Saturday 24 March 2018

Qatar worker abuse and US religious abuse

Not that long ago I read an opinion that it takes three generations to change a nation from tyranny to democracy - which is the time and rate of change to create a culture where democracy is accepted as the norm. In light of that, could one of the reasons Qatar is experiencing so much abuse of workers the fact that it outlawed slavery only in 1970, which is only two generations ago?

I also recently watched a documentary on the life of Sérgio Vieira de Mello, a UN diplomat who may have been able to bring some sanity to the mess in Iraq at an early stage, but was murdered by violent extremists for his work in helping Timor Leste to become a free nation. After the attack, Sergio was buried in rubble, but still alive: two US soldiers attempted to help him; one of those soldiers was a neochristian (I make a difference between neochristian and Christian, and that US soldier was definitely in the category of the former) fanatic, telling everyone that god/JC loved them etc. This caused considerable anger on the part of Sergio - as it would to me, and anyone else who wasn't a neochristian. Sergio died, and all that fanatic could think of was to lame Sergio for "not having faith", when the fanatic's upsetting of Sergio could well be a major factor in him succumbing. This behaviour, which - in my opinion - showed the sorts of fanaticism that violent extremists make a show of having, also brought to mind the (tedious) US film "Gods and Generals", about some key people in the US civil war, which also showed extraordinary levels of neochristian fanaticism. For a nation that bleats so much about being the land of the free, it certainly lacks that when it comes to religion.

I'm a Pagan, and I have often thought about making sure that minority religions have the same exposure in government and education: that neochristian fanatical US soldier has helped me settle firmly in the keep religion out of governance (but make sure the minority religions have equal exposure, which is not the case in most of the interfaith/multifaith work I have been involved with).


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