Vinoth Ramachandra

I spoke at a Veritas Forum event in Columbia University, New York, a couple of nights ago. My dialogue partner, a distinguished professor of philosophy at Columbia and from an Indian Muslim background, made some scathing criticisms of the media for focusing so much on Islamist and Christian “extremists” as if they were representative of their respective faith communities. He made some equally scathing remarks about the Dawkinses and Dennets of this world whose militant atheism, in contrast to the irenic atheism of this professor, undermined the respectful tolerance of a liberal democracy.

I found myself gently defending the Dawkinses and Dennets of this world. Of course their arguments are often silly, directed at “straw men”. I have criticized them in my published writings. But the more time I spend in the US, the greater my sympathy for their strident attacks on Christians. If I grew up in the US I would probably be a hard-core atheist myself. Switch on “Christian television” and you would have to conclude that evangelical preachers were all con-men and Christians were the most gullible people on earth, easily parted from their money no less than their brains.

Popular Christian books, films and music reflect a narrow-minded subculture. It seems that being a ‘Bible-believing” Christian is to be politically right-wing, anti-evolutionary, anti-feminist and pro-Zionist. Further, the US is most divided and fragmented on a Sunday morning. I spoke at the University of Texas, Austin, two weeks ago, and was shocked to discover that there were over sixty different Christian groups on the campus, divided along ethnic, denominational and para-church lines. Clearly Christians cannot get on with each other; and reconciliation is not part of the good News of Jesus Christ in this corner of the world. But it is these “gospels” that are marketed globally because this is where the money is. Where would a “seeker” go to find authentic Christianity?

I have been privileged to meet and to be befriended by authentic Christians from all walks of life in the USA. I also know that there are outstanding American Christian thinkers and scholars, but that is only because I am a voracious reader. But so much excellent theology by Americans (and Europeans) is written for their fellow theologians, neither for the general reading public nor for the secular academy.

Travelling home on the subway, I got into a conversation with a Tibetan man, a professing atheist, who had been at the Columbia talk. He asked me what the phrase “dying to the old man” meant in Paul’s writings. I explained that it was not the Buddhist extinguishing of the (illusory) self, but rather re-directing one’s life away from self-centred ambition towards the love of Christ and the pursuit of his kingdom of justice and peace. Earlier that morning, my wife and I had lunched with an Indian student, a professing Christian. He is finishing his engineering studies at a prestigious local university. He told us that he wants to work with the US military because they were doing “cutting-edge” research. I asked him if he had ever thought of using his knowledge to re-direct technology towards global justice issues and the needs of the poor back in India or elsewhere. He looked at me with incomprehension. The thought had never entered his mind. Although brought up in India, and by godly parents, he never knew that more Indians had access to cable TV than to basic sanitation.

So a long and interesting day of human encounters. And I found myself wondering as I got into bed: who of these people I had met today was closest to the kingdom of God?

“We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas,” wrote Henry Thoreau (1817-1862), “but it may be that Maine and Texas have nothing to communicate.”

What would Thoreau have felt about our world of “instant messaging” and constant “networking”? I am bombarded by invitations- which I routinely ignore- from friends and strangers to join Facebook and similar sites. I have also been advised that I should be blogging at least once a day, not twice or (at most) thrice a month. I am not using the full potential of the medium. My standard response to such well-intentioned invitations and advice is simple: I have a life to live.

We are increasingly enmeshed in what has come to be called the “cult of interactivity”. Instant and online interaction brings pleasure and convenience to millions, including myself. I am grateful for the advances in communications technology. But when communication becomes an end in itself, when having the biggest bandwidth is more important than what we have to say to one another, then the technology and the marketing have become our masters, not our servants. A wise use of technology may well be to refuse to use its “full potential”. When it comes to Powerpoint presentations, for example, my slides are deliberately few and unsophisticated. For if the content of my lecture is not more attractive than the slides themselves, then I should not be lecturing.

Paradoxically, with the new cellular and Internet technologies linking us to one another, we can now become self-enclosed, self-sufficient, controlling centres. There are even news-gathering services on the Internet offering to download only news that is tailor-made to our individual interests and needs. Moreover, for all the advertising hype about mobile phones “bringing the world together”, we have all endured the experience of a stranger in a crowded train or restaurant uttering sheer banalities (or even obscenities) at the top of his voice into his mobile phone, blissfully insensitive to the feelings of those around him.

Therefore, we need to ask not only what we do with our technologies, but what we are becoming through our technologies. Technology alters our perceptions of ourselves, of others and of the world. There is a dialectical relationship between the tools we use, our conception of the world and our self-consciousness. As Neil Postman puts it pungently, “To the man with a hammer, everything is a nail.”

Technological change is thus ecological change. It changes the culture, altering the structure of our interests, the character of our symbols, and the things we think about and think with. It fosters certain habits of mind and discourages others.

Ponder the mobile-phone concept of communication. This has pushed aside the old-fashioned idea of “conversation” which was slow, messy and sometimes painful. The new communication is identified with “exchanging information”, and this exchange is crisp, clear and instant. You say as little as possible to make sure you get what you want as fast as you can.  To be “in 24-hour communication” has come to mean sending and receiving a tidal wave of “messages” every day. And, in the new language of the mobile world, it is the device, not the human user, that does the “communicating” via global networks.

The growth of these technologies demonstrates the human ability to manufacture powerful methods of collecting, storing and disseminating vast quantities of information. But the technologies themselves do not provide the necessary frameworks and contexts of interpretation to sift, evaluate and assess the informational deluge that inundates us.  Gossip, rumour, and half-truths are immediately transmitted as the latest facts. It is increasingly difficult in cyberspace to know who is speaking, what he or she really means by what they say, and whose self-interests are shaping the online rhetoric.

We could spend our whole lives texting, but there will always be part of us that we do not- and should not- want to share with anyone other than our family and closest friends. And we do not need to comment on every news article, answer every online questionnaire, or subscribe to every networking site. Privacy needs protecting in an age of cyber vandalism. And imposing a regular “Sabbath” rest from our feverish networking and texting is good for our spiritual health. Contemplation and solitude are the soil in which deep and authentic relationships flourish.

Present-day discussions by Western philosophers about morality in general, and human rights in particular, are haunted by the challenge that Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) threw down more than a century ago. Once we abandon all reference to God, can we continue to talk about the “dignity” , “equality”, and “rights” of individual human beings – simply because they are human beings?

A right is a claim that somebody has to be treated in a certain way by others and not to be treated in certain other ways by others. To every claim-right there is a correlative duty. If X has a right against Y to Y’s doing or refraining from doing action A, then Y has a duty toward X to do or refrain from doing A.

Many of the rights we enjoy are socially generated, either by legislation or social practices. For example, if my employer promises to pay me a specific amount of money every month for the work that I do, then I have a right (a legitimate claim) against my employer if he were to break his promise. However, underlying that contractual right is also a natural right, one that is not socially conferred: for our right not to have our trust betrayed is a natural right, not a right we have on account of a human decision.

I said in my last posting (2 October) that we have come to recognize, and enshrine in various international declarations, a certain class of natural rights that are human rights. That is, rights that we possess simply by virtue of belonging to the species Homo Sapiens. These rights are inherent to the status of being human.

However, very rarely do we address the question Nietzsche posed. If human beings possess a worth that grounds the language of equality and rights, whence this worth? Worth cannot just float free; always there has to be something that gives the entity such worth as it has, some property, achievement, or relationship on which its worth supervenes.

There is a long line of Western philosophers, from Immanuel Kant to John Rawls, who have assumed- while not explicitly arguing for it- that the capacity for rational agency is what gives worth to human beings. But, as Nicholas Wolterstorff argues in his fine book Justice: Rights and Wrongs, those who can exercise this capacity for rational action better than others are then of greater worth than others. Indeed, a good many human beings, such as Alzheimer’s patients and those with severe mental impairment, will never be able to exercise this capacity. Wolterstorff asks: “Must we then expect that those human beings who lack the capacities mentioned, who cannot function as persons, will be endangered? Must we expect that our treatment of them will sooner or later be determined entirely by what best serves the life-goods of the rest of us, not by their right against us to our treating them in certain ways? I think we must.” (p.390)

Nietzsche despised the weak, the poor, and the maimed. He proposed a counter-Christian “moral code for physicians”- the physician, Nietzsche urged, should encourage in himself active contempt for the invalid, regarding him as a parasite on society when he comes to a certain stage of degeneration. But most secular thinkers, while honouring Nietzsche’s brilliance, have not bitten the bullet the way that Nietzsche did.

Wolterstorff argues that being loved by God, despite our flaws and irrespective of who we are, is what ultimately gives a human being great worth. And he quotes (on p.324) the Australian philosopher, Raimond Gaita, himself a secularist, who says with unusual candour:

“The secular philosophical tradition speaks of inalienable rights, inalienable dignity and of persons as ends in themselves. These are, I believe, ways of whistling in the dark, ways of trying to make secure to reason what reason cannot finally underwrite…. We may say that all human beings are inestimably precious, that they are ends in themselves, that they are owed unconditional respect, that they possess inalienable rights, and, of course, that they possess inalienable dignity. In my judgment these are ways of trying to say that we feel a need to say when we are estranged from the conceptual resources we need to say it. Be that as it may: each of them is problematic and contentious. Not one of them has the simple power of the religious ways of speaking.”

Gaita adds:  “Where does that power come from? Not, I am quite sure, from esoteric theological or philosophical elaboration of what it means for something to be sacred. It derives from the unashamedly anthropomorphic character of the claim that we are sacred because God loves us, his children.”

China “celebrated” 60 years of communist rule yesterday. Since I have never visited that great country, I dare not comment on its economic achievements or its political failures. But this is what a young Chinese friend penned on the anniversary:

“Unsustainable, Undemocratic, Immoral, Corrupt, Ruthless, Polluted, Paranoid, Value-free.”

What adjectives come to mind when we think about our own nations?…..

Governments kill. That is true of governments of every ideological hue from red to blue. The vast majority of the hundreds of millions of helpless, unarmed civilians who have been shot, burned alive, bombed, and tortured in the past one hundred years have been victims of either their own governments or foreign governments. The atrocities committed by anti-government insurgents, rebels, terrorists and such like, while every bit as wicked as that committed by governments, are numerically insignificant by comparison.

But that is not the impression given by local and global media who prefer to focus on the spectacular “terrorist” attacks (a focus that further fuels such “terrorist” methods) rather than the often covert, routine abductions and killings of political dissidents and critics. The fact that the media are often controlled by governments, or are owned by a handful of moguls who are hand-in-glove with the government, is another reason for the bias.

That is why political vigilance on the part of ordinary citizens like us is so important. Watch the language of politicians. “Emergency laws” and “national security” are usually cover-ups for bolstering one’s power and justifying repression. It was not too long ago that the phrase “un-American activities” was bandied about in the US without generating much debate. China still speaks of “anti-patriotic elements”, although Mao’s “capitalist lackeys” and “Western revisionists” have fallen by the wayside. “Naxalites”, “terrorists” and “terrorist supporters” are widespread in South Asia. The “Muslim threat” raises it ugly head in some European nations.

The moral history of the twentieth century is a horrific one. But it would be incomplete if we failed to include the emergence, as a response to the horrors, of a global recognition of human rights: that is rights that attach to the status of simply being human, a member of the species Homo Sapiens. The main documentary achievements in this regard were the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), and the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). The Roman Catholic philosopher Mary Ann Glendon observes, at the end of her narrative about the UN Declaration of Human Rights, “By affirming that all its rights belong to everyone, everywhere, it aimed to put an end to the idea that a nation’s treatment of its own citizens or subjects was immune from outside scrutiny.”[1]

It is that “immunity from outside scrutiny” that despots demand. Governments that have signed these declarations continue to violate them with impunity. And that is as true for liberal democracies when they perceive threats to their “national security” or “economic prosperity” as it is for dictatorships. Therein lies the chief failing of these declarations: their lack of enforceability apart from economic sanctions and, in extreme cases of genocide, military intervention.

Moreover, the declarations sit uncomfortably with a founding principle of the UN Charter- the myth of “national sovereignty”- which is invoked by evil regimes around the world to deflect all international criticism. The main problem with the UN is neither corruption nor double standards (very real though these are), but the fact that it was conceived in a world of sovereign states, a world where the overriding concern of the post-World War II settlement was the guarantee of the inviolability of national borders. But today’s world is one where wars happen typically within states. Whole populations, or minorities within populations, need assistance against their own despotic governments. Thus the UN Charter’s emphasis on the inviolability of sovereign states poses a conundrum.

The preamble to the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights opens with the claim that “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” Article 1 goes on to affirm that “all human beings are born free and are equal in dignity and rights.” This is obviously not an empirical observation. So what is its epistemic status?

Further, what is it about each and every human being that gives him or her an inherent dignity that serves to ground human rights? That is not an easy question to answer. And every secularist attempt to answer it ends up defending only the rights of some human beings and not all human beings. More on that next time.

What should the “international community” do to help people living under repressive states?

Despite great strides in electoral democracy and human rights conventions around the world, billions of men and women continue to experience the suppression of basic human freedoms such as the freedom to travel, choose a job or school, criticize their governments, express their views openly, and practice their religious faith. The state, one of whose important functions is to provide security for innocent citizens, has become the principal source of insecurity and fear in many parts of Asia and Africa. At the same time, there are flourishing “think tanks” and a veritable PhD industry on human rights legislation and international law. What is clearly and urgently needed is less talk and more action.

Writing truthfully about my own country in a blog like this can actually get me into serious trouble. So let me, in a cowardly-or, if you prefer, prudential- way, consider the more pathetic situation of Burma/Myanmar. The farcical trial of Aung San Suu Kyi a few weeks ago was only the latest incident in the long history of violence, corruption, ineptitude and complete disregard for the lives and rights of Burma’s citizens. When Burma applied to join the regional conglomeration known as ASEAN, I begged my Singaporean and Malaysian friends to appeal to their respective governments to refuse membership until Suu Kyi was restored as the elected head of state. I was told by some Singaporeans that the “Asian way” would be bring about change through quiet diplomacy rather than open challenge. The generals could be wooed towards democracy by trade and friendship. Today, twenty years later, the repression is worse. Clearly, and predictably, the so-called “Asian way” (an euphemism for legitimizing local autocrats!) is not working.

Why? Because we don’t follow the money. Generally, I am not in favour of general economic sanctions, as they hurt the common people much more than those responsible. The latter can “salt away” their fortunes in foreign banks and find ways to keep on consuming luxuries even as the country languishes economically. But, in the case of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi herself called repeatedly for international sanctions. If the sanctions are carefully targeted- for instance, a complete stop to arms shipments and a total “freeze” of all foreign assets held by members of the regime- it would make life harder for those whose power now seems unassailable. If the people of Burma, who suffer daily under the junta, are asking us to help them, why are we not listening? The US and EU have belatedly imposed strict sanctions, but some oil companies continue to operate hand-in-glove with the military.

But Western nations do not rank among Burma’s top trading partners. India and China seem to be the worst culprits, openly selling arms in exchange for access to Burma’s rich oil and natural gas reserves. ASEAN nations and their leaders have not exerted much pressure on the Burmese regime. On the contrary, Singaporean banks are home to the junta’s ill-gotten wealth and the wives of the generals go on regular shopping sprees to  Singapore and Bangkok. Thailand alone purchases 44% of Burma’s exports each year. Sanctions by ASEAN member states would deprive the generals of a large portion of the more than $11 billion they earn from foreign trade annually. The junta spends less than 1.5% of GDP on health and education. The public education system has deteriorated so much that many parents rely on free, monastic schools for their children’s education. Infectious diseases, including AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are rampant. How much longer is ASEAN willing to be dictated to by Burma’s human rights violators?

The ancient creeds of the Church tell us that Christ descended into hell. He is therefore close to those who are cast into it, transforming their despair into hope. This is not to belittle the suffering and anguish of our Burmese brethren, but to enclose their narrative within a wider narative of hope borne through sufferng- the narrative of the crucified, risen and returning Judge of history. If you are an Indian, a Chinese or a citizen of an ASEAN nation, what are you willing to do for the people of Burma that would also serve as a sign of that hope?

My father died last week. Death was a merciful release, as he had been afflicted with severe dementia for four years. He died at home quickly and painlessly with my mother , one of my sisters and myself at his bedside. Although we had been experiencing a prolonged bereavement over the past few years, his final passing away was still a sad moment for all of us.

We laid out my father’s body in an open casket at my parents home, as is the local custom, and  we received a steady stream of people from all faiths and all walks of life coming to pay their respects. My father had touched many lives, both as a government surgeon and a teacher (at the North Colombo Medical College). I had the privilege of giving the eulogy at a thanksgiving service just before taking the body to the cemetery for burial. I give below an extract from what I shared at that service.

I shall remember my father not for his achievements but for his character. Especially his simplicity and his integrity. He shunned all luxury and ostentation, pomp and humbug. He refused to kowtow to politicians. As a government surgeon he would travel on public buses and trains from the various stations where he worked. Indeed his refusal to do private practice but to remain in government service, despite all its frustrations was due, I believe, to his sense of responsibility towards the so-called “common people” as opposed to the rich elites of our land. This simplicity was part of his integrity. He did not wear masks, but was in public what he was in private, speaking his mind in a way that sometimes won him enemies. He was utterly incorruptible. Whatever he was assigned to do, he did so meticulously and responsibly. Such integrity is rare in the medical profession today as well as in our wider society.

However, whenever I gazed at my father’s gradually shrinking and wizened frame, and grieved the loss of his fine mind, I would also think, “One day, he is going to be a  glorious and radiant creature!” For as Christians, we don’t simply look back nostalgically to what people once were. We also look towards what they will  become one day.

The great philosopher of medieval Europe, Thomas Aquinas, once defined human beings as “animals with an orientation towards friendship with God and friendship with one another”. Yes, we are animals, part of a wider animal kingdom, and the perishable animal remains that lie in my father’s casket remind us of that fact. We didn’t, as human beings, drop from heaven. But we are also more than animals. We are that mysterious entity we call persons. We live our animal lives in a personal way.

My personhood is what demands that I be recognized as a someone and not something. And that every single human being is to be treated as a someone and not as a something. Our personal identities are formed through relationships- with God and with one another in the human family. And though our frail bodies perish at death, our personal identity- everything that has made me uniquely me and not you- continues in God. And God has pledged, and given us a foretaste of that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that our personal identities will be re-embodied, “re-expressed” if you like, in new bodies in which will all that was true and good and just and beautiful in our lives will be re-focused and contribute to the life of a renewed world.

So we should not wait till the end of our days to realise that what is truly worth pursuing in life are our friendships with God and with others. The reality and depth of these relationships are what define us, not our cars, houses or bank balances. And they are infinitely more precious, because more outlasting, than status or money or power.

Last week, my wife and I visited the Ashish Centre, a school for children with learning disabilities, in the Indian capital Delhi. The school was the brainchild of a friend of ours, Geeta, who herself has an autistic fourteen-year old son, Samarpan. Disability carries a powerful social stigma in Indian society. Parents, rich and poor, “dump” their children in helpless frustration at the Centre, hoping that Geeta and her fellow teachers (mostly volunteers) can work a miracle “cure”.

And miracles do happen. But not in the way the parents expected. Their own hearts are transformed by love as they see the way the teachers patiently draw out the unexpected potentialities of these children.  Children who, hitherto, were locked away in their homes out of sight of visitors are now unashamedly treated as equal members of the family. Despite this, the school remains desperately underfunded. Like governments elsewhere, the Indian government pours a disproportionate amount of money into elite schools and universities, while proclaiming its commitment to protecting human rights and human dignity.

I asked Geeta what she has learned from children like Samarpan. Her face glowed as she responded immediately, “They teach us to be real. There is no pretense or vanity, they don’t wear masks like we so-called ‘normal’ people do. And in being brutally honest with us, they force us to be honest with ourselves.” She added, “I have learned through him what is really important in life and what is simply trivial.”

Rarely do the disabled command our respect. Unless of course they happen to be a Beethoven, a Helen Keller or a Stephen Hawking. But here the respect is not for them as humans, but for their almost superhuman abilities at overcoming all odds. Usually the handicapped embarrass us. We want to banish them from sight, either by killing them (if the law permits) or by putting them in remote institutions. Or else we try to make them “fit”, by trying to make them conform to our norms of success.

“Political correctness” dictates that we stop using words like “handicapped” and “disabled”, and replace them with “differently abled”. If this is meant to remind us of their essential and equal humanness, it is to be welcomed. But it also serves to perpetuate the popular but mistaken belief that human personhood is something we possess or achieve by virtue of our abilities. But Christians insist that while natures are what we have, persons are who we are. Disabled persons have damaged human natures; but the rest of us are damaged in other, deeper and more dangerous, ways.

I suggest that the handicapped among us present an uncomfortable challenge to our modern illusions of individual self-sufficiency and human perfectibility. The handicapped hold up a mirror to our own frailty, vulnerability and inter-dependence as a human community. That is the truth about the human condition. But in our  will to power, we see vulnerability as weakness and inter‑dependence as constraint. We equate freedom with self-gratification, limits with oppression. We see our lives as belonging to ourselves alone.

Unfortunately, our mortality makes a mockery of our pretension to be gods. This is probably why so many doctors in our hospitals run away from talking about death with their patients. As long as modern medical practitioners think of themselves as wonder-workers, and of their work as one of human engineering rather than alleviating human suffering wherever possible, they will always think of handicap and death as “failure”.

But what of their own death? Or even the loss of their skills, say in a serious accident‑ will they still command respect as humans? The handicapped force us to face such issues that lie at the heart of human existence. How we relate to the most vulnerable and defenceless among us may be a measure of our own humanness, as individuals and as a society.

“Contemplation gazes in the eyes

of nature’s accident, a malformed child.

How can this monstrous sadness still be styled

Human? This surely must epitomize

Those anguished questions that defy the wise.

‘Look,’ some say, by sentiment beguiled,

‘The soul peeps out’. Absently it smiled,

No eye contact, inert- and vain hope dies.

And yet this passive form cries out in pain,

Hungers for basic needs and pants for breath.

Humanity lies there: we’re all the same-

Vulnerable and frail, defying death.

Helplessness the image of God reveals.

Like salt rubbed in the wound, affliction heals.”

- Frances Young, Face to Face: a Narrative Essay in the Theology of Suffering, (T & T Clark, 1990)

Imagine a young IT “geek” in an operations room at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.  Since he was a little kid he has been slaying thousands of nasty characters in simulation war games on his home computer. But now the characters are real human beings, and most of them are not nasty.  Some of them are women and children. They just happen to live in southern Afghanistan or the northwest region of Pakistan. They have lost their lives or seen their houses destroyed by missile attacks from pilotless “drones” operated by the CIA. Every week since September 2008 reports of civilian casualties in such US drone attacks have been widely reported but they have not been condemned in the Western media with the same indignation that similar indiscriminate military actions by non-Western armies are.

In an earlier post (“Killing Civilians”, 29 May 2009) I pointed out the morally important distinction in warfare between combatants and non-combatants. Non-combatants are those who neither produce nor possess the means to inflict injury on others. Just rules of military engagement not only prohibit the targeting of non-combatants but also expect professional soldiers to bear risks in war that should not be imposed on non-combatants.

The deployment of drones, high-altitude aerial bombing and cruise missiles launched from offshore warships has changed the nature of warfare. The US and its allies can now fight wars with minimal face-to-face combat. In his book The New Western Way of War, Martin Shaw dubs this style of combat “risk transfer” war: the deliberate and systematic transfer of the risks in warfare from Western military personnel to local soldiers and local civilian populations. Such risk-transfer is a blatant rejection of  just-war principles. In their strategic planning, the risk to U.S soldiers is weighted more heavily than to all others, including local non-combatants.

The hypocrisy and double standards practised by US and European governments when it comes to charges of “war crimes” and the dismantling of civil liberties in the so-called “war on terror” is one of the biggest obstacles to securing human rights around the world. When many Third World peace activists and human rights advocates challenge their own governments’ sanctioning of torture or indiscriminate methods of warfare, the response they receive is either outright denial or the excuse, “If the Americans, Brits and Israelis can do this, why are we being condemned?”

I wonder how many Christians in the US and Britain write to their political representatives or their national newspapers on this issue? It would certainly make talk of “mission partnership” with Third World Christians, most of whom are too powerless to confront their own governments, more than an empty slogan.

The traditional notion of winning a war was fairly clear: defeating an enemy on the battlefield and forcing it to accept political terms. But what does victory mean in a war on terror? Will this kind of war ever end? Fighting a diffuse, loose-knit collection of cells like al-Qa’ida is very different from fighting a territorially demarcated, insurgent army like the Tamil Tigers. (The Sri Lankan government has hailed its military victory over the Tigers as a significant breakthrough in the global “war on terror” but this is simply self-serving hype).

Terrorism will continue as long as human life continues on the planet earth. The myth that we can make our societies “completely safe” is to make national security an idol; and, as we saw in the last blog post, all idols demand innocent humans as propitiating sacrifices.  We can, however, reduce the risk of terrorism to such a level that it will not significantly affect the daily lives of citizens, preoccupy their thoughts, and provoke fear. This will involve better intelligence-gathering, and winning the trust and confidence of local populations by responding to their grievances rather than embittering them further. Pursuing the goal of eliminating terrorism by harassing and even killing innocent lives in order to reduce the short-term risk to national leaders will only result in more terrorism.

Victory  will come not when Washington and its allies kill or capture all terrorists or potential terrorists but when the ideology the terrorists espouse is discredited, when their tactics are seen to have failed, and when they come to find other paths to the goals they pursue. At that point, hopefully, even the terrorists will realise that their violence is futile.

Every year, far more people die as a result of road accidents, easily preventable diseases or severe climatic events caused by global warming, than as casualties of terrorism.  Why, then, do these not merit the massive funding that is poured into high-tech weaponry and “national security”?

An astrologer was arrested in Sri Lanka last month. His crime? Predicting that the President’s popularity would decline and that he would soon be ousted from power. It didn’t help that the astrologer had connections with the opposition political party. Many politicians and their acolytes are buried neck-high in superstition; and despite modern institutions such as a constitution, a parliament and a professional bureaucracy, political decisions are often controlled by feudal notions of patronage, beliefs about “auspicious” periods, and practices involving “charms” and other occult protective powers.

The astrologer was subsequently released when produced before a magistrate. But the incident well revealed, ad absurdum, the paranoia and deep-seated insecurity that lies behind the arrogant masks of would-be autocrats everywhere. Also the way that the police cease to be a law-enforcement agency and become instead the private employees of such men. But the deeper question which it raised is rarely addressed in contemporary political discussions, either in South Asia or Western Europe. Can democracy, social responsibility and respect for the rule of law flourish in societies when the underlying cultural worldviews are made immune to criticism, either in the name of “multicultural tolerance” or because they are regarded as irrelevant to politics?

The Hebrew Bible tells the story of the creator God whose character is revealed, and purposes for the world put into effect, though his calling of ancient Israel. This God, known by his covenant name Yahweh (Exod. 3 14), was no tribal deity but the unrivalled lord of all nations and active in the histories of all peoples (e.g. Amos 9:7). Israel was called to bear witness to Yahweh’s unique character and purposes by worshiping him alone, a worship that involved seeking justice for the weak, the vulnerable and the forgotten, and rejecting the oppressive political and economic structures that marked its neighbours.

While the gods of their neighbours and the great empires of the day (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon) were identified with powerful males- kings, warriors, priests- the God of Israel identified himself with the “widow, the orphan and the stranger”. Thus, when the people of Israel turned their backs on Yahweh, or worshiped Yahweh as if he were just another fertility god like the Canaanite Baal, they also turned their backs on the poor. Idolatry and social injustice are two sides of the same coin. It was true then, and it is true today.

Idolatry involves a contractual approach to the deity: in return for the appropriate sacrifices, the gods are expected to give health, prosperity, military victory, and protection from evil forces.  Worship is thus about finding the right technique to obtain the end desired. The final stage in idol formation involves a role-reversal: the idol now controls the life of its worshipers, re-shaping them in its own image.

The worship of that which is inferior to us can only de-humanize us. It turns us into objects rather than persons. The prophets developed a rich language of mockery and satire directed at the false gods of the nations, proclaiming their impotence. They also taunted the arrogance of nations and cities that imagined themselves to be immortal “gods”.

It is here that the biblical language of demonology is relevant for modern politics. For, whether we take “demons” to refer to invisible sentient beings or, mythologically, as the spiritual ethos of deformed social, cultural and political structures, not only are individuals “possessed” by such malignant powers but so are entire societies. When human beings give to any aspect of God’s creation (e.g., sexuality, family) or to the works of their hands (e.g science, the nation-state, technology) the worship that is due to the Creator alone, they call up invisible forces that eventually dominate them. When what is meant to be a servant is treated as a master, it quickly becomes a tyrant. Having surrendered our hearts, individually and collectively, to idols, we become enslaved by demons. Such demons always demand human sacrifices. So idolatry leads to the sacrifice of the weak and apparently “useless” members of society, to the destruction of the earth’s eco-systems, and the abdication of all responsibility for each other and the non-human creation.

So idolatry is not found exclusively in what are called “traditional cultures” and “non-Christian” religions today. If the Hindu pantheon bears similarities with the amoral or immoral gods of Mesopotamia and Canaan, so does the “health and wealth” cult pervasive in many churches. Jesus repeatedly warned his disciples against the allure of wealth, which he personified as a rival god Mammon. The most powerful idols are not physical objects but mental concepts, including our concepts of God. When “God” is co-opted to bless our private or national projects, when pastors compete for bigger and richer churches, or when worship is evaluated by “how it makes me feel”, rather than how we are transformed into Christ-like service to the world, we are practicing idolatry.

Those who worship false gods, in order to secure power (whether religious or secular), live in a constant climate of suspicion, insecurity and fear. Their greatest enemies are within themselves. The only effective antidote to fear is a vision of the One who having all power at his command, humbled himself, embracing the role of a lowly servant to unmask and dethrone the powers that have ravaged his world.

Back to President Obama’s Cairo University speech. There were many good things in it, not least the frank acknowledgment of America’s failure to live up to the values it proclaims to the world. Humility in a politician is so rare that even the most grudging admission of wrongdoing is worth highlighting. And Obama’s admissions were not in the least grudging. Of course, humility is easier when it is the mendacity of the previous administration one is recounting; and one can only hope that Obama will retain the same humility and sincerity when his leadership is truly tested. In the meantime, he deserves widespread support for his bold attempts to reduce nuclear stockpiles and cut back on greenhouse emissions.

In addressing the disparate “Muslim world” from Egypt, it was disappointing that he did not take the opportunity to call for democracy and respect for human rights in his host country. The Mubarak regime is more despotic than successive Iranian governments have been, yet it is regarded as a loyal American ally. So is Saudi Arabia, another Muslim country over which Obama drew a veil. The repressive Wahabi brand of Saudi Islam is propagated around the world to the deep dismay of many tolerant Muslims. And while he called for an independent Palestinian state, just as Bush did, there was no discussion of whether a “Jewish state” was any different in conception to a “Muslim state” or whether it too was incompatible with the democratic freedoms that American people prized.

Obama held up Malaysia and Dubai as examples of progress that Muslim-majority states that the rest of the “Muslim world” should follow. This was unfortunate, in my opinion. Malaysia may boast First World amenities, but it is one of the most “racist” states in the world. Its constitution enshrines open discrimination against non-Malays. The latter are also defined as Muslims and they lose their civic rights if they convert to another religious faith. Moreover, governments since that of Mahathir Mohammed have routinely used the notorious Internal Security Act to muzzle all political dissent and imprison critics. This situation is rarely reported in the Western media, and elicits little criticism from US and European governments simply because Malaysia is an important trading partner.

As for Dubai, to begin with it is a city not a country; and a city comprising 85% expatriates. I was in Dubai last month and much of it reminded me of the biblical tower of Babel. The skyline is dotted with unfinished office towers and empty cranes, testifying to the hugely debt-financed development of the city. It is a place that speaks of insecure egos: the would-be tallest building in the world, the would-be biggest shopping mall in the world, the would-be greatest financial centre in the world, artificial ski slopes, islands and golf courses, and seven-star hotels for the playboys of the Middle East and South Asia. Dubai is a place for making money, which is not a bad thing in itself, but also for flaunting how much money you make. In this it is not unique.

Also, the money-making takes place in a highly stratified, almost apartheid-like, society. At the top of the social pyramid are the relatives of the Arab sheikhs, in their palatial homes and fleets of luxury vehicles. Next come the American and British executives of banks and corporations who have their own private enclaves where they socialise with each other. Below them are the rich Indian and Pakistani businessmen, and lower down are scores of Filipinos and other Asians who do the humdrum jobs in airports, shops, and offices. At the bottom are the tens of thousands of cheap migrant labour from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, employed mostly in the construction industry and housed in conditions that some human rights groups have complained are tantamount to torture.

Finally, we cannot separate history, geopolitics and theology in any meaningful discussion of “Islam and democracy” in the Middle East (or elsewhere). The ordinary people of the Middle East have suffered for decades as a result of the Western world=s (and recently, China=s) insatiable appetite for oil. Oil company executive and investors have propped up their despotic rulers and made enormous profit in the process. The oil industry has so ravaged the planet that global warming threatens to turn the Middle East and North Africa into a vast desert, with nations turning on each other in battles for water. It is unlikely, therefore, that either Islamist militancy or terrorist recruitment will wane in the foreseeable future.