RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE; LETS GIVE LOVE A CHANCE
It’s no longer news on the death of Deborah Samuel, as the deed is done to justified religious intolerance, this write-up tends to my exposé on this topic and its bears in mind my reaction on the need to have a mind shift/ religious disruption on how we treat our fellows of other faith regardless of its affiliations. How do we question the norms and interpret the whimsical religious fanatics?
On Thursday, May 12 2022, some disdain and irate youth of the Shehu Shagari College of Education mobbed, killed and burnt a fellow student, Deborah Samuel, over alleged blasphemy of the Prophet Mohammed which is still under investigation. Allegedly she statement wasn’t directly posed towards Prophet Mohammed but many misinterpret its contest and she wasn’t giving room to defend her claims. Globally, me inclusive condemned this barbaric mobbed attack, Jungle justices which doesn’t give you the right to take a life, without proper right to response, there are ways to go about this, institution like the court and police were mandated to address such issues which to determine their punishable deeds, this call for all stakeholder there is fire on the mountain.
In light of this, the world is full of different religious beliefs from Christianity to Muslims to African Traditionalist to Buddhist, Atheist and more which I cannot name in this epistle, I remember when conveying a vehicle and the driver was speaking Hausa to me, I literally don’t understand the spoken language, so the man just went from positive words to insult and curses, which I can detect due to other passenger silence, I didn’t put much meaning to such words, at such time until I asked someone what those words are, he said he was insulting and cursing me, I dust that reaction and moved on as at such time on confrontation I didn’t understand what it means. We humans tends to lay subtle insult on other religious faith one way or the other, does that make us less humans.
Then What is insult, in Merriam Webster dictionary defines it’s as a variant of " to treat with insolent, indignity or contempt, in simple meaning to offensively reduce a person image and dignity, to rubbish the person character or image. What is Blasphemy: to show irreverence for a godly character.
Back to topic, People tends to sway in a path that can be pretentious and insult a certain religion which can be "stupid" does that person deserve to die in a barbaric way. In fact, there will always be ‘stupid’ person who will insult what or who you believe is holy and sacred in your religion, those people don’t deserve to die.
If every follower of every religion abandons and constituted law and authority under their own eyes which feels in their mind that anyone who says anything blasphemous should be instantly killed, Let’s just imagine every Christian, African traditionalist, Hindu, Atheist etc begins to lynch themselves anyone who insults their religion and other faithful, am sure the human race will be extinct. Invariably we need to preach and shift our mind from religious bigotry to religious tolerance, trying to rationalize the defending a prophet or a religious idea by resorting to violence, is absurd and the redlines to outburst is not a right answer to this either.
The idea of a redline and justifying intolerance comes from the realization that some religious sects are a majority in the north, when population comes in therein, religious immunity becomes automatic thereby defending and protecting the said individual faith and bigotry. All the irrelevant statement of redline and choice of words when crossed some sect of religious fanatics tends to protect their people when they perpetuate and commit evil/crime believes that they are in the majority and perhaps have fellow Muslims in power who can protect them, so they can run amok and kill defenseless people like Deborah who are in the minority. If Deborah was a majority sect, would she have committed a transgression?
So, obviously, Deborah and other victims of religious extremism in the north died from tyranny of the majority, from cowards who rely on numbers to snuff life out of weak people.
Moreover, since religion is the opium of the masses, the drug they get high on which makes them to abandon rational thinking, religious and political leaders use religion as a tool to hold on to power by cajoling the people and playing up fear to oppress and suppress enemies. These leaders always resist anything that will question dogmas and liberate the people from religion and its dogmas, hence they justify fear-mongering and brutal oppression of dissidents.
Religious was created to control the weak and give more power to the strong, which over century have been a way for some individual to rose into power. Like they said nothing is new under the sun, we ought to do better for the future. Institutionalizing religious tolerance should me the major topic of political elite, when there is such love will be the universal language for all.
The fact is, all these religious embargos that you think are sacred are subject to the imaginative interpretation of these leaders depending on what they want to achieve per time. You think some things are sacred and are worthy of being killed for because your religious leaders manipulated you to believe they are and you should never tolerate a particular sacrilege. They tell you your life and no one’s life is as important as that religious idea or figure.
However, if you look at it critically, those sacred things are not necessarily so, people are manipulated to believe they are sacred. For instance, Prophet Muhammad or Allah should be able to defend himself, insulting the prophet or Allah doesn’t make him less powerful if he truly is. Saying the sun is cold doesn’t make the sun cold. Saying Albert Einstein is stupid doesn’t make him stupid.
Saying Jesus is gay doesn’t make him gay. Therefore, getting angry over an insult to any religious figure happens because some people makes you interpreter your anger and not because the insult changes anything. They are simply getting angry and lynching people in order to protect the power structure religion has provided by getting people scared and afraid of further making contrary opinions and thinking independently.
I think the world will be a better place, if fanatical religious sect stop thinking that their religion has supremacy over others and it is their duty to make others conform or to force others to have positive opinions about Islam. If other people of other religions think like that, it will be a mutually assured destruction. And this advice goes to not only muslims but to faithful of other religions as well. Thinking your idea about what we cannot empirically prove is the best and most correct thing since the inception of the world and it is your duty to bend others to agree with you will continue to lead to calamity. Meanwhile, the fanatical muslims in the north are simply enjoying the protection of their majority. You know they don’t do that barbarism elsewhere.
The religious Christian Leaders should wake up and address this jungle justice and hope the institution that is mandate should bring the perpetuators to books and restore peace in that area.
My condolences to the families of Deborah Samuel.
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