Politics of power based on religion is not religious at all - it seems.
But those who are for it and who opposes it, both are driven by flawed logic! This is not a fact, per se, but an opinion. If you do not agree, could you forward your alternative view?
It seems that all the hoopla about politics of power based on religion are ill-informed and without merit most of the cases. This applies to both group of people who argues in favour and against the proposition.
The general people who favors doing politics of power based on religion, they wrongly thinks or believes that its a good way to be religious. The groups who aims to move forward this cause are usually ill-informed and/or illiterate. But there are quite a few educated informed people too, who are morally corrupt. Every political parties have their share of corrupts, the religion based parties are not any exception.
The general people who opposes doing politics of power based on religion, they wrongly thinks or believes that its an issue that can be tackled with top-down approach. Look around the world and look at the established democracies. There are many religion based political parties. On the philosophical level, you could argue the merit of this, whether it falls within the purview of individual rights to form political parties based on religious faith. On the very theoretical level, in general, the argument in favour of thinking it as an individual right - seems to be straight-forward. Many would agree. But the opposing forces would mention "too many" bad examples of the past where the use of religion in the politics have resulted in a disastrous results. But, again on the theoretical level, one can not base the argument on the basis of past "mistakes" - if those can really be characterized that way. Thats why.. opposing the right to form political parties based on religious faith do not seem fair.
So what is our message here? Or is there a stand that we take?
In order to answer that let us start with a question. Just a clarification, since we are talking about this in the context of Bangladesh and the majority of people of our country are Muslim, we will use the context of Islam whenever necessary while discussing a specific religious perspective.
Why did Allah create human being, while He already had ferestas to obey all His orders perfectly and to the point?
In the religion of Islam, the concept of feresta is a very vital one. We know that Allah had created feresta before human came into being. At a later time, He created human. There might be many explanation to this - based on religious in-depth knowledge. But let us just mention one - that is common sense. The difference between feresta and human is the earlier obeys the order by default and the later obeys order by choice - if he or she chooses to. Now, if Allah wanted human beings to be following orders by default - always - there was no point in creating them. Becasue there were already ferestas who would obey order by default. Isn't it true? Since human beings are given the capacity to disobey, thats why human are more interesting to Allah and thats why they are described as the best of the creatures. Isn't it true?
Now, if you agree with this logic, would it make sense to tell human being to follow religion by creating law? No, it does not seem it would make sense. Say for example, in many Muslim majority countries you have to shut down or pause your business for prayer. If that is true and if it is obligatory, then where do you keep the flexibility of choice that is the core message of Islam. One becomes Muslim and stay Muslim by choice - there is nothing to force. Any time force comes into being - which is essentially the case if you include religion within the statecraft - Islam (or any other religion for that matter) is essentially shown out of the door. What is needed is whether one has the choice of practice their religion if they wishes to. As long as individuals are free to choose the way they lead their life, that would be the best environment to flourish Islam, or any other language for that matter.
Our point is practice of religion should be kept as what it is - a choice of better life which should be chosen by the believers as a freewill. Anything more than that should be deemed as unnecessary and un-religious.
Are we saying that there is nothing that religious people can do to influence the statecraft? Of course, there is. Within the democratic framework, where people practice their life according to own freewill, the statecraft should give all the choices needed or demanded by its people. But it can not impose. Just as an example, few years ago there was no choice for a Muslim to do banking without being involved in a interest scheme, which is prohibited in Islam. However, when Malaysia used their innovation to create a new choice in the modern banking, it was a welcome move. Several decades later, now Islamic banking is a choice which all the major brands are offering.
But when the Mullahs to start politicking, they will opine that all other banks should be banned because those are not Islamic. Thats where things start going wrong. If one believes that and tries to implement that and more importantly gains the power to do that, religion no longer stays as a choice. From that point on, things start going wrong.
So, whenever someone - be it a King or be it a Supreme Leader in other countries, or be it some leaders of religious organization in Bangladesh - whenever any of these people tries to force religion upon its people, there should always be doubt whether they are doing it for religious purpose. They are actually hurting Islam by forcing it upon people - we would argue. If you do not agree with this opinion, we would welcome your counter argument.
Now comes the difficult part. If that is our position, what is the problem of banning it?
There are many problem.
First of all, any time you ban something, you make it more attractive than it actually is!
Secondly, this is just one interpretation and one perspective. This may not be most logical one, though it seems to be so to us.
Thirdly, if the logic is correct, people within the religion should automatically resist any such attempts if there is a democratic practice or choice.
Fourth, banning it sound morbid and cowardice. If their position is inferior, why do you bother? Can't you be confident enough to fight a inferior and illogical and un-religious position through a democratic process?
We could go on .... but we would leave those to our readers to mention and discuss.
If you thought some of the ideas are worth of your reading time, please forward it to others. If you have an ear to the columinsts in regular traditional media, please forward it to them. If you have an ear to the journalists and news editors of the electronic media, discuss it with them. Hope they would look at the suggestions and give due diligence.
Thanks for your time,
Innovation Line
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Note: This is a freelance column, published mainly in different internet based forums. This column is open for contribution by the members of new generation, sometimes referred to as Gen 71. If you identify yourself as someone from that age-group and want to contribute to this column, please feel free to contact. Thanks to the group moderator for publishing the article.
Dear readers, also, if you thought the article was important enough so it should come under attention of the head of the government please forward the message to them. Email address for the Chief Advisor:
feeedback@pmo.gov.bd or at
http://www.cao.gov.bd/feedback/comments.php .
Also, if you thought the article was important enough so it should come under attention of the EC, please forward the message to them. Email address for the EC:
ecs@bol-online.com or you can use this link:
http://www.ecs.gov.bd/contact.php3The more of you forward it to them, the less will be the need to go back to street agitation. Use ICT to practice democracy.
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