In treason, atonement, and begging religion in politics
Dr. Michel E. Abs
Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches
Sometimes on media stations, as well as on social media, persons of the media or working in the public field, provide descriptions and accusations against socio-religious groups in the Levant, part of which are Christians churches that are well-established in their identity and heritage and members of the Middle East Council of Churches.
As for the accusations and descriptions, they center around the treachery of these groups, accusing them of being fundamentalist, and comparing them to the Takfiri groups that destroyed Syria and Iraq and almost toppled Lebanon.
It is worth noting in this context that the accusations and insulting characteristics are presented with a dangerous lightness knowing the accuracy of the topic and the sensitivity of the issues raised.
To accuse religious groups with a cultural and religious heritage full of achievements and contain an intellectual and cultural richness that is rare in its size and capabilities.
Freedom of opinion, speech and expression - call it what you want - cannot be a way to treat people and groups lightly, belittled and stereotyped, to the point of exposing them to marginalization or wasting their blood.
If freedom is not responsible, it is impossible chaos. Freedom without responsibility and mental controls, before the controls of the tongue, is a door to social disintegration that leads to destruction.
No one has the right to throw words at his people and hurl others, individuals and groups, with the vilest traits, exposing them to humiliation or extermination.
If the word is not responsible, it becomes a lethal weapon that has no controls. Hence the danger of social media networks and media with a space that is free from all controls or from all borders.
Freedom is sacred in all its dimensions, from freedom of speech to all freedoms that a person has the right to exercise, provided that their limits are known, which are the limits of the dignity, safety and interests of others, individually or collectively.
Freedom is the most precious thing that a person possesses, so the perpetrators are punished with the confiscation of their freedoms in the absence of the ultimate punishment, which is the expulsion of life.
As for the situations before us, it is represented by the worst cases of using freedom of expression: the invocation of religion in politics and the accusation of socio-religious groups trying to preserve their identity and existence, after they bled for centuries and lost the bulk of their existence and are in the process of rebuilding themselves, forming their entity, and charting the best directions for their future.
How easy it is to watch war through binoculars, and how easy it is to visualize when you are far from the battlefield where armed groups are killing defenseless and helpless people. How lightly it is to accuse people because they acted contrary to the expectations of the theorist or analyst. How a murderous act it is to condemn people whose necks were under the guillotine, and to interpret them with attributes that demean their suffering, their martyrs, and their sacrifices.
This is a word crime that must be punished for it.
“The killer of the body is killed by his action, and the killer of the soul is unknown to humans.”
Gibran Khalil Gibran says in his book al Mawakeb.
In this case, we are faced with a killer of both the soul and the body, hiding behind political opinion. But the bad thing that this analyst is doing is the invocation of religion in politics, and this is one of the diseases of our region that led to its destruction, from the Palestine war to the Levant war, through the Lebanon and Iraq wars, in chronological order.
The easiest and worst thing that a public servant or a media person can do is to use religion for political ends, adopting stereotypical techniques, throwing judgments right and left recklessly. We can describe him as a killer.
In using religion in politics, the perpetrators also adopt the techniques of blasphemy, treason and demonization, all of which lead to placing the social groups targeted by these acts in a dangerous position that may lead to unimaginable consequences.
If the worker in the public field or in the media does not adopt a policy of controlling his imagination and mobilizing his common sense and savvy, then there must be laws and the intervention of civil society in order to prevent him from recklessness.