Religion is a prickly issue that affects nearly everyone, even the non-religious. No matter how lightly one steps or how respectfully one speaks on the subject of religion, someone is going to be offended. This is because like ethnicity, religion is one of the strongest social glues that exist in society, it has been since the first days of city-states in the Ancient Near East; where religious cult centres served as city-state's centre for both political power and the economy of the city-state itself [1]. Polytheistic societies did not wage war with one another over religion and only with the advent of monotheistic religions did the rise of religious wars begin to occur. However, in the 21st century it has become clear that religion or at least fundamentalist religion in the developing world is holding back not only political and economic progress, religious ideas and norms are holding back human progress and hurting the growth of human rights. It becomes especially problematic when a religion becomes the de jure or de facto religion of a state such as the majority of countries in the Near East and the South Pacific. Non-secular states that officially prefer on religion have a terrible record when it comes to human rights. This one argues that fundamentalist religion has no place in the world in the 21st century. In late 2014, the show, Real Time With Bill Maher came into the political foreground in America when liberal actor/director Ben Affleck, and neurologist and expert of religious extremism Sam Harris, got in verbal fisticuffs on whether or not criticism of Islam and the beliefs of the religion constituted as Islamophobia. As an extremely socially person. I of course would argue that everyone is entitled to peacefully express their religious beliefs without fear of violence. In other words, i strongly believe in the liberal idea of freedom of religion. However at the same time, we do have to look at what people like Sam Harris say about fundamentalist religions like Islam and Christianity in developing worlds. It is hard to believe that religions like Islam are religions of peace when you have strong majorities of followers in Near Eastern and African states who believe that the appropriate punishment for leaving the religion of Islam or heresy should be death by stoning. The Pew Research Poll conducted in 2013, 86% of the Muslim Egyptians who believed that Sharia Law should be the law of the land, believed that a person should be put to death for apostasy. 82% in Jordan.
What is the worst part, is that the governments of these Near Eastern countries like Egypt and Jordan, in the least worst case scenario will put a person in prison for apostasy. These governments are or were considered pretty moderate and stable by western standards. In other countries like Saudi Arabia (a country that is currently sitting on the UN Human Rights Council but according to Freedom House, a Human Rights Index, is considered a not free nation and terrible rights score), crimes like apostasy are punishable by death. It is a travesty and pathetically laughable that the UN can claim to uphold Universal Declaration of Human Rights while allowing a country like SA to sit on its Human Rights Council while it hangs beheaded prisoners high on cranes in public for citizens to cower in fear or sentencing a non-religious person to suffer 2000 lashes and 10 years in prison.
There was an intriguing op-ed in the New York Times that came out in the aftermath of the inhumane terrorist attacks in Beirut and Paris last November. In the op-ed, Kamel Daoud, the author argued, the only difference between Saudi Arabia (one of America's closest political allies in the Near East next to Israel), a country that has and continues to receive billions in military aid from the US, and ISIL/ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) is that Saudi Arabia has simply made it. In other words, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and ISIL are pretty much the same, the only difference between the two entities is that one is universally recognized to be one of the worst violators of human rights and perpetrators of terrorism, and the other, Saudi Arabia, they are more than welcome to shake hands with every major world leader despite being one of the largest state sponsors of terrorism [2].
As a tolerant person who believes as long you are not violent and dont wave your religion in my face, you can practice your religion freely, it is hard to reconcile the idea that the religious culture that exists in the Near East where fundamentalism chokes the life out of women's rights or even basic human rights, should be tolerated much less respected. We as a liberal society, have to come to the hard realisation that not all cultures are to be respected or considered equal. Now i am not arguing that as white westerners, we need to go over to the Near East and Africa or the South Pacific and uplift these people from their backward ways. They can have their culture, but they cannot hope to be part of an international and universal community and hope to get away with mass beheadings in the public square like it is 1794. There has to be a set standard taht everyone should be encouraged to meeting in terms of human rights milestones, especially if you want to sit on an international council that deals with human rights.
Which leads the discussion to the question of what can be done about the ever-growing problem of the role that fundamentalist religion plays in influencing the actions of government states like Saudi Arabia or other countries in the Near East or in the Indian Ocean Region. As global citizens we cannot condone the fact that Near Eastern Countries like Saudi Arabia are able to receive billions in military aid while at the same time shoveling the same religious crap that the death cult ISIL violently forces upon populations via the sword and gun. We as westerners have to encourage religious institutions like the Vatican to see that abstinence is a terrible way to solve the AIDS pandemic in Africa. We have to encourage the moderate populations of stable countries like Iran and Jordan to demand organic religious and political reform within these countries. As long as Muslims fail to push for meaningful democratization and reform of Islam, violence in the Near East will always be present.
Former muslim, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has spoken out against the brutal forced female genital mutilations that young muslim wives are forced to perform, succinctly summarises the road that Islam as a religion faces. It can either remain the Islam that was founded by Muhammad of Medina who spread Islam by force and violence, or the Islam that was founded by Muhammad of Mecca that seeks to spread its religion through peace [3]. She speaks about a path in the road that all major monotheistic religions have or will need to face. Most major monotheistic religions like Christianity and Judaism and Islam, have been violently spread throughout the ages. However these religions do not need to continue to follow that path. They have a choice. Christianity has generally made that choice, the religion chose to follow the path of democratization. The same goes with Judaism. However with Islam, that choice has not been made up by its followers. Islam has never faced a major reformation period in its fourteen hundred years of existence. I believe that in order to remain a viable religion in the next 50 years, Islam as a whole needs to take a serious look at itself and decide if it wants to be the Islam that scoffs at the notion that adulterers and former muslims deserve to be violently stoned to death, or it will become the violent death religion that ISIL wishes it to become. The choice is up to the 1.6 billion Muslims that inhabit this world. And if they wish to remain part of this ever increasingly globalized world, they will need to modernise their religion to meet the new demands that the 21st century will require. And it is in the best interest of all of us to encourage the people living under fundamentalist religious states to demand reform. Already we see progress in reforms in theocratic states. Just over the weekend, Iran held elections and the people of Iran created a strong message by voting many moderate representatives that could combat the more religious hardliners in the nation [4]. But there is still a long way to go, as the elections in Uganda would show, where six innocent children were horribly murdered and sacrificed in order to bring good luck to the campaigns [5]. How in the world can we still live in a globalised society where we would allow children to be sacrificed for elections, regardless of whether or not you believe that different cultures should be respected. It is simply not okay. As global citizens it is our duty to stand up for human rights, even if it means stepping on the toes of different cultures. Religion is supposed to help people, not prey on the innocent like children. That is why regardless of geographic location, politics, if a religion causes suffering such as gender oppression, violence, lgbt discrimination, or political oppression, those religions and the people who ascribe to those religions always need to be demanding religious reform in order to make it so that religion is a tool for building up communities and decreasing suffering, and not the opposite.
Endnotes:
1. Steven J Garfinkle, "Ancient Near Eastern City-States," in The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean, eds. Peter Fibiger Bang and Walter Scheidel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 105-107.
2. Kamel Daoud, "L'Arabie Saudite, un daesh qui a réussi," New York Times, November 20, 2015, accessed November 20, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/opinion/larabie-saoudite-un-daesh-qui-a-reussi.html.
Kamel Daoud, "Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It," New York Times, November 20, 2015, accessed March 1, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/opinion/saudi-arabia-an-isis-that-has-made-it.html.
3. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "Islam is a Religion of Violence," Foreign Policy Magazine, November 9, 2015, accessed November 9, 2015. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/09/islam-is-a-religion-of-violence-ayaan-hirsi-ali-debate-islamic-state/.
4. Thomas Erdbrink, "Iranian President and Moderates Make Strong Gains in Elections," New York Times, February 29, 2016, accessed February 29, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/world/middleeast/iran-elections.html?_r=0
5. Connor Gaffey, "Uganda 2016: Child Sacrifices Reported During Election Campaign," Newsweek, February 29, 2016, accessed February 29, 2016. http://www.newsweek.com/uganda-elections-child-sacrifice-431436?piano_t=1
Other Sources to Read:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (New York: Harper, 2014).
David D Kirkpatrick, "ISIS' Harsh Brand of Islam Is Rooted in Austere Saudi Creed," New York Times, September 24, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/world/middleeast/isis-abu-bakr-baghdadi-caliph-wahhabi.html
Jonathan Fox, "Equal Opportunity Oppression," Foreign Affairs, August 31, 2015, accessed August 31 , 2015. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-08-31/equal-opportunity-oppression
Manal Omar, "Islam is a Religion of Peace," Foreign Policy Magazine, November 9, 2015, accessed November 9, 2015. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/09/islam-is-a-religion-of-peace-manal-omar-debate-islamic-state/.
Monica Duffy Toft, "Religious Fundamentalism and the Backlash to Women's Equality," Huffington Post, November 7, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/monica-duffy-toft/religious-fundamentalism-women_b_6121190.html.
Reji Samuel, "Impact of Religious Fundamentalism on Women and Children." https://www.academia.edu/8246269/impact_of_Religious_Fundamentalism_on_Women_and_Children
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