Monday, 27 August 2012

Rimsha Masih and the problem of respectable religions


My first post was about my book, ‘Of Assassins and Kings’, my second was on the controversial fall in GCSE grades, so, staying true to the title of this blog my third shall be about Atheism.

Rimsha Masih, I wonder how many of you have heard that name; I first heard it this morning on The Young Turks. She is young girl living in Islamabad, Pakistan, about a week ago she was arrested on the charge of blasphemy and is now being held in solitary confinement partly for her own protection after she was attacked and beaten by a Muslim mob shortly before her arrest. Her supposed crime; ripping a few pages out of the Koran. Reports vary as to her age and mental state, most say 11, some say 14 or 16 and a few claim she has Down syndrome. What is not in dispute is that a young girl, a child, has been threatened, beaten, arrested and traumatized for ripping some pages from a book.

This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened in Pakistan, harsh Islamic blasphemy laws mean that anyone can be accused and arrested, facing a death penalty if convicted. Fortunately this barbaric punishment has not yet been inflicted upon anyone but it’s only a matter of time. Unless something is done, one day, it won’t be an arrest or a riot on the news, it will be an execution and perhaps Rimsha will be the first.

Religion asks for our respect, all religions, not just the extremists, demand unconditional respect and reverence for their beliefs. They do not understand that respect is not given, it is not a right, it has to be earned. I for one refuse to respect anything which can be used to justify the barbarism shown to Rimsha Masih.

And it is not just extremist Muslims who deserve our disdain and condemnation, it is all religion, Catholicism, moderate Islam, Anglicanism and Judaism, because all religion is to blame. They may not have been in the mob beating an 11 year old girl but they have created a world in which such a thing can happen. Religion gets a free pass and it has for too long, and it will continue to get that free pass so long as mainstream moderate religion exists and demands respect for its beliefs and holy texts. Anglicanism is probably the most innocuous of the mainstream religions, yet even it is in a small way responsible, because it cultivates this attitude of respect for religion.

The Catholic Church is currently fighting the legalisation of same sex marriage in Scotland. If any politician expressed the same sentiment, sighting their private beliefs as the justification, they would be shouted down and rejected as a homophobic bigot. But when the same sentiment is expressed by church men, garbed in the respectability of religion, they are taken seriously and anyone who questions them is told they are being intolerant of peoples private beliefs, private beliefs that must apparently be imposed on the whole of society. And while priests in Scotland preach from the pulpit the message that same sex marriage is a crime against god, Imams shout from the minarets of Islamabad, inciting a mob to attack a young girl for ripping up a book.

So if you are religious and you think your religion is harmless, think about Rimsha Masih alone in a Pakistani jail, too scared to talk, and ask yourself if your religion is worth the life and happiness of even one girl.

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