Beyond Fundamentalism
New Internationalist has become time and again a major site for publishing articles on the role of religion in the (post)modern world, creating thus a forum of an ongoing dialogue and understanding between different perspectives, worldviews, and beliefs. The present article intends to contribute to this forum a discussion of some aspects of religion; in particular, a discussion of fundamentalism in the light and context of the war in Iraq.
Is our (post)modern world religious or secular? Is fundamentalism just a religious phenomenon? Is Islam a real or an imaginative threat to the West? Are wars like the one in Iraq religious? What is the major issue posed by fundamentalism? These are some of the questions I will have to look into in order to propose an answer as to what lies or, better, should be lying beyond the divisions of fundamentalism.
Since the time Durkheim proposed his famous “secularisation thesis”, it has been self-evident to view modernity as a slow but steady advance from the dominance of the “champs religieux” –as Bourdieu would say– to the autonomy of secular society. Modernity came to be contrasted to the enchantment mentality of traditional cultures, a mentality that was supposed to be developing more and more into a reality of the past through what Weber termed “disenchantment”.
Thus religion was not understood merely as one of the sectors of modern society, but also as a sector that was withdrawing from the centre to the periphery of society. In this respect, secularisation was defined as the decline, the marginalisation or, in same cases, even the disappearance of religion. But this “secularisation thesis” has been questioned as to the extent of its validity, since postmodern social reality has proved to be a field propitious for the return of religion and full of unsuspected religious modalities or even new religious movements. Secularisation seems now more like a wishful thinking on the part of its initial proponents than an adequate model for describing and explaining the role of religion in (post)modern society.
“Gott ist tot”, but religion is very much alive!
It is rather superficial and uncritical to see our (post)modern world as secular, that is, as non-religious. The question about God may have suffered Nietzsche’s unrelenting criticism, and “Gott ist tot” made into a hallmark of contemporary thought, but religion seems to go on claiming its rights. First of all, the West is not the entire world, which means that the recent (modern) history of religion in the West is by no means identical with the recent history of religion in the rest of the world. In other words, religion in the non-Western world did not show any signs of undergoing a secularisation crisis.
Secondly, Christian traditions have made a remarkable comeback to the fore of society after the impact of the two World Wars (e.g., Christian Democrat Parties, the Ecumenical Movement, Political Theology, Theology of Revolution, Theology of Liberation). Thirdly, alternative forms of religiosity have emerged, forms that range from “New Age” and Neo-Paganism to New Religious Movements and various religious alternatives (e.g., Utilitarianism, Marxism, Humanism, Nationalism). And finally, it has been realized that religion reflects a more fundamental level, that is, the level of the sacred, which conditions in turn a number of social and cultural processes. So, ultimately, even secularism could be viewed as a transformation of the traditional ways in which the sacred was conceptualised and thus have religious connotations.
Fundamentalism, or Religion as the Alter Ego of Politics!
If secularisation is one of the many possible transformations of the sacred within (post)modernity, then it seems at least plausible to approach the relation of religion and politics from a different perspective. More specifically, the traditional interdependence of religion and politics would have to be reassessed in the light of the (post)modern alienation of politics from religion. Not that this alienation implies that contemporary politics is irrelevant to religious manifestations; on the contrary, it is precisely this alienation that points to the political appropriation of religious qualities.
(Post)Modern politics seems more and more to exemplify and realise the power of religion. Furthermore, there is a specific phenomenon, usually defined as religious, which speaks volumes for the reformulation that the relation between religion and politics has undergone or is undergoing in our times. I am referring of course to the rise of fundamentalism, first in the conservative Protestant circles of the United States, and then in almost all major religious traditions of the world. This development has been understood as a phobic reaction of religious tradition to the monopolising and constraining dispositions of secularism, modernism, or even globalisation.
Of course fundamentalism is such a reaction, but it should not be seen as the sole realisation of religious traditions within the (post)modern world. Religious traditions –precisely because every tradition is essentially a continuum of changes– are much more diverse, complex, and pluralistic than a reduction of religious tradition to fundamentalism would have us believe. Termed differently, fundamentalism is not the stronghold of religion, but an inherently political phenomenon. And by this I do not mean that it is a betrayal of religion in favour of politics. No, fundamentalism is the religious equivalent of politics: whereas (post)modern politics appropriates and monopolises the field of religion, fundamentalism appropriates and monopolises the field of politics; and hence the clash.
The “threat” of Islam
Although Christian in origin, fundamentalism has virtually become a synonym of Islam in Western societies. Consequently, Islam has been reduced to Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism, and worst of all terrorism. The reasons for this misrepresentation of or “false consciousness” about Islam are many and complicated, but in the limits of an article like this one I will have to epitomise as much colonial and post-colonial Islamic history as I can.
First of all, throughout the colonial period Islam seems to have indulged in the “close of the gates of ijtihad”, that is, the rejection of every kind of intellectual recasting of the Islamic tradition. Thus Islamic societies developed a great degree of inertia, something that made them susceptible to a fixed, definitive, and finally literalist interpretation of the Qur’an, the Sunnah’ (the practice of Prophet Mohammed), and the Shari’ah (Islamic law). But it is precisely this literalist reduction that constitutes the most basic precondition of fundamentalism.
Secondly, the modernist Islamic regimes that were established in the post-colonial era, and their subsequent failure to win the support of the people, have just boosted the resentment against the former colonialists, that is, the Western origins of modernism. Lastly, the militant groups of Islamists that resort to violence through a very narrow understanding of jihad have to be interpreted as a corollary of both the prolonged exploitation of Muslim peoples and the violence that such an exploitation entailed. So in the light of the above observations one could say that, while the Islamic world itself has contributed to its own misrepresentation, it is the West that has provoked the latter. It is the West that has forced Islam –directly or indirectly– to mutilate itself or alienate itself from the richness of its own history and tradition. It is the selectivity of the West that goes on perpetuating the deficiencies of its own need to create an evil Other in order to sustain the identity of a good Self. In brief, the “threat” of Islam is both real and imaginative; real as far as Islamist terrorists do exist, and imaginative as far as the West needs to see all Muslims as potential terrorists.
Is Fundamentalism the End?
The whole issue of fundamentalism, not just of Islamic but also of Christian fundamentalism –and I would dare say of fundamentalism in general– becomes extremely urgent when we have to rethink it in the context of wars like the one in Iraq. This war has shown to everyone that it is very easy to have the world turned into an arena of clashes between fundamentalisms. And let’s not content ourselves with saying that this war was not a religious war, because then we will find it quite difficult to account for the innumerable references to “evil” in the official speeches of Western leaders.
While a political war on both sides, it was also a religious war, given the appropriation of politics on the part of all kinds of fundamentalism. But if things are left to this arbitrary monopoly of history, culture, and religion, which inevitably leads to an impoverished present and an evermore depreciated past, then the future is going to be entrapped within the devastating vicious circle of fundamentalism. Yet there seems to be a way out, and this is where religion can play a major role. Because religion is not restricted to fundamentalism, but generates all kinds of noble and inspiring expressions of faith, it rests with the latter to engage constantly in the promotion of mutual understanding among peoples and cultures. If fundamentalism is the dark side of religion and politics in our (post)modern world, then who knows, perhaps faith can offer us the possibility to find the light and peace we so desperately need…
REFERENCE LIST
BOOKS
-Bruce, S. (1987) “The Moral Majority: the Politics of Fundamentalism in Secular Society” in Caplan, L. (ed) Studies in Religious Fundamentalism, London: Macmillan, pp. 177-194
-Hiro, D. (1989) Holy Wars: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism, New York: Routledge
-Jansen, J. (1997) The Dual Nature of Islamic Fundamentalism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
-Marty, M. E. (1992) “Fundamentals of Fundamentalism” in Kaplan, C. (ed) Fundamentalism in Comparative Perspective, Amherst: University of Massachusetts
-Walker, A. (1987) “Fundamentalism and Modernity: the Restoration Movement in Britain” in Caplan, L. (ed) Studies in Religious Fundamentalism, London: Macmillan, pp. 195-210
-Watt, M. (1988) Islamic Fundamentalism and Modernity, New York: Routledge
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Makris, G. (2002) “Islam and Racism” Religious Studies – Sacred / Profane 3 pp.123-150 [in Greek]
