| The Rajpal Abeynayake Column By Rajpal Abeynayake | ||||||
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Religion
and the crucifixion - church, temple and culture
But,
in the meanwhile, it has been reported on authority that the Pope
saw the film and remarked "yes it says it as it happened"
meaning that the Gibson movie has been faithful to the biblical
story. Maybe thereby hangs a tale. Mahathir Mohamed the ex-Malaysian strongman ran into hellfire and brimstone a couple of months back when he remarked in a speech made to an international Muslim organization that the "Jews run the world." When he was accused of anti Semitism, Mahathir turned around and said "there is the proof that the Jews run the world - the fact that they can turn a remark that I made into an international campaign against me." The passion of Christ is a matter for theologicians, but when the Pope says that a movie is "true to the facts" and when the Jewish lobby and those who feel that the Jews are aggrieved feel that the movie is an unnecessary insinuation on Jews wordwide, there is one important question that's raised.Which is: what's important in a religion in a modern context -- its teachings, its factual backdrop or the cultural context that is associated with it? But the issue is as old as the hills. The only thing that's different is that after a long time, similar issues are also becoming important in a local (Sri Lankan ) backdrop, but more on that later… Mahathir Mohamed and Mel Gibson are in effect united in common cause. They are both up against the fact that there is immense political correctness that is expected in depicting anything about the Jewish community in this day and age. This undoubtedly traces back to the aftermath of the holocaust, an event which naturally imbued the whole of Europe with immense feelings of collective guilt. There is still residual anti Semitism in the Europe and in the rest of the world, but the fact that the slightest criticism of the Jews invites a barrage of responses against the person or persons conducting that critique is interesting. Those who are sensitive to these sorts of things are not so naive as to upset the collective guilt conscience of the West, particularly the Europeans. To cite just one example, the matter of the so-called Hitler salute at Prabhakaran's Pongu Thamil celebrations of April 2002 is interesting. When this writer raised this issue at the now famous Prabhakaran outing soon after the ceasefire agreement, there was a reaction of disbelief from among the Tiger hierarchy. But Prabhakaran replied that the Hitler salute came from the people, and that it was a spontaneous reaction from the crowd. But the fact is that anything smacking of anti Semitism, or anything that is even faintly reminiscent of Hitler's campaigns against the Jews is a very sensitive issue in the West. The question on the Hitler salute therefore though raised by me was an important one to those Western journalists present at the event. For them the Hitler salute is a complete no-no in the context of highly sensitive feelings about the pogroms that led to the persecution of the Jews in Europe. In other words the fact that something akin to a Hitler salute has been used at Pongu Thamil celebrations did not go down well with the Western media and eventually it seemed that the LTTE dropped the salute in favour of a more sanitized version that does not raise the hand above eye level, and does not raise the hackles of the Western sympathizers of their cause. Anyway, that being an aside, the fact is that that it is no longer possible to be rationally critical about the Jews or to depict them in any authentic way, even if it happens to be true to an account of history. There has been no race in human history that has been perceived to be similarly aggrieved. So aggrieved that the narrative of a religion (in this case an important part of it which is the crucifixion of Christ) cannot be represented as it is, because it is not politically correct to do so. But, when a community is seen to be aggrieved to the point of being hurt, the narrative always changes to appease that community. There seems be shades of this in what is happening in Sri Lanka today. Internally, the Buddhist Sinhalese are looking so aggrieved today, after a period of being pushed around by the international community and the peace caravan that there is a tendency for the entire narrative to change course. Or at least there is a tendency to reverse the narrative, hence the talk of going back to the year 1505 etc. But when the Jews resist any kind of criticism, even legitimate criticism, they are not really changing the narrative but are only doctoring it at a very superficial level. That's why it is often called a matter of political correctness. That's why when Mahathir Mohammed says that he does not want to be politically correct, and offers no real apology on his remark about 'Jews running the world' he is still not exactly considered a pariah by the Western intellectuals. All they will do is to give him a good dose of their invective in order to be politically correct themselves. The Jewish campaign against the Mel Gibson movie shows that the raison d'entre for a religion's existence can change depending on the cultural circumstances of a given time. Sometimes the surrounding culture moulds the religion to such an extent that the religion itself is not recognizable anymore. But Buddhism is one of the most preserved of philosophies… if it's not a religion as is often said. Whereas Christianity has in a sense been laundered re-laundered and overhauled in so many campaigns crusades and cultural transformations, Buddhism has been relatively untouched. But it seems people are determined to change that and make Buddhism part of a larger Sinhala cultural crusade - at least some people do. That might advance the cause of a culture, as surely as certain denials about the Christian narrative are perceived now to be helpful to the Jews. But such a change in the "narrative'' is not authentic; it wouldn't help the religion. |
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