| |
Rudolf Siebert
The Global Harmony Association Honorary Advisory Committee Member
The Global Harmony Association highest Honorary Title: World Harmony Creator
Ph.D., Professor of Religion and Society in the Department of Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
http://www.rudolfjsiebert.org/ Professor Siebert’s Brief biography: Rudolf Siebert was born in Frankfurt a.M., Germany, on October 1. 1927. He participated in the resistance of the Catholic youth movement against the fascist regime in Germany. He studied history, philology, philosophy, psychology, sociology and theology at the University of Frankfurt, the University of Mainz, the University of Münster and the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. He has taught, lectured, and published widely in Western and Eastern Europe, United States, Canada, Near East and Asia. He is Professor of Religion and Society, and Director of the Center for Humanistic Future Studies at Western Michigan University, and Director of the international course on the “Future of Religion” in Dubrovnik. Croatia, and Director of the international course on “Religion in Civil Society” in Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine. Detailed biography: http://www.rudolfjsiebert.org/bio_story.htm ------------------------------------- November 2007 Saint Petersburg- Yalta Report By Rudolf J. Siebert
We have returned from our trip through Russia and the Ukraine. My graduate student in our WMU Sociology Department and Russian interpreter, Katya Vasetsky-Chamberlin and I started from Detroit late on November 3, 2007. Her husband Steve Chamberlin took us to the Detroit airport in my car. on the way we had a small explosion in the air conditioner. But we fixed it.
Katya and I flew in a Luft - Hansa airbus to Frankfurt a. M..The Luft - Hansahad from its very beginning the best weather service, which was even the envy of the German airforce.Thus our flight to Frankfurt was rathersmooth and without too many disturbances. Unfortunately, there was not enough time to visit my family in Frankfurt. We may do that in April on the way to Dubrovnik, Croatia, and our international course on The Future of Religion. in the IUC from April 28 - May 3, 2008.Thus Katya and I flew right away on to Saint Petersburg in Russia also in a Luft - Hansa airbus. The Luft-Hansa is everywhere! We flew up the Baltic Sea to the highest peak of the Gulf of Finland across Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. We left Novgorod to the east, where the Crusaders had attacked after they had searched for the empty grave in Jerusalem, and had killed many Arabs and Jews on the way, and had a established a kingdom, and finally had been beaten in the devastated Holy Land, through being cut off from the Sea of Galilee and dehydrated in the dessert, by Saladin. Now they were drowned in the lakes near Novgorod by Alexander, after they had devastated all the villages and towns along the road, as Napoleon and Hitler would do later on.It would definitely have been better for the Crusaders, if they had stayed at home peacefully. Maybe thus they could have avoided the later heresy trial through the Holy Inquisition, because of a suspected relapse into Zoroarstrianism, or more specifically Mithraism, and their later annihilation. But I think there are two or three knights still left in the Deutsch-Herren -Orden Monastery in Frankfurt. I had so far made it only to Rostock, Denmark, and Sweden, There was already snow on the ground everywhere in the Baltic states. Our plane had to be deiced. Hitler flew the same way in 1944 to visit General Mannerheim near Helsinki, to get him into the war against Russia. He failed. But there is a tape left about the whole episode, which has just surfaced. When we approached Saint Petersburg, where the lights were on already, I remembered that the German Northern Army had beleaguered the city for several years, and that thousands of citizens had been killed by the new Crusaders against Bolshevist atheism through artillery shelling and stuka attacks, and mostly through a terrible starvation, until a road opened up across the frozen Lake Ladoga and food could be brought in at night. All the German army reports came back to me about the surrounding battles of Tallinn, Narva, Tartu, Pecov, Velikie Luki, and of course Novgorod. The brave city Leningrad never fell, as Novgorod had never fallen,
Katya's Uncle and Aunt picked us up from the Saint Petersburg airport and drove us to my Hotel Aster. Russia is becoming prosperous under Putin as it curbs in wild capitalism. Uncle and Aunt were retired after a good life with much hard work. They were tremendously happy to see Katya, and me too, of course. Russians are friendly and warm-hearted people, and when they love somebody they really mean it – as long as they are not attacked. Uncle and Aunt were to young, to have remembered the Great Patriotic War and the German attack against Leningrad from their own personal experience.
Next day, Katya's good Uncle gave us a ride in his car through the great city of Saint Petersburg, formerly Leningrad. I took many pictures.Saint Petersburg is a mixture of Amsterdam and Paris. It is a wonderful city. Unfortunately, we drove into a one-way street and were caught by the police, and had to pay for a ticket. I also lost my camera in the excitement. .Katya thinks, the camera may have disappeared during the airport searches. We shall never know. Whoever has it, may enjoy the wonerful pictures I had taken.
We saw the Winter Palace, where Lenin started his revolution in the night from October 24-25, 1917, after Alexander Kerenskij February revolution had failed. Lenin's huge statues are still standing everywhere waiting for the next revolution, after the third counter-revolution of 1989 has exhausted itself. There are still many names of places streets,and metyrostations, which remember theOctober Revolution: the Place of the Revolution, the Place of Iljitsch, Lenin-Allee ,Proletarskaja, Komsomolskaja, Marxistskaja,tc At the Winter Palace Lenin declared all the feudal and bourgeois buildings to be the property of the people, who had built them after all. Then, of course, came the horrible peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which the Germans dictated, and which then was revenged by the so called Versaille Dictate, which had much to do not only with World War I, but also, and much more so, with World War II. Hitler’s war was a war of retaliation against the West, Jus Talionis, and of colonial thievery and robbery toward the East. The V in the V I and the V II - which devastated London, and which were produced by Porsche with Hungarian –Jewish slave labor from the Concentration Camp of Auschwitzbythe same Porsche, who was the friend of Hitler and of Henry Ford, and who was the inventer of the Volkswagen and of always new types of tanks for the Eastern Front up to the impossible Mouse, and who was a technical genius without sense for the difference between good and evil - stood for the English word vengence. How triumphantly Hitler had danced around the railroad car in the forest of Compieign: according to Wagner’s Rienzi, the Medieval people’s tribune, whom he had seen 40 times in the opera houses of Vienna and elsewhere, and whom he tried to imitate in the modern political and historical reality. It could not go well! Then came still all the victories on the Balkan and in Russia. But then came the final catastrophes of Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin. Sometimes world history is indeed world-judgment! Thus, Hitler said to his secretaries in his last hours in the Berlin Führer Bunker: Fate wanted it that way!!! However, when we went through the Frankfurt airport, the native Frankfurters, who assisted us very nicely, spoke still lovingly of their Adolf, and remembered still in detail the flak artillery 10.5 and the Me 109, which had tried to defend the city in vain against the British and American so called saturation - and terror -bombers, who destroyed 80 percent of it.But the Frankfurt natives, who still speak the dialect, and can, still remember Adolf, become fewer and fewer, and the so-called foreigners become more and more. Most of the taxis outside the Frankfurt airport are driven by Pakistanis, and Iranians, and most of all by Turks, who have done this work for 30 or more years, and who speak German well, and their children even better. They are all Muslims and do not believe that September 11,2001 was the work of Muslims, but rather of the CIA. The Turks are longing for a Turkish Chancellor in Berlin. once the so called foreigners came to the rich German Federal Republic from the Near East and from Eastern Europe, having been attracted by powerful German capital, and now with massive outsourcing of jobs to Africa, India, or China, and a consequently shrinking labor market, have become a burden and a social and political problem. Even many still religious Frankfurters have forgotten the Abrahamic community and solidarity, and the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule, and have moved to the Right, and want the Islamic foreigners to go home. The Frankfurt natives are observing regretfully and sadly, that everything in Germany has gone the opposite way from the one, which their Adolf had once led them, democracy or not, and they are longing for the good old times, when there was law and order, and when there was Volksgemeinschaft, i.e. people’s solidarity, and when there were no foreigners yet, except in the forced labor camps around the city.
In the afternoon, Professor Leo Semashko, leader of the global Peace from Harmony Movement (www.peacefromharmony.org) and Global Harmony Association President took us from my Hotel Aster to the University of Saint Petersburg.I gave two lectures at the University. one lecture was on "The Critical Theory of Religion: New Models." The other paper was on the "Critical Theory of Religion: The Golden Rule". The critical theory of society of the Frankfurt School had been banned as revisionist during the Soviet period.Katya did an excellent job in translating my papers. Professors and students were very interested.
The students were well dressed and happy. However, the third generation remembers little of the pain and suffering of the grandparents. There were good questions by students and faculty alike, Older professors still had a tendency toward scientific atheism, falling back behind Immanuel Kant, which Marx never did. Atheists are people, who had lived through such horrible circumstances, that they could no longer trust in the God of their fathers, and therefore denied his existence. They could not solve the theodicy problem, theoretically or practically. Their atheism was a practical, not a scientific matter. In Auschwitz Rabbis put God on trial and after three days found him guilty and some of them never went back to pray again, and 80 % of the population of Israel ceased praying, But some of the Rabbis did go back and prayed again. Some of the older professors in the University of Saint Petersburg had already in the Soviet period become agnostics: they’re sociological or other scientific methodologies could not transcend the boundaries of the world of appearances. Neither atheists nor agnostics wanted to risk a Kirkegardian leap of faith, and return to the Orthodoxy of their grandfathers. We discussed the possibility, that Marx and Lenin may have had something to do with Baruch Spinoza’s modern pantheism. When I asked our Russian friends, if they were afraid of a new encirclement by the West, they answered quietly and self-confidently, that Russia was a very large country, and that thus it was hard to encircle: there was much more behind the Ural! In the evening we celebrated our great success with Professor Leo Semashko and his wife in a nice restaurant near my Hotel Aster. Leo told us all about his tetra sociology, which he traced back to Marx and which he had developed and taught already in the Soviet time. Leo was convinced, that Lenin’s Great Socialist October Revolutionof 1917 in Petrograd, and what followed, had been a great mistake and a tragedy, and that now history took its normal course again. I received from Leo’s dear wifeLucy a wonderful bookabout Saint Petersburg.
On Wednesday, we flew with the Ukrainian Airline to Kiev and then to Simferopol. The taxi driver, who drove me from Hotel Aster to the apartment of Katya’s relatives, and then both of us the long way to the Saint Petersburg airport,and then a few days later back again in the middle of coldwinter nights, was a wonderful story teller. He told usone most humorous and hilarious taxi - life story after the other, and thereby made Katya very happy. We expressed our hope to the very poeticalSaint Petersburg taxi driver, that he would publish his wonderful stories some day for the enjoyment of a larger public. If we had asked our taxi driver what 1917 meant for him today, he would probably have answered as others of his profession did, that the revolution was still present as in the past so now in every family, in the fate of every family: the dead of the Gulago were much worse off, than the dad of the Second World War- because the latter defended their homeland and knew what they were dying for.Nevertheless, it is possible, that- if the thirdcounter-revolutioncontinues -the intelligentLenin may have to make room forthelast, mostin capable, and incompetentCzarNikolaj II, and that Lenin’sbody may be taken out of the Mausoleumin Moscow and may be re-burried in one of the city’s cemeteries in Januar 2008, in remembrance of the day of his death, after the Czar’s body had already been reburried in the tomb of the Romanows in the Saint Petersburg Peter and Paul Fortress, and after the Orthodox Church had canonized him as a martyr. in2000. The taxi drivers and others are convinced,that as Lenin’s revolution of 1917 had been paid for by German money, theorange counter-revolutions in the Ukraineof2004, in Georgiaof 2003, and in Kirgistanof 2005 wereanalogically financed by American money. Sic transit gloria mundi! Not only was our flight with the Ukrainian Airline and later on back with the RussianAiroflotvery save, but we also found most friendly assistance at every airport, as in the USA, and in Germany, so also in Russia and in the Ukraine. In the Ukraine even a doctor assisted us, which was more than we needed. That assistance was a wonderful sign of humanity in the midst of all the high technology of the continually growing airports!! When we flew across the huge European territory of the Russian Federation and the Ukraine, I could not help myself to remember the three million so called fascist soldiers, who not even seventy years ago devastated the land and the villages and the cities below and killed 27 million so called communists and 6 million Jews. I thought of the Muslim Tartars, who were allied with Hitler, and therefore later on were punished by Stalin through resettlement. I thought of the Christians, e.g. the Mennonites and others, who bravely following the Sermon on the Mount did not want to bear and use arms against other human beings, and who therefore were driven out by red fascism into exile, or were sent into labor camps, in order to build cities behind the Ural, which had only numbers up to the counter-revolution of 1989. Others were simply murdered. When seven years earlier, I flew into Kiev, it was the Sunday on which the city remembered the arrival of the SS in the city 50 years earlier. on this Sunday, 180 Jews were shot in the city, simply because of their race. Later on 36 000 Jews were killed in a quarry near Kiev. This was before the insecticide Cyclon B, which had been invented by Fritz Haber, the father of the gas-war, and which had been produced a mass by IG Farben, was used in the German work- and death- camps. Already in the 1920s, long before the fascist armies arrived, a pogrom killed many Jews in the Ukraine, simply because of their faith, When the German troops came to Kiev in October 1941, and fought their way against heavy Russian resistance across the Dnepr on their way to the Volga, and to Stalingrad, and into their disaster, the river seemed to consist of human blood rather than of water. Today (December 2,2007). The Government-conform Fox News tells us, in its usual fair, balanced and unafraid way, after Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, after Lebanon, and Palestine, after Chenya, and Sudan, and after Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, that atrocities are simply committed by some unstable characters, or that they are merelya part of war and come along with the territory. That never was, is, or will be a psychological,moral, ethical, or legal excuse, justification ,or legitimation for atrocities. Our friend and driver Igor picked us up in Simferopol, Ukraine. Also Zhenia Leontyeva’s Mother was there. Zhenia is my Ukrainian graduate student, who lives in my house with free room and board like so many other students from the USA and many other countries before, and is doing her Ph.D. in Sociology at Western Michigan University. Zhenia’s Grand Father, who is Jewish, was deported into a German concentration camp, when he was only 15 years old, There medical experiments were performed on him. When he came home again two years later, he had gray hairs.Igor was a prominent soldier in the Russian army. He is doing rather well in the travel business around the growing airport of Simferopol. He just bought himself a better-used car, which we enjoyed very much. But Igor cannot and does not want to give up his socialist-humanist longings, and still hopes for better times.Igor drove us to Yalta, where we arrived after a two-hour mountain trip and stayed again in our old and very good Hotel Orianda. The seventh international course in Yalta on Religion and Civil Society: Identity Crisis and New Challenges of Post-Secular Society was once more a great success. Professors and students were present not only from the Ukraine, and from the Russian Federation, but also from behind the Ural, and from Central Asia. A representative of the Ukrainian Cultural Ministry was present, who wanted to receive information from us specialists in Comparative Religion, Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Philosophy and Theology for policy purposes. There are many tensions in the religious sphere, which the state would like to mitigate through wise policies, while at the same time staying neutral. Also the Orthodox Church was represented through a priest and theologian. Father Nicolay belonged to the Patriarchy of Moscow: the Third Rome! There are tensions between the Patriarch of Moscow and the Archbishop of Kiev. Maybe the Archbishop would like to become independent and a Patriarch of the Ukraine in his own right. There are also tensions among all religious groups concerning church property, which had been confiscated by the Soviet state, but which has been given free after the victorious third counter-revolution of 1986. Tensions exist between the Crimean Tartar Muslims, who followed Hitler, and the Kiev Muslims, who stayed with Stalin. Thus we spoke much about the neutral liberal or socialist state, the separation of religious faith and secular rationality, and of church and state, the consequent privatization of religion, the difference between good and bad religion, the theodicy problem, etc. Members of all three Abrahamic religions were present Fears were expressed about a possible partition of the Ukraine between the coal-rich, highly industrialized East, which is Orthodox and inclined toward the Russian Federation, and the West, which is Orthodox as well as United and Roman Catholic and tends toward the European Union. An inclusion of the Ukraine, or a large part of it, into the European Union and the NATO, would equal to a quasi–encirclement of the Russian Federation, and thus could elicit and provoke fears in Moscow similar to those, which the Germans had in the 19th and 20th centuries, and which found there realization in two two-front wars. There was not only the battle of Stalingrad, now Wolgograd, but also the tank battle of Kursk, which - if it had been successful- had reached behind Moscow. Besides directing the international course together with a Russian Professor, who had once been my student, Tatiana Tsenyushkina, I gave two papers: one on The Critical Theory of Religion: The Lex Talionis, and the other on The Jesus Revolution, the Judas Kiss, and the Empires. I prefer critical theory of religion over theo-logy, because I think it would be good to have a moratorium for several decades concerning the name of Theos, because of its blasphemous abuse by the bad religion of the Crusaders not only of Novgorod, but particularly also of the 20th and 21st centuries. once more Katya did an excellent translation job for two languages - Russian and Ukrainian. Katya also gave her own excellent sociology paper. I wished, of course, that I could have taken more students like Katya from Western Michigan University on my trip. But my finances were not sufficient for other students. We had good and passionate discussions in our international discourse among members from different Eastern and Western civilizations. I had a particular intense discussion with the Orthodox priest, Father Nickolay, and Dr,Gabrielyan, Chair of the Political Science Department of the University of Simferopol, where I had spoken three years earlier: an Armenien andan excellent pedagogue andpolitical scientist. While Father Nicolay presented thegreat Orthodox patristic theology, I engaged in the critique of the ambiguity of any religious tradition as such. While Dr,Gabrielyan, emphasiced the fear - factor in all social and political life, I stressed the enlightenment as the attempt, to free people from their fears, and to make them into masters of their fate. We all agreed on thedesirability of both, the continuation of good religion – the longing that the present national and international injustices are to be overcome – as well as of the enlightenment project, no matter if we were religiously committed or not. My papers were taken very well. The Professors wanted the papers to be published in Russian and Ukrainianas fast as possible. Our discourse came to its most friendly , harmoniousand peaceful conclusion with a delicious Ukrainian meal and wonderfulreligious as well as secular presentations by a young, veryecumenical Orthodox choir. Our international course in Yalta as well as in Durbrovnik rests on the presupposition, that there will be no peace among nations without peace among the world religions; and that there will be no peace among the religions without discourse among them; and that there can be no discourse among them without their knowledge about each others' interpretation of reality and orientation of action. The purpose of our international courses in Yalta and Dubrovnik is to increase this mutual knowledge, and thus to contribute to peace among the religions, the nations, and the civilizations. Also the results of this seventh course will appear in a book. for a broader public, The University of Simferopol expressed interest in a contract with Western Michigan University. We have such contract already with the University of Sevastopol. This city had beendestroyed to a large extend by German artillery, like Odessa. The representative of the University of Sevastopol expressed its wish, that Western Michigan University would send the necessary papers to Simferopol. I promised to discuss the issue with Western Michigan University, The Professors of the University of Simferopol and Kiev invited me to stay for vacations in Yalta - a wonderful city -for a whole summer talking with just one beloved person. What a strange idea of a vacation! They have no idea that I have done only working vacations for 30 years, and would not like to have it otherwise. On Friday night, Igor drove us back to Simferopol. on the way we stayed in the mountains in a wonderful hunting lodge and had an excellent Russian meal. Germans are coming to these lodges in large numbers during summer on their peaceful pilgrimages through the Ukraine. Sometimes they may visit Hitler’s former headquarter near Kiev during the Operation Barbarossa, South.When we arrived in our Hotel in Simferopol, Zhenia’s Mother received us again, and we spent some time together talking about Kalamazoo and Zhenia’s life and her very successful work in WMU's Sociology Department. Early in the morning we left in a Russian Aeroflot plane from Simferopol to Moscow. We landed on the airfield east of Moscow, which the German Center Army had reached late in November1941, precisely 66 years earlier, when suddenly a horrible winter weather set in, Hundreds of German tanks and airplanes were destroyed by ice and snow. Hitler arrived in Moscow six weeks late, because of the Balkan war, which he had to fight for his model and friend Benito Mussolini, who had got stuck there on the way to Greece. At this time, Hitler could have reached an armistice with Stalin, who was ready to leave Moscow, but Communism was the archenemy of National Socialism, and he wanted to have the whole territory up to the Volga for colonization. Our plane had once more to be deiced in Moscow. Then we flew on to Saint Petersburg. Katya's Uncle picked us up again from the airport and took us through an unbelievable traffic to the Hotel Aster. In the middle of the night we started our flight back with Luft - Hansa to Frankfurt and to Detroit. In Frankfurt we had to land through a horrible dark and cold rainstorm. My hometown has done this to me already many times before.I could see the Main River only a few minutes before the landing, so deep the clouds were hanging. After we had left Yalta a terrible storm sank seven ships in the Black Sea, A horrible storm raged in the North Sea against Bremen, and Hamburg, and Southern England. We somehow sneaked safely through all the storms. The crossing of the Atlantic ws very smooth, Steve picked us up in Detroit. and on the way home we celebrated our return with a good American meal. We had not slept several nights, and we had to start teaching next morning again. But we are tough people. Katya comes from Russia. I was trained to go into Russia. So we both were well trained, and all went well! I would like to express the heartfelt gratitude of all members of the seventh international course on Religion and Civil Society: Identity Crisis and New Challenges of Post-Secular Society in Yalta to Western Michigan University for its generous financial contribution, without which it could not have taken place, and without which its results could not be published for a broader circle of scholars.
December 11, 2007
-------------------------------------------- Rudolf Siebert: 80 years! Warm Congratulations! Professor Rudolf Siebert’s unique historical contribution: understanding of the Golden Rule as ethos of peace from harmony Or Five embodiments of the Golden Rule in life and creativity of Professor Rudolf Siebert for 55 years: 1. The deep and detailed development of the critical theory of society and religion, including universalistic ethics and global ethos on the basis of thereligious Golden Rule,andthe secular philosophies of Kant and Hegel,andPeirce’s, Apel’s, and Habermas’s theory of communicative action, in 24 books, and more than 680 printing and web publications in 12 languages and public lectures in the last 42 years. 2. The great experience of teaching at Western Michigan University and 12 other Universities in America, Europe, Asia, and the Near East from 1955 – 2007, and about 450 public lectures in universities and colleges around the globe. 3. The huge public, scientific and humanitarian work connected with the creation and leadership of two annual international courses: the first course in the IUC, Dubrovnik, Croatia, from 1977 – 2007, etc. is entitled: "The Future of Religion”; the second course in Yalta, Crimea, Ukraine,from 2000 – 2007, etc. is entitled : “Religion and Civil Society.” 4. The self-denying love to children, which is expressed not only in the education of his own 8 children and 14 grandchildren, but also in the creation of his apartment the House of Peace with free room and board for students, who could otherwise not afford to study, from the USA, Germany, Croatia, Ukraine, Iran, Mexico, etc, since 1965. During the civil war in the former Jugoslavia, Professor Siebert brought for five years money and medicine for the wounded and ill people of all the ethnic groups involved in the conflict. Similar activities characterize Professor Siebert as a person of highest moral integrity and heroism in the service to humankind under difficult conditions. He has proven his right for the highest recognition not only for his philosophical, and social-scientific, and practical activity, but also for his personal example, in which he has embodied the high principles of the Golden Rule, the Categorical Imperative, and the Communicative or Discourse Ethics consistently through his thinking and ethical life throughoutthe past 60 years of turbulent history in Europe and America: always in the service of peace. 5. Professor Siebert's great contributions in two epochal projects:
1. Harmonious Era Calendar, now includes 38 authors from 15 countries of the world writing in 17 languages (2006: http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=190) and
2. Magna Carta of Harmony including 43 authors from 16 countries, writing in 8 languages (20007: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=3). The "Golden Rule" in its religious and inverted secular forms, in the research and propagation of which Professor Siebert has played a most important role in recent decades, is the humanistic basis for the new thought and ethics of peace from harmony. All this allows me to recognize for Professor Siebert, for his unique contribution into comprehension of the Golden Rule as ethical source for peace from harmony the highest Honorary Title of the union "Peace from harmony": "World Harmony Creator" in honour 80th anniversary. On behalf of our union I warmly congratulate Professor Siebert with the great jubilee and I wish for him strong health and inexhaustible personal energy to peace from harmony!!! Happy birth day!!! We love you, Rudi! Dr Leo Semashko Union/site “Peace from harmony”,Founder and President September 30, 2007 -------------------------------------
Dear Rudolf Siebert Professor Siebert, MANY HAPPY RETURNS - WISHES AN UNIQUE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION on THIS DAY. Your memorable contribution through the Golden Rule as ethical source for peace and harmony is a HONOUR for all of us to CONGRATULATE AND WISH YOU on THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY. Pray God to bestow upon you his choicestblessings. Harmoniously THOLANA Poetically Yours Dr. T. Ashok Chakravarthy, Litt.D H.No. 16-2-836/L, Plot-39 Madhavnagar, Saidabad HYDERABAD - 500 059 [AP] INDIA www.poetryofpeacewings.com 01/10/07 ------------------------------------------------ Dear professor Rudolf Siebert: Congratulations for your 80 years whose you passed the majority in the services of the humanity. Thanks to your works, much discovered the secrecy and the steps ofvariedsociety in the world. We wish that your life be to protect so that thehumanity benefits from from your experiments. Harmoniously Ammar Banni 01/10/07 ------------------------ Greetings in Peace! Recognizing the huge contribution You brought to the mankind, for a better world, and peaceful society, with deep gratitude and thoughts of love, we wish you all: HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR PROFESSOR RUDOLF! Health and long blessed years! with love, Tatomir-Member of Peace from Harmony 01/10/07 --------------------- Dear Leo: I received all the wonderful gratulation letters from the "Peace through HarmonyGroup" for my 80th birthday. I was very happy. I am most grateful to you as the initiator. Please tell all our friends , how grateful I am for all the good wishes. It is very beautiful to feel the solidarity in the "Peace through Harmony Group" : that there are good people in many parts of the world who are willing to use any chance bravely to promote peace locally and internationally. Thank you all ! I am with all my best wishes to you , your Rudi, from the House of Mir October 14, 2007 ------------------------------- Rudolf J. Siebert Leipzig July 2007 The Critical Theory of Religion: The Evolution of the Moral Consciousness from the Jus Talionis to the Golden Rule. The specific theme of this essay, The Critical Theory of Religion: The Evolution of the Moral Consciousness from the Jus Talionis to the Golden Rule, is certainly of highest actuality in the present globalized, rather oppressive and troublesome world-historical transition - and crisis – situation (Habermas 2001; 2005; 2006;Habermas/Ratzinger 2005). The horrible abuse, which religion has suffered through its ideological functionalization in the Western civilization as well as in the Near Eastern civilizations, and elsewhere, particularly since September 11, 2001, and during the recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon, and in the psychological preparation of a possible war against Iran, make the general theme of our Leipzig Conference Secularity and Religious Vitality as well as the specific topic of this essay particularly relevant and necessaryconcerning the possiblefuture of religion. A. Jus Talionis The present war situation and the religious terror and the secular counter-terror of virtue, freedom and democracy in the Near East after the neo-conservative trend turn of the late 1960s, and after the victorious neo-liberal counter-revolution of the late 1980s, and particularly after September 11, 2001, have been initiated, and motivated, and dominated by Right-Hegelian conservative revolutionaries, or better still very successful counter-revolutionaries, e.g. Mr. Wolfowitz, or Mr. Rumsfeld, and their economic, political, military, and cultural agenda. (Habermas 1981 chs. 9 – 466; 1985; 2006; Borradori 2003), The deconstructionists, or post-modernists, not to speak of the Left-Hegelian praxis philosophers in Europe and America had no active part in the so called war on terror, but even denied, that this was a war at all in the sense of international law, and certainly not in the war against Afghanistan, and in the second Iraq war, or in the most recent war against Lebanon, or in the war and civil war going on in Palestine. Terror Terror means great fear(Borradori 2003). Terrorism means the policy of using acts inspiring great fear. Terror is a method of ruling or of conducting political opposition. To terrorize people means to fill them with terror and to dominate them by inducing terror. There is religious and secular terror. There is state terrorism, revolutionary terrorism, and nihilistic terrorism. Long before the Shiites or Sunis used religious terror as means of Jihad, it had been practiced by the Crusaders and the Inquisitors. Long before the Alliance of the Willing used secular terror of virtue, freedom and democracy in the name of national security in Afghanistan and Iraq, it had been practiced by the great bourgeois revolution in France from the fall of the Gerondists on June 2, 1793 to the fall of Robespiere, on July 27, 1794 (Horkheimer 1985: 238-239; 1988:ch.3; 1989: chs. 15 17, 25). It was dominated by the Committee of Public Safety in Paris. This secular terror consisted of mass executions through the newly invented guillotine in order to galvanize national resistance in the face of foreign counter-revolutionary invasions. Functionalization of Religion Unfortunately, the present ideological functionalization of religion in antagonistic civil society does not respect, recognize, preserve, and realize the prophetic texts of the three Abrahamic religions, but rather distorts them beyond recognition, and motivates a political and military praxis which is in direct contradiction to their original meaning ((Schmidt 1972). Küng 1991; 1994; 2004).Can Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam possibly survive such horrendous Machiavellian, and blasphemous, hubris-like abuse? Of course, we can trace religion, troubled empires, terror and torture from Artaxerxes, and the Persian Empire, and the torture-death of the soldier Mithradaites after the victory over Cyrus, the King’s brother, through the historical linkage of religious and political Manichaeism, to the second Bush Administration, and the American Empire, and Abu Ghraib, and Guantanomo Bay (Hegel 1986:39o- 405). Mithradaites was most cruelly killed, because he accused rightly the King of having lied about his killing his brother, and was thus made falsely a liar himself, who followed Arhiman, the God of the lie and thus of darkness and evil, the opponent of Ahura Mazda, the God of light, and goodness, and the truth, Religion has changed from Zoroastrianism through Judaism and Christianity to Islam. But it has survived in always-new forms. Dialectical Definition We don’t have to start with a definition of religion, we remember the warning by Friedrich Nietzsche, not to define anything, which has a history and is still moving( Horkheimer 1974: 157-158). Religion, certainly, has a long history and it is still developing. Some people may say that Christianity has not even really started.Also what is called civilization – Jewish civilization, Christian civilization, Islamic Civilization, etc., has a history of hundreds of years, and is still in process. Even the second Bush Administration has found out, that the Rightwing Hegelian Francis Fukuyama had been wrong, when he stated, that history had come to its end with the climax of the victorious neo-conservative counter-revolution of 1989: the fall of the Soviet Empire. Recently Fukuyama was, nevertheless, intelligent enough, to leave the neo-conservative camp, and movement, and think tanks in time. As usually, the rats are leaving the sinking ship! Obviously, the Jihadists have helped to re-start history again. In any case, the second Bush Administration seems to continue modern colonial and imperial history for better or for worse toward what Samuel Huntington, - the disciple of the Hitler-jurist and political theologian, and one of the fathers of both, deconstructionism and neo-conservativism, Carl Schmitt - and, Harvard Professor and Pentagon advisor, had called the clash of civilizations, instigated by Christianity on one hand, and Islam on the other, on the basis of the latter’s political-theological mythology and anthropology: aiming at the redemption of the unredeemed world (Meier 1994; Groh1998). The second Bush Administration has not been post-modern so far, but rather still very modern, when it engaged in Machiavellian style in globalization, a very old modern phenomenon, in the form of neo-imperialism to the point of imperial hubris, and in the form of neo-colonialism in the service of the American and British oil magnates, not to speak of nationalism and religious fundamentalism. It seems, that critical religion and critical theology as well as genuine modernity and enlightenment are still- as communicative and critical praxis – unfinished projects.We may, nevertheless, be allowed in this present war and terror situation to have at least a working definition of our focus point – religion. We define religion with the critical theorists of society as the longing for the wholly Other than the horror and terror of nature and history (Horkheimer 1985: chs. 28, 2930,32,34,37, 40) Good and Bad Religion We understand religion as a dialectical notion: it is contradictory, polemical and revolutionary in itself in relation to traditional and modern civil societies, states and empires(Hegel 1986q: 278 – 291,341 –344;Horkheimer 1974: 16,18,92-83,131 – 132;Siebert 2007c;2008). But religion’s dialectical character can also be harmonized and it can thus be functionalized for counter-revolutionary purposes. Shortly, there is good and bad religion( Horkheimer 1974: 92-93,96-97, 121 – 123,127,131-133, 141-142, 148; Siebert 2007c;2008). Good religion is the impulse, which is carried through and out against the reality of civil society, state, and history, and which is still not yetcompletely suffocated through them,,that things should become otherwise, and that the ban, the curse, and the spell of evil should be broken, and that things should turn to what is right: toward alternative Future III – the reconciled society(Horkheimer 1985g: ch.37). Where life stands in this cipher of the longing for the wholly Other down to every gesture, there is good and genuinereligion( Horkheimer 1974: 92-93;1985g:chs. 17,29). To the contrary, bad religion is the impulse, which is perverted into affirmation, and which therefore gilds the reality of traditional and modern civil societies, states and empires, inspite of all scourging and whipping of them. This impulse is the vain lie. According to this impulse, the bad, the suffering, the horror have a meaning, be it through the earthly, be it through the heavenly future. The bad religion is the impulse, to give a positive meaning to Auschwitz and Treblinka, to Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all the horror and terror of nature and history ,these names stand for(Horkheimer 1974: 92-93,96-97, 121 – 123,127,131-133, 141-142, 148; 1989m: chs.1516,25,30; Siebert 2007c). Good religion is the impulse, that things must become otherwise in society and history, so that a Vietnam, or a an Iraq,including Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, or an Afghanistan, or a Lebanon, or a Palestine can not happen any more,The bad religion, the lie is in no need of the cross. It lives already in the notion of Transcendence. Where the good religion, the impulse toward what is right is genuine, there is no need for apologetics.This good impulse is not able to justify itself. As for the theologian Paul Tillich and for the sociologist Talcott Parsons the ulyimate concern or the concern for the Ultimate Reality can be shared by religious and secular people, so Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s impulse or longing forentire Otherness can have a religious and a secular form( Hegel1986a: 344 –345, 417; 1986b: 287-433; 1986c: 169, 423,424; 1986e: 267, 270; 1986l: 174;1986m: 135, ;1986r: 173;1986p: 9 – 88; 1986t: 386,399,407,418; Tillich 1963a: II, 9,14,26,30,87,116; Tillich 1963b: III, 102,125,130,154, 223, 283, 287, 289, 293, 349, 422; Parsons 1964: chs I,II; 1965: chs. I,II; Horkheimer 1985: chs.23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34, 37, 40 ). The religious impulse andlonging fortotal Otherness carry in themselves the possibility of reconciliation between the sacred and the profane, revelation and enlightenment, faith and knowledge( Hegel 1986a: 344 –345, 417; 1986b: 287-433; 1986c: 169, 423,424; 1986e: 267, 270; 1986l: 174;1986m: 135, ;1986r: 173;1986p: 9 – 88; 1986t: 386,399,407,418; Horkheimer 1985: chs.23,25,26,27,28,29,30,32,34,37,40 ; Habermas2001;Habermas/Ratzinger 2005). Stages The critical theory of religion encounters four stages in the motion of the genuine polemical, revolutionary, good religion (Horkheimer 1974: 92-93,96-97, 121 – 123,127,131-133, 141-142, 148; Siebert 2007c;2008). 1.There is firstly.the corruption in the secular society,state or empire. 2.There is secondly the polemics of the good religion against this corruption,and this sinfulness. 3.There is thirdly the reaction ofthe corrupt society, state or empire , often legimiated by bad religion, against the protest, the polemics of the critical revolutionary good religion: non licet esse vos!. 4.There can forthly come about the victory of the matyrized good religion over the persecuting society, state, or empire. But there can also happen a compromise between religion and state in order to stop the persecution. The religion accommodates itself to theproblematic state. Things go on as usually. Religion adjusts itself to the identity principle of the Empire, be it the Roman or American Empire and is rewarded for it.The good religion may even turn into a bad religion, and legitimate the state or empire in spite of its evil aspects.It may even take revenge on the former persecutors. Genuine, good relogion is always the iversion of what is the cse in the real world. If this good reliogion becomes positivistic and pragmatic in order to survive in a corrupt society, state, or empire. Ioy betrayes itself, and moves imto a niche of history and becomes irrelevant. And may even go under. The good religion. which inverts what is the case in society, state or empire,can be called with Dietrich Bonhoeffer religionless Christianity,or with Dorothy Sölle atheistic Christianity, or with Thomas Mann secular Christianity(Enns2007: 167-180;Sölle 1977; 1993; 1994; Mann 2004). Eye for Eye According to Francois deVoltaire andArthur Schopenhauer, the origin of all wars was the desire and the lust for thieving: Dans toutes les guerres il nes’agit que de voler (Schopenhauer 1985: 287, F,527). At this time, - July 2007 – the American Congress is working on the privatization of the Iraqian oilfields,so that they can be appropriated by the American oilmagnates in consequence of the first and second Iraq war. While robbery is definitely one motivation for war, revenge and retalion is certainly another one. Hitler’s war was driven by revenge as well as by the lust for robbery: by revenge against the West, and by thieving against the East. Whatever may have been the different economic or political motivations and goals of the attack against the World Trade Centers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D/C. and of the prevented attack against the Congress Building, the Capitol, or the White House, on September 11, 2001, and the followings wars against and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq in the past five years, it has become quite obvious, that the religious principle of the Jus or Lex Talionis has also played an important role (Siebert 2005;2006). The Torah teaches: But should she (the pregnant woman, who had been beaten by a man) die you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stroke for stroke (Exodus 21: 24-25) The New Testament teaches: You have heard how it was said: Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I say this to you: offer the wicked man no resistance. on the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well. (Matthew 5: 38-42). The Holy Qur’an teaches following the Torah: freeman for freeman, and slave for slave (Surah 2: 190,193). To be sure, on a certain stage of the evolution of moral consciousness the Lex Talonis came to be a limiting law: one eye for one eye, and no more. Unfortunately, in the present wars the stronger party tends to remove this limiting character of the Jus Talionis and takes ten or even more eyes for one eye: e.g. the lives of 600 000 Iraqis for the lives of 3000 Americans, in spite of the fact, that Iraq had nothing at all to do with September 11, 2001. Retaliation: A Taste of Suffering Usama bin Laden as well as Mohammed Atta have left no doubt, that they were motivated by the intent of retaliation: they wanted to give the Americans a taste of all the suffering they had caused other people in years past: at least from the terror saturation-bombings in Europe, through Hiroshima and Nagasaki to their involvement in Iraq, Somalia, Southern Sudan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Kashmir, and in the Israeli struggles in Palestine and Lebanon, (Lawrence 2005). The Holy Qur’an teaches: Fight for the sake of Allah those who fight you, but do not violate the limits, Allah does not love aggressors. (Surah 2: 190). Fight them until there is no more chaos and oppression, until there is justice and faith in Allah. If they cease hostilities, let there be no hostility except for those who oppress (Surah 2: 193). Usama bin Laden said in an interview in November 2001: We ourselves are the victims of murder and massacres. We are only defending ourselves against the United States. This is a defensive jihad to protect our land and people. That’s why I have said, that if we don’t have security, neither will the Americans. It’s a very simple equation that any American child could understand: live and let others live.Usama bin Laden said in December 2001: The events of 22nd Jumada al-Thani, or Aylul, are merely a response to the continuous injustice inflicted upon our sons in Palestine, Iraq, Somalia, southern Sudan, and other places, like Kashmir. The matter concerns the entire Umma. People need to wake up from their sleep, and try to find a solution to this catastrophe, that is threatening all of humanity (Lawrence 141). Revenge Wars Today – July 2007 – the American revenge wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue undiminished and fiercely, and even escalate further. Over 3500 American soldiers have been killed, while they were killing others in Iraq alone. Over 25 000 American soldiers were wounded and crippled for life in body or soul, or both, while they were wounding and crippling others in Iraq alone. Already in the first Iraq war over 400 children had been incinerated by a single rocket attack on one bunker in Baghdad alone. Between the first and the second Iraq war, 500 000 children were killed by the international embargo. Former U.S. Secretary of State, Madelein Albright, took responsibility for the death of these children. She stated, that the death of the children had been necessary and worthwhile as a means for changing President Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the meantime, Albright has many times regretted and apologized for her statement, but not for the fact, that the children have been killed.So far over 600 000 civilians have been killed in Iraq, since the beginning of the second war. Over a thousand civilians, among them many children have been killed during the recent Israeli invasion into Lebanon. A new war against Iran may be possible, probable, and even imminent, since the psychological warfare and the attack fleet of carriers have been in place since quite some time. Daily the most primitive, and archaic, and necrophilous Jus Talionis has been practiced in recent years on both sides in Palestine, in Israel, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in the Sudan, and elsewhere.
Redemption
The great atheistic thinker, Friedrich Nietzsche, had hoped toward the end of the 19th century, that human kind would be redeemed from the urge of revenge and retaliation some day (Kaufmann 1967: 30-32, 42-47, 203 – 409, 443 – 447,450-454). But the spell and the ban of the most mythological Jus Talionis, - including terroristic rocket-bombardments, suicide attacks, aerial saturation bombings, imprisonments, tortures of all kinds, hangings, decapitations, shootings – continue unbroken, and are even escalated into our present historical situation – July 2007. Crime is committed against crime, without the order of private right, personal and social morality, and of law being mythically or otherwise restored (Hegel 1986: 198 –292). As crime is committed against crime, criminality is only multiplied and escalated into the future in terms of a bad infinity. Children and grandchildren shall have to pay the price for it, with their own property and lives. Deeper and deeper becomes the abyss between political, military, and historical facticity on one hand, and religious as well as secular-humanistic ethical, and moral, and legal validity, on the other (Habermas 1992; 2001;Borradori 1994). As the unholy trinity of stealing, killing, and lying continues from day to day, the guilt connection among individuals and nations intensifies, and spreads, and enslaves them more and more. Genuinely religious and humanistic people try in vain to break the bad, quantitative infinity of nature and history through their insatiable longing for the good qualitative Infinity – the wholly Other than the horror, and the terror, and the curse of natural and historical finitude (Hegel 1986c: 131 132, 33; 1986d: 16,87-88 185-187; 1986e: 145,149 – 166; 1986l: 30-55; Schopenhauer 1986; Horkheimer 1967: chs. 252, 269; 1985g: chs. 4,9,21, 28, 29, 30,32,34,37, 40). Lawlessness and Immorality In the meantime, global protest – weak and powerless as it may be against the iron will of the globalizing corporate ruling class - has, nevertheless, arisen and continues against the application of the Lex Talionis , and the increasing lawlessness and immorality connected with it in particular, and the neo–conservative or neo-liberal agenda in general:concerning the war against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon (Wettig 2006:18–21). Thus, e. g. , in April 2003, the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, Israel, decided, to ban President Bush junior and Prime Minister Blair from the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth, who had broken the Lex Talionis in his so called Sermon on the Mount , and replaced it by thelove of the enemy and the Golden Rule: So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the meaning of the Law and the Prophets( Matthew 5: 38 – 48,12; Horkheimer 1989m:chs 15, 20; Global Research 2006). The Church of Nativity stands under the authority of the Greek Orthodox Church (Matthew 2: 1–23; Küng1994: 145–335). The Church remembers not only the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, but also, in connection with it, the killing of all the two year old male children in Bethlehem and its surroundings by Herod, the King of Judea, Idumaea, and Samaria, who governed from 37–4 B. C, and was known as a mass murderer. The Church of Nativity decided, to ban Bush and Blair access into the Nativity Shrine forever, because they were war criminals and the murderers of children. Their entry into the Church would tarnish it as (Bush’s) hands were covered in the blood of the innocent. The spirit of Christmas consisted in spreading peace and justice. The spirit of Christmas was, when war criminals were banned from the birthplace of Jesus, the Christ. The Church of Nativity banned the American President Bush and the British Prime Minister Blair in Israel, in spite of the fact, that the USA and Britain are the closest allies of Israel (Grosbard 2001; Rebhuhn/Levy 2006:391—414). The US news media have so far–July 2007–not yet reported this story of the Church of Nativity in Israel. That is what theJeffersonian freedom of the press has come down to. Regime Change The neo-conservative application of the Lex Talionisand the consequent national and internationallawlessness and immorality, and the global protest against it, reached a new climax with the unilateral regime change in Baghdad, and with the trial and execution of President Saddam Hussein. As the transfer of President Hussein by the American authorities to the Iraqian authorities and his long planned execution through hanging approached in the last days of the so bloody year 2006,not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in Lebanon and Palestine and elsewhere, the Vatican, the center of the Roman Catholic Church, which had condemned the first and second Iraq war as unjust and immoral, announced, that this death penalty imposed by an Iraqian court under American occupation and influence, meant only the retaliation for one crime by another one: Jus Talionis ( Küng 1994: 336 –601;.Global Research 2006;Schwartz 2006:1-4;Wadlow 2006:3-5;Grosbard 2001;Rebhuhn/Levi 2006:391-414). President Hussein was not tried and sentenced to death and executed for having attacked two neutral countries in peace time, two international war crimes which he shared with President Bush junior, whoinitiated the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, but becausehe retaliated for an assassination attempt against his own life by killing over 200 Shiites, Death Penalty Already when the neo-liberal President Bush junior was still Governor of Texas, the Vatican had tried several times to intervene into and prevent one or the other of the over150 executions, which took place under his governance: more than in any other state of the Union. Not only the Roman Catholic Church but also members from the World Council of Churches started to resist neo-conservative economic, political, and military lawlessness and immorality. When a born again prisoner in on of the born again Governor Bush’s Texas prisons asked him for mercy and the commutation of her death penalty, he ridiculed herpublicly on television, and let her be executed next day: Lex Talionis of one so called Christianfor the an other! The Governor must have misunderstoodthe Rabbi Jesus’ teaching on being born gain even more so than Nicodemus from the Synhedrion in Jerusalem in his nightly discourse withRabbi Jesus, the Nazarene: Jesus - I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.- Nicodemus-How can a grown man be born? Can he go back into his mother’s womb?(Matthew 19-28; Titus 3:5John 3: 4, 5; 1 Peter 1:3, 3 ; Titus 3:5) Nicodemus was not too far removed in his literalist consciousness from the modern American religious and political fundamentalism - or from that of the Talibans in Afghanistan, Legal and Psychological Preparations In spite of the protest and resistance of the Catholic and Protestant Christian Churches and of Islamic organizations, particularly of the Suni, persuasion, the American and Iraqian legal and psychological preparations for President Sadam Hussein’s execution went ahead for months in a trial in Baghdad, which suffered from many procedural flaws, some of which were intended to hide the American complicity in his war against Iran (Horkheimer 1988n: 67; MacFarquhar 2006; Canetti 1960:chs. 1, 4, 5; Opitz 2006:41–44; Harprecht 2006:11–14).The United States had supportedPresident Hussein in his unjust war against Iran and had provided him with mustard gas, which had been invented by the Jewish-German General Fritz Haber in 1915, and whichwas a weapon of mass destruction outlawed by the Geneva Convention, like later on the American Government supported Osama Bin Laden in his struggle against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.(Lawrence 2005). one of the flaws of the trial against President Hussein was the Baghdad court’s lack of independence from the Iraqian and the American Governments. The Iraqian Government changed the judges at least three times, when they did not perform according to its and American intentions. Another flaw was, that President Sadam Hussein could not confront and question the witnesses appearing against him, etc.. Beyond that, President Hussein and his co-defendants, and his defense team, including the former American Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, knew very well, that the American corporate ruling class, and the American Government and its Iranian puppet - government, had already pre-ordained the death penalty through hanging for all the defendants, before the trial even started. In psychological preparation for the execution of President Hussein, as the execution date approached, i. e. the end of the year 2006, the American and global mass media showed in graphic detail, what the hanging of a human being entailed, so that all citizens would know exactly, how cruelly the American Empire practices the Jus Talionis, and punishes high level government officials, democratically legitimated or not, in dependent states, who do not obey the commands of the American corporate ruling class and its rackets and coolies (Hearit 2006). After President Hussein’s execution, Human Rights Watch released a report calling the speedy trial and subsequent hanging of Saddam proof of the new Iranian Governments disregard for human rights, not to speak of the American Government (Abdul–Zhara 2007: 1–4). The director of the Human Rights Watch’s international justice program stated: The tribunal repeatedly showed its disregard for the fundamental due process rights of all the defendants. Of course, the Human Rights Watch did not make the slightest difference in American or Iraqiangovernmental behavior. Might had become Right! History is made and written by the victors, not by the victims ( Benjamin 1977: ch.10). As late as Easter 2007,Pope Benedict XVI condemned the war in Iraq once more by saying in his Message to the world, that it was a butchery, and that nothing good could possible come from it. The Democratic Party in the American Congress agreed with the Pope: not so President Bush junior, who continues to escalate his crusade for freedom and democracy, i.e. not for the freedom of All, but rather of the Few, for the American and international bourgeois power elite even still today – July 2007 - in the form of the so called Search. Service to the Corporate Ruling Class The global corporate ruling class, engaged in globalization and faced by Middle East terrorism, is treating people very differently depending, if they serve it well or not (Sullivan 2006: 1–3; Reese 2006: 1–2). Some peopleare rewarded and others punished. Thus, President Gerald R. Ford and President Saddam Hussein, both died in the last week of the bloodiest year of the Iraq war, the year 2006 (Woodward 2006:1–4; Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006: 1–3; Hurst 2006: 1–4; Harprecht 2006:11–14; Auken 2007:1–4). Both menhad served the same trans–national, corporate ruling class, what President Eisenhower had called the Military- Industrial Complex, particularly the oil magnates and their many rackets: the bourgeois masters of the free market and the globalized economy, and its social, political, and military consequences (Meyer 2006: 344–47; Hearit 2006). But President Ford obeyed humbly the manifoldly mediated commands of the corporate ruling class throughout his life and work as a lawyer, a politician, a President, and a commander in chief, and thus became wealthy, and reached peacefully the ripe, satisfied, and fulfilled old age of the patriarchs in the Hebrew Bible in the midst of his loving family, and had a funeral, attended by many friends, including many old conservatives and neo–conservatives, and with all state honors in Washington D. C. , and then was flown with his family and friends in the stately Air force one for an honorable burial in a grave close to his museum in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan (Woodward 2006:1–4; Canetti 1960: 66–92). Sic transit gloria mundi! In contrast, President Hussein somewhere in his carrier as a lawyer, a politician, a President, and a commander in chief, began to misunderstand, or to rebel against the manifold mediated commands of the international corporate ruling class, consisting of bankers and industrialists, particularly oil magnates, and all their rackets (Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006: 1–3; Hurst 2006: 1–4; Canetti 1960: 66–92; Fisk 2006: 1–2). He made the mistake, to nationalize the large Iraqian oil resources, and to use part of the profits to have free schools and free hospitals for his people, and thushad progressed furtherin terms of social justice than the United States, President Hussein made the mistake, not only to commitinternational crimes, which served the interests of the globalizing corporate ruling class, like his war against Iran, but also those against it, like his invasion into the wealthy Quait, in order to overcome the bankruptcy of the Iraqian state, caused by the costly war against Iran. Thus, Saddam was first demonized by Western propaganda, and he then was hanged by his taunting political enemies, and had to die without his family, which partially had already been liquidated either by himself or by hisAmerican enemies, and was thrown–as one of his accusers said–on the garbage dumb of history. He had a small, poor, miserable burial without any family or close friends, and without all honors in his hometown of Ouja, outside Ticrit. Sic transit gloria mundi! Nearby Saddam had surrendered to the invading American troops as prisoner of war, stating that he was the President of Iraq, and that he could be helpful in negotiations. He was not taken seriously any longer. Saddam was a dictator, first created, and then destroyed by America, as so many others in the Near East, and in Latin and Central America, and elsewhere around the globe in the past 100 years of American invasions and regime changes in the interest of American big business (Hegel 1986l: 111–114; Mercieca 2006; Fisk 2006: 1–2; Sherriff 2006: 106; Harprecht 2006: 11–12). Thus Saddam’s life was one of many political tragedies! That at least is, what the historical equation appears to be. But only for the positivists appearance and essence are identical: not so for the dialecticians (Hegel 1986f: 17–185; 1986l: 19–55, 215–274; Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006: 1–3; Hurst 2006: 1–4; Canetti 1960: 66–92; Fisk 2006: 1–2; Sherriff 2006: 1–6; Meyer 2006: 44–47). Execution President Saddam Hussein was executed in a prison in Baghdad on Saturday, December 30, 2006, on Eid al–Adha, a Suni–Islamic feast day, at 6.00 a.m. (Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006: 1–3; Frayer/Mattar 2007: 1–4). The execution took place during the year 2006’s deadliest month for the U.S. troops with the toll reaching 113 American servicemenand women. At this time, over 3000 members of the US military hadalready died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003: i. e. more human beings than hadbeen killed in the attacks on New York and Washington D. C. 2 years earlier, on September 11, 2001. In addition there were over 25 000 wounded American soldiers. The Iraqian civilian casualties–collateral damage in army jargon–count over 600 000 in July 2007, over half of them women and children (Davies 2006: 1–3). The limiting Lex Talionis has no longer any limits( Siebert 2005;2006). Iraq’s death penalty had been suspended by the U.S. military after it toppled President Hussein in 2003. But the new Iraqi Government re-instated the death penalty two years later, in 2005, with the consent of the American Government, when President Saddam Hussein’s trial started, saying that executions would deter criminals (Hegel 1986a: 440–442, 614, 620; Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006: 1–3). Saddam’s request to be shot honorably like a soldier, instead of being hanged shamefully like a common criminal, had been denied by the American guided Iraqian courts, together with all other appeals. The American military authorities delivered President Hussein, a Suni, to his Iraqi executioners, who were Shiites, and who were very much intent on revenge and retaliation for the crimes he had committed against them: Lex Talionis (Exodus 21:24; Matthew 5:38–48; Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006: 1–3; Hurst 2006:1–4; Siebert2005; 2006). In the pre–execution turmoil the American authorities wanted very much the execution to be postponed by two weeks, in order to make it more orderly. The new President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, was against the death penalty in general, and therefore refused to sign the constitutionally required execution order. However, the new Prime Minister Malakhi, a Shiite, wanted Sadam to die before the New Year 2007 began. Therefore, Malakhi declared the President’s signature to be unnecessary, and signed the execution order himself. As the American military authorities delivered Saddam to his revengeful Shiite executioners, they of course took sides in the Iraqian civil war - as once in the Vietnamese civil war on the side of the Diem–fascists against the Giap–communists,–now with one of the Iraqian war parties, the Shiites, against the other, the Sunis, and the residuals of the Baath–Party, and Generals, and Al–quaeda, and the foreign fighters, which would have disastrous consequences for the rest of the overall Iraqian as well as Afghanistan tragedy, It is the Shiites, who are the majority in Iraq, but who are the minority elsewhere, andwho are despised throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. Allah Akbar The American authorities did not tell President Saddam Hussein, when he went to bed on Friday night, December 29, 2006, that early next morning he would be pulled out of bed, and would be delivered to the Iraqian authorities, in order to be hanged by a Shiite lynch mob in the most barbarous way. (Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006: 1–3). Maybe in the general turmoiland confusion not even the American guards of the President Hussein knew, what would happen early next morning. When shortly before his execution President Saddam Hussein was delivered by the American military to his Shiite executioners, he carried The Holy Qur’an in his hand, He had nothing to say any longer to his American captors. But he spoke to the Iraqian mainly Shiite crowd, which was gathered for his execution. Before his black–hooded hangmen put the rope around his neck, Saddam shouted: Allah Akbar! The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab! Arabic nationalism, including Islamic and socialistic elements, prevailed with Saddam up to his end! Saddam appeared calm, but scornful with his Shiite captors, as he stood on the metal framework of the gallows (Hurst 2006: 1–4). He exchanged taunts with them. He engaged in give– and take– with the crowds gathered eagerly to watch him die (Canetti 1960; 1972: 66–92, 104–132; Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006: 1–3; Hurst 2006:1–4) Saddam insisted, that he was Iraq’s savior, not its tyrant or scourge. Sadam stated, that he and his friends were going to Heaven, and that their enemies would rot in hell. Saddam also called for forgiveness and love among the Iraqis. But he also demanded, that the Iraqis should continue to fight the Americans and the Persians. one of the Shiite guards shouted at Saddam: You have destroyed us. You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution. Saddam responded: I have saved you from destitution and misery. I have destroyed your enemies, the Persians and the Americans. God damn you, the guard said. God damn you, Saddam responded. The dialectic of mass and power, of the one and the many, of the one on one side, and the crowd in the execution room and the masses watching the execution on Iraqian and global television on the other, worked itself out with all brutality and cruelty (Hegel 1986e: 174–208; Canetti 1972: 122–124; 1960; Mosse1977) However, Saddam seemed to smile at those Shiites taunting him to the end from below the gallows, Some voices chanted Mokthada, Mokthada, the given name of the radical anti–American Shiite cleric Mokthada al Sadr, whose Mahdi army militia is believed to be connected with Iran, and to have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Sunnis in the past year 2006(Ladurner 2006:16–18). President Hussein looked states–men - like in his long black coat. Saddam said to the Shiite crowd, that they were not showing manhood. Then Saddam began to recite the Shahada. It is a Muslim prayer, which says that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is his messenger. Saddam made it to midway through his second recitation of the verse, when his hangmen cut him off. His last word was Muhammad. Then the floor dropped out of the gallows. The tyrant has fallen, some Shiites shouted in the crowd of immediate onlookers. Then came another Shiite voice from the Shiite hanging pack: Let him swing for three minutes (Canetti 1972; 1960). It appeared through the cell phone cameras, as if Sadam had fallen victim to a Shiite lynch mob, tolerated by a Shiite Government and by the American occupation force, A post–execution picture showed a large bloody spot at the front of the neck of Sadam, and thus made obvious to the world the extreme cruelty and inhumanity of the whole lynch procedure, followingquite logically the other crimes in Abu Ghraib and Guntanemo Bay, initiated and inspired by the American neo–conservative agenda. Public Reactions Soon afterwards, far away from the Baghdad prison, in which President Saddam Hussein had been hanged, Sheil Yahya al–Attani, a Suni cleric at the Saddam Big Mosque, said: The President, the leader Saddam Hussein, is a martyr, and God will put him along with other martyrs (Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006: 1–3; Hurst 2006:1–4). Do not be sad or complain, because he has died the death of a holy warrior.Also the Vatican condemned the execution as an act of revenge andas practice of the Lex Talionis. In the first days of 2007, the City of Rome lighted up the Coliseum, in which many Christian martyrs had been executed, in remembrance of President Sadam Hussein’s execution and in protest against it. Also the USA’s closest ally in the war against Iraq, the British Government, which had abolished the death penalty after World War II, which was fought by the Allies against the Axis Berlin, Rome, Tokyo, against European and Asian fascism, condemned the execution of President Saddam Hussein, whom it had helped to depose against international law and against the will of the UN Security Council. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmdinejad said, that the execution of Saddam Hussein prevented the exposure of the secrets and the crimes of the former dictator committed during his brutal rule (Ladurner 2006:16–18). He meant particularly the secrets and crimes connected with Saddam’s war against Iran, which had been supported by the United States. During the war against Iran the neo–conservative Donald Rumsfeld, the later Secretary of Defense, led an American delegation to President Saddam Hussein, which expressed support, The USA supplied to Iraq the mustard gas,which had been developed by the German–Jewish General, Fritz Haber, early in World War I, in support of the German attacks against Belgium and France( Siebert 2006). While the American partisanship in the Iraq civil war for the Shiite government would have serious consequences for the ongoing war and for the future fate of Iraq, the immediate consequence of President Saddam Hussein’s execution was large, butmostly peaceful. Suni protest rallies all around Baghdad and Iraq. There was, however,also a rise in Suni violence not only in Baghdad, but also all over the country in retaliation and revenge for the President Sadam Hussein’s most cruel and inhumane death. It was already clear in January 2007, that the Shiite Unity Government, and the American and British Government would be held responsible for the rest of Iraqian history, no matter how long it would last, not only for President Hussein’s in many ways flawed trial in Baghdad, but also for his lynch execution, and beyond that for the two wars against Iraq, and their military casualties on both sides, and for their large civilian, so called collateral damages, and for Abu Ghraib and Guantanemo Bay, and for all the consequent misery, pain and suffering in the present and in the future, no matter how much they would try to correct this impression and judgment of the people in Iraq, in the whole Near East, and even in Islamic communities and states around the globe, or whitewash them, or re–write history. Generations ofparticularly Americansand British would have to pay for all that horror and terror with their property and their lives or many years to come, eye for eye, if the iron chain and spell of the Jus Talionis would not be broken. (Scheurer 2007:1–2; Miller 2007: 1–2; Abdullah 2006; Siebert 2006)). It is thus no wonder, that the neo–conservative television evangelist and preacher, Pat Robertson, predicted on January 3, 2007 a deadly terror attack on the US during the new year, which would cost the lives of millions of people (Torchia 2007:1–3; AP 2006:1–4; Siebert 2006). He claimed, that God told him so. Lex Talionis all over again (Siebert 2006). Maybe it was Robertson’s own scrupulous, if also somewhat selective Protestant conscience, which told him so: selective in relation to socialist and Muslim enemies, which according to the Sermon on the Mount he was supposed to love (Matthew 5: 43–48). Robertson did not say, that God intended to do something about the impending new horrible theodicy and prevent it, or that man would finally in the year 2007 be redeemed from the Jus Talionis, or would. liberate himself from the ugly age–old, primitive and archaic urge to revenge himself, privately or collectively, through wars, terror attacks, flawed show–trials, or public executions (Exodus 21:24; Matthew 5:38–42; Hegel 1986a:440–442, 613–614, 6–19–620; Siebert 2006). An American toy factory reached the peak of the general tastelessness of the culture industry and of enlightenment as mass deception, when it produced a doll of Saddam Hussein with a robe around its neck (Horkheimer/Adorno 1969:120–167). The Sadam - dollas selling well to the children of America on the free market. The only excuse of the producer was, that this was justthe kind of things he was doing: making dolls for children out of contemporary public events and issues.Already the children are introduced into the mysterium iniquitatis of revenge and retaliation( Siebert2005; 2006). Investigation In response to the national and international upheaval about the barbarous execution of President SadamHussein, the Iraqian Prime Minister, Nouri al–Maliki, ordered an investigation into it on January 2, 2007: but not concerning the inhuman taunting, which occurred during its procedure, but rather concerning its making it public through the use of several cell phone cameras (Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006:1–3; Hurst 2006:1–4; Scheurer 2007:1–2; Miller 2007:1–2; Abdullah 2006; Abdul–Zhara 2007:1–4). The supervisor of the execution and two guards came under suspicion. The Prime Minister promised, that the next executions of two co–defendants of Sadam Hussein would be more orderly (Frayer/Mattar 2007:1–4). When President Hussein’s younger half–brother, Barzan Ibrahim, was executed together with another co–defendant, Awad Harmed al–Bandar, like President Hussein in the Saddam–era military intelligence headquarters building in the Shiite north Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah at 3. 00 a. m. on January 16, 2007, they were merely wearing Gutanomo–style red orange jumpsuits, but they were not taunted. They also prayed like President Hussein before the Shahada, shortly before they were executed. But when Saddam’s younger brother was hanged, his head was severed: the hanging turned into a decapitation. By day’s end at least 3000 angry Sunnis protested by firing their guns into the air, or they were weeping, or they were cursing the Iraqian and American Governments at the burial of Ibrahim in Ouja. Another global outcry of protest followed. Human Rights The American mass media, particularly the powerful Rightwing, neo–conservative, most Government–conform Fox News television and radio–stations described the crimes of the two co-defendants of Sadam Hussein in detail, in order to justify the new public crime of their gruesome hanging or decapitation. According to Fox News, one of the men protesting the hanging, asked in grief and utter frustration: Where are those who cry out and demand human rights: Where are the UN and the world human rights organizations? Barzan had cancer. They treated him only to keep him alive long enough to kill him. We vow to take revenge even if it takes years. Ibrahim’s son in law Azzam Saleh Abdullah said: We heard the news from the media. We were supposed to have the information a day earlier. but it seems that the Government does not know the rules. It reflects the hatred for the Sunnis felt by the Shiite–led Government. They still want more Iraqui bloodshed. To hell with democracy. The new Iraqian Government has obviously not only inherited the Iraqian sectarian hate, but also the American neo–conservative disrespect for legal and moral rules from the Nixon– through the Reagan– to the two Bush Administrations. A spokes woman for the new UN Secretary–General, Ban Kimoon, said he regrets that despite pleas from both himself and the High Commissioner for human rights to spare the lives of the two defendants, Ibrahim and al–Bandar, they were both executed. on Monday, January 15, 2007, the Martin Luther King Day 2007, Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice, said during a press conference with her Egyptian counterpart in Luxor, Egypt, that the executions in Baghdad had been mishandled, and that she hoped that those responsible for making the cell phone videos of Saddam’s execution would be punished: of course, not the Shiite lynch mob, who taunted, and mocked, and executed him. Rice stated with the usual neo–conservative or neo-liberalhypocrisy: We are disappointed that there was not greater dignity given to the accused under these circumstances. Revenge against Revenge On Monday, January 15, 2007, the Iraqian Government reported, that at least 55 people were killed or found dead in Baghdad. on the same Martin Luther King Day, the US Military announced the death of two more soldiers killed in Baghdad. The mutual application of the Lex Talionis, revenge against revenge, has continued every day up to this time – April 2007 - without redemption in the Jewish, Christian or Islamic, or even the Buddhist sense (Küng 2004:19–55; Siebert 2006; 2005). on Tuesday, January 16, 2007, in revenge for the execution of President Hussein and his two aids over 109 Iraqians were killed outside a Baghdad University and over 200 people were wounded, as students were heading home for the day, and 4 American soldiers were killed in Northern Iraq (Gamel 2007: 1–4). A few days later, on January 20, 2007. 20 U. S. Service members were killed in Iraq (Mroue 2006:1–4) A few days later, on January 22, 2007, the Al Qaeda Deputy, Ayman al–Zawahiri, mocked and challenged US President George W. Bush’s plan to increase Iraq troop numbers by over 21 000 troops in a video message intercepted by the UD–based terrorism think–tank Site, to send the entire army to Iraq (BBC News 2007:1). He threatened, that the Iraqi insurgents would burry 10 armies like those of Mr. Bush. His strategy in Iraq was going to fail. Al Zawairi asked the President, why send 20 000 troops only–why not send 50 000 or 100 000. He asked President Bush: Arent’you aware that the dogs of Iraq are pining over your troops’ dead bodies? That is the hateful archaic language of revenge. on January 16, 2007, the UN announced, that the death toll in Iraq for 2006 topped 34 000 Iraqis. The Golden Rule, which all three Abrahamic religions, and Buddhism, and the other world religions share, and the project global ethos, built on it as well as on the categorical imperative and the apriori of the universal communication community, remains mute and unrealized as Modernity continues unnegated in the neo–conservative and neo–liberal form of globalization, and as only its Orwellian and Huxleyian lies, hypocrisy and lawlessness point to global post–Modern alternative Future I–the totally administered, loveless and meaningless world, and to global post–modern alternative Future II–the entirely militarized more and more murderous world: War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength ( Huxley, 1969;Orwell 1961: 7,17,87-88152 – 153,;Adorno1997j/2: 9–10, 47–71, 97–122 , 375–395, 573–594, 608–616, 674–690, 702–740, 785–802; Horkheimer 1985g:chs. 34, 35, 36, 37, 40; Küng 1990; 1991: 486 -536, 537 – 762; 1994: 869 –906; 2004: D and E; Siebert 2006; 2005; Meyer 2006: 22–27). Facticity and Validity In his press conference with the Christian–Democratic German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, on January 4, 2006, the neo–conservative President Bush junior supported the investigation into President Sadam Hussein’s execution by the Iraqian Prime Minister, but–like his Secretary of State–refused to condemn the Shiite henchmen, who taunted him before his hanging (Frayer/Mattar 2007: 1–4; Abdul–Zhara 2007: 1–4). It seems, that like Machiavelli or Pareto, the teacher of Benito Mussolini, before, so President Bush junior and his cabinet often seem to be blind for the essential difference between facticity and validity: namely that the mere fact, that a President, whose government has been recognized internationally for over three decades, has factually and effectively been removed by a foreign government through overwhelming power, force, war, and execution, does not yet mean, that this procedure was rightful, moral, ethical, or legal, and that thus it has validity in any religious or secular sense (Habermas 1992). Not even the United Nations has the right to perform a regime change in any of its member states, or in any other state outside itself. only a nation itself may have the right to remove its government, if it threatens its existence. Regime change in one nation through unilateral intervention, first strike, war, occupation, terror or executions by another state can never be ethically or legally universalized. The very fact, that often before in American or European history might has been right de facto, does not mean that, therefore, this principle has validity, and can be an excuse for present or future overwhelming military interventions. This principle of might is right also does not gain validity through the very fact, that the enemy practiced it as well nationally or internationally. If I imitate my enemy and thus become like him, what is the purpose in fighting him? Injustices have the tendency to generate further injustices, and even escalate them, rather than to restore the violated order of right and personal, social, political, or historical morality. That has been the curse of the Jus or Lex Talionis through centuries. That is under all circumstances to be broken, and not to be continually reproduced, so that the horrible theodicy problem is further increased(Genesis 34; Exodus 21:24; Matthew 5:38–48; Hertz 5716–1956:127–129/1–31; Leibniz 1996: Vol. I and II; Hegel 1986 l: 28, 540, 1986p: 88; 1986s: 497; 1986t: 248, 455; Oelmüller1990; Torchia/Abdul–Zarah 2006: 1–3; Hurst 2006:1–4; Siebert 1993; 2006). Under the condition of always more sophisticated weapons of mass destruction, such increase of the theodicy problem may very well mean the end of the human species in the form of a Third World War among the religion-based civilizations carried out with ABC weapons, as foreseen by Samuel Huntington and his followers. Shortly, the reduction of validity to facticity, or of right to might, can not possibly be universalized in terms of the Golden Rule, or of its secularization and rationalization in the form of the categorical imperative, or of the apriori of the unlimited communication community (Apel 1975: vol. II, 155–436; Habermas 1983; 1991; 1992; Küng 1990; Siebert 2006; Lee 2006). If these universalizing principles are continually violated, only the always–escalating Lex Talionis and the consequent horror of the deepening theodicy problem are left (Siebert 2005; 2006). Abolishment of the Death Penalty The critical theorist of religion remembers, that the Christian social ethics evolved only very slowly to the point, when finally in the 20th century it was ready to find the death penalty implausible and unacceptable, and agreed with the modern enlighteners’ attempts to abolish it (Hegel 1986a: 440–442, 613–614, 6–19–620; Canetti 1960; 1972; Opitz 2006:41–44). The death penalty had been quite customary in Antiquity, Medieval and Modern Europe, under the slaveholders, and the feudal lords, as well as under the bourgeois ruling class (Hegel 1986a: 440–442, 613–614, 6–19–620), Unfortunately, also the moral and legal and practical track record of the different Christian paradigms as well as of the other world religions concerning death penalty, as well as torture, or slavery has rather been miserable. Before World War II, only Norway had been humanistic and social–minded enough, to abolish the death penalty in its territory. But then from 1945 on, when the European nations wanted to extract themselves from the bestiality of two world wars, and wanted to rediscover their normative identity and base in their seedbed societies of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome–the Golden Rule and itssecular modern inversion into the categorical imperative and the apriori of the unlimited communication community, s well as autonomy, humanism, scientific rationality, universalistic humanity, democracy, constitutional state, and social market economy–they as well as the USA, were so repelled and disgusted by the all too frequent and criminal application of the death penalty by the fascist regimes, particularly by the most revengeful Adolf Hitler, that they were ready and willing to abolish the death penalty (Kant 1929:472–474, 633–634; 1946; 197540–54, 55–61, 77–93, 113–122, 129–131; Hegel 1986g:398–514; 1986q:50–95, 96––154, 155–184, 185–346; Fromm 1973:ch. 13; Canetti 1972:chs. 1, 4, 5, 7; 1960; Sohn–Rethel1975:chs. 10, 11; Apel 1976: vol. I and II; 1982; Habermas 1983; 1991; Küng 1990:84–85; 1991; 1994; 2004; Küng/Kuschel 1993a; 1993b; Häring/Kuschel 1993; Nida–Rümelin 2006: 5–10; Harprecht 2006: 11–14). The death penalty remained abolished in the West for several years, and still remains so in the European Union up to the present– April 2007. However, during the social crisis and social destabilization in the West in the 1960s and 1970s, which was caused particularly by economic setbacks under the Keynesian system, and by the War in Vietnam, and by the student rebellion, and which led to the successful neo–conservative revolution, or bourgeois counter–revolution, and to the neo–liberal trend turn, the Supreme Court of the USA permitted the particular states of the Union to reintroduce the death penalty again. Over 20 states did do so. Recently, however–in 2005/2006/2007– several of these states have felt serious doubts concerning different aspects of the death penalty: but not enough yet, in order to abolish it again and suspend it altogether everywhere and forever. To do so, would help greatly to reduce the general necrophilia in the late capitalist commodity–exchange societies, and it would be an important step on the way to global alternative Future III–a society characterized by a possible socialism as practiced humanism, and situated beyond both, the free market economy on one hand, and the centrally administered economy, on the other (Adorno 1979:354–372, 397–407 408–433, 434–439 578–587; Fetscher/. Schmidt 2002:chs. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10; Flechtheim/Lohmann 2003). According to Canetti and Adorno, even the most modern and enlightened societies are still built on a latent coercive violence behind all commands of the international corporate ruling class and its rackets. It becomes manifest and immediate in a most extreme way not only in wars, but also already in the praxis of the death penalty, and in the particular executions: as e, g, that of President Saddam Hussein (Canetti 1960: 90–91). The critical theorist of society, Theodor W. Adorno, argued, following Hegel, that every execution was directed toward the others,i.e. toward those, who are not executed (Hegel 1986a: 440–442, 613–614, 6–19–620; Canetti 1960: 90–91. Already Adorno’s great teacher, Friedrich Nietzsche, the son of a Protestant pastor and the self–proclaimed anti–Christ – Dionysus versus the Crucified –. spoke, nevertheless, the great sentence in conformity with the Sermon on the Mount, and quite in the spirit of Hegel: that man had to be redeemed from the mythological spell of the Jus or Lex Talionis, from revenge, from retaliation (Exodus 21: 24; Matthew 5: 38–42; Hegel 1986a: 440–442, 613–614, 6–19–620; Canetti 1960: 90–91; Kaufmann 1968:ch. 12; Canetti 1960: 91–92; Siebert 2006). B. Golden Rule Hans Küng had toadmit, that certainly the world religions have always been and stillare in the temptation, to loose themselves in an infinite undergrowth of commandments, rules, regulations, instructions, cannons and paragraphs (Küng 1990: 84 – 85). We may remember in the Jewish Religion of Sublimitythe 613 Mitsvoth of Maimonides, or the 614 Mitzvoth of Fackenheim,based on the Torah( Hegel 1986 q:50-91; Küng 1991). However, the world religions can, if they want to, give often with greater authority than any philosophy good reasons, that the application of their norms are not only valid from case to case, but categorically ( Kant 1965: 128,158, 472 – 474, 633 – 634; Küng 1990: 84 – 85). Categorical Imperative In the perspective of the critical theory of religion, the great world religions can give to human being a highest norm of conscience: that for present socially torn apart, antagonistic civil society immensely important categorical imperative. which obligates people in a much greater depth andmore fundamentally than any philosophy possibly can. (Küng 1990: 84 – 85). This is so, because all great world religions have demanded something like a Golden Rule: i.e. a not only hypothetical, conditional, but rather a categorical, apodictic, unconditional norm. It has been acompletely and definitely practicable doable norm in the face of highly complex situations, in which individuals and groups have oftento act. Different Forms of the Golden Rule The Golden Rule appears in the different world religions in slightly different forms: The Golden Rule states in its Chinese form: Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you(Confucius, Analects 15,23). The Golden Rule says in its Hindu Form: This is the sum of duty: do nothing to others, which would cause you pain, if done to you (Mahabharata XIII 114.8.) The Golden Rule teaches in its Buddhist form: A state that is not pleasant or delightful to me must be so for him also; and a state which is not pleasant or delightful for me, how could I inflict that on another? ( Samyutta Nikaia V) The Golden Rule of Jainism says: A person should treat all creatures as he himself would be treated (Sutrakritanga 1.11.33anga). The Golden Rule says in its Jewish form: Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you( Rabbi Hillel, Shabbat 31a). The Golden Rule teaches in its Christian form: In everything do to others as you would have them do to you ( Mathew 7: 12; Luke 6:31). The Golden Rule states in its Islamic form: No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself ( 40 Hadith. Sayings of Muhammad of an- Nawawi 13 The Golden Rule says in its Wicca form : If you harm none, do what you will: what you give forth, will come back three fold. From Is to Ought L. Kohlberg discovered the Golden Rule on some of the six levels of the ontogenetic and phylo-genetic development of moral consciousness (Matthew 7: 12;Apel 1990: 340). In his essay From Is to Ought, Kohlberg tried to show through his stage scheme, that and how the progressive equilibration process of the ontogenesis and phylogenesis of the moral judgment, which had been postulated by J. Piaget’s cognitive theory of development, could be comprehended as hierarchy of forms of moral integration in the sense of the growing sense of justice (Kohlberg 1971: 165). Kohlberg explicated this claim in the following four theses: 1.The moral judging is based on a process of role taking, e.g. in the sense of George. H. Mead(Apel 1990: 317; Mead 1969). 2.The role takingdemonstrates on each level a new logical structure corresponding to the logical stages of the thinking process in J. Piaget’s theory. 3.This structure can be grasped as justice-structure.4. This justice-structure is as such in every following stage more embracing, and at the same time more differentiated, and more equilibrated than on the previous level. Kohlberg explicated and proved these four theses on the passage through the six stages of his scheme: The preconventional stage I. The preconventional stage II The conventional stage III The conventional stage IV The post-conventional stage V The post-conventional stage VI People perceive and understand The Golden Rule very differently on the different stages of the evolution of the moral consciousness. Different Conceptions of Justice On the pre-conventional Stage II, Kohlberg spoke of a naïve-instrumental or better naïve strategic conception of the essence of justice and fairness.( Kohlberg 1971: 165; Otto 1990: 317-318) Correspondingly, Kohlberg perceived on this level the Golden Rule of the New Testament in the senseof the reciprocity of the actual exchange offavors or also of theretaliation or reprisal for evil deeds in terms of the Jus or LexTalionis (Exodus21: 24; Matthew 38-42; Kohlberg 1971: 165; Otto 1990: 317-318). As a matter of fact on this level in the development of moral consciousness the Golden Rule and the Lex Talionis can fall together and become identical. on the conventional Stage III, the children or young adults were the first time able to do role taking in a reflective way. Now they could put themselvesat the same time into two different roles, which were related to each other. Correspondingly, they understood now also the Golden Rule of the New Testamentappropriately and suitably in the sense of an ideal reciprocity of the formula: Treat the others in such a way, as you would like to be treated by them ( and not in such a way as you are factually treated by them). Now the Golden Rule and the Lex Talionis could no longer be mixed up with each otherAccording to Kohlberg, the beginning of the universalization of the role taking respectively the Golden Rule was on this conventional stage III not yet possible. Likewise also precisization of the role obligations and rights was not yet possiblein the sense of a social function-system: of an order of society, which had fixed the roles throughrulesbelonging to them or through norms of the correct behavior. Al that would happen on StageIV, V, and VI. Precedence ofthe Possibility of Universalization . Kohlberg used the application of the Golden Rule as example to explain the precedence of the possibility of universalization on the Stage VI ofPiaget andhis own ontogenetic developmental logic of the moral consciousness( Matthew 7: 12;Apel 1990: 11, 317 – 340, 330-331, ch. 10). For Kohlberg, the applicationof theGolden Rule became possible the first time in the stage III in the development of moral consciousness. But according to Kohlberg the Golden Rule did not yet lead on this level III to a completely equilibrated solution of possible conflicts between humanlegal entitlements. The reason for that was that here in stage III as also still in the sacrosanct and closed social order of level IV of the development of the moral consciousness the role taking was still too much prejudged through the reciprocity relationships of the respective referencegroup or though a pre-given order of role obligations. Here the role taking did not yet get to the point, where it carried outcompletely the demand of reversibility in the sense of the principle equal rights of all human beings. Kohlberg exemplified this through the New Testament story of the rich young man, to whom Jesus recommended to give all his goods to the poor: And there was a man who came to him( Jesus) and asked.” Master, what good deed must I do to possess eternal life?” Jesus said to him: “Why do you ask me about what is good ?There is one alone who is good. But if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said,” which?”” These ,” Jesus replied,” You must not kill.You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not bring false witness. Honor your father and mother, and: you must love your neighbor because he is like you.” The young man said to him,” I have kept all these. What more do I need to do?” Jesus said: “ If you wish to be perfect, go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven, then come, follow me.” But when the young man heard these words he went away sad, for he was a man of greatwealth(Exodus 20:12-16; Deuteronomy 5: 16-20; Mark 10:17-31; Matthew19: 16-22; Luke18:18-27).Then Jesus said to his disciples,” I tell you solemnly, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Yes, I tell you again, it is easier or a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,” When the disciples heard this they were astonished.” Who can be saved then?” they said. Jesus gazed at them,” For men,” he told them,” this is impossible; for God everything is possible. Then Peter spoke.” What about us?”he said to him,” We have left everything and followed you. What are we to have then?” Jesus said to him,” I tell you solemnly, when all is made new and the Son of Man sits on his throne of glory, you will yourselves sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters father, mother, children or land for the sake of my name will be repaid a hundred times over, and also inherit eternal life. Many who are first will be last, and the last, first. For Kohlberg through Jesus’ indicated recommendation to the young man to give his goods to the poor was indeed not solved the problem of distributive justice, which Aristotle had precisely formulated the first time, in reference to the dyadic reciprocity relationship between the rich man and the poor people. Athens departed from Jerusalem! According to Kohlberg, what was missing in the recommendation of Jesus to the rich man, was the complete reversibility of the role taking in the sense of justice. However, here Kohlberg has not only not yet made sufficiently clear, to what extent the principle of the complete reversibility of the role takingdid constitute not only the possible end point of a theory of the development of the moral competence to judge a la Piaget, buthe has also not given a sufficient normative justification of a theory of justice. e.g. in the sense ofJ. Rawls ( Rawls1971; Apel 1990: 191-192 331). Kohlberg himself confirmed this impression through his essayJustice as Reversibility: The Claim to Moral Adequacy of a Highest Stage of Moral Judgment. In the perspective of the critical theory of religion, Kohlberg abstracted from Jesus’central demand of mimesis or imitation, as well as from his eschatological reservation of eternal life and of the kingdom of heaven, which are expressions of - what Horkheimer and Adornohave called- the longing for the wholly Other than the horror and terror of nature, society and history, the longing, that the murderer shall not triumph over his innocent victim, at least not ultimately, the longing for the absolutely New, and which constituted for them the very core of religion( Horkheimer 1985g: ch. 29,37,40;Apel 1990: ch.11). Modern Inversion Habermas, informed by Piaget, Kohlberg andApel,has objected, that the Golden rule in all its forms was not the Kantian categorical imperative, and rightly so. The Golden Rule is, of course, pre-modern, religious and material in all its forms.However, the Kantian categorical imperative is modern, secular and formal ( Kant 1965: 128,158, 472 – 474, 633 – 634; Küng 1990: 84 – 85).However the religious Golden Rule can also be inverted, translated, sublated, rationalized, formalized, and secularized in modern, post-modern, and post-metaphysical philosophical and social-scientific discourses into the principle of- what Immanuel Kant had called- the categorical imperative: Act in such a way, that the maxim of your will can at any time also be valid as principle of a universal legislation, or Act in such a way, that you use the humanity in your own person as well as in the person of every other human being always also as purpose, never merely as means. Kant 1965: 113, 114, 128,143, 158, 160, 472 –474,633 – 634; Küng 1990:84-85) Charles Pierce, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas have translated, sublated, rationalized, formalized, and secularized further in their communicative or discourse ethics the religious Golden Rule and the secular Kantian categorical imperative into the principle of the apriori of the unlimited communication community: Your action is ethically valid, when it honors the five validity claims – truthfulness, honesty, rightfulness, tastefulness and understandability, and when it finds the consensus of the universal communication community, particularly of the possible victims (Apel 1976: vol. 2; 1982; Edelstein/Habermas 1984;Habermas 1983;1991a).
Ethical Motivation Habermas has admitted, that modern secular ethics has a problem with motivation (Habermas. 1983; 1991a; 1991b: Part III; Küng 1990:84-85). Even after Apel’s and Habermas’s communicative or discourse ethics has verified the validity of an ethical norm – e.g. that it is better to love than to hate, or that one should not kill if one finds that convenient for one self or for one’s country, there remains still the question, why a person should follow it? . The secular categorical imperative or the likewise secular communicative ethics has no adequate answer to this question of motivation. Küng had to admit, that certainly the world religions have always been and still arein temptation, tocommandand give orders to human beings in a most authoritarian manner, and to demandfrom them blind obedience and to do violence to their consciences ( Küng1990:85). Transition A major issue facingreligious and secular people in late capitalist society is the possible transition from the necrophilous Jus Talionis to the most biophilous Golden Rulenot only in Christianity, but in all world religions, and also in a secular form in the modern humanisms: So always treat others as you would like them to treat you: that is the meaning of the Law and the Prophets – in personal and collective, national and international relations and behavior (Matthew 7: 12;Küng 1990:84-85). Daily the Jus Talionis has been practiced in the most cruel way by Jews, Christians, and Muslims on both sides of the front in the past 5 years: in Palestine, in Israel, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in the Sudan, and elsewhere. Seven million years ago humans separated from the Chimpanzees, who also were used to practice furious retaliation from one tribe to the other. Much has changed and much progress has been made not only in terms of instrumental rationality but also in terms of communicative rationality since then on our long march from animality to alternative Future III – the realm of freedom beyond the realm of natural necessity. This has been true particularly since the establishment of the great civilizations at the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers, at the Nile River, at the Indus River, and at the Yellow River: shortly since the axis time. We went to the moon and we shall go to Mars. We overcame tribalism and nationalism at least to the extend, that the European Union and the United Nations became possible. Why should it not be possible for us, to abolish the Jus Talionis, and to make the transition to the Golden Rule?
Causes In order to promote such transition,we must explore the possible biological, psychological, economic, sociological, anthropological, and theological causes, which so far have prevented us from moving to alternative Future III – the free and reconciled society, and which force us to move toward alternative Future I – the totally administered society, and toward alternative Future II –– the entirely militarized society, producing always new wars and civil wars, and instigating the collision of religion – based civilizations,and preparing World War III to be fought with weapons of mass destruction(Flechtheim 1971). Not at least and not at last we need to discover the causes, which compel us to the always-new application of the most primitive and archaic Jus Talionis without end. There is already in the Torah the wonderful story of Joseph, who’s ten brothers wanted to kill him and then had shamefully and pitilessly sold him into Egyptian slavery, and who had now as representative of the Pharaoh the opportunity and the power to revenge himself( Genesis 37 – 50). The greatness of Joseph lies in the fact, that for all time he showed men a better way than retaliation – the Lex Talionis, He tested his brothers, holding his own natural feelings in check, until convinced of their filial piety to their father Jacob, or Israel, their love for Benjamin, and their sincere contrition for their crime towards him. Then Joseph forgave them freely, fully, and lovingly. He practiced the Golden Rule instead of the Jus Talionis. Also Jesus of Nazareth tried to break the Lex Talionis through forgiveness in the fourth commandment of the so-called Sermon on the Mount. There are Suras with the same intent in the Holy Qur’an. Torah, New Testament , and the Holy Qur’an contain the Golden Rule as well as forgiveness.All three Abrahamic religions as well as other world religions and humanisms prefer the golden Rule and forgiveness over the praxis of the Lex Talionis. That has recently been portrayed most masterfully, simply, powerfully and remarkably in the wonderful Russian movie Prisoner of the Mountains on the war in Tchechnia Praxis Why then have the Jewish, Christian, Islamic and other religious and humanisticattempts to abolish the Jus Talionis through the Golden Rule andforgiveness not worked in Praxis universally so far through the centuries? (Küng 1990; 1991; 1994; 2004). Why did it not work for Christians, in spite even of the moral compromise of the Seven Point Just War Theory of St. Augustine, the initiator of the Roman Catholic Paradigm of Christianity? It was honestly practicedby Christian heads of states only twice in 1600 years. Why, to the contrary, were the Hindu Mahatma Ghandi and his followers able to break the ban of the Jus Talionis,, and instead to practice the Golden Rule and forgiveness successfully, while so many members of the Abrahamic religions have such a hard time to realize it? Since the Reformation, the Sermon on the Mount, which contains the negation of the Jus Talionis as well as the Golden Rule, has become a mirror, in which individuals and nations can recognize their sinfulness, rather than a genuine orientation of action, which would lead out of the present crisis situation. Of course, if the Golden Rule, which includes the Law and the Prophets, and forgiveness, is not practiced, then the bloody praxis of the Jus Talionis is the unavoidable and necessary consequence, in private and collective life, and thus merely a further deepening of the terrible crisis in which find ourselves in the present transition period, in which since 1917 a post-Modern Paradigm has began to determinately negate the Modern Paradigm of the past 400 years: creative destruction (Habermas 2002;2005: chs. 5,8, 9; Habermas/Ratzinger 2005;Küng 1990; 1991: 486 -536, 537 – 762; 1994: 869 –906; 2004: D and E; Siebert 2006; 2005; Meyer 2006: 22–27). Inversion All living world religions share the Golden Rule (Küng 1990; 1991; 194; 2004). It has also been inverted, translated, sublated, rationalized, formalized, and secularized in modern, post-modern, and post-metaphysical philosophical and social-scientific discourses into the principle of- what Immanuel Kant had called- the categorical imperative – Act in such a way, that the maxim of your will can at any time also be valid as principle of a universal legislation, or Act in such a way, that you use the humanity in your own person as well as in the person of every other human being always also as purpose, never merely as means – and into – what Charles Pierce, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermashave called -theaprioriof the unlimited communication community – Your action is ethically valid,when it finds the consensus of the universal communication community, particularly of the possible victims. Global Ethos The Golden Rule in its religious and secular forms is not merely a hypothetical, conditional, but rather a categorical, apodictic, unconditional norm (Küng 1990). It is also practicable and doable in modern and post-modern highly complex situations in globalized, very antagonistic civil society, in which individuals and groups have to act communicatively or instrumentally only too often. The Golden Rule could very well become the foundation of – what Hans Küng has called- a global ethos, and which he has presented to the United Nations in New York, and for which there he has reached complete consensus. Such global ethos could inform the actions of teachers, economists, businessmen, politicians, generals, as well as the masses of the people in such a way, that the application of the Jus Talionis would become for them more and more implausible and unacceptable. It is the purpose of our discourse to contribute to such enlightenment and emancipation as reconciliation and atonement. Public Use of Reason To be sure, the realization of the Golden Rule and the global ethics is not possible without religious faith and without- what John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas have called – the public use of reason Rawls 1971; Habermas 1983; 1985; 1991; 1992; 2002; 2004). Certainly, the modern separation of synagogue, church or mosque on one hand, and the secular neutral state, on the other, influences deeply the role which religious faith, traditions, communities, and organizations are allowed to play in antagonistic civil society, and in the political public sphere, above all in the political opinion- and will – formation of the citizens. In our discourse, we shall try to explore, where in the opinion of the neo-conservative revisionists the dividing line should be between religion and state. We shall have to find out, if the neo-conservative or fundamentalist Jewish, Christian, or Islamic opponents, who are currently engaged in a culture war against the liberal standard version of an ethics of citizenship, are actually only championing the pro-religious meaning of the secular state held to be neutral, versus a narrow secularist notion of a pluralistic society. It is also possible, that the neo-conservative and fundamentalist opponents are more or less inconspicuously trying to change the liberal agenda from the bottom up, and thus are already arguing from the background of a completely different self-understanding of modernity. on the answers to such questions it depends, which chance the Golden Rule or the global ethos may have to be actualized in the public forum of modern states and among them. In any case, there will be no peace among the nations without peace inside and among the world religions. Post-Secular Society We shall discuss the liberal premises of the modern constitutional state and the consequences, which the liberal conception of the public use of reason has on the religious or secular ethics of citizenship (Rawls 1971;Habermas 1983; 1985; 1991; 1992; 2002; 2005). We shall treat the most important objections to the rather restrictive liberal idea of the political role of religion. Through a critical discussion of neo-conservative and fundamentalist revisionist proposals that do touch on the very foundations of the liberal self-understanding, we shall try to develop a conception of our own, which gives the Golden Rule, the categorical imperative, the apriori of the unlimited communication community and the global ethos a chance to assert and actualize themselves against the archaic and mythological power of the Jus Talionis. We shall be ready to admit, that religious and secular citizens can only fulfill the normative expectations of the liberal role of citizens, if they likewise fulfill certain cognitive conditions and ascribe to the respective opposite the corresponding epistemic attitudes. We shall have to explain, what this means by discussing the change in the form of religious consciousness, which was a response to the challenges of modernity. In their response to the process of modernization, religious communities have often differentiated themselves in themselves between those believers, who wanted to resist it, and those who were willing to accommodate themselves to it, and assimilate themselves to it. Thus, in Judaism we find orthodox, conservative and reformed Rabbis. In Christianity we find conservative and liberal believers. By contrast, we shall discover, that the secular awareness that one is living in a post-secular society takes the shape of post-metaphysical thought at the philosophical level. Post-secular does, of course, not mean, that religion is returning for good, but rather that it disappears much more slowly than some of the secular enlighteners had predicted and hoped for. We shall see, that the secular and neutral liberal state faces the problem, that religious and secular citizens can only acquire those mutual epistemic attitudes through complementary learning processes, while it remains a mute point, whether these are learning processes at all, and ones, which the state cannot influence by its own means of law and politics anyway. In any case, our discourse wants to promote epistemic attitudes in religious and secular – humanist citizens of modern liberal and even of still historical-intermediate states, which make the Jus Talionis obsolete, and which promote the Golden Rule and the global ethos. Cooperation Already in the present transition period from modernity to post-modernity the open dialectic between the religious and the secular, revelation and autonomous reason, faith and knowledge can make possible the cooperation between religious and secular people, believers and enlighteners toward a project world ethos (Küng 1990), It could be centered in the Golden Rule, which the Chinese Religion, Hinduism Jainism, Buddhism, Judaism. Christianity and Islam and other world religions have in common. The Golden Rule embraces not only the whole Hebrew Law and the Prophets, but also the New Testament and the Koran. Also many enlighteners and humanists have no problem to accept the Golden Rule as the foundation of a global ethos. one may even extend the Gold Rule to non-human living beings: men would do to animals, as men would have animals do to them: e.g. pull the sheep out of the pit even on the Sabbath (Matthew 12: 1,2,5,8,10,11,12). If men would not like to be eaten by sharks or lions or bears, they should not eat them. Before Noah all people were vegetarians. If men would respect animal rights in terms of the Golden Rule could they still establish zoos or keep domestic animals, not to speak of having huge slaughterhouses. The End of the Lex Talionis The Golden Rule in all its different forms can conquer the Jus or Lex Talionis (Küng 1990; 1991; 1994; 2004). on Sunday evening, April 9, 2006, the Israeli Government announced , that it has a right to retaliate against the missiles coming from the Gaza Strip: eye for eye, tooth for tooth! A few minutes later the Palestinian Authority announced that it had the right to retaliate against the Israeli counterattacks: free man for free man, slave for slave!Not even the limiting character of the Jus Talionis is taken seriously.The practice of the Golden Rule would be the end of the Lex Talionis: treat the other as you want to be treated! The analysis should not stop with the so called realistic assertion that the Golden Rule can not be practiced and thus the spell or the curseof the mutual application of the Lex Talionis can not be broken, Men like Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Archbishop Romero practiced the Golden Rule even in its extreme form by following the fourth and fifth commandment of the Sermon on the Mount. It is rather so that the psychoanalytical and critical sociological and critical theological analysis must begin precisely with the question: why is it not possible for some people to practice the Golden Rule and why must they remain under the spell of the mythological Jus Talionis?Which powerful instincts in the basement of the human civilization prevent continually the application of the Golden Rule ? Self-preservation, death drive, the hunger of the predator, will to power? Should it not be possible to break forever Adolf Hitler's aristocratic principle of nature, the right of the predator to enslave or to kill the prey, for the sake of the survival of the human species on this planet earth? When some people can liberate themselves from this ban of the Lex Talionis and do to others, as they want to be treated, why cannot all do it, since they all share in the same human nature? In any case, who does not want to lose his eye, should not take it from his brother. Who does not want to be stolen from should not steal or engage in usury,or nationalism, orcolonialism, or imperialism. Who does not want to be killed by the sword, should not use it. Who does not want to be murdered, should not murder, or engage in war, or torture, or assassinations, or terror, religious or secular. Who does not want to be lied to should not lie and engage in false advertisement, or false propaganda, or ideology understood as false consciousness, the masking of national, or racial, or class interests, shortly the untruth. Whoever does not want his personal autonomy or national sovereignty to be violated, should not attack that of other persons or nations: e.g. for the sake of regime change.Whoever does not want his own country to be devastated by natural or historical agents, should not devastate other peoples’ countries: otherwise New Orleans of August/September 2005 and the surrounding states, cities, towns and villages suddenly look with their thousands of wounded and dead, and refugees, and homeless, and hostages, and fires, and shootings and killings and rapes and disorganization and chaos like Baghdad and Basra and surrounding Iraq, and Kabul and surrounding Afghanistan from 2002 until now. Who does not want other life forms to intervene into his own, should also not intervene into other peoples’ life forms. Whoever does not want other nations to have or to use weapons of mass destruction, should also not have or use them himself. The Israelite, Hebrew, Jewish, Christian and Islamic prophets and the Hebrew psalmists, would have said: repent! The Lutheran Christian Hegel would have said: world-history is world judgment! The Black Muslim Malcolm X would have said: the chickens are coming home to roost! Egalitarianism The Golden Rule implies a true egalitarianism among individuals and nations, without which there cannot be any true discourse, or personal or social morality (Küng 1990). Whenever the Golden Rule is not actualized, the Lex Talionis will take its place. If we do continually to others, as we would not have them do to us, then there will necessarily be endless mutual retaliation: until both opponents are exhausted, or one of them has been annihilated, or one of them has the courage to take the first step to break the curse.Wars of revenge can not be won, except through the total annihilation of the other, the enemy, .If the wars of retaliation are not directed against another state but rather against a worldwide religious movement, then- since they are no wars at all in the first place - those non-wars can be won even less. There remains only either the practice of the Golden Rule, and thus the inclusion of the other, or cold, universal despair, and finally alternative Future II:a third world war between the civilizations a la Samuel Huntington’s.The Christian theologian and ecumenist, Hans Küng, has presented such project world ethos, centered in the Golden Rule, to the World - Parliament of Religions as well as to the United Nations, and found full and universal acceptance. While Huntington’s prophecy of the clash of civilizations has admittedly and unfortunately at this moment in world history the tendency to fulfill itself, we, nevertheless, side with Küng’s project World Ethos, and the discourse among the religions and the civilizations in the hope, that it will help to produce peace among the nations. Fundamental Principle According to the critical theory of religion the fundamental principle of the Golden Rule and four ethical and socio-ethical directives derived from it can show the way to global alternative Future III: a free society, characterized by personal autonomy as well as by universal, i.e. anamnestic, present, and proleptic solidarity (Horkheimer 1985g:chs. 37,40;Habermas 1986;Küng 1990) The fundamental demand is the Golden Rule. This principle was found and has persisted in many religious and ethical traditions of humankind for thousands of years: what you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others. In the perspective of the critical theory of religion, this fundamental principle should be the irrevocable, unconditional norm for all areas of life, for families and communities, for races, nations and religions. It should be supported by the insurmountable longing for the totally Other, than what is the case in nature and history with their often most cruel laws. This totally Other stands for what once was called in Judaism and other world religions Infinite Power, Perfect Justice, Unconditional Love, Heaven, Eternity, Beauty, and Absolute Truth. Ethical Directives. On the basis of this fundamental principle of the Golden Rule, four ethical directives, found in all the great world religions of humanity, have to be remembered, if global alternative Future III should be realized: 1.You shall not murder, torture, torment, wound. This directive means in positive terms: you should have reverence for life. You should be committed to a culture of life and love, rather than to a culture of death. 2.You shall not lie, deceive, forge, manipulate. This directive means in positive terms: You should speak and act truthfully. You should be committed to a culture of truthfulness and tolerance. 3.You shall not steal, exploit, rob, bribe, and corrupt. That directive means in positive terms:You should deal honestly and fairly. You should be committed to a culture of fairness and a just economic order. 4.You shall not abuse sexuality, cheat, humiliate, dishonor. This directive means in positive terms: You should respect and love one another. You should be committed to a culture of partnership and equal dignity of men and women. (Küng 1990; Rawls 1971) While all four ethical directives can be found in the Mosaic Decalogue, which all three Abrahamic religions have in common, the first and fourth directive is also part of the specifically Christian Sermon on the Mount. However, its third, fourth and fifth commandment could also serve as ethical directive some day on a higher level of social and cultural evolution on the way to alternative Future III: no oath, cancellation of the Lex or Jus Talionis, and love of the enemy.Jews, Christians and Muslims, as well as committed believers of other world religions, are under the obligation, to seek every opportunity to practice kindness and love or - in secular terms – solidarity, and to bring relief and blessing, wherever they go. They see providential happenings in history: that there is Divine control of human conditions and that many humanly unaccountable things happen in individual and collective life. Already now the above four directives constitute a global ethic, able to lead humankind toward alternative Future III. Global Ethic In the perspective of the critical theory of religion, such global ethic should not be imposed by law but be brought to public awareness and be based on the consensus of the unlimited, universal communication community (Habermas 1983; 1985; 1991a; 199b; 1992; 2002; 2004; 2005;K¨¨ng 1990). Such global ethic is simultaneously applicable to individual persons and to collectives and their institutions. Such global ethic does not only focus on the collective responsibility to the relief of any responsibility the individual may hold, and vice versa. Of course, often the social conditions, or history, or the system must be blamed for specific injustices, abuses, and crimes. But also the individuals may be responsible for themat least to some extend, The global ethic focuses equally on the responsibility of each individual in his or her place in society, as well as on the collective. Individual and collective are mediated through each other. They reproduce each other. As the individual is a product of society, so society is a product of the individuals. They reproduce and thus change each other. In order global alternative Future III to be reached, individual and society will have to go through mutual revolutionary changes. The Support of Law In the view of the critical theory of religion, the free commitment to such global ethic, does, of course, not exclude the support of the law (Hagerman 1992; Küng 1990).It rather includes it. In some circumstances the global ethic can appeal to the law Such circumstances include cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, international assassinations and aggression contrary to international law. Meanwhile, following its ratification by more than sixty nations, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been established. According to the global ethic, it is to this court that such violations can be brought. This is specifically the case, when a signatory state is unable or unwilling to inflict legal penalties on atrocities committed in its territory or under its control. Peace Up to this point in history – July 2007 - the illegal and immoral wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have not brought the promised peace to either country, nor have they diminished terror around the world (Fromm 1992: 203- 212;Küng 1990; 2004: 29-42;Lawrence 2005;Siebrt 2006). As the two wars and civil wars continue, the decisive question arises more than ever before: what international commitments are to be made? In the perspective of the critical theory of religion, not the alternatives of the passing Modern Paradigm, but the alternatives of the future Post-Modern Constellation are most relevant. There are alternatives, if the billions that are being spent on sinfully expensive new weapon systems, e.g. the new German Tornados, in order to fight terrorism and in preparation of new wars among the civilizations, were being spent on kindergartens and schools, health care, hospitals, cancer research and public services at home and abroad, and on fighting against poverty, hunger and misery in the world:. to promote the prophetic concept of shalom, (Fromm 1992:203 – 211). Particular demands will have to be put on all world religions, not to support uncritically the official politics and policies of their respective governments, which only too often conduct politics as identification and demonization of the enemies, a la Carl Schmitt and Samuel Huntington: be these enemies the communists or the Jihadists, but to fulfill their own critical role in antagonistic civil society. The critical theory of religion does not promote a vision of war, but rather a vision of global alternative Future III – a peace society, in which the mainantagonisms of modern civil society will have been fought through andwill have been reconciled. The critical theory of religion summarizes this vision of alternative Future III in five propositions: 1.There will be no peace among nations without peace among the world religions. 2.There will be no peace among the world religions without discourse among them. 3.There will be no discourse among the world religions without comparative foundational research in them and among them. 4.There will be no discourse among the world religions without global ethical standards: particularly the Golden Rule and its ethical directives, 5.There will, therefore, be no survival of this globe without a global ethic (Horkheimer 1985g:chs. 37,40;Habermas 1986; Küng 1990). Such global ethic – driven by the longing for the imageless and nameless totally Other than the horror and terror of nature and history – must guide the discourse and cooperation among civilizations, if they want to avoid further collisions, and the alternative Futures I and II, and if they want to survive, and if they want to find their way to global alternative Future III – a genuine peace society, characterized by the freedom of all, beyond the realm of natural, economic, political, and historical necessities. (Hegel 1986l: 133 –141;Marx1961: 873-874; Horkheimer 1985g: chs.29; 34,35,36, 37, 40; Adorno 1973: 300-408; 1997j/2: 97-122; Benjamin 1977: chs. 10,11; Bloch 1970a; 1879b; 1971; Fromm1966; 1967; 1992: 203-212; Habermas 1976; 1986; 2001; 2006; Flechtheim1971; Flechtheim/Lohmann2003; Gerth/Mills 1964: Part IV; Eggebrecht1979) Shalom – It shall be well! (Fromm 1992: 203 –212). References Apel, Karl Otto 1976Transformation der Philosophie. Band 2.Das Apriori der Kommunkationsgemeinschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag 1982Sprachpragmatik und Philosophie. Frankfurt a.m; Suhrkamp Verlag 1990Diskurs und Vernatwortung.Das Problem des Übergangs zur postkonventionellen Moral, Frankfurt a.M: Surhkamp Verlag Benjamin, Walter 1977Illuminationen.Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp Verl;ag Borradori,Giovanna 1998Arbeit an der Heillosigkeit der Welt. Frankfurt a.M. : Suhrkamp VerlagEdelstein, Wolfgang /Habermas,Jürgen Fromm, Erich 1992The Dogma of Christ And Other Essays on Religion, Psychology, And Culture.New York : Henry Holt and Company Habermas, Jürgen 1983Moralbewusstein und kommunikatives Handeln.Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp Verlag 1985Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne. Zwölf Vorlesungen.Frankfurt a.M; Suhrkamp Verlag 1991aErläuterungen zur Diskursethik. Frankfurt a.M; Suhrkamp Verlag 1991bTexte und Kontexte. Frankfurt a.M; Suhrkam,p Verlag 1992Faktizität und Geltung. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp Verlasg. 2001Glauben und Wissen.Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels 2001. Laudatio: Jan Philipp Reemtsma.Frankfut a.M: Suhrkamp Verlag 2005Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion.Philosophische Aufsätze.Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 2001Glauben und Wissen. Frankfurt a.M; Suhrkamp Verlag 2002Religion and Rationality. Essays ion Reason,God, and Modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 2005Zwischen Naturalismus ud Religion. Philosophische Aufsätze..Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 2006The Divided West . Malden, MA: Polity Press Habermas,Jürgen/Ratzinger, Joseph 2005 The Dialectics of Secularization. on Reason and Religion. San Francisco:Ignatius Press. Hegel,Georg W.F. 1986pVorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion I.Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp Verlag 1986gGrundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundriss,Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Ver;ag 1986cPhänomenologie des Geistes, Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp Verlag 1986dNürnberger und Heidelberger Schriften 1808-1817. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp Verlag. 1986eWissenschaft der Logik I, Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp Ver;ag 1986lVorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte. Frankfurt a.M: Suhrtkamp Verlag Horkheimer, Max 1985Nachgelassene Schriften 1931 – 1949. Frankfurt a.M: Fischer Verlag 1988Schriften 1931 – 1936, Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer Verlag 1989mNachgelassene Schriften 1949 – 1972.Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1985gVorträge und Aufzeichnungen 1949-1973. Frankfurt a.M. ; Fischer Verlag 2005Messages to the World.The Statements of Osama Bin Laden.London/New York:Verso. Mann, Thomas 2004Meistererzzählungen. Königliche Hoheit.Zürich: Manesse Verlag Meier, Heinrich 1994Die Lehre Carl Schmitts. Vier Kapitel zur Unterscheidung Politischer Theologieund Politischer Philosophie. Stuttgart: Verlag J.B.Metzler Orwell,George 19611984.New York : The New American Library of World Literature Parsons, Talcott 1964The System of Modern Societies.Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. 1965Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives. Englewood Cliffs. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Rawls,J. 1971A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Peress Schmidt,Wilhelm, 1972Religion der Religionskritik. München: Claudius Verlag Schopenhauer, Arthur 1986Parerga und Paralipomena II. Frankfurt a.M; Suhrkamp Verlag. Siebert, Rudolf 1966“A German Experience,” in At the Cross Road, V,No. 2and 3, 1987cHegel’s Philosophy of History:Theological Humanistic and Scientific Elements, Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter:The Edwin Mellen Press. 1987dHorkheimer’s Critical Sociology of Religion,The Relative and the Transcendent, Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter:The Edwin Mellen Press. 1993Recht, Macht und Liebe.Georg W.Rudolphi’s Prophetische Politische Theologie, Frankfurt a.M.: Haag and Herchen 2001The Critical Theory of Religion.The Frankfurt School, Lanham, Maryland, and London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. 2002From Critical Theory to Political Theology: Personal Autonomy and Universal Solidarity, New York, Washington D.C./Baltimore, San Francisco, Bern, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna, Paris: Peter Lang 2004b“The Open Dialectic between Religious and Secular Values and Norms:their Universalization through Public Discourse,” in G. Lundskow, (ed.) Religious Resurgence in Global Perspective, Jefferson, North Carolina:McFarland and Co. 2005a“Toward a Discourse between Cognitive and Critical Theoreticians of Religion:Open Dialectic between the Religious and the Secular,” in B. Wilson and Th. Light’s (eds.) Festschrift. 2005b“The Golden Rule” from the Russian website:http//peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=131. 2005cLe Relatif Et Le Transcendant.La sociologhie critique de la religion de Max Horkheimer,Paris, France, Budapest, Homngrie, Torino, Italie:L’Harmattan. 2006aLex Talionis.Religion, force et terreur.Suivi der Thomas Müntzer.Jus Talionis, Abjat Sur Bandiat, France:X-Alta 2006b“Liberation et redemption dans la musique Hegel-Horkheimer-Adorno,” in X-Alta,Bumero 9,decembre 2996. Musicopathie del’impossibilite de la musique LaRoderie.F-24300 Abjat Sur Bandiat, France 2006c“The Critical Theory of Religion:Toward an Open Dialectic Between Religious Faith and Secular Experience and Knowledge” in Forum on Public Policy.Religion.Volume 2.Number1. 2006d“Toward a Dialectical Sociology of Religion: A Crique of Positivism and Clerico-Fascism,” in Warren S.Goldstein,Marx, Critical Theory, and Religion.A Critque of Rational Choice. Leiden, Boston: Brill 2007a“Our Friendship:It began with Thomas Müntzer, the Theologian of Revolution,”Paper read in the IUC Dubrovnik, Croatia in April 2006 and published inKarl Koop / Jeremy Bergen, / Paul Doerksen, Creed and Conscience.Essays in Honor of A.James Reimer.Toronto: Pandora Press. 2007b“Theology of Revolution versus Theology of Counter-Revolution”, in Michael Ott, The Future of Religion : Toward a Reconciled Society, Rotterdam: Brill Publisher. .2007c“ The Jesus Revolution, The Judas Kiss, and the Empires,” Lecture in international course on “ Religion and Civil Society: Identity Crisis in the Post-secular Society”in Jalte, Crimea, Ukraine. November 8, 2008“ The Jesus Revolution, The Judas Kiss, and the Empires”,X-Alta . Paris, France Sölle,Dorothee 1977Revolutionary Patience.Maryknoll, New York : Orbis Books. 1993Gott im Müll. München : Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. 1994Atheistisch an Gott glauben. .München : Deutsher Taschenbuch Verlag Tillich, Paul 1963aSystematic Theology,Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, Vol I. 1963bSystematic Theiology.Chicago Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, Vol. II.
----------------------------------------------------
March 26, 2008 Dear Berta: Here are a few memories about my encounters with my good friends, the Professors Ivan Supek, Branko Bosniak, and Srdan Vrcan. Two of them were my co-directors.I hope my notes will be useful for you as you compose your book. Enjoy them. I shall see you soon in paradisiacal Dubrovnik again. We shall stay in our old historical Hotel Lero again, where many good memories will come back to us. I am with all my good wishes for you, and your dear family, and your great work, Your Rudi Siebert Ivan Supek I met Professor Dr. Ivan Supek (1915-2007) the first time on his trip to the United States in1974. He was a guest at Western Michigan University. At that time Ivan invited me, to come to the Inter-University Center in Dubrovnik, which he had just founded in 1970.A year later, I participated and gave papers in his course on the Philosophy of Science, and in another course on Marxism and Phenomenology. At the end of both courses, Professor Ivan Supek and Professor Branko Bosniak asked me, if I was interested in founding a course of my own in the IUC. I happily agreed and took the title from the endings of my two papers: The Future of Religion. Two years later, in March 1977, we started our course. From 1977 on I met Ivan almost every year in the IUC or in Hotel Lero, and during and after the war in Hotel Argentina, when Hotel Lero had become the home for many refugees. We had wonderful discourses with each other on quantum physics; on the law of gravity; on religion; on his novels; on history; on dialectics and positivism; on politics; on the principle of uncertainty; on the freedom in the atom as well as in society; on Heisenberg’s God, who gambled; on inverse evolutionary selection in civil society; and many other topics, which interested us. Some times Ivan challenged me. He was not a dialectician like his brother Rudi Supek. Thus once Ivan asked me, to explain the law of gravity dialectically. So I did. Then he developed the law of gravity in terms of theoretical physics. using up for that purpose all the blackboards in the IUC lecture room, where we found ourselves. . Then Ivan pointed out triumphantly and lovingly the superiority of his non-dialectical approach, of which I had understood very little. That happened still during the socialist time, and under the system o self-management. We talked about Ivan’s studies with Werner Heisenberg. We remembered his arrest by the Gestapo in Germany in 1941, because of his antifascist activities: as a spy for the British. His Professors Heisenberg, Hund, and von Weizsäcker intervened to release him from prison. We talked about Ivan’s return back to Croatia in 1943, after his doctoral work with Heisenberg had been completed, and about his time in the Croatian anti-fascist movement, and about his struggle against the German occupation forces as a partisan. After the Gestapo officers had released Ivan from prison, they asked him, where he wanted to go. He said he wanted to go back home to Zagreb, where his father was dying from cancer. The Gestapo officers counseled Ivan not to return to the inferior Slavic race in allied Croatia, but rather to stay in victorious Germany. Ivan proudly went back to his beloved Zagreb, and his family and nation, and joined the anti-fascist partisan movement. Ivan and I reflected on his time as Minister of Education and Science in Zagreb. Ivan was a humanist and a man of peace. Already in 1944, fourteen months. before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ivan warned of the danger of the newly developed atomic bomb, which had the potential to destroy all life on earth. We talked much about war and peace, particularly his unwillingness to participate in a project for building the atomic bomb for the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. We reflected on Ivan’s consequent turn from active research in theoretical physics to researching more in philosophy and literature. In the year 1960, Ivan became not only the Rector of the University of Zagreb, but he also founded the Institute for the Philosophy of Science and Peace, The Institute was also a center for the nuclear disarmament movement. Ivan was also the founder of the international organization World Without a Bomb. Ivan formulated his famous ten humanistic principles, which were repeated at almost every later peace summit and event. Ivan also established the International League of Humanists. Ivan did not stop his humanistic peace work with his retirement in 1985. Ivan was a critic of the globalization process, and a proponent for the Global Justice Movement. His life long struggle for peace, human rights, and democracy made Professor Supek one of the greatest humanists of the 20th century. Also after his death on March 5, 2007, in his home in Zagreb, after a long illness, his heroic peace advocacy remains of highest actuality. Ivan continually legitimated and protected our course on the Future of Religion in the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, and thus made its uninterrupted continuation through 32 years possible. While for Ivan art had become his religion, he at the same time showed a wonderfully wise tolerance toward and understanding for the Abrahamic as well as all otherworld religions. Maybe Hegel had been right after all, that art, religion, and philosophy share the same content, and differ only in form. It was not always easy to keep our course on the Future of Religion open for all types of scholars on the Hegelian Right, and on the Left and in the Center. I noticed early on, that the praxis philosophers from Zagreb were missing in our course. I protested and said we would not come, if the praxis philosophers could not come, In the next course some praxis philosophers arrived, but the Yugoslav students were missing. The next time the inverse happened. The Tito Government obviously wanted to keep the praxis philosophers and the students apart, because the professors wanted self-management moving up into the highest layers of government, while the government as afraid, that such a move was premature and would cause restlessness among the students. It took some time, until we were able to get professors and students together. Ivan, who’s brother Rudi was a praxis professor, was always most helpful. Ivan was amazingly objective, truthful, and honest in his academic work, and in his novels in an always changing and often very difficult political and cultural context: in the communist and post-communist period. Ivan had many friends at home and abroad, not only in Europe, but also in the United States and Canada. Ivan was not only an outstanding scholar and artist, but also a great, and wonderful, and most friendly and warm-hearted human being, who deserves our remembering solidarity, as well as our admiration, and our love, and our imitation, if also on a much smaller and modest scale. When Ivan and I had breakfast together a last time at Hotel Argentina, he spoke about his dreams. He had also studied under Carl Gustav Jung in Switzerland. , and thus dreams meant a lot to him. As he looked across to the Island of Love and beyond toward the sunny Adria, he told me, that he had recently had some bothersome dreams, in which German soldiers appeared to him, who reproached him for having killed them, when he was a partisan during World War II. I told Ivan, that as a Heisenberg student he was of course a superior mathematician and that, therefore, he had certainly been put into the artillery, and that the artillery kills people many miles away, and that, therefore, he could not possibly ever have seen any of his victims. Ivan affirmed, but insisted that these complaining German soldiers appeared in his dreams, nevertheless. So I told Ivan, that he had had a moral right as a Croatian partisan, to defend his country against the German invaders. Ivan affirmed, but argued that the protesting German soldiers continued to appear in his dreams, nevertheless. Was it, that these German soldiers were not only soldiers, and not only Germans, but also and most of all human beings? Ivan, the great prophet of peace, had not only the great imagination of the artist, but also a deep and rigorous religious, moral, and humanistic conscience Ivan will be with us in spirit in all our courses to come, and he will continue to inspire us to work for peace among the nations through promoting peace among the world religions in continued open discourse. We have dedicate our 32nd international course on the Future of Religion: The Wholly Other, Liberation, Happiness and the Rescue of the Hopeless to our great friend, Professor Dr. Ivan Supek His whole life and work was driven by the insatiable longing for the totally Other than the horror and terror in nature and history: including the yearning for enlightenment, friendship, and love, as well as liberation, happiness and the rescue of the hopeless victims of society and history. I had the honor, to participate in a well-deserved Festschrift for Ivan Supek, which affirms all aspects of our experience with the truly great man. Branko Bosnjak I met Professor Branko Bosniak (1923 – 1996) the first time in the course on Marxism and Phenomenology in the IUC in March 1975. After we had decided, that there would be a course on The Future of Religion, and that I would be the director of the course, he volunteered right away to be the co-director, There existed a rule in the IUC at the time, that every Western director had to have an Eastern - European co-director on his side, Dr. Bosniak served as co-director to our course in 1977 and 1978. on Easter 1978, at 8.00 in the morning, we experienced the horrible earthquake in Hotel Lero. There was great devastation and emotional depression in Dubrovnik and in the wonderful cities south of it. This natural catastrophe was an anticipation of the social catastrophe, the war, which we would experience in Hotel Argentina 15 years later. In spite of the earthquake the resource persons and participants of our course continued bravely to arrive, as they did later on during the war. After our course of 1978, Professor Dr. Srdan Vrcan took Professor Bosniak’s place as co-director, up to the end of the war. Professor Bosniak and I had many wonderful discourses with each other inside and outside of our course in Dubrovnik, and also in his office in the University of Zagreb. We talked about the history of philosophy and about the relationship between art and science.Professor Bosniak had been the co-founder and member of the Editorial Board of the famous journal Praxis, which according to the great Marxist philosopher of religion, Ernst Bloch, was the world’s best Marxist journal. Dr. Bosniak had also been the co-founder of the Cordula Summer School, which was an international Neo-Marxist philosophical conference, in which many members of the Frankfurt School took part. It lasted from 1965-1973. Professor Bosniak and I considered our course to be a humble continuation of the Cordula Summer School, as we developed further the Frankfurt School’s critical theory of religion. ProfessorBosniak had also been the founder and director of the first post-graduate inter-disciplinary study of religion at the University of Zagreb: Theories of Religion and Atheisms, in 1967/1968. In his philosophy of religion, Dr. Bosniak moved continually more and more from anti-theistic Marxism to dialogue with the world religions. At the time, when I met Professor Bosniak, some people were already convinced, that he had never been, or that he was no longer. a Marxist atheist, When I once visited the Orthodox Seminary in Athens, Greece, scholars told me, that Professor Bosniak had always been a practicing believer in the Orthodox Church. Once I visited Professor Bosniak in his rather comfortable office in the University of Zagreb. The office had huge white curtains, which could have come from the Imperial Palace in Vienna. We had a long discourse with each other, including topics like:Aristotle; the history of philosophy as science; Christianity; Marxist Christian dialogue; higher criticism of the Bible; the problem of truth. I was astonished to hear, that Professor Bosniak was not only very knowledgeable and pleased with the work of the fascist philosopher Martin Heidegger, but that he had even visited him in the Black Forest in Germany, and had been very well received by him and his wife. We discussed intensely Heidegger’s post-humous article in the German journal The Spiegel, from which it became only too obvious, that he had given up his fascist position as little as had Carl Schmitt or Mircea Eliade, in contrast to Carl G, Jung, who did convert. Professor Bosniak and I discussed particularly the title of Heideggers last article: Only a God can help us!For Professor Bosniak’s sharp analytical mind, it was most important to find out, on which word in the title the accent was put. Professor Bosniak’s scholarly greatness consisted precisely in his ability to be open toward the Hegelian Right and Left, without losing his own identity. Also after Professor Bosniak had left our course, when once he saw, how well it developed, I met him again and again at the occasion of scientific and philosophical meetings in Dubrovnik and Zagreb. Our course had always a firm place in his heart, and he did whatever he could, in order to support it. We owe Professor Bosniak the greatest gratitude particularly for the initiation of our course. It would probably not have come about without his initiative. Srd Vrcan Professor Dr, .Srd Vrcan was a most devoted and passionate sociologist in the Law Department of the University of Split, Croatia. . He was the director of an Institute committed to the empirical sociology of religion, which combined dialectical and positivistic methodologies. I was amazed, when once Dr, Vrcan connected Marxist dialectics with the structural - functionalist notion of dys-funtionality. He was astonished, when he heard me still use the Marxian concept of surplus value. Dr, Vrcan developed his empirical sociology of religion with the help of his many students in a large number of books and articles. He was in continual discourse with outstanding scholars in Western Europe, particularly Italy, and in Eastern Europe, particularly the Soviet Union. As committed Marxist, Professor Vrcan had at the same time the deepest respect for religion, particularly for the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox Paradigms of Christianity. It is true, Dr. Vrcan had some problems with the Catholic teaching on sexual morality, e.g. Paul VI’s Encyclical Humanae Vitae. He had the impression, that to follow Catholic sexual morality meant to have no sex at all. but rather to live in celibacy, being married or not.Dr, Vrcan worried deeply about religions crises and final fate in Modernity.Like Professor Bosniak, so was also the Co-director Dr. Vrcan of the opinion, that our course was a successor to the Cordula Summer School, which in his perspective had been closed, because of a lack of hospitality on the side of the population, and that it was our main task to develop a critical, or dialectical theory of religion, through which good religion could be rescued. Already in 1977, Professor Vrcan took my wife Margie and myself through the mountains around Dubrovnik. He loved these mountains, and the city, and the country – all six republics. He was deeply hurt in his feelings, when later on in one summer, still before the war, some people burned down the forest on the mountains above Dubrovnik. It was a bad omen for him.
Professor Vrcan was the most honest scholar, I had ever witnessed, and all my colleagues agreed with me. Being a committed Marxist Professor of sociology, Vrcan would never shy away from open criticisms of deficiencies in the Yugoslav or Soviet Government. That then gave him also the moral right to criticizer deficiencies in the West as well. Crises he saw in the East as well as in the West. Professor Vrcan had a deep longing for making good things, which had gone wrong in the past. one year, Professor Vrcan brought as Co-director into our course on the Future of Religion, an outstanding scholar from Germany. Later on I found out, that the scholar’s father had been an Ustasha General, who after he had come back from a visit to Benito Mussolini, and had landed at a beach near Dubrovnik, had been caught by the partisans, and had been court-marshaled, found to be guilty of treason, and executed n the spot. . Professor Vrcan wanted to bring the son home to Yugoslavia. He used our extra-territorial course as a means to do so. The German scholar gave an excellent lecture, if also somewhat on the Right. All went well with him in our course. But when Professor Vrcan took the German scholar to his own University in Split, the students were less hospitable and rejected him. But Professor Vrcan had done his best, to make something good. Dr. Vrcan remembered always from his partisan days an attack on a monastery, where monks were armed and fighting on the Ustasha side. When the partisans stormed the monastery, they also killed monks, who were in the monastic hospital, and who had no weapons on him. This one monk remained an ethical problem for Professor Vrcan’s most sensitive conscience. It had always been a great question for. how secular humanists would deal with such questions of conscience, after once they had left religion behind. One day I visited with Professor Vrcan several monasteries in Dubrovnik. We wanted to invite some of the monks, particularly the Jesuits, as well as the Bishop and the clergy to join our discourse on the future of religion. They usually hesitated to come, because they thought we were all communists, and thus engaged in discourse avoidance, As we left the monasteries, Professor Vrcan remarked, that the life of the monks was too poor and miserable. I answered, that after all the monks had taken a vow of poverty and were as such the better communists. But Dr, Vrcan insisted with great sympathy that the monks were poorer than their vow allowed for, and I had to agree. Once Professor Vrcan invited me to come to the University of Zagreb, and to speak to the Sociology Department. At this occasion, he also introduced me to a circle of priests, who were open to discourse and cooperation with the socialist Tito- Government, and were also willing to come to our course on the Future of Religion in the IUC. During the lunch with the priests, one of them, who had just had brain operations, continually fell asleep. But whenever he woke up again, he injected into our discourse one important thought from the great Pope John XXIII: What we need is a culture of love!Professor Vrcan could not have agreed more. One day Professor Vrcan invited us, to come to his city of Split. It was a day, on which President Tito came to Split. Tito came with two Limousines, one for himself and one for his little dog. His wife had house arrest, because she had conspired with Serb Generals, who leaned toward Russia, and were now incarcerated. Tito, already high in age and short of breath, had still red hairs. People stood along the road, when Tito came and jubilated rather spontaneously. The people forgave the beloved people’s tribune his weaknesses, because he had liberated them from European fascism, and he had kept them independent from the Soviet Union. That was something to be grateful for. While we were celebrating President Tito’s presence in Split, eating fish all night long in his hotel, Professor Vrcan told us some events from the city’s history. When the Roman Emperor resigned from power – which has happened very seldom in history – and divided his Empire into two parts between his two sons, he retired to Split, and build himself there a retirement palace, as well as a burial place, When the Christians came into power a few years after the death of Deocletian, they had completelly forgotten, that he was the Emperor, who had stopped officially their persecutions in 305, and pulled his body out of the grave, and fed it to the fish in the Adria, and transformed his palace into a cathedral, which still stands today. As the night proceeded, Professor Vrcan also told us the tragic story of the Jews in Split. During the Second World War masses of Jews had fled to Split, because the city was under Italian occupation, and the Italians were less Anti-Semitic than the Germans, and thus could be bribed into concessions. When Italy surrendered to the Allies, the Germans took over the fascist occupation of Split. They shot the Italian officers, because they had given their weapons to the Yugoslav partisans. The partisans warned the Jews of Split, that they would be transported to Auschwitz. But most of the Jews did not believe the partisans, and when the SS thousands of them called them went to the market place of Split, and from there was lead into the mountains, never to be seen again. They never arrived in any concentration- or death - camps. They simply disappeared into thin air. Professor Vrcan was horrified by traditional religious Anti-Semitism, - and there had been enough of it in Eastern Europe - as well as of modern biological and anthropological Anti-Judaism, and all the fascist atrocities connected with it.
Professor Vrcan admired and encouraged us greatly, when we continued to come to Dubrovnik after the war started. We had to arrive by ship, passing by Split, because the people-owned and self-managed Yat Airline did not function any longer, and the Dubrovnik Airport tower had been demolished by Serbian troops. Shortly before the war started, I saw the striking crews leaving their planes standing on the airfield in Belgrade with all doors open in the midst of heavy rains, and from my window in the Yat Hotel in the center of Belgrade I could see Croatian and Serbian and other officers coming to and going from the still Yugoslav military headquarter in great haste. During the war, we met in Dubrovnik in the basement of Hotel Argentina, which was continually under sniper fire from the mountains above. We had a room in the basement of Hotel Argentina right beside the room for UN forces, which observed and monitored the struggle between the Serbian and the Croatian forces in the mountains above Dubrovnik. From Hotel Argentina we saw the Serbian fleet approaching Dubrovnik from Saphtat, Professor Vrcan found it, nevertheless, somewhat amusing that in the middle of the war zone, we studied Immanuel Kant’s Eternal Peace and the project of a peaceful world republic. At the same time, Professor Vrcan was also frightened for us, because once on my way from the IUC Building to the Monastery down at the beach, I walked into a mine field against a possible Serbian invasion. The Croatian solders did not see me, because they had their afternoon coffee hour. After much shouting, they found the maps of the minefield, and fished me out of my dilemma. At the occasion I saw that the soldiers were wearing rosaries on their shoulders. A few days later, I went on the radio, or maybe also on television, and asked that the rosaries would be removed. It was not that I was against rosaries – I have on myself –it was rather that I was against pulling God down into human conflicts. Professor Vrcan was in full agreement. He was very happy and grateful, that I could bring money and medicine to the wounded and sick of Dubrovnik, independent of their ethnicity, sometimes twice a year, throughout the war Professor Vrcan and I were very saddened, when we heard that high bourgeois Germans were sailing on their luxury yachts up and down the Dalmatian coast,and observing the war asked without any empathy with the suffering people the idiotic question: how can something like that still happen at the end of the 20th century? Like Professor Vrcan, I continued to recognize and love all our resource persons and participants, no matter which ethnic group they came from or belonged to. We were happy, when finally, long after the war was ended, the first Serbian students arrived again in our course: after a long time of alienation, hate, and destruction. We welcomed them wholeheartedly.. Professor Vrcan suffered much physically, and even more so psychologically during and after the war.But that did not hinder him from bravely continuing his research in the sociology of religion, and to remain enormously productive. I cherish his wonderful letters, which he wrote to me up to the end of his life, appreciating our work, and agreeing with our philosophy, that there can not be any peace among nations without peace among the world religions, and that there can be no peace among the world religions without discourse among them on the basis of mutual knowledge about each other’s interpretation of reality and orientation of action. We cannot honor the great most scholarly and humane humanist more than bravely to continue our discourse in gratitude to him. ------------------------------------
Up
|
