“Man was born free and he is everywhere in
chains…” – Jean Jacques Rousseau (1762)[1]
The
maxim above reads deliciously on paper and rolls even better on the tongue. A
cursory glance at it might make one discard it as a possible oxymoron to be
left for thinkers to demystify or simplify. However, a closer inspection
reveals nothing hidden or cryptic about the message of the quote.
What it simply states is
that, despite the free will of man, man is still bound by the will of secondary
agents/institutions outside his will. To elaborate further, let us chart the
fictional history of man from inception till death.
From
birth a baby has no choice over what it eats, what it is called, what family it
is born into or what things he/she is taught. As his/her power of will
increases, society’s binds continue to undermine total free will in a myriad of
patterns which take civil, political, social, religious etcforms. For example, a church priest would
frown at and castigate an adherent visiting an Ifa shrine even though the person
in question is supposedly free.
This
brings to the fore the concept of reality and perspective. A person born into a
Muslim home and that has been well-grounded in Islamic knowledge sees truth and
reality often from an Islamic perspective. His world view is Islamic and
because of the intolerance that he has been taught for other world religions,
he dismisses other avenues or perspectives which in his judgment cannot be
true. While his perspective or reality as the case may be is true, it is not in
all fairness, objective. To buttress this analogy, examine the case of two
belligerents; a community and a minority terrorist cell within the same
community. The community as a whole represent humane values; good, truth and sanctity
of life while the terrorist cell represent evil incarnated. However, alienate
ethics or morality and dissect the metamorphosis of members of the cell and you
discover it is not totally their will even when they themselves argue so. Their
will has been steadily molded to fit that exact reality in a perpetual process
of indoctrination since childhood just like those in the community. If the
reverse was the case and members of the community were schooled like those of
terrorist cell, it is not unlikely we would still arrive at the same scenario.
Consider these statements; (1) all
existing religions and faiths accept that there is ONE “supreme” Creator (Including polytheistic
faiths).
(2) All humans are of this ONE “supreme” Creator.
(3) Taking another’s life is considered
sinful in all faiths.[2]
And so we wonder why adherents of a faith kill each
other or kill those of different faiths in the name of the Creator, why there
was need for pogroms, jihads or the crusades. Even, if they had sinned against
their Creator and deserved to die, was he so powerless and defenseless that he
needed human avengers? This was the same creator said to have single-handedly destroyed
countless numbers of sinful men in the holy books.[3]
How then did he end up needing protectors?
Theorists
have pinpointed the variations in religious ideology as the causative factors
for the irreconcilable divide in perspective but this raises further questions
like; should religious adherents make mortal enemies of their fellow men in
their bid to follow dogmas at the expense of achieving oneness with the Creator
and how really dissimilar are the numerous world faiths?
A
zealot would readily step out and reel off a list of differences between the
Hindu/Buddhist faith to the Christian and the Jewish to the Islamic as long as
or probably longer than the River Nile. Fortunately however, we have documented
history to thank for bringing startling facts close to home. These facts chart
a yet to be disproved chronology, analogy and history of religion which
suggests succinctly that all religions evolved and metamorphosed one into the
other. Or how does one explain the recurrence of the ‘afterlife’ in all these
faiths albeit with variations? How do we explain the fact that the pig is
considered unfit for eating by Jews and Muslims alike or that Hindus also practice
ablution before some prayers? How also do we explain the recurrence of sacred
sites and pilgrimages in all faiths?[4]
This
debacle or imbroglio calls to mind an ancient anecdote about a group of blind
men and an elephant. All were trying to determine what the elephant was by
touching a part of it and they ended up disagreeing over their results.[5]
Now, it is widely accepted that no one man can fully grasp the understanding of
the Creator. If so, let us imagine that the elephant is the Creator and the
blind men, humankind. Have we not solved the debacle?
This
same anecdote has manifested in several ways than one, from Buddhist
traditions, to folktales, to stories and poems. At the end of one of such
Buddhist traditions, ‘The Buddha’ likens the blind men to preachers and
scholars who are so blind and ignorant that they discredit the view of
others.‘The Buddha’ uses the following
poem to drive the point home:
Let
them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind
And
if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch[7]
It
is no secret that religion has always been a malleable tool for political ends.
A simple analysis of the pogroms, jihads and crusades will reveal this unsavory
fact and it is no news that some strains of terrorism strive on religion. But
shouldn’t we ask ourselves if we must continue to repeat history rather than
learn from it? Should religion continue to be our opium? Is oneness with God
our reason for being religious? Shouldn’t we cross-check what we are being
taught? And how supreme can anyone’s knowledge of the Creator be?
Jean
Jacque Rousseau author of the famed ‘Social Contract’ and the quote at the
beginning of this treatise believed that ‘in so far as they led people to
virtue, all religions are equally worthy’.[8]
Castes, the act of proselytization and a dogmatic process of indoctrination
have made the monotheistic religions more helpless than helpful in creating a
peaceful world. On the contrary, the henotheistic, polytheistic, and
pantheistic faiths seem to have an enduring tolerance of other faiths,
perspectives, and realities which monotheistic religions really should adopt if
global peace is to be attained. The onus thereupon falls not only on
teachers/preachers etc but also on followers to seek truth and upon finding it,
practice it. Sir Ramakrishna (1836-1886) a religious teacher said thus;
“Lovers
of God do not belong to any caste… A Brahmin (teacher)
without
this love is no longer a Brahmin. And a pariah (outcast)
with
the love of God is no longer a pariah. Through bhakti
(devotion
to God) an untouchable becomes pure and elevated”[9]
It
is no wonder then that men like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr were so
similar despite being so far apart. They led remarkable lives and epitomized
these principles, the same principles that Jesus Christ taught some millennia
ago. Prophet Muhammad was
also quoted to have said “seek knowledge even as far as China’ using China then
to emphasize how far one must go in search of knowledge. This same quote has
been discredited by some scholars who have labeled it weak.[10]
This only serves to corroborate the view that man is constantly at war with his
beliefs for even though each faith has one holy book, sects keeping appearing
by the minute. So, we should ask ourselves ‘why have so many “religious”
parties if the ideology is the same? To borrow the famous singer Asa’s question
from her song “Questions”[11],
why is there so much religion yet there’s
so little love?
Nevertheless, that we are in
chains is hardly in doubt but how far we remain in them is perhaps the only
choice we have. Whether it is Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, Iovis ,Tiu/Ziu, Vishnu, or
the big bang, the fact remains that we (excluding atheists) all believe in an
unexplainable higher power. So if at the end, one goes to nirvana, moksha,
al-jannah, loka, Shangri-la or paradise it would still have served the same
purpose, a connection with one’s reality of the Creator just like each of the
blind men. Religious bigotry i.e. believing one’s religion is the only
acceptable reality is in essence giving the Creator a back-seat in the judgment
of man.
Invariably,
religious bigotry is as baseless as racism. Therefore, mutual respect and
tolerance is needed for us to co-exist peacefully and harmoniously on earth for
religion might just be the machine to trigger the world’s first and only
omnicide.
