Durban: Imagine if religion were like buying a car. You investigate a few options, do the odd test drive and then make a selection. After a few years, you could upgrade to the latest model or opt for something different because your needs have changed.
But religion does not work that way. If you were born in a Hindu home, it is more than likely you will grow up to be a Hindu. The same holds true if you were born in a Jewish, Muslim or Christian home.
Some do embrace another faith, from an informed perspective but, more often than not, it is due to the promise of love or better health. In some cases, people are forced into accepting a new religion. But, by and large, the god you pray to depends on the home you were raised in.
Bollywood realised this way back in the ’70s with the blockbuster, Amar Akbar Anthony. It tells of three brothers who were separated at a young age. One is brought up as a Hindu, the other a Muslim and the third a Christian. But the blood that runs through their veins is the same.
The movie symbolised what some believed was the perfect Indian society, one in which Hindu, Muslim and Christian lived and thrived side by side.
In South Africa, we aspire for something similar although, understandably, our vision of a utopian society is more focused on the equality of different races rather than religion.
However, in India and South Africa, the vision of a society united in its diversity is fading.
In South Africa, racial tension continues to simmer and, ever increasingly, minority communities feel excluded. In India, religious minorities feel excluded as the Hindu majority asserts its influence.
Most recently, the wearing of headscarves in classrooms, in particular the hijab, has caused controversy. Muslim women use the square scarves to cover their heads and necks.
India is a secular country and we can only hope that its courts find a solution that satisfies most Indian citizens, irrespective of their religion.
What we do know is that South African courts have embraced religious diversity in our country. By and largely, Hindus are free to wear a nose ring or red string, Muslim women can use a hijab and those who follow Zulu culture can wear isiphandla, a goat-skin bracelet.
The freedom has not detracted from any religion. Instead, it has made us stronger as a nation because we better understand one another.
The movie Amar Akbar Anthony acknowledged this. We make the impossible possible and the possible impossible, when the three of us get together in one place, go the lyrics of the theme song. Two are better than one. Three are better than two.
The Post