Opinions of Thursday, 26 March 2020
Columnist: Charles Prempeh
2020-03-26
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On March 24, 2020, at the apex of the outbreak of COVID-19, I awoke to an article written via Am. Alhaji Abdul-Raham Harruna Attah that launched a major assault against the national cathedral project in Ghana. At a time when international locations have literally come to a halt, we are expecting to listen to nothing apart from anything that will gladden our hearts when it comes to a remedy for COVID-19. And at a time when brains are at work within the seek an antidote to a plague that has certainly long past viral, we least expected to read such imprudent attack in opposition t a national cathedral from a man who's expected to grasp better than the general Ghanaian!
sadly, these we recognize, who've age to their credit score, and would were a fountain of knowledge for the more youthful generation to gain knowledge of from are sounding the war drum. definitely, we might have anticipated a so-known as skilled statesman, Amb. Alhaji Abdul-Rahman Harr una Attah, to mobilise people to aid the state to find an antidote a menacing virus. as an alternative, this petty-bourgeois, sitting in the consolation of his "multi-faith" room has no qualms making a choice on the event to lambast and lampoon Christians. however, indeed, we do not fret over his unpatriotic behaviour and expect such aspersions considering the fact that it is a part of the malignant efforts on the part Islam to damage the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We recognize that because the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, notably following the Iranian revolution that ousted the Shah regime, Muslims have seen the sense in uniting below unproductive and threatening Islamism, as antagonistic to Arabism, to intensify the crusade towards Christianity and anything reflecting the Christian religion. due to the fact the 1970s, the Muslim world has now not reneged on its efforts in working towards radical Muslims in all places the area, terrorising Christians and individuals who stand in the manner of the menacing threats of Islam. Following the patriarchalism of Islam, young Muslim guys are backed to go to the Arab world to examine Arabic and first-century Islam (occasionally ruthlessly reliving the era of jahiliyya in the twenty-first-century world). They don't analyze the rest imperative to the up to date world, beyond furthering the imperialism of Islam, which all started in the seventh century, following the death of the self-ordained and imposter, Mohammed. These Muslim formative years return to Ghana to interact in divisive religious proselytization.
It is no ask yourself that due to the fact the 1990s, Ghana witnessed remarkable intra and inter-spiritual tensions. These Muslims who had been brainwashed in the Arab world had nothing first rate to present the nation other than constructing mosques and engaging in conflicts with any individual who looked average in their practice of Islam. In Zongo communities, the Nineties witne ssed the proliferation of mosques and religious conflicts. The starting of 2000s also noticed most mosques undergoing refurbishment and decorations. I bet Mr Harruna Attah should have something significant to assert to his people's penchant to construct mosques.
Mr Harruna Attah, please if you think the national cathedral is a "damn aspect" as you name it in your ill-conceived article, please rethink and get in touch with the imperialism of the Muslim world, being fronted through Turkey, to order. you should definitely be sensible satisfactory to know that those constructing the country wide cathedral have completed more suitable in advancing Ghana's socio-economic building than your americans whose most appropriate wager within the battle towards colonialism turned into to sing, "Yaa yi wa wa, bature ya yi wa wa" to "to wit: the white man has become a idiot." Even right here, the rivalry of those ex-servicemen became since the British had didn't live up to the p romise they made to the ex-servicemen. as a minimum, each important church in Ghana now has a school. Islam became in Ghana (later to be called Gold Coast) about hundred years before Christianity, what has Islam performed for this nation? Even the college that has the identify Islam attached to it (regarding Islamic institution faculty, Ghana) changed into constructed through the Shi'a, a gaggle that some hardliners in Sunni Islam disagree with. indeed, as you rant towards the country wide cathedral, kindly tell us what Islam, after centuries in Ghana has accomplished for us? past focused on anything Christians do, please tell us how Islam has truly contributed to the socio-economic development of Ghana.
You claim the country wide cathedral is a rattling thing! reasonable enough! As a resident of one of the Zongo communities for the previous three many years, I challenged some of your leaders to stem the tide towards the rattling Arab imperialism. When the Turkish executive decided to construct the massive mosque around Kawokudi (or Ruga) that is nothing in need of a drop in a desolate tract (considering that the extent of poverty in Zongo communities), I instructed your individuals that they should still insist on a college reasonably a mosque. I literally went on my knees, as a younger man, telling your people to do what Christians do superior – empowering individuals via talents. however, as typical, because they knew they'd get some kickbacks, they dedicated to that imposing edifice in my group. in reality, the corruption that suffocated the task has made the venture lingered for more than ten years. Mr former Ambassador, I challenge you to name your people to order that they should still strengthen their heads, coveting skills throughout the building of universities and important centres of studying. They should still not handiest deepen their indebtedness to Arab imperialism with the aid of perpetually building mosques. Zongo communities are pa cked with mosques, and yet many americans are congested in single rooms – it is that this type of congestion it's a danger to the nation, in the face of coronavirus, not the countrywide cathedral!
You suggested that the cathedral may still be used as an inter-religion edifice. smartly, this has been the position of Muslims, due to the fact that the announcement of the national cathedral became made. actually, Sheikh Aremeyaw Shuaib, the spokesperson of the countrywide chief imam, became one of the earliest men and women to have made this suggestion. I actually have a query for you: why didn't you inform the Turkish government to construct the same edifice so as to increase Christian-Muslim relations in Ghana? Why did you sit down quietly in the consolation of your "inter-religion" room to permit the Turkish executive to rekindle the spirit of neo-colonialism in a twenty-first-century Ghana? Why don't you tell the Arab world to teach your americans in medication, engine ering, and architecture, instead of indoctrinating them with an atavism for first-century Islam (a century that was nothing short of a blood-tasty prophet, killing and spilling blood to satisfy a deity, also called Allah)? Mr Harruna Attah, i'm difficult you to stem the tide in opposition t Islamic imperialism by way of calling your people to resist the efforts of the Arabs at using them to additional the wish of a blood-thirsty deity. supply your people education and encourage them to pursue peace. give them vital competencies and they'll provide functions with the intention to facilitate peaceful interfaith interactions. At any price, Christians do not seem to be forward to attacking Muslims. We do not overtly condemn Muslims as Muslims do to us. if you consider i am wrong on this, do a sample of the content of open-air preaching of your leaders in Zongo communities and sample the forms of polemical books they sell.
You also declare that the countrywide cathedral smacks of d iscrimination towards people of different religions. This ridiculousness in thinking is reflected to your myopic talents about the cathedral. Mr Harruna Attah, be advised that no region of worship for the Christian is closed to non-Christians. anyone in any respect, with good intention, other than a Muslim terrorist, is allowed to worship within the church. One needs not to always bleat the Shahadah, confessing a blood-thirsty and imposter prophet (pun supposed, as you probably did together with your article), before you'll participate in church prayer. The church is a spot of refuge for all.
No want for useless rituals. definitely, here is unlike the mosque, where one must faux to be temporarily "pure" in the course of the performance of ablution before one may also be given entry. Anyway, I indicate they lengthen the ablution to the cleaning of the coronary heart. considering the fact that the intention to sin (niyyah) does not come from the ft, palms, ears, mouth, or ey es. It comes from the heart. So, belabouring the washing of those mundane elements of the body will do Muslims no decent. it really is why after years of washing, most Muslims are ever able to take fingers in opposition t Christians.
most likely you're correct, we need an inter-religion dialogue centre to aid Muslims calm down and maybe see the Lord Jesus Christ because the most effective credible saviour of the pick of God. So, if individuals of all walks of lifestyles, apart from Muslim terrorists, have intentions of using the countrywide cathedral when accomplished, they're free to achieve this. It isn't just like the one Turkish is constructing, which will be constrained to best Muslims. So, your fears should still be directed at the Turkish mosque in my neighborhood, not Christian countrywide cathedral.
within the identical vein, since you are so plenty at pains to run down the national cathedral, you are rubbishing its architectural creativity and ingenuity. in cas e you care to grasp, architecture isn't practically what we see; it's also concerning the imaginative and prescient, philosophy, and desires it conveys and embodies. through architecture, we study heritage, beliefs, and admire people's sense of aesthetics. Even when the west supposedly turned their backs on churches, they grew to become their attention to cathedrals as ancient memorialisation of their history. however it is the non-trivialisation of architecture that explains the mad rush in Zongo communities to renovate mosques to mirror these of the imperialist Arab world.
once again, Mr Harruna Attah, a supposed statesman, you declare Ghana is not in scarcity of locations of worship. If this argument is true, why don't you cease your people from building mosques on every piece of house? Why do they pull down properties to accommodate individuals in Zongo communities to mount mosques? certainly, Most Muslims in Ghana agree with that building mosques will enhance their qual ification to heaven. here is one reason Zongos continue to witness proliferation of needless mosques.
basically, in case you suggest what you are advising, the premier guidance is an excellent example. tell your americans to cease building mosques, given that Zongoes have already got sufficient of them. in the equal means, we do be aware of that it's the intra-spiritual conflicts that are encouraging the preponderance of mosques in Zongo communities. inform Saudi Arab to stop radicalising Muslims in order that accessible house could be used for faculties to show Muslim youth. definitely, your information is to your Muslim people.
I should also add that the national cathedral is not only for cultic purposes. I surmise that together with your calibre, remember to no longer have difficulties gaining access to assistance concerning the multiple purposes of the cathedral. Given your position on it, it's either you're deliberately fomenting hatred for the mission and enriching animosity towards Christians otherwise you are ignorant about what cathedral does. both techniques, you are wrong in thinking that the countrywide cathedral is only going to be one more area of worship. Do you even understand that it is going to residence a museum for the Bible, the book that has the message of our salvation? did you know that it goes for use for other public routine? anyhow, i hope the Turkish mosque in my neighborhood is also going to have multiple services, past the senior excessive college that is connected to it.
Mr Harruna Attah, it is sad that you just do not know what secularism is set. you have got joined the foolhardy who maintain bleating about Ghana's supposed secular popularity devoid of understanding the nuances of secularity/secularism and secularisation. You quoted Nkrumah to guide Ghana's supposed secularity. incidentally, Nkrumah did not declare Ghana a secular state in the manner you're deploying the thought – absence of faith within the public sphere.
Nkrumah's theory of consciencism, which become a fusion and synthetization of Ghana's triple heritage, Islam, Christianity, and indigenous religions, became meant to foster a nation that preferred faith as primary to our repertoire of doing issues. by the way, did you know that Nkrumah frequently run to the church every time he had difficulties? When he turned into launched from reformatory in the 1950s, he ran to the spiritual founding father of the Mosama Disco Christo Church, in the hunt for spiritual purging and restitution.
On the eve of independence, Nkrumah once more went to the MDCC to know what day and month to opt for for the nation's independence. Mr Harruna Attah, while Nkrumah on occasion had an ambivalent perspective towards the church (calling himself a non-denominational Christian and a Marxist socialist), he did not preach secularism – when it comes to the absence of religion in the public sphere.
His vogue turned into the accommodation of all of the religions. here is what Christians have all the time completed. while we've an overwhelming demographic expertise, we now have under no circumstances regarded it prudent to suppress Muslims. i'm hoping you have got read about how Muslims suppressed the Christians in Lebanon. i'm hoping you are also aware of how some Muslims in Egypt, impressed via the blood-thirsty sun-deity (pun meant), are persecuting the minority Coptic Christians.
one other needless element you are making is that now not each Christian supports the country wide cathedral. certainly, in case you had utilized some simple common sense – taught as a part of essential thinking, you possibly can have generic that the inclusive article "all" in a sentence is at all times problematic, specially if you are coping with human beings. So, we aren't surprised that not every Christian supports the cathedral. whereas some might also have political motivations not to aid the challenge (re flecting the NDC-NPP polarity in Ghana), there are these companies who do not identify with evangelical Christianity in Ghana. as an example, the corporations you outlined – the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses – don't determine with mainstream Christianity and should certainly not support any collective pastime. I suppose you are aware that these organizations have been banned from operating in Ghana beneath the religious bodies [Registration] legislations in 1989.
These companies, largely regarded cults of Christianity, do not settle for the cardinal teachings of the Christian faith. and naturally, it isn't any wonder that you simply, who belong to anti-Christian faith, can serve on the charity board of the Mormons. I hope Islam will enable a Christian to do the identical with their organizations. after all, it isn't most effective Christianity that has companies who don't share the cardinal teachings of the religion.
be sure to know the case of Nation of Isla m and Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at, who do not share the teachings of different Muslims. The decent information is that whereas Christians don't persecute individuals who deviate from the teachings of the religion, in Islam the same can't be referred to. make sure to know how the theory of orthodoxy became deployed to hound the Ahmadiyya out of Pakistan in the Seventies.
incidentally, you be aware of that your prophet turned into "correct" in saying that your faith – Islam, will have seventy-seven divisions. I pray we don't witness the seventy-seven division in Ghana, for that will be a catalyst for chaos. Already with just two main factions within the equal Sunni subculture – Ahlu Sunna and Tijaniyya – you're unable to coexist in the identical space.
i was questioning why you decided to rob your supposed "inter-faith" home in our face. in case your wife is a Christian, notwithstanding you stay a Muslim, what has that got to do with us? anyways, I should stil l trust your spouse, being a "Christian" has now not been tagged a nonentity in her household. this is because not like Muslims, where a Muslim woman who marries a Christian man is regarded an abomination and suffers social dying, in the case of Christians, we quite pray for such people. We believe that our God is the one who converts, now not persecution – which has at all times been the tool purchasable to Islam. Even the crusades, which the Christians had been concerned in turned into mostly based on Muslim aggression to take over the land of Jerusalem. I believe you understand how the note 'mirage' in English become a direct borrowing of Mi'raj in Islam to reveal how Muslims have been deluded to have idea that your prophet become taken to heaven during the Temple of Jerusalem. surprisingly, a temple that changed into destroyed about 5 centuries earlier than the rise of Islam changed into bodily accessible to have served as a conduit for your prophet to go to heaven w here intercourse will be successful unabashedly. incidentally, the "mi'raj" become spiritual, why did you construct a mosque in that house? Why do you combat over Jerusalem? anyhow, back to song, you think if your wife have been a Muslim, your parents – if they belonged to the unconventional sect from Saudi Arabia, would have allowed her to marry you (assuming you have been a Christian man)? in any case, your spouse chose to marry you in pursuant of her needs, not her faith. here's exactly because Jesus Christ did not recommend Christians to marry non-Christians. here's now not coterminous to saying that Christians do not suggest peaceable co-existence of religions. You may also are looking to read my academic article ("modern Zongo Communities in Accra Interfaith Marriages: The Case of Muslims and Christians in Accra"), published by way of a excessive-rating journal, African studies Quarterly, on the considerations of interfaith marriages in Zongo communities in Accra.< /p>
ultimately, you have been questioning what the country wide cathedral has acquired to do with the coronavirus at hand. well, be sure you by now recognize that effective nations of the area are calling on Christians to hope. nations that your sick-recommended understanding of secularity would have had nothing to do with faith are now calling for prayer intervention. i will be able to guarantee that the scarecrows constructed around the COVID-19 are on account of americans like you feel technology is the reply to each issue. The fear that technology is failing us in the face of COVID-19 is the reason for the concern invested in the virus. by the way, churches, just like the Church of Pentecost – which helps the countrywide cathedral, are giving cars, cash and other elements to help the state to combat the virus. what's Islam doing?
I end that we are going to proceed to build the country wide cathedral to the glory of God. We usually are not discouraged via naysayers like you. We aren't deterred via your partisan advantage of things. We may be encouraged to build it. nobody is asking you to impose your "inter-religion" domestic on us; neither are we asking to your abilities or money. if in case you have any assistance on a way to use components judiciously, just tell your americans in Islam to keep away from pilgrimaging dissimilar times to sing their own praises, as they take imperialist title like Alhaji and Alhajia. They may still fairly channel their funds into building colleges and universities. and eventually, no matter if a stone from Israel is used as a part of the foundation of the national cathedral or now not is nothing in comparison to the geocentricism of Islam, where the black stone is worshipped and the place prayer is void until it is directed at an idol edifice in Mecca. it's additionally not in comparison to incessant kissing of black stone for salvation. in the conclusion, the Bible says it is barely a fool who calls the issue s of God folly (Psalm 14:1).
Satyagraha
Charles Prempeh (prempehgideon@yahoo.com), African tuition faculty of Communications, Accra
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