WARC Theological Consultation on “Faith Stance on Global Empire”

2006 July 13-15 | Antipolo City, Philippines

Signs of the Times: The Era of Terrorism and Fundamentalism

By CARMENCITA P. KARAGDAG

Scanning the Global Environment and the Signs of the Times

Today we live in a world bedeviled by terrorism and fundamentalism. We speak here not only of Bush’s state terrorism and Osama Bin-Laden’s deadly suicide bombings that have plunged the world into chaos and violence, but also of neoliberal terrorism that has brought unprecedented ruin to entire economies and God’s creation. In a similar vein, we speak here not only of religious fundamentalism, both of the Christian and Islamic variety, that has fuelled and sanctified vicious imperial as well as counter-imperial wars, but also of market fundamentalism that has legitimized the boundless greed and mendacity of global capital.

Events since September 11 have seen the lone superpower flexing its muscle in every corner of the world, sowing terror, death and destruction in its wake, trampling human rights and the sovereign rights of nations with unprecedented impunity. This is not without costs to the coalition of the willing under the aegis of the lone superpower, which to date has lost more than 2,500 troops in occupied Iraq alone.

A worldwide paranoia cultivated by the military-industrial complex and its neo-con allies in the Religious Right opened the ground for more intensified US militarism, interventionism and project of re-colonization. Under the guise of the war on terror, increasingly blatant American military, economic and political presence has been justified in practically all parts of the world, but especially in oil-rich Middle East.

True to form the world’s remaining superpower has arrogantly rejected multilateralism and flouted international law, the cornerstone of world peace and civilization since the establishment of the UN. It has launched pre-emptive strikes and wars without end or borders to effect regime change and ensure its control of the world’s oil and other strategic resources. It has demonized nations, religious communities and national liberation movements which have dared move away from its hegemonic grasp, labeling them rogue states, members of the “axis of evil” and terrorists. It has unleashed its own jihad, with equal if not greater ferocity and capacity for death and destruction, against the new heathens of the world.

This terrifying chain of events is unfolding against the backdrop of an ever-deepening crisis engulfing the entire world wrought by neoliberal globalization. The signs are all too familiar: unbearable poverty, widespread unemployment, pauperization of peasants, dislocation of indigenous peoples, outrageously high rates of infant mortality, violence against women, and swelling ranks of migrant workers. Economies face unprecedented devastation due to astronomical foreign debt, bankruptcies, loss of food sovereignty and demise of nascent national industries. Also ominous is surrender of national sovereignty, erosion of social services and dismantling of the social welfare system, fragmentation of communities, cultural homogenization, and wholesale destruction of the life support system.

Indeed the tragedy of September 11 has simply provided the superpower with the ideological weapon and quasi-religious justification to consolidate its control at home and abroad, resuscitate the military-industrial complex, and establish an unparalleled hegemonic rule with a global reach far exceeding that of past empires. Today’s unrivalled global behemoth is much more powerful and totalizing, touching and distorting every realm of social and cosmic life. So encompassing and menacing is the reach of empire that Malaysian analyst Chandra Muzzafar describes US military might as aiming for “total spectrum dominance” and extending “from the depths of the ocean to the outer reaches of space”.

While some analysts are wont to speak of empire today in less explicit terms, referring not to a single power but to a larger constellation of powers, the records and statistics speak for themselves. The US accounts for only 5% of the world’s population, yet it generates nearly a quarter of the world’s gross domestic product and owns nearly half of its financial wealth. It is home to the world’s largest multinational corporations and enjoys virtual control of all three powerful financial institutions-WB, IMF and WTO-whose lethal conditionalities and structural-adjustment prescriptions are imposed on already enfeebled economies of the South. The superpower’s formidable military strength is unparalleled in history, with its annual military budget of $400 billion larger than that of the next nine militarily powerful countries put together, its military strength exceeding that of the next fourteen military powers combined, and its 800 military bases and base rights spread across the globe.

The Reality of Empire in Asia

US political and military presence in Asia-Pacific has deepened in the past decade due to the aggressive drive for market integration and untrammeled expansion of capital, underscoring the inextricable nexus and symbiotic relationship between military expansionism and economic globalization. Asia has been under siege from corporate-driven globalization since the debt crisis of the 80s which strengthened the grip of transnational corporations and global financial institutions on the economies of the region. The Asian crisis of 1997 saw the much-touted Asian tigers unraveling under the pressure of unregulated speculative capital, tearing to shreds effusive claims of prosperity and poverty eradication peddled by the gurus of neoliberal globalization.

But it is in the military field where the empire is most clearly ascendant. Though it has never abandoned its geo-strategic interests in Asia, traditionally dubbed as the “American lake”, the US had taken a relatively low-key presence in the region for several years following its humiliation in Vietnam. This would change in the aftermath of September 11. The war on terror gave the Pentagon’s military establishment a much-needed shot in the arms, providing it with the opportunity to reassert and enhance its military presence in the region.

Thus relics of the Cold War persist and are especially evident in Northeast Asia. Washington and the Pentagon have targeted North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil, while at the same time renewing pressure on Seoul to support missile defense cooperation with the US. This has served to escalate the arms race and tensions in the already heavily nuclearized subregion. Plans are underway to build a new base in Henoko in Okinawa where sprawling US military facilities continue to be stationed. Under the empire’s patronage, Japan has embarked on a project of remilitarization, deploying Self-Defense Forces to Afghanistan and Iraq in contravention of the “no war” provision of its constitution. Where foreign bases have been dismantled or where public opposition to overt military presence or deployment of foreign ground troops is strong, the Pentagon has resorted to secret bilateral and multiple access arrangements.

After lunging into Afghanistan in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, the superpower lost no time in opening the second front of the war on terror in Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines. This paved the ground for the re-entry of American ground troops and special forces under the guise of joint military exercises in a country that once played host to its largest overseas military installations. Despite continuing public furor since 2002, thousands of foreign troops have since been deployed in different parts of the country particularly in sensitive areas suspected as strongholds of Muslim and communist rebels. All-out war against so-called terrorists has led to bombardment and hamleting of entire villages especially in Mindanao.

But the war on terror has of late taken a more sinister turn. A government blueprint of counter-insurgency, heavily funded by Washington and the Pentagon, envisages the systematic massacre of the legal or non-armed segments of the national liberation movement, including those perceived as leftists or communist sympathizers. This explains the escalation of human-rights abuses and politically motivated killings that are now occurring with almost daily regularity. Priests, pastors and church workers have not been spared, with WARC member United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) alone losing four pastors or 13 church workers altogether, slain with utmost impunity by paramilitary death squads let loose by a government bent on holding on to power amidst widespread allegations of massive electoral fraud.

Moreover, the Pentagon continues to rely on the Philippines as the linchpin of the US security framework in the Asia-Pacific. Historically a staging ground for projecting US military power to the Pacific region, the former American colony is considered particularly valuable in serving its former colonial master’s policy of containment-a cold war vintage-vis-à-vis China, perceived as the main strategic rival of the global hegemon for suzerainty in the region. Also strategic is the country’s proximity to long-standing flashpoints of conflict, the Korean peninsula and the Taiwan straits. And with strong Islamic nationalists firmly entrenched in other parts of Southeast and South Asia, the superpower needs a reliable and militarily equipped vassal, with an oil-rich Mindanao to boot, to secure its geopolitical interests. In return for its unabashed loyalty to the empire, the Philippines-now a full-fledged surrogate for implementing state terrorism-has become the world’s fourth largest recipient of foreign military financing and Asia’s biggest recipient of the International Military Exercise and Training Program. US military assistance to the Philippines is said to have increased tenfold since the war on terror.

More aggressive reassertion of American military power in the Philippines, which gives the hegemon a strategic foothold in the rest of the region, has been justified by claims that Southeast and South Asian countries are providing refuge for Islamic extremists linked to the Al Quaeda and the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiah. But not to be forgotten is the lure of strategic resources which abound in the region. Southeast Asia’s oil and gas reserves have yet to be fully tapped and exploited. Indonesia alone accounts for 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas exports. Nearly half of the world’s trade, including oil supplies from the Middle East to the oil-dependent countries of East Asia, pass through the Strait of Malacca and Lomboc. Chalking up a combined GNP of $700 billion, Southeast Asia is the fifth largest trading partner of the US.

The Rise of Religion as an Ideological Force

We are witness today to the phenomenal rise of religion as an ideological force, a phenomenon often associated with the emergence of revivalist and political Islam. This is best summed up by Francois Burquat, in his “Face to Face with Political Islam,” which asserts that Islamism is the “incarnation of an older Arab nationalism, clothed in imagery considered more indigenous”. He adds that Islamism, as “the language through which the Arab World articulates its opposition to the West, characterizes the wave of exorcism that is now sweeping across the former territories dominated by the West”. Islamic revivalism has roots in the failure of the secular elites installed to power after independence from colonial rule to get rid of age-old injustices and social inequalities. In his illuminating book, “Jihad, the Trail of Political Islam”, Gilles Keppel elaborates: “By promising to re-establish social justice on the model of the first state of Islam set up by the Prophet Mohammed in Medina, the Islamists held out a vision of utopia. They also gave expression to the populace’s visceral hostility toward regimes gnawed by corruption, bankruptcy (both economic and moral), and authoritarianism.”

Also at the center of Islamic radicalism are the subjugation of Muslim Palestine and the ensuing dispossession of the Palestinians as Israeli expansionist drive has relentlessly escalated under imperial prodding and protection. To exacerbate the already volatile situation, the US went on a rampage following the assaults on the World Trade Center, killing tens of thousands of Muslims and blasting away essential infrastructures and priceless cultural relics in Afghanistan and Iraq. Specially galling to the Muslims is the long-standing US policy of propping up corrupt and abusive despots in the Gulf states. Saudi-born Osama Bin Laden cannot be more explicit, warning that the occupation of the “territory of the Two Holy Places”, in reference to the US bases in Saudi Arabia, justified a defensive jihad, similar to the one aimed at the Soviet Union after its invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the article, “The Geopolitics of War”, author Michael Clare puts the blame squarely on US policy in the Persian Gulf, particularly its overt and covert operations to guarantee the continued grip on power of the increasingly isolated Saudi Arabian royalty, in exchange for unimpeded access to the world’s largest petroleum reserves, “the single most valuable geopolitical prize in the world”.

But aggravating all these and further pushing most Muslims to desperation is western-driven globalization which has not only deepened poverty and imposed a monoculture repugnant to Islamic religiosity, but has also uprooted whole communities from their traditional moorings. All these have generated growing disenchantment and spiritual alienation, prompting people to search for an authentic alternative often supplied by religious utopia. Stephen Zunes, in his book, “US Policy Toward Political Islam,” makes the following case: “When a people have lost their identity-whether it be due to foreign occupation, war-induced relocation, the collapse of traditional economies or other reasons-there is a great pull to embrace something that can provide a structure, worldview and purpose through which to rebuild their lives.”

The whole issue of religious revivalism has assumed even greater significance in our era of terrorism and war on terror. In the striving for religion and in the assertion of people’s cultural identity in the face of a globalizing and homogenizing western culture, exclusionary and sectarian communal attitudes have often prevailed, with all the potential for deadly sectarian conflicts and fratricidal war. The US’s obsession with radical Islam and its terrorist fringe is understandable. It knows only too well that given its unchallengeable military superiority, any serious threat to its security can only come from highly motivated opponents employing thoroughly unconventional, if hideous, methods of attacks.

Yet behind the Bush war on terror is the new dominant force in American geopolitics, the Christian Right and their neo-con allies who are known to have instigated the invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq, both allegedly giving sanctuary to terrorists and enemies of Israel. This is grounded in the religious belief-of indubitably fundamentalist mold-that Israel’s enemies will need to be vanquished to pave the way for Israel’s glorious triumph before the return of the long-awaited Messiah. Together with Zionists, they have lobbied for aggressive policies intended to drive away Palestinians from their homeland and establish a “Greater Israel” in territories they consider biblical lands. For his part, Bush, himself a quintessential representative of the Christian Right, has mastered the art of using religious rhetoric and symbols to legitimize the project of empire.

Indeed religion today has become a major force for justifying competing socio-political and economic agendas. Political groups on both sides of the Christian and Muslim divide have claimed inspiration or authority from religion or religious texts, casting their political demands and striving for power in religious language and metaphors. But also dangerous is their appropriation of texts in a highly selective fashion which are then propagated as absolute truths and inerrant doctrines. It is in this sense that the US war on terror has become itself a religious war, a modern-day crusade that targets its enemies as devil incarnates against whom divine fury, fused with imperial military might, must be mercilessly unleashed.

Conclusion: Responding to the Signs of Times

The theme of our consultation “Faith Stance on Global Empire” harkens us back to ancient biblical times. Then an incipient religious movement in the aftermath of Christ’s crucifixion, Christianity had begun to take roots in scattered communities. The faithfuls would soon draw the ire of powers and principalities for repudiating Baalite idolatry and rejecting socio-political and economic paradigms that feed on oppression and exclusion. But imperial Rome in this period had already started on the path of strategic decline, besieged as it was by nationalist struggles in its colonies and threatened by barbarians from the northern lands of occupied Europe. Widespread protests had erupted in the occupied territories over Rome’s agricultural policy prohibiting grape growing, curtailing the production of vegetable oil, and restricting the growing of wheat meant to protect the profit margins of Roman wine-makers, oil and wheat dealers and landed patricians. A few centuries later, imperial Rome would adopt Christianity as its official religion, beginning the process of building Christendom alongside Pax Romana in hopes of averting further waning of imperial power.

Like today it was a time of grave crisis and great opportunity. It was and is now Kairos, that singular moment when Christians are impelled by their very faith to respond with firm resolve, courage and conviction.

Like today’s Philippines where death squads have been let loose to butcher the defenseless and where extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, torture and mayhem go not only unpunished but rewarded by the empire, repression and persecution of martyrs and prophets was the order of the day. Like today when oil and other strategic resources are wantonly pillaged to feed the insatiable lust of global capital, precious resources in biblical times were siphoned from distant lands and shipped to the imperial capital by the merchant fleets of the world. Like today when globalization has become outrightly militarized, unleashing wars on terror and wars of plunder and occupation, peace in classical imperial times was but a brief interlude in the never-ending cycle of wars.

Yet in the midst of so much suffering and pain, we discern unmistakable signs of hope, strengthening our faith that the God of justice and liberation has not abandoned the poor and the oppressed, the underside of history. We are sustained by the conviction that with resistance to global hegemony reaching new, unprecedented heights in many parts of the world, the present empire-like past empires-will not last.

We are empowered by the courage and heroism of resistance fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan who are in the forefront of the global struggle against empire. We have witnessed the massing of millions, if not tens of millions, in peaceful protests against the invasion and occupation of Iraq in the very belly of the beast and in the major capitals of Europe. We draw inspiration from the new wave of economic nationalism sweeping Latin America that has brought to power mass-based political parties and leaders like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, giving voice to the once disempowered workers, peasants and indigenous peoples. We are emboldened by the prospect of peace and a radically transformed society in the tiny nation of Nepal after the people’s movement, led by Maoist rebels in alliance with seven parliamentary parties, dismantled empire-backed monarchical despotism not too long ago. We draw courage from the militancy and creativity of throngs of Korean farmers who converged in Hong Kong in December last year to defy the WTO, even as we laud the massive demonstrations that have invariably accompanied WTO meetings and scuttled previous rounds of trade liberalization since Seattle. We are pained, yet inspired, by the martyrdom of many activists in the Philippines-among them our very own priests, pastors and church workers-who, by taking up the cause of the poor, dared to live on the edge of, if not outside, empire.

Finally in this age of religious revivalism amidst globalization and the war on terror, progressive Christians and Muslims are called to address our common victimization and draw on our common spiritual heritage to create life-enhancing alternatives and pave the way for the New Jerusalem. We are beckoned to harness and mobilize our vast and largely untapped spiritual, theological and other religious resources for radical transformative action directed against the death-dealing forces of empire. Indeed faith communities are challenged as never before to build and strengthen interfaith solidarity as well as alliances with social movements and people’s organizations to transform the world and make all things new.

Let me end by quoting from the Covenant of Self-Understanding and Purpose issued by Peace for Life, a new solidarity network of peace advocates rooted in faith communities and social movements who are engaged in various forms of resistance to empire: “With a global war that is being fought militarily, politically, economically and culturally with the support of the American Religious Right, a faith-based resistance particularly directed against imperialist machinations becomes critical and urgent. The fundamental ethical values of justice, equality, human dignity, human rights and integrity of creation represent an essential resource in peace-building and one that plays a specific role in the global anti-imperial front. It is incumbent upon faith communities to harness this resource, targeting US empire building as the single, most formidable force today that impedes the realization of these values.”

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