The Killing of Farkhunda

Kintarō Hattori

I want to believe that these people and their society have some hope but that gets dashed when I read items such as the below. It was on the BBC the other night, truly horrific stuff. It's hard to believe that religion can be so backward in the 21st century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Farkhunda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UexWWCSSRzI

take everything

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

I want to believe that these people and their society have some hope but that gets dashed when I read items such as the below. It was on the BBC the other night, truly horrific stuff. It's hard to believe that religion can be so backward in the 21st century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Farkhunda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UexWWCSSRzI

Shocking brutality and depravity. Fascinating how religious ideas (exploiting what seems to be a deeply patriarchal culture) have such power over people's minds. Trumping what you would like to think would be any innate humanity to their fellow human beings.
Deeply depressing. Obviously all cultures have brutality but this really confirms how distorted humanity can get.

looksee

The men who killed Farkhunda were not a mob that assembled for the purpose. It was not a group of like-minded people who arranged to meet and protest the presumed Quran burning. These were people who just happened to be at the mosque on the day and were willing to be judge and executioner on the basis of absolutely no evidence. It appears that the majority joined in the killing, only a few tried to help her.

It is easy to say 'this is not the Muslim faith' but it is Muslim culture, and that can only be changed when there is a will to change it. It needs the leaders and imams to speak against this kind of mob rule, this utterly paranoid defense of religion, but that will take a long time to come about. We have evidence in our own society of the willingness of people to adjust their morality to accommodate religious teaching; we still have people defending the indefensible and refusing to listen to reason.

Religion could be a real power for good, that was the way most of them were intended, but people who have been taught to obey, no matter how irrational the teaching, will do so, and corruption creeps in all too easily. Apparently all societies need (or have needed) some sort of spiritual/ magical/ superstitious/ authoritative leadership that is easier to understand than reality. People looking for power, wealth and control are the ones who take this 'leadership' for themselves, and people let them, even demanding that they are respected and that people have a right to believe whatever they are told.

If the members of that mob had had any education in thinking for themselves and not just following the pack it is likely that the dreadful event would not have happened. Their education however was based on 'believe in what you are told to believe, accept what you are told, don't question or think for yourself'. How many of them questioned what the original man said about burning the Quran? They just accepted it; believed, as they had been taught to believe. And it is still possible to recognise a shadow of that situation in our own society.

Pat Mustard

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