This article is in fact a chapter (The American Aurangzeb George W. Bush has initiated American decline) of my work of about 200 pages comprising prologue, Foreword and 13 chapters which I started after Western attack on Iraq in March 2003 and completed in October 2003: Labbaik Allahhumma Labbaik: What is Pakistan’s role when the Muslim world is confronting America and allied West including Israel in a struggle for the Final Solution’? It was partly (Prologue, Foreword and 7 chapters) published in Urdu in March 2004 in Pakistan. For presentation here as an independent article, the chapter has been accordingly updated. – Manzoor Ahmed Manzoor 23-04-2018, Lahore.
The background from which George W. Bush has emerged and the actions already undertaken by him amply indicate what software his head is loaded with. The phenomenon is not new. What is new is the state of our world today. He has already inflicted so much harm on the world and he may further derail all of us towards some catastrophic ends. Such is the American position in the world today that if the state power of that country goes to wrong hands, the world becomes like a hijacked plane. With George W. Bush as president, the power of the United States is definitely in wrong hands – not only for the rest of the world but for the American people as well.
I believe President Bush has initiated American decline, and if decline was already there, he has accelerated the process. Further, I believe, this process is no more reversible. I think, America has started entering the domain of “irrelevance” as far as good future of the world is concerned. It seems it will remain as obstruction for those who want to move forward unless something extraordinary happens there. But there are so many dangers in this situation – especially for the Muslim world. Can circumstances not develop or are made to develop that men of power decide to try what was not done before? What today is unimaginable can become tomorrow’s practicable proposition.
There is no doubt that 9/11 was done to create a new reality. In front of the whole world, what was unimaginable yesterday is becoming today’s “solution” because 9/11 unfettered the Zionist criminals. What came out of Israel recently (Sep 2003) is this:
Israel may choose to kill Yasser Arafat in its onslaught on “heads of terror”, Ehud Olmert, the deputy prime minister, said yesterday. He described Mr Arafat’s assassination as a possible way of implementing the security cabinet’s decision last Thursday to “remove” the Palestinian leader. “Killing him is definitely one of the options. We are trying to eliminate all the heads of terror and Arafat is one of the heads of terror,” he said. “In my eyes, from a moral point of view, this is no different from killing others who were involved in acts of terror. It’s only a practical question.” (The Telegraph, 15 Sep 2003)
The criminality of Zionists became limitless after 9/11. So much so that they were not ready to accept and work even with Arafat who had agreed to everything they wanted.
Shimon Peres said that beleaguered Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat fully deserves to be awarded the Nobel peace prize. The current Israeli government has deemed Arafat an absolute obstacle to peace and agreed in principle to remove the 74-yearold from his West Bank headquarters. But Mr. Peres said that Arafat should be given credit for offering an unprecedented hand of peace to Israel. “I believe it was right to give (Arafat) the Nobel peace prize because he did three things that no other Palestinian leader did,” Mr. Peres told a round- table discussion that featured three other Nobel laureates: He declared publicly that he recognized the state of Israel – no other Palestinian leader dared to do so publicly. Second, he said he would abandon terrorism, and third he agreed that peace would be based on the borders of 1967 and not 1948. (Sep 22 2003)
What had happened that they decided to attack the Muslim world on an unimaginable scale which was not possible for humanity to comprehend immediately? The whole world was stunned and speechless and then fell in line. How not to condemn the 9/11 ‘terrorist’ attacks. How not to stand with the aggrieved party? But at the same time, the men of wisdom all over the world knew that it was a fraud. Definitely something had happened. I believe there must have been fear and the resultant desperation which prompted Zionists to overkill.
If not meter by meter or centimeter by centimeter, at least millimeter by millimeter, but surely and definitely, the position of the Zionists from under their feet is getting eroded. This was the fear. Any person of even small foresight can see that all parameters of existence are in favor of the Palestinians. What is the solution with the Zionists of Palestinians’ never abandoning their claim to their land? And how Arabs, Muslims, the Enlightened West and all the good men and women of the world can refuse to support them and instead side with the Zionists? The earth cannot be made to rotate in the opposite direction. In short, civilization is in favor of the Palestinians. On the contrary, the Zionists want to kill Yasser Arafat even at this stage!
With nuclear weapons in American and Israeli hands, no Muslim people or nation should be out of their sphere of influence, they believe and act accordingly. How the Muslim world and humanity can be pushed into this situation indefinitely? George W. Bush and company have corrupted the earth so much that men of conscience all over the world have to stand up and fight back.
Aurangzeb: A comparable example in India
To understand the phenomenon of George W. Bush, Aurangzeb Alamgir (d. 1707), perhaps, may be of some help. A very prominent character of Indian history, he was 5th in succession to Babur, the founder of the Mughal rule in India in 1526. He is said to be the last “Great Mughal”. He got a working empire but left it ruined – mainly because of the software he had in his head. Had there been another Akbar (the third Mughal Emperor) in his place, one tends to think there would have been no British empire in India.
The greatest of Indian rulers, the Emperor Akbar, died in 1605. Third in the succession of his dynasty, he was first in his genius for government the true founder of the Indian Empire of the Great Mughals. He left a magnificent heritage to his descendants. He united under one firm government Hindus and Muhammadans, Shi’a and Sunnis, Rajputs and Afghans, and all the numerous races and tribes of Hindustan, in spite of the centrifugal tendencies of castes and creeds. In dealing with the formidable difficulties presented by the government of a peculiarly heterogeneous empire, he stands absolutely supreme. The proof of the soundness of his system
is the duration of his undiminished empire, until it was undone by the puritan reaction of his great-grandson Aurangzeb.
He was tolerant of all shades of religion and every tinge of nationality. To conciliate the prejudices of race, he employed native Hindus, Persian heretics, and orthodox Afghan and Mughal Sunnis impartially in the offices of state and in the army, and conferred equal honours upon each denomination.
For nearly a century Hindu and Persian nobles loyally served their common sovereign in war and in the civil government of the country. It broke down only when “religious intolerance” by Aurangzeb “sapped its strength.” After the death of Aurangzeb (1707), “the collapse of the empire came with a suddenness which at first sight may seem surprising.” But one who can look deeper “will be surprised that the empire lasted so long rather than because it collapsed suddenly.” One may ask, what after all had Aurangzeb done? Why in any analysis he is blamed the most? Why the verdict of history has gone against him?
What was Aurangzeb’s problem?
His problem was “ideology”. Aurangzeb strove “to attain the ideal of a strict Muslim ascetic
… He endeavoured to follow the Law and Traditions in every detail of his personal conduct and habits. He learned the whole Quran by heart after his accession, and was well versed in the works of theologians. He was careful to educate his children, including his daughters, in sacred lore. He abstained scrupulously from the slightest indulgence in any prohibited food or drink; and although well skilled in the theory of music, refused to enjoy the pleasure of that art from an early date in his reign. Every ritual prescription of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving was obeyed exactly, even at the risk of his life. He desired all judicial proceedings to be conducted in precise accordance with Muslim Law. He excluded Hindus from holding office so far as possible, cast down their temples, and harassed them by insulting regulations. He enforced the levy of the jizya, and in his latest years refused to allow the least relaxation of the collection of the tax, even for the purpose of securing supplies for his own camp. It is not to be wondered at that such conduct has won him the reverence of Muslims.”
Ideology at work
We are informed by a credible author that on 18 April 1669 the Emperor was shocked by the receipt of reports that in the provinces of Thathah, Multan and Benares, Brahmans dared to give public lectures on their scriptures which even attracted Muslim students from distant places. Such open propaganda of Hindu idolatry seemed to Aurangzeb a scandal.
One is simply amazed at this absolute abnormality when one learns that in the provinces – where Delhi and Agra, the seats of Mughal Empire were located – there were in 1931, per one hundred of population, 87 Hindus, 8 converted Muslims and only 5 Muslims of foreign origin. Going back to the time of Aurangzeb’s rule (1658-1707) the Muslims must have been even less and the Hindus more numerous. Therefore Aurangzeb’s policies were insulting to about 90 per cent of the population upon whose support, ultimately, the empire rested.
The ideology-driven people can be so blind! They cannot learn even simple facts themselves. To resist them has been and is the only option for the civilization. As with anybody, Aurangzeb’s “ideology” has overshadowed his other shortcomings as a ruler “His intense suspiciousness poisoned his whole life. He never trusted anybody, and consequently was ill
served. His cold, calculating temperament rarely permitted him to love others, and few indeed were the persons who loved him. His reliance on mere cunning as the principal instrument of statecraft testified to a certain smallness of mind, and, moreover, was ineffective in practice. His tricky cunning was mainly directed, first to winning, and then to keeping the throne.”
During Aurangzeb’s war with Rajputs, in 1681 his son Akbar went over to the enemy. “Aurangzeb had endeavoured to win back his son … and in the course of his argument exposed his real sentiments concerning his gallant Rajput subjects by describing them as ‘Satans in a human shape … beast-looking, beast-hearted, wicked Rajputs’.”
We can understand that the likes and dislikes, personal defects and prejudices of a person become part of his ideology. What after all the religion of Islam had to do with Aurangzeb’s remarks about Rajputs?
It is simply unbelievable! Aurangzeb’s spent his last 25 years fighting in Deccan and he never set foot in his capital again.
In 1681 Aurangzeb resolved to proceed to the Deccan in person, hoping that his presence might remove the danger threatening from (his rebellious son) Akbar’s presence, secure the long deferred conquest, and curb the growing insolence of the Marathas. The recent death of Sivaji seemed to offer a favourable opportunity.
But it happened otherwise: “With the conquest of Golkonda and Bijapur, Aurangzeb considered himself master of the Deccan. Yet the direct result of this destruction of the only powers that made for order and some sort of settled government in the peninsula was to strengthen the hands of the Marathas. The check exercised upon them by the two kingdoms” having been abolished, social organization broke down and anarchy reigned in its stead. The local officials and the bulk of the population of the two dissolved states swelled the power of the Marathas. But Aurangzeb “was not the man to look back.” After all he was a man of ideology. “He would make the conquered territories an integral part of his settled empire. With this aim he stayed on and on till a hope and will unquenchable in life were stilled in death.”
We constantly hear of marches during the height of the rain, the Emperor leading the way in his uncomplaining stoical fashion … the Marathas became increasingly objects of dread to the demoralized Mughal army; and the country, exasperated by the sufferings of a prolonged occupation by an alien and licentious soldiery, became more and more devoted to the cause of the Marathas, which they identified as their own. From about 1698, if not earlier Aurangzeb’s prolonged campaign may be described as a complete failure. Thus the too cunning old autocrat wasted the last twenty six years of his reign. The Deccan, from which he never returned, was the grave of his reputation as well as of his body.
The end of his life was approaching. “Failure stamped every effort of the final years. The Emperor’s long absence had given the rein to disorder in the north; the Rajputs were in open rebellion, the Jats had risen about Agra,” and the Sikhs began to make their presence felt in the Punjab. In the Deccan the scene was of pillaged towns, ravaged fields and smoking villages. The Mughal army was enfeebled and demoralized.
The finances were in hopeless condition, but Aurangzeb refused to be pestered about them. The Marathas became so bold that they plundered on the skirts of the Grand Army, and openly
scoffed at the Emperor, and no man dared leave the Mughal lines without a strong escort. There was even a talk of making terms with the insolent bandits. ‘Every plan that he formed came to little good; every enterprise failed,’ such is the comment of the Muhammadan historian on the career of the sovereign whom he justly extols for his devotion and austerity.’
At last, ‘slowly and with difficulty’, he marched back to Ahmadnagar, where he had encamped twenty-four years earlier, filled with hopes of conquest and glory. Now, when he nerved himself to sit in the hall of audience, he was, ‘very weak and death was clearly stamped upon his face’. The fever increased, but he still attended scrupulously to the prescribed times of prayer. On the morning of Friday, 21 February 1707, his weary spirit was released. “In accordance with his command, ‘carry this creature of dust to the nearest burial place, and lay him in the earth,’ he was buried simply near Daulatabad.”
George W. Bush
I believe Iraq would not have been occupied (1) if it was not a Muslim country or (2) if America was not a Christian country or (3) if Israel had not existed or (4) if there was no oil under Iraq’s soil or (5) if President George W. Bush was not a fundamentalist Christian – thus lacking intellectual capacity, like other fundamentalists, to understand the complexities of our world and thus susceptible to opinions which satisfy his prejudices and look to him doable. Therefore there is need to know about Bush’s being fundamentalist which he is hiding behind attractive slogans of democracy, liberty, civilization and so on.
Our own problems in South Asia, presently, are precisely the product of such minds of our region. Has not the time come to think of bringing changes in the way the business of politics is conducted that such people are unable to reach public offices where crucial decisions are made? Let us use Bush to understand more about human minds which can become dangerous for human civilization.
Bush and God
“George W. Bush rises ahead of the dawn most days,” wrote Howard Fineman (Newsweek March 10, 2003) and goes off to a quiet place to read alone … he’s told friends, it’s a book of evangelical mini-sermons, ‘My Utmost for His Highest’. The author is Oswald Chambers, and, under the circumstances, the historical echoes are loud. Chambers died in November 1917 as he was bringing the Gospel to Australian and New Zealand soldiers massed in Egypt. By Christmas they had helped to wrest Palestine from the Turks, and captured Jerusalem for the British Empire at the end of World War I.”
Would it be surprising to hear Bush saying in February 2003 to “religious broadcasters” that “the terrorists hate the fact that … we can worship Almighty God the way we see fit,” and that the United States was called to bring God’s gift of liberty to “every human being in the world?”
After his speech, Bush met privately with pastoral social workers and bore witness to his own faith in Jesus Christ. ‘I would not be president today,’ he said, ‘if I hadn’t stopped drinking 17 years ago. And I could only do that with the grace of God.’ The prospect of war with Iraq was ‘weighing heavily’ on him, he admitted. … But, the president said, America had to see that it was ‘encountering evil’ in the form of Saddam Hussein. The country had no choice but to confront it, by war if necessary. ‘If anyone can be at peace,’ Bush said, ‘I am at peace about this.’”
A few days earlier to that, he had declared at the National Prayer Breakfast that “behind all of life and all history there is a dedication and purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God.” If that’s so, America couldn’t fail.
Bush advisers know that many Americans – and much of the world – see him as a man blinded by his beliefs to the complexities of the world as it is. He makes a point of praising Islam as a ‘religion of peace’. But to many Muslims, especially Arabs, he looks sinister: a new Crusader, bent on retaking the East for Christendom. As a subaltern in his father’s 1988 campaign, George Bush the Younger assembled his career through contacts with ministers of the then emerging evangelical movement in political life. Now they form the core of the Republican Party, which controls all of the capital for the first time in a half-century. Bible-believing Christians are Bush’s strongest backers, and turning them out next year in even greater numbers is the top priority of the president’s political adviser Karl Rove.
Coaxed by a friend whose personal life had become hard due to financial difficulties George
W. Bush, already having family problems due to his heavy drinking joined the program called “Community Bible Study started in 1975 in the Washington, D.C., area. The CBS program was a turning point for the future president. He “was reading a book line by line with the rapt attention. And it was the Bible.”
Bush who had “turned to the Bible to save his marriage and his family knew the political landscape. He knew that, by 1985, the South had risen to take control of the GOP, and that evangelical activism and clout was rising with it. He also knew that his father’s way – moderation on cultural issues – was tough to sell, to say the least. Bush the Younger had experienced it first hand, in 1978, when he ran for Congress. When Bush moved to Washington in 1987 to help run his father’s campaign, he seized the main chance: to take over the job of being the ‘liaison’ to the religious right. He quickly saw that he could talk the talk as well as walk the walk. ‘George knew exactly what to say, what to do’. Bush and Rove built their joint careers on the new base. Faith and ambition became one, with Bush doing the talking and Rove doing the thinking on policy and spin.”
In 1993 – the year before he ran for governor – Bush caused a small tempest by telling a Jewish reporter that only believers in Jesus go to heaven. It was a theologically unremarkable statement. While the editorial writers huffed, Rove quietly expressed satisfaction. The story would help establish his client’s Bible-belt bona fides in rural Texas. The presidential campaign was Texas on a grander scale. As he prepared to run, in 1999, Bush assembled leading pastors at the governor’s mansion for a ‘laying-on of hands,’ and told them he’d been ‘called’ to seek higher office. In the GOP primaries, he outmaneuvered the field. ‘Bush talked about his faith and people just believed him – and believed in him.’
Delivering the ‘Good News’
Karen Yourish wrote in the Newsweek magazine (March 10, 2003):
“While past presidents have invoked the name of God in policy remarks, President Bush has done so, arguably, more than others – and has increasingly moved beyond broad statements on faith to include overt Christian references. An overview:
INAUGURAL ADDRESS, JAN. 21, 2001: ‘An angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.’
CONTEXT: The whirlwind symbolizes a medium for the voice of God in the Books of Job and Ezekiel.
SPEECH TO CONGRESS, SEPT. 20, 2001: ‘Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.’
WEST POINT COMMENCEMENT, JUNE 1, 2002: ‘We are in a conflict between good and evil and America will call evil by its name.’
CONTEXT: Bush’s references to ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ on the upswing since 9-11, imply the Biblical clash between Christ and Satan.
STATE OF THE UNION, JAN. 29, 2003: ‘The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.’
CONTEXT: This statement is not found in Scripture, but harks back to the writings of French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville. It raised a red flag for supporters of the separation of church and state.
9-11 REMEMBERENCE, SEPT. 11, 2002: ‘And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it.’
CONTEXT: A reference from the Book of John (appropriated from the Hebrew Scriptures) to the coming of Christ.
STATE OF THE UNION, JAN. 29, 2003: ‘There’s power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.’
CONTEXT: ‘Power, wonder-working power’ is a direct quote from one of the oldest evangelical gospel songs.”
Failure of Bush’s mom and dad?
The outcome of the childhood of George W. Bush – having high achiever father and “army drill sergeant” type mother – was “what psychologists call an authoritarian personality,” writes Psychologist Oliver James (Sept 2003) analyzing the behaviour of the American president. Having become authoritarian, “as the alcoholic George Bush approached his 40th birthday,” he thought, “he had achieved nothing he could call his own. He was all too aware that none of his educational and professional accomplishments would have occurred without his father. He felt so low that he did not care if he lived or died.” Bush’s mother Barbara had “added substantially to the pressure from his father to become a high achiever by creating a highly competitive family culture.” By the age of 40, normally, any normal person has already worked out his way through life and knows, rightly or wrongly, what is what. Where is George W. Bush at 40? With his tank full of authoritarianism, he thinks he is nowhere. So he has to do something and at this late stage the question of right or wrong can no more be relevant. “Not long afterwards, staring at his face in the mirror, this dangerously self-destructive man fell to his knees and implored God to help him and,” thus “became … a fundamentalist Christian.” And his “God” helped him so much that he became president of the most powerful nation of the world and, in less than two years, he became the conqueror of the Muslim world. Parents should become more caring in another way. It is more important that our world is safer today
than a day earlier than their son’s achieving high and consequently becoming the cause of our destruction.
Authoritarianism was identified shortly after the Second World War as part of research to discover the causes of fascism. As the name suggests, authoritarians impose the strictest possible discipline on themselves and others – the sort of regime found in today’s White House, where prayers precede daily business, appointments are scheduled in five-minute blocks, women’s skirts must be below the knee, and Bush rises at 5.45 am, invariably fitting in a 21- minute, three mile long jog before lunch.
Authoritarian personalities are organized around rabid hostility to ‘legitimate’ targets, often ones nominated by their parents’ prejudices. Intensely moralistic, they direct it towards despised social groups. As people, they avoid introspection or loving displays, preferring toughness and cynicism. They regard others with suspicion, attributing ulterior motives to the most innocent behaviour. They are liable to be superstitious. All these traits have been described in Bush many times, by friends and colleagues.
His moralism is all-encompassing and as passionate as can be. He plans to replace state welfare provision with faith-based charitable organizations that would impose Christian family values. Bush is anti-abortion. He says he loathes “people who felt guilty about their lot in life because others were suffering. He has always rejected any kind of introspection. Everyone who knows him well says how hard he is to get to know, that he lives behind what one friend calls a ‘facile, personable’ façade. Frum comments that, ‘He is relentlessly disciplined and very slow to trust. Even when his mouth seems to be smiling at you, you can feel his eyes watching you.’
His deepest beliefs amount to superstition, ‘Life takes its own turn,’ he says, ‘writes its own story and along the way we start to realize that we are not the author.’ God’s will, not his own, explains his life. Most fundamentalist Christians have authoritarian personalities. Two core beliefs separate fundamentalists from mere evangelists (‘happy-clappy’ Christians) or the mainstream Presbyterians among whom Bush first learned religion every Sunday with his parents: fundamentalists take the Bible absolutely literally as the word of God and believe that human history will come to an end in near future, preceded by a terrible, apocalyptic battle on earth between the forces of good and evil, which only the righteous shall survive.
According to Frum when Bush talks of an ‘axis of evil’ he is identifying his enemies as literally satanic, possessed by the devil. Whether he specifically sees the battle with Iraq and other ‘evil’ nations as being part of the end-time, the apocalypse preceding the Day of Judgment, is not known. Nor is it known whether Tony Blair shares these particular religious ideas. However, it is certain that however much Bush may sometime seem like a buffoon, he is also powered by massive, suppressed anger towards anyone who challenges the extreme, fanatical beliefs shared by him and a significant slice of his citizens – in surveys, half of them also agree with the statement ‘the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word’. Bush’s deep hatred, as well as love, for both his parents explains how he became a reckless rebel with a death wish. He hated his father for putting his whole life in the shade and for emotionally blackmailing him. He hated his mother for physically and mentally badgering him to fulfill her wishes. But the hatred also explains his radical transformation into an authoritarian fundamentalist. By totally identifying with an extreme version of their strict, religion-fuelled beliefs, he jailed his rebellious self. From now on, his unconscious hatred for them was channeled into a fanatical moral crusade to rid the world of evil. As Frum put it: ‘Bush is a man of fierce anger.’ That anger now rules the world.
As Professor Martin E. Marty commented (Newsweek March 10, 03), “The problem,” is with “his evident conviction that he’s doing God’s will.” So Bush’s anger is “God’s will”. Wake up Americans! Has not this happened through democracy? Humanity is yet far behind from having become able to create a civilized world.
Democracy can be manipulated. It needs new safeguards. Bush, Aurangzeb and the like destroy what humanity builds. What Aurangzeb did to the people of India – the Hindus – President George W. Bush, in another setting of history has done to the Muslim world. Aurangzeb took a decisive wrong turn against Hindus, George W. Bush did the same against Muslims. Aurangzeb insulted Hindus in India, Bush has insulted Muslims all over the world.
The billion humans in the Muslim world, leaders and followers alike, had reasons to seethe when the evangelist who prayed at Bush’s inauguration – and who remains close to the president – persisted in calling Islam “a very evil and wicked religion. … Regular appearances by the president at meetings of certain evangelical groups make it hard … not to hear the word ‘Islam’ whenever Bush portrays ‘terrorists’ as absolute evil. (Newsweek, March 10, 03)
Aurangzeb has been pushed and Bush will be pushed into the dustbin of history. There are lessons for those who want to learn: “The sternest critic of the character and deeds of Aurangzeb can hardly refuse to recognize the pathos of lamentations or to feel some sympathy for the old man on his lonely death-bed.” Such comments can come only from those who understand civilization, who represent civilization. They know that even criminals and wrong- doers are ultimately part of us, and that we have to build civilization in spite of them. ■