Terrorism Without A Cause.

Two news items have got me thinking about terrorism. The first was a report of a female suicide bomber who blew herself up in Pakistan. The second was watching a BBC reporter outside the Boston hospital where the Chechen Marathon bombing suspect was under guard. The reporter was attempting to determine whether the double-bombing was terrorism or not. His half-mangled conclusion seemed to be that if done for 'a cause’ the bombings were terrorism 'within a strict definition', if not then they were presumably just a 'crime of alienation' like the Sandy Hook shootings, a crime born of despair and the ready availability of excessive firepower.

This is a pointless rhetorical argument. The Boston bombs were anti-personnel devices, not powerful enough to seriously damage a building, but packed with enough nails and metal pellets to inflict the maximum human cost in both flesh and blood and spiritual annihilation. Anyone who saw the footage will have seen the state of panic and terror the two bombs evoked. And in a country where assault weapons are readily available the choice of nail bombs is an explosively emphatic link to decades of terrorist history, from the IRA and ETA (the Basque separatist movement) to Jihadist murderers all over the world.

This then is terrorism. But more than that it seems to be terrorism without a cause. While the full facts are yet to become public it seems that the links between the older brother and Chechen militants are so tenuous that an FBI investigation two years ago concluded that there was no real threat. Seriously misjudged in hindsight, but nonetheless indicative that the two young men involved were in fact living the American immigrant dream: peace, a good education and a positive future.

So why the bombings? Why the choice to throw away the opportunities life in Boston offered to two young immigrant men? Why were they, in the phrase chosen by their uncle 'losers'? Because, in my opinion, the Islamist fundamentalist theology is simply adolescent nihilism. When faced with the choice between the relentless competitive individualism of American life and the easy, egocentric and resentful role of 'victimized minority' they chose the latter. It's a short step from 'victimized minority' to the self-aggrandising delusion of 'heroic resistance fighter'. A role description that allows logic to be tossed aside and murderous hatred to become righteous anger.

They chose conspiracy over community. They chose to be vicious and murderous. They chose resentment and spite. They chose the most inhuman and cowardly means to self-gratification, dressed up in fundamentalist rhetoric. They committed the most selfish and ugly act a modern adolescent can employ to get their fifteen minutes of fame.

By coincidence I've been re-reading Roger Crowley's 'Empires of the Sea' a history of the 16th century struggle for control of the Mediterranean between Suleiman the Magnificent's Ottoman Empire and the forces of Christendom under Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. The parallels between that time and this are striking.

On the one hand we have Suleiman's vast empire stretching from India to the Danube basin and Gibraltar. An empire driven in its conquests by the single-minded fanaticism of Islamic Jihad, uniting disparate nationalities in hatred of the infidel, using the insult to religious 'honour' of the Crusades to justify the religious hegemonic imperialism of an Islamic theology, while glossing over the bloody imperialist Jihad that made North Africa and Spain a network of Islamic states and the Mediterranean an Islamic lake in the 5th/6th century.

The Chechen independence movement, following a pattern that has swept the Middle East, has evolved into an Islamist movement determined to create an Islamic state. All the complexities of democratic process, political rights, ethnic rivalries and forms of government are swept aside by the self-righteous certainties of fundamentalist brotherhood. The same certainties that Islamic fundamentalism provides to the Taliban, and the same brutalities that flow from it, are also currently at play in Syria and post-revolutionary Egypt.

The fundamental organising and economic element of Suleiman's expansion and warfare in the Mediterranean was slavery. His admiral, Hayrettin Barbarossa, made fortunes and funded fleets by the wholesale kidnapping and sale of thousands of coastal populations from Portugal to the Adriatic. Defeated armies would be offered the choice of forced conversion to Islam or enslavement. When his raids glutted the market he would simply slaughter prisoners by the thousand. Unlike the heartless economic rationale behind Western slave ships, Ottoman slaving was a religious and cultural pillar. Christian slaves were both beasts of burden and a proof of Islamic virtue. Christian infidels were sub-human, animals, chattels.

Christendom itself was riven by division. Protestant Reformation, inquisitions, humanism, the beginnings of individualism and long-standing national ambitions kept the European world divided to the point where Charles spent more time and treasure fighting the French (and Dutch, and Flemish and Lutherans everywhere) than the Turk. Yet this didn't allow the Ottomans to conquer and convert infidels to Islam except at the point of a sword in sea battles and slave-raiding piracy. In the end Christian navies, suspicious of each other and hard to unite for long, won the decisive Battle of Lepanto in 1580.

Am I comparing the actions of Islamist terror bombers with the religious empire of the Ottomans? No. But I am certainly equating the 16th century Islamic Jihadist mindset that saw people as chattels to be kidnapped and sold (or slaughtered) by the thousand with the current Islamic jihadist mindset that sees people as unworthy of compassion, consideration or even the basic human right not to be blown up to justify an irrational, bigoted and macho cult of death.

Both see infidels as less than human, as worthy of contempt, vicious abuse and indiscriminate murder. And not just infidels. Women, Muslim women, face the same attitudes, the same lack of humanity, the same essentially abusive, spiteful and vindictive behaviours directed toward them. The promotion of Sharia law is itself an attempt to put 6th century bigotry in place, to justify vile and abusive behaviours (which is why news of a female suicide bomber struck me as the Taliban's ideal tool - a hated, worthless female destroying herself and the infidel).

The false argument, for example, that the hijab is no more sexist or discriminatory than the bikini is part of the push to culturally align entrenched Islamic misogyny with Western hyper-sexualised marketing as two examples of the same thing. The difference, however, is plain. The hijab is mandatory. Observance may be relaxed in some places, but it's still a mandatory repression of women under Islamist theology. The bikini is a choice. Aggressively marketed in a sexist culture it may be, but it's still a choice. And free choice, however influenced it may be, is the most basic of human rights. As my spouse says, 

'No-one will shoot you if you don't wear a bikini'.

The future may seem bleak when we are confronted with terrorist bombings that speak volumes of hatred for the West. And the answer certainly isn't a return to the equally blind and bigoted religious violence of the Crusades. You can't fight this fire with fire. All you are left with are ashes. 

But, as in the mid 1500s, those things which appear to divide us: individualism, politics of the stale Left versus Right variety, the splintered sectarianism of Christianity, the endless struggle for human, civil and women's rights in a global, corporatist age, all serve to protect us, to maintain our culturally robust Western culture. Progress and individualism are the most fundamental values of Christianity. The monolith of Christendom may be gone, but that's because of those two values.

Christ's message of personal, individual redemption may have been distorted by churchmen and institutions for centuries but the two values of individual worth and progress are the basis of all the West has achieved in culture, art, science and human dignity. From the Reformation to the Enlightenment, from Erasmus to Einstein, from Copernicus to Hubble, progress through individual choice has been the great strength of the West. You don't have to be a Christian to see the value of that.

.

On Being a Samurai.

.

 

Writer, thinker, teacher and trainer, therapist, shaman, initiate, musician, mystic, intellectual, samurai, priest, magician, psychic, empathic, mythologist, shape-shifter, husband, father, lover, Kabbalist, Tantric and Gnostic.

It's been a long, strange trip.

About twenty-five years ago I was a management consultant running a communications skills workshop for a team of young professionals: psychologists, social workers, speech therapists and so on, all intelligent young women in their twenties or early thirties (I've certainly had worse jobs). During conversation it emerged that one woman, a social worker, had a particular skill that she would occasionally agree to do for people. She read palms. She went pink from embarrassment when it was brought up, but agreed after some encouragement to read mine.

She took my hand in hers and leaned forward until her face was over it, her blonde hair falling forward around her face, and gently stroked my palm and began to speak. But not about lines and ridges and loops on the skin. She just slipped straight into a trance state and spoke in a faraway voice about my life, my past and my inner self. It was fascinating. And accurate enough about the real me to give me food for later thought. After she finished and her face regained its frank, friendly countenance I said,

"That's an incredible gift. You really should develop it."
.

"Oh, no." She said.

"Why ever not?"

"Because I don't want to be thought of as a freak."

I know how she feels.

For most of my life I've been fighting that particular epithet.

But while I may not be a freak I am definitely not one of the normal. And it's true that my natural milieu is among the peculiarly gifted, the psychics and second-sighters, the freaks and the fey. I don't like it, but it's true. It's what I am. Like the list of qualifications above. I am all of those things. For an introvert with a healthy level of paranoia hiding this has become second-nature. Experience has taught me that keeping  my light under a bushel is far better than trying to fend off a pack of freaked-out village idiots with a pitchfork, a smile and a plausible explanation.

But no more. 

I am what I am. 

All of it.

I became a samurai in 1992. 

I've been a martial artist since I was eight years old. Forty-seven years of judo, karate, iaido (Japanese sword kata), halberd, spear, longbow, crossbow. Anything and everything up to and including small arms. Years spent studying and developing subtle forms of thinking and awareness and spiritual attitudes (Zenshin, Zanshin, Mushin and the rest) that began with Zen meditation and led in the end to ritual magic and Kabbalah. I spent years refining my skills and my spirit, up at dawn and building a Tree of Life the size of a cathedral down by the Brisbane river, with the ten spheres each filled with their own kata, and connected by long galloping runs with blades whirling and sweat running.

Now, here in Canberra I can see every inch of it in my minds eye, recall every blade and bird and tree, feel the sun burning off the grey mist in autumn, scorching the ground to dust at midsummer.

Like I said, it's been a long strange trip.

But it takes more than simple competence or even a lifetime of acquiring skills to become a samurai. There's a simple qualification that goes beyond this. You have to serve. You have to be accepted as a retainer by a noble house. Which happened to me in '92.

Her name is Maeda Asano and she came to Brisbane to teach Iaido at the club I was attending, and to demonstrate Ryushin Ryu Kenbu, a combination of dance, sword, fan and spear work used to tell stories of Japanese historical events. Meetings between famous samurai, incidents during famous battles, demonstrating the techniques used at the time. She was also a 'living national treasure' in Japan for her ikebana flower arranging.

She would have been in her 60s then. I volunteered to do some PR work for her, and arranged ABC news to interview her and show a demonstration of her art in a bamboo grove at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens. I was also able to involve her in an Asian Cultural festival and a highlight for me was leading a huge procession along Brisbane's Southbank with Maeda San, with my youngest daughter Ellen marching along between us. Despite my having only 'dojo and sushi' Japanese, and her having no English we were able to communicate and I was much taken with her grace, dignity and bearing.

At the last training session, just before she left, I presented her with a box full of Australian bird feathers I had collected, yellow cockatoo crests, beautiful reds, greens and blues from rosellas, and black and white magpie feathers like the black and white of hakama and dogi. I'd prepared a short speech (in hastily scribbled phonetic Japanese) expressing my thanks for her generosity and patience, and formally offering myself for her service. This I carefully read out in the car park, surrounded by mystified fellow students. She listened seriously and intently. 

She accepted the box with a graceful bow, then quickly snatched the crumpled paper I'd read from and tucked it away in her kimono. She then took a purple and gold fan from her obi and presented it to me with a smile. She had formally accepted my offer.

I've been thinking about her a lot recently, particularly when I found the fan last month while tidying up the study. I found out this afternoon that she passed away that day, January 7th. Which I suppose makes me a ronin, and my own man. 

I don't have the words I said that day. 

But I do have a haiku I composed for her, while watching her perform in the bamboo grove.

                                 When she moves her feet
                                 turn small circles in the dust,
                                 Maeda Asano.

I'll be transferring this blog to a new website soon: leekear.com

A little Christmas blasphemy, and a Happy New Year.

Luke 7:37

 

 

 "Weeping, she wet His feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair.."

Peter, John and Andrew, talking with Thomas, Judas and Matthew.

Peter is pacing up and down, obviously upset over something. Judas and Thomas share a bench and are leaning against the wall, relaxed and semi-reclining, a wine cup in front of each of them. Sitting opposite them is John, the youngest, and Andrew, leaning on the table. Matthew is across the room, resting his tall frame against the window frame, deep in thought. But it’s Peter who's holding forth.

“I can’t believe it!  He let that whore su.. su.. lick him. Lick his.. It’s disgusting! Outrageous! He just sat there! Just sat there and let her.. ”

“I thought you said she was washing His feet?” Says John.

Matthew looks at him, his face a picture of benevolent amazement,

“You really need to get out more.” He says, face creased in a wry smile.

“I think the word you’re looking for is slut.” Says Judas.

“What? What the hell are you talking about?” Says Peter.

“If she’s anything so terrible she’s a slut, not a whore.

  A whore would have charged him money for it.”

“You.. you.. hair-splitting asshole!” says Peter.

“Charmed I’m sure. But it’s important. Not the money, but being precise with the words.”

“Oh, shut up. Ever since He gave you five minutes of one-on-one ‘secret’ teaching you’ve been acting like you’re his one man fan club, and the rest of us are idiots.” Says Peter.

“Nevertheless, the words matter.”

“She’s disgusting, unclean, whatever the right word is.” Says John.

“Oh, and you’re not?” Says Matthew. “Being a virgin doesn’t make you pure, John. You can only reach purity via the long route, by being born in the flesh, born into this filthy world. It’s rising above it makes you clean.”

“You have to start from a pure heart, and undefiled body.” Says John.

“Oh, grow up!” says Thomas.

“You think he doesn’t shit like the rest of us?” says Judas, “What do you think he does when he wanders off in the morning? Lets out a little scented puff of wind and a stream of white wine? ”

 “It’s not right. That’s all I’m saying. It’s not right.” Says John.

“No it bloody isn’t.” Says Peter. “She’s a slag. A worthless piece of garbage.”

“What’s not right for you isn’t what’s not right for Him, John. Or me or anyone else for that matter. If we all had to live within what you could cope with we wouldn’t last five minutes.” Says Matthew.

‘You really don’t get it do you?” Says Judas. “You really think it’s about performing miracles and being worshipped by the mob, by the well-meaning but clueless, all desperate to see the Messiah so he can sort out their petty little problems. Like Solomon with time on his hands. If he’s really God in one man none of that matters.”

“Well how else are we supposed to know, you arrogant ass? It’s all been written, been prophesied. He’s the One because he fulfils the prophets.” Says Peter.

“Wrong way round. He fulfils the prophets because He’s the One.” Says Thomas.

“Oh, don’t you start! I’m sick of the pair of you.” Says Peter.

“It’s still the truth, or haven’t you noticed? He’s doing it deliberately, checking off all the things the prophets foretold, turning up at the right time, being in the right place, doing what there is to do, just so people know, so it’s obvious even to someone as thick as you, Peter.” Says Thomas.

“But that could mean anyone could be Him. Anyone could just go around ticking off the prophesies like it was a shopping list. He could be anyone!” Says John.

“Yes. That’s the point, for God’s sake.” Says Thomas. “Don’t you get it? That’s what He’s doing. It’s sad and foolish, but only because we’re sad and foolish and need to have it spelled out, put on a plate, shoved in our idiot faces. Until we can see what’s right there in front of us.”

“You don’t actually believe at all, do you?” Says Andrew. “You don’t love Him at all. You’re just hanging on for your own intellectual pleasure, playing your stupid mind-games. It’s all a big joke to you, you pompous windbag.”

“No, that’s not true. I have trouble with blind faith that’s all. Blind faith could believe in any old rubbish; flying carpets, djinns and giants, and genies in bottles, and silly stories to frighten children. I prefer to deal with truth I can see in front of me, thanks, not wish-fulfilment and fairy-dust. That, and the application of mind and principle to problems of a spiritual nature. What’s wrong with that?” Says Thomas.

“Ah yes, the comforts of Greek philosophy. What a load of bullshit.” Says Andrew.

“I still say she should be thrown out, she has way too much influence on Him.” Says Peter.

“I agree. She’s a bad influence, and she should go.” Says John.

“You do know she’s been paying for everything you’ve eaten this week, don’t you?” Says Judas, quietly.

Peter’s face is reddening, rage comes off him like steam, little bits of spittle flying out with his words,

“Oh, here we go. It’s always about money with you, isn’t it, Judas? Sooner or later it comes down to money, you grubby little man. How do we know you’re telling the truth, eh? How do we know where you get the money from? Or where it all goes, for that matter..”

“So what if she does pay, she should be grateful just to be allowed to even be with us.” Says John.

Judas is on his feet now and turns towards Peter, his hands balling into fists.

“Listen, Mister Moral-High-Ground. He gave me the job of looking after it. It means bugger-all to me and I could well and truly live without the hassle, thank you very much. Why don’t you ask Him to give you the job? Or maybe you can’t be trusted? Or maybe you just can’t count!”

He turns to face John,

“And as for you, you pathetic little virgin. Been away from Mummy too long, have we? Scared of the big nasty women and what they might do to you? Afraid she might have teeth and circumcise you a second time? You’re a long, long way from being a man and you should hold your tongue like a woman, or the little boy you are. You make me sick. Little Miss Run-After-The-Man they should call you.”

Thomas, puts a hand on his arm,

“Pack it in, Judas. Don’t let them wind you up with their nonsense. It’s not worth it, you know that. And it’s beside the point anyway.”

“Yeah, well it’s always ‘Judas get this, Judas get that’ whenever we travel, isn’t it? Always me has to find somewhere for everyone to stay, find food for us all, find the cash, pay for it all, and what thanks do I get? Bugger all from these clowns.”

He glares at John,

“She’s twice the man you’ll ever be, little boy. And He loves her, has that thought never occurred to you? HE LOVES HER. And she loves Him in ways you’ll never be able to. Even if you were a girl.”

“You can’t say that! You can’t get away with that, you pig!”

John is angry now, his voice shrill. He’s on his feet and ready to push back, should nudge come to shove,

“You can’t imply that and just walk away, you foul-mouthed swine!”

Even at his full five feet two inches and red-faced with rage John isn’t a very scary sight. But Thomas has a firm hand on Judas, and Peter and Andrew have hold of John.

“Who’s walking?” Says Judas.

They’re tired, weary and fractious, all of them. It’s been a long day in a long week. Miriam of Magdala upsets them all in one way or another. There’s something about her that looks deep inside you and says,

“I know what you think, in your heart of hearts, in your secret fantasies. I know what you want, what turns you on. And I can do it. I can do anything. Anything you can imagine, I can do it. So what do you want, little man?”

And it’s been wearing on them as He drew closer to her by the hour. The more time they spent together, the two of them, talking into the night alone. When it used to be them He’d sit up with, them He talked the night through with.

She scares them. And tonight, after dinner, when they’d gone into where He was without knocking, without checking to see who was with Him, what they might be doing. Well, that had shocked most of them to the core. And when the others heard, when they arrived and found out what had happened, well, it was a tale that was only going to get bigger with the telling wasn’t it? Every time, every iteration was going to make it all sound worse.

“Oh, knock it off, the pair of you.” Says Matthew. “Judas, say you’re sorry.”

“Why me? It’s not as if I’ve said anything that anybody with half a brain could take as offensive.”

They exchange looks. They look ridiculous, the pair of them.

“Oh alright, I apologise .. Princess.”

“You bastard!” Said John, and lunged at him.

John’s wild swing misses Judas, who sways back with a grin on his face. John is furious, but he isn’t a match for Judas, or any of them for that matter. He’s too young to begin with, too short and inexperienced, and it only takes a few seconds for the scuffle to die down. And after it’s over and enough time has passed, Matthew, who’s been leaning against the window frame the whole time says,

“What did you mean, ‘it’s beside the point’?”

“What?” Says Peter.

“Not you. Thomas. What did you mean when you said ‘it’s beside the point anyway’?”

“I meant it doesn’t make any difference what Peter or John or any of us think. About her, I mean. We’re not Athenians. It’s not a democracy. We don’t get to vote on it.”

“But He’d listen to us, wouldn’t he, Peter?” says John, “He’d see that it wasn’t right, that she’s trouble, that she’s always pushing herself forward, poking her nose in .. ”

“It’s not her nose was the problem.” Smiles Judas.

“You really are a gutter-mouth, you know that?” Says Andrew.

“The point remains.” Says Thomas. “We can’t tell him what to do.”

“He’ll see reason.” Says Peter. “If we explain ourselves well, He’ll know that we’re saying it for the right reasons. He’s just too compassionate sometimes, that’s all, too willing to let people impose on His time, to monopolise His attention when He should be doing other things.”

“Wow, you really do think that don’t you?” Says Judas, “Nothing anyone says gets into that thick head of yours, does it? Haven’t you been listening? The Master loves her. He loves her more than any of us. I wouldn’t be surprised if He threw you out and told you to go back to bothering fish. What the hell, go for it. I might like to see that.”

“He’s right Peter,” Says Matthew, “He does love her. That’s pretty clear.”

“But she’s disgusting!” Says John, “How could He love a woman like that!”

“I don’t think you understand what love is, John.” Says Thomas.

“Glory, Hallelujah! You got that right.” Says Judas.

“I don’t claim to either, Judas, and I daresay you don’t, for that matter.” Says Thomas.

“So what are we going to do?” Says John.

“What’s this ‘we’, little man?” Says Matthew, “You can include me out if you want to confront Him. I think I’ll just keep my peace until events unfold. You want Him to turn her away, you go right ahead and tell Him. Just don’t ask me to join in with your petty bullshit.”

“Well that’s just cowardice.” Says Peter.

“No, I just don’t think I understand what’s unfolding very well, and I’d rather find out before I draw any conclusions.” Says Matthew.

“Oh, so it’s intellectual cowardice then?” Says Judas.

“No, I agree with Matthew,” Says Thomas. “She’s important to Him in ways we don’t understand yet. She makes me nervous, but I don’t think she has malice in her.”

“How very generous of you.”

“Oh, shut up Judas.”