As I start to write down these thoughts, the year is 2015 AD and it is the 1st of March (St. David’s day), when the daffodils outside the door of my home in Ireland are normally in bloom. I love the way, how I love the way, they return each year just as I love the way the swallows return, up in the sky, a little later on. Right now an Irish spring is beginning at my Irish home and it is so unlike all the Arab and other “springs” that have burst onto the world stage in the last few years.
I have to say that I am less and less happy about being a member of what is commonly called the “human” race and what has prompted me to start this piece of writing today is the news that Raif Badawi, the Saudi Arabian blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison, could now actually face the death penalty for alleged apostasy. This is mediaeval justice and I use the word mediaeval in the specific sense of it being the justice of men and not of god. The ‘dastardly’ crime of this thin, diabetic with high blood pressure was to organise an internet forum to allow some free expression by other people and so was charged with “insulting Islam through electronic channels” and with “violating Islamic values and propagating liberal thought”.
Now make note that this is being imposed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (a state which has adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights even though it abstained on the vote in the UN in 1948 especially with regard to Article 18, which states that everyone has the right “to change his religion or belief”; and Article 16, on equal marriage rights) and not by a bunch of terrorist islamofascists attempting to coerce everyone to submit to their particular form of inhumanity and barbarism. This is crazy to anyone, such as myself, that subscribes to the simplest, hopefully self-evident and rational, aspect of loving one’s neighbour as oneself. To “love thy neighbour as thyself” is invoked not only in the New Testament (Mark 12:31) but also early in the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18). Such an exhortation must thus be relevant to both Christians and Muslims.
The crowd that watched the first fifty lashes (the first installment of twenty such planned public floggings) were cheering incessantly with what is fast turning into an infamous phrase: “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”). So what of submitting and allowing the one and only deity to decide who is guilty and how they should be punished. Man it seems knows better than his maker especially (and with the greatest irony) when it comes to matters of faith. All societies have civil laws and codes and this is always particularly the case with regard to such things as property, marriage and murder. But the punishment must also fit the crime. Deterrent punishments may have a different role but a punishment designed to deter others (rather than be simple justice for the perpetrator) has always seemed somehow suspect to me. Capital punishment itself never seems to be an effective deterrent for murder though it would probably stop people from parking illegally. This flogging and imprisonment of the Saudi Blogger can only be described as barbaric and not a judgement but a form of arbitrary revenge.
I don’t normally quote scripture because by “cherry picking” through the bible one can often find a passage to suit many points of view. Whether one takes its content literally or metaphorically doesn’t detract from the fact that it contains the collective wisdom of western society put together over millenia. It forms part of the canon of all three of the major semitic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam that had their origins in what can be loosely called the Caucasian peoples. It is in the best sense a “good book” and worth reading. I believe it is much better read than preached from so give thanks to the invention of the printing press that you can nowadays read it for yourself. We are no longer confined to hear it interpreted by a priest from the pulpit. I have already referred to the self-evident and logical statement of “love thy neighbour as yourself” and I will now add some of the words about judgement for everyone to ponder. Not only to the Saudi state (in respect of what started me to write these thoughts down) but to everyone. I believe the words have merit so please re-read them and reflect.
In the Old Testament (Jeremia 22:3) it is written “Execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place” and in the New Testament (Matthew 7:2) it says “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you.” So why is it that the barbarity of the literal “Eye for and eye and tooth for a tooth” seems to have centre stage under Shariah law and not the more temperate “Judge not that ye be not judged”. Man once again interpreting God’s will and not allowing God to be the judge.
Ever since the twin towers were toppled in New York I have been trying to get some inkling of what could be going-on in the minds of those assassins who flew airliners into those buildings. It was with the most grievous horror that I watched that tragedy unfold live on television. One of the most enduring memories is of a man at a window hundreds of feet in the air waving a white sheet or tablecloth in a hopeful but ultimately hopeless call for help. The two towers came tumbling down killing all and sundry in what was a unique moment of globally-watched horror. I read on the news next day that ordinary people in some places in the Middle East instead of lamenting or sympathising were cheering in the streets.
There also followed a deafening silence from the Islamic establishment as the identity and motives of the perpetrators became fully known. We are told that suicide is against the Islamic faith and yet this cult of mostly young male Muslims (for want of a better word) who kill themselves along with their perceived infidels seems not to lessen apace at all. A Muslim, I have learned from Wikipedia, translates as ‘one who submits’. But submission is passive and not active and there is a world of difference between the submissive actions of Gandhi and his followers and those of such “radicalised” members of Islam.
Time has moved on since I started writing these thoughts down and it is now November 2015 and a week after the terrible events in Paris on Friday 13th. In the last couple of days I watched a video of a minute’s silence in respect to all of those killed and injured, which was held before the start of a football match in Turkey against Greece. There was no respectful silence because a significant section of the Turkish fans booed and whistled and the infamous “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”) could be heard from what I hope was a minority of the Turkish fans. It is the same term said by those beheading their kneeling victims with a knife, by those before blowing up a bomb in a crowded market and by those about to machine gun and kill over a hundred victims inside a hall as they watch a concert. Those who broke that minute’s silence were obviously not only emboldened enough to do so but should they also be numbered amongst the not-so-actually-moderate moderate side of Islam?
Over the past year or so there have been so many horror stories. The things that have been happening in the self-proclaimed Islamic State/Caliphate and similar areas occupied by such Islamic “fundamentalist” groups nearly defies my intuitive comprehension. I felt similar when wandering round Auschwitz and allowing the depths of depravity and evil perpetrated (and with the greatest cynicism possible) by Hitler’s fascism to fully invade my consciousness. My mind would have preferred to be able to suppress such horrors but it is important to acknowledge that humanity is really capable of such abominations and I am simply thankful that I was not around at the time. But what if I was? Could I have been coerced into that collective mindset? Could I have resisted not shaking hands when meeting someone in the traditional manner but giving instead the Nazi salute? Islamofascism is the best term I have come across to describe the “philosophy” of IS and Boko Haram and such-like groups. They, like all fascists, must force their ideals because there is no peaceful path to their ends.
Having now read more about apostasy in Islam it is obvious that the penalties for this have nearly always been severe. To me this does not make the religion more so but rather less robust. Any belief that is only sustained by a climate of fear is likely to be as hollow as any denunciations that are obtained by torture. Those in fear will probably do or say anything that will end or prevent their torture. I have said it elsewhere and I repeat it here: “all evil only comes about by the imposition, the imposition, of one person’s will on another”. Religions and their foot-soldiers do not escape this and before anyone gets too carried away with the state of Islam today it bears remembering the atrocities carried out under Christ’s banner in the past. It is bad enough when a sadistic dictator is in power but it is probably worse when the perpetrators are the so-called spiritual leaders of a faith. Only their creed is OK and only their creed will bring eternal happiness. Pooh!
As a child, I (having been brought up as a Catholic in a Protestant home) remember being told the story of someone arriving in heaven and being taken down a corridor with doors in it and that there was one door in it for each religious group. As this new arrival was being walked along the corridor a huge noise could be heard behind one of the doors as if everyone inside was having a wonderful party. The guide turned and said “Oh don’t mind. That’s just the Roman Catholics – they think they are the only people up here!” I guess it must be just the same for all the branches of the Islamic faith today.
I digressed a bit maybe but the point was a serious one. Members of many faiths obviously believe that their way is best and some believe it is the only way to find salvation. This mindset is particularly often found in the mind of an “evangelical” – a person who has “seen the light” – and not only seen it but who must now convert all those perceived to be in the dark. I am increasingly sure that this pertains to most Muslims as well as to various branches of the Christian faith – particularly to the avowed evangelicals. I am no theologian but Judaism, the third of the three main Semitic religions, seems less concerned with converting Gentiles to their way of thinking. They themselves are the ‘chosen people’ and so there is not a lot they can do about those not so chosen I guess. Religious elitism of one sort or another unfortunately affects so many faiths.
It is time to reflect on the terrible events that have happened recently in Paris: first ‘Charlie Hebdo’ and more recently what happened on Friday 13th. Time to reflect in the cold light of day and try and find a better way forward. It is not a nice contemplation and knee-jerk reactions are unlikely to help. Terrorists (and by any definition that is what the agents of these atrocities were) have always been hard to beat by systematic conventional force. Terrorism may eventually implode from a lack of support. More often the terrorists eventually evolve into some other politically “acceptable” entity. Such a metamorphosis would seem very unlikely just now and it is just as hard to see that the current support (that is the support from within mainstream Islam) is going to suddenly vanish. And let me be clear that silence from the mainstream is not silence. It is a silent vocal support – loud and clear.
I am sure there are many “moderate” Muslims who probably do not agree with what is being done in the name of Islam. No more so than there were many Germans who did not like what Hitler was up to. No more so than a large proportion of the population of Irish Catholics who disagreed with the tactics of the IRA. Yet all these silent majorities are complicit in the actions of those acting “in their name”. All these three silent groups kept quiet for basically the same simple reason; from fear. It was John Hume who bravely “came out” and trumpeted exactly what the IRA were at that time; they were fascists. They were fascists because they created a climate of fear. They may not have gone to the extremes of the Nazis but moderate men and women all over Ireland did not “speak out” until the twin tragedies of Enniskillen and Tyrone made people begin to lose their fear. Or at least if they didn’t lose it they were no longer prepared to tolerate what was being done “in their name”. It was different in Germany because the Nazis (though terrorising in the most brutal, cynical and arbitrary manner) were part of a state machine that was eventually destroyed militarily.
I suppose there were many moderate Germans in Hitler’s Reich and I have met what at least appear to be moderate Muslims (notably a self professed Sufi woman in Brussels and a previous colleague in Cavan General Hospital) but I more and more question just how “moderate” they are for, behind it all, they not only believe that they are right and that everyone else should bow to their faith. This has to be coupled with the fact that to leave their faith is a capital offence. Yes it is frightening, when polled, just how many (moderate) British “Muslims” uphold that an apostate deserves to be killed.
So what of the Islamofascists (a good term I think) of today. The fear they produce is not random or ill thought out, it is deliberate and is focused to be as brutal and horrible as can be imagined. It also has a huge arbitrary element in that whether it is bombing an airliner, bombing a market place, shooting the occupants of a building or whatever, that they know there will not only be many innocents and children but even good members of their own faith killed.
I fear that moderate Islam will never rise up and maybe cannot rise up and thereby effect a change. At this point I want to mention Richard Dawkins. He himself doesn’t believe in God but that is not what I want to talk about. He has written some truly fantastic science and my only problem with his stance on religion is mostly one of style. He too quickly uses sarcasm, for example, and in doing this he belittles much of what he sets out to inform about. Having said that I find myself more and more agreeing that it is the moderate Muslim or “moderate Islam” that one needs to fear. Perhaps to fear most of all. If interested then read him for yourself. He has affected my thinking to now believe that what is instilled into the minds of the vast majority of children (in this context by their Muslim parents and pastors) remains deeply embedded within them for life. These fundamental ideas and beliefs instilled within them are the rich soil in which radicalisation can, oh so easily, be instilled. It was little different when Christendom was brutal. The concept is little different than the Jesuit motto: “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”.
The reactions and statements and fatwas of some of Islam’s clerics, particularly in the relation to real or imagined blasphemy, is something I would love to be able to abolish. It strikes me just how fragile the basis of such a faith must be when the faithful have to be controlled by fear. It is not all that different (historically at least) from most of the Christian churches except that the punishments (at least for centuries) have not been capital ones. “God is great”, “God is omnipotent”, “God has the power to grant or reject salvation” but it is the priests, the clerics, the ayatollahs, the inquisitors and so forth that take it on themselves to judge and condemn individuals instead of simply leaving it to the almighty to do the work that he is perfectly capable of doing. For me this is a great and fundamental hypocrisy; an absolutely gigantic hypocrisy; a hypocrisy only designed to maintain the power and influence (and oh so often the treasure chests as well) of those that preach in such a way.
When Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” was released it was rebuked by certain members of the establishment for being blasphemous. It, like much satire, may have been irreverent but it was not, from my standpoint, blasphemous. There was a renowned TV debate with the Bishop of Southwark and Malcolm Muggeridge on one side and John Cleese and Michael Palin on the other that I must revisit sometime. The po-faced establishment rather at a loss against the fun and health and healing power found in real humour is what I remember. Indeed it is so often the lack of humour, the inability to laugh from their hearts or their stomachs that seems to be part and parcel of the puritan, the reactionary and the foot soldiers of all forms of fascism.
The frailty of Islam in the face of any such humour is manifested by the outrageous actions that its adherents are invoked to do “in God’s name”. Whatever real harm did Salman Rushdie ever do or a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed do? The reply by the Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel (in the context of a Miss World contest taking place controversially in Nigeria) when asked; “What would Mohammed think?” she replied, “In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from one of them.” This was enough for a fatwa and so a death sentence was passed on her. Unbelievable.
It is worth stating that in the last five years or so there have actually been Fatwas against terrorism, Al-Qaeda and ISIS. They may be steps in the right direction by some in the Islamic world but for me it is not only too little too late but of dubious intent – other than that of self-preservation. At the moment ISIS and suchlike are on the upsurge and it seems pretty obvious that there will be more and more murderous incidents and thus more and more reaction to them. An emboldened far right will thus be able to garnish their ideologies and move onto the political stage with much greater success. I fear that happening and I am sure there are more and more adherents of Islam (in countries where they are now in a minority) that will feel increasingly fearful for themselves and their communities. These fatwas remind me a little of the so-called infallibility behind Papal bulls. The invincibility and conceit of certain mortal men over and above those of its faithful are abhorrent to me.
There is another question that I now ask myself : “How did Islam co-exist with its ‘neighbours’ for so very many years without the overt and pernicious way that its radicalised elements have evolved in recent years?” It seems too simple to blame the Taliban in Afghanistan , the Iraq war and its consequences and all the revolutions that have taken place around the Mediterranean but a deeper understanding of the nature of all of the divisions within Islam. No more so than with Christianity there have been divisions and schisms right from the start. And with every split comes the inevitability of “I’m right and you’re wrong” like little children unable to agree. Unfortunately however the consequences are severe – only too often deadly severe. In a way that is the hardest thing to understand about all these different monotheistic religions and their offshoots. They all believe in one almighty supreme being but, but, their own interpretation of things is the only one that can be correct.
At this point I will interject that I was born of a Roman Catholic father and an Anglican Catholic mother and educated as a Roman Catholic. I pursued that faith until one day I realised that I had been saying the creed, like a parrot, for years. What appalled me and what made me stop “blindly” following that faith was not that the words were right or wrong but that they had been instilled into me. I was saying “I believe” in things I had never ever considered for myself. This just seemed to be so wrong that it started my rejection of such a church as run by men. Over the years I have vacillated a bit and right now I am really not sure in what I believe. I am neither agnostic nor an atheist – I am simply perplexed. For me it shouldn’t matter whether there is a God or not as to the manner in which we should all lead our lives. I am a reluctant “muslim” only in the sense that I submit to my maker and to whatever unfolds in the future.
My maker whether a deity or not has not yet empowered me to understand what has always been an unanswerable paradox that centres on the nature of time and infinity. Did “stuff” always exist or was there a time when “stuff” came out of nothing. I don’t pretend an answer. I don’t understand the rather mystical “I am the alpha and I am the omega” nor do I understand the imagined singularity at the source of the Big Bang. In all probability it may be impossible for anything to understand its own existence let alone its own creation. I don’t want to waste time or lose any sleep on such “unanswerables”. Like others before me I simply wonder at the nature I have been blessed to live within and of the unbelievable sight of the night sky particularly when devoid of both the moon and artificial night: it can be literally overpowering to see the limits of the visible universe and it can make one feel very small indeed. Yet, small as I am, I am yet a part of that whole. That is what I believe in; that is the most part of my credo right now.
It is a creed supported scripturally by “Live and let live”; “Judge not that ye be not judged”; “Love thy neighbour as yourself”; Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us” and never forgetting that “Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it”. If you are a professed Christian it will bear you well to fully comprehend and understand the last two of the above statements for to ignore or misunderstand them could be fatal for your soul. If you come from a different persuasion I think it will still be hard to better them as the tools for a good and productive life. So, just as the Irish comedian, Dave Allen, used to end his shows I will just say “Goodnight and may your God go with you”!