Complexities of the Middle East, a Religious Perspective?
05 July 2007
by Christian McPhate, Contributing writer for AnaiRhoads.org
AnaiRhoads.org - Numerous problems face the United States with the War in the Middle East and the outlook for the war does not look good, ranging from troop withdrawal to the nuclear armament of Iran. Through a lack of understanding and the questionable ethics of businesses and politicians, the idea of America's vision of freedom and democracy for Iraq are flushing down the toilet of ignorance and incompetence.
Mesopotamia was the birthplace of Babylon and the legendary location of the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life. After World War I, the League of Nations (the predecessor of the United Nations) created the country of Iraq.
Iraq has a diverse culture of ethnic groups, including Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, Persians, Shabaks and Lurs. While a vast religious diversity, similar to America, exits within its boundaries with Muslims at 97 percent and small communities of Christians, Jews, Baha'is, Mandaeans and Yezidis at 3 percent of the population.
The Muslims believe that there is only one God and many of the Christians prophets and religious figures are considered prophets in the Qur'an (Islam's Bible), including Adam, Noah, Moses, Jesus and his apostles. They believe these men were of Muslim faith because they submitted to the will of God and preached his message while upholding God's values. The Muslim faith is the second largest religious body in the world with more than 1.4 billion followers.
The Sunnis, the largest denomination of the Muslim religion, believe that after the prophet Muhammad died, he left no successor to take his place. The Shi'a, the second largest, believe Muhammad appointed Ali, the first Imam, to be the leader of the Muslim community; they believe that 11 Imams out of 12 have existed over the centuries and the last of the line will appear before the end times.
The Baha'is has over six million followers in more than 200 countries (350,000 in Iraq). The faithful believe in the unity of God, religion and humanity. They teach that God projects his will through "Manifestations of God," a series of divine messengers or divine educators, who believe the symbolism of the "Trinity."
The Mandaeans, a religion practiced in southern Iraq, base their belief on heritage rather than religious doctrine and differs in their recognition of Adam, Noah, John the Baptist, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad.
The Yezidi religion, practiced in Mosul, Iraq, believes that God created the world and left it in the care of seven holy beings. The strongest or "pre-eminent" among the angels is the Peacock Angel, Melek Ta'us. The divine creature is not evil or wicked, but the leader of the archangels and the face of God on earth. They are the religious minority in Iraq.
With all these similar beliefs existing between the religions, then what seems to be the problem? Why can they not join under the banner of peace and unity?
Well, for some of the same reasons the Baptists, Pentecostals, Roman and Greek Orthodox Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Methodist, Lutherans and hundreds of other non-denominational churches around the world cannot see eye to eye with their interpretations of the prophets—a problem of egocentrism and ethnocentrism (what I'd like to call religocentrism).
Egocentrism is the idea of regarding one's own opinions or interests as more important than the beliefs of others (a number of televangelists have fallen into this category). Ethnocentrism (religocentrism) is the citizens or religious faithful of a nation looking at the world from the perspective of their own culture and beliefs, and then holding their "truths" and "way of life" over citizens of other nations.
The fallacy of both terms have been used in the justification of religious and racial genocides throughout the history of humanity: The Inquisition, the Crusades, the Assyrians in Iraq, the Rwandans in the Darfur conflict, the Bosnians, the Kurds, the holocaust of the Jews, as well as the destruction and downfall of the Native Americans.
And this fallacy is in full force between the major sects of Muslims with both groups of Sunni and Shi'a dissolving into genocide-like civil war fueled by revenge and racial killings. The faithful have taken on the role of the divine, acting as God's judges, juries and executioners against their own citizens, as well as our troops—who are facing major problems of an ill-spent war.
And the American citizens' employees on Capitol Hill do not seem to fully comprehend the diversities of these cultures, nor the borderline injustices of certain rules set forth by the Geneva Convention and how it fuels the chains of chaos surging back and forth in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.
Egocentrism and Ethnocentrism at its finest.
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