[Reader-list] Wole Soyinka at UNESCO International High Panel

[A. Mani]

>From Granta : http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Religion-Against-Humanity

    05 October 2012

    Essays & Memoir

    Wole Soyinka

Religion Against Humanity


To such a degree has Religion fuelled conflict, complicated politics,
retarded social development and impaired human relations across the
world, that one is often tempted to propose that Religion is innately
an enemy of Humanity, if not indeed of itself a crime against
Humanity. Certainly it cannot be denied that Religion has proved again
and again a spur, a motivator and a justification for the commission
of some of the most horrifying crimes against Humanity, despite its
fervent affirmations of peace. Let us, however, steer away from
hyperbolic propositions and simply settle for this moderating moral
imperative: that it is time that the world adopted a position that
refuses to countenance Religion as an acceptable justification for,
excuse or extenuation of – crimes against Humanity.

While it should be mandatory that states justify their place as
members of a world community by educating their citizens on the
entitlement of Religion to a place within society, and the obligations
of mutual acceptance and respect, it should be deemed unacceptable
that the world is held to ransom by the uneducated conduct of a few,
and placed in a condition of Life is not a seamless robe of many
splendours, but prone to the possibility of being besmirched by the
unexpected and unpredictable. fear and apprehension, leading to a
culture of appeasement. There are critical issues of human well-being
and survival that deserve the undivided attention of leaders all over
the world. Let us recall that it is not anti-Islamists who have lately
desecrated and destroyed – and with such fiendish self-righteousness –
the tombs of Moslem saints in Timbuktu, most notoriously the mausoleum
of the Imam Moussa al-Khadin, declared a world heritage site under the
protection of UNESCO and accorded pride of place in African patrimony.
The orientation – backed by declarations – of these violators leaves
us with a foreboding that the invaluable library-treasures of Timbuktu
may be next.

The truth, alas, is that the science-fiction archetype of the mad
scientist who craves to dominate the world has been replaced by the
mad cleric who can only conceive of the world in his own image,
proudly flaunting Bond’s 007 credentials – Licence to Kill. The sooner
national leaders and genuine religious leaders understand this, and
admit that no nation has any lack of its own dangerous loonies, be
they known as Ansar-Dine of Mali, or Terry Jones of Florida, the
earlier they will turn their attention to real issues truly deserving
human priority. These cited clerics and their ilk are descendants of
the ancient line of iconoclasts of Islamic, Christian and other
religious moulds who have destroyed the antecedent spirituality and
divine emblems of the African peoples over centuries. Adherents of
those African religions who remain passionately attached to their
beliefs all the way across the Atlantic – in Brazil and across other
parts of Latin America – have not taken to wreaking vengeance on their
presumed violators in far off lands.

These emulators are still at work on the continent, most devastatingly
in Somalia, with my own nation Nigeria catching up with mind-boggling
rapidity and intensity. Places of worship are primary targets,
followed by institutes of education. Innocent sectors of Humanity,
eking out their miserable livelihood, are being blown to pieces,
presumably to relieve them of their misery. Schools and school pupils
are assailed in religion-fuelled orgies – measured, deliberate and
deadly. The hands of the clock of progress and social development have
been arrested, then reversed in widening swathes of the Nigerian
landscape. As if the resources of the nation were not already
stretched to breaking point, they must now also be diverted to
anticipating the consequences – as in numerous nations around the
world – that would predictably follow the cinematic obscenities of a
new entrant into the ranks of religious denigrators, who turn out –
irony of ironies – to have originated from the African continent.

In sensible families, while every possible effort is made to smooth
the passage of children through life, children are taught to
understand that life is not a seamless robe of many splendours, but
prone to the possibility of being besmirched by the unexpected and
unpredictable. A solid core of confidence in one’s moral and spiritual
choices is thus sufficient to withstand external assaults from sudden
and hostile forces. That principle of personality development is every
bit as essential as the education that inculcates respect for the
belief systems and practices of others. The most intense ethical
education, including severe social sanctions, has not eradicated
material corruption, exploitation, child defilement and murders in
society, not even deterrents such as capital punishment. How then can
anyone presume that there shall be no violations of the ideal state of
religious tolerance to which we all aspire, or demand that the world
stand still, cover its head in sackcloth and ashes, grovel in
self-abasement or else prepare itself for earthly pestilence for
failure to anticipate the occasional penetration of their
self-ascribed carapace of inviolability?

It is time to demand a sense of proportion, and realism. Communication
advances have made it possible for both good and evil to transcend
boundaries virtually at the speed of light, and for the spores of
hatred to travel just as fast, and as widely as the seeds of harmony.
The world should not continue to acquiesce in the brutal culture of
extremism that demands the impossible – control of the conduct of
millions in their individual spheres, under different laws, usages,
cultures and, indeed, degrees of sanity.

What gives hope is the very special capacity of man for dialogue, and
that arbiter is foreclosed, or endures interminable postponements as
long as one side arrogates to itself the right to respond to a pebble
thrown by an infantile hand in Papua New Guinea with attempts to
demolish the Rock of Gibraltar. I use the word ‘infantile’
deliberately, because these alleged insults to Religion are no
different from the infantile scribble we encounter in public toilets,
the product of infantilism and retarded development. We have learned
to ignore, and walk away from them. They should not be answered by
equally infantile responses that are however incendiary and homicidal
in dimension, and largely directed against the innocent, since the
originating hand is usually, in any case, beyond reach. With the
remorseless march of technology, we shall all be caught in a spiral of
reprisals, tailored to wound, to draw virtual blood. The other side
responds with real blood and gore, also clotting up the path to
rational discourse. What we are witnesses to in recent times is that
such proceeding is being accorded legitimacy on the grounds of
religious sensibility. It is pathetic to demand what cannot be
guaranteed. It is futile to attempt to rein in technology: the
solution is to use that very technology to correct noxious conceptions
in the minds of the perpetrators of abuse, and to educate the
ignorant.

I speak as one from a nation whose normal diet of economic disparity,
corruption, marginalization, ethnic and political cleavages has been
further compounded by the ascendancy of religious jingoism. It is a
lamentable retrogression from the nearly forgotten state of harmonious
co-existence These alleged insults to Religion are no different from
the infantile scribble we encounter in public toilets, the product of
infantilism and retarded development. that I lived and enjoyed as a
child. One takes consolation in the fact that some of us did not wait
to sound warnings until the plague of religious extremism entered our
borders. Our concerns began and were articulated as a concern for
others, still at remote distances. Now that the largest black
habitation on the globe has joined the club of religious terror under
the portentous name Boko Haram – which means ‘The Book is Taboo’ – we
can morally demand help from others, but we only find them drowning in
the rhetoric and rites of anger and/or contrition. Today it is the
heritage and Humanity of Timbuktoo. And tomorrow? The African
continent must take back Mali – not later, but right now. The cost of
further delay will be incalculable and devastating.

The spiral of reprisals now appears to have been launched, what with
the recent news that a French editor has also entered the lists with a
fresh album of offensive cartoons. To break that spiral, there must be
dialogue of frank, mature minds. Instant, comprehensive solutions do
not exist, only the arduous, painstaking path of dialogue, whose
multi-textured demands are not beyond the innovative, as opposed to
the emotive capacity, of cultured societies. So let that moving feast
of regional dialogues – which was inaugurated by former President
Khatami of Iran in these very chambers – be reinforced, emboldened,
and even-handed. The destination should be a moratorium, but for this
to be strong and enduring, it must be voluntary, based on a will to
understanding and mental re-orientation, not on menace, self-righteous
indictments and destructive emotionalism. Perhaps we may yet rescue
Religion from its ultimate indictment: conscription into the ranks of
provable enemies of Humanity. ■

Intervention made by Wole Soyinka at UNESCO International High Panel,
21 September 2012 Conference on the Culture of Peace and Non-Violence.

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A. Mani






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