Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup
Devils In God's Own Country
Devils In God's Own Country
The
lush green paddy fields of Kerala bordered by emerald-blue waters of
costal sealine twinkling under an azure sky will hardly evoke any
thought of religious fundamentalism, If anything it should evoke peace
and harmony. But people here are so inured to it that it hardly matters.
What matters to them is heady politics colored with disparate hues of
red, green, and of late yellow and saffron. But politics one can live
with as everywhere, as a fact of life, But not so when the
green is slowly being increasingly blackened by violent extremism of
the deadly ISIS sway. The menace of radicalization has , it seems, hit
the the northern Kerala as a bolt from the blues. One would have thought
that modernity with its veneer of technology could lessen religiosity.
But on the other hand we are witnessing a 21st century revival of
religious fundamentalism leading to a 12 th century kind of jihad-ism.
Keralites have only heard about it from history but unfortunately
contacts with its inheritors from Arab countries have thrown them
susceptible for a new kind of virulent jihadi contagion.
More and more young jihadists are emerging from the backwoods of Muslim
radicalization graveyards destined for the 'greener' fields of
Wahabism and ultimately to its nadir of evil, to the hellish innards of
the wholly black ISIS. All of them know that it is an enterprise of no
return, a journey to nowhere but to the land of hurrys serving wine in
Muslim heaven and a luxurious heather life without having to work! At
least that is what this doctored, brain-washed, indoctrinated gullible
greenhorns are made to believe.
The insidious development might have started at least a decade or so, for any one watching could have but noticed the mushrooming of madrasas and mosques in northern Kerala.There was this propensity of ascribing every new such manifestations to the new affluence brought by the gulf money. It was in fact more than that. The average Muslim's wants remained the same but what he acquired was more and more mosques. Worship there was briefly, but much more that was going on might have been indoctrination and radicalization. The exhortation was to find a purer brand of Islam which was held out to be Saudi Arabian Wahabism or Salafism. The result is the trickle of a new kind of one way no-return Haj journey to the Mecca of Wahabism, the ISIS Caliphate.
And as usual our political lads come late in to the class. As the class from which the lads come we are not used to make them stand on the bench. Instead we just hear the monitor says " radicalization has nothing to do with religion - meaning: I don't want my supply of chocolates to stop.
The insidious development might have started at least a decade or so, for any one watching could have but noticed the mushrooming of madrasas and mosques in northern Kerala.There was this propensity of ascribing every new such manifestations to the new affluence brought by the gulf money. It was in fact more than that. The average Muslim's wants remained the same but what he acquired was more and more mosques. Worship there was briefly, but much more that was going on might have been indoctrination and radicalization. The exhortation was to find a purer brand of Islam which was held out to be Saudi Arabian Wahabism or Salafism. The result is the trickle of a new kind of one way no-return Haj journey to the Mecca of Wahabism, the ISIS Caliphate.
And as usual our political lads come late in to the class. As the class from which the lads come we are not used to make them stand on the bench. Instead we just hear the monitor says " radicalization has nothing to do with religion - meaning: I don't want my supply of chocolates to stop.
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