Ten years after 911

Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
Utusan Online - 09-09-2011

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Sept 11 tragedy (911) which sparked the “War against violence” created by former United State President George W. Bush. The heat is very much felt by Muslims throughout the world as if they are the main target of the war especially when the US key landmark – the World Trade Centre of New York – was wiped out by a group of Muslim militant from al-Qaeda.

President Barrack Obama is said to have taken the opportunity to commemorate 911 following the successful killing of Osama bin Ladan and recently, the death of another leader of the al-Qaeda group.

With the approach of the US Presidential election, issues on terrorism is the best political outlay for Obama to capture more votes to go on his second term.

Since the last 10 years of 911, much water have flown under the bridge in the name of fighting against terrorism. Many of them are unexpected. One of them is the Arab Spring and the fall of several regimes, e.g. in Tunisia and Egypt which are close allies of the major world power, followed by Libya recently.

Another unexpected incident is the violence that happened in Oslo, Norway, recently, involving a right-wing Christian militant. The importance of this incident is that militancy is not the ‘domain’ of Muslim group as is commonly perceived.

If the existence of the Christian militancy is to be analyzed closely, it will dismiss the perception that violence is the monopoly of just certain group as alleged since the 911 carnage. Understanding the global scenario can help us seek a more justifiable solution.

For this purpose, the only better up to-date reference is the book titled The Armies of God – A study of militant Christianity (2010) by Iain Buchanan, an academician and now a freelance writer. His studies take a retrospective view of the United States-Soviet Union Cold War up to the mid-20th century where economy and politics are the game of the superpowers. After the Second World War, when religious and imperialist pattern changed, so do the pattern of the Christian movement which relied on the existing power structure especially in the US then.

Indeed, there will be many maneuverings – corporate sector, military, politic as well as the church – to maintain and develop further the US influence throughout the world by various ways and means.

It’s focus is on “10:40 Window” – that is part of the world between latitude 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator, not including the American continent. It is said that 95 percent of the population in the “Window” area are Muslims, Hindus, Buddhist which they consider remaining in the “dark” Christian message and as such will be their main target.

A quote from a preacher of the Christian evangelism goes: “From the centre of 10:40 Window, Islam outspread to the entire world, through the same strategy. We must cut across the “heart” of Islam through a liberal Christian evangelism.”

According to Buchanan, for more than 30 years, the US foreign policy depended on the presence of Christian missionaries involved in administrative matters, formulating policies, sponsoring and going to the field. Although this issue is less mentioned and is out of public sight, it becomes important and very influential in term of politic, military, culture and economy.

Its influence is widespread on the relationship between culture, religion and countries as well as the rise of the world power as the element behind the global issue especially in non-Christian countries like Iraq, India, Indonesia and Thailand, and Malaysia is no exception!

Among the main strategy carried out is to taint the whole culture, social and countries. The field of social science including anthropology is used so that the national aspect, language or class is not disturbed in preaching the evangelical message. As such it is easily accepted.

Buchanan identifies at least three US universities that offer special degree courses to invite Muslims to convert to Christianity with dozens other training institutes operating for the same purpose supported by dozens of agencies created among Muslims. It is estimated thousands of people are involved in the spreading of Christian evangelism to targeted countries around the world.

They are equipped with various tools including getting suitable jobs like teaching, engineering, becoming doctors or tourists. Many are trained among the locals or as “foreign workers” or volunteers whose name are listed in Buchanan’s book.

There are more than 600 such agencies originating from the US offering various services in various foreign countries as they collect local data which will subsequently be uploaded into their computer data base to plan their activities. The “Spiritual Mapping” began in the early 1990s and shared by other agencies like the US intelligence, CIA.

Politics has also been made as tools for this purpose. Popular Christian evangelist, Billy Graham, for example, is very close to the White House since the days of President Eisenhower. In the Bush administration, his adviser like Karl Rove and Jack Abramoff is also said to be closely involved.

The same too goes to the media and corporate bodies especially the Right wing. In fact many corporate speakers from Fortune 500 firms are also involved in the same plan.

The Western political system is theoretically secular. In fact it is not so because of the strong influence from the Christian networks which are capable of sponsoring and planning the US political agenda. The basic purpose is nothing more than to discreetly Christianized the economy, administration and non-Western world leadership.

According to Buchanan, “Dominionism” is among the theology in the form of military and elitist.

Along the line of this effort, there are also what is known as “the Pentagon of modern Christianity” or “God’s Air Command” – a joint centre aims at giving strategic coverage and information attacking the enemy or adversary!

This desire is in line with the 40 percent figure of the active personnel in the US military which describes themselves as the disseminator of Christian evangelism whereas 60 percent of the military religious officers are also playing the same role. As such, it is not surprising to see the torture and other heart-wrenching incidents against the Iraqi prisoners as reported in the Abu Ghraib Prison and “Camp X-Ray” in Guatanamo Bay because this group sees “Allah” as the biggest hurdle in their endeavor to achieve the target.

Buchanan said in an interview about his book, there are many perverted matters in the dissemination of the Christian evangelism unknown to many. As it is linked to the progress and modern civilization of the Western world, many have not suspected anything. To Christianity, such fact is getting bigger attention of late. The rejection and failure of “multiculturalism” or the principle of diversified culture in many European countries is the latest manifestation of this. In fact such term such as “Christian Taliban” has started to rear its head.

What they are capable and been doing is no less than threatening the global peace when the country is “conquered” through various art of technologies and strategies mentioned above. This is directly link with the non-Western and non-Christian countries especially within the 10:40 Window.

What is still hazy prior to this, is that the involvement of Christianity with Western politics, is now becoming apparent, that the two are inseparable and in fact are inter-related.

The war will continue if the well-researched issues presented by Buchanan in his book continues to be ignored seemingly only non-Western and non-Christian militancy need to be intercepted.

* The writer is the Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia. He can be contacted at vc@usm.my