Religion in politics: RIP to good sense, decency and the democratising spirit?

 FALSE GOSPEL: Man may be a religious animal. But only the ostensibly pious seem to prevail in unholy politics! And shame be to him or her who thinks evil of such impious hypocrisy as invoking the blessings of gods and guardian deities to cover a multitude of sins... – Pix by Shehan Gunasekara

I read recently that the problem with failed societies is that they listen to their politicians and not their poets. Not once did I read it, but thrice, and in as many forums. There must be something the universe is trying to tell us? Just hope the powers that be are listening! It’s a sobering thought for an ancient ‘civilisation’ such as ours, supposedly looking into the abyss of ‘cultural’ apathy and ‘corrupting’ influences all around us.

It’s not a new idea. Being privy to the rise – and decline and fall – of political (and thought) empires, I was reminded of another epic dichotomy. About the legendary Odysseus – wily, pragmatic, the architect of Greek victory at Troy; who was fated by the gods to wander homeless for a decade for his impudence. 

The destiny of this lost and wondering hero, but a pious one, is curious. He, when confronted with a choice to kill a poet or a priest, to save his race, didn’t hesitate for more than a moment. For it was impious to slay a messenger of the gods. So wily Odysseus slew the priest – and saved the poet… no dilemma there!

Pseudo-religion poisons society

We are still a million miles from that safe home and haven here in Sri Lanka. As regards especially our attitudes to those who would speak truth to power, by mechanising their own Trojan horses against dangerously partisan clerics and chauvinistic monks. We’d rather bend before the dictates of hypocritical prelates and pompous religious dignitaries. 

It took a magistrate with testicular fortitude to restrain a mad monk. So insidious is our faith in the colourfully robed clergy that the pious would now prevail on the president to enlarge him. Where were they when he wreaked havoc in open court? Where were these righteous defenders of arguably the most peaceable philosophy on our planet when our country was once burning? It was they – supposedly the most pious of us – who were full of passionate intensity in times of war as well as peace. I dare say that religion has failed our society – it has corrupted morals, championed murderous regimes, compromised the meaning of Dhamma at its full…  

In the good old days, bloated but secular nationalism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Today, even bad young rascals are bowing the knee to blatant neo-religionism and pseudo-piety. Sorry to say even statesmen succumb to the religious impulse with one eye on polls and the other on the superstitious susceptibilities of the polity at large. 

It is why politically oriented shrines at Kataragama trump ordinary parliamentary sovereignty at Kotte. It is why presidents and prime ministers wear amulets and talismans to gain the favour of the gods, forgetting that the only imprimatur they need to stay in power – sorry, in service to the nation – is the people’s stamp of approval. It is why there is more brouhaha over the primary place of Buddhism in constitutions – old and new – over any concern for peace with justice, power sharing or the type of society want Mother Lanka to engender.

Not new, all that stuff about piety

This religious impulse in politics, firstly, is not new. It has been around since another Greek, less heroic literally and more real in literature than legendary heroes like Ulysses, observed that man is also a political and social animal. And at the top of Aristotle’s pyramid of hierarchies is the numinous awareness that there are greater forces than conquering heroes and/or corrupt hypocrites. It is the suspicion that mortals trump Olympians in the mundane business of bringing political criminals to justice in secular courts.

That is probably why, faced with a court order and rigorous judicial investigation, a high-ranking naval officer of yore recently had the ‘pious’ in our righteous society conduct extensive ceremonies to invoke ‘blessings’ and ‘protection’ on him. In case the order and rigour of the court was insufficient to establish the innocence of the man standing accused of allegedly abducting and murdering innocents under a previous regime! And the impiety – to say nothing of the possible illegality – of the proceedings would not cross the mind of the devout, who depend on gods many and lords many to rule the land of the living in place of the dead…

But old hat, this mumbo-jumbo

And the religious impulse in politics, secondly, is not holy. By no means! History bears witness to the most heinous of crimes being committed in the name of this god or that guardian deity. As if heavenly sovereigns were pleased with the bloodthirsty offering of their earthbound devotees in the form of Hun, Goth, Greek, Roman, Vandal or Viking invaders; Norman, Frankish, or Moorish crusaders; Spanish, British or Portuguese conquistadores; Japanese samurai in wars past or even Chinese debt-trap diplomats in wars to come. 

Heaven knows how many violent campaigns against ‘pagans’, ‘heathens’, or the unbelieving rabble beyond the pale have been undertaken in the name of rightful liberty. To wage war and offer religious, socio-cultural and political liberation to people deserving it and yet not desiring it.

Dirty at that…

But in our day and age, in this blessed isle, it takes more insidious shapes and forms than blatantly immoral holy wars, jihad or sundry religious crusades to capture and enlarge territory and economic power or influence through access to material resources. 

For one, the proclivity of prelates to sanction rogues and scoundrels – from former strongmen to present incumbents with a bent for moralising against evils that the religious find particularly abhorrent. For another, the cupidity of those clergy whose appetite for power and the trinkets of prosperity knows no bounds. (If I offered you Fendi, effendi, would you be very offended?)

And in the western hemisphere, clerics like Cardinal Pell add injury to insult with their rape with impunity – until recently – of minors. The punishment, if and when it comes, comes at the hand of a court that is national and secular rather than ecclesiastical or divinely ordained. 

Australia is evidently less willing to tolerate a notorious frocked paedophile than the Vatican, despite the latter’s primate’s constant vicarious appeals for moral probity from his beleaguered brother clergy. Will a time ever come when such sanguine monsters are exposed and defrocked in our sunny isle… from unsmiling rapists in choir stalls and sacred cloisters to pious saffron-clothed abusers of young minds or bodies? 

And silly to boot

Such stories end in tears. Or if the head of state has his way, with hanged men and soiled earth. Thank your lucky stars we still have savvy statesmen with a dash of humour – who, for all their lack of panache at sustainable politics (his party is looking increasingly embattled at impending polls, isn’t it?), provides the polity with the laughs it so desperately needs. Not content to let his cronies rob state coffers and get away with it, our ageing Monarch of Machiavellianism offers his weight in gold at a South Indian shrine to cultivate the elusive minority vote…

(Journalist | Editor-at-large of LMD | Writer #SpeakingTruthToPower.)