A Lasting Solution for Kabul and Srinagar

Koenraad Elst

At the time of the Ayodhya crisis, the Indian Left advocated �hard secularism� as the only solution.  This would mean outlawing Hindu parties, imprisoning Hindu leaders, and bullets for the Kar Sevaks.  In the past month, the Americans have been trying out this hard secularism in Afghanistan: eliminating  Islamic fundamentalism by bombing the already tattered remains of Kabul and Kandahar. 

       But the results of this approach were not altogether satisfying.  For the short term, the Americans could at least congratulate themselves for having killed this many mothers and maimed that many children.  But even they cannot fail to realize that in the long term, their bombs will prove to be the seeds of more jihad fervour and better-equipped commandos striking at even larger targets than the World Trade Centre.  The destructive religious fire is not quenched with violence.

Therefore, let us explore a different secularist strategy, hard like stainless steel, yet gentle and bloodless.  It must strike at the root of the problem.   Now, crimes have their root in the minds of their perpetrators.  In the case of the attacks on the WTC and the parliament building of Srinagar, these minds were filled with zeal for Islam.  The perpetrators, especially those who sacrificed their own lives in their line of duty, were not evil people.  On the contrary, they were brave and full of devotion to what had been instilled in them as the true religion.  

       Then what was it that made them cross the threshold from the subjective goodness of their moral feelings to the objective evil of their acts?  The answer is: their mistaken beliefs.  With Socrates, I am convinced that evil ultimately stems from ignorance, from false beliefs.  It is up to us, secularists, to make sure that future generations grow up free from such beliefs, or at least to equip them with the scientific temper that will allow them to identify and weed out wrong ideas.

       Recently, an example drilled into the public consciousness was the question of the history schoolbooks, and whether these should inform pupils of the fact that the Vedic seers ritually ate beef.  Should we not rather, in order to spare certain religious sensibilities, misinform them that the taboo on beef existed since all eternity?  Of course not: it is better to let them know that despite the current Hindu taboo on beef, kine were ritually sacrificed (and tasted) according in several Vedic rites. Every secularist will agree with that.

       Likewise, all schoolchildren should learn the true story of Mohammed as related in the sources and certified by scholars.  Granted, Mohammed did preach and practise war against the Infidels.  To that extent, the lessons learned by the Taliban in their Madrassas were true enough.  But they should also learn a more problematic truth. 

       When Mohammed had his first �revelation�, his first vision of the archangel Gabriel, he himself was convinced that this was a morbid hallucination.  Or in the terminology of his day: that he was possessed by an evil spirit.  He even considered committing suicide in order to spare himself the life of a mental patient.  His wife Khadija managed to calm him down, and he got used to the recurring hallucinations, which he interpreted as messages from God to His prophet.  But except for a few followers, his contemporaries saw through his claims of prophethood.