I am not morally an advocate for any level of violence or in instilling terror in any form to any individual in order to achieve the ends of my means. But I understand more clearly from the previous and current events of global terror and participating in this class that there is a precedence being set among terrorist movements around our globe that want to get their point across by any means necessary. Because of this notion I have come to terms with my own morality and values and realize that I must make a stance for world peace now and for the future generations, by understanding the problem and stating the methods that I feel comfortable with in order to end world terror that may enable lasting peace.
Juergensmeyer has shown us through, “Terror in the Mind of God” that documents the global rise of religious terrorism and the odd attraction of religion and violence that by trying to understand the thought patterns of some movements members “we can speculate on the conditions that makes it likely for cosmic war to be located on a world stage” (J 164) and we can begin to rationalize their actions. As Maxwell stated, there cannot be a method to the solution of world terror without first “determining its root causes” or properties, which constitute religious violence and what makes it possible (Wk 12 12-02-05).
To understand the root causes of the current problems for Judaism, one must look back two thousand years to the birth of Christianity and it’s separation from its beginnings in Judaism. With this separation came the beginning of centuries of suffering and persecution against the Jewish people, their culture and their religion. With the Holocaust, the Jews were singled out as being “comprised of an inferior race” (Modern Anti-Semitism 1) and a threat to mankind requiring their mass executions. Many fled to Palestine in the hopes of setting up their own nation-state and to avoid any further persecution. But as Baruch Goldstein stated and the world knows today, “Jewish people in Israel are the victims oppressed in their own land” by the government and the Arabs who are arrogant in thinking that they had a right to the land on which they lived (J 50).
It is the notion of perceived humiliation that the Jewish people feel justifies their acts of violence and based on the “pursuer’s decree” of Jewish legal precedence that morally obligates a Jew to halt someone who presents a mortal danger to Jews. Present-day tensions are also characterized by Yoel Lerner as the treasonous, illegal forming of a government that was negotiated between liberal Jews, Arab votes and the PLO, the anti-Jewishness of Rabin’s policies that forfeited Jewish authority, giving away state land and
the expansion of Palestinian authority in the West Bank (J 49). But, in order to protect the political entity of the state of Israel, the Jewish societies ancient roots and the world redemption of Messianic salvation the Jews and many other movements, like them, are resorting to defensive violence. They are caught up in cultural, political and military dimensions thus causing a global chain-reaction of violent retaliations that, according to worldview must be stopped for world peace.
As history has shown and Juergensmeyer has conveyed about destroying the violence, instilling the fear factor, negotiating compromises with activists and diffusing the violence through separating religion from politics are all solutions that are difficult to implement and do not always work in achieving peace. Either they treat others like an enemy or they open up the door for others “to respond like an enemy” in order to appease their constituencies (J 242).
In my opinion the solution to world peace is through a movement that promotes
success by opening the door to communications. We all have different opinions on religion, cultures, the importance of our histories, morals and values and it is about time for our own colors to be shown. Politically, our government has always demanded respect but it is our turn to compromise and “summon at least a minimal level of mutual trust and respect” (J 243). The perception of others as satanic deceivers can not continue “the more so if it is a grand enemy, a satanic foe in the scenario of the cosmic war” for this will escalate the violence by proving others justifications (J 176). If, according to Justice Brandeis and Timothy McVeigh, “our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher that teaches the whole people by its example” (J 167) we must begin to realize that it is up to us to begin the path towards peace.
In addition, there are also other avenues that can be taken simultaneously along with promoting trust and respect in order to obtain world peace. First would be for the U.S. to stop sponsoring terrorism on an international level so it would be easier for us to bargain with other countries to get them to have terrorist come out of hiding, for apprehension and conviction. The United States needs to examine its policies concerning its alliances and support of Israel and others that are promoting anti-American sentiment among terrorist. Our government needs to begin to govern ourselves more accordingly and on a moral plane and begin to educate people on the effects of violence. People who are more educated are more likely not to result to violence in order to solve problems. Education would also banish mystical and unrealistic religious beliefs of rewards in the
afterlife, value theirs and others lives. And a final solution for extreme terrorist, which is against my morals but realistically acceptable now is the realization that if extremist leaders are eliminated such as Osama Bin Laden so that we can begin world peace by eliminating the violence that this form of plague upon humankind has instilled.
In conclusion, it is obvious that past efforts to stop world violence have been ineffective resulting in our current cosmic war. The strategies and scenarios have had their limiting capabilities, limited degree of success and have created much destruction around the world all in the name of human interest and concern rather that global interest and global concerns. The path to global peace should begin at our door since we are the super power or nucleus that has the most chance of changing mankind’s thinking to implement the inevitable social, economical and financial partnership that the world will eventually share in the future. We need to realize that we have a dependence that requires the cooperation towards a world view that all deserve the right to personal freedoms towards human interest and concerns and peace.
Work Cited
http://webct.gccnj.edu/his102ZeeWO/asmodern.htm
Juergensmeyer, Mark “Terror in the Mind of God”, 2003 The Regents of the University of California.
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