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 <mailto:feeedback@pmo.gov.bd> or at
http://www.cao.gov.bd/feedback/comments.php
<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 <mailto:ecs@bol-online.com> or you can use this
link: http://www.ecs.gov.bd/contact.php3
<http://www.ecs.gov.bd/contact.php3>
The 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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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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