America Faces the Specter of Religious Apartheid

[cleanhippie]

Religious Apartheid. A policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of religion.

We have seen this before: In Iraq, which we pretended to liberate from Saddam Hussein, who excluded all Muslims who disagreed with his form of Islam from power; In theocratic Iran; and in our close ally, Saudi Arabia; and in Syria, where a minority comprising less than one-quarter of the population controls the government. And we are seeing its beginnings in the United States, where if you are not the right sort of Christian, you are less, and treated like less. Quite openly fundamentalist Christians have declared the United States government their proper domain and their intention to exclude all others from it, whatever the Constitution says and guarantees.

If the term theocracy means nothing to you, how about the term religious apartheid instead? It can hardly sound less appealing, mostly because it would be difficult to get less appealing. There is no essential difference between one type of apartheid and another, whether based on race (Nazi Germany/South Africa/America) or religion (the examples given above). The Constitution says we all have equal rights, that religion can’t be a factor. Fundamentalist Christians say just the opposite. And they have been putting theory into practice since 1964.

Religious apartheid, though a part of Western life from the Theodosian Code until the European Enlightenment, has ancient antecedents. When you believe your god said “I am the only one” that there will be problems for everybody who doesn’t agree. It’s even worse when you believe he said to worship nobody but him. Pluralism gets thrown under the ox-cart, as they say. We are seeing plenty of evidence for that today.

--snip--

So this is the situation faced by Americans today who are not among the “chosen” – Americans who are seeing by fundamentalist Christians as polluting the new Israel – you cannot negotiate with those whom God has dismissed and violence is not only legitimate but mandatory. This attitude has a history extending back to the origins of Abrahamic monotheism, antecedents as old as the religion itself and it should come as no surprise that reactionary Christian fundamentalism has raised this old theocratic specter for a new generation of Canaanites. If we do indeed live in the “end times” they are the end times of religious liberty.

http://www.politicususa.com/america-faces-the-specter-of-religious-apartheid.html

[tabatha]

1. There was a strong religious undercurrent to the original apartheid as well.

[cleanhippie]

3. Imagine that.

You will never get the religious to acknowledge it though.

[Taverner]

4. Boer Calvinism

The Afrikaaners were the 'elect'

And the locals were the forces of darkness - they didn't even have souls according to the Boer Calvinists

[tabatha]

6. "the locals were the forces of darkness - they didn't have souls according to the Boer Calvinists"

and where did you read that?

[Taverner]

7. "White Tribe Dreaming" for one

Marq De Villiers' books...

They even talk around it on the Wikipedia page

[tabatha]

8. Not all of them were like that.

One of the most important people who helped overturn apartheid had Boer roots:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_van_Zyl_Slabbert

And there would never have been a negotiated settlement if that had been the sentiment of all.

There were many English in that country who treated the Blacks badly too, especially some of the early settlers. And there were many in the US who thought the same of the Indians; and many in Australia with that opinion of the Aborigines.

[Taverner]

9. And he probably rejected Boer Calvinism for a more tolerant Calvinism

My family is Calvinist. I know the line of thought.

Not all Calvinism was racist, but all Boer Calvinism was.

[tabatha]

10. It was not that simple. There were lots of divisions throughout their history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_Calvinism

Some considered themselves missionaries like the English to convert the "heathen". And the "Christianizing" of the indigenous people was highly successful - they are very religious for the most part.

[Taverner]

11. Yes that was true, in later migrants

The Boer migration wasn't just one boat, but like our own, it was successive waves of Huguenots, Dutch and (some) Scotch immigrants.

[prefunk]

2. Interesting read.

The author seems to make pretty good points.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Chris Hedges gives a fascinating talk on the "Radical Christian Right"

calls them American Fascists, and points out why he does so:

6 part talk, very much worth it.

&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLD78F1AC39A3BD623