Religion and the Global Resurgence of Violence: Connection of the Abrahamics

By Kizito Chike Osudibia

The world today is greatly challenged and assaulted by various kinds of violence. The most embarrassing and, perhaps the most easily perpetrated form of violence, is the violence performed in the name of religion. Violence has been used to propagate religious causes; violence has equally been used to maintain the status quo ante; and yet violenc

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Sep 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781643451176

Kizito Chike Osudibia

Kizito Chike Osudibia is a priest of the Catholic Church. Currently, he is pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The author, who is a scholar and pastor, holds a BPhil (1989), a BTh (1993), an MA in political science (2010), a doctorate degree in civil and organizational leadership, EdD (2015) and a doctorate in Political Science, PhD (2018). He has confidence that ideas change, rule, and sustain the world of change. Hence, the idea that the Abrahamic religions, numbering more than half of the world's population, can bring enduring peace to the globe is, for him, a desideratum. His arguments speak for themselves in this book. Among his published books are Nigeria: The Case of Fragmentation (1995), Challenges to the Fourth Republic: Nigerian Connexion (2001), and Revolution: A Dangerous Option for Nigeria (2004).

Book preview

List of Tables

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Dedication

This work is dedicated

1. To all the victims of senseless religious violence, and violence perpetrated in the name of religion – dead or alive.

2. To my nephews and nieces, and

3. To all who work tirelessly to assuage the raving

bouts of violence in the world.

Acknowledgements

To God be all the glory. I begin by thanking fellow victims of violence in the name of religion. Your fortitude and resilience inspired this book. I thank Dr Edward Kim and Dr Leila Sopko, my professors, who helped to nurture my intellectual development and who wrote the foreword and preface to this book, respectively. Dr Bill Barry, words are insufficient to thank you for your role in supporting and encouraging my intellectual curiosity and academic adventures. Thank you for your invaluable friendship. To my peer and friend Dr Uju Okeahialam, we have shared and discussed ideas even though we do not always agree on certain fronts. Thanks for the comments you made concerning this publication. Ann Smith, your priceless friendship and support cannot go unnoticed at this time. You have been a beacon of hope, and a paragon of true friendship. I cannot thank you enough. To my publishers and those who made this edition successful; to Fr. Donatus Ironuma (Jomo), and Julie Costello, and Dave Ambuul I say thank you. Thank you, and may God bless you all.

Kizito Chike Osudibia

Foreword

Religion and the Global Resurgence of Violence: Connection of the Abrahamics is a timely publication. The whole world of the news media is fraught with sad events of violence and heinous terrorist acts. In recent times, domestic and public violence has been ubiquitous. Europe has witnessed and experienced myriad terrorist attacks; the Middle East is constantly being assaulted by violence and the threat to exterminate Israel; and the United States, since 11 September 2001, has never been at rest from keeping watch over unexpected assaults from violent groups. Scholars and social analysts have been preoccupied in writing and probing for solutions to the obnoxious phenomenon of violence of every kind – especially terrorism at both national and international levels. Some scholars have argued that this is the way of life, while others have argued to the contrary. In addition, while some scholars have argued that religion leads to violence, others have argued that religion instead has been invoked in order to perpetrate violence. I believe it is not my duty here to judge the positions of these scholars and commentators; either way, one position could be the correct case. Sometimes one may find both positions correct and working simultaneously.

In this publication, Osudibia examines the three Abrahamic religions and observes that there are elements of violence, covert or overt, in the Abrahamic religions. A cursory look at the different forms of violence the author identifies in chapter 1 gives credence to the claim that the Abrahamic religions have streaks of violence etched in some of their actions and practices. Osudibia went further to trace particular cases of violence among the Abrahamic religions, such as Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, the conflicts between Irish Catholics and Protestants, and the skirmishes between the Sunnis and Shiites, just to name one case from each of the religions. An interesting point Osudibia makes is that intra- Abrahamic religious violence exists along with inter-Abrahamic religious violence. Hence, while the Christian denominations perpetrate violence among themselves, Muslim sects also mete out the same violence among themselves, as do the Jewish Zionists against the liberals. Osudibia argues with facts that not even the particular sects are free from meting out violence among their own members. Spiritual violence and structural violence, in the view of the author, seem to have been institutionalised in order to keep the status quo ante, or to keep the system going.

In chapter 3, the author furthers his argument from some theoretical perspectives. Theories are an essential part of the framework used to organise or explain specific social phenomena within socio-political settings or social sciences in general. They are based on certain assumptions, which bring the attention to particular features of a phenomenon and thus contribute to better understanding of it. The four theories that Osudibia employs in expounding his views and arguments – namely the social movement theory, the theory of fundamentalism, the theory of primordialism, and the theory of the God of war – could not have dovetailed better in this analytical publication. The author, in chapter 4, provides a somewhat detailed historical and religious background of the world’s known terrorist organisations. Like the other chapters, chapter 4 is very interesting and informative. How and why the notorious terrorist organisations started, how they grow, how they are sustained, and how they stand now even in the heat of being fought by the world powers are valuable pieces of information one must not let slip by without acquiring. I acknowledge I had no knowledge of the existence of some of the terrorist organisations discussed by the author in this book.

To demonstrate his scholarship, the author, in chapter 5, triangulates his work by engaging with focus groups and individuals concerning this subject. Among his discoveries are the causes of religious violence among these religions, which include but are not limited to government meddling in religious affairs, feelings of humiliation, and the accompanying bid to right wrongs. It has been discovered that where civil authorities impose laws relating to dress, such as abolishing face coverings; religious processions; and similar practices, violent conflicts may occur. It has also been discovered that where an individual or a sect feels humiliated by religious authorities, the tendency to demand for apology is very high, and when an apology is not forthcoming, conflicts can ensue. With regard to curbing violence and terrorism, the author argues for a deepened sense of dialogue, apologies, and forgiveness on the one side, and to stop all forms of brainwashing and the notion of heroic death on the other side. The author does, however, also include the argument of those who would prefer confronting violence with violence.

Osudibia is optimistic that if the Abrahamic religions can achieve peace among and within their various denominations and sects, peace can be achieved throughout the whole world. The author further argues that since the numerical strength of these religions totals half of the world’s population, peace will be on the way once they can achieve peace among themselves. This is the central argument of this book.

It is my special honour and privilege to be a part of this erudite discourse. In this work, Dr Osudibia has demonstrated a highly innovative and articulate sense of intellectual adventure. He has delved into an area that is highly debated, but his approach is unique and distinct from all existing nexus through which religion and violence have been discussed. Tying the Abrahamic religions to the peace they stand for, and exploring the possibility of bringing this peace to bear upon themselves and then to the world in general, is an invention only a scholar could venture into. I hereby recommend this book to scholars and students of political science, sociology, and liberal arts and sciences. I also recommend this book to religious and civil leaders, not only of the Abrahamic religions but also of other religions as well, since its relevance could be applied multi- dimensionally. To politicians and opinion builders, and all who would like to bring their faith to bear in their work, this book is a must read, and to imbibe its principles a desideratum.

Leila Sopko, PhD

Preface

In the face of a world gone awry with domestic, national, and international violence that is often attributed to religion, the only reasonable question that readily comes to mind is, how can this sacrosanct domain be used for such ungodly acts against humanity? According to the author of this book, violence is used not only against the people of other religions but also among people who profess the same faith. In a similar way, the author argues, religion has been adduced as a reason to propagate violence because according to these faiths it is commanded by God, Allah, or Yahweh. That is why the author has examined in this work the point of connection of the three religions investigated and argued that, if Abraham is a man of peace and Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, which profess peace and claim descent from him, these religions could achieve peace among themselves, which could lead to peace being achieved in the world.

History is replete with violence meted to each other by the Abrahamic faiths. For instance, Eusebius recorded that Christians were killed by Jews during the Bar Kochba revolt. The Yemeni Jewish Himyar tribe, led by King Dhu Nuwas, massacred twenty thousand Christians in 524. The Sasanian conquest and occupation of Jerusalem involved the massacre of Christians by Jews. The wars between the emerging Islamic caliphates and the Christian Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire between the seventh and eleventh centuries AD were a series of military, political, and religious conflicts which led to the Islamization of large territories in the Near East, such as Egypt and Syria. The Crusades (which lasted from the end of eleventh to the end of the thirteenth century AD) were a series of military expeditions from Western Europe to the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean in a rather unsuccessful attempt by Western (Catholic) Christians to conquer what was perceived by all Christians as the Holy Land, taking it from its Muslim inhabitants. The Crusades were also marked with conflicts between Western and Eastern (Orthodox, Syro- Jacobite, and Armenian) Christians, and unilateral damage was inflicted by Western Christians to Jews. The conquest and the following Reconquista of Spain, and the founding of Portugal (over a period of seven hundred years) involved a series of wars between Muslims and Christians in the Iberian Peninsula. These wars resulted in the founding of several Muslim and Christian mediaeval states, as well as the final victory of the Catholic Crown of Castile and Aragon against the Muslim Emirate of Granada.

We can also recall the Ottoman conquest of the Balkan Peninsula from the middle of the fourteenth to the end of the fifteenth century AD. This period was marked by a series of wars between the Islamic Ottoman Empire and various Christian powers and alliances. The end of the fourteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century AD, saw an important political, military, and cultural process for South-Eastern Europe that resulted in the fall of the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire and its successor states, and finally led to the emergence of several modern nations in that region. The Spanish Inquisition was an attempt by the Christian Catholic Church in Spain in the wake of the centuries-long Reconquista to suppress or expel Jews and Muslims and to prosecute Christian heretics. Openly Jewish and Muslim people were expelled rather than killed, but many submitted to forced conversion to Catholicism to avoid expulsion. The inquisitors often did not trust the converts and persecuted them cruelly for being secret adherents of their original religions, which was often true but sometimes fabricated. At various points in history, pogroms against Jews were common in Christian Europe, as they were in many Islamic areas, according to Richard Gottheil. There is no need to discuss the modern and contemporary dimensions of the violence, as this book speaks louder than any other ever could.

Osudibia’s argument is clear; take a look at the statistics of the Abrahamic religions. Christianity comes first with adherents numbering over two billion. This is followed by Islam, with over one billion followers, and Judaism with more than 100 million. According to Preston Hunter, as of 2005, it was estimated that 54 per cent (3.6 billion people) of the world’s population considered themselves adherents of an Abrahamic religion; about 32 per cent, adherents of other religions; and 16 per cent, adherents of no organised religion. Christianity is the largest Abrahamic faith, with 33 per cent of the world’s population; Islam is second, with 21 per cent, and Judaism has 0.2 per cent. If one adds up the arithmetic using the exact numbers, one discovers that the total number of adherents of the Abrahamic religions exceeds half of the total world population. Furthermore, other world religions – such as Hinduism, whose followers number about one billion; Sikhism, which has a minimal violence rating; Zoroastrianism, and others, including animism and atheism, which have little or no popular records of violence – would not be a hindrance to the achievement of world peace. It is Osudibia’s clear argument in this publication that global religious violence or violence in the name of religion is perpetrated by the Abrahamic religions that confess peace and even sing it as a song. Judaism salutes shalom, a Hebrew word which means peace. Islam salutes "Salaam Alaikum [Alekum], an Arabic expression meaning Peace be with you. In addition, Christianity in certain circles salutes Peace be with you", the first greeting of Jesus Christ to his apostles after His resurrection.

I must congratulate Dr Kizito Osudibia in this thought-provoking and innovative publication. Religion and the global resurgence of violence: Connection of the Abrahamics is a well-researched chef-d’oeuvre. It is scholarly, original, and, above all, readable. Whether one agrees with Dr Osudibia’s arguments in parts or in totality, it would require more than a mere wave of the hand to dismiss the facts, information, and arguments presented herein.

Edward Kim, PhD

Chapter 1

Introduction

Once started, religious strife has a tendency to go on and on, to become permanent feuds. Today we see such intractable inter-religious wars in Northern Ireland, between Jews and Muslims and Christians in Palestine, Hindus and Muslims in South Asia and in many other places. Attempts to bring about peace have failed again and again. Always the extremist elements invoking past injustices, imagined or real, will succeed in torpedoing the peace efforts and bringing about another bout of hostility.

—Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, addressing the World Evangelical

Fellowship

As if the catastrophic 11 September 2001, attacks in the United States were child’s play, several acts of terrorism have prevailed since. On 7 January 2015, the world awoke once again to yet another sad reality of a violent terrorist attack in France. About twenty died and twenty-two were injured in a mass shooting at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, two Islamist gunmen who identified themselves as belonging to al-Qaeda in Yemen, carried out this attack. During this period, a third Islamist gunman who was a close friend of the Kouachi brothers, Amedy Coulibaly, was responsible for two shootings and a hostage taking at a Hypercacher kosher market. He said he synchronised his attacks with the Kouachi brothers. Coulibaly had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. On 13 November of the same year, Paris experienced another terrorist attack. This suicide bombing and shooting has been described as the deadliest terrorist attack in French history, wherein more than 132 people died and more than 352 people were injured (Faiola and Mekhennet 2015). Several shootings and grenade attacks occurred on that fateful Friday night; among the locations targeted were a music venue, a sports stadium, and a popular ethnic restaurant. Scores were killed during the cordon at an Eagles of Death Metal concert inside the Bataclan. French President François Hollande was evacuated from the football match between France and the 2014 world champions, Germany, at the Stade de France (CNN). Stade de France was the slated location for the UEFA Euro 2016 Final. There were three separate suicide bombings over the course of about forty minutes. President Hollande called the Paris attacks an act of war by the Islamic State, Faiola and Mekhennet reported.

What is happening? Obviously it is the resurgence of global violence. While connecting past and recent terrorist activities, and their actors, one question inevitably came to my mind: What has encumbered, impeded, or prohibited the Abrahamic religions from achieving peace in the world? If rephrased, my question would read like this: How can the Abrahamic religions generate peace in the world? This tome investigates this very question. This book is a product of many years of reflection on violence in general and religiously motivated violence in particular, and it investigates what the world could possibly do in order to stem the vortex of religious violence. Growing up in my country under the eerie atmosphere of conflict, both religious and civil, and seeing escalating terrorism being perpetrated in the different regions of the world today, I have been left with no choice other than to undertake this study in order to discover what must be done to save our world from ultimate demise in the hands of violence. It is yet harder to think about this violence when one realises that these violent activities are executed by the hands of, or under the auspices of, the sacrosanct realm of religion. I cannot overcome the horrible thought and continual flashes of the brutal beheading of one Gideon Akaluka, which occurred in Nigeria in December 1994. Akaluka’s severed head was impaled on a lance and paraded over the city of Kano as a triumph of Islam over Christianity. Gideon Akaluka was arrested in December 1994 after his wife allegedly used pages of the Koran as toilet paper for her baby. After he was imprisoned by the police, a group of Muslims broke into the jail, killed him, and walked away with his severed head. Religious violence in Nigeria has been rife since the 1950s, and it is only becoming worse as the ruthless Boko Haram grows stronger by the day.

Whenever a human life is diminished by terrorist acts, all human lives are diminished and reduced to nothing. There is also a loss of innocence. Americans felt this way as they helplessly watched the televised images of the crumbling World Trade Center on the morning of 11 September 2001. However, years before the tragedy of 9/11, Americans were targets of many terrorist attacks. Examples include the 1993 explosion at the World Trade Center, which was the unnerving forecast of the horror to come barely eight years later; the destruction of the federal building at Oklahoma City in 1995; the bomb blast at the Olympics in Atlanta; and the destruction of a US military housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in 1996. Other examples are the abortion clinic bombings in Alabama and Georgia in 1997 and the attacks on US embassies in Africa in 1998. There are yet other violent episodes associated with the United States’ religious extremists, which include members of the Christian Identity Movement and the Christian Militia, as well as Christian anti-abortion activists. These combined acts and groups have brought Americans into the same apprehensive position occupied by many in other parts of the world.

When a Hamas suicide bomber ripped through the refurbished Ben Yehuda shopping mall in Jerusalem in December 2001, the explosion destroyed not only lives and properties; it also destroyed the confidence with which most people viewed the world. As had happened in the case of the World Trade Center, those who saw the images of the ruined mall and environs saw symbols of their own ordinary lives being assaulted. They vicariously felt the anxiety of the victims who experienced this horror firsthand. After all, Jerusalem is a tourist centre and attracts Jews and Christians from all over the world at any given time, winter or summer. Hence anybody could have been a victim of that bomb assault. Simply put, the attack on the mall was an attack not only on Israel but also on the whole world.

The ubiquity of violence in the name of religion is disturbing. The British have dealt with living with the experience of having their buses and lorries blown up by Irish Catholic nationalists. The Protestants in Northern Ireland terrorised the Catholics for years. The French people have dealt with Underground bombs planted by Algerian Islamic activists, and the Japanese have dealt with nerve gas planted in Tokyo subways by members of a Hindu-Buddhist sect (Juergensmeyer 2003). Residents of New Delhi, India, have also experienced car bombings by both Sikh and Kashmiri separatists. Sri Lanka could not escape religious violent attacks. A whole section of the city of Colombo was destroyed both by Tamils and by Sinhalese militants. For many people who live in the Middle East, violence and terrorist attacks have been all but a way of life as Israelis and Palestinians have confronted the noxious deeds of Jewish and Muslim extremists. Algerians have lost entire towns and hamlets to attacks perpetrated by the supporters of the Islamic Salvation Front. The list can go on for eternity.

Reverend Michael Bray and his associate drove at night to an abortion clinic in Dover, Delaware, and risked the cold weather and icy road conditions with the boot of their car loaded with deadly materials and petrol. The Los Angeles Times (1998) and the Daily Reporter (1998) quoted Reverend Michael Bray as saying that before daybreak, the only abortion chamber in Dover was gutted by fire and put out of the business of butchering babies. Bray’s trial in court revealed that he and two other defendants destroyed seven abortion clinics in Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Bray was alleged to be the underground founder of the Army of God. Before being sent to prison, Bray defended the murderous actions of his friend Reverend Paul Hill, who killed an abortion doctor named John Britton and his escort in 1994. In close proximity to Reverend Michael Bray is Eric Rudolph. Rudolph had a long list of allegations against him, which included blowing up a lesbian bar in Atlanta, the bombing of abortion facilities in Birmingham, Alabama, and Atlanta, and detonating a bomb at the 1996 Olympics because of a move made by the organisers of the games which Rudolph perceived as pro-gay. What Bray and Rudolph had in common was the idea shared by many Christian activists that sexual immorality is to be condemned. Sexual immorality includes abortion and homosexuality.

The 1990s witnessed a series of anti-peace demonstrations that followed the tragic 1995 slaying of Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir. In addition to this crime was the attack on the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron by Baruch Goldstein, and the ferocious reprisals of Ariel Sharon against what his administration regarded as Palestinian terrorism from 2001 to 2003. All these have left many Jews and Israelis doubtful of their identity as a religious, peace-loving, and tolerant people. Nevertheless, the committers of Jewish violence have certainly justified their actions with the precedents of their sad history, Jewish theology, biblical examples, and pious emotional expressions. Some of the elite would like the Israelis to see their actions in the worldview of Yigal Amir, Dr Goldstein, and many of their colleagues, who believe that the Israelis are caught up in a war that encompasses political, cultural, and military aspects. The dimensions of violence from the Jewish side could be motivated by reasons other than merely religious ones.

India has not been spared religious violence since its inception as an independent nation. There have been sporadic tensions between the Hindus and the Muslims in such tragic outbreaks as the destruction of the iconic mosque at Ayodhya by an angry Hindu mob in 1992. However, the foremost example of violent religious activism in India was the Khalistan movement of the warring Sikhs. On 31 August 1995, the residents of the state of Punjab were surprised by a massive explosion that rocked the car park of the state secretariat in the capital of Chandigarh. This attack was linked to the Sikh separatist movement, which for fifteen years people thought had been laid to rest. In this attack, Beant Singh, the chief minister of Punjab, was killed along with fifteen of his aides, and many vehicles were blown to pieces (Beant Singh et al., the Times). The police investigations showed that the culprits in this violent act were members of the Babbar Khalsa, the deadliest guerrilla cells of the Sikh movement (Times). Studies showed that between 1981 and 1994, thousands of people were killed in one religious struggle or the other in India. It was around this time, on 31 October 1984, that erstwhile Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated. The year 2002 witnessed yet another mass killing in the state of Gujarat.

On 7 October 2011, following George W. Bush’s broadcast to the nation of America, Osama bin Laden released a videotaped address to the press in which he called on the Muslim world to rally around his cause to fight against the infidels. Osama stated the following:

Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs, so that its greatest buildings are destroyed. Grace and gratitude to God. America has been filled with horror from north to south and east to west, and thanks be to God … our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years … God has blessed a group of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam, to destroy America. May God bless them and a lot them a supreme place in heaven … In these days, Israeli tanks rampage across Palestine, in Ramallah, Rafah, Beit Jala and many other parts of the land of Islam (dar al-Islam), and we do not hear anyone raising his voice or reacting. But when the sword fell upon America after 80 years, hypocrisy raised its head up high bemoaning those killers who toyed with the blood, honor and sanctities of Muslim … A million children have been killed in Iraq … but when a few more than 10 were killed in Nairobi and Dar es Salam, … hypocrisy stood behind the head of international infidels: the modern world’s symbol of paganism, America, and its allies … (Lincoln 2006, New York Times 2001).

Looking closely at this quotation and the full text, one notices the sublime way in which the words God, Islam, religion, and infidels are used. In addition, even a cursory look at the few examples provided above and contemporaneous examples will suggest two outstanding characteristics to the reader. The first is that there has been heinous and vicious violence around the world in modern times. The second is that the prevailing violence is religiously motivated. Is it that religion is responsible for these violent waves across the continents, or is it that religious extremists are hiding under the cover of religion to perpetrate violence? This book was designed in part to investigate this question, but essentially, the major subject of investigation is how the Abrahamic religions can come together in peace and harmony as children of one faithful father. If the Abrahamic religions could achieve peace and be united, then the world would be moving in the positive direction of achieving peace and reconciliation.

The world is polarised perilously and precariously at a time when humankind is complicatedly interconnected to each other. The world is knit politically, economically, and strongly electronically. If we must face the challenges of present-day reality and create a global community in which peoples of the earth can cohabit in peace, harmony, and mutual respect, we need to address the problem of violence – religious and civil – quamprimum. We cannot feign ignorance of the role of religion in our world today, at the same time we cannot accept the destructive influence of oversimplified assumptions of religion. As some scholars have said, the myth of religious violence served the West well at the early stage of its development (Cavanaugh 2011, 2009), but in this stage of global community, we need a clearer and more distinct view of religion in order to understand our quandary entirely (Armstrong 2014).

This book begins with the definitions of terms. The reader will need the clear delineations of certain words, even if they are in common, everyday usage, in order to understand a research project such as this (Creswell 2009). Hence, the key words violence and religion have been clearly explained. However, violence is more elaborately expounded upon, while religion, because of its complex nature, is contextually defined. Following this is the statement of the problem under investigation. That is chapter 1. Chapter 2 examines the background to the problem, and the particular religions are carefully examined in depth, beginning with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Chapter 3 discusses the theoretical viewpoints. Here, an examination of the whys and the hows of violence in the name of religion are considered. Many theories are examined, but the following have been deemed fit for this investigation: the social movement theory, the theory of fundamentalism, the theory of primordialism, the theory of essentialism, and the theory of the God of war. The reader will discover how these theories explain the behaviours and account for violence among the Abrahamic religions.

Chapter 4 discusses the