Gity Yousafi on religious violence. She asks a fundamental question that is increasing in importance in today's world - can religion and violence co-exist?
This is a question; can violence and religion be together? Can’t violence destroy the religion?
The violence belongs to human, when show it self that intellect is silent and doesn’t work. How ever human be near to the first period of life, is more rough and harsh. Violence is not a simple phenomenon in human life; it has religious, social, cultural, political, and economical aspect.
Ignorance and intellect are two different things, if ones come other goes. Where is the ignorance it is no place for intellect and where is intellect it is no place for ignorance. We had and experienced violence in our life in the past. For example when a girl born they killed her or made her as a slave, it is belonging to the state of the Arabs before Mohammad.
Now days also we have in our society, for example in Norestan province and some other places in Afghanistan, how ever they don’t kill her but they make her a salve that must work until she die.
Family’s violence is a lot in our society, that cases forced marriages, self-immolation, and some other things. Last year we had 150 women and girls they suicide and burn their self in Heart. What should we do for these women and girls? All these are happen because of family’s violence.
Now I want to say about religion.
We have two kind of religion: Ignorant religion and divine religion.
- Ignorant Religion: that believe violence is belong to human, and it is a kind of religion that human is itself creature. For example if we see people that they life far from cities that most of them are illiterate, in this case some of our Mullas they preach something that it has benefit for them they never say about the Islam correctly and the people believe them and do it, they think that they are holy persons every thing that they say it is right.
- 2- Divine Religion: depend to human intellect and try to spread the intellect in human body until the ignorance doesn’t find in human body. Divine religion is intellectual religion, in this religion humans can be comfort and make a great life for them self. Fortunately now a day in our society it increase and make people aware and wake them that they were sleep in their ignorance.
I am very happy that most of the people try to flee from ignorance and they try to be educated. I hope one day my country and its people have a good life with out and war and violence.
Gity Yousafi, Herat, Afghanistan