When there is a mention of religion, what image comes to your mind? One could suggest a spectrum of phenomena from absolute reality to superstition, from unconditional and collective love to prejudice, from profound understanding to fanaticism, from a divine manual for living to just a series of rituals, from peace to war and many more.
But are there any real grounds for this rather contrasting portrait? Is our image of religion affected by the religious tradition that we happened to be brought up with? Is this picture affected by our culture, social environment and life experiences? Is that image the result of our education, political conviction or lack of it? Perhaps we hold the media to be one of the major factors in the formation of our views?
Whatever our answers may be, perhaps we could agree that fanaticism is the offspring of prejudices, which is the cause of all human conflicts. Prejudices are fed by ignorance, and ignorance is the result of an apathetetic attitude towards an independent search for truth or being exposed to a continuous contaminated system of belief.
If that is so, why is fanaticism usually associated with religious ideologies? Does it mean that people who do not have any religious identity are immune to this pandemic? I think our answer to the latter question tends to be a negative one.
We could refer to the 21st century as the era of “dialogue between civilizations”, in which ignorance gives way to understanding. Therefore let us use all our human and technological resources to make this dialogue fluent, fruitful and rich. Let the media provide us with its collective and far-reaching tool that is capable of allowing this dialogue to take place.
Delivered by Parvaneh Farid at CDAGM (Cultural Diversity Advisory Group to the Media) Meeting withBBC South, Meridian TV and the Daily Echo
Januarry 2006
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