The manipulation of human rights

Human rights are not created by any religion but are fundamental in God’s creation. This is God’s gift to every human being and has to be exercised for the benefit of the whole of God's creation.

However, when religions started claiming ownership of God for human rights, each started giving new interpretations. Some even went to the extent of teaching people that the right over God is the right of their religion thereby causing friction among religions in the name of God.

According to them, humans have no right over human rights because God has handed this over to religions. By this they try to convince people that human rights are the rights of religion and not humans.

Subsequently, humans in religions started talking about their religion and forgot fellow humans who are part of God’s creation. They started talking about religious rights rather than human rights. As they separate religious right from human rights for their selfish agenda, they try to convince humans that religious rights are more important than human rights.

Thus some humans become communal as they narrow down human rights to communal/religious rights. Therefore, the dominant discourse in many societies today is religious rights and not human rights.

Such thinking stems from the wilful ignorance of the truth that God created humans and not religions. God first created humans in God’s own image and God did not create religion in God’s own image.

By hiding the fact that it is humans who created religion, many associate religion with God even when they are against fellow humans, whom God created. Thus even at the cost of the lives of humans, they started defending the rights of religion, thinking that they are defending God.

It is sad that many religious discourses in our society today continue to create a huge space between God and humans through religion. History proves that this happens when religions are under the control of ruling elites or those in power or people who aspire to be in power and authority.

They try to create a consciousness that can controls humans so that the interest of ruling elites, power driven religious and political leaders, and those who benefit from such control and power is maintained forever.

In their quest for control and power, they indoctrinate people by arguing that religion is God and humans, who are God’s own creation, cannot have human rights but can only have their religious rights.

Dominant consciousness

Owners of such dominant consciousness control and use religion as opium on the humans. They make religion untrue to its own essence. They alienate people from religion and God. Instead of making the best possible use of religion, they set trap for humans by building a huge wall between religious rights and human rights, thus dividing our society along communal lines.

Through this emphasis on religious/communal rights, their motive is to dismantle and destroy the common ground of humans to come together and speak for their God-given human rights.

The shift of focus from human rights to religious rights is a well thought-out strategy of the dominant consciousness to use religion as a medium to control society and to manipulate religious beliefs for the continuation of their power and authority.

As they exercise power and influence through such consciousness, they continue to build walls between God and them on one side and humans on the other side. Through this, they control the mind of humans, create fear among them and force them to believe that whoever goes against them are against God.

Such dominant consciousness tries to frighten humans and create hatred between various religions by talking about religion and religious rights. Through this exercise, they attempt to make humans forget their human rights and fight over religious rights. They even condemn those who talk about human rights.

It is a fact that humans in any society lose their freedom and feel incapacitated through such dominant consciousness. If unchecked, such dominant consciousness in any society can easily take control of thought, imagination and life through false religious teachings, authority, education and media.

When we are born, brought up and educated in such a dominant system, unknowingly we become enslaved to such dominant consciousness. In order to achieve this agenda, the dominant/ruling consciousness in any society attempts to control education, media and religion so that they can misuse it for their own benefit.

It is important for us to realise that religions have no existence without humans. That is why many religions build walls around them so that they check who is going out of it or how to bring people into it.

Shed communal identity

But humans can still live without religion in its communal sense because God created man and woman in God’s own image. So human rights are not the rights of religions but the God-given rights of human beings. Only when religions stand for human rights can they come out of the communal identity.

The task of a genuine religion is to become non-communal and to liberate humans who are becoming numb by dominant consciousness in a society and enable them to experience God as God is.

We should let our religions play a positive role in our society to enable humans to desire what is noble, and truth to lead them in the path of God. This is the task and right of religions within the larger framework of human rights.

So instead of talking about religious rights, we should encourage people, leaders and our religions to talk more about human rights so that we become less and less communal and more and more human.

For this task, we must save ourselves and our religions from the clutches of dominant consciousness that aims to take away human rights and seeks to replace it with religious rights. Such attempts divide communities in the name of religion and effectively suppress a united voice in favour of human rights.

We must lift up our religions to stand pure by keeping these away from everything that imprisons them within any ‘narrow’ dominant consciousness, which deny humans their God-given rights. We should be careful not to associate God with such dominant consciousness that curtail human rights given by God.

By exercising our God-given rights, we can imagine and think and develop alternate consciousness as against dominant consciousness which try to control God and humans through false religious teachings and propaganda. Let us enable God to reform our religions and religious beliefs.

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REV THOMAS GEORGE is a priest of the Mar Thoma Church and is an activist of the interfaith network in Malaysia.