Human dignity is indivisible

By David Kilgour, Citizen SpecialNovember 6, 2009Be the first to post a comment

One dismaying estimate of the number of people who died violently because of their religion between 1900 and 2000 includes 70 million Muslims; 35 million Christians; 11 million Hindus; nine million Jews; four million Buddhists; two million Sikhs and one million Baha’is.

What can be done to reduce the persecution of religions globally?

A first step is universal recognition that human dignity is ultimately indivisible in today’s shrunken world and all groups must thus stand together. As Pastor Martin Niemöller poignantly said of the Nazis, “Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Religious intolerance by governments breeds violence. Journalist Geoffrey Johnston notes, “Those countries that do not actively protect religious minorities or prosecute the perpetrators of religiously motivated violence are ultimately undermining their own security. A climate of impunity tends to embolden militants, who eventually turn against the state, using violence to advance their agenda. Pakistan and Nigeria are prime examples of governments that have allowed extremist groups to attack religious minority communities before they themselves became the targets of terror strikes.”

Religious intolerance by governments is deadly

David Kilgour, a former member of the Canadian Parliament, shows how religious intolerance perpetrated by governments has led to the death of millions between 1900 and 2000 because of their religious adherence.

I’m not sure where he derives the figures from. The figure given for Baha’i deaths sounds high to me, and it would be useful to know the source for these numbers.

Kilgour calls for the development of an “anti-eliminationist discourse” (drawn from “Worse than War:Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity” by Daniel Goldhagen) and says that faith communities should stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the face of religious persecution.

Choose your partners carefully?

It sounds good, but, given the history of disunity between religions and the sectarian nature of some communities, it could be difficult to decide with whom we might wish to stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

It’s probably not a good idea to stand shoulder-to-should with groups claiming religious sanction for eliminationist discourses of their own.

No, the sustainable solution to religious intolerance, persecution and mass murder is at once more radical, more challenging and simpler than trying to assert a countervailing tolerance.

One Divine Source

The solution lies in a change of conceptual framework.

We need to stop seeing religions as separate entities like nation states, each defending its own spiritual and conceptual “territory” from invaders.

Instead, we have no alternative but to recognize that all the great faiths emerge from one source – or, as I prefer to put it, one Divine Source.

Embracing human oneness

This is an essential part of embracing human oneness. And embracing human oneness is foundational to genuine peace and the beginnings of solutions to humanity’s great problems.

If I can forsake tribalism, if I can understand that my fellow humans are part of my family – rather than “others” to be kept at a distance, to be “othered” (to use a rather inelegant term) – and that I am responsible for their welfare, eliminationist discourse will have no part in my life.

I said it was challenging.

Do read the rest of David Kilgour’s article from the Ottawa Citizen.

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