Reaction to CNN’s God’s Warriors Report
First, this post is a tribute to Christiane Amanpour and the staff of CNN who deserved a compliment for an excellent report that put into perspective the issues that matter to us and the world in general, or as CNN puts it, "the battle between politics and piety". Second, this is not a rehash of that episode but rather, putting forth my views regarding the issue.
In general, all events that happened, are happening and will happen in the future are due to human complexity. And if you will include the religious point of view, events are due to human complexity and God. But if we zoom in on one particular issue (and in this case, the special report itself), we can narrow down the forces that are in interplay and that is politics, religion, ethics and morality. Man’s views on how to balance these forces in the context of his environment largely bring about the craze and explosive action we are seeing now and into the future.
Zoom in further and we are down to two forces namely secularism and the religious extremism point of view.
The way I see it, the Jewish and Muslim warriors’ episodes focus on the Jewish/Muslimconflict since time immemorial, while the Christian warriors’ episode focus on the conflict between secularism and religious extremism in the US. Both episodes share a common denominator and it is the US. Could it be that the US play a dramatic role in these two conflicts? The answer is yes but that is a different topic worthy of another discussion.
The first two episodes feature the Jewish/Muslim conflict, and it is pure religious extremism and politics combined slugging it out against each other. The 1967 Six-Day War along with US support of Israel can be considered the seeds of the modern conflict that is existing up to this day. While the US is against the Israeli settlement (considered as the most contested piece of real estate in history according to one interviewee), the United Nations has not done much to resolve this conflict decisively. And the radical Muslims who resort to terrorism make the issue more difficult, more diabolical, and more complicated.
So why not just abandon violence and create a land for the Palestinians with equitable arrangements for all sectors concerned? Well, that’s what the diplomats have been doing all along but up to now, unfortunately, it is that much human complexity that is the enemy.
The third episode, on the other hand, is about the battle between secularism (among the political and scientific community) and religious extremism (among the various sects of Christianity) in the United States. Secularism along with materialism advocate the principles of atheism, pro-abortion, same-sex marriage, pre-marital sex, evolution, alcoholism, and divorce. Whereas the religious extremism are fighting tooth and nail to counter the effects of advocacies of secularism, US politics needs to balance these two forces without tipping the scales against ethics and morality.
So having said that, these are my views:
1) The separation of government and religion must be upheld at all times but we need to push the ethical and moral issues to the polical table. Ethics and morality should take precedence before politics.
2) Politics should remain neutral on issues as much as possible, but human dynamics being complex in itself, it is important that the principle of check-and-balance is taking place all the time.
3) Politics is supposed to be government service. Who’s going to be responsible if the President commits a mistake? Who is going to check the Legislative? The Judiciary will have a final say but who is going to check the Judiciary and be held accountable if it makes a mistake?
Anyone have answers or views? Your comments are welcome.