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HAS RELIGION FAILED US?

May 07, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The politicians are not only to be blamed for the moral crisis facing the nation. The main culprits are the members of the public that refuse to act in accordance with what is right and what is wrong when it comes to general elections.
Each of the two main political groups wants to win. Their supporters, in the main, are prepared to win by dishonest means.
Honesty is the best policy. But most persons in these two political camps want their party to win so badly that they are prepared to condone dishonest acts for the sale of winning.
Since 2nd March, I have never been convinced by those who parade the view that the APNU+AFC won the elections. I am of the belief that those who make this claim know fully well that the Coalition lost the elections. But they are using this argument to express what the outcome they wish to see rather than what is. In others word, the Coalition supporters know they have lost but are saying the opposite because that is what they want and want desperately.
The issue is a moral one. Winning honestly is to be on the right side. Cheating is to be on the wrong side.
To win dishonestly is wrong. Plain and simple. Those who want to win at all costs, including dishonestly, are morally wrong. Plain and simple.
If someone cheats in an examination and passed on the basis of that act of cheating that is wrong. A person who cheated in an athletic event has committed a dishonorable act. That is wrong. If I rob someone of some money, that is wrong. So how come if I rig an election that becomes right. How come if I accept a declaration that is knowingly rigged, can that be right?
The idea therefore that a political leader would accept a declaration of victory knowing fully well that there was cheating is downright dishonest. And for supporters to support dishonesty puts them on the wrong side of the moral divide.
The moral crisis facing the nation is about right and wrong. Right and wrong are treated today not as not absolute values; they are relative values. Morality has become relative. If it is in someone’s interest to cheat, then they treat that as being right. And this is why the country has found itself in the present confusion.
What we have is a case of moral confusion. We have a confused generation of Guyanese who do not know the difference from right and wrong. The criminals do not know how to distinguish right from wrong. Some of them do so see the act of depriving someone of their personal possessions as being wrong because they live in a society where there is hypocrisy when it comes to right and wrong.
Free and fair elections can only be useful if those participating are willing to abide by the rules of the game and accept the results. But if there will be forces which are bent on being dishonest and want to win at all costs, this makes a mockery of the whole system. It would be much better, as I have alluded to previously, for elections to be decided by spinning a coin because if persons are going to cheat in order to win why have an election.
The moral crisis facing the nation forces us to ask another question. Has religion failed us? Or have we failed religion?
Religion is the basis of morality. Religious values allows us to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. So why then has the religious community, including many religious leaders, who like to pontificate about what is right and what is wrong, not condemned the dishonest acts which took place in the tabulation process of the elections?
They have not done so, because they would lose the support of their congregations if they condemn the rigging which took place. In other words, the cart is leading the horse. This is source of their moral confusion
The moral crisis exists because religion has limited itself to only personal and some social relations but has not infiltrated into politics. Politics is seen as being outside of morality.
And because morality is not part of the politics, people believe that they can do the most immoral of acts, such as rigging elections, and not face moral indictment. The moral dilemma which faces the nation is therefore not so much as the failure of religion but its failure to impose values in politics.

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