MPA hearing on Terrorism

[Guest guest]

Metropolitan Police Authority's hearing with faith communities held in London on 7th September

 

 

Lord Toby Harris chaired this London Debate on Counter-terrorism. Both the Deputy Chairs of Metropolitan Police Authority were present to facilitate the debate. The hidden agenda of the meeting seemed to be to explore how the police can continue with its fight on terrorism without unduly upsetting the Muslim community.

 

I had been asked to offer a Hindu perspective. As this was supposed to be a frank discussion I took the liberty of offering some critical comments. I suggested that even though there are many who are keen to suggest that Terrorism is the outcome of injustice in the Middle East and should be blamed on politics, this is nonsense. If this was a political issue, then there are political tools in place that can address such issues; blowing up innocent people is certainly not one of them! This issue has arisen in the name of religion and only a religious solution can diffuse the serious threat it poses for the whole of humanity. Religions are a very potent force, either we harness them for the greater good or they can run riot in our society.

 

The way the authorities are trying to address this issue is by 'toning down religions' and asking people of faiths to put greater emphasis on 'common humanity', hoping that this will diminish the threat of violence. Though this seems to be a clever thing to do it is guaranteed to fail. An issue that has arisen in the name of religion requires a resolution that comes from religion, else it will keep resurfacing and we have to resign ourselves to live from one critical alert to another!

 

I bluntly commented that the resolution does not lie within the exclusivist ideologies of the Abrahamic faiths but within the Indic traditions. Religious Pluralism of the Hindus is the resolution. Hinduism does not like language like 'tolerate other religions, neither is it too keen on the wordings often used in modern interfaith dialogue: 'show respect for other religions' as this is patronising approach. What we want to see is acceptance that there can be many different ways of making spiritual progress. These include theistic, non-theistic and even the non-religious modes. This is what pluralism means. Only when religious pluralism is invoked and infused in our society through the education system can we hope to make religions the cohesive force in our society. Such ideas have to be pro-actively promoted in the field of religious education. This is the only long term solution. We need to have faith. Not faith in a God, but faith in mankind's capacity of making sensible judgements after receiving such wholesome education.

 

Lord Toby asked, "What can the police do?" I replied, "The police can open the door to Ruth Kelly's office so that we can take these ideas into the Home Office. So far the projects of community cohesion the Home office has been encouraging are cosmetic exercises. They are like bandaging the leg when the arm is bleeding, guaranteed to fail!

 

jay

Vivekananda Centre London

 

[Guest guest]

Excellent response Jay. There is no point blaming an entire religion for the wrongs committed by a certain group of people. Many religions in a certain period of time have have been tarnished by the practices of the people following that religion. For instance, Judaism gave birth to Christianity, and Hinduism- Buddhism and Jainism.

The only way to address this issue is to make people first understand their own religion, rather than finding fault with the rest

 

Regards,

Nithiya

 

 

 

Ramakrishna [Ramakrishna ] On Behalf Of Vivekananda CentreFriday, September 08, 2006 6:16 AMramlist; vivlist[sri Ramakrishna] MPA hearing on Terrorism

 

 

 

 

Metropolitan Police Authority's hearing with faith communities held in London on 7th September

 

 

 

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