Dear Editor,
In his letter, “We have bigger problems than prayers to resolve,” (SN 10/31/2021) Dr. Jerry Jailall provides a litany of the ills that bedevil our society given which we can ill-afford a discussion on school prayers and prayers said at state functions. Given all the “things that ail Guyana, prayer at national functions is not one of them.” Clearly, prayer is not a priority issue, even if it has been manipulated to reflect the bias of a single religious community. Even if we agree with him on the place of prayer among the multitude of problems he has listed, should we not question the glaring moral depravity on the part of those orchestrating the change? Unfortunately, Dr. Jailall, like the Minis-try of Education, willfully ignores this fact and chooses instead to unleash his fury at me for exposing this misfeasance. Should not his hypothetical question of what I would do if attacked by bandits have been directed to the person or persons who so unscrupulously altered the prayer?
Moving on, we see that Dr. Jailall takes a sudden and unexpected u-turn, apparently contradicting his position on the place of prayer stated earlier. “If we throw prayer and God out, we are doomed as a nation.” We need prayer to provide a moral compass. A wicked nation needs “pure religion” and more prayer, not less. Leave prayer alone. Though this may seem like enunciating two simultaneously opposing propositions, I believe something else is going on. Listing all the ills of the society could be interpreted as a mere pretext deliberately intending to negate and belittle the concern raised about Christian-only prayers in public schools and institutions. On the other hand, coming up with terms like “true religion” and “pure religion” implying the attribution of “false religion” and “impure religion,” to others, and trivialising the challenge to the imposition of a Christian only prayer while at the same time demanding that prayer be left alone, can reasonably be understood as a demand for the preservation of the status quo inherited from colonial times.
As a Hindu who has been subjected to a theology of hate declaring me a sinner and consigning me to eternal hellfire, I am all too aware of the power of language and how it can be manipulated to demean and denigrate others. For this reason, I believe that theology based on “true and false, pure and impure religion,” “saved and condemned” division is the root of bigotry and persecution such that black and brown peoples have historically faced as it spread across the world. If we think that this is something of the past only last week the Washington Post carried an exposure of Christian missionary activities among Brazilian Indians and the struggle of these people to rescue their humanity and resist the intrusion. Some-thing else concerns me about Dr. Jailall’s letter – his claim that religion is not a private matter. Usually, those who hold their position invariably seek to impose their version of religion on the rest of us. Possibly it is this view that informs Dr. Jailall’s homophobic rant mocking the idea of same-sex parenting and lamenting the fact that the Government of Guyana has taken the enlightened to decriminalise cross-dressing. Upon assuming power, the Taliban administration instituted a slew of laws governing people’s public and private lives. Not to talk of the fact that women have virtually become second class, all men are now required to wear a beard. This is religion in the public square for you.
In wrapping up his letter, Mr. Jailall could not resist taking another passing shot at me wondering if I had a genuine interest in “cultural diversity and respect for all religions.” One really cannot expect a one-line answer. The world’s greatest social scientists still cannot come up even with a working definition of “cultural diversity.” The scientific literature on the topic is vast and keeps growing. With respect to the question of “respect for all religions,” I can without hesitation provide a one-word answer. It is, no. I consider respect for the human person to be sacrosanct and inviolable. Ideas, however, especially religious ones, are a different matter. Many a religion is a motherlode of demeaning and dangerous ideas, such as the one that tells me I am a born sinner stemming from the sin committed by a couple, way in the distant past, and worse yet that I am to be condemned to a forever hell because I do not believe in a being called Satan.
Sincerely,
Swami Aksharananda
