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African Holocaust | African Race | The appreciation or relevance of Africaness is located in the face of a multi-racial world and the primary function of defining African identity is first and foremost an exercise in political self-interest and African agency. The power of definition must remain with the majority and today African is a term used to super-umbrella all the indigenous ethnicities of the African continent and their modern-day descendents in the Diaspora

 

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AFRICAN HOLOCAUST ARTICLES

Until lions tell their tale, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter

African Proverb

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will

– Frederick Douglass

The most pathetic thing is for a slave who doesn't know that he is a slave

– Malcolm X

Every man is rich in excuses to safeguard his prejudices, his instincts, and his opinions.

– Ancient Egypt

Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it political? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right.

– Dr. Martin L. King, Jr

What kind of world do we live in when the views of the oppressed are expressed at the convenience of their oppressors?

– 'Alik Shahadah

We are not Africans because we are born in Africa, we are Africans because Africa is born in us.

– Chester Higgins Jr.

Leave no brother or sister behind the enemy line of poverty.

– Harriet Tubman

If we stand tall it is because we stand on the shoulders of many ancestors.

African Proverb

If we do not stop oppression when it is a seed, it will be very hard to stop when it is a tree.

– ' Alik Shahadah

If the future doesn't come toward you, you have to go fetch it

Zulu Proverb

 

MYTH OF WAR & RELIGION

Real Roots of African Conflicts

Alik Shahadah
'Alik Shahadah 02-2012 -Update 04/2012

   
Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone's head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children
Amilcar Cabral

See Also | Islam and Africa | African Christianity

What is termed "religion and violence" is largely a Western dichotomy of different power configurations that serve a Western consumer audience. (Cavanaugh 2009) The myth of religion as incompatible with secular governance or having an inherent disposition to creating violence is so pervasive that it eludes critique and verification.

And inside of this conventional paradigm, reality seems to be reinforcing the myth. It is the same with the paradox of "otherness," the mere process of marginalized people into the "other," creates "otherness" from which to justify the existence of the "other." The argument of religion as a unique issue is a classic case of confusing causation and correlation.

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Claiming Black, not behaving Black but having Black heritage

Patterns of human conflict cannot be mapped to degrees of religiosity. Yet in the Western discourse religion is; absolutist, divisive, irrational, brainwashing, the cause of slavery, the cause of war, the cause of strife, wasted wealth and time. As Kwame Ture said because Europe then has this conflict with religion they make the issues of Europe the concerns of the world. So what is true for Europeans must by default be true for everyone else. And finally in the case of Islam "preaches a culture of hate."

But taking two steps back we must interrogate these assumptions at the root and ask what identifies religion as the unique, or as the most pervasive agent of all of these things? And why is the war rhetoric of America immune from these charges?[1]

There is no trans-historical or transcultural discipline that is adequate for summing up "the history of religion and violence." Some force this premise into reality by having a very flexible definition of "religion" while others are even more sophisticated, allowing violence to be "National" when it suits their interest, while their enemies motives are due to "irrational backward religions." This kind of non sequitur and gymnastic logic serves to demonize religion without contaminating their own activities. It becomes just "self-defense" or "Peace mission" when they engage in war to secure a border, or to protect oil interest in the Gulf.

But when the opposing force fights back, for all the same reasons, it becomes a "morally reprehensible" religious jihad. So Muslims (as a religious group) are demonized for resisting the campaigns of the global imperialist and their henchmen.

The history of humanity testifies to one fact, we do not need religion to exercise violence: Rwanda 0.8 million people  in 100 days, Congo 5,4 million,  Shaka Zulu's  Mfecane, Nigerian-Biafran war 1.2 million, Ethiopia (62-92) 2 million ―mainly at the hands of an atheist (Mengistu) [1], we should pause before these figure, and ask "Where is religion?" And outside of Africa: Mao (40 Million), Stalin (20 Million), Hitler (42 million). [2]


   
Do not let your hatred of a people incite you to aggression
 
Alik The Quran 5:2

The raw numbers of deaths from conflict categorically show that across the globe, and in Africa, that religion, in anyway shape or form, is rarely a motive for animosity.(e.g. Far more people die from US foreign policy than at the hands of Al-Qaeda™)[3][4] From a statistical standpoint this logic is called sampling error. However, despite this, the news headlines are so successful at postering religion and violence that we forget the glaring statistics that show no such correlations.

Religion or society? In France some Jewish children are killed, their religion is a factor when they are victims, not so the other people who are labelled "North African" none of these "unworthy" victims are given the same treatment or even the same political urgency or press coverage.

Anders Breivik kills 69 teenagers and is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, the issues of Christianity however doesn't come up like in the case of Mohammed Merah (French supposed Al-Qaeda who killed 4 Jewish civilians) and unlike Breivik there is no backlash in Europe against White racism like we see in France against Islamic fundamentalism: If anything the backlash for Breivik is more towards immigrants. So even when a White Christian kills other Whites the Muslim issue still dominated the news. In both cases the mental state is clearly the greatest agent Breiviks is Christian and naturally articulated his insanity through that faith, Merah was Muslim and naturally articulated his insanity through that religion: The religion in all the above is inconsequential.


   
The US has a strong record of persuading the public that war is the only way. A military industrial complex worth billions of dollars is largely America's driving force. Deeply rooted in the system, it would serve no purpose if there was no one to fight
 
Alik War-fear into Warfare, RT [e]

"We can not allow these fanatical people to get their hands on nukes" ― 100% agree, but which fanatics are they referring to? Iran or America and Israel? That question can only be answered, not with emotion and selective amnesia, but with a history lesson (Hiroshima). The last 500 years of ongoing European conquest rarely seems to be notable in the debate about what is and has been a barrier to peace and justice on Earth? We are made to assume that apartheid, slavery, little boy bomb on Hiroshima, genocide of Native Americans, Opium Wars, Vietnam, exploitation of African, etc, are somehow supressed as evidence against the trial of West vs. Humanity. And even if acknowledged, there is a belief that it was a very long time ago and the West is now the "good guys" in human affairs. But at what date since WW1, for example, has that moral transformation occurred? When did they go from slave traders to protectors of humanity? Was it after the Civil Rights or after Iraq II?


   
Nobody has a right of self-defense against this country [USA], even if it intervenes across the ocean to impose by force governments that the people of that country reject
 
Alik Noam Chomsky

Right now, according to Robert Fisk, Western military presences inside the Islamic World is 22 times that than during the Crusades, yet the Western world expects zero response to this neocolonialism. And what blinds reality and informs public opinion to demonize religion, in this case Islam, is only because Muslims do not to own Fox, CNN, BBC News, or even Western controlled Al-Jazeera (Al-CNN). And again it is "religious" when people of Islamic heritage take up arms, for whatever reason (mainly defense), but non-religious when "Christian" nations "bomb them back into the stone ages." [5] [1] How does that work? Why is spreading "Islamic Sharia" to Muslim countries so offensive, yet spreading capitalism and its carrying bag (sometimes going by th e sobriquet democracy) so acceptable? Has this democracy created any tangible benefits for oppressed people in South Africa, Israel, or even democracy's own country of manufacture?


   
Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it
 
Alik Adolph Hitler

There is a global campaign from CNN right down to Europe’s favorite African intellectuals to push a myth by collating every instance which fingers “Islam and a problem" because "they hate our freedoms." (freedoms or foreign policies?) This one-way moral mirror used to discuss "religion" never reflects on Western "secular" aggression with the same tone or supposed impartiality. And it is identical to the way in which Africans are demonized in the West by constantly reporting statistics and occurrences which they say prove the myth of a "Black problem." But failing to mention the oppression African-Americans have been victims of for the last 300 years.


   
Boko Haram accuses government forces of frequently oppressing and attacking civilians in the country's predominantly Muslim northern regions for years
 
Alik Al-Jazeera

Why discuss anything without also factoring that Muslim countries control most of the world's oil reserves? And Western powers have been hell bent on seeking justification for the taking of these assets under the guise of a "War on Terror." And the omnipresent evil or nemesis of the "good White guys" is the omnipresent monolithic faceless Islamist a neologism created by US foreign policy. It would be dishonest to label Western as Christian, just as it is dishonest to factor religion into a greedy neocolonial resource conflict. We also seem to forget the fact that of the top 10 deadliest conflicts on Earth none of them were religious in nature.


   
America's number one selling product is FEAR
 
Alik 'Alik Shahadah

In the last 20 years of American history, there have been 129 confirmed White terrorist (Timothy Mcveigh, to the Olympic Park Bomber, to the infamous Unabomber), all Christian, all white, all American, an all successful at killing people: However, has that fact ever factored in profiling White American Christians? Has it caused a backlash or the mythical association between Christianity, secularism or America and violence? But less than a score of Arabs are accused of lone terrorist acts and now 1.5 billion people, 1/5 humans on the planet are on the FBI watch list. The one million dead Iraqi children some how are "unworthy" causalities (Chomsky), that is not "religious aggression" by Western nations because it is sanitized by words such as indirect war, collateral damage and the cost of liberation.

Am I not also a Terrorist? We cannot expect to; marginalize people, persecute them, prod and poke at them for their religious lifestyle and then complain when they retaliate: No free human being sits quiet while their rights to their own land, resources and lifestyle are infringed upon. And the double standards stare us in the face, so to deny the Jewish Holocaust is a crime in Europe, but denying the African Holocaust is called 'Western education', painting inflammatory cartoons of Muhammad —'freedom of speech'.
In God we Trust Boko Haram has lost faith in the Nigerian government, and has no tolerance for Western imposed education, which is the source of much of the underdevelopment and brainwashing evident in African leadership and intellectuals. Unfortunately, like many other radical groups across the world (including the US government and NATO) they have a methodology of using violence to affect change. Same story with Al Shabab, but can we even hear their constitution for Somalia's reform?-- No because Clinton (a non-Somali) said "you cannot listen to any group with Al-Qaeda links." We know all about the allegations of these "links,"

   
The Al Qaeda brand has proven to be a lucrative "investment". From 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq to Libya and currently Syria. And, now, the neocolonial reconquest of Africa. That's what you call "return on money
 
Alik Finian Cunningham [1]

A White Christian goes into an Afghan village and slaughters 16 civilians, many of them women and children; whose names we will never know, and never celebrate. They are the "unworthy" causlties of war--the non-people who have no value on CNN. Right after the incident his "human rights" were being respected, his family was being protected, he got a lawyer to explain how "stressed he was", "how his wife upset him the night before", "how living around all these "terrorist" would send anyone crazy." He will be given due process in the safest court in the world-- that of his own self-serving government. Unlike his fellow American Anwar al-Awlaki he will have a trial of his peers, not a trial by assassin drone. And how many people did Anwar kill? 16 or Zero? But two rules are applied in this world, both being the exclusive reality of the man with the biggest stick.

US conflict around the world map Happy (secure and comfortable) people who feel safe and "free" generally don't blow things up; unless they fear losing that status (entitlement). The exception is then only the oligarchy that wants to keep owning 95%. Most of them are American, protected by the biggest employer on the planet- the US department of defense (3.6 million). With a public funded budget of over 700 Billion dollars. [5]

And regardless of their accumulated mass ownership throughout history, they still want more. Simple people have simple minds that demand that the world be forced into very simple conclusions. [5] It is good for the power brokers because they never have to be worried with the nuance. It means an entire wars can be supported with paper thin cowboy rhetoric like "Support our troops", "Us and them," "Fight the good fight", "The war for peace," "Giving them democracy." And regardless of how language or politics chooses to define configurations of power, we send our children to war to help the elites hold on to it.


   
We embrace the dangerous self-delusion that we are on a providential mission to save the rest of the world from itself, to implant our virtues—which we see as superior to all other virtues—on others, and that we have a right to do this by force
 
Alik Chris Hedges [2]

So If our mission is to better understand, and hence prevent conflict, it will only come with giving a more sophisticated balanced analysis that is holistic and inclusive of reality. Empty rhetoric appeals to the emotions of the populous; it has no loyalty to comprehension and tangible solutions.


RELIGION


   
To others, religion is not so much a source of conflict as a source of hope in sub- Saharan Africa, where religious leaders and movements are a major force in civil society and a key provider of relief and development for the needy, particularly given the widespread reality of failed states and collapsing government service
 
Alik Pew Report

Religion is the source of so much conflict" rushes us directly into the long standing logical fallacy of "doing away with religion," hence the rise of the state as a higher form of human policy management. Richard Dawkins, the most celebrated atheist, constantly pushes this agenda of humanity commuting religion:


   
Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven... This world would be a much better place without either of them
 
Alik Richard Dawkins

But using Dawkins' argument the African could construct another proposition; considering the history of Europe/White people, this world would be even better off with them to enslave, oppress everyone. Bush is not motivated by dreams of heaven but dreams of fields of oil You would expect a little more incite and intellectual nuance from someone so celebrated as Dawkins. Also his argument is affirming the consequence, because without "religion" human conflict still rages on. With or without religion Somali is in chaos.

Someone should explain to Dawkins that without "religion" and its influence he might be writing his next atheist book on the wall of a cave while chewing semi-cooked meat and playing with deer bones for toys. Without the religious proclamations of "In the name of God" America is busy making war everywhere on God's green Earth.

When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists The new atheists, led by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, do not make moral arguments about religion. Rather, they have created a new form of fundamentalism that attempts to permeate society with ideas about our own moral superiority and the omnipotence of human reason. Hedges claims that those who have placed blind faith in the morally neutral disciplines of reason and science create idols in their own image -- a sin for either side of the spectrum. He makes an impassioned, intelligent case against religious and secular fundamentalism, which seeks to divide the world into those worthy of moral and intellectual consideration and those who should be condemned, silenced and eradicated. (Amazon.com)

Secularism replaces God with an anthropocentric moral argument divorced from the reality that Religion played and plays a critical role in the formation of civilizations and thus is a central aspect of our very humanity.

Spiritual systems are found, without exception, in every indigenous society; independent of geography, independent of ethnicity and independent of time. Religion gets full billing anytime a building is blown up, but rarely credited for its role in shaping all the things we take for granted. Some argue that it was religion, and not agriculture, that allowed the formation of sophisticated human societies. Centralizing ethics meant that people could live in harmonious and productive relationships with each other: Thou shall not kill people of your own group, thou shall not steal, and thou shall not break ones marriage vows. And these are not laws exclusive to the Bible, but from Ancient Egypt 1000s of years before the Judeo-Christian world emerged.

We see a mirror of these ethics in the Hammurabi code, and even in other more recent native African faiths.


   
We have guided missiles and misguided man
 
Alik Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is also no denying the role of religion in brainwashing people to either make them more passive (better slaves) or more aggressive (Siege of Jerusalem 1099). Religion was one of the tools of conquest in Africa. The likes of David Livingstone summed it up in his 3C's: Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization. But what is assigned to "religion" is more an issue of notions of European cultural supremacy. So Europeans were therefore really successful in brainwashing the people with an image of a White God, because of their message of the cultural supremacy of the white race. And contrary to popular belief the "religious" mission was not used in the conquest of much of India, Arabia, and Islamic Africa. Therefore it could not have been the principle agent for brainwashing people to accepting colonial domination.

It makes no sense to discuss "religion" in the exclusive context of mind control; what about notions of race? Politics (esp.), media, Books, educational system, music and sports are they not also systems of control, why isolate religion? Every civilization has systems of control to reduce dissent and formulate harmony (good and bad) to focus human energy on serving the national interest-- again this can be good and bad. The point is control is in all things and part and parcel of all advanced human societies.


   
No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic
 
Alik A. J. P. Taylor

And outside of these "religious" formations we have even more of how people are brainwashed into not uniting because of what is perceived as political allegiances and especially ethnic allegiances, (or even allegiance to a football team)[2]— we must deal with the root, the general ignorance that allows people to be manipulated in these ways. Because most will agree that those who control power use religion in a scapegoat capacity. But religion like a bomb is a tool, it can be used to blow up a building or put a man in orbit. Any system, whether we call it religion, politics, ideological, can be hijacked for any objective the power-broker desires—good or bad.

Religious Crusades One of the most famous examples exhausted in the trial of "religion and warfare" is the bloody crusades. Now what was the religious set-up in Jerusalem before the European invasion? : Most forget that Jews, Eastern Christians worked and lived alongside the Muslim majority in absolute peace—no conflict. Yet "In the name of God" the European Christians massacred 70,000 people of all faiths. The crusades clearly used God as the excuse for plunder.

But even after Saladin retook the city he deliberately invited back the Ethiopian monks and exempted them from taxation—not to mention the numerous acts of tolerance and humanity he showed even his enemies. We also see a similar level of tolerance in Andalusia (Islamic Spain) ruled by African Moors and Arabs, which was destroyed in 1492 by the Spanish inquisition. Again Jews, Muslims and Christians built an era that ushered in a Renaissance in Europe. And under this peaceful co-existence Judaism experience its "Golden age" with Maimonides (موسى بن ميمون); one of Judaism greatest scholars. This is an era pre-Geneva convention, pre-UN human rights, yet so-called non-secular configurations of governance were able to amicable foster a climate of tolerance and co-existence. It would therefore be safe to say that the history of religious tolerance is far greater than intolerance—especially outside of Europe. The news that makes history is when things fall apart, giving the illusion of perpetual sectarian conflict.


HOLY VIOLENCE


   
...do not leave alive anything that breaths. Completely destroy them...as the Lord your God has commanded you...
 
Alik Deuteronomy 20:16

It is impossible to deal with religion and violence and completely deny the violence within the very text of both the Qur'an and especially the Bible. Raymuns Schwager found 600 passages of explicit violence in the Old Testament, along with 1000 descriptive verses of "God's own violence", and 100 passages where God commands murder (even of innocent non-combatants). It would not be an exaggeration to say far from being a book of love the Old Testament is a book of violence and warfare. [1]

And the Qur'an is also fully of blatant violence against the enemies of Islam. There is no denying the similar bias where "On the side of God" and what we see in the Western war language. But the primary argument is not the defense of "religion" as some begin always warm and loving institution. But moreover to dispel the myth that religion is unique or more given to violence. Because despite all the so-called violence in the Bible, it is not why the Crusaders invaded Muslim controlled lands.


   
When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you may nations...then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy
 
Alik Deuteronomy 7:1-2


THE NEW g-D

   
Man has devised terrifying physical weapons of destruction and in our concern with them, we are apt to neglect the equally dangerous weapons of psychological destruction; the cynical use of mass hysteria, the emotional conditioning of millions, for no purpose than the Power of a few
 
Alik John Hammond [1]

Political scientist, Juan Linz noted that secularization had created a void which could be filled by a total ideology, making totalitarianism possible and Roger Griffin has characterized fascism as a type of anti-religious political religion. Such political religions vie with conventional, actual religions, and try to replace or eradicate them. God of the church verse god of capitalism is different spiritually, but from a social-economic standpoint, are direct competitors. According to a biographer of Mussolini, "Initially, fascism was fiercely anti-Catholic" — the Church being a competitor for dominion over the people's hearts.

Who is a terrorist Today you will hear academics and learned folk tell you how terrible religion is, ironically the very religion they said were so critical in Africa’s salvation 300 years ago. Christianity was useful in its Eurocentric dress for the last 200 years in creating new clients for Western products and subservient slaves. However, since then It has been replaced by the new ‘religion’ of democracy and capitalism.

The passport for conquering Africa may have shifted , but not the objective: a richer Western world - a poorer Africa.

This new god has even more efficient systems of creating new slaves and new clients. And as markets changed with politics the old best-seller (religion) started to become a hindrance to the expansion of globalized markets. But because of ways in which people see different configurations of power, there has been a failure to see that democracy is the fastest growing “religion”, far quicker to gain converts over diverse populations than any other ideology in history.

US conflict around the world map And because of democracies vagueness it can be easily twisted to get a desired outcome, so no need for “God says”. Now the final authority is not the Pope in a church, but Obama in the White House. A reason to invade Vietnam—democracy. To take away the wealth of Iraq—democracy, to assassinate Gaddafi – democracy and human rights.

Religion would not have allowed such flexibility in justifying neocolonialism. Religion would have struggled to invent a system to make the entire world a Theater of War. But under the banner of democracy US foreign policy is justified to jump across people’s borders and take at will. But what has Democracy achieved in the USA? (See External Link)

Listen to the language "IMMINENT THREAT" Washington is telling the World that their victims are "A threat to world peace" "American Foreign policy keeps the world safe" Someone must have torn out a few pages from their history book. How many times can the old pick up line work and leadning nations to war for someone else's property?

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.—Smedley D. Butler


STATE or RELIGION


   
And do not let ill-will towards any folk incite you so that you swerve from dealing justly. Be just; that is nearest to heedfulness
 
Alik The Quran 5:8

There is an anachronistic current underpinning the very trans-history of religious study. The entire dichotomy can be traced back to the legitimizing of the nation-state in Europe. During this period the state and the market have an overwhelming history of violence, which makes religion pale in comparison.  We are to believe the modern state was born as the ultimate peace maker in human affairs; a move that split religious realm from the political—giving birth to the modern set-up. So as humans ‘evolved’ out of the ‘primitiveness’ of devotion to God’s authority they made the state the new godhead—a transfer of loyalty and devotion from God to the state. Killing in the name of God was vilified, but killing for the state was legalized. So in one identical experience the perpetuator is a fanatic in another he is a patriot. The world is so blinded by the propaganda that language, and language alone, separate identical realities.  

 

There is a direct inheritance of methodologies between the witch hunts that burned people at the stake in the Middle Ages into Salem America right into the 50’s with McCarthy’s Second Red Scare: Continued today in more sophisticated ways by the patriot act. The villain has gone from Witch, to Communist to Islamist: The configurations of power have gone from Church to State one casting out demons the other casting out communism and so-called terrorist. Witch-hunts have a peculiar benefit for the accuser even in Africa, as in Salem America, they often leave the accusers with the property of the so-called witches. In the witch hunt to create a “safer world” free from terrorism/Islam it results in the political expansion of Western interest in the globe.

Terrorist Visa Form

If you look at any conflict; Nigeria, Somalia, Palestine, or even Darfur, we can choose to identify the agent of the conflict as religious difference. However, very few in Nigeria are killing anyone because of a spiritual disagreement over a verse in the Qur'an. In Nigeria, for example, the North is relatively barren; education and infrastructure are also suffering compared to the South.  There is also what is perceived as a Europeanized colonized mentality, which is more pronounced in the Southern territories that have a greater history of Western acquiesce. And this is very similar to the issues between what is now Northern and Southern Sudan, although it is articulated through an Arab supremacy lens: Divided loyalties between Arabization and Europeanization create far more animosity than Islam versus Christianity.


   
War is a continuation of politics by other means
 
Alik Clausewitz

Darfur Report
Muslim Refugees in Darfur
Now in Africa ethnic lines also follow religious and geographical lines. So one way of describing the North of Nigeria, in minimum terms, would be to say they are Islamic; doesnt mean all their actions are because of Islam. They are also predominately Hausa and Fulani, but 'Islamic' is just more convenient as a demographic difference when contrasted against their southern neighbors. When one group strikes they always target the symbols of their "oppression."

So an attack often has in religious characteristics; attacking a church for example. But deep within the belly of the problem is always some idea of inequity or entitlement.


   
Man has devised terrifying physical weapons of destruction and in our concern with them, we are apt to neglect the equally dangerous weapons of psychological destruction; the cynical use of mass hysteria, the emotional conditioning of millions, for no purpose than the POWER of a few
 
Alik John Hammond[1]

So powerful are these myth or religion and conflict it forces itself upon conflicts void of religious issues. So the mere utterance of Darfur is assumed to have in religious elements despite all the evidence and detail that says both groups are Islamic. Still it is shaped as somehow a religious conflict and again the natural the demon is Islam.


MEDIA AGENDAS


   
The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses
 
Alik Malcolm X

Where and when did the victims of persecution become the villains?—on TV. In Vietnam, in the conquest of America from the natives Americans, in Iraq, in every Western conflict the victims were categorized into "worthy" and "unworthy" depending upon Western interest in the conflict (Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky).

We are not 5 year olds, and when someone gives us something that looks bitter or sweet we have a higher mind to ask "What do you really want?” CNN et al has an agenda; do not drink the Kool-Aid. Do not be so easily sold and played by the burning headlines of BBC News. Not one report is there to do a dis-service to European interest.

For Europeans self-interest is an innate and unconscious act which requires no conspiracy theories or plotting to align and work in unison. The only people who do not behave like this are people so mentally oppressed they do as Malcolm suggest and worry about their master’s house first. 

Orwell wrote that:

indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing off of one part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening. There can often be doubt about the most enormous events... .The calamities that are constantly being reported -- battles, massacres, famines, revolutions -- tend to inspire in the average person a feeling of unreality. One has no way of verifying the facts, one is not even fully certain that they have happened, and one is always presented with totally different interpretations from different sources. Probably the truth is undiscoverable but the facts will be so dishonestly set forth in that the ordinary reader can be forgiven either for swallowing lies or for failing to form an opinion 

Claiming Black, not behaving Black but having Black heritage

It is no mystery what the motives behind  demonizing Mugabe are about, so is it a conspiracy to suggest that every Western news house had it in for Mugabe? Was the character attack for his human rights abuses, or for him throwing out their economic interest in the region? How could the world after seeing how much land the Whites in Zimbabwe had still take issue with Mugabe? How is it possible to shift the emphasis to African corruption without first explaining the inequity and horrendous racism that maintained White monopolies and economic apartheid? Was it also not clear in the assassination of Brother Gaddafi that the media again was all singing from the same score?
Despite all Gaddafi did, the reader struggled to find one headline in the West that said two good things about him.
And yet with both Gaddafi and Mugabe the principle issues are overshadowed by minor considerations: Africans owning their own land is overshadowed by some aspects of nepotism. So it is okay to have economic apartheid as long as there is no nepotism—which one is more serious?

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All of Gaddafi contributions are over shadowed by accusations of “human rights abuses” and “being in power too long.” Because of media people are focused on the propaganda statement “being in power too long” Gaddafi’s contributions were made irrelevant.

Now in  South Africa, where there is no issue of “being in power too long” people see democracy as the highest human achievement, despite the fact that the majority are poor and uneducated. So the power of the media can make you believe dirt is more valuable than gold. Your people can be starving, despondent, uneducated, violent, but as long as your democracy rotates puppets every 5 years and supports globalization then nothing else matters.

So with all the joys of hindsight, why would Western media and its henchmen in African skin treated and trusted as the gospel on African affairs? Even if the facts are true, i.e. war in Congo, genocide in Sudan, the objective of how that information is used is not in the interest of Africans. The West also cannot make up their mind, so if they want to report on rising fuel prices in Nigeria they must still somehow insert into the story links to Al-Qaeda and Islamic militants. Fiscally and politically, Al-Qaeda is the best thing for US foreign policy, it is a check they can cash in a million times without exhausting its reserves. Every Psychologist will tell you the more you repeat something—true or false, it becomes “truer” with every repetition. Until the reader accepts the information and the natural mental barriers of interrogation are destroyed: The mind no longer says “Wait a minute now, that doesn’t make sense.”

If CNN wants to sell headlines it is far easier to ride in on rising tide of Islamophobia. And if CNN wants to stay afloat they must have a rating that attracts advertisers. Now which headline gets a higher readership? "Ethnic clashes over resources in Darfur" or "Arabs killing black [sic] African"? "Rising fuel prices in Nigeria heighten ethnic tensions," or "Muslims burn church?" CNN must therefore appeal to the wide demographic; especially a demographic which spends money. Already conflict of interest is involved when you consider the USA is influenced by fundamentalist Christians and Zionist who have a long history of framing everything as "us" against "them." So if your audience is White conservative Christians then viewing the world through a religious lens reassures people of the age old religious dichotomy that only the West is famous for.

And this is beyond argument evident in how two actions are written about depending on the parties involved. If a man who happens to be Muslim goes on a killing spree it is "Muslim fanatic goes mad, "if a Christian does it, it is simple "Man goes mad." So likewise every conflict in Africa needs to be packaged into little bundles of "heart of darkness"—reassuring the cultural supremacy of European people over African people. It is then easy to continue to say "those savages over there."

If Boko Haram (like the rebels in Libya) were pro-Western, the reports would be radically different, you would not hear the term "menace", "extremist", "Islamist". You would hear how just their cause was, how oppressive the government was, how the government was "killing the people" you would hear a lot more about their rights to self-determination. And all the evidence of this pattern of giving support or giving condemnation is in the history books; in Eastern Timor, in Afghanistan during the Cold War.

Our Story Our Voice

If there is a riot in Northern Nigeria and they attack municipality buildings and then burned some churches in the process, the headlines will only say "Nigerian Muslims Burn Churches", what adds to the issue that is in most conflicts in Africa they will be either religious, or ethnic overtones—or both. It is not the moral mission of CNN to report balance, there is no need to stress this point as it is very obvious there is no such neutrality from either CNN, BBC, especially FOX or Al-Jazeera (Al-CNN). What may vary from news agency to news agency are spheres of politic interest. Al-Jazeera for example is pro-Palestinian but anti-Iran, anti-Pan-African, and ultimately pro-Western, liberal and mildly anti-Islamic. Fox News is well just plain old pro-everything Republican white-America and Israel. There is no point listing the news agency of South Africa or Kenya as they are basically regurgitating opinions from Reuters and the like. And just like no one reads the Sun (UK) for accuracy, all of the above should be treated with suspicion based upon each media groups interest block. Further reading on critical issues needs to happen in order to understand the root of the conflict and the motives behind misreporting or spinning information.

It is almost like you have a civil war, or any conflict and there seems to be a special category when the violence is put under the banner of "Islam." War is the most ugly aspect of human culture, it has no equal, it is the most base form of disagreement. But all over this world people clash and you get the exact same consequences as seen in so-called sectarian conflict, yet Western media and their apes in Africa want to isolate it into religion. "They are burning, looting and raping in Mali"; to add to the story of Al-Qaeda in the area. But ask "Are not all civil wars/conflicts like this?" People fleeing to the borders happens regardless of if Al-Qeada is behind it or if America is behind it, so why the emphasis on "natural" aspects of warfare as if religion is the reason for that peculiarity?

In every conflict you get lotting and rape, things get burnt, people get killed, this is what war means-- and hence why some struggle so hard to avoid anything resembling violence. in the 1960's America hatched out the term "dirty war"-- all war is dirty. But the warmongering West are dictating the terms of engagement to give them a strategic advantage. How can the Palestinians fight Israel 1:1 when one group has homemade bombs and the other group has state-of-the-art weaponry? All violent conflicts engage the same ugly tactics to achieve their end. The USA is a master of this, but because they are even better masters of propaganda they are able to spin their actions and allow different definitions for the very same actions.

The media has a few favorite words, one of them is extremist. However, the reason for the "extremism" is never explained-- but carries so much vitriol in it you don't need anything else. But what about White Supremacy, is that not extreme from the point-of-view of the African? What about US imperialism is that not extremist? So Western mis-education is very extreme for us Africans. So restoring our center cannot be extremist. And what the world has done to us as a people is make even wearing our African clothes "Radical," It has made the Muslim who wants to be ruled by a Islamic system-- as opposed to a Western one-- Extremist. Extremist is a relative term it holds no value other than political propaganda.


TRUTH IS OUT THERE


   
Blessed are the peacemakers for their shall be called Children of God
 
Alik Bible

With regard to Nigeria the West is fully aware, above a certain intellectual readership level, that religion is not a key factor in the conflict:


   
Many Nigerians argue that the real reason for the violence isn't ethnic or religious differences but the scramble for land, scarce resources and political clout. Poverty, joblessness and corrupt politics drive extremists from both sides to commit horrendous atrocities. Although the nation rakes in billions of dollars in oil revenue annually, the majority of Nigerians scrape by on less than a dollar a day. In Plateau State, where Jos is located, Muslim cattle herders from the north and Christian farmers from the south vie for control of the fertile plains
 
Alik TIME Magazine

Sectarian conflict erupted also in 1967, when three primarily Igbo eastern states seceded under the name Republic of Biafra, sparking a bloody three-year civil war. The attempt to break away ultimately failed, and Nigeria reintegrated the Igbo majority region in 1970. So this is the history of nationhood, why is religion painted all over it because the North is pro-Sharia. The objectives are no different, the idea of entitlement to govern their own affairs because of a perceived inequity in the current political formation.


   
In Nigeria the Christian-Muslim thing is the tip of the iceberg, what's underneath the water is a much more complex sociopolitical situation, which cannot be explained just in terms of the religious divide. You have a recipe ripe for conflict, and it just so happens to be Christian-Muslim
 
Alik Andrew Kakabadse

But regardless of how much information is presented, the dead heads of this world will always go with the most emotional opinion which makes their rants hotter to the uninformed masses. Fingering religion in Africa is a far more compact sound bite than going into the ins and outs of inequity and entitlement.

In absence of religious disagreement Somalia has not seen peace in decades. In absence of religious tension Rwanda was the worse ethnic crisis by African hands. In the absence of religion Ethiopia and Eritrea are bitter. In absences of religion, Congo is a human rights disaster. If places like Somalia tell us anything it is that sameness is not a solution to conflict in Africa. Even before there were Sunni and Shia, Islam, just like Christianity, was plagued with conflict—despite being ideologically “monolithic” and in its infancy. And it is the same for all ideologies—political, social or religious.

Religious agreement has rarely secured peace, while we have all the evidence of who unified some communities has b despite having diverse communities; Tanzania being one. And Ethiopia is proving to be another.


RELIGIOUS TERRORIST – SHARIA STATE

Obama Humanity In Libya There has always been this game the media plays by painting the demands of "terrorist" as ridiculous, irrational and fanatic—that suicide bombers are mad men. All of this is done to distract us from dealing with the issues that would motivate people into this extreme form of warfare. We should take  issue with violence period, let that be clear, but even a "terrorist" would not have done so much damage to Sirte, Libya as the so-called purveyors of freedom have done.

Don’t let power configurations confuse or blur the issue, anyone using force of war on innocent non-combatant people is a terrorist. Why is this obvious opinion not common knowledge because this word “terrorism” is used by the person writing the newspaper to define the forces they are fighting against—like the barbarian in Greek writings.

You cannot resign a person’s motives or arguments to nonsense, irrational and crazy without deeper interrogation of their arguments. What is more terrifying than being chained and put on a European ship and taken away into 300 years of night? What is more terrifying that being a Palestinian family being bombed by an Israeli tank? Is that not terrorism? What about the threat of invasion the West holds over the heads of the entire developing world if they fail to conform and submit to their power dominance? Why is terrorism always linked today to something “religious”?


   
There are no rights unless they is a struggle (Jihad) for those rights. African-Americans had to go through a struggle, their rights were not handed to them. Without struggle (Jihad) their are no rights, and that is the way of Allah
 
Alik Anwar al-Awlaki (Terrorist?)

Anwar Al-Awlaki was killed by the USA (his own people) on Yemeni soil by a cowardly drone for his message of global resistance to their hegemony. Obama claimed he didnt need due process, but what about Anwars 16 year old son who was also killed? [1] We can look at his words and removed the religious overtones and see there are no different to any other revolutionary. Certainly Che said the same thing, Malcolm X said the same thing, Ho Chi Ming said the same thing, every revolutionary in history used the same rhetoric. And US war language has in even more hostility (see video clip) so from a neutral perspective why is Bush, Obama, Cheney, Condi, Powell considered the "good guys"? America has not only the power to broadcast their violent rhetoric they have the power to back it up with the military.[1] And the world is in terror wondering about the consequences of their words. How many people died because of Bush? How many people died because of Anwar? What was his real crime? One American critic of the War on Terror Paul Craig Roberts wrote Awlaki gave "sermons critical of Washington's indiscriminate assaults on Muslim peoples" who "told Muslims that they did not have to passively accept American aggression". He called the assassination by Obama "The Day America Died" as the US lacked evidence either Awlaki were real threats or Al-Qaeda® operatives. For the open minded person isn't that what Obama is doing when he and every American president speaks about the patriotic duty of every America to wage war in the name of the American flag?

Let us be honest, America has an air tight campaign of hegemony.[11] It first neutralizes you with the media, it then demonizes any ideological forms of rebellion by labelling such ideas as Islamist, it then has the right to war, but no one has the right to defend, it has the right to nuclear weapons but no one else can use them. The right to take your oil, the right to force you to trade, the right to cross your borders at will, and the right to make propaganda films to justify all of the above.


   
We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations--acting individually or in concert--will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. I make this statement mindful of the creed and lives of Gandhi and King. But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms.
 
Alik Obama

US conflict around the world map Obama speech, on war would get a node of agreement from most so-called Islamist or religious terrorist. Because how is it fundamentally different from Bin Ladin, or any other? Do innocents not die under Bin Ladin's campaign? Do even not more innocents die under Obama's campaign: And the difference not only the quantity but by also in the quality of Obama wars.

How many non-combatant Westerners have these "terrorist" killed in post 9/11 - now?So what is Obama "defending" his nation against? He is really defending his nation's imperialist interest: And slipping people's names (even his own citizen's names) on an unchallengeable HIT LIST. It can be argued that most "terrorist" are defensive or reactionary to Western foreign policy. In a simple analysis the best way to stop terrorism is to leave them alone. No terrorist has ever made plans to attack Switzerland or Barbados. Terrorist do not actually want to "take over the world", but American politicians do. One group is housed within the framework of "religion" the other "political" blurring the obvious similarities from view.

Most Islamic terrorist are not even religious people, they however are always political people. Do we really believe the Palestine fighting for a liberated Palestine are praying 5 times a day and fighting for Islamic rule? And even if they want that, isn't it a basic human right of self-determination? Why would Islamic people with a complete "superior" system of governance want to be ruled with a European capitalist incubator called democracy? And the paradigm applies beyond religion, why would Africans with their own systems need to import improper Western failures to govern any aspect of their life?

The motives for terrorism always come back to entitlement and especially inequity. As Cabral said no one is fighting for the ideas in your head. So-called terrorist are people who have been denied a forum for redress their grievances and in that vacuum, overwhelmed by inequity they take extreme methods. To break the yoke of apartheid terrorism was a vital tool, to end the evils of slavery terrorism was used to weaken the viability of enslavement. Terrorism is neither here nor there in the true language of human conflict—only a methodology of conflict; defined in an out of reality by Western self-interest.

Sharia is no different in its idealism to those of the founding fathers of Western democracy. Democracy’s boast of creating stronger civilizations is proven by the rise of the Western economy, and sharia boast has been proven in the strong nations in antiquity it has created. And let us remember the sharia was the system ruling Northern Nigeria before colonialism destroyed the Sokoto Empire.

Like it or not, sharia is just another political system. So why should we be afraid because Northern Nigerians and Somalis want it? Two systems that should make us run for the hills are “freemarket” and “neo-liberal globalization” but the advocates of these systems happen to own the media machine. If the people see merit in its configurations and power to govern then that is their business. A few years ago, before America allies disrupted the Islamic Courts (ICU) the so-called terrorist tried to close down the Khat mono-crop agriculture which is destroying Somalia. But even that progressive act was denounced as a "destructive" by Western news. But the Islamic Courts mission is : To bring social justice and combat iniquity thus after capturing Mogadishu it brought Sharia law back to Somalia and re instituted the constitution. Replacing the word "Islam" with "democracy" what is the difference from a purely political point of view?

If we collated every report on Al-Qaeda® they would probably the largest military organization, after NATO, on the planet. They just seem to be everywhere (according to US state department). To the educated observer of world events it should be strange that anytime you hear of so-called "Terrorism" it has links to Al-Qaeda®? So powerful is Al-Qaeda® they got African-American non-Muslim terrorist operating on their behalf. What the world needs to know is that there is not much difference between Al-Qaeda®, Santa Claus and the Tooth fairy. All are largely figments of Western imagination. One rooted in Fear, and the others in consumerism. And the same way Santa Claus gets around the world in just one day, every terrorist event on planet Earth is via the omnipresent agency of Al-Qaeda® and their ominous "Network of Terror."™ Al-Qaeda® is the face of evil for public convenience.

Can you imagine how hard it would be for news groups and American foreign policy to come back every day with a new "terrorist" cell made up of 2-4 people? People would get confused. So create one big ugly boogie man and give that entity a simple name that American can brand.


IN THE NAME OF GOD?

Of the total deaths from war, all the so-called religious wars combined do not equal wars motivated by nationality (i.e. the World Wars). Is Israel and Palestine a religious war? No, it is an ethnic conflict as many Arab-Christians are caught up in the Israeli occupation. Are there religious overtones, off course the ultra-Zionist zealots see the entire land as given to them by God—the God that only helps Jews. But let us also balance it with a stark reality the architect of Zionism.  

When he published his book in 1896, "The Jewish State", he declared that the cure for anti-Semitism was the establishment of a Jewish state. As he saw it, the best place to establish this state was in Palestine. God was used only as a means to and end, and the hotter the fire of anti-Semitism the stronger the argument for the establishment of a Jewish state. But Palestinian people have not been known for any crimes against their Jewish neighbors until the 1920s when Eastern European and Russian Ashkenazi Jews started to descend on Palestine with the idea that that they were going to return to their "ancient roots"; something which was all part of the planned national mythology since Eastern European Jews and Russians never had any roots in the Levant.


The conflict in Lebanon, like Nigeria had religious overtones but the actual conflict was over militarizing of Palestinian refugees. However, some argue that the earlier conflicts in Lebanon were an expression of bourgeoisie war for influence amongst different political personalities.
On the issue of religion splitting a country in half Stephen P. Cohen writes:


   
However, the divisions among Muslims that did exist were exploited by the British, who practiced divide and rule politics, displacing the Mughals and circumscribing other Islamic rulers. Moreover, the Hindus were the allies of the British, who used them to strike a balance with the Muslims; many Hindus, a fundamentally insecure people, hated Muslims and would have oppressed them in a one-man, one-vote democratic India. The Pakistan freedom movement united these disparate pieces of the national puzzle, and Pakistan was the expression of the national will of India's liberated Muslims
 
Alik Stephen Cohen

Religious designations are sometimes used out of sheer convenience, as well as opportunism motives, for cultural and historical differences between combatants, giving the often misleading impression that the conflict is primarily about religious differences. For example, there is a common perception of the conflict in Northern Ireland is a religious conflict, as one side (Nationalists) was predominantly composed of Catholics and the other (Unionists) of Protestants.  So in characterizing or naming the belligerents we can see how Catholic versus Protestant comes into vogue. However, the more fundamental cause in fact ethnic or nationalistic rather than religious in nature. Since the native Irish were mostly Catholic and the later British-sponsored immigrants were mainly Protestant, the terms become shorthand for the two cultures, but it highly inaccurate to describe the conflict as a religious one.


William T. Cavanaugh, in his book The Myth of Religious Violence Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, challenges this conventional wisdom by examining how the twin categories of religion and the secular are constructed. A growing body of scholarly work explores how the category 'religion' has been constructed in the modern West. Cavanaugh draws on this scholarship to examine how timeless and transcultural categories of 'religion and 'the secular' are used in arguments that religion causes violence. He argues three points:

Claiming Black, not behaving Black but having Black heritage

1) There is no trans-historical and transcultural essence of religion. What counts as religious or secular in any given context is a function of political configurations of power;

2) Such a transhistorical and transcultural concept of religion as non-rational and prone to violence is one of the foundational legitimating myths of Western society;

3) This myth can be and is used to legitimate neo-colonial violence against non-Western others, particularly the Muslim world. Basically an outgrowth of Europe’s civilizing mission.

Historians such as Jonathan Kirsch have made links between the European inquisitions, for example, and Stalin's persecutions in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, McCarthy blacklists, and other secular events as being the same type of phenomenon as the Spanish inquisition—the difference is exclusively a self-serving point-of-view. Others, like Robert Pape, a political scientist who specializes in suicide terrorism, have made a case for secular motivations and reasons as being foundations of most suicide attacks that are often times labeled as "religious"


   
The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.
 
Alik Robert Pape

This comes as bad news to the Zionist run Jihad-watch campaign that profits from demonizing Islam. Every suicide attack brings further proof and justification for their “them” against those “evil Muslims” cause. As stated before it is far easier to deal with religion as the cause than US foreign policy or even better neo-liberal globalization. How would Jihad watch look if they said these people are fighting against Western imperialism—no – it is far easier to say “religious nuts”—which then justifies imperialism. So when they invaded Iraq they were not fight soldiers defending their homes, but radical Islam. The invasion of Afghanistan and Somali was not people fighting for their land and resources but a bunch of Al-Qaeda friends.  But this is nothing new, the so-called myth of the savage Red man was created by the propagandist. It worked so well that the observer never asked what was the White man doing coming all the way from Europe in  someone else’s country and killing them for fighting for their land. These Native Americans were “crazy” for doing so.

MALI

(coming soon)

Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo A US trained traitor of Mali. Because it works the words Al-Qaeda and Islamistist are in the news feed again.The US trained agent Sanogo [More]


SUDAN

While it is hard to expect the South to put up with the Northern contempt and domination it is still a muted victory for Southern Sudan who will now be targeted by Western agendas and imperialism because of the pressure from under-development. Some analysts keep fingering Islam vs. Christianity as the root of the conflict. However, the state authorities say more than 600 people from the Nuer community were killed, 200 children abducted, and as many as 25,000 cows were stolen. The attackers - from the Murle ethnic group - were responding to a recent assault by Nuer fighters in which an estimated 400 Murle were killed—not the first time (see 1991 Bor Massacre). But this is also happening everywhere especially the Jonglei state. No so-called "Arabs" no "Islam" and most of all no religion to blame this time.

The Brown (Islamic Arab) v Black (African) is just a tidy way for simple minds to understand a complex mess. For western designs, religion and race is a just convenient package for greedy pockets. Who wants to be bored with the reality of a South complicity in Europeanization and a North complicit in Arabization - too complex a story to fit in a CNN headline, too texty to fit in a Tweet. Who wants to deal with that ugly human personality of greed which lives and breaks out whenever opportunity and notions of entitlement rise up? And if your car is not starting and you think it is the battery, after replacing the battery and the care still doesn't start you should rule out that factor. With religion and without religion the region is a hot bed for conflict. Religion was never a dominant factor more over ethnic difference. And in absence of the Arabized master, new masters arise to fill those boots. Fixing Sudan means understanding issues beyond the party-line.

EUROPE

The thirty Year war in Europe on the side of the Lutheran Sweden and the last of the Thirty Years War was essentially a battle between Habsburgs and the Bourbons, the two great Catholics dynasties of Europe. Many other factors override religion in these examples. John Bossy describes the shift from religious to secular as “migration of the holy from the church to the state. The state became the new religion with all the properties, all the loyalties but none of the limitations of the so-called church.

In the late 1500’s- 1600’s Catholic churches and Protestant churches worked together to kill a third group, the Anabaptists.  On the surface, this is a story of two warring churches, banding together in light of the extreme depravity of this third movement—the Anabaptists.  The world has become so accustom to this narrative that it is used as irrefutable evidence of the myth of religion and violence in human societies: A myth which justifies the utter separation of church and state. But reality shows that the Anabaptists were not being killed by the Protestant or Catholic churches as such, because churches "as such" simply did not exist.  Anabaptists were being killed by princes of provinces, which were either Protestant or Catholic provinces.  Is this religious violence or secular?  No such distinctions can be made.  But in the case of motivation, the distinction is clearer.  Anabaptists were being killed not over exegetical or theological issues as such, but for what was seen as treason.  

But what act of the Anabaptist was considered treason?   Citizenship in Western Europe in the 1500’s baptism was not only initiation into the church, but also into citizenship.  The government therefore had a practical interest in keeping track of baptismal records, which were often the only census records they maintained. When the Anabaptist started baptizing adults, they were subverting citizenship process create anarchy in state structure. 

Historical Africa

Returning to Africa we see the Battle of Somb between Muslim Marabout and Serer people, clearly one side was Islamic and the other side was adherence to the Serer religion. But that does not mean the clash was over religion. Both groups were engaging in warfare in the interest of nation building and defence. The war would have gone ahead had the Muslim army been Jewish or even a rival religious group that was able to amass power. The Muslim-Christian wars of Ethiopia again expressed themselves along religious lines but they were also nation issues which were more in the foreground that the specific of religion.


AL-QAEDA® & THEIR ROLE *

A Good CIA Asset gone Bad

See Also Al Qaeda, THE "SPECTER" OF AL QAEDA IN AFRICA:


   
There is something disturbing in the nature of post 9/11 public discourse. Incessantly, on a daily basis, Al Qaeda is referred to by the Western media, government officials, members of the US Congress, Wall Street analysts, etc. as an underlying cause of numerous World events
 
Alik Michel Chossudovsky

If we collated every report on Al-Qaeda® they would probably the largest military organization, after NATO, on the planet. They just seem to be everywhere (according to US state department). While it takes Santa Claus 1 day to get around the world Al-Qaeda is doing it in a few hours. To the educated observer of world events it should be strange that anytime you hear of so-called "Terrorism" it has links to Al-Qaeda®? With all the US "intelligence" floating around and with satellites in space imaging every human movement Al-Qaeda® per Western reports is a logistical impossibility. How do they communicate (Facebook, Blackjack, Twiitter, Morse Code), how do they travel(United Airlines or Private Charters), where do they bank (Barclays or Citibank)?

What the world needs to know is that there is not much difference between Al-Qaeda®, Santa Claus and the Tooth fairy. All are largely figments of Western imagination. One rooted in fear, and the others in consumerism. And the same way Santa Claus gets around the world in just one day, every terrorist event on planet Earth is via the omnipresent agency of Al-Qaeda® and their ominous "Network of Terror."™ Al-Qaeda® is the face of evil for public convenience. Bin Ladin couldn't plan a birthday party, let alone any mass terrorist plot. It is clear from everything he is known to have said he lacked the intelligence and the resources to carry off anything but minor skirmishes. Some of his writings are tantamount to utter fantasies, devoid of logistic and the cold air of reality.


   
The Al Qaeda Legend sustains the "Big Lie". It turns realities upside down. It creates both a perception and a belief which cannot be questioned. It permeates US foreign policy and the conduct of international diplomacy. Al Qaeda and the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) constitute a central component of US military doctrine. "Al Qaeda did this", "Al Qaeda did that" statements provide a simple and trouble-free elucidation of complex events, while disguising and concealing "the real reasons", namely the unspoken and forbidden truth behind these events.
 
Alik Michel Chossudovsky

Two Dreams—Bush dreamed people would believe 9/11 was caused by Bin Ladin, and Bin Ladin dreamed he could have done it. Can you imagine how hard it would be for news groups and American foreign policy to come back every day with a new "terrorist" cell made up of 2-4 untrained ineffective people? People would get confused. So create one big ugly boogie man and give that entity a simple name that American can brand. Like the Gulf of Tonkin incident America is again at war with its imaginary foes.


   
The Al Qaeda brand has proven to be a lucrative "investment". From 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq to Libya and currently Syria. And, now, the neocolonial reconquest of Africa. That's what you call "return on money".
 
Alik Finian Cunningham

 


IN NUMBERS - THE CAUSE OF WAR 

There is absolutely no evidence in any record anywhere that shows so-called Wars in the name of God constitutes a major motive for wars—even when we factor in wars which have in religious overtones as “religious wars” still they are a substantial minority. And the table below only factors in warfare, it doesn't include the genocide and the Holocaust caused by people like Cortes, and Columbus who might have used the cloak of "religion" but like their descendents in the West today, killed entire nations for their resources. Despite Columbus causing the death far more than 6 Million he is a hero and his "Columbus day" celebrated by the victims of that Holocaust. [1]

Death Toll

War

Gerography

Cause

72,000,000

World War II

Worldwide

Non-religious

36,000,000

An Lushan Rebellion

China

Non-religious

60,000,000

Mongol Conquests

Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle East

Non-religious

25,000,000

Qing dynasty conquest of the Ming Dynasty

China

Non-religious

30,000,000+

Taiping Rebellion

China

Non-religious

65,000,000

 World War I

Worldwide

Non-religious

20,000,000

Conquest of Timur

Middle East, India, Central Asia, Russia

Non-religious

12,000,000

Dungan revolt

China

Non-religious

9,000,000

Russian Civil War

Russia

Non-religious

5,400,000

Second Congo War

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Non-religious

6,500,000

Napoleonic Wars

Europe, Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean

Non-religious

11,500,000

Thirty Years' War

Holy Roman Empire

Non-religious

7,000,000

Yellow Turban Rebellion

China

Non-religious

4,000,000

Deluge

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Non-religious

3,500,000

Korean War

Korean Peninsula

Non-religious

2,495,000

Vietnam war

Vietnam

Non-Religious

unknown

Shaka Zulu expansion

Southern Africa

Non-Religious

* Wikipedia statistics


PROBLEM AND SOLUTION (AFRICA)


   
The country's 150 million people are divided about equally between Christians and Muslims and further splintered into about 250 different peoples. Jos, some 300 miles north of Nigeria's largest city, Lagos, sits smack-dab in the center of Nigeria's tumultuous "middle belt," a so-called cultural fault line that divides the country's Muslim north from the Christian south. The "middle belt" is a melting pot where the major ethnic groups of Nigeria — Hausa-Fulani Muslims and Yoruba and Igbo Christians — usually peacefully but sometimes collide
 
Alik TIME Magazine

Religion, whether it is indigenous, Islamic or Christian offers humanity with yet another subject area for conflict. We can be simplistic and say “get rid of religion”, after doing this the problems will still continue because religion was only an agitator in a conflict with deeper roots; A convenient scapegoat to be used, if available, to provoke and justify conflict. Human beings do not evolve by throwing out areas of disagreement, but by learning to co-exist with diverse viewpoints. They also have the wisdom to not look at areas of religious disagreement but unite around areas of commonality. And where Africa is concerned there is no shortage of surfaces in ethics to unite around. When Africans are looking at each other they have historically never seen a monolithic people.


This is why slavery was so successful because regardless of what was happening on the coast Africans refused to put the difference aside and deal with a social dilemma—a Holocaust in which we still see the aftermath. This is why today in the Congo despite the horrors that Leopold brought, Africans celebrate him as the “bringer of civilization” , one person in Botswana said “When you walk into a village with a white person it is like walking with god”, another the “the good thing about slavery was I found Jesus.” The root of the problem is lack of consciousness and hence lack of agency. With or without Christianity you will find this mental condition all over Africa: In the villages in Benin and the mountains of Tanzania. Because Islam is generally non-White Muslim communities have a lower degree of White worship.

Some have the false beliefs that only the Abrahamic faiths bring religious tensions to the region. This is categorically disproven by the volume of conflicts which have always occurred without Abrahamic faiths: "Foreignness" is not a factor in the ferocity of the conflict. But because Abrahamic religions have greater ability to form larger cross-ethnic communities by that mere are more visible in terms of demographic. But that is a demographic issue i.e. if most people are Christian then there is a higher chance of a Christian person being involved in a conflict by mere numbers. And because Christianity is organized and defined it becomes easier in a lazy characterization to identity with the Christian identity.

What is painted as a religious problem is really an educational problem. Africans know less about each other than we realize. In this vacuum of information fear and distrust is fostered fanned on by self-serving leaders, opportunistic businessmen, irresponsible religious advocates, and idealistic nationalist. The uneducated non-worldly mind is easy prey to the cry of “religion”. Regardless of if it is the therapeutic calls of the Jesus priority jump up and down churches in South Africa and Nigeria, or the intolerance of so-called radical Islam in Somalia. The commonality in all these cases is intolerance and ignorance. Jesus is the priority and not Pan-Africanism therefore allowing ways to facilitate the exploitation of Africa as every issue is sorted out by “waiting for Jesus.” Intelligence and common sense is replaced by blind devotion or blind denial.  And it is understandable that all human beings have used “divinity” to understand and process a complex world into simple discrete units of “good” versus “evil.”

The challenge is how we save people from the Jesus dilemma especially found in evangelical aspects of Christianity. How do we save the Ethiopian from being so blinded by the Orthodox Church political power struggle with Muslims in Ethiopia that they see greater brotherhood. But the good news in places like Ethiopia is the government in the last 10 years has taken sincere steps to remedy this problem. Ethiopians have always forged a strong nationalist spirit, which has caused it to defend its borders against colonialism. In Ethiopia today both religions are given public space and the national TV regularly showcases educational programs. What happens is people are starting to see “we are not that different after all”. Every Christian in Ethiopia knows what Eid is about, and every Muslim understands Timket. The same is equally true for Tanzania and now South Africa (which has no history of religious conflict). To solve the race issue we do not sweep it under the carpet our stick our fingers in our ears and hum. We also do not deny race exist or advocate for its annulation as a solution. No, we engage it and deal with it as it is. Religion is part and parcel of Africa—has been from day dot—it will continue to be an aspect of humanity which can only be resolved with comprehension and tolerance.

CONCLUSION

If we are looking to understand the pathology of conflict, in a bid to resolve it, we will fail if looking for the solutions in the wrong box. The doctor cannot be effective at curing cancer if he is misdiagnosing cancer as the common cold. Failure to understand addiction in any form makes solving it impossible. Hence why so much is invested in understanding the social and psychological aspects of addiction. In the old days of medicine a headache was cured by drilling holes in people’s heads. Bacterial diseases were believed to be demon possession. It is clear that misidentifying human conflict creates greater instability as the tools of resolution are servicing wrong areas. Someone might identify religion over agency and natural human power lust as the problem in Africa. After 200 years invested in this theory they will come to the realization that in the void of “religion” wars, strife, conflict still go on with equal ferocity: So misdiagnosis is a death sentence. Another path would be to deals with the roots of inequity and entitlement and create sustainable ways of dealing with human conflict.

If we are looking for reasons to disunite and satisfy populous rhetoric we can follow the path of every demigod that came to power. It is far easier to gain readership by inflaming the sensitive aspects in our society. Responsibility is the mark of maturity and it is with caution that the inflammatory subject of religion should be observed. Attacking anything sacred to any people is an act of inhumanity and disrespect to another human. While we should be critical of inherent dangers in the rise of commercialized Christianity or so-called elements of extremist Islam, or even regressive habits of indigenous faiths—we must always in the interest of unity speak balance and truth. Being African in the Pan-African set-up must mean more than black skin pigment. And if Africanity does not inform morality, responsibility and tolerance then it serves no function in advancing the Motherland.


REFERENCE

1. http://www.pewforum.org/executive-summary-islam-and-christianity-in-sub-saharan-africa.aspx

2. Ali ibn Abi Talib (1984). Nahj al-Balagha (Peak of Eloquence), compiled by ash-Sharif ar-Radi. Alhoda UK. ISBN 0940368439.
3. declaring someone a non-believer
4. Muhammad Shareef, 1998
5. http://www.pewforum.org/executive-summary-islam-and-christianity-in-sub-saharan-africa.aspx
6. The Myth of religious wars and Conflict
7. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2005/jul/18/00017

8. Alioune Sarr, Histoire du Sine-Saloum. Introduction, bibliographie et Notes par Charles Becker, BIFAN, Tome 46, Serie B, n° 3-4, 1986–1987. pp 37-39

9.250th Anniversary Issue of The Harrisonian p.24 by way of A History of Harrison College A study of an elite educational institution in a colonial polity, by Ralph A Jemmott, 2006, Glebe Land,St. George, Barbados


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