The Clash of Monotheisms

Recently i decided to read the book "The Clash of Civilisations" by Samuel P. Huntington, which i had previously heard a lot about especially from those who criticised it. I found it to be an interesting read for anyone interested in geopolitics.

The world has also fundamentally changed since the book was written and though much has gone according to Huntingtons paradigm from the events of 9/11 to the recent Ukraine elections, there still are many areas that could be further added upon, especially in relation to India.

Speaking of Clash of the Civilisations, the pope looks like he's going to kick to bucket any day now. Thus the question on everyones lips is could an African become the next pope. With Christianity locked into a head on contest with Islam in Africa, a black brother in the Vatican could give xtians that strategic advantage over Islam in the battle for souls and market share in Africa. I've always thought it interesting watching Africans take so enthusiastically to the religions of their oppressive former slave trading masters, whether Arab or European. As always they like others are essentially being treated as little more than a commodity, a people deemed incapable of having a coherent religion of their own so they must be given one to civilise them as per the British colonialist David Livingstone's famous formulation of "Civilization, Commerce and Christianity".

Anyways would a black pope be able to stem let alone reverse the steady decline of Christianity in Europe since the enlightenment. Hell no.
What's for sure though is that in the 21st century there will be huge gains made by Chrisitianity in Asia. The current pope John Paul while always talking about interfaith harmony n other gibberish has revealed many times that he wants to reap a rich harvest in Asia.
With Christianity struggling to maintain its market leader status due to its low birth rate as compared to the exploding birth rates in the muslim world, atheist China will represent the last great virgin territory for Christian proselytizing to fuck over.

Apart the local confucian traditions and also Buddhism there is really very little to conceivably stop the march of Christianity there. One of things that has always impressed me about the Chinese is their general indifference towards organised religion, but increasingly this no longer looks to be the the case especially in light of the almost complete hollowing out of China's Communist state ideology. Already there are estimates of 50-250 million christian converts in China. Much is often made about China emerging as a potential threat to the US in the future. But I think this is somewhat overstated, the Americans are not just going to sit there and do nothing, they know they can use and indeed are using Christian missionaries (a force greater than even the US military or Hollywood) as a powerful foreign policy tool to decisively change future geopolitical equations. Once the Chinese are a predominantly Christian nation, which they one day very well could be just like South Korea is now, China will more of less have been recruited on the side of the west or Christendom in any future civilisational battle against Islam - not that this is necessarily a bad thing.

So what about Hinduism and the future prospects of the world's 885 million Hindu's. Well naturally one wishes we could be immune from the plague of such aggressive, arrogant and obnoxious religions but unfortunately they are already in our midst. Christian missionaries have longed eyed India as a huge potential source for converts and are actively targeting economically and socially weaker sections of our society. Already many if not most of the tribals and ethnic groups in the northeast have been won over to Christianity. So called "Lower castes" and those in South India are next on the chopping block. Unless like in muslim countries a credible threat of violence is employed to warn such missionary groups, they will most likely continue their activities unfettered and succeed to an certain extent in their mission. To what extent exactly remains to be seen and will depend on our vigilance as well as our assertiveness in reinforcing our unique identity. Thus if Hinduism wants to withstand the onslaught, it will once again have to adapt to the changing times as it has done throughout the millenia and work to overcome sources of weakness such as the caste system that keeps us divided.

Of all people, Hindu's should know better than most the historical consequences of failing to provide a united front to external threats. Our only consolation in this fight is that though many battles will be and already have been lost the war can never be won in an age of reason amongst a people whose spiritual tradition has always accepted and respected intellectual openness and plurality as opposed to dogma, falsehood and infallibility.