Dear Editor,
After reading Wycliffe Smith's letter in The Daily Herald on September 17 I agree with his sentiments that "St. Maarten deserves a parliament and a government that will govern with honesty, integrity and transparency where people come first and self-enrichment is denied." This is after all what every voter lucky enough to live in a democratic country would wish for as they cast their vote.
I have to disagree with his wish to see closer ties between state and religion and would say that you can't have democracy when the state is tied to religion. This is because religion, especially monotheist religion, is based on the tenets of exclusivity and elitism both of which go against the basic tenets of democracy, where every citizen is supposed to hold equal rights. Whenever the ties between religion and state are too close there will be certain sectors of society afforded special rights, because through their religious teachings they believe they are the chosen ones. Consequently, if you oppose this belief you are damned and therefore less worthy than the chosen ones making it easy to persuade the chosen ones to oppress you purely for a difference of opinion.
You just have to read the pages of this newspaper to see how states ruled by religious parties or personalities easily justify oppression, victimisation and outright warmongering and it's no wonder when their basis for these actions comes from passages such as:
"If you hear that in one of the towns which Yahwey your God has given you for a home, there are men, scoundrels from your own stock, who have led their fellow-citizens astray saying, "Let us go and serve other gods," hitherto unknown to you, it is your duty to look into the matter, examine it, and inquire most carefully. If it is proved and confirmed that such a hateful thing has taken place among you, you must put them to the sword; you must lay it under the curse of destruction – the town and everything in it." (Deuteronomy 13:12-16)
This passage clearly dictates that followers of the Christian religions should actively kill and ransack followers of other faiths.
Similarly the Koran states: "Their hearts were hardened, and Satan made their deeds seem fair to them. And when they had clean forgotten our admonition we granted them all that they desired; but just as they were rejoicing in what they were given, we suddenly smote them and they were plunged into utter despair. Thus were the evil-doers annihilated. Praise be to God. Lord of the Universe!"(6:43-45) Or more simply: "Those that deny our revelations shall be punished for their misdeeds." (6:49)
Sentiments such as these do not allow fair representation of the population or any form of equal rights of the citizens within a state and induce prejudicial views and actions against people who hold a different belief about how and why this universe was created. Add religious fundamentalism to this balance of power within a state and the results are horrendous, giving rise to wholesale massacre, civil war, expulsions of people from their homelands and international war crimes and crimes against humanity.
But this is just the rhetoric of terrorists, terror leaders such as George W Bush with his direct line to God who stated that it was unpatriotic to be American and not a Christian.
Tony Blaire who wished he had a direct line to God but who would have been laughed out of office by the British public, had he spoken like this. Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, Bill Clinton making the record of Presiding over the dropping of the greatest amount of munitions ever in one day over Muslim areas in the Bosnian conflict and this represents the so called moderate western democracies.
So keep religion out of politics, thank you very much and allow us to vote for politicians who will govern with "honesty, integrity and transparency, where the people will come first and self-enrichment is denied."
Peace, love and equality to every person on this planet, they are all your brothers and sisters.
Andy Murphy-Laws
