I have many favorite bloggers whom I love to read and reread. And
with the lady bug smiling at me, I have earned friendships of some of
them as well. One such amazing thought provoking blogger is Brendan who
authors Brandy, Whiskey & All That. A friend and guide, he had to be
on my blog, I thought. And I hatched a wicked plan of having him here.
So, one morning I pinged him and with quivering fingers I typed a
message asking him to be a guest writer for CoffeeBeans. So, much for my
wickedness. Being the sweet soul he is he typed a smiling "COOL" in
reply. And here he is with a powerful post on power and supremacy of
religion. I wont say anything further, its here for you to read.
The Power of Division in Religion
The communal riots in the Central African
Republic (C.A.R.) are not recent news. Muslims and Christians had been living in a state of unrest since its colonial
power, France, granted them Independence. The nation that had been ruled by
successive Christian governments till now was seized by Muslim rebels who
installed Michel Djotodia as their leader. This man then disbanded his rebel
group to bring peace to the country but to no avail. Both sides continue to
fight and kill each other. The African Union and France who have sent in troops
to maintain peace have realized that they underestimated the level of hatred
that the two communities had for each other. Instead of minor sectarian
violence, this situation had turned out to be ‘ingrained hatred’ that was
cultivated in both communities. The last update by the BBC was that the rebel
leader had stepped down due to pressure from neighbouring nations in order for
the parliament to elect an interim leader.
Though we have seen it in India too,
strained relations between Christians and Muslims seem a farce to me because it
is widely believed that that the two religions along with Judaism had sprung
from the same well. But today, Jews are fighting Muslims, Muslims are fighting Christians
and so on and so forth. I do not mean to narrow this down to just these
religions but when even their history is same, the religious matter contains
the thing to a large extent and it is known for a fact that they are the
branches of the same tree, then why fight?
One word: Power.
Wherever there are inter-religious tensions
in the world, the one constant in the sea of variables is Power. There is a
single motive for making people kill each other. As mentioned before, there may
be other variables but if these problems are viewed with a magnifying glass, I
bet even Sherlock Holmes would find Power to be elementary in these cases.
There are a number of examples that one can
produce to make this fact clear as water but I refrain from doing so lest I
find more examples of one community and less of the other, thus putting myself
in the position of being called partisan. However, on browsing the internet or
old records of newspapers, one is sure to find a number of riots, both in India
and the world that took place for the sole reason of shifting the balance of
Power.
I believe that people do not fight of their
own accord, they are made to believe that their fight will be just, however
incredulous that may seem. Adolf Hitler justified his war to his soldiers, so
did Julius Caesar and Osama Bin Laden. It is not the religious that one needs
to keep an eye out for, it s for those who would seek power in the manipulation
of people. It is these serpents that lurk within and poison the society for
their gain.
-By Brendan Dabhi.
(Here is his latest : The prodigal Reader)
