How about a disclaimer first? I am not an expert on religion, politics, race, etc. But, I have strong interest in them as they have strong influence in our lives. Readers of this article should not expect anything more than just an opinion of an individual who always thinks about these topics and updates his opinion. This article reflects my opinion of the time.
The Establishment Clause, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” with the Free Exercise Clause, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...,” of the First Amendment to the US constitution – in intent and function – separates religion and state. One of the founding fathers of USA, Thomas Jefferson, interpreted the first amendment as the wall of separation between the church and the state. The first amendment ensures two things – it provides citizens freedom to practice any religion without interference by the state, while at the same time, making it clear that the state cannot be involved in giving preference (establishment) to any particular religion. My own interpretation of the first amendment goes bit further – the religion, or lack of it, is a choice of the individual, and shall not be tinkered with by a group, community, or state. If religion becomes a tool of expression outside of the confines of individual space, it results in confusion, chaos, violence, and inhuman behavior.
Recently, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a monk-led mob attacked a UN safe house where 31 Rohingya refugees were sheltered. These refugees were rescued by Sri Lankan Navy in May when they were found drifting in the northern coastal waters of the country. A Buddhist monk, who is supposed to practice and preach peace and non-violence as per the Buddhist doctrine, called on others in a video for the attack. His reason for the attack was that these Rohingyas killed his fellow monks is Myanmar. This attacking mob sought revenge for the killing of fellow Buddhist monks that happened more than thousand miles away in a country that has nothing else in common other than the religion of the majority. They never thought that these refugees fled their homeland in fear of reprisal by the Myanmar authorities and took to the seas in desperate attempt to save themselves. These people likely had nothing to do with the Myanmar monk killings. But humanity and compassion was put in the back burner by the extremist Sri Lankan monk mob when they were attacking Muslim Rohingya refugees in display of their solidarity to their fellow ultra-nationalist Buddhist monks of Myanmar.
The current Rohingya crisis in Myanmar has its root in political exploitation of the religion by the army rulers. This region of Myanmar used to be a separate kingdom called Arakan ruled by Buddhist Rakhine kings until 1784. The Chittagong region of Bangladesh was part of the Arakan kingdom during that period. Muslims and Buddhists of the kingdom lived together peacefully across the kingdom. When the Rakhine king was driven out by the Burmese in 1784, some of the supporters of the Rakhine king migrated to the southern part of Bangladesh and still live there. During the British rule between 1826 and 1948, additional Muslim and Hindu people from British India were resettled in Rakhine by the British rulers to help in agriculture and other economic activities. The Muslim population that lived in the current Rakhine region of the Arakan kingdom and those Muslims and Hindus who were resettled by the British are now collectively known as the Rohingyas. Since the declaration of Rakhine as a state and homeland of Rakhine Buddhists in 1973 by the army controlled government of Myanmar, the persecution of the Rohingya population begun in earnest. Myanmar army’s primary political goal is to suppress potential independence movement by the Rakhine population who still aspire to have their own country back. The secondary goal of the army is to reap personal financial benefits from the natural resources of the state. They are able to achieve both goals by convincing the Buddhists Rakhine population that the state of Rakhine is their’s and if only the Muslim Rohingyas (branded by the army as the migrant Bengalis form Bangladesh) could be driven out, they would have their own homeland. Myanmar army is pushing the Muslim Rohingya population to the brink by denying them citizenship and all rights even though the large majority of peace loving Burmese (mainstream Myanmar Buddhists) do not approve this persecution. As a result of this religion based divisiveness, some of the Rohingyas, with outside help, reacted violently and resorted to terrorism as their expression of rage, thereby creating the environment for the army’s to justify their unspoken policy of ethnic cleansing. Religion offers Myanmar army the toxic tool they need to create and maintain the hatred between Muslims and Buddhists to fulfill their own agenda.
Like the Myanmar army, throughout the human history, religious differences has been used as a convenient tool
by many to rise, or cling to, the power. Jews were singled out as the threat to the ultra-nationalist Nazi Germany, and were massacred. Ironically, the Zionist politicians and ultra-nationalist Jews are making a very similar mistake by citing the Muslim majority Palestinians as the threat to the existence of the Jewish state, Israel. If I can infer from the history, sooner or later, the Zionists will have a similar fateful demise as all other ultra-nationalists had. Even if my prediction comes true, there will be another ultra-religious nationalist will raise its ugly head somewhere else in the world.
Could that be the Saudi Wahhabism, a branch of Islamic Salafism? Saudi rulers, with the help of their petro-dollar, have long been pursuing its mission to spread their own extremist form of Islam across the entire Muslim world. Not that the Saudi rulers are ardent practitioners of Islam; they are simply using Islam as the tool to cling to power and suppress any voice that might try to question their authority. This religion-centric policy of the Saudis have helped the West to take advantage of it and implement their divisive policy in the Middle East and reap economic benefit. As a result of this mutually beneficial nexus between the Saudi government and the Western democracies, the innocent people of Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and many other Muslim majority countries are now gripped by the extremist forces of Islam. Islamic terrorism has even shown its revolting tentacles beyond the Muslim world into countries like India, Myanmar, Russia, and many other places where a Muslim minority population exist. In most of the countries, Islamic extremism is imported and supported by external money and power. Everywhere Islamic extremists are willing to sacrifice their lives…but for what? A world of Salafiyyah – a way of life that existed more than 1400 years ago. Is Salafiyyah even possible? To go back to a society and lifestyle that existed in the early days of Islam, we have to abandon all the advancement humankind has achieved since. Saudi Arabia has recently allowed women to drive. If the breeding ground of Salafism is finally coming to the realization and moving toward gradual reform, those who dream of the Caliphate of Salafiyyah is only building a castle in the air.
Indian subcontinent couldn’t stay together not just because the British wanted to weaken the region by dividing it, but primarily because the native leaders at that time were focused on their own ascend to the power and used religion as the tool to achieve that goal. In contrast, other big countries with diverse population with multiple culture, language, and religion such as USA and UK are able to keep it together – in my opinion – because of the effective separation of religion and state. That separation, if not carefully protected, can fall apart very quickly, as we are currently experiencing in the USA. Donald Trump’s unabashed use of religious and racial divisiveness as the tool to rile up a specific majority group of population in order to get to the power has severely undermined the separation of religion and state afforded by the first amendment. The fracture in the wall between religion and state has given a voice and space to otherwise fringe groups like neo-Nazis and white supremacists and created violent conflicts like the August 12, 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia incident. If USA allows its leaders to continue to exploit that slippery slope, it may not be too long before we see someone like Hitler rise to the power.
Most of the common people taking part in religious divisiveness are motivated by their blind faith, and are easily exploited. But the puppeteers who use those common people, have no regards for the religion. They are happy to use religion as the tool to achieve their political and commercial objectives. The benefits are too lucrative to give up – as demonstrated time and again throughout human history – unless we all agree not to let religion play any role in our common life-space. Keeping religious beliefs as our individual choices will still allow us to lead our own individual life anyway we want while letting the broader society function without the religion being a factor in our communal public life. Let’s practice and preach religious beliefs in our private space, keeping it separate from our public life.