In the past several years, the world has witnessed the rise of religious fundamentalism, which, in essence, is the religiously conservative interpretation of government, law, ethics, and society in general.
Within the same timelength, we have eyed, with horror, the rise of terrorism and terrorist actions, most of which have been carried out, propogated, or sponsored (covertly or openly) by organizations and/or nations which maintain, for more or less, a religiously fundamentalist agenda or platform.
Religious fundamentalism has become prominent and popular in areas or countries where a great deal of the population is either perpetually poor or dispossessed by either one or all of that particular area’s or nation’s dominating institutions. To such a people, religious fundamentalism serves as a channel through which they can vent their frustration against these dominating institutions or conditions.
What are these institutions or conditions?
Poverty; government; inflation; disease; famine; dearth of natural or processed resources; oppression of political, ethnic, or religious dissent by gendarmaric (police) or military means; war; corruption; ethnic, lingual, political, or religious exclusion and maltreatment; climate; the list goes on.
However, when a people collectively lean themselves upon religious fundamentalism as the foundation of their individual lives, their neighbors DO have a right to fear.
From how I see it, terrorism is a thing of concern, no matter for what cause it may be adopted; but in the present reality, we need to realize that religious fundamentalism is, itself, the monster which every judicially-minded, democratic, people-centered society must fear.
What religious fundamentalism encourages is (1) the manipulation of a nation’s rule of law or a society’s general cultural practices through religious means or outlooks, and calls for (2) the accomplishment of such by whatever means possible, if not necessary.
Furthermore, it espouses (3) a variant degree of intolerance against other beliefs which may not be sponsored by that particular religion or spirituality, as well as those who may hold such beliefs, and thus encourages (4) the adherents of that particular religion to “convert the infidels”, again, by whatever means possible.
Now to me, such an agenda is not even worthy of consideration, as I do not hold the beliefs of Christianity as my own anymore. But when the means to accomplish this agenda are taken too far, that is what we know now as but a simple “terroristic manifestation of the religious fundamentalist agenda”.
We’ve seen such manifestations many, many times within the last 20 years.
Both WTC bombings, the bombings of the American embassies in both Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the murder of Theo Van Gogh, the bombings in Bali, the suicide attacks in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Philippines, Algeria, and so on.
But it doesn’t just stop with Islam.
We’ve also seen the Oklahoma City bombings, the Georgia abortion clinic bombings, the lynchings of Afro-Diasporian Americans since the 19th century (especially by the accursed KKK), the Tokyo subway gas attacks by the Aum Shinrikyo, Russian pogroms against Jewish Eastern-Europeans (both in the Czarist days and again in post-Soviet Yeltsin/Putin-era Russia), and countless other manifestations of religious fundamentalism.
So we’ve seen all of this within the last several years. Does this prove that religious fundamentalism is a destructive force, a monster which, once unleashed, can whip out heavy doses of destruction, loss of life, and misery? It most certainly does.
This is why I fear the religious fundamentalist movement in the United States. This particular movement wants change of the political system (just as much as everyone else does, as the politics of this nation have indeed, become, stagnant and corrupt), but for them, this change should convert the nations laws and ethics to the aforementioned platform of the religious right. And to accomplish such, or to show displeasure over this nation’s laws or standards, Christian fundamentalists have resorted to more uncivil ways to make their point known, and not in an entirely-unsimilar fashion as their Muslim counterparts in the Muslim world.
And now, I’m actually trying to look at the current religious situation from the eyes of George W. Bush, who has got to be one of the most disliked heads of state of current times, at least, on the international level.
As Dubya has made it clear that his broadest and most prominent base of support is the American “moral majority”, and as personally assertive as he has displayed himself before the world since he took office in January of 2001, he still has to bend over backwards in order to satisfy the entirety of the moral majority itself. He, in reality, is NOT as far to the right as it may initially seem, since within the “moral majority”, you have as much a specturm of thought and conscience as you’ll find within the entirety of American politics. I mean, I may be third party/independent as far as the United States is concerned, but take my word for it: Dubya is NO Alan Keyes.
And he may have to watch his back as well, since the same group that brought him up can take him down, and some who are so far right within the moral majority that they cannot even reconcile their own convictions with Bush (who should’ve been their knight in shining armor) could wind up taking him out, LITERALLY.
Thus, I may not care at all for him, but I am certain that Bush isn’t THAT conservative, as he is fighting terrorism and religious fundamentalism in other countries (and wasting American lives and money in the process). If he was actually THAT conservative, then America would turn into a Christian Iran or Saudi Arabia (something that heaven forbid ever happens to the United States).
But I hope that Dubya does realize that religious fundamentalism is the enemy that he should be fighting, both abroad and at home, even with his own initial electoral support.
Religious fundamentalism (and its sick idea of politics) is the biggest threat to the preservation and transcience of basic human rights, as is ethnocentrism, one-party/one-man dictatorship, and/or anything else that may advance the belief that only one designated way is the only way, and should be solidified as such.
Religious fundamentalism IS the danger.
