Pugnacious In The Punjab

Seán Moran considers holy war in Lahore.

My photograph is genuine. The words on the boy’s back are real, and the cannon, outside a fort in Pakistan, is authentic. It dates from the Eighteenth Century and is embossed with the symbol ‘G3R’: ‘King George III’. He’s the mad king whose behaviour eventually led to the second amendment of the American Constitution – the right to bear arms – in case his troops should reappear with cannons and muskets. (I oversimplify a little here). What drew me to the scene was the incongruity of a peaceful religious motto next to a weapon of war.

Pakistan has certainly had its share of violence, and we hear much about Islamist aggression in the world at large, which the belligerents excuse by talk of historical injustices. Some people polarise the world into ‘Crusaders’ and ‘Jihadists’; but we can make few valid generalisations about 2.3 billion Christians or 1.8 billion Muslims. It claims too much if a small number of outliers are allowed to define the whole category. Unfortunately, many non-Muslims flinch when they hear the phrase “Allahu Akbar!” –“God is the greatest!” – because on the television news the shouted slogan is typically followed by a bang.

Religion has been behind certain conflicts. But it can also be a useful cover story to justify the unjustifiable, with no genuine link to faith. The troubles in Northern Ireland – now largely resolved, happily – were not a theological dispute. Religion can be like patriotism: the last refuge of a scoundrel. Yet some of the finest people have faith too. And a number of the most genocidal leaders in history felt no need to invoke God as an excuse for their crimes against humanity. Stalin in the Soviet Union, Mao in China, and Pol Pot in Cambodia, were all atheists; and self-worshipping Kim Jong-Un waits in the wings in North Korea.