Efforts to resolve disputes that have their roots in religious differences – whether through dialogue, mediation or military force – typically fail because often the die has already been cast.

The source of the problem is often the age at which children in conflict-affected areas, such as those across the Middle East, are inculcated with religious dogma. The minds of young people are highly vulnerable, and beliefs and attitudes, particularly of an existential nature, instilled at an early age, are retained, usually on into adulthood.

CYCLE OF VICTIMISATION

Seen from this perspective, the radicalised adult is also a victim who, just a few years earlier, was a carefree child laughing and playing with other children and oblivious to his faith or that of their friends.

Now, as an adult, they can sometimes find it difficult to accept the free, open and tolerant societies they see in other parts of the world – and indeed, they may even have chosen to live in such a society. However, the puritanical ideas deeply entrenched by their early indoctrination can trigger a schizophrenic-type condition that causes an otherwise normal individual to slip into an alter ego that perceives as potential enemies not only those of other faiths but anyone who interprets the individual’s own faith differently.

BREAKING THE CYCLE

Who, then, is to blame? It is predominantly successive parents, since it is they who have ultimate control over their own children, but also teachers and educational administrators, all of whom should be mindful of the law of cause and effect. Routinely in these societies, in spite of what is often a rounded approach to the teaching of general subjects, religion is taught as a uniform set of beliefs or ideas without pupils being allowed to question or think critically. Until this cycle of indoctrination is broken there is unlikely to be any real change of attitude towards gender equality or an increase in tolerance of other beliefs – either within these states or even among the diaspora of their citizens.

At the same time, we in the West are not strangers to religious indoctrination. Throughout the thousand years span of the Middle Ages, life for most people was backbreaking and short. All social activities revolved around the local church where people were told on Sundays that their existence of hardship and drudgery would be rewarded one day with everlasting paradise – or, if they strayed, everlasting fire. Even their church building, solid and imposing, was sacrosanct, so anyone fortunate enough to actually see a cathedral, ostensibly reaching up to heaven, must have been awestruck – hence it would achieve its purpose.

DOMESTIC INDOCTRINATION

But for effective, subtle indoctrination today nothing tops the British monarchy. Their wealth, privilege and power perpetuate an outdated class system, and their ostentatious pomp and ceremony, coupled with numerous palaces, castles and stately homes, have successfully indoctrinated many people into a mindset of awe and deference. Meanwhile, they continue to operate a vast money-making enterprise, much of it tax-free.

In response to a recent damning Channel Four TV exposure of the dubious sources of their income, the royal’s public relations team swung into action, issuing a flurry of cloying, sentimental pictures of, and articles about, their private lives to the press. This has effectively stifled public outrage – for now.

Incidentally the king is monarch ‘By the grace of God’ – hardly democratic, particularly for atheists, – and to complete the circle he is also ‘Head of the Church’.

The hope is that the new generation of young voters in the UK will act to curb the influence and power and of the Church and also abolish an out-dated Monarchy to bring us into the 21st Century. By doing so, they will make our society a secular and democratic one in which both believers and non-believers can live without fear or favour.

The example we will then set, along with that of countries that have already gone down this route, might eventually be followed others, as it becomes apparent there is a clear correlation between secularism and the enjoyment of social, economic and political stability.