Catholic Sympathy for Central Asian Islamists

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Persecution-of-Tajik-Islamists-53398.html

This is a strange story coming from a Catholic news agency. Why is a conservative Catholic news network taking what is essentially a Pro-Islamist position?

Is this part of the larger CIA campaign to rehabilitate jihadis? This campaign has been underway since the US stoked the Syrian Civil War. Compared to ISIS some of the more restrained Salafists and even al Qaeda affiliates look decent and could be termed 'moderate rebels'. And it wouldn't be the first time elements within the Roman Catholic Establishment have collaborated with US intelligence and its geo-political campaigns.

As I have explained numerous times, the Central Asian states are all officially Islamic and engage in mild persecution of dissident groups that are beyond the official cultural pale. For example the Russian Orthodox are tolerated while Western Evangelicals are not. They are viewed as a potential fifth column and other groups like the Watchtower Society are viewed as subversive – teaching people to reject cultural norms and patriotic duties.* 

The wars waged by all Central Asian states against Islamic Extremism are fueled by a desire to maintain stability in an already fragile social fabric. National identities are thin, democracy is almost non-existent (and there's no framework for it anyway) and the regimes rely on stability for their resource and extraction-based oligarchies.

They want everyone to be good, quiet and compliant citizen-subjects and Islam is one of the planks for promoting social order. Whether these rulers (many former communist officials within the Soviet bureaucracy) are actually Islamic is not clear and in some respects immaterial. Their primary concern is the maintenance of their regimes. They don't want to encounter anything in the realm of ideas or activism that will challenge it.

As such they've been quite hostile to Salafi movements such as al Qaeda and ISIS. These groups are religious based as opposed to finding their purpose in national identity. They are internationalist in that they would hope to re-constitute an Islamic Caliphate. They don't agree on how this is to be done nor even its nature but they are united in their opposition to nationalist-republican or secular-oligarchic orders as opposed to cleric-driven Sharia regimes.

Additionally they are violent revolutionaries whose aim is to create conflict and internationalise it – calling for outsiders to come and join the fight.

Again why is a Catholic publication concerned that the families of Salafis have fallen on hard times? It signals the shift in Western politics away from the contrived War on Terror to Great Powers Conflict which can be in some sense referred to as Cold War II. As in the first Cold War the West seems ready to ally itself with Salafist elements as they are convenient proxy fighters especially in the context of Russia and China. The same is true on a smaller level in places like Iran and Turkey – the latter though still a member of NATO has become a pariah and in many respects a foe of the United States.

Only since Vatican II have Catholics become concerned with religious liberty and are willing to cast their faith in terms of Liberalism. And yet the timing is funny as is the subject matter. It seems a near desperate attempt to garner humanitarian support for Salafis – as if they are on the cusp of becoming a key strategic element, a proxy for Western interests in the region. It's as if the 1980's are set to return in Central Asia and these forces if funded, armed, and granted logistical support from the West will be turned loose on Russian and Chinese interests in the Central Asia region and perhaps within regions such as the North Caucasus, the Crimea, and Xinjiang itself. Once again Catholic (and undoubtedly Evangelical) elements will do all they can to collaborate with this agenda. And their already blood-stained hands will once more feed and fuel violence and lies will be promoted as truth.

There is definitely something brewing in Central Asia and China in building up its military might in Xinjiang is sending every signal that they anticipate it.

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*While neither the Watchtower or New Testament Christianity (which shares some ethics on these points) represent any kind of real threat to these social orders – as the Church is not political and the numbers of converts will always be relatively small – the Gospel is in fact subversive and yes, it will tear people away from cultural norms and claimed duties. That's no less true in the United States. As Christians we make no apology for that and decry the worldliness, compromise and increasing apostasy of Evangelicalism.