Interfaith Journeys
  • Home
  • Interfaith Journeys
  • Stella Reekie

Burkina Faso

23/8/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Burkina Faso is an African country we don’t often hear about though it has 18 million of a population.  It was in the news recently, but only for a short time. The article I read disappeared rather quickly as, I suppose, more immediate news took over. What has stayed with me is the contradictory nature of the report. On the one hand it mentioned the increased violence brought about by Islamist militant groups and, on the other, an invitation from the Pope to the President of Burkina Faso to visit the Vatican to discuss what can be learned from its history of religious tolerance.

The BBC’s African correspondent, Lamine Konkobo, comes from Burkina Faso and described this tolerance as being “wired into the social fabric of the country, with many people drawing their faith from more than a single creed.” So the Islam and Christianity that is practised there, for example, includes many animist practices such as beating a traditional drum at celebrations of the festival of Eid. Konkobo talks of how he “grew up with people with differing religious beliefs - playing together, being told off by each other's parents, celebrating each other's festivals, mourning each other's deaths, with humanity as the overriding connector common to all”. It was a society so socially connected there was no way for religion to play a divisive role. Was this because, as he suggests “most people feel stronger ties to their extended family and ethnic group, than their religion.”

This struck a chord with me. Do we give too much importance to our religion? Should  religion define our identities? There would have been a time in the past when religion, culture and identity were so intertwined that people were not aware of being religious. What we call religion would have been the rituals by which they celebrated rites of passage, the stories that bound them together in community, the way they perceived life and their place in the here and now as well as the hereafter. This would have been the case with Hinduism.

Hinduism is recognised more as a family of religions than one systematised, organised philosophy. Different rites and beliefs grew up depending on location, education, status in society.  What we now call Hinduism was simply the many and varied ways in which the people of India lived. They didn’t know they were Hindus and only came to identify themselves as such after the Muslim invasion which introduced them to a different way of life. Indians only came to recognise themselves as having a separate religion when they could compare themselves with another. Many other faiths did this from their very foundations. The Buddha set out a way of life different from the Hinduism of his time, the followers of Jesus established a way of life which increasingly came to be differentiated from Judaism, Islam was established in opposition to the pagan culture of Arabia in the time of the Prophet Mohammed.

It’s unlikely that the founders of these religions were setting out to establish a new religion. Rather they were trying to get to the heart of what their own religion was about, renew it and give fresh meaning to it. But the religions grew and developed their own systems and institutions which were only understood in comparison to others. The ‘new’ religion was in many ways seen as superior to the previous one. It possessed a truth the other didn’t have, a truth that should be passed on. Religions seem to contain within themselves a sense of competition which might well be the basis for mission and proselytization, an element by which they set themselves apart in opposition to others – approaches that contain within themselves the seeds of violence.  

So is the answer not to take our religious identity too seriously? Or is it to get to the heart of what religions should surely be about – giving us a framework for living a meaningful life, a practice to help us with the struggle of what it means to be human and a way of relating to others that will help us live in a harmonious society. It would seem that the people of Burkina Fasso have been doing this well. They recognise bonds of humanity, family, culture, nationhood, citizenship that transcend religious difference. They are confident in their religion, allow for difference and maybe even rejoice in it  but also recognise other ties that are as important if not more important than religion. But this is being sorely tested by attacks from militant Islamists so that the future of peaceful co-existence is being questioned. There is a danger that increased violence, the fear of the imposition of Sharia Law, the stress on one religious identity over another will lead to an unhealthy recognition of difference and people becoming suspicious of one another. This must not happen. Please God the President’s visit to the Vatican last year will underline how much the tolerance of Burkina Faso is noticed, valued and respected and will have been a motivation for the Government of the country to work hard to maintain it. 

0 Comments

A New Kind of Dominance?

13/8/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
I’ve always liked Lowry paintings. The little figures so dominated by their landscape, for the most part eyes downcast and seemingly busy about many things. I’ve always wanted to use a magic wand and bring them to life- to get them to look upwards, slow down, take control of their lives. The paintings, particularly those depicting the industrial North of England seemed to me to be good depictions of the Christian doctrine of original sin. It’s not about sin in the sense of committing wrong deeds but about the human condition that’s imperfect, incomplete, on a journey in which we make mistakes, don’t live up to our ideals or live according to the best of ourselves. In the past there was a tendency to focus on sin and beat people down by telling them that they were sinners, incapable of good unless they accepted Jesus as their saviour and became Christians. In a way it was a good marketing strategy – convince people that they were useless, no good and then offer them the only available remedy.

It’s a strategy that could also be seen in Buddhism which tells us that human beings are motivated by the greed and desire that causes suffering. This is the ailment and Buddhism offers a way out of it – practice the eight-fold path and cultivate the virtues of detachment, wisdom and compassion.  The difference between the Buddhist and Christian approach was that in Christianity the notion of sinfulness was very often used to undermine and oppress people.  Thank God the emphasis has changed.  Original sin, greed and desire are ways of describing the human condition, not saying something essential about the human person. There’s not a religion that doesn’t recognise the imperfection and weakness of human beings but religion also recognises the goodness and potential for heroic virtue and self- sacrifice in human beings. 

Sometimes these two dispositions have been described as a divided human nature with the struggle between good and evil going on in our minds and hearts.  Today spirituality and theology look on this rather differently. Today we’re more inclined to use non-dual language.  Rather than seeing the human person as divided it looks upon these two dispositions as two sides of the same coin. The human condition is both/ and- we are both imperfect (and therefore shouldn’t be surprised when things go wrong and people commit sinful and evil deeds) but we are also blessed and gifted and able to live a good and loving life.  Which part will characterise us? Tich Nhat Hanh talks of the seed store deep within our subconscious. We all have the seeds of greed, hatred, violence, prejudice but also of  goodness, self-sacrifice, compassion, wisdom, justice existing deep within our psyches. It’s up to us which ones we feed, which ones we develop through practice and intention.  Religion at its best is about encouraging us to feed the good side of ourselves so that we can live a loving life and make a positive contribution to the world around us - but it also helps us face up to our imperfections that can make life more difficult and cause us to fail, to hurt other people, to add to the suffering of the world rather than it’s healing.

The reason I’ve been thinking about Lowry is that I’ve been wondering about what it means to be human and how free we are as human beings. This has come about because of a realisation of the power of technology in our lives. The Lowry figures seem so subservient to the industrial society in which they live – oppressed and dominated by the factories under whose shadow they live and work. Today in Britain we live in a post-industrial society. The industrial revolution served us well and now we’re in the midst of a new revolution, one that’s all around us, influences how we live our lives, curtails our freedoms, is growing rapidly while most of us are oblivious to its power while rejoicing in the benefits of new technologies such as social media and the world wide web.  Like the Lowry figures I feel we’re being swept up and carried along on a wave of development that could easily get out of control if it hasn’t already done so. It makes me wonder how religion is responding to this. There’s a tendency in religion for pastors to offer people comfort and support and keep them safe within the confines of their own community beliefs and practices. Are we religious people so heavenly minded that we are out of touch with earthly realities? Are we preparing people to encounter and reflect on some of the moral dilemmas that are already facing humanity?
​
I’ve only come to realise the influence of the technological revolution because of recent television programmes about the growth and development of robots and the power of Silicon Valley companies. Speaking of robots as a new species rather spooks me as does the whole notion of cyborgs. According to the dictionary a cyborg is “a fictional or hypothetical person whose physical abilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by mechanical elements built into the body”. But many of us already have mechanical elements built into our bodies in the form of pace-makers, artificial joints etc. And there are now companies in Sweden and Belgium that offer to inject microchips into employee’s hand. Those who’ve been microchipped even call themselves cyborgs! The chips function as swipe cards that enable employees to open doors, operate printers - and allow employers to track their every move. This certainly is a new kind of Big Brother and it’s easy to imagine how such technology could go wrong. But it’s the world we’re living in and for me it raises anew the question of what it means to be human and what response are we going to make to these developments. Are they going to be for the benefit of all or for the benefit of consumerism and the few?  The answer lies in the human heart – can we trust it? 

0 Comments

    Author

    I am  a Catholic nun, involved in interfaith relations for many decades.  For me this has been an exciting and sacred journey which I would like to share with others.

    Picture

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    RSS Feed

    Categories
    Religious Performances
    ​​

    All

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.