Islam

This section contains articles about the interesting religion of Islam. Articles tackling all the different subjects of Islam will be found here.

Universe

This section contains articles about the universe and God. Basicaly, you will find here all sorts of articles talking about the universe, the evolution theory (Darwin), creationism, the Big Bang theory, and articles talking about the existence of a God, Creator or Architect

This here below is a lecture given by Perry Marshall, author of Cosmic Fingerprints website, which you can find at his site along with other interesting subjects.

• "If you can read this, I can prove that God exist"
• "If you can read this, I can prove that God exist Part II"
• "If you can read this, I can prove that God exist Part III"

• Is There a God, how would you answer?

bio

This section contains articles about biographies and people. Basicaly, you will find here all sorts of articles containing subjects stretching from Mother Teresa of Calcutta to the Kumari Princess, and so on...

• Mother Teresa of Calcutta
• The Kumari Princess

Civilizations

This section contains articles about ancient civilizations and ethnic groups. Basicaly, you will find here all sorts of articles containing subjects stretching from the Roman Empire, to the Vikings, and so on...

• Entre Arabe et Berbère, l'identité marocaine se balance...
• Vikings

L'Ordre du Temple

L'Ordre du Temple

L'histoire "officielle" à retenu qu'au lendemain de la première Croisade, au tout début du XIIème siècle, 9 chevaliers du Nord-Est de la France et de Flandres se retrouvent en Terre Sainte et créent l'Ordre des Pauvres Chevaliers du Christ.

Ils avaient pour nom Hugues de Payns, Geoffroy Bisol, Payen de Montdidier, André de Montbard, Godefroy de St-Omer, Rosal, Archambaud de St-Amand, Godemar et Geoffroy.

Officiellement, leur souci était de protéger les pélerins se rendant à Jérusalem. On leur octroya un terrain situé sur les ruines du Temple de Salomon. Ils deviennent ainsi les Chevaliers du Temple...

En 1127, le pape convoque un concile à Troyes qui consacrera l'existence officielle de l'Ordre et, surtout, qui lui assurera une indépendance totale, morale et financière, par rapport aux souverains temporels: Ordre international, les Templiers ne rendent compte de leurs agissements qu'au Pape...Ce Concile leur donnera également une règle fixant leur mode de vie, leur hiérarchie et qui installe un nouveau concept, celui de Moine-Soldat.A partir du Concile de Troyes, les Templiers bénéficient d'un courant de grande sympathie, bénéficiant du sentiment de piété qui portait les familles à soutenir Croisades et pélerinages. Les dons affluent, en argent, en terres, en cadets de famille pour lesquels l'aventure en Terre est plus attrayante que la vie monastique...

Ils vont aussi créer, en France principalement, plus d'un millier de fermes, les Commanderies Templières, sorte d'économie parallèle détaxée qui alimentera les pélerins en vivres, marchandises, monnaie d'échange, etc...

Les Templiers développent ainsi au fil des ans une dualité complémentaire: en Métropole l'intendance économique, Outre-Mer l'armée régulière et permanente du Royaume Franc de Jérusalem.

Les Croisades et les batailles vont se multiplier, des milliers e Templiers laisseront la vie pour la sauvegarde du Royaume de Jérusalem. Mais les temps changent et il devient de plus en plus difficile de contenir l'ennemi, malgré les fantastiques forteresses que les chrétiens ont baties aux points-clé du Royaume.

En 1270, Saint-Louis laisse la vie en Egypte, avant d'entamer ce qui aurait été la 8ème Croisade. Le Royaume Franc de Jerusalem, qui avait englobé les pays actuels d'Israel, du Liban ainsi qu'une partie de la Jordanie et de la Syrie se voyait reduit à une mince bande côtière tenue par quelques forteresses...

En 1291, vingt ans après la dernière tentative de Croisade de Saint-Louis, Acre le dernier bastion Franc d'Outre Mer, retombait aux mains des Musulmans. Les Templiers se retirèrent dans un premier temps à Chypre, dans l'espoir du déclenchement d'une nouvelle Croisa de de reconquête.

Face à l'immobilisme des souverains d'Europe, ils quittent Chypre et optent alors pour leurs possessions en Occident: Paris devient la Maison principale du Temple, créant une véritable cité dans la cité, de par ses statuts: le Pape, seul, avait pouvoir sur l'Ordre...

Leur inactivité, leur arrogance, leur statut "intouchable", leur richesse ne tardèrent pas à jeter le discrédit sur eux. Philippe le Bel et ses conseillers virent rapidement l'avantage qu'ils pourraient retirer de la situation: Le 13 octobre 1307, Philippe le Bel fit arrêter tous les Templiers de France sous prétexte d'hérésie, de sodomie et des diverses accusations puisées dans le fond de commerce de l'Inquisition.

Il s'ensuivit un des premiers "procès politique" où les Templiers ne purent se défendre, furent torturés et surtout lachés par le Pape Clément V, qui les abandonna à Philippe le Bel. L'Ordre du Temple, aboli au Concile de Vienne en 1312, ne fut toutefois jamais officiellement condamné des griefs qui lui étaient faits.

Le dernier Maître de l'Ordre, Jacques de Molay, fut brûlé vif à la pointe de l'ile de la Cité le 22 décembre 1314.

De l'héroisme passé et de la fin tragique des Templiers, la mémoire collective a entretenu mystères et légendes. Réels ou farfelus, les mystères et légendes trouvent leur fondement quelque part... Du cri d'innocence de Jacques de Molay sur le bûcher, au trésor fabuleux, en passant par la découverte du Graal et leur savoir ésotérique, de tous temps, les mystères des Chevaliers du Temple ont passionné les plus grands de ce monde, de Napoléon au Président Mitterrand...

Source : aquiweb.com

Is there really a God? How would you answer?

Is there really a God? How would you answer?
by Ken Ham

In our everyday experience, just about everything seems to have a beginning. In fact, the laws of science show that even things which look the same through our lifetime, like the sun and other stars, are running down. The sun is using up its fuel at millions of tonnes each second—since, therefore, it cannot last forever, it had to have a beginning. The same can be shown to be true for the entire universe.

So when Christians claim that the God of the Bible created the entire universe, some will ask what seems a logical question, namely ‘Where did God come from?’

The Bible makes it clear in many places that God is outside of time. He is eternal, with no beginning or end—He is infinite! He also knows all things, being infinitely intelligent.1

Is this logical? Can modern science allow for such a notion? And how could you recognize the evidence for an intelligent Creator?

Recognizing intelligence

Scientists get excited about finding stone tools in a cave because these speak of intelligence—a tool maker. They could not have designed themselves. Neither would anyone believe that the carved Presidents’ heads on Mt Rushmore were the product of millions of years of chance erosion. We can recognize design—the evidence of the outworkings of intelligence—in the man-made objects all around us.

Similarly, in William Paley’s famous argument, a watch implies a watchmaker.2 Today, however, a large proportion of people, including many leading scientists, believe that all plants and animals, including the incredibly complex brains of the people who make watches, motor cars, etc., were not designed by an intelligent God but rather came from an unintelligent evolutionary process. But is this a defensible position?

Design in living things

Molecular biologist Dr Michael Denton, writing as an agnostic, concluded:

‘Alongside the level of ingenuity and complexity exhibited by the molecular machinery of life, even our most advanced [twentieth century technology appears] clumsy … . It would be an illusion to think that what we are aware of at present is any more than a fraction of the full extent of biological design. In practically every field of fundamental biological research ever-increasing levels of design and complexity are being revealed at an ever-accelerating rate.’3

The world-renowned crusader for Darwinism and atheism, Prof. Richard Dawkins, states:

‘We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully “designed” to have come into existence by chance.’4

Thus, even the most ardent atheist concedes that design is all around us. To a Christian, the design we see all around us is totally consistent with the Bible’s explanation that God created all.

However, evolutionists like Dawkins reject the idea of a Designer. He comments (emphasis added):

‘All appearance to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with future purpose in his mind’s eye. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind … . It has no mind … . It does not plan for the future … it is the blind watchmaker.’5

Selection and design

Life is built on information, contained in that molecule of heredity, DNA. Dawkins believes that natural selection6 and mutations (blind, purposeless copying mistakes in this DNA) together provide the mechanism for producing the vast amounts of information responsible for the design in living things.7

Natural selection is a logical process that can be observed. However, selection can only operate on the information already contained in genes—it does not produce new information.8 Actually, this is consistent with the Bible’s account of origins; God created distinct kinds of animals and plants, each to reproduce after its own kind.

One can observe great variation in a kind, and see the results of natural selection. For instance, dingoes, wolves, and coyotes have developed over time as a result of natural selection operating on the information in the genes of the wolf/dog kind.

But no new information was produced—these varieties have resulted from rearrangement, and sorting out, of the information in the original dog kind. One kind has never been observed to change into a totally different kind with new information that previously did not exist!

Without a way to increase information, natural selection will not work as a mechanism for evolution. Evolutionists agree with this, but they believe that mutations somehow provide the new information for natural selection to act upon.

Can mutations produce new information?

Actually, it is now clear that the answer is no! Dr Lee Spetner, a highly qualified scientist who taught information and communication theory at Johns Hopkins University, makes this abundantly clear in his recent book:

‘In this chapter I’ll bring several examples of evolution, [i.e., instances alleged to be examples of evolution] particularly mutations, and show that information is not increased … But in all the reading I’ve done in the life-sciences literature, I’ve never found a mutation that added information.9

‘All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it.10

‘The NDT [neo-Darwinian theory] is supposed to explain how the information of life has been built up by evolution. The essential biological difference between a human and a bacterium is in the information they contain. All other biological differences follow from that. The human genome has much more information than does the bacterial genome. Information cannot be built up by mutations that lose it. A business can’t make money by losing it a little at a time.’11

Evolutionary scientists have no way around the conclusions that many scientists, including Dr Spetner, have come to. Mutations do not work as a mechanism to fuel the evolutionary process.

More problems!

Scientists have found that within the cell, there are thousands of what can be called ‘biochemical machines.’ All of their parts have to be in place simultaneously or the cell can’t function. Things which were thought to be simple mechanisms, such as being able to sense light and turn it into electrical impulses, are in fact highly complicated.

Since life is built on these ‘machines,’ the idea that natural processes could have made a living system is untenable. Biochemist Dr Michael Behe (see The mousetrap man) uses the term ‘irreducible complexity’ in describing such biochemical ‘machines.’

‘… systems of horrendous, irreducible complexity inhabit the cell. The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. But other centuries have had their shocks, and there is no reason to suppose that we should escape them.’12

Richard Dawkins recognizes this problem of needing ‘machinery’ to start with when he states:

‘The theory of the blind watchmaker is extremely powerful given that we are allowed to assume replication and hence cumulative selection. But if replication needs complex machinery, since the only way we know for complex machinery ultimately to come into existence is cumulative selection, we have a problem.’13

A problem indeed! The more we look into the workings of life, the more complicated it gets, and the more we see that life could not arise by itself. Not only is a source of information needed, but the complex ‘machines’ of the chemistry of life need to be in existence right from the start!

A greater problem still!

Some still try to insist that the machinery of the first cell could have arisen by pure chance. For instance, they say, by randomly drawing alphabet letters in sequence from a hat, sometimes you will get a simple word like ‘BAT.’14 So given long time periods, why couldn’t even more complex information arise by chance?

However, what would the word ‘BAT’ mean to a German or Chinese speaker? The point is that an order of letters is meaningless unless there is a language convention and a translation system in place which makes it meaningful!

In a cell, there is such a system (other molecules) that makes the order on the DNA meaningful. DNA without the language/translation system is meaningless, and these systems without the DNA wouldn’t work either.

The other complication is that the translation machinery which reads the order of the ‘letters’ in the DNA is itself specified by the DNA! This is another one of those ‘machines’ that needs to be fully-formed or life won’t work.

Can information arise from non-information?

Dr Werner Gitt, Director and Professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, makes it clear that one of the things we know absolutely for sure from science, is that information cannot arise from disorder by chance. It always takes (greater) information to produce information, and ultimately information is the result of intelligence:

‘A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor) … It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required.15

‘There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.’16

What is the source of the information?

We can therefore deduce that the huge amount of information in living things must originally have come from an intelligence, which had to have been far superior to ours, as scientists are revealing every day. But then, some will say that such a source would have to be caused by something with even greater information/intelligence.

However, if they reason like this, one could ask where this greater information/intelligence came from? And then where did that one come from … one could extrapolate to infinity, for ever, unless …

Unless there was a source of infinite intelligence, beyond our finite understanding. But isn’t this what the Bible indicates when we read, ‘In the beginning God …’? The God of the Bible is an infinite being not bound by limitations of time, space, knowledge, or anything else.

So which is the logically defensible position?—that matter eternally existed (or came into existence by itself for no reason), and then by itself arranged itself into information systems against everything observed in real science? Or that a being with infinite intelligence,17 created information systems for life to exist, agreeing with real science?

The answer seems obvious, so why don’t all intelligent scientists accept this? Michael Behe answers:

‘Many people, including many important and well-respected scientists, just don’t want there to be anything beyond nature. They don’t want a supernatural being to affect nature, no matter how brief or constructive the interaction may have been. In other words … they bring an a priori philosophical commitment to their science that restricts what kinds of explanations they will accept about the physical world. Sometimes this leads to rather odd behavior.’18

The crux of the matter is this: If one accepts there is a God who created us, then that God also owns us. He thus has a right to set the rules by which we must live. In the Bible, He has revealed to us that we are in rebellion against our Creator. Because of this rebellion called sin, our physical bodies are sentenced to death—but we will live on, either with God, or without Him in a place of judgment.

But the good news is that our Creator provided, through the cross of Jesus Christ, a means of deliverance for our sin of rebellion, so that those who come to Him in faith, in repentance for their sin, can receive the forgiveness of a Holy God and spend forever with their Lord.

So who created God?

By definition, an infinite, eternal being has always existed—no one created God. He is the self-existing one—the great ‘I am’ of the Bible.19 He is outside of time—in fact, He created time.

You might say, ‘But that means I have to accept this by faith, as I can’t understand it.’

We read in the book of Hebrews, ‘But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him’ (Hebrews 11:6).

But this is not blind faith, as some think. In fact, the evolutionists who deny God have a blind faith—they have to believe something that is against real science—namely, that information can arise from disorder by chance.

The Christian faith is not a blind faith—it is a logically defensible faith. This is why the Bible makes it clear that anyone who does not believe in God is without excuse:

‘For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse’ (Romans 1:20).


References and notes
1. Psalm 90:2; 106:48; 147:5. Notice that it is only things which have a beginning which have to have a cause. See J. Sarfati, If God created the universe, then who created God?, CEN Technical Journal 12(1)20-22, 1998.
2. W. Paley, Natural Theology, 1802. Reprinted in 1972 by St Thomas Press, Houston, Texas.
3. M. Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Adler and Adler, Maryland, p. 342, 1986.
4. R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton & Co, N.Y., p. 43, 1987.
5. Ref. 4, p. 5.
6. Natural selection—the concept that some variants in a population will be less ‘fit’ to survive and/or produce offspring than others in a given environment.
7. See C. Wieland, Stones and Bones, Creation Science Foundation Ltd, Australia, 1995, and G. Parker, Creation: Facts of Life, Master Books, Green Forest, Arkansas, 1996.
8. L. Lester and R. Bohlin, The Natural Limits to Biological Change, Probe Books, Dallas Texas, pp. 175–6, 1989.
9. L. Spetner, Not by Chance, The Judaica Press Inc, Brooklyn, New York, pp. 131–2.
10. Ref. 9, p. 138.
11. Ref. 9, p. 143.
12. M. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996, pp. 252–253.
13. Ref. 4, pp. 139–140.
14. Actually, generating words is far simpler than sentences or paragraphs. Simple calculations show that even a billion years would not be enough time to generate even one protein ‘sentence.’ 15. W. Gitt, In the Beginning was Information, CLV, Bielenfeld, Germany, pp. 64–7.
16. Ref. 15, p. 79.
17. Thus, capable of generating infinite information, and certainly the enormous, though finite, information of life.
18. Ref. 12, p. 243.
19. Exodus 3:14; Job 38:4; John 8:58, 11:25 et al.

The Truth Virus : Part II

Plato's 'Absoulte Truth'

Plato's original idea was that there is such a thing as objective, 'absolute truth'. Plato's 'truth' idea (like all his ideas) was a product of his imagination. He was the younger friend of Socrates whom he admired greatly and who was also his mentor. It was Socrates who invented the interrogatory style of argument involving strings of questions seeking either a YES or NO response. It's an old dinosaur known as the Socratic Method but it still survives in our legal system and could be seen on TV shows like LA Law and the O. J. Simpson trial.

Both Socrates and Plato became two of the greatest thinking hackers in Western history. To me, the most fascinating of Plato's works is Symposium because it's an insightful account of how it all began at a typical dinner-party back in Athens, around 400 BC, with Plato, Socrates and a few friends.

It's witty, entertaining and shows how their discussions and banter, laced with much wine and bawdy gossip, produced a small collection of thinking ploys, concepts, software and viruses that, amazingly, have dominated Western thinking right up to the 21st century.

Most destructive of all these inventions has been the Plato Truth Virus.

In the Western world, Plato is recognised as the one who put thinking on the map. Plato figured that the more one thought about matters and the more one tried to discover and understand their true essence or form, the more insights one could experience. But he also decided (and this is the killer) that thinking was NOT an open-ended process. Plato figured there must be a finite end to a thinker's relentless search for meaning, an ultimate destination to a thinker's efforts, so he called that destination objective 'truth'. Uh-oh! Big mistake!!

Today, 2,500 years later, much of Western society still behaves as though there is actually such a thing as an objective, absolute truth. Somehow oblivious to real world consequences, many Western universities and colleges are full of discussions about 'truth', 'right', 'wrong', 'good', 'evil', 'honesty', 'justice' and so on. This all spills out into society so that Big Government, Big Religion, Big Business, Big Brother and other groups invoke these 'absolute truths' as the basis for their policies and the justification for their actions - so often with horrific consequences.

The trouble was that once Plato had invented his truth concept, it existed. Subsequently, when other thinkers came along Plato's invention infected their ideas like a virus - and so we name the virus after him, the Plato Truth Virus (PTV). Gradually the activity of thinking came to be subverted by the insidious truth virus. Some thinkers inevitably claimed to have found - The Truth,

PTV, the truth virus, began to control the thinker's set of intellectual claims and so we see a number of philosophies and doctrines and movements that claimed to have discovered absolute truth and gave notice of filing their claims: "Stop looking! ... We have the truth!
... We are right, you are wrong! ... We are good, you are evil! ... Believe in the truth or be damned! ... The truth is on our side! ... We know what's right! Do what we tell you, or else! - Crush the infidel! - Kill the unbeliever!"

My-Teacher-is-Right - Your-Teacher-is-Wrong

The problem for the observer is the number of conflicting claims to absolute truth and unique rightness. The seductiveness of PTV is also what makes it so destructive and deadly: everyone wants to be the one who has 'The Truth'. Therefore, everyone infected with the virus claims to be uniquely right and that's where the carnage begins.

From time to time teachers like Buddha, Jesus and Confucius have emerged in the different cultures of the world. Most people are free of PTV and many have benefited from their teachers' messages of goodwill.

Sadly, these teachers are often upstaged by greedy PTV-infected franchisees who claim to have exclusive rights or their teacher's intellectual property. Who can blame the original teachers for the sickness of their followers?

So often, in the name of peace and goodwill, infected followers fight with a sick rage and burning hatred. The brain virus so distorts the original message that it would be unrecognisable to the original messenger. People have become more interested in the 'truth status' of the message than the message itself. Perhaps it is more important to be an 'effective follower' than to be a 'right follower'.

Truth 'R' Us
Here is small sample of PTV-infected claims which have long since upstaged those claims made by the original teacher:

Christian Science:
... is unerring and Divine ... outside of Christian Science all is vague and hypothetical, the opposite of Truth.

Seventh-Day Adventists:
The General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists is the highest authority that God has upon earth.

Jehovah's Witnesses:
... alone are God's true people, and all others without exception are followers of the Devil ... At Armageddon all of earth's inhabitants except Jehovah's Witnesses will be wiped out of existence.

Mormons:
There is no salvation outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ... everybody, unless they repent and work righteousness, will be damned except Mormons.

Christadelphians:
None but Christadelphians can be saved.

Islam:
Mohammed is the messenger of God ... the last, and final exponent of God's mind, the seal of the prophets.

The Divtne Light Mission:
The Guru Marahaj Ji alone has the key to the knowledge of the source of God.

The Unification Church:
OnIy the Lord of the Second Advent, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, will be powerful enough to complete the restoration of man to God.



Krishna Consciousness:
Direct love for the Lord Krishna, in the form of chanting, singing and dancing, is the best way to rid the soul of ignorance.

Church of Scientology:
It is only through the exercise of the principles of Dianetics that there is real hope for happiness in this lifetime and the eventual-freeing of the soul from death.

The Children of God:
No power in the world can stand against the power of David. (This refers to David Berg, the sect's leader).

Catholic Church:
No one can be saved without that faith which the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church holds, believes and teaches ... the One True Church established on earth by Jesus Christ ... to whom alone it belongs to judge the meaning and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.

In spite of these corporate claims and the consequences they have caused to millions, most members of these groups are not infected with PTV. Most of the faithful are people of genuine peace who quietly go about their business. They try to live by their creeds without bothering others at all. The silent majority are not the villains, so often they are the victims, too.

If there were ever such a thing as 'absolute truth', by its own definition, there could only be one 'absolute truth'. So, which truth is the true truth?

As a philosophical piece of gamesmanship, this coveting of the label of absolute truth is not limited to religious doctrines, but spills over into political, business, sociological, and even economic theories, although the latter have fallen on hard times lately.

At first, adding PTV seemed to make a set of intellectual claims or doctrines superior to those that were not absolute, but time has shown the opposite to be the case. We know now that once the thinking effort switches to defence and support, (as it must if a doctrine is frozen as absolute truth) further growth and creative development are discouraged. The truth begins to lose its credibility as it begins to lose its relevance and its effectiveness. PTV inevitably serves to undermine the doctrine it was originally meant to reinforce.

Two people can, of course, have two different points of view. Nothing odd about that. But, if each viewpoint is infected with PTV, if each believes his viewpoint is 'uniquely right', PTV can keep them fighting and bullying each other for some time.

Replace two people with two families, two communities, two groups, two religions or two nations and this pernicious truth virus can be passed on to each successive generation and the fighting and persecution can continue for hundreds of years.

It may be that Plato's truth virus has done more damage to Western society than any human thinking device ever invented. Just last century alone more than 26 million humans have been killed by PTV.

Myths, Theories and Hypotheses
It does seems to be a genuine, legitimate and universal need of the human mind to create myths, stories, theories and hypotheses to explain and make coherent an unexplainable world.

Examples: When frightened by a thunderstorm some thinkers explained it as a burst of Zeus' anger. Others later said it's an electrostatic phenomenon. An illness can be seen by some as a voodoo spell or by others as a viral infection. In an attempt to perform their function of making sense out of chaos, myths and scientific theories work on the same principle. The view that we humans build of our world is always a product of our imagination.

Your view of a situation is a cognitive phenomenon. In a situation, your experience of the situation is an electro-chemical event which takes place in your brain. The phrase 'your experience of the situation' is important because it points to the uniqueness of your understanding of the situation. Others in the situation will also have their own unique experience of it. Which is right?

PTV is a problem because it can distort the host brain's ability to make this distinction. The virus-impaired brain may be unable to distinguish between its parochial experience and that of other brains. The PTV brain thinks its experience is uniquely right.

Bores and Bullies
The sick brain can cause people to become bores or bullies, I'm not sure which is worse.

The boring brainuser is one whose behaviour is wearying to others because he or she cannot stop their tedious, enthusiastic talk about their own interests and experience, not because others are interested but because PTV makes them assume others are interested. Many companies train their salespeople to become bores who annoy their prospects and prevent them from ever becoming customers.


PTV can cause a brainuser to need, want, or demand others to share their 'uniquely right' experience of a situation. The infected brain can cause behaviour that even employs pressure, coercion or force to frighten or bully other brainusers to toe the line.

So much time, effort, peace and productivity has been wasted by nagging bores and tiresome bullies.

Yes, the human brain is an explanation-manufacturing mechanism but that's not the same thing as explaining. Do notice the difference. By creating explanations to fill in the gaps when needed, the brain helps to keeps us mentally stable. This will always be a useful property of the human brain.

Thinking, being a thinker, having a healthy curiosity is a normal part of the functioning of a healthy human brain. What is not healthy or normal but is a very dangerous cognitive disease is the condition of the "true believer". In pop psychology terms, thinkers are OK but True Believers are NOT OK.

The symptom of the True Believer is the colloquial and very crippled viewpoint that says "I have the truth" ... "My policy is the true policy" ... "My doctrine is good and your doctrine is evil", or, perhaps, "Wasn't I lucky to be born into that True Religion and now what are we going to do about you, unbeliever?" It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous mental condition.

Some believe that religious extremism is a greater disease than political extremism. Commenting on the damage being done by religious extremists to the Australian Labour Party, Ben Chifley, the much-respected former Prime Minister of Australia, once said, "The religious fanatic is far worse than the political fanatic."

In the Preface of his book, The True Believers, (Methuen 1986) Peter Bowler warns, "Here they come, the True Believers, wide-eyed and earnest; here they come, the devotees, the fanatics, the evangelists, the pilgrims, the worshippers, the contemplatives - clutching their hymns and invocations, observing their holy commandments and taboos, performing their sacrifices but, above all, believing. Believing in God, or in several gods, or even a goddess or two. Believing in the soul, in demons, in eternal forgiveness, in eternal punishment, in life after death, in assorted varieties of heaven and hell, in the power of faith to heal, to move mountains ...

They are and always have been, the idealists of humankind. Seeking something beyond the material, something intangible, something to explain the unexplainable, something to assuage their fear of the uncontrollable, something to compensate them for the unacceptable, something to offer them a kind of dignity and power in the midst of indignity and impotence.

Let us not mock the True Believer for their idealism. But watch out for them - they can be dangerous. Combative people, they are, by nature; crusaders rather than compromisers. Because they are right, others are wrong. The sinful must be punished, and who more sinful than the unbeliever? The more intolerant and warlike among them seek to punish the unbeliever in this life, with holy wars and inquisitions; the more benevolent and tolerant leave it to their God to punish the unbeliever with eternal torments after death.

From time to time history has thrown up a sect that is gentle and moderate and peace loving, like the Quakers or the Baha'i; invariably these sects are singled out for the most ruthless persecution at the hands of the True Believers.

When two religions are so similar as to be almost identical in every significant respect then take cover, because the conflict between them will be truly murderous. Buddhists and Presbyterians get along famously, but if you are selling insurance you would be ill-advised to set up shop in Palestine or Belfast."

For example, the number of Europeans who died or were killed as a result of the Crusades is put at approximately four million. The victims of the Inquisition, in Spain alone, included:
* 30,000 - burned at the stake
* 17,000 burned in effigy
* 290,000 punished by torture, prison or financial ruin.
Of all these victims, most were women, 'heretics' and Jews.

Today?
That's all very sad, of course, but those medieval days are gone now, aren't they? Today we live in the Age of Aquarius, the new millennium, isn't all that truth virus stuff rather old hat and even slightly alarmist to us cool, laid-back, dudes? 'Fraid not! ...

For example, recent world's headlines were filled with stories about a group in Japan whose ideas are very much infected with the truth virus. Time magazine's cover story (April 3, 1995) is about a group that poisoned 3,000 Tokyo subway commuters with nerve gas.

Time reports, "In what could only have been a carefully coordinated, painstakingly planned atrocity, an apparently diluted form of nerve gas called sarin, a weapon of mass killing originally concocted by the Nazis, was placed simultaneously in five subway cars at morning rush hour, killing 10 victims and sickening thousands more. ...
(later at the suspect group's compound) Policeman in protective suits with canaries emerged with ton after ton of chemicals--sodium cyanide, sodium fluoride, phosphorus trichloride, isopropyl alcohol, acetonitrile ... enough to kill 4.2 million people."

Later, it was reported that police found containers of a biological toxin called botulinum, one of the world's deadliest. They found enough to wipe out the whole planet! Presumably this would be justifiable, all in the name of truth. As a result of this atrocity "the Japanese have lost their trust in society," says sociologist Kenichi Tominaga of Keio University. "It will never be the same."

And the name of this post-modern group of the 1990's? Aum Shinrikyo which means - Supreme Truth!

PTV is not just a medieval curiosity. Today, PTV is still very much alive and may be living it up in your brain! Listen!

If Plato was the hacker who invented the truth virus, Aristotle was the first to package it into a powerful cognitive operating system or thinking software package.

Aristotle started as a student in Plato's academy and remained there for twenty years until Plato, his mentor, died. By the time Plato died Aristotle was thoroughly infected with his mentor's truth virus and did much to establish 'the search for certainty' as the basis of all intellectual endeavours.

Aristotle became a passionate and obsessive truth freak. Plato only went as far as saying that truth was what lay at the long end of a thinker's search, an ultimate destination. Not enough for Ari ... No sir! Aristotle said "I want truth! I want it here! I want it now!"

Aristotle went on to insist that the ordinary fuzzy jumble of our daily reality was just not tidy enough. So, to bring order to the world he imposed a kind of truth template over everything.

Mail sorting and Labelling
Aristotle's medium was language. He assumed that the certainty of words could give certainty to the ineffable flow of experience. The untidy chaos of reality offended Aristotle's ordered, PTV-infected mind so he decided to break everything up into pigeonholes and categories - kind of like mail sorting and labelling.

This goes here, that goes there, stick this label on this and that label on that! Let's just tidy everything up. Yessir. A place for everything and everything in its place was Aristotle's motto.

In his classifying fervour Aristotle made up pigeonholes and sorted our daily reality into them. He tried to invent slots for everything. For example, he set about sorting 'government' into categories like: 'constitutional', 'tyrannical', 'monarchy', 'aristocracy', 'oligarchy', 'and democracy’.

He then got busy breaking everything up into subjects like: politics, ethics, rhetoric (speech-making), metaphysics, physics, biology, and meteorology. Finally, he invented his very own thinking software called logic.

Aristotle's Silly Syllogism
Aristotle's thinking software was already infected with the Plato Truth Virus from day one. For logic, Aristotle invented his silly syllogism. I say it's silly because it lacks wisdom and sense.

The syllogism starts with the so-called 'truth' as its premise. Then one simply matches up items that come along and out pops your conclusion. Simple really ... and very silly.

For example:
TRUTH: All swans are white.
ITEM: This is a swan.
LOGICAL EXTENSION: Therefore it is white.

Or,
TRUTH: Salespeople tell lies.
ITEM: Amy is a salesperson.
LOGICAL CONCLUSION: Therefore Amy is lying.

Or,
TRUTH: Our church is the right church.
ITEM: You are not a member.
LOGICAL CONCLUSION: Therefore you are wrong.

Or,
TRUTH: The earth is flat.
ITEM: Therefore it has an edge.
LOGICAL CONCLUSION: Therefore you will fall off the edge if you go too far from shore.

Or,
TRUTH: The President is the law.
ITEM: The President did something.
LOGICAL CONCLUSION: Therefore it is legal (Aristotle's Logic software caused Nixon to believe this was so).

Or,
TRUTH: A boss's opinion is best.
ITEM: You are not a boss.
LOGICAL CONCLUSION: So when we want your opinion we'll give it to you.

No Contradictions, Please!
For Aristotle, just thinking wasn't good enough. No, you have to think logically. Logic is obsessed with hunting down contradictions. In logic, a thing cannot be in box A and box NOT A at the same time. No, it must be sorted and classified into the 'correct' box.

Although real life is full of contradictions and paradoxes (is the glass half full or half empty?) this was just not good enough for our man Aristotle. Things must be cut up into pieces like a jigsaw and then sorted into their 'true' categories.

Judging Right from Wrong
Life, according to Aristotle, is a matter of sorting things out into 'right' and 'wrong'. Judgement is the key activity. This is right. That's wrong. I'm right. You're wrong. This is black. That is white. This is American. That's un-American. This is good. That is bad. This is the right answer. That is the wrong answer.

Greyness? Fuzziness? Uncertainty? Open-endedness? Contradiction? Paradox? Well, we cannot have that sort of thing around here. You've got to sort things out! Clean up your act! Get things right! In Aristotle's Lyceum, everything was covered by rules, rules, rules.

The living arrangements, the study courses, the timetables were all dominated by rules and regulations.

Ancient Software
Aristotle craved order. He loved the order that his classifications brought to his ideas and thoughts. He assumed that the same order that he found he could impose on words and language could also be imposed on the real world. Many have made the same mistake.

The Sovereign Thinker
When thinking about thinking, there are two contrasting approaches we can bear in mind: Authoritarian and Sovereign.

The Authoritarian approach is all about someone else doing your thinking for you. That's where THEY say: Do what you are told! Trust us. We know what is best for you. We are the chosen ones. We are right and you are wrong. You wouldn't understand. Do not question our authority. When we want your opinion we'll give it to you. And so on.

The Sovereign approach is all about you doing your own thinking for yourself. That's where YOU say: Why? Why should I do as you say? Where do you get your authority? Why is this so? Why? Why? Why? What have you not told me? What bits have you left out? What proof do you have to offer? I'll think about your proposition and I'll let you know what I have decided. I reject your claim to authority over my mind. I abhor your attempt to bully me. I assert my individual sovereignty as a thinker. And so on.

On Sovereign Thinkers, Religions, Belief Systems and PTV
It is important to emphasise here that it is the right of a sovereign thinker to think what s/he likes and to believe what s/he wishes as long as they do not prevent other sovereign thinkers from doing the same.

A thinker respects the right of individuals to believe in any of the wide variety of human belief systems and religions, which are a testimony to the richness, imagination, and diversity of human thinking.

Many people derive benefits from believing in UFOs, angels, gods and goddesses, supreme beings, trinities, earthly incarnations or heavenly reincarnations, stars, fortune-tellers, dreams, scientific discoveries, miracles, snake-handling and so on.

One respects these believers in the way Voltaire found he could respect others without having to agree with them. What a thinker does not respect but fears, is PTV.

For example, one respects the sovereign right of a Christian to believe in Jesus or a Muslim to believe in Allah or an Atheist to believe in nothing. One does not respect an authoritarian Christian or Muslim or Atheist infected with PTV who feels that their belief is
'The Truth' and others should be made to 'toe the line or else'! A truth may be right enough for the person who uses it but not right enough to force another person to use it.


A Sovereign Thinker
"It is not safe to act against your own conscience". So said Martin Luther and with those words began the world's biggest movement away from authoritarianism towards individual sovereignty of thinking.

Luther's rebellion against the authority of the Pope provided the trigger that set off a chain of events which went on long after he died. His challenge to authoritarianism led on to the splitting of the Church, the destruction of the Pope's temporal power, the bursting of the Church's monopoly on The Truth and a greater freedom of people to question things without automatically being treated as heretics. Those of us who cherish personal freedom owe a lot to Luther. What kind of man would defy a pope?

Martin Luther was born in 1483 into a peasant mining family in Germany. At fourteen he showed sufficient promise to be prepared for university. By then his father had risen to be manager of a group of smelting works and could afford for his son Martin to read Law.

So Martin went to Germany's top University of Erfurt and graduated in Law, second in his class. Everyone knew that he had a promising law career ahead of him. But no, Martin changed his mind and one day he suddenly decided to join an Augustinian monastery and changed his direction from Law to Theology.

He began to absorb the predestination ideas of Saint Augustine that men are sinners (Original Sin) and are therefore predestined to whatever God has in store for them. Such a point-of-view reduces the role the Church plays in mediating a person's salvation.

At that time, Rome claimed that it, and it alone, had the only ticket to salvation. If you wanted to get to Heaven then you bought your ticket from its representatives on the only flights scheduled to get there. "You fly with us. You buy our ticket or you don't go to Heaven at all! That's it. Take it or leave it. You're in or you're out".

The Scheme
The Pope, the Roman Curia and clerics feathered their nests (amassing huge fortunes) by selling to the True Believers tickets to Heaven in the form of indulgences. This is how they pulled it off. In all their Holy Authority, the popes and clergy would draw up long lists of activities relating to everyday human behaviour and call them 'sins'. So, every day when you committed your 'sins' you attracted debits points that prevented you getting into Heaven.

Then, cleverly, Rome drew up a catalogue of indulgences. Indulgences were credit points you could collect to wipe out the debit points you had in your account. And, if you collected enough credit points, well, the Church could get you into Heaven.

Collecting Heaven Points
This was a brilliant scheme! Through indulgences, Rome had invented a kind of Holy Currency of its own. These were Heaven Points which members needed to collect to pass through the Pearly Turnstile into the 'Members' Only' enclosure in Paradise. This was the world's first loyalty marketing or frequent flyer program and has subsequently built the most powerful, multi-national, private enterprise in human history.

As a member, how did you collect the credit points? Why, you bought them, of course. The Catalogue of Indulgences listed matching Heaven Points for even the wickedest crime. Murder had its price-tag and could be absolved for 20 crowns. An assassination could be absolved for 300 livres.

But mostly, it was just the humdrum everyday human activities like gossip, envy or telling lies which were proscribed as sins and attracted ongoing debit points.

Pay Your Money, Collect Your Points
The 'Indulgence Scheme' with its Catalogue of Indulgences meant that members had to make regular purchases of Heaven Points. These credit points (known as Sanctifying Grace) were the currency you needed to save to buy your permanent condo in Paradise just like you need to save your Aussie dollars if you want to buy a condo in Surfer's Paradise. "Step right up folks. Pay your money. Collect your points. Step right up sinners! Get your Heaven Points here. How many do you want? How much money have you got? Don't push, there's plenty for everyone".

Luther's pope was one of the most infamous. He was the youngest cardinal ever. Given a Red Hat for his thirteenth birthday he became pope when he was 38. It is recorded that as the triple tiara hit his head, Pope Leo X turned to his illegitimate cousin, Giulio de' Medici, and exclaimed: "Now I can really enjoy myself".


It was Leo's ultimate act of obscene greed and blasphemy that finally pushed Luther into action. In 1517 Pope Leo X, in cahoots with Prince Albert Hohenzollern, pulled a major scam on the
long-suffering German people.

Leo offered to sell Albert the See of Mainz and the Primacy of Germany for 30,000 ducats. But, since Albert didn't have the money they conspired to raise the cash by selling indulgences to the German
people saying the money was going into a building fund St Peter's in Rome.


Using the new technology of the printing press to spread his ideas,
Luther became the first thinker ever to bring his argument to the general public. His example, soon followed by others like Calvin, began the unravelling of the authority of Rome that led to the
Reformation.

If Gutenberg was the inventor of the printing press, perhaps Martin
Luther can be considered the inventor of the media, free speech and the right for individuals to think for themselves.

It may be that the Internet is the next biggest leap for sovereign thinkers since the printing press. Perhaps the Net is becoming the new medium that will provide a fresh hope for individuals who wish to think for themselves and who, like Brother Martin, wish to defy the authoritarianism that still exists in many of today's institutions.

The Effects of PTV
How does PTV work to inhibit your abilities as a sovereign thinker? Well, as a cognitive disease, PTV in your brain can produce a number of deleterious effects. Let's look at just four manifestations of PTV:
- Brain Vain (opinion pride and conceit)
- Righteous and Sightless (consequence blindness)
- Space Glutton (output-mania)
- Lazy Critic (mistake-phobia)

Brain Vain
A brain vain thinker is one who is suffering from opinion pride. This PTV-infected brainuser is unable to see a better way of looking at things. Because the brain vain thinker is so proud of her or his own opinion they find it difficult to do any other kind of thinking but to defend it.

The more intelligent the brain vain thinker, the more they may suffer from this kind of cognitive conceit. Very bright thinkers who are PTV-infected may be only using their brainpower to defend their opinion. They are unable to escape from their viewpoint to look for a much better one.

Righteous and Sightless
The righteous brain is blind to consequences. PTV may have so incapacitated a True Believer that he is unable to see the results of his actions. In the belief that they are "morally right" any action is justified by the Righteous and Sightless, regardless of what follows. This is a very dangerous condition and so often fatal.

Millions have rushed headlong into death because 'God is on our side'. Millions have been killed because they are 'infidels', 'Jews', 'Catholics' or 'Protestants'. "I-am-right-and-you-are-wrong" is the hallmark of the Righteous and Sightless condition.

In 1994, John Paul II urged all Roman Catholic Cardinals to reflect on this aspect of the Church's history. He wrote to them asking them to seize the unique beginning of the new millennium to recognise the "dark side of its history". He asked: How can one remain silent about the many forms of violence perpetrated in the name of the faith--wars of religion, tribunals of the Inquisition and other forms of violations of the rights of persons.

Space Glutton
In a meeting, the space glutton always takes up considerably more than his or her fair share of airtime. Space gluttons may suffer from output mania, the inability to shut-up. Gathering input by listening to the opinions of others is an important cognitive skill which is crippled in the space glutton. PTV may allow the thinker to wreak such enthusiasm for her own ideas that she is quite unable to listen to others.

In business, much creativity and productivity is lost in meetings due to those suffering from this condition. This condition is disastrous for those in sales or in management.

Lazy Critic
Lazy critics suffer from mistake-phobia, the morbid fear of ever making a mistake. The PTV-infected brain has an aversion to ever being wrong. It comes from our medieval habit of looking at the world through the concept of "right" and "wrong" (not shared as much by other cultures like the Japanese).

When a sovereign thinker tries to create something, s/he never really knows what will happen. There is always risk and uncertainty. This risk is enough to keep the mistake-phobiac hiding in inertia. As an effective disguise the mistake-phobiac often assumes the role of 'the critic'.

Taking pot-shots from the relative safety of his bunker of reluctance, the lazy critic simply waits for another thinker to make a mistake and then the whingeing begins.

These are a few of the cognitive conditions caused by PTV, there are many others. The purpose of the School of Thinking is to help brainusers deal with these conditions.

Over the next 24 hours, try to notice at least one example of each of the following:
- Brain Vain (opinion pride and conceit)
- Righteous and Sightless (consequence blindness)
- Space Glutton (output-mania)
- Lazy Critic (mistake-phobia).

(Edited and Extracted from Dr Michael Hewson Gleeson Workshops)

The Truth Virus : Part I

This is part 1 of the “School of thinking”, beware that it may offend some of you, so please either ignore the post or approach it with open mind!


What if you had a virus in your brain? What if it was a cognitive virus, a kind of cognitive AIDS? What would it do to you? How would it affect your thinking? How did you get infected with the virus? What could you do to cure it?

EVERY TECHNOLOGY has its hackers - those enthusiasts who enjoy exploring the intimate details of the system, cracking the codes and stretching and testing the capabilities of systems. There have been radio hackers and computer hackers and you've no doubt read about the telephone hackers who have ripped-off the phone companies for millions of dollars in free long-distance calls.

Hackers, driven by strong curiosity, often just start off by seeking amusement and showing off their skill but sometimes their antics lead to chaos, fraud and even ... disaster!

The mind boggles at the havoc that can be caused if these viruses spread unchecked. Yet, there is a virus, a brain virus, which already exists in the brains of many humans from preachers to presidents, that makes these computer viruses look wimps by comparison.

This brain virus, or meme, is real. It's seductive and it's very powerful. It's also highly destructive and has been fatal to over 26 million humans in the 20th century. In the brain of a president it could unleash a missile that starts the unthinkable nuclear madness that threatens the very existence of humanity. In the brain of a CEO it can threaten the survival of the business.

And, in YOUR brain???

This brain virus is the Plato Truth Virus (PTV) and chances are almost certain that you are already infected.

When it comes to 'thinking', Plato was the ultimate hacker. At that time, playing around with thinking systems was as much the rage amongst an elite group of men in Greece, as playing around with software systems is the rage amongst the hackers of today. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were the most famous 'thinking hackers' of their day. These hackers of 2500 years ago designed fundamental thinking technologies, systems and viruses that have dominated Western thinking right up to the 20th century, and who knows for how much longer?

Plato's was a Truth Freak, since it was he who invented his 'truth' concept - the strange notion that there is such a thing as 'objective truth'.

Yet this bizarre suggestion has so side-tracked Western philosophers that even today many great minds in Western colleges and universities have still not escaped from Plato's 'truth' idea and their thinking remains infected with this dangerous virus.

It would be a difficult (but worthwhile) project to calculate the cost to humanity and the staggering destruction caused by PTV - Plato's 'truth' virus. It's unlikely that Plato had any idea of the extreme consequences of his invention any more than some of today's hackers will have of theirs. He was just hacking around with thinking.


In cognitive science, the term 'cognitive dissonance' is often used. Cognitive dissonance s interesting because it refers to what happens in your brain when information is presented to it doesn't seem to fit.

For example, just suppose the current state of information in your brain was such that you believed the earth was flat. This, of course, seems naive to us now but not long go most smart people saw things this way. Now, suppose someone called Fred comes along and says, "No, the earth is round!" and tries to explain to you why you should change your view. You would begin to experience cognitive dissonance.

If, though you thought the earth was flat, you were not superstitiously committed to that view you might only experience a mild case of cognitive dissonance. Then, as you followed the evidence Fred presented, you might find your view evolving from “flat earth" to "round earth".

If, on the other hand, you not only believed the earth was flat but you also believed your "flat earth" view was "absolutely right", then you might have a dose of strong cognitive dissonance, so strong that it might be easier to burn Fred at the stake than to change your view from "flat earth" to "round earth".

This kind of thing is not just a silly story but actually does happen. One of the most notorious examples was that of the Father of Modern Science, the brilliant 17th century mathematician, Galilei Galileo.

Galileo had constructed his telescope to show how the earth revolved about the sun and not the sun around the earth. Since Copernicus advanced this hypothesis it had caused great controversy. Galileo now had proof.

When he demonstrated this, many highly intelligent people even refused to look through the telescope, so frightened were they of what they might see. Some people had such a strong dose of cognitive dissonance that they forced Galileo to his knees and made him withdraw his evidence and recant his discovery.

In 1633, Galileo, now 70 years old, sick and completely blind, was forced by the pope to make the arduous journey to Rome to stand trial for 'heresy'. Urban VIII, taking time off from cannibalising the Colosseum to build his Barberini palace, accused Galileo of causing "the greatest scandal in Christendom" for contradicting the Scriptures.

Galileo thought of himself as a devoted Catholic. He argued that the bible was not a scientific text and that we should not expect its 'scientific statements' to be taken literally. He argued that it presents no challenge to faith that both nature and the bible are divine texts and cannot contradict one another.

On 21 June, after a long trial, he was found guilty of heresy, by the Inquisition. Not only that, he was bullied and actually forced into covering up his evidence. The pope demanded that he be tortured if he did not obey: "The said Galileo is in the judgement of the Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely, of having believed and held the doctrine which is false and contrary to the Sacred and Divine Scriptures that the sun is the centre of the world and does not move from east to west, and is not the centre of the world".

Weary and broken, the old man knelt before the pope and made his confession: "I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilea, Florentine, aged seventy years ... must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immobile".

His trial was a grave and solemn milestone in the history of the Church only surpassed, in poignancy, by the trial of Jesus before Pilate.

The universe which Galileo observed at the end of his telescope totally dwarfed the one that people were seeing with their ordinary vision. He tried to show that it was important to consider the value of new observable phenomena as a way of escaping from weak truths and moving to better ones.

The 17th century, superstitious, ecclesiastical, Roman brainusers experienced such cognitive dissonance from Galileo's discoveries that, to their everlasting shame, they chose to abuse and bully an old man rather than to change their own mind.

The cognitive dissonance endured so strongly that it was only in 1993 (after a 12-year Pontifical Commission!) that, in a belated burst of Christian charity, the Vatican brainusers finally 'forgave' Galileo for letting the sun out of the closet. Better late than never, I suppose.

It may be that some of the material I’m posting will give you a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. At the end of the day, my own goal has always been to generate enough cognitive dissonance to make it interesting reading but not so much as to close your mind.

Galileo's Trial, similar to so many before and after him, was a trial of agents of changes by a bunch of closed-minded, absolute-truth-holding people; they were trials of prejudice against constructive arguments.

Being a Catholic myself, I have a sense of "Mia Culpa", as I feel ashamed of the way the church prejudiced and still prejudice people and ideas; that does not mean that I renounce my believes because of the deeds or judgments that existed and still exist. After all, I think all of us act like Pontus Pilate and Pope Urban VIII in our daily lives; we are all guilty of passing judgment and pontificating about what is right and wrong; it is easier to judge rather than accept, easier to speak rather than listen.

The main problem with fanatics is that they uphold the only truth, a truth that even their religious Master never envisaged in his wildest dreams; the legacy of the absolute truth grows exponentially with every generation until it becomes bigger than the religion itself.

Myths and Archetypes

Myths and Archetypes

What is a Myth?

"God made man, because he liked to hear a story." So say the Africans, and the rich variety of worldwide mythology proves that God chose wisely!

Myths are stories that are based on tradition. Some may have factual origins, while others are completely fictional. But myths are more than mere stories and they serve a more profound purpose in ancient and modern cultures. Myths are sacred tales that explain the world and man's experience. Myths are as relevant to us today as they were to the ancients. Myths answer timeless questions and serve as a compass to each generation. The myths of lost paradise, for example, give people hope that by living a virtuous life, they can earn a better life in the hereafter. The myths of a golden age give people hope that there are great leaders who will improve their lives. The hero's quest is a model for young men and women to follow, as they accept adult responsibilities. Some myths simply reassure, such as myths that explain natural phenomena as the actions of gods, rather than arbitrary events of nature.

The subjects of myths reflect the universal concerns of mankind throughout history: birth, death, the afterlife, the origin of man and the world, good and evil and the nature of man himself. A myth taps into a universal cultural narrative, the collective wisdom of man. An excellent illustration of the universality of these themes is that so many peoples who have had no contact with each other create myths that are remarkably similar. So, for example, cultures worldwide, from the Middle East to the distant mountains of South America have myths about great floods, virgin births, and the afterlife (more examples of these archetypal themes are shown in earlier posts).

Unlike fairy tales, myths are not always optimistic. True to the nature of life, the essence of myths is such that they are as often warnings as promises; as often laments as celebrations. Many myths are instructive and act as a guide to social norms, taking on cultural taboos such as incest, fratricide, and greed.

Myths are also pervasive in the arts and advertising, for a very simple reason. From film to cars to perfume, advertising uses visual metaphors to speak to us. While artists of every generation reinterpret myths, the same basic patterns have shown up in mythology for thousands of years. A name, phrase, or image based on a familiar myth can speak volumes to those who have been absorbing these mythic tales since birth. When we hear the expression, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" or when we see a television commercial featuring a wooden horse full of soldiers, we recognize the reference to Odysseus, who tricked the Trojans into admitting an army into their city this way.

When Jacqueline Kennedy referred to her husband's tenure as a new Camelot, we understand that she meant it was a golden age, like that of King Arthur. When the Greek government dubbed a campaign to rescue ethnic Greeks from behind the walls of the Iron Curtain "Operation Golden Fleece," we understood that they were invoking an ancient name to communicate that these people belonged to them. Each generation of storytellers adds another layer of fact and fiction to the myths, such that the themes and characters of myths are timeless, and endlessly relevant, as they are reinvented and reapplied to the lives of each new generation.


An archetype is a universal symbolic pattern. Examples of archetypal characters are the femme fatale, the trickster, the great mother and father, and the dying god. There are archetypal stories as well. Examples are stories of great floods, virgin births, creation, paradise, the underworld, and a final apocalypse. True to their universal nature, archetypal characters and stories appear again and again in myths across many diverse cultures.

Archetypal myths explain the nature of the world and life. Thus, many peoples have tales to explain the origins of places and objects: the city, the mountain, the temple, the tree and even the stone. Other archetypal myths serve to instruct. For example, the quest archetype is typically a journey where the hero or heroine must overcome their own faults and weaknesses in order to reemerge as a mature, productive member of their society.

While some aspects of these myths have remarkable similarities across cultures, others have peculiarities specific to that land. Sometimes it is possible to trace the inheritance of a part of a myth as it is passed from culture to culture. Here we look at four types of myths and how they show up in cultures across the world.

Women of Power:

A universal archetype featured in the Queen of Sheba myth is that of the Great Mother, or founder of a people. Many cultures have a powerful female goddess as the Great Mother. Often this Great Mother has an equal for a mate, as did Sheba, or is even the dominant one. The Japanese Shinto creation myth features Izanagi and Izanami, who were brother and sister, as were Osiris and Isis, of Egypt. The Greek deities Gaia, mother earth, and Ouranos, the sky god, were so enamored of each other that their continued lovemaking trapped their children in Gaia’s womb. This was also true for the Maori primal couple, Papa and Rangi. Rather than slay their parents, the baby gods and goddesses trapped in Papa’s womb eventually forced them apart. Ouranos fared worse. Gaia made a sickle for her other son, Kronos, who castrated his father, and freed his brothers and sisters.


An Ethiopian depiction of the Queen of Sheba.

Stories of powerful women often feature a female with an air of supernatural mystery who mates with another powerful ruler and is a mother to her nation. Some mythical powerful women are actually goddesses. This is true of the powerful women of Greek myth, such as Hera, Athena, Artemis and Aphrodite, who all have supernatural powers. Many myths of powerful women imply that they are witches, demonic, or have some connection with the supernatural that explains their power. The supernatural aspect of these women is usually represented by an animal. Thus, the Queen of Sheba's leg was cloven like a goat, an animal associated with the Devil. Eve took her bad advice from a serpent and Baba Yaga, a horrible Russian woman, was part snake, as was Medusa of Greek legend.

Sometimes mythical powerful women are warrior queens, like Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. In an interesting twist of life imitating art, the stories of real life warrior queens who fascinate are often retold through the mythical archetype. Thus, the real life stories of Boudica, the first Queen of Britain, Joan of Arc of France, Catherine the Great of Russia and Cleopatra of Egypt were enhanced, until they featured elements of the classical powerful woman story: trickery, sexuality, otherworldly influence and ambition.

Paradise:

Myths about a lost paradise often fall into three categories. First, a paradise on earth which is difficult to find. Second, a place on earth that is nearby, but that it is in an alternate reality. Third, not a place, but an enlightened state of being. In these paradises, or states of being, there is no need for war, or toil and humankind lives in happiness and fulfillment. These myths express hope that the paradise can be regained, either by finding its earthly location, or by waiting for a future time when mankind shall redeem itself.

Cultures that feature a remote, inaccessible paradise often place it on a distant mountain, like the Tibetan myth of Shangri-La, or the myth of the Land of the Kachinas, the lost paradise of the Hopi people of North America. The invisible Celtic paradiscal otherworlds, on the other hand, are located nearby. These otherworlds are separated from man's world by thin veils, such as the veil between the English town of Glastonbury and the mythical Avalon.

A central feature of paradise myths is that man loses his innocence and, as a result, is cast from paradise. Thus, Eden was lost to Adam and Eve when they partook of the tree of knowledge. The Hopis believe that man once lived in an underworld paradise, until licentiousness caused the waters to rise and flood him out. The Hindis believe that the earth has had four progressively worse ages. The first was Kriti Yuga, the First and Perfect Age, lost to man due to his actions.

Most North American Native cultures also believe in four or five ages, starting with a Golden Age. In Greek classical mythology, the reign of Cronus, the father of Zeus, had peace and harmony, and humans did not grow old, but died peacefully. This was lost when Prometheus gave the secret of fire to men, and Zeus allowed Pandora to open her box, unleashing evil.


A map of the mythical land of Shambala, surrounded by its ring of peaks with the palace at the center. Musee Guimet Paris/Giraudon

In many cultures, an individual's personal qualities and actions are his ticket to paradise. Thus, for the Tibetans it is only the enlightened who are on the path to Shangri-La. Christians see a good life and forgiveness of sins as the path to paradise. The Germanic otherworld is open only to specially chosen warriors. The Celtic paradisical otherworlds are only open to seers, bards, and heroes who have proven great worthiness. The one exception is October 31st of each year, when the gates to the otherworlds are open. This tradition eventually became Halloween!

Most cultures saw the lost paradise or otherworld as the home of their gods. In Germanic mythology, Asgard was the divine stronghold of the Aesir, the younger and stronger branch of the gods. Vanaheim was the home of the Vanir, the other branch. Asgard was a mighty castle-city, housing Valhalla, the enormous hall, where slain warriors who were chosen by the god Odin to fight the final apocalyptic battle would go to wait. In order to enter the great hall of Valhalla, the newly slain warriors had to enter through a sacred gate, after passing through several obstacles.

Hero:

While many heroic figures perform quests and daring tasks, only a few rise to the level of superhero. These heroes represent the best attributes of their people and often preside over a golden age. Examples are King Arthur of Britain, King Solomon of Israel and the mysterious Christian priest Prestor John. Prestor John was supposedly king of a hidden Christian kingdom that was a wealthy paradise. In the Middle Ages, especially, many searched for this kingdom in Asia and Africa.

These heroic characters typically have supernatural births, like the Christian Jesus and the Aztec/Toltec snake god, Quetzlcoatl, who were born to virgins. Quetzlcoatl was the Aztec's most important god. Like Arthur, when he left his people he promised to return. The Aztecs believed that his return would herald the apocalypse. The Native American Blackfoot tribe has a hero named Kutoyis, who was born of a blood clot from a wounded buffalo. Kutoyis made it his mission to travel from village to village, freeing those who were being treated unjustly. Herakles the Greek (also known as Hercules), was fathered by the god Zeus. Buddha was born from his mother's dreams.

The reign of these world heroes is often foretold or ordained by the gods or the seers, as is true for King Arthur and Jesus. They often have lineages linking them to the gods, or to past heroic kings. Some mature very early, like Arthur, the Buddha, Herakles, and the Babylonian Gilgamesh, who was part god.

Many have their lives threatened from birth. The threat may come from kings, monsters, or jealous relatives as in the case of Jesus, Kutoyis, and Herakles. Often, they are hidden and raised by people other than their families. Moses is hidden in a basket, until rescued. Herakles is left in the wild, until Hera, Queen of the Gods, is fooled into suckling him, guaranteeing him immortality. Some have supernatural protection, like Arthur, who was protected by Merlin.

Some heroes have a following of fellow heroes who rally around them, serve them, and protect them like the Irish Finn MacCool's Fianna (from whom modern Irish patriots derive the name Fenian). Other examples include Arthur's knights and Jesus' Apostles.


Arthur's Round Table at Winchester, made for a tournament in 1290

Most often these mythical heroes require special weapons. Arthur had the magical sword Excalibur. Beowulf, the Danish hero who slew Grendel the dragon, had a similarly magical sword. Thor, the Norse god of Thunder, had the hammer Mjollnir, which returned to him like a boomerang. He also had a magic belt which doubled his strength. One time the frost giants stole Thor's hammer and demanded a bride in return. Thor disguised himself as a woman and travelled to the wedding. The frost giants were surprised to see the bride eat a whole ox, eight salmon, and three barrels of wine. Thor got his hammer back! Odin, favorite god of the Vikings, had an infallible spear named Gungnir, made by dwarfs.

At the end of their story, many of these heroes become immortal, like Herakles, who rises to Mount Olympus, home of the gods. In some cases, they rise from death and come again, like Jesus. Quetzlcoatl and Arthur announce their intention to return again. And the Blackfoot hero Kutoyis repeatedly resurrects himself from a bag of bones. Sometimes these heroes are men of peace and inspire new religions, like Jesus and the Buddha, but more often they are, by necessity, men of war. They are valiant, inspiring, and wise, although not without flaws.

Quest:

Joseph Campbell described myths as music we dance to, even when we cannot name the tune. Of all the mythical songs, the hero's quest is one that touches us all profoundly. Campbell believed that we each have a quest and that the hero has a thousand faces. The hero's quest archetype is pervasive and Campbell outlined its model step by step.

The story of the hero's quest typically begins in the hero's ordinary world, when he or she receives a call to adventure from a herald. Many heroes initially refuse the call, until a mentor reassures them that they are capable. After this meeting with the mentor, they must enter the world of the quest. They meet allies and enemies along the way and are tested frequently. As they near the source of their quest, they usually face one final ordeal. Upon their success, they take the object of their quest, and make their way home. The way home is not always easy, but eventually they return to their ordinary world with their prize.


Jason is regurgitated after being swallowed by a serpent. Vatican Museums and Galleries

The hero may search for an object or he may search for knowledge for himself or his people. Sometimes his quest is to right a wrong. The hero's quest may be prophecied. Jason's task is to secure the Golden Fleece and thus reclaim his crown. Percival, one of King Arthur's knights, searches for the Holy Grail. The Babylonian hero Gilgamesh, afraid of death, searches for immortality. Bran, the Irish equivalent of the Greek voyager Odysseus, sails for centuries on a quest for the lands beyond the sea.

The hero receives the call to adventure in different ways. Joan of Arc hears voices telling her she is to save France. Moses is summoned by the burning bush to lead his people on a quest for the Promised Land. Some heroes have the counsel of wise women like Jason, who had Aphrodite, and Gilgamesh, who was guided by the goddess Saduri. Sometimes they are tempted by femme fatales who do not always mean them well. The sorceress Medea aided Jason in his challeges in exchange for marrying her, but later she destroyed his family. Gilgamesh rejected the advances of goddess Ianna-Ishtar, which resulted in the death of his best friend.

The hero's quest is dangerous, and often involves facing death itself. Joseph Campbell posited that this aspect of the hero's journey symbolizes the need to confront one's mortality. The hero may be required to travel into the otherworld in order to face death. Or, he or she may face supernatural creatures. The Greek Herakles fights many different monsters. Gilgamesh deliberately chooses to face a firebreathing giant as an adventure, in order to entertain his friend Enkidu, who has become bored by the soft city life. The Native American hero, Wunzh, made famous by Henry Longfellow the American poet as Hiawatha, confronts monsters in order to discover corn and brings it back to his people.

Once the questing heroes have faced his or her trials successfully, they return to their people, usually transformed by their experience.

Confucianism

Confucianism

Dr. Douglas K. Chung
Professor, Grand Valley State University School of Social Work

Confucianism is a philosophy of a way of life, although many people also consider it a religion. The tradition derives its name from Kung Fu Tzu, or Confucius (551-479 BCE), who is renowned as a philosopher and educator. He is less known for his roles as a researcher, statesman, social planner, social innovator, and advocate. Confucius was a generalist with a universal vision. The philosophical method he developed offers a means to transform individuals, families, communities, and nations into a harmonious international society.

The overall goal of Confucianism is to educate people to be self-motivated, self-controlled and able to assume responsibilities; it has the dual aims of cultivating the individual self and contributing to the attainment of an ideal, harmonious society. Confucius based his method on the assumption that lawlessness and social problems result from the combination of unenlightened individuals and a social structure without norms.

The Confucian system is based on several principles:

• In the beginning, there is nothing.
• The Great Ultimate (Tao) exists in the *I* (change)

The Great Ultimate is the cause of change and generates the two primary forms: the Great "Yang" (a great energy) and its counterforce, the Great "Yin" (a passive form). "Yang" and "Yin" symbolize the energy within any system of counterforces: positive and negative, day and night, male and female, rational and intuitive. "Yang" and "Yin" are complementary; in their interaction, everything -- from quanta to galaxies -- comes to be. Everything that exists -- all systems -- coexist in an interdependent network with all other systems.

• The dynamic tension between "Yin" and "Yang" forces results in an endless process of change -- of production and reproduction and the transformation of energy. This is a natural order, an order in which we can see basic moral values. Human nature is inherently good. If a human being goes along with the Great Ultimate and engages in rigorous self-discipline, that person will discover the real self (the nature of "Tao") and enjoy the principle of change. And since all systems exist in an interdependent network, one who knows this truth also cares.
  
• There are four principles of change:

1. Change is easy.
2. Change is a transforming process due to the dynamics between "Yin" and "Yang." Any change in either part ("Yin" or "Yang") will lead to a change in the system and related systems. This process has its own cycle of expansion and contraction.
3. Change carries with it the notion of changelessness; that there is change is a fact that is itself unchanging.
4. The best transformation promotes the growth and development of the individual and the whole simultaneously -- it strives for excellence for all systems in the network.

• Any search for change should consider the following :

1. The status of the object in the interdependent network -- that is, what is the system and what are this object's role, position, rights and duties in the system?
2. Timing within the interrelated network -- that is, is this the right time to initiate change?
3. The mean position, or the Golden Path, in the interrelated network situation; the mean position is regarded as the most strategic position from which one can deal with change. "Tao" (Truth) exists in the mean ("Chung").
4. The respondence of "Yin" and "Yang" forces -- that is, are the counterforces willing to dialogue or compromise?
5. The integration between the parts and the whole -- that is, the system in its economic, political and cultural realms.

• There is an interconnected network of individual existence, and this pattern of interdependent relationships exists in all levels of systems, from individual, through family and state, to the whole world. The whole is dependent upon the harmonious integration of all the parts, or subsystems, while the parts require the nurture of the whole. The ultimate unit within this framework is the universe itself. Self is a here-and-now link in a chain of existence stretching both into the past and into a future to be shaped by the way an individual performs his or her roles in daily life. One's humanity is achieved only with and through others.

Individual and social transformations are based on self-cultivation, the personal effort to search for truth and to become a life-giving person. Searching for and finding the truth will lead to originality, the creative ability to solve problems, and development. The process will also enable
individuals and systems to be life-giving and life-sharing -- to possess a "Jen" (love) personality. Wisdom, love and courage are inseparable concepts.

• Organizational effectiveness and efficiency are reached when systematically interconnected individuals or subsystems find the truth --and stay with it. Existence consists of the interconnected whole. Methods that assume and take account of connections work better than methods that focus on isolated elements. Organizational effectiveness can be improved through a rearrangement of the relationships between the parts and the whole.

In other words, a balanced and harmonious development within the interdependent network is the most beneficial state for all. Self-actualizing and collective goals should always be integrated.

These principles of Confucian social transformation are drawn primarily from *I Ching,* The Great Learning,* *Confucian Analects* and *The Doctrine of The Mean*. In contemporary terms, Confucianism can be defined as a school of social transformation that is research oriented and that employs a multidimensional, crosscultural, and comprehensive approach that is applicable to both micro and macro systems. It is a way of life -- or an art of living -- that aims to synchronize the systems of the universe to achieve both individual and collective fulfillment.

Two major schools of Neo-Confucianism eventually emerged: the rationalists, who emphasized the inner world (philosophy), and the idealists, who emphasized practical learning in the outer world (social science). The leading exponent of the rationalists was Chu Hsi (1033-1107 CE) and that of the idealists was Wang Yang-Ming (1472-1529 CE). The rationalists held that reason is inherent in nature and that the mind and reason are not the same thing. The idealists held that reason is not to be sought from without; it is nothing other than the mind itself. In ethical application, the rationalists considered the flesh to be a stumbling block to the soul. The idealists, on the other hand, considered the flesh to be as the soul makes it. Neo-Confucianism in Korea was led by Lee T'oegye (1501-1570), who taught a philosophy of inner life and moral subjectivity.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, the future Mother Teresa, was born on 26 August 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia, to Albanian heritage. Her father, a well-respected local businessman, died when she was eight years old, leaving her mother, a devoutly religious woman, to open an embroidery and cloth business to support the family. After spending her adolescence deeply involved in parish activities, Agnes left home in September 1928, for the Loreto Convent in Rathfarnam (Dublin), Ireland, where she was admitted as a postulant on October 12 and received the name of Teresa, after her patroness, St. These of Lisieux.

Agnes was sent by the Loreto order to India and arrived in Calcutta on 6 January 1929. Upon her arrival, she joined the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling. She made her final profession as a Loreto nun on 24 May 1937, and hereafter was called Mother Teresa. While living in Calcutta during the 1930s and '40s, she taught in St. Mary's Bengali Medium School.

On 10 September 1946, on a train journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling, Mother Teresa received what she termed the "call within a call," which was to give rise to the Missionaries of Charity family of Sisters, Brothers, Fathers, and Co-Workers. The content of this inspiration is revealed in the aim and mission she would give to her new institute: "to quench the infinite thirst of Jesus on the cross for love and souls" by "labouring at the salvation and sanctification of the poorest of the poor." On October 7, 1950, the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was officially erected as a religious institute for the Archdiocese of Calcutta.

Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Mother Teresa expanded the work of the Missionaries of Charity both within Calcutta and throughout India. On 1 February 1965, Pope Paul VI granted the Decree of Praise to the Congregation, raising it to pontifical right. The first foundation outside India opened in Cocorote, Venezuela, in 1965. The Society expanded to Europe (the Tor Fiscale suburb of Rome) and Africa (Tabora, Tanzania) in 1968.

From the late 1960s until 1980, the Missionaries of Charity expanded both in their reach across the globe and in their number of members. Mother Teresa opened houses in Australia, the Middle East, and North America, and the first novitiate outside Calcutta in London. In 1979 Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. By that same year there were 158 Missionaries of Charity foundations.

The Missionaries of Charity reached Communist countries in 1979 with a house in Zagreb, Craotia, and in 1980 with a house in East Berlin, and continued to expand through the 1980s and 1990s with houses in almost all Communist nations, including 15 foundations in the former Soviet Union. Despite repeated efforts, however, Mother Teresa was never able to open a foundation in China.

Mother Teresa spoke at the fortieth anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly in October 1985. On Christmas Eve of that year, Mother Teresa opened "Gift of Love" in New York, her first house for AIDS patients. In the coming years, this home would be followed by others, in the United States and elsewhere, devoted specifically for those with AIDS.

From the late 1980s through the 1990s, despite increasing health problems, Mother Teresa travelled across the world for the profession of novices, opening of new houses, and service to the poor and disaster-stricken. New communities were founded in South Africa, Albania, Cuba, and war-torn Iraq. By 1997, the Sisters numbered nearly 4,000 members, and were established in almost 600 foundations in 123 countries of the world.

After a summer of travelling to Rome, New York, and Washington, in a weak state of health, Mother Teresa returned to Calcutta in July 1997. At 9:30 PM, on 5 September, Mother Teresa died at the Motherhouse. Her body was transferred to St Thomas's Church, next to the Loreto convent where she had first arrived nearly 69 years earlier. Hundreds of thousands of people from all classes and all religions, from India and abroad, paid their respects. She received a state funeral on 13 September, her body being taken in procession - on a gun carriage that had also borne the bodies of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru - through the streets of Calcutta. Presidents, prime ministers, queens, and special envoys were present on behalf of countries from all over the world.

Entre Arabe et Berbère, l'identité marocaine balance...

Depuis plus d’une décennie, plusieurs associations réclament la reconnaissance de la langue et de la culture amazighes
Entre arabe et berbère, l’identité marocaine balance…
Casanblanca, de Antoine AJOURY


«Nous sommes tous musulmans et marocains. Il n’y a pas de différence entre Arabes et Berbères. Cette distinction a été faite par le colonialisme pour nous diviser. » Telle est la réponse de certains Marocains quand ils sont sollicités pour donner leur avis sur la discrimination qui existe envers la population berbère.

Or, selon les experts, les conquérants arabes du IXe siècle ayant été peu nombreux, la très grande majorité des Marocains est d’origine berbère, bien que la plupart soient devenus arabophones, plusieurs tribus berbères ayant été arabisées de force très tôt. Les experts se sont en effet accordés sur le fait qu’il n’y a pas eu de migration de masse venue du Moyen-Orient dans cette région.

Les Berbères sont présents au Maghreb depuis environ cinq mille ans. Cette communauté s’étend géographiquement sur une vaste région allant de la frontière égypto-libyenne à l’est, jusqu’à l’océan Atlantique à l’ouest.

Le mythe

Parallèlement à l’arabisation de la langue, une sorte d’arabisation de l’identité a eu lieu à travers des mythes mettant en exergue l’origine arabe des Marocains. Un observateur étranger remarquera l’insistance de certains habitants du royaume alaouite à affirmer leur identité arabe. Les Marocains vénèrent ainsi Idriss Ier, descendant de Ali, gendre du prophète Mahomet, venu d’Arabie et qui s’installa dans cette région au VIIIe siècle. « C’est grâce à lui que nous sommes aujourd’hui musulmans et arabes », affirment avec fierté les Marocains qui se considèrent « d’origine arabe ». Beaucoup plus tard, les alaouites fondèrent, au XVIIe siècle, la dynastie qui règne encore aujourd’hui. Moulay Ismaïl est le premier monarque de cette dynastie qui prétend, elle aussi, descendre du Prophète. Il gouverna pendant 50 ans (1672-1727), réorganisa le Maroc et en assura la pacification, après avoir mené une série d’expéditions militaires contre les tribus insoumises. Selon la légende, on lui attribue un harem de 500 femmes. Ce nombre impressionnant aurait, toujours selon la légende, des raisons politiques. Selon la légende, Moulay Ismaïl aurait en effet choisi une épouse dans chaque tribu berbère. Un moyen de pacifier le royaume.

Mais, dans la ville de Meknès, où se trouve le mausolée du roi, le visiteur remarquera qu’enterrés à côté de Moulay Ismaïl, ne se trouvent que son frère, son fils et son épouse. Questionné sur le sort des 499 autres femmes, un guide local reste bouche bée.

Outre la pacification du royaume, l’une des explications de ce mythe tient également en une volonté d’introduire du sang arabe au Maroc. Ainsi, malgré le nombre infime d’Arabes venus s’installer dans cette région, les partisans de l’arabité du pays peuvent s’appuyer sur ce mélange de sang, par alliance, pour affirmer « l’origine arabe des Marocains ».

Victime du nationalisme arabe

Fort de ses mythes, le Maroc, lors de son indépendance en 1956, proclame haut et fort son identité arabe. L’arabité, qui a alors le vent en poupe, est considérée comme un facteur d’unité, la diversité culturelle comme une source de division. Pendant plusieurs décennies, la spécificité berbère fut écrasée et opprimée au nom de l’arabité. Une pratique d’ailleurs courante dans d’autres pays dits arabes.

Le réveil berbère

Ce n’est qu’au début des années 90 qu’une revendication de l’identité berbère apparaît au Maroc. Le 5 août 1991, plusieurs associations réclament publiquement la reconnaissance de la langue et de la culture amazighes. Le terme « amazigh », masculin, signifie « homme libre ». Le féminin « tamazight » lui est généralement préféré pour désigner la langue. Les Berbères préfèrent le nom qu’ils se donnent dans leur langue, les Imazighen.
Quelques années plus tard, une poignée de manifestants sont arrêtés par les autorités pour avoir défilé avec des banderoles rédigées en langue berbère.
Sous la pression de l’opinion publique nationale et de certains mouvements locaux, qui furent d’abord culturels avant de devenir politiques, le gouvernement marocain a proclamé son intention de développer une politique multiculturelle et a reconnu, avec plus ou moins de bonne volonté, la place tenue par l’identité berbère dans la composition de la nation marocaine.
Le 20 août 1994, le roi Hassan II a décidé que la langue des Berbères, le tamazight, parlée par plus d’un tiers de la population du royaume, serait désormais enseignée « au moins au niveau primaire ». Cette décision, qui fera date, a ouvert la voie à une réparation historique, même partielle, à l’égard de la communauté berbère, dont la langue, la culture, l’identité et les droits ont été longtemps méprisés.

En 2000, un groupe d’intellectuels diffuse un « manifeste berbère » signé par plus de 200 personnalités. Le texte, qui réclame à nouveau la réhabilitation de la langue, de la culture et de l’identité berbères, est remis au porte-parole du nouveau roi Mohammed VI. En 2001, le monarque signe un décret créant l’Institut royal de la culture amazighe « Ircam ». Son rôle consiste à conseiller le souverain sur tout ce qui concerne l’identité berbère. Sa priorité aujourd’hui est d’accompagner la mise en place de l’enseignement du tamazight dans les écoles.

Cette reconnaissance illustre ainsi par excellence le processus marocain de transition démocratique. Il s’agit, dans ce cas, d’une sorte d’interaction entre les propositions faites par la société civile, d’une part, et le pouvoir central, d’autre part.

Actuellement, les associations amazighes réclament que la monarchie aille plus loin : elles demandent la reconnaissance officielle de la langue berbère dans la Constitution, en faisant valoir que près de 40 % de la population du pays sont berbérophones. En attendant sa pleine réhabilitation, la « berbérité » s’affiche. La population s’organise à travers des associations sociales et culturelles de plus en plus nombreuses, alors que les festivals de musique amazighe attirent un public croissant.

Copyright : L'Orient-Le Jour - Lebanese newspaper in French