generalspeaking

Religion's Facets

Religion is of utmost importance to most of the world's inhabitants. To reflect various geographies, cultures and heritage histories a myriad of religions have been developed over time, from major religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, to a host of minor and offshoot religions, all faithfully practised by the devout. All religions have one fundamental commonality, and that is to exhort the faithful to live in peace among one another.

Whether there is but one divine being identified in a variety of ways under various names, and sovereign over all humanity and all that exists as an ineffable presence, or whether all the religions and the named gods are but manifestations of humanity's need to believe that an all-powerful spiritual presence is responsible for all that exists and which animates us all, but yet is a human construct, the reality is that because the faithful are human that divine message has been corrupted.

There are two basic emotions that appear to rule human beings who profess to obey a divine spirit: hate and hope, (the hatred of exclusion and the hope for survival) emotions that appear diametrically opposed to one another, yet perhaps they are not. One may hope for salvation, and believe that it can be found in strict obedience to all the commands that clerics insist the god they represent expects of believers. In the case of fanatics interpreting their singular scriptures the demand can be to murder in the name of god.

In the instance where a devout population is suffering great hardships and privation, the hope that religion offers its faithful can mean the difference between managing somehow to believe that despite the most untenable misery and threats to existence they will somehow survive. Their survival may be linked naturally to the instinct that nature has endowed them with biologically but they credit their devotion to an almighty spirit that will help them to survive.

In Pakistan we see that fundamentalist Muslim clerics exhort their followers to believe that Allah demands complete obeisance to the extent that the murder of a human being who resists belief in the clerics' interpretation that blasphemy merits death must be assassinated to appease the honour of Islam. The murder of the governor of Punjab province is celebrated by Islamists as the just end for an apostate even though the governor was a faithful Muslim.

Faithful to Islam, but opposed to the campaign by Islamists to ensure that capital punishment for blasphemy remained within the laws of Pakistan, and taking issue with the death penalty exacted as just punishment for a non-Muslim Pakistani woman accused of insulting Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. A huge demonstration in defence of the blasphemy law and celebratory of the assassination of Salman Taseer, Punjab's provincial government was arranged by terror-supporting Islamist groups.

One of which was responsible for the terror attacks in 2008 in Mumbai, India. "We can't compromise on the blasphemy law. It's a divine law and nobody can change it", according to Qari Ahsaan, a leader of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba. "The murder of the governor should be a lesson to all those trying to change the Islamic laws" claimed the chief of Pakistan's largest Islamic party, addressing the rally.

As they marched through Karachi holding aloft portraits of the assassin, hailing him as a "warrior of Islam", they carried signs reading "Mumtaz Qadri is not a murderer, he is a hero", of the police special security guard tasked with the job of providing protection and security for the man whom he cold-bloodedly shot repeatedly in the back. Qadri proudly informed the police who arrested him that the governor deserved death for his opposition to the blasphemy laws.

And then there is Haiti, another country in desperate straits. Where nuclear, poverty-stricken Pakistan has recently suffered an environmental catastrophe of massive flooding creating hundreds of thousands of internal refugees for a country whose relatively progressive Pakistan Peoples Party is attempting to quell extremism and terrorism targeting civil society and government forces.

Haiti, another failed country but one which poses no threat to its neighbours, suffered a massive earthquake which killed 220,000 people and created over a million homeless refugees.

In Haiti, religion is also taken very seriously, as the population is every bit as devout as Muslim Pakistanis. People revere Roman Catholicism, and a smaller proportion of society is Protestant, while another sizeable group practises indigenous Africa-based voodoo. The country has suffered hugely, not just recently but over several centuries of corrupt governments that failed in responsible leadership. Endemic poverty and crime permeates Haitian society.

When Haitians suffer they sing paeans of praise to the almighty and they pray for salvation. A year after the 7.0 earthquake that left their half of the island of Hispaniola devastated, a million people are still homeless, hungry and dependent on international aid for clean drinking water and hygiene and health assistance. The devastating earthquake only increased their faithful devotion. Even while it killed the country's Catholic archbishop and buried the entire choir of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, as it collapsed.

They blame no one for their misery, although they retain hope and faith that their lot will somehow be turned around, that they will inherit some day a trusted, responsible government that will build the infrastructure required to govern properly, to give people employment, hospitals, schools, security and decent housing.

"You can't put your trust in mankind, only in God. God can do everything", they believe.

Labels: Haiti, Human Relations, Pakistan, Political Realities, Religion

posted by Pieface @ Monday, January 10, 2011