Girl from Malaysia: Of religion and war

God is too big to fit into one religion

The first line of Malaysia’s “Rukun Negara” or National Principles, which is the national philosophy the people of Malaysia pledged to or are suppose to pledge to live by, reads “Belief in God”.

As a kid, you can see how this might have confused me. School didn’t exactly help either. As a seven year-old, teachers used to grimace noticeably when I said I was a freethinker; one even took it upon herself to lecture me about the sins of living without God.

Understandably troubled by what seemed like a baffling predicament at the time, I asked my mother why we didn’t have a religion. As with all children that age, my mother was, of course, the wisest person in the world. Hell, if she told me she was God then I probably would’ve believed her.

In any case, her answer was simple, and perhaps it became the one fundamental philosophy I have lived by my whole life. She would be so proud if she reads this, it’s a good thing she still thinks that the Internet is synonymous only with emails.

She told me that religion teaches us to be good and kind, that it serves as a moral compass, and that as long as we do right by others and by ourselves, we didn’t need religion.

So 13 years ago, I learnt about religion in its simplest form from my mother: be kind, be good.

Of course as I grew up and got a little wiser, and my mother a little more human, I realised religion was much more complex than that.

I respect religion, and have even greater respect for those who are truly religious- you know, not those who claim to be followers of a certain religion just because their parents told them so.

I recognise the importance of faith and religion for those in hardship, and acknowledge man’s need to believe in something more than our accidental existence. To many, religion is a personal relationship between Man and God, their prayers a sacred soliloquy meant only for Him. More than anything, I admire the faith followers have in things that aren’t concrete, like the goodness in others.

However, as is our nature, Man is flawed, and the purity of religion has been tainted by our shortcomings. Religion has long been used by Man as a guise for our own malevolence and selfish ignorance.

Over the centuries, Man has done deplorable things in the name of religion- wars, political alienation, and suicide bombings- all in service of their own God.

Holy wars are wars thought to be justified by “religious differences”. This means thousands of lives lost, lifelong grief inflicted onto those who were unlucky enough to survive, and lasting resentment between groups of people for generations to come; all justified by Man’s basic need to prove that we’re right.

There have been many such wars: the Crusades at the beginning of last millennium, the Wars of Religion in Europe, and the Arab-Israel conflict that has lasted over a century. These are not events confined to history. I believe even the most ill informed of our generation would’ve heard about the September 11 attacks.

On Friday May 28, two mosques of the Ahmadi Islamic sect in Lahore, Pakistan were attacked by gunmen, grenades and suicide bombers. These attacks have already killed over 80 people so far.

The Ahmadis are a minority Islamic sect who follow all Islamic rituals, but believe that their founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a prophet, contradicting the belief of most Muslims that Prophet Muhammad was the last. They are often targets for robbery and murder in Pakistan, and have been legally barred from identifying themselves as Muslims.

In Malaysia, religious and political bias has also led to fractures within the society, culminating into acts of violence and religious intolerance amongst the people late last year.

Residents marched with a severed cow’s head – the holy and sacred animal for Hindus – in protest of a Hindu temple being built in a predominantly Muslim area. Molotov cocktails were thrown into churches because of a court ruling to allow Christians to use the word “Allah”. This led to retaliation in the form of pig heads thrown into mosques.

“Allah” is the Arabic word for God, and is used widely all over the world. However, many Muslims in Malaysia claim that Allah should be used exclusively to refer to the Muslim deity.

Aside from blood loss and rising death tolls, Man’s distortion of religion has cleverly weaved its slinky claws around internal politics as well. Exhausting Malaysia as an example, there has never been, nor will there be in the foreseeable future, a non-Muslim Prime Minister. Even in the United States, a Gallup survey in 2007 showed that 53% of Americans would not vote for an atheist as President.

Obviously religion has been intricately tied in with politics and war, but I strongly believe that religion is nothing more, and nothing less than a personal choice. No one should be discriminated against for believing, or not believing in a certain religion.

The Dalai Lama once described religion as “simple … our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness”. Seems like my mother had it right all along.

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