Monday, June 30, 2008

Religious doubts...

Pavement graffiti in our neighborhood in Hurdegaryp, a Friesian village (Netherlands)
Before I go on with my football-deliberations in connection to the doctrines of Mr. Stephen Covey, I first want to share my thoughts about the Dutch developments in religion. Thank you for reading.



As I’m subscribed to the Dutch newspaper Trouw, which is a Christian-oriented newspaper with an open ear and eye for Islamic developments in the Netherlands, I try to form an opinion, nor better a belief in what is exactly the true faith. I see at least six or seven different religions which stress each other’s wrongness:

The Roman Catholic Church which says that the reasons for protest have come to an end, that protestants are not a “church” but that they are welcome now to join the Roman Catholic Church again.
The “liberal protestants” united in the Dutch Protestant Church and are deterred by the the obsolete and unjustified Roman Catholic hierarchy and priesthood.
The orthodox protestants who are not united in a church but scattered over several little churches each of which find only themselves adhering to the True Word of God, and absolutely find the Roman Catholic Church a sinful and heathen-like association of image-worshippers. About Islam, well they know it exists but it’s far from their minds.
The evangelicals who find churches obsolete organisations that hinder people to receive and spread the Holy Ghost among the people as Jesus has told to do.
The agnosticists who are deterred by the dogmas and prescriptions of churches (e.g. the numerous truths advocated by the Roman Catholic Church, the absolute negative standpoints about abortion, homosexuality, marriage, euthanasia etc.). They are not anti- or even a-religious but don’t want to join any religious organisation.
The absolute anti-religionists who say there’s no God or Upper Being.
The Muslims who find Christians non-believers, no matter what specific denomination they adhere to. As long as Christians don’t offend Muslims or hinder them in their religion, it’s OK that they are no-believers, although some Muslims find they should be killed or fought against, because they find proofs that Christians = Capitalism = anti-Islam.

The agnosticists, the anti-religionists, the liberal protestants and part of the Roman Catholics find themselves united in the value they attach to a parliamentary democracy with freedom of religion, freedom of speech / press, and a strict division between state and religion: religion should not interfere in religious matters, nor should religion impose preferences or impacts upon state affairs. Most evangelicals and some Christian groups (e.g. the Witnesses of Jehova) are not interested in this value, and orthodox-Christian churches find that the Government is “God’s servant”, and what the Government does wrong in their eyes (e.g. legitimization of homosexual marriages) is an error of this servant which they don’t need to follow. In fact, they get always dispensation in legally prescribed matters for religious reasons. The same holds for all churches and religious groups.

The Islam is a special case for most Dutch Muslims come from cultures with one dominant religion (namely Islam) that always has preached that state and religion are not separated, and that other religions are tolerated as long as they recognize Muslim bosshood in the form of special taxes and not being admitted to important government positions and jobs. (Comparable to the position of Jews in Europe in the periods and areas outside progroms). They must have experienced it as a shock coming into a culture which they must have considered a non-culture: everything seems to be allowed, there’s no “hidden culture” but the hidden culture comes loudly into the open, like gayness, nudity, sexual intercourse outside marriage, use of alcohol and religions criticizing each other (is allowed) including Islam (is not allowed). They came here for better economical conditions to maintain their families, at a price they are not willing to pay, so many of them kept isolated in their immigrant cultures, as kind of colonies from a better world in a not-hospitable but profitable environment. Many of their youngsters either integrated into the new culture, understanding it and using it for better progress of their home culture and the host culture, or fell back to the edges of society, even to criminality. But many Muslims in the Netherlands cannot understand why a politician such as Geert Wilders can remain unpunished after he called the Koran a fascist book and recommended to forbid it, like also “Mein Kampf”(“My Struggle”) by A. Hitler is forbidden. Hundreds of juridical lawsuits were submitted against him by Muslims, but none of them were rewarded. Also the Bible has been offended hundreds of times by atheists, but none of these cases caused a lawsuit by orthodox Christians, these are used to the Dutch culture of freedom and speech and accountability for God alone in religious matters.

It seems as if religion is rooted in peoples’ minds via rules of conduct and tradition. A member of a religious community feels himself attached to his religion by golden chains: the rules and prescriptions are sacrosanct and cannot be trespassed because they are unshakably linked to his/her religious experiences. These experiences are formed according to character, personality and social influences. Somebody from an orthodox family can develop either into the same kind of orthodoxy, formed, nurtured and grown during education and adolescence, but also into agnosticism or even strong anti-religiousness. All kinds of development are possible, and many of them cause much grief and bitterness with people who remain faithful to the tradition. I know what I’m writing about because in my and my wife’s family I witnessed those miseries. Taking some distance, what would an outsider find if a son from an orthodox Christian family would marry to a Roman Catholic girl? In a Roman Catholic Church? They would not attend the ceremony. If the reverse would be the case, the Roman Catholic family would attend the ceremony but they would get a very cold reception, hardly tolerated in the protestant church, and the vicar would say that it’s still time to be saved, addressing the Roman Catholics among the audience. Marrying to an Islamic girl, or, worse, to an Islamic boy, combined with a conversion to Islam would be a family tragedy. In the reverse case, marrying to a Christian boy by a Muslim girl, it would often be, and actually is, a reason for “revenge of honor”, i.e. murder. The distance-taking outsider would wonder why people make it so difficult for themselves. One doesn’t bother about so many other differences between people, why then especially about religion?

Well, I think that’s exactly the core of the matter: many people just want to be different. It’s the core of the so-called religions of revelation, that only members of the own group are right in their conduct and thinking, and others are not. Christianity and Islam both prescribe to expand the own group’s viewpoints, authority and beliefs (which they don’t consider beliefs but truth and knowledge) among non-believers. The Koran says that the truth of Islam must be offered to non-believers, and if non-believers refuse to accept it, then they should be punished. In Islamic countries trying to promote Christian truth is an outright crime. Only the Jewish people, probably because they consider themselves as a “people” with natural bonds, don’t have that urge to expand the Jewish religion. (For that reason they are often accused of being racists, sic!).
Enough elaboration on these differences. What is going on here? And to what does it lead?

There is a trend noticeable in Dutch society to retreat in traditional fortifications. Islam has brought to us so it seems, a revival of also Christian-religious values. In politics an outspoken Christian party has reached the velvet of the Government seats, for the first time since WW II. outspoken non-christian and/or liberal people (liberal means here: freedom of speech, freedom of choice, and absolute division of religion and state) also turn themselves more intensely against threatening these values by Christians and Muslims. We are a people of deliberation and discussion, so all these differences are broadly discussed. We are also a small people in a small country, so when an important person says something controversial in this area, it mostly causes a long discussion in the media and the house of parliament. We have to see, how strange it may sound, how developments will proceed in Turkey. Also there we notice a clash between state and religion, between what people are used to in their families and tradition, and what rulers think is best for the people: freedom of choice in as many areas of life as possible. But what if freedom of choice also means freedom to choose a tradition with limited freedom, namely the rules of religion? In the Netherlands many people are afraid that Muslims take advantage of this freedom to impose in the end the sharia which doesn’t know a codified law system, but is based on interpretation by authorized religious experts. Gone with the freedom of choice by means of which this sharia could be established. Also the Nazis made use of this freedom-of-choice system to establish their rule. But Nazis and Muslims cannot be compared, it’s only to illustrate how a democratic system can be replaced by a theocratic or whatever-cratic system just because of its freedom of choice it tries to maintain. We cannot close our eyes for this. The religious or worldview-groups in our country differ crucially from Muslim culture on that issue: they have learned to co-operate to avoid energy consuming struggles and fights leading to bloodshed and misery. In Islamic countries it’s just the all-encompassing rule of Islam which is used to avoid these things.

Only leaders who understand this can lead developments in the desired way: a peaceful co-operation of all adherers of any religion. Not the differences, but the similarities should be stressed. Every religion, as I said, preaches their differences with outsiders. You see that the elites (the top) and the rank-and-file if I may call them that way, are strikingly similar in their ideas and thoughts about this. In the middle you see how educated people who get used to socialise with out-group people challenge traditional values. Only the poorly educated, vulnerable people adhere strongly to the rules dictated by religious leaders. The middle rankers act accordingly, but in secret or inconspicuously act differently. Go through Internet-blogs from Islamic countries and you see what I mean. Poor and non-educated people have no blogs, and the educated young people use it in huge numbers.

That’s why I’m optimistic that it all will lead to more mutual understanding and co-operation. Especially the Roman Catholic Church is often accused by our protestant compatriots, that their members act so differently from what the pope and the bishops preach. There was a time, in the fifties, that masses of people and also the middle rankers, obediently followed these rules. Now we see that inconspicuously many Catholics, approved by their pastors, act differently, despite the stricter rules and emphasis on old and medieval rules. The protestant: ”let your yes be a yes and your no be a no” is becoming obsolete. Where doubt arises, let there be doubt. Jesus was full of doubt about the Pharizean rules, the only security he could offer was: love, love and again love. Apparently Islam needs armies of imams and mullahs to interpret the Koran. Let doubt rule, and only love remain. God is love.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Covey and Soccer

Leeuwarden in hip-hip-hurray mood for the Dutch national team. If they would know how it would end...
After being away for a long time, I'm so happy to return. I have been (and still am) imprisoned in the claws of photoblogging and negelected the verbal communication. I hope I will return more often and discuss with people who have comments.

My contributions for the coming four posts will be in te realms of sports, management and religion. This is the first one:
Covey and soccer

I saw on TV how the Dutch national soccer team, so surprisingly achieving during the first round, got beaten up by the Russian team, also very surprisingly: 3-1. What remained was a bit of national pride because the coach of the Russian team was also Dutch. He had said: if they call me a traitor, that’s fine with me, and I hope I’ll be an excellent traitor. Was I disappointed? No. I’m not a soccer fan and the national soccer fever urged me to watch some matches (which I never do on other occasions). And believe me or not, I got fascinated by the game. At the same time I read an article by the German philosopher with (again) the Dutch name Peter Sloterdijk who analysed the meaning of sport in European history since ancient Greek and Roman times. There are some striking differences in the way the ancients viewed their sports: between the Romans and the Greek there were big differences. The Greek considered their sports as something semi-religious, their arenas were next to their temples. They only recognized winners, first places, the second and third place were of no value. They were exclusively practiced by naked men, presence or watching by women was strictly forbidden. The nakedness was a consequence of their adoration of the beauty of the male nude. I was remembered of it when I saw on TV the naked upper halves of the players’ bodies, so different from my own. I would like to have such a body! Yes, says Sloterdijk, and that was also the intention of the Greek: making the watcher feel guilty and encourage him to get such a body, too. For me I think it’s too late, and when I was between my twenties and thirties, I wasn’t interested and found female bodies more important than the shapes of my own as compared to other young mens’ bodies. Repent comes after sin. Sloterdijk notices also another difference: Greek sports were more sophisticated, Roman sports were cruel and relentless. They served an un-democratic goal: bread and games. In our modern sports, we have incorporated the values of enlightenment: fair play, teamwork, scientific research and last but not least money and marketing. The aim of winning has remained. Fair play also includes some recognition that the numbers two and three made also a good achievement. We abandoned the punishment for the looser namely death (Roman view on sports), and we don’t see sports anymore as a religious cult (Greek view). What also remains is the emotion. The tension during the penalties at the end of the match Russia-Netherlands reached heights that one normally feels only a few times in a lifetime. The euphoria after a goal is immense. After the match we could see how the Russian star-player burst out in tears, not tears of grief but of joy and relief. Not tears that quietly crawled down his cheeks, but his whole face looked like a baby crying.
I realized all of a sudden that emotions like these are sought for and exploited also in business, religion and politics more and more. It’s not sports that serves as an example, but sports is only one of the realms of society in which it manifests itself. Think of the way election campaigns are held, of populist leaders, think of how evangelical movements experience their religious services, etc. In previous decennia we saw this with pop artists (Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones) and now it seems to have expanded to all other human activities in which motivation and achieving something are important. Everything within the rules, nowhere in lawless let-it-go. Rules of the game, rules of the company, rules of the music culture, rules of the religious movement (churches with their inner-directed inspirational traditions are becoming out-dated), but vehement and all-encompassing.

Mr. Stephen Covey fits exactly in this social movement with his “seven steps of very effective people”. I refer to Stephen Covey to websites with information about him. He is one of the most succesfull management “gurus” in the USA and he, and later his son who is also in his training business, visited our school during last year. His training programs have been incorporated in our curricula and a number of colleagues have become “certified” Covey-trainers. What bothers me a bit, but this off the record, is that his theories and viewpoints have been introduced in the school not by the teaching staff but by members of the board who are supposed not to interfere with curricula. Our professional discipline “Business Ethics” has been replaced by what I call “Coveyology”. His teaching materials are also “for sale”, everything that comes from or is derived from one of his books or courses, must be paid for. Even his seven “Steps of Very Effective People” have a trade-mark sign behind each of them. But apart from this, for many students and teachers it seems to work, to be effective. This cannot be said about the discipline of “Ethics” which consists of book theory and group discussion materials. All he says and recommends is picked up and brought together from all kinds of religious and spiritual movements of mankind during history. Tao, Christianity, Buddhism, Greek philosophy, Hinduism, are his main sources. There is no theory, only short explanations and practical exercises. His books flow over by one-liners and examples (also taken from existing cultural realms). Effectiveness that’s what it’s all about.

After the soccer match I saw suddenly the applicability of his seven steps on soccer. Next time more about it.