Not on in the Name of my God,
not in the Name of my Freedom

~ by Jan Qarabaghi ~
June 16, 2004

God and Freedom are indubitably the central pillars of a meaningful and satisfied life. Without belief in God life becomes a purposeless accident, an unfortunate mishap; and without freedom mankind turns into an unhappy, treacherous cannibal, a hungry, thoughtless animal. No other human ideal or purpose has succeeded to create, nourish, or mobilize the kind of forces that the notion of God (and that of anti-God) and the ideal of freedom have given rise to in human history: Belief in God has been the wellspring of law, the fundamental foundation of the civilized life; and the quest for freedom has been the primordial desire that has fueled human journey toward betterment and progress. Without God human society would have remained a herd of warring savages; without freedom humankind would have remained a community of bonded serfs at the verge of starvation.

History is witness, however, that because of their overarching importance in mankind’s relentless quest for salvation and betterment, love of God (or for that matter fear and even hate of God) and longing for freedom have also served as political mantras in the hands of those in search of unrestrained power and control. Once God and freedom, with their unrivalled appeal to human psyche, enter the market for political power, killing, destroying, pillaging, and annihilation of rivals and political opponents in the name of God and freedom can become powerful repertoires of political activity. Let’s look at some examples: It was in the name of God that Christens and Muslims slaughtered each other by thousands in the valleys and villages of the Middle East and Europe around 1100 A.D. (the actual reason behind the hysteria of the Crusades was not God per se, but the conflicting economic and political interests of the Pop and the expanding Islamic empire). It was in the name of God that followers of Ali and Ma’awia created the bloodbath of Karbala and sowed the seeds of sectarian hatred in the hearts of Islamic leaders and masses. (In this case, the dispute over political supremacy of the warring factions, as the true reason of the conflict, was not hidden at all; we know this because no party in this conflict declared the opposing side to be anti-God.) It was in the name of God that thousands of Protestants and Catholics cut each others’ throats on the streets of Paris in 1572 A.D. (7000 dead). It was in the name of God that Rabbani, Massoud, Hekamtyar, Sayaf, Mazari, Khalili, Akbari, and Dostum killed thousands of Kabul residents during a civil war that eventually gave birth to the despotism of the Taleban. It was still in the name of God that Bin Laden and his elk killed and destroyed thousands of lives on September 11, 2001 in the city of New York. And it is still in the name of God that Jewish fanatics murder, kidnap, torture, and destroy the lives of their first cousins, the Palestinians, and vise versa.

On the other hand, it was on the pretext of freedom (liberation of the ‘primitive’, ‘uncivilized peoples’ from the hands of their despotic rulers) that Britain became “Great” (by building a worldwide empire), and Russia became the Soviet Union (by gobbling the lands of Central Asia). It was in the name of freedom of the Arian race that Hitler ordered the Kristalnacht and began his deadly blitzkrieg into Poland. It was in the name of freedom that Russia invaded Hungary and later Czechoslovakia. It was in the name of freedom that the Red Army invaded Afghanistan and destroyed a nation of twenty million. And finally, today, once again, it is in the name of freedom that young men and women in U.S. army fatigues are thrown into the insatiable mouth of death in Baghdad, Falluja, Najaf, Karbala, and, lest to forget, the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan. (In this latest case of grand political designs, i.e., Iraq and Afghanistan, the jury is still out regarding the real impulse behind the mayhem: Is it God that fuels the machinery of the invasion? Is it the ‘liberation’ of Iraqi men and women at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere that whirls the sword? Is it the war against terrorism and extremism that makes the U.S. to go to bed with extremists such as Rabbani and Sayyaf, and Shinwari? Or is it the sweet smell of the Iraqi oil that inspires the longing for a premature, better ‘preemptive’, ‘mission accomplished’?)

The few, limited historical examples cited above, are proof that those who invoke God to kill and destroy human life have either a flawed understanding of the nature of God, or are unbelievers who simply invoke God as a means to justify their military-political agendas and designs. Those who use the name of God to fly planes loaded with innocent men, women, and children into buildings are sick-minded, brainwashed criminal zealots who in the eyes of my God are condemned to the deepest corners of the lasting hell. Simple human logic tells us that God, as the creator of human life, would never acquiesce in the destruction of that which He Himself has created with so much care and pride. (If God had meant human life to be destroyed by the egregious acts of fellow human-beings, why would He create such a worthless life in the first place?)

The examples cited above also show that those who invoke the name of freedom to subjugate and torture other people and nations, and steal from them, are either despots who despise true freedom or are misguided souls who have a wrong understanding of the forces that give rise to and nourish freedom. These despots, and these misguided souls, use the name of freedom to mobilize individual and national energies for purposes that would face outright rejection if stated and expressed honestly and openly. Those who invoke freedom to oppress, destroy, and subjugate other peoples either abhor freedom, or are misled by the childish notion that freedom is the birth child of the sword.

Thus, my appeal to those who use the sacred notions of God and freedom to kill, destroy, and abuse: Please not in the name of my God, not in the name of my freedom. This is not only my appeal, it is also the silenced scream of millions, even billions, of other ordinary, God-fearing, freedom-loving individuals scattered over the globe. Those who murder and abuse in the name of God and freedom are not only guilty of the acts themselves but also guilty of defaming and misrepresenting the two most revered notions of human life. No true Muslim, Jewish, or Christian God would ever allow His name to be used as a justification for human blood to be spilled. And no truly free men and women in the world would condone the use of freedom as an excuse to inflict pain and mayhem.
© Qarabaghi/Afghan Observer 2004.