Terrorism, Extremism and Karmic Law
“For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
One doesn’t have to go into all the ‘details’…the details scream out at us every day from our news papers, ‘boob tubes’ and computer screens. Yet another terrorist attack in this city or that city with multiple casualties and the accompanying condemnation by government officials using such worn out, hackneyed superlatives as senseless, heinous, despicable, diabolical, etc. etc. The major networks and corporate media outlets are all over these events like vultures over carrion. The wall-to-wall bombardment of the ‘late breaking news’ machinery will try to capitalize on every gory, salacious detail of the tragedy knowing that ‘gory and salacious’ sells product. (Makes one wonder if they – the media – realize this wall-to wall bombardment of ‘gory and salacious’ also plays right into hands of the terrorists…they feed off this stuff).
Anyway, these kinds of events have been a constant over the past fifty or sixty years since I can remember and it tends to numb and de-sensitize the general public after a while. It’s much like passing by just one more accident scene on the highway….you slow down for a bit, rubber-neck the scene and then move on, the tragedy quickly fading into the blur of one’s daily doings, comings and goings, etc.
Being a child of both the industrial and technological revolutions, having an activist bent and being a scribe whose writing technique has been likened to that of a Gatling gun, I tend to be rather blunt and clinical with my observations. Add to this a penchant for standing way, way back and looking at the ‘big picture’ view of things and there is always the danger of sounding cold and callous at times. But I feel that my contribution to the overall mix is to be as blunt and as ‘clinical’ as possible. If this is interpreted as cold and callous then so be it. When a doctor inspects a diseased body on the examination table, he or she may observe overt signs of a raft of deeper problems – pale, jaundiced skin, puss-colored eyes, signs of gout and fungus around the toes, skin lesions and boils, foul odor and blistering around the genitals, bloated stomach, smoker’s cough, etc. The doctor’s assessment of the patient’s condition needs to be blunt and clinical…. there is no room for nuance, personal opinions or character judgments. As a matter of fact, it would be a dereliction of duty for the doctor to ‘sugar coat’ and otherwise make palatable the seriousness of the patient’s condition.
Which brings us back to the subject of this piece, being terrorism and extremism. I have an unwavering respect for the laws of consequence and causality…in the eastern regions referred to as the law of ‘karma’. This position holds that history is a series of events – much like the links in an unbroken chain – which are both a consequence of, and causal to, the other links in the chain. This law compels me to look at history through its lens and when doing so one is able to see things from a much more accurate and holistic perspective.
The tragic events that are occurring today in European locales – especially in France and England – are the latest links in a long chain of events going back decades and even hundreds of years into European and Middle Eastern history. There appears to exist a historical ‘blind spot’ in both the French and British perspectives that is most evident when their politicians react to the ever-growing number of terrorist attacks on their soil. This ‘blind spot’ consists of three equal measures of (1) a blatant ignorance of history, (2) Euro-centric arrogance and (3) a deeply ingrained superiority complex. These ingredients combined act to cloud and skew the vision of both British and French politicians to the extent that they are incapable or unwilling to accept that the rash of terrorist attacks could be a direct consequence of the past couple hundred years of British and French foreign policy, (i.e. the meddling and interference in the affairs of foreign and sovereign nations).
Whether we label it colonialism, expansionism, ‘influence’ or outright conquest, the British and French have certainly accumulated a well-deserved share of ‘karma’ over the years and it is doubly tragic to witness that culpability, self-examination and a modicum of self-blame rarely show up within the peripheries of their worldview. Euro-centrism and the ‘blind spot’ have so clouded their vision that these two aggressive imperialist super-states appear to oftentimes have not the slightest inkling that they – Great Britain and France – are, to a large extent, the authors of their own misfortunes.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement
There are numerous examples of the ‘cause and effect’ dynamics of karmic law threading their way throughout European/Middle Eastern history and one of the more glaring testaments of this law’s causal impact was the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.
(Note: There is an abundance of information about this agreement on the net…just google Sykes-Picot. I will only provide a thumbnail sketch here as a backdrop for the larger essay).
Most older folks (from the 1950s and 60s) are familiar with the Sykes-Picot affair although they may not be aware of it. David Lean’s monumental work ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ was wholly based upon this agreement and the political machinations, broken promises, betrayal and back-stabbing that defined the outcome of the First World War. One of the key combatants aligned with the Central Powers (vs. The Allied Forces) was the Ottoman Turks. Midway through the Great War a plan was hatched between Great Britain and France (and Russia to a lesser extent) that would guarantee national statehood (based in Damascus, Syria) to the Arab Peoples if they joined forces with the Anglo-French campaign to defeat the Ottoman Turks. The whole Middle Eastern milieu at that time was a complicated rat’s nest of political intrigue and backroom dealings designed by the Allied Forces to establish a long-term sphere of influence and control of the Middle East and its vast oil reserves. The Sykes-Picot Agreement was one such backroom deal that would ultimately be over-ridden and negated by a previous agreement which was already in place when British diplomat Mark Sykes and his French counterpart Francois Georges-Picot surreptitiously and nefariously approached Hussain bin Ali, (the Sharif of Mecca and leader of the Arab factions), with the guarantee of statehood (knowing full well that the bogus pact was already ‘dead in the water’ at the time of signing).
(Note: T. E. Lawrence, a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia, was the unfortunate dupe in the great deception and after defeating the Turks – with the help of the Arabs – the Allied Forces reneged on the deal. Coinciding with the Russian revolution in 1917, the ruse was exposed by the newly installed Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg causing a major embarrassment for both Britain and France. A dejected T. E. Lawrence returned home to England and after a period of political obscurity died in a motorcycle accident).
This monumental betrayal by the Anglo-French governments must be factored into the consequential/causality dynamics of karmic law. The mind-set of political expedience and betrayal – along with the ongoing proxy wars and political interference by various super powers – is inextricable linked to the events currently unfolding (one hundred years later) in Europe and other western imperialist democracies.
What goes around, comes around…such is the nature of karmic law.
The Broader Scope of Karmic Law
‘The European conquest and colonization of the planet can be viewed today as the single most deadly act of terrorism ever perpetrated in the history of the world.’
The assertion that the Anglo-French betrayal of the Arabs during the Great War bears a causal linkage to the acts of terrorism occurring today in various European cities is plausible from a scientific and historical viewpoint but this single incident represents only a small aspect of a much larger crusade of aggression, interference and outright crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of European expansionism. The oftentimes brutal campaign to conquer and colonize (Europeanize and Christianize) the rest of the planet cannot escape the all-pervasive and unforgiving laws of consequence and causality. Europe’s ravenous appetite for land, gold, resources and power have wreaked havoc, death and destruction on the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, India, Eastern Asia, the South Pacific, etc.. Brutal aggression and the very act of genocide have consequences…every action has consequences.…this is one of the fundamental laws of nature.
The rampant spread of European aggression, ideology, military might and especially machines throughout the planet have – more than any other factor – created the environmental and social melt-down that is unfolding around us today. Can we at least agree on that. A catastrophe of this magnitude does not just happen out of thin air…Newton would concur. Unfortunately, terrorism and extremism will continue unabated throughout Western Europe and around the globe, unpleasant but perfectly-placed fixtures in the post-colonial landscape. But would it not be helpful if the general citizenry – and especially the ranting politicians – step back a ways, view their aggressive and jingoistic history through a wide-angle lens, factor in the laws of consequence and causality, and perhaps then begin to understand that they – the British and the French – have largely brought these tragedies upon themselves.
“Terrorism and extremism do not occur out of a vacuum… they are the by-product and bear direct linkage to the history that precedes them”.