Dear Readers, compliments of the New Year to you all and my
apologies for my extended absence. I hope I was sincerely missed. Anyway I
write this blog from Zimbabwe, which is also true for the previous blog – There
is a Sadness, because today I met what I would like to call a Pharisee.
I will not name names, or point fingers but today I happened
to be having lunch with one of my dear friends who happens to be a
non-believer. He says that his mind cannot perform the leap of faith necessary
to fathom the supposed existence of a God or gods. I remember when I met him
two years ago, I nodded sagely and told him that I found his point of view
interesting. Having lived in Algeria for four years, there is one thing I had
learnt above all else, to appreciate and respect those who hold opinions
different to mine. Our friendship, marked as it is by that fundamental
difference is one of the few I hold dear.
We were joined by two ladies who are firm believers, of the
Pentecostal persuasion. And then my cousin, who rounded up the quintet,
happened to mention to the two ladies that my friend was an atheist. Dearest
reader, it is not often that I almost choke on my food but today I was caught
off guard and the muscles of my throat wrapped in panic on the chicken fillet I
was swallowing at the time.
“I am scared of people like you”.
“You people can do
anything - you might even murder someone or rape me” .
“Hanging around people
like you is going to corrupt me”.
I am glad to say my friend took it in his stride and gamely
soldiered through what was a very awkward moment coloured by what constituted
hate speech.
To what must be the eternal shame of every Christian out
there, he quoted quite correctly and simply: “Judge not lest you shall be
judged.” Her ambiguous equation of morality to religion, the complete disregard
of the opinion of the other, the assumption, basic and unassuming, that she was
right so everyone else by extension must be wrong; the callous disregard of the
life story that this other individual had experienced, the views and opinions
that he held sacrosanct, his own belief systems; they were all thrown under the
truck by the adherent of a religion that claims to be a religion of acceptance
and ‘non-judgementalism.’ Hypocrisy.
And it’s sad that it is a stance that is shared by so many
people around the world. So many of the failures to live together in peace and
harmony in this world caused by an utter and complete failure to try to
comprehend that there is someone out there who holds a belief different to
yours. A few days ago as we read about the bombings of a church in Nigeria, a
friend of mine felt the need to weigh in with a gem of his wisdom:
‘I hate Muslims, they
are always busy killing people, they must be stopped’
I sharply pointed out that not only did the Prophet Mohammed
emphasise that Muslims must live together in peace with Christians, that the
Koran also described the ‘people of the book’ (Christians and Jews) as children
of God who must not be harmed but that far more Muslims than Christians are
killed each year by Muslim Fundamentalists and a blanketing of an entire people
within the mutually abhorrent acts of a few was as contemptible as Hitler’s
Nazism.
Many of my friends know that I am a sharp critic and I have
also come to learn that it is easy to criticize and destroy but far more
difficult to criticize and build. Let me attempt to build – here is what I
think should have happened. On learning of a person who held a belief different
to hers, she should have asked and understood why. Perhaps give time even
learnt what caused my friend to see the world in the way he chooses to. If she
so wished she could have stated her own views on belief and how it coloured her
life, and then in the style of a true lady, agreed to disagree.
Because whether you like to believe it or not, your entire life’s
experiences, thoughts and opinions fail to comprehend the vast vista of human
existence. You have never stepped onto the steps of a temple dedicated to the
snake god in Delhi, nor walked through the shadowed beauty of a mosque nor
quite understood why the Japanese believe their emperor to be divine. I can
hardly be expected to understand why people
who are different to me act in the way that they do, but I believe it is my
duty to allow them the space to do so in just the same way they allow me my
space to carve out my own little corner of existence in this universe that we
share.
“I disapprove of what
you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
-Voltaire
-Voltaire
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