Playgrounds Welcome March Basketball Madness

Now that he's an ex-President, Barack Obama welcomes his extra time to fill out March Madness brackets for the annual basketball tournament pitting 68 top U.S. college teams against each other. Former University of Pennsylvania stars welcome the chance to reminisce about years back when they were on an Ivy League basketball team that reached the Final Four. They remind each other how they were the tough recruits from the New York public leagues who recognized the teammate potential of a lanky lad from a Connecticut prep school.

     March Madness also brings players to welcoming neighborhood basketball courts. The short Shark Tank entrepreneur, Daymon John, reports how he, by being the one who brought the ball, always was welcome to play in pick-up games. Surprisingly, North Korea's short President, Kim Jong-un, is a basketball fan who probably would welcome an invitation to a March Madness game.

     There's even a semi-professional basketball team in Tibet, China. Willard "Bill" Johnson, a former MIT basketball coach and professional player in Iceland, Australia, and Cape Verde, coaches a team made up of nomad sheep and yak herders and Buddhist monks who were prepared to play in the Norlha Basketball Invitational in Gannan, part of China's Gansu province. Unfortunately, Beijing canceled the tournament, because local police voiced security concerns about controlling a large gathering of people during the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.

     One of Johnson's players, 6-foot, one-inch Dugya Bum was a school drop out who didn't quit smoking until basketball changed his life. His home now displays a framed photo of LeBron James. Basketball also transformed the difficult lives of Norlha's nomad women who became interested in trying new things, like yoga and meeting together to chat, once they too had a team.

     The Olympic Creed claims "The most important thing about the Olympics is to take part." Around the world, in playgrounds and gyms everywhere, the most important thing may be getting to know each other by taking part in sports. 

What Do Starbucks and ISIS Have in Common?

Whether you're friendless in a big city or big school, you're going to be drawn to a welcoming environment. Baristas who greet you by name and remember your order and organizations that promise boyfriends and a purpose in life have found the secret of success. They are not going to point out the down sides associated with what they offer.

     What can be done to counteract the lure of terrorist groups and gangs? Offer positive alternatives for bonding in sports teams, theater productions, church choirs, robot competitions. Provide classes in school and out that teach skills directly related to landing a good-paying career. Publicize internships that provide experience, not just in taking orders, but in an environment that invites them to contribute ideas and to learn to lead in a way that doesn't offend others.

     Separation of church and state need not be interpreted to rule out studying world religions in schools. Unless myths about Catholics, Muslims, Jewish people, Buddhists, and other religious followers are dispelled, these falsehoods will continue to undercut positive beliefs that can foster tolerance. Just as the Internet can be used to bully and promote violence, techies can use social media to muster posses that post cartoons, jokes, and songs that focus on fun and inclusion. What stylish young woman who works out to keep her figure trim and who keeps up on the latest mascara, nail polish, and hair and skin care advice really wants her boyfriend to demand she wear a burka?

Respect the Faith

In this holy season, while Jewish people are celebrating Passover and Christians are about to recall the Resurrection of Christ on Easter, it might be a good opportunity for children to think about the need to respect the holy days of all religions. Freedom to exercise an individual's religion was considered a right important enough to be written explicitly in and guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Students may know Muslim classmates who are free to attend religious services on Friday, Jewish children who go to their temples on Saturday, or Christian children who attend church on Sunday. They can ask friends about holy days they may not celebrate, such as the beginning of the Muslim holy season, Ramadan, on June 28, 2014, or the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, on October 4, 2014.

     Learning about foreign countries is not complete without learning that followers of different religions are concentrated in certain parts of the world. Africa has both Christians and Muslims; Asia has Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus; most Christians are in Europe, Latin America, and North America; the Jewish population is concentrated in Israel and the United States. It is all too easy for those in the majority who practice one religion in a country to oppress the minority. In Syria, the Christian minority suffers at the hands of the Sunni Muslim majority, and in Egypt Islamist mobs have destroyed Christian churches, orphanages, and businesses, according to TIME magazine (April 21, 2014). While a quarter of the Middle East's population was Christian in 1914; fewer than 5% are now Christian, since Christians left to escape harassment and physical violence. Given the usual inclination of a majority to dominate a minority, it is commendable to see that Pakistan and Sri Lanka recognize their countries' minorities on their flags (See the earlier blog post, "A Salute to Flags.").

More details about major religions can be found in the earlier blog post, "This We Believe."

This We Believe

Around their neighborhoods youngsters are likely to see churches, temples, and mosques. In the supermarket, they may observe women wearing scarfs and veils to cover their hair, men wearing turbans and yarmulkes, priests with round white collars, and women practicing the yoga discipline of Hinduism. Some of their friends may put up Christmas trees and attend church on Sunday. Others will observe a period of penitence from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, play with dreidels on Hanukkah, and go to temple on Saturday. For Muslims, their holy day is Friday. On a visit to an art museum, children see paintings of saints, statues of Buddha and Hindu gods, but, curiously, no representations of Muhammad.

     Since religions tend to concentrate in certain geographical areas, knowing even a few facts about the world's primary faiths helps children understand people from other countries. To than end, Barron's has published the series, This is my faith, to give children an overview of the world's major religions. In a country, such as Bangladesh, all major Muslim, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist holy days are national holidays. But different beliefs also can cause conflicts between peoples holding strong religious convictions. Christians launched Crusades against Muslims, and many Muslims oppose the Jewish state of Israel.

Mohammed's legacy

Of the world's more than six billion people who declare themselves a certain religion, nearly one out of every five is a Muslim. There are 150 million Muslims in both India and Pakistan and 125 million each in Bangladesh and Indonesia. Major concentrations of Muslims also can be found in Malaysia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco.

     Interest in the Islamic faith increased after September 11, 2001, when Muslims from the al-Qaeda organization flew the suicide missions that destroyed the twin towers in New York City and damaged the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The airplane hijackers saw themselves turning the West's technology against a materialistic, anything-goes lifestyle contrary to their religious beliefs. To counter this point of view, churches, schools, and other organizations began to publish materials and sponsor programs showing the Muslim faith espouses a pious way of life that does not sanction suicide, killing innocent civilians, or destroying places of worship. Friendship Press (friendshippress.org), for example, published the book God is One: The Way of Islam.

     The Muslim faith was founded by Mohammed, who was born about 570 into an Arab family in Mecca on the Red Sea coast of what is now Saudi Arabia. Drawing on Jewish and Catholic religious teachings he turned away from the worship of idols and recognized one true God, Allah. As a result of the divine revelations he received from the angel Gabriel, Mohammed assumed the role of the last and greatest prophet, in the line of Moses and Jesus. His teachings were collected and written in Arabic in the Muslims' sacred book, the Qur'an. Hadiths describing Mohammed's attitudes and lifestyle tell Muslim men to wear full beards and refrain from drinking alcohol, gambling, collecting interest on loans, and eating pork, considered to be unclean. Along with belief in one God, Muslims pray five times a day facing Mecca, fast from dawn to sunset daily during a month of Ramadan, and once in a lifetime try to make a pilgrimage to the Sacred Mosque at Mecca. Muslims consider all representations, even of Mohammed, sinful idolatry.

     To escape local protesters who resisted conversion, Mohammed fled north to the oasis of Medina, Saudi Arabia, with his wife; cousin Ali; and early convert, his father-in-law, Abu Bakr; in 622. Muslims consider this date of Mohammed's flight, or hegira, the first year in their calendar. Faced with the need to support his followers in Medina, Mohammed claimed a revelation justified attacks on caravans carrying goods from Mecca. Muslims martyred in what became a holy war, or jihad, against the infidel were promised a paradise that satisfied their sensual desires.

     After Mohammed died in 632, the Islamic world split to follow two different successors. Sunnis, who make up about 90 percent of the world's 1.6 billion Muslim population and are the Muslim majority in countries such as Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. These Sunnis favored electing a caliph to head a Muslim state. They followed Mohammed's knowledgeable early convert, Abu Bakr, who they recognized as their secular and religious leader. A number of Sunni Muslim groups have been organized to destroy Israel and its US ally. In 2014, fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), a radical strain of Sunnis, began terrorist attacks to take territory in Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and northern Africa. In contrast, Sunni al Qaeda terrorists have no specific territory, although they have been active in Lebanon's Palestinean refugee camps and training camps in Afghanistan. Another fundamentalist subset of Sunni Muslims, known as Salafists, oppose Shi'ism and are willing to use violent jihad to purge society of all modern, Western influences and to create a government, proselytizing media, and social norms, such as coverings for women, that conform to rules laid down in the Qur'an. They consider all innovations that deviate from the straight path of Islam, submission to God, heresy that leads to hell. Consequently, they would eradicate the Shi'ites and impose strict Islamic law, or Shari'a, as interpreted in the "early Muslim" (Salaf) days of Mohammed, over the entire Muslim world.

    The smaller Shi'ite group of Muslims, located primarily in Farsi-speaking Persian Iran rather than in the Arab world, has a disproportionate amount of power, especially in oil-rich areas and, after the U.S. led defeat of Saddam Hussein, also in Iraq. Shi'ites, including those, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shi'ites in Iraq, Yemen, and Bahrain, follow descendants of a hereditary successor, Muhammad's first cousin and son-in-law, the imam Ali ibn Abi Talib. In 1979, Iran's Islamic revolution overthrew the pro-American Shah of Iran and established the Middle East's first modern theocratic regime. Hezbollah's Shia suicide bombers hit the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanan and the U.S. Embassy there. Hezbollah fighters continue to terrorize Israel's northern border. Iran's determination to develop nuclear know-how is especially threatening to Israel.

    In contrast, Indonesia, whose estimated population of 253 million is 86% Muslim, is a democracy.

Judaic-Christian heritage

Two major events influenced early Jewish history. First, over 3000 years ago Moses led his people out of Egyptian captivity, received the Ten Commandments, and ushered God's chosen race into the Promised Land of Palestine. Secondly, King Solomon constructed the great Jewish temple in Jerusalem. In 135 Romans destroyed the Temple with the exception of the western wall, known as the Wailing Wall, and ordered the Jewish people out of Jerusalem forever. In 1917, Lord Balfour, Britain's foreign minister, raised the possibility of carving an Israeli state out of Palestine. London would gain an opportunity to implement Balfour's plan on September 11, 1932, when the League of Nations made Palestine a British mandate. In 1948, Israel became a Jewish state. Outside of Israel, nearly half of the world's Jewish population live in North America.

     Jewish people believe in one God but do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Consequently, their calendar is not divided into the period before Christ (B.C.) and after Christ (A.D.). The Torah is the sacred Jewish text that contains the five books of Moses, and the Talmud, which records Jewish law and legend, prescribes a code of living. Rabbis serve as Jewish teachers and synagogue officials who, among other responsibilities, prepare 13-year-old boys for their bar mitzvahs and 12- or 13-year old girls for bat mitzvahs. These ceremonies welcome young people who have studied to achieve a mature understanding of Judaism as adult members of the Jewish community. In some areas, Jewish and Christian families gather in late March or early April to share a Passover Seder, or banquet. Together they celebrate the Israelites' hasty escape from Egypt, when Moses delivered his people from slavery, and the Christian holy day, when Jesus ate his Last Supper with the Apostles.

Catholicism

From the earliest days of the Catholic Church, missionaries have followed the example of Saint Paul, who took advantage of Rome's Appian Way and extensive road network to spread Christianity. As a result, in addition to more than 500 million Christians in both Europe and Latin America, there are over 400 million Christians in Africa, more than 350 million in Asia, and about 277 million in North America.

     Christians recognize the Bible, Old and New Testaments, as the inspired word of God. Catholics also rely on tradition and abide by the authority and teachings of the Pope in Vatican City. They believe there are three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in one God and that Jesus, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, is both God and man. Jesus is recognized as the Savior who mysteriously loved mankind enough to die on a cross in order to appease God for man's original sin in the Garden of Paradise. The sacrifice of Jesus reopened a heavenly paradise to mortal man.

     Throughout the centuries, Christianity's 2.2 has fragmented. Slavic countries, following the baptism of Prince Vladimir of Kiev in 988, formed the Russian Orthodox church. In 1100, the patriarch in Constantinople, head of what became known as the Greek Orthodox Church, separated from the Pope. Protestant Christians, such as Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians, continue to espouse a personal relationship with Jesus but, beginning in the 1500s, their ministers were no longer ordained or bound by bishops consecrated by the Pope.

Approaching Nirvana

Hinduism, as it developed in India some 3500 years ago, recognizes a Trimurti of three great gods: Brahma who created every life form in the world; Shiva, the destroyer who brings forth new life; and Vishnu, the preserver. In contrast to Islam, the world's one billion Hindus in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Guyana, and Suriname use statues of millions of gods to represent different aspects of the one universe.

     Hinduism does not promise believers a material heavenly reward. Instead, most followers believe in karma, i.e. a person's present life form is an inevitable reflection of good and bad deeds performed in a past life. Ultimately, good souls are reborn into higher and higher life forms until they reach Nirvana, a state of peace and nothingness when the cycle of life, death, and rebirth end. Evil people, according to the Hindu faith, are reborn into lower life forms that require more reincarnations. The idea of transmigration, or constant reincarnation into higher or lower life forms, leads to the conclusion that even an insect should not be killed and that cows should not be eaten.

     Just as Muslims journey to Mecca and Catholics make pilgrimages to sites where Mary, the mother of Jesus, has appeared and miracles have occurred, Hindus travel to the sacred Ganges River, the dwelling place of the goddess Ganga, to bathe, ask for her blessing, and seek freedom from the pain of rebirth. For Kumbh Mela every 12th year, as many as 80 million Hindu pilgrims travel to Allahabad to bathe in the Ganges in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Wherever they are, Hindus use meditation, symbolized by a third eye, to escape the pain and sorrow introduced through the senses, and they use the discipline required to hold yoga positions for long periods of time as a way to free their minds from earthly concerns.

Buddhism

The meditation and physical discipline of Hinduism failed to satisfy the wealthy young prince from India who founded Buddhism, a religion practiced primarily in Asia. In the sixth century before Christ, after he saw a man suffering from old age, another from disease, and another dying, Gautama Siddhartha, who would later hold the title of Buddha, launched a search for happiness. While sitting under a fig tree, defined as the Bo Tree or tree of enlightenment, Siddhartha determined that overcoming selfishness was the key to happiness. In the Tripitaka, which contains his teachings and monastic rules, Buddha counseled followers to know themselves, to concentrate on their inner resources, and to see life as it is with all its suffering and sorrow. Following the Noble Buddhist Path to personal enlightenment and social harmony requires right understanding, thought, speech, action, effort, and concentration. In other words, Buddhists strive to avoid anger, violence, lying, gossiping, and stealing. Without the help of idols, temples (the wat), or holy men, Buddha taught that followers could attain the Nirvana of Hinduism by performing their own good works.

     Prior to the opening of the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing, demonstrations broke out in the Tibetan region of China, where Buddhist monks have been under attack since 1959. At that time, the 23-year-old traditional Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, fled to India, where he has remained in exile for nearly 60 years. From his home in Dharamsala, he urges the leaders in China, where there are 244,000 Buddhists, to see that harmony comes from the heart not from force. As he has said, "In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher." Nonetheless, as recently as July, 2013, Yu Zhengsheng, who is in charge of ethnic minorities in China, said the country will continue its struggle against the Dalai Lama.  Contrary to the belief that  all Buddhists espouse non-violence, in Burma (Myanmar), the radical Buddhist monk, Wirathu, has been preaching hatred for Muslims. His sermons have led to violence against Muslim minorities not only in Burma but also in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia.

     Like Catholics and Hindus, Buddhists do not consider statues idolatry. Actress Jennifer Aniston, for example, has a Buddhist statue of Avalokiteshvara, goddess of compassion, in her office. Although the Buddha taught that there is no one all powerful God, many followers pray at his shrines and celebrate his life and teachings on the Makha Bucha holiday as though he is one. Huge statues of Buddha dot Pakistan, India, Thailand, Japan, Korea, and Cambodia. These statues may be standing, sitting with legs crossed in the lotus position to represent emerging like a lotus plant from the mud to reach enlightenment, or lying down to indicate having reached Nirvana through death. Hand positions, or mudra, vary to signal welcome, no need to fear, meditation, victory over distractions, or that the Buddha is teaching. A popular 14th century Tibetan scroll painting features a blue skinned Buddha who is said to have the power to heal.

Peace through religious understanding

Brief descriptions of these major religions offer some idea of the impact they have on the behavior of people throughout the world. These descriptions also help adults introduce young people to the similarities and differences of the world's religions and respond to children when a movie, television show, or news item, such as the recent attack on a Sikh temple, pique their interest in sacred concepts. In the movie Mulan, for example, the dead relatives of a young Chinese girl care about her in the manner China's moral philosopher, Confucius, described in his teachings about ancestor worship six centuries before Christ. Pocahontas, on the other hand, showed a Native American girl who viewed spirits in nature in much the same way as children might if they practiced the Shinto faith in Japan. Exposure to other religions, even the superstitions, fertility cults, animistic fetishes, and voodoo found in Africa and Haiti, helps children gain insight into the way people in other countries think and live.