2008 will mark yet another year of religious fervor running amok. Here are some of the lowlights of murderous rampages in the name of God, Jevohah, Rama and Allah and the year isn’t even over yet. Nor is this list complete. In India alone, there were outbreaks of religious violence in Kashmir, Karnataka, Jaipur, Hyderbad, Orissa, Assam, Bangalore and New Delhi.
Mumbai
That Pakistan is but one large madrassa of jihadism is now clearly evident in the wake of the attacks by elements tied to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri Islamic militant group. The death toll as of today stands at 195.
Orissa
Communal violence erupted in Kandhamal in the Indian state of Orissa after Swami Laxmananda Saraswati, a central advisory committee member of the Vishwa Hindu Parisad (VHP), and four others were shot dead by unidentified gunmen at his Jalespata Ashram on August 23, 2008. Initially, Indian authorities suspect a Maoist rebel group killed the Swami and his entourage. In fact, Indian Maoists later claimed responsibility for killing Swami Laxmananda Saraswati, saying he was forcing tribal people to convert to Hinduism. However, Hindu groups blamed Christians for the murder and went on a murderous rampage. In the month that followed, over a score were killed with 241 villages burnt to ground and thousands left homeless, all in the name of Rama.
Assam, India
In India’s northeastern Assam state, 50 people were killed in clashes between Muslim migrants and tribal groups in October of this year. As communal tension between Bengali Muslims and non-Muslims spread across villages of Assam’s Darrang and Udalguri districts, the Indian government’s effort was grossly inadequate. The Bodo villagers — armed with bows and arrows — were left without any protection.
“They came in lakhs and attacked. No one helped us. The Congress government wants this vote bank, they think without Muslims they will not win. So they are helping them,” one of the villagers said.
It’s the first day of Durga Puja but a Puja Pandal has been turned into a relief camp due to violence. There’s very little relief and people are traumatised.
“We, the indigenous people, are being victimised by others but the district administration is helping them. They invade us and attack us,” said Pradip Malakar, a teacher.
Mindanao, The Philippines
In the southern Philippines, fighting between religious militias has left at least 100 dead in August and September. An attempt by the government to ease tensions by allowing the dominant Muslims to enforce Sharia law has only resulted in more violence. It’s likely not well known among Americans but the US now has several hundred troops in the region as part of the global war on terror.
Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria
Religious riots are now consuming northern Nigeria with Churches and Mosques being burnt to the ground. Were the damage limited to infrastructure that would be one thing but it’s not. Over 300 have died over the past two days in the worst outbreak of religious violence in Nigeria in four years. From the New York Times:
Mobs burned homes, churches and mosques Saturday in a second day of riots, as the death toll rose to more than 300 in the worst sectarian violence in Africa’s most populous nation in years.
Sheikh Khalid Abubakar, the imam at the city’s main mosque, said more than 300 dead bodies were brought there on Saturday alone and 183 could be seen laying near the building waiting to be interred.
Those killed in the Christian community would not likely be taken to the city mosque, raising the possibility that the total death toll could be much higher. The city morgue wasn’t immediately accessible Saturday.
Police spokesman Bala Kassim said there were ”many dead,” but couldn’t cite a firm number.
The hostilities mark the worst clashes in the restive West African nation since 2004, when as many as 700 people died in Plateau State during Christian-Muslim clashes.
Jos, the capital of Plateau State, has a long history of community violence that has made it difficult to organize voting. Rioting in September 2001 killed more than 1,000 people.
The city is situated in Nigeria’s ”middle belt,” where members of hundreds of ethnic groups commingle in a band of fertile and hotly contested land separating the Muslim north from the predominantly Christian south.
Authorities imposed an around-the-clock curfew in the hardest-hit areas of the central Nigerian city, where traditionally pastoralist Hausa Muslims live in tense, close quarters with Christians from other ethnic groups.
The fighting began as clashes between supporters of the region’s two main political parties following the first local election in the town of Jos in more than a decade. But the violence expanded along ethnic and religious fault lines, with Hausas and members of Christian ethnic groups doing battle.
Angry mobs gathered Thursday in Jos after electoral workers failed to publicly post results in ballot collation centers, prompting many onlookers to assume the vote was the latest in a long line of fraudulent Nigerian elections.
Riots flared Friday morning and at least 15 people were killed. Local ethnic and religious leaders made radio appeals for calm on Saturday, and streets were mostly empty by early afternoon. Troops were given orders to shoot rioters on sight.
The violence is the worst since the May 2007 inauguration of President Umaru Yar’Adua, who came to power in a vote that international observers dismissed as not credible.
Few Nigerian elections have been deemed free and fair since independence from Britain in 1960, and military takeovers have periodically interrupted civilian rule.
More than 10,000 Nigerians have died in sectarian violence since civilian leaders took over from a former military junta in 1999. Political strife over local issues is common in Nigeria, where government offices control massive budgets stemming from the country’s oil industry.
Beyond these there were outbreaks of religious intolerance in Somalia, Djibouti, Sri Lanka, the Sudan, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iraq, Burma, Iran, China, Thailand, France, Germany, Italy, and Austria. There were high profile honor killings in Hamburg and Atlanta not to mention an estimated 5,000 honor killings in Pakistan alone. The insanity will doubtlessly continue unabated in 2009. How do I get off this planet of the delusional and the mad on behalf of a God that does not exist?