Religion is not a race. It’s a believe
system. Nobody is born with, or into, a religion – if so then it is a violation
of child’s right and restriction on humanity, a persistent threat. People are born
into a race, into a region, into a gender. As societies evolve even these shouldn’t
matter. Race, region or gender are insignificant in evolved society. What matters
is worth of human. Worth of every life. Diversity then will be diversity of
understanding, ideas, thoughts and expressions that contribute for better realisation.
Whoopi Goldberg is right when she
asserts that holocaust "was not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to
man" or rather human being’s inhumanity to another human being. We shouldn’t forget that women
were also equally active member and facilitators of Nazis. Nazis "deemed Jews to be an inferior
race" doesn't make it a race issue. Surely what Nazis “deemed”
shouldn’t be point of reference for any discussion at all. Almost all Europeans
in 1930s were Caucasians. So, it’s clearly about religion being used to perpetrate
and justify genocide. The narration must be about how religion is the cause of
misery, and how Nazis used it to create myths hence enemies among friends and neighbours.
It shows the hold of religion and fiction on psyche of people that they could
condone murder and extermination of innocent people whom they knew. It’s the depth
of depravity and must be recognised with all its cruelties and facts. If ever Ms.
Goldberg can be faulted it could be the tone (“it’s about them the white people”),
and that accusation too is tenuous. She was just asserting the facts. We live
in crude, crass and increasingly polarized world where nuances get lost in the
din. Also, the attempts at hyperbolic extrapolation of events in 2022 to 1930s
is dangerous distraction. The world has evolved much since 1930s in a way that
was unthinkable even few decades back. Few Nazis in some corner of USA is now
flashed all across the world. The contemporary complexities are different.
Likes of Trump (one feels violated to even mention his name) were mollycoddled
and nurtured by greedy crass media looking for eyeball catching histrionics without
any concern for repercussions. While people were too tired of mainstream
politicians manipulating and using correct meaningless words while they sided
with rich and powerful, and status quoist abuse and lack of innovative
involvement in systemic exploitations. That this con artist carries on blatantly
despite breaking law many times shows how much the deep state is compromised. The
role of dark web and BigTech were also not taken seriously (the gravity of which
the policy makers at the highest level must have been briefed). Attention seeking
manipulative algorithms have polarized and degraded democracies all across the
world. They have severely undermined critical thinking, subjectified facts and framework
for sane discussion or communication. While billionaires becoming richer during
pandemic points to serious flaw in the system. Climate catastrophes seems to be
least of concern indicating even bigger existential malaise.
Religion
is not race. It cannot be. It’s important to be aware of semantics used and
narrative control, the context and complexities, and repercussion on
contemporary world. Racism is an important matter and shouldn’t to be diluted. It
has serious repercussion on contemporary world. There is an attempt to sanctify
and fossilize religions into race hence identity. It’s a gross human right
violation and imminent threat to humanity.
