Terrorism has poisoned religion’s good name

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/11/2014 (3434 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A friend of mine was in a Winnipeg hospital recently and passed by the chapel. In it, he saw a Christian on her knees praying. Beside her was a Muslim, prostrate on the floor, also praying.

“Wonderful stuff,” he wrote. “The world needs to see more of this.”

I agree. The world does need to see more examples of people of faith engaged in peaceful co-operation. But that isn’t what it’s seeing.

What the world is mostly seeing are people of faith acting violently. It seems like every day there is a new report about someone killing or attacking someone else in the name of God.

It’s easy to blame the media.You know, always looking for the sensational and gory — if it bleeds, it leads. But is it the media’s fault? Maybe not. Maybe they are only reporting it because religiously inspired violence and terrorism is on the rise.

That’s the finding of the Global Terrorism Index, sponsored by the Institute for Economics and Peace. According to the index, the main driver of terrorism in the past number of years has been religion.

Of the 18,000 recorded deaths from terrorism last year, the index found 66 per cent were attributable to just four groups: Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Taliban in Afghanistan and al-Qaida.

Before 2000, the report says that nationalism was the main reason for terrorism — groups like the Irish Republican Army and rebels in Chechnya trying to achieve political independence.

Since 2000, however, terrorism caused by nationalist groups has remained relatively stable, but religious extremism has grown.

For those of us who view religion as an instrument of peace and goodwill, this news isn’t easy to hear.

It’s tempting to respond by saying that since it’s not my group doing the killing, it’s not my problem. And if it is my group, it’s tempting to keep saying that my religion is a religion of peace, or that those people aren’t true believers — both true, but so easily drowned out by the carnage.

No matter what faith group we belong to, we all suffer when anyone uses religion to justify violence or intolerance. But what to do?

First, it helps to have some facts. Karen Armstrong’s new book, Fields of Blood, is helpful here. In her sweeping examination of religion and violence throughout history, she shows that most of the violence that has occurred in the world has been over land and political power — not faith.

She also disputes the “myth of religious violence” that exists today, pointing out that suicide attacks were invented by the Tamil Tigers, “who had no time for religion at all,” and that many of those involved in the 9/11 attacks did not have a conventional Muslim upbringing.

“I’m not saying religion is not implicated in violent acts, but it is never the whole reason,” she said in an interview. “We are not looking at the situation of terrorism in a rational, balanced way if we simply blame religion.”

Second, people of faith need to speak out against violence done in their name, as happened last week when several local Islamic community leaders wrote a letter to the editor of this paper decrying the attack in a Jerusalem synagogue.

Third, religions need to stop allowing themselves to be co-opted by states to justify violence and national ambitions. As one writer put it, parodying the subtitle of Christopher Hitchens’ book God is Not Great: It’s not how religion poisons everything, but how everything poisons religion. The question we all need to ask is: Why does religion allow itself to be poisoned?

Finally, as anyone involved in public relations knows, we need to inject alternative messages into the public narrative. At a time when evil is being perpetrated by people claiming religion as a motivator, or when people of one religious group act intolerantly toward another, people of every faith need to publically stand together to present a different perspective — in both words and actions.

As for that Christian and a Muslim praying in the chapel, I’m glad they did it. Now we need to find ways to take that kind of positive witness out to where many others can see it.

Jdl562000@yahoo.com

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