The Cherry Orchard

Here’s a big scoop: the political phenomenon known as Islamic fundamentalism has nothing to do with religion.

You heard me right — nothing at all. Islamic fundamentalism is a radical political movement that aims to topple governments and redistribute wealth, and if we want to understand the conflicts in the Middle East better we need to take a serious look at what really motivates believers in this cause. Hint: it’s not about virgins in the afterlife. It is about power, territory and money.

Radical political movements occur when the fault lines between the “haves” and “have-nots” in any society grow too vast, and when large segments of a population feel disenfranchised and abused by their leaders. Let’s take a look at some examples from history:

• The French Revolution

In 1789, hungry mobs began rioting in Paris, spurred on by intellectuals and progressive politicians in their midst. The “enlightened” new government famously killed King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, but in fact their real target was the entire French upper class, which was garroted over the course of several bloody years. More than anything else, the French Revolution amounted to a violent attempt at redistribution of wealth, power and influence.

• The Russian Revolution

In 1917, dissenting political parties representing masses of disgruntled Russian citizens finally completed their overthrow of the corrupt Tsarist government. Even more so than the French Revolution (which the Russian intellegentsia had always studied, admired and sought to emulate), the Russian Revolution quickly devolved into state-sponsored violence on a mass scale, as vast numbers of the previous “upper class” were killed or imprisoned. Economic theory and pro/anti-communist propaganda aside, the Russian Revolution amounted to a violent redistribution of wealth, power and influence.

• The Iranian Revolution

In 1979, protests by groups of dissenting religious and secular Iranians reached such fervor that the Shah and his entourage fled the country to save their lives, eventually allowing the Ayatollah Khomeini to emerge as the new supreme leader. The ascent of Ayatollah Khomeini was the first major victory of a new phenomenon known as Islamic fundamentalism. A difficult societal transition followed, and the new Islamic government had to fight many internal battles with various population groups that felt disenfranchised by the new government, including the former upper class. Like the other revolutions above. the Iranian Revolution amounted to a violent redistribution of wealth, power and influence.

I know there are many different ways to look at the kaleidoscopic horror show known as war. But we should always look for the simplest explanations, as a medieval philosopher named William of Occam taught us. His formulation, known as Occam’s Razor, states that the simplest answer to any question is usually the correct one. The simplest explanation for the current strife all over the Middle East is that the populations of various Arab countries wish to overthrow their own governments.

A close look at Osama bin Laden’s career as a terrorist, for instance, shows that his primary enemy is actually not the United States of America and not Israel but rather the kingdom that rules the land of his birth, Saudi Arabia.

In Iraq, unbeknownst to the U. S. Department of Defense which figured this out only too late, Saddam Hussein’s long dictatorship was deeply grounded in Iraq’s historic “caste” system. Saddam is a Sunni, a representative of Iraq’s privileged minority class, and a powerful proportion of the Sunni population favored Saddam’s dictatorship because they feared the alternative: an uprising of the nation’s under-priviliged Shiite majority. This is the fault line George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld foolishly tripped over when they took down the guy at the top.

I find that the mathematics of current Middle East politics work out very easily if I use just two variables: greed and suffering. Conflicts happen either because people are greedy, or because people are suffering. Islamic fundamentalism is no different in kind from Bolshevik Marxism, or Robospierrian Jacobinism. I don’t see how anything would be much different in the Middle East if the populations were romantic panthiests, like the French radicals, or austere athiests, like the Russian insurgents, instead of Muslims. It’s not about Allah, despite all the hype we constantly hear by hysterical and shallow political analysts in the USA. Just apply Occam’s Razor, just look for the immediate causes, and a lot of bullshit falls away.

The next time somebody hits you with that familiar nonsense about “Muslims are devoted to taking over the whole planet and making us all wear burkas”, or “Jews will never share Jerusalem” or any of this other mythical crap, just look them in the eye and remind them that the simplest answers are the best ones. The wars in the Middle East are about power and wealth, and that’s all they’ve ever been about.

More on this in my next post!

Yeah, I’ve been away. I was paying a lot of attention to the House/Senate elections, and writing about them elsewhere. November was a good month, for a few different reasons. And now I’m back again, and ready to cause more trouble.

I’d like to write a series of posts over the next few weeks about a hot subject: the role of religion in our world’s problems. I recently wrote a review of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion over on LitKicks, and stated there that I do not believe religion can be blamed for any of the world’s problems. Lately I’m starting to sense that I hold a minority opinion here.

I’m always surprised to hear smart people say (as, for instance, my very intelligent uncle did this weekend at Thanksgiving) that they think Islam is an inherently violent religion. I guess we’ve heard this old chestnut so many times now that people simply believe it. I’d like to spend some time in the next couple of weeks exploring some actual facts about the motivations of those who promote war or terrorism around the world. Here’s a big scoop: they’re not doing it for God, or for Allah either.

In place of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, I’d like to propose a new topic: The Politics Delusion. I’d like to spell out the ways greed and corruption currently drive — and have always driven — mankind’s march towards war. Then I’d like to examine some of the ways we often gullibly fall for the routine when insecure and power-hungry world leaders use religion to “divide and conquer” their potential enemies. We forget this obvious fact: it’s all about power, and it always has been.

What am I talking about? Tune in in another day or two and find out. This is a topic I’ve been gearing up to write about.

Here’s an easy way to get laughed at: join a group of people discussing the war in the Middle East and propose that the Buddhist religion offers a practical path to peace.

I tried arguing this in my office at work on Friday, with predictable results. I remain undeterred, because I continue to hope that religious leaders unaffiliated with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic spheres of influence might be able to play a mediating role in the current conflict.  Those of us who wish for change in the Middle East need to actively recruit peacemakers who could possibly establish a dialogue with all parties involved (the alternative is to sit around and watch Condoleeza Rice represent our best hope, and I’d just as soon sit around waiting for the Kansas City Royals to win the World Series). I’m glad that the U.S.A. and France have managed to draft a resolution for the United Nations to vote on, but the work these diplomats are doing is utterly tactical. It’s an important immediate step, but it lacks the kind of moral inspiration that can move people as well as governments, and thus it only addresses the symptoms of war rather than the root causes.

As I’ve written about elsewhere, I am an ethnic Jew but have been a religious Buddhist since I was a teenager (which was a long time ago). I tend to think of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions as more similar than different, and I think of the wonderful traditions of eastern religion (not only Buddhism but also Hinduism and other great intellectual legacies from India, China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and Tibet) as a rich source of alternative thought. This is a theme I’d like to develop over time on this website, and I’d like to begin today by presenting a few relevant eastern-themed links.

• Deepak Chopra’a Where is Peace in a Time of War recently appeared on The Huffington Post. Chopra is part of a small group that runs IntentBlog, a modest site well worth visiting.

• You may have caught some episodes of Bill Moyers’ Faith and Reason, a PBS series featuring exploratory conversations about religion with various international writers. The episode featuring Pema Chodron is fascinating. Chodron, a Buddhist nun, emphasizes the concept of Buddhism not as an extreme choice but as a “middle path” for a wholesome life. Her prescription for balance and realism strikes me as very useful in the current world climate.

• The Sprout is a good article by Gudo Nishijima of Dogen Sangha.

I hope I won’t seem impatient if I express a wish that well-known Buddhist institutions and leaders would play a more active role in current worldwide dialogue, not because they are obliged to but because their help might make a big difference. I am surprised that this isn’t obvious to those I am addressing.

For example, I understand that Tricycle is a magazine and not a blog or a news source, but I am disappointed to visit their site and see very little discussion of the current situation in the Middle East. I am sure this represents a missed opportunity.

And, I complained last week that the Dalai Lama does not seem to be actively offering his involvement at this time either. I googled his name and all I came up with is the upcoming Peace Jam in Tennessee. Is this the best he can do? I would like to call on the various religious leaders of the world to please consider what they can offer in terms of dialogue and mediation right now. Much is at stake, and wisdom is in short supply. Maybe we need less jamming, and more peace.

Now that we’ve determined that we can’t sit around and wait for politicians to find the path to peace, who are we going to entrust this important job to? I’ll be examining this question in the next few posts, and today I’d like to introduce another candidate: religious leaders from the major faiths of the world.

It’s truly sad how badly the current leaders of the world’s religions are faring as peacemakers. Their legacy is great. We don’t need to go as far back as Jesus of Nazareth, whose sharp words should be endlessly inspiring to people of any religion. Many great peacemakers of our recent past were religious figures: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa. The first two of these names are notable for their strict adherence to the doctrine of non-violence, and if anybody doubts the effectiveness of non-violence, they need only look at the success of the democratic, free, multi-cultural nation of India (which has weathered many crises but remains the brave nation Gandhi and his partners imagined into being) or the great progress made towards racial equality in America during the period when the innovative Martin Luther King was on television news every night. Here’s the surprising truth: non-violent protest works.

Unfortunately, no well-known religious leader of today compares to Mohatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King in either character or talent. I think I’ll refrain from naming names at this point (I’d rather buttress up my research before I start slinging any actual mud on this site, so please be patient and return soon). Today I’m just going to speak collectively about the whole set of Western religious leaders who are vocal about political issues today, including well-known representatives of various sects of Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, Sunni Islam, Shiite Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Hasidic Judaism, Reform Judaism. Yesterday I gave the politicans of the world a D+ for positive action towards peace. The religious leaders of the world, hmmm, well … is there an F-?

They are a disappointing lot. The Dalai Lama of Tibet is one exception — he’s a wonderful speaker and a humble Buddhist — but as wars rage and rockets fly and bombs fall I sometimes wish the Dalai Lama would meditate less and talk more.

Some mention Pope John Paul II as a peacemaker, and he was certainly inspiring in many ways. But in 1994 the Catholic nation of Rwanda burst into a orchestrated and politically motivated genocide, and the Vatican failed to find any way to influence events in this churchgoing nation. A million Catholics were killed by their fellow Catholics over the course of one scary month, often with the complicity of priests who allowed church grounds to be turned into slaughterhouses.  (When I discussed this with a Catholic friend, he angrily asked what I expected the Pope to do: “Did you expect him to deploy the Vatican army to Rwanda?”  Funny line, but what I expected the Pope to do was exercise his leadership to improve the situation.  There is a direct line of communication and accountability from the Vatican to the parish priests, and I would have expected a remarkable effort to influence events, using the powerful weapons known as words.)

Other than the Dalai Lama, the field of religious leaders who work for peace is pretty empty. If I’m forgetting somebody, please do post a comment and let me know.

I plan to be observing the words of some of the world’s well-known religious figures more closely on this site in the future. Tomorrow I’ll continue this series with another party that might be considered a productive contributor towards the cause of world peace: the United Nations. (Now stop laughing. Yes, I’m going to talk about the United Nations as a positive force for peace.)