After World War II, which ended in 1945, with victory of the allies led by the US, the post-wartime economic activity began to pick. In the 1950s, the economic situation in the US had improved which was a far cry from the economic desperation that the US had witnessed in the Great Depression which lasted ten years from 1929-1939. 1950s was also the decade when television was increasingly becoming the source of mass entertainment and information in the country. Prosperity among Americans, given the economic recovery, was on the rise. This situation was cashed in on by a group of religious preachers who later came to be known as televangelists. From the beginning of the 1950s, they increasingly started to use TV as a medium to spread the message of Christianity .With the time, this became an industry in itself, having risen by now to a multibillion dollar magnitude worldwide.
This fad of televangelism began to catch up with preachers of other religions as well, most notably Muslims, who began to catch on to this bandwagon of market oriented religious propagation. The first major catalyst for the spread of this movement among Muslims was the oil boom in the Middle East in the 1970s. With the discovery of huge oil reserves in the barren lands of the Gulf kingdoms, of course with the technological support from the West. These kingdoms were stuffed with petrodollars. There was a new found economic prosperity in these countries with a huge boom in infrastructure development. Cars began to replace the camels and sky scrapers replaced mud huts. The cheap labour for carrying out this huge expansion was readily supplied from the impoverished countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia etc. With the passage of time, these immigrant workers, not only exported petrodollars to their home countries, but also started to export a new intolerant version of Islam as well. They increasingly began to look down upon their brethren back home as inferior Muslims. The Gulf monarchs found Islam as an easy tool to strengthen their illegitimate monarchies and hence increasingly started to propagate their version of it, which mainly focused on the external rituals and emphasized on following the rulers. This version of Islam never emphasised on the spiritual and reflective aspects of it. Islam, in a way, became the last resort for these ruling scoundrels.
The American sponsored and Saudi funded Afghan jihad of the 80s proved to be a boost for the subsequent spread of the cult of Muslim evangelism. Not only were weapons, money and manpower supplied for the Afghanis via Pakistan, but large amounts of money was also pumped in to spread this Saudised Islam. Books, video cassettes and pamphlets were being increasingly used. Zia ul Haq also found an opportunity to legitimise his dictatorship, and increasingly used the state run TV and radio to strengthen his grip on power, by encouraging religious preachers who would support his dictatorship and the so called Islamisation drive in Pakistan. During Zias regime, the social fabric of the Pakistani society was torn apart and it increasingly fell in the morass of religious bigotry. With Pakistans increasing dependence on Saudi funding, it increasingly became the battleground for the spread of extremist ideologies.
In the last two decades, the middleclass among Muslims worldwide has been growing. On one hand, these people want to hang on to their traditional values and on the other, they want to partake of the new found luxuries and comforts that this change in their social and economic status has brought in. While embracing the new comforts of life, by way of increased disposable incomes, which go into buying new gizmos, gadgets, cars, apparels and properties, the middleclass Muslim was torn apart by a strange feeling of guilt. The conflict between tradition and consumerism gave rise to a deep sense of guilt among the Muslim middle and upper middleclass. It is precisely this sense of guilt and also the fear that the new age Muslim televangelists and preachers were capitalising on to spread their market driven brand of Islam. Given the geopolitical situation in the world, especially post 9/11, Muslim youngsters are prone to a sense of victimhood and fear. Add to that the myths about a not so distant glorious past, Muslim youths find themselves increasingly frustrated by the status of the community in todays world. Rather than finding a rational and reasonable argument to confront their pitiable condition, this new breed of Muslim youngsters increasingly found solace in the make-believe world of the televangelists. These preachers have no reformist zeal which the Muslim society is in dire need of. Instead, they thrive on distorted history, misogyny and patriarchy. Islam has been reduced merely to attire and outward rituals with no attention to the spiritual and reflective nature of it.
The Muslim televangelist movement targets middle, upper middleclass urban youth, who have access to all forms of modern communication. These youth increasingly fall in the lap of the rightwing, picking up fanciful myths of past glory and power. They listen to reactionary oratory of these preachers, who live in their own sanitised world of comfortable TV studios. These followers stand completely isolated from the economic and political realities of the modern world and instead harbour notions of false grandeur. They thrive on delusions and conspiracy theories.
These televangelists and their followers have a narrow, exclusionary and supremacist worldview. This mindset is increasingly churning out intolerant and xenophobic youngsters who have lost all sense of proportion. They have managed to reap the most success arising out of the chaotic and uncertain social and cultural milieu among Muslim societies worldwide.
What makes Muslim televangelism different from Christian televangelism is the fact that among Muslims, it is slowly becoming the mainstream, rather than remaining on the fringes. There was a time, not very long ago, when these ultras were few, in the worldwide attempt to revive Islam. But unfortunately, they are becoming the mainstream now, given the vast sources with which they can disseminate their packaged version of Islam. The Muslim community worldwide can no longer sit back and ignore them. The extreme has widened and the middle ground is giving way .If these things go on, the Muslim society will cease to have a spiritual turnaround and instead will seem more like a collection of splintered groups, who will tear it apart in all directions. Debate and tolerance is slowly losing ground and instead one is witnessing increased bigotry. These preachers have become cult figures and any criticism against them is conveniently turned into a criticism of Islam itself.
It is strange that Muslims are hell bent upon following the failed tactics used by Christians, even when it comes to spreading Islam. They are copying extremely gross means like hoardings, electronic ticker boards or distributing free books, CDs and pamphlets, which are actually failed strategies used for long by Christian evangelists. These tactics dont make them any more effective for Muslims than what they have been for the Christians. These acts at the hands of amateur religious marketers trivialise Islam to a large extent and reduce it to the level of street play. It would be in place here to mention that the spread of Islam happened much before the advent of banners or electronic tickers, CDs, pamphlets and all associated modern marketing strategies. It spread when the literacy among the Muslim masses was very low. There were no modern means of communication and, of course, there was no Google.
The ideology of these modern day preachers is based on the rejection of other ideologies which leads to further extremism. Rather than looking at the complexities of various issues, these preachers indulge in reductionism. They create rosy narratives of the past and then wind it up with the present, almost as an extension. It goes a long way in creating a group behaviour. For a society which wants to make progress, it must practice relativism. Europe is a great example of a modern industrialised place which embraced relativism on its way to progress.
Rather than believing these faith peddlers and wealth preachers, to be the saviours of Islam, it is high time Muslims saw through this charade, which has come up as a result of a dangerous cocktail of religion, mixed with consumerism. It is time to call their bluff, whether about their unverified claims of millions converting to Islam with their efforts or their claims of being the defenders of Islam.
The choice, to counter their arguments, is always with the Muslims. A choice which needs to be decisively exercised, sooner rather than later.
Tariq Jameel, based in Bangalore, is an investment professional with interest in history, politics and sports.
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