CREATING GOD'S OWN COUNTRY

Sanal Edamaruku

The world stares at the Buddhas of Bamiyan, shocked, unbelieving, helpless, outraged finally as the giant archaeological jewels crumble under bomb shells and the detonation of heavy explosives. The majestic sandstone statues, the two tallest standing Buddhas in the world, carved into a cliff face of Bamiyan, have been towering over the ancient Silk Road to China since several centuries. They have survived Changez Khan's massacres and the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's cannon shoots. Now they are destroyed, nothing but rubble left. A page of history has been torn.

Who are these Taliban who do not mind to destroy priceless treasures of human culture as if they are just stones and who do not care the outcry of the world against their vandalism?

The Islamic militia in Afghanistan which named itself Taliban consisted of "students" (talib) of the hundreds of seminaries in Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. They emerged on the horizon of war-ravaged Afghanistan in late 1994. Afghanistan had suffered 12 years of war between occupying Soviet forces and US-backed Mujahideen, before the UN negotiated an agreement for a neutral Afghanistan in 1988 and the Soviet troops withdrew. The war had devastated the country and killed two million people, six million fled. After the Soviets left, competing armies and guerilla troops under Mujahideen warlords fought fierce battles against each other and inflicted terror on the population. Mullah Muhammad Omar, who had been a guerilla fighter against the Soviets, returned from the war, disgusted about the blood-thirsty terror of the Mujahideen, and built up an army of Islamic students against them, the Taliban. The Taliban vowed to liberate Afghanistan and defeated the warlords one by one. The population welcomed them in the beginning as they promised to bring peace. The brutal execution of former president Najibullah and his brother after capturing Kabul in September 1996, however, showed that the Taliban were not very peaceful.

The Taliban are fundamentalists and started with enormous religious zeal to implement Sharia (Islamic law) in the country as soon as they came to power. They aimed at establishing absolute rule of Islam and pushed Afghanistan into an age of darkness. They forced people to pray five times a day. They imposed bans on everything connected with modern life, freedom or enjoyment. They enforced strict dress code and forced all men to wear long beards. Women became the worst victims. They were forced to hide their bodies and faces completely under long dresses and veils and confined to their homes. Girls were forbidden to visit schools anymore, women had to stop earning their livelihood. Over night thousands of women, among them university professors, became beggars. Everything in life was strained and divided into two categories: Islamic and un-Islamic, the latter was banned, harassed and brutally punished. Now thousands of antique Buddha statues in the country, including the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, have been declared un-Islamic and marked for destruction.

In the fundamentalist grimace of the Taliban we see the true face of pure religion, religion in power, religion perfect. It is characterized by irrationality, intolerance, destruction and violence. Human relations are reduced to commanding in the name of religion and submitting. There is a deep hatred for freedom and self-determination, for thinking, culture, art, beauty and any kind of enjoyment. There is total lack of humor. There lies a taboo on the human body, especially for women. The ultimate hatred is reserved for competing religions and their monuments and objects of worship. Taliban is a state of mind. And it is not limited to Islam.

There have been Taliban throughout history, terrorizing, torturing and murdering their fellow humans in the name of religion and destroying monuments and symbols of other religions, sometimes great treasures of culture and art. They were acting in the name of different religions and ideologies. They were Christians, when they burnt the religious images of the Byzantine Empire in the 8^th century. They were Spanish Catholics, when they destroyed the ancient Muslim mosque of Cordoba and when they reduced the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan to rubble. They were Croatian Catholics, when they burnt Orthodox churches in Ustasha Croatia and massacred thousands of Orthodox Serbs. They were German Nazis when they burnt books and synagogues. They were Hindus, when they dragged down the ancient Muslim mosque of Ayodhya. All of them had the same aim: to create God's Own Country.

Taliban of all provenience never bow to arguments; they are immune against appeals to reason and humaneness, as they do not have either. "I don't care about anything but Islam", said Mullah Muhammad Omar hearing the outcry about his fatwa to destroy the Buddhas. Taliban are dangerous partners in any negotiation and co-operation, as they finally do not settle with anything but total rule of religion.

The established political forces many a times do not hesitate to co-operate and collaborate with fundamentalists to attain short-term goals jeopardizing what they stand for. It is a tragic mistake to use fundamentalists and extremists for political expediency. It creates monsters. The left movement world-wide supported Islamic zealots in Iran to see that the Shah was ousted and forced the people of Iran and the whole world to pay a huge price. The USA supported fundamentalists to see that the Soviets lose control in Afghanistan. They created the Taliban. It is too late now to cry for the Buddhas.

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USA: AMNESTY CONDEMNS GLOBAL TRADE WITH US-MADE TORTURE TOOLS

Torturers around the world seem to appreciate equipment made in the USA. A report by Amnesty International's US chapter reveals that US torture tool manufacturers are running a flourishing export business. About 80 American firms are involved in the trade that has the official blessings of the US commerce department. The department has granted export licenses for instruments worth 97 million dollars since 1997, categorizing them as "criminal control equipment". Topping the list of customers is Saudi Arabia, followed by Russia, Taiwan, Israel and Egypt. Amnesty International has demanded a ban on the global torture trade.

While some of the exported items may be suitable for use in the field of common crime control, others are certainly not. The instruments obviously made for torture chambers include, for example, a belt that emits electroshocks and serrated thumb cuffs that tear off flesh if the victim moves.

Amnesty released its report as the US state department is putting finishing touches to its annual report on human rights around the world. "It is unconscionable that while the US state department promotes human rights, the US department of commerce has approved export licenses to countries that our own government documents as committing torture", commented William L. Schulz, head of Amnesty International's US chapter in Washington.

BRITAIN: NEW LAW TO CHECK EXPORT OF TERRORISM

On 19 February, the new anti-terrorism Act has come into force, and Britain has ceased to be a paradise for international fundamentalist groups, which used to safely coordinate their operations in trouble spots around the world from here. Islamic fundamentalists have been able to raise funds and recruit warriors for jihad (holy war) in Kashmir, Bosnia and Palestine under the eyes of the British authorities, because they did not violate any British law. Not even the guerilla warfare training camps were found illegal (see report in Bulletin #62). But now things have drastically changed: equipped with the new law, the British home office can ban any organization which mobilizes for political or religious wars and struggles intending to destabilize a foreign government.

As a first result, 21 organizations have already been listed in a draft order awaiting approval of the Parliament. Among them is Lashkar-e-Toyba, a fanatic Islamic militant organization that wants to make Kashmir an independent Islamic state and enjoys great support among Muslims in Britain. Another fundamentalist group operating in Kashmir is Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, known for kidnappings of Western tourists and the Indian Airlines hijack in 1999. The list includes altogether 16 Islamic organizations. The home office stressed, however, that the law is not anti-Muslim. Also listed are two fanatic Sikh organizations, the Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation with headquarters in London. The ban of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) who fight for separation of the northern part of Sri Lanka and operate its propaganda secretariat in London, is controversial because of its political implications. It could endanger the peace process, since it comes in after three months of its unilateral cease-fire, which could finally become a base for peace talks with the Sri Lankan government.

One organization is conspicuously absent though it looks perfectly fit for a ban under the new law: the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the London based anti-Saddam group, that has just received several million dollars from the Bush administration. The exemption of the INC indicates that the new law is no guarantee that the old double standards would not prevail.

FRANCE: FATHER CONFESSOR GOES ON TRIAL

Pierre Pican, Roman Catholic bishop of Bayeux, is the first clergyman in France who has to stand trial for keeping the secrecy of the confessional. His supposed holy duty of secrecy came into conflict with the law when he failed to turn in a priest after allegedly discovering in the confessional that he was sexually abusing children. When Pican heard Father Rene Biwas' confession and discovered his crimes, he temporarily relieved the priest of his duties, but neither did he make him surrender to police nor did he report the case. Failing to perform his legal duties and ignoring the fate of the young victims, the bishop remained a silent accessory and complice in hushing up the crime in order to avoid a scandal. With this case French justice is taking up a precedent, raising basic legal questions about the secrecy of the confessional. The trial is expected to start in June this year.

VATICAN: FINE-TUNING THE HANDPICKED HEIRS

Pope John Paul II is a man who wouldn't take any chances. He has carefully created the intended community of his heirs by personally appointing more than 90 per cent of all cardinals currently in office. Now he has summoned his crew for fine-tuning. Cardinals from around the world are called for a strategy meeting in Vatican in May, in which the Pope wants to spell out his policy lines for the next millennium, putting a lasting stamp on the future of the Catholic Church.

On 20 February, the Pope had created 44 new cardinals, bringing the total number of "cardinal electors" to an record setting 135, all but 10 of them appointed by him. Never before a pope has influenced the composition of the secret conclave, which will elect his successor, to this degree. John Paul II's handpicked cardinals are well in line with his theological and political ideas and it is to be expected that his successor will be a theological conservative in his own image. But there is another interesting tendency in his selection: With the appointment of the new cardinals, the number of European cardinals has fallen to 64 (an unprecedented low of 47 per cent), among them the lowest ever number of 24 Italians. This makes it most likely that the next pope will be a non-Italian again (John Paul II had been the first non-Italian pope since 456 years!), and even a non-European. The next pope may come from the developing world, possibly from Asia, which the Vatican has identified as its main harvesting ground for christianization. In the strategy meeting in May, which is not yet formally announced, the church's missionary activities are expected to top the agenda.