If you think about religion, every society throughout the history of this world has developed religion as a means of maintaining social order and cohesion. In today’s world the major religions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Hinduism are so wide spread because they all hold universal truths. This is what allows them to spread and adapt to the various cultures that they come into contact with. But if there is one thing to take note of, it is that none of these religions had any contact with the continent of Europe until centuries after their formation. What this means is that whenever religion entered Europe, it was a means to control and subdue the population. So when Karl Marx writes that “religion is the opium of the masses” this is specific to a European context. Because if one were to look at the decolonization struggles across the African, Arab, Indian, east Asian and indigenous American world; you will find that religion being what calls the people to take up arms against their oppressors. What this means is that if one is to truly be religious, then one has to be revolutionary.
The same god that southern plantation owners invoked as a way to justify slavery and keep africans as slaves, was the God Nat Turner invoked to justify killing his slave master. This example shows that religion is a two way street in both the personal and societal experience. Religion can be used either as a tool for oppression or a tool for liberation. The difference comes in how one discovers it. If a religion is forced upon somebody or a group of people, then the intent is to control and oppress. But if one finds a religion, then one is using religion as a pathway to liberate themselves from whatever situation they find themselves in. Which is why whenever you find a people who have had a foreign religion thrusted upon them, the religion winds up being a mix between the traditional beliefs of that area and the newly introduced religion.
Comments