analysis

In the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Washington DC and New York, it has now become fashionable for secular extremists to equate terrorism with Islam or even all religions, especially Judaism and Christianity. It also seems that many ageing secular extremists are attempting to mislead malleable youths to believe that only secularism guarantees peace. Nothing is further from the secular and earthly truth.

World War I (Aug 1914 - Nov 1919) was sparked off, for example, by a secular nationalist student from Serbia, Gavrilo Princip who assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austria-Hungarian Empire in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The war lasted 51 months, pitting two major secular politico-military camps in Europe against each other, namely the Allies (France, Great Britain and Russia) and the central powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary). According to British historian, JM Robert, "about 10,000,000 men had died as a result of direct military action" and "typhus probably killed another 1,000,000 in the Balkans alone". (p520: History of Europe , London, Penguin, 1997)

Although the detailed origins and causes of World War I are still subject to academic debates, it is patently clear that they had to do with the issues of earthly territory and secularly nationalist aspirations.

The same could be said of World War II (Sept 1939 - Aug 1945) which broke out 20 years after World War I. Again, in the estimate of JM Robert, 34 million human lives perished in Europe (including the former USSR) alone. (ibid: p581).

Mushrooming of secular terrorism

Immediately after the end of World War II, a Cold War between two secular ideologies, namely capitalism and communism ensued. The weapons of mass destruction, especially the atomic bombs and nuclear missiles, were invented by secular scientists, and stockpiled for the defence of the two secular systems. Proxy wars were fought in China, Korea, Vietnam, Malaya and many parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, terrorism of the secular left mushroomed: the Red Army in Japan, Red Army Faction ( Baader Meinhof Gang) in Germany and Red Brigades in Italy. There was also the terrorism of the secular right like New Order and Skinheads in Italy, Revenge Brigade in Turkey and DARE in Belgium.

Of course, there was the terrorism of secular states like the Nazi Germany under the reign of Adolf Hitler, Stalin's USSR and Pol Pot's 'Democratic Kampuchea'. While the latter two were on the extreme left, the former was on the extreme right.

Besides the common denominator of intentional murder of unarmed and innocent civilians, secular terrorists, whether state or non-state, share with their religious counterparts an absolutist mode of thinking or worldview in terms of black-and-white, or 'either-or'. There is no grey area in their moral judgments of persons, concepts and things that need to be reasoned out patiently and calmly with 'out-groups'.

Individual versions of Utopia

Secular terrorists, like their religious counterparts, possess a mentally constructed Utopia to be built as instantly as possible on earth, and they are absolutely certain that their versions of Utopia are faultless and best for everyone. Although secular Utopia does not involve the name of any divinity, it has its own human cult leaders whose 'Thoughts' and 'Quotations' are usually made compulsory reading for members and diehards.

As the histories of the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Chinese 'Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution', Iranian and Nicaraguan counter-revolutions, among other modern upheavals, have shown, terrorism could also be used by secularists and atheists against followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Seen in this larger context and longer perspective, it is more than self-evident that terrorism is not a particular ideology or religion, and should not be blindly associated or linked with one particular religion or ideology.

The purpose of this article is not to whitewash the terrorism, wars and crimes against humanity committed in the name of any religion, but only to serve to counter-balance the 'fashionably' one-sided or one-dimensional understanding of the phenomenon of terrorism and wars. It is an invitation to deeper and more critical reflections for the purpose of moral and spiritual progress of all.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia. James is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew , he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.