Welcome to The New World.

News last night/this morning about suicide bombers in Iraq who rammed an explosive-laden van into a mostly-full mosque, detonating the explosives, made me wonder -- what kind of religion inspires its members to kill fellow believers? What if Protestants, Catholics and Episocpalians decided to venture forth with flame-throwers and ignite one another? That most assuredly would dampen the Christmas spirit...and make holiday mall shopping that much more arduous.

On a serious note, I'm not sure if distressing is sufficient in describing how convoluted and, in a word (or two) -- fucked-up -- the Muslim world really is. Based on my reading and observation over the course of the "War In Iraq" and over the past 15 or so years, it's become increasingly apparent to me how cloudy the status of Islam really is from country to country and village to village. There are seemingly more iterations of Islam, even from neighboring villages, then there are sub-dialects of Spanish from block to block in Washington Heights. I'm a little unclear how the most fervent followers (of Islam, not Spanish) can find it appropriate -- not to mention, acceptable under the teachings of the religion -- to kill other members of the same system of belief. Imagine the aforementioned example of Catholics, Protestants and Episcopalians duking it out in the streets, eviscerating and goring one another with broadswords, handguns, switch-blades and flame-throwers. Or imagine if Jews battled one another on the streets of New York -- the conservatives standing on their front stoops, the chassids swinging talmud tomes and the reform wearing Christmas sweaters to avoid conflict ;-) It seems ridiculous, of course -- and it is. But there were times when religious beliefs inspired war.

Go back to ancient Greece and Rome, or even more recently during the Crusades, and the countless invasions, attacks and defenses of the largest expanses of land down to the tiniest of burgs. Even violence predicated on supposedly intellectual pursuits -- ie self-determination -- found their roots in religious hatred and the word of God. The Battle of Hastings, in 1066, was mired in a duality of intellectualism and religious fervor. So why should these days, in present-day Baghdad, be much different?

Good question...and the good answer is -- because nearly one thousand years has passed since The Battle of Hastings; one thousand years of civilization, growth, technology, human evolution, Cabbage Patch kids and destruction and disease. Judging by the news of the day (or the last three daily topics of "discussion" on The Jerry Springer Show), humans don't need to creative in order to find ways to be cruel, disgusting and awful to their fellow man. This doesn't merely address the relationships we establish with neighbors and the random people we encounter in our daily lives; this also quite adequately applies to how countries deal with each other (diplomacy, or geopolitique), how leaders rule their respective nations, and how sub-leaders and groups treat each other within the confines of the nation-state.

To wit, it's fairly clear that the evolution of man has somehow escaped us within that mystical, meandering world known as The Middle East. Aside from Israel's modernization of the region, that world is more akin to Hammurabi's code than it is for modern law. Female suffrage, amputation of limbs as punishment for crimes and suicide statements as religious expression don't scream out 2004 AD to me; perhaps 2004 BC. Modern opinions compare the modern "Palestinian Struggle" to the Inquisition or the Romans allowing the Hebrews to either convert or take their own lives by leaping from Masada. There are similarities, of course...but this comparison has as much merit as would a Bible-Belter proclaiming homosexuals should be smote because they are violationg the letter of God's word. Biblical times and before are a different era; today we live in a time of parking tickets, CNN and franchise discount outlets. God's will appears in its own way, in my opinion, but I fail to make the connection between needing an insurance company or an attorney for a simple traffic accident and a suicide bomber attacking members of a different sect of his or her own faith.

I can barely comprehend Palestinians blowing themselves up on schoolbuses to kill Israelis -- but killing one another solely inspires further confusion and demonstrates, finally, that that religion -- which supposedly preaches peace and good will towards other members of said religion -- has been so warped, corrupted and twisted -- a la Jerry Falwell (or Osama Bin Laden, take your pick) -- that the "religion" aspect of it has all but vanished. And if it's no longer a religion but simply a self-constructed, rigid form of controlling and manipulating mass belief, then we should call it what it is -- a cult -- and continue to excise it from the mass humana.

The above statement is far from endorsing a "genetic cleansing" and it's certainly anything but an indictment of Islam as a faith, a religion or a form of belief. However, it seems to me that these confrontations and conflicts are far from biblical, despite a small number of "believers" who wish to depict them as such. And the world community, with its suit-and-tie diplomacy and attempt at normalcy, is as far removed from the situation as are the object(s) of its efforts to reign in peoples who have celebrated killing their neighbors for thousands of years. Whether his intention was to do so or not, George Dubya Bush's removal of the Band-Aid that was Saddam Hussein has revealed a far worse, and far more pernicious, view of religious fanaticsm than he (and many) thought possible. If nothing else, the entropy and the chaos within that region will not simply confine itself to that region, and with the advent of nuclear -- nee, portable nuclear weapons -- that region's discord will one day have significant impact on the rest of the world. But as a former professor of mine once opined, after he began his stay as a UN Delegate for a nation in the region, "when you provide modern technological weapons to more effectively kill people on a mass scale with peoples whose sensibilities are anchored in the Dark Ages and before, you've got the worst of both worlds combined in quite an effective, volatile package."

No his mind is not for rent
To any god or government
Always hopeful, yet discontent
He knows changes aren't permanent
But change is.

Rush, Tom Sawyer
Moving Pictures, 1981

Welcome to the New World, yet again.