{"id":1922,"date":"2012-10-05T08:48:41","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T08:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/2012\/10\/05\/s-kumar\/"},"modified":"2019-09-17T20:53:45","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T16:53:45","slug":"s-kumar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/s-kumar\/","title":{"rendered":"Onslaughts in the name of religion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">By S. Kumar<\/span><\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">I refer to Nita Chicoree-Mercier\u2019s article in your issue of last week<em>, \u2018Since the earth<\/em>\u2026<em>and endless blasphemies\u2019.<\/em> She is absolutely spot on in her analysis of the apologists who, in the name of secularism, are denigrating their own mainstream culture and identity by allowing themselves to be subjected to reverse discrimination on the part of some vociferous and violent extremist minority groups in their midst.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">The brutal onslaught of this kind of minorityism, which claims more rights than it assumes the corresponding duties and responsibilities in society, is destabilizing traditional societies to the detriment of the law-abiding citizens of several of the countries cited, an ominous sign for the future of the world. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">By the same token, she makes an equally insightful analysis of how religion has underpinned the American administration\u2019s forays into the world: the crusades are still on, courtesy the Global Cop and the hydra-headed monsters it first allies itself with and who later turn against it. First it was, as the author details, the God-fearing Americans versus the Godless communists, with the help of <\/span><em style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">mujahideens<\/em><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"> \u2013 feted in Washington at one time \u2013 who have morphed into the present Taliban<\/span> <span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">on the lookout for Americans to kill<\/span><em style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">. <\/em><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\">Then it was my God versus your God: American God pitched against the God of Iraqis, Pakistanis, Afghans \u2013 and within the latter, among their distinct sub-sects and ethnic groups trying to impose on each other.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">If one were to make a tally at global level from known historical times, it would no doubt reveal that religion and religious rhetoric have killed more people by violence than they have relieved the suffering of mankind. The \u201ccrusades\u201d never ended. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em><span style=\"font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;\">S Kumar<br \/>\n<\/span><\/em><\/strong><em><span style=\"font-family: Verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;\">Vacoas<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><em>* Published in print edition on 5 October 2012<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By S. Kumar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3962],"tags":[18592,18593,6687,18591],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culturereligion","tag-global-cop","tag-god-fearing","tag-nita-chicoree-mercier","tag-s-kumar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/MT-Logokk.jpg?fit=1200%2C880&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-v0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}