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Killing in the name of God.

Roy Ratcliffe | 25.09.2013 17:08 | Analysis | World

The recent assassination of shoppers in Kenya is just the latest in a growing list of killing in the name of religion and god. This article considers the problems this creates and the ideological tap-roots of this ancient textual prejudice and sectarian practice.

The recent events in Kenya, in which as yet an unknown number of shoppers have been summarily executed, demonstrates once again that the urge to kill in the name of religion and god is on the increase. When those shoppers who were identified by the fundamentalist al-Shabaab sect, as good Muslims were set free and others who were not executed, a situation reminiscent of the middle-ages was played out. That is to say that when the opportunity arose, armed groups belonging to one religious sect were visibly and openly intent on physically harming or eliminating those who in some way represented a different way of life – or in some cases just a different interpretation of religious ideology.

In the middle-ages fundamentalist Puritans persecuted and executed Catholic fundamentalists, whilst Catholic fundamentalists did the same to non-conforming communities, whether they were Cathars or Muslims. The systematic, imprisonment, torture and burning of all obvious heretics, including females specialising in folk medicine, preceded the more ambitious military invasions of foreign lands and conquest of wealth by Catholic, Islamic and Protestant elites. Killing in the name of God is as old as the invention of a monotheistic God. In all such cases, the tenets of the religious texts – which each religious denomination inherited from the ancient past – were utilised to justify, theft of land, resources and discriminating slaughter. In the 21st century, religious fundamentalism is once again on the increase and once again its tap-roots are to be found embodied in religious ideologies and their supposedly god-given patriarchal texts.

For groups of people to overcome any natural and socially reinforced inhibitions about systematically killing other human beings there needs to be a shared ideology – a higher cause – both to bind them together and which rationalises and justifies their inhuman practices. Angry, frustrated, oppressed, unemployed people etc. – of which under the present mode of production there are many – generally respond by one of the following; individual criminality, black economic activity, political activism or even suicide. They do not form armed groups and set about systematically torturing and assassinating others. Frustration, oppression, discrimination, injustice, unemployment and lack of opportunity are by themselves insufficient for such organised and orchestrated acts of savagery.

In addition, human beings are not born with such inclinations or self-justifying justifying ideologies, these have to be socially learned and socially reinforced. The male-dominated religions, particularly the Abrahamic religions have had centuries to perfect the methods of convincing people of the existence of an invisible and all-powerful ‘male’ entity who authorises their elite existence and has provided textual guidance to this effect. This ideological saturation of the human intellect begins at childhood. The childhood trust of children for the adults in their lives is systematically abused as fantasy ‘stories’ (fairies, goblins, Father Xmas etc.) are asserted as being ‘true’ until most of these concoctions fall apart at the internally contradictory narrative seams. The exception to the ignominious collapse of this ubiquitous fantasy parade in childhood is with regard to God – and for good reason.

The ideology of a male God and god-given authority in hierarchical societies is extremely useful to the elites who govern societies and communities for they can and do use this ideology to support their patriarchal rule. Hence Aristocratic, political, military and religious elites have always had a vested interest in promoting and perpetuating such ancient and unscientific fictions. Their jobs depended upon it. Indeed, they still do! The 21st century jobs, status and actions of all the worlds elite rulers depend almost entirely upon the rest of us believing one version or other of these un-enlightened two-thousand year old fictional creations. Hence religion, politics and military might are everywhere hand in hand if not actually hand in glove.

Even so-called secular leaders in the west are keen to project – and be protected by – an image of their sincere (or insincere) belief in an unknowable, unseen, male super-being who wrote or dictated some ancient, cobbled together instructions for how communities should live and be governed. Regular attendance at church, chapel, cathedral, mosque, synagogue by ‘leaders’ of nations – before, during or after ordering wars or massacres – are publicised as visual indicators of their sincerity, reliability and acceptability. But this obscene charade only continues because much of the world’s population has not yet thrown off their initial child-like trust in these self-serving religious fictions delivered to them during their infancy and later kept alive by peer group habit and ‘official’ social pressure.

In this way all ‘believers’ unwittingly perpetuate the very ideological and textual foundations of a brutal form of patriarchy upon which the fundamentalists who shoot and kill in the name of god depend for their unity and justifications. To repeat what was mentioned briefly above. To get together with other like-minded individuals in order to systematically kill requires not just anger, frustration or injustice, but an existing and unifying ideology. And these pre-requisites come ready made in the form of religious ideology and the so-called sacred texts. Christian Fundamentalists and Christian Zionists, Jewish Zionists, and Islamic fundamentalists, who all in one way or another, support and/or fund the killing of those not belonging to their own sect – all use their supposedly god-given religious texts as foundations for their inhuman actions.

When pro-abortion doctors and feminist activists set up abortion clinics the Christian fundamentalists who kill have no compunction in killing those who operate them. Why? Because by reading their so-called ‘authorised’ scriptures they find passages which allow and justify such actions. When Jewish Zionists kill or order the mass killing of Palestinians, they are guided by their fully authorised scriptures which among numerous bloodthirsty verses states that god gave them the land on which Palestinians have lived for generations. When Islamists shoot schoolgirls wishing to be educated or others who wish to vaccinate children, they undoubtedly could quote the Qur’an or an appropriate Hadith to justify this or that action. All these fundamentalist activists are doing actions suggested and authorised by their antique scriptures.

Therefore when on Saturday 21st September 2013 the al-Shabaab fighters lined people up in the Nairobi Westgate Shopping Mall before letting them go or assassinating them there and then – you can be sure they had been previously guided by the groups religious leader or Imam. The fact that the questions they asked in order to decide how to process their victims unequivocally demonstrates the fact of their absolute religious motivation. The questions they asked were religious ones to establish whether the shoppers were Muslim or not. If it is true that one of the killers said; “We are not monsters” and “The Muslim faith is not a bad one.”, then they were merely expressing what many uncritical Muslims would also take for granted. Yet the teaching of this faith – as with Christianity and Judaism – has not eradicated the desire, the actual practice and textual justification for killing in the name of god.

For this reason I suggest it is inadequate and insufficient for believers to distance themselves from such acts yet not distance themselves from their respective ‘authorised’ histories and texts which clearly justify such acts. A climate of self-criticism and radical re-thinking of their religious beliefs needs to be encouraged among all ‘believers’ if the world is to progress, beyond the current degenerative slide into religious, tribal and sectarian violence. In order to encourage critical reflection and to avoid such a regression it is insufficient for those on the left to ‘tolerate’ religious belief in an ill-thought out effort at ‘political correctness’, or in some muddled ‘moral equivalence’ posture or simply in order to the gain electoral votes from constituents who are religious.

This is because ‘liberal’ do-gooding neutrality or even lukewarm support for such patriarchal religious belief systems, not only leaves open the door for a further erosion of women’s rights – bad enough in itself – but much else is at stake. Religious beliefs of this kind are not only antiquated, childish and mistaken but are extremely dangerous. They have been so in the past and are again proving to be so in the present.

The re-assertion of religious forms of governance is a retrograde step in the progress of humanity, which has become internationally co-operative in economic terms and needs to be so in social terms. Such dysfunctional beliefs need serious and sustained challenge from all humanist inspired activists. It needs to be recognised that a section of the new generation of activist youth have embraced Islamism rather than anti-capitalism. Their vision of the future is for servile women along with continued capitalist exploitation rather than of equal partners under a post-capitalist egalitarian system.

Only such a serious challenge can hope to erode the present hold of fundamentalist ideologies on growing numbers of the youth of today and safeguard future generations from this sectarian dead end. This is because many of the recruits to Islamic jihad are quite rightly disgusted with the capitalist/imperialist and state-capitalist (communist) modes of production but mistakenly seek a better life under a future Islamic caliphate. This is an imaginary project which is as unrealistic, self-defeating and inhumane as one desiring an apartheid Jews-only state stretching from the Euphrates to the Nile, or one requiring indifference to this world whilst awaiting some fictional ‘rapture’ and the supposed ’gathering’ of the Christian elect. A consistent onslaught against such fictional projections and sectarian violence is necessary as well as broad-based non-sectarian community self-defence measures.

For the immediate future, the material frustrations, inequalities and injustices which are now universal due to the universality of the capitalist mode of production will remain. These can only be eradicated by a revolutionary transformation of this now reactionary and self-destructive mode of production. However, an economic transformation of this scale and magnitude cannot come about in the 21st century unless a majority of humanity are able to elevate the status of their humanity above that of their present religious or party political beliefs.

The sloughing off or at least a significant reduction in the importance of reactionary religious and political ideologies, is a necessary part of the process facing humanity in order to move on and not to be driven backwards. This transcendence will be necessary in order to overthrow the capitalist mode of production and end its persistent and uncontrollable economic, political, military and ecological destruction. Meanwhile there is an ideological battle for revolutionary-humanists to attend to. Killing in any form is a practice devised by insecure elites, not by humane communities of equality and justice. Killing in the name of God belongs where it was first advocated two millennia ago and should now be relegated to the antique section of the dustbin of history.

Roy Ratcliffe
- e-mail: royratcliffe@yahoo.com
- Homepage: www.critical-mass.net

Comments

Hide the following 19 comments

American nationalism and athiest anarchism.

25.09.2013 21:54

Yet another wayward and misguided western narrative in which Muslims and God are blamed for the oppressive cult of globalisation. Unemployment and economic depradation are western concerns. For those who are living in the quagmire of western intervention, taking up arms is all they can do to defend themselves.

You seem to think that this killing is about religion and God. That is a notion driven by nationalism and Islamophobia. These killings are about desperation, retaliation and political opposition to an extremist form of political militarism spread by the United States around the world. The Kenyan government have attenpted to exterminate al-Shabbab invisibly away from the public gaze and it went wrong. The American depravity of creating a class of Muslim that is barely recognisable as humans and only good enough for being slaughtered like animals has created exactly the conditions for what has happened in Kenya.

I for one take comfort in the fact al-Shabbab havent just gunned down people indiscriminately, they have carefully ensured that innocent Muslims have been spared. For imperial westerners and their lapdog apologist, including the writer of the article above, this is a terrifying development.

It means that the 'terrorists' are beginning to discern their targets in a more logical and rational way. Can anything represent a more terrifying development for the aggressive western globalist mindset than this?

No.

This article is utter rubbish and clearly reveals that so-called opposition to the War on Terror is often nothing more than prevarication and a fraud. This article is Islamophobic as well as pro-imperialism and very clearly indicative of the fact that we are seeing the War on Terror being reconstructed before our very eyes by the very same people that have always claimed to oppose it..

Bush & Blair are making a comeback in Obama and Cameron. The old imperial double acts are alive and well and more than likely never went away to start with.

Disgraceful and utterly dishonest article.

anonymous


to anonymous

25.09.2013 22:50

How the fuck can you defend that terrorist.group? What matters.is.they killed innocent people, doesn't matter if they're non-muslims.or what. You say that Al shaabab had no choice but to defend themselves, well who were they defending themselves against when they blew those civilians up.

Martin
mail e-mail: Neptune23456@gmail.com


To Martin

26.09.2013 08:01

collateral murder
collateral murder

You say that Bush and Blair had no choice but to defend themselves, well who were they defending themselves against when they blew those civilians up in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Collateral Murder


To Roy Ratcliffe

26.09.2013 08:16

"This is because many of the recruits to Islamic jihad are quite rightly disgusted with the capitalist/imperialist and state-capitalist (communist) modes of production but mistakenly seek a better life under a future Islamic caliphate."

I reckon some may see see this as the only way of exacting revenge - as the only accessible ways of striking back. Or are you aware of other means available to ordinary folk who've been raised as Muslims and who see these repeated unjustifiable attacks on innocents and want to strike back?

Do you think every single suicide bomber in Palestine during the second Intifada was "mistakenly seeking a better life under a future Islamic Caliphate?"

Do you think the USA and UK are funding Islamists in Syria, like they did when it was expedient for them to senf Al-Qaida to fight the Russians in Afghanistan? ? If so do you think they are providing this funding because they mistakenly seek a better life under a future Islamic caliphate?

Finally, do you think that perhaps you might have over-simplified the issue?

Collateral Murder


to collateral murder

26.09.2013 12:35

When did I even mention Blair or Bush. At the end.of the day, those who.committed attack only targeted non-muslims, so there obviously was a religious element to it. They decided to punish innocent people for thr actions of their government.

Martin
mail e-mail: Neptune23456@gmail.com


Selective "terrorism".

26.09.2013 14:38

"How the fuck can you defend that terrorist.group? What matters.is.they killed innocent people, doesn't matter if they're non-muslims.or what. You say that Al shaabab had no choice but to defend themselves, well who were they defending themselves against when they blew those civilians up."

Yes it does matter who these people are that have been killed.

It matters because the whole concept of a "terrorist" spins on the concept that they are illogical, indiscriminate and random in the way they target people or things.

It matters because the biggest element of anti-terror polemic depends critically on the notion that Muslims, as well as others, have something to fear from the "terrorists".

It matters because indiscriminate killing, random violence and religious self preservation are the only things the Islamophobes have to prop up their own prejudices in society as they busily convert others toward their demented agenda's.

It really does matter, and it matters very much.

anonymous


to anonymous

27.09.2013 00:01

Whatever. You should be disgusted at this attack. What kind.of person are you if it comforts you that it was non-muslim who died. No civilians should.die, doesn't matter if they're non-muslim or not you sick fuck.

Martin
mail e-mail: Neptune23456@gmail.com


to anonymous

27.09.2013 00:04

And what's Islamophobic about that article. Being anti-al shaabab isn't Islamophobic.

Martin
mail e-mail: Neptune23456@gmail.com


Extracting the truth.

27.09.2013 09:28

" Whatever. You should be disgusted at this attack. What kind.of person are you if it comforts you that it was non-muslim who died. No civilians should.die, doesn't matter if they're non-muslim or not you sick fuck."

It doesnt surprise me that you can tell me what I should be thinking. That doesnt surprise me at all. In the demented pursuit of converting Muslims into sub-humans to be slaughtered summarily outside of all known legality, the War of Terror clan have grown used to expecting complete obediance.

Its called totalitarianism and a big part of it is an expectation that all people will display a single fixed response to a pre-determed event.

So no display of outrage to business as usual with a drone strike or summary execution as long as it is done to a "terrorist" but explosive and violent anger if it is "innocent civilians" especially if those civilians were innocently spending dollars for uncle sam.

I have no need of this repellent ideology you call a fixed human response. A human response is to want to know the truth and that is something you totalitarians arent very good at.

It is bad al-Shabaab had to kill at all, but it is good al-Shabaab at least thought of preserving Muslims. This shows that even in the midst of being exterminated by the War of Terror clan, there is still a moral dimension to their thinking.

anonymous


for "non-muslims" - the answer

27.09.2013 17:06

> It is bad al-Shabaab had to kill at all, but it is good al-Shabaab at least thought of preserving Muslims. This shows that even in the midst of being exterminated by the War of Terror clan, there is still a moral dimension to their thinking.


WTF?!

1. al-shabaab didn't "have to kill"
At no point did they have to go into a shopping center and kill people

2. good that they preserved muslims? so basically you mean it "is good" that they targeted non-muslims instead. Thats pretty much as racist as you can get.

3. exterminated. Yes Al-shabaab should be exterminated so that they no longer kill people in shopping centers. This means that when i go or my family go shopping, we will all be a bit safer doing it

Basically, you are saying that because me and my family are "non-muslim", i am at risk from these nutters?

OK.... well that closes the deal for me. Whatever makes me safer I shall support.

a non-muslim target


Death to all Americans?

27.09.2013 18:21

"Yes Al-shabaab should be exterminated so that they no longer kill people in shopping centers. This means that when i go or my family go shopping, we will all be a bit safer doing it "


"Yes Britons and Americans should be exterminated so that they will no longer bomb villages. This means when me and my family are at home, we will be safer living our lives"



rhetorical device


will not be a victim

27.09.2013 18:50

> "Yes Britons and Americans should be exterminated so that they will no longer bomb villages. This means when me and my family are at home, we will be safer living our lives"


Notice how I said "Al-shabaab" rather than all muslims.
Ie. i said only the ones who are in a miliant group who have the death of us in their hearts should be exterminated.

In contrast, you decide that 100% of us should be wiped out even thought 99.999999% of us have nothing to do with bombing your villages.

Interesting.

I think this pretty much sums up your mentality.
Pretty sad really. Clearly there wont be any diplomatic solution

Like you previous comments --> You just want us all dead
There is no reasoning. There is no compassion. There is no humanity
You are just dangerous barbarians that we must protect ourself from since "Britons and Americans" are the target of your hatred

a non-muslim target


Commodity Fetish

27.09.2013 22:36

This entire argument is missing the decisive point - violence in the name of conviction is not the same as violence in the name of conviction. One can come from revelation and find a last resort, or one can come from killing and find a strong excuse, and often there are elements of both in the same situation.

In capitalism people think of divine legitimation as a blank cheque from a bank that could never go bankrupt. It would be possible to name industrialists turned preachers who actually argued so. In capitalism a shopping mall in Kenya can be traded for any other building with the same value as a target of attack in another community. This is the most leaked about property in the reach of that group. There was some objective procedure to determine who remained inside the circle of death and who would get out. That implies at least some of them came from revelation and could not find a last resort in their reach. The borders are not between the communities but between the exploited and the exploiters. And when even death cannot make it through them it becomes visible where it comes from.

Would you like it secular or theological?


99.999999%

27.09.2013 22:54

Wrong numbers. 316,743,000 inhabitants, 129,085,403 voters, that´s 59,246012% innocent.

100%


Diplomatic Solution

27.09.2013 23:06

That author is not so wrong, it is only that his definition must be understood to include killers who say so "so help me ..." and their symbolic enablers.

Eternal Agnostic


To defenders of Al-shaabab

28.09.2013 11:53

Seriously how can any so called leftist defend al-shaabab? Yeah okay Kenyan troops fought al-shaabab? But it's not like al-shaabab are innocent. They have no qualms about.killing civilians and enforce.their brutal version of Sharia law on the Somalian people.

Martin
mail e-mail: Neptune23456@gmail.com


@ 28.09.2013 11:53

28.09.2013 19:36

What a pity that the Americans have lowered the humanitarian standard so much that in contrast to them even authoritarian groups like this one are on the right side of history.

But that is just (full stop optional) The law of cause and consequence.

betrayed.youth


Al shaabab

29.09.2013 15:08

How exactly are al-shaabab on the right side of history? They're not even fighting the americans they just fight civilians.

Martin


To Collatoral damage etc

29.09.2013 16:28

I agree that not all suicide bombers are motivated by the idea of a caliphate -  but I am not claiming that in the article. Indeed when I went to the west bank (Tukarem, Anabta etc) to help defend the Olive Harvest from Zionist settlers the youth there were not so motivated, nor the adults I met. That is why I use the word 'many' and not 'all'. These other instances or the Intifada are not what the article is aimed at.

For me the clue about what the article is against is in the title -  'KIlling in the name of God' and in the content which says when groups get together to kill in the name of god they use religious ideology and texts to justify it. Hence the need for a critical re-appraisal of these. This article does not cover the other reasons why people get together to kill - ie revenge, retaliation, to resist occupation, jealousy, anger etc.- but its not meant to - that is material for a book or two - but not a task for me.

Furthermore, I am suggesting that many on the left have failed to distinguish between defending a human being and defending an ideology. To my mind this represents a failure to rise above bourgeois and religious establishment promoted 'identity' politics. It may sound like an irreconcilable contradiction to argue for defending Muslim working men and women, yet rigorously and vigorously criticising the religion of Islam, but to me it is not. The apparent contradiction for me is reconciled by recognising that human beings are not identical with any ideology they may have uncritically accepted. Ideas are open to modification and change - that is a fundamental evolutionary attribute of human consciousness. It is also clearly possible to recognise that some ideologies (religious or not) are forms of mental and frequently physical enslavement as Fascism and Stalinism proved to be.

As human beings those workers and poor currently attached to the religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are oppressed, exploited and marginalised by the capitalist mode of production. But they are also oppressed, exploited and marginalised by religious elites, who often demand submission to religious authority and deny many human rights to their members. At their roots - and in much of their practice - these religions represent fiercely patriarchal religions which dominate and exploit at all levels the womenfolk, the children and the ordinary members attached to them.

Such religious domination and oppression may be administered lightly in some cases and violently in others - but oppression and exploitation is always at their core. So too, in many cases, are their flagrant hostility to other religions and those of no faith. This aggressive internecine hostility and social control may have diminished in some places, and even for considerable periods of time. But muted or open, hostility and competition for the patriarchal governance of communities remains an essential part of Judaism's, Christianity and Islam’s ideological foundations.

For this reason, in my opinion it is correct to defend Muslim communities against the attacks of state and the neo-fascists of all persuasions but make it clear (to them and others) we are defending them as oppressed and exploited members of the human family and are definitely not defending Islam or any other such religious ideology. For it is an ideology which - in many places - seeks to keep women as second-class citizens, allows child marriages, violently discriminates against gays and lesbians, issues death Fatwa’s against those who criticise and promotes governance by 'belief' in an invisible, unknowable, therefore for all intents and purposes a non-existent male.

Regards,

Roy

Roy Ratcliffe
mail e-mail: royratcliffe@yahoo.com
- Homepage: www.critical-mass.net


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