The God of Catastrophic Things? Rejecting 'Disaster Theology'

In my last post, I mentioned in passing about how ironic it was that Alanis Morissette’s hit song ‘Ironic’ listed many examples of situations that she described as ‘ironic’ when none of them were actually, well, ‘ironic’.

This past week, we were all presented by a report from the floods in the southern US that served as a perfect example of irony:

A pastor who had insisted that floods are God’s punishment for the ongoing sins of America had his home destroyed in a flood.

Louisiana-based Pastor Tony Perkins had sparked controversy in 2015 sparked controversy by agreeing with the idea that Hurricane Joaquim, which had just devastated the Bahamas, was a punishment sent by God. 

Perkins had been interviewing Jonathan Cahn, a ‘messianic’ Jewish pastor, when Cahn referred to the hurricane as ‘a sign of God’s wrath’ for, among other things, legalisation of marriage equality, abortion, and the US’s relationship with the UN, which he didn’t think supported Israel enough.

Perkins agreed with his assessment; ‘God is trying to send us a message’, he said.

This week, Perkins’ Louisiana home was destroyed by a flood.

Now that’s ironic…

Please understand that I don’t want to mock or belittle the suffering of Perkins and his family. But I do want to poke around the edges of this and other examples of an absurd theological discipline I’d call ‘Disaster Theology’.

‘Disaster Theology’ is any theological reflection that sees earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, etc. never as naturally-occurring phenomenon, but solely as instruments of divine warning and wrath.

‘Disaster Theology’ is by no means exclusive to Perkins. Televangelist and (let’s never forget) former candidate for President Pat Robertson has been going at it for decades, as when he linked Hurricane Katrina to legalized abortion;

Prominent evangelical and former Nixon counsel Charles Colson attributed Katrina to the US not prosecuting the ‘war on terror’ aggressively enough;

Evangelical author and pastor Henry Blackaby concluded that the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was God’s judgement on Muslims for the persecution of Christians;

Author and journalist Joe Farah stated that a 2011 earthquake in Virginia was God’s punishment for ‘lawlessness in our world today’.

You get the idea.

So, where to begin?

To echo the ancient Church father Tertullian's assessment of the heresies in his own time, to merely describe these ideas is to refute them.

Needless to say, the proponents of ‘Disaster Theology’ see God punishing only the social ills that they themselves want punished- abortion, LGBT rights, UN policy, not supporting the state of Israel robustly enough…

(As always, it’s one of the great coincidences of human life that God always seems to share your own political views).

It would be just as easy for Christians on the liberal/progressive or radical end of the spectrum to suggest that natural disasters were God’s punishment for not providing comprehensive, affordable health care, economic inequality, marginalization of LGBT people, the failure to dismantle structural racism at home and support for repressive regimes abroad…

The biblical text records God and his prophets railing against ignoring the weak, the poor, the fatherless, and the widows at least as much- and often more- than it does about any of the supposed ills the ‘disaster theologians’ emphasize...

Might not a flood or an earthquake be God's warning to us about any of that?

Also, the US Midwest- the area with the highest density of Evangelicals in the country- is annually bombarded by tornadoes, yet the 'disaster theologians' let them pass without comment... which is odd, because tornadoes are extremely localized, leveling one town and sparing the one next door. So you'd think they'd fit the Disaster Theology' worldview to a 'T'... 

Of course, in Perkins' logic, the moment a righteous Christian (like, presumably, himself) is the victim of disaster it ceases to be a punishment and becomes a test, a teaching tool, lovingly given by God to help us grow. Perkins wrote on social media that the Christians should look on the recent southern floods that destroyed his and so many other homes and businesses as an ‘incredible, encouraging spiritual exercise to take you to the next level in your walk with an almighty and gracious God who does all things well.’

So, Christians should be encouraged; the disaster is a blessing to them and a curse on everyone else. And everyone else needs to be told that they're being cursed. How else will they know to repent?

And why, by the way, would God try to warn America of its sins by sending a hurricane to destroy… the Bahamas? If you’re opposed to LGBT equality, the Bahamas might just be your idea of paradise:

Same-sex marriage and civil unions are illegal;

Gay couples are not eligible for any of the same legal protections available to hetero-married couples;

The Bahamian government has done nothing over two decades to ensure that LGBT citizens are included in non-discrimination clauses in statute laws;

And discrimination in employment, education, housing, health care, banking, and public businesses on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is perfectly legal.

So, God punishes the Bahamas… to ‘send a message’ to America… about what might happen to them if they… don’t do exactly what the Bahamas is doing?

It obviously makes perfect sense to Perkins and his ilk, but I can’t wrap my head around it, and I’ve studied systematic theology at a postgraduate level…

But I’ll go out on a limb here and just say that ‘Disaster Theology’ doesn’t make sense because it’s nonsense. It’s unsystematic, illogical and- unless you resort to an incredible amount of arbitrary proof-texting- biblically baseless. Any theological model that requires so many loopholes and exceptions to be in any way systematic is simply bad theology- random, pointless, and anti-Christian.

The most damaging aspect of ‘Disaster Theology’ is that it utterly ignores the person of Jesus.

Jesus’s message in the Gospels is that he came to reveal the Father and to proclaim the Kingdom of God.

‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9)’;

We saw Jesus feed the hungry, heal the sick, refuse to condemn the sinner, argue with the fundamentalists, bind up the broken-hearted, raise the dead, and tell stories filled with love, compassion, and mercy.

‘I and the Father are one (John 10:30)’.

One of the things Jesus revealed about the Father was that he ‘causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt. 5:45)’.

Simply put, Jesus- the incarnation of the Son of God; fully human and fully God; ‘of one being with the Father’; Saviour and Messiah- told us explicitly that God does not punish evil with weather.

‘Disaster Theology’ only works if Jesus was lying or didn’t exist.

To be truly transformative- socially and spiritually- the focus of theology, as I see it, is to reflect on the lived experiences of the people of God in the light of our faith. Its priority is acknowledging the value of that lived experience in the eyes of God, and in raising the consciousness of the community. It does this through rigorous praxis, the cyclical process of reflection and action. And the direction of our theological reflection should always be toward the most poor and the most marginalised.

‘Disaster Theology’ transforms nothing and accomplishes nothing. It condemns and criticizes, moralizes and marginalizes. 

It’s not theology. 

Trump, Truth, and Reflecting On a Politics of 'Yes' and 'No'

Donald Trump has made many controversial, questionable, and patently false statements in his run for the presidency.  I’ll not take time to relate them all here, as they’ve been dutifully collated by many journalists, commentators, and bloggers.

For the sake of my topic, I’ll need to explore one, delivered on 10 August at a rally in Florida. Trump declared to supporters that President Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton are responsible- personally- for founding the Islamic State (ISIS).

‘ISIS is honoring President Obama’, Trump said. ‘He is the founder of ISIS; he is the founder of ISIS, OK? He’s the founder. And I would say the co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton. Co-founder. Crooked Hillary Clinton.’

As with many of Trumps declarations, the statement left many- opponents and supporters alike- pondering questions like ‘did he really say that?’ and ‘what did he mean?’

Many prominent Republicans took his comments at face value and strenuously defended his analysis on media outlets.

Others, like conservative radio host and Trump supporter Hugh Hewitt, wondered if he might have been speaking metaphorically. ‘I know what you meant’, he said to Trump in an interview. ‘You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace…’

Trump was having none of it. ‘No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.’

By Friday, however, Trump was insistently tweeting that his comments were never meant to have been taken seriously:

Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) "the founder" of ISIS, & MVP. THEY DON'T GET SARCASM?

So… Where to begin?

The easiest place to start is that it’s obvious Trump doesn’t understand sarcasm either. This tweet commits one of the biggest misuses of rhetorical terminology since Alanis Morissette co-wrote a hit song titled ‘Ironic’ that contained no examples of irony. 

‘Sarcasm’ is the use of irony to mock or convey contempt; Trump’s statements that Obama and Clinton founded an international terror organization- whether Trump believes that or not- were not sarcasm. They were lies, obviously, but the technical term would be either ‘slander’ or ‘defamation’.

Secondly, Regardless of his earlier insistence he was serious, backed up by many defenses by his own party, it appears that Trump does not, in fact, believe that President Obama and Hillary Clinton founded an international terror organization. The amazing thing about this particular candidate is that we can’t really be sure…

This is uncharted territory in US politics, one that the voters and the media have never encountered. Traditionally, a candidates speeches, interviews, and position statements- as well as unscripted gaffes or mistakes- made on the campaign trail are the news story, building a broad picture of the candidate's beliefs; but Trump makes so many incredible, outrageous, and downright unbelievable statements that they are news in and of themselves. It’s almost impossible not to report them. 

In this case- the initial statement, the confirmations, the double-downs, and then a declaration that he never meant them to be taken seriously- we are now in the position of not knowing if the candidate believes what he is saying or not. Moreover, Trump’s unvarnished loathing for the media means he revels in the idea that the media doesn’t understand his meaning, as he did in a Friday tweet:

I love watching these poor, pathetic people (pundits) on television working so hard and so seriously to try and figure me out. They can't!

Finally, the whole episode displays all the classic, strategic hallmarks of a bully- say something outrageous, abusive, violent, or rude, and when confronted, insist you were kidding… and imply that anyone with any intelligence would have known you were kidding.

But the point I’ve been thinking about is this:

The important question, in my opinion- and what Trump and his supporters don’t seem to grasp- is that is not so much whether or not people understand that a potential US President was being sarcastic, but whether or not people should be put in the position of having to figure that out…

The biblical text contains many and varied statements about the importance of honesty and plain-speaking. Needless to say, it is unequivocal in its condemnation of lying; lying gets condemned more often than any other sin. The Hebrew understanding of ‘bearing false witness’ bore a legal and moral imperative, encompassing slander, libel, defamation, and false reporting of events. Lying could even carry the death penalty; if a person was found to be lying against a defendant in a capital case, they would receive the punishment they sought for the defendant.

In the political sphere, we’ve become so accustomed to lying that we are almost totally inured to it. We often dismiss or overlook lying as ‘just a campaign promise’, ‘the way it works’, ‘the way you get things done’, ‘spin’, or ‘putting bad news, in the best light’.

But the biblical text is adamant that lying destroys community, is a window onto bad character, damages personal credibility, and rots the soul.

But since Trump insists he was being sarcastic, what can we take from the biblical text on that?

I’d reflect on the words of Christ in Matthew 5:37:

Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

Now, sarcasm is not a sin; it certainly wouldn’t be thought of in the biblical text as a sin in the way that lying is a sin. Indeed, among close friends, it can be harmless fun. But it carries an enormous capacity for abuse- abuse that takes subtlety and cunning. It brings a complexity into what is being said that runs the risk of being problematic or offensive.

It pretends to give positivity and praise- things we all need and desire- while actually delivering disparagement.

It uses wit and 'knowing' against someone with seemingly less wit or knowledge and punishes them for not being in on the joke.

It forces its victim to interpret what is being said until finally realizing that they are actually being insulted.

Sarcasm is also very culturally specific; it requires intimate knowledge of the norms, customs, turns of phrase, humour, and culture of all involved in the exchange.

At bottom, sarcasm is a form of communication in which it is nearly impossible to convey respect, affection, or admiration… and it is absolutely impossible to convey love.

The message of Jesus was the love of God, particularly the love of God for those whom the rest of society found it difficult to love- women, the poor, the bereaved, the marginalized, the diseased, and the lost.

The message of Jesus was ‘yes’ and ‘no’- ‘yes’ to love, life, justice, goodness, reconciliation, and liberation; ‘no’ to hatred, oppression, marginalization, fundamentalism, and death…

We should expect and demand ‘yes’ and ‘no’ politics- a politics of truth, transparency, honesty, integrity, reconciliation, liberation, and transformation.

We should reject any candidate or system- at any level- that can’t or won’t deliver that. 

When to Kill A Dog Warden: The Rhetoric and Reasoning of Violence

I’m not a John Lennon fan.

I’m not even particularly a fan of the Beatles.

Don’t get me wrong; I recognise the importance of the Beatles in terms of popular culture and musical innovation. But they really didn’t impact my consciousness in a big way. I once described it to an irate Beatles fan- who seemed to think that I was somehow slighting the Fab Four- thus: there’s never been a time in my life where I needed to listen to the Beatles, a time when I’ve walked into the house, gone straight to the stereo, and put the Beatles on. In contrast, there have been hundreds of times I’ve done that with the Clash, Minor Threat, Bob Marley, Public Enemy, and Velvet Underground…

That said, the one Beatles song that I’ve always liked- thematically and musically- every time I hear it is ‘Revolution’.  Musically, it’s the one time that I thought the Beatles really showed some backbone; it’s recorded so ‘hot’ that it sounds loud no matter where you put your volume knob. Thematically, it was such an interesting counterpoint to much of the ‘revolutionary’ music of the time; it wasn’t a call for revolution, but a probing and questioning of those who did.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know, we all want to change the world…

Lennon was right; in the socio-political maelstrom of the mid- to late-60s, everybody wanted change; there was a real global sense that, for many, the status quo could not hold. The Czechs in the streets of Prague, Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland, students in Mexico City, blacks in Detroit, Newark NJ, and Soweto, and a thousand other critical issues were screaming to be heard, demanding  something new, something better.

But beyond the all-encompassing- but rather amorphous term ‘revolution’- what, John wanted to know, beyond the rhetoric, were we all talking about specifically? He seems to suspect that it's all a bit hazy:

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know, we'd all love to see the plan…

So what was Lennon’s plan? He doesn’t say; he never lays out what he specifically supports. But what I find fascinating, though, is that he’s very specific about what he doesn’t support:

When you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out…

If you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is, brother, you’ll have to wait…

If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow…

I find it interesting that he’s doesn’t condemn this or that action, or this or that movement, but the rhetoric one step removed from it all; not those who destroy, but those who ‘talk’ about it; those who ‘want money’ for it, those ‘carrying pictures’ of ruthless dictators from a safe distance;

Those for whom violence- in the abstract, in theory- remains on the table.

Lennon seems to be poking and prodding the fashionable rebels, the political dilettantes; those thoughtlessly throwing around slogans, ideas, and images that they don’t fully understand.

The rhetoric and imagery of violence and armed struggle, and concepts like ‘… by any means necessary’ are incredibly alluring; they sound strong; they cut through theory and discussion and go straight to rock-solid commitment and action.  Let’s be blunt; they’re incredibly sexy, and can make dialogue and discussion look very homely indeed.

I got thinking about this after recently coming across a group called ‘Black Liberation Project’. They have a Facebook presence so you’re welcome to check them out for yourself.

There are a lot of positive things about the group, and I want to make clear that this piece isn’t intended as a condemnation of them or a marginalization of their actions and struggles.

But I want to use one of their statements that they posted to a Facebook group I’m a part of to think about a point.

My academic background and work experience is in post-conflict social reconciliation, so I’ve read a lot of manifestos like this one. Looking at this one broadly and philosophically, BLP seem to be trying to keep their options open, to maintain a public persona of activity and commitment. They bluntly state that the movement is not non-violent; they might feel that to declare themselves otherwise runs the risk of their cause not being taken seriously, or ‘White America’ remaining complacent to their concerns. In the struggle for liberation and social justice, they make it clear that they won’t be the ones to take anything off the table.

I’d like to explore the dangers of leaving violence- even in abstract, in theory, or simply in rhetoric- on the table.

The big problem with violence is that, when the cause in which violence becomes a tactic is a good one, a just one, even a noble one, it becomes easier and easier to rationalize. No one wants to ever admit that their use of violence might be destructive and abusive, so we instinctively rationalize our violence, figuring out how it can be put in the best possible light; how it can be categorized as self-defense; how it is proportionate, or a reasonable response to the violence used against us. Who wouldn’t argue that the cause of ‘liberation’, ‘emancipation’, or ‘justice’ is worth almost any price to attain, particularly if those against whom violence is used are trying to thwart that very noble cause?

Once violence is rationalized, it becomes easier for its proponents to dehumanize those against whom it is used. Cops, soldiers, judges, bureaucrats, and government employees are no longer individuals, but ‘part of the system’ or ‘the forces of oppression’. The fact that they very often are part of systemic oppression only makes the situation more complex… 

Once violence can be easily rationalized, and its victims dehumanized, it becomes normalized. People have been brutalized for centuries, BLM argues above; who could expect them not to reciprocate in kind? That’s normal; that’s reasonable.

Once that point is reached, the violence can be described as self-perpetuating; cyclical; ongoing.

And once violence is unleashed- particularly in asymmetric ways- it’s makes it all the harder to draw a line under a conflict and address the issues that led to the conflict in the first place, particularly if those issues involved the use of oppressive violence against a minority group or movement.

I lived and worked for many years in Northern Ireland in the aftermath of the 30-year conflict there.

Every side accorded itself the heroism of a noble cause; every side erected memorials to its fallen who gave their lives, on the one hand, ‘ar Saoirse na hEireann’ (‘for the freedom of Ireland’) or, on the other, in ‘the fight against Irish Republican terrorism.’

One such memorial is in the memory of Joseph MacManus.

On 5 February 1992, 49 year-old Eric Glass, the dog warden for Fermanagh District Council in the west of Northern Ireland, received a call to remove and destroy a Black Labrador who had bitten the niece of a local farmer.  When Glass pulled up to the farm and stopped his van, he saw two IRA guerillas running toward him, one with a handgun, the other with an AK-47 assault rifle. The report was a trap.

Glass was a part-time soldier with the Ulster Defense Regiment, the British Army’s local regiment. He had a sidearm on the passenger seat under a jacket and managed to grab it as the van was being riddled with bullets.

Glass managed to exit the van and return fire, sustaining multiple gunshot wounds, shattering his pelvis. One of the ambushers- Joseph MacManus- was killed.

Glass received a commendation.

MacManus was given a full Republican funeral, attended by thousands, full of soaring rhetoric of heroism and martyrdom, and a memorial in his honour was erected. It's inscription read: 

I Gcuimne

Oglas Soesaim MacManais

Oglaigh na hEireann 

A fuair bas ar Saoirse na hEireann

In proud and loving memory of  

Volunteer Joseph MacManus

Irish Republican Army

Maugheraboy, Sligo

Killed in Action, 5 Feb. 1992, Aged 21 Years

From my experience working, studying, and writing around the dynamics of conflict and violence, I will guarantee you this:

Once you’ve decided your cause is just, that the enemy is so extraordinary that opposing them demands the use of ‘any means necessary’, and if the conflict drags on long enough, you will- eventually- decide to murder a dog warden;

You will- eventually- conclude that a dog warden is part of the machinery of the oppressive state;

You will- eventually- describe the murder of a dog warden as a key battle in the struggle for freedom;

You will- eventually- decry those who question how the death of a dog warden brings the struggle for freedom closer to victory as pie-in-the-sky liberals, enemies of justice and freedom.

So my message to the Black Liberation Project is this: 

I believe that the American people need to fundamentally recognize and deal with the legacies of slavery and systemic racism that were embedded in this country from its earliest foundations;

I believe we need to fundamentally re-think how the US does policing, judging, and incarceration;

I believe we need to resist the status quo;

I believe that our resistance needs to be non-violent, but- and let me make this perfectly clear- I believe that our non-violence needs to be resistance...

I believe we should accept nothing less than true freedom, democracy, justice, independence, emancipation, and liberation.

But your statement above? Well, don't you know that you can count me out...

Trump's Immigration Policy(?): 7 Unexpected Countries He'll Need to Ban...

When we talk about ‘terrorism’, and countries that ‘support’ it, we all know what we mean…

Right?

I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it?

US Presidential candidate Donald Trump certainly seems to think so.

Trump has consistently (for him, anyway) maintained a spectrum of rhetoric that has either called for the complete ban on Muslims from entering the US or, as he said this month:

‘suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we understand how to end these threats…

‘I don’t want people coming in — I don’t want people coming in from certain countries. I don’t want people coming in from the terror countries. You have terror countries! I don’t want them, unless they’re very, very strongly vetted.’

So, what’s a ‘terror country’, you might well ask?

‘They’re pretty well-decided’, he said. ‘All you have to do is look.’

All you have to do is look…

It’s an interesting idea, this notion that US immigration and national security policy as they are currently understood should be entirely scrapped in favour of a new system based on… ‘looking’…

So, what are we ‘looking’ for exactly?

Conventional wisdom and most US media now says that Muslims and Muslim-majority countries are the ones to ‘look’ out for. They fit the profile; they ‘look’ like terrorists; they look like people who ‘support’ terrorists.

But of course that’s nonsense. Islamist terrorism is certainly a clear and present threat at the moment, but Islam and Muslims certainly have no historic monopoly on terror.

Terror is first and foremost a tactic, used at various points by Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist groups, as well as by Marxist and Maoist communists who eschew all religious identity, and by nationalists who may or may not use religious affiliation as an ethnic or cultural marker.

So if Trump wants to suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a 'proven history of terrorism’, he has a lot of areas of the world- and a lot of countries- to deal with. 

I’ve decided to pick seven countries that have had significant terrorist organizations operating within them over the last 50 years; I was born in 1967, so that’s basically within my lifetime, and well within Trump's. Many of these groups have killed US citizens or targeted US interests at home and abroad, and all of them are located in countries that are close allies of- or of regional strategic importance to- the US.

Are they all as powerful or as dangerous as ISIS or Al-Qaida is currently? Of course not.

Are the base countries of these groups supporting these groups? Of course not.

But they are all countries with a ‘proven history of terrorism’… 

So using Mr. Trump’s ‘logic’ (and I use the term in the absolutely loosest manner possible), they must, by necessity, go on the list of countries we need to, well, ‘look’ at...

So here we go:

Canada

We start very close to home with America’s noble neighbors to the north, where the province of Quebec hosted the separatist FLQ (Front de libération du Québec; the ‘Quebec Liberation Front’) active between 1963 and 1970. The FLQ was responsible for over 100 violent incidents which killed eight and injured many more, including the 1969 bombing of the Monteal Stock Exchange. In 1970 the group kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte, Laporte subsequently being killed.

On the other end of the continent, Canada also gave us the urban guerrilla group Direct Action, sometimes called the ‘Squamish Five’ or ‘Vancouver Five’, who in the 1980s bombed and sabotaged several businesses, mining concerns, and corporate offices, financially supporting themselves with fraud and robbery.   

Belgium

Stable, wealthy Western European democracies are not immune to terrorism, and Belgium makes  our list due to the actions of CCC, (Cellules Communistes Combattantes; ‘Communist Combatant Cells’), a radical communist terror group active in the mid-80s. CCC carried out a targeted bombing campaign against NATO facilities, as well as property belonging to US and other international businesses, killing two and injuring several.

Greece

Greece makes the list due to November 17, also referred to as ‘17N’ or ‘17 November Group’, an urban guerrilla group who carried out numerous assassinations and attacks against US, British, Turkish, and Greek targets. 23 people were killed in 103 attacks between 1975 and 2002.

For the record, Greece is demographically 98% Christian, and there are 1.3 million people of Greek descent in the US. Deporting them all will be a bit of a logistical headache, but... let's move on...

Germany

Another stable European democracy to lose its immigration privileges is Germany due to the far-left militant group Red Army Faction, sometimes referred to as the ‘Baader-Meinhof Group’. Active from 1970 to 1998, The RAF carried out a campaign of assassinations, robberies, bombings, kidnappings, murders, attacks on US military bases and personnel, as well as bombing the West German embassy in Stockholm and a sniper attack against the US embassy in Bonn in 1991. The group announced it dissolution in 1998; however, German police identified three RAF members as part of a group that robbed an armoured truck of 1 million Euros in January 2016, leading some analysts to suspect the group might be active again.

Germany gets an extra boost onto Trump’s prospective 'no-no' list due to the revelations from files discovered after the end of the Cold War that the RAF was actively supported by the East German security service, the ‘Stasi’, meaning that, according to Trump’s ‘logic’, a German ‘government’ actively ‘supported’ the terror group…

Italy

Staying in Europe, Italy gave us Brigate Rossi (‘Red Brigades’), a communist paramilitary group responsible for numerous assassinations, kidnappings, robberies, and acts of sabotage between 1970 and 1988.

Japan

Heading to the US’s key ally in the Pacific Rim, Japan’s ‘proven history of terrorism’ comes courtesy of the Japanese Red Army, a militant communist group active from 1971 to 2002. The JRA was responsible for several airline hijackings and hostage-takings, attacks on foreign embassies, and US military bases. Though having disbanded, the group still operates under the name ‘Movement Rentai’.

Trump has also mentioned he'd like Japan to become a nuclear power, so... Oh, never mind...

Lebanon

Hezbollah, a Shi'a Islamist militant organization based in Lebanon, is by any measure the most organized, best armed, and most active group on this list, significantly more powerful than the regular Lebanese military. They are also the most complex, as they exist in two distinct forms: a powerful military (and described as ‘terrorist’ by many governments) organization and a political party with several seats in Lebanon’s parliament, two cabinet positions, radio and satellite TV stations, and an extensive social services network; for all intents and purposes, Hezbollah is a state within a state.

But this list is no place for complexities, so Lebanon- a key ally of the US in the Middle East and second only to Israel in the receipt of US military aid- would need to be on our potentially-proscribed list of countries…

Ireland

If ever there was a nation with a ‘proven history of terrorism’, it is Ireland. Ireland has a long history of insurgency against its more powerful neighbour Great Britain, with Irish Republican groups waging sustained armed actions against targets in Ireland and the UK for decades. The largest of these groups- the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA), and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), all dating to the late-60s and early-70s- have dumped arms and given up their armed struggles. But smaller groups, referred to as ‘dissidents’, remain active and committed to driving the British presence from Northern Ireland and reuniting both parts of the island.

Ireland’s social, cultural, and political ties to the US are enormous, as is US economic investment in the Irish economy, so just how to President Trump would ban its citizens from our shores, despite its history of terrorism, is anyone’s guess…

United Kingdom

Finally, and most personally problematic for Trump, would be the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland, of course, has both Irish Republican and British Loyalist terror groups actively operating within its borders. It has been revealed that both Loyalist and Republican groups were both extensively infiltrated by elements of British state security and military intelligence, who shielded assets within the groups from arrest and prosecution in exchange for information. More alarming have been the revelations that rogue elements within the British military and police services  funneled weapons and support to Loyalist paramilitaries throughout the conflict. The British government has consistently refused to cooperate with these investigations and no one implicated in the collusion has ever been brought to trial.

Outside of Northern Ireland, Britain has also seen small, sporadically-active militant separatists such as the Free Wales Army and Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru in Wales, as well as An Gof and the Cornish National Liberation Army in Cornwall. These groups tend to destroy what they see as 'English' property and burn Union flags, as well as threaten violence against 'English' businesses and tourism.

Most potentially embarrassing for Trump might be the Scottish National Liberation Army, a very small group active from the late-70s and sporadically ever since, most famous for sending letter bombs to then-Lady Diana Spenser and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Trump’s mother is from Scotland, and Trump owns a golf resort in Ayrshire…

… which brings us full circle to the fact that Trump himself, using his own absurdist logic, has familial and financial ties to a nation with a ‘proven history of terrorism’.

Whether Trump will voluntarily deport himself- and somehow prevent his own re-entry into the US- remains to be seen…