For religions, the scriptures are of the utmost importance. The scriptures not only give the teachings of the religion but they also shape the identity of the religion and the worldview of their communities. For some religions, the scriptures are also the point of references for any disputative issue regarding religion and religious matters. Indeed, the scriptures are the very foundation of the religions and are the single main factor behind what the religion is and how the religion is.
In the context of the Nation, the Constitution is to the Nation as the scriptures are to the religions. Like the scriptures of religion, the Constitution is the very foundation of the Nation. It is the single most important factor that makes the Nation what it is. It is also the factor that gives the Nation its identity and also gels up the individuals and the communities into a Nation.
In the particular case of Malaysia, this gelling up of the individuals and the various religious and racial communities into a common identity, namely the Malaysian nationality, is of the utmost importance if the Nation is to exist on and move on as a Nation, united and wholesome, sovereign and dignified. If this common identity and spirit of solidarity are missing, than this Nation cannot become a Nation but will be a mere country with fragmented individuals and communities living in it. In other words, without the Constitution, Malaysia will not stand as a Nation, wholesome and sovereign by itself, but will just be a country with multiple communities and multiple identities.
The Constitution is thus the soul of this Nation and therefore it is of paramount importance that people of this beloved Nation understand well the position and role of the Constitution. To begin with, it is necessary to revisit history, before the Constitution was drafted, as well as at the time of the formulation of the Constitution. This is necessary in order to get a comprehensive view of the lineal history of this Nation in order to understand and appreciate the Constitution as it is now. Furthermore, a view into the time of the drafting and the endorsement of the Constitution need also to be revisited in order to appreciate the spirit and concern of the time, to see what gain and losses were entailed upon the endorsement of the Constitution.
That the history of Malaysia began way before the coming of Islam to this region and the Malacca Sultanate is common knowledge enough. The common understanding is that this was the period of Hinduism and Buddhism of the region. True that there were pockets of communities, led by the local rulers who had adopted either Hinduism or Buddhism, including such as the Majapahit Empire which covered more of Indonesia than Malaysia.
However, very many more of other communities in this region were simply pagans, some of whom are still living as such in this region, including the Orang Asli and some other communities of Sabah and Sarawak as well as in Kalimantan and other pockets of Indonesia. Paganism is often confused up with Hinduism, but paganism is not Hinduism. Whereas Hinduism is a structured religion, paganism however is just a belief system with some observances and some rites and rituals.
Thus to classify the Malay lands in total as Hindu or Buddhist in history, needs to be thoroughly substantiated. Pockets of such practices do not prove the practice in totality and therefore cannot be made representative of the whole of the region. Moreover, Malaysia today was then known as “Tanah Melayu” (the Malay Land), and then “Malaya”, and now Malaysia.
With the coming of Islam, the Malacca Sultanate became a full government with Islamic laws, the Kanun Melaka, as the laws of the land. Later, other states too followed similar lines and the East Coast, though away from the Malacca Sultanate, also has very strong evidences of Islam in its history.
When the colonial powers came with their banner of “gold, glory and gospel” meaning to extract riches from the land, to gain prominence in the eyes of the world, and to spread Christianity in the land, Islam still continued as it was although in the British Settlements, i.e., Malacca and Penang, everything in the name of governance and administration was under British domination. The Federated Malay States, however, had were not ruled by Britain per se but had the British High Commissioner supervising the States, and these states were Perak, Selangor, Pahang and Ngeri Sembilan. On the other hand, the Unfederated Malay States, namely Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu and Johor were headed by the Sultans with British Advisers only. Under the British colonial policies, Chinese from China and Hindus from India were brought into Malaya in large numbers and these communities came to stay and contributed to the economic progress of this land. Upon Independence, considerations had to be given to the status of the Rulers, the Malays as the people of Malaya, and the status of Islam since these three were there even before the coming of the British. Since it was not possible to return to status quo as before colonialism, particularly in consideration of the migrants who had come to stay for good in the country, negotiations were therefore undertaken whereby the migrants were awarded citizenship and the Malays retain special rights in the form of the monarchy, Islam as the official religion of the nation and some special rights of the Malays.
With Independence and the Constitution, the status of the individual Malay States, particularly the Unfederated Malay States, was thus demoted from that of fully sovereign states on their own to that of a state within Malaya. Moreover, the Unfederated Malay States did not get their “independence”, as it were, since they were not even colonized in the first place. They simply wanted to be part of the then Malaya. Likewise, with the Independence and the Constitution, the status of the Malays was also downgraded from that of a nation to that of a community. Still, in the spirit of Muhibah and co-existence, the Rulers and the Malays in general honor this social contract and have never challenged the Constitution.
However, in the light of recent developments where certain parties begin to challenge items relating to the position of Islam and the Malays, Malays therefore has begun to revisit the stories behind the Constitution and to re-assess the situation. They feel that they have indeed honor their part of the agreement and they are thus unhappy and feel betrayed that some other parties are not doing the same, after having got their part of the bargain.
Needless to say, such a development is not only unpleasant for the Nation but it can also be dangerous for it stirs discontent among the various communities. Malaysians therefore need to be wise in responding to the hot airs blown by certain quarters. We need to be wiser then them since for us it is our survival and well being whereas for these people it is only for their own personal gratification, and some of whom have masters abroad running the show for them and paying them handsomely for their efforts.
This Nation, Malaysia, is our own beloved Nation; it belongs to everybody to takes pride in being a Malaysian. It is the land where we were born and God willing, it is the land where we will be buried in. As such, we each have a personal responsibility to maintain peace and order, harmony and well being in it, for ourselves and for our children tomorrow.
DR. KAMAR ONIAH WRITES
(Dr Kamar is currently the President of IMAN – Interactive Muslimah Association. IMAN is a member of ACCIN. She is also an Associate Professor of Comparative Religion at the Department of Usuluddin and Comparative Religion of the International Islamic University Malaysia).
posted by Interactive Muslimah Association (IMAN) @ 7:26 PG0 comments
Palestinian Women and the violence of Israel’s occupation
by Sonja Karkar
Women for Palestine (first published by Friends of Al Aqsa Journal vol 11, issue 1, Autumn 2008) since updated 8 March 2009
Women and survival
Women in any conflict bear the brunt of men’s decisions to go to war. They are expected to send their sons and daughters to fight for honour, cause and country and some have no choice but to raise their families in the midst of death and destruction. This is what Western feminists call the negative force of patriarchy, but for Palestinian women, the negative force is Israel’s military tyranny. In other words, Palestinian women lay the oppressive conditions under which they and their families live, right at the door of Israel’s occupation of their homeland.
In truth, occupation and oppression have affected the lives of both men and women. There is simply no liberty under occupation: it then becomes a question of survival, and for Palestinian women, there is nothing more important than the survival of their family and their people. That means when men are killed, imprisoned or exiled, the women must take on the male roles of their patriarchal society. It also means finding ways of resisting the occupation. But, while those acts of resistance have in a sense liberated women from the traditional societal norms, they are also sensitive to the daily humiliations endured by men, acts intended by Israel to weaken the structure of Palestinian society. For this reason, women are loath to pursue a feminist agenda for their own individual rights, especially if it puts in jeopardy the national cause, and that is what Western feminists find so hard to understand.
Feminism and family
Palestinian women have a long history of political activism, born out of a legacy of colonialism that has not been experienced by Western women. Their mother-role has been critically important in challenging the oppression under which they live because it strengthens community and connectedness as opposed to “Western feminist identification of motherhood as the ‘origin’ of women’s oppression.” [1] This Western attitude subscribes to a privileged white woman’s view of what feminism should be like and fails to take into account the experiences of Palestinian women forced to cope with circumstances out of their control, or their own view that motherhood enhances their status as women. In fact, it has been far more comfortable for Western women to focus on cultural oppression and what they perceive as “backwardness” in non-Western countries – evidenced by the almost lascivious interest in books recently written on the veil, domesticity, seclusion, subordination, clitoridectomy, honour killings - than political oppression from Western-approved colonial ventures and exploitation schemes. There is in particular a notable silence from Western feminists on the oppression suffered by Palestinian women as a consequence of Israel’s inhuman occupation, and as Chilla Bulbeck rightly notes,
“If we refuse to speak for others, we may refuse a powerful platform from which to support struggles against oppression . . .”[2]
More than likely, this silence is indicative of the prevailing political forces influencing even the women’s liberation movement which has until now shown itself unable to champion women’s issues in a truly global context.
Palestinian women, however, have been adept at creating a space for themselves within which they are free to speak out, take action, and help each other to stop the oppressive conditions of occupation from dividing their families and communities. Elizabeth Warnock Fernea has described this as “family feminism”[3] – a female perspective that unites rather than divides the genders, and which actually is better for everyone. This stance is most important for a society under extreme attack and where no one has rights – men, women or children. Palestinian families who have suffered most from the violence of occupation have particularly benefited from the social welfare projects that have been run by women to combat the worst excesses of Israel’s rule. Dr Talhami describes it thus:
“ . . . the objective of these women has always been physically the survival of other women and the survival of society, because ‘women’ indeed has meant ‘the family’ and what women stand for within the family.”[4]
The beginnings of political activism
Although Palestinian society was largely secular during the British Mandate years, women could see the benefits of abiding by a unifying Islamic culture that particularly defines the whole Arab world. There was a great feeling of solidarity between the educated and elite Christian and Muslim women against an encroaching foreign enemy, and together they organised petitions and demonstrations to stop mass Jewish immigration and British and Zionist policies aimed at pushing aside established Palestinian society to make way for a Jewish state.
The first Palestine Arab Women’s Congress held in Jerusalem, discussed ways of preventing what no other people would willing accept. It “issued a revolutionary declaration for women to leave aside their other duties and ‘support their men in this [national] cause.’”[5] Efforts became focused on increasing women’s literacy skills and running self-help programs, embroidery workshops and health clinics - meetings which provided women with the perfect training ground for political activism. Such concentrated centres of activity saw the beginnings of the Palestinian women’s movement.
Little did Palestinian women know then that their activism would become absolutely critical when they - along with 90 percent of the Palestinian population - would be forcibly expelled from their homeland in 1948 by the new UN-sanctioned state of Israel. Almost overnight, Palestinian women found themselves on the run with their families in tow, as they became refugees in a world hostile to their plight. Palestinian society was virtually destroyed. The Palestinians had not been asked to negotiate the terms of their own destiny and it is most unlikely that they would have willingly accepted the decision to divide their land in favour of immigrant European Jews. But, there was little they could do to combat the heavily financed, emotionally-charged and organised campaign launched against them. Not even the surrounding Arab countries combined - fractured by their erstwhile colonial masters - were able to stop Israel’s military advances. Yet, despite their defeat, the Palestinians did not ever imagine that they would be prevented from returning to their homes and properties. It was, and has always been, the thought of returning home that has helped Palestinian women endure the catastrophe of their enforced exile.
The roots of violence
The 1948 waves of dispossession, displacement and expulsion truly shocked Palestinian society into a state of disbelief. Even more so that the world was allowing it to happen. Hundreds of thousands of women and children were left without a roof over their heads and were forced to make their homes in tents, until years later they were replaced by home makeshift hovels. There was nothing temporary about these arrangements: almost sixty years later, the Palestinians are still waiting to return to their homes.
The enormity of this mass human uprooting would be unimaginable for women in the West where the sanctity of home is protected by law. No such laws came to the aid of Palestinian women who saw their homes razed to the ground or taken over by Jewish immigrant families. It is still mind-boggling to think that any Jewish woman fresh from the horrific experiences of the Holocaust could have contemplated setting up home amongst the still-warm belongings of a Palestinian family. Even today, no such laws come to the aid of Palestinian women as they again have to watch bulldozers tear apart their houses and their private memories to make way for the Jewish settlers coming from abroad. In just the last eight years, more than 7,000 family homes, and also vast tracts of farming land, have been destroyed for Israel’s illegal housing developments high on the hills of Palestine. Palestinian women can see these brand new housing complexes rise up on the rubble of their own homes and stolen land while they must struggle to survive in pitiful circumstances below.
Three, even four generations of women have had to raise their children and provide for them single-handedly when husbands and fathers have been killed or imprisoned. Many more have had to care for physically and psychologically crippled and maimed family members while they themselves have been constantly subjected to punishing controls, abuses and deprivations. And, far too many pregnant women have been forced to give birth at military checkpoints, in the backs of cars or behind bushes leading to needless deaths when grave complications occur. For Palestinian women to be denied even the right to safe childbirth and motherhood shows the depths to which Israel’s perpetual war on the Palestinians has sunk, as Israel rushes to rid itself of the people whose very existence threatens its own. It moved Israeli journalist Gideon Levy to say, “These are disgusting times . . . when a Palestinian woman in labour no longer has a way to get to a place of sanctuary.”[6]
Grassroots resistance
By the time Israel had taken even more Palestinian land in the 1967 war and forced more Palestinians into exile - some tragically for a second time –women were firmly intent on protesting against Israel’s occupation and began taking part in peaceful marches and demonstrations. The 1970s saw women not only undertake the usual social and charity work in the refugee camps and give support to political prisoners and their families, but also begin to engage in political activities through the Women’s Committees Movement, an umbrella organisation for the women’s work committees, the original four of which were attached to the four major Palestinian political parties.[7] Their increased activism led to the mass political protest of 1984 when hundreds of Palestinian women and children broke through the Israeli checkpoints and barricades erected to stop Palestinians from moving between the West Bank and Jerusalem.[8]
As the savage Zionist colonial enterprise intensified and the oppressed Palestinians found their situation simply intolerable, all their frustrations erupted in the First Intifada of 1987 and women were at the forefront of many of the demonstrations. Oftentimes, they risked their own lives to save their children from arrest, beatings and gunfire and threw stones and staged boycotts and sit-ins to vehemently protest the indiscriminate attacks on their families. The Israeli military retaliated by beating and killing them and hundreds of women were imprisoned in Israeli jails where they suffered humiliating violations, and rape. Many more suffered miscarriages or died from tear gas canisters thrown into their homes as punishment by Israeli soldiers.[9] Despite the dangers of resistance fighting, women began to feel just how empowering political engagement could be, even though their experience of armed conflict was different from that undertaken by men.
While women’s involvement had a widespread impact, it was not without sacrifices. Women found themselves having to juggle their political activities with the day-to-day running of family life, which was made even harder as fathers, husbands, brothers and sons were arrested in droves by the Israeli military. Volunteers then began village subcommittees in the rural areas, in order to create networks such as the nursery schools. Children were cared for whilst their mothers worked in menial jobs in Israel to support their families. These were long and tedious days – waiting endlessly at checkpoints to cross into Israel and to get back home again. The luckier ones were bussed in and out. Nevertheless, there was a camaraderie amongst them that helped cement their common struggle and gave them courage to support any political action for the national cause, even if they could not organise it themselves.
One woman stood out – Samiha Khalil otherwise known as Um Khalil (Mother of Khalil). She was a school teacher who in middle-age decided to establish a training and employment centre In’ash al-‘Usra for disadvantaged women so that they could acquire skills in trades like dressmaking, foodpreservation, and hairdressing. She wanted them to work in Palestine, not Israel because she did not want Palestinian women depending on Israeli products and services. She even encouraged women to work at home on embroidery pieces which the Centre then sold on their behalf. In what for many women were desperate circumstances, Um Khalil’s initiatives helped women maintain their dignity and resist yet another of Israel’s measures to subjugate the people.
There were others like her: strong women who refused Israeli and foreign incentives rather than betray the cause. They were not prepared to compromise as long as their human rights were not respected. Their most enterprising campaign was the boycott initiative against Israeli products that they hoped would force the Israeli military to re-open the schools it had shut down. It meant that the women had to provide alternative local products that would help sustain Palestinian families - and they did. They also taught the children in underground community-run schools in the interim. It was this kind of grassroots activism that really empowered the women involved - probably more than if they had been in the higher level leadership positions that were open only to a very few. These services made the women indispensable to their communities “when conditions were creating new and pressing needs”[10] and there were few objections to their political involvement. It was all part of the national struggle and these women inspired others to follow their lead.
The endless peace process
The Oslo Accords changed this vital grassroots activism. Suddenly, the struggle for liberty became diluted as agreements were made to begin normalising Palestinian society through a self-rule government while still living under occupation. It was a bizarre notion because none of the final status issues – Jerusalem, borders, water issues, settlements, refugees - that were essential for a just solution, were resolved. Yet, there were enough Palestinians, buoyed by this manufactured hope for better times, who were willing to replace the grassroots struggle for liberty with foreign-backed NGOs whose work was focused on humanitarian issues. Much of the work that had been done by the women’s committees was now taken over by the well-funded NGOs with independent and salaried staff and they certainly had no brief to educate Palestinian women to resist the occupation.
Despite the changes, there was no let up in Israel’s suffocating occupation and many women were once again struggling to survive in the mind-numbing and deadly living conditions of curfews, military incursions, movement restrictions, systematic land razing and confiscation and home demolitions. Women who had succeeded in developing local products to stop Palestinians buying Israeli-produced goods, were suddenly plunged into extreme poverty by the mass-produced and cheaper products coming from the new factories set up under Oslo by wealthy Palestinians. The women now found themselves struggling to survive with no time to build the networks that had been so successful during the First Intifada.
Desperate resistance
A feeling of failure permeated Palestinian society as it became apparent that Israel had again succeeded in suppressing Palestinian initiatives with dire consequences for ordinary families. More desperate means of resisting were inevitable because no people want to be annihilated, driven out or subjugated: their right to resist is enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The Second Intifada erupted in 2000 and while the means were often desperate and not always palatable, Israel’s air bombardments and armoured tank assaults against a largely unarmed people have never been the stuff of heroic campaigns - especially not when pitched against the stones of resistance from the hands of children. Suicide bombings escalated Israel’s military responses and painted an ugly picture of Palestinian resistance. As a consequence, honourable grief was denied Palestinian women: the world turned their martyrs into terrorists and their children into nameless statistics in a grossly unequal war.
After more than six decades of oppression, the psychological strain on the women cannot be overstated. They stare at death and violence every day: soldiers firing at youths, planes dropping bombs on cars and residential buildings, husbands roughed up in front of them and then handcuffed, blindfolded and taken away, children caught in cross-fire or deliberately shot. The daily humiliation of waiting endlessly at checkpoints, interrogations, body searches, watching their olive and fruit trees being uprooted, their homes demolished, their land razed, having their identity cards revoked. Worse still is knowing that their legal existence is barely recognised, that their national aspirations are considered unworthy of respect and that in the eyes of the world they are seen as morally diminished. No wonder Palestinian women have put their people’s liberation from Israel’s escalating oppression before any demands for equal rights in their own society.
The way of faith
The success of the Islamic Hamas party in the January 2006 democratic elections shocked not only the power players of the Middle East – Israel and the US – but also the main secular Fatah party long-used to running and negotiating Palestinian affairs. So many Palestinians had become disillusioned with the lack of progress since Oslo and the intolerable conditions that were worsening by the day that many were ready to try alternative ideas to ending Israel’s iron rule. There was no doubt that Hamas had already shown itself capable of providing sympathetic social reform amongst the disadvantaged and this brought Hamas much support during the elections. Women struggling to survive and who needed all the support they could get, found its programs a godsend, even if other less needy groups did not.
Turning to God is not unusual in any society stricken by violence, oppression and hopelessness, and although Palestinian politics had been traditionally secular, Palestinian women seemed prepared to accept an Islamic agenda if it would improve their lot. That it might bring a much more conservative attitude to their role in society was something they were prepared to tolerate in the interests of their people’s liberation. However, Hamas never had a chance to show if its policies would positively reorient the Palestinian struggle for liberation or repress Palestinian society even more. The deliberately hyped-up and false worldview of extreme fundamentalist Islam threatening democracy and Christian liberalism was creating terrible divisions within Palestinian society itself, and again, women found themselves the victims of an enemy without – Israel - and an enemy within - the warring factions of Palestinian politics.
Interestingly, six women from the Hamas party were elected to parliament and one of them - Huda Naeem – told The Guardian that "Women are closer to the problems of the society. They are the ones who feel the unemployment. They are the ones who have to look after the children when their husbands are in prison. They feel well treated by Hamas institutions. Now these women are looking to us, the women in parliament, to change other things."[11]
One of those “other things” said Professor Jameela Shanti - another elected member of parliament - is discrimination.
“We are going to show that women are not secondary, they are equal to men. Discrimination is not from Islam, it is from tradition.”[12]
This was hardly the image of submissiveness and meekness that the West has been trying so hard to portray in women showing outward adherence to the Islamic faith.
Indomitable courage
Only months after Hamas was elected and Israel had begun the worst of its terror attacks on Gaza, Palestinian women demonstrated their extraordinary courage by breaking the siege of Beit Hanoun. Some 30 freedom fighters had taken refuge in a mosque after trying to defend the town of 28,000 residents from invading Israeli tanks and troops. All water and electricity had been cut off, and despite the rising death toll, no ambulances were allowed in to attend to the injured and dying. The Israeli army had imposed a curfew and had begun taking away all males over 15 years of age, stripping them to their underwear, blindfolding them and then handcuffing them. A harrowing account of the siege is given by Jameela Shanti as she explains “It is not easy as a mother, sister or wife to watch those you love disappear before your eyes. Perhaps that was what helped me, and 1,500 other women, to overcome our fear and defy the Israeli curfew . . . we faced the most powerful army in our region unarmed . . . we had nothing, except each other and our yearning for freedom . . . The soldiers of Israel’s so-called defence force did not hesitate to open fire on unarmed women. The sight of my close friends Ibtissam Yusuf Abu Nada and Rajaa Ouda taking their last breaths, bathed in blood, will live with me forever.”[13]
It was a Ghandi-esque gesture that so many peace movements talk about and constantly urge the Palestinians to adopt. But, there were no international cries of outrage and horror, no media stories of valour and sacrifice, no galvanizing of world support for the women of Gaza. The silence was palpable. No one in their right mind could condone these tyrannical actions: only Israel seemed to have carte blanche to perpetrate such dreadful outrages without fear of condemnation.
Today, the killing in Gaza goes on – the recent 22-day merciless bombardment that killed more than 1300 Palestinians and left thousands more terribly wounded was pure malevolence coming on top of the crippling sanctions that deny the Palestinians any contact with the outside world. Enough human rights organizations have reported on the impending humanitarian disaster to give credence to the desperate cries for fuel, water, medicine, electricity and food and it is in such impossible conditions that Palestinian women are having to raise their families with no surety of a better future than one coming from their belief in a merciful God. As Jameela Shanti points out “Nothing undermines the West’s claims to defend freedom and democracy more than what is happening in Palestine.”[14] A violent world
In any study of violence against Palestinian women, the focus must fall on Israel. The occupation taints everything because the society it imprisons cannot develop freely as it should. Neither can the society of the occupiers. Just like in a prison, the system damages the inmates as well as those administering it. An article in The Guardian’s Comment is Free reported that domestic violence against women in Israel had risen by almost 300 percent between 2000 and 2005 and almost half of the women were killed “by partners who were soldiers, security guards or policemen.”[15]
Domestic violence against Palestinian women has also risen in the Occupied Palestinian Territories although there are no reliable statistics. An in-depth report by Amnesty international[16] examined the intensity of the violence that consumes their lives, and while it detailed increased incidents of domestic violence, such as sexual abuse, rape and “honour” killings and the failure of the Palestinian Authority to stop these crimes, by far the greater emphasis was on the violence of Israel’s occupation. That violence has been documented over and over again, and despite that, “Israel has consistently disregarded its obligations.”[17]
Israel’s ruthless US-backed colonialist enterprise is the negative force of political patriarchy in action. Its incarceration of Palestinians in their own land is the worst kind of oppression because neither men nor women nor children are free. It has institutionalised apartheid with a wall, citizenship laws, zoning regulations, and land seizures. Ethnic cleansing and transfer are openly spoken about. A slow genocide is happening in Gaza – they have no clean water, no electricity, no fuel, no medicines, and barely enough food rations and Israel is raining down mortar shells on them with daily reports of deaths and injuries. But, there is no global women’s movement speaking out against this kind of militarised violence that terrorises Palestinian women and their families.
A challenge to feminists
While there may be the temptation by Western women to view the Palestinian women’s struggle through critical feminist lens because they have allowed the national cause to override their “rights” as women, they should bear in mind that “national identities are as salient for women as they are for men.”[18] And all the more so because their very existence as a people was even negated by the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir who said “there was no such thing as Palestinians . . . they did not exist”. It was a statement that insultingly ignored the very real presence of a Palestinian population even as it suffered under the crushing stamp of the Israeli jackboot.
Today, the only thing that has changed is that conditions are much worse than anyone could ever have imagined. Not only has Israel’s political, military and economic domination of the Occupied Territories intensified, it has increased its illegal land acquisitions as well, leaving some four million Palestinian people with barely enough room in which to survive. In that contracting violent space, the only hope for Palestinians is to remain steadfastly determined to preserve the foundations of their culture and identity against their enemy. Palestinian women have shown only too well how that can be done. The national struggle for liberty is their right and their duty and there is time enough for social reform when the occupation ends and statehood is achieved.
In the meantime, Western feminists could show the genuineness of their championing of women’s rights and liberation by a global sisterhood campaign of boycotts, protests, sit-ins, petitions and demonstrations to protest Israel’s violence against Palestinian women. It could really make a difference to their lives already in extreme jeopardy.
Dead-end legal processes
In a 2006 resolution adopted by the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC),[19] Israel was unanimously affirmed as the major obstacle to Palestinian women advancing and having any quality of life because of the dire humanitarian situation in which they live and the crisis they face. Concern for the women’s situation was even noted by the two countries voting against the resolution: the United States and Australia. Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence on the ground, they still claimed the resolution presented “unbalanced and inaccurate facts about the Palestinian women” and politicised humanitarian concerns in a way that was unhelpful”. They, therefore, rejected the resolution.
Such deliberate neglect to act makes a mockery of the 2000 UN Security Council Resolution 1325 which recognises the impact of war on women and women’s contributions to conflict resolution and peacemaking.[20] Australian peace activist Felicity Hill[21] saw through the resolution’s adoption, but seven years later, women are still suffering heinous violations in conflict zones all over the world and Felicity Hill was moved to say at the 2007 anniversary that “we should no longer focus on women and peace, but on men and war.”
Peacemaking without justice
The truth of the matter is that for all the peace talks, peacemaking and peace dialogues, nothing has changed for Palestinian women or men that might suggest a breakthrough from Israel’s intransigence. These talks just go through the motions while Israel continues its oppressive colonialist policies and the world wallows in its craven silence. Sama Aweidah-Liftawi, director of the Women’s Studies Centre was well aware back in 1999 that “negotiations do not necessarily equal peace”[22] particularly if there is no bona fide interest in making substantive changes to the status quo and Israel has already made it very clear that it will not budge on final status issues.
Clearly, peace on its own is no magical panacea to the conflict: it needs justice. A Palestinian peace activist Hanan Awad defined peace “ . . . as a tool for justice”[23] and justice is oftentimes the missing ingredient that makes dialogue between some Palestinian and Israeli women so difficult. The nuances of language often create their own barriers as happened at a conflict-resolution seminar in 1999, when Gila Svirsky explained that Israeli women in her organisation Bat Shalom believed that the Palestinians “deserved a state of their own.”[24] She was corrected by Sumaya Farhat-Naser, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Women: “not deserve, we have a right to a state of our own.” [25]
This prima facie entitlement to their land permeates the discourse of Palestinian women peacemakers much as it does the collective discourse of Palestinian nationalism and most women equate their role as peacemaker with the aim of achieving political and national rights. They are, therefore, reticent to engage in dialogue with Israeli women without Israel first ending its oppressive policies and practices. According to Nahla Abdo, Israeli women “hold a different moral orientation, based primarily on care rather than on justice.”[25] For Palestinian women, who are still part of an ongoing painful narrative, forgiveness and tolerance can only come once their rights are respected and they can emerge from any peace agreement with dignity as equals.
Palestinian women peacemakers have shown that they are “more concerned with survival issues overall”[26] as their activities are concentrated on the grassroots community processes rather than the state-centric security solutions that have dominated all the peace talks so far. A better option would be the pursuit of individual security through the disbanding of Israel’s occupation and the oppression that it has wrought on Palestinian society. Women are very well placed to do just that if they are prepared to speak up against all forms of violence and oppression and also if they are willing to vigorously question the obstructions that prevent genuine peacemaking between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and their US interlocutor.
There is still no sign of that happening and so it is not surprising that peace talks post-Annapolis have come to nothing. Instead, Israel is ramping up its military control. This brings to mind a comment made by a former battalion surgeon in the Vietnam War – now a well-known authority on spiritual healing – about “the incredible seduction of war for males”[28] which explains in a nutshell just why peace is so difficult to achieve in our patriarchal societies. It is no wonder that a militarised society like Israel becomes “dependent on or controlled by the military and its values, beliefs and presumptions.”[29] And it is no wonder that Palestinian women see Israel’s military occupation as the prime cause of all the violence shattering their lives and their society.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Chilla Bulbeck, Re-orienting Western Feminisms: Diversity in a Postcolonial World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, p. 270
[2] Ibid. p. 209
[3] Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, In Search of Islamic Feminism: One Woman’s Global Journey, Doubleday, New York, 10 November 1998, p. 422
[4] Ghada Hashem Talhami at a Palestine Center briefing in Washington DC on 8 March 2006 entitled “The Evolution of the Palestinian Feminist Movement”.
[5] Lucy Nusseibah, “Palestinian Women and Non-violence”, 14 January 2002
[6] Gideon Levy, “The War against the Unborn”, Ha’aretz, 20 January 2002
[7] The four main political factions were: Fatah; Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine; and the Palestinian People’s Party
[8] Amal Kawar, Daughters of Palestine: Leading Women of the Palestinian National Movement, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1996, p.99.
[9] Al-Haq, “A Nation Under Siege”. Al-Haq Annual Report on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, 1989, Ramallah, West Bank, 1990, pp. 509-511.
[10] R. Giacaman and P. Johnson, “Palestinian Women: Building Barricades and Breaking Barriers”, in Zachary Lockman and Joel Beinin (eds) Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against Israeli Occupation, South End Press and MERIP, Boston, 1989
[11] Chris McGreal, “Women MPs vow to change face of Hamas” The Guardian, 18 February 2006
[12] Ibid.
[13] Jameela Shanti, “We women of Beit Hanoun overcame our fear”, The Guardian, 10 November 2006. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1942942,00.html
[14] Ibid.
[15 ]Arthur Nelsen, “A Soul-Searching Mission”, The Guardian: Comment is Free, 19 October 2006. commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/arthur_neslen/2006/10/arthur_neslen_1.html
[16] Amnesty International, “Conflict, Occupation and Patriarchy: Women Carry the Burden”, March, 2005
[17] Ibid.
[18] Frances S Hasso, “The ‘Women’s Front’: Nationalism, Feminism, and Modernity in Palestine.” Gender and Society 12, no. 4, 1998, p. 442
[19] ECOSOC/6234 of 25 July 2006
[20] United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 of 31 October 2000 (S/RES/1325)
[21] Felicity Hill is the Director of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in New York
[22] Aweidah-Liftawi interview with Nahla Abdo, 24 July 1999, referred to in Chapter 3: Palestinian Women and Peacemaking, Nahla Abdo and Roit Lentin (eds) Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation, Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford, 2002, p. 324
[23] Hanan Awad, interview with Nahla Abdo, 19 July 1999, ibid.
[24] Nahla Abdo and Roit Lentin (eds) Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation, Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford, 2002, Chapter 3, p. 324
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Pinto, 9 November 1999
[28] ABC National Radio, Host Michael Toms interviews guest Dr Larry Dossey on “Obvious Healing” for the New Dimensions program, 24 March 2006
[29] Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “Police Reactions to Violence against Palestinian Women in Israel”, Femmes & Mondialisation, 12 June 2005
posted by Interactive Muslimah Association (IMAN) @ 6:51 PG0 comments
Rabu, 4 Mac 2009
Journey to the light - a wonderful story
It all started 21 years ago. I was born, 7 pounds and healthy. My parents glowed and were at their happiest. A perfect moment.
- After 3 months I watched my hands and learned about movement.
- After 5 months I got curious about my surroundings and moved objects with my hand. - After 12 months I could sit up and I could respond to my own name. I also copied some of my parents actions. - After 17 months I could walk independently and enjoyed listening to music and words. Step by step I discovered this beautiful world.
My parents had no religion. Naturally I did not follow a religion myself. A godless life, seeking only earthly materialistic pleasures. My parents were very wealthy. My mom was chef in a restaurant and my dad a lawyer. I could have everything I wanted if I asked for it. At the age of 12 I started high school. The years to come would practically go like this: Gossiping, forming groups, being a racist, occasionally disrespecting my parents and others that loved me. Dating girls, go clubbing, drinking alcohol and the list goes on. I was the most popular and handsome guy at school, but inside I must have been the most depressing. I was missing something in life, but I did not know what it was. I wore myself out and had no fear of life or death. Especially death was never on my mind. In my mind, life was forever.
I wasn’t aware that my life could end at any moment. And what would happen if I died was never on my mind. I never knew at that time how lucky I was. I had a loving family and a good life.
At the age of 15 my parents didn’t know what to do with me. There was nothing stopping me. The only one who could stop this self-destruction was me. One time my aunt, that hadn’t seen me for 5 years, was shocked to see what I’ve become. She had a chat with me to try to change my behavior. I acted as if I was listening to her just to get her away from me as soon as possible. But there was one thing I did catch and it struck me.She said ‘I will not and cannot change you, because society has nothing to say against you and your behavior. All of the things you’re doing are being promoted. You are the only one who can change yourself and you should only do it for yourself. You deserve it’
Such simple words and logic seemed very odd to hear. After she left I cried my heart out. I was hurting myself without knowing it.
This was the moment I knew I had to change my life. The only problem was I didn’t know where to begin.
I noticed I started talking to God in my room before going to bed. That was strange, because I’ve always lived a life where God wasn’t on my mind. This must be what people call ‘fitrah’. I asked for guidance, signs, peace of mind, a major change and a meaning in life.
There was this girl in my history class who was a Christian. She never openly talked about her religion, but she always wore a cross.I knew other religious people at my school and they were mostly very disciplined and satisfied with their lives. I used to make fun of them with my friends. But to think of it, I was secretly jealous of them.
The name of the Christian girl was Laura. I asked her about God and about Christianity. She told me that God loves me and that I should accept Jesus (pbuh) as my savior and to acknowledge that he is the son of God.
We had many debates about Christianity. About the many sects of it, about that there are so many versions of the Bible and about the divinity of Jesus (pbuh) . My heart and mind told me God exists, but it was not okay for me that he has a son. I could also not believe that Jesus (pbuh) died for my sins. My sins are for me to bear and for no one else. And I also did not believe in the concept of original sin. Every time I looked at a baby, so beautiful, so pure, my mind just tells me that it couldn’t be true. She told me to read the Bible and she said that she had the latest version. This was already an indication that it was nothing for me. But I did try to read the Bible. The ‘according to Luke etc.’ bits did not feel good to me. It reminded me of gossips. If someone told me a gossip, I could never say it the same to another person. Eventually there were many different versions of a gossip.
The original formation of the Bible also didn’t feel good. Some Gospels weren’t even chosen to be in the Bible. I wondered why. There were also too many contradictions and the Trinity was unexplainable.
Faith wasn’t enough for me. Eventually I decided that Christianity was a very beautiful religion, but incomplete. I also wondered that if Jesus (pbuh) was here in this time and saw the Christians of today, would he approve them? Or have they gone so astray from his original and pure message, God is one?
Women also used to wear headscarves and the early Christians also said peace be upon you. Jesus did say it, how come Christians today don’t?Helas, my journey had just begun and Christianity was not the religion that fully gave peace to me.
To me Christianity from afar seemed like a beautiful mirage and up close a maze with countless of possibilities. I was already doubting about life and this religion made me doubt even more. Jesus (pbuh) did learn me a lot of great things. The one I always keep in mind is ‘The truth shall set you free’.
My journey went on. I never researched Hinduism/Buddhism. Those religions or way of lives seemed so strange and almost unexplainable. Maybe they used to be the religion of God, but it was changed so much. I could barely see the truth in it.
There was a Jewish guy in my neighborhood. His name was Jonathan. He was very firm in his religion and I liked that about him. I saw him celebrating Pesach with his family. They were celebrating in the garden and I liked the atmosphere.
One day I went out to play some basketball and I saw him walking by. I asked him to play with me and he did. After playing some time we started talking and came to know each other more. He always wore his kippah or yarmulke. I said that I was looking for God, but I didn’t know what religion was the truth.
I did wonder why there weren’t a lot of Jews in this world. And how come this religion isn’t preached from East to West? That struck me the most. Didn’t Jews want people to become Jews and know the truth? It seemed like a private club. He tried to teach me about his religion, but very soon I said that it wasn’t for me. The thought that there weren’t many jews in this world stayed in my mind. It was a very scary thought. This could not be the truth.
By accident ( actually faith) I met a Muslim girl. She was 23 years old and a librarian. I was 17 years old at the time. Her name was Aisha and her parents came from Somalia. I still remember the first time I saw her. She was wearing a long white headscarf and looked like an angel. She looked like the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She didn’t even had to show all of her body to be beautiful. Her modesty and piety gave her a glow. I went up to her to talk to her and get to know more about her. After a while I asked her what religion she was following. I did have a guess, but I didn’t know for sure. She said she was a Muslim. I had no idea what that meant. All I knew of Muslims were of the pictures and videos I’ve seen on the news. And they weren’t really positive. But I was always curious for new things so I wanted to know more. She asked if I could come back the day after, because she was very busy. I agreed and went home. I searched on the Internet about Islam and came to know more about it. And I got excited. The more I read the more I had a good feeling about this religion. Was this the truth the non-Muslim world is trying to hide from me? A distorted view of Islam and Muslims was imprinted in my mind. It felt like poison and the cure was true knowledge.
Just as Stephan Hawking has said: ‘’ The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge‘’
The next day I had a talk with her in the reading area in the library. I asked her why she was a Muslim and how it made her feel to be a Muslim. Her answers were clear and simple and satisfying. She said that it’s good to really know your religion. And not just be part of a religion just because the people around you have that religion too. She said that in Islam Muslims are ordered to seek knowledge. Even knowledge of other religions. This could be good for interfaith dialogue and also strengthen faith in your own religion. I was surprised to hear that Jesus (pbuh) has a great role in Islam. The view of Jesus (pbuh) in Islam seemed to be more in place about what Jesus (pbuh) thaught in the Bible, than what the Christians in these days teach.
She felt Islam has all the answers to the world’s problems, but that the Islamic world now is too divided that it can no longer solve the world’s problems in this state. She asked me to look at the religion and not the people. Which seemed fair to me. She also explained that the word Islam was used by God in the Quran. This makes Islam very different from the other world religions. Buddhism named after Buddha, Christianity named after Jesus Christ etc.
Aisha said that in Islam the basic is very clear. From the five pillars of Islam to the one on one relationship with God. The crystal clear message of Islam was also very appealing to me. ‘God is here, worship him’. Islam felt like a complete and pure religion. Aisha gave me a copy of the Quran, the last revelation of God. After my meeting with her I went home to read the Quran. I don’t really know how to explain this. But after reading only the first short chapter of Al Fatiha, The Opening, I started to cry my eyes out. It was as if someone had put the heavy weight off of my shoulders. Fresh water over my body and light everywhere. I could breathe again.
I had no expectations about Islam. Only a clear and inquisitive mind. I’ve never read a book that fast! Maybe that’s a miracle itself too, lol. The Quran is like a shining gemstone in the middle of darkness and confusing.The miracles in the Quran did help me in my journey. How can the human mind say no to these facts? Why do they keep on coming up with lame excuses? This reminds me of a Quranic verse
"Deaf, dumb, and blind, they will not return (to the path). " (2/Al-Baqarah, 18)
But above all, the teachings of Islam are good for the mind, body and soul. And could help all societies in this world. All things that are forbidden in Islam are bad for the mind, body or soul. It’s a religion that protects and takes great care of life. Both human nature and animals.
I wanted to learn about this religion from the start. From the life of Mohammed (pbuh) the seal of the prophets, to the first Muslims, to the great Islamic empires that shaped our lived today. I especially love the Andalusian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the fact that the Islamic world used to be the best place for knowledge, tolerance and understanding. I hope that will return, Insha’Allah. I still cannot understand why the life of Mohammed (pbuh) isn´t taught in schools, but the life and accomplishments of Shakespeare is.
What Mohammed (pbuh) has done for and to this world is amazing. He is a Godsend and I love Allah (swt) for bringing Islam to my life.
Whatever will happen in the future, we shall not repeat the mistakes we made in leaving Gaza.
– Shimon Peres to members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations 2/18/09
You take my water. Burn my Olive Trees. Destroy my house. Take my job. Steal my Land. Imprison my Mother. Bomb my country. Starve us all. Humiliate us all. But I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.
– Sign carried near Hyde Park Corner during a demonstration in London on 2/15/09 by a Member of the British Parliament
February 20, 2009 "Dissident Voice" -- Ain el Helwe Palestinian Refugee Camp, Sidon, Lebanon — Israeli President Shimon Peres has participated in shaping the policies of Israel for most of its existence. His Washington Post op-ed last week billed as "a peacepartners prod" to the Obama administration, evidences a major disconnect within the government of Israel concerning what is urgently required for that country's increasingly unlikely long-term survival.
According to a CIA Study currently being shown to selected staff members on the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Israel's survival in its present form beyond the next 20 years is doubtful.
The Report predicts "an inexorable movement away from a two-state to a one-state solution, as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial Apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947/1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region."
To President Peres' chagrin, the Executive Summary states that "during the next fifteen years more than two million Israelis, including some 500,000 Israeli citizens who currently hold US green cards or passports, will move to the United States. Most Israelis not in possession of these documents will receive 'expedited waivers.' The Report claims that, "Alongside a decline in Jewish births and a rise in Palestinian fertility, approximately 1.6 million Israelis are likely to return to their forefather's lands in Russia and Eastern and Western Europe with scores of thousands electing to stay, depending on the nature of the transition."
In his Washington Post piece President Peres desperately attempts to salvage a two-state solution from a one, a three- or even a four-state arrangement. He appears to realize that a two-state solution is seriously jeopardized unless Israel dramatically and quickly changes course. With the tacking to the right in Israel and the likely make up of the next government once Peres selects Livni or Netanyahu in the next few days, and given the swelling mood among the occupied in favor of another Intifada, Peres plaintively asserts to the Obama administration that "two states is the only realistic solution."
Peres instructed the American people and their government three times in his op-ed brief for a two-state solution, and that Israel is "the land of my forefathers." He laments that the CIA-predicted one-state solution would, "Undermine Israel's legitimacy and the internationally recognized right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state in the land of my forefathers."
Peres knows that his forefathers had no connection whatsoever to Palestine, as is the case with more than 95% of the Zionists who swept into the area over the past century and demolished close to 600 villages while expelling a majority of the native population. Historians have established that most arriving Jews were in fact Slavic converts to Judaism without any historical or genealogical nexus to Palestine or Hebrew tribes in the area.
Against the historical backdrop of the past century of nearly global rejection of colonialism, his claim of settled international acceptance of "Israel's legitimacy" is a major stretch. "Legitimacy" is what the conflict continues to be about — whether a 19th Century colonial enterprise can violently uproot and massacre an indigenous population taking over a land declaring God promised it to them, as they terrorize and expel the local inhabitants. Contrary to Peres' claim of Israel as a "legitimate State," there is no internationally recognized right for Israel to exist on stolen land without the consent of the dispossessed. Peres assures his
American benefactors that Israel's legitimacy is based "in international law or morality." In point of fact, both International law and morality require the right of return of those whose lands were taken and lifting the brutal occupation. Surely Peres is aware, as the CIA Report asserts, that a majority of the 192 countries which make up the membership of the United Nations would vote this evening to establish one State of Palestine if given the chance.
The Report concludes that what went wrong will be debated for many years. In essence the problem was the premise that a "chosen people" with no link or rights to a land could impose a state by force. Many Middle East observers believe that the two-state solution is essentially over, but for the packing, finger-pointing and assuredly more violence.
Increasingly repelled by Israeli crimes, the international community is moving toward the majority position of Palestinians, and is coming to believe that the realistic solution to the Middle East conflict is one state — secular, multicultural, democratic, and based on one person one vote.
Peres is loath to accept one state and claims, in promoting a two-state solution, that he has "personally witnessed the remarkable progress we have made with the Palestinian Authority in recent years."
Does he have in mind the increasing bantustanization (what Noam Chomsky calls "unviable fragments"), the ever-snaking apartheid wall and other barriers, the illegal outposts which increased yet again last year? The blockade of and depraved slaughter in Gaza? Or does President Peres have in mind this week's announcement by outgoing Prime Minister Olmert that Israel has the right to keep building in large West Bank settlement blocs, including Efrat, by adding 423 acres so that 21,000 more residents can join the current 9,000, according to Efrat mayor Oded Revivi? Olmert claims its part of the annexation that will be considered in a future final peace deal with the Palestinians.
President Peres has passed nearly a lifetime devoted to undermining prospects for a viable Palestinian state and offering a wink and nod to the building of more than 430 colonies while offering lip service to the "peace process." His "Message to the American People" fails to communicate what the Israeli and Palestinian public knows well about the real nature of the two-state option he has in mind and which he considers to be "the best resolution to this age-old conflict." Both populations know that the two-state option that long time politician Peres has consistently run on, is the Yigal Allon Plan.
The Allon scheme to expel the Arab population from Palestine has been Peres' electoral platform during his campaigns in 1974, 1977, 1981, 1984, and 1987 and it shaped Israel's settlement policies from 1967-1977. Peres worked to make the Allon Plan part of the 1978 Camp David agreement and 1993 Oslo Accords.
As the American public begins to stir from its long slumber on the Question of Palestine and hopefully dramatically changes American Middle East policy, it should consider that the Peres favored "moderate" Allon Plan continues to be Israeli policy. As formulated by its author and adhered to by successive Israel governments, it contains the following "moderate" elements:
* Seeking "maximum land with minimum Arabs"
* Annexes approximately 40% of the West Bank and Gaza, taking the choicest parts
* Dispossess Palestinians from land Israel wants for Jews
After Israel's attack in 1967, Yigal Allon presented to the cabinet a solution to the Arab problem. The Allon Plan called for annexing the following areas: "a strip of land ten to fifteen kilometers wide along the Jordan River; most of the Judean desert along the Dead Sea; and a substantial area around Greater Jerusalem, including the Latrun salient." The plan was crafted to include as few Arabs as possible in the area claimed for Israel and included building permanent colonies and army bases in these areas.
The two-state solution that Peres is trying to sell the American public and administration is a Palestinian "state" in 76.6% of the West Bank, carved up into sealed enclaves, with the largest of the 430 plus settlements/colonies remaining in place under Israeli sovereignty. Israel would take another 13.3% outright and continue to occupy the remaining 10.1% for a period of up to thirty years. During this period Israel would continue building new and expanding current settlement/colonies. The above percentages do not include the subtracted East Jerusalem and the territorial waters of the Dead Sea. In point of fact the 76% offer is based not on 100% of the occupied territories, but merely those parts that Israel was willing to discuss. Consequently, the "just and moral solution" President Peres favors would amount to slightly less than 16% of historic Palestine being given to those driven from their homes and land.
Peres claims Israel has worked tirelessly for peace. Yet the record is clear that Israel has only worked tirelessly for expansion at the expense of the indigenous Arab population while obstructing more than two-dozen "peace initiatives" over six decades, while targeting the Palestinian people, culture, and economy.
Peres claims in his op-ed that Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi agrees that Israel deserves Palestine and that "this is salient in his fundamental and central premise that the Jewish people want and deserve their homeland." Peres takes Qadaffi's words out of context and misrepresents his thesis, which in fact calls for one state shared by both peoples. Qadaffi insists that the Middle East welcomes Judaism but not racist Zionism. It is the latter which underpins the founding of Israel and which has led to history's condemnation.
As the President of Israel seeks yet more indulgence and largesse from the American taxpayers and the Obama administration, there is something he can do to shore up waning trust and waxing disillusionment with the two-state option. He can announce immediately that he fully accepts UN Security Council Resolution 242 and advocates the removal of all settlements and the total withdrawal of the Israeli military from the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel's President urges the American people and government to, "commit our most concerted effort to allow two states to flourish." Unless he and his fellow leaders of Israel are prepared, without further delay, to commit to a complete withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 armistice line, in a serious effort at peace, Israel will continue to lose American and international support and one state is the likely future for Palestine.
Israeli President Peres can avert his eyes from reality, but the Obama administration and the American people cannot afford this fatal delusion.
Franklin Lamb is author of the recently released book, The Price We Pay: A Quarter Century of Israel's Use of American Weapons in Lebanon. His volume Hezbollah: A Brief Guide for Beginners is due out soon. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com. Read other articles by Franklin.
TOWARDS THE SUSTENANCE AND THE ENHANCEMENT OF MUHIBAH
By: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kamar Oniah Kamaruzaman
Associate Professor Dr. Kamar Oniah Kamaruzaman is currently the President of the Interactive Muslimah Association (IMAN) and is a senior lecturer of Comparative Religion at the International Islamic University of Malaysia. This is a three-part article entitled “Towards the Sustenance and Enhancement of Muhibah”. This is the first part, “Understanding Religions”, the second part is “The Fundamentals of Religions” and the third part is “The Ethics of Religions”. Some parts of this work are extracted from her book Understanding Islam: Contemporary Discourse, published by Saba Islamic Media, Kuala Lumpur, 2007
Part I
Understanding Religions
Muhibah Eroding
These days, many Malaysians, like me, are quite disturbed by the direction that our multi-religious, multi-communal nation seems to be heading towards. There seems to be an atmosphere of high tension and restlessness of sorts, with provocations and agitations coming from various quarters, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, further aggravated by short-thinking and shortsightedness, by the mishandling of issues and the mismanagement of responsibilities and duties, to list some of the disturbing phenomena. Our otherwise harmonious and amiable social atmosphere seems to be roughened up and seriously challenged these days, and we seem to be inevitably drawn towards taking sides, this side or that, sometimes for no other reason then just to take sides. My concern is that the muhibah legacy that we have cherished and lived up to all these years seems now to be eroding away, undermined by our own zeal of sorts – a zeal that has no philosophy or principle to it except, perhaps, zeal itself.
The muhibah legacy is the legacy of our forefathers, and a personal legacy personally passed on to each and every one of us who call ourselves “Malaysians”, by our fore-parents who too call themselves “Malaysians”. They brought us up to be what we are today. Thus muhibah is not a legacy built by any one particular group – not a particular race, not a particular political party, not a particular thinker – no, but by everyone who claims and takes pride in being a Malaysian, past or present, each adding his or her bit to it. Hence, it is therefore people like us that should do our own bit, within the scope of our ability and capability, to promote and enhance muhibah. In so doing, not only do we honor the legacy of our forefathers but we also help to assure the continuance of a harmonious, peaceful nation for our heirs to live in tomorrow, not to mention that we too can have peace and well-being, alive as we are still today.
Though many are the reasons one may postulate as to why this state-of-unhappy-situation has thus developed, and all these postulates may be right too, in this write-up of mine, however, I hope to throw some light only on one issue, and that is the need for all of us, without exception, to be more aware of each other’s sensitivities, particularly religious and communal sensitivities. In this context, I would like to share with the readers some understanding of what each religion is, and means, to their adherents. Since my intention is to repair and certainly not to aggravate, I will not therefore state the name of any religion, believing that the reader is enlightened enough on the fundamentals of the religions to identify which comes under which, or if otherwise, there is no harm, and in fact, much good will be gained by reading further on the various religions in this country.
Conceptions of Religion
To begin with, each religion and religious community understands religion differently. Some look at religion as all-comprehensive and all-encompassing, covering every aspect of life and living, death and dying, the visible and the invisible, the celestial and the human, heavenly and earthly existences. For such religions, nothing is therefore outside the purview and the jurisdiction of religion, and therefore there is nothing such as non-religious matters and nothing such as non-religious concerns.
Some other religions, however, separate the spiritual from all others and relate only matters and affairs of the spiritual to religion while being silent on the non-spiritual aspects of life and living. These religions that separate the spiritual from all other matters come up with dichotomizing all matters and things into the religious and the non-religious compartments, and thereby drawing divides between the sacred and the profane, the spiritual and the temporal, the worldly and the other worldly.
Among those religions that separate the religious and spiritual from the non-religious and non-spiritual, they may also separate spiritual life from worldly life. Therefore some adherents of these religions may choose to live a life that is fully focused on spirituality and religious devotions, immersing themselves fully into the religious and spiritual matters of the religion, becoming devotees, or monks, or the elects. Even their sustenance is provided for by the laity or the other adherents.
Some other religions, on the other hand, narrow the scope of religion even further by allotting to religion only matters that are related to death and dying and the world of the dead while that of life and living are looked upon as completely non-religious matters. Thus the adherents of such religions do not associate affairs of the moment to be of religious concern or as spiritual matters.
Religions are also described or defined in different ways. Some religions are termed as revealed religions since everything in these religions is revealed through revelations from god to the prophets, and these revelations are now eternalized in the scriptures. Others are defined as historical religions since history played major roles in the formation of the religion, from their theologies to the doctrines and dogmas, as well as the rituals and rites. Some others are described as cultural religions since these religions grew out from the cultures of the communities.
Then there are also religions that are termed as local religions because they can only be practiced locally, needing local materials, local space and environment to carry out the rituals and rites. Other religions are ancestral by nature since they were passed down initially from the first ancestors, and these ancestors are worshipped along with other subsequent ancestors. Then there are those religions that prefer to be identified as spirituality rather then religions since the focus is on the upgrading of the spiritual aspects of the adherents rather than on the worship of the divine.
Religions are also said to be inclusive or exclusive. By inclusive is meant those religions that allow, and in some cases even invite, people to join them freely through the process of conversion into them. This is especially so with those religions that are missionary in nature. There are also those religions that are not missionary but nonetheless do welcome conversions into them, while some other religions however make conversion into them very difficult and confined only for the specially selected cases. Then again, there are those religions that allow conversions into them only, but not conversions out, and yet there are also those that allow both conversion in and conversion out quite easily.
Exclusive religions, however, are those religions that do not allow for conversion into them and the adherents therefore are only among those who are directly born into the religions. Thus such religions are also ethnocentric. The ancestral religions, although they are also a form of exclusive religion are, however, exclusive not because they do not allow others to join in but because it is not possible for others to join. This is because these ancestral religions involve the worship of the adherents’ ancestors and since there are no ancestors to worship in the religion, therefore conversion into them is not possible.
Another classification of religions is that of closed and the open-ended religions. By closed religions are meant those religions whose teachings are already fixed and determined at the very beginning of its history, and thus no new doctrines or dogmas are developed along the ages. Open-ended religions are however those religions that grew along with history, and are still growing. Religions in this category therefore allow for growth in their teachings, and even shedding off doctrines and dogmas considered out-dated or not relevant to the contemporary needs.
Thus religions not only mean many things to many people, but their nature and characters too are also quite different from each other. Likewise they are also defined and described in different ways. Moreover, each religion has its own identity and uniqueness, and thus the numerous religions existing in this world today, and the number is increasing with some groups of adherents in the religions breaking off to form new religions. Also, there are now active attempts by some people to synchronize religious teachings of a few religions into one and to form new religions out of this syncretism. Thus, despite the trendy view that modernism has ushered in a religion-free age, the signs are loud and clear that religions are far from being dead, and are in fact developing and on the increase.
On God and Divinity
The differences in perceptions on what religion is between the various religions and their communities, spring from the fact that the perception on god and divinity also differ from religion to religion. Some religions look on god as being the one and only, the creator of one and all, and with absolute authority over everybody and everything. For these religions, this creator god is worshipped, he and only he.
Among the religions that believe so, there are those who look at god as he is, in the absolute, and therefore will not accept any association whatsoever with him, nor any manifested forms of him, not even divisions of his divinity. Some others, however, look at this one and only god expressed in multiple manifested forms while some others in multiple expressions of his divinity. Yet, there are also some who see this one god dwelling in every one of his creations and creatures and therefore all existence is part of him, the divine, and is therefore sacred and holy.
Other religions, though also believing in a creator god, however look at this creator god as sharing power with other gods, and thereby specifying the jurisdiction of the creator god only to matters of creation and related matters. Other affairs such as the control on life-span and death-time, sustenance and maintenance of the world, good fortunes and bad fortunes, calamities and well-being, attending to specific needs of the adherents, among others, are under the jurisdictions and are the concerns and the responsibilities of other gods. As such, some of the adherents of such religions may worship the creator god while some others may worship the other gods, and some of such religions may also have concept of the personal god, customized to their personal needs.
Others see the many gods in hierarchical order, with the major gods at the higher hierarchy and the minor gods at the lower hierarchy, and a chief god above all of them. Then there are also those religions that believe in numerous gods and spirits, each responsible for different aspects of nature and of life. There are also religions that elevated the spirits of their ancestors and great people to the status of gods and so are worshipped.
Then yet again, there are also religions that do not even believe in the existence of a creator god or any god or spirit at all. Among such religions, there are also those which do not even believe in supernatural existence, the realm of the unseen, and even the existence of the soul, human, non-human or even the divine, not even in the Hereafter.
God or the divine is also understood in different ways. Some religions understand god to be loving, just, and forgiving, while some others believe that god is austere and strict. God is also described as a personal god in that god is approachable through the rituals and will respond to the call of people. Some of these religions even say that god is active in their history, maneuvering turns of events to be in their favor. Others however understand that god is aloof and is above all forms of human contact so much so that the adherents turn to lesser beings for help.
Worship and Rituals
It follows from this explanation therefore, that the worship of god or the gods, as the case may be, the doctrines and dogmas, and the rituals and rites, depend on how the divine is perceived in the religions. Some religions will not accept the representation of god or divinity in any form whatsoever. Some religions are so strict on the issue of representation that they even forbid the discussions about god because discussions are also a form of representation, that is, a verbal representation, they say.
On the other hand, other religions, however, insist that representations are necessary for visual impact, as a visual symbol of the divine transcendent, without which god and divinity will be too transcendent and too remote for the human mind to grasp, they say; thus the idols. Similarly, the anthropomorphic nature of god is said by some religions to be necessary to help man relate their gods to their real-life situations. Some other religions say that plastic and pictorial representation of exact form and stature are forbidden but it is all right to have symbols as reminders of divinity and spirituality; hence the icons, the images and the symbols.
These differences also lead to the differences in the forms of worship of god or the divine, namely the rituals and the rites and other religious practices and observances. Some religions, as stated, forbid any symbol in their worships while some have idols, and some have icons and images. Likewise, some religions have very regulated, structured forms of worship while others however have only informal and personalized religious observations. Forms of worship are translated into practice in the form of the rituals and the rites such as the prayers, the meditations, the pilgrimages, the fasting, etc., as well as the various religious duties and observances. Because of these differences, what are thus forbidden in certain religions may however be necessary to some other religions.
Authority and Point of Reference
As varied also is the conception as to what constitute authority of a religion, that is, what is regarded as the reference point or the point of decision of a religion. Certainly, and in general, the authority is in god but what represents god’s words, wills and wishes also differ from religion to religion.
For some religions, the authority is the scripture and nothing else, whereas for some others it is the scripture as well as the prophets and their traditions. Other religions have the scriptures, the traditions of their holy men and the insights and wisdom of their contemporary spiritual leaders as the authorities of their religions. There are also those religions that have human authority rather than documented authorities, taking these persons of religion as the representatives and spokesmen of god.
For those religions that separate the religious from the non-religious, they also have officers taking care of religious matters and concerns separated from those who are responsible for worldly affairs. Hence, there is one institution for religious matters and other institutions for the non-religious matters. The religious institution has its own well defined jurisdiction and well established structures, together with its own class and hierarchy of officers groomed and educated to handle matters related to their functions and duties.
In such cases, the persons or institution are often regarded as infallible. Some religions regard them infallible in all matters, while some regard them to be infallible only in those areas that are related to their jurisdiction. As such these persons and institutions lead, guide and direct their communities regarding all religious matters and concerns. They are therefore to be obeyed and their orders and directives are to be complied with, and disobedience to them tantamount to serious wrongs or are regarded as sinful and even as acts of rebellions.
As for those religions that focus only on the death and the dying issues, they narrow the jurisdiction of the religious officers even further to being just administrators and officers administering rituals and rites and all death-related matters. Such officers therefore are invited into the lives of the adherents only at such times as when their services are duly needed. For these religions, although matters related to daily conduct are looked upon as non-religious concerns, the adherents however do have a serious understanding of right and proper conduct, wrong and bad behavior and thus have an operative or workable code of personal, family and social ethics, of roles, duties and responsibilities. How such behavior and duties are imposed upon the individual is through the proper upbringing and through social sanctions, and not so much as through a specific institution or officers of religion to watch over their implementation.
Truth and Rationality
Then there is the matter on how to understand truth in religion. Some religions insist that religion must be rational and therefore consider rationality and rational truth as essential and part of the religion. For such religions, what is irrational therefore cannot be accepted as truth in religion and religious matter. For these religions there should therefore be consistency to truth, or to put it briefly, if it is true rationally then it should be true religiously, and if it is unacceptable rationally, then it should also be unacceptable religiously.
Some other religions however consider that rationality is not necessary for religion and religious matters because for these religions, rationality pertains to the domain of the intellect and the mind, whereas religion and spirituality pertains to the domain of the heart and the soul. Since each is of a different domain therefore the instrument to measure truth in each domain should be different too, they say. For the intellect and the mind, rationality and rational proofs are the instruments but for the heart and soul, faith and belief are the instruments, they say. These religions therefore may uphold a dual concept of truth, namely, rational truth and religious truth, and the two truths may not be parallel to each other, and in fact may even be quite contradictory to each other.
Then again there are also those religions that are not even bothered about matters of truth; they just believe as they understand how their elders believe and they perform the rituals, rites and other religious necessities as they see these performed by their elders. For these religions, religion is therefore in the performance and observance of it rather than in the thinking about it.
Myths
Another colorful and interesting point to note is the position of the so-called religious myths. Though some religions reject strongly the concept and belief in myths and regarding these as unreal, make-beliefs and superstitions, yet what is deemed as mythical from the perspective of one religion is however regarded as realities and the truth in another religion. These so-called “myths” particularly pertain to those events related to matters on the origin of humanity and creation, namely, the events of creations. Although these matters are over and beyond a person’s personal experiences, yet people do know that they come into this life only at a particular time. The question that they want to know and be answered therefore are, where were they before this, and where will they be after this life, or is there no beginning and no ending at all. Indeed, all religions attempt to answer these questions in one way or another.
Religions explain human existence before the present through the stories of creation and the events of origin, and since each religion has different stories and events to relate, therefore there are also different perceptions to the origin of humanity and of all others. However, there are stories of origin that are similar across some religions although these may be presented in different versions. In some cases, a religion although rejecting and dismissing those stories of creation that are not consistent with its own as real and true, nonetheless may acknowledge these as part of the religious beliefs of other religions. There are, however, some religions that dismiss and reject completely the stories of creation of other religions, regarding their own perceptions to be the one and only authentic version and therefore dismissing off other religions’ versions as myths, narratives and make-beliefs only.
If indeed creation events are to be regarded as mythical, then all religions therefore have myths since all religions offer some form of explanations about the origin of humanity and everything else. However, religions do not regard such stories and other narratives as found in their scriptures and holy books as myths and therefore untrue. On the contrary, these were real events that took place somewhere and sometime very far away in human history, and for the creation events, they took place at the very beginning of human history itself.
Understanding Each Other
Such being the different perceptions on religion, divinity and authority, it goes without saying therefore that each religious community has its own worldview and thought-patterns, its own value systems and sensitivities, its own definitions and positions. It is indeed most unbecoming, and in fact is even wrong and uncalled for, for any person or any community to project, let alone imposes, upon another person or another community his or their very own perceptions, preferences and sensitivities, faulting another or the others over what he or they themselves do not uphold, or regard as right or wrong.
In fact in a multi-religious and multi-communal society, such acts may even be deemed to be mischievous in intention and can be provocative and even pose a challenge to the harmonious relationship and the amiable social atmosphere of the nation. The crux of the matter is that different people think differently and comprehend their religions differently, and are therefore sensitive and responsive to matters and issues in different ways. Understanding this fact is of paramount importance in a multi-religious nation if the healthy and harmonious relationship among the various communities is to be sustained and hopefully, enhanced.
In fact, appropriate behavior and proper conduct vis-à-vis other people and other communities are well outlined by all religions. Indeed, religions are not only about faith, belief and spirituality, or only about relationship of the persons with god and the divine. Religion is also about relationships with people, about how to respect and accommodate people, agreeable or disagreeable these people may be. This relationship is called ethics, and together with the guidelines on proper conduct, namely the etiquettes, they form the inter-personal dimension of the religion. Therefore, whereas all matters of faith and spiritual concerns and relationship with god are intra-personal matters, all matters related to relationship with others are however, inter-personal matters.
Working Together
It is at the level of ethics or the inter-personal dimension that people relate to people as fellow human beings, and for some religions, the concept of common parentage makes all humanity of one family. Thus all religions therefore lay emphasis on ethics or patterns of behavior and many also detail out how to behave appropriately with each other, and this is called “etiquettes”. Through ethics come social discipline and co-ordination, and subsequently, the development of a social order. With a firm and developed social order, a society is formed and through societies, states, nations and civilizations grow and flourish.
It is at the level of ethics that religious communities can truly work together and where adherents can engage with each other to promote a nation of goodwill and a country of good citizens. Such an enterprise is most urgently needed today in view of the amounting social problems looming in front of us today, problems that are immense, complicated and real, very real indeed. Rather then getting entangled and be entangled in complexities of ideas, why don’t we move in the direction of harnessing the beautiful and pragmatic ethics that each of our religion spells out so that life at the social level can be better lived.
For such co-operations to take place, and for our multi-religious, multi-communal nation to move smartly forward, peace and well-being is essential, and so also trust and confidence in each other as fellow citizens. For this to take place, certain cardinal principles or formulae for pluralistic living need therefore to be appreciated, learned and ingrained within society.
The first cardinal principle for pluralistic life is that not to interfere in intra-religious and intra-communal affairs of the other communities. Indeed, no community appreciate outsiders to teach them how to believe or how to think vis-à-vis their own religion and affairs. Such an act will open the Pandora box for retaliations and counter actions, of challenges and counter-challenges. Religion is a sensitive matter and retaliations are sure to come and retaliations, as the nature of retaliations goes, often lead to further complexities. Thus, in the interest of peace, harmony and happiness in a multi-religious and multi-communal, restrain must be observed not to interfere and intrude in matters and concerns of other religions and their communities.
That there are problems at hand in this nation, that is undeniable; hence the atmosphere of general discontent and restlessness among certain quarters. To mention one item - the grouses on injustices and the miscarriage of justice – these are real situations indeed. Truly, there can never be peace and well being without justice because injustices give a bitter taste to life and discolor the normal perspectives of those deprived of it. However, these issues should be taken at the level of justice, not at the level of religious or communal divides.
So important is justice in human life that it is not surprising therefore that almost all religions entrusted their adherents to be just and fair, and in fact, even to be kind, compassionate and magnanimous, to all and sundry, regardless what the beliefs and preferences of the others are. Justice is thus a divine mandate. For this purpose, it is necessary therefore that the concept of justice and its application be well understood if justice is indeed to be carried out appropriately and justly. It is only when justice is duly established that society will feel at ease and with that comes peace and security, harmony and happiness, and with these, muhibah is instituted.
Understanding and Defining Muhibah
It should be understood that muhibah is not simply tolerance, no. In truth, “tolerance” is an inappropriate word because it is awfully inadequate to capture the whole meaning and nuances of muhibah, let alone the spirit of it. This is because the very word “tolerance” implies a forced and an imposed acceptance of the other or of something that is not particularly liked and agreeable to the person. There is also an air of condescendence, and even of snobbery and arrogance, on the part of the person who is obliged to tolerate the other, that he feels he is stooping down to accept the other, as if to do a favor to the other. At the other end, the person tolerated certainly will not feel nice about it, let alone feel dignified or duly respected. He will feel that he is unworthy or not up to standard, so much so that he is only being tolerated by the other. This is surely an unbecoming social situation, bad at the communal and national level, and even worse in a family setting. Thus, inherent within the word “tolerance” is a superiority-inferiority status of relationship, i.e., superiority on the person who is tolerating the other, and inferiority on the part of the person tolerated. Tolerance also indicates an element of obligation and entails a form of compulsion. As such, tolerance is actually a sort of pretence, and is therefore an insincere and a fake relationship. Surely, and indeed, tolerance is not the legacy that our founding fathers passed on to us. This is because at the essence of it, tolerance is actually, as explained, an inadequate concept, and is in fact even a distasteful philosophy from which to build a strong, firm and resilient social relationship. This is particularly so for a pluralistic society like a country like Malaysia where social relationship is the very essence of its existence and survival.
Muhibah is also not an act or a deed, a one time or a few times good deeds done for the other. That muhibah encompasses good and chivalrous deeds too, that is of course both true and necessary. But muhibah is not merely an act or a few isolated deeds but rather muhibah is a spirit, a spirit of togetherness, a culture of sincere and appreciative co-existence with sensitivity towards fellow citizens and fellow beings, a kinship and a fellowship among the people of this nation, Malaysia. Muhibah is therefore based on willing and sincere acceptance of the other, of genuine respect for the other, of the kinship of citizens. Indeed, in Malaysia, it is muhibah that is our legacy, our spirit and our culture – not mere tolerance.
The history of muhibah in this nation is colorful indeed, a history of beautiful deeds and noble sacrifices, a history of intelligent and sensitive co-existence, of togetherness in trying and challenging times, of give and take, of unity in multiplicity. Above all, muhibah is in fact a history of the judicious common sense and of the pragmatic wisdom, of simple sincerity and genuine humaneness of this nation. And muhibah is the history of our beloved nation, Malaysia.
That we have faulted once or twice is also a part of our muhibah history, and these are our invaluable lessons too and ought to be revisited now and again for we surely do not want such incidences to recur. So precious is muhibah to this country that we surely cannot take it lightly. Let us be reminded that it is in the nature of legacies that if ignored, the legacy will fade away and expire. If this is to happen to muhibah, then we may lose it and thus lose not only a legacy but also the very spirit of Malaysia. Indeed, it is muhibah that makes Malaysia, Malaysia.
Certainly, muhibah is not just a legacy to this nation; muhibah is the foundation for the survival of this nation. Without muhibah, Malaysia will not be what it is today, and we will not be what we are today. More importantly, without muhibah, Malaysia may not even exist anymore, at least not as it is today. Thus this legacy of muhibah is not to be taken for granted. Not only should it be sustained, but it should also be enhanced and be expanded. Certainly we cannot afford to lose it because without muhibah, Malaysia will not be Malaysia. For in truth, it is muhibah that makes Malaysia, Malaysia.
5 Feb 2010 -
IIUM will be organising a talk on kalimah Allah on Feb 5. Muslimin and muslimat are invited to join the program.
Who's Reading
From the President's Desk
I woke up before fajr this morning with a thought over Faridah's mail. In my previous two mails, I had explained to some details why I strongly believe not to get into a tango with people whose mission is to revise Islam for their own specific purposes, humiliate our 'ulama' and discredit mainstream Muslims....
(Click to read more)
In the context of the Nation, the Constitution is to the Nation as the scriptures are to the religions. Like the scriptures of religion, the Constitution is the very foundation of the Nation. It is the single most important factor that makes the Nation what it is. It is also the factor that gives the Nation its identity and also gels up the individuals and the communities into a Nation.
These days, many Malaysians, like me, are quite disturbed by the direction that our multi-religious, multi-communal nation seems to be heading towards. There seems to be an atmosphere of high tension and restlessness of sorts, with provocations and agitations coming from various quarters, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, further aggravated by short-thinking and shortsightedness, by the mishandling of issues and the mismanagement of responsibilities and duties, to list some of the disturbing phenomena. Our otherwise harmonious and amiable social atmosphere seems to be roughened up and seriously challenged these days, and we seem to be inevitably drawn towards taking sides, this side or that, sometimes for no other reason then just to take sides. My concern is that the muhibah legacy that we have cherished and lived up to all these years seems now to be eroding away, undermined by our own zeal of sorts – a zeal that has no philosophy or principle to it except, perhaps, zeal itself.
Conceptions of Religion
Then there are also religions that are termed as local religions because they can only be practiced locally, needing local materials, local space and environment to carry out the rituals and rites. Other religions are ancestral by nature since they were passed down initially from the first ancestors, and these ancestors are worshipped along with other subsequent ancestors. Then there are those religions that prefer to be identified as spirituality rather then religions since the focus is on the upgrading of the spiritual aspects of the adherents rather than on the worship of the divine.
