CNN

CNN, God’s Warriors and the Rest of Us

Ahmed Joe

One cannot say with confident finality if the recent 6- hour CNN documentary “God’s Warriors” is another cinematographic rendition of the type of psychological conditioning and mind games the silver screen is better known for.

Whatever the case may be it might have been worth every effort because it has exposed all present day manifestations of religion as mere dictatorships of the clergy who dominate interpretation for political ends qui pro quo.

But far most importantly the mini-series has illuminated to teeming worldwide viewers the seemingly intractable Palestinian crisis for what truly it is - a land grab rather than religious attrition.

And since by the Iranian born Ms Amanpour’s efforts no monotheistic faith in the world has a monopoly of violence some form of spiritual détente might just be in the offing especially with the emphatic segments that send subtle hints to the hawks at the Pentagon that a shock and awe invasion or some decapitation strike on Iran might be another dumb idea.

Japan is today the World’s best example of political stability, social harmony and economic stability because the various CNN “God’s Warriors” have been since the era of the Shogunate least welcome there by a seemingly superior culture, immigration and deliberate policy. The land of Nippon with its own version of Shinto’s warriors before Hiroshima and Nagasaki has an exceedingly low per capita number of synagogues, churches and mosques and does not in any way export to a host discomfort its national religion (that has no formal dogma or holy writ) anywhere beyond its borders yet it still remains modern history’s largest dispenser of humanitarian and foreign aid not to talk about the near irresistible allure of its consumer electronics and automobiles.

The CNN not only conveniently omitted in the series a take on the more sinister and alarmingly growing – “Praise the Lord and pass the ammo” Aryan groups that have since the 1931 Scottsdale Trial incubating the likes of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols but also failed to note the curious total absence of backlash on extreme WASPs (which most are anyway) after the Oklahoma bombing unlike the indignities American-Arabs and those that look or sound like them have to undergo since 9/11. It might be uncharitable to accuse most white American folks for not being at least subtly racist but it would not be out of place to accuse the CNN for down playing the danger and new wave segregation of the KKK and its main stream “osama obama your mama” off-shoots are formulating in “the land of the free and home of the brave”.

Who taught the world how to bomb innocent civilians way back in the 1886 Haymarket Square, Chigago incident? And which country’s Supreme Court delivered the 1857 Dred Scott decision?

The movie “13^th Warrior” based on a story by John Crichton had in leading role Antonio Banderas casted as an Umayyad diplomat and poet in an enduring close-knit comradeship with filthy and uncouth Viking worshipers of very many gods. The lessons from that film with more from “Monsieur Ibrahim.” starring Omar Sheriff provide much more impetus for inter faith tolerance, understanding and cooperation than the centuries of empty dialogue and the senseless violence since the Crusades.

So what has religion got to do with it when machete-yielding hordes of catholic Hutus wantonly decapitate catholic Tutsis? The venal and vicious Janjaweed have no compunction about exterminating aborigine Darfurians who share the same faith as them under the diplomatic cover of the atheist Chinese extracting oil from a predominantly animist Southern Sudan protected by a supposedly religious government in Khartoum that shamelessly receives Western aid. An episode of Ali Mazuri’s “The Africans” has in full glare a congregation of faithful butchers saying their obligatory prayers on the premises of their Dakar workplace- a pigsty. Charly Boy’s bare all posters adorning only a crucifix is a symptom of a growing insensitivity of a Church gone awry where self advertising showmanship has taken over the pulpit with priests as the main purveyors of child abuse. There is no alternative to mutual co-existence ironically CNN’s Amanpour is probably the most eminently qualified for the job of reminding the World so. She is the daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother who is married to a Jew (James Rubin formerly a State Department Spokesman under Albright).