By Basheer Luqman Olarewaju
In an era of agitation and uncertainty, interfaith action may offer an important antidote to religious violence. Religious communities can and do offer a reminder of the core principles of our common humanity. While not the exclusive preserve of faith-based groups, the conscious spread of values of empathy, compassion, forgiveness and altruism are needed today more than ever. The persistent calls for patience, tolerance, understanding, face-to-face dialogue and reconciliation are more important than ever given today’s spiralling polarisation and the dangerous anonymity provided by social media.
It is highly disheartening as religious violence is undergoing a revival in Kwara State. Unlike yesteryears, we are witnessing a sharp increase in violent sectarian and/or religious tensions. These range from religions extremists waging violence and power struggles between the Christendom faithfuls and Muslims in the state. In the last few weeks, we are experiencing a high incidence of hostilities motivated by religious hatred, mob violence related to religion, terrorism, and harassment of school children for violating religious codes.
From a standpoint of view, religion intolerance means when a group (society, religious, non-religious, group or tribe) refuses or denies to tolerate the practice, person or belief on the religious grounds. When a group of society neglects or criticizes any religion irrespective of the fact of secularism. Religious intolerance is an act of denying the right of people of another religious faith to practice and express their beliefs freely. Religious intolerance is like discrimination based on religion.
The recent spike in religious violence is pathetic and affects virtually every religious group. How is it that religions – which supposedly espouse peace, love and harmony – are so commonly connected with intolerance and violent aggression? Social scientists are divided on the issue. Scholars like William Cavanaugh contend that even when extremists use theological texts to justify their actions, “religious” violence is not religious at all – but rather a perversion of core teachings.
In this recent anomaly, politics is playing a major underground role: political perspective is one of the major cause of intolerance where people get attracted towards politics and they started believing that their particular religion is the best and supreme which creates a lot of ambiguity and because of that conflicts arose in the society and sometimes it became worst to handle these situations as people are also very least interested in this.
Violence inspired by religious intolerance is easier described than defined. It spans intimidation, upheaval, harassment and internment to terrorism and outright warfare. Usually it arises when the core beliefs that define a group’s identity are fundamentally challenged. It is ratcheted-up by ‘in-group’ communities against other ‘out-group’ communities, often with the help of fundamentalist religious leaders.
A number of today’s most successful arms control and peace-building norms are the fruit of interfaith dialogue, even if this is not always acknowledged. This gap could be bridged, however, by developing partnerships with various concerned institutions and undertaking robust monitoring and evaluation. This way, interfaith groups could better understand what aspects of the peace architecture are working, and which activities to discard.
The religious intolerance must be removed as it is not for the favour of society. It leads to the destruction of society as people are fighting based on religion. The government should do the favour and create awareness between the people regarding religious intolerance through awareness programs. Religious intolerance should be removed for the betterment of the society in the state and in the nation as a whole. Religious tolerance is necessary for individuals within the society to get along, especially when a variety of cultures and people with different religious beliefs live in one community or nation. When religious tolerance is practised, unity and consistency exist in society. Now the government must do all efforts to keep the citizens in peace and tranquillity.
For nearly a month, the use of hijab in the grant-aided schools has generated a controversy amongst members of two religious communities in the state— which later led to the closure of ten schools. The affected schools are C&S College, Sabo-Oke; St. Anthony’s Secondary School, Offa Road; ECWA School, Oja Iya; Surulere Baptist Secondary School, and Bishop Smith Secondary School, Agba Dam. Others are CAC Secondary School, Asa Dam road; St. Barnabas Secondary School, Sabo-Oke; St. John School Maraba; St. Williams Secondary School, Taiwo Isale, and St. James Secondary School, Maraba.
At this juncture, it is pertinent to appreciate the efforts of the Kwara State Government in ensuring there was (is) peace in the state by averting the supposed restiveness that would have been birthed by the Hijab Saga. The Government had warned all stakeholders against taking law into their hands, stressing that the peace meeting continues between the government and the stakeholders. Having regretted the inconveniences the shutdown might have caused the students, it is believed the action was taken in the interest of peace.
Intolerance in itself is a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit. The threat to civilians in the state, and specifically Muslims-Christians communities in the capital, most especially the Hijab crisis, has reached crisis level, It is critical that the government acts quickly to defend its population, bring perpetrators of the violence to justice, as well as formulate a long-term strategy to combat religious intolerance, otherwise there is a real risk that the violence may escalate into.
Finally, religious groups and the interfaith community could usefully get more proactive about peace-making. This will require leaving the safe zone of like-minded religious organizations and engaging more fulsomely with national and international agencies and the business community. Religious leaders should also become more literate with new technologies, not least social media, finding ways to promote positive values both on- and offline. And successful instances of interfaith cooperation – including through powerful networks like Religion for Peace – need to be better marketed. This is because signals and symbols of collective action across religious divides are needed more than ever in our disorderly and fractured world.
By nature our citizens are peace-loving — most of their time/pursuits spent to meet both ends. It is usually the ungodly ones who do the deadliest sinful act of insinuating / instigating disturbance leading to violence. They would stoop down to any extent, behind the benign veil of smiling facade, there lies a very cunning crafty inside.
