21 Lessons for the 21st Century(92)

Self-sacrifice is extremely persuasive not just for the martyrs themselves, but also for the bystanders. Few gods, nations or revolutions can sustain themselves without martyrs. If you presume to question the divine drama, the nationalist myth or the revolutionary saga, you are immediately scolded: ‘But the blessed martyrs died for this! Do you dare say that they died for nothing? Do you think these heroes were fools?’

For Shiite Muslims, the drama of the cosmos reached its climactic moment on the day of Ashura, which was the tenth day of the month of Muharram, sixty-one years after the Hijrah (10 October 680, according to the Christian calendar). On that day, at Karbala in Iraq, soldiers of the evil usurper Yazid massacred Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, together with a small group of followers. For Shiites, Husayn’s martyrdom has come to symbolise the eternal struggle of good against evil and of the oppressed against injustice. Just as Christians repeatedly re-enact the drama of the crucifixion and imitate the passion of Christ, so Shiites re-enact the drama of Ashura and imitate the passion of Husayn. Millions of Shiites flock yearly to the holy shrine in Karbala, established where Husayn was martyred, and on the day of Ashura Shiites throughout the world stage mourning rituals, in some cases flagellating and cutting themselves with chains and knives.

Yet the importance of Ashura is not limited to one place and one day. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and numerous other Shiite leaders have repeatedly told their followers that ‘every day is Ashura and every place is Karbala’.12 The martyrdom of Husayn at Karbala thus gives meaning to every event, anywhere, any time, and even the most mundane decisions should be seen as having an impact on the great cosmic struggle between good and evil. If you dare doubt this story, you will immediately be reminded of Karbala – and to doubt or mock the martyrdom of Husayn is just about the worst offence you could possibly commit.

Alternatively, if martyrs are scarce and people are unwilling to sacrifice themselves, the sacrificing priest may get them to sacrifice somebody else instead. You might sacrifice a human to the vengeful god Ba’al, burn a heretic at the stake for the greater glory of Jesus Christ, execute adulterous women because Allah said so, or send class enemies to the Gulag. Once you do that, a slightly different alchemy of sacrifice begins to work its magic on you. When you inflict suffering on yourself in the name of some story, it gives you a choice: ‘Either the story is true, or I am a gullible fool.’ When you inflict suffering on others, you are also given a choice: ‘Either the story is true, or I am a cruel villain.’ And just as we don’t want to admit we are fools, we also don’t want to admit we are villains, so we prefer to believe that the story is true.

In March 1839, in the Iranian city of Mashhad, a Jewish woman who suffered from some skin disease was told by a local quack that if she killed a dog and washed her hands in its blood, she would be cured. Mashhad is a holy Shiite city, and it so happened that the woman undertook the grisly therapy on the sacred day of Ashura. She was observed by some Shiites, who believed – or claimed to believe – that the woman killed the dog in mockery of the Karbala martyrdom. Word of this unthinkable sacrilege quickly spread through the streets of Mashhad. Egged on by the local imam, an angry mob broke into the Jewish quarter, torched the synagogue, and murdered thirty-six Jews on the spot. All the surviving Jews of Mashhad were then given a stark choice: convert to Islam immediately, or be killed. The sordid episode hardly harmed Mashhad’s reputation as ‘Iran’s spiritual capital’.13

When we think of human sacrifice we usually have in mind gruesome rituals in Canaanite or Aztec temples, and it is common to argue that monotheism brought an end to this terrible practice. In fact, monotheists practised human sacrifice on a much larger scale than most polytheistic cults. Christianity and Islam killed far more people in the name of God than did the followers of Ba’al or Huitzilopochtli. At a time when the Spanish conquistadores stopped all human sacrifices to the Aztec and Inca gods, back home in Spain the Inquisition was burning heretics by the cartload.

Sacrifices can come in all shapes and sizes. They don’t always involve knife-wielding priests or bloody pogroms. Judaism, for example, forbids working or travelling on the holy day of Sabbath (the literal meaning of the word ‘sabbath’ is ‘to stand still’ or ‘to rest’). The Sabbath starts at sunset on Friday, and lasts until sunset on Saturday, and in between Orthodox Jews refrain from almost any kind of work, including even tearing off toilet paper from a roll in the lavatory. (There has been some discussion of this among the most learned rabbis, and they concluded that tearing toilet paper will break the Sabbath taboo, and consequently devout Jews who want to wipe their bottoms on the Sabbath have to prepare a stash of pre-torn toilet paper in advance.14)

In Israel, religious Jews often try to force secular Jews and even complete atheists to keep these taboos. Since Orthodox parties usually hold the balance of power in Israeli politics, over the years they have succeeded in passing many laws banning all kinds of activities on the Sabbath. Though they were unable to outlaw the use of private vehicles on the Sabbath, they have been successful in banning public transport. This nationwide religious sacrifice hits mainly the weakest sectors of society, especially as Saturday is the only day of the week when working-class people are free to travel and visit distant relatives, friends and tourist attractions. A rich grandmother has no problem driving her brand-new car to visit her grandchildren in another town, but a poor grandmother cannot do so, because there are no buses or trains.