Separating religion from public life

We live in the 21st Century but we still live in a jungle, in a world governed globally and locally by the brutal power of the military, the police, the capitalist market and its media, and the power of religion.

We know from the past and the present that all those powers are connected, that they work together and help each other to dominate and exploit the majority of men and women in every country.

The big economic military nuclear powers in the USA, Europe and Israel need religion to establish their control over the world. They need God to justify injustices and double standards.

The USA is a Jewish-Christian country: To gain the presidential elections you have to submit to the Jewish-Christian groups and flatter the church. The educational systems and media are dominated by these religious powers in society and in the state. 65 per cent of Americans are religious. Even people who stopped going to church are still linked to their church politically or socially or both.

In Europe the church still dominates in many countries. In Norway for example they have Lutheranism as state religion: According to the law, the King and the prime minister have to be Christian Lutheran, 50 per cent of the ministers have to be members of the state church, all children are forced to be taught about Lutheranism as the best most natural religion.

The violent political religious groups are not as visible in Europe as in the Islamic countries – they are hidden under a false layer of secularism or democracy.

The violent political Islamic groups in our countries were hidden also with no political power, but they were encouraged, financed and trained militarily by the capitalist global and local regimes. Al Qaida of Arabia was used by the USA during the 1980 s to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, bin Laden and George Bush were twins, after the collapse of the Soviet Union they became enemies. The USA does not need bin Laden any more.

Islamic Hamas in Palestine was encouraged by Israel to fight the secular Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), after the collapse of the PLO they became enemies. Israel does not need Hamas any more.

There are no principles or ethics under a capitalist colonial military patriarchal system.

A religious state cannot survive if not surrounded by similar religious states. Israel as a Jewish state needs Christian or Islamic states around it. It needs religion to create religious wars, to dominate and divide the nations in the region.

Israel is used by American and European colonialism to dominate the region and exploit its resources, mainly the oil.

All colonial wars in the past and the present are veiled by a thick religious cover, to hide their economic goals.

Most African, Arab or Islamic dictators were and are supported by external colonial and neo colonial powers. Under the words democracy, peace, civilisation and human rights, the most brutal massacres and colonial wars erupted in our region.

Saddam Hussein, the King of Saudi Arabia, Sadat of Egypt, the Shah of Iran and many others worked with external colonial powers against the interest of their people.

Sadat (with the help of USA) encouraged the Muslim Brothers during the 1970s to fight the socialists and Nasser groups in Egypt and other countries in Africa, Asia and the the Arab world.

Religion is used to strengthen the capitalist patriarchal system, to instil fear of hellfire from birth to death, to cover up colonial wars by words of God, from the Old Testament, the New Testament or the Quran.

Israel used a verse from the Old Testament to invade and colonise Palestine with the help of USA and Europe. Israel is a colonial/neo colonial project working and fighting under the name of God.

The existence of a religious Jewish state in the heart of the Arab world pushed other countries to be religious, to use Islam to fight Judaism, to hide the economic conflict with a religious conflict. This is the plan of old and new colonialism and their allies in local Arab regimes.

We live under a post modern slave system, dominated by religion and nuclear power. Religion can be more dangerous than military weapons. It can veil the minds of people, make them blind to contradictions, make them submissive to corrupt authorities. We see how people are killed under Islamic states for no reason except exposing injustices, or expressing opinions different from rulers. A novelist or a poet can be killed or put in prison just because of writing creatively.

A girl may be killed just because of going to school or not covering her head. A war can erupt between different sects or groups in the society just because of different interpretation of one verse in God’s Book.

In Iraq today under American occupation religious conflicts are encouraged – different Islamic sects (Shiias and Suniis) are killing each other.

The Islamic and Judaeo-Christian fanatic political powers represent a real danger to the majority of women and men in many countries in the East and in the West.

Religion is a very personal individual private matter and should be totally separated from public life, from the constitution, from the state, from education, culture, media and from all laws including family law.

Religion should not be inherited from fathers or mothers. Children should not be forced in schools to adopt the religion of the state as the best religion or absolute truth. Education should be based on creativity and critical thinking and not submission and blind obedience to religious or political authority.

Religious family laws discriminate between men and women. In all religions women are inferior to men. This is reflected in the family code. Double morality and double standards are the basis of all religious family laws.

We started the Global Solidarity Movement For Secular Society to save women and men, globally and locally, from unjust laws forced on them under the name of God or religion.

We need to expose crimes committed under the name of religion. We need to prevent those crimes from being repeated. We need to uncover the political economic and military powers under religion. We need to link the global powers to local regimes. We should not be silent because silence means approval of what is happening. Silence is a crime.

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* Nawal El Saadawi is a novelist, a psychiatrist, and a writer. She is president of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association and a founder of the Global Solidarity Movement For Secular Society.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.