In the show Freedom Boulevard a conversation with the professor of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Latvia, Leon Gabriela Taivan, about the war in Israel, the threat of global terrorism, the change in the world order and future scenarios.
The attack on Israel by the Palestinian terrorist group “Hamas” caused an avalanche effect in world processes, which raises a series of questions both about the history of violence in the region and how to deal with it. Can and in what sense what is happening open a new page of history not only in the history of the region, but also in the history of the world as a whole? And what is happening in the Middle East has to do with other world processes – the war in Ukraine or Putin’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. What is the possible future of the world we are witnessing now?
“I think that we will soon have to talk about a completely different Europe and a different world.
We can already believe that maybe there won’t be a big war, but there will be several regional wars, which in the memory of historians will eventually turn into one such war. After such great wars, the situation and the layout of the world is different,
and I think that the system we live in today will no longer be the same,” analyzes Leon Taiwan, when asked how the war in Israel can change the situation in Europe.
“In this regard, I think that Europe will change very profoundly. It should also be understood that, for example, today there are no shortage of reports about the fact that more and more anti-Semitic posters and inscriptions are appearing on the walls, anti-Semitism is starting to grow in Europe, and this once again shows that that the prospects of the Jews are not very bright and they have no choice but to try with all their might to keep their state of Israel in the Middle East and resist,” continues Leon Taiwan. “It looks like the United States will be an ally, although historically it hasn’t always been, and that will change the picture. But in Europe, the situation could be very different because the one-fifth of the population who are Muslim in France, for example sympathize directly or indirectly with Palestine, sympathize with the Middle East region, sympathize with the collective south. The United States is also in a very bad situation.”
In your book “Middle Eastern Civilization: Arab Islam and the Caliphate”, you refer to the Orientalist Bernard Louis, who also spoke about the clash of civilizations and defended the thesis that Islamic terrorism is not rooted in theology or Muslim jurisprudence. But you write in the introduction to the same book that you only partially agree with this view because “violence is an integral part of Islamic civilization.” Can we apply this thesis of yours to what is happening now?
Leon Taiwan: Two religions – Islam and Judaism – are built on different principles, on opposite principles. Yes, it is often said that the Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures, that there are bloody pages. (..) The Old Testament, as we call it in Christianity, is a collection of various literary works, of which the truly sacred part, the holy part, are the five books of Moses. Relatively small. The rest is history. There is a part of the prophet and there is an account of history, and in that account of history, of course, it is told purely historically about the wars of the Israelites, about the wars against what is called in science, the people of ancient Syria, where human sacrifice was practiced, and the Israelites could not tolerate it, so they states were destroyed. But this part of history is not, strictly speaking, Scripture. The Scriptures are the law of Moses, and that is where he ends. But the other texts are various historical texts.
In Islam, in the history of Islam, violence and also hateful surahs directed against Jews, against Christians are an integral part of the Holy Scriptures. The history of Judaism is not comparable to the history of Islam. Because the history of Islam, starting with Muhammad himself, is extremely ugly violence. Muhammad himself sits and watches as all the men of the Jewish tribe that he does not like who live in Medina are killed. He himself is a warrior, he himself sheds the blood of men. This type of activity is not worthy of prophets in either Judaism or Christianity.
But a prophet or the founder of a religion is that person who is followed in deeds especially by such religious people. Follows the work, does the same, considers it a worthy occupation. Unfortunately, this feature is present in Islam, and those who want to be good Muslims, even in words, will definitely support violence. Unfortunately, they also have their own social dimension, the repetition syndrome.
Leons Gabriels Taivāns is a professor at the University of Latvia, researcher of religions, head of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Born in the family of a Lutheran pastor, he graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the Institute of Oriental Languages of Moscow State University, where he learned the Indonesian language. He currently works at the Department of Asian Studies of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Latvia. Worked in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Singapore, Jordan, Philippines and Russia. He was a scientist at the Eastern Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR for 17 years. In 1969, he was recruited by the State Security Committee in Moscow, about which he spoke publicly in the early 1990s. Leon Taivāns is also one of the founders of the Latvian Occupation Museum, the author of many monographs, textbooks and articles.
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2023-10-24 17:47:08
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