I was going through some old files from my time in Peru, and found this little joke I made up one day. It’s just a lot of free association of the current news of the time with my recent experiences travelling through LA that year. It would have been late 2001 or early 2002 when I wrote this.
There are also a lot of other files about values based education and preaching stategies - don’t worry, I wasn’t just day dreaming about wild movie plots while I was there.
The launch last Sunday of the “Hare Krishna Jihad” in the western world headquarters of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in Los Angeles went almost unnoticed, including by those present. When asked for his comment, Chris Alperton (53), a regular visitor to the Sunday feast, replied: “I didn’t pay much attention to the class, but this sweet rice sure is good. I just hope that they keep serving it out.”
According to Hare Krishna temple spokesman Nirantara Das, that’s exactly what they intend doing. “Hitler had it wrong,” he states emphatically, with the intense glare of a fanatic. “The true Aryan concept of warfare includes a half-time where the combatants get together for a sacred lunch.”
When questioned during the announcement by one member of the press how they can derive the instruction for their Jihad from the Bhagavad-gita, the same book that Gandhi based his non-violence movement of the 1930s on, temple spokesman Svarupa Das replied: “That just goes to show you how fanatics can screw any meaning out of a bonafide religious tradition,” referring to Gandhi. “That’s what happens when you study books without the guidance of a guru.”
The Hare Krishna Jihad is based on a self-described fundamentalist interpretation of the Bhagavad-gita, a “divine revelation” that the members of the Hare Krishna movement are the true Aryan race, and a secret message that some members claim to hear when recorded tapes of their guru are played backwards that says, “Secure your place in heaven, by sending an infidel to hell.”
And here lies the first problem with the Hare Krishna Jihad. Although temple members have indicated that they will travel to the Middle East as the logical place to carry out their holy war, they have been unable, as yet, to announce who they will be waging it against, because, as Das puts it, “Krishna loves ‘em all.” However, he adds, that’s the least of his worries right now, the foremost being the internal debate over whether a change from the order’s traditional orange robes to camouflage ones represents a break with the tradition.
The Hare Krishnas are not known as the most aggresive people, but Svarupa Das doesn’t see that as a problem as they are “prepared to do anything for Krishna.” Michel Miterrand (17), a young recruit who travelled from France by bus and boat to join the rapidly forming ISKCON International Coalition, describes his “battle ready” status: “The other day I stepped on a bug, and I felt very bad. But then I chanted Hare Krishna to it, and I felt better.”
Ready or not, Miterrand has joined the rest of the international movement’s would-be jihadis stranded in the Los Angeles temple. Having saved enough money from incense sales to participate in the bulk ticket sale that ISKCON has negotiated with Vaikuntha Airlines, as a member of the Hare Krishnas, he, along with other members of groups that solicit donations, is banned from entering the Los Angeles International Airport, a measure the airport put into place after September 11. Miterrand isn’t phased however. As he explains, with a dreamy gaze and a smile: “Krishna is all-powerful.”
A spokesman for the LAX Airport Authority said that the ban was a general measure, and was not a specific response to the recently launched Hare Krishna jihad. A source in the State Department confirmed that the Department would review the Hare Krishnas for inclusion in their list of terrorist organizations if it was warranted.
So far the response has been muted, and it appears that the Hare Krishnas have a little more work to do internally before they are truly ready to launch a coordinated holy war, but in the meantime, the after-dinner conversation in the Los Angeles temple has changed from whose guru is better to the more down-to-earth topic of the relative merits of the AK-47 over the M16.
