What Makes the Taliban Tick? Aug 17th 2012
On August 15th I downloaded a video of a program given by
BBC Channel Two. It was called Clash of the Worlds – Episode 1 of 3 – Mutiny
1857. I have studied several versions of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and, in my
opinion, this is the best and most accurate I have come across. There were
several brilliant presenters, but the most interesting one for me was Charles
Allen, author of the book God's
Terrorists . He claims to be a great-nephew of Brigadier-General John
Nicholson who led the recapture of Delhi
in 1957 and was killed fighting at the very moment of victory, aged 35. It was
a young man's world then. Even the rebel leaders said that Britain won because of the superb
quality of their young officers. Among them were Roberts, Maude, and Brind, for
example, who were all Generals in World War l, and Roberts was then the famous
Field Marshall Lord Roberts.
One of my ancestors was also in Delhi
at that time, and she remembered a fair-haired soft-spoken young officer called
Willoughby who
had gone off and blown up the powder magazine so that it did not fall into the
hand of the rebels.
The events of 1857 started as a sepoy mutiny, especially in Meerut , owing to the
blundering insensitivity, and ignorance
matched with arrogance of their British officers. But in a very short time the
civil society took up the cause of independence from the foreigners, not at all
on the sort of political grounds that might be popular today in a similar
situation, but entirely for religious reasons. This is a bit difficult for
twenty-first century man to understand, because secular humanism has relegated
religion to a back seat in many countries of the world today. But in 1857 this
was a fact : the revolt was about religion. It was a religious war.
In this conflict there was no enmity between Hindus and
Muslims. Both were united against the Christian whites, and their joint policy
was to slaughter them, destroy their rule and drive them out of India . These
feringee (foreigners) were identified as white Christians. They were thought to
have tried, and to be attempting at that very moment, to destroy all the Indian
religions except Christianity, and for that the weaker Indian side could imagine
no other possible solution than to kill them: "feringee maro". Feeling
themselves to be weaker in face of a large industrialized high-tech empire,
their reaction was one of sheer desperation in the face of a perceived attack
by a stronger power on their religion, their culture, their life-style, their
historical evolution, their identity, their self-respect, their very existence
as fully human beings in all those thing that most pertain to human values and
the quality of life.
However, as regards the Hindus, one might claim with some
degree of truth that the revolt was largely unpremeditated and spontaneous. Not
so in the case of the Muslims.
If we look at the world in 1700 AD we find a vast Muslim
Empire containing approximately half the world. The sun never set on that vast
concourse of Muslim countries. But it was more of a theocratic empire than a
secular one. The secular Caliphs of various regions had limited powers, and
could not defy the Ulemma of the Professors of the great Muslim Universities.
There were no nations in the Western sense of the word. The disintegration of
this vast empire coincided with the emergence of the second British
Empire . The jewel of the first was the American colonies, and
after Lord Cornwallis wound that up by surrendering the British Army at
Yorktown, he was sent to India
to consolidate the jewel of the second British Empire ,
which he did reasonably well.
The people who founded the second British
Empire were least bothered about the Muslims. They were not
agitated about any religion, even their own – if they truly had one at all,
which, in the days of the Hell Fire Club in London , is somewhat doubtful. They were
interested in adventure, trade, making money, glory, saving up enough to buy an
English estate and a seat in a pocket borough of Parliament to establish themselves
and their family members among the landowning classes that actually ruled England .
Cornwallis was at the top of those classes, while Clive started at the bottom,
but their motivations were basically the same. This indifference to religion in
general ensured that the British governing class were totally unaware of the
impact they were having on the Muslim mind. Meantime the Muslims themselves
were getting more and more frustrated by their own imperial decline. To some of
them it seemed like a punishment from God for their own weaknesses.
The British also came into direct conflict with the Arabs
over the suppression of the slave trade. For many centuries, armed bands from
the Arab country of Oman
had been raiding African villages to capture slaves and take them to ports on
the West Coast of Africa to sell them to the slave ship captains of the Western
sea powers. Many of those slave ships came from Liverpool .
In fact, Liverpool was built on the backs of the slaves, who were sold mainly
in the West Indies and Virginia .
Such a captain was John Newton, who repented of his sins, composed the hymn
"Amazing Grace", was a friend of Wilberforce, and helped him to
abolish the slave trade. As the dominant sea power of the world, Britain was
ruthless in enforcing the abolition of the slave trade. General Gordon, in
particular, was totally ruthless in regard to this enterprise. This was the one
matter in which the British were deliberately on a collision course with Muslim
countries. Their moral conscience in this matter outweighed all questions of
national self-interest. The sheer weight of public opinion made this happen.
By the late 18th century over eleven million men,
women, and children had been taken from Africa to be used as slaves in the West Indies and the American colonies. Great Britain
was the mightiest super-power on earth, and its empire was built on the backs
of slaves. The slave trade was considered acceptable by all but a few. Of
these, even fewer were brave enough to speak against it. Then God brought a
human tornado into the world. Its name was William Wilberforce. God had heard
the cry of the poor and oppressed people, as He always does. In 1833 the slave
trade was abolished throughout the British Empire .
Because of the anxiety of the Muslim world over the decline
of their former dominance, they were in the mood to find a new approach. So it
happened that a great leader awoke early in the nineteenth century in the most
holy city of Mecca
and preached the reform and purification of Islam. He was Al Wahab. His full
name is about a yard long, and I can't remember it. So let's just call him Al
Wahab. Al Wahab taught that Western culture and civilization were polluting and
poisoning Muslim culture and civilization and must be exterminated inside every
Muslim country. It was the Muslim countries he wished to purify. As for the
Westerners, he could leave them to God, as they would stew in their own juice.
But, as regards Muslim countries he was absolutely ruthless and espoused the
use of force quite openly. Among other things he also taught that to purify
Muslim countries you must destroy foreign rule wherever it had conquered
Muslims. This was the critical point as regards 1857, as it is today.
In 1821 a young Indian student went to Mecca to listen to Al Wahab. He was Sayed
Ahmed. He became convinced that Al Wahab's ideas were correct. When he returned
to India , Sayed Ahmed set up
a base in Patna
and started his own Wahabi movement. It was a secret society with a highly
complex system of coded messages and a tradition of meticulous secrecy; so much
so that British Intelligence in India
completely failed to find out until too late that it was a violent
insurrectionist movement. Modern research leaves little doubt that the Wahabi
movement was the preplanned hard core of the general rebellion that took
advantage of the immediate pretext of sepoy revolt. They were ready for any
opportunity offered by chance events. It was they that circulated those
chapattis to every village in North India . The
chapattis meant that Hindus and Muslims ate the same native food, and they were
both in danger from the foreigners, who preferred other food. It was the signal
to rise together against the foreigner. There was no text message, just the
symbol and discreet hints to friendly people. It was very widely understood by
everyone except the foreigners. Everyone knew the time had come.
The Wahabis at Patna
had the purpose of Jihad or Holy War against the Christians. Their terrorist
cells followed what they called "The Path of Mohamed". To purify the
faith you must destroy foreign rule, but the declaration of war could be made
legitimate only if it were issued from a Muslim country. Therefore, the Wahabis
decided to move lock stock and barrel to Peshawar
on what the British called the North-West Frontier. They are still there, and
more active than ever. In 1831 Sayed Ahmed was killed, but the British were
wrong in thinking that the Wahabis were inactive, because, once they moved to Peshawar , they continued
to run their activities all over the sub-continent from there. In fact, it was
much easier for them to operate from there because there was no British
surveillance of their HQ. That is why they were more dangerous in 1857 than
ever before.
Although the British had no precise knowledge about the
Wahabis, the battle for Delhi
revealed their hidden power. In the Bengal Army, as it was called (for Calcutta was then the capital of British
India ), about 84% of the sepoys were caste Hindus (Brahmins and
Rajputs mainly). Only about 16% out of 400,000 men were Muslim. After the Hindu
sepoys had mutinied, most of them only wanted to get back to their villages and
disappear into some other walk of life safe from British retribution. So much
so that by the time Brigadier-General John Nicholson led his men through the
narrow streets of Old Delhi in mortal combat, about 50% of the militants
opposing him were not sepoys at all. They were jihadis. That is why Colonel
William Hodson was able to put two and two together and figure out that the
prominent Muslims were the main culprits behind the revolt. Consequently the prominent Muslims of Delhi
were hanged in droves over the next few weeks. It was only in the first few
days of the fighting that vast numbers of Hindu non-combatants were also
murdered by the British forces thirsting for revenge. Their wrath was soon
focused on Muslims.
For about 18 months all hell broke loose as scattered
British soldiers and civilians took it upon themselves to exact dreadful
vengeance by killing indiscriminately any Indian they could lay hands on
anywhere in India .
The Governor-General took quite a long time to get things back under control.
He got the pejorative title of "Clemency Canning" from his fellow
countrymen because he ended the murders and restored the rule of law. This
required immense moral and spiritual courage on his part as well as all the
brilliance of his acute mind. Later he became the first Viceroy with the title
of (First) Earl Canning. He had been appointed as Governor-General only in
1856, and had not had time to remedy the mistakes of his predecessors, so he
was not at fault for the situation he inherited.
Why did the Indians hate Christianity so much? For the same
reasons as I do. The Christianity that was preached to them by people like
John Jennings of Saint James Church in Delhi was atrocious,
militant, botched, arrogant, presumptuous, pharisaeical rubbish that was
totally divorced from the true original teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. I hate
it too. In the eighteenth century the East India Company had forbidden all
Christian missionaries to work in India . At that time the British
were tolerant towards the native religions and native culture and customs. It
was then common for Britishers to adopt Indian clothing and life style. Even the
British ambassador at the Court of the Great Mughal wore Indian court dress and
followed the same protocol as other courtiers. He was Sir David Ochterlony.
Another example was Colonel James Skinner. He founded Skinners Horse, a cavalry
regiment known as the Yellow Boys on account of their gaudy uniform. The son of
a Scottish father and an Indian mother, he favored Indian dress, culture and
life-style. Although he was a devout Anglican Christian, and founded Saint
James Church in Delhi , he was tolerant of all
religions, as Jesus also was and is, even if Saint Paul , unfortunately, was not. Nor, for
the most part, was Simon the Zealot. Even the highly intelligent Nathaniel had
problems with tolerance. But I'll get back to that later on. For now I just
want to say that it was a great tragedy that after the death of Skinner a man
like Jennings
became pastor of that Church and made it a forum of religious hatred and
intolerance.
However, from early Victorian times things changed. The
whole character of the British people changed. It started with the Wesleyan
revival. John Wesley had such a powerful charisma as a preacher that he was
able to galvanize many people into taking their religion as seriously as he
took it himself. In many ways this was beneficial to British society as well as
the Empire, because it led directly to the abolition of the slave trade in
1833, and helped to bring about the Great Reform Bill of 1932 and lead on to
fair deals for all gradually throughout the Victorian era. But the drawback of
a religion is that, if it remains a purely intellectual belief system and does
not bring you into direct contact with the actual Presence of God within you,
it will atrophy into a sub-spiritual code of meaningless ritual, vacuous
assumptions, and lack of true, vital charity. One should realize that without
God we are nothing and can do nothing. Only His prevenient and efficacious
grace can keep us about half way decent. To get it we have to go within – into
the stillness and the silence – and pray for it. In this cosmos if you don't
ask you don't get – anything worth getting. And if you don't ask questions you
don't get answers. If you do, you do.
Jenning's religion is one of the worst examples of how
ministers of a religion can mangle it to turn the shining truth into dismal
falsehood, love into hate, forgiveness into revenge, and the universal salvific
will of God into an absurd mockery that seeks to confine redemption to a
moronic self-seeking minority. If this is my last day on earth, and if this is
the last thing I ever write, I am going tell it like it is – no holds barred.
The historical record of the eighteenth century proves that
if the British in India
had kept the spirit of tolerance they enjoyed then there would have been no
cause for the Muslims and Hindus to get so scared of them as to revolt in the
way they did in 1857. It is simply impossible for a ruling power to be
intolerant of the religions of the ruled and avoid revolt. Intolerance breeds
intolerance. In my view, the early Victorian Christians first became
intolerant, and their bad behavior provoked the counter-intolerance of first
the Muslims, and later the Hindus. They were driven to it.
Now I come to the most import point : the reason why I am
making this report into a public blog. Was Jesus tolerant or not? I was brought
up a Catholic, and ordained as a Catholic priest, and, in my opinion, the
attitude of Jesus as portrayed by the Catholic Church was not at all tolerant.
But later I found out that Jesus was and is the soul of tolerance. After he
called me in Canada
in 1959, when I actually saw and spoke to him in a vision, I went into the sem
and studied the Bible like a demon. They thought I had some kind of ambition.
But it wasn't that. I only wanted to find out the truth. Long after I became a
priest I continued my studies. As a result I reached certain definite
conclusions about the Bible: 1) It had a lot of mistakes in it, such as
supposed orders from God to commit genocide; 2) It was largely a collection of
all kinds of literature of a rather primitive people, some of it good, some
lousy; 3) It had been the victim of politically motivated editing at least from
the 5th century BC and including the era of Constantine in the 4th
century AD and Justinian and Theodora in the 6th century AD; 4) It
had been subordinated to the interests of a living magisterium and their
traditions as embodied in a so-called "deposit of faith" throughout
the Christian era; 5) It had been supplemented by including the letters of
Saint Paul and other such writings, which had not originally been accepted as
divine writ; 6) Even from the first apostles there were several inconsistencies
in the way the teachings of Jesus were presented.
But it was only when I came across the Urantia Book in 2010
in the Out-Of-Body-Travel Foundation of Marilynn Hughes that I found all my
conclusions and suspicions fully confirmed. In that book I found the true
teachings of Christ in a perfect presentation that leaves no room for error or
for doubt. I accept that book as the Fifth Epochal Revelation.
So we get back to the main point: was Jesus tolerant? Yes,
Jesus was totally tolerant, and you only have to read the UB to prove it. But
if you can't believe in it I can't help you.
But this is not what bothers me. What bothers me is that, as
an old soldier in the British Army, I happen to collect a lot of videos about
some of the regiments, including the five regiments of the Brigade of Guards. I
find it very interesting to see how each of them performs the trooping of the
colour. I was on a Guard of Honour for Field Marshall Montgomery once, and I
remember how he stopped and stared at me for several minutes with an expression
that seemed to convey his repugnance at how such an insect as me had managed to
crawl into the British Army. Next to me was a giant called Sergeant Barnard
with a chestful of medal ribbons. Monty spent the next few minutes yarning with
him about life in the Desert War. I guess he felt a bit better after that.
Anyhow, I went to school in wartime and did not grow at all for two years
because of malnutrition, and I was in almost chronic ill health, so I can well
imagine how Monty would get a shock when he saw the latest edition to the
cannon fodder. But that does not lessen my interest in the chaps who turned
back the Old Guard (actually it was the Middle Guard) at Waterloo . "Go on, Maitland. They'll not
hold," said the Duke.
In view of this I feel most distressed when I hear about the
casualties of the British soldiers in Afghanistan . It would not matter so
much if the British really understood what they are doing there and why, or if
they had found or could still find a suitable peaceful political solution. But
I am not sure that is the case. I think we have hardly begun to understand the
Taliban point of view, and unless we do, they will go on fighting us forever.
That is why I am trying to get a grip on the Taliban point
of view right here, right now.
After 1858 the so-called Deobandi Madrasa was started in Delhi . In India the
Deobandis adopted a policy of intellectual rather than physical conflict. They
realized that British power could not easily be destroyed by force at that
time, so instead they wanted to fight the battle for the mind in the realm of
ideas and opinion. In the long run the pen is mightier than the sword because
ideas must always precede action by intelligent persons. The Delhi Deobandis
have always remained peaceful and have spread their influence all over the
subcontinent as well as other parts of the world, but in the North West
Frontier region they have not remained peaceful. Instead, they amalgamated with
the Wahabis to set up a College in Peshawar
in which most of the Taliban leaders were educated. This is where we need to
look to find out how the Taliban think. Moreover, we should realize that their
ideas are in a direct line of descent from the Wahabis and Deobandis combined,
and their world view is not substantially different from the world view they
had when they provoked the rebellion of 1857. Understand them then and you can
understand them now.
There were faults on both sides. First we British became
intolerant towards them in the early Victorian years, then they became
intolerant with us. Remember, Islam was very tolerant towards Jews and
Christians before we started the Crusades in the 11th century. When
the mutiny started in 1857, the mutineers killed white people indiscriminately,
men, women and children. But in 1858, when the army of Sir Colin Campbell came
out, we got the upper hand, and then we descended to the same or an even worse
level of atrocities and indiscriminate slaughter. This is shameful for a people
who consider themselves followers of Jesus Christ.
Basically, the Wahabis and their descendants blame us for
inflicting on them a type of imperialism that was tyrannical, arrogant,
contemptuous, and unfair. To the extent that this is true, to that extent we
should admit our mistakes and try to correct them and show that we repent and
will not indulge in such practices in future.
It is not just a matter of individual character or morality,
but social morality. Social character is also there. And the most valuable
member of society is a person with a character like Canning, who can tell his
own people when they are going wrong. We should be most grateful for that,
unless we actually enjoy going wrong – as some do, no doubt
We should scrutinize our own history thoroughly to identify
our mistakes, and learn from them by working out more appropriate policies for
any kind of foreign intervention. All humanity needs to do this.
It is not that the British were especially evil. It is
circumstances that can cast a person into situations in which it is almost
impossible to avoid mistakes, circumstances in which only a moral giant can
avoid the general rush towards moral disaster, such as happened among the
British in 1858. The same thing happened to the Americans in Cuba and in the Philippines in the 1890ties. Or to
the British in the Boer War. The main evil is war itself. Strict self-discipline,
even turning the other cheek, is sometimes necessary to avoid any type of war.
War should be seen as the last resort when all other ways to find peaceful
solutions have failed and the issue is truly one of survival, and not merely a
matter of national prestige. Jesus would never fight for prestige. He did not
need to. He was a perfect Paradise Creator Son of God, fully united to the
Almighty Father. You can't get more prestigious than that. But we are also
likewise sons of God, although littler, and far from perfect. Anyhow that's
more than enough prestige for me and Teddy, thank you very much.
War is horrible not only physically but still more morally.
Normal civilized standards of morality tend to get thrown out of the window as
soon as the pressures, emotions, and illicit temptations of war begin to hold
sway. For some people it becomes an actual sadistic lust for cruelty. For
others it induces only anger, hatred, and revenge. Either way it causes
depravity. Mortal man is 10% spirit and 90% animal, and, in the heat of war the
brute beast in man tends to prevail over his spirit, especially if it has no
spiritual "muscles" because it has had no spiritual training.
Are our population so angelic that they will not be
corrupted by war, and carry the corruption home to contaminate the so-called
peace? How then can we end war by war?
Also there is no way to avoid war if we dish out the kind of
provocation that was inflicted on the sepoys by their officers. A true peace maker should be a
sensitive far-sighted person who avoids even the appearance of provocation, so
that wars never happen. Courtesy and good manners is the true foundation of
peace. Actually, according to Jeshua, peace is the fruit of honesty. Obviously,
you can only be completely honest if you have nothing to hide, and if you have
nothing to hide you are not a threat to anyone. Like the Bard said: " But,
above all, to thine own self be true, then canst thou not be false to
anyone."
Signing off at Malbazar on Aug 17, 2012
John
Robert Thwaytes
