Munir Al-Akash: The fate of the American Indians and “the Israeli meaning of America”

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Doha

- After his long intellectual journey in which he traced racial, sexual and collective genocide - in America, where the emergence of the United States as a state and regime is linked to the principle of occupying the land and replacing its original people with another people within the framework of a racist theory that legitimizes the extermination of others, academic and historian Mounir Al-Akash returns with a new trilogy entitled “How Religion Becomes Evil: A Unified View of Violence in the History of Three Religions.

The professor of humanities and director of Arab studies at Boston University discusses the layers of history of peoples and societies and the violence attributed to them in his new trilogy, which provides a bold analysis of the role that religions have played in shaping the paths of conflict throughout history.

While Al-Akash explained in his previous trilogy how capitalist utilitarian thought was applied to all the settlements established by European colonialists in the world, in his new trilogy he delves into the depths of religious narratives to reveal their complexities and their impact on politics and society. In this dialogue, we explore with him the motives of this ambitious project and the principles on which it was based. The foundations of his research, starting from Beirut to France and America, and his intellectual and literary transformations.

• I would like to start by talking about your new trilogy, “How Religion Becomes Evil: A Unified View of Violence in the History of the Three Religions.” What are your motivations for the project and its starting points?

The beginning was in Beirut, and I was a member of the editorial board of “Mawaqif” magazine. My interest was entirely literary, and thought in its rigid, abstract sense was not one of my interests.

My dream at that time was to prepare a book about poetry and prophecy, considering prophecy to be a metaphysical idea and a manifestation of poetry for me.

I started with the book "Prophecy and Poetry", and when I arrived in France immediately after the war (the civil war in Lebanon), I saw that the best thing for the subject of my book was to review the prophecies found in the Old Testament. However, my disappointment was great, even frightening, when I discovered that the ancient Pentateuch was the "Torah" or “The Tanakh”, which is the basis of the composition, I did not find anything in it related to religion or history.

Likewise, I did not find in it the idea of ​​monotheism at all. What I found was that it spoke of a “council of gods,” and there is no history in it. However, it is more than active in Jewish history, as it is the founding myth of all the ideas and elements of Judaism.

The ideology of extermination

• I called it an ideological hallucination and a political program!

Exactly, and I thought that the best thing to do was to distance poetry from this “non-poetic world,” because its structure is like an incubator for monsters, so I wrote an old article called “The Logic of Racism,” which was published by the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish in “Palestinian Affairs.” At that time, I was in Paris. My reading was philosophical. The language was rigid and philosophical, to the point that Darwish said, “If it had not been for you, we would not have published it, because it would not have been understood.”

This article opened bridges and horizons for me to discuss where what we call “Hebrew prophecies” have reached... and how did they influence Western philosophy?

And the extent of its impact on colonialism, racism, etc.

I decided to make prophecy superior to the prophecies of the Old Testament, because prophecy is a symbol of everything that is perfect and beautiful in this life.

I thought that prophecy was superior to the prophecies of the Old Testament, because prophecy is a symbol of everything that is perfect and beautiful in this life.

I wrote a chapter in which I discussed (the Syrian thinker) Mutaa Safadi when he was publishing “Contemporary Thought” and he came to my house in Paris. He said, “This is the core of our interest.” He took two chapters and published the first manuscript entitled “An Introduction to Every Future Prophecy That Can Become Science.” It was in a rigid language, as I said, until... I thought about publishing it as an appendix in the second book, but I withdrew it due to the difficulty of its language.

This was the beginning of the idea of ​​prophecy, but when I went to America everything changed. I wondered about the fate of the indigenous people.

I had two questions in America: What is the fate of the Red Indians and why did what happen to them? The second question is why were they exterminated? What is the ideology that caused all this to them?

I had two questions in America: What is the fate of the Red Indians and why did what happen to them? The second question is why were they exterminated? What is the ideology that caused all this to them?

I began publishing articles in “Al-Karmel” magazine on this topic, and Darwish was what prompted me to write my first book, “America and Genocides,” and it was also published in an American magazine that is more like a yearbook called “Jousours.”

Darwish sent me the text of the sermon, and I obtained its French and English translations, read the original sermon by the Red Indian leader Chief Seattle, and made it an introduction to the issue.

In the Library of Congress, I discovered a book by (comparative religion researcher) Thomas Morton (1915-1968) entitled “New English Canaan.” He was one of the first settlers to go to America, but he differed from others and went to live with the Indians, and his book is an important testimony to the lives of the Indians.

• We return to the genocide in America, the racial, cultural and sexual genocides, as I called them, and the subject of the fate of the Red Indians.

In the Library of Congress, I discovered a book by (comparative religion researcher) Thomas Morton (1915-1968) entitled “New English Canaan.” He was one of the first settlers to go to America, but he differed from others and went to live with the Indians, and his book is an important testimony to the lives of the Indians.

Morton tells that even the Indian gardens and villages are better than the gardens and villages of London, and he talks about their torment with the settlers. The book attracted me a lot at the time, and an ancient history became clear to me from the time of the slave trader and Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (1451-1506). He himself used to say that he discovered treasures of gold. Solomon was in Latin America, and asked the King of Spain to allocate it to liberate Jerusalem. In his memoirs, he was very interested in Jerusalem and “liberating it.”

It struck me that all the colonists who went to the New World (Germans, French, and Spanish) were undoubtedly criminals, but the English were undoubtedly malicious and went with an ideology that they carried with them.

There were two of the first settlers, including (British politician and Puritan follower) William Bradford, who wrote a covenant on the ship on which they went. They imagined that it resembled the covenant of “Jehovah” to the Jewish people, and they went because they wanted what they called “the New Israel” in the New World.

There were two of the first settlers, including (British politician and Puritan follower) William Bradford, who wrote a covenant on the ship on which they went. They imagined that it resembled the covenant of “Jehovah” to the Jewish people, and they went because they wanted what they called “the New Israel” in the New World.

What is dangerous in this story is that this ideology established the idea of ​​“America,” which was the English translation at the time of the idea of ​​“mythical Israel,” and it relied on three elements: the occupation of someone else’s land, the replacement of a people with a people, and the replacement of culture with culture and history with history.

Each of these elements is annihilation on its own.

This ideology established the idea of ​​“America,” which was the English translation at the time of the idea of ​​“mythical Israel,” and it relied on three elements: the occupation of someone else’s land, the replacement of a people with a people, and the replacement of culture with culture and history with history.

Each of these elements is annihilation on its own.

I later traced this ideology to all stages of American history, until I reached the idea of ​​“civil religion,” which sociologist Robert Bella took from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in which he linked the ideology of the first colonists (the Puritans) to the reality of the civil religion existing in America, and concluded that it is true that we have a law, a constitution, a Congress, and a president. Republic and so on, but there must be a higher authority, which is “the Lord of the Old Testament,” which he considered to be the highest authority.

You find this ideology permeating the web of American life, including public life and the work of Congress. For example, “civil religion” holidays celebrate Thanksgiving more than Christmas. This is a scary thing that gives what I call “the Israeli meaning of America.”

That is why you find this ideology permeating the web of American life, including public life and the work of Congress. For example, the “civil religion” holidays celebrate Thanksgiving more than Christmas. This is a frightening thing that gives what I call “the Israeli meaning to America.”

This is what an important rabbi mentioned in a book about the history of Jews in America. He says that Americans are “more Jewish than us” because they “adopted all our ideas,” comparing “the Jews of the body, which is America, and the Jews of the spirit, which are us.” The penetration of Judaism into the web of American life is very frightening. .

The Old Testament and the idea of ​​genocide

•  What connection do you find between the idea of ​​annihilation and Old Testament prophecies?

I see that in the West, and in America, they did not find morals appropriate to colonialism in South Africa (Rhodesia) and genocides except in the Old Testament.

In the West, and in America, they did not find morals appropriate to colonialism in South Africa (Rhodesia) and genocides except in the Old Testament.

In the West, you feel alienated, and that it occupies our region in everything. As for America, it is not the images that Hollywood presents. There are people sleeping in the streets.

America is not just Hollywood and Beverly Hills, there is extreme poverty and homeless people.

There is a quote by former US President Gerald Ford that said, “To fight communism, that is difficult because it is spreading in poor areas, and instead of fighting it, let us fight the poor.”

There is a call to spread infertility in women’s homes in 13 countries, including Egypt and Turkey, and in a book by Obama’s scientific official, there is a call to place chips to control the birth of humanity.

I challenge any historian to say that America stopped war 400 years ago.

The White House policy is that “the cow that does not milk for us will be slaughtered,” and this is what they did to the Native Americans, who killed Native Americans who killed on our behalf.

There is a contemporary British philosopher, Richard Swinburne, who justifies the idea of ​​slaughter among the Jews and the idea of ​​prohibition based on slaughter and burning. This philosopher believes that the slaughter of a Palestinian at the hands of a Jew is a tribute to them, i.e. a tribute to the Palestinian.

There is a contemporary British philosopher, Richard Swinburne, who justifies the idea of ​​slaughter among the Jews and the idea of ​​prohibition based on slaughter and burning. This philosopher believes that the slaughter of a Palestinian at the hands of a Jew is a tribute to them, i.e. a tribute to the Palestinian.

The professor of philosophy at Oxford University believes that the Giver of life has the right to take it back, and he and all his people - the Jews - have the right to take back their lives. Therefore, there is no blame on the Israeli for killing the Palestinians, as he is acting based on an order from the Giver of Life.

These statements reflect a large current. There is another one that says that murderers have the right to kill, because this is to preserve the species. Likewise, there is another justification for Richard Swinburne, as he justifies killing on the basis of monotheism. By the way, the Jews in their history were not monotheists, so their monotheism is that God is for them alone. Without people.

It has absolutely nothing to do with monotheism, and I wrote a book in which I expose their claims that they are monotheists.

Kant, the German philosopher, said that Judaism has nothing to do with Christianity, and that it is a political project, and this is what inspired me with the idea of ​​ideological hallucination.

It is true that they say that they have Ten Commandments, but they have no moral intention and therefore these commandments have no meaning.

• Are we facing a genocide like the one witnessed by the Native Americans in America?

There are those who claim that I liken the Palestinians to the Red Indians, but this is not true. I believe that the criminals are similar and equal, but the two victims are different.

There are those who claim that I liken the Palestinians to the Red Indians, but this is not true. I believe that the criminals are similar and equal, but the two victims are different.

(Winona LaDuke) is an indigenous American woman who ran with Ralph Nader for the US presidential elections, and if he had succeeded, she would have been vice president. She says, “The genocide we have been subjected to is not specific to us. America looks at the world as it looks at us.”

What I want to say is that we have resistance and without it our future may be worse than that of the Native Americans.

We have resistance, and without it, our future may be worse than that of the Native Americans.

• Do you see similarities between what Israel is doing now and what America did in the campaign to ethnically cleanse the Native Americans?

Here we must return to Robert Bella, author of the book Civil Religion, who says that America must undertake the return of the Jews to their countries of origin. Not only that, but it must fight for that.

"civil religion"

• What exactly do you mean by "American civil debt"?

The "Palestinian state", which seems to have become the main concern of the American president, has a long history in the United States dating back more than two hundred years, specifically to the days of President George Washington.

In the days of Washington, the United States concluded with the Delaware Indians the “Fort Pitt” Treaty, whose sixth clause included a call and a clear commitment to establish an independent Indian state (to form a state) that would have the right to join the confederation of the 13 states, and would have representatives in Congress, as are the remaining states.

It is ironic that President Biden, who promises the Palestinians a state, is from the state of Delaware, which was supposed to be a state for the Delaware people who were wiped out by George Washington.

It is ironic that President Biden, who promises the Palestinians a state, is from the state of Delaware, which was supposed to be a state for the Delaware people who were wiped out by George Washington.

George Washington, who incited the Indians to sign this treaty and promised them an independent state, was the one who destroyed this state over their heads, and poisoned the Indian leader “White Eyes” who signed it in a way that reminds us of the Palestinian leader who died of poisoning after signing the Oslo Accords.

After 7 years, another treaty was concluded with the Cherokee Indians (1785 AD), which also included a call and a clear commitment to establishing an independent state and sending their representatives to Congress.

371 ratified treaties with Indians, not one of which was honored by the United States.

Most of them included similar texts about creating a state, respecting the boundaries, sovereignty and independence of this or that Indian people.

Authenticated American Treaty with the Native Americans (U.S. National Archives Catalog)

It is a significant irony that the only name proposed for this Indian state was “Indian Canaan”, which is the historical name of Palestine.

For more than 200 years, the Indians were chasing this carrot until they discovered that their dream was nothing more than a nightmare.

They eventually found themselves in slow death camps or another form of extermination that has been practiced on the Palestinian people in the name of the state for more than 30 years.

Among the forgeries in which the West participates is the personality of Jesus Christ, who was born in Bethlehem, but they show him as blond and with blue eyes, and the Virgin Mary is also shown as blond as if she were Madonna, the American singer.

• You consider that Christianity is a civil, Levantine-Palestinian phenomenon that was distorted by the barbaric kingdoms of Europe. Is there a distortion of Christianity in America and the West in general?

In America, 150 religious television channels are carrying out a forgery of Christianity in America, and among the forgery in which the West participates is the character of Jesus Christ, who was born in Bethlehem, but they show him as blond and with blue eyes, and the Virgin Mary is also shown as blond as if she were (Madonna). American singer.

What's more, he discovered a book in the Vatican about the trial of Christ, and how he was blond and skinny, resembling his mother.

There are people who have not been outside the United States, and all they know about Christianity is the Jewish side of it, and there is a complete break with the ideas of Jesus Christ.

There is a process of deception in art itself, for example, Judaism was born and appeared in the desert (Venetian art), for example when it depicts scenes from the Old Testament in which architectural monuments and alabaster columns appear, and when the child grows up he does not imagine that Israel was not in the desert. This deception is practiced by the channels over a 24-hour period.

There are people who have not been outside the United States, and all they know about Christianity is the Jewish side of it, and there is a complete break with the ideas of Jesus Christ.

Source: Al Jazeera