Having read Damian ‘s Thompson’s piece in today’s Telegraph , on the destruction of Islam’s heritage in its holiest place, I begin to wonder if there is a politico-demonic agenda behind state driven attempts at destroying the purity within religions. How else can you condone the modernization of Mecca by trampling on its link to antiquity, which has for centuries ensured a steady stream of devotees? How else can you justify as the Taliban blasted 3rd Century Bamiyan Buddha statues to oblivion? or in the recent past, the destruction of 15th century Muslim shrines in Timbuktu, northern Mali by hardliners.
Even within stable democratic systems, this logic still prevails,-the destruction of the Babri Mosque in India with the world’s 3rd largest security apparatus watched in mute spectacle as 2000 lives were lost in the name of God, is yet another case. Another case was the bombardment of Sikhism’s holiest Golden Temple complex in Amritsar, in 1984 .
Moving down into history, the story of Jerusalem, holy to three major religions and yet claiming its share of daily human lives while politicians dither, stands out as another case of deliberate unresolved political stalemate
Within the emerged world, the secularization agenda of governments in the UK has brought its share of trampling on the sanctity of religions whilst creating more fundamentalists in the process.
Can we leave this behind and return to being normal children of a just creator? Can we return to the simplicity of practicing our beliefs within personal spaces and respecting everybody else as we practice them? In the process, can we also strip statues/relics/tourist sites of its religious overtones and admire them for being works of Art that they are. In doing this, we respect the effort that would gone into creating them as well honour the creativity of religions in helping preserve culture for generations. And we also deny fundamentalists of the support, they crave to promote deviant behaviour as the destruction of cultural artifacts.
Are we as Karl marx would have put it ,moving into an era where” Religion is an opium to hold the vast masses in the state’s thrall”? Or is there something more sinister in the air?