Categoria: Religião

Fundamentalismo do Ocidente e do Extremo Ocidente

Leonardo Boff21 Comentários

Predominante é o fundamentalismo islâmico. Mas há também uma onda de fundamentalismo especialmente na França e na Alemanha onde comparecem fortemente a xonofobia, a islamofobia, o antiseminitismo. Os vários atentados da al-Qaeda e de outros grupos jihadistas alimentam esse sentimento que desumaniza a todos: as vítimas e os causadores das vítimas. Podemos comprender os contextos globais que subjazem à violência terrorista (o terror das guerra do Ocidente levadas ao Oriente Médio), mas jamais, por nenhum motivo, aprová-la por seu caráter criminoso.

Radical é o fundamentalismo em vários grupos do Islam, criando um novo tipo de guerra: o terrorismo. Atualmente é ofensivo acusar alguém de fundamentalista. Geralmente só os outros são fundamentalistas, esquecendo, não raro, que quem acusa também vive numa cultura de raiz fundamentalista. É sobre isso que quero me deter rapidamente, mesmo irritando não poucos leitores e leitoras. Refiro-me ao fundamentalismo presente em amplos setores do Ocidente e do Extremo Ocidente (as Américas).

Historicamente o fundamentalismo que já pre-existia, ganhou corpo no protestantismo norte-americano entre 1890 e 1915 quando um grupo de pastores publicou uma coleção de 12 fascículos teológicos com o título Fundamentals: a testimony of the Thruth (Fundamentos: um testemunho da verdade). Ai se afirmava o caráter absoluto das verdades de fé, contra a secularização, fora da quais só poderia haver erro. Esse fundamentalismo perdura ainda hoje em muitas denominações critãs e em setores do catolismo conservador à la Lefbvre.

Diria com certo exagero, mas nem tanto que o fundamentalismo é uma das doenças crônicas do Ocidente e também do Extremo Ocidente (USA) e das mais deletérias. É tão arraigado que virou inconscinte mas bem expresso pelo político mais hilário e grosseiro da Europa, Silvio Berlusconi que declarou ser a civilização ocidental a melhor do mundo e, por isso, a ser imposta a todos. Cito dois tipos de fundamentalismo: um religioso e outro politico.

O cristianismo de versão romano-católica foi por séculos a ideologia hegemônica da sociedade ocidental, do “orbis catholicus”. Nesta lógica vejam o absolutismo de dois Papas, uma expressão clara de fundamentalismo religioso.

O Papa Alexandre VI (1492-1503) pela bula Inter Caetera destinada aos reis de Espanha determinava:”Pela autoridade do Deus todo-poderoso a nós concedida em São Pedro, assim como do vicariato de Jesus Cristo, vos doamos, concedemos e entrregamos com todos os seus domínios, cidades fortalezas, lugares e vilas, as ilhas e as terras firmes achadas e por achar”. Isso foi tomado a sério e legitimou a colonização espanhola com a destruição de etnias, culturas e religiões ancestrais.

O Papa Nicolau V (1447-1455) pela bula Romanus Pontifex dirigida aos reis de Portugal é ainda mais arrogante:”Concedo a faculdade plena e livre para invadir, conquistar, combater, vencer e submeter a quaisquer sarracenos e pagãos em qualquer parte que estiverem e reduzir à servidão perpétua as pessoas dos mesmos”. Também essa faculdade foi exercida no sentido de “dilatar a fé e o império” mesmo à custa da dizimação de nosos indígenas (eram 6 milhões) e a devastação de nossas florestas.

Esse versão religiosa ganhou uma tradução secular nos colonizadores que praticavam tal terror sobre os povos. Mas ela subsiste ainda hoje; basta ver como  a Alemanha de Merkel e a França de Hollande tratam a humilhada Grécia junto com a Troika. Julgam-se senhores do destino do povo grego, obrigando-o a pagar uma dívida impagável até o juizo final (170% acima do PIB). Temos a ver com um tipo de  fundamentalismo, o do neoliberalismo econômico com a expressão: TINA:There is No Alternative: não há outra alternativa. Quem decide que não há? Os bancos? Os governos? O povo?

Lamentavelmente essa versão absolutista foi ressuscitada por um controvertido documento do então Card. Joseph Ratzinger, Dominus Jesus (2001) onde reafirma a idéia medieval de que fora da Igreja não há salvação. Os demais estão em situação de risco face à salvação eterna.

A versão religiosa acima ganhou expressão política pelo Destino Manifesto dos USA. Esta expressão foi cunhada em 1845 pelo jornalista John O’Sullivan para justificar o expansionismo norte-americano como a anexação de parte do México. Em 1900 o senador por Indiana, Albert Beveridge explicava:”Deus designou o povo norte-americano como nação eleita para dar início à regeneração do mundo”. Outros Presidentes especialmente George W. Bush se remetiram a essa pretensiosa exclusividade. Ela justificou guerras de conquista especialmente no Oriente Médio. Parece que em Barak Obama ela não está totamente ausente.

Em resumo concentrado: os dois Ocidentes imaginam-se os melhores do mundo: a melhor religião, a melhor forma de governo, a melhor tecno-ciência, a melhor cosmovisão. Isso constitui uma forma de fundamentalismo que sugnifica: fazer de sua verdade a única e impo-la aos demais. Essa arrogância está presente no consciente e no subconsciente dos ocidentais. Graças a Deus, criou-se também um antídoto: a auto-crítica sobre os males que esse fundamentalismo tem trazido para a humanidade e para a relação com a natureza. Mas não é compartilhado pela coletividade.

Vale a frase do grande poeta espanhol Antonio Machado: ”Não a tua verdade. A verdade. Vem comigo buscá-la. A tua, guarde-a”. Se a buscarmos juntos, no dialogo e na cordialidade, então mais e mais desaparece a minha verdade para dar lugar a Verdade comungada por todos. E assim se pode, quem sabe, limitar o fundamentalismo no mundo nos dois Ocidentes.

Leonardo Boff é colunista do JBonlie e escreveu: Fundamentalismo, terrorismo, religião e paz, Vozes 2009.

Intolerance in present day Brazil and in the world

Leonardo Boff6 Comentários

The recent murder in France of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, and the last Presidential elections in Brazil, have highlighted a latent fact of Brazilian culture and the world: intolerance. I will restrict myself here to intolerance in Brazilian culture, because my previous article dealt with that reflected in the Charlie Hebdo murders. Brazilian intolerance is part of what Holland’s Sergio Buarque characterizes as «cordial» in the sense that hate and prejudice, like hospitality and sympathy, come from the heart. But rather than cordial, I would prefer to call that of Brazil passionate.

What the last electoral campaign showed was «cordial-passionate», in the form of class hatred (contempt of the poor), and racial discrimination (Blacks and Northerners). To be poor, or to be Black and a Northerner, was deemed a defect, hence the absurd desire of some to divide Brazil between the South «rich» and the North-East «poor». That class hatred derives from the archetype of La Casa Grande and the Senzala that persist in some social sectors, well expressed by a wealthy madame from Salvador: «the poor, not satisfied with meeting basic family needs, now want to have rights as well». That presupposes that if previously they were slaves, they should do everything for free, as if the abolition of slavery had not occurred and rights meant nothing. Homosexuals and other LGBTs are insulted even in official debates between candidates, revealing an «intolerable» intolerance.

To better understand intolerance we must delve deeper, to the crux of the problem. Today’s reality is contradictory at its core, and complex, because it is the convergence of the most varied factors. In it is found original chaos and cosmos (order), light and shadows, the sym-bolical and the dia-bolical. In fact, they are not construction defects, but the very real condition of in-plenitude that exists in the universe. This forces universal coexistence with differences and imperfections, and tolerance of those who do not think or act as we think and act. Expressed in direct language: they are two opposing poles, but the poles of a singe and unique dynamic reality. These polarities cannot be suppressed. All attempts at suppression result in terror by those who presume to have the truth and try to impose it on others. The excess of truth ends up being worse than error.

What everyone (and society) must know is how to distinguish one pole from the other and to make one’s choice. Humans show themselves to be ethical beings when they take responsibility for their actions and for the consequences of those actions.

One could think: but then, is all good? Is there no longer difference? It is not that all is good or that differences are erased. Distinctions must be made. Weedy grasses are weedy grasses, and not wheat. Wheat is wheat and not just a weedy grass. The torturer can not have the same fate as the tortured. Humans must not equate and confuse them. Humans must be discerning, and make decisions.

To achieve coexistence without confusing these principles we must nourish tolerance in ourselves. Tolerance is the ability to positively maintain this difficult coexistence and tension between the poles, knowing that they are opposite, but that they are part of one unique dynamic reality. Even though they are opposite, they are the two sides of the same whole, the left and the right.

The ongoing risk is intolerance. Intolerance diminishes reality, because it only accepts one pole and denies the other. Intolerance forces everyone to adopt one pole and annul the other, as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda do in a criminal form. Fundamentalism and dogmatism deem their truths to be absolute. Thus they condemn themselves to intolerance, and neither recognize nor respect the truth of others. Their first action is to suppress freedom of opinion, pluralism and to impose their unique thought. Attacks such as the one in Paris derive from this intolerance.

One must avoid passive tolerance, the attitude of accepting the other’s existence, not from choice, and recognition of its value, but because it cannot be avoided.

Rather, active tolerance must be encouraged, consisting of coexistence, with an attitude of positive coexistence with the other, out of respect, and an awareness of the value of difference, through which we can enrich ourselves.

Above all, tolerance is an ethical experience. Tolerance represents the right of all people to be who they are, and to continue being that. That right was universally expressed in the golden rule: «do not do to others what you would not have them do to you». Or positively stated: «Do unto others as you would have them do unto you». This principle is obvious.

At its core, the truth found in tolerance is summarized thusly: each person has the right to live and coexist on planet Earth. They all have the right to be here with their specific differences. That right precedes any expression of life as a vision of the world, a belief, or ideology. This is the great difficulty of European societies: the lack of acceptance of the other, be it an Arab, Muslem, or Turk, and in the Brazilian society, it is the lack of acceptance of the African descendant, the Northerner, the Indigenous. Societies must be organized in such a way that, by right, everyone may feel included. Hence peace is born, that according to The Earthcharter, is «the plenitude created by correct relationships with oneself, with other persons, with other cultures, with other lives, with the Earth and with the main Whole of whom we are part» (n. 16 f).

Nature offers us the main lesson: no matter how diverse the beings are, they all coexist, interconnect and create the complexity of reality and the splendid diversity of life.
Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.
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Religions and terrorism

Leonardo Boff3 Comentários

The principal conflicts of the final years of the twentieth century and the beginnings of the new millennium have religious undertones, whether in Ireland, Kosovo, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq or the extremely violent new Islamic State. This was clear in Paris, with the murder of the cartoonists and others by Islamic fundamentalists. How does religion enter into this?

Not without reason did Samuel P. Huntington write in his well known 1997 book, The Clash of Civilizations: «In the modern world, religion is a central force, perhaps the central force that motivates and mobilizes people… What matters in the end to people is neither political ideology nor economic interest. What people identify with are religious convictions, family and creeds. They fight and are even willing to give their lives for these things.» (p. 79). Huntington critiques Northamerican foreign policy for never having paid sufficient attention to the religious factor, considered something old and superceded. That is a huge error. Religion underlies the gravest conflicts that we are experiencing.

Whether we like it or not, in spite of the secularization process and the eclipse of the sacred, much of humanity is oriented by a religious cosmo-vision, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Sintoist, Buddhist and others.

As already affirmed by Christopher Dawson (1889-1970), the great British historian of cultures: «the great religions are the foundations on which civilizations rest» (Dynamics of World History, 1957, p.128). Religions are the point d’honneur of a culture, because through religion they project their great dreams, elaborate their ethical dictums, confer meaning on history and have their say about the ultimate meaning of life and of the universe. Only modern culture has not produced a religion. Modern culture found substitutes with idolatrous functions, such as reason, endless progress, unlimited consumerism, limitless accumulation and others. The result was denounced by Nietzsche, who proclaimed the death of God. Not that God had died, if so, God would not be God. The fact is that men killed God. Nietzsche meant that God no longer is the point of reference for fundamental values, for an overriding cohesion among humans. We are seeing the effects at a planetary level: a humanity lacking direction, an atrocious loneliness and a feeling of rootlessness, without knowing where history is leading us.

If we want peace in this world we need to recapture the feeling of the sacred, the spiritual dimension of life that is at the origin of the religions. Truthfully, even more important than religion is spirituality, that presents itself as the profound human dimension. But spirituality expresses itself through religions, whose purpose is to nourish, sustain and infuse life with spirituality. This is not always accomplished because almost all religions, when institutionalized, enter into the games of power and hierarchies, and can assume pathological forms. Whatever is healthy can fall ill. But we measure religions, as we do people, for the “sane” versions, and not the “pathological” ones.

Thus we see that religions perform an indispensable function: they try to give ultimate meaning to life and to offer a hopeful framework of history. What is happening now is that fundamentalism and terrorism, that are religious pathologies, have become relevant. In large part this is due to the devastating process of globalization (actually, the Westernization of the world), that ignores differences, destroys identities and imposes foreign habits on them.

In general, when that occurs, peoples hold onto those things that are the guardians of their identity. They conserve through religions their memories and their best symbols. When feeling invaded, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, with thousands of victims, they take refuge in their religions as a form of resistance. Then the issue becomes something other than religious. It is politics using religion for self defense. Invasion creates rage and a desire for revenge. Fundamentalism and terrorism find their origins in this complex of questions. Hence the terrorist attacks.

How can we overcome this impasse in civilization? It is fundamental to live the ethics of hospitality, to be willing to dialogue with and to learn from those who are different, to live an active tolerance, and to be aware of one’s humanity.

Religions need to acknowledge each other, to enter into dialogue and to find minimum convergences that allow them to peacefully coexist.

Before anything, it is important to recognize religious pluralism, as a matter of fact and of right. Plurality derives from a correct understanding of God. No religion can hope to define the Mystery, the original Source of all beings or any other name they want to give to the Supreme Reality, within the limits of their discourse and of their rites. If it were that way, God would be part of the world, in reality, an idol. God is always beyond and always far above. Consequently there is space for other expressions and for other forms of celebrating God that are not exclusive to one specific religion.

The first eleven chapters of Genesis contain a great lesson. They do not speak of the Israelites as the chosen people. Reference is made of all the peoples of the Earth, all of whom are peoples of God. Above them all rises the rainbow of the divine alliance. This message reminds us still today that all peoples, with their religions and their traditions, are peoples of God, they all live on the Earth, in the garden of God, and form the unique Human Species that is composed of many families with their traditions, cultures and religions.

Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Intoleranz im heutigen Brasilien und in der Welt

Leonardo Boff3 Comentários

Der jüngste Mord an den Karikaturisten von Charlie Hebdo in Frankreich und die letzten Wahlen in Brasilien zeigten einen latenten Umstand der brasilianischen Kultur und der Welt auf: Intoleranz. Ich will mich hier auf die Intoleranz in der brasilianischen Kultur beschränken, denn mein voriger Artikel handelte von dem, was sich in den Mordanschlägen bei Charlie Hebdo gezeigt hat. Die brasilianische Intoleranz ist Teil dessen, was Sérgio Buarque de Holanda als „vom Herzen kommend“ bezeichnete in dem Sinn, dass Hass und Vorurteile ebenso wie Gastfreundschaft und Sympathie vom Herzen kommen. Doch eher als „vom Herzen kommend“ würde ich es im Fall von Brasilien als „passioniert“ bezeichnen.

Was die letzte Wahlkampagne zeigte, war „vom Herzen kommend-passioniert“ in Form von Klassenhass (Verachtung der Armen) und Rassendiskriminierung (Schwarze und die aus dem Norden Stammenden). Arm zu sein oder schwarz oder aus dem Norden zu stammen wurde als ein Manko angesehen. Daher rührt das absurde Verlangen einiger, Brasilien in den „reichen“ Süden und den „armen“ Nordosten aufzuteilen. Dieser Klassenhass leitet sich vom Archetypus von La Casa Grande und von Senzala her, der in manchen sozialen Bereichen fortbesteht und treffend von einer reichen Dame aus Salavador zum Ausdruck gebracht wurde: „Die Armen geben sich nicht mehr zufrieden mit der Stillung der Grundbedürfnisse einer Familie; nun wollen sie auch noch Rechte.“ Dem liegt die Einstellung zugrunde, dass, wenn sie zuvor Sklaven waren, sie alles kostenlos tun sollten, als wäre die Sklaverei nie abgeschaffen worden gegeben und als ob es keine Rechte gäbe. Homosexuelle und andere LGBT-orientierte Personen werden sogar in öffentlichen Debatten von Kandidaten beleidigt, welche eine unerträgliche Intoleranz an den Tag legten.

Um Intoleranz besser zu verstehen, müssen wir tiefer bis in den Kern des Problems vordringen. Die heutige Realität ist durch und durch widersprüchlich und komplex, denn sie ist die Konvergenz der unterschiedlichsten Faktoren. Darin finden sich das ursprüngliche Chaos und Kosmos (Ordnung), Licht und Schatten, das Sym-bolische und das Dia-bolische. Tatsächlich sind diese keine Konstruktionsfehler, sondern die tatsächliche Bedingung der Fülle, die im Universum besteht. Dies zwingt zu universeller Koexistenz mit Unterschieden und Unvollkommenheiten und zu Toleranz mit denjenigen, die nicht so denken und handeln wie wir. In klaren Worten ausgedrückt: dies sind zwei gegensätzliche Pole, doch Pole einer einzigen und einzigartigen dynamischen Realität. Diese Polaritäten können nicht aufgehoben werden. Alle Versuche, sie aufzuheben, führen zu Terror durch diejenigen, die meinen, im Besitz der Wahrheit zu sein, und die versuchen, diese Wahrheit Anderen aufzuzwingen. Der Exzess von Wahrheit wird dann schlimmer als ein Irrtum es sein könnte.

Was jede und jeder (und die Gesellschaft) wissen muss, ist wie sich ein Pol vom anderen unterscheidet und wie man eine Wahl trifft. Menschen erscheinen als ethische Wesen, wenn sie Verantwortung für ihre Taten und für deren Konsequenzen übernehmen.

Man könnte meinen, dann wäre alles gut, und sich fragen, ob es nun keine Unterschiede mehr gibt. Es ist nicht so, dass alles gut wäre und dass alle Unterschiede aufgehoben wären. Unterschiede müssen gemacht werden. Unkraut ist Unkraut und kein Weizen. Weizen ist Weizen und nicht einfach Unkraut. Der Folterer kann nicht dasselbe Schicksal haben wie der Gefolterte. Die Menschen dürfen nicht der Gleichmacherei verfallen und diese beiden verwechseln. Die Menschen müssen urteilsfähig sein und Entscheidungen treffen können.

Um Koexistenz zu erreichen, ohne diese Prinzipien zu verwechseln, müssen wir die Toleranz in uns stärken. Toleranz ist die Fähigkeit, in positiver Weise diese schwierige Koexistenz aufrecht zu erhalten und die Spannung zwischen den Polen auszuhalten, im Wissen, dass sie sich gegenüber stehen, doch dass sie Teil einer einzigen dynamischen Realität sind. Selbst wenn sie sich gegenüber stehen, sind sie doch zwei Seiten desselben Ganzen, wie links und rechts.

Das aktuell bestehende Risiko ist die Intoleranz. Intoleranz verkleinert die Realität, denn sie akzeptiert nur einen Pol und verleugnet den anderen. Intoleranz zwingt jede und jeden dazu, den einen Pol anzunehmen und den anderen auszulöschen, so wie der Islamische Staat und al-Quaida es auf kriminelle Weise tun. Fundamentalismus und Dogmatismus halten ihre Wahrheiten für absolut. Daher verurteilen sie sich selbst zu Intoleranz und weder anerkennen noch respektieren sie die Wahrheit Anderer. Ihre erste Handlung besteht darin, die Meinungsfreiheit und Pluralismus zu unterdrücken und ihre einzigartige Denkweise Anderen aufzuzwingen. Anschläge wie der in Paris haben ihre Wurzel in dieser Intoleranz.

Passive Toleranz muss allerdings vermieden werden, d. h. die Haltung, dass man die Existenz des anderen akzeptiert, nicht weil man das so möchte, sondern weil es nicht anders geht.

Stattdessen muss zu aktiver Toleranz ermutigt werden, die aus Koexistenz besteht mit einer Haltung aus positivem Zusammensein mit dem Anderen, und zwar aus Respekt und im Bewusstsein, dass das Anderssein einen Wert besitzt, der uns selbst bereichern kann.

Toleranz ist vor allem eine ethische Erfahrung. Toleranz repräsentiert das Recht aller so zu sein, wie sie sind, und weiterhin so zu bleiben. Dieses Recht wurde universell in der goldenen Regel formuliert: „Was du nicht willst, das man dir tu, das füg auch keinem anderen zu.“ Oder positiv ausgedrückt: „Was ihr wollt, das andere euch tun, das tut auch ihnen.“ Dies ist ein einleuchtendes Prinzip.

Im Grunde lässt sich die Wahrheit, die in der Toleranz liegt, folgendermaßen zusammenfassen: Jede Person hat ein Recht auf Leben und auf Koexistenz auf dem Planeten Erde. Alle haben ein Recht, hier zu sein mit ihren je eigenen Unterschieden. Dieses Recht geht jeder Ausdrucksweise von Leben als eine Weltsicht, Glaube oder Ideologie voraus. Dies ist die große Schwierigkeit der europäischen Gesellschaften: der Mangel an Akzeptanz des Anderen, sei er ein Araber, Moslem oder Türke, und in der brasilianischen Gesellschaft ist es der Mangel an Akzeptanz des Nachkommens von Afrikanern, der aus dem Norden Stammenden, der Indigenen. Gesellschaften müssen so organisiert sein, dass sich per Recht jede und jeder einbezogen fühlen kann. Auf diese Weise entsteht Frieden, der, gemäß der Erd-Charta „die Gesamtheit dessen ist, das geschaffen wird durch rechte Beziehungen zu sich selbst, zu anderen Personen, anderen Kulturen, anderen Lebewesen, der Erde und dem größeren Ganzen, zu dem alles gehört“ (Nr. 16f).

Die Natur lehrt uns die wichtigste Lektion: Ganz gleich, wie verschieden die Lebewesen auch sind; sie alle koexistieren und kreieren die Komplexität der Wirklichkeit und die herrliche Vielfalt des Lebens.

übersetzt von Bettina Gold-Hartnack