God’s Terrorists

 

God's wrath on WTC

On this day 20 years ago, four airplanes were hijacked by 19 men who then flew them straight into certain symbols of modern civilisation: the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Capitol was targeted too but the guy who flew that fourth plane missed: his God was not happy with him, perhaps.

It was all done for God. One man called Osama bin Laden decided that his God was not happy with the “unjust, criminal and tyrannical” America. So he killed 2977 innocent people some of whom were in those buildings which came tumbling down and others were in the planes hijacked by his warriors. The youngest victim was Christine Lee Hanson, a two-year-old child travelling with her parents. The oldest was 82-year-old Robert Norton who was going with his wife to attend a wedding. Innocent people. As innocent as a two-year-old is. And as innocent as an 82-year-old is when it comes to the vengeance of gods.

Are the gods really hungry for the blood of Christines and Roberts and whoever?

Dostoevsky and Jesus

In 1880 Dostoevsky imagined Jesus returning to the earth. No sooner had he started making meaningful bonds with people than he was arrested by none other than a cardinal of the church established in his name. Jesus’ crime? He was undoing what the church was doing. Jesus was acting against the church! The cardinal threatens Jesus. “Tomorrow,” he tells Jesus menacingly, “Thou shalt see that obedient flock who at a sign from me will hasten to heap up the hot cinders about the pile on which I shall burn Thee for coming to hinder us. For if anyone has ever deserved our fires, it is Thou. Tomorrow I shall burn Thee.”

Jesus pities the cardinal and leaves the place, not without giving a gentle kiss on the lifeless lips of the old cardinal.

God’s men versus the gods, that’s what we have now. Was Osama bin Laden a man of God as he claimed? Are the priests and yogis and terrorists of today men of the gods whom they claim to represent?

No way. Paraphrasing philosopher Nietzsche I’d say that all their gods died long ago with a whimper just as Jesus vanished from the cardinal in Dostoevsky’s story.

Bishop of Pala

A bishop and some jihad

A controversy has been set in motion in Kerala by another man of God, the bishop of a Catholic diocese. This bishop put it on record that the Muslims in Kerala are practising Drug Jihad in addition to Love Jihad in order to charm away the Catholic girls to the Muslim fold as the Pied Piper did with the children of Hamelin.

There are love marriages taking place between people of different religions all over India including Kerala. That has been happening from time immemorial. There is drug abuse too in many states of India including Kerala. By all available data, Kerala is not a particularly outstanding state in drug abuse. Many other states are ahead of it. Are Muslim jihadists at work there too?

The Bishop of Pala who stirred the hornet’s nest seems to have too many ulterior motives and saving the Catholic youth of Kerala from jihadist traps is not one of them. The Church is passing through a tumultuous period with quite many bishops and priests facing serious criminal charges. There are rapists and murderers and swindlers among the top hierarchy of the Church. And India’s current Prime Minister is a man who is just waiting for an opportunity to pounce upon top leaders of non-Hindu communities and organisations in order to facilitate his dream of creating a Hindu Rashtra. A facile way of appeasing Modi’s love of Gods is to indulge in Muslim-bashing. Kerala’s Catholic Church has chosen the facile way, it seems.

This is not to say that the Muslims in Kerala are an innocent lot. There are many jihadists among them. There are many misguided youth who claim to be doing Allah’s job but are actually doing the devil’s job. But how many? The NIA probed the case in Kerala three years ago when the allegations were made by several powerful agencies including the Catholic Church and found that there was “love but no jihad”. Now if a similar investigation is carried out, it will be found that there is substance misuse but no jihad.

If there are crimes, the legal system should take care of that. One big problem in today’s India is the failure of the legal system. Our judiciary has a religion now. Everything from universities to hospitals has a religion now, sadly. That is one of the many perversions gifted to us by Mr Modi. But the Bishop of Pala should have resisted the temptation to fall so low as to use religion for nefarious political purposes. The Catholic Church in Kerala had a much better standard in the good ol’ days.

Jesus would run away from the Catholic Church of Kerala if at all he bothers to return once more. What about Allah or his prophet? What about Rama or Krishna? Concerned faithful can answer those.