War: In the Name of Politics

I have always felt that religion is behind all politics. That religion initiates and supports politics. Religion is the fuel and politics is the vehicle. This can be Christian, Islamic, Secular, Humanitarian, Monetary, Scientific or Atheistic religion, but nonetheless, a religion is behind every politician’s eyes.

But I think war is all politics – even if the war is explicitly initiated in the name of Islam or democracy or whatever. This is because war that is initiated in the name of religion has BECOME politicized, not because it’s inherently so. I don’t believe that there is any fundamental clash of civilizations (or maybe I just don’t want there to be one) but instead I believe in a clash WITHIN civilizations. After all, I refuse to lump people together under convenient labels such as Jews, Arabs, Blacks etc. because it never gives an accurate picture. There are divisions among divisions in every class and even if they personally ascribe to a label doesn’t make them just another number. But more often than not I think that people KNOW that there is a difference within nationalities or religions and will admit that they are fundamentally different from their own kind just as much as they are different from their perceived opponents.

So where am I going with this? My point is that religion is often exploited by politics but is not the actual reason for it. American moguls, snake-oil salesmen and politicians looking to score riches or power will stop at little if they feel it is in their interest to exploit God to achieve those ends. Bush isn’t a Christian. If he was he would demonstrate Christian values. Just because he runs under the banner of “values” doesn’t mean that he has any other than his pocketbook. The same goes for the Islamic terrorists who claim that 9/11 was justified or that they need to destabilize Iraq in the name of Islam. My Muslim friends tell me that this concept is just as alien to Islam as it is to us.

The mass-market Christians rarely cite or emphasize the living Jesus, the Jesus who speaks. They like their Christ dead. Or nearly dead as in Mel Gibson’s movie. The same goes for the radical Islamists who focus on killing, punishment, and submission. They share the same label as others who are perfectly peaceful, but obviously very different.

Therefore, when violence is spread from one region to another, A.K.A. war, it’s because of politics, not religion. That’s why I get so scared when I hear about faith-based science, or faith-based medicine, or faith-based news. When I need a leap of faith to understand and accept what my government is doing, I know that something must wrong. Politics shouldn’t require faith. So when faith is infused, it is just an excuse, not because it is inherently so.

You are an addict. Oh yes you are.

Everyone’s addicted to something.

Food, sex, money, drugs, knowledge, soap operas, cleaning, shopping, arguing, traveling, sleeping, working, exercising, collecting, building, reading, drawing, sewing, sports, music, computers, etc. etc. etc. I’m talking about the habit that we routinely succumb to and feel blissful about, day after day. It’s what we like to do to break the monotony of the other everyday routines that we are forced to do. In fact, that’s why addictions are so appealing and most everyone falls into one. We have all been ingrained from a young age to do everything in a routine. Get up, triple S, eat, go to school/work, come back, eat, sleep and repeat. And even those things have micro routines of there own. So it’s only natural for one to develop a routine of something UNECESSARY in their lives to offset the boring NECESSARY rituals of the day (the difference here being that I go to work everyday, but I’m not addicted to it).

Addictions are actually a part of everyone’s lives, whether or not they want to admit it. The argument against this is that not all addictions are bad. And of course an addiction to reading is far better than an addiction to heroin. But what if the heroin addict comes to an epiphany that completely changes their lives around for the betterment of society? And what if the intense reader is influenced so strongly by a literary work that they rise to power and go to war with other nations preaching those ideals? What if the person who is addicted to traveling gets mugged in a foreign city and killed? And the sleeper misses her opportunity to be someone because she was constantly in bed? Or the TV watcher misses their children growing up which influences their children for long years afterwards. Or the sports addict becomes paralyzed?

The point I’m trying to make with this is that I seriously doubt that people can make an unbiased judgment of the usefulness of their own addiction. How do you know it’s not bad? How do you know that if you were out doing something else that something far better would’ve happened to your life than just wash, rinse, repeat (again, this does not apply to hygienic routines such as showering and brushing your teeth). Some addictions cause more immediate harm than others, and some are more physically noticeable, such as obesity. BUT, in the end, one must admit to themselves when they are addicted to something because continuing any addiction without tolerance, I believe, is bad, however safe it may seem. At the very least it can be said that without moderation you risk missing all the other wonderful things in this life that you may never try because you’re busy feeding your addiction. Just think about it: you can almost always remember the first time you did that what you are addicted to. It was so special. You loved it so much that you had to do it again. But I bet you can’t remember the 131st time you did that same thing.

So just make it a point today, tomorrow, or sometime next week. During the usual allotted time slot that you have dedicated to feed your addiction, just do something you’ve never done before but always wanted to. But don’t fall into the same trap. Addicts are able to switch their addictions quite easily.

A Love/Hate Relationship

I saw a documentary by Thomas Freidman yesterday about the roots of 9/11. He traveled Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia to ask people their impressions of the United States. Everywhere, the people were furious about the pretentiousness and arrogance of American foreign policy and their particular disdain toward our president. But interestingly enough, many of the people interviewed had either lived in the US for a substantial amount of time or would like to. Students everywhere said that their dream was to attend an American University. Businessmen wanted to work for an American corporation. Foreigners hate us, yet they want to be us. Is this a contradiction?

I’m starting to question whether all this anti-Americanism is really the result of a difference of philosophy or actually the result of jealousy. Ali Salem, an Arab intellectual who wrote an interesting piece a year after the Sept 11 attacks in Time (http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020909/asalem.html) claims that the people who want to see America fail are actually dwarves who search for towers in the world to destroy in order to make themselves feel important. In the same vein, I think much of the European anger toward the US over its war in Iraq (however much I agree with them philosophically), is because if we succeed, they will be effectively sidelined and irrelevant. They want to see us fail just so they can say “I told you so.”

As for the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and other countries that are strongly anti-American, I think that if people were satisfied with their own governments, the intensity of their anger toward the US would decrease. Anti-American protests, boycotting of American products, and foreign terrorism against us, would decline. Their dissatisfaction against their own governments inevitably leads their regime to pass the buck to us so that they don’t become the targets. People are always looking for someone else to blame and the easiest target is the guy who’s ahead of you on the social or political chain. Citizens blame their governments while their governments blame the world superpower. Their desire to come here to learn and work proves that they don’t hate us. They might hate our president (which many in the US do as well) but they don’t hate what we stand for. And if they do, it’s because they’re jealous of our towers.