Muslims don’t have the monopoly on blood and violence

October 2006, Al-Qalam

It has now become an established norm – within journalism and within society more generally - that when some violence is committed by a Muslim somewhere in the world, other Muslims are asked to condemn it as if they bore some responsibility for it. This has been a growing trend since the incidents of the 11 September 2001.

Recently, then, when Pope Benedict XVI quoted a 14^th century Byzantine emperor as referring to “what Muhammad brought” as “only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached, not only were Muslims in this country asked to respond to what he had said, we were also called on to condemn the few incidents of (contemptible) violence that followed Benedict’s statement.

Apart from the fact that I really don’t care to defend what is done by others that I do not agree with – even if we share the same religion, another problem I have with this knee-jerk reaction is that this call to condemn such acts of violence is a requirement only of Muslims and not of members of other faiths or ideologies when their co-religionists are similarly guilty.

Benedict XVI, in his attempt to reclaim reason and rationality (and Europe) for Christianity, sought to do it partly by demonising Islam, the religion of the foreign, by painting it (even if in passing) as the irrational Other to Christianity’s rationality, as the one which was spread by the sword, as opposed to Christianity’s peacefulness. The greater injustice that the Pope committed against the truth was not what he said about Islam, but what he said (and did not say) about Christianity. It was a deliberate act of forgetfulness of the irrationality and violence of Christianity that has been wrought on the world for centuries. A reminder of some of that violence is, perhaps, necessary for those who demand, ad nauseum¸ condemnations and apologies from Muslims.

The father of Manuel II Paleologus , the Roman emperor that Benedict quoted, was a well-known Crusader king, part of the centuries-long Christian Crusades that were characterised by blood and murder – of Muslims, Jews and even other Christians. Manuel II Paleologus’ rule was followed by another bloody episode in Christian history where the main – though not sole – victims were Christians: the Inquisition. Both of these are part of the European Christian history of violence that Benedict not only does not apologise for, but completely ignores. Both of these rank as among the most bloody and shameful periods in the last few centuries.

A few hundred years later, Europeans were part of a very important – and extremely violent and brutal – Christian project: colonisation. European colonialism destroyed entire peoples, perpetrated the worst and most large- scale theft of property ever and subjugated nations in a manner never before seen in history. At least half of the world continues to suffer from the destruction caused by that period of Christian expansionism. But this is not worthy of Benedict’s attention nor is he willing (as honesty would demand) to claim it (and then apologise for it) as part of Christian experience.

He ignores too the violence visited on Europe by his compatriots just over half a century ago, when the Nazis perpetrated a holocaust that sought to eliminate various ‘undesirables’ – including the genocide that resulted in the murders of six million Jews. And Benedict certainly forgot to note and condemn his own role as a member of the Hitler Youth!

If the Pope were to look to the world today to find instances of violence to condemn in his attempt to set the Church apart from it, he can do no better than to refer to the Crusade of Christian armies in Iraq and Afghanistan, led by a twentieth century emperor: George Bush. But instances of Muslim violence are so much easier to refer to if one wants to convince Europe of Christianity’s rationality – especially in this day when Islam and Muslims are easily the most convenient whipping boys of the world!

What of that deliberately ignored group in Africa, which has been waging a brutal war for the past 20 years (making it Africa’s longest-running conflicts): the Lord’s Resistance Army which has terrorised civilian populations in Northern Uganda in its efforts to create a Christian state. The LRA is probably the most brutal guerrilla group operating anywhere in the world today. Its signature is the amputation of victims’ limbs or lips. Thousands of Ugandan villagers suffer today as a result of the mutilations and murders visited on the people by these soldiers of Christianity. And about 25,000 children have been kidnapped by the LRA (another of its signatures) to be forced to be slaves or child soldiers.

There is much more Christian violence to talk about than can be referred to in one article. But the point is that Christianity does not have less violence and blood in its history than any other religion. Perhaps it has even more than any other religion to apologise for and condemn. Yet no Christian is repeatedly asked – especially when talking of issues of justice – to begin by condemning the Crusades, colonialism, the Nazi holocaust, the LRA and other such painful episodes. (Just as no Hindu is asked to begin by condemning Hindutva murders in India and no Jew is asked to begin by condemning Israeli massacres in Palestine.)

It is not sufficient, as one Christian caller on a talk show recently responded to such incidents, by saying that the perpetrators of all of these and the perpetrators of Apartheid in South Africa ‘are not Christians’. Just as it is not an adequate excuse for Muslims to simply refer to Bin Laden and his cronies as ‘not Muslim’. Muslims have to accept that terrorists exist within our midst and that such terrorists sometimes use their religion to justify their terrorism. So too do Christians have to accept that terrorists have and do exist within their midst and that such terrorism (whether by a state like the US or by extra-state groups like the LRA) is often justified by resort to their religion. It is such acceptance that will help overcome all forms of terrorism. But such acceptance does not imply that one group (Muslims) need to constantly apologise for the violence of their co-religionists before anything they have to say will be regarded as being valuable.