Christian faith, Shia Islam and Nazi Fascism share one common in their roots: All three ideologies or religions are based on the myth that their founder (or at least one of their earliest believers) were killed by the enemy. Hence, all three seek for supporters who are willing to take revenge by assasinating as many as possible of the branded enemies. Orthodox christians still claim today that Jesus was killed by the Jews, and this was used as justification for pogroms against the jewish minority over centuries. For the german nazis, the death of Horst Wessel, a pimp who recruited SA thugs in gang fight and who was shot by a communists in a privat dispute was their big founding mythology. They used this story, after adding a completely made-up political component to it, to arrest, torture and kill hundred thousands of communists in the death camps auf Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Bergen-Belsen. The third ideology in this group, Shia Islam is based on the mythology that Hussein ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad and funder of their faith lost his life in a military battle against the Umayyad Caliphs in Kufa. According to Shia faith, Hussein died as a martyr. During the annual Ashura the shiits mourning Hussein by torturing themself, whipping iron chains over their back and riping the skin of their breast and head until blood spreads all around. The violence, however, is not restricted to themself: Foreigners or any non-Shia believers are recommended to stay away from the Ashura procession, since attacks against such “Kufr” (or non-believers) are considered a normal emotional outburst of Shia islamic faith. It is also not surprising, that during the late-November 2011 attacks against the British embassy in Tehran the thugs shouted slogangs condeming all enemies of Shia islam and praising the memory of Hussein.
In all three cases, Christian faith, Nazi Fascism and Shia Islam, the believers are convinced that the death of one of their legendary funders, either killed in a military battle, sentenced to death by a court or shot dead in a gang fight, was a loss so sever that a virtually unlimitted number of the “enemies” has to be killed in revenge. Hence, an ever-lasting physical aggression against the Kafrs, the pagans, heretics or the political opponents is the conditio-sine-qua-non of religions and political ideologies who are based on a martyr founding myth.
This does not exclude other faiths or ideologies to behave aggressive from time to time. But as a natural self-protection there is always a tendency to settle an aggression. For sure, Israel is not a pacifist nation, nobody will honoustly claim that in the long-lasting tension between the jewish nation and its arab neighbours the israel army acts like a peace keeper. The difference between the jewish religion and Shia Islam or medieval Christianity is that the thora clearly says “Eye by eye, tooth by tooth” (עין תּחת עין : ajin tachat ajin). It warns everybody to continue an aggression, after a criminal act has been settled by an appropriate punishment. Even the Mafia, notorious for aggresive acts of revenge against its enemies, has a certain ethic by finishing a dispute ones the “law of crime and punishment” has been settled. As compared to ideologies that are based on the mythology of an eternal burden of sin (Jews are still considered by the catholic church as murders of Jesus and should be stung with remorse), the concept of Nemesis in greek philosophy was revolutionary by stating that when an offender was righteously punished, its crime should be considered as settled and no further aggression against himself, his family, his nation or religion is justified.
Neither Shia Islam nor Nazi ideology or Christian religion have this concept of nemesis. Aggression against all Kafr is immanent at Ashura feast. And how indifferent right-wing and nazi-supporters are in killing innocent people whom they consider un-worthy became obvious not only after the Norwegian Breivik mass-murder, but nowadays in Germany when the systematic assasination of foreigners by a self-declared “national-socialistic underground” organisation is revealed.
And christian religion ? Sure, they more or less successfully try now to hide the historical importance of their own martyre mythology. Now they like to make people believe that christianity was always synonymous with tolerance and pacifism. But in fact, for at least 17hundred of their highly praises 2000 years history, christianity reproduced the idea of Jesus being the victim of the evil Jews as a strong argument to gather their supporters and promote the worst crimes during the crusades.
Absolutely brilliant!! I never thought about the concept of nemesis, so this is a new aspect for me to bring into my own political arguments. Well done!
Very interesting article. I do think there are many similarities between Christianity and Islam. However, the Jewish concept of ‘an eye for an eye’ is misunderstood by both Christians and Muslims. It a law pertaining to Jews and between Jews, and it’s not about revenge. Jews are not allowed to take revenge against each other, as Moses’ Torah, in Leviticus 19 says, “Do not take revenge”. The Talmud gives an example of revenge as follows: “Taking revenge is when you ask someone, “Lend me your sickle,” and he says no. The next day he comes to you and asks you “Lend me your hatchet.” You respond, “I am not lending to you, just like you did not lend to me.” Maimonides writes about revenge in his code of Jewish law:
Taking revenge is an extremely bad trait. A person should be accustomed to rise above his feelings about all worldly matters; for those who understand [the deeper purpose of the world] consider all these matters as vanity and emptiness, which are not worth seeking revenge for.”
Rather, Maimonides continues, if someone who has wronged you comes to ask a favor, you should respond “with a complete heart.” As King David says in the Psalms, “Have I repaid those who have done evil to me? Behold, I have rescued those who hated me without cause”(7:5).
In addition, Jewish law forbids us to bear a grudge. Thus, the Talmud explains, you may not even say to the person who wronged you that you will act rightly, even though he or she did not.
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi in his code of Jewish law concludes that, “one should erase any feelings of revenge from one’s heart and never remind oneself of it.”
The 13th-century Talmudist, Rabbi Aharon HaLevi of Barcelona, explains:
One of the roots of this commandment is that a person should know in his heart that all that happens to him, whether good or bad, is because it is G‑d’s will that it happen to him… It was G‑d who wished this to happen, and one should not consider taking revenge from the other person, because the other person is not the reason for what happened.5
(Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains in his Tanya that while the person wronged needs to forgive, the person who did the action is still held accountable, for “G‑d has many agents” through whom He can act.6)
The verse prohibiting revenge ends with the famous maxim, “You should love your fellow as yourself.” Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, “Nachmanides,” explains that erasing the event from your heart will guarantee that you will never come to transgress the commandment, allowing you to love your fellow, no matter what transpires between the two of you.
The Jewish law of an eye for an eye is actually about monetary compensation. Nothing more. Judaism of course is distinguished from Christianity and Islam in many ways, not least that Jews are not meant to proselytise and should be careful about accepting converts. The rest of mankind need only follow the laws of Adam/Noah and to live righteously.
Not all Christians feel this way, so you need to get your facts straight instead of lumping us all into one big erroneous heap. I am a Christian and I will STAND with Israel!
In case you didn’t know, and it’s very obvious that you don’t, More-ham-ed wrote the Koran by copying the Old Testament and parts of the Jewish Tanakh and added his twist to it and voila, the Koran. What you don’t get is that the Old testament is the OLD LAW. When Jesus Christ died on the Cross for our Sins, the New Testament became the NEW LAW. When Christ died and conquered Death, all was New and Changed from that point on. Maybe you should do some studying of that before making an arse of yourself,eh.
Dear Danuta, I agree with 100% of what you say. If my original post suggests something different, I have to go to it and maybe eliminate any misunderstanding. Your judgement about Israel, I could have not better describe it.
What I said about Christian religion and revenge was of course mainly refering to hostility against other faithes in the middle age, like hostiliy against the European Jews during the crusades and during Spanish reconquista. The argument that “The Jews” killed Jesus Christ was too often exploited to justify these acts of violence. But modern Christianity, of course plays a intergrative and tolerant role in terms of inter-religious relationships.
best regards, Michael
I totally agree. If you look at the political situation in the Middle East, often shia governments are a synonymous of fascism, mass murder, deportations… just look at the situation in Syria, where civilians are executed on the spot and they often flee from ruthless bombardments, often carried on in densely populated areas, and also the humanitarian organizations are targeted, and equated to terrorist groups. This is happening in Syria, where the shia government and their christian allies (Russia) is mercilessly bombarding and abusing civilians in all ways, but it’s the same thing that happened in Iraq, where the christians (USA) invaded and were mainly supported by the shia population. After the invasion Iraq was literally turned into an Iranian proxy, and the Americans totally cooperate on the ground with forces such as Hashd al Shaab (the Iraqi branch of Hezbollah), demonstrating their fascist nature.
In Yemen it was the same thing all over again, where the dictator Saleh stipulated an agreement with Houthis, a pro-Iranian militia, and terorrized the country, kidnapping and shooting protesters alive. It’s always the same thing all over again. Christians mainly support Assad, Hezbollah and the Russian invasion of Syria, and they would be happy to see also UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and many other countries bombed and turned into another Syria.