the power of nightmares

i had chanced upon a spectacular bbc documentary, which gave a thorough analysis and a stunning expose of the present times. i however lack the vocabulary to describe this to the fullest so please bear with me.

nation and religion stand to be the only two reasons that are known to cause demarcation amongst people. yet, it is religion ( read : moral stand / morality) that assumes a bigger picture and dictates our lives, because we want to go to heaven. we all believe in freedom, but it is the very definition of freedom that is so distorted.

we go around doing deeds with a notion of doing good. but even this notion of doing good is very askewed. take for example a liberal society. you can do anything you please. to a conservationist this is a nightmare. he construes this as a society with flimsy morals and selfish interests. with people like him in power, they will ensure that people "cleanse" themselves. they believe that they are doing with "good" intentions and they techniques that they use to materialize their intentions are very questionable if not preposterous . they have nightmares of the society gone awry and hence use their power to weed out their nightmares.

this is exactly what u.s.a. and islam went through. i have deliberately used islam because sadly it has been now misconstrued as a religion of hatred and violence rather than peace. the nature of the present situation today can be cornered down to 2 individuals. one leo strauss and the other sayid qutb.

leo strauss was an american professor who postulated that liberalism is a cancer for the state, which affects people in the long run. sayid qutb, an egyptian sent to america to study the system and implement it back in egpyt, too held the same views. he believed that such liberalism gave way to loose morals and this he attributed as the quality of not being a muslim and stated that he didnt deserve to live any more. it is funny how he distorted religion and the right to take life.

their motive was to create a sense of fear and insecurity amongst the fellow men and in that hour of "darkness" they would look to their all-mighty God and thereby putting an end to the flimsy morals (egypt then was imitating the west).

disciples of leo strauss came into power and did the damage in the u.s. they were paul wolfowitz, donald rumsfeld to name a few. i will leave the whole description aside and will only say that, they were the ones responsible for cold wars, al - qaida etc.

sayid qutb also started working towards an organization to achieve the same. sadly he used violence to prove his point. he was executed but the seeds he had sown, began to sprout into saplings and one such sapling was aymaan al zawahiri. convinced of sayid qutb's beliefs, he worked steadfastly towards materializing it. he is a very educated man. and he is now the left hand man of 0sama. violence is never a key to prove a point.

i have painted a very nebulous picture of the situation today as an off-shoot of their beliefs. but little thinking will give you the exact picture i was trying paint all the while.

so what have we got here? a bevy of paranoia ridden people in power, trying to allay the unfound fears of masses by introducing their paranoia to them and swearing to stand by them and fend off the non-existing axis of evil. a new political propoganda? no comments, but if it is, seems like it worked out all to well.

and the funny part is we elected these leaders who will take us into the glorious future that awaits us.

cheers
kyos

p.s.: all the information was taken from the documentary