This post is based on my response to user /u/lakeclear on the Reddit forum /r/ahmadiyya, who commented on religious indoctrination with an attempt to suggest that indoctrination is all around us, and that religions like Islam encourage reasoned belief. [archived screenshot]
You’ve stated:
You’ve also provided a Qur’anic verse about those who ignorantly follow the religions of their fathers.
What I’ve found with religious texts—be it the Qur’an or be it the vast body of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s writings—is that they often have a bit of everything in them. There’s plausible deniability for any position, in theory.
These bits you’ve cited are indeed admirable. Yet the rest of the body of scripture, traditions, and the social structures built around the religion end up drowning out the practical realization of these high minded ideals.
Take for example, one growing up as an Ahmadi Muslim boy. I remember ijtemas and other similar occassions where we would take the Pledge of Atfal-ul-Ahmadiyya. After age 16, it would be the Pledge of Khuddam-ul-Ahmadiyya (screenshot).
In neither case was I ever asked if I felt comfortable taking the pledge, or whether I agreed with it. Nor was I ever given the option to sit it out without fear of embarassment or social ostracization for not wanting to join in. These choices should be repeatedly announced in a loving and non-judgmental way. They never are. They aren’t even spoken of.
It is at these subtle levels, when young minds are doubting but don’t yet have the social confidence to stick their necks out defiantly, that religious indoctrination takes hold.
And the pledge is but one example. Religion is cunning at tying people’s identity and self-worth to an ideology. Much like the slimy usage of the word ‘Islamophobia’ instead of the more meaningful phrase ‘Anti-Muslim Bigotry’. The former conflates the ideology with the people. The latter focuses on people. We must be free to vociferously challenge and critique ideas, without it getting conflated with bigotry. Muslims who use the term ‘Islamophobia’ are literally using their fellow Muslims as human shields. But I digress.
Next, we have the broader concept of social and emotional blackmail. We have the phenomenon of trapping people into a social web of relations which they fear they will lose now that they are old enough to realize that if they could redo their life, they wouldn’t have opted-in to Ahmadiyyat or any other Islam.
These concepts, a few concentric circles removed from pure indoctrination, are captured in my Top 25 list, Reasons Why Many Muslims Haven’t Left Islam—Yet. Of particular interest to Ahmadi Muslims would be Reason 25: Having One’s Parents Shamed and Isolated.
With all due respect, I believe that your reference to an ‘indoctrination pandemic’ is an attempt to hijack the word indoctrination, which has religion squarely in its crosshairs, and try to repurpose it, to diffuse its bite.
What you are describing however, is an apples to oranges comparsion, in my humble opinion.
Governments and media purveying a dominant culture and set of social norms cannot be compared to parents, family, and a tight-knit religious community espousing beliefs and norms as divine truths about the ultimate metaphysical reality governing our lives. Believing or not believing in whether Iraq has WMD does not hit as close to home for an Ahmadi Muslim living in Peace Village trying to ensure they can still get a rishta or trying to save their parents embarassment when the marry outside the belief system they never truly internalized.
To help readers understand the phenomenon of religious indoctrination better, I recommend the excellent video by Theramin Trees, Grooming Minds.