Showing posts with label jihad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jihad. Show all posts
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Tuesday, 9 May 2023
The Kerala Story—It’s time Muslims give up their mediaeval ideal of conquest, conversion
The liberal-secular patrons of the Islamic preachers neither talk about conversions nor let others do the talking. They are devoid of integrity and lack tools to analyse the phenomenon writes IBN KHALDUN BHARATI in The Print
The central issue of the movie, The Kerala Story, is religious conversion of Hindus and Christians to Islam — a subject few wanted to talk about. Though the Islamic preachers and narrative makers never hid their intention, their liberal-secular patrons would neither talk about it nor let others do the talking. They have a vested interest in Muslim communalism, and are happy with the electoral gains accruing from Islamic radicalism. Thus, devoid of the integrity to acknowledge the disturbing reality, they also lack the tools to analyse the phenomenon.
Expectedly, the movie has stirred a hornet’s nest. Exposé of an open secret always does that.
The main objection raised against The Kerala Story has been the now-retracted figure of 32,000 conversions of girls in the state to supply soldiers for ISIS. The film producers now mention three girls who converted and went to fight for ISIS. However, beyond this quibbling over numbers, there have been no serious imputation of falsehood. The core content of the movie has a kernel of truth and is not being disputed. There is no accusation of peddling falsehood. Instead, some are questioning the motives behind telling this truth. It’s a politically inconvenient movie that brings to light the topic of religious conversion and its consequences.
There is no denying the fact that conversions happened in Kerala — of girls too! And, neo-converts, even girls, were sent abroad on jihadi missions to fight for ISIS. Women were not recruited in these missions for combat roles. Jihadi men needed comfort girls, and these women were jihad-prostitutes. We learnt about the story when some of them, incarcerated in Taliban’s jails in Afghanistan, begged the Indian government to bring them home.
The point to ponder is, when this news broke, what was the reaction of the Muslim community and the liberal-secular intelligentsia? Were they shocked with disbelief or just embarrassed about the revelation? Did they dismiss it as a freak incident or knowing it to be the tip of iceberg tried to retrieve the situation from increasing radicalisation.
Is it a secret that converting a non-Muslim to Islam is considered the greatest of virtues? Could people, even girls, be converted and despatched on jihadi missions without a general acceptance of conversion and jihad in the Muslim society? Did the people react then the way they are doing now at the movie about it? No, they didn’t, and therefore, there is a need to introspect, and understand what is going on.
Why convert?
The underlying concept behind converting people is that one’s own religion is the only truth, all else is falsehood. Thus, it becomes one’s duty to persuade others to convert to the “true” religion. If persuasion fails, and circumstances allow, the unheeding could be converted by deceit, temptation, or force. Throughout history, most conversions — a supremacist idea — have occurred through force or conquest. With the exception of Southeast Asia, Islam has mainly spread in areas that were conquered by Muslims. While Sufi mystics played a major role in cultivating converts, they could not have succeeded without the protection of the Islamic sword, as they had to reconcile people to the Muslim rule and the ruler’s religion. This was Islam’s version of the “Cross following the Flag.”
The community of converts
Today, the descendants of converts — some 80-90% of Indian Muslims — may regard the conversion of their ancestors as a divine blessing that saved successive generations from hellfire and ensured eternal paradise. However, the process through which this blessing was obtained is also a fact of history. If the story were to be told, it could severely undermine the basis of identity politics. Communal consciousness is shaped by suppressing memory and obfuscating history.
History of conversion
In India, the issue of conversion will remain contentious because, historically, it has been a corollary of conquest. Whether through persuasion, temptation, or compulsion, both the conqueror and the conquered viewed it as an insult added to injury. The consequences of these conversions are still present in the form of ever-increasing religious radicalisation and separatist politics, even 75 years after the Partition.
Politics of conversion
Now that the age of Islamic conquest is over, and wholesale conversion is no longer feasible, there has been a shift in strategy — to Dawah, i.e., preaching and proselytising. Earlier, groups converted, now individuals do. Sometimes, girls in love convert too. Such conversion is seen as poaching by the community that loses a member. No one remains in doubt about its political meaning. A religious conversion in India is not only about changes in one’s conception of the divine, vocabulary of prayer and ritual of worship. More than anything else, it is a change of community; switching of loyalty from one to another. For the Muslim, a conversion is a validation of his religion’s truth and is celebrated as a communal conquest. Correspondingly, every such conversion makes the Hindu seethe at the unending series of defeat and humiliation. Such contrast in emotions on two sides is inevitable in a situation where communities are seen as historical antagonists, competing with each other for the supremacy of their respective religions.
Conversion from Islam
Islamic jurisprudence is the best guide to understand the political import of religious conversion. According to it, a Muslim’s conversion to another religion is an act of apostasy, which renders him liable to death. The reasoning behind it is that a change of religion is not merely a change of one’s personal faith. It is tantamount to treason to the Islamic state, and is as grave a matter as a soldier’s desertion to the enemy camp. In this worldview, religions are political ideologies, and faith communities are warring armies. Therefore, the campaign to convert is prosecution of war by another means. A new convert to Islam is a victory for the religion that the community celebrates. But the rare conversion of a Muslim to another religion is high treason that Muslims can’t take in their stride, and for which the prescribed punishment is execution.
In an ideological framework where a new convert is actually a newly recruited soldier, the progression from conversion to military jihad is natural.
Ethics of pluralism
A pluralist and secular society cannot allow one community to have such designs on the other. A minority community, particularly, can’t afford such continued incursions into the majority, as it may incite a reaction leading to reverse conversion.
After the Prophet, the Muslims didn’t remain a faith group. They became a religion-based ethnicity. Therefore, seeking to convert non-Muslims to Islam is as ridiculous as converting Indians into Arabs. It creates confusion of identity, which leads to extreme fanaticism.
In a pluralist society like India’s, the Muslims would do better to recognise that all religions are equally true. If they can’t bring themselves to it, they should, at least, recognise that to the people of other faiths, their religion is as true as Islam is to a Muslim. And so, trying to convert others is as unacceptable as changing someone’s gender or skin colour.
It’s time that, in their own interest, Muslims renounced the mediaeval ideal of conquest and conversion. If they didn’t, this fantasy could turn into a nightmare.
“Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you” is a maxim everyone should remember.
The central issue of the movie, The Kerala Story, is religious conversion of Hindus and Christians to Islam — a subject few wanted to talk about. Though the Islamic preachers and narrative makers never hid their intention, their liberal-secular patrons would neither talk about it nor let others do the talking. They have a vested interest in Muslim communalism, and are happy with the electoral gains accruing from Islamic radicalism. Thus, devoid of the integrity to acknowledge the disturbing reality, they also lack the tools to analyse the phenomenon.
Expectedly, the movie has stirred a hornet’s nest. Exposé of an open secret always does that.
The main objection raised against The Kerala Story has been the now-retracted figure of 32,000 conversions of girls in the state to supply soldiers for ISIS. The film producers now mention three girls who converted and went to fight for ISIS. However, beyond this quibbling over numbers, there have been no serious imputation of falsehood. The core content of the movie has a kernel of truth and is not being disputed. There is no accusation of peddling falsehood. Instead, some are questioning the motives behind telling this truth. It’s a politically inconvenient movie that brings to light the topic of religious conversion and its consequences.
There is no denying the fact that conversions happened in Kerala — of girls too! And, neo-converts, even girls, were sent abroad on jihadi missions to fight for ISIS. Women were not recruited in these missions for combat roles. Jihadi men needed comfort girls, and these women were jihad-prostitutes. We learnt about the story when some of them, incarcerated in Taliban’s jails in Afghanistan, begged the Indian government to bring them home.
The point to ponder is, when this news broke, what was the reaction of the Muslim community and the liberal-secular intelligentsia? Were they shocked with disbelief or just embarrassed about the revelation? Did they dismiss it as a freak incident or knowing it to be the tip of iceberg tried to retrieve the situation from increasing radicalisation.
Is it a secret that converting a non-Muslim to Islam is considered the greatest of virtues? Could people, even girls, be converted and despatched on jihadi missions without a general acceptance of conversion and jihad in the Muslim society? Did the people react then the way they are doing now at the movie about it? No, they didn’t, and therefore, there is a need to introspect, and understand what is going on.
Why convert?
The underlying concept behind converting people is that one’s own religion is the only truth, all else is falsehood. Thus, it becomes one’s duty to persuade others to convert to the “true” religion. If persuasion fails, and circumstances allow, the unheeding could be converted by deceit, temptation, or force. Throughout history, most conversions — a supremacist idea — have occurred through force or conquest. With the exception of Southeast Asia, Islam has mainly spread in areas that were conquered by Muslims. While Sufi mystics played a major role in cultivating converts, they could not have succeeded without the protection of the Islamic sword, as they had to reconcile people to the Muslim rule and the ruler’s religion. This was Islam’s version of the “Cross following the Flag.”
The community of converts
Today, the descendants of converts — some 80-90% of Indian Muslims — may regard the conversion of their ancestors as a divine blessing that saved successive generations from hellfire and ensured eternal paradise. However, the process through which this blessing was obtained is also a fact of history. If the story were to be told, it could severely undermine the basis of identity politics. Communal consciousness is shaped by suppressing memory and obfuscating history.
History of conversion
In India, the issue of conversion will remain contentious because, historically, it has been a corollary of conquest. Whether through persuasion, temptation, or compulsion, both the conqueror and the conquered viewed it as an insult added to injury. The consequences of these conversions are still present in the form of ever-increasing religious radicalisation and separatist politics, even 75 years after the Partition.
Politics of conversion
Now that the age of Islamic conquest is over, and wholesale conversion is no longer feasible, there has been a shift in strategy — to Dawah, i.e., preaching and proselytising. Earlier, groups converted, now individuals do. Sometimes, girls in love convert too. Such conversion is seen as poaching by the community that loses a member. No one remains in doubt about its political meaning. A religious conversion in India is not only about changes in one’s conception of the divine, vocabulary of prayer and ritual of worship. More than anything else, it is a change of community; switching of loyalty from one to another. For the Muslim, a conversion is a validation of his religion’s truth and is celebrated as a communal conquest. Correspondingly, every such conversion makes the Hindu seethe at the unending series of defeat and humiliation. Such contrast in emotions on two sides is inevitable in a situation where communities are seen as historical antagonists, competing with each other for the supremacy of their respective religions.
Conversion from Islam
Islamic jurisprudence is the best guide to understand the political import of religious conversion. According to it, a Muslim’s conversion to another religion is an act of apostasy, which renders him liable to death. The reasoning behind it is that a change of religion is not merely a change of one’s personal faith. It is tantamount to treason to the Islamic state, and is as grave a matter as a soldier’s desertion to the enemy camp. In this worldview, religions are political ideologies, and faith communities are warring armies. Therefore, the campaign to convert is prosecution of war by another means. A new convert to Islam is a victory for the religion that the community celebrates. But the rare conversion of a Muslim to another religion is high treason that Muslims can’t take in their stride, and for which the prescribed punishment is execution.
In an ideological framework where a new convert is actually a newly recruited soldier, the progression from conversion to military jihad is natural.
Ethics of pluralism
A pluralist and secular society cannot allow one community to have such designs on the other. A minority community, particularly, can’t afford such continued incursions into the majority, as it may incite a reaction leading to reverse conversion.
After the Prophet, the Muslims didn’t remain a faith group. They became a religion-based ethnicity. Therefore, seeking to convert non-Muslims to Islam is as ridiculous as converting Indians into Arabs. It creates confusion of identity, which leads to extreme fanaticism.
In a pluralist society like India’s, the Muslims would do better to recognise that all religions are equally true. If they can’t bring themselves to it, they should, at least, recognise that to the people of other faiths, their religion is as true as Islam is to a Muslim. And so, trying to convert others is as unacceptable as changing someone’s gender or skin colour.
It’s time that, in their own interest, Muslims renounced the mediaeval ideal of conquest and conversion. If they didn’t, this fantasy could turn into a nightmare.
“Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you” is a maxim everyone should remember.
Monday, 24 April 2023
Friday, 10 February 2023
Saturday, 10 December 2022
Sunday, 9 January 2022
Wednesday, 22 December 2021
Karnataka bill seeks to declare interfaith marriages involving conversion ‘null & void’
The bill defines ‘promise of marriage' as ‘allurement’, makes 30-day notice to magistrate mandatory, spells out quantum of punishment. Opposition leaders tear up copies writes ANUSHA RAVI SOOD in The Print
File photo of the Karnataka Assembly in Bengaluru. | PTI
If passed by the Assembly in its current form, Karnataka’s anti-conversion bill will empower the state to deem interfaith marriages involving conversion “null & void”.
Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra Tuesday introduced a bill to regulate and penalise religious conversions in the state.
The Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, known simply as the ‘anti-conversion bill’, has categorised as “allurements” the promise of marriage, free education, free medical treatment and jobs, and hence terms them unlawful reasons for religious conversion.
According to the bill, the term “religious convertor” will be applicable to anyone in the post of “Father, Priest, Purohit, Pandit, Moulvi or Mulla”.
Under the bill, a person planning to convert or a ‘convertor’ has to give a 30-day prior notice to the district magistrate about the conversion. A declaration is to be given even after conversion.
Those found guilty of converting others unlawfully can attract a punishment of three to five years in jail and a fine of Rs 25,000, the bill says. The punishment is higher if the converted person is a minor, a woman, person belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes or “of unsound mind”.
Persons organising “mass conversions” are also liable to be punished.
Conversion to previous religion exempt
“The bill seeks to prohibit religious conversion by misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means,” Karnataka Home Minister Jnanendra said while introducing the bill.
The bill also prohibits conversion for the purpose of marriage and seeks to deem such marriages void.
“Any marriage which has happened with the sole purpose of unlawful conversion or vice-versa by the man of one religion with the woman of another religion, either by converting himself before or after marriage or by converting the woman before or after marriage, shall be declared as null and void,” the bill states.
While the bill seeks to punish those involved and aiding “unlawful” religious conversion, it has been careful to exempt people reconverting to their “immediate previous religion”. People reconverting to their previous religion, in fact, won’t even be considered as ‘conversion’ under this law.
Free hand to raise objections, file complaint
The anti-conversion bill also frames voluntary religious conversion within a series of registration, notification, calls for objection and multiple rounds of enquiry.
The bill calls for all offences under the law to be non-bailable and cognisable, and defines “mass conversion” as an event where even two or more people are converted.
It gives anyone a free hand to raise objections and file complaints of suspected conversion.
“Any converted person, his parents, brother, sister or any other person who is related to him by blood, marriage or adoption or in any form associated or colleague may lodge a complaint of such conversion,” the bill reads.
While the bill doesn’t blanket-ban religious conversion, it makes the process to convert tedious, with options for anybody to file objections to an individual’s decision to convert.
Declaration before magistrate & after conversion
Any person wanting to convert to another religion or any convertor who wants to conduct a conversion should mandatorily make a declaration 30 days in advance to the district magistrate. Separate forms have been designed for this purpose.
The declaration is then notified on the notice board for public scrutiny, so that anybody might object. If any objection is received, an inquiry will be conducted through the revenue or social welfare department to ascertain the intention, purpose and cause of the proposed conversion, the bill says.
If the district magistrate concludes that the conversion is “unlawful”, police action will be initiated.
The bill also demands declaration after the fact of religious conversion.
Once again, a person who has converted will have to declare it before the magistrate within 30 days and it will be posted for public scrutiny on notice boards for anyone to object.
“The District Magistrate shall notify religious conversion on the notice board of the office of the District Magistrate and in the office of the Tahsildar and will call for objections in such cases where no objections were called earlier,” the bill says.
The declaration must contain personal details of the converted person — date of birth, permanent address, present place of residence, father’s/husband’s name, the religion to which the converted person originally belonged and the religion to which he has converted, the date and place of conversion and the nature of the conversion process, along with copies of ID cards or Aadhaar card.
The converted person will then have to appear before the magistrate in person. If objections are received the same enquiry procedure is followed to approve the conversion or deem it void.
If the enquiry concludes the conversion to be “lawful”, the person’s records are reclassified, which may affect his entitlement to grants and benefits under government schemes.
Quantum of punishment
The Bill puts women, minors and “persons of unsound mind” in the same category.
Under the bill, individuals converting others via “unlawful” means will attract punishment of three to five years in jail and a fine of Rs 25,000.
If the converted person is a minor, woman, a person belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes or “of unsound mind”, the punishment will be three to 10 years in prison, with a fine of Rs 50,000.
Those organising mass conversions “unlawfully” face three to 10 years in jail, with fine of Rs 1 lakh.
The bill demands that the ‘accused’ pay Rs 5 lakh compensation to the victim of a forced conversion, excluding the fine imposed by the courts. Repeat offences will attract a sentence of five years in jail and a fine of Rs 2 lakh.
The bill also proposes to stop all government aid and grants to institutions involved in “unlawful conversions”, apart from punishing the heads of such institutions.
The burden of proof of innocence will lie with the accused under the law, instead of the prosecution having to prove the offence.
Furthermore, the bill seeks to make anyone who has aided or abetted an offence under the law as “parties to the offence”, whether or not they themselves carried it out.
‘Unconstitutional’, says Opposition
The bill was met with severe opposition from the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) (JD-S), who accused the government of trying to introduce the bill “on the sly”.
Karnataka Congress president D.K. Shivakumar even tore up copies of the bill, deeming it “unconstitutional” and accusing the government of sneaking the bill into the House without discussing it in the Business Advisory Committee or listing it as business of the House for Tuesday.
The bill was made part of the supplementary business for the afternoon session on Tuesday, right before the House reconvened.
“We oppose even the introduction of this bill that violates constitutional rights of citizens,” said Siddaramaiah of the Congress, leader of the Opposition.
Speaker of the Assembly Vishweshwara Hegde Kageri said the bill will be taken up for discussion Wednesday.
File photo of the Karnataka Assembly in Bengaluru. | PTIIf passed by the Assembly in its current form, Karnataka’s anti-conversion bill will empower the state to deem interfaith marriages involving conversion “null & void”.
Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra Tuesday introduced a bill to regulate and penalise religious conversions in the state.
The Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, known simply as the ‘anti-conversion bill’, has categorised as “allurements” the promise of marriage, free education, free medical treatment and jobs, and hence terms them unlawful reasons for religious conversion.
According to the bill, the term “religious convertor” will be applicable to anyone in the post of “Father, Priest, Purohit, Pandit, Moulvi or Mulla”.
Under the bill, a person planning to convert or a ‘convertor’ has to give a 30-day prior notice to the district magistrate about the conversion. A declaration is to be given even after conversion.
Those found guilty of converting others unlawfully can attract a punishment of three to five years in jail and a fine of Rs 25,000, the bill says. The punishment is higher if the converted person is a minor, a woman, person belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes or “of unsound mind”.
Persons organising “mass conversions” are also liable to be punished.
Conversion to previous religion exempt
“The bill seeks to prohibit religious conversion by misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means,” Karnataka Home Minister Jnanendra said while introducing the bill.
The bill also prohibits conversion for the purpose of marriage and seeks to deem such marriages void.
“Any marriage which has happened with the sole purpose of unlawful conversion or vice-versa by the man of one religion with the woman of another religion, either by converting himself before or after marriage or by converting the woman before or after marriage, shall be declared as null and void,” the bill states.
While the bill seeks to punish those involved and aiding “unlawful” religious conversion, it has been careful to exempt people reconverting to their “immediate previous religion”. People reconverting to their previous religion, in fact, won’t even be considered as ‘conversion’ under this law.
Free hand to raise objections, file complaint
The anti-conversion bill also frames voluntary religious conversion within a series of registration, notification, calls for objection and multiple rounds of enquiry.
The bill calls for all offences under the law to be non-bailable and cognisable, and defines “mass conversion” as an event where even two or more people are converted.
It gives anyone a free hand to raise objections and file complaints of suspected conversion.
“Any converted person, his parents, brother, sister or any other person who is related to him by blood, marriage or adoption or in any form associated or colleague may lodge a complaint of such conversion,” the bill reads.
While the bill doesn’t blanket-ban religious conversion, it makes the process to convert tedious, with options for anybody to file objections to an individual’s decision to convert.
Declaration before magistrate & after conversion
Any person wanting to convert to another religion or any convertor who wants to conduct a conversion should mandatorily make a declaration 30 days in advance to the district magistrate. Separate forms have been designed for this purpose.
The declaration is then notified on the notice board for public scrutiny, so that anybody might object. If any objection is received, an inquiry will be conducted through the revenue or social welfare department to ascertain the intention, purpose and cause of the proposed conversion, the bill says.
If the district magistrate concludes that the conversion is “unlawful”, police action will be initiated.
The bill also demands declaration after the fact of religious conversion.
Once again, a person who has converted will have to declare it before the magistrate within 30 days and it will be posted for public scrutiny on notice boards for anyone to object.
“The District Magistrate shall notify religious conversion on the notice board of the office of the District Magistrate and in the office of the Tahsildar and will call for objections in such cases where no objections were called earlier,” the bill says.
The declaration must contain personal details of the converted person — date of birth, permanent address, present place of residence, father’s/husband’s name, the religion to which the converted person originally belonged and the religion to which he has converted, the date and place of conversion and the nature of the conversion process, along with copies of ID cards or Aadhaar card.
The converted person will then have to appear before the magistrate in person. If objections are received the same enquiry procedure is followed to approve the conversion or deem it void.
If the enquiry concludes the conversion to be “lawful”, the person’s records are reclassified, which may affect his entitlement to grants and benefits under government schemes.
Quantum of punishment
The Bill puts women, minors and “persons of unsound mind” in the same category.
Under the bill, individuals converting others via “unlawful” means will attract punishment of three to five years in jail and a fine of Rs 25,000.
If the converted person is a minor, woman, a person belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes or “of unsound mind”, the punishment will be three to 10 years in prison, with a fine of Rs 50,000.
Those organising mass conversions “unlawfully” face three to 10 years in jail, with fine of Rs 1 lakh.
The bill demands that the ‘accused’ pay Rs 5 lakh compensation to the victim of a forced conversion, excluding the fine imposed by the courts. Repeat offences will attract a sentence of five years in jail and a fine of Rs 2 lakh.
The bill also proposes to stop all government aid and grants to institutions involved in “unlawful conversions”, apart from punishing the heads of such institutions.
The burden of proof of innocence will lie with the accused under the law, instead of the prosecution having to prove the offence.
Furthermore, the bill seeks to make anyone who has aided or abetted an offence under the law as “parties to the offence”, whether or not they themselves carried it out.
‘Unconstitutional’, says Opposition
The bill was met with severe opposition from the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) (JD-S), who accused the government of trying to introduce the bill “on the sly”.
Karnataka Congress president D.K. Shivakumar even tore up copies of the bill, deeming it “unconstitutional” and accusing the government of sneaking the bill into the House without discussing it in the Business Advisory Committee or listing it as business of the House for Tuesday.
The bill was made part of the supplementary business for the afternoon session on Tuesday, right before the House reconvened.
“We oppose even the introduction of this bill that violates constitutional rights of citizens,” said Siddaramaiah of the Congress, leader of the Opposition.
Speaker of the Assembly Vishweshwara Hegde Kageri said the bill will be taken up for discussion Wednesday.
Monday, 13 September 2021
Friday, 13 August 2021
Monday, 7 June 2021
Israel - A PSYCHOTIC BREAK FROM REALITY?
Nadeem F. Paracha in The Dawn
Illustration by Abro
The New York Times, in its May 28, 2021 issue, published a collage of photographs of 67 children under the age of 18 who had been killed in the recent Israeli air attacks on Gaza and by Hamas on Tel Aviv. Two of the children had been killed in Israel by shrapnel from rockets fired by Hamas. It is only natural for any normal human being to ask, how can one kill children?
Similar collages appear every year on social media of the over 140 students who were mercilessly gunned down in 2014 at the Army Public School in Peshawar. The killings were carried out by the militant organisation the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Most Pakistanis could not comprehend how even a militant group could massacre school children. But there were also those who questioned why the children were targeted.
The ‘why’ in this context is apparently understood at an individual level when certain individuals sexually assault children and often kill them. Psychologists are of the view that such individuals — paedophiles — are mostly men who have either suffered sexual abuse as children themselves, or are overwhelmed by certain psychological disorders that lead to developing questionable sexual urges.
In the 1982 anthology Behaviour Modification and Therapy, W.L. Marshall writes that paedophilia co-occurs with low self-esteem, depression and other personality disorders. These can be because of the individual’s own experiences as a sexually abused child or, according to the 2008 issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, paedophiles may have different brain structures which cause personality disorders and social failings, leading them to develop deviant sexual behaviours.
But why do some paedophiles end up murdering their young victims? This may be to eliminate the possibility of their victims naming them after the assault, or the young victims die because their bodies are still not developed to accommodate even the most basic sexual acts. According to a 1992 study by the Behavioural Science Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US, some paedophiles can also develop sadism as a disorder, which eventually compels them to derive pleasure by inflicting pain and killing their young victims.
Why did Israel kill so many children in its bombardment of Gaza? Could it be that it has something in common with apocalyptic terror groups, for whom killing children is simply collateral damage in a divinely ordained cosmic battle?
Now the question is, are modern-day governments, militaries and terrorist groups that knowingly massacre children, also driven by the same sadistic impulses? Do they extract pleasure from slaughtering children? It is possible that military massacres that include the death of a large number of children are acts of frustration and blind rage by soldiers made to fight wars that are being lost.
The March 1968 ‘My Lai massacre’, carried out by US soldiers in Vietnam, is a case in point. Over 500 people, including children, were killed in that incident. Even women who were carrying babies in their arms, were shot dead. Just a month earlier, communist insurgents had attacked South Vietnamese cities held by US forces. The insurgents were driven out, but they were able to kill a large number of US soldiers. Also, the war in Vietnam had become unpopular in the US. Soldiers were dismayed by stories about returning US marines being insulted, ridiculed and rejected at home for fighting an unjust and immoral war.
Indeed, desperate armies have been known to kill the most vulnerable members of the enemy, such as children, in an attempt to psychologically compensate for their inability to fight effectively against their adult opponents. But what about the Israeli armed forces? What frustrations are they facing? They have successfully neutralised anti-Israel militancy. And the Palestinians and their supporters are no match against Israel’s war machine. So why did Israeli forces knowingly kill so many Palestinian children in Gaza?
A May 21, 2021 report published on the Al-Jazeera website quotes a Palestinian lawyer, Youssef al-Zayed, as saying that Israeli forces were ‘intentionally targeting minors to terrorise an entire generation from speaking out.’ Ever since 1987, Palestinian children have been in the forefront of protests against armed Israeli forces. The children are often armed with nothing more than stones.
What Israel is doing against its Arab population, and in the Palestinian Territories that are still largely under its control, can be called ‘democide.’ Coined by the American political scientist Rudolph Rummel, the word democide means acts of genocide by a government/ state against a segment of its own population. Such acts constitute the systematic elimination of people belonging to minority religious or ethnic communities. According to Rummel, this is done because the persecuted communities are perceived as being ‘future threats’ by the dominant community.
So, do terrorist outfits such as TTP, Islamic State and Boko Haram, for example, who are known to also target children, do so because they see children as future threats?
In a 2018 essay for the Journal of Strategic Studies, the forensic psychologist Karl Umbrasas writes that terror outfits who kill indiscriminately can be categorised as ‘apocalyptic groups.’ According to Umbrasas, such groups operate like ‘apocalyptic cults’ and are not restrained by the socio-political and moral restraints that compel non-apocalyptic militant outfits to only focus on attacking armed, non-civilian targets. Umbrasas writes that apocalyptic terror groups justify acts of indiscriminate destruction through their often distorted and violent interpretations of sacred texts.
Such groups are thus completely unrepentant about targeting even children. To them the children, too, are part of the problem that they are going to resolve through a ‘cosmic war.’ The idea of a cosmic war constitutes an imagined battle between metaphysical forces — good and evil — that is behind many cases of religion-related violence.
Interestingly, this was also how the Afghan civil war of the 1980s between Islamist groups and Soviet troops was framed by the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The cosmic bit evaporated for the three states after the departure of Soviet troops, but the idea of the cosmic conflict remained in the minds of various terror groups in the region.
The moral codes of apocalyptic terror groups transcend those of the modern world. So, for example, on May 9 this year, when a terrorist group targeted a girls’ school in Afghanistan, killing 80, it is likely it saw girl students as part of the evil side in the divinely ordained cosmic war that the group imagines itself to be fighting.
This indeed is the result of a psychotic break from reality. But it is a reality that apocalyptic terror outfits do not accept. To them, this reality is a social construct. There is no value of the physical human body in such misshaped metaphysical ideas. Therefore, even if a cosmic war requires the killing of children, it is just the destruction of bodies, no matter what their size.
Illustration by AbroThe New York Times, in its May 28, 2021 issue, published a collage of photographs of 67 children under the age of 18 who had been killed in the recent Israeli air attacks on Gaza and by Hamas on Tel Aviv. Two of the children had been killed in Israel by shrapnel from rockets fired by Hamas. It is only natural for any normal human being to ask, how can one kill children?
Similar collages appear every year on social media of the over 140 students who were mercilessly gunned down in 2014 at the Army Public School in Peshawar. The killings were carried out by the militant organisation the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Most Pakistanis could not comprehend how even a militant group could massacre school children. But there were also those who questioned why the children were targeted.
The ‘why’ in this context is apparently understood at an individual level when certain individuals sexually assault children and often kill them. Psychologists are of the view that such individuals — paedophiles — are mostly men who have either suffered sexual abuse as children themselves, or are overwhelmed by certain psychological disorders that lead to developing questionable sexual urges.
In the 1982 anthology Behaviour Modification and Therapy, W.L. Marshall writes that paedophilia co-occurs with low self-esteem, depression and other personality disorders. These can be because of the individual’s own experiences as a sexually abused child or, according to the 2008 issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, paedophiles may have different brain structures which cause personality disorders and social failings, leading them to develop deviant sexual behaviours.
But why do some paedophiles end up murdering their young victims? This may be to eliminate the possibility of their victims naming them after the assault, or the young victims die because their bodies are still not developed to accommodate even the most basic sexual acts. According to a 1992 study by the Behavioural Science Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US, some paedophiles can also develop sadism as a disorder, which eventually compels them to derive pleasure by inflicting pain and killing their young victims.
Why did Israel kill so many children in its bombardment of Gaza? Could it be that it has something in common with apocalyptic terror groups, for whom killing children is simply collateral damage in a divinely ordained cosmic battle?
Now the question is, are modern-day governments, militaries and terrorist groups that knowingly massacre children, also driven by the same sadistic impulses? Do they extract pleasure from slaughtering children? It is possible that military massacres that include the death of a large number of children are acts of frustration and blind rage by soldiers made to fight wars that are being lost.
The March 1968 ‘My Lai massacre’, carried out by US soldiers in Vietnam, is a case in point. Over 500 people, including children, were killed in that incident. Even women who were carrying babies in their arms, were shot dead. Just a month earlier, communist insurgents had attacked South Vietnamese cities held by US forces. The insurgents were driven out, but they were able to kill a large number of US soldiers. Also, the war in Vietnam had become unpopular in the US. Soldiers were dismayed by stories about returning US marines being insulted, ridiculed and rejected at home for fighting an unjust and immoral war.
Indeed, desperate armies have been known to kill the most vulnerable members of the enemy, such as children, in an attempt to psychologically compensate for their inability to fight effectively against their adult opponents. But what about the Israeli armed forces? What frustrations are they facing? They have successfully neutralised anti-Israel militancy. And the Palestinians and their supporters are no match against Israel’s war machine. So why did Israeli forces knowingly kill so many Palestinian children in Gaza?
A May 21, 2021 report published on the Al-Jazeera website quotes a Palestinian lawyer, Youssef al-Zayed, as saying that Israeli forces were ‘intentionally targeting minors to terrorise an entire generation from speaking out.’ Ever since 1987, Palestinian children have been in the forefront of protests against armed Israeli forces. The children are often armed with nothing more than stones.
What Israel is doing against its Arab population, and in the Palestinian Territories that are still largely under its control, can be called ‘democide.’ Coined by the American political scientist Rudolph Rummel, the word democide means acts of genocide by a government/ state against a segment of its own population. Such acts constitute the systematic elimination of people belonging to minority religious or ethnic communities. According to Rummel, this is done because the persecuted communities are perceived as being ‘future threats’ by the dominant community.
So, do terrorist outfits such as TTP, Islamic State and Boko Haram, for example, who are known to also target children, do so because they see children as future threats?
In a 2018 essay for the Journal of Strategic Studies, the forensic psychologist Karl Umbrasas writes that terror outfits who kill indiscriminately can be categorised as ‘apocalyptic groups.’ According to Umbrasas, such groups operate like ‘apocalyptic cults’ and are not restrained by the socio-political and moral restraints that compel non-apocalyptic militant outfits to only focus on attacking armed, non-civilian targets. Umbrasas writes that apocalyptic terror groups justify acts of indiscriminate destruction through their often distorted and violent interpretations of sacred texts.
Such groups are thus completely unrepentant about targeting even children. To them the children, too, are part of the problem that they are going to resolve through a ‘cosmic war.’ The idea of a cosmic war constitutes an imagined battle between metaphysical forces — good and evil — that is behind many cases of religion-related violence.
Interestingly, this was also how the Afghan civil war of the 1980s between Islamist groups and Soviet troops was framed by the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The cosmic bit evaporated for the three states after the departure of Soviet troops, but the idea of the cosmic conflict remained in the minds of various terror groups in the region.
The moral codes of apocalyptic terror groups transcend those of the modern world. So, for example, on May 9 this year, when a terrorist group targeted a girls’ school in Afghanistan, killing 80, it is likely it saw girl students as part of the evil side in the divinely ordained cosmic war that the group imagines itself to be fighting.
This indeed is the result of a psychotic break from reality. But it is a reality that apocalyptic terror outfits do not accept. To them, this reality is a social construct. There is no value of the physical human body in such misshaped metaphysical ideas. Therefore, even if a cosmic war requires the killing of children, it is just the destruction of bodies, no matter what their size.
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