it is no surprise that he arrogated to himself the right to distribute one-way tickets to heaven and hell.

Pakistanis may be falling head over heels trying to go to other countries for a good education, but their country is a Harvard of sorts for the Islamists of the world. Name any spiritual, political or jihadist leader of any Islamist movement anywhere in the world, from the Indonesian Hambali to the Jordanian Zarqawi, from the Afghan Mullah Jalaludin Haqani to the above-mentioned Malaysian Nik Aziz, and the chances are that they have done their apprenticeship or perfected their religious education in Pakistan.

Maulana Samiul Haque, principal of the Darul Uloom Haqqania at Akora Khattak, also referred to as the University of Jihad, has also issued his fatwa on the American elections. Needless to say, he declares it to be a religious obligation of American Muslims to vote against George Bush. The former prime minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, who had earlier denounced Nik Aziz for invoking religion to win votes in Malaysia, has gone one step further, telling American Muslims in writing that voting against Bush will be “an act of ibadah,” no less.

Modern and contemporary history is replete with instances of rift, violence and bloodshed when state and politics are infused with religion. Western and central Europe, now an island of peace, stability, progress and prosperity in a sea of instability, poverty and violence, was a theatre for war and bloodshed in the name of religion only a few centuries ago. Heretics were burnt alive and battles raged to preserve religious purity. It is due to this historical experience that Europe is now averse to mixing religion and politics and so tolerant of religious differences as to be a magnet for those fleeing religious persecution in other countries.

In India, fanatical Hindus destroyed a mosque to build a temple to their God Ram, unleashing such a torrent of discord and violence for the sake of religion as to shake the very foundations of the country. Among its immediate results has been a pogrom against Muslims in the state of Gujrat carried out with the abetment of its Hindu extremist chief minister. Its long-term results are dreadful even to contemplate.

Following the withdrawal of the Soviet troops in 1989, the various Mujahideen factions in Afghanistan fought a civil war which, besides causing indescribable suffering to the Afghan people, reduced Kabul to rubble. The Taliban emerged from the debris promising peace and security, but instead delivered more misery in the name of religion. For over ten years between then and the American military intervention in 2001, it was a war of all against all, with every protagonist denouncing his adversary as the “enemy of Allah”. Those who decry American intervention now, complained then about American apathy.

Neighbouring Iran, under the tight grip of the Ayatollahs, is a volcano waiting to erupt. A major producer and exporter of oil and gas, its economy is struggling and society fraught with tensions. The elected president, Mohammad Khatami, exercises less authority than the mayor of a large Western city. The courts, the police and the army are controlled by a self-appointed Council of Guardians, an un-elected group of mullahs.

Saudi Arabia, which officially makes no distinction between religion and government, is seething with discontent despite its immense oil wealth. One recalls that, in an act of rebellion that has never been fully explained, hundreds of disgruntled Saudis went so far as to seize the Holy Kaaba in 1979. It took several days and a commando operation for the authorities to regain control of Islam’s holiest shrine.

Muslims are yet to learn the lesson that Europeans learnt long ago, namely, that religion and politics don’t mix well. Since the so-called Islamisation carried out under Zia ul Haq, Pakistan has steadily gone down the road of sectarian strife and violence. Daily Khabrain of October 30 carries a photo that speaks volumes about the state of the nation. It shows two women armed with Kalashnikov rifles standing guard, while men in their hundreds offer Friday prayers. Pass it off with a shrug of the shoulder; blame it on our enemies, if you will; but to ignore the message embedded in this image is to invite even greater disasters.

The author, a former academic with a doctorate in modern history, is now a freelance writer and columnist

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