I have just concluded 286 pages of “God is not Great: How religion
poisons everything” by Christopher Hitchens, it has proven to be quite
illuminating. Of course I’m not an atheist like him, having being raised
the way I was, I’m quite certain some values have stuck with me, I
suspect more out of upbringing than the weekly forced dragging to the
cathedral, through those forced weekly repetitions though, I have
retained some Pavlovian conditioning, namely fear of Hell, I suspect
some behavioral modifications occurred also, why else will I get
chickenhearted about atheism, unconvinced about agnosticism and too
scared to be an apostate.
I suspect my consternation for hell is also a result of this, I
will however give more credit to a dedicated father, a relatively
stable family life and a home library full of books, some role models,
Gods helping hand and of course later in life, college radicalization
Later in life though, Karma has being my faithful and indolent
refuge, it tends to work for me, in addition to the occasional fear of
hell, I will pick up my Bible occasional. I have to confess, I have read
the Koran (Lazily), albeit like the Bible I find both of them extremely
contradictory and equally confusing, not like the proverbial convenient
“do unto others as you expect other to do unto you”.
See how undemanding that was!
Any given Sunday (or Friday) the same question nags at me every
time, how come these people are not equally passionate about their
governance as they are about their “religion”?
Any given Sunday (or Friday) is/are the most confusing day/s for me in
Africa. I have to say, its one of those few occasions I wish I had the
intellectual answers like Avicenna, C.S Lewis and Kwame Gyekye all
rolled into one.
I read a Gallup written piece that tried to analyze religiosity on a
country by country basis, as part of the analysis, the Gallup poll was
conducted about religion and everyday life, the question was and I quote
“Is religion a part of your daily life?”
The answers of course were not too surprising, Egypt, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, Indonesia, Congo, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Senegal, Djibouti, all
polled 100% (Egypt) to 98% (Djibouti).
To clarify, 100% to 98% of people polled in those countries said religion was a part of their daily life.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the same question was posed to
people from Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Czech Republic,
Azerbaijan, Hong Kong, Japan, France, and Belarus, “Is religion a part
of your daily life? “All polled from 14% (Estonia) to 27% (Belarus).
What is the commonality in the countries with the high levels of
religiosity (with 1 exception of course) and the countries with low
levels of religiosity? Azerbaijan was definitely a surprise for me,
especially being close to Iran.
One could intimate various witty interpretations based on the polls alone, as a matter of fact,
I find one irresistible, What the Hell (Excuse me) will I be doing in
Congo, if Denmark was a sure thing and conducive to my skin Color? Not a
damn thing!
Maybe it’s the world class health care system or the $62,000 nominal GDP
or the lack of wars or tribal conflicts or the free “world class”
education or the fact that Denmark was ranked in 2009 as the most
peaceful country in the world (Global Peace Index) or the egalitarian
nature of its society or the fact that its people are more interested in
their quality of life than chasing the almighty Krone 24/7?
One of the questions Christopher Hitchens posed was “Does religion
make people behave better”? I have my own non scientific retort drawn
from various life engagements, I suspect you know this too, but I’m
keeping them clandestine for now, or am I?
Because of Hitchens atheism, it is easy to dismiss his inquisition to
having an anti climatic conclusion, but his examples proved very
challenging. The crusades, southern USA Christian behavior during
Jim-Crow, religious right “Christian” support for Apartheid, the Hindu
caste system, Joseph Kony and the Lords resistance army, the madmen in
SWAT valley, Sudan Muslim north versus Sudan Christian south, the
overwhelmingly Christian Rwanda and genocide, catholic priests and boys,
Sharia and barbarism, he had in me, a congregation after a while.
Where exactly is the common sense of people that they fail to see the
hypocrisy in the people they call leaders or elder or ovasheeare
(overseers), bishops, prelate, pralate, imam, caliph and what other
agnomen they go by? Any given Sunday (or Friday) is always problematic
for me. The costumes, the Gele (Head Gear), the cars (They sure bring
them out), the inconveniences they go through, the devotion to the
inconveniences, the religiosity and consistency of those days, the
devotion, all the energy? The vigils, the isho oru, s (night prayers).
I once encountered a “prayer warrior” (in Nigeria) whose devotees I
observed were mostly working class, market women, laborers, low income
civil servants, all with no qualms giving away their life savings, and
yet in the not too distant past when I accidentally(not really) visited a
high brow estate in the US of A, I was taken to a house whose security
alone would make Muhammad Abacha envious, no I’m not talking about
Creflo dollar, this one is a Nigerian (Tunde) with the habit of
prophesying and equally adjusting the prophesy as they became
unfulfilled, the house had about 8 bedrooms, I had to hide my disgust as
they were friends of a friend.
The prayer warrior owned the house. This Overseer has a habit of
picking up fights and abusing a certain retired general cum head of
state cum president cum failed president. He had no qualms though about
putting all his children abroad having the best things in life on the
back of his faithful stocks.
This shameless overseer had no qualms about taking religiously all
his stocks money, buying a million dollar home and yet the nerve to want
to give blessing and prayer fight, I find the comedy ironical.
Another “respected” overlord just purchased a plane on the back of
his poor stocks, another insane one decided he hated everything western
including its education (Hence Boko Haram), yet had fleets of SUV’s and
21st century communications gadgets, and a big bank account to match.
There is another one in the UK who has mastered the art of marketing,
to visit the East-End in London is to appreciate the ever dependable
power of salesmanship, the marketing, the requests for souls, don’t be
30 minutes late to Shaavish (Service), good luck to you finding a
parking space.
What in gods name is wrong with these people? You know I can go on
with examples from Idahosa to Oritshejafor to Reverend Ike, there is not
enough space to cite the ever powerful owners of Sunday (and Fridays)
What I cant understand is the people that follow them, the educated,
supposedly enlightened, well traveled, well read.
Some I have to admit are my friends, every minute, Let us Pray, we thank god, to god be the glory, god will do it.
I understand cynically that they are looking the elusive expressway
to heaven? One can sardonically understand the practicality of it. Those
who you might say are basically looking for a Sunday to Sunday
cleansing of the 6 days of constant sin; you know the rich, the corrupt,
the compromised, and the child ritualist cum church builders cum lay
readers cum mosque custodians. I mean, like the catholic (Mafia) I once
observed in a movie killing people during the week and religiously
confessing on Sundays, Slate wiped clean, maybe?
Not these raggedy looking ones though, looking like life is living
them than the other way round, dying to get there, leaving work early,
singing harmoniously in rickety commercial buses on their way to
“revival”, looking for the ever elusive miracle, the holy water, the
manna from heaven, at the expense of everything else, abandoning the
practical, the certain, like say for instance LIBERTY!.
I remember in my younger days, coming up in the corporate world,
aggressive and (not toot my own horn), hardworking; I visited a high
brow zip code in the anticipation of making a sales presentation in the
zip code. I encountered a house that had a dollar sign on the gates,
white, immaculate lawn, unpretentious in its ostentatious ness; I just
had to ask who lived there?
A pastor of course, on whose money, on what salary?, By what moral code?
Would Jesus live there? Needless to say, my moral code prevented a
knock at the gates, I swiftly moved on.
This was not my first encounter with the ironies, I once had a popular
US “overseer” in my office with a bag full of cash and I thought, would
it not be easier if he just wrote a check for the transaction, but then I
put 2 and 2 together-→Paper Trail! Somebody’s ten % is being misused?
See, this is why I prefer the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, the Red
Crescent, the occasional alms given, my direct involvement in my
benefaction, I like the empirical.
Anyway, back to earth, in addition to getting bemused any given
Sunday (or Friday), as a political junkie, I often get bemused when the
so called “religious right” of the United States gets on its self
righteous podium castigating Iran, Saudi Arabia and other perceived
“regressive regimes” and yet all things considered, I find out that
intolerant religious zealots mostly in the southern USA have more in
common with the Mullahs who find themselves about 300 centuries behind
in applications of medieval religious doctrines.
The Gallup poll went ahead to compare religiosity on a state by state
level in the US of A, naturally the most religious states were the
worst humans to be around, here is the break down, “Is religion a part
of your daily life?, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee,
Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma, all polled from 85% (Mississippi) to
75% (Oklahoma). 85 to 75% said yes religion was an integral part of
their daily lives, we know about their open mindedness and
progressiveness, especially Mississippi 40 years ago, such lovely
people! Guess which countries polled exactly? Iran, Zimbabwe, Lebanon,
Romania and Iraq, of course you’ll like to live there?
The same poll, shifted north, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon,
Washington, Rhode Island, all polled, 42% to 53% said it was part of their daily lives.
Guess which countries polled exactly? Switzerland, South Korea, Taiwan, Slovakia, Singapore and Austria and Montenegro,
Any given Friday (or Sunday) above the Lokoja confluence is another reckonable bustle,
Kano and Abuja are my favorites, all the energy, the array, the
allegiance, the symphony in the movement, THE POWER, THE POTENTIAL, the
faithfulness, If you doubt, say something critical of the Koran, your
doubts will be erased instantaneously.
I wonder loud, If 50% of the energy could be tapped and constituted
into a form of civic enlightenment. An enlightenment that might lead to
an outrage?,
What is been preached in this mosques and churches that these followers
do not see their own collusion in being indifferent and passive about
their own country?
Will manna from heaven just fall and change their situations without
them taking matters into their own hands? The Hadith and the testaments
say it loud and clear, it’s all in your own hands!
Why would you burn your neighbor’s house and refuse to take action
against the Imam or the pastor that fails to lead by the example he
preaches? How can you inconvenience yourself financially and deprive
yourself trying to do the Hajj, come back to the only country you know
and do nothing about the oppressor you see everyday riding with convoys
and police security?
When I read Thomas Frank’s book, “What the matter with Kansas”, a
book that tapped into the irony of appealing to peoples religious
sentiments (among other things) and enabled them to do things against
their own interests, while doing absolutely nothing about the issues
that brought about those sentiments.
I came out of it, thinking , at least they (USA) have the luxuries of
a developed society, a working government (For the most part), a
functioning government, a technologically advanced society, good
elementary schools, good high schools, good higher educational systems,
good roads, a functioning economy, an orderly transfer of power,
consistent uninterrupted power supply,
What’s our excuse?
Any given Friday (or Sunday) is a day of contradiction for me in the
North, but I love the north, I love the landscape, the food, the
language, What I hate on Fridays is the untapped Friday potential, when I
see the numbers and the people potential. When I travel to Lagos from
Ibadan and I get past Shagamu, Sundays are not a good day for me, the
denseness, the heftiness, the monstrous and cyclopean, Fire on the
mountain, redeemers redemption, holy ghost, Latter rain and Harmattan, I
stopped counting.
If some spiritual powers like say for instance “Patrioteer and
Jingoist can muster the energy of these Faithfull’s, say 50% of them,
any given Sunday (or Friday), man!, that would be something.
The next you tell me let us pray, I’m hoping it’s for the saints to
protect us from bullets, while trying to take our country back!
Amen, Let us pray,
Charles Sogbesan
A Political Satirist
