Dr. Deepak Chopra (2009)

“When are we going to learn that there is only one humanity?”

By Kavita A Chhibber

Dr. Deepak Chopra was named as one of the 100 heroes and icons of the century, and called “the poet-prophet of alternative medicine’, by Time magazine. In an exclusive interview Dr. Deepak Chopra whose “I take a vow” initiative (a vow of non-violence in thoughts, in speech and in actions) couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment, started just a few weeks before the Mumbai attacks shares his thoughts on the catastrophe and more.

You’ve traveled to Mumbai many times? Going by the unprecedented growth the city has seen in the past few years, have you ever felt unsafe in Mumbai?

I live my life in a way that I feel safe no matter where I go. It’s an internal thing, and you can’t stop doing what you do. I feel very much at home in Delhi, Bombay, in the Middle East wherever I go. It never really affects me psychologically. I never even think about such things and with the situation as it is there is no place that is safe. If someone really wants to and they are willing to sacrifice their lives and achieve martyrdom doing this, you can’t stop it.

You have to have a deeper understanding of the problem.

And how do you think we can find long term solutions?

All my life, I’ve been a secular person. Though I was born a Hindu, I do not identify myself as a Hindu or with any other religion. I think in all honesty, if we now have to solve this problem we have to ask ourselves many questions. The first important question is why is global terrorism predominantly an Islamic phenomenon? You have terrorism in the world-you have ETA in Spain, you have the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, you’ve had the Naxalites in India, you have the Irish terrorists in Northern Ireland, but global terrorism, unless I’m mistaken seems to be an Islamic phenomenon. If that is so we have to ask seriously why and we have to ask Islamic leaders who are respectable, who are academics, who are part of the dominant moderate Islamic world, why is that so and what is happening? Why are we not taking a lead issue in first acknowledging this and actually combating it in our own religions?

Secondly, what is it that radicalizes young Muslim men in relatively middle class families in Europe, Britain and other places? What radicalizes them to this kind of savagery and militancy? Is it the fact that they are victims of prejudice and suffer from deep shame and humiliation and therefore there is rage? Is it the fact that they have no identity because of the prejudice that they have suffered? Is it, in other cases, abject poverty or lack of education?

Then we also have to ask ourselves other questions like the Mujahdeen and the Taliban that have found a breeding ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan-are they now a threat, actually to Pakistan itself-to the survival of Pakistan as a sovereign state because it seems they are. If they continue unabated, then Pakistan is doomed and Pakistan will then become a fallen state. It’s already on its way and then that leads us to another question and that is- would Pakistan consider something that is unthinkable- to become India’s ally in getting rid of this cancer which has arisen in that part of the world? Would India consider something unthinkable and say- Okay we will work with you Pakistan. We will ask you to be our friend because we have a common problem. Our economic well being is being threatened-your sovereignty as a state is being threatened and this is a problem we both face, so can the so called adversaries come together and become allies in this case?

We should be asking other questions like where is the money coming from? It’s very obvious this takes a lot of training, this takes a lot of organization and it is clear that the money pipeline starts in Saudi Arabia in which case we should be asking- what role does the US play in this, because US petro dollars go to Saudi Arabia and then they get channeled into these different places and then of course US has a huge this huge industry of weapons, of radars, of jet fighters, of missiles..what would happen to this huge industry if we actually did get rid of this kind of terrorism?

We have to ask if the US nuclear deal collaboration-is that a reason for alienating a lot of people in the Islamic world because US is very selective in who it collaborates with, who it says can and cannot be a part of its club and who can’t. While they are posturing against Iran and Korea, they have indeed made a deal with India. This will indeed enrage India’s conventional enemies. We have to ask finally-will US be always acting in its national interest because if it does, the US is going to perpetuate the problem.

We have to ask ourselves all these questions. We may not know the answers but if we don’t ask these questions, we will be in denial.

Many experts have differing views on the assault on foreign nationals. Some say it is coincidental, others don’t think so.

Right now obviously this is obviously an international problem. These people have made a major statement. They have gone after the Jews to make a statement to Israel; they’ve gone after Britons and Americans to make a statement to the West. They’ve done it in India to make a statement to the Indian government and they come from Pakistan to make a statement to the Pakistani government that you guys watch out-you can go around being friendly to those people (Indians) but we will show you. This is not a regional problem, this is not even a national problem. This is a major international crisis that has to be dealt through a global, international effort. While we say all this, we also need to be asking, is there a strategic way to disable them without causing collateral damage? Is India going to be able to protect its own minority, and not only the Muslims minority which is a huge number but Indian Christians who have suffered at the hands of the fundamentalist rage from Hindus and now have we seen Jews being attacked.
So these are huge, complex problems. I think in short term, strategic disabling by a global effort is possible but in the long term nothing short of a Marshall Plan will work. A plan, that lasts for may be 50 years and looks at deeper causes of global instability, that looks at the relationship between oil addiction in America, global warming, poverty, radicalization of minorities and prejudice against them, education-all of that will have to happen. That will again require a global effort. I don’t see anybody asking these questions-not that we have the answers but if we don’t ask the questions, then you are going to keep on doing the same things and it’s not going to disappear.

There is of course the key issue of America’s role, Pakistan’s anger at being given step motherly treatment and the lack of respect a large part of the world has for America. What do you think of that, and how Obama’s election will play out? There is all this talk that he doesn’t use his middle Muslim name and has deserted Islam by fundamentalists and some disgruntled Muslims.

America did fund the ISI at one point, America gave information to the ISI in order to go after the Taliban and the Mujahdeen and of course ISI passed it on. Americans have been guilty of turning away from their friends. A long time ago I heard some State Department officials say-How come you(US) abandon your friends so easily? And the answer I believe was-“We don’t have friends, we only have interests.” So as long as America thinks only of its own interests, its never going to have a complete understanding. Right now America’s interests are the World’s interests and they don’t understand that; our economic system, the economic melt down is telling us now that there is only one economy, weather patterns are telling us that there is only one ecology; when are we going to learn that there is only one humanity?

When he is sworn in as President, Obama is going to have to put his hand on the Christian Bible, because he is a professed Christian and he will have to say, “I Barack Hussein Obama take this oath..” If he doesn’t do that, then he is not being who we thought he was.

I think we have a lot of hope for Obama but there is a certain collective consciousness that put him there and that collective consciousness has to hold him accountable for that and he is going to definitely be under a lot of influence; a lot of special interest groups, military industrial complex etc etc and if he is not strong enough then our hope are dashed. That remains to be seen.

You have a lot of close connections within the government and with leaders across the world and those who can make an impact. People pay attention when you speak and even when they don’t agree with you, they certainly understand that you are among the powerful voices of this century. What role do you see yourself playing in today’s global world in the way you can influence how leaders must think?

You are right. I do have access to a lot of people. In fact I just hung up after speaking with former US Defense Secretary Bill Cohen. He was staying at the Taj Hotel and giving anti-terrorism lectures at the Oberoi and left India only 12 hours before this(Mumbai attacks) happened. Now imagine if the former US Defense Secretary of the United States had been killed in the terrorist attack while giving a talk on anti-terrorism- what kind of victory would that have been for the terrorist group. And nobody had the intelligence to foresee this.

So I think my role right now, if any, is to raise questions so that people go beyond right and wrong, cause and effect and linear thinking, understand the complexity of the situation and understand that there is no solution, other than a long ranged Marshall Plan that requires the cooperation of the whole world.

Finally, your “I take a vow” initiative could not have come at a more opportune time, started a few weeks before the attacks.

We had our annual meeting for the Alliance for a new Humanity and we decided that we would take to heart literally Mahatma Gandhi’s statement – can you be the change you want to see in the world? Five hundred of us can take the vow(a vow of non-violence in thoughts, in speech and in actions) if we want to and lets start asking other people if they want to and lets go for a 100 million people. I think if 100 million people in the world are committed to peace consciousness, the world will be quite different. After all the world is who we are, and if there are more peaceful people in the world, it will be more peaceful. The idea has caught on as you know, and it’s moving very fast. I mention it wherever I go. Lets see what happens.