In the past week, I had two divergent emotional experiences, no thanks to the uneven messages contained in the substance of our national discourse.
On the first occasion a week ago, I received the full text of an inspiring lecture given by Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, the Honourable Minister of Power, Works, and Housing. It was the Convocation Lecture he delivered at his alma mater, the University of Benin. Coming from a Minister of the Federal Republic, a distinguished lawyer, and a former Governor of the Centre of Excellence, who is also a practising Muslim, I felt so elated about his position on religion and the affairs of the state that I quickly sent a note of congratulations to him. Over the years, Fashola has intervened in important matters with his signature clarity and commonsensical approach to issues.
Fast forward to this past Tuesday, I perused the Internet for the news of the day, and I couldn’t be more depressed with the first item that caught my attention on the web site of Premium Times. It read: “Bill to establish Christian Court scales second reading”. “Is this a joke?” I asked myself repeatedly. I tried to surf more pages on the Internet thinking, perhaps, Premium Times got the whole story wrong. Seeing no other related news at the time, I wanted to be reassured that it was not true. I sent a message to my good friend, Distinguished Senator, Professor Sola Adeyeye, who promised to find out and get back to me. However, before he could get back, I got a confirmation from The Nation, which carried even more details, including some of the main clauses of the bill and its rationale.
Juxtaposing the inspiring lecture of Minister Fashola and the depressing news of the legislative priority of the People’s Representatives was a hard nut for me to crack.
Fashola’s message is “most profound”, to quote Senator Sola Adeyeye, a born-again Christian, who kindly sent the text of the lecture to me and who had himself had his share of frustration as a member of the House years ago, also on the matter of religion and our national obsession that sometimes defy logic and commonsense. We resort to prayer sessions and leave unsolved the clearly mechanical problem and human errors that cause motor accidents. Fashola’s objective was to encourage the graduating students to free themselves from fear or what Francis Bacon referred to as idols of the theatre—the menacing impact of false beliefs from orthodox doctrines on our private and public lives.
It is important to keep distinct and separate three issues in this discussion: religion in private life (within and beyond the limits of reason), religion in public life, and civil religion. My position is that every human being has a right to have a religious belief in the privacy of their lives as well as a right to freely worship whatever is the object of their beliefs. Of course, should they choose, each also has a right to not hold a belief in God or Gods. And society has no right to punish anyone on account of his or her belief or lack thereof. Francis Bacon who warned against the Idols of the Theatre also famously defended religious belief: “a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.” Fashola’s philosophy professor is probably deep in this Baconian understanding of life.
In view of the well-known character of philosophy, Fashola’s narration of his encounter with his philosophy professor should not come as a surprise. The mission of philosophy in the Socratic tradition is to critically examine issues from an objective perspective and not be satisfied with an opinion that has not been subjected to the crucible of fiery questions. But we are also wired to believe in non-demonstrable and non-evidential ideas, including spiritual and religious ideas. We easily traverse the universe of science that is evidence-based, and the world of religion that is faith-based. As long as we are aware of the difference and we are able to navigate the chasm between them, we should be fine.
The challenge is that, out of an irrational anxiety and a tragic deficit of self-reliance, many fail to use their natural endowments and acquired skills and would rather indulge the attitude of dependency on others, and in the ultimate, on the unseen, which is variously named. And in case the expected help from the unseen doesn’t materialise, the human mind easily settles on a soothing explanation that appeals to the irrepressible presence of destiny at best, or fate, at worst. What will be will be!
There is a more productive way of navigating the chasm. Belief in a divine being does not negate the need for hard work and the use of the intellect which is our gift from the divine. Apostle Paul was clear about this. Neither does faith in a good God negate the struggle for justice in the face of oppression. The prophets of old understood this very well. Therefore, the easy resort of our people to the search for miracles where hard work and intelligent strategising matters is a proven path to failure.
Unfortunately, the laziness and obsession with shortcuts that characterise our private lives regularly finds its way to the conduct of our public affairs. No public institution is immune from the recourse to the occult, including our citadels of learning where sacrifices often litter cross roads and participation at prayer vigils surpasses class attendance.
In a passage of the lecture that is especially pertinent to my interest here, Fashola observes as follows:
“…at least the two faiths are not original to us. They are inherited. The propagators of the faith have made them personal affairs and not public ones.” Then he recalls how the meetings he has attended in the West and in the Middle East had never started or ended with prayers because such meetings for them “represent public undertakings and places of work and productive undertakings to deliver prosperity.” On the other hand in this country “the heads of governments, heads of ministries, and businesses, devote early mornings at work to prayers with their staff while productive man hours tick away.”
Let me make a friendly modification here, which in no way diminishes the import of the minister’s point because his critique of fear as a motivation of conduct will be applicable wherever it is observed. My modification is that, perhaps unlike other Western nations, the United States, after decades of productive engagement with nature and acting as the leader of the free world is also, no thanks to a substantial vocal segment, becoming progressively engrossed in the deification of superstition and fear.
Congress has a Chaplain who leads the opening and closing prayers when it is in session. Here, however, despite the extremism of some, a commonsensical balance is maintained between reason and faith. And though the United States is a predominantly Christian country, her leaders are uniformly aware of the diversity of religious sensibilities including the various denominations of the Christian faith. Therefore, most public prayers end “in the name of God”, the common denominator of all faiths, instead of “in the name of Christ” or “in the name of Allah”. Note that I have not denied the existence of extremists of any faith and their mission of spreading hate in public places. Thankfully, most public servants are moderates in the matter of faith and they take seriously their obligation to uphold the constitution in its secularity.
The difference between Nigeria and the United States is not in the private practice of religion and faith. Just as the majority of believers of different faiths have been moderate in the practice of religion, many citizens in both countries have also embraced a form of religiosity that goes beyond reason in their embrace of fear. But while individuals have the right to believe what they may, it is utterly irresponsible for the public arena to be the locus of fear. But that is precisely what we seem to have turned our nation’s People’s House into.
To be continued
