Religions to deter jingoism?

by Susantha Hewa

Religion is among the first ‘clothes’ all babies are made to wear not much later than they are made to wear nappies. It becomes our lifelong companion although we don’t need its presence all the time. For instance, in troubled times, it is the first thing we turn to, in addition to all the other earthlier devices we generally rely on to stave off evil. It is the steadiest moral support we have when we are devastated by the loss of our loved ones. What’s more, we know for sure that it is on our side, and hardly on the side of those who are evil. At least we console ourselves that our enemies (who are undoubtedly evil) will face the consequences of what they do, as our religions have decreed. Faced with serious trouble, even the most cynical and rational would turn to religion, and, of course, to not-so-prudent systems when their more worldly remedies seem to fall by the wayside. Remember the lines: “my father, sceptic, rationalist / trying every curse and blessing”? They are from Nissim Ezekiel’s poem, Night of the Scorpion, where he captures the desperation of the husband whose wife is writhing in pain after being stung by a scorpion.

By the way, the victim, coming out of her long spell of pain that holds her in its grip throughout the night, utters, “Thank God the scorpion picked on me / And spared my children”. This is very touching, isn’t it? Perhaps, her involuntary expression of empathy – which is, unsurprisingly, attributed to maternal love – would be the most desirable human impulse to be had in the present world where thousands of traumatised mothers are asking why the bombs picked on their children instead of them. In vain, however. Pray, who will ever hear them? The lords of war? No way, despite all the religions in the world invoking compassion. Not many good things are possible when war takes over.

Generally, religions have taught us to keep out of violence. You may flinch from killing a person whether you are religious or otherwise. However, most religions’ basic injunction against killing seems to have no application at all when it comes to butchering by the thousand. Language helps. You only have to call it “war” to remove the game from the jurisdiction of religion. Before a barrage of words like armies, commands, guns, enemy, bombs, bravery, duty, loyalty, patriotism, sacrifice, platoons and ambush, another set of words like religion, sin, merit, compassion, empathy, sensitivity, fellow feeling, humanity, etc., become expendable, irrelevant and invalid. Of course, “faith” is an exception. It looks as if it doesn’t belong here. It would sit more comfortably with the previous group of words, including bombs, enemy, sacrifice, duty, etc. Well!

To deviate briefly to dwell an issue relating to Ezekiel’s poem. For instance, can only mothers feel empathetic in such situations where the pain of little children could be so starkly pictured? In the above poem, wouldn’t a person unrelated to the children have expressed the same emotion, if he were in the mother’s position? Farfetched one may feel. Wouldn’t it be unlikely that there are enough examples of such instinctive expressions of kindliness- or, even acts of selflessness amongst us? On the other hand, aren’t we being made to be passive observers and getting coarsened by the hour, as we persistently keep internalizing the present carnage in Gaza and elsewhere? Pray, can any benign power stop this? Would religions come to our rescue? They have not, have they? Worse, they have very often aggravated it.

Can we be optimistic that things will improve? Of course, Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology and prolific author, in his 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, claims that humans are now living in the most peaceful era in the history of our species – a claim, with which, many would not so readily agree, given the present situation. Whatever it may be, he seems to give us some hope, when he says, “Given that we are equipped with the capacity to sympathize with others, nothing can prevent the circle of sympathy from expanding from the family and tribe to embrace all of mankind, particularly as reason goads us into realizing that there can be nothing uniquely deserving about ourselves or any of the groups to which we belong” (Enlightenment Now, 2018). Now this sounds good, but how about the strident shouts of defiance and brandishing of faith?

Many would have expected our religions to inculcate such sensitivity in people, specially, in those who can influence the quality of life, nay, the very destiny of millions of people. Instead, regrettably, they are being unwitting agents of estrangement and unappeasable moods of hostility.

Isn’t it tragic that the adherents of one religion could assume a sense of superiority and haughtiness vis-à-vis ‘others’ in terms of the ‘uniqueness’ of that religion? Isn’t it a pity that instead of dampening our uncalled-for urge to dig into differences between people, religions seem to encourage their devotees to gloat over their religious uniqueness and whet their sense of ‘superior faith’, as manifest in expressions such as ‘our faith is stronger than their faith, weapons, etc.’? The world would have fared much better if “faith” had united the humans instead of urging them to be religiously assertive, or even, militant. Sam Harris, the neuroscientist and author, has this to say with regard to unquestioning “faith”, which is discredited in all spheres of life when unsubstantiated, except in religion. He says, “We will see that the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism: rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself.” It is only when faith admits of inquiry for verification that people become sensible and resort to discussion, which promotes peace and human progress. When it is sealed off by nothing other than the weight of authority, it has always estranged people and made them intolerant at best, and fanatical at worst. The mayhem in Gaza, where cast-iron ethno-religious prejudices are inseparable from the welter of power politics, should serve as a convincing example of “religious faith” fuelling the conflict and overriding all appeals of civilization and progress. Is it unreasonable for us to expect religion to trigger progress, not strife?

Prof. Pinker, in trying to answer what progress is, presents a series of factors that many would agree as valid. He maintains that life, health, sustenance, abundance, peace, and “opportunities to enjoy family, friends, culture, and nature” are better than their opposites, i.e. death, sickness, hunger, poverty, war, and finally, “drudgery and monotony”. Therefore, he concludes that any increase in these measurables is illustrative of progress. And, he goes on to stress that most of these feelgood factors are admittedly “humanistic”, and further, they do “leave out religious, romantic, and aristocratic virtues like salvation, grace, sacredness, heroism, honor, glory…”. It is a pity that religion which should have been a basic constituent of everything that is progressive and refined, has regrettably proved itself to be a major irritation in most conflicts in human history.

In sum, what both Harris and Pinker seem to highlight is the greater importance of focusing on achieving what most people would prioritize in secular life – happiness, health, safety, literacy, etc. – over the so-called ‘transcendent’ values that are readily extolled in the abstract, but abandoned as irrelevant the moment the pursuit of power and glory towers above everything that is decent and humane.