When will we ever learn? We are now hearing and seeing on the television the ugly spectacle of Coptic Christians being massacred. Coptic priest, Fr Filopater, provided a graphic account of the savaging of Egyptian Christians."I was an eyewitness to all what happened. They arranged a trap for us. As soon as we arrived they surrounded us and started shooting live ammunition randomly at us. Then the armoured vehicles arrived and ran over protesters."When you looked at the television, the sights and sounds were incredible. You saw an army vehicle driving through the crowd, as if it was part of a preparation for a Nascar race.No wonder some believe that the Arab Spring could become a Christian Winter. This is the horror of racism and religious discrimination. History has revealed sadistic details of rape, burning of businesses, torture, slaughter, denial of education and housing etc.
In this post-modern, hi-tech world we continue to practise the stupidity of racism. In many cases education has not produced the desired change. But what is more shocking is the role of religion. One would expect that there would be a greater sense of balance, a higher level of maturity and greater respect for human dignity.How can we preach about God, exalt believers to prepare for Heaven and still use the pulpit to promote discrimination? Observe the bacchanal that has descended upon the Republican Party and the internal, religious warfare involving the religion of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. Religious liberty is not a gift from man to another man, it is a gift from God to man.At the centre of this ecclesiastical storm is Rev Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Dallas Church. At a recent Values Voters Summit, which is a conservative forum in Washington, Pastor Jeffress introduced and endorsed Texas Governor Rick Perry. He also reinforced his position when he preached the following Sunday. He opined that "part of a pastor's job is to warn his people and others about false religion." He included in his terror by error list Islam, Hinduism and Mormonism.
This pastor and others who support him need to know that each human being must be free to choose a religion, change his religion or refuse to be affiliated to any religion. Over and over history has demonstrated that the mixture of church and state is a toxic, explosive mixture. When will we ever learn?One remembers that in 2010, another pastor promised that he was going to burn a copy of the Koran. He attracted worldwide attention and condemnation. However, good sense prevailed, after he must have gotten an urgent telephone call from an angel.Obviously, Rick Perry was stunned by Pastor Jeffress' remarks and responded by stating that he did not consider the Mormon religion a cult. This is not virgin territory for Romney. In 2008, he felt compelled to "give a major speech about his faith in which he promised that no church authorities would influence his decision making."This debate will not end abrupt-ly. It will continue as extremists and opportunists jump on the bandwagon. When will we ever learn?Pastor Jeffress' introduction of Rick Perry involved the following combination of questions:
Do we want a candidate who is skilled in rhetoric or one who is skilled in leadership? Do we want a candidate who is a conservative out of convenience or one who is conservative out of deep conviction? Do we want a candidate who is a good, moral person or one who is a born-again follower of the Lord Jesus Christ?This is a dangerous, not-so- subtle form of discrimination and someone may wish to give this advice to Perry: Select your companions with care and select your managers with greater care. The abuse of religion has always been a central feature of the universe.
If we are looking for an illustration of balance and maturity, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is a good person to emulate. Listen to his comments after the Coptic Christians were humiliated and tortured on the streets of Egypt:"Religious extremism has no place in modern society and the new Egypt. Canada urges all to work together to build a society where religious communities can live and prosper together and build a new Egypt."He went on to assert that "freedom of religion is a fundamental human right and a vital building block for healthy democracies."In April, the Canadian Prime Minister promised to create a special office of religious freedom to champion "freedom of religion and freedom of conscience around the world."Hitler's slaughter of six million Jews, his violent repression of human rights, his exploitation of children and the disabled should provoke us to stay far from the virus of racism and discrimination.Just spend a few moments and think of the excruciating pain that had to be endured by the Jews working in Nazi-controlled labour camps. When you read the book Anne Frank and the Children of the Holocaust, you would see the chilling account of this enormous tragedy.
"Thousands of Jews from the ghettos were put to work in slave- labour camps. They produced everything from uniforms to hand grenades. They lived and worked in appalling conditions, in places without proper sanitation, with hardly any food and very little rest. Over half-a-million Jews, including many children, died while working as slave labourers."Injustice, persecution, murder are the children of racism and discrimination. Have we forgotten the Hutus and the Tutsis? Have we forgotten the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka? Have we forgotten the assassination of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King? Have we forgotten or are we engaging in the disturbing practice of repression? When will we learn?Carol Ann Lee presents the story of deaf, 16-year-old Fran-ziska Schwarz. She could not stand a ghost of chance in Nazi Germany and its demonic, racist leader Adolf Hitler. She and her mother were ordered to report to a hospital for sterilisation. After an appeal, the mother escaped but Franziska had to endure the horrors of sterilisation. She recalls:
"I screamed all the way to the hospital. The nurse locked me in a room with two other deaf teenagers. The three of us cried all night. When the nurse came to give us tranquillisers, I tried to fight her off. She held me down and gave me the injection." Hitler declared that he had to prevent "genetically unfit offspring" from being born.We cannot afford to forget the Rwanda holocaust. In the September 17-23 edition of the Economist, there is an article, "Human rights-the compass fails." It states that liberty is on the decline for the fifth year. Defenders and champions of liberty, including religious liberty, cannot trivialise the depressing conclusion.Those who are fanning the flames of racism in T&T better take warning. It is easy to start but difficult to end, and in some states never really ends. Let us approach this issue with maturity, wisdom and dignity.