SEPTEMBER 7 2019 LISTENER 21
beliefs, gods, texts, rituals and customs, “so
schools can share in the life of their wider
communities and increase awareness of
religious diversity”.
“The mosque shootings [highlighted]
the need for accepting that we have a lot
of religions and opinions about religions
in New Zealand,” Donovan says. “The
assumptions of the past, of a secularity or
mainstream Christianity with a few fringe
forms of religious activity, are long gone.”
John Shaver, head of religious studies
at the University of Otago, agrees. “It’s
ridiculous to think one shouldn’t teach
religion, given its importance in human
society. Every society has a religion of some
sort, so to not talk about what that is would
be a huge disservice to the education of
children – it would be equivalent to hiding
politics from education.”
And religion is important in a range of
professions. “If you are dealing with humans,
you need some knowledge of religion. It
doesn’t need to be a religion teacher in
every school; it could be as little as having
more content about world religions in social
science or history classes.”
Mustafa Farouk, president of the
Federation of Islamic Associations of New
Zealand, believes young people who are not
exposed to other beliefs become vulnerable
to dogmas from people who “are doing
things completely opposite to what these
religious systems teach”.
“There are a lot of very reckless politicians
and other people who promote these
differences,” he says. “They frighten
vulnerable people who have incomplete
information on the impact of immigrants,
for example – that they are taking jobs from
them or that Muslims are out there to force
their view on people. When people do not
have a lot of information and they are not
interacting with other groups, that leads to
those horrendous actions we saw in March.”
Farouk suggests optional “well-being
electives” for students to learn about a
particular religion or culture, as well as a
compulsory well-being course to teach
about different belief systems,
societies and immigration.
“So, we can have electives
for people to learn more
about Judaism, Christianity,
Islam or Buddhism, but also
one core course that exposes
young people to elements of
all of these – some of this core
teaching about tolerance and
togetherness. Hopefully, if
they learn from a young age,
they will know that a lot of the
stuff taught in Judaism and
Christianity and other belief
systems is similar, so maybe
we should capitalise on what
is common between us and
leave the few differences to
those who practise them.”
Both SEN and Launchpad
endorse more education about
different religions within the
curriculum.
“As New Zealand changes,
we are a much more eclectic
society,” says Burton. “The
expectation that schools
would give freedom for all
religions to be taught, I don’t
think that is a bad thing.”WARPED VIEWS
But can religious education
stem what appears to be
a growing and staunchly
racist, anti-immigrant
mindset in the West? Pratt,
who, ironically, was made
redundant last year when
the University of Waikato
joined several universities in
closing or integrating their
religious studies departments,
argues white supremacy
is embedded in, or at least
reflects, a particular anti-Islam, pro-Christian
mindset that regards Muslims as “invaders”,
even if individual proponents are not fully
aware of the pedigree of the ideology that
drives them.
In the US, for example, Aryan Nations,
the white-supremacist arm of the Christian
Identity organisation Church of Jesus Christ
Christian, regards racial distinction as part of
a divinely created order. “The most extreme
form of this takes a warped biblical view
that whites were created from Adam and
Eve and the so-called mud races – basically,everybody else – were created
by the serpent who seduced
Eve. A more subtle view of the
notion of divinely determined
distinctions ranks people on
various scales of race, intellect,
mental capacity and so on –
that is what lay behind South
African apartheid, the whole
eugenics movement and
Nazism.”
Some, like the alleged
Christchurch shooter, act
from a white-supremacist
perspective, “but they are part
of a movement that has strong
links with a very particular
religious perspective, even
though its values are espoused
with no knowledge of where
they originated”.
Evidence of this movement
in New Zealand is not hard to
find. In April, barely six weeks
after the Christchurch killings,
a man left leaflets on cars in
Palmerston North accusing
Catholic and Anglican
parishioners of being traitors
because of their support for
Muslims in the wake of the
shootings.
“In the Christian
community, there is a
substantial minority with
a very deep anti-Islamic
sentiment,” says Pratt. “A lot
of that has been challenged
by what happened in
Christchurch, but there are
people whose world view is
one of spiritual warfare, who
believe, quite literally, that
the nature of reality is such
that this is the battleground
between good and evil, God
and the Devil. This is what secular society
just does not get.”
Pratt agrees there is a need for religious
studies in our school system and says that
the focus on Māori culture is paving the way
for such expressions of religion.
“Young adults need an awareness of our
social context, past and present, which
means understanding religious diversity.
Religion may have gone underground, in
effect, but people’s values are informed
by religious values. We just don’t name it
any more.” lFrom top, Mustafa Farouk,
David Hines, Bosco Peters
and Douglas Pratt.Since the Christchurch
shootings, mosques
around the country have
reported an increase
in interest in Islam.