'Religious Violence or Moral Monstrosity'

By Esad Duraković

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Our world has largely entered a phase of religious wars and religious terrorism. This is becoming global. In the Middle East – at the very core of things, even if it doesn't seem so at first glance – religious wars are being fought, which in some important aspects represent modernized replicas of the Crusades. In Bosnia in the nineties, it was a dominant feature of religious wars. Terrorism from Nice to New Zealand is extremely religious...

The verdict just handed down to Radovan Karadžić is in that context because he INSTITUTIONALLY waged war against Muslims and Catholics, and his "political creation" was founded, eminently, on religious violence. This is not about the verdict on Karadžić but on his work, or rather his creation, because he acted institutionally. His "political creation," more precisely – some institutions within it – are giving him recognition and awards in various ways. What can be said about the moral perspective of such a society?!

Therefore, the violence that our world carries with strong inertia is becoming universal, and it is becoming religious, and this type of violence is the worst, the most dangerous kind because its "hunger" can only be satisfied by the total and absolutely brutal destruction of the Other. Religious wars/violence are the most fanatical and cruel. Of course, this also applies to religious terrorist actions. Why?

Because in religious acts of violence/terrorism, the goal is not just the destruction of entire societies, as in the Middle East, in Bosnia, as is the case with the Rohingya, etc., meaning the goal is not just to eliminate the Other, as a member of another religion, but the real, "exalted" goal is to eliminate them in such a way that their religion – with all its sensitive particularities – is presented as something that is supposedly worthy of the greatest possible humiliation and trivialization, and on the other hand – that one's own religion is presented in supposed sublimity, in a superiority that, as such, cannot tolerate "otherness." In religious violence, the main goal is not the physical liquidation of the Other, but the main goal is the liquidation of their faith as the most sublime content of the individual and their community, the liquidation of the Idea, the liquidation of God. The destruction of the individual in their "physical entity" is actually only a side effect of the main tendency to destroy their religion, which always implies the collective.

Our world has largely entered that phase, and this is a truly terrible fact and the most ominous foreshadowing of the future.

That kind of violence rests on a particular paradox. Namely, the religious criminal (who is a superhero in his own eyes and in the eyes of his community) commits the greatest possible violence against his "own God," against his own religion. He demonstrates his and his group's total madness with his crime, demonstrates total insanity and sacrilege of the highest order because there is no God, absolutely, who can forgive the destruction of other lives in His name, with the gravest humiliation. Such an act is simply always incompatible with the Concept, the Being of God as such. It is particularly terrifying that the perpetrator, with his action, usurps the right of his "own" God to judge anyone's faith.

A believer in any faith – especially when in a place of worship and in prayer in general – is in the most sublime state of spirituality. It is a state of the highest peace, contemplation, positive emotion, devotion to universal spiritual values. That state is simply ineffable. To kill such a person in such a state of sublime reconciliation with oneself and with the World represents something that cannot even be named as a crime because his act is an expression of complete darkening of the mind and total ethical monstrosity. Try to imagine, then, what state and what message the monster (a word must be used for him, although none is entirely adequate) who enters any place of worship and kills people one by one while they are praying to God is in. This is against all reason, against God... And what about the politicians who incite this, whom we have elected and do not challenge?!

However, while watching a link circulating on the internet these days showing thousands of New Zealanders, most of whom, it seems, are not Muslims, humbly listening to the call to prayer in pain, I thought: As long as there are such expressions of empathy, there is hope for this world in its tragic stumble.