overcoming fundamentalism

Transcription

Heidi Hadsell / Christoph Stückelberger
Overcoming Fundamentalism
Ethical Responses from Five Continents
The Editors:
Heidi Hadsell is Professor of Social Ethics and President of the Hartford
Seminary, USA. She is member of the Board of Foundation of Globethics.
net, taught in Brazil and has broad experience in multi-religious settings.
Christoph Stückelberger is Executive Director and Founder of Globethics.net,
Geneva/Switzerland, Professor of Ethics at the University of Basel/Switzerland and regular visiting professor in various developing countries.
ISBN 978-2-940428-00-7
Fundamentalism is a reality on all continents, in all world religions and
in different political and economic movements and world views. It influences political, cultural, religious and economic development. “Overcoming fundamentalism” is a program. The contributors of this book do not
call for military or power-related answers to fight fundamentalism. They
carefully analyse the root causes and call for ethical responses through
a value-oriented development, through respect by an active tolerance
which is much more than “everything goes”, by a holistic globalization
which is much more than economic growth and open markets and by
new concepts of the public role of religions. The book shows the commitment of Globethics.net to strengthen global common values while at the
same time respecting the context and diversity of values.
OVERCOMING
FUNDAMENTALISM
Editors
Editors
Globethics.net Series No. 2
Globethics.net Series No. 2
Heidi Hadsell/Christoph Stückelberger (eds.)
Overcoming Fundamentalism. Ethical Responses from Five Continents
Geneva: Globethics.net, 2009
ISBN 978-2-940428-00-7
© 2009 Globethics.net
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CONTENT
Preface .......................................................................................... 9
Walter Fust
Introduction ............................................................................... 11
Christoph Stückelberger ............................................................................
1 Development and Fundamentalism ...................................... 17
Nigel Dower, United Kingdom ..................................................................
1. Introduction............................................................................................... 17
2. Development: Concept and Conceptions .................................................. 18
3. Fundamentalism ........................................................................................ 20
4. Fundamentalism and Development ........................................................... 24
5. Is there Incoherence between Current Process and Future Vision?........... 26
6. The Ethics of the Means ........................................................................... 29
7. Economic Growth versus Other Paradigms, Fundamentalist, Otherwise .. 32
8. Concluding Remarks ................................................................................. 33
2 Fundamentalism versus Liberalism:
Towards a Hermeneutical Turn to Ethics............................... 35
Girma Mohammed, Ethiopia .....................................................................
Introduction .................................................................................................. 35
1. Liberalism versus. Fundamentalism: Two Different Conceptions ............ 36
2. The Concept of Meaning as a Way to Go Beyond the Poles..................... 43
Concluding Remarks..................................................................................... 52
Bibliography ................................................................................................. 53
3 Fundamentalism or Tolerance: What Is the Public Role of
Religion in Modern Society? .................................................... 55
Peter Pavlovic, Belgium ............................................................................
1. Fundamentalism ........................................................................................ 55
2. Tolerance .................................................................................................. 58
3. Identity ...................................................................................................... 62
4. Religion .................................................................................................... 65
4 Religious Fundamentalism and an Ethics of Recognition...69
Joseph I. Fernando, Thailand ...................................................................
1. Meaning of Fundamentalism .................................................................... 69
2. The Growth of Science ............................................................................. 71
3. Overcoming Religious Fundamentalism: An Ethics of Recognition ........ 82
5 Globalization and Religion - an Indonesian Perspective.....89
Bernard Adeney-Risakotta, Indonesia .......................................................
Introduction .................................................................................................. 89
1. Globalization as a Fundamentalist Religion ............................................. 89
2. Globalization as a Neo-colonial Conspiracy............................................. 93
3. The Evolution of Developmentalism in the West ..................................... 96
4. Globalization as a Structure: World System Theory............................... 101
5. Religion and Globalization from an Indonesian Perspective .................. 106
Bibliography ............................................................................................... 109
6 Democracy, Tolerance and Civil Society –
Fundamentalism and Ethics in Indonesian Politics ..............111
Nick T. Wiratmoko, Indonesia ...................................................................
Introduction ................................................................................................ 111
1. In Search of Democracy Transition ........................................................ 113
2. Pancasila and Muslim Fundamentalism.................................................. 117
3. The Role of Civil Society as an Agent of Reformation .......................... 125
References .................................................................................................. 129
7 The Economic Ethics of Christian and Islamic
Fundamentalism ......................................................................131
Yahya Wijaya, Indonesia ...........................................................................
1. Christian fundamentalism: Its Economic Dimension ............................. 131
2. The Gospel of Prosperity ........................................................................ 135
3. Neo-Pentecostalism and Global Capitalism............................................ 136
4. Controversies over Shari’a ..................................................................... 139
5. Muslim Perspectives on Capitalism ........................................................ 140
6. Islamic Fundamentalism on the Economy .............................................. 143
7. The Shari’a Economy in Practice ........................................................... 145
Conclusion.................................................................................................. 147
8 Why Catholics Can’t Vote Pro-Life ................................... 151
Brett Salkeld, Canada................................................................................
The Ideal Candidate .................................................................................... 151
1. The Problem............................................................................................ 154
2. An Example ............................................................................................ 158
3. A Proposal .............................................................................................. 161
4. My Hope for the Future .......................................................................... 171
Bibliography ............................................................................................... 171
9 Tolerance, Democracy and Fundamentalism(s):
Challenges in Time of Systemic Bifurcations........................ 173
Guillermo Hansen, Argentina/USA ...........................................................
1. From the Republic to the Empire ............................................................ 174
2. The Long and Winding Road of Catholic Integrism ............................... 184
3. Cultural and Epistemic Strategies: the Flight from Plurality towards
a Post-modern Unum ................................................................................. 188
4. The Ethical Foundation of Tolerance ...................................................... 192
5. Does Democracy have a Future? Tolerance as its Condition .................. 198
Contributors ............................................................................ 207
Editors......................................................................................................... 207
Authors ....................................................................................................... 207
9
PREFACE
Fundamentalism is a reality on all continents, in all world religions
and in different political and economic movements and world views.
Fundamentalisms in these different forms influence development, the
international, regional, national and local agenda to a great extent.
“Overcoming fundamentalism”, the title of this book, is a whole programme and a very ambitious one. The contributors of this book do not
call for military or power-related answers to combat fundamentalism.
They carefully analyse the root causes and call for ethical responses:
through a values-oriented development; through respect and an active
tolerance which is much more than an “anything goes” approach;
through a holistic globalization which is much more than economic
growth and open markets, and through new concepts of the public role
of religions.
This book shows the commitment of Globethics.net, the global network on ethics, to strengthen global common values while at the same
time respecting the diversity and contextuality of values, and to respect
faith based values while looking for an intense exchange and dialogue
with non faith based and secular views of values. Join these efforts by
sharing your views on the internet platform of Globethics.net, participating in the dialogues and working groups and submitting your documents
to the online library. I am convinced that this book and Globethics.net
can contribute to development that benefits humanity in our common,
one world.
Walter Fust
President of the Board of Foundation
of Globethics.net
Introduction
11
INTRODUCTION
Christoph Stückelberger
What is fundamentalism? Fundamentalism can be defined, as in this
book, as a religious or political movement or attitude with a strict adherence to a set of basic principles, based on a literal, not adapted interpretation, especially as a return to former principles. Separation,
exclusion and extremism are characteristics of fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism is often associated with Islamic terrorism, with violence from Hindu extremists or with militant Christian Evangelicals or
Catholic integrists. Religious forms of fundamentalism are the main
subject in this book. Fundamentalism is not only a phenomenon of religions, but also of political and ideological world views. The contributions
in this book therefore also analyse political and economic fundamentalisms from an ethical perspective. Economic liberalism or the free market
can become fundamentalist when they are seen as the only model and
solution for all problems without openness to new interpretations and
adaptations to new challenges. The contributions also show the rich and
confusing variety of positions that are fully fundamentalist and positions
which seem to be the opposite, with many positions in the middle having
different degrees and mixtures.
Fundamentalism evolved as a Christian movement mainly within
American Protestantism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries amongst
conservative evangelical Christians who, in a reaction to modernism,
actively affirmed a "fundamental" set of Christian beliefs. Strong com-
12
mitment to the basic truth of a certain religion, belief, ideology or conviction is the first and foremost characteristic of not only Christian but
any fundamentalism. Today’s manifold forms of religious and political
fundamentalism are often a symptom of the powers of an unfair globalization, forced liberalisation and lack of respect for cultural diversity.
But fundamentalism is not an adequate answer and not its cure.
Looking at fundamentalism and ways to answer and overcome it
from ethical perspectives, as this book aims to, means to understand and
evaluate the values behind fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist world
views. The fundamentalist adherence to a set of principles means adherence to a set of a few values such as community-orientation through a
specific form of family life or respect of authority in a specific hierarchical way. The challenge for those who call themselves nonfundamentalists is to show their values and their basis and ethical “fundamentals” as foundation of their orientation. They may refer to freedom
as well as community-orientation, but in a different way, looking at
forms of family life in their historical development and diversity and
looking for respect between people rather in forms of partnership than
hierarchy (e.g. of men and women). But values such as equality, long
term sustainability or democratic participation in decision making are
empty words which will not convince fundamentalists unless they are
combined with the strong commitment to poverty reduction, environmental care, and respect of the diversity of languages, cultures and religions.
The nine contributions in this book do not see fundamentalists and
non-fundamentalists as polar opposites. They all take fundamentalism
seriously and try to understand – in their respective context – the root
causes, such as inequality, poverty or fast modernisation with a lack of
values and perspectives. Many authors – confronted with fundamentalisms – underline the necessity to re-think globalization, liberalism, toler-
Introduction
13
ance, concepts of modernity, secularism and democracy in the light of
fundamentalist challenges. Religion has to play a role not only in private
but also in public life, values-orientation is a necessity, tolerance needs
to be practised in a more pro-active way and not just in a “laissez faire”
way, liberalism has to become more holistic, integrating values other
than freedom and so on. Most of the authors also sharply criticise fundamentalist values which lack respect for the other, or lack tolerance, or
lack the capacity of adaptation of historic principles to new situations
and challenges.
The first four contributions look especially at the relation between
fundamentalism economic liberalism, secularism, religion and development, from global, European and African perspectives. The next three
articles all come from Indonesia and look at religious fundamentalism(s)
in relation to globalization, democracy and economic ethics. Indonesia
as the country with the highest number of Muslims worldwide and a rich
history of tolerance and conflicts, of colonialism and globalized development is a very interesting example of the diversity and pluralism of
tendencies in the same society. The two final contributions look at the
Catholic religious right in North America and Catholic integrism in the
South American context, and formulate respective ethical alternatives.
The nine contributors are:
1. Nigel Dower, a specialist for development ethics from Great Britain, asks “Are fundamentalist conceptions of development compatible
with liberal conceptions of development?” He argues that they are in
terms of goals but not in terms of means. His article concentrates on
North American Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism.
2. Girma Mohammed, coming from Africa and living in Europe,
looks at the different Western and African perceptions of the relation
between economic liberalism and fundamentalism. The borders between
the two are sometimes the complete opposite in Africa and in Europe.
Liberal views in Africa can be seen as fundamentalist and vice versa. He
14
looks at a hermeneutic of meanings and criticises both liberalism and
fundamentalism for their one sided view of what is meaningful for life
and society.
3. Peter Pavlovic from the Conference of European Churches in
Brussels analyses the relationship between fundamentalism, tolerance,
identity and religion in Europe related to other parts of the world. Secularism has failed in Europe and does not convince people on other continents. Identity is strongly linked to religion and its communities. Theocracy is not the solution to fundamentalism, but Europe needs to find a
place for religion in public life as one of the conditions for a healthy
society.
4. Josef Fernando from Thailand, in one of the conclusions to his
analysis of Hindu, Muslim and Christian fundamentalism, says that “The
root cause of many problems in the world today is the rejection of the
dignity and worth of the human person” . He calls for an “ethics of recognition” as an answer to fundamentalism and in order to become human.
5. Bernard Adeney-Risakotta from Indonesia asks “Is globalization a
fundamentalist religion?” . He does not simplisitcally answer yes to this
question as some authors do. After examining four theories of globalization he paints a differentiated picture of the relationship between globalization and religion from an Indonesian perspective.
6. Nick Wiratmoko from Indonesia shows the development and fragility of democracy in Indonesia, analyses Muslim fundamentalism in
relation to “Pancasila”, the Indonesian concept of tolerance and respect,
and underlines the role of civil society for the development of democracy in the country.
7. Yahya Wijaya from Indonesia looks at the economic interests and
mechanisms of Christian Neo-Pentecostal and Islamic fundamentalist
movements in Indonesia from the perspective of economic ethics. In a
critical essay he shows how both are led by foreign models (USA and
Introduction
15
Arabic countries). He calls for a contextual economic ethics with a
Christian and Islamic underpinning.
8. Brett Salkeld looks at fundamentalism of the Catholic religious
right in the USA, but also at leftwing positions in the same country. He
proposes a theological answer in a holistic pro-life perspective, overcoming fundamentalist one-sided answers.
9. Guillermo Hansen from Argentina analyses Catholic integrism as
the dominant form of fundamentalism in Latin America. For him fundamentalisms signal a refusal of modernity, democracy and secularity,
which are seen as weapons of liberal foreign or Western hegemony.
Fundamentalisms are symptoms of the world system but not its cure
because they are blind to the political dimension of love. He shows in
detail the ethical foundation of tolerance as the basis for democracy and
answer to fundamentalisms.
This book is the fruit of an international conference of
Globethics.net, held in 2006 in Huissen, the Netherlands on “Fundamentalism and Ethics”. The contributions are selected from over 25 papers
presented at the conference. We especially thank Jean-Daniel Strub,
former Executive Coordinator of Globethics.net, for his excellent preparation and running of the conference.
Development and Fundamentalism
17
1
DEVELOPMENT AND FUNDAMENTALISM
Nigel Dower, United Kingdom
1. Introduction
It is often thought that there is some kind of conflict between development and fundamentalism. Fundamentalists may be opposed to what
they see as development – particularly commitment to economic growth
and the materialism associated with it, to liberty and to democracy
which are central to a common paradigm of development. Advocates of
development may regard fundamentalists as impeding development in
practice and rejecting it in principle.
And yet, I shall argue, there is nothing about fundamentalism that
rules out support for some form of development and certainly not development as economic growth. How far fundamentalist conceptions of
development are compatible with a typical Western view of development depends on a number of factors, whether for instance the commitment to fundamentalism involves rejection of materialist growth, or goes
along with active intolerance of others, aggressive proselytising or the
use of violence as a means. But I want to stress that there is nothing in
the general idea of fundamentalism that involves these stances.
18 Overcoming Fundamentalism
2. Development: Concept and Conceptions
We need to distinguish between a basic concept of development and
various conceptions of it. A basic concept of development is something
like a process of change – social, economic, political – in a society
which ought to be pursued by public agents such as a government. By
contrast a conception of development is a particular interpretation of
what “ought” to happen. This will be based on certain normative views
about what constitutes a change from a worse state to a better state –
involving conceptions of human well being, appropriate moral and political norms and so on, coupled with a broad empirical understanding of
how best to realise these norms.
There are, it hardly needs stressing, many different conceptions of
development – from libertarian conceptions, liberal conceptions such as
Sen’s approach in Development as Freedom1, to conceptions in which
redistributive justice are central, socialist or Marxist conceptions that
emphasise state regulation of the economy. A common contrast is between conceptions that make economic growth central as providing the
conditions of more choice, and conceptions that for a variety of reasons
(e.g. spiritual, environmental) question the centrality of growth in the
conception of progress.
For someone in favour of the way development is pursued in a country, what is pursued by the government is broadly what ought to happen
– the government’s values and the ways of implementing them are
broadly right. But others may be critical of what is done in the name of
development – perhaps less radically because they think the proposed
means are inadequate or inappropriate to the stated and acceptable goals,
or more radically because they think the goals and values are themselves
inadequate or wrong.
1
Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999).
19
Development ethics, which is the intellectual stable from which I
come and orient my approach on these issues, arose as a self-conscious
area of intellectual enquiry about twenty years ago, partly in connection
with the setting up of a new organisation called the International Development Ethics Association 2. It started out as critical enquiry into what
was done in the name of development, particularly the commitment to
economic growth, and into the failures nationally and internationally to
tackle extreme poverty, at a time when those involved in government
and business did not really think there were ethical issues involved in
development itself. But of course once the issues are raised, those who
defend development as it is usually pursued cannot just rest on established practice, but also have to give an account of why development as
conventionally understood is the justified way to go. It is clear that the
debates have become more sophisticated all round. Defenders of the
main paradigm are rarely content to rest on economic growth, and have
much more to say about values like democracy, human rights, fair distribution, transparency, good governance and so on, whilst being divided
in opinion on the extent and nature of economic liberty. That is, some
claim it should be as unrestricted as possible either because it is a fundamental value (I use this word fundamental deliberately since libertarianism can sometimes take a fundamentalist character) or because it will,
it is believed, by trickle-down lead to prosperity for all eventually. Others hold that we must have some commitment to redistributive taxation
as required by their understanding of social justice3.
Given this general framework we can ask two questions of fundamentalism. First, can a fundamentalist have a conception of develop2
See www.development-ethics.org.
For further information about development ethics see e.g. D. Goulet, Development Ethics: Theory and Practice (Apex Books, 1995); D. Crocker, “Towards a
Development Ethic”, World Development, 1991; and Gasper, Des, The Ethics of
Development (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003). See also N.
Dower, “The Nature and Scope of Development Ethics,” Journal of Global
Ethics, Vol 4, Issue 3, 2008, 183-193.
3
ment? Second, given as I shall argue that they can, are such conceptions
of development compatible with liberal conceptions of development?
3. Fundamentalism
I had a quick look on the web using Google to see what definitions
came up on fundamentalism. To take the first four: “Movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles”4;
“A usually religious movement or point of view characterised by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles,
and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism”5;
“Fundamentalism is a religious position typically characterised by a
rigid adherence to what are perceived to be the most basic and traditional principles and beliefs of that religion”6; “1. Movement with strict
view of doctrine: a religious or political movement based on a literal
interpretation of and strict adherence to doctrine, especially as a return
to former principles and 2. Support for literal explanation: the belief that
religious or political doctrine should be implemented literally, not interpreted or adapted”7.
There are of course some differences in these definitions: some limit
it to religious fundamentalism others allow for other principles, of a
political nature for example; some emphasise appeal to tradition others
do not. What is striking about these (and I think they are typical) is that
they stress literal and rigid adherence to their principles. What is also
striking is that none of them make any direct reference to how someone
4
See http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/netdict?Fundamentalist (accessed August
2006)
5
See http://www.answers.com/topic/fundamentalism (accessed August 2006
6
http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/western/bldef_fundamentalism.html
(accessed August 2006)
7
See http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861613888/fundamentalism.html
(accessed August 2006)
21
who adopts a fundamentalist position defines himself or herself over and
against others who do not accept it. They do not say (except for one
where the point is not seen as defining the position) that a fundamentalist must be intolerant or hostile towards people of other beliefs; they do
not say that one must strive to get others to accept one’s beliefs; they
certainly do not say that fundamentalists must use extreme means such
as terrorism or violence to destroy or convert others.
I rather like the first definition I gave and will proceed using this:
“Movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of
basic principles”. One advantage of it is that it allows for forms of fundamentalism other than religious fundamentalism. It could include rigid
adherence to Marxism or for that matter rigid adherence to libertarianism. It could include ethical positions, such as the position of the animal
liberationist (though a clear belief in the moral status of animals need
not lead to violent actions) and indeed to environmental radicalism. It
could also include someone who was committed to any clearly worked
out ethical position such as Kantianism (though most people adhering to
Kant’s approach would not regard it in this way). I like it too because it
does not build in reference to tradition. No doubt the fundamentalist
motive is often a wish to return to earlier certainties (and it reflects the
historical origin of the terminology in American religious history), but it
need not be. It is also likely to have some reference to an authority
whether Marx, Locke, the Bible, the Koran or a religious tradition.
It is important at this stage to note that although it is often convenient to distinguish between fundamentalism and non-fundamentalism
and also to regard liberalism as a form of non-fundamentalism, there are
two respects in which this is highly misleading. First there is in fact a
continuum between positions that are fully fundamentalist and positions
which are its opposite, with many positions in the middle having different degrees or mixtures of relevant features. Second, setting liberalism
against fundamentalism in simple opposition is also misleading, since
some forms of commitment to liberalism can take a fundamentalist
form. No doubt typically those who see themselves as liberal would
describe themselves as not fundamentalist and vice versa, but this is
only typical, not part of the logic of the concept.
This continuum is in fact not a smooth continuum either but a somewhat jagged spectrum in which different criteria will apply in different
ways.8 Indeed, one can see a number of key elements for each of which
if there are more of the elements present then the position tends more to
being fundamentalist and if there are fewer then the position tends more
to being non-fundamentalist. For instance, in regard to the way the basic
beliefs are held: (a) how rigidly is the belief held? (a psychological
question); (b) how certain is the belief (an epistemological question
about the nature of the knowledge claim, in contrast to fallibilism which
accepts fallibility as scientific principle, epistemological humility, or
adopting an attitude of critical loyalty to the object of one’s beliefs); and
in regard to the nature and extent of the basic beliefs; (a) how large a
body of such beliefs are held as non-negotiable (a large complex system
of knowledge versus a very broadly defined simple set of core values
and beliefs); (b) how far what is believed is a set of literal truths generally grounded in sacred texts and seen as important to the definition of
who one is, versus the importance of interpreting such texts or not seeing texts as so important to defining who one is, and regarding such
texts as only outward vehicles for something that lies beyond (and accessible via many different texts), or simply regarding texts as unimportant to one’s core values (as in mysticism).
A paradigm of fundamentalism is going to be a set of beliefs which
are rigidly held, certain, extensive in scope and grounded in literal truth.
A paradigm of non-fundamentalism is going to be a set of beliefs that
are flexibly held, open to question, basic and non-extensive, and either
8
The distinctions outlined in this paragraph are based on reflections on discussions at the globethics.net conference in August 2006.
23
based on interpretation of sacred texts or not grounded in sacred texts at
all but in experience, secular or spiritual, or life and/or rational reflection. But many positions may be fundamentalist or more fundamentalist
in some respects and less so or not so in other respects.
For the purpose of the rest of this article I will however fall in with a
common assumption that we can talk of fundamentalism as one position
defined in terms of all these features clearly exhibited, and liberalism as
characteristically a position in which all the opposite features are clearly
exhibited. I shall be considering religious fundamentalism (as most
clearly exhibiting these features in varying degrees), and have in mind
North American Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism
(although other religions of course have their forms of fundamentalism
and much of what I say will apply to them equally).
My general strategy is to look at possible differences between what a
fundamentalist might say about development and what a liberal might
say about it, and then show that these differences are not as clear as
might seem at first sight. Some – even most – but not all fundamentalists
clearly want the rest of society and even the world to come to accept
their beliefs. Does that make them different from liberals? Arguably not,
at least for most liberals. Some fundamentalists may act in democratic
society in a democratic way to pursue their goals but have a nondemocratic vision they are aiming at. Does that make their position
different from that of the liberal? Again, arguably not, at least for most
liberals. Some – a few – fundamentalists are prepared to use violence in
pursuit of their ends. Does that make them different from liberals? Here
there is of course a real difference about the types of violence regarded
as justified, but for any liberal who is not a pacifist, the use of violence
as such is not ruled out either. Some fundamentalists may present a
vision of development not based on economic growth as central or a
necessary condition of other goals. Does that make them different from
liberals? Not necessarily since there may be plenty of other reasons why
some liberals and certainly many others who are not fundamentalists
also reject the development as growth paradigm.
4. Fundamentalism and Development
How might a fundamentalist think of development? Minimally he
will want any changes in the society in which he lives to allow him and
those who share his beliefs to continue to live as they want. If they are a
minority, they may want a social order that tolerates their existence,
provides support for their cultural ways with for example provision of
separate schools, maybe economic support where needed and generally
a peaceful and orderly social environment in which to live. Some groups
of fundamentalists may focus primarily on this. Here the idea is of a
fundamentalist minding his own business. He might ideally like a wider
society or world which expressed his values, but that is not a basis of
action. Maybe the Amish in the USA fit this model; they certainly seem
to fit our definition well, and though they may in the abstract wish the
world to conform to their values, their main concern is to preserve their
way of life and relate to the wider world respectfully and non-violently.
Some forms of monastic vocation may be like this too.
However most fundamentalists will want the society they live in (and
indeed the world as a whole) to be one in which more people come to
accept their beliefs and they sees it as appropriate if not a duty to promote their values among others. Perhaps a fundamentalist has a vision of
a society in the future in which everyone accepts his beliefs. How are
these features – wanting others to accept their values and having a vision
of the future – different from how many of us who do not see ourselves
as fundamentalists think of development? First, if we have firm values
for instance about fairness, integrity, human rights, social justice, punishment, or the environment, we may not hold these beliefs rigidly or
literally, but if they matter to us, we also want other people to accept
25
these beliefs and in various ways (dialogue, public writing, democratic
engagement and so on) seek to influence people, since if more in our
society think our way, then there will be change in positive directions
towards the kind of society we want to develop. Second, we also might
have a vision of a future state of development in which these values are
fully realised. That is, we all have differing views as to the desirable
directions socio-economic development should take and the way it will
go will depends on which views prevail.
Furthermore, unless the fundamentalism in question involves a firm
commitment to the view that material poverty is not a problem and that
having more than minimal amounts of wealth is unimportant, then the
fundamentalist no less than the liberal can be committed to development
as a process of economic growth and to making poverty reduction central within that. So there may be no differences on that score. There may
be further differences in what else we want development to achieve, but
on this point – economic improvement especially for the poor, often
seen as the central feature of development anyway – there need not be.
Again it is perfectly possible for a fundamentalist (given our definition) to accept democratic process either in principle or pragmatically.
She might accept this in principle if her fundamentalist beliefs included
democratic values or at least she accepted that democratic processes
were consistent with these beliefs as a means to advancing her beliefs.
She might accept it pragmatically if, despite her vision of a future or
ideally perfect society run on say theocratic or otherwise authoritarian
lines (like the idea of benevolent dictator or philosopher king), she realised that in the world today she needed to work with the system we have
got.
Above I have been talking about fundamentalist minorities in a pluralist democratic society. Somewhat different things need to be said
about the position of a fundamentalist living in a fundamentalist society,
and I do not really go into this. I would just remark that her view might
be different depending on whether her form of fundamentalism was the
same as that dominant in her society or somewhat different – think of a
Muslim in a fundamentalist Christian society or vice versa or indeed
historically of the perceived incompatibilities between Protestants and
Catholics not that long ago in Europe. If then the fundamentalisms are
different and if her values and those dominant in her society both included some form of democratic procedure, she has and can welcome
the chance for democratic change. If her values include democratic values but she lives in an undemocratic society, then she has the same set of
problems as a liberal faces in such a society. But conversely if her own
values are non-democratic but she lives in a society that, though fundamentalist, allows democratic expression, she has, as in a liberal society,
the opportunity to engage in democracy pragmatically to advance her
ideas.
5. Is There Incoherence between Current Process and Future
Vision?
But you may say, surely the real problem is that if the fundamentalist
is really not a democrat, and only goes along with it out of convenience,
then his vision of development – the perfect realisation of his values – is
deeply inconsistent with our conventional view. He may even reject
development discourse altogether anyway.
Our conventional view, it may be said, is about commitment to
greater human well being through, amongst other things, commitment to
human rights, democracy, freedoms, respect for diversity and so on.
These incidentally are not just the means to human betterment, they are
also constitutive of that betterment. Briefly, the increasing and strengthening of institutions and practices that reinforce democracy, liberties,
respect for diversity and rights not only provide direct indices as instruments of development, but also enable more people to be actively de-
27
mocratic, live lives enriched by welcoming diversity, exercise their
rights and freedoms – all of which contribute to their lives going well (in
addition to their being healthy, well fed and housed, equipped with resources and abilities for a wide range of interesting activities ).
Now it may be said that this view of development is, if you like, internally coherent over time. If we pursue these values now in the hope
that they will be more instantiated in the future, this is consistent with,
and indeed hopefully conducive to this continuing into the future in the
same way, and so on until maybe – just maybe – there will be a society
in the future which is fully democratic, free, respectful of diversity and
so on. (Incidentally the trouble with many conceptions of sustainable
development is that they fail this test.) But the kind of fundamentalist we
are considering now is someone who goes along with these values now
as a way of getting on with others and at the same time more effectively
advancing his values, but has a vision of a socio-political order in the
future in which these values would no longer hold sway. So his rationale
for engaging in society now is different and somehow disingenuous.
Here we have an echo of the Weimar Republic phenomenon where the
National Socialists with a non-democratic agenda used the democratic
process to get into power to destroy it.
This is I grant a significant problem, but maybe one we can contain
if we recognise that, as minorities in a pluralist society, their vision is
hardly a realistic threat if democratically pursued, and if we recognise
the following points. Indeed here we encounter a more general problem
within the so-called Western paradigm: granted that we pursue development as creating the enabling conditions for people to develop and
exercise their capabilities and this leads to fully rounded human lives (a
justification like this must surely lie behind a commitment to economic
growth – it is not an end in itself), why are we committed to democracy,
human rights, freedom and so on? These values are largely procedural
values about the way we pursue goals and accommodate other people’s
pursuit of goals. As such they can be seen as intrinsically important or
they can be seen as instrumentally important.
If they are the former, that is intrinsically important, they could be
but are unlikely to be the only public values we are really committed to
promoting since there are likely to be others – about education, defence
or the environment for example. (Of course I may also have privately
many values and goals – music, bird watching, my religious life – but
my interest in these is not such that I think a society would be better for
generally accepting these values.) If they are the latter, then in being
instrumental they must be based on some other values thought to be
important. Either way we must recognise that it is usual for people to
have further substantive public concerns and agendas.
For instance I may want euthanasia to be accepted, or cannabis legalised, or an area of nature preserved, or an increase of aid to other countries accepted, or restorative justice used in the penal system, or animal
farming stopped. Engagement in civil society generally and in political
life in particular is premised on wanting things to change. If we want to
imagine a future society in which the values we think important are fully
realised, it will be different for each person, both in respect to the particular substantive values each person accepts, but also in respect to how
far a future society could both be democratic and fully respectful of
liberty and diversity and realise these substantive values.
Imagine a society for instance which conformed to one’s preferred
values in which say there was serious environmental protection based on
the intrinsic value of nature, but if that society was democratic or respectful of diversity, what if people wanted to act in ways that did not
protect that environment? There is also a potential tension between democracy, liberty and respect for diversity, such that they cannot all be
maximally observed. These tensions are going to be more acute the
more we try and focus on what a perfectly developed society would look
like. Clearly there are also tensions on the journey of development –
29
what we are doing now – but they are not so acute, and certainly not
such as to separate out what the fundamentalist is doing and what many
other groups of activists are trying to do.
Perhaps it does not matter that we each have a different vision of a
distant future (probably never realisable) or of how our current society
might look like if all our values were fully realised. Such visions are not
goals but orientations. What matters is how we pursue development here
and now. But if this the case, then the fact that the fundamentalist may
have an ideal which is not the same as yours or mine, does not prevent
his view and its advancement from being a legitimate part of the current
development process.
6. The Ethics of the Means
Where the real tension appears between our normal understanding of
development in liberal societies and many fundamentalist views is when
the fundamentalist adopts certain views about others who are not of her
faith. If here and now a fundamentalist is actively intolerant of others, or
proselytises in a way that is inconsistent with the spirit of open dialogue,
or engages in violence including terrorism, then in various degrees we
have serious problems.
Incidentally it is interesting to note that these tensions are not, or at
least need not be, about the standard conception of development as economic growth. A fundamentalist could well be committed to economic
growth including a distributive principle that requires a significant part
of that growth to be directed to the poor, but reject democracy, liberties,
many human rights or the whole rights discourse in favour of undemocratic and illiberal socio-political regimes. This may be because these
values are simply to be rejected in themselves or are seen as inappropriate to the promotion of development economically. (Consider an analogous case: the so-called Lee thesis that development in Asian countries
was better promoted in an authoritarian way than via democracy and
human rights9). Such an advocate may in a liberal state promote these
views or he may approve of them in an illiberal state (as some Marxists
might have approved of the USSR, certainly committed to some forms
of socio-economic development).
Active intolerance of others is of course deeply antithetical to a liberal society which not merely tolerates other views but welcomes diversity, both of individual life-styles and of cultures. Aggressive proselytising conflicts with the key values of dialogue and rational discourse.
This needs of course to be distinguished from the reasonable promotion
of views, which seems to be a requirement of any seriously held view
about what it is important to believe. The commitment to violence as a
method is deeply inconsistent both with a commitment to democracy as
a method of resolving differences and also with a basic acceptance of
the ethics of the means, namely that there are certain non-violent ways
by which we need to relate to fellow human beings, whatever ends we
are pursuing.
How does one handle people who take these approaches in a liberal
democracy? One has to be tolerant of the intolerant and willing to be
reasonable with those who use unreasonable methods. With violence
there are two response: first, where at all humanly possible, one needs to
be willing to have dialogue with those who reject dialogue and to use the
ethics of the means against those who reject the ethics of the means; but
second at another level, the perpetrators of violence and their supporters
put themselves at odds with the society they are in but in a sense are not
part of. How far and in what ways violence is justified against terrorist
attack either from within or from outside one’s society is a vexed and
topical issue. I shall not pursue it here since my concern in this lecture is
with development, but I note in passing that the discourse on the “war
against terror” is not helpful.
9
Sen, op.cit., p. 15.
31
In regard to development we should note that even the terrorist may
have a conception of development, one involving economic growth
even, coupled with a belief about the means that one may take to create
such a future social order. The model of development whether including
economic growth or not, may be based on social and political principles
quite at odds with those we assume in Western society (as seems to be
the case with current Islamic terrorism), but it could also include familiar concepts. Consider the IRA or the militant wing of the ANC: their
goal was the overthrow of the political order, but they might want the
new political order to pursue broadly the same conception of development. Terrorism, whether committed by fundamentalists or committed
by others who have goals not seen as fundamentalist in character, is
essentially about means – an extreme version of the view that the end
justifies the means.10
The challenge of the terrorist is not with his goals, but with his
means. We may or may not be sympathetic to the kind of socio-political
order a terrorist hopes will emerge from his acts, but what is deeply
offensive is his view about means. So the challenge of the fundamentalist terrorist is not primarily about what he is after in the long run (generally unattractive as this is for most of us in the current Middle East con-
10
We can generalise a point about the difference between a freedom-fighter and
a terrorist. Rather than saying as many want to say that a freedom-fighter is a
terrorist of which one approves, it is better to say that terrorism is defined by the
immediate goal of creating terror, whereas a freedom-fighter is defined by a
long-term goal of attaining political freedom such as independence (Cf. Graham,
G., Ethics and International Relations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 115-118).
So a freedom-fighter may be a terrorist if he pursues his goal by creating terror.
So likewise a terrorist may also be a democracy-fighter or a rights-fighter. Terrorists then could be committed to creating a new political order (and their leaders later become respected political leaders) in which democratic and liberal
values are instantiated; they could be about creating socio-political orders in
which these values are not instantiated. They could be committed to development as economic growth, or they could be wanting a socio-political order based
on other principles.
text), but what characterises terrorism generally – a blatant disregard for
the lives of ordinary people, etc.
7. Economic Growth versus Other Paradigms, Fundamentalist or Otherwise
The paradoxical consequence of all this is that if development is seen
as primarily economic growth, then there may not be as much difference
in the ways of thinking about development between liberals and fundamentalists of a non-liberal kind as may be at first thought. What divides
them is a view about what else development involves or at least needs to
be combined with in terms of public commitment. Things like democracy, liberty, rights, protection of the environment as well as the establishment of the kinds of values fundamentalists think important in a
society (or the world as a whole), are not things we simply have completely or do not have at all. They exist in degrees, so it makes sense to
think of the progressive realisation of any of these kinds of values as a
process over time which is the object of human endeavour. So it makes
sense, as I implied at the beginning, to talk of rival conceptions of development as desiring social change.
However, if we resist the widening of the concept and prefer to think
of development as essentially economic change, then there may be fewer
differences over development itself, at the same time as increasing disagreements about the other social and political values that go along with
the pursuit of development. I say “there may be fewer differences over
development itself”, but there are still even on a more limited view of
the subject matter of development, significant differences of view about
how it should be pursued (liberty versus regulation; trickle-down versus
state taxation for redistribution), though these differences do not divide
fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists as such.
33
Of course many fundamentalists may be opposed to development as
economic growth and even reject the discourse of development altogether. This may be because of the materialist assumptions behind it
being seen as inconsistent with fostering the spiritual nature of human
well being properly understood. But then opposition to development as
economic growth may come from other quarters too, such as radical
environmentalists or supporters of the sort of position advocated by Eric
Fromm that true human well being comes from being more not having
more11. These views may also be deeply opposed to the development as
growth paradigm and I am personally sympathetic to them. Such positions may well be held rigidly and in a way that makes them fundamentalist, but there is no reason to suppose that they need be held in such a
way. Again it is an open question whether these positions on development and economic growth are seen as rejections of development discourse altogether, as writers like Sachs have done12, or whether they
lead to their advocates putting forward rival conceptions of development
not so centrally linked either conceptually or empirically with economic
growth - as do many in the organisation I belong to, namely IDEA the
International Development Ethics Association).
8. Concluding Remarks
So a number of points emerge from this discussion. There is no inherent contradiction between development and fundamentalism. Fundamentalists could accept development as economic growth but combine
commitment to this with values inconsistent with common assumptions
in standard thinking about development such as liberty and democracy.
How far there are tensions between different conceptions of development depends upon the approaches towards means which fundamental11
12
E. Fromm, To be or to have? (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978).
W. Sachs (ed.), The Development Dictionary (London: Zed Books, 1992).
ists take to others. Fundamentalists could reject development as economic growth but nevertheless present an alternative model of development in terms of the progressive realisations of their primary values.
They could reject the discourse altogether as inconsistent with their
vision. Rejection of development as economic growth or development
discourse altogether is not something that makes a person a fundamentalist either. Deeply held views on for instance the real nature of human
well being or about ecological value may also lead to radical critiques of
the dominant growth paradigm, without advocates of these views claiming to be or being described by others as fundamentalist. So conceptually the field is wide open.
Conclusions are not meant to bring in new material, but they can reassert what was indicated near the beginning and has been implicit in the
rest of the text. I have used the neat distinction between liberals and
fundamentalists as a heuristic device for showing how few things can be
said about the one that cannot be said about the other. There are just too
many combinations of positions, so generalisation is not very useful. But
perhaps the main message is that the distinction is a dangerous one: the
world does not fall into two camps – liberal and fundamentalist – rather
there is a continuum of positions. Perhaps “a spectrum of positions”
would be a better phrase since a continuum implies a smooth transition
from more liberal to less liberal and from more fundamentalist to less
fundamentalist. And this is not quite right either since the two ideas
criss-cross each other in interesting ways as I indicated earlier. Since the
polarisation of the world into binary groupings such as liberal and fundamentalist is actually one of the most dangerous processes occurring in
the world today, we need to resist it. I hope that my discussion of development has helped to show why such polarisations are in the end not
terribly helpful.
Fundamentalism versus Liberalism
35
2
FUNDAMENTALISM VERSUS
LIBERALISM: TOWARDS A
HERMENEUTICAL TURN TO ETHICS
Girma Mohammed, Ethiopia
Introduction
I have had a couple of opportunities to attend international academic
seminars on “fundamentalism’” one as it relates to ethics (in its diversity) and the other as it is implied in the church and theology. It is intriguing, at least from an African point of view, that “fundamentalism”,
as opposed to liberalism, is portrayed as the sole challenge, if not threat,
in the West. What is evident is that liberalism is rarely put under serious
scrutiny or silently endorsed, it certainly is not considered as a challenge. Understandably, this might partially be triggered by the anxiety
that is triggered by the recent rise of various forms of extremisms. However, raising a few questions is of utmost importance with regards to this
mode of conceptualisation. First, is historical fundamentalism as inherently dangerous as it is portrayed in (post)modern media [and even academia]? Second, is there room to conceptualize the debate in a different
way, using cultural currents and traditional values other than the Western ones? Third, even more importantly, would there be a possibility to
formulate a conceptual matrix that overcomes both cultural and conceptual rifts and yet adequately account for the questions that are raised by
both wings? Certainly, this essay does not have any interest in defending
one wing over against the other. However, it aims at pondering the
aforementioned two questions. The first part will make an attempt to
trace the historical roots of the debate and then put the discourse into
“the” Western and “the” African perspectives. This helps to see how the
issue is perceived in these two culturally diverse parts of the world. As
relativist or even divisive as this approach may sound, I contend it will
serve as an antidote to the claimed universalism of any of the wings. In
addition it gives an opportunity to the local cultures to make their voices
heard on the issue at stake. In the second part I will try to come up with
my own alternative for the two poles. It is helpful to go beyond them
and search for a conceptual framework that goes beyond differences in
cultures, traditions and experiences regarding the fundamentalism versus liberalism debate.
1. Liberalism versus Fundamentalism: Two Different Conceptions
1.1 The Origins and “the” Western Conception
Words are disguises, as the cliché goes. They can mean different
things to different people. It might therefore be helpful to briefly define
and trace the origin of the terms before discussing further. First, let us
start with liberalism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy rightly suggests that liberalism could be different things in different countries –
such as Britain, France, the USA and Australia – as well as in fields of
research such as in political tradition, political philosophy, general philosophical theory and in religion. Admittedly, its wide threads and flexible uses in several domains do not seem to help to come up with a clear
37
definition. However, it might be helpful if we go on with describing
generic features and assumptions which underlie the whole notion of
liberalism albeit in diverse fashions. For one thing, individual liberty is
at the heart of liberalism. Second, liberalism takes the emancipation of
the individual from beliefs and prejudices which do not yield to rational
veracity very seriously. Third, as a reaction to ideological and religious
absolutism, liberalism became a way of escaping from religious and
political authorities (priests and kings).
Second, let’s have a look at fundamentalism.1 Grant Wacker, a professor of history of religion at Duke University, suggests distinguishing
between “historic Fundamentalism” and “generic fundamentalism”.
Historic fundamentalism refers to the phenomenon that is closely linked
to the historical and cultural context of Protestantism in 1920s in America through which the term “fundamentalism” appeared on the social
and academic scene. On the other hand, generic fundamentalism,
Wacker maintains, refers to a global religious impulse, particularly evident in the twentieth century, which seeks to recover and publicly institutionalize aspects of the past precisely because modern life has obscured it. 2 In other words, it sees the secular (liberal) state as an inherent threat, for its sole interest lies in education, economy and democratisation at the expense of the spiritual dimension of life. Such a move, for
the fundamentalists, has religious, social, and also very acute ethical
implications. From the religious standpoint, sacred scriptures which
used to be regarded as having authority over everyday life have come
1
The term at the inception was not used with a negative connotation, precisely
because its meaning had to do with preserving religious, cultural and traditional
fundamentals against the sweeping tide of modern move. The apparent change
of the meaning of the term seems to have been occurred [from neutral or even
constructive to pejorative] as several religious radicalism(s) unfold themselves.
As the result, many groups described as fundamentalist often strongly object to
this term because of the negative undertones it carries, or because it implies a
similarity between themselves and other groups, which they find disagreeable.
2
Grant Wacker, The Rise of Fundamentalism (http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us).
under attack. Introduction of different schools of criticism – such as
literary, form, reduction – are seen as indicating many things but not of
stripping the authority of sacred books away. From the social perspective, overarching governing norms and values of the believing society
are conceived to be under fire. Ethically, communal warmth, long cherished traditions, and as a result, shared codes of discipline have increasingly been watered down. Hence, both historic and generic fundamentalism(s) are reactions to the apparently new trajectory of religious, social
and ethical dynamics.
Now, what are the main assumptions and motivations behind these
seemingly unbridgeable divergences? What are the major questions that
they pose to one another? The chief concern of liberalism is human
liberty be this in political, religious or ethical form. Humanness therefore is defined in terms of freedom. Fundamentalism, on the other hand,
is anxious to preserve supposedly enduring traditions, values and
sources of authority whether that of a religious or other kind. Liberals
are troubled by the presumed tyranny of universalistic conceptions of
fundamentalism on individual rights and liberties, whereas fundamentalists, conversely, are wary of looming social fragmentation and everadvancing ethical relativism.
Both schools have got some salient points which have to be accounted for. Liberalism is right on target in its claim that human identity
cannot be fully grasped apart from individual liberty. Fundamentalism,
on the other hand, should be given a credit for their search for guiding
normative principles, religious and social warmth as well as communal
ties. This is precisely because both human liberty and a search for the
unifying principle are universal quests. Now, where did things go
wrong?
The main deficiency with both views is a tendency to pick one aspect
of humanness and one portion of history and to absolutise it. Reductionism plays a pivotal role in both wings. A need for individual liberty, for
39
instance, is one of the very essential aspects of humanness, but, it has
also to be stressed, it is far from being everything. Let me give one
semi-hypothetical example. Consider this, as an Ethiopian who is living
in the Western part of the world, I obviously have got better private
space, reliable protection under the law and probably a better life setting
compared to Ethiopia. In other words, I’m living in an “individually
fulfilling” atmosphere. The situation back in Ethiopia is in considerable
contradiction with what I “individually” need. People recently got killed
by the forces of the ruling regime in the streets; elites are dragged behind the bars for demanding democracy. Freedom of expression in
Ethiopia is far from being realised. However, to my surprise, my nostalgic experience with Ethiopia persists despite all sorts of problems that
could threaten my individual freedom. My inner part always whispers
that I lack something in the Western hemisphere that I used to enjoy
back home: communal warmth and noise - remember utter silence is
synonym to death in Africa, and deeper awareness of the supernatural
realm as the governing principle of human life.
Interestingly, however, such a search seems to be even beyond nostalgic experience. In other words, my experience in the Western hemisphere indicates that the fear of silence is not unique to me as an Ethiopian. Even the people who are brought up in the most individualistic
atmosphere are not completely immune. The unique thing with the West
however is that technology seems to be offering artificial and impersonal alternatives – through electronic devices – to deal with the horror
of silence. Most of the people walk, work and even read with their ears
plugged by earphones. Yet it is still highly questionable if it is a sufficient alternative to listening to something deeper, personal and even
superhuman. Second, fundamentalism is not open to new possibilities
and developments in society as history unfolds, whereas liberalism is
highly conditioned by a particular history and context, to the extent of
turning a blind eye to universally enduring principles. Both wings then
lack depth in relation to the ultimate reality, conception of humanness
and understanding of time and history. Such a lack of depth gives fundamentalism an oppressive face whereas it makes liberalism a cause of
societal fragmentation and parentless-ness, to use the word of Roger
Lundin of Wheaton College.
1.2. An African Perspective on the Debate
The fundamentalism versus liberalism controversy is never foreign
to Africa. In fact it is the drive to maintain the traditional status quo (in
the fundamentalists’ zone) and the passion for liberty of local cultures
(not of individuals as such) which underlie the debate. However, the
debate takes quite a different shape in Africa. Hence, there seems to be a
good reason to give a brief analysis in order to put fundamentalism versus liberalism debate into the conceptual frame of the global south.
1.2.1. The nature of Debate
The trend of the debate seems to be taking a shape of tension rather
than polarity in Africa. For instance, John Pobee identifies two worlds in
the African life: the realms of traditional value and modern technology.3
Desmond Tutu’s observation seems to be even sharper when he explains
the struggle as “a split in African soul”.4 Two observations can be made
from the foregoing remarks. For one, unlike in the West, the split of
fundamentalism and liberalism is not only an ideological division between two schools, or two different parties, but is also something that
occurs within individuals as they try to keep the seemingly irreconcilable edges together. For another, their trust on either side is quite superficial as it lacks a comprehensive conceptual framework to filter what is
3
John S. Pobee (1978). The Church in West Africa. In The Church in Africa:
Papers Presented at the Symposium at Milligan College, March 31-April 3.
Charles R. Taber ed., pp. 139-159. CA: William Carey Library, 1978, p. 158.
4
Desmond M. Tutu, “Whither African Theology?” Christianity in Independent
Africa, eds. Edward Fashole-Luke, et al., (New York: Academic Press, 1978), p.
366.
41
at stake in the polarities. Peter Lwaminda’s illustration is captivating
when he says that the tension resembles a “frog with two legs on the dry
land and two in water, ready to jump in the opposite direction from
whatever danger was coming”5
1.2.2. Its Expression
Both fundamentalism and liberalism express themselves in quite different ways from those in the West. Let’s take an example from the
church setting. Some (missionary churches) try to maintain the enduring
traditions, practices and ecclesiastical dogma even at the expense of
local cultures and beliefs. On the other hand, others (indigenous
churches) tend to integrate the local beliefs and tradition as a very crucial aspect of Christianity even at the expense of some central Christian
doctrines. It all depends on the perspective of the beholder to determine
who is fundamentalist and who is liberal. This is precisely because, from
the indigenous perspective, the former category falls into the liberalism
spectrum, for they have very little or no regard for local values and beliefs. From the missionary churches point of view, indigenous churches
could be labelled as liberals for mixing Christianity with local practices
at the expense of presumed timeless ecclesiastical traditions. The same
applies for fundamentalism depending on the issues at stake.
1.2.3. The Issues
The issues attached to the fundamentalism versus liberalism debate
seem to be affecting the independent and missionary churches differently in Africa. For instance, the quest for women’s ordination was not a
demand that emerged from the public ethos in the Evangelical Church
Mekane Yesus of Ethiopia, not at least at this stage. If it were the quest
of Ethiopian Christians it should have come from the Ethiopian Ortho5
Peter. Lwaminda, “The Teaching of Theology and Philosophy within the Realities of Africa”, Doing Philosophy and Theology in the African Context, eds.
Luke G. Mlilo CMM and Mthanael Y. Soede (IKO: London, 2003), p. 9.
dox Church, not only because it claims more than a half of the Ethiopian
population, but also, compared to Mekane Yesus Church where there
already were a significant number of women evangelists, the Ethiopian
Orthodox Church is a context where women’s ordination is apparently
unimaginable. The same seems to be true with the introduction of the
debate over same sex marriage and gay ordination in some African
churches. They are issues which have come from the top down to the
grassroots (imported by the local headquarters from partner churches
abroad). The non-missionary churches are quite different though. For
one, they have far less chance, if at all, of borrowing controversies
which are less pertinent to the African context from overseas, than the
missionary churches. For another, they try to deal with challenges that
are immediately emerging from the grassroots. Their pressing concerns
are issues pertaining to healing, the place of ancestors, polygamy, gender equality, church discipline, ethnicity, and social and economic justice.
This does not however mean that the issues are always treated in a
credible manner. There are instances where the churches, in the name of
accounting for indigenous beliefs, are exposed to bizarre practices. Belief in the evil eye and the attempt to give two names to a new born child
at the time of baptism to protect it against a demonic attack, and some
biblically incongruent exorcism practices in the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church stand out as good examples. However, this should not discredit
their attempts to address the issues that pose themselves as real challenges for believers.
Two things have to be added here. First, some of the state of affairs
in the African context do not always easily fit into liberalism versus
fundamentalism frames. This is because there are issues which seemingly pertain to both sides in a given tradition. For example, indigenous
people appear to be fundamentalist in their appeal to indigenous values
43
and practices, whereas their philosophical conceptions might, at times,
fall into the liberal category.
2. The Concept of Meaning as a Way to go Beyond the Poles
Needless to say, the notion of meaning is one of the concepts that is
extremely intriguing and highly contested, in the fields of both natural
science and the humanities. Some argue that the concept of meaning has
a rigid tie with the linguistic domain, and therefore, any search of meaning beyond the linguistic mechanism itself is entirely meaningless. In a
broader sense, any strand of thinking that reduces the spectacularly
diverse and yet coherent design and purpose of created reality to a mechanical cause can fall into this category.6 Others, on the contrary, take a
broader view of the notion of meaning admitting that it has got wider
and deeper inferences than simply being confined to the linguistic
sphere. They however add that it does not transcend the subjective creation of human thought and imagination. The searching subject, they
reason, is completely conditioned by the cultural and social upbringing
as well as by a sense of solidarity and what is perceived to be good for
the particular community in which the subject in question is living, to
employ a Rortian term.7 The claim of the objectivity of meaning is anything, but pure myth.
6
David Armstrong, one of the best known naturalists, propagates such a view
not directly in relation to hermeneutics per se, but by the way he interprets the
created reality and societal foundations. He therefore argues that natural science
is “the first philosophy” in a sense that it is the only field that fully accounts for
reality. Interestingly enough, reality according to Armstrong consists of nothing,
but a single all embracing spacio-temporal system. See his article “Naturalism,
Materialism and First Philosophy” in Contemporary Materialism: A Reader,
eds. Paul Moser and J.D. Trout, Routledge.
7
For more sophisticated argument on this strand of thinking see Richard Rorty’s
Solidarity or Objectivity: Objectivity, Relativism and Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
As someone who is captivated by the notion of meaning, I have tried
to formulate the notion of meaning in a substantially different way elsewhere.8 The concept of meaning seems to have three different layers:
deep existential, abstract philosophical and concrete practical. A careful
identification and plausible use of these levels, I contend, would be a
useful tool not only to deal with the challenges of fundamentalism and
liberalism, but also in terms of avoiding reductionism in its diverse
forms. Let’s have a brief look at each of them before extracting its implication to ethics.
2.1. Deeper Existential Level
This is a level in which humankind tries to interpret and define itself
by asking extremely acute questions in life. Such questions incorporate
the problem of origin or arche (where did I come from?), purpose (why
am I here?) and the question of telos (where am I going?). The interpenetration of the past, present and future in humanness is abundantly clear
in these questions. Moreover, they exhibit what Wessel Stoker calls “the
fundamental lack in human existence”9 a determining factor in terms of
triggering such questions. Responding to these questions therefore is not
an option, but is naturally inescapable. Henk Geertsema, a Dutch philosopher, seems to be hitting it right on the nail when he prudently
writes:
Questions of meaning, of good and evil, of origin and destination, that are traditionally part of religion and the worldview, are more typical to the way we relate
to the world as the whole than the method of science. It is part of our human
nature that we have to answer these questions. They pose themselves to us and
8
I developed this idea in my masters thesis at the Free University of Amsterdam
(2005).
9
Wessel Stoker, Is the Quest for Meaning the Quest for God?: A Religious
Ascription of Meaning in Relation to Secular Ascription of Meaning (Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V., 1996), p. 5.
45
we have to respond. Being human we can’t avoid interpreting the world and our
place in it and accept responsibility for our interpretation.10
No research, to my mind, has demonstrated this in as dramatic a
fashion as that of Ernest Becker, who previously was a self-confessed
atheist anthropologist and psychiatrist who converted to Christianity
shortly before his death because of the impact of his own research.
Becker made an extensive study of people who are on the verge of death
and their search for meaning at a critical time. Becker then points out, in
his book The Birth and Death of Meaning, that the human being is a
tragically paradoxical creature. In other words, on the one hand, “unlike
other animals”, Becker writes, “he has an awareness of himself as a
unique individual […] on the other; he is the only animal in nature who
knows he will die”.11 The birth of meaning therefore has to do with the
awareness of man’s unique significance, whereas the death has to do
with a sense of fragility as humankind faces death. It has to be noted
therefore that both spectrums – celebration of unique significance on
one hand and sense of fragility on the other – are undeniably universal
experiences. Such a paradoxical experience makes this level extremely
noteworthy, for it is at this level that the human being seeks for an anchorage in life. It is at this stage that religious commitment provides
people not only with a sense of security, but also with a basic orientation
of interpreting reality.
10
Henk Geertsema, “Dooyeweerd’s Transcendental Critique: Transforming it
Hermeneutically”, Contemporary Reflection on the Philosophy of Herman
Dooyeweerd: A Supplement to the Collected Work of Herman Dooyeweerd, eds.
D. F. M. Strauss and Michelle Botting, (Lewiston/Queenston/Lampster: The
Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), p. 62.
11
Earnest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective of the Problem of Man (New York: Free Press, 1971), p. 141.
2.2. Abstract Philosophical Level
The abstract philosophical or theoretical level, unlike the existential
level which tries to tie the human subject with the ultimate reality, starts
off from the human capability to theoretically analyse what is given.
Therefore, the main question that this level strives to answer is: what
possibilities and limitations in terms of interpreting reality do I have?
This is the reason why scholarship in the field of hermeneutics is increasingly characterizing philosophical hermeneutics as a reflection on
interpretation, a theory of what happens when we understand anything.
Meaning at this level begins with natural human ability. Admittedly this
level (compared to the existential level) is less passionate, substantially
moderate and academically sensitive, for it is at this level which “understanding” itself will be the subject of careful scrutiny and adjudication.
In other words, this level helps us to substantiate unnecessary zeal, directness and unconstructive fundamentalism.
2.3. Concrete Practical Level
The concrete practical level is a phase in which the concept of meaning is dealt with as it relates to individual things or entities such as language, culture, ethics, values, literature, artwork in daily practical life.
The main question at this level would be: how do the possibilities and
limitations affect the way I relate to an entity or a thing in question?
Let’s briefly turn to Herman Dooyeweerd’s theory of “naïve experience”
to shed some light on the notion of meaning on the practical level.12
According to Dooyeweerd, naïve experience (or concrete experience as
he sometimes calls it) – as a purely pre-theoretical practice – plays a
great role in terms of interpreting the individual things and entities in a
concrete daily life. But why is naïve experience so crucial for Dooyeweerd? Naïve experience, Dooyeweerd explains, is so basic precisely
12
It has to be noted that the term “naïve experience” in this context is not used
in a pejorative sense. Its nuance rather has to do with the way of understanding
everyday experience unaided by any theoretical framework whatsoever.
47
“because it experiences reality in the indivisible meaning-coherence of
its modal aspects, common sense intuitively repudiates any attempt to
divide its experiential world into theoretically abstracted independent
spheres […]. In unsophisticated non-theoretical attitude, we experience
reality in indivisible coherence of cosmic time”.13
The genius of Dooyeweerd’s analysis lies in the fact that he explores
naïve or concrete experience as the primary medium by which reality
introduces itself to us, and therefore it has to be accounted for. Inasmuch
as theoretical thought is something to rely on, precisely because it is the
only way that we experience things and values as concrete wholes without breaking them down into pieces, his analysis of naïve experience
exposes the weakness of a line of thought that reduces the wide and
complex array of human experience to a single theoretical or scientific
enterprise.
However, one could wonder if concrete experience is always pretheoretical or completely detached from the above two levels. This
might have to do with Dooyeweerd’s attitude towards what he calls
“primitive society” of which a number of scholars – including his fellow
Reformed philosophers such as Sander Griffioen – are quite critical. For
instance, Dooyeweerd observes, primitive societies do not have a deepened notion of criminal law except on the basis of the factual consequences of an action in question. Hence, the principle of retribution
hinges rigidly on the modal substrata without being deepened into the
anticipatory principle of accountability for guilt. In the same manner, the
legal subjectivity of man and the validity of norms, were characterized
by quite closed social intercourse and limited members of the tribe. This
is because the primitive communal order was an undifferentiated whole
whose modal functions were yet to be articulated and distinguished.
As sublime as the main line of his argument might appear, Dooyeweerd’s claim here is pretty problematic at its best, and outrageous at its
13
TCTT II, p. 29
worst. For one thing, the implied association of the second level with
modern formal education readily insinuates that “fundamentalism” has
to do with being “uncivilized”. However, empirical evidence might
show that this is far from being the case. A difference in the way that
“primitive societies” and “civilized societies” practise abstract thought
should be mentioned - just to make use of the opposite of his gross generalization – if such a polarization does make any sense after all. On the
contrary, however, it is a crude fact that the societies which are labelled
“primitive” have their own theoretical frames through which they filter
and adjudicate practices, values and norms even if their theories are
enveloped into their tales, narratives, arts and, even at times, rumours.
Hence, even uneducated societies can use the theoretical level although
the method of theorization might differ from culture to culture.
What does the above analysis of meaning offer with regards to overcoming polarization? A number of scholars, leaders (religious and secular) and activists have taken one side over against the other, which left
(and is still leaving) its own mark in our society. However, there are
some who do not want to take one side over against the other and try to
strike a balance in between. Richard Bernstein’s book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (1983) is one of the best examples of this category.
The salient feature of this work is that it aims at making both spectrums
obsolete. How? In dealing with such issues, Bernstein suggests, we need
to look for what he calls “the hermeneutical circle” – a philosophical
conception that focuses on the interpretive process as a dialogue between part and the whole – to bring an end to the apparently unbridgeable poles. This method, Bernstein opts to maintain, not only takes history, tradition and prejudices quite seriously, but it also accounts for the
fact that humankind is a dialogical being who always is engaged in conversation as a process of understanding.14 In other words, there are both
14
Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics and Praxis (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983) p. 137.
49
objective (in the form of institutions, values, practices) and subjective
(openness of the interpreting subject to listen and share) dimensions to
his theory. Bernstein is aware of both universalistic tyranny (which
functions behind distorted forms of fundamentalism), on one hand, and
the so-called Cartesian Anxiety (the fear of sliding into relativism and
fragmentation of which liberalism is presumed to be the main cause). He
therefore suggests practical reason as a remedy for both problems in a
promise that it could mediate between the two poles.
Admittedly, Bernstein’s repudiation of elevating one pole over
against the other is feasible, as both are irreducibly essential, but yet not
complete by themselves. His call to apply “the hermeneutical circle” is
very significant with regards to enhancing a comprehensive understanding of what is at stake and promoting dialogue. However, the question
still remains whether Bernstein has really gone “beyond objectivism and
subjectivism” as the title of his book suggests. Intriguingly enough,
Geertsema points out that Bernstein finds the common concern of telos
in the works of prominent philosophers such as Hannah Arendt,
Gadamer and Habermas. Nevertheless, Geertsema laments Bernstein’s
failure to account for the place of telos as deeply embedded in human
projects such as ethics and politics. Moreover, he remains unconvinced
that practical reason as a solution in Bernstein’s project would offer a
sufficient answer to the question of human finitude and universal need
of anchorage.15
Geertsema then comes with much deeper and conceptually sensible
alternative. He starts off by defining the human being as Homo Respondens (a responding species). In other words, he contends, it is only the
human being that has awareness of normativity, a distinct sense of self,
knowledge of the quality of things, potential to respond to the Creator
15
Henk Geerstema, “Homo Respondens: On the Historical Nature of Human
Reason,” Philosophia Reformata. 58, p. 120-52.
and a sense of call to fellowship with Him.16 Answering therefore is not
an option precisely because, according to Geertsema, the whole creation
is characterized as answering to God’s promise-command to be. Human
beings, compared to the rest of creation, have got an even further dimension: answering with responsibility. Answering therefore is normative to
human beings.17
This line of thinking makes the liberal tendency towards an individualistic ethic effectively obsolete. In other words, it bases its argument on
what we previously called the deeper existential level. The question of
telos, in a way, is dealt with when Geertsema portrays human beings –
even the whole creation, for that matter – as answering to the Creator’s
promise-command to be. The responding aspect therefore signifies the
hermeneutical act as deeply embedded in the essence of humanness.
This signifies that the liberal tendency of individualism, and the fearsome inner silence, is incoherent with the normative design of humanness.
Elsewhere Geertsema depicts the whole of creation as a book – a
book with an Author. Not only that, he adds, creation as a book cannot
be fully grasped without paying due attention to the authorial intention
though the book has its own voice which declares its Author18 This takes
us to the second level of meaning – understanding possibility and limitations in theorizing. Fundamentalism arguably has (or better, claims to
have) an awareness of normativity. Its consistent appeal to abiding ethical, traditional and societal norms and quest for universal application
might imply such an awareness. However, it is extremely weak in acknowledging possibility as well as limitation. In other words, creation as
a book is not fixed and static. It is ever-moving and dynamic. Discovering new possibilities is a part of the creational dynamic in both the areas
16
Ibid., p. 129.
Ibid., pp. 146-150.
18
Henk Geertsema, “Higher Education as Service to the King,” Critique and
Challenge of Christian Higher Education (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1987), p. 65.
17
51
natural science and the humanities. Fundamentalism seems to be struggling to let the dynamism and new possibilities go. It instead tries to
prevent a possible change and its aftermath, by imposing a fixed value
and tradition on others. As a result, un-scrutinized zeal, instead of thorough articulation, seems to be taking the upper hand. Human liberty in
that way is under great jeopardy. Instead of trying to avert the force of
historical change, the goal should be a search for a reliable conceptual
matrix through which the changes can be channelled and adjudicated.
The fear of change in the camp of fundamentalism has visibly affected the way they relate to culture, society and otherness at the practical level. The fact that the very term “fundamentalism” has become
increasingly associated with violence, killings and intimidation, exhibits
the consequence of ignoring the level of theoretical articulation and
making unjustifiable transposition to the practical application. This is
because the second level would not only facilitate mutual dialogue and
understanding, but it could also serve as a check to filter needless zeal
from creating a seemingly unbridgeable rift between human societies.
On the other hand, liberalism seems to have no less a negative reputation
as it is associated with ethical permissiveness, societal fragmentation
and extreme individualism. Both seem to have one common grave problem: ignoring the authorial intention behind created reality, to use Geertsema’s metaphor of the book. This is because the authorial intention
does not make individuals and community on a hierarchical basis. They
both seem to be placing their own impulses at the centre in the process
of understanding reality. Looking for a governing universal principle is
plausible. However, the purpose should be serving the Author rather
than maintaining the interest of certain religious or political traditions.
On the other hand, searching for human liberty is one of the basic things,
but realization of human liberty must go deeper to the extent of using the
liberty of others, and ultimately, that of the Author.
Concluding Remarks
We started off with three crucial questions: about the way fundamentalism is handled in media and academia, the cultural divergences in the
conception of the sides in the debate and the possibility of overcoming
both cultural and conceptual rifts. I have tried to demonstrate that both
fundamentalism and liberalism have raised and wrestled with vital questions without which it is hard to understand both the human subject and
its endeavour. Grooming one wing with saint-like status while condemning the other to a devilish grade is very unlikely to do good for human
society. This is precisely because finding a common rhythm and living a
covenantal life is as decisive as realizing human liberty for human good.
Polarization appears to be struggling to eradicate one tyranny of universalism with another. The grave consequence of such a move, as we
saw, is the reduction of a wide array of human nature to one single aspect. Namely, sacrificing the communal meta-narrative on the altar of
individual liberty or vice versa. The example of the African understanding of the fundamentalism versus liberalism debate opens another window to see things differently, depending on one’s cultural context. However, there still is a danger of propagating cultural closure [as opposed to
openness] and hostility towards otherness, when full-blown localism is
applied.
It is then that the third question becomes very important. We laid the
foundation that hermeneutics, as a search for meaning, has got three
levels: deeper existential, abstract theoretical and concrete practical. In
order to understand (get the inner logic of) the created reality, we
stressed, these three levels have to function in a credible manner. The
question of liberalism, according to this conceptual framework, not only
seems to be bypassing the first level but also it is most likely that the
second level is also hijacked by the individual category. It is apparent
that it failed to offer the much needed harmony and tolerance in society
53
even if it emphasizes one of the important aspect of humanness (individual liberty). Fundamentalism on the other hand seems to be going the
opposite route by rigidly acknowledging the existential orientation and
universal principle. However, the diverse assortment of human society
including the possibility and limitation of understanding seems to be
under fire.
This essay suggests that the best possible orientation with regards to
formulating an ethical matrix is conceiving of oneself as a responding
creation. Response always presupposes a call – a call for covenant. It is
this covenant that gives a credible frame to theorization that acknowledges both possibility and limitation. Far from being neutral, theorization aims at realizing the covenant. It is therefore this covenant that
makes harmony possible and enables us to overcome the challenges of
fundamentalism and liberalism. This is precisely because in the context
of covenant it is not only that the past, present and future are completely
fused, but also freedom and responsibility are accounted for without
making a hierarchy between community and the individual.
Bibliography
Agbeti, J.K, “African Theology: What it is,” in: Presence, Nairobi:
Afropress, 1972.
Geertsema, Henk. (1993) Homo Respondens: On the Historical Nature
of Human Reason. Phil. Ref. 58, pp. 120-152.
Kato, Byang, Theological Pitfall in Africa, Evangel: Kisumu, 1975.
Lwaminda, Peter, “The Teaching of Theology and Philosophy within the
Realities of Africa,” in: Luke G. Mlilo CMM and Mthanael Y. Soede
(eds.), Doing Philosophy and Theology in the African Context, IKO:
London, 2003.
Mbiti, John, African Religion and Philosophy. Heinemann: Oxford,
1969.
_________, New Testament Eschatology in African Background. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.
McGavran, Donald, Crucial Issues in Missions Tomorrow, Chicago:
Moody Press, 1972.
Pobee, John S, “The Church in West Africa,” in: Charles R. Taber ed.
The Church in Africa: Papers Presented at the Symposium at Milligan
College March 31-April 3, 1978, pp. 139-159. CA: William Carey Library.
Ramm, Bernard. Protestant Biblical Interpretation: A Text Book of
Hermeneutics, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1956.
Tutu, Desmond M, “Whither African Theology?” in: Edward FasholeLuke, et al., (eds.) Christianity in Independent Africa, New York: Academic Press, 1978, pp. 9-64.
Fundamentalism or Tolerance
55
3
FUNDAMENTALISM OR TOLERANCE:
WHAT IS THE PUBLIC ROLE OF RELIGION
IN MODERN SOCIETY?
Peter Pavlovic, Belgium
This text deals with four topics: fundamentalism, tolerance, identity
and religion and links between them.
1. Fundamentalism
In a widespread understanding, the term fundamentalism is today
mostly linked to religion. Fundamentalism, in general, is characterised
primarily by the notion of separation and exclusion and, in contemporary language, is very often linked with extremism. It is an expression of
a passionate opposition to “liberalism” in all its possible forms. In Western societies fundamentalism is labelled by negative connotations and
accompanied by the perception about its link to old-fashioned religious
superstition that needs to be overcome. Fundamentalism is perceived as
an enemy of Western democracies.
Along with the religious connotations, it is however acknowledged
that it is also possible to speak about economic, political, national or
ideological fundamentalism. In such cases, as with its “religious”
equivalents, fundamentalism could be characterised by extreme posi-
tions, rigidity and inability for dialogue. Following this approach, we
can speak also about fundamentalism in its secular guise. A number of
European countries in which religious symbols are prohibited from the
public places exemplify this. Such a stance is backed by the presupposition that secularism has a worldview, a privileged position and, by the
assumption that it is a value neutral system, stands above all religions,
religious disputes, quarrels and differences. Fundamentalism has much
to do with religion. To limit this phenomenon purely to religion is a
superficial simplification unhelpful to a fuller understanding of this
phenomenon. It is thus worth exploring the concept of fundamentalism
in a broader context and in consonance with other trends inseparably
linked to it.
Fundamentalism evolved as a Christian movement mainly within
American Protestantism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries amidst
conservative evangelical Christians who, in a reaction to modernism,
actively affirmed a “fundamental” set of Christian beliefs. Strong commitment to the basic truth of certain religion, belief, ideology or conviction is the first and foremost characteristic of any, not only Christian,
fundamentalism.
Since then, the use of the term has gone through substantial development and a shift of its original meaning. The widespread use of the
word “fundamentalism” does not mean that its understanding is clear
and shared by all. Fundamentalism is today mostly used as a phenomenological description linked to the world of Islam. Many Muslims, however, regardless of their place of origin, protest against the use of the
term when referring to Islamist groups. The identification of fundamentalism with extremism, typical of the Western use of the term, is simply
not shared. As an example, Shiite groups, which are considered fundamentalist in the Western world, are not considered as such in the Islamic
world. As opposed to the Western use, “Islamic fundamentalism” is
most often used by them in a limited sense: as a description of Muslim
57
individuals and groups that advocate Islamism, a political ideology calling for the replacement of secular state laws with Islamic law.
In evaluating fundamentalism, it is beneficial to make a cautious differentiation and carefully look at the balance between politics, religion
and society. The realm of politics is where fundamentalism starts to be a
dangerous instrument. An oversimplified negative labelling of fundamentalism as describing everything that does not fit with a vision of
secular society cannot do justice to those who do not share the idea of
secular dominance and who see religion as an integral and constructive
element in a mosaic of society.
Differentiation between religion and politics is of utmost importance.
Putting aside a political cover of fundamentalism and concentrating on
its religious roots, it is not possible to overlook those signs which are
very difficult to mark simply as negative. The basis of fundamentalism
includes conviction, care, firm value orientation and strong social ties.
These are worth noting, despite the generally negative attitudes to fundamentalism prevalent in Western societies.
Fundamentalism, since its inception, has been a movement of conviction. It is evident that it is not possible to speak about a person having
a conviction and self-respect without recognising in this person strong
roots for the person’s conviction and character. Whatever this conviction
may be, it is the fixed point in a changeable world that enables personal
orientation. This is then the source of human individual and collective
identity. It is acknowledgment of roots, of firm conviction and consequently of self-respect. It is an acknowledgment of a strong vision of the
person and his/her place in the world as an agent of the change in this
world: a vision of a person who has a task to do, a mission.
The presented arguments do not mean that our judgement of fundamentalism should start to be uncritical. It is a reminder of a Western
simplified position and a reminder of the complexity which is associated
with this term..
2. Tolerance
Europe is a continent that, in most of its parts, cherishes tolerance as
one of its principal values, often presented as an opposite to fundamentalism. Tolerance has been instituted within the continent as one of the
achievements in the effort to overcome the bloody religious conflicts of
the 16th and 17th centuries. Since then, tolerance has been cultivated in
the way of life of many different communities living in the continent
and as the fundamental value found in numerous declarations stating the
political principals on which European society rests.
In spite of that, practical tolerance has often been called into question
and not only at times of conflicts that dominated Europe on several
occasions since the Enlightenment during which an appeal to tolerance
did not find an echo. Even in the modern era tolerance is not an instrument effectively implemented in all the tensions and conflicts within our
reach. It suffices to look at some instances in which tolerance is about to
play a major role and in which modern Europe has to face considerable
difficulties. Tolerance may be seen as an ideal. Its full reality is, however, not at hand.
In the West, tolerance is often portrayed as an opposite to fundamentalism. In its easygoing approach, tolerance is characterised by the
scheme in which everything is possible, everything that does not limit
freedom of the other is allowed and everything is of equal value. Another word for this kind of tolerance is indifference. An end product of
this development of the value realm in Europe is the fact that European
society is increasingly characterised by laxity, value relativism and opportunism.
One illustration of a kind of degenerated tolerance serving in Europe
as the guiding value, as well as the operational strategy, can be seen in
the attitude to a great number of immigrants arriving in the member
states of the European Union. According to statistics, more than 20
59
million immigrants are living in the EU and every year hundreds of
thousands of new incomers arrive. There are good human, political and
economic reasons for this. Governments, NGOs and churches in Europe
spend considerable effort in managing this influx. Living under the
motto of tolerance, Europeans are in principle open to arriving newcomers. Then, however, their interest and care stops halfway. It is widely
recognised that the integration of immigrants in Europe faces a considerable number of problems. Integration of incomers and their introduction to the cultural and value setting of their new home countries obviously does not happen in a way that could bring palpable results. The
simple fact is that a large percentage of immigrants fail to integrate into
European society.1
The result is the fast growth of parallel societies and the creation of
barriers between different communities, between “us” and “them”.
Street violence in France in 2005 and the murder of the Dutch film director Theo van Gogh in November 2004 were visible demonstrations of
the lack of integration. Very soon after these incidents it became clear
that to consider them as isolated acts would be inappropriate. These are
tips of the iceberg covering a serious problem. Tolerance, in the shape as
presented in most of the continent, is not leading to the expected results.
There can be numerous explanations of the root causes of this situation. In our view, the problem is the widespread and dominating understanding of “openness” and “toleration”. To reduce tolerance to openness is insufficient. This kind of tolerance is limited tolerance, narrowed
to its passive component. The active part, that requires not just “to accept” or “to be open” but requests to go far beyond is not at hand. In this
way tolerance loses its proper meaning and content. In the absence of
1
Even in the UK which has been portrayed itself as an example of tolerance
towards migrants and one of the best examples of multicultural society almost
40% of population believe that the presence of Muslims in the country poses a
threat to national security [Harris poll data presented in the Financial Times, 19
August 2007].
active personal attitudes and in the absence of common standards tolerance becomes indifference and integration is replaced by ignorance. In
such a situation, as the American philosopher Christopher Lasch reminds, the ideal of an open mind degenerates into that of an “empty
mind”.
The key word in addressing this problem has to be ‘respect.” Openness as well as tolerance has to go hand-in-hand with “respect.” There
must be nothing cheap in this attitude. In observing tolerance stopping
halfway is as equally dangerous as to accept only nice declarations
without accompaniment by concerted effort for implementation. The
problem is that we are determined to accept everyone, but we have forgotten that acceptance means little if it is not accompanied with respect
and that respect has to be earned.
Tolerance without respect is, as it is called by Lasch, “a tourist’s approach to morality.” In order to be clear what the relationship between
tolerance and respect is he writes:
Respect is what we experience in the presence of admirable achievements, admirably formed characters, natural gifts put to good use. It entails the exercise of
discriminating judgement, not indiscriminate acceptance. Respect is not another
word for tolerance or the appreciation of alternative lifestyles and communities.2
Here we are, I believe, at the core of the problem. True tolerance
does not mean discarding the value of judgement. True tolerance does
not mean indifference and indiscriminate acceptance. Tolerance stripped
of one of its basic meanings is not able to fulfil its original role. Tolerance accompanied by respect would have an impact on the integration
process in Europe, and is what is needed is to avoid an empty tolerance
and replacement of tolerance by ignorance.
2
Roger Kimball, Christopher Lasch vs. the elites, Vol. 13, New Criterion, 1995.
61
Respect as a necessary counterpart to tolerance is a difficult enterprise. It means attempting to understanding the context of values settings, which may be very different from those of the West and to launch
a dialogue about these differences; dialogue that would be able to overcome barriers leading to assignment of those who are privileged and
underprovided. Such a dialogue would be a dialogue between equally
committed partners.
How strongly relativism combined with ignorance has been established in European society is demonstrated in the Europe values study
2005. Only 37% of EU citizens responded positively to the question as
to how important it is to integrate minorities and other cultures into our
societies.3 In comparison to the same question in Turkey where 63 percent of participants in the survey responded yes. Tolerance identified
with openness to everyone, everything and closely linked to value relativism seems to be one of the mains signs of Western societies.
Lack of value orientation, and assigning one and the same value to
all cultures and values also has another effect. If everything is acceptable and all directions are the same, this also implies that all religions
are the same. If everything is accepted then everything has the same
value and is equal. In such a situation there is no reason to be an adherent of this or another religion. Such relativism leads to ignorance, passivity and apathy as signs of decreasing ability for value orientation.
Zeal rarely accompanies a point of view that remains apathetic to what
is right or wrong. Inevitably, the passive relativist must yield to an absolutist who is willing to advance his viewpoint through force. Careful
observation witnesses that exactly this lack of value orientation and the
growth of relativism are increasingly present in European societies.
Attempts to be “objective” in looking at the different worldviews,
cultures and religions is not a viable way forward for effective dealing
3
Social values, Science and Technology, Special Eurobarometer 225/Wave
63.1, June 2005.Special Eurobarometer 225 / Wave 63.1Sp
with issues like tolerance and identity in a multicultural society. Even a
conscious effort to be impartial and not to prefer any given worldview
and religion does not guarantee an impartial approach. It is one of the
widespread characteristics of Western societies – by claiming objectivity
and impartiality it is in a hidden way giving priority over religious and
cultural values of others to our own standpoint. It is giving the priority
to rationality and the ideas of the Enlightenment. We have to be tolerant,
because it is reasonable and rational, is one of the leading mottos in the
West. Hand-in-hand with this notion of tolerance and rationality goes
the feeling of superiority; thus a self-understanding is cultivated: “We
are rational, therefore we are the best.”. This is one of the major points
creating hate in non-Western societies. Western superiority is strongly
challenged by non-Western societies. Together with challenging superiority, the Western concept of tolerance is also challenged.
The only possible conclusion is that this kind of superficial tolerance
is not and cannot be a sufficient counterpart to Western understanding of
fundamentalism. If tolerance is not fully developed to its full meaning –
an effective instrument developing an identity – then it fails.
3. Identity
This leads then to the crucial element that needs to be addressed in
this respect. It is a consequence of the narrowed tolerance ad intro, in
the direction of human self and individual consciousness. Tolerance
reduced to openness and indiscriminate acceptance is not enough for
developing individual and collective identity. Not only because formulations of full acceptance are only a theoretical construction. It is hardly
possible to implement it fully in reality because of limited human capacities. The limited human self cannot accept fully everything that
surrounds him or her. Selection and value judgement are inevitable.
63
The concept of identity is very much linked to the question, who are
we? and where do we belong? For positive answers to these questions
material prosperity is not necessary. In the recent global survey looking
for the answer as to where in the world live the most contented people,
European countries did not figure prominently. Perhaps astonishingly,
citizens of poor developing countries occupied the first places in the
survey. A positive image of the life and positive identity does not necessarily needmaterial prosperity, nor all the achievements characterising
everyday life in Western Europe.
In searching for elements contributing to the development of identity
it may be helpful to look at some of the characteristics of world development of recent years. Here we cannot overlook some conclusions
relevant to the relationship between fundamentalism and identity. Some
of the most important are:
a) Religion, particularly Islam, but also other world religions such as
Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, is becoming a source of identity, a
source of popular movements and uprisings with increasing intensity.
Almost any area in the Middle East (from Iran to Palestine) can be found
as a particularly strong proof of this assumption. The situation in the
Indian subcontinent is not far behind in providing the evidence with
similar clarity. Secularism, imported to many of these places by Western
influence, is making way for religious enthusiasts.
This has consequences for the situation in Europe as well. It would
be a fatal mistake to expect that secularism, which attempted to be implemented in many places as a universal norm and all-embracing values
system, could be a counterpart for a meaningful exchange for immigrants from these regions coming to Europe as well as for residents in all
these countries,.
b) Western society is not only characterised by its belief to the capacity of human ratio. Yet humanism and renaissance, the Enlightenment and rationality are not the only sources of the Western worldview.
The Western mind is also influenced by the heritage of Christianity and
Judaism. The devaluing of the influence of religion – in particular Christianity – is an increasing tendency in Europe. Some difficult moments
that European societies have had to face are, however, consequences of
this contempt. The loss of a traditional religious dimension is one of the
causes for the problem with European identity.
As opposed to secular rationalism, Christian theology questions the
absolute character of the individual subject. The person is in Christianity
characterised as an individuum who has an ability to step out of himself
or herself, one who has the ability of self-reflection. The personality of
the human individual is not as something already given and, in this respect, finished. The subject becomes a person only after an act of selfreflection. This process can be realised only as a conscious act, i.e. with
an active use of the consciousness. This condition is however not the
only one. The other one is that the process cannot be realised in isolation, without the presence of other persons. Full personality and full
identity is gained only in relationship to other human beings. This means
that overstated individualism leads necessarily and unavoidably to serious deficiencies in personal identity. The human being is truly human
only in community. This is missing in secularism. Overstated rationalism and individualism are reasons why secularism is unable to deal
easily with any kind of collective identity except for those defined by
geography.
In this regard it may be interesting to mention one of the examples of
how this is dealt with identity at this continent. In the closing address of
the European Intellectual Summit “Europe. A beautiful idea?”, the
Prime Minister of the Netherlands Jan Peter Balkenende said: “Europe is
unique because it has so many different identities. This makes it impossible to define European identity once and for all.”4 In our perspective
4
“Europe A Beautiful Idea”, European Intellectual Summit, Rotterdam, December 2004.
65
there are good reasons to criticise this and similar statements. The reason for criticism is not the notion of multiple identities in Europe. It is
this fact that needs to be taken seriously and that requires serious work.
The reason for criticism is the second part of the statement that from the
right premise leads to the wrong conclusion. A refusal of the definition
of Europe’s own identity and lack of effort to develop one is alarming.
4. Religion
There is an underlying assumption in Western secularism that there
is something wrong with religion. The heritage of the Enlightenment and
humanism is strong, particularly in Western Europe. Secularism of society is one of the dominating tendencies here. Aside from Western
Europe, there is a rise of religious feeling on the global scale. As Juergenmeyer demonstrated in his remarkable book, Western democracies in
the post-colonial era made quite an effort to establish secular political
regimes in numerous post-colonial countries of Africa and Asia that
would, according to Western standards, push religion out of public
sphere.5 It is increasingly clear that this effort is not going to be successful. The tragic failure in Iraq is just the latest episode in this long-term
process. The crucial question in this regard is why secularism has failed
to inspire millions in developing countries all over the globe?
In pursuing this question one cannot overlook one of the basic features of Western effort: the claim of secularism to universality. An appeal to rationality that it supposes to be above religion should make of
secularism a universal platform that would enable it to judge all other
worldviews and religions. The link of secularism and rationality should
have created a universally acceptable norm. It is interesting to observe
5
Mark Juergenmayer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts
The Secular State (University of California Press, 1993), p. 26.
how this claim goes hand-in-hand with such attractive privileges as
impartiality and objectivity. Only the secular view, according to its own
judgement, could have been universal, impartial and objective. The
other no less questionable characteristic of secularism has been its overstated individualism.
The claim of universality, impartiality and objectivity has been very
difficult to accept in non-Western societies. In addition religious communities all over the world make Western secularism responsible for the
moral decline on its own territory, in Western society. It is interesting
that communities all over the world, otherwise behaving to each other as
enemies, are united in this judgement. Widespread mistrust of Western
secularism in non-Western societies is to be noted all around. Other
continents refuse to subscribe to Western secularism and to the universality of its two pillars individualism and rationalism. Following de
Tocqueville, it is increasingly recognised that in secularism, in spite of
its fervent hostility towards religion, elements of religion are also present. This leads to the conclusion that secular rationality based on the
Enlightenment does not provide the superior platform that allows for
judging other worldviews and religions. It is one of the worldviews.
Secularism can be described as a kind of natural religion.6 In its basic
characteristics it includes doctrine, myth, ethics, ritual, experience and
social organisation. Both secularism and religion are expressions of
faith.
Secular rationalism as a political and social strategy in the global
scale proved not to be able to fulfil expectations to be a universally
acceptable platform superior to all other worldviews and religions. In
judging it from this perspective it cannot be said anything else than it
has failed. Secular rationalism is not a universal worldview superseding
religions and creating a universal framework into which a plurality of
6
Mark Juergenmayer, ibid.
67
religions operates. Secularism has to enter into relationship with other
religions as one of the worldviews, not as a universal platform.
This has, however, a substantial impact on the critical question of the
relationship between individual and society. Based on the idea of a
strong self-centred and rational individual, self-sufficient with his/her
rationality to decide everything that is needed on their own, is a Western
attitude characterised by the conviction that religion is a private matter
of each individual. This is in significant contradiction to the selfunderstanding of all the world religions, which all claim to provide not
only fulfilment of man’s personal needs, but also to have substantial
contributions at the communitarian level and in the building of society.
The relationship between individual and society seems to be the cornerstone of all religions. In this point both religions and secular rationalism fulfil the same function. Both provide a glue that holds together
broad communities. The issue is that in both cases the bond functions
with very different mechanisms and leads to different results. The question of identity is one of those that are influenced by these different
mechanisms the most.
After rising doubts about the universality which both secularism and
rationality make claim to, and noting some of the similarities and differences between secularism and religion, we come to the final point.
This is a question, which is of crucial importance in this regard, the role
of religion in public life.
Europe should not renounce religion at the expense of preference for
secularism, nor be negative towards influence of religion in society. In
spite of some historical excesses where religion was identified with the
political power, a positive influence of religion can be witnessed, in
particular of Christianity, demonstrated throughout European history.
This influence is to be seen not only in culture, art, spirituality and the
way of thinking in Europe, it is to be seen also in how society has been
organised. Taking the role of religion(s) in society more seriously can
free the way to clarifying important issues that seem to be increasingly
deficient in the society on the continent nowadays.
Nobody in Europe can today seriously call for the establishment of
theocracies. To find a place for religion in public life is, however, a
necessary condition for a healthy society. It is one of the deep challenges
for the future development of European society.
Ethics of Recognition
69
4
RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM
AND AN ETHICS OF RECOGNITION
Joseph I. Fernando, Thailand
1. Meaning of Fundamentalism
The Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary defines fundamentalism as
“the practice of following very strictly the basic rules and teachings of
any religion; (in Christianity) the belief that everything that is written in
the Bible is completely true”. The term fundamentalism was coined by
Curtis Lee Laws in 1920 in the United States.1 At a meeting of the
Northern Baptist Convention in 1920, Curtis Lee Laws defined the
“fundamentalist” as one who was ready to regain territory which had
been lost to Antichrist and “to do battle royal for the fundamentals of the
faith.”2
1
Curtis Lee Laws (1868-1946) was born in Loudoun County, Virginia and
educated at Crozer Theological Seminary. He was an editor, denominational
leader and pastor at the First Baptist Church of Baltimore, Maryland and at the
Greene Avenue Baptist Church of Brooklyn, New York.
2
Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God (New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 2001), p. 3.
Christian fundamentalism is identified in the European study as a phenomenon directed
[1] against every theological, cultural and political liberalism; against the historical and critical view of Christian faith documents (Scriptures, etc; [2] against
the infallibility of the pope, the infallibility of the Bible is affirmed); [3] against
the theory of evolution as compared with a literal understanding of the biblical
creation stories; and against every syncretism as seen in all inter-religious dialogue, in ecumenism, and (secularly) in the League of Nations and the United
Nations; [4] .3
Although the term fundamentalism has its origin in American Protestantism, Karen Armstrong in her The Battle for God traces Jewish, Muslim and Christian fundamentalism to the 15th century. Henry Munsen
notes that:
The use of “fundamentalism” as an analytical category for comparative purposes
remains controversial… (We) can discern a fundamentalist impulse in the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh movements commonly called fundamentalist
insofar as they insist on strict conformity to Holy Writ and to a moral code
ostensibly based on it. Such an impulse is lacking in Hindu nationalism and it is
not of equal significance in all Christian, Jewish, and Muslim movements.4
Today, fundamentalism is not only alive and kicking in all the world
religions including Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism but is also making
inroads into politics.
4
Henry Munsen, “Fundamentalism,” The Routledge Companion to the Study of
Religion, ed. John R. Hinnells, (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 351.
71
(In) some states – Pakistan, Morocco, Israel, India, and the United States, to
name a few – religious fundamentalists influenced the terms of political and
social discourse, but they found the construction of an Islamic or Christian or
Jewish polity to be well out of reach.5.
I am trying to figure out what factors contributed to fundamentalism.
Could they be the growth of science, atheism, agnosticism, secularity,
foreign rule and so on?
2. The Growth of Science
For August Comte, there are three stages in the evolution of human
society. 1. The theological stage: The primitive man in his helplessness
in the face of nature personified and deified it. He explained the origin
of the universe and of life and almost everything in terms of religion.
Religion had a tremendous hold on ancient societies. The priest played a
key role. 2. The metaphysical stage: The religious stage was surpassed
by the metaphysical stage. Man began to ask questions concerning the
nature of the world and of beings. Philosophers in India and Greece
sought answers to several perplexing questions. Rational reflection was
developed into a fine art. Man was not merely satisfied with myths but
reached for rational explanations. This was a transition from mythos to
logos. 3. The positive stage: The theological and metaphysical stages
gave way to the positive stage. Some believe that science alone can
provide man true and valid knowledge. The scientific method can unravel the mysteries of the universe. Science is hailed as a liberator of
humankind from superstitions, myths and metaphysical theories. The
scientific stage is seen as in the age of enlightenment and truth.
5
Gabriel A. Almond et al, Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalism around
the World (The University of Chicago Press, 2003), p. 12.
To respond to Comte, the positive stage has not brought about the
end of theology and metaphysics. Philosophical reflection is an ongoing
process. Millions of people believe in God or the ultimate reality. Religion, philosophy and science could be seen in complementary and not
necessarily in contradictory terms. Could the arrival of science be a
threat to religion so much that some people become fundamentalists in
their defence of religion? If we take a look at the intellectual history of
Western civilization we may notice three periods – the pre-modern,
modern and postmodern. The pre-modern period could be called the age
of faith with a theocentric conception of the universe. The sense of the
sacred was predominant. The universe is a manifestation of God. God is
the beginning and end of all. God created man as the best of creatures
and placed him on earth with conditions suitable for life. Therefore, the
earth must be the centre of the universe. This geocentric view of the
universe was supported by Ptolemy. The Church was powerful, as it was
thought to be a divinely established institution to guide people to
heaven. Art and philosophy were at the service of religion. The great
philosophers and theologians of the pre-modern period besides the
Greeks were St. Augustine, St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Albert the
Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, Roger
Bacon and so on. The great artists like Michael Angelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and writers like Dante and so on, and the great Gothic
cathedrals, were products of this God-centred pre-modern period. People
were probably working out their salvation in fear and trembling.
The pre-modern period gave way to the rise of the modern period.
Martin Luther was the first to challenge the Catholic Church in the 16th
century followed by King Henry VIII in England. Rene Descartes, the
father of modern philosophy philosophized in an altogether new way,
rejecting scholastic philosophy. Copernicus showed the universe was
heliocentric, not geocentric. Francis Bacon developed inductive logic
which led to the advancement of the scientific method. Science was
73
mathematised nature. Nature was studied to be controlled and to be at
the service of man. Nature was meant to be used to provide a comfortable life. The Cartesian dualism of mind and matter resulted in the
domination of matter by mind. It looks as if man has become the lord of
the universe and everything is at his disposal. All things in the world are
reduced to use-value and cash-value. The world is no longer the place
where beings display their glory, magic and beauty but is seen as raw
material. As Heidegger puts it, the river Rhine is no longer the home of
the Rhine maidens, nor as something of intrinsic value, but as something
to produce hydroelectric power. Man designs the world to suit his purposes. As Schopenhauer remarks, science is at the service of the body.
The philosophies of utilitarianism and pragmatism would support reordering, rearranging and manipulating the world for human gratification.
Science is apparently the new wonder-worker and panacea to all human
ills.
Some people fear that science as a new god may banish religion from
the face of the earth. If religion disappears, then will morality survive?
Could there be a desacralised morality? In the absence of religion, what
kind of social life would be possible? As Dostoevsky says in his Brothers Karamazov, if God did not exist, everything would be permitted.
Similarly, I would say if man did not have an immortal soul, cannibalism would be permitted. For the believer, a world without religion
would be unthinkable. A fundamentalist might ask, “Is it not worthwhile
to defend religion at any cost?” He would justify a militant piety.
The postmodern or post-war period is marked by a gigantic progress
in science. Man’s landing on the moon, computer technology, advanced
communications media, breakthrough in genetic engineering like cloning and so on, are some of the milestones in postmodern scientific
achievements. Mankind has gained a new confidence through science. In
such an environment myths, religions and superstitions may appear
weird. Science dismisses the creation story as myth and explains the
origin of life through evolution. But the fundamentalist rejects the theory
of evolution in favour of intelligent design. The Bible teaches a great
truth that God created the world. Science tells us how the world evolved.
Religion and science need not contradict each other; they can throw light
on each other. But the perceived threat from science to religion may fan
the flames of fundamentalism. The growth of science may have a link to
the erosion of the sense of mystery and of transcendence.
In fact, believers need not fear the growth of science or its impact on
religion. Aristotle’s Metaphysics begins with the statement, “All men,
by nature, desire to know.” Man has a natural inclination to knowledge.
The desire to know more and more about the universe is perfectly in
keeping with human nature. As Aquinas had demonstrated long ago,
there cannot be conflict between reason and faith as both are complementary and not contradictory. Scientific rationality discloses the world,
provides facts about the world. Although a scientist provides amazing
facts about the world, he may not answer questions like, what is the
purpose of life? Does life have a meaning? Is there life after death? Why
should one be good? Philosophy and religion will be able to answer such
questions.
Genuine scientific advancement can certainly be at the service of
humankind. Science cannot be blamed for the way technology is abused.
At the same time there cannot be science without ethics. Scientific enquiry cannot sideline moral concerns. Discoveries which may bring
about disaster cannot be ventured upon. “Where there are wicked inventions, there are wicked uses, and where there are wicked uses, there are
wicked hearts.”6 Science needs to be governed by the purity of intentions. As science advances, myths must be preserved as part of cultural
heritage. The scientific age would be poorer without myths which are
another kind of discourse about the world. What is needed is apprecia6
Karl Jaspers, The Future of Mankind (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1961), p. 193.
75
tion and interpretation of myths. For the Christian fundamentalists who
understand the Bible literally, myths are part of the revealed word of
God. Bultmannian demythologizing would be unacceptable to them.
Studies on myths by scholars like Mircea Eliade, Claude Levi-Strauss,
Paul Ricoeur and others affirm the value of myths.
2.1 Secularism and Secularity
In Medieval Europe, the church was thought to be superior to the
state, as it was concerned with guiding people to attain eternal happiness. The state appeared subservient to the church in the sense that the
former should care for the welfare of the citizens and not hinder the
spiritual concerns of the latter. The state and the church were not watertight compartments; they overlapped each other in Christendom. Finally,
at a point of time in European history, secularism came to be accepted.
Secularism is separation of the state and the church. The state is an
autonomous institution and the church cannot dictate to it. Secularism
marked the birth of the civil society.
Secularism appears to be more of a theory than a practice. It is hard
to separate politics from religion. Religion and politics are part of the
whole of human concerns. The Presidency of the US, the most powerful
democracy in the world is influenced by the Bible belt of America.
Some politicians in India, the largest democracy in the world, play the
religious card when it is a question of seeking and retaining power. The
Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People’s Party) stands for Hindutva
(Hinduness), the creation of a Hindu theocratic state. It is reported that
there are hardly any Catholics employed in Buckingham palace. There
are Christian political parties in some European countries. President
Mikhail Gorbachev of the USSR went to the Vatican and met Pope John
Paul II, who was said to have been keen on dismantling communism.
Total elimination of religion from politics even in a secular state seems
impossible because such separation is more theoretical than practical.
Any such attempt would be tantamount to fragmenting man. This is not
to say civil society is not possible. What is meant here is banishing religion from governance of the state cannot be total.
Secularity which is largely a contemporary phenomenon refers to the
affairs of the world, temporal concerns, not distinctly sacred or ecclesiastical. A secular society is a nonreligious society and its members may
have nothing to do with the precepts of religion. Some of those who
believe in secularity could be extremists, known as secular fundamentalists, the opposite of religious fundamentalists. Born and brought up in
the atmosphere of narrow Christianity, Hinduism or the closedness of an
Islamic state or Buddhist nation, religious fundamentalists are an unhappy lot with the emergence of secularism. For them, secularity may be
worse than secularism because the latter stands for the separation of
politics and religion, whereas the former is indifferent to or positively
hostile to religion. No wonder, the religious fundamentalist takes up the
cudgels for religion for, in his scheme of things, human life is meaningless without religion which in its fundamentalist form must be thrust
down the throat for the good of man.
2.2 Foreign Rule and the Rise of Hindu Fundamentalism
From time immemorial India has been known for its spirit of tolerance and hospitality, especially towards foreigners. The Muslims invaded India and became its rulers. Later the Europeans came as traders
to India and ended up as rulers. The British ruled almost the entire country except Goa and Pondicherry which were Portuguese and French
colonies respectively. The foreign rulers took advantage of the people of
India. The culture of the ruler was considered superior to that of the
ruled. The foreign rulers probably asked, can anything good come from
India? Except for a few scholars, the British could not appreciate the
77
antiquity and immense richness of Indian culture. As Huntington remarks,
The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion
(to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its
superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact;
non-Westerners never do.7
Hinduism’s contribution to Indian civilization is enormous. Some
writers call India “the wonder that was” (before the Muslim invasion).
Indian civilization is the only living ancient civilization. The other ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome and so on have become museum pieces. India has made remarkable contributions to philosophy,
literature, architecture, sculpture, fine arts, mathematics, astronomy and
so on. But the European rulers with a Eurocentric mindset failed to recognize Indian cultural heritage. Educated and self-respecting Indians felt
humiliated and insulted by the attitude of the European rulers. As a
student, philosopher-President S. Radhakrishnan heard his British professors telling him that only the West had a rich philosophical tradition
dating back to Greece and Indian civilization had none. Radhakrishnan
was challenged by the ignorance of the British and vowed to make it his
mission to propagate Indian philosophy in the West. He lectured in British universities and wrote widely on Indian philosophy for the Western
readers.
Some self-respecting Hindus were unhappy that their nation was too
long under foreign rule and thought it necessary to assert themselves in
terms of their culture, religion and identity. The Brahmo Samaj, Arya
Samaj, Prarthana Samaj, Ramakrishna Mission and so on emerged as
reform movements within Hinduism to respond to the challenges posed
7
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the
World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 51.
by British rule in India. In the process some of them, unfortunately,
embraced fundamentalism. Hindu fundamentalism, combined with nationalism, became a militant force exemplified by the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) founded in 1925 by K.B. Hedgewar. The
Vishva Hindu Parishad (The World Hindu Council) is the religious and
intellectual wing of the RSS and the Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian
People’s Party) its political wing. Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram
Godse who was known to Hedgewar, the founder of RSS. Muslims,
Christians and Sikhs are the targets of the RSS attack and communal
riots are not uncommon in India
2.3 The West and Muslim Fundamentalism
Millions of Muslims the world over are spiritually nourished by the
faith of Islam. Besides them, there are fundamentalist and ultrafundamentalist Muslims. The latter are terrorists.
In the eighteenth century, the Wahabi “puritan” school arose in the Arabian
peninsula. Championed by a regional prince who eventually conquered the
entire peninsula with religious zeal, its paradigm today is dominant in Saudi
Arabia, which controls the leading pilgrimage city of Islam, Mecca (which is
closed to non-Muslims). It is one of a “fundamentalism from above.” The
Saudi’s immense oil riches have given them worldwide power and influence,
and they support generously their kind of fundamentalist Islam in other lands –
even as they fear and oppose its Shiite Iranian version.8
Muslim fundamentalism has spread almost all over the world. The
Taliban in Afghanistan, the al-Qaida and the Islamic militant groups in
Kashmir and Pakistan are well known.
8
Niels C.Nielson, Jr., Fundamentalism, Mythos, and World Religions, p. 99.
79
Muslim fundamentalists appeal to a succession of teachers: Ibn Hanbal (d. 865),
Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), and Ibn Abd-al Wabah (d. 1792), to mention only a
few. We may ask, how does this model from the past translate into fundamentalism today? The paradigm identified by analysts is very specific. Essentially it
means (1) renewal by a return to Islamic roots; (2) militancy and jihad, holy war,
in defence of Islam; (3) a condition of ideology with political activism in personal life; and (4) a readiness to challenge traditional religions and political
authority and willingness to sacrifice for the sake of Islam.9
Islamic fundamentalism became prominent in recent years with the
Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini and his rise to power in 1979
in Iran. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is a well known fundamentalist group organized by Hasan al-Banna. Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim
Brotherhood of Egypt wrote that “Any society that is not Muslim is
jahiliyya ... Thus, we must include in this category all the societies that
now exist on earth.”10
Confrontation between the West and Islam dates back to the crusades. The children of Abraham – the Jews, Christians, and Muslims –
have not always enjoyed cordial relationship among themselves. Currently, Islamic fundamentalism is deadly with regard to its confrontation
with the West. Samuel P. Huntington remarks that: “Islam is the only
civilization which has put the survival of the West in doubt...”11 As
Karen Armstrong writes,
September 11, 2001, will go down in history as a day that changed the world.
This was the day when Muslim terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and
a wing of the Pentagon, killing over five thousand people... For the first time
ever, the people of the United States were attacked by a foreign enemy on their
9
Ibid., pp. 90-9.
Ibid., p. 100.
11
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, p. 210.
10
own soul; not by a nation-state, and not by a nuclear missile, but by religious
extremists brandishing only penknives and box cutters. It was an attack against
the United States, but it was a warning to all of us in the First World... We are
facing a period of frightening, disturbing change.12
London was attacked by the Muslim terrorists in July 2005. AlQaida says it is planning more attacks against the West. Why do the
Muslim fundamentalists target the West? Samuel P. Huntington warned
already in 1997 in his Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the
World Order that it is “most important to recognize that Western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most
dangerous source of instability and potential global conflict in a multicivilisational world.”13 The Muslim world, especially the fundamentalists, resent Western interference in their affairs. Huntington says that:
During the fifteen years between 1980 and 1995, according to the U.S. Defence
Department, the United States engaged in seventeen military operations in the
Middle East, all of them directed against Muslims. No comparable pattern of
U.S. military operations occurred against the people of any other civilization.14
In Islamic nations there is no separation of politics and religion
unlike in the Western democracies. Currently, America is involved in
imposing democracy on Iraq. More than 100,000 Iraqis, mostly innocent
civilians and nearly 3,000 Western troops are dead in an effort to make
Iraq a democracy. Saddam Hussein allegedly killed 5,000 Kurds and the
American-led coalition decided to eliminate his “evil” regime. The promoters of democracy have made a mess of Iraq. In my opinion, it is very
undemocratic to impose democracy suddenly on any nation. American
12
Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God, p. vii.
Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, p. 312.
14
Ibid., p. 217.
13
81
occupation of Iraq has provoked the Muslims, especially the ultrafundamentalists, against the West as a whole. There are serious drawbacks too in the mindset of the Muslim fundamentalists. Huntington has
the following observations on Islam and Muslims:
While at the macro or global level of world politics the primary clash of civilizations is between the West and the rest, at the micro or local level it is between
Islam and the others15…the relations between Muslims and peoples of other
civilizations – Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Hindu, Chinese, Buddhist, Jewish
– have been generally antagonistic; most of the relations have been violent in the
1990s. Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have problems living peaceably with their neighbours.16 … Islam’s borders are bloody,
and so are its innards.17 … Islam has from the start been a religion of the sword
and that it glorifies military virtues. Islam originated among “warring Bedouin
nomadic tribes” and this “violent origin is stamped in the foundation of Islam.
Muhammad himself is remembered as a hard fighter and a skilful commander.”
(No one would say this about Christ or Buddha.) The doctrines of Islam, it is
argued, dictate war against unbelievers, and when the initial expansion of Islam
tapered off, Muslim groups, quite contrary to doctrine, then fought among themselves. The ratio of fitna or internal conflicts to jihad shifted drastically in favour
of the former. The Koran and other statements of Muslim beliefs contain few
prohibitions of violence, and a concept of non-violence is absent from Muslim
doctrine and practice.18
But is the West non-violent or less violent? How about the crusades?
President George W. Bush called “Operation Infinite Justice” (the initial
name of U.S. military response to the September 11 terrorist attack) a
15
Ibid., p. 255.
Ibid., p. 256.
17
Ibid., p. 258.
18
Ibid., p. 263.
16
“crusade”.19 The West too has aggravated violence in its confrontations
with the Muslims. It all began with the colonial exploitation of the nonWestern people by the Westerners. It is pertinent to ask, Is colonialism
over or do we have neo-colonialism? It is alleged that the “unholy trinity” of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World
Trade Organization, perpetuate neo-colonialism. It is not surprising that
the ultra-fundamentalists react to the West so vehemently.
3. Overcoming Religious Fundamentalism: An Ethics of
Recognition
Religious fundamentalism, especially the Christian or Muslim variety, is myopic. It does not perceive beings beyond itself. For a fundamentalist, to be is to be a fundamentalist. A non-fundamentalist cannot
exist. This is a denial of diversity, plurality, multiplicity, history and
culture. Religious fundamentalism rejects an ethics of recognition. An
ethics of recognition calls for the perception of other groups and their
right to exist. Recognition of the other is in a way self-recognition as the
self is part of a universal web of beings. The self is inextricably related
to others – parents, siblings, relatives, neighbours, communities, nations,
the environment, universe, and the ultimate reality.
Diverse human groups have their own histories, cultures, traditions,
religions, beliefs and so on. So long as these are not a threat to oneself,
and to one’s freedom, they are perfectly legitimate and have a right to
be. This right is sacred and elicits respect and recognition. For instance,
there are several ways of perceiving the divine – animism, shamanism,
totemism, fetishism, polytheism, anthropomorphism, pantheism, theism,
monotheism, monism, pan-en-theism and so on. Atheism and agnosticism are attitudes of negation or uncertainty regarding God’s existence.
An ethics of recognition is not necessarily an ethics of unanimity and
19
Gabriel A. Almond et al, Strong Religion.
83
consensus, but a healthy, humane, mature, acceptance of difference. The
best antidote to religious fundamentalism seems to be an ethics of recognition.
An ethics of recognition means recognition of the other – persons,
races, communities, cultures, nations, languages, traditions, ideologies
and so on which are different from one’s own. An ethics of recognition
means respect for the rights of others to be. Racism, genocide, fascism,
exploitation, discrimination and so on are the antitheses of an ethics of
recognition. In its most fundamental form an ethics of recognition is the
recognition of the human person who has his own intrinsic dignity,
worth and value. As Kant says, man is an end in himself and never a
means. The sanctity of the human person is the bedrock of an ethics of
recognition.
An ethics of recognition upholds recognition of self as essentially related to others. It is recognition of what it means to be human, of how
one can discover in the other the truth of oneself. An ethics of recognition is a rediscovery of the value and dignity of the human person in
oneself and others. What is it to be human?
To be human is to be in the world.
To be human is to celebrate our humanity.
To be human is to exult in fellowship.
To be human is to be pluralistic.
To be human is to belong to a culture.
To be human is to be historical.
To be human is to be part of a community.
To be human is to be linguistic.
To be human is to be caring.
To be human is to be creative.
To be human is to be finite.
To be human is to be open to alterity and transcendence.
In the absence of an ethics of recognition, religious fundamentalism
will continue to challenge ethics in several ways and can have the following negative impact:
1. Rejection of Pluralism: The religious fundamentalists claim fullness of truth of their religions and look down upon others. The Christian
fundamentalists believe and preach that Jesus Christ is the only way to
salvation and whoever rejects Christ will go to hell. Some Christian
fundamentalists say that the Catholics will not be saved. Poor Catholics!
They quote the Bible in support of their claim. For the Muslim Fundamentalists, whoever does not accept Allah and his prophet Mohammed
is an infidel. Denial of religious pluralism amounts to denial of human
rights.
2. Threat to Peace: Fundamentalist beliefs and actions can destabilize society by creating warring camps which may indulge in violence.
Violence inflicts injury, death, destruction and insecurity. The Muslim
terrorists are ready to be suicide-bombs and to die as “martyrs”. Their
martyrdom is glorified and it is a slur on Islam. Have they not deviated
from the teaching of Islam? If Prophet Mohammed were alive today,
would he ever approve of the suicide-bombs? The suicide-bombs mark
humanity’s entry into the darkest era of history by rejecting the sanctity
of life and the worth and dignity of the human person. They represent
the horror of horrors, death of reason, the peak of hatred, and negation
of the beauty and goodness of human life. The suicide-bombs challenge
and mock the Creator, the Author of life, and discredit and murder Islam.
3. Rejection of History of Scholarship: The fundamentalists reject
the value and contribution of scholarship and intellectual pursuit. This is
tantamount to irrationality. The Pakistani Muslim scholar Fazlur Rahman’s criticism of fundamentalism sounds valid:
85
Neo-fundamentalism ... seems to think it has a divine mission to shut down
Islamic intellectual life ... But its assumption that Muslims can straighten out the
practical world without serious intellectual effort, with the aid only of catchy
slogans, is a dangerous mistake. Not only have neo-fundamentalists failed to
seek new sights into Islam through broadening their intellectual horizons, they
have even let go the richness of traditional learning.20
4. Intolerance: Fundamentalist intolerance threatens the social fabric How is social life possible without tolerance? A pluralistic society
cannot exist without respect and tolerance for the beliefs and practices of
others which in no way are harmful to one’s own interests. Intolerance is
a moral blindness, the inability to recognize the rights of others and to
perceive difference and ontology of multiplicity.
5. Threat to Welfare and Progress: A society controlled by the
fundamentalists can hardly progress, and the welfare of the citizens will
be at stake. Fundamentalists can take society backwards and deprive the
citizens of growth and advancement. For example, in some fundamentalist societies, there is a tendency to deny girls education. In such societies, Aristotle’s dictum that “All men by nature desire to know” would
be falsified. Fundamentalism as regimentation is a denial of freedom,
rights and the social nature of human beings. A fundamentalist society
could be a joyless conglomeration of men and women restricted by
outmoded, unreasonable, extremist and inhuman codes of beliefs and
behaviour.
Today, the West and the Muslim fundamentalists are locked in a violent confrontation with each other. What could be the causes of this
confrontation? Does Euro-centrism have anything to do with that? Eurocentrism is the belief that Europe or the West is the centre of the world,
perhaps based on the idea of the alleged superiority of the European
20
Niels C. Nielsen, Fundamentalism, Mythos and World Religions, p. 101.
civilization. But how is the European civilization said to be superior to
other contemporary civilizations? Is it because of 1) science and technology, 2) the European race and 3) the claim of Christianity as the true
religion and so on? But these so-called reasons for the superiority of the
West seem to be no reasons at all. 1) Science and technology: The fascination with science and technology may not be so exciting today, as
their abuse has almost wrecked the world. Environmental decay and a
nuclear holocaust may terminate human existence. Science and technology played their role in making the West almost a predatory civilization
– preying on the natives of the colonies and on nature. 2) The European
race: We are judged not by the colour of our skin, but by our character
and the quality of our lives. So one’s race is not what really counts. 3)
Christianity as the true religion: If Christianity is the true religion, others
must be false. I am not questioning the beliefs of Christianity but the
claim that it is the true religion. What the Bible teaches is that the Christians must love others rather than claim that theirs is the true religion.
Their love, not their claim to absolute truth, shall save the world. So
where is the room for Euro-centrism?
What both the West and the Muslim fundamentalists need is a good
dose of an ethics of recognition. How could the West practice an ethics
of recognition? The West needs to recognize a lot of things about itself
in relation to the rest of the world. Such things would include Eurocentrism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, use of technology and so
on. Colonialism has had a damaging effect on both the colonial powers
and the colonies. It boosted the false image of power and superiority in
the colonizers. It exploited the colonies which are even today affected
by the aftermath of colonialism. The West strengthened its economy at
the cost of the colonies. Some Western nations have had empirebuilding ambitions. Colonialism is over but without restitution and reparation. The West needs to recognize that the colonies have to be com-
87
pensated for centuries of exploitation. Until today, hardly anything in
this regard has been done.
Neo-colonialism seems to be another mode of exploitation by the
West. The rest of the world resents it. One gets the impression that the
rest of the world exists for the sake of the West which already has enormous resources. Universalism cannot be imposed on the whole world.
Universalism is often perceived as imperialism. Since 2003, some Western nations have ignored the United Nations and unilaterally in mafia
style, invaded a non-Western nation with the alleged intention of eliminating weapons of mass destruction and of introducing democracy. How
can democracy be imposed? Is it not undemocratic to impose democracy? How do these Western nations legitimize their behaviour? Such
behaviour can only create more enemies and destroy the possibility of
peace. Unfortunately, some terrorist leaders are said to be the creation of
the West. In fact sanctions must be imposed on these nations. Their
leaders together with those responsible for September 11 terrorist attacks, must be tried for crimes against humanity. Western interference in
the affairs of non-Western nations should cease. Today, Iraq is the largest killing field in the world, created by the United States. The U.S.
must withdraw from Iraq as quickly as possible to save more lives. The
longer is the U.S. presence in Iraq, the greater will be reign of death and
the aggravation of Muslim fundamentalism.
On the other hand, the Muslim fundamentalists cannot threaten the
Western way of life. The West has its rights to be a free society and to
its way of life within the limits of decency. The West would do well to
develop an appreciation of non-Western cultures and their lifestyles.
Both need to dialogue with each other. The Western powers cannot say,
“We will not dialogue with terrorists”. Unless dialogue takes place between the two there is no way of understanding the problems, grievances, aspirations and beliefs of each other. By avoiding dialogue, both
have been destroying themselves and others since September 11, 2001.
They rely more on deadly weapons than on the saving power of dialogue. Both have a bloody history of violence, hatred and destruction. In
the absence of common sense in both of them, a third party is needed to
take initiative to bring them to the negotiating table. This is an urgent
need so that sanity will prevail and more lives will be saved. They will
benefit a lot if they learn the value of non-violence. Non-violence is not
only for the terrorists, it is for the people of the whole world. An ethics
of recognition cannot be separated from an ethics of non-violence. Both
the West and the fundamentalists are obliged to transcend violence, to
rediscover what it means to be moral persons and to live a higher life of
the spirit, which is possible for human beings. Militarism, suicidebombs and deadly confrontations should become things of the past.
An ethics of recognition will be seen as an ethics of friendship. It
takes a lot of efforts to recognize the other who is inalienably tied to
one’s own destiny. It is my firm conviction that the root cause of many
problems in the world today is the rejection of the dignity and worth of
the human person. It is imperative for humankind to understand what it
means to be human. In the absence of such an understanding, there is
little hope that things will improve. We may be eventually heading towards a global suicide.
Globalization and Religion
89
5
GLOBALIZATION AND RELIGION
FROM AN INDONESIAN PERSPECTIVE
Bernard Adeney-Risakotta, Indonesia
Introduction
This chapter critically evaluates several of the dominant narratives
about globalization and religion from an Indonesian perspective. I examine the metaphors of: 1. globalization as a fundamentalist religion, 2.
globalization as a neo-colonial conspiracy, 3. globalization as progress
and development, and 4. globalization as the capitalist world system. I
find all these narratives useful but limited. They are all over-simplistic
and conceal as much as they reveal, especially when viewed from a
perspective that places Indonesia at the centre of the world.
1. Globalization as a Fundamentalist Religion
Dwight N. Hopkins pictures globalization as a false religion centred
on the worship of Mammon (wealth). The unholy trinity of this globalization consists of the World Trade Organization (WTO), International
Banks (including the IMF) and Monopoly Capitalist Corporations.1
Similarly, Paul F. Knitter, drawing on David Loy2, sees free market
fundamentalism as the new world religion, the religion of the market. He
says, “The free market has become the new, universal, absolute, and
exclusive religion of peoples all over the world”.3 For most people it is
the religion of consumerism. Knitter and Loy both suggest that true
religion is the best hope for opposing this false religion that is destroying our planet and condemning millions of people to abject poverty.
The argument that globalization is a fundamentalist religion of consumerism (greed, lies and waste), is attractive as a rhetorical wake-up
call to the major religions of the world, to oppose this new idolatry.
Knitter and Loy (and John B. Cobb, Jr.) are persuasive in pointing out
many similarities between free market capitalism, consumerism and
religion. However I am unconvinced that this metaphor adequately describes globalization. I agree with Knitter’s moral outrage at the current
world order and his analysis of the catastrophic consequences of capitalism on the natural world and on the poor. But globalization is not religion, not even false religion. Globalization is a vast, interlocking mosaic
of structures that are transforming human relationships at an almost
unimaginable speed. Transnational finance capitalism is also not a religion. It is only one of the structures of globalization, a structure of eco-
1
Dwight N. Hopkins, “The Religion of Globalization” in Religions/Globalizations: Theories and Cases, ed. Dwight Hopkins, et.ET. al. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), p. 11.
2
David R. Loy, “The Religion of the Market,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion (vol. 65, no. 2, Summer 1997), pp. 275-290; also in Visions of a
New Earth: Religious Perspectives on Population, Consumption and Ecology,
eds. Harold Coward and Dan Maguire (Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press, 1999), pp. 15-28.
3
Paul Knitter, “Globalization and the Religions: Friends or Foes?” unpublished
paper presented on May 24, 2006 at a Research Seminar on Globalization and
Religion: Friends or Foes? at Centre for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies,
Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
91
nomic power that has invaded almost every area of human relationships,
including religion.
Religious people from all over the globe should oppose free market
fundamentalism and the idolatry of consumerism. But there are conceptual problems with viewing these realities as either synonymous with
globalization, or as a, “new, universal, absolute, and exclusive religion”.
Globalization is much bigger than economic relations. It encompasses
hundreds of thousands of organizations and billions of people who are
now linked with each other for better or for worse. Economic relations
influence all of these connections, often to the detriment of the poor. But
economic relations are not always, or even usually, the primary value at
stake in the networks of relationship. Globethics.net and the conference
that gave rise to this book, for example, are part of globalization. But
they are certainly not motivated by profit.
Secondly, globalization, including transnational finance capitalism,
is not something we do or do not believe in. It is the structured reality in
which we live. It is an unjust, destructive structure. I agree with Loy that
it is a human-created structure that is not absolute and can be changed.
But it is a structure that has taken hundreds of years to build and will not
disappear in the foreseeable future. The ongoing changes in many interlocking parts of this structure are moving blindingly fast. They are beyond the ability of anyone to even predict, let alone control. That
doesn’t mean the structure cannot be modified. It is modified continually
by human effort and ingenuity. Religions should play a part in modifying the mosaic of structures that make up globalization, especially those
that tend towards idolatry, destruction of the environment and oppression of the poor.
Thirdly, we are all consumers, more or less influenced by the master
manipulators of the marketplace. Most consumers in the world are religious people. “Truly religious” people cannot be neatly separated from
the followers of the “new, universal, absolute, and exclusive religion” of
consumerism. Consumerism is neither new, nor universal, nor absolute,
nor exclusive, nor a religion. Consumerism drives us through sophisticated lies and beautiful illusions towards the idolatry of Mammon. This
is not a new religion, but an old sin that grows fat on the life force of its
victims. Iris Murdoch wrote, “We are not isolated free choosers, monarchs of all we survey, but poor, benighted creatures, sunk in a reality
whose nature we are constantly and almost overwhelmingly tempted to
deform by fantasy.”4 One of the things I love about living in Indonesia is
that I experience far less pressure to buy things here. Whenever I go to
America, after a little while I always feel like there are so many things
that I need and want. Like in a nightmare false consciousness grows and
I begin to plot how to acquire the latest laptop. Americans are colonized
by overwhelming structures of commercial manipulation and a culture
of fear.
One of the problems of viewing globalization, capitalism or consumerism as a religion is that we think we can change it by good moral
teaching. People just need to repent, renounce their old, false religion
and follow the truth. None of the structural realities of globalization will
change as a result of sermons, no matter how many people believe them.
Some of my friends, who hate consumerism, still cannot wait to go out
and buy some new camping equipment. I myself am quite addicted to
expensive running shoes!5 We do not primarily need conversion of individuals out of false beliefs, but rather structural changes in relations so
that the weak are empowered and the powerful are weakened. Paradoxically, some of these changes are happening because of globalization.
The internet has enabled transnational organising and broken the mo-
4
Iris Murdoch, “Against Dryness: A Polemical Sketch,” Revisions, eds. Stanley
Hauerwas and Alastair MacIntyre (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1983), p. 49.
5
Of course it does not hurt to boycott the institutions that promote consumerism.
Turn off the TV. Do not go to malls. Remove yourselves from the structures that
manufacture seductive illusions.
93
nopoly on information controlled by conglomerates. For example, an
Italian priest worked with poverty stricken fishermen in East Java, to
learn from the internet how to make better boats. Now they sell their
hand-made boats over the internet and have many more orders than they
can fill. A community that was teetering on the brink of subsistence has
now grown quite prosperous.6
2. Globalization as a Neo-colonial Conspiracy
Globalization and religion are code words for multiple narratives.
Both words have many definitions. But the definitions are not nearly as
important as the stories that lie behind them. Many authors view globalization as neo-colonialism, the continuation by other means, of the project for world domination by the West. At the beginning of the 20th Century, up to 85% of the world’s surface land was controlled by colonial
powers. However, by the end of World War II, the European colonial
powers were devastated and were forced to give up all their colonies.
World hegemony shifted from Europe to the United States of America.
U.S. policy maker, George Kennan wrote a secret memo in 1948 that
said,
We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population
... In this situation, we ... [must] devise a pattern of relationship which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our
national security. To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and
day-dreaming ... We should cease to talk about vague and – for the Far East –
unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and
6
Unpublished research (2006), by Suwignyo, a doctoral student at Duta Wacana
Christian University, Yogyakarta.
democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in
straight power concepts.”7
Kennan’s quote supports the perception of some writers that there is
an international conspiracy by members of what Leslie Sklair calls the
“Transnational Capitalist Class” (TCC). This includes: “TCC executives
and their local affiliates, Globalizing state bureaucrats, Globalizing
politicians and professionals, and Consumerist elites (merchants, media).”Sklair writes,
This class sees its mission as organizing the conditions under which its interests
and the interests of the system can be furthered in the global and local contexts.
The concept of the TCC implies that there is one central transnational capitalist
class that makes system wide decisions, and that it connects with the TCC in
each locality, region and country.8
In a poignant article, Egyptian activist, Sherif Hetata, suggests that
globalization is just a new form of an old reality. A more accurate term
for globalization is neo-colonialism, which “describes the essential reality of our situation”.9 Britain has just been replaced with the United
States. The Group of Seven countries control more resources, wealth
and technology than all the rest of the world put together. Five hundred
multinational corporations (MNCs) carry out 80% of world trade and
75% of investment. As a result, the South is being systematically plun-
7
U.S. Department of State, State Department Policy Planning Study 23, 24
February 1948. See, Masao Miyoshi, “Globalization, Culture and the University” The Cultures of Globalization, eds. Fredric Jameson and Masao Miyoshi
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), p. 251-152.
8
Leslie Sklair, “Social Movement and Global Capitalism” in Jameson and Miyoshi, p. 299-300.
9
Sherif Hetata, “Dollarization, Fragmentation, and God” in Jameson and Miyoshi, p. 281.
95
dered by the North. Far more money and resources are flowing from the
South to the North than vice versa. Between 1980 and 1990, net transfers from South to the North were equal to about 10 Marshall Plans. As
a result of the international division of labour and integration of global
markets, the prices of most commodities are in dollars. However average earnings are 70 times lower in the South than in the North. A pair of
Nike shoes sells for around $80 in the States. However a woman working at the Nike factory in Indonesia only receives 12 cents for every pair
she makes. We can all guess who receives most of the remaining $79.88.
Globalization supports a worldwide system of economic injustice,
ecological devastation and human suffering. But I do not believe this
system is controlled by some shadowy capitalist elite. The narratives of
globalization as neo-colonialism, are varied and complex. The most
sophisticated theories do not resort to a conspiracy theory that all the
injustice is caused by a group of evil finance capitalists, out to conquer
the world. Rather globalization is a structure, a worldwide system of
relationships that is not controlled by anyone. Unfortunately, in Indonesia conspiracy theories are very popular. For those whose only knowledge of Judaism is The Protocols of Zion10 the Jews provide a convenient scapegoat as mythical, almost superhuman, capitalist, puppet masters (dalang), who work hand in glove with America to control the
world.
Instead, I believe that the structure of globalization creates and controls its main players, not vice versa. Finance capitalists are not necessarily more evil than you or me. For example, George Soros is the archetypical, Jewish, American, finance capitalist, whose currency speculations contributed to the impoverishment of millions of Indonesians in
1997-1998 (and also to the fall of Suharto). Therefore it was with sur-
10
The Protocols of Zion is an anti-Semitic fictional work about a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. In Indonesia it is sometimes quoted as if it were a
factual work of history that proves there is a Jewish conspiracy.
prise that I read that he is a massive philanthropist. Among his many
projects, he contributed millions of dollars towards the effort to defeat
George W. Bush in the U.S. elections. If Bush had been defeated he
could have lost millions more in taxes. That does not absolve Soros of
guilt for the disastrous effects of his financial manipulations. But it does
suggest that he may not just be an evil capitalist. Perhaps he is a good
man who is brilliant at playing a perfectly legal game in a fundamentally
unjust system. He did not create the system, but the system created him.
3. The Evolution of Developmentalism in the West
Globalization is not new. Some theories suggest that information and
communication technologies are creating a fundamentally new structure
of relationships in the world. That may be true, but even so, the current
structure of globalization is the product of a long process. Previous
stages of globalization used the ideologies of Christianization (Spanish
and Portuguese empires), civilizing mission (British and French colonialism), and development or modernization (U.S. imperialism). All three
imperial models told stories to justify their actions but were essentially
motivated by competition for power and wealth.
Walter Mignolo points out that before the discovery of the New
World, Europeans conceived of humanity as limited to the area of
known maps.11 People thought that outside the human boundaries of the
known world there were only strange, alien creatures with two heads,
three arms. Humanity was confined to the boundaries of known human
settlements. However with the discovery of the Americas, a new social
imaginary (Charles Taylor12) came into play. The earth came to be seen
as a bounded whole. The formerly imagined non-human monsters were
11
Walter D. Mignolo, “Globalization, Civilization, and Languages” Jameson
and Miyoshi, p. 35.
12
Cf. Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham: Duke University
Press, 2004).
97
replaced by a new image of the pagan savages and cannibals located in
far away spaces such as Borneo and the Americas. In the 16th Century a
heated debate took place (Las Casas, Sepulveda, and Victoria), over
whether the savages were truly human and what sorts of rights they
should be granted. If they were human, then they should be Christianized. Muslims were also imagined as cruel pagans, located in faraway
places that should be subjugated and converted if possible. Europeans
considered Christendom as the centre of the world, the place of truth.
Mignolo suggests that towards the end of the 19th Century, Europeans gradually replaced spatial, geographical boundaries of full humanity
with temporal boundaries. With the rising power of secularism, religion
was no longer the criteria of full and equal humanity. The narrative of
pagan savages in remote areas (like the Far East), was replaced with a
new narrative of primitive and exotic Orientals who were far removed in
time from the present civilized stage of humanity. Hegel’s Philosophy of
History exemplified this narrative of “cultural differences in a time
frame having the European idea of civilization and Western Europe as a
point of arrival”.13 Primitive peoples were now conceived as human
(though not equal), and just located at an earlier stage of evolution. If
pagan savages needed to be converted, primitives needed to be civilized:
thus developed a narrative of the “white man’s burden” to civilize the
world.
After World War II, movements for national independence exploded
all over the world, along with increasing awareness of the oppressions
carried out under the guise of colonialism. After the horrors of two
world wars and the atomic bomb, the West was no longer so sure of its
superior civilization and social science banned the word primitive from
academic vocabulary. However there was no change in the basic evolutionary narrative established by classic social scientists like Weber and
Durkheim. Most people still imagined societies as somewhere along the
13
Mignolo, in Jameson and Miyoshi, pp. 35-37.
process of a linear evolution from simple, traditional societies to modern
complex ones. Instead of primitives, the new character in the narrative
was underdeveloped. As Mignolo puts it:
Although savages/cannibals were people to be converted to Christianity, primitives to be civilized and Orientals to be westernized, underdeveloped people
instead have to be modernized. Progress and Modernity replaced the Christian
mission of Spain and Portugal, the civilizing mission of France and England,
and became the new goal of the U.S. imperial version of previous colonialisms.14
Even though “developmentalism” has sustained continual and sharpening criticism ever since the 1970s, it is questionable whether this narrative has lost its power. Up until the break-up and delegitimation of the
Communist block in 1989, the critics of developmentalism sustained the
hope that socialism provided a convincing counter narrative to that of
capitalist developmentalism. However, even though the chasm between
rich and poor in the world continues to widen, the Northern, rich countries have strengthened their fragile narrative that they are maintaining
an order intended to bring development, progress, democracy and freedom to all the peoples of the world.
In one sense the fall of communism strengthened the developmentalist narrative by discrediting its main rival. The socialist narrative collapsed under the weight of the oppression, poverty and totalitarianism
that characterized communist countries. This led to the prematurely
optimistic prediction of the “end of history”, i.e. the end of conflict
between different narratives. The liberal, democratic, capitalist narrative
became “the only story on the block.” But the loss of a communist enemy also provoked a crisis. The developmentalist story of progress and
14
Ibid., p. 37.
99
freedom needs an enemy. The spectacular gap between the wealth and
freedom of Northern capitalist countries and the poverty and totalitarianism of communist countries gave the capitalist narrative an edge of
credibility. Apparently at least some “developing countries”, like the
Asian tigers, reached the “take off point” of capitalist development and
soared into the company of wealthy nations.15 In contrast, communist
countries appeared full of secret horrors. Without a communist threat,
the many failures of “developmentalism” came under closer scrutiny.
Developmentalism was the primary ideology during the thirty-two
years of Suharto’s New Order government in Indonesia. This ideology
was intertwined with the cold war and the physical annihilation of the
communist party in 1965-66. Global information systems and the cooperation of the CIA contributed to the massacre. Under President
Soekarno, Indonesia had led the Non-Aligned Movement and resisted
domination by either the communist block or the West. Soekarno resisted the bipolar world structure of power but the country fell deeper
and deeper into economic and political chaos. In contrast President Suharto systematically embraced the world, capitalist, economic system, of
course with adaptations to strengthen his own power and benefit his
family. Since Suharto’s fall, the reformation period has brought deep
and significant changes in the structures of political power in Indonesia.
However Indonesia remains as firmly anchored as ever within the global
economic structures that are justified with reference to developmentalism.
When I moved to Indonesia permanently in 1991, I was disturbed by
the daily, optimistic discourse about “progress” (kemajuan) and “development” (pembangunan). Most of my graduate students believed that
Indonesia was a developing nation (sedang berkembang), not as ad15
Countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore provide positive examples
to support the capitalist narrative. However other countries, like Chile and Brazil, are used to support a counter narrative of how capitalism leads to increasing
impoverishment for the great majority of poor people.
vanced as the West (kurang maju) and that most of the people were
backward and stupid (terbelakang and masih bodoh). This was the
dominant narrative of the “New Order” regime of President Suharto.
Why did Indonesians consider themselves less developed than Westerners? What are the criteria? Are wealth, formal education, technology and
scientific knowledge the only things that matter? How do we factor in
things like close family ties, joyful living in simplicity, rich cultural
hybridity, religious sincerity and creative survival? I do not believe that
Indonesia is less developed or less advanced than the United States. It
depends on what you count. Nor are the “common people” (wong cilik)
less intelligent than in Western nations. Are the Indonesians who chose
Susilo Bambang Yudoyono as President more backward and “stupid”
than the Americans who chose George W. Bush, Jr.?
I am not sure we should consider the last 40 years in Indonesia as
“progress”. Were the citizens who rode bicycles and watched shadow
puppet shows (wayang kulit) all night, when I first visited Yogyakarta in
1972, less advanced than those who whiz around on motorcycles and
watch TV today? I’m not so sure. Yogyakarta was still lively with students at that time, but there was no pollution, traffic accidents or noise.
If we factor in the massive ecological damage, the destruction of the rain
forests, the depletion of natural resources, skyrocketing debt, and the
deepening poverty of people whose land has been raped by multinational corporations, then we might not consider the past forty years as
“development” or “progress”, but rather as regression and oppression.
On the other hand, better education and health care, improved nutrition,
a growing middle class, infrastructure such as roads, electricity, telephones, internet and a much higher life expectancy should warn us not
to romanticize the past or discount all the benefits of “development.”
The story of globalization, religion and development in Indonesia is not
simple, or black and white.
Globalization and Religion 101
4. Globalization as a Structure: World System Theory
According to world system theory, globalization is a complex process in which one subsystem of human societies, the capitalist economy,
keeps expanding into all other aspects of human life and produces
world-wide integration. Integration results from diffusion. In other
words, everyone on the globe is related to everyone else (global integration), because all important elements of our lives have become aspects
of the economy. Capitalist economic structures are diffused into all other
structures. “Mono-metastructural”16 theories suggest that all the myriad
global structures that tie people together are structured by unjust economic relationships. Political, social, religious and cultural relationships
are all determined by the flow of money. World system theory is not a
new idea. When I was a doctoral student in the late 1970s we read dependency theory and liberation theology which told the same story.
Wealth flows from the peripheries of the world to the centre. Jose
Miranda taught us that the history of the world was a history of oppression and struggle for liberation.
For example, an international, academic seminar such as produced
this book may apparently be “anti-globalization”. However from the
perspective of world systems theory, the seminar is actually part of an
international educational network that is controlled by global economic
interests. The seminar strengthens international ties and brings in substantial funding from multinational foundations. Globalization may be
attacked in the seminar, but in practice it is strengthened. Global capitalism is the necessary condition to make the seminar possible. Global
capitalism ultimately provides the funding that makes all our educational
16
Eduardo Mendieta offers a very helpful typology of theories of globalization
with three types: 1. Mono-metastructural theories, 2. Matrix Rearrangement and
Differentiation theories, and 3. Metatheoretical Reflexivity theories. The typology is helpful even if the names for the types are horribly obtuse! See Mignolo
in James and Myoshi, pp. 47-51.
institutions possible. Immanuel Wallerstein tells a frightening story in
which even left wing opponents of capitalism are integrated members of
the capitalist world order, whether they like it or not.17
Revolution has lost its allure, not only because the capitalists in
power are too strong, but because seizing political power provides no
escape from the global, capitalist market. If you change the government,
the new government will still be powerless to opt out of the global economy. Even China is now integrated into the capitalist system. In fact,
even international terrorist organizations are part of the global structure
of capitalism and play their part to keep it afloat. They could not exist
without petrodollars. They provided the excuse for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. September 11, 2001 and the ensuing War on Terror provided a needed enemy to replace “the Communist Threat”. Terrorism
justified a renewed, Western, global agenda that legitimized the use of
violence to strengthen centre-periphery relationships.18 Islamic Fundamentalism became the new villain in the story: the enemy of progress,
freedom, democracy and development.
As in all good stories, there is a great deal of truth in the narratives of
globalization as the capitalist world system. In Habermas’ version of the
story money is colonizing the life world. However there are serious
weaknesses in this account. Every story is told from a certain point of
view. No story is neutral. World systems theory is only one of many
ways to view globalization. World systems theories are fundamentally
Eurocentrist. They view America and Europe as the centre of power,
technology and wealth. The West is the source of all good things and the
17
See Immanuel Wallerstein, Historical Capitalism (New York: Verso, 1983);
cf. Immanuel Wallerstein, After Liberalism (New York: New Press, 1995). Cf.
Michael Hard and Antonio Negeri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2000).
18
Cf. Bernard Adeney-Risakotta, “The Impact of September 11 on Islam in
Southeast Asia,” Islam in Southeast Asia: Political, Social, and Strategic Challenges for the 21st Century, eds. K.S. Nathan and Mohammad Has him Kamala
(Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2005).
measuring stick for determining the meaning of a good life. Irrespective
of whether globalization is considered a vast conspiracy by capitalists or
an impersonal structure of economic relations, Western wealth and
power are assumed as the criteria for what is valued. World systems
theory is correct in showing how injustice, imbalance and oppression are
structured into global relationships. But it fails to question the materialist assumptions of Western modernity.
From the perspective of this story of global domination, religion is a
secondary category. Religion is considered just a sub-system of economics. In dependency theory, religion may be seen as a tool for domination.
Religion may be a political base or an interest group. Or religion is
viewed as a commodity, something that is “sold” for economic motives.
George Yúdice suggests that religion and culture are increasingly understood as resources to be managed.19 But in any case, religion is considered marginal. The real system of globalization runs on wealth and
power.
I do not believe that religion is a sub-system of economics. In different ways, Durkheim, Mendieta, Benedict Anderson and Charles Taylor
all argue that religion shapes the fundamental social imaginary that
makes human communities possible, including the global community.
Whether or not this is so, religion, at the least, is a basic structure of
human communities that interacts with other basic structures, including
economic structures, to create and maintain our world. Religion is one of
the major forces of globalization, tying people together across the globe,
19
Sociology has been dominated since Durkheim by analyses of the social
functions of religion. More recently the Frankfurt School critiqued the commodification and instrumentalization of culture and religion. George Yúdice
offers a fascinating account of how culture and religion are now being absorbed
into a new epistemic framework as “resource”. As a resource, religion is not just
a commodity, but rather should be managed, conserved, invested in, and distributed. Thus religion and culture are absorbed into an economic and/or ecological
rationality. See, George Yúdice, The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in
the Global Era (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003).
transcending race, nationality, culture and class. We may view religion
as sometimes the handmaid of imperialism, blessing the colonizers and
softening up their victims for domination. But that is not the whole
story. Religion also frequently works for liberation, resistance to oppression, education, health and human equality. Religion will never be just a
subsystem of economics because people from all religions are frequently
motivated by transcendent values that cannot be “tamed” by economic
greed.
Fundamentalist Muslims are particularly troubling to the high priests
of global capitalism because they are apparently “irrational”. That is,
they are not primarily motivated by wealth, comfort or security. Muslim
fundamentalists, most of whom are as horrified by terrorism as anyone
in the West, also abhor the moral decadence and facile hedonism that
dominates the capitalist media. Even though most Fundamentalists eschew violence, they can at least understand the “rationality” of the terrorists. They have rediscovered values that are worth dying (and killing)
for. The power of Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia does not come
from petrodollars but rather from a compelling counter narrative in opposition to the determinist narrative of world systems theory.
When I was a student, we campaigned for a New International Economic Order (NIEO), a new international “regime” that would
strengthen the bargaining power of the “periphery” over against the
“centre” so as to create more just economic relations. Unfortunately not
much has changed. The “centre” still dominates the “periphery”. The
categories of centre and periphery are very useful terms for understanding the structures of unjust economic relations. But these terms are just a
heuristic device for analysis not a description of reality. There is no
centre. There are no peripheries in objective reality. There is one world
and the centre is wherever you happen to be standing. My centre of the
world is Indonesia. In my story of globalization, economic relations are
not the final determinant of value.
Every story can be told from an economic perspective. Almost all of
our actions are mediated in some way (directly or indirectly), by economic motives. But dialectical materialism (Marx), is no more convincing than sex (Freud) as the fundamental basis for all human relationships
(superstructure). As Charles Taylor observed, “The only general rule in
history is that there is no general rule identifying one order of motivation as always the driving force.”20
Enrique Dussel tries to break the hold of Eurocentrism by arguing
from a neo-Marxist, Latin American perspective. He suggests that North
America and Europe are currently the centre of wealth and power, not
because of some genius of Western ability, but rather because Europe
gained a decisive economic advantage through their “discovery” of the
Americas.21 According to his narrative, Europe used to be on the periphery, with India and China at the centre. In trying to get to the centre,
Columbus accidentally discovered America. The tremendous wealth of
the Americas flowed into Spain and its colony in Amsterdam, paving the
way for colonial expansion in the 16th Century. European power led to
globalization. But globalization is not the result of Europe’s superior
ability but rather is a product of the wealth of the whole world which
flowed into Europe.
Dussel’s story is important because it offers a new perspective. But it
is still only one perspective, another lens for examining a very complex
history. I am incapable of judging whether or not Latin American wealth
was the decisive factor that led to modernity and globalization. I have
my doubts, especially since Spain was one of the last places in Europe to
industrialize. However even if we modified the story to include Indian
wealth as the foundation of the British Empire or Dutch East Indies
(Indonesian) wealth as the source of modernity in the Netherlands, Dus-
20
Taylor, 2004, p. 33.
Enrique Dussel, “Beyond Eurocentrism: The World System and the Limits of
Modernity” in Jameson and Miyoshi, pp. 3-31.
21
sel’s reading still is trapped in “centre - periphery” categories that make
wealth, technology and political power the fundamental values of meaning and success. Why should economic and political power be the determining factors for defining the centre of the world? I do not mean to
denigrate these values as if they were insignificant. But I do want to
question whether they are adequate for understanding globalization and
the role of religion in our post-modern world. My Javanese neighbours
think that Mount Merapi is the centre of the world.
5. Religion and Globalization from an Indonesian Perspective
What does religion and globalization look like from an Indonesian
perspective? This book, which comes out of an international seminar, is
important, not primarily because it justifies the flow of funds from
Western foundations to third world scholars and activists. Rather it is
important because it gives voice to people who have been taught to
believe they are on the periphery; that the centre of knowledge and truth
lies in the West. The world needs to hear our story about the relation
between religion and globalization, not as stories from far off exotic
places (periphery), but rather as stories from the centre, our centre. The
so called developing or third world is actually the two-thirds world
where most of human beings live.
The international character of this book reminds us that we are all
part of globalization. We are globalised people whose education comes
from all over the globe. We need each other to deepen our stories. If we
think about globalization and religion, we are not telling someone else’s
story, we are trying to understand ourselves. We learn from the whole
world. But in the end, we can only tell what globalization and religion
looks like from the centre of the world, which is, naturally, in Yogyakarta.
I wish I had the space and ability to tell the story of religion and
globalization from the perspective of the past 5,000 years of these islands. The Java Man and prehistoric stone monuments tell a story of the
ancient search for God in this land. Long before Borobodur was built
1,200 years ago, the ancestors of Indonesians travelled to and from India
and China. Pilgrims came here from all over the world in search of
wealth and enlightenment. The stories of globalization and religion from
Indonesian perspectives include great cultural riches as well as suffering
and oppression. When Europe was destroying itself through incessant
wars of religion, Indonesia enjoyed a tolerant, pluralistic society where
different religions lived side by side in peace. Islam came peacefully,
through trade, while Christianity arrived with the sword of the Portuguese and Dutch colonizers. Indonesia was settled by migrations of
peoples, from South China, India, the Middle East, Portugal, the Netherlands, England, Japan and other countries. I am one of the later arrivals
from America, England and China.22 Indonesians are who they are today
because of thousands of years of interactions with a great diversity of
cultures.
During the Suharto years, the dominant narrative viewed globalization and religion as completely different spheres. Globalization that
brought investment, economic growth, new technology and scientific
knowledge was good. Globalization that threatened stability through
Western ideas of democracy and human rights was bad. Individualism,
moral decadence and competition were negative effects of globalization.
Religion was viewed as good, as long as it opposed bad globalization.
Religion was a partner with the government in combating Western immorality and promoting development. Critical religion that threatened
the status quo was outlawed. This simplistic narrative was destined to
fall apart. Religion and globalization are part of each other. They are
22
My father is English, my mother, American, and I was born in China. I am a
permanent resident of Indonesia.
neither partners nor enemies, but interlocking systems in a continual
state of tension and symbiosis. Suharto tried to use religion to shore up
his power. But religion could not be controlled. Mobilization of religious groups helped to bring him down.
Since the collapse of Suharto the reformation period has opened the
way for many new narratives. One popular narrative in Indonesia suggests that globalization and religion are implacable enemies. Globalization is based on Neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism is a Western philosophy
of greed, immorality, individualism and capitalist domination. In contrast, religion is the will of God. Religion supports morality, justice, law
and clean government. According to this narrative, the “clash of civilizations” is real. Islam is the religion of truth that the decadent capitalist
West is trying to destroy. This narrative is like a mirror image of Bush’s
opposite narrative of free and democratic America waging war against
the fanatic Islamic terrorists. In both narratives the world is black and
white, a fight to the death of the good guys against the forces of evil.
According to my narrative, there are no good guys and no bad guys.
We have seen the enemy and the enemy is us. I hate the malls that are
springing up like evil mushrooms around Yogyakarta. But I like to buy
Australian cheese and American running shoes (made in Indonesia). I
hate the traffic and pollution. But I love my Japanese Honda on which I
zip around Yogya, only slightly more cautiously than the kamikaze
students. I love the social justice and ecological NGOs with their multinational networks of support. But I worry about young idealists writing
endless grant proposals to international foundations in order to stay
afloat. I hate orientalism and the hegemony of Western, liberal modes of
thought. But I force my students to read Western philosophers and social
scientists and worry about their limited skills in English. I love the azan,
the call to prayer (sholat) five times a day. But I hate the Japanese loud
speakers from the mosque that can knock your socks off at 4a.m. I hate
the huge rise in the price of fuel and worry about how the poor can sur-
vive the general inflation. But I worry about the rapid depletion of oil
reserves and wonder how Indonesia will survive the coming world with
less and less fossil fuel.
The massive earthquakes and tidal waves in Aceh and the trembling
volcanoes throughout the Indonesian archipelago, remind us that we live
within global systems that were not made by human hands. Plate tectonics created these islands and volcanoes made them fertile. The natural
world systems that both give and take our lives are now interacting as
never before with human systems of globalization. The result is a world
ecological crisis of unimaginable proportions. As religious people we
cannot save the world. We can barely even understand it. Religious
people, including fundamentalists, have often done horrendous harm to
the world in their efforts to save it. That should at least make us modest
about what our individual religious communities can achieve. But for
better or worse, the world will be shaped by religious convictions (or
lack of convictions) for the foreseeable future. We are challenged to
work together across religious, cultural and national boundaries, to raise
awareness, oppose false consciousness, combat unjust structures, care
for the victims and serve our neighbours. From our various religions we
derive faith that God is our hope and our final destination. But the earth
is our common home.
Bibliography
Adeney-Risakotta, Bernard, “The Impact of September 11 on Islam in
Southeast Asia,” in Nathan, K.S. and Kamala, Mohammad Hashim,
(eds.), Islam in Southeast Asia: Political, Social, and Strategic Challenges for the 21st Century, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies, 2005.
Hard, Michael/Negeri, Antonio: Empire, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Hopkins, Dwight N./Lorenzo, Lois Ann/Mendieta, Eduardo/Bat stone,
David (eds.): Religions/Globalizations: Theories and Cases, Durham:
Duke University Press, 2001.
Jameson, Fredric/Miyoshi, Masao: The Cultures of Globalization, Durham: Duke University Press, 1998.
Knitter, Paul, “Globalization and the Religions: Friends or Foes?” unpublished paper presented on May 24, 2006 at a Research Seminar on
Globalization and Religion: Friends or Foes? at CRCS, Gadjah Mada
University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Loy, David R., “The Religion of the Market” in: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 65, no. 2, Summer 1997.
Murdock, Iris, “Against Dryness: A Polemical Sketch,” in: Stanley Hauerwas/Alastair MacIntyre (eds), Revisions, Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1983.
Taylor, Charles, Modern Social Imaginaries, Durham: Duke University
Press, 2004.
Wallerstein, Immanuel, Historical Capitalism, New York: Verso, 1983.
Wallerstein, Immanuel, After Liberalism, New York: New Press, 1995.
Yúdice, George, The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the
Global Era, Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
Democracy, Tolerance, Civil Society 111
6
DEMOCRACY, TOLERANCE AND CIVILSOCIETY – FUNDAMENTALISM AND
ETHICS IN INDONESIAN POLITICS
Nick T. Wiratmoko, Indonesia
Introduction
The question that appears, when people talk about democracy, is
how to build the most democratic governmental order in a third world
country like Indonesia. Various writings concerning this topic mention
that from the time of its independence day in 1945, Indonesia has decided to be a democratic-secular country. History proves that to build a
nation that pledges itself to give priority to democracy above all matters,
that a nation needs an immense and tremendous commitment from all its
political elites as well as its state.
From 1945 until today, observing Indonesia from the models of its
ruling regime, the colours of democracy exercised are far from being
similar or identical. From the 1940s until the middle of 1960s, Indonesian democracy was one of guided democracy. From the mid 1960s until
in the end of the 1990s, the democracy under Suharto’s regime was that
of promoting the tradition of authoritarian democracy. After the fall of
Suharto’s regime, which was preceded by the monetary and economic
crisis of the year of 1997, Indonesia has not come to a definite shape of
democracy.
For political observers, Indonesian democracy could be defined as
being in the era of transition towards democracy. The reason lies in the
fact that during the two longest ruling regimes in Indonesia, the democratic pillars couldn’t be perfectly and ideally placed. This means, that
democratic praxis, either electoral or deliberative, only applied to those
groups of political elites and state bureaucracies, while, civil society, the
group representing the people, acted as spectators, marginalised by the
political processes.
What is the correct model for, or terminology of, democracy for a
third world country? Would it be similar to that of a democratic country
in the Western world? What transition takes place that makes the-notyet-independent-country become a democratic-independent-one? What
should be the choice of the third world country? Is it the electoral or
deliberative or the blend of both electoral-deliberative models of democracy? Does the contrasting background of the Western countries, with
majorities that are secular or Christian, as opposed to Indonesia as a
nation with Muslim majority matter? Will Islam interfere with Indonesia’s commitment to being a democratic nation?
Second, Indonesia claims to be democratic by virtue of the pluralism
of its ethnic, religious and diverse cultural composition. In this condition, then, pluralism is unavoidable, even though in its reality, in order
to possess such pluralism, collisions often occur between the majority
and minority. The challenge for Indonesia is to have pluralism confront
religious leaders, the intellectuals, politicians and bureaucracy elites,
who do not have adequate capacity for promoting it. Therefore, it is
worth questioning whether the mutual trust among the various parts of
the society has been built. What about the public space which has to be
maintained to guarantee egalitarianism in building up dialectics? Has the
sustainability of the regulations by which they govern been entirely
given to the authority of the state, or is it still the claim of certain religious groups, which, for example, are promoting a shari’a-based religious state instead of a secular one? On what grounds do they base such
efforts, and why do they choose such narrow-minded fundamentalism as
the basis of their struggle? Concerning the public service provided by
the government and impersonal bureaucracy, have women got equal
access in dealing with the two agendas above?
Thirdly, in the dynamic of a democratic country, a tangible and significant presence of the civil society is an imperative. The questions,
then, are: How has the civil society discourse been perceived by the state
and the democratic actors? In the electoral democracy, has civil society
been involved in all processes of political education or has it only been
an instrument to give the claims of democracy legitimacy? If such is the
case, how is a real response expected when the election comes? In the
way authority is exercised, does the state try to take advantage of the
principles characteristics of the civil society by making them part of
state corporatism or does the civil society grow independently?
From the three groups of problems mentioned above, the three words
of democracy, tolerance and civil society are where this paper will begin
its focus.
1. In Search of Democracy Transition
Soekarno’s era implemented guided democracy. Suharto’s era developed authoritarian democracy to maintain the growth of the macro
economy. Those two types of democracy failed to develop extensive
democracy awareness in Indonesia. Despite the fact that both regimes
tried to introduce the practice of democracy, unfortunately, both were
centralized on each of the state leaders, Soekarno, at least, had conducted the procedural pattern of democracy in the form of democratic
elections in 1955. The 2004 election was a very similar type of democ-
ratic procedure. The model of democracy that Suharto tried to implement did not last long, failing when he was forced to step down from his
presidential position in 1998. After 1998, during the presidency of the
four presidents succeeding Suharto (they are: B J Habibie, Megawati
Soekarnoputri, Abdurrahman Wahid, and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono),
Indonesia has been understood as being in a transition towards democracy.
Democracy in Western countries was initiated by the industrial revolution. Furthermore, competitive capitalism supports democratic life.
Indicators for democracy would be procedural-electoral democracy and
the growth of deliberative democracy. In Indonesia during Suharto’s
regime they believed in the correlation between the growth of economy
and the growth of a democracy. Samuel Huntington, emphasising the
principle, stated that:
The first wave of democratisation in 19th century until early 20th century, generally emerged in Europe and America when their GNP per capita was between $
300 until $ 500 (middle income). In the context of the third wave of democratisation, there were four countries with income between $ 300 until $ 500 which
were experiencing transition towards democracy.1
Even though Huntington traced the pattern of correlation between
the growth of economy and the presence of democracy, the principle
does not always work in every context. Guillermo O’Donnell is a critic
who strongly opposes the notion of a high correlation between economic
growth and democracy. His observation in Latin America in 1970
showed that when a country demonstrates its inclination to further develop the industrial field and accelerate economic growth, what happens
1
See Eko, Sutoro, “Introduction – Democracy Consolidation Lesson for Indonesia,” in: Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy towards Consolidation,
(Yogyakarta: IRE Press, 2003), p. xxv.
as a consequence is the emergence of bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes, marked with the domination of military power, technocratbureaucrats, and also international business societies. The phenomenon
of economic growth in East Asia, such as in Taiwan, proves that the
success of a country’s development is greatly influenced by the significant role of the interventionist-authoritarian state, rather than of the
police-passive state.2
In Suharto’s era, Indonesia reached US$ 815 GNP per capita in
1990. This number was included in the World Bank’s middle income
standard. By comparing it to the standard of GNP stated by Huntington,
logically the transition towards the democracy ought to have happened.
However, here is what actually took place in the monetary crisis in
1997. First, the construction of capitalism and corporations, that Suharto
had undertaken, turned out to be built on collusion and nepotistic practices. Yoshihara Kunio, for example, calls such capitalism “Ersatz capitalism” or “pseudo capitalism”.
Second, industrial-based development set its priority on the principle
of an authoritarian regime, which claims to enforce growth and provide
equality of job opportunities.
Third, the regime of Suharto developed a dominant political party
named Golongan Karya (the Work Group), and left political space for
only 2 complementary parties at that time (PDI / Indonesian Democratic
Party and Partai Persatuan Pembangunan / Development Unity Party).
Under the special condition of “floating-mass”, the policy enabled Golkar to be the only political party to reach even the lowest level of the
villages. The policy that was implemented at that time promoted the
bureaucracy’s full supports for Golkar. Under such conditions, it is
obvious that the dominant interests of the bureaucratic-technocratic
elites, sustained by the military, interfered with the national political
arena. In the 1999 and 2004 elections, bureaucracy has been released
2
Cf. Eko, Sutoro, ibid., pp. xxv-xxvi.
from the political arena. Yet, the last two elections left an intact conclusion that the existing democracy is an insufficient democracy, which
perfectly reflects the fact that democracy is still dominated by the role of
the political and state elites in the arena of politics.
However, it is undeniably true, as research edited by John Higley
and Richard Gunther demonstrates, that economic welfare is able to
enhance elite convergence to institutionalise and consolidate the democracy.3 Southern European and Latin American countries are successful
in institutionalising democratic regimes, despite their insufficient growth
and welfare of the economy. Economic-based approaches for democracy
studies can be categorised in the area of substantive democracy theory.
Other approaches in the mass-structure are structural and class conflicts, which were ideas pioneered by Barrington Moore.4 He studied the
relation of the middle class to democracy. The presence of the middle
class in Western Europe was believed to have contributed towards the
fall of the domination of the feudalism of the land owners. The bourgeois or the middle class community consisted of individuals or groups
which possessed independence both politically and economically, like
journalists, professional associations, artists, and intellectual academics.
According to the belief of the bourgeois, who focused on the society
approach, their resistance to bring feudal values or the old order down
was to increase collective awareness and action. Unfortunately in the
post-Suharto era in Indonesia, the collective awareness among the grassroots classes, like farmers, is still dominated by the bourgeois, who
apply disadvantageous agricultural policies to farmers, and hence only
advantage the urban community.5 On the other hand, even though work3
Ibid., p. xxvi.
Ibid.
5
For the policy on agriculture, especially rice, the government tends to ignore
the poor farmers and takes no concern in protecting their interests. Once again, it
gives more advantages to the urban community. Most Indonesian farmers
nowadays are having minus NTP (Farmer’s exchange values), which means that
the cost of production is higher than the harvest price. On top of that, the areas
4
ers collective awareness has significantly been increasing, demands for
fairer salaries and social charges have caused many capitalists to consider relocating their manufacturing to Vietnam and China6.
2. Pancasila and Muslim Fundamentalism
In the Indonesian context, implementing democracy implies several
important points. Firstly, plurality is recognised, being proven by the
national creed Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, which indicates that Indonesian
plurality be acknowledged, even though its realisation still has a long
way to go. The idea that this creed carries has promoted the idea of
multiculturalism, as it admits that in spite of existing differences, people
should remain unified. This idea is often misunderstood as blending the
differences into one. On the other hand, it may be perceived as promoting uniformity instead of enhancing plurality.
In addition to that, ideologically, Indonesian people have been united
by the national foundation Pancasila (the five principles).7 Historically
speaking, the establishment of Pancasila as a set of ideological principles which Indonesian people have to follow and adopt, had previously
where farmers grow rice which should have been protected by strict regulations
on import policy, in reality are violated and displaced for industrial locations.
Such policy then promoted the substitute policy of a million acres of rice field
provision in Central Kalimantan, which ended up causing severe environmental
deterioration.
6
The labour policy that supports industrialisation cannot free itself from the
corporate policy which tends to be exploitative towards labour. On the other
hand, labour’s awareness of underpayment has forced them to strike for a raise.
This condition has, in the end, forced the corporations to relocate their manufacturing factories to China or Vietnam where labour costs are much cheaper. Unattractive Indonesian industrial policies, other than the high cost of labour, include
high over-head costs or other payments not related to industrial activities. The
result is that the products are not competitive compared to those made in Vietnam or China.
7
Pancasila consists of: [1] admitting one and only God, [2] just and civilized
humanity, [3] the unity of Indonesia, [4] the representation of the people, and [5]
social justice.
strongly debates, sacrificing the Piagam Jakarta (The Jakarta Charter)
in the process - that is a draft of a constitutional document demanding
the putting in place of Islamic shari’a for Muslims. Pancasila functions
as a binding ideology that holds together the ethnic, linguistic, cultural,
religious and even territorial plural realities of each of Indonesia’s citizens.
Even in the Suharto era in 1971, Pancasila had also been the only
principle for political organisations.8 With such assumptions and ideological supports tolerance is a must and it should have been able to manage Indonesian pluralism. However, does it prevail in reality for the
Indonesian people? Constitutionally, the Piagam Jakarta has not
brought back to Indonesian people’s life discourse extensively through
strong controversial debates and discussions in 2001 and 2002 People
Council meetings. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah as two
of the biggest Islamic organizations in Indonesia are strongly against the
integration of Piagam Jakarta in the constitution. Does it make those
parties aim to integrate the Islamic shari’a into constitution lessening
their efforts? Yet, the objective to implement shari’a has been conducted through expansion of authority in regional parliaments under the
regional autonomy policy where shari’a is placed as part of the regional
regulations. The Islamic bureaucrats and the law ministry have been
reported to have prepared a number of legal modifications with a significant number of them aiming to put the Islamisation process into
effect.9
8
Abdurrahman Wahid, Islam, Pluralism and Democracy in
http://www.smu.edu/asianstudies/.
9
Martin van Bruinessen Utrecht University, 2003. Post Suharto Muslim Engagement with Civil Society and Democratization. A paper presented at the
Third International Conference and Workshop “Indonesia in Transition,” organized by the KNAW and Labsosio, Universitas Indonesia, August 24-28, 2003,
Universitas Indonesia, Depok. Check on:
http://www.let.uu.nl/~martin.vanbruinessen/
Second, it is high time to really make the creed true. With the recognition that plurality in Indonesia consists of different religions, ethnicities, races and cultures, tolerance should be contextualised in order to
enter the public arena, which enables every citizen to perform democratically.
Third, when each member of the plural community implements tolerance towards the other parties, they should also be able to maintain
their uniqueness. Even though it is difficult to realise it in many contexts, including in Indonesia, as there is a tendency that when two cultures meet, there is always a possibility for them to blend, it is worth
promoting.
What is suggested above is often confronted with problems which
are derived from the state’s interference which tries to dominate the
discourse in this area.10 First, the state, especially under Suharto’s regime, tried to impose and interfere with people’s private life, in this case
marriage and religious life. They released marriage regulations that
prohibited inter-religious marriage. Religious organisations had to include Pancasila as one of their basic principles.11 State recognition of
religion was determined by the religion’s acceptance of the first principle of Pancasila. It means that when a religion did not apply the idea of
the principle, it was not legally recognised.12 It left a long “scar” in the
10
Michel Foucault suggests that power is often discursive in terms that in order
that they maintain their powerful position, they create discourse(s) to shape
people’s mind. This seems to happen in Indonesia whenever we talk about religious relations, which eventually becomes one of the sensitive areas of difference between Indonesian people know as SARA (Suku, Agama, dan Ras –
Ethnic, Religion, and Race (differences).
11
An intervention was made in North Sumatera HKPB’s leadership under Ephorus SAE Nababan and also in the leadership of Nahdlatul Ulama in their election
in Cipasung, where the role of the state in intervening in a religion’s affairs was
apparent.
12
There used to be only five religions legally acknowledged by the state. They
are: Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Religions such
as Kong Fu Tse, Confucianism, and native-ethnic religions were not acknowledged as legal religions.
life of Indonesian people into the post Suharto era, even though the state
no longer acts in this way, believers of different religions still find it
difficult to apprehend the meaning of being tolerant. This is proven by
the conflict in Ambon, for instance, which obviously reflects the concept
of “otherness” in perceiving plurality, in which one group considered
itself as better than the other. As a consequence, one of the parties tried
to demolish the other as they attempted to gain power in society.
Second, the state spread inconsistent interpretations of Pancasila.
Very often, it was only used to win the powerful by twisting its meaning
as a binding ideology. Pancasila tended to be twisted when a group of
people or an organisation criticised the government or conducted an
action that the government thought was threatening. These people would
be considered as subversive and the reason often used to condemn them
was that they violated Pancasila. It was never clear how they did so.
The accusation was often absurd. Thus, Pancasila was used by the state
as a means of repressing people. For example studying or discussing
Marxism or even Karl Marx would be considered as anarchy and it was
a reason to be sent to jail.
Third, despite its success in developing the country physically, Suharto’s regime failed to promote just and fair economic development. In
order to raise a group’s economic success development often pushed
another group aside. It resulted in economic disparity that increased
jealousy from the marginalised. The case of the bloody dispute13 between the native Dayak people and the migrant Madura-nese in Kalimantan (particularly in West Kalimantan) proves that economic disparity created jealousy of the local people towards the migrants, as they
13
Gerry van Klinken, 2002, “Indonesia’s new Ethnic Elites” in Henk
SchulteNordholt and Irwan Abdulla (Eds), Indonesia in Search of Transition.
Yogyakarta, Pustaka Pelajar, pp. 67-105. In Sampit conflict (Central Kalimantan), the number of murdered Madurese was 500 people. 100,000 people were
fleeing out of the area inhabited by around 1.8 million people. The occurrence
itself was considered to be an ethnic cleansing as part of the horizontal violence.
were marginalised economically by the migrants who were getting
richer. Conflict prevailed. The anger and disappointment of the Dayaknese, which was only one of the examples of Indonesian people’s amok
“behaviour”, may have been reinforced by the New Order in terms of
the following three important points: (1) cultural marginalisation, (2)
cultural aggressiveness, and (3) collective hardness.14
Fourth, Indonesia is very weak at implementing secularism in the life
of its citizens in the midst of the international discourse of jihad and
shari’a. Even though Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah (two big
Moslem Civil Society Organisations CSOs) are convinced that the law
of shari’a has been accommodated and even reflected in the state’s legal
or secular principles, there remains a strong tendency of some local
Muslim communities to attempt to impose Islamic laws and principles
as the basic regulation for Indonesia.
Some other Islamic groups consider the post-Suharto era as a good
moment to proclaim jihad and shari’a at the same time when this discourse is globally acknowledged.15 The jihad movement that appeared
in the post Suharto era was the Laskar Jihad Ahlus Sunna wal Jammah
led by Al-Ustaz Ja’far Umar Thalib, an Afganistani war veteran who
graduated from Islamic education in Pakistan. The movement has now
faded away, yet more radical fundamentalist movements emerged after
the September 11 attack in the World Trade Centre in New York. The
movements were the Amrozi group, which bombed Kuta in Bali (October 12, 2002)16 and the group of Nurdin M Top, which bombed Jimbaran in October 1, 2005 (Bali)17 and JW Marriot Hotel in August 4,
2003 (Jakarta).18
14
Ibid., p. 89
Mark R Woodward, Indonesia, Islam and the Prospect of Democracy, Department of Religious Studies in http://www.smu.edu/asianstudies/
16
202 people were dead. Almost of them were Australian.
17
31 people dead and 50 people were injured.
18
Mass media reported that almost 12 people dead and 52 people were injured.
15
The same fundamentalism has reached the implementation of a
number of shari’a-based local regulations (Peraturan Daerah – Perda)
in 36 provinces in Indonesia. Although people protested it, the protest
went unheard. It means that people’s disagreement or disappointment
regarding the Perda did not stop the issuing of the regulations. However,
they are allowed to bring the issue to court. How is the fundamentalist
movement significant in this tension? For the fundamentalist community, the objective law applied is the shari’a order, in the aspects of
leadership, law, or social-political relationship. Inconsistency with
shari’a principles will be considered as threatening the existence of
Islam. The essence of fundamentalism as noted by Abdul Munir Mulkhan is illustrated as follows:
A struggle through political parties or social movement “to take control of”
various strategic positions to influence political policies, which are conducive
towards the realisation of the shari’a regulations, is taken as a religious duty.
This is called the doctrine of “amar ma’ruf nahi munkar”, which means that
whoever conducts it, they are struggling in Lord’s way or “sabililah”, which in
certain cases when the person is deceased in the action, then they are believed to
be “mati syahid” (martyr) and they will get into heaven.” 19
Radical-fundamentalist movements will appear when there is support
from society, the help of shari’a experts or people believed to have the
expertise in convincing their followers. On the other hand, such movements could also lose their popularity whenever its followers are able to
anticipate social change towards a more modern domain.20 Fundamen19
Mulkhan, Abdul Munir, 1999, pp. 152-153
Cf. Quoted from Sartono Kartodirdjo (1984) and was referred by Abdul Munir
Mulkhan, 1999. “The Root of Fundamentalism in Islamic Movement in Indonesia” in Journal Wacana, No II edition, 1999, p. 53; also check on the statement
of Abdul Munir Mulkhan in Minutes Meeting “Serial Discussion on Fundamentalism Problems in Indonesia. Salatiga: Percik Foundation, 29th November 2002
20
talism derives from at least six recorded ideological ideas21: 1) They
believe that shari’a regulations are able to comprehensively govern
socio-political life; 2) all aspects of worldly profane life, including politics, have to show how God’s law as stated in the Quran is implemented
as it has been entirely stated in the shari’a; 3) the Islamic movement
regeneration centres itself in the shari’a, hence fundamentalism is related closely to this kind of movement; 4) fundamentalism is also apparent when it is perceived that everything stated by the ulama is universal
and basically unable to change, and this becomes the “dogma”; 5) elitism in the Islamic movement makes the shari’a experts the only authorities in charge of interpreting Islamic teachings; and 6) their psychological condition deems them as “being vulnerable and threatened” by other
religious powers, local traditions (especially the Javanese) and secular
movements.
What does the pro shari’a community consist of? A survey quoted
by Martin van Brunessen showed that the followers and supporters of
shari’a are often close to people in the rural areas, have lower education
and lower social-economic backgrounds. It shows that it is more about
social disparity than is generally supposed with Islamic radicalism. Islamic radicals in many places tend to have relatively good education, to
come from lower-middle class social status in the process of social
climbing. In conclusion, this study found that “the high percentage of
which states that one of the determining factors in the emergence of fundamentalism is the non-existence of renewals in the religious doctrines which are still
maintaining its scholastic or middle age formulation, In times when the world
was full of terrors and wars. See the minutes of the meeting of “Discussion
Serials on Fundamentalism’s Problems in Indonesia”. Salatiga: Percik Foundation, 29th November 2002; Whereas Aristarchus mentioned that the reason for
fundamentalism is the tendency of religions to only understand things in the
light of their holy scriptures. See Ibid.
21
Mulkhan, 1999:159.
pro shari’a responses appears to reflect a general rural conservatism
rather than support for an Islamic revolution.”22
What does such a phenomenon imply? The phenomenon shows that
the state is in a weak position in its function as the guardian of the principles of secularism. Whereas, if shari’a is implemented by local government, the legal implication is that other religions are alienated and
considered to be non-existent.23 In this case, it should be noted that religions have failed to implement the universal agendas of fighting poverty, law supremacy enforcement and freedom of expression. A religion
is able to adopt these universal agendas only when they are able to put
the priority on serving the community regardless of their cultural background. When it prevails, and only when this prevails, can the liberation
function (tahrir) can operate.
For Islam, this last role is defined only in the implementation form of
rahmatan lil-alamin – that is, a blessing for all living creatures.24
Fifth, tolerance is also defined as part of the public service the government gives, which requires equality in access to it and equality in
decision-making participation. This premise implies that the state is
obliged to provide non-discriminative public service, especially towards
women. In its practice, women are facing marginalisation and discrimination, in the following aspects: 1) lower participation of women in the
political arena, especially in realising the 30percent goal of women
representation in legislative bodies/parliaments; 2) in many cases of
22
Martin van Bruinessen, Utrecht University, 2003. Post Suharto Muslim engagements with civil society and democratization. Paper presented at the Third
International and Workshop “Indonesia in Transition” organized by the KNAW
and Labsosio, Universitas Indonesia, August 24-28, 2003, Universitas Indonesia,
Depok. Check on: http://www.let.uu.nl/~martin.vanbruinessen/
23
Cf. Abdurrahman Wahid, “Religions and Democravy”Democracy” in Elga
Sarapung, Alfred B Jogo Ena, and Noegroho Agoeng, 2004. New Sprituality:
Religions and People’s Aspirations. Yogyakarta: Institute of Dian Interfidei, p.
329-336.
24
Abdurrahman Wahid, Islam, Pluralism and Democracy
http://www.smu.edu/asianstudies/
decision-making in development, men still play dominant roles. Bapena’s policy and the Presidential Instruction to carry out gender mainstreaming are only responded to at a certain level of the bureaucracy,
like in provinces or cities and regions. It means that strategic policies are
only for the strategic bureaucracy and have never had a significant impact on women’s empowerment. The result is that women’s and children’s aspirations in the development field are not well reflected in
political decision-making.
3. The Role of Civil Society as an Agent of Reformation
Regarding civil society, we should not disregard the development of
the concept of civil society itself, which is related to the development of
the economy and politics. It is undeniable that the economic and social
transformation in the last decade has helped bring the authoritarian regime down, as well as seeing the rise of democratic institutions in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia. In particular, in the development
of civil society in Asia, the ultimate democratic model is indicated by
the rise of Civil Society Organisations which offer new methods in the
provision of public services which have been carried out by nations and
markets in ways that are questionable. The fall of socialist regimes in
Eastern Europe, the rise of financial crisis, the increase of centralised
economic integration in China and Vietnam towards the open capitalist
economy, according to Porio (2002: 107-108), reflect the end of Cold
War politics in super power countries, and the importance of finding an
alternative development paradigm. In this era, civil society and civil
society organisations play a very significant role.
Diamond (1994:5) states that:
Civil society is … the realm of organised social life that is voluntary, selfgenerating, (largely) self-supporting, autonomous from the state, and bound by a
legal order or a set of shared rules. It is distinct from “society” in general in that
it involves citizens acting collectively in a public sphere to express their interest,
passions, and ideas, exchange information, achieve mutual goals, make demands
on the state, and hold state officials accountable. Civil society is an intermediary
entity, standing between the private sphere and the state.25
Borrowing the formulation of civil society developed by Diamond as
mentioned above, civil society stresses voluntarism, self-generation,
self-support, autonomy from the state, and obedience to the law. Civil
society is not part of political parties, private spheres or the State. The
other formulation, as Porio quoting Habermas stated, is that civil society
is conceptualised as an intersection between the State and society.26 In
the Indonesian context, the formulation of civil society was stated by
Rocamora et al (1998), which mentioned that the growth of civil society
is understandable in four levels of inter-relation: the state, political society, civil society and international actors. With such references, then it is
imaginable that civil society and civil society organisations have become
an alternative power authority in developing democracy at the national
and political level.27 According to Willem Wolters, the role of civil
society could be to help support a number of functions for democracy,
they are:
1) protecting the citizens against state arbitrariness; 2) maintaining a balance
between society and the state, based on the rule of law; 3) disseminating the
democratic values of tolerance, honesty and mutual acceptance; 4) the creation
of public sphere of discussion; 5) and finally that of moderating social conflicts,
25
Emma Porio, Ibid., p. 110.
Ibid., p. 111.
27
Cf. Ibid.
26
by creating overlapping networks of organisations and crisscrossing sociocultural loyalties.28
In implementing the strategy on how the Civil Society Organisations
(CSO’s) are playing their roles, in the Suharto era many of them placed
themselves as opponents of the state. In contrast, in the era of Habibie
and Abdurrahman Wahid, most CSO movements positioned themselves
either as opponents of the state or they started using a negotiation strategy. In Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s era, many CSOs use strategies
which focus on negotiation and facilitation of a number of empowerment programs and public awareness and/or by involving foreign donors. In the perspective of pre-election procedural democracy, for instance, many CSOs are initiating voter education programmes, and in
the process of the election itself, the CSOs would monitor the process.
CSOs which promote democracy are not only coming from the secular groups, but also some of them are coming from religious groups, like
Islam. Western donors which work through the issue of neutralisation of
fundamentalism in Indonesia include USAID, the Asia Foundation and
the Ford Foundation. The issue of Fundamentalism is emerging and
rising out of the notion that some radical Islamic groups take on the
Christian groups and the spreading of Christian teachings.
Anti-Christian conspiracy is deeply rooted in Indonesian history.
Christianity as part of the missionary actions in the Dutch colonial era
was and is associated with colonialism. Furthermore, it was reinforced
by the perception of mass conversion to Christianity as the result of the
1965–1966 violence. According to Martin van Bruinessen, many Islamic
leaders worry that similar to the Western intention to roll back communism, the same would be attempted to destroy the power of Islamic
politics in Indonesia.29 Three strategies that support these views are:30 1)
28
29
Walter, Willem, 202, pp 133-138.
Martin van Bruinessen, Ibid.
Christianisation through the expansion of Christian institutions and
conversion among Muslims; 2) The stress on Islamic de-politicisation
and de-Islamisation from the state apparatus in the early New Order led
by Ali Murtopo and Catholic-Chinese intellectuals in CSIS; 3) Many
parties were convinced by the controversial ideas of Nurcholish Madjid
and his circle, who got a lot of press coverage in 1970, sponsored by
Suharto regime to bring the “true” Islam down.
What is the challenge for CSOs in the future in their inter-sections
with the state and market? The challenging agenda for the CSOs are:31
1) Developing consensus about values among groups of plural and internally-heterogeneous civil societies. In this context, the implementation of something like the example of the CSO communities in the Philippines which have developed a code of ethics between CSOs and statecivil society will be the evidence of confidence in Indonesia. In Indonesia, since the 1990s, many Islamic CSOs have grown. They prove to be
open-minded towards the non-Muslim groups, and they are expected to
be able to get involved in inter-religious dialogue and work in partnership with other religious groups in many sectors of activity. Most activists think that it is easier to cooperate with the non-Muslim CSOs compared to the Muslim ones;32 2) CSOs will have to deal with international
CSOs, the global economy, political society and the state; 3) Creating
social institutionsthat aim at expanding the space for public debates on
issues and values; 4) Giving attention to reducing poverty, promoting
good governance, as well as strengthening the capacity and capability of
the CSOs.
30
Ibid.
Cf. Emma Porio, 2002, Ibid, pp. 124-125.
32
Cf. Martin van Bruinessen, Ibid
31
References
van Bruinessen, Martin, Post Suharto Muslim engagements with civil
society and democratization. Paper presented at the Third International
Conference and Workshop “Indonesia in Transition”, organised by the
KNAW and Labsosio, Universitas Indonesia, August 24-28, 2003. Depok: Universitas Indonesia, 2003 see
http://www.let.uu.nl/~martin.vanbruinessen/
Cammack, Paul, Capitalism and Democracy in the Third World – The
Doctrine for Political Development. London: Leicester University Press,
1997.
Diamond, Larry, Developing Democracy Towards Consolidation.
Yogyakarta: IRE Press, 2003.
Eko, Sutoro, “Introduction – Democracy Consolidation Lesson for Indonesia”, in Larry Diamond. Developing Democracy towards Consolidation. Yogyakarta: IRE Press, 2003, pp. xxv-xxvi.
Harriss, John, Kristian Stokke and Törnquist, Olle, The Politization of
New Local Politic Democracy (Indonesian translation). Jakarta: Demos
Publisher, 2005.
van Klinken, Gerry, “Indonesia’s New Ethnic Elites” in Nordholt, Henk
Schulte and Abdullah, Irwan (eds.), Indonesia in search of transition.
Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2002.
Mulkhan, Abdul Munir, “Roots of Fundamentalism in Islamic Movement in Indonesia” in: Journal of Wacana, – Democracy Projects, 2nd
edition, 1st year, 1999. Yogyakarta: Insist, 1999, pp. 151-172.
Mulkhan, Abdul Munir, Minutes Meeting “Seri Diskusi tentang Masalah-masalah Fundamentalisme di Indonesia” (Serial Discussion on
Fundamentalism Problems in Indonesia) Salatiga: Percik Foundation, 29
November 2002.
Nordholt, Henk Schulte and Irwan Abdullah (Eds.) Indonesia in search
of transition. Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2002
Porio, Emma “Civil Society and Democratization in Asia: Prospect and
Challenges in the new millenium” in Henk Schulte Nordholt and Irwan
Abdullah (eds.), Indonesia in Search of Transition, Yogyakarta: Pustaka
Pelajar, 2002.
Sorensen, Georg, Democracy and Democratization, Tadjoedin Noer
Effendi (Editing and Forewords). Yogyakarta: Center for Critical Social
Studies and Pustaka Pelajar, 2003.
Wahid, Abdurahman, “Religions and Democracy” in: Elga Sarapung, et
al, New Spirituality: Religions and People’s Aspirations, Yogyakarta:
Institut Dian Interfidae, 2004, pp. 329-336.
Wahid,
Abdurrahman,
Islam,
Pluralism
and
Democracy
in
http://www.smu.edu/asianstudies/
Wolters, Willem, “The Making of Civil Society in Historical Perspective” in: Henk Schulte Nordholt and Abdullah, Irwan (eds.). Indonesia
in Search of Transition, Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2002.
Woodward, Mark. R, Indonesia, Islam and the Prospect of Democracy,
Department of Religious Studies in http://www.smu.edu/asianstudies/
Uhlin, Anders, “Democratization in Indonesia: Challenges and Opportunities” in: Journal of Wacana, – Democracy Projects, 2nd edition, 1st
year, Yogyakarta: Insist, 1999, pp. 75-99.
Economic Ethics of Fundamentalism 131
7
THE ECONOMIC ETHICS OF CHRISTIAN
AND ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM
Yahya Wijaya, Indonesia
In rejecting the claim that the role of religion in today’s world is fading away, Bernice Martin1 points to two religious movements which are
growing rapidly and world-wide. They are Islamic revival groups, and
“the third force of Christianity based on the ‘Gifts of the Spirit’. Martin
focuses specifically on the context of Latin America, and she rejects the
labelling of the latter movement as “fundamentalist”. Yet the phenomenon she highlights is quite common in many parts of the world, particularly in the so called third world, as she also admits.
Despite the global spread of these movements, few have made a
comparative study of them from the perspective of economic ethics.
Concentrating on their development in Indonesia, this study is intended
to stimulate more interest in this area.
1. Christian Fundamentalism: Its Economic Dimension
It can be disputed whether the Christian movement which Bernice
Martin refers to should be classified as fundamentalist or postmodernist
1
Cf. Bernice Martin, “From Pre- to Postmodernity in Latin America: the Case of
Pentecostalism” in: Paul Heelas (ed.), Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity,
(London: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 102-146.
from the point of view of theology. James Barr recognises the differences, contradictions even, between Pentecostalism, Charismaticism and
conservative-Evangelicalism which represents the main stream of Christian fundamentalism. Yet, the emphasis of the former on the experience
of the charisma today in exactly the same way as in the New Testament
church, reflects their place in the fundamentalist family.2 Similarly,
Steve Brouwer, et al. say of Pentecostals that: “…they have transformed
and energised the experience of worship while also adopting strong
fundamentalist loyalties to Biblical inerrancy, creationism, and millenialist dispensationalism”.3 From this position, they mention two types of
Christian fundamentalism: “book-centred ‘rational’ fundamentalism”,
namely conservative-Evangelicalism, and “experience-centred charismatic and Pentecostal fundamentalism”.4
Opposing this view, David Martin argues that what is seen as fundamentalist in nature in neo-Pentecostalism, is not a part of the uniqueness of that movement. What makes a group Pentecostal or charismatic
is its practice of “the free and democratic availability of the gifts of the
Spirit” rather than a certain doctrine of the Bible.5 In Indonesia, however, there is a more “practical” reason to define neo-Pentecostalism in
the same way as conservative-Evangelicalism. Both groups are growing
rapidly particularly in urban areas.
Both are quite successful in attracting people from the business and
professional sectors. Also, both are American-oriented theologically,
culturally and technically. Many conservative-evangelical churches are
related to the ethnic Chinese business community. In depicting Asian
business culture, Michael Backman notes the massive formation of fun-
2
Cf. James Barr, Fundamentalism (Jakarta: BPK, 1994), p. 242.
Steve Brouwer, et al., Exporting the American Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 5.
4
Ibid, p. 43, 192.
5
David Martin, Forbidden Revolutions: Pentecostalism in Latin America, Catholicism in Eastern Europe (London: SPCK, 1996), p. 10.
3
damentalist congregations by ethnic Chinese business people. The
names mentioned by Backman include leading business people who
recently joined the Evangelical Reformed Church of Indonesia, founded
by Stephen Tong, a famous fundamentalist Protestant preacher of Hokkien background. Tong’s brother leads another conservative-Evangelical
denomination based in Bandung, called the Indonesian Evangelical
Church, whose membership is also dominated by industrialists and professional people. Backman sees the importance of these churches not
only for the personal life of their members, but also in term of their
business, as the churches substitutes for the traditional Chinese businessoriented association, whose existence was discouraged under the assimilation policy of Suharto’s regime.6 Hence, these conservativeEvangelical churches serve both as a chaplaincy for the individual business people and as a social context for business networking, although
they are not identified with a particular theological concept concerning
business matters.
Unlike most mainline Protestant denominations in Indonesia which
have their roots in the Dutch and German missions of the past, the conservative-Evangelicals are linked to American Christian fundamentalism. The Tong brothers are respectable figures among ethnic Chinese
communities in the USA as well as throughout Southeast Asia, and are
mostly inclined to fundamentalism. They were involved in the founding
of several evangelical seminaries in Indonesia, including the Southeast
Asia Bible Seminary in Malang, East Java, Bandung Theological Seminary in Bandung, West Java and the Evangelical-Reformed Theological
Seminary in Jakarta. Tong’s youngest brother is the president of The
International Theological Seminary in California.
As with conservative-Evangelicalism, neo-Pentecostalism in Indonesia is also urban-centred. Unlike traditional churches which conduct
6
Cf. Michael Backman, Asian Eclipse: Exposing the Dark Side of Business in
Asia (Singapore, etc: John Wiley & Son, 1999), p. 218.
their activities in permanent church buildings, neo-Pentecostal congregations use hotel rooms, restaurant ballrooms or conference halls, until it
is big enough to build a mega-church building in a prestigious city centre location. This demonstrates the social context it prefers to reach,
namely that of the middle and upper classes of the business sector. In
this case, the neo-Pentecostal movement changes the composition of the
Pentecostal community, which used to be composed of less educated
people.
One notable organisation which pioneers the spread of neoPentecostalism among the business community in Indonesia is the Indonesian Charter of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship (FGBMF),
an American-based organisation founded by Demos Shakarian in Los
Angeles in 1952. Whilst claiming to be non-denominational, FGBMF’s
theological confession and worship style are strongly Pentecostal. Combining worship service, fellowship and gala dinners, this organisation
plays a similar role to that of the conservative-Evangelical churches: as a
chaplaincy resource, and networking facility for those involved in the
business world.
FGBMF neither develops a theological concept nor an approach that
specifically addresses the unique situation of the Indonesian business
sector.7 Rather, it copies its headquarters in the USA both in terms of its
theological emphasis and in its activities. As Brouwer et al. argue, this
kind of religious movement “appears acultural or transcultural in the
sense that it can be exported [from the USA] almost anywhere, [forming] the degree of similarity in terms of form, content and style that are
strongly influenced by North American models.”8 As in the USA and
other countries, FGBMF’s meetings have led to the development of
7
There is no specific reference to business matters in the Statements of Mission
and Goals of the Indonesian FGBMF, cf. HBL Mantiri and Hakim Gani, Buku
Pedoman Organisasi Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International –
Indonesia, 2003.
8
Steve Brouwer, et al., Exporting the American Gospel, p. 179.
mega-churches in Indonesia, including the Indonesian Bethany Church
and the Indonesian Full Gospel Church, which are known for their remarkably effective programme of converting businesspeople, mostly of
ethnic Chinese origin. Even most of the ministers in these churches were
business entrepreneurs who turned to full-time or part-time ministry.
2. The Gospel of Prosperity
The Indonesian Bethany Church (IBC) and other churches of this
kind are known particularly for promoting the doctrine of success and
prosperity. The motto “Successful Bethany Family” is saliently displayed in front of the church, in the church bulletins, and in the stickers
posted in car windows of the church members. Success and prosperity
are primarily demonstrated in the lavish lifestyles of the church leaders.
Ministers of such churches normally live in the most exclusive residential sector of the town, own luxurious cars, send their children to study
in private schools abroad and stay in five star hotels when invited as
guest speakers to other towns.
According to Brouwer et al., the gospel of prosperity was first introduced in the 1960s in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where many Pentecostal evangelists come from. T.L. Osborn, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Jim Bakker, Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin contributed much to the
spread of the prosperity doctrine around the whole world.9 In Asia it is
Paul Yonggi Cho of South Korea’s Yoido Full Gospel Church, who
inspires many Indonesian neo-Pentecostal ministers to promote the
prosperity doctrine. It is Cho’s church which becomes the model for
many Indonesian mega-churches.
Despite the emphasis of the conventional Pentecostal churches on
other-worldly things, relating prosperity to faith is actually not new in
the history of Pentecostalism. 19th century Pentecostal leaders taught
9
Ibid, p. 24-25.
about the blessings of God in the forms of wealth and success, as God’s
reward to Christians who work hard, as well as pray faithfully. What is
different in the recent doctrine of prosperity is the absence of the importance of working hard as a precondition for success. As Brouwer, et al.
argue, “the new gospel of prosperity cranked up the equation of faith
another notch, and taught that the Christian, if he truly believed, was
entitled to receive the material blessings of the Lord on the basis of faith
alone”.10 This does not mean that the believers of that doctrine really
stop working hard. In today’s highly competitive market, one does not
need a religious reference for working hard. The absence of the aspect of
working hard in the doctrine thus does not affect the work ethic already
formed by market demand. What the doctrine generates is the notion
that what they do and gain in work is blessed and justified.
The doctrine of wealth and prosperity is one point on which the conservative-Evangelical is in opposition to the neo-Pentecostal. Stephen
Tong, a strong defender of conservative Calvinism, openly calls the
doctrine of prosperity satanic. The relation between certain conservative-Evangelical churches and the business community is more historical
and cultural than doctrinal. Their pastoral approach tends to be casuistic
concerning personal issues. Yet, despite the contradiction, both Christian
traditions share a positive attitude to the business realm and the market
economy, areas to which more liberal traditions tend to be unfavourable.
3. Neo-Pentecostalism and Global Capitalism
Neo-Pentecostal messages seem to be remarkably compatible with
global market values. This often leads to a suspicion that neoPentecostalism is a part of the expansion strategy of American-based
multinational corporations. Neo-Pentecostal mission organisations are
seen as partners of the corporations, with the task of preparing social10
Ibid, p. 26.
cultural conditions for the global market. Another explanation of the
relation of neo-Pentecostalism and global capitalism, is one which is
parallel to the relation of old Calvinism and early capitalism. NeoPentecostal messages are believed to have produced the sort of individual mentality that fits the demands of the global market society. To that
extent the compatibility between neo-Pentecostalism and global capitalism is unintentional rather than engineered. Bernice Martin and David
Martin represent those supporting the later explanation.
Whilst realising there are differences between the present situation
and that of 19th century, Bernice Martin contends that the success of
neo-Pentecostalism in attracting many urban people, lies in its offering
of power to overcome the confusion and inconvenience, as well as the
excesses which result from the transition of society to post-modernity.
She believes that the Pentecostal theological emphasis on healing and
hope in the Holy Spirit creates a sense of self-confidence and a drive to
a more orderly life, which have practical, constructive consequences in
economic life.11
Martin’s theory implies an optimistic view that neo-Pentecostalism,
with an individual transformation approach, enables the poor to improve
their personal qualities so as to have respectful roles in the market economy, which in turn upgrades their social position. Brouwer et al. discard
such a view. Although admitting the reputation of neo-Pentecostals and
other fundamentalists in demonstrating honesty and discipline, they find
no evidence, either in Latin America or Asia, which supports the claim
that neo-Pentecostalism brings economic betterment to its followers.12
Brouwer et al. are correct in so far as the Indonesian context is concerned. In the case of FGBMF, it is those who are already rich who
convert to neo-Pentecostalism. Joining that organisation means finding
11
Cf. Bernice Martin, “From Pre- to Post-modernity in Latin America,” p. 126129.
12
Cf. Steve Brouwer, et al., Exporting the American Gospel, p. 235.
pastoral support as well as incorporating into a new business network
with a high degree of trust, and this may have the effect of increasing
the strength and opportunity to do business better. This, however, is not
a matter of transforming the poor into economically-better people. In
fact, the conservative-Evangelical Christians of the business community,
who do not share the neo-Pentecostals’ over-emphasis on healing and
hope by the practical manifestations of the Holy Spirit, enjoy the same
“success and prosperity,” given similar situations conducive to doing
business, supported by the pastoral and fellowship atmosphere. At the
same time, “success and prosperity” do not figure so strongly in the old
Pentecostal churches and the conservative-Evangelical churches which
are not specifically related to the business community,13 even when the
former attempt to adopt the prosperity doctrine.
The accordance between Christian fundamentalism and global capitalism is thus neither a matter of political conspiracy nor theological
conformity. The meeting point could be the concept shared by both
regarding the primary value of the individual. The absence of a critical
social perspective in Christian fundamentalism, given its emphasis on
individuality, makes fundamentalists at ease with the existing economic
system and structure. This places them in an inconvenient position with
the mainline Protestant groups which, influenced by liberation theology,
tend to focus on the evil of the existing economic system and structure.
The Christian fundamentalists’ uncritical acceptance of the market
system even goes as far as employing market values and strategies in the
church’s management and mission. Brouwer et al. underline Avril Edvardsen’s observation which finds a parallel between the cell system of
the neo-Pentecostal church-growth programme and the multi-level marketing method of the U.S. companies Mary Kay and Amway.14 In Indo-
13
The Indonesian Baptist Church, a fruit of the mission work of the American
Southern Baptist Convention, is an example of such churches.
14
Cf. Steve Brouwer, et al., Exporting the American Gospel, p. 243.
nesia, the IBC is known for allowing new congregations to use its
church name under the franchise system. The Church of the Family of
God, a mega-church in Solo City, issues membership cards that function
as discount cards in partner shops and restaurants. In terms of the use of
technology, these churches are among the first users of the newest products in information and communication technology, enabling the systems of their worship, management and mission projects to be upgraded
regularly. Many mega-churches in Indonesia own FM radio stations, and
some, such as the Church of the Family of God, have opened local television stations. The business-friendly approach is also attempted in the
area of doctrine. For instance, a depiction of Jesus Christ as a successful
business figure, such as Jesus the CEO, is quite popular among neoPentecostals.
4. Controversies over Shari’a
Fifty-six members of the Indonesian parliament recently submitted a
petition protesting bylaws which they consider shari’a-based. Most of
these members of parliament are affiliated with a political party which is
supported by both conservative-Evangelical and Pentecostal/Charismatic
Christians. The petition reflects the tension which exists between the
Muslim and Christian communities, particularly their fundamentalist
wings, concerning the attempt to implement shari’a more explicitly in
Indonesia. The Muslims are concerned with increasing moral problems
of the country, which, they believe can only be solved by implementing
shari’a more comprehensively and assertively, not only in the conventional areas, such as marriage and worship within the Muslim community, but also in the wider public sphere of politics, the economy, public
services, the media, civil law and education. Christians are afraid that a
more explicit regulation of shari’a, as reflected in the bylaws, endangers
the national principle of “unity in plurality” which guarantees the equal-
ity of all citizens regardless of religious affiliation. The Christian petition failed to gain enough support from the wider circle of the Parliament.
The idea of formalising shari’a more explicitly is in fact controversial among Muslims themselves. Muslim scholars, Taufik Adnan Amal
and Samsu Rizal Panggabean15 argue that the idea is simplistic, and
lacks a credible analysis of contemporary social problems. According to
them, the attempt to implement such an idea in several countries including Pakistan and Egypt has promoted internal conflict within the Muslim
community itself. Similarly, Zuhairi Misrawi contends that the idea, as
has been practised in Aceh, in fact, reduces shari’a into Arabic customs,
which is actually not the essence of shari’a. He calls for hermeneutical
work considering the progressive nature of shari’a, so as to understand
its real meaning, which, he believes, can be a paradigm for democracy
and civil society.16
5. Muslim Perspectives on Capitalism
It is an influential view among Muslims that Islam is not only a religion in the sense of the common definition of this term. According to
this view, Islam provides practical as well as philosophical concepts
which cover all aspects of society, including politics and the economy.17
In terms of an economic system, Islam is believed to offer an alternative
to both capitalism and socialism. Afzalur Rahman suggests that the
Islamic economy contains the strengths of capitalism and socialism, yet
at the same time is free from their weaknesses for it respects the eco15
Cf. Taufik Adnan Amal and Samsu Rizal Panggabean, Politik Syariat Islam
dari Indonesia hingga Nigeria (Jakarta: Alvabet), pp. 231-232.
16
Cf. Zuhairi Misrawi, “Politik Islam: Syariat Simbolik atau Syariat Progresif?”
in: Khamami Zada and Arief R. Arofah, Diskursus Politik Islam (Jakarta: LSIP,
2004), pp. ix-xvi.
17
Cf. Masyhuri, Teori Ekonomi dalam Islam, (Yogyakarta: Kreasi Wacana,
2005), p. v.
nomic rights of the individual, while not allowing them to endanger the
interests of the community.18 From the point of view of economic discourse, Rahman’s opinion is obviously debatable. Balancing the interests of the individual and those of society is in fact an ideal of any economic system, including capitalism and socialism. It can also be argued
that the terms “capitalism” and “socialism” cover a wide range of different practical versions, so that interpreting capitalism as absolute individualism and socialism as absolute communalism is too simplistic.
Rahman simply compares the ideal of what he calls “the Islamic economy” and the worst practices of other systems.
Whilst Muslims may commonly agree that Islam should affect the
whole of societal life, many would put Rahman’s view into question.
Khamami Zada and Arif Arafah, for instance, contend that the understanding of Islam as a complete and final system of both individual and
social life is a form of romanticism, which often leads to the attempt to
re-enact the old style of the Islamic community, without considering the
real needs of the contemporary society.19 Zada and Arafah represent the
groups of young Muslim scholars often associated with the liberal camp.
Unlike the liberal-ecumenical Christian movement which openly resists
global capitalism,20 the liberal Islamic groups, perhaps to avoid the impression of being radical, are not particularly hostile to capitalism. Mansour Fakih argues that liberal Islam’s approach is similar to that of secu-
18
Cf. Afzalur Rahman, Doktrin Ekonomi Islam, vol. I, terj. Soeroyo and Nastangin (Yogyakarta: Dana Bhakti Wakaf), p.10-12.
19
Cf. Khamami Zada and Arief R. Arofah, Diskursus Politik Islam, (Jakarta:
LSIP), pp. 23-24.
20
As indicated in statements on economic issues by main ecumenical organisations, such as World Council of Churches and World Alliance of Reformed
Churches; On WCC, cf. Ronald Preston, Confusions in Christian Ethics: Problems for Geneva and Rome. London: SCM Press; and “On to Harare: Social
Theology and Ethics in the World Council of Churches” in: Crucible, Jan-Mar,
1997, pp. 24-33. Concerning WARC, cf. The Gospel Confronts Economic Injustice and the Destruction of the Earth: A Call to Confess Our Faith, Geneva:WARC, 1998.
lar developmentalism, in the sense that its critique of globalization and
development focuses not on the conceptual level, but on the procedural
one. For liberal Muslims the challenge is not how to change the system,
but how to transform the mindset of traditional Muslims, which tends to
be too fatalistic, to a rational and creative one, in order to increase Muslim capacity in the market economy. Hence, instead of offering an alternative, the liberal Muslim camp focuses on how to prepare Muslims to
participate and perform better in the existing economic system. Fakih
even accuses the liberal camp of not being aware of the damaging nature
of neo-liberalism. He believes that such a perspective is quite dominant
within the two largest Islamic denominations in Indonesia: Nadhlatul
Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah.21 Fakih’s critique may be biased, but
the point I would like to show here is that as far as economic ethics is
concerned the position of liberal Islam is not parallel to that of the liberal-ecumenical Christian or Christian liberation theology.
There is however certainly an Islamic parallel to liberation theology,
namely that referred to as Left Islam. Not particularly promoting the
language of shari’a, the agenda of the Left Islam movement in Indonesia includes anti-corruption investigations, the rejection of pro-market
and neo-liberal economic policy, an appeal to boycott commercial public services, the call for the increase of labour’s wages, land redistribution, and cancellation of foreign debt.22 Yet the position of the Left Islam group in Indonesia is not significant within the Muslim community.
Whilst attempting to share their vision with other Islamic groups and
political parties, Left Islam activists tend to fulfil their mission through
secular NGOs instead of Islamic organisations.23
21
Cf. Mansour Fakih, “Islam sebagai Alternative” in: Eko Prasetyo, Islam Kiri
Melawan Kapitalisme Moda: Dari Wacana menuju Gerakan, (Yogyakarta:
Insist Press, 2002), p. iii-xxi.
22
Cf. Eko Prasetyo, Islam Kiri Melawan Kapitalisme Modal: Dari Wacana
menuju Gerakan, (Yogyakarta: Insist Press), pp. 309-314.
23
Cf. Mansour Fakih, “Islam sebagai Alternative”, p. xviii.
6. Islamic Fundamentalism on the Economy
The Indonesian economy after the 1997 crisis was marked by a remarkable growth of small businesses employing the shari’a principle.
The businesses claiming to be shari’a-based cover a wide range of sectors from local supermarkets, restaurants and real estate to multi-level
marketing networks. Their existence adds variety to the marketplace
dominated by business chains. Responding to this phenomenon, many
banks, including major and international ones open shari’a units which
offer an interest-free funding system. According to Pradana Boy24, the
phenomenon of the shari’a economy is related to the increase of religious fundamentalism, which drives the attempt to Islamise all levels of
societal life. Quoting Bassam Tibi, Boy sees this attempt as a cultural
strategy of Islamic fundamentalism to resist the domination of global
(read Western) capitalism and its cultural invasion. Shari’a is understood as a form of local culture to be reasserted in order to “dewesternise” the society.
One of the Islamic organisations which overtly promotes shari’a as
the alternative to capitalism is Hizbut Tahrir (HT). Founded by Taqiyudin al-Nabhany in Jerusalem in 1953, Hizbut Tahrir started its operations in Indonesia only in 1982-1983, initiated by Abdullah Nuh, a lecturer at the Faculty of Letters at the University of Indonesia. With only
10,000 members HT Indonesia is relatively small in comparison to
mainstream organisations such as NU and Muhammadiyah (each with
millions of members). Nevertheless, HT has attracted public attention
when it organised the International Conference on Islamic State in 2000,
and led mass rallies against the West on various international issues. In
2002, HT led a demonstration directed at Parliament demanding the
24
Cf. Pradana Boy ZTF, “Simulasi Spiritual dalam Kapitalisasi Agama” in:
http://www.islamlib.com/, (last accessed: 16 June 06).
formalisation of shari’a in Indonesia.25 The power of HT Indonesia is
owed in part to its nature as an international organisation, making it less
dependent on local support.
At the heart of HT’s mission is the creation of the Islamic super-state
which transcends conventional national boundaries and is based on the
complete system of shari’a which is considered superior to (Western)
democracy. HT assumes that the Islamic world has been distorted, not
only by the religious, cultural and political invasions of the West, but
also by Eastern philosophies and spiritualities. For it, such a serious
situation requires a strict, uncompromising response, which must include both ideological and political steps.26 With this mission HT meets
the characteristics of a fundamentalist organisation, and as such it is
different from the Left Islam movement, despite their agreement on the
evil of capitalism. Left Islam’s perspective includes contemporary social
analysis and contains no obsession with an Islamic empire.
Because of its mission HT totally resists the existing economic system. HT’s perspective on the economy underlines Afzalur Rahman’s
attack on capitalism and socialism, and his claim that the Islamic economy is superior to any existing system. As a manifestation of its anticapitalist position, HT resists privatisation of public facilities, natural
elements and mineral resources. This organisation also challenges two
elements of modern capitalism. The first is the stock market. HT forbids
participation in the stock market. The reason is that the stock exchange
mechanism contradicts the Islamic principle of mutual contract, since
one can become a shareholder of a company only by one’s own act,
namely buying its shares in the stock market. Thus, a shareholder is
anonymous and the transaction is only a matter of material. The second
25
Cf. Syamsul Arifin, Ideologi dan Praksis Gerakan Sosial Fundamentalis:
Pengalaman Hizb al-Tahrir (Indonesia. Malang: UMM Press, 2005), See also
Khamami Zada and Arief R. Arofah, Diskursus Politik Islam, pp. 82-102.
26
Cf. Syamsul Arifin, Ideologi dan Praksis Gerakan Sosial Fundamentalis, p.
89-134.
is the world monetary system, which is based on the U.S. Dollar. HT
argues against the use of paper money and contends that the use of paper
money was a factor causing the 1997 economic crisis, because of its
vulnerability. It calls for the return to gold and silver as used in the time
of the prophet Muhammad. 27
7. The Shari’a Economy in Practice
Are religious organisations such as Hizbut Tahrir practically related
to the growing shari’a-based businesses? Although both these religious
organisations and the emergence of shari’a-based businesses may have
been inspired by the same religious-economic perspective – that of
Afzalur Rahman – it is doubtful that both parties in practice share the
same track. Whilst HT is totally pessimistic about the existing economy,
the shari’a-based businesses operate within the existing economy, not
avoiding involvement in transactions, exchange and even partnerships
with normal capitalist business institutions. Requiring the establishment
of an Islamic super-state, HT’s mission in the economic field seems to
be too radical to be implemented at the practical level. Therefore, it
would be more realistic to limit the position of HT in the ideological
discourse.
Criticisms of shari’a-based businesses seem to focus on their tendency towards conformity. For instance, Pradana Boy observes that
these businesses fail to separate themselves from the capitalist system,
which they ideologically oppose. For Boy, these businesses fall into the
practice of “capitalising spirituality”28, in the sense that they use reli27
Ibid, pp. 255-280. As such, HT rejects later developments in the Islamic philosophy on money, such as that of Al-Ghazali and Ibn Khaldun which allow the
use of materials other than gold and silver as legal means of payment, cf.: Eko
Suprayitno, Ekonomi Islam: Pendekatan Ekonomi Makro Islam dan Konvensional, (Yogyakarta: Graha Ilmu, 2005), pp. 202-204.
28
Pradana Boy ZTF, Simulasi Spiritual dalam Kapitalisasi Agama.
gious language for economic purposes. The result is business practices
which have no essential difference from the existing capitalist system.
There are reasonable factors which make shari’a-based businesses a
real alternative to the existing market system. First, it is only normal for
businesses to interpret ideology in the manner that is workable in the
real economic world. The marketplace is a socially plural context, where
commitment to a particular ideology or spirituality should not obstruct
economic competitiveness, even if they are unable to strengthen it. This
economic interest inevitably prevents radical interpretation of an ideology from developing. Secondly, there is also an alternative interpretation
of shari’a, offered by the non-fundamentalist camp, which attempts
precisely to promote the idea of compatibility or complementary between the shari’a economy and the market economy, so as to counter
shari’a-phobic sentiments. This kind of interpretation is also a response
to the recent awareness of the spiritual dimension of business, such as
Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall’s29 concept of “spiritual capital”. For
instance, Hermawan Kartajaya and Muhammad Syakir Sula30 promote
the concept of shari’a marketing, which focuses on the character of the
prophet Muhammad as the inspiration for modern marketing management. In this case, the religious reference functions as an ethical resource and, at the same time, as spiritual approval for the moral participation in the existing economic structure. This market-friendly version
of shari’a undoubtedly provides business people a more convenient and
realistic option than the counter-globalization one does.
29
Cf. Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall, Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live By
Using Our Rational, Emotional, and Spiritual Intelligence to Transform Ourselves and Corporate Culture (London: Bloomsbury, 2004).
30
Cf. Hermawan Kartajaya and Muhammad Syakir Sula, Syariah Marketing
(Bandung: Mizan, 2006).
Conclusion
The contradiction between Christian and Islamic fundamentalist
groups is not limited to the matter of “truth claims” as focused on in
much inter-religious dialogue. In terms of economic ethics, there is
potential conflict between the two groups in a way that reflects Samuel
Huntington’s theory on the Clash of Civilisations. Whilst the Christian
fundamentlist-neo-Pentecostal groups tend to take the existing market
economy for granted, feeling free to employ its strategy and culture, the
Islamic ones struggle for an alternative, designed according to the system operated in the early period of the development of Islam. However,
a practical confrontation between them will not easily occur, since the
ambition of the Islamic groups to put their concept into practice by first
getting rid of the existing economic system, finds it hard to gain enough
support from the wider Islamic community. Even the Muslim business
community which may share the ideal of the fundamentalist groups, in
practice takes a more pragmatic way, making possible easy relations
with any business actor in the marketplace, regardless of religious affiliation.
Both Christian and Islamic fundamentalist groups in Indonesia are
extensions of foreign movements. Each one’s vision reflects the situation in a particular social-cultural context: North America for the Christians, and Arabic countries for the Muslims. None of them demonstrates
sensitivity to the local context. Both of them suffer from the lack of
careful hermeneutical work and contemporary social analysis. Their
perspectives thus are far from contextual. As such, both are unable to
provide an ethical reference which is not only critical but also constructive regarding the Indonesian economy. Although their influences in
economic practice are still limited, they should be seen as a challenge
for contextual theologians of both religions, to develop Christian and
Islamic economic theologies which would respond accurately to the real
issues of the Indonesian economy.
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Why Catholics Can’t Vote Pro-Life 151
8
WHY CATHOLICS CAN’T VOTE PRO-LIFE
Brett Salkeld, Canada
The Ideal Candidate
After the 2002 midterm elections, I attended a private dinner for Harvard Fellows in Cambridge. Our speaker was a Republican political strategist who had
just won all the major senatorial and gubernatorial election campaigns in which
he was involved. Needless to say, he was full of his success and eager to tell us
about it. This very smart political operative said that Republicans won middleclass and even working-class people on the “social” issues, those moral and
cultural issues that Democrats don’t seem to understand or appreciate. He even
suggested that passion on the social issues can cause people to vote against their
economic self-interest. Since the rich are already with us, he said, we win elections. I raised my hand and asked the following question: “What would you do if
you faced a candidate who took a traditional moral stance on the social and
cultural issues? They would not be mean-spirited and, for example, blame gay
people for the breakdown of the family, nor would they criminalise the choices
of desperate women backed into difficult and dangerous corners. But the candidate would decidedly be pro-family, pro-life (meaning really want to lower the
abortion rate), strong on personal responsibility and moral values, and outspoken
against the moral pollution throughout popular culture that makes raising chil-
dren in America a countercultural activity. And what if that candidate was also
an economic populist, pro-poor in social policy, tough on corporate corruption
and power, clear in supporting middle- and working-class families in health care
and education, an environmentalist, and committed to a foreign policy that emphasised international law and multilateral cooperation over pre-emptive and
unilateral war? What would you do?” I asked. He paused for a long time and
then said, “We would panic!” (Story of Jim Wallis)1
In the United States, the question of fundamentalism is generally associated with a Christian religious right wing. I agree that the position of
the Christian right in the United States is often fundamentalist, but perhaps not in the sense that most people who level the charge intend. Fundamentalism is, popularly, associated with religious fervour, but a sincere, devout, even fervent, practitioner of religion is not necessarily a
fundamentalist. Moreover, fundamentalism can exist without religion at
all. Seculars, whose arguments suggest that the separation of church and
state implies that anyone whose conscience has been formed by a religious community and tradition is unfit to participate in the public forum,
showcase a non-religious fundamentalism.
While I leave the comprehensive definition of fundamentalism to
others at this conference, my own working definition does not see fundamentalism as an overwhelming commitment to a position, religious or
not, that insists that those opposing the position are wrong. Dare we
label Ghandi a fundamentalist? Or Martin Luther King? Or Mother
Theresa? Firm convictions do not a fundamentalist make. Instead, I
propose, that one aspect of fundamentalism is in the narrow application
of broad principles. Non-Muslims are told that Islamic terrorists do not,
in fact, practice authentic Islam. Rather, they have isolated certain ideas
1
Jim Wallis, God’s Politics: Why The Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t
Get It (San Francisco: Harper, 2005, 72-73.
from their broader context and, in applying them so isolated, violated
Islam’s own principles.
The right wing in Western democracies is identified, both by itself,
and its opponents, as pro-life in the sense that it rejects abortion and
euthanasia. But this demographic also tends to be more supportive of
government policies that seem pointedly anti-life, such as capital punishment or aggressive military endeavours. To me, the heart of their
fundamentalism does not lie in their opposition to abortion, but in the
fact that their conviction about the sanctity of human life does not extend to convicted criminals, Iraqi civilians, or even the poor and oppressed in the streets of their own cities. The broad principle that all life
is sacred is narrowly and selectively applied. The left, for its part, is no
better in its narrow application of this principle; it merely makes the
opposite selections. The United States, as a two-party system, provides
an excellent example of the way in which the political spectrum in many
Western democracies views some life issues as concerns of the left, and
others as concerns of the right.
In this paper I will: 1. Discuss the problem of voting pro-life in the
United States; 2. Investigate an example in which one pro-life voter’s
pro-life positions are compromised; 3. Propose that the division over the
“life issues” in Western democracies is rooted in misapprehensions of
the Christian conceptions of A) Sin, B) the Human Person and C) Salvation before suggesting that the D) Christian Concept of God provides a
useful corrective for these misapprehensions. Finally in 4., I will call on
makers of public policy to overcome the ideologies based in these misapprehensions and to value human life in all their policies. This is my
Hope for the Future.
1. The Problem
I admit that the title, “The Ideal Candidate” is a bit subjective. The
person described might be Jim Wallis’s ideal candidate and it might
even be my own, but this is not, perhaps, enough to justify the use of the
definitive article. Still, ideal or not, such a candidate would garner a lot
of votes in the United States (and elsewhere) and, even if you wouldn’t
vote for such a platform, you probably know people who would. There
is a large constituency of voters who are very frustrated with the leftright split in the political spectrum of Western democracies (I speak with
experience of North American democracies in particular) and who do
not feel that their values are represented by either group.2 For many of
these voters the most difficult aspect of deciding how to vote is determining which life issues they will be able to support and which they can
afford to oppose.3 The hypothetical candidate described above would
allow pro-life voters to elect someone who truly represents their values
on many of the issues that concern them the most. Nevertheless, such a
candidate remains a hypothetical one. This paper is, at root, about why
such a candidate does not exist.
At this point it must be noted that this paper is, as has probably been
ascertained, decidedly pro-life. It must also be noted that the term prolife is used here to indicate an entire platform which rejects any reason
for artificially ending human life that does not stem from the protection
of other, innocent human life, and not simply to mean anti-abortion.4 In
2
Jim Wallis, God’s Politics: Why The Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t
Get It (San Francisco: Harper, 2005, 76.
3
See, for example, Mary Jo Bane, Eugene McCarraher, and George Weigel,
‘You Catholic? Here’s How to Vote,’ Commonweal CXXVII, no. 18 (20
October 2000), http://www.commonwealmagazine.org.
4
For instance, such a platform does not automatically reject the possibility of
killing in self-defence or similar, though not parallel, possibilities such as just
war, capital punishment when necessary to protect the broader public, or operating on an ectopic pregnancy.
a pluralistic society where we can find so many things that distinguish
us from one another, we cannot use such distinctions to determine
whose life is less valuable than someone else’s – not race, religion, age,
gender, sexual orientation, size, criminal record, health, stage of development, wealth, handicap, or location (in the womb, or next to a munitions factory). It is my philosophical conviction that appealing to any of
the above categories to demonstrate that one person’s life is less valuable than another’s is the most severe violation of the principle of equality that must underpin a pluralist society. Furthermore, it is my religious
conviction, as a Roman Catholic, that every human life is sacred and
derives its dignity from being made in the image of God.
Despite the concerns of many citizens about many life issues, in contemporary North American political discourse the term “pro-life” has
been manipulated to refer to a single issue, that of abortion.5 The position of the Catholic Church on this issue is no secret. What many people,
including many Catholics, do not realize is that the Church’s stance as a
pro-life institution extends far beyond this one divisive issue. Even a
cursory reading of magisterial documents on such matters indicates that
the Church is anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-death penalty and antiwar. Catholicism presents a vision that is comprehensively and unapologetically pro-life in the widest sense of the term. To give an example of
this breadth, while researching this paper I came upon the entry for
“Respect for Life, Dignity of Life” in the New Dictionary of Catholic
Spirituality. There was no article following but rather a collection of
other entries listed which the editors found pertinent to the topic. It said,
“See Confrontation and Protest; Ecological Consciousness; Environment; Justice; Peace; Pregnancy; War, impact on spirituality..” The
Church sees all of these as life issues and always argues that approaches
to any of these topics must regard the dignity of human life as a primary
value.
5
On occasion the issue of euthanasia is included in this discussion.
Unfortunately the structure of our political systems does not reflect
an overarching concern for human life as fundamental to human society.
Rather, the two poles of the spectrum, referred to as right and left, embrace diverse ideologies whereby those on the right tend to be pro-life in
that they oppose abortion and euthanasia, while those one the left manifest a pro-life attitude in their opposition to war and capital punishment
and even by their environmental concerns. Neither position reflects the
broad vision of the sanctity of human life which is espoused by the
Catholic Church.
Before the 2000 Presidential election in the United States, Commonweal magazine ran a feature entitled, “You Catholic? Here’s How to
Vote”.6 It was made up of three smaller pieces, each written by a Catholic, encouraging their fellow Catholic voters to support, in turn, the Democrats under Al Gore, the Republicans under George Bush, and the
Greens under Ralph Nader. Mary Jo Bane, who advocated supporting
the Democrats, opened her section by writing, “I would like to vote, this
year or sometime, for a ticket and a party that is pro-life, pro-family, and
pro-poor.”7 What followed was an anguished justification for her choice
to vote Democrat. She laments the “rabidly pro-choice”8 Democratic
primary, but eventually concludes that the Democratic Party “even . . .
shows more appreciation for the preciousness of life across the whole
life cycle, especially in the lives of the very vulnerable”,9 than their
Republican adversaries.
Catholic Christians are, as a whole, quite invested in the fight for the
recognition of the dignity of every human person. Depending, however,
within which context that fight takes place (i.e. within debates on war or
6
Mary Jo Bane, Eugene McCarraher, and George Weigel, “You Catholic?
Here’s How to Vote”, Commonweal CXXVII, no. 18 (20 October 2000),
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
Ibid.
debates on abortion) Catholics are forced to one side or another of the
political spectrum – a political spectrum that does not reflect Christian
categories of thought that treat human life as a fundamental value.
The present political organisation which surrounds life issues, and
forces Catholics and other like-minded citizens, into supporting some
policies to which they are radically opposed, also serves to erode the
sense of the sanctity of human life amongst Catholic voters. The Church
proclaims the dignity and value of every human life, but it is difficult
not to find some justification for voting, say pro-abortion, when one is
forced to support either that or a war which one feels is unjust. It is less
rare than one might hope, to hear pro-life Catholics excuse voting for
pro-choice politicians with specious arguments about how, though one
would never get an abortion oneself, one could not prevent anyone else
from getting one, as if taking life were simply a matter of personal preference.
Such situations tempt Christians in North American democratic societies to fall into the trap of identifying one end of the political spectrum with Christian interests. The propensity for such identification is,
due largely to the Republican’s successful self-representation as the prolife party, more prevalent among conservative Catholics than liberal
ones. Many Catholics in the United States who had traditionally voted
Democrat supported the Republican Party under George W. Bush
largely due to his strong stance against abortion. While there is clearly
not a problem with a Catholic voting against abortion, problems arise
when the support given to the Republican Party leads to justifying other
Republican platforms – platforms that are pointedly anti-life.
2. An Example
Catholic leaders and ethicists have roundly condemned the Bush
administration’s invasion of Iraq as unjust10, and the predictions of civilian casualties have proven accurate. Nevertheless, those Catholics who
have come to identify conservative policies with Christian policies end
up supporting a war which the Magisterium has clearly rejected.11 What
follows below is a brief investigation into the situation of George
Weigel, a prominent conservative Catholic writer whose support for the
Bush administration’s foreign policy has become the subject of some
controversy in Catholic intellectual circles. While the Weigel situation is
addressed to provide a concrete example of a Catholic identifying the
Christian agenda with the Republican agenda, it is important to note that
other Christian groups face similar concerns, as evidenced by the 200
theologians who lamented that a “theology of war emanating from the
highest circles of government is also seeping into our churches.”12
Weigel, a widely read and influential voice in conservative Catholic
circles and beyond, was one of Bush’s most vocal, and articulate, supporters within the Catholic intelligentsia. His support of the war in Iraq
has drawn fire from many quarters, particularly from liberal Catholics13
who, with the backing of most of the Church hierarchy,14 do not view
the war as justified.
With most conservative Catholics, Weigel considers fidelity to
Church teaching on issues of morality a fundamental tenet of his Ca10
Michael J. Baxter, “A ‘Pacifist’ Perspective in Seven Points”, The Catholic
Citizen: Debating the
Issues of Justice, ed. Kenneth Whitehead (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s
Press, 2004), p. 215.
11
See, for example, the George Weigel article “Iraq and Just War, Revisited,”
http://www.eppc.org/
12
Wallis, God’s Politics, p. xx-xxi.
13
George Weigel, “Great Bosh”, The Catholic Difference, 19 March 2003,
14
Baxter, “A ‘Pacifist’ Perspective in Seven Points”, p. 215.
tholicism. As such, charges that he is dissenting from Church teaching,
or at least from the position of the hierarchy, are not kindly taken.15
Nevertheless, the preponderance of the evidence suggests that Mr.
Weigel’s support for the Bush administration has extended well beyond
support for issues which coincide with his Catholic values and now
encompasses Republican policies which are pointedly at odds with the
Church.
While it is the prerogative of the Catholic to decide, upon careful
consideration of the evidence available (and not available) to that person
– including the informed opinions of the Catholic hierarchy and other
Catholic ethicists – whether or not a given war is justified, Weigel’s
support of the American policy in Iraq seems to stem from his proRepublican sentiments. It appears that this eminent voice in the American Church is as guilty of following partisan lines, rather than the broad
vision of the Church, as so many of the Catholics who vote Democrat,
and with whom he disagrees.
This is, especially to someone like Weigel, a serious charge, and so
must be supported with more evidence than the simple fact that he happens to disagree with the hierarchy on the justice of a particular war.
Recall Mary Jo Bane’s situation earlier in this article: this Catholic
writer agonized over the fact that there existed no pro-life, pro-family,
pro-poor party for whom she could vote in the 2000 presidential election; no party that reflected the broad range of her Catholic concerns.
George Weigel followed Bane’s commentary with his reasons for
voting Republican. In his comments, there is no careful analysis of how
the Democrats and Republicans reflect or do not reflect a Catholic vision, followed by a choice which, though it recognises the imperfection
of its object, must be content to choose the best possible option in an
imperfect system. Instead, Weigel opens with a litany of Republican
15
See, George Weigel, “Great Bosh,” The Catholic Difference, 19 March 2003,
policies, of which he approves, accompanied by their Democratic alternatives, which he condemns, before focusing on what, for him, is the
most significant issue, appointments to the Supreme Court.16 It is not
hard to agree with his points concerning this essential factor in determining what to do with one’s Catholic vote. Three or four Gore appointed
judges who insist on the abortion-on-demand system and who would
take similar attitudes into upcoming cases concerning issues in human
reproductive technology, regardless of the will of the American people,17 is enough to frighten any Catholic voter. The fact remains, however, that, in his analysis of how a Catholic ought to vote in an American presidential election, George Weigel gave no indication whatsoever
that certain Republican policies could be problematic for Catholic voters. Even from a historical standpoint this is surprising given that Catholics have traditionally been a Democrat supporting constituency.
The 2000 election was before the war in Iraq, but Weigel’s support
of this war has taken basically the same tone. His writings seem not to
acknowledge the concerns that other Catholics have with the war. In
particular, his pre-war writings often dismissed just war concerns known
as in bellum (like the concerns over civilian casualties), as impossible to
predict and logically subordinate to ad bellum concerns.18 He has also
been loath to criticise the Bush administration subsequently for civilian
casualties, prisoner-abuse scandals and other in bellum considerations,
of which there have been many.19
One gets the feeling that such criticism would have been easier for
Weigel to level, had he not so unequivocally supported Bush’s campaign
for the presidency and his subsequent push for war. Certainly no one
16
Bane, McCarraher, and Weigel, “You Catholic? Here’s How to Vote.”
Ibid.
18
Peter Dula, “How Conservative Catholics Got Iraq Wrong”, Commonweal
CXXXI, no. 21 (3 December 2004),
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/
19
Ibid.
17
would have accused Mary Jo Bane of hypocrisy were Gore to have won
the election and then faced her criticism on certain Democratic policies.
Weigel, instead, has provided an illustration of a serious problem:
Catholic citizens becoming too committed to a particular party stand as
consistent with Catholic principles and then being unable to abandon, or
even critique, it when a dissonance arises.
Weigel is now in a position of disagreement with the Church rather
than the Republican Party line. He holds that a belief expressed in magisterial documents and promoted by most orthodox theologians and
senior members of the church hierarchy, up to and including the pope, is
mistaken. In other words, he is dissenting. This is not, de facto, a condemnation. There is an important role for responsible dissent in the
Church. One of the best examples of this is John Courtney Murray,
whose dissenting position on religious freedom was formally adopted by
the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council. The problem lies not specifically in Weigel’s dissent, but rather in the fact that he rejects any suggestion he is dissenting as “polemics... unworthy of serious people considering serious, life-and-death issues”,20 and that his dissent seems very
closely tied to the positions of a political party which he supports for its,
ostensible, coherence with Catholic values.
3. A Proposal
If such an intelligent, articulate and serious Catholic as George
Weigel can be shown to have followed partisan lines in his discernment
of the issues which divide civil society between left and right, it is not
surprising that many of the rest of us are often caught in the same problem. Indeed, there must be some deeper logic which underlies the dichotomy placing certain life issues within the purview of left-leaning
parties and others within that of right-leaning parties; given our propen20
Weigel, “Great Bosh.”
sity to follow civil society in this dichotomy, this logic must be infiltrating Christian consciences as well. How is it that no political party has
taken a stand as universally pro-life, particularly in a country like the
United States where such a stand, it seems, would be welcome by a large
part of the electorate? Why is Jim Wallis’ ideal candidate hypothetical?
In a country whose politics are as dominated by religious ideology
and language as those of the United States, I propose that what divides
the life issues between the two major political parties are competing
misapprehensions of three basic ideas of Christian theology: sin, the
human person, and salvation. One of my professors at St. Michael’s
college is fond of saying that the true test of any doctrine is to discern
what it ultimately says about God. Near the end of this paper I will reverse this test and suggest that what we know about God can help us to
correct the misapprehensions of the above concepts. But first, what are
our misapprehensions?
3.1 Sin
As I used the topic of war to demonstrate the problem of Christians
supporting political positions opposed to what has been called “a consistent ethic of life”,21 I now turn to another “life issue” to illustrate our
misconceptions about sin: poverty. Poverty is a life issue because it is so
often the result of social injustice and the cause of conflict. The Second
Vatican Council states in section 29 of Gaudium et Spes that
“the excessive economic and social inequalities among members or peoples
of the same human family are a scandal and are at variance with social justice,
equity, the dignity of the human person and, not least, social and international
peace.”22
21
Wallis, God’s Politics, p. xxvi.
Second Vatican Council: Gaudium et spes, no. 29, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 2, ed. Norman P. Tanner, 1086 (London: Sheed and Ward and
Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990).
22
By virtue of its constitutive relationship to peace, social justice is a
pro-life issue. Poverty is also closely related to other life issues because
the poor are more susceptible to things like death by capital punishment,
or epidemic diseases.
Referring to the left and right ends of the political spectrum in the
United States, Jim Wallis says:
I am always amazed by the debate about poverty, with one side citing the need
for changes in personal behaviours and the other side for better social programmes, as if the two were mutually exclusive. Obviously, both personal and
social responsibility are necessary for overcoming poverty. When this absurd
bifurcation is offered by ideological partisans on either side, I am quickly convinced that both sides must never have lived or worked anywhere near poverty
or poor people.23
My brother-in-law is a social worker and I talked to him about this
issue while preparing this paper. As someone who has worked among
the poor his comments are insightful. He says that social workers learn,
very early on, that if someone is unwilling to take personal responsibility for their lives, no amount of time and effort will help them. Further,
he says, social workers get their hearts broken when they see those they
work with who have taken personal responsibility constantly failing to
turn their lives around because the systematic biases which they encounter are nearly impossible to overcome. Wallis continues:
That there are behaviours that further entrench and even cause poverty is indisputable, as is the undeniable power of systems and structures to institutionalise
injustice and oppression. Together, personal and social responsibility creates the
common good. Because we know these realities as religious facts, taught to us
23
Wallis, God’s Politics, p. 6.
by our sacred Scriptures, religious communities can teach them to those still
searching more for blame than solutions to pressing social problems.24
Blame is a useful political category. If, in your rhetoric, you can
convince people whose fault a given problem is, it is easily mistaken for
your having proposed a solution. Further, if your political opponent
blames one group, it is expedient for you to name another group and set
it up in opposition to your opponent’s. But, as expedient as this may be
for getting elected, it is far less so for solving problems.
Whose fault is poverty (or the environmental crisis, or the war)?
Whose mistakes led to the circumstance in question? In this pattern of
fault-finding we encounter the ancient Christian category of sin. Sin is
the concept by which the Judeo-Christian tradition has expressed the
universal human experience that we are not as we should be. This has
been articulated in two diverse but interdependent ways. The first is sin
as a personal phenomenon whereby the individual falls short of his/her
own dignity by damaging themselves and others. Eve ate the apple. The
second is sin as a social phenomenon in which all of humanity has become entangled.
The first emphasises personal responsibility, the second structural
evil. Both Scripture and Christian tradition demonstrate that the two are
inseparable. St. Paul tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God, but also associates sin with the “world”. Individuals sin,
but they are caught up in something bigger than themselves when they
do it. We are all born into a world full of the effects of the sin of all of
those who have come before us, but there is always, by definition, a
non-sinful choice in a given situation. That is, to sin, an individual must
choose to sin. Thus we are led away from our ideal selves both from
24
Ibid.
within and from without. A truly Christian vision of social policy will
reflect this insight.
Instead, Republicans have claimed the moral high ground with their
emphasis on issues of personal responsibility, particularly those surrounding sexuality and, though shrouded in the rhetoric of the secularist
left, the Democrats often more closely reflect the concerns of Christians
when it comes to issues of structural evil. The bi-polar political spectrum does not reflect a truly Christian view of humanity, one in which
personal responsibility is treated alongside, and in relation to, structural
evils. The Catholic Church rejects abortion and euthanasia as sins, but it
also recognises sinful structures in society, structures that “do not reveal
the truth about human beings”.25 Such structures oppress the poor, leave
the needy unaided, and perpetrate violence, “institutionalised” and other,
against large segments of the population. It seems that each pole of the
current political spectrum can appeal to Catholics voters on the basis of
only one of the two traditional conceptions of sin.
Conservatism, politically, has tended towards an emphasis on the individual. It is associated with the more raw forms of capitalism where
persons are responsible for only themselves. The larger structures, like
those of government, are to have only as much impact on the individual
citizens as is necessary to run the state. It is not surprising that, within
this framework, the moral concerns which emerge are those focusing on
the individual. Many traditional Catholics are likely to support the fight
against such individual sins as abortion and euthanasia in part because
they are the more likely group to follow traditional Catholic penitential
practice, which is highly focused on the individual.26
25
Leonardo Boff, Liberating Grace, trans. John Drury (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1981),
p. 143.
26
Stephen J. Duffy, “Sin”, dictionary entry, Stephen J. Duffy in The New
Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, dictionary, ed. Michael Downey
(Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993), p. 900.
The left, called liberal, though hardly to be equated with classical
liberalism, is more concerned with the group dynamic in society. It is
more comfortable with big government, social programmes, and looking
out for those who would slip through the cracks in an each-for-his-own
environment. As such, the moral issues with which it identifies most
strongly are more likely to be structural types of problems than individual ones. The left, then, appeals to those Catholics who want to fight
structural injustice in the world. Sins committed by nation-states, like
execution or war, are more likely to draw their political attention than
individual sins, like abortion, which are easily passed off as merely a
result of poorly organised societies.
Both groups have a corner of the truth. The problem is that such conceptions are incomplete. The Catholic view of sin encompasses both
personal and social sin. Further, they are not two independent categories.
Nor is social sin just a collection of people committing personal sin.27
The two categories are, necessarily, integrated. Stephen Duffy writes:
Sinful structures are created and maintained by sinful persons, and personal sin
makes alienating institutions worse by reinforcing and magnifying their impact.
But the structures produced by corporate decision assume a logic of their own,
inflict alienation by moulding consciousness, and become anonymous agents of
social sin. Social sin, in turn, produces an environment in which personal sin is
all but inescapable.28
An awareness of both personal and social sin is necessary to break
such a cycle. The left will never solve the world’s structural problems if
it ignores personal iniquity, and the right will never succeed in eliminating problems like abortion as long as its focus stays squarely on legislating against individual acts. It is not that trying to solve structural prob27
28
Ibid.
Ibid.
lems or legislating against abortion are erroneous premises. They are
just incomplete – as incomplete as the notion of sin which underlies
them.
3.2 The Human Person
Further, it should be clear, from the quick portraits of conservatism
and liberalism sketched above, that their concerns for particular categories of sin stem from particular conceptions of the human person. To the
right-wing, society is a collection of individuals. People are atomised –
taken out of their social context. To the left, people are the pieces of a
society. People are collectivised – denied their individuality. The further
one gets to the extremes of the political spectrum, the more difficult it
becomes to maintain a view of the human person that values both individuality and community. These two aspects of humanity are treated as
competing rather than complementary.
A look into another “life issue”, abortion, will serve to illustrate the
incompatibility of a Catholic view of the human person with the current
political spectrum. Catholics, being pro-life on abortion, find themselves
siding with the right-wing on this issue. Nevertheless, the Catholic position sees the arguments for and against abortion as ideologically confused along party lines. The left insists that women own their bodies and
can do what they please with their own property. But does not this appeal to ownership seem awfully capitalistic for the left? In discussing
this issue with one of my professors, she suggested that, to her, pregnancy was a beautiful symbol of the interdependence of human persons,
and abortion is a rejection of that. But would the left not want to encourage a communitarian view of the human person by valuing pregnancy?
Listen to this excerpt from the entry on abortion in The New Dictionary of Theology:
Those opposed [to abortion] warn of a significant potential for devaluing all
human life in an abortion accepting society. They judge abortion to be a symptom of a greater systematic illness in a society which uses and oppresses persons
for commercial gain, neglects the elderly and the handicapped, exhibits gender
and sexual discrimination, and spends proportionally more for defence than it
does to alleviate the societal, educational, medical, and employment needs
which lessen the quality of life for many. The presence of these social ills in a
society suggests a lack of commitment to the Judeo-Christian ethic which values
every human person regardless of age, condition or developmental stage.29
Can we imagine such a passage being written by the anti-abortion
administration currently in office in the White House?
Such an unlikely scenario demonstrates that the left is not immune
from the phenomenon we investigated in the case of George Weigel.
Many “liberal” Catholics, in line with Church teaching concerning war,
are unwilling to support efforts to legislate against abortion. Because
this issue has been so successfully framed as a women’s rights issue by
its proponents, many left-leaning Catholics, who determinedly support
gender equality, often accept a woman’s right to abortion as a necessary
corollary. Accepting that women have been historically mistreated and
continue to suffer in many ways in our societies, and that this needs to
be rectified, is not equivalent to demonstrating that a woman owns another human that happens to reside in her body and can do with it what
she will. Accepting such logic is to accept the Democratic Party line,
and not to give witness to a consistent idea of the value of the human
person.
29
Robert M. Friday, “Abortion”, dictionary entry, Robert M. Friday in The New
Dictionary of Theology, dictionary, ed. Joseph A. Komonchak et al.
(Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1990), p. 6.
3.3 Salvation
If the concepts of sin that place some life issues within the prerogative of the right, and some within the prerogative of the left are, in fact,
based in competing, incomplete, and confused concepts of the human
person, it is only natural that these concepts should impact the views of
salvation of those who hold them. It is not surprising that the right-wing
finds support amongst churches whose theologies speak often of a personal Lord and Saviour, and are very concerned with the salvation of
each individual soul. Catholicism, on the other hand, rarely invokes such
language because, while it is individuals who must ultimately choose
God as their highest good, this is usually seen as occurring in the context
of a community of faith, from the parents who choose to have us baptised to the members of Christ’s body who pray for us in purgatory. As
such, the dichotomy in our political structures which pits the concerns of
the individual versus those of the community is foreign to the Catholic
idea of the human person. The good of one is, for Catholics, ultimately
and undeniably, the good of all.
This is as true in this life as it is in the next. Salvation, even though it
happens to specific individuals, is a community effort. Heaven is not a
location you can go to, it is a relationship with God and all those in
relationship with God. This is what is meant by the body of Christ. The
logic of heaven also holds for solving societal ills: we must recognise
both the inestimable worth of each human individual, and the fact that
we are only fully human in relation to one another. Our personhood is, at
least in part, defined by our relations to others.30 If, as religious people,
we are aware that every person is irreplaceable in the Body of Christ,
but that this is precisely because of their relationship to the whole, then
we should not accept the current political debates that suggest personal
30
Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, Dogmatic Theology
9, (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988, 232.
and social causes are unrelated, and that personal and social solutions
are incompatible.
3.4 A Christian Conception of God
That man is both personal and social, and that both of these aspects
must be given due appreciation in discussions of sin and salvation (or, in
our political environment, blame and solution), should be amenable to
the Christian conscience. As believers in the Incarnation, we profess that
God became man and dwelt among us; that Jesus Christ, though God,
was fully human; indeed, more fully human than the rest of us. When we
say that He was like us in all things but sin, this does not suggest that
this was the one thing lacking in His humanity. Indeed, it is the thing
lacking in ours. When we sin, we are less than ourselves. “Thus Christian anthropology flows from Christology , specifically from that part of
Christology wherein Christ is portrayed as the paradigm of the human as
intended by the creator. God created humanity to become his ‘image and
likeness’ (Gen 1:26).”31
The fully human Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, is the model for humanity, but Christ is also fully God. He is the second person of the Trinity.
Christian tradition has come to understand comments such as “I and the
Father are one”, alongside others such as “Not even the Son knows, but
only the Father”, as an indication of the plural nature of the one God.
That the concept is difficult is evidenced by our necessity of referring to
the Trinity as a mystery, but that does not mean we can learn nothing
from it. The fully human Christ lived in the community of Israel, and the
fully divine Christ exists only as a member of the community that is the
Trinity. Still, He is a distinct member of these communities.
If man is made in the image and likeness of God, and Christ has revealed both God as community and man to himself, it is imperative that
31
Michael J. Scanlon O.S.A., “Christian Anthropology”, dictionary entry,
Michael J. Scanlon O.S.A.in The New Dictionary of Theology, dictionary, ed.
Joseph A. Komonchak et al. (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1990), p. 28.
a Christian view of the human person be both personal and communitarian. Knowing God as both personal and plural teaches us to know
ourselves, made in the image of God, as personal and plural. When we
seek to understand the problems in our societies and discover solutions
we cannot ignore either personal responsibility or social injustice.
4. My Hope for the Future
The views of the left and right in the United States are deadlocked on
virtually every life issue, from abortion to poverty, because of the narrow vision of the human person espoused by each group. A truly pro-life
perspective, an ideology that values every human person, will need to
overcome the current stalemate by presenting a picture of humanity as
both personal and communal. This broader vision should allow adherents of the right and the left to find common ground from which to approach the pressing issues of the day, issues that are sharply dividing
both civil and ecclesial society. It is my sincere hope that one day soon
the perspective of those responsible for public policy, and of those who
elect them, will value life above political affiliation and ideology.
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Tolerance, Democracy and Fundamentalism 173
9
TOLERANCE, DEMOCRACY AND
FUNDAMENTALISM(S): CHALLENGES IN
TIME OF SYSTEMIC BIFURCATIONS
Guillermo Hansen, Argentina
The globalising and unsettling forces of capitalism, technology, climate changes, mass media and popular culture, chart a reality marked by
fleetness, disorientation and rapid social change. Millions of people have
reacted by identifying themselves with religious fundamentalist views.
While this phenomenon cannot be reduced to a single factor, it nonetheless signals a state of distress suffered by those marginalised by the
global economy, many of whom also feel culturally threatened by the
“materialist” and “secular” values of late modernity.
Although fundamentalism in its many forms is certainly not keen on
democracy, it is also true that the economic and political forces of late
modernity are steadily driving existing (liberal) democracies into “states
of exception”, posing also a peculiar threat to democratic principles.
Hence democracy as a political system resting on values such as freedom, equality and the rule of civil law, is likely to be the real casualty of
the struggle between fundamentalisms and globalization. Yet, democracy may also be facing today a new opportunity stemming from below,
where new modes of relationships and power link – locally and globally
– different religious identities, cultures, forms of labour, ecological
concerns, ethnicities, and gender groups and issues. These new relation-
ships disclose a common bio-political desire that rests on a pro-active
exercise of tolerance as an affirmation of life in its multiple expressions.
Tolerance, therefore, becomes a key “weapon” in democratic solutions
to systemic problems.
While as moral beings we are always faced with ethical choices, our
times on the verge of a “systemic bifurcation” accelerate the urgency to
reach wide consensus over the values that will govern our lives. Freedom and equality have been focal desiderata of modernity, yet the historicist and progressive myth that cocooned these values is on the wane.
Since values are not abstractions but always are embedded into mythical
narratives, it is crucial to understand the modes of knowledge and cultural mutations which are coupled with socio-political and systemic
changes. Today, with an increasing pluralisation of societies and consciousness, tolerance appears not only as a desirable moral virtue, but as
a necessary systemic quality which, once grafted with freedom and
equality, makes of democracy the best arrangement for shaping our
collective and global fate. Within this horizon, religion(s) seems again to
be poised to play a critical role – either for or against tolerance, democracy and peace.
1. From the Republic to the Empire
(a) Symptoms of a transition
When approaching the relation between fundamentalism, tolerance
and democracy, we may be tempted to fall into the vice of binary
thought. Media, news, reports and discourses can lead to the conclusion
that democracy – broadly defined1 – is today at peril because of the
1
Democracy understood as a set of institutional and legal principles and practices such as: the rule of law and equal access to justice; division of powers; guarantees of human and civil rights that are upheld and independently monitored;
free and fair elections involving a genuine competition of ideas, permitting
“external” and “evil” forces of religious fundamentalism (especially
Islamic). Samuel Huntington’s highly influential theory of the clash of
civilisations, for example, has given an academic veneer to a political
paradigm that compartmentalises in antagonist camps what actually are
inner dimensions of the contemporary world-system. This creates a false
impression and consciousness, for the real danger to “democracy” may
lie not only with those who, for whatever reasons, express their grievances against the hypocrisy of core “democratic” countries, but also with
those forces which in the name of democratic values are increasingly
committed to intolerant and vigilant practices. Obviously, inherent to the
different forms of fundamentalism is the prospective establishment of
regimes of intolerance, thus creating a formidable challenge to democracy as a system as well as a cultural horizon. But this cannot hide the
fact that “democracies” around the world are increasingly sliding toward
a perennial “state of exception” where freedom is curtailed in the name
of freedom – as once Latin-American dictatorships curtailed democracy
in the name of democracy.2
consensual, non-violent changes of government; freedom of speech, press and
media; healthy, autonomous civil society institutions and networks, independent
of the state; accountability of authority and transparency of decisions; entrenched property and economic rights; social justice and basic security; an ethos
of dialogue, questioning, trust, and moral awareness; widespread, free access to
the information needed to discuss, scrutinize, make choices about and uphold all
these components of a democratic society. Behind these principles lay certain
core values such as the political equality of all citizens; open deliberation before
decision-making so that all can voice their interests and concerns; a high degree
of citizen participation in the processes of democracy, that respects and encourages the different views of others; a pluralism of institutions and the independence of critical voices that maintain the long-term health and openness of democratic societies.
2
In Stato di eccezione, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben shows how
Western democracies become effectively invested with the need of turning
emergency into the foundation of their existence. The military and the economic
“state of emergency” often merge into one, employing war metaphors as main
currency in public speeches. He states that “The principle according to which
necessity defines a singular situation in which the law loses its vis obligandi… is
inverted into that according to which necessity constitutes, so to speak, the
In order to situate the dynamics linking fundamentalism with the
contemporary neo-conservative “states of exception”, it is essential to
have a systemic view of the present globalised world-system. This allows us to perceive fundamentalism – evangelical, Islamic and integrist
– as symptoms marking the passage to a new state of affairs.3 As Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue, fundamentalisms signal a refusal
of modernity, democracy and secularity, which – rightly or wrongly –
are conceived as weapons of “liberal,” foreign or Western hegemony.4
But fundamentalist movements are not simply pre-modern remnants, but
a late-modern outcome of contradictions triggered by modernity and its
oppressive underside. They are late- or post-modern in a double sense:
in that chronologically they follow and oppose modernity, and in that
culturally they ride on the waves generated by the falling walls of modern (and Western) philosophical theories which placed religion in an
interdict.5
The late-modern condition of fundamentalism requires that we take a
look at the long-term economic, political, cultural and epistemological
dynamics that characterise the present “world-system.” In doing so we
understand why democracy and tolerance acquire today a new urgency,
for we face a critical moment of systemic oscillations that points to an
imminent bifurcation. Inspired by chaos theory, the social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein6 maintains that an existing system which can no
longer function adequately within its defined parameters faces a bifurcaultimate foundation and the very source of the law.” Stato di eccezione (Torino:
Bollati Boringhieri, 2003), p. 37.
3
See Antonio Negri & Michael Hardt, Empire (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard
University Press, 2000), pp. 137ss.
4
See Ibid., p. 149.
5
This notion is developed by yet another Italian philosopher, Gianni Vattimo, in
“La huella de la huella,” Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo, eds, La religión
(Madrid: PPC, 1996), p. 111f.
6
Immanuel Wallerstein, World-System Analysis: an Introduction (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2004); and Id., The Uncertainties of Knowledge (Philadelphia: Temple University press, 2004).
tion where a “choice” is pressed upon it. It is not that one of the present
antagonistic camps within the system will prevail, but that the system as
a whole will change. In this junction, institutions and social arrangements face a new set of possibilities: either a radicalisation of democratic principles and practices, or the adventurous falling into new hierarchical and intolerant tutelages. These are the main contenders, and the
outcome will depend upon the micro-decisions or small actions that
people take in times of wild oscillations. History – we have come to
learn – does not have any moral vector; it is not necessarily a tale of
increasing humanness, tolerance, liberty or equality. Our “evolution”
seems to be a highly improvised affair, where values are subject to endless psychological, philosophical, ideological, existential and religious
variables, emerging and competing as we face the challenges of living.
Therefore we find ourselves in the crucible of uncertainties, and yet
this period in our lives has a tremendous and extraordinary importance
because the intellectual, moral and political decisions made will have
exponential effects. For this reason fundamentalism cannot be dismissed
as a romantic reversal of history, destined to fail because history always
“progresses”. Actually, it must be seriously considered as one of the
possible outcomes of late modernity – although we may question its
long term adaptive value. In times where interdictions against religion
are falling, this dimension of human living may be destined to play a
critical role in democracy’s demise or, on the contrary, in its flourishing.7
(b) The longue durée: tolerance, intolerance, and violence
A systemic view posits as unit of analysis a “world-system”, namely,
a spatial/temporal region that cuts across political and cultural units,
creating an integrated zone of activity with institutions that obey certain
7
It is ironic that modern democracy, whose roots can partially be traced to a
reaction against religious intolerance (Locke et al.), may today require the mystique and conviction given by religion.
systemic rules. The modern world-system, which traces its origins to the
European expansion beginning in the 16th century, is not bound by a
unitary political structure – although after the second world war, liberal
democracy purported to be the desirable political regime. In fact, there
can be and there are many political units within a world-system since its
unifying factor is not a political regime or a culture, but the division of
labour that results from the pursuit of gain. The endless accumulation of
capital, which splits the system along a core and a periphery, in turn
determines the nature or kind of this division. 8
During the 19th and 20th centuries the political history of the modern
world-system, radiating from its core, became the history of a debate
about the line that divides the included from the excluded, as well as
about the tenor, extent and limits of tolerance. It must be noticed that
this debate was occurring “within the framework of a geo-culture that
proclaimed the inclusion of all as the definition of the good society”.9
This geo-culture was Liberalism, which proved to be a formidable ideological force, acquiring a solid hegemony around 1848. Not only did it
establish the juridical and institutional foundations to be emulated by
most of the countries in the world, but it also had the plasticity to absorb
the anti-systemic movements originated under its sway. Inside the nation-states, attempts by groups to achieve inclusion as full citizens were
the central focus of radical movements. First it was the turn of industrial
workers, who once organised in unions and syndicates then sought po8
The core, the “comfort zone,” does not necessarily have to coincide with nations or states, but with the dominant sectors of the production process cutting
across them. However, since monopolies need the patronage of strong states,
there is a geographical consequence of the core-periphery relationship. It is also
the case that the same country or nation may present a mix of core and peripheral conditions. Usually, core-products and services are monopolies or quasimonopolies, while peripheral products and services are truly “competitive”, that
is, abundant and diverse. Thus, when there is exchange for core products and
services felt as critical and crucial for the advancement of well being of populations, an unequal or asymmetrical situation develops.
9
Wallerstein, World-System, p. 60.
litical power. After decades of struggle, the outcome was the compromise represented by the Welfare State. After that, beginning in the
1960s, the “excluded” from full participation and decision – ethnic and
sexual minorities, oppressed majorities in the colonies, youth and
women – voiced their anti-systemic claims through “cultural” strategies
that sought the decolonisation of the psyche and political autonomy. All
these movements were more or less successful in achieving full citizenship and/or independence, but did not succeed in terms of fully redressing systemic dynamics of exclusion.
In the case of the present world-system, the 1960´s marked the end
of the liberal supremacy, thereby dislocating the geo-culture that had
kept the political institutions intact.10 Decolonisation, women’s movements, youth culture and labour, gender issues, vindication of difference
and minorities, concern for the environment, have unhinged the underpinnings of the capitalist world-economy and exposed it to the full force
of political and cultural shocks from which it has hitherto been sheltered.11 During the same time, previously existing fundamentalist trends
started to gain cultural, social and political ascendancy in different corners of the world.12 Cultural transformations soon lead to a new selfesteem and political demands, which in turn put new pressures upon the
system through the expansion of lineal trends. The result is that in the
last fifty years there has been a growing squeeze on the average rate of
profits, for costs of production have been rising while the margin of
surplus is narrowing in core and some peripheral regions. Capitalist
10
This corresponds to what Eric Hobsbawm calls the end of the “golden age.”
See The Age of Extremes: a History of the World, 1914-1991 (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).
11
See Wallerstein, p. 77; Hobsbawm, p. 343.
12
In the case of Islamic Fundamentalism, the 1967 Israeli-Arab war signals a
turning point. See Bassam Tibi, “The worldview of Sunni Arab Fundamentalism: Attitudes toward Modern Science and Technology,” in Martin Marty and
Scott Appelby, eds, Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences, the
Family and Education (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 81.
production had to face increasing costs in remuneration and salaries,
inputs (infrastructure and raw materials), and taxation. Especially the
first and the third trend can be said to be a consequence of increasing
socio-political demands expressing new expectations regarding standards of living, education, health and prospects for the future.
Of course, capitalist endeavours will always attempt to maintain oligopolistic conditions; our present neo-liberal phase – which in Latin
America was enacted by a capitalism of dispossession geared mostly to
the “enclosing the commons”13 – is an example. The “Washington Consensus” gave new impetus to institutions such as the IMF, WTO and the
WEF (Davos), which in turn exercised pressure for a type of globalization which consisted in the opening of all frontiers to the free flows of
goods and capital – but not of people and/or labour.14 In the midst of this
process, 9/11 served to legitimise the more conservative sectors within
some “core” states by giving them new political clout. These events
allowed for a drastic cut of its links with the more moderate centre and
so undo the cultural and social transformations dating from the 1960s.
The most dramatic result of this process has been the replacement of
neo-liberalism by neo-conservatism – a force supported by a religiously
sanctioned view that is culturally and politically at war with the freedoms and social conquests of the last four decades.15
But these reactions, far from setting “order” and restoring “equilibrium” to the system, have in fact accelerated the cycle of crisis leading
13
A Marxist notion developed by David Harvey to refer to the reversion of
common property rights and the commodification of cultural forms, histories,
intellectual creativity, the environment, genetic information, public works,
health and education. Capitalism resolved its cyclical crisis by expanding its
secular trends; but in the new era of globalization the possibility of overflowing
towards an “other” (land, population, and market) decreases. The New
Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 137ff.
14
See Néstor García Canclini, La globalización imaginada (Buenos Aires:
Paidós, 1999); Zygmunt Bauman, La globalización: consecuencias humanas
(Buenos Aires: FCE, 1999).
15
See Harvey, p. 184.
to a general global state of war. The secular trends are moving to a asymptotic point blocking the unrestrained continuation of an endless
accumulation of capital, the engine of capitalist development. We are
thus treading upon a territory whose horizon shows great social turmoil,
responding to various factors: first, the very fluctuations of the system;
second, the decline in legitimacy of state structures, and third, the cultural crisis of prevailing symbolic systems, all of which leads to a great
conflict about the nature of the successor arrangement. As Eric Hobsbawm asserts, “The world of the third millennium will …almost certainly continue to be one of violent politics and violent political changes.
The only thing uncertain about them is where they will lead.”16
What sectors, forces and ideologies will dominate in the upcoming
arrangement? Shall we speak of a system or multi-systems? What values
will be paramount? One thing is certain: the present world-system, ideologically dominated by a centre-liberal outlook, has now achieved its
full maturity. It will do anything possible to ameliorate the crisis, even
adopting conservative discourses to suit the demands of electorates
determined to behave in customary ways in the pursuit of short-term
benefits.17 Precisely because the fluctuation and uncertainties are becoming more acute, the demand for security will be stronger – and so,
too, the violence.18 “States of exception” are slowly erected as para16
Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, p. 460.
It is unrealistic to think that most people would willingly change their work
patterns, technology and methods of exchanging goods and services in anticipation of a crisis whose results are utterly unknown. Anthropologically there is
ample evidence to support the notion of “improvised evolution,” which assumes
that there is a general unwillingness in most peoples in all societies to deal with
crisis. We often wait, and then choose short-term minimal strategies. See Marvin
Harris, Culture, People and Nature (New York: HarperCollins, 1988).
18
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri link this form of security to the contemporary strategies of biopower: “Security requires rather actively and constantly
shaping the environment through military and/or police activity. Only an active
shaped world is a secure world. This notion of security is a form pf biopower,
then, in the sense that it is charged with the task of producing and transforming
social life….” Multitude (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), p. 20.
17
digms for political rule, where all citizens are placed under permanent
suspicion and surveillance (“Patriot Act”). Moreover, as stated in the
(in) famous ideological blueprint of the Bush’s administration, Project
for the New American Century (1997), military strength and foreign
territorial control become necessary steps in the larger project of spreading “appropriate” codes of conduct upon the rest of the world.19 This
violence exercised in the pursuit of “security” – doubtful ends combined
with immoral means – has received a strong “popular” backing and the
ideological support from a growing social and cultural force – evangelical fundamentalism, a backbone of contemporary neo-conservatism.20 In
this fashion, liberty is curtailed in the name of security, which in turn
exacerbates inequality.
“Discomfort zones”, however, also spawn mirror images to this neoconservative “state of exception.” In these other zones, a similar phenomenon takes place through different forms of integrism and fundamentalism that promises a safer and more fulfilling world by submitting
to new heteronomous codes and arrangements. Often this entails a rejection of the priority of universal rights and civil law, a refusal of the
equality of men and women, a dismissal of the separation of “religion”
and state, and a rebuff of general democratic values. Yet these are chiral,
that is, they are not identical to their mirror image. While neoconservatism, at least in the US, receives the backing of an evangelical
fundamentalism thoroughly supportive of the system, Islamic fundamentalisms, on the other hand, present an anti-systemic bent that makes it
one of the most formidable counter-systemic claims. This integrist project, however, also presents an insurmountable conflict of values, for
liberty is curtailed in the name of equality, which in turn exacerbates
insecurity
19
See Harvey, pp. 184s.
See Walter Mead, “God’s Country,” in Foreign Affairs 85/5 (Sept.-Oct. 2006),
pp. 24-43.
20
But whether we speak of (evangelical) neo-conservatism or Islamic
fundamentalism, both phenomena possess a common pattern creating
similar effects. Their common theme is either the lowering of tolerance
or the open practice of intolerance, which puts in interdiction the very
nature of democracy. Both neo-conservative “states of exception” as
well as integrist Islamic fundamentalism have an in-built tendency toward intolerance and the negation of the other –in part because the illusion that a system can be stabilised by eliminating some of its components, in part because of the very epistemological limits inherent to their
ideological view.
This systemic transition and bifurcation is, therefore, also a cultural
and epistemological mutation, for the structures of knowledge constitute
an integral –and dialectical– dimension of the cultural complex that
undergirds any social formation. Technological innovation, mass media,
socio-political reorganisation, demographic pressures and ecological
imbalances, also change the way people reason, affecting thereby religious and ideological views and mores. The questioning of canons of
rationality, the legitimating of certain modes of knowing, and the establishment or debunking of frontiers between different areas of living, are
symptoms of the repositioning of social bodies which feel freer or urged
to experiment and adopt views which hitherto have been marginal or
rejected. Grievances voice the “insurrection of subjugated knowledges”
against hegemonic ideologies (Foucault). As a result, times of bifurcation witness strong and intense cultural debate seeking to mediate the
crisis by offering different strategies – symbolic environments – to manage instability, uncertainty and stress. Some will attempt to reinforce the
cyclical state of equilibrium, while others will push the lineal trends into
a state of imbalance.
We shall return later to this point. Before that let us look at an example of intolerance and counter-modernity stemming from another peripheral zone: the Latin American context. For a third phenomenon lies
between the outspoken intent to install a new regime of intolerance, as in
some Islamic fundamentalist groups, and evangelical fundamentalism’s
efforts to effect a neo-conservative shift in family life and educational
patterns. Roman Catholic integrism claims to navigate between the
Scylla of an excessive focus on family and the Charybdis of a blatant
overturn of social structures, seeking a middle course cutting across the
intermediary associations of civil society. Yet, it shares with evangelical
and Islamic fundamentalisms a common factor: they are all symptoms of
a disease to which they purport to be the cure.
2. The Long and Winding Road of Catholic Integrism
Roman Catholicism (RC) is still the major religious force in most of
Latin America. It is more than a religious denomination: it is a powerful
social organization with an extraordinary cultural-formative power.
Even though Protestants, Evangelicals and Pentecostals have experienced a steady growth during the last century, Catholicism still dominates the religious scene.21
Many assert that the category “fundamentalism” cannot be applied
stricto sensu to Roman Catholicism. Fundamentalism –they say– is a
valid description for a Protestant phenomenon whose origin is clearly
located in the beginning of the 20th Century in the U.S., applicable today
to the global evangelical movement that it has spawned. There are many
elements that characterize evangelical (or Islamic) fundamentalism
which are not present in the ultra-conservative sectors of Roman Catholicism.22 Yet, while a functionalist approach to individual aspects of
21
The Muslim presence is reduced to few ethnic enclaves.
Take, for example, inerrancy of Scriptures, something difficult to assert for a
church that has stressed as normative sources both Bible and its ongoing interpretation by a Magisterium (tradition). Or consider the evangelical-subjective
emphasis on rebirth (born again), an awkward concept for the objectivist and
sacramental self understanding of Roman Catholicism.
22
both traditions may fail in providing a useful comparative scenario, a
more structural perspective uncovers in fundamentalism and the ultraconservative camp of Roman Catholicism a common regressive gestalt
that attempts to undo the cultural revolutions stemming from the 1960s
and thus discipline democratic demands.23 They are, in this regard, a
powerful ideological resource for the implementation of “states of exception”.
As in evangelical fundamentalism, Catholic ultra-conservatism seeks
to resituate church and traditional beliefs in the face of the crisis brought
by modernity and secularisation. The efforts to preserve the traditional
ideological and organisational traits, and arrest and reverse the waning
of Catholic hegemony in the social, cultural and political spheres, are
similar. Yet battle lines are drawn according to the specific cultural and
social geography. In the case of evangelicals, scriptural inerrancy, creationism, virginal birth, pre-millennialism, etc. are the main themes that
rally the strands of an ideology embracing a host of ethical issues ranging from public education to abortion. In the case of RC, the authority of
the Pope, the strict hierarchical organization, the objectivity of dogma,
and the discipline and control of (mostly female) sexuality, is at stake.
Even their conception of the role of the church in society, and the means
for Christian influence in culture, are as diverse as the Calvinist and
Thomist roots of their political theologies. Yet their common thread is
the combination of an unrelenting resistance to the disruptive changes
brought by modernity, the attempt to re-create stable institutions, and a
strong political vocation to “fight back” and re-establish a social order
congruent with the conservative mores of their religious vision. Both
23
I understand regressive in the sense of attempting to preserve in contemporary
milieu the beliefs and practices from a sacred past as normative for today. Yet, it
must also be born in mind that it is not simply a romantic reaction, but a deliberate effort to re-create social and political order that is oriented to the future. Cfr.
Martin Marty and Scott Appelby, Fundamentalisms and Society, p. 3. As to the
reaction to gender issues stemming from the 60s, see Hardacre, in Ibid, p. 134.
traditions feel that legal and governmental processes must recognise the
way of life they see as prescribed by God and set forth in Scripture or
the Magisterium. The state must be subservient to God, thus disciplining
a society that has lost its moral core and direction.
The particular Catholic conservative vision is nourished by two ideological streams that have significantly shaped the Catholic profile in
many countries of Latin America: integralism and integrism.
Catholic integralism is the name given to the curial opposition in the
late 19-century and early 20-century to the “heresies” of modernism. At
that time these heresies included the critical-historical studies of Bible
and dogma, the Darwinian theory of evolution, liberal democracy, socialism, trade unions, free masonry and Protestants. Above all it championed a Christendom model of social order and the close relation between church and state. In sum, it represented the static categorization of
tradition and the defence of an objectivist view of truth. Only an integral
Catholicism, that is, the upholding of dogma and Magisterium, guarantees an institutional strength and clarity of beliefs that can be applied to
all challenges and needs of contemporary society. This view of Catholicism is total, unwavering and exclusivist, inviting to a sort of antimodern crusade in the pursuit of a new social Catholicism (Catolicismo
Total or Integral).
Integrism, on the other hand, is an expression coined by the French
right-wing intellectual Charles Maurras denoting the aim of bringing all
aspects of a nation within a single political organisation. In this view
Roman Catholicism is regarded as an integral aspect of the political
structure of the country, along with language, customs and tradition.
This version of integrism came to Latin America mixed with Spanish
falangism and Italian fascism, all characterised by a strong corporatist
view of state and society.24
24
In Argentina many sectors that converged into Peronism, as well as the nationalist party within the military, have historically supported this view. During the
Today “integrism” and “integralism” are used indiscriminately to refer to those sectors within Catholicism that views the core beliefs of
Catholicism as integral to the nation’s – or the continent’s – identity.
This type of Catholicism proved to be quite strong in the first half of the
20th century, losing some positions in the 1950s and 60s, to gain a protagonist role during the military dictatorships (in Argentina, 1976-1983).
Since then, an increasing pluralisation of the Catholic Church has been
the norm, although the core ideological elements of integrism still colour
vast sectors of this church – especially among clergy and bishops. During the 1990s, coinciding (paradoxically?) with the enforcement of neoliberal policies, several integrist “congregations” and religious societies
were either created, or pre-existing ones spread with new vigour.
Among these are: Opus Dei, Miles Christi, Comunión y Liberación,
Legionarios de Cristo (Juventud Misionera y Familia Misionera), Asociación Profamilia, Tradición-Familia-Propiedad (although waning
during the 1990s), Instituto del Verbo Encarnado, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, Comunidad Jerusalén, Camino Neocatecumenal, F.A.S.T.A.,
and many others.
Following an ultra-conservative interpretation of Vatican II, these
organisations stress lay discipleship in society, education and the formation of leadership, full engagement in the “cultural wars” relating to
abortion and homosexuality, confrontation with the “progressive” liberal
values spread by the media, opposition to the ideology of public schools,
and so on. They loudly declare allegiance to the Pope, a feature that
distinguishes them from other parallel integrist associations, properly
60s and 70s, it reached a gruesome “maturation” through the Doctrine of National Security, the ideological umbrella that supported the military dictatorship
in its repression and disappearance of those “elements” considered subversive of
the (Catholic) values and mores of the Argentine Nation. “Heresies” acquired
social and political form, and culprits must be wiped out in order to purify the
foundations of the polis.
called traditionalists.25 Yet they belong to the same wave of religious
and ideological discontent with modernity and the liberal (and liberationist) interpretation of Vatican II.26
3. Cultural and Epistemological Strategies: the Flight from
Plurality towards a Post-modern Unum
Militancy, exclusivism, a “fight against the world” attitude, and a
profound distaste for (philosophical) relativism and (ideological) pluralism appear to be a common mark uniting different forms of religious
fundamentalism and integrism. Boundary setting, identification of enemies, proselytism, creation and strengthening of intermediate institutions
stand out as important watermarks. They also share some common
moral positions, such as patriarchal models of family, antiabortion and
homophobic stances, promotion of religious education in schools, etc. In
sum, a counter-modern and anti-secularisation attitude seems to galva25
In the line of Lefebvre and others, the latter are schismatic groups (mostly
clergy) setting up their own Magisterium, questioning the reforms introduced by
Vatican II regarding the Roman missal, collegiality of bishops, ecumenism and
the recognition of religious freedoms.
26
The argentine sociologist Fortunato Mallimaci distinguishes three strands in
the integrist camp within the Argentine church. The first one is a small ultranationalist and anti-democratic minority that still cultivates a special relationship with the Military, the alleged institutional paladin of argentine and LatinAmerican identity. A second one, no doubt the majority, prioritizes the strengthening of the theological and ecclesial dimensions in order to face the modernist challenge in society and culture. Their main assumption is that a popular and
ancestral Catholic heritage is today challenged not by atheism and communism,
but by secularization, laicism, moral relativism, hedonism, consumerism, feminism, sects, and the liberal (or “progressive”) message of the media. They also
have strong qualms regarding democracy. Many bishops and clergy, as well as
numerous lay associations advocating traditional family values, are ideologically
identified with this line. Finally a more populist form of integrism is camouflaged with a public and vociferous defence of the poor and marginalized. With a
language resembling the left-wing criticisms of globalization and capitalism,
they are firm defenders of the social doctrine of the church. See Fortunato Mallimaci, “El Catolicismo latinoamericano a fines del milenio: incertidumbres
desde el Cono Sur,” Nueva Sociedad 136 (1995), pp. 154-176.
nise their focus. Yet there are some features in these movements that are
clearly “late-modern” and even “post-modern”: Opus Dei and most
evangelicals, for instance, do not seem inimical to such “modern” phenomena as capitalism, bureaucratic organisation, mass communication
technologies or higher education.27 This indicates that they are not simply anti-modern, but rather critical of those aspects of the modern that
are perceived to be threatening to their core beliefs, their social organisation and ideology. While capitalism is not considered such a threat,
cultural developments leading to a pluralisation of consciousness and
views certainly are.28 This (late) modern pluralisation of the cultural
realm is perceived as an insurmountable, inimical, and hostile stance
against church, faith, nature and truth.
As a strategy facing pluralisation and secularity, fundamentalisms
and integrism share a highly cognitive doctrinal religiosity marked by an
objectivistic, dogmatic, legalistic and dissonant style. The claim to “objectivity” revamps a hermeneutical circle unaffected by human experience, interests and location. In a way they simply continue the “epistemological objectivism” of the West, with reality conceived as though it
were composed by foundational blocks or bricks which possess a certain
order and relationship. To uphold the truth means to respect this structure and order. This epistemological mapping (worldview) possesses an
intrinsic appeal that is coupled with deep-seated tendencies of the human psyche. Such a worldview seems to infer no conflicting expectations or suggestions for human daily behaviour and ethical “decisions”.
As the anthropologist Anthony Wallace asserts, there is a predisposition
to be infatuated with a worldview that promises order, for this is perceived as diminishing stress. It is associated with every satisfaction
derived from life and with the maintenance and reproduction of life
27
Cfr. Emilio Corbière, Opus Dei: el totalitarismo católico. Buenos Aires:
Editorial Sudamericana, 2002.
28
Cfr. Peter Berger, Una Gloria lejana: la búsqueda de la fe en época de incredulidad (Barcelona: Herder, 1994), p. 93.
itself.29 Consequently any element that produces disturbances in this
worldview implies, automatically, a disturbance in the rules of behaviour and therefore in the satisfactions expected from life. The cognitive
and the moral are, at this point, indistinguishable, and the terrain for the
struggle sweeps across the multiple cultural choices in an effort to
streamline them according to a divine norm.
Yet, what (late) modernity has brought to the fore is that the nature
of reality as such is complex, and therefore requires multiple metaphors
and views in order to be understood.30 Any monolithic conceptual system will soon prove inconsistent and unable of establishing congruence
with the diverse metaphors and symbols required for life in complex
settings. In the end fundamentalisms and integrisms prove not only
incapable of surmounting dissonance, but they become fertile terrain for
new crisis. This generates additional cognitive dissonance, which may at
best be able to offer a “solution” for individuals within modernity, but
not to the injustices brought about by modern arrangements. As much of
late-modern trends, they offer biographical-individual solutions to systemic problems.31
Integrism as fundamentalism expresses a cognitive strategy, which
tries to homogenise what is radically plural. Against this background it
can be considered as a form of superstition (super stare, standing over
something that is a vestige from the past), to the extent that they intend
to recreate conceptions of nature, society, culture and self which are
thought or imagined as once having wide currency. Although to a certain point they share many of the traces of religious revitalisation
29
See Anthony Wallace, Revitalizations and Mazeways: Essays on Culture
Change, vol. 1 (Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), p. 182.
30
Cfr. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books,
1999), p. 78
31
Cfr. Zygmunt Bauman, La sociedad sitiada (Buenos Aires: FCE, 2004), p. 94.
However, this is not the case with Islamic fundamentalism(s), which are mostly
counter-systemic movements.
movements, that is, the deliberate, organised and conscious effort to
construct a more satisfying culture and social environment,32 they are
epistemologically unable to produce what these movements successfully
do: a widespread reduction and/or redirection of stress. Therefore it
would be more adequate to consider fundamentalisms as truncated revitalisation movements, for they are constantly tempted to idealise a past
in face of the perils of the present.
The integrist-fundamentalist cognitive incongruence and the psychological stress produced even on its own membership shows that its appeal can only be partial. Very few can bear the implications of transforming the self as is required and demanded by these movements.
Moreover, in a pluralised scenario marked by “increasing reflexivity”
questioning authority, globalization and an enhanced consciousness of
diversity,33 the chances to “discipline” both the religious and political
body are increasingly difficult. This incapacity creates a loop-effect of
pressure and tensions which cannot be resolved by the religious system
as such. The temptation, therefore, is to seek to reduce incongruence not
by modifying the symbolic system (which would imply a thorough revision of “objective” truth), but by confronting the societal and cultural
conditions which generate such stressful stimuli. Sooner or later, violence – including its many subtle forms – would have to be exercised or
legitimised in order to vindicate the truth of the religious-ideological
system.
In sum, different fundamentalisms appear to share a common
counter-cultural strategy that is linked to the social, cultural and economic conditions of globalization and late-modernity. Facing the dislocation created by capitalism and modernity, their aim is to influence
societies and cultures by encouraging high uncertainty avoidance, sanc-
32
See Wallace, p. 10.
See Peter Taylor, Modernities: A Geohistorical Interpretation (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1999), p. 133f.
33
tioning power distance, stressing the collective rather than the individual
and giving prominence to the masculine rather than the feminine.34 In
this strategy stand prominently matters pertaining to sexuality, family
and above all, the role of women.35 These issues not only have to do
with the enforcement of patriarchal property rights and male monopoly
of the labour market, but also with a definite notion of communal reproduction where women are perceived to be the most reliable agents in the
transmission of culture and religion. Because modern economic pressures invariably change family patterns and gender roles, “womb” and
“school” appear as the battlefront of fundamentalist and integrist reaction – the first term signifying the power to control reproduction (a sort
of container of male prerogative to fulfil an ironclad biological and
divine law), and the second representing the entrance gate into the public sphere.
4. The Ethical Foundation of Tolerance
Cognitive, social and cultural uncertainties make of fundamentalisms
and integrism direct or indirect supporters of political regimes set to
34
Cfr. Geert Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), pp. 14ff.
35
See Michael Walzer, On Toleration (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 64ff. This cognitive objectivism, distaste for pluralism, and
legalistic outlook is illustrated in the case of Roman Catholic integrism by its
militant opposition to issues ranging from the introduction of sexual education in
schools and the distribution of condoms in state hospitals, to gay rights (civil
union) and the decriminalisation of abortion. The war metaphor acquires new
currency, as denoted by the statements of integrist ideologues when referring to
feminism, one of the disturbing “dissonances” in late modernity. According to
Adolfo Castañeda, director of Vida Humana Internacional and a consultant for
the integrist circles in Latin America, we are facing a “cultural subversion,”
where “´gender perspectives` represent one of the most dangerous ideological
weapons mustered to destroy life and family, and therefore, society.” That such
views exist in the pluralistic setting of late modernity must not alarm us; what is
cause for alarm is their active pursuit of political means to enforce their vision of
a Catolicismo integral.
curb the range of tolerant practices and democratic demands. Many
times this position adopts the form of an open protest against globalization and its discontents, thus coinciding with other forms of protest
stemming from the “left.”36 But their strategies for change pursue a rigid
cultural reinforcement of religious and traditional values, which severely questions not only the actual shortcomings of “really existing
democracies”, but also the core values that inform and sustain democratic practices in any of its forms. When globalization, democracy and
secularisation are lumped together as a threat, when pluralism and epistemological uncertainties are seen as equally eroding the very fabric of
human society, then violence and intolerance appear as suitable weapons
in an already violent and increasingly intolerant environment.
In effect, uncertainty, pluralism, relativity, radical difference, liquid
boundaries, diffuse hierarchy, soft epistemology, in sum, that which
culturally characterises late modernity, represents a dreadful and demonic horizon that true believers must avoid and fight at all costs. While
these late-modern variables appear to be easier to digest for certain sectors of comfort zones, fundamentalist movements – especially Islamic
and evangelicals outside the U.S. – seem to provide a consoling response to the losers, subordinated, excluded and/or threatened by global
cultural and economic trends.37 When differences of culture, ethnicity
and religion coincide with class and/or geopolitical subordinations, the
terrain appears particularly fertile for fundamentalist recipes. Here we
face a monumental systemic challenge, pressing for new understandings
of democracy, tolerance and the effective redressing of economic and
social inequalities.
36
Cfr. Hard and Negri, Multitude, pp. 235f.
Cfr. William McNeill, “Fundamentalisms and the World of the 1990s”, in
Fundamentalisms and Society, pp. 558ff. One problem of his account is that he
does not pay enough attention to the systemic dimension of fundamentalism, and
the class component of it. Rather, he sees it mostly as a strategy that minimises
friction in the transition from rural to urban life.
37
But in spite of the somehow defiant nature of the fundamentalist
phenomena, one cannot forget what Hardt and Negri have noted,
namely, that these reactions are symptoms signalling a passage to a new
social, political and economic arrangement. The tragedy is that fundamentalism purports to be a cure, encouraging its social base through a
strategy that curbs democratic practices, labelling plurality, diversity or
tolerance as a surrender to “materialism”, “consumerism”, the cultural
“decadence” of the “West,” or with the hypocrisy of neo-colonialism. Is
it possible to decouple the waning forces of the “world-system” from the
values associated with democratic practices? Is “democracy” indissolubly tied to the cultural and political history of the West? Can the value
and practice of tolerance be proven to these popular movements as an
equally effective way to redress social, cultural and economic grievances?
It is true that when we speak about tolerance there is a certain arbitrariness in our definition or, if you will, a definite cultural and social
tradition that informs our understanding. “Intolerance” may well not be
a label accepted by the members of fundamentalist or integrist movements. They may also conceive themselves as somehow tolerant, if
tolerance is understood as a passive forbearance. Yet tolerance is not
only a relational term referring to an attitude vis-à-vis other existences,
but also a practice whose definition is relative to the consideration and
balancing of other values and moral goods. Paramount among these is
the moral valuing of difference and plurality, thorns difficult to withstand not only from a fundamentalist position, but also by other philosophies, practices and ideologies. Otherness, difference and plurality are
realities certainly difficult to openly assimilate, for they imply a deconstruction and reconstruction of our own identities.
Tolerance, therefore, has received many definitions depending upon
the social, political and cultural valuations of diversity, otherness and
difference. It is not an absolute reality, but signifies different points on a
continuum, different possibilities and strategies that move from more
passive to more pro-active understandings.38 For example, when a moral
good such as peace is set as a social desirable goal – which is not a minor issue – then tolerance may come as a resigned acceptance of difference for the sake of that ultimate goal. Tolerance is therefore instrumental to the persecution of another moral good. This attitude may come
very close to one where tolerance results from its lack of moral weight,
as when a relaxed benignity stems from sheer indifference towards differences as such. A third possibility poses tolerance as the appropriate
attitude that must follow the recognition that others have the same universal rights that we do, similar to stoic and Kantian philosophy. Tolerance, therefore, is associated with the realisation of universal sameness.
All of these attitudes, however, appear today as quite brittle, fragile
ways for facing a new phase in the collective history of humanity. Looking back to history, human experience shows different political arrangements to cope with difference and otherness – multinational empires, millet system, consociate nations, nation-states, immigrant societies, etc. But in these regimes tolerance has always been an instrumental
and external achievement, something necessary in order to enforce other
ends and goods –the rule by the few, peace as controlled violence, assimilation, economic exploitation, and so on. Yet the fragility of these
regimes of tolerance was the latent or overt intolerant principle in-built,
an intolerance that precisely made of “tolerance” a necessity of instrumental value.
These different attitudes regarding tolerance and its concomitant political regimes place difference and plurality in a shadowy spot, where
tolerance becomes something that must be endured, ignored or made
dependent upon a homogenising identity. Yet another two attitudes
regarding tolerance are possible which can be envisioned as a pro-active
38
In what follows I follow Walzer’s suggestions, although with certain modifications. See On Tolerance, pp. 10s.
response to the challenging globalised scenario. Here the issues of difference and plurality acquire a moral quality of their own, and where
tolerance mutates from a simple negative or condescending forbearance
to an active form of love. The first one corresponds to an attitude of
curiosity toward the other that leads to a respect and a willingness to
learn. Here tolerance would be a value subsumed under a behavioural
and epistemological openness towards that which is different, that assumes the very incompleteness of our stories, traditions and being. Our
identities are not final, but always in the making, as our epistemologies
are ever soft, never closed.
A second one corresponds not only to a positive valuing of difference as such, but an embracing of the virtue of tolerance as a sheer and
unwavering acceptance of the others – expressions of the largeness and
diversity of human nature, God’s plan, or evolution. From certain ideological and religious points of view, this last scenario would constitute
the ideal to which humanity is called – a veritable state of grace and
love. But in a pluralistic and globalised world, this position is almost
certain to be confined to minorities inspired by the particular axiological
pointers of their mythic narratives. For it is impossible for tolerance to
have the same subjective meaning for all participants in society. Moreover, psychologically a normal and sane society is one in which people
habitually strongly disagree, since general and homogeneous agreement
is actually rare outside the sphere of instinctive human qualities.39 But
the main objection that can be levelled against unqualified acceptance is
that it doesn’t leave much room for a critical appraisal of the other
which can squarely face the constant conflict of values and interests that
marks human reality.
Since socially and politically it is desirable to avoid a sort of bad
utopianism that purports to uphold lofty ideals without recognising its
39
See Carl Jung, ed., Man and his Symbols (New York: Dell Publishing, 1975),
p. 46.
conflict with other values that we fear or dislike, we may favour the
attitude represented by (critical) openness. Life always presses hard
choices, which also have to be made in the larger and often conflicting
arena of political life and arrangements. Therefore tolerance, as a moral
practice, can be said properly to occur when we are open to communicate and interact with people whose beliefs we do not necessarily adopt,
whose practices we often decline to imitate, in sum, when we coexist
with an otherness that in spite of its right to be, still remains different,
alien and strange. This is tolerance as an attitude of openness, thus recognising our ongoing incompleteness and relative truth. Yet it is also a
critical openness which attempts to balance the moral weight of otherness with other values seen in correspondence to this respect for otherness – such as freedom, peace, equality, integrity, etc. It entails not only
the recognition that the other, with his or her truth, will perhaps never
come closer to ours or vice versa, but also that in the exercise of our
choices as moral beings will often set a collision course with other
choices, interests and axiological prioritisations.
Openness, a soft epistemology, and a critical engagement with the
other, delineate a sound psychological, affective and cognitive approach
for the contemporary social practice of tolerance. But a critical openness
requires that tolerance must not restrict itself to its attitudinal dimension,
but somehow must express itself in an institutional and political form.
Otherwise, tolerance may just breed its own demise, naïvely sheltering
its own negation. A point is reached where certain values and moral
goods must be made effective in a social and political arrangement.
Peace allowing for coexistence, for example, marks a limit and a horizon40, and so do freedom, equality and justice.
40
See Hard and Negri, Multitude, p. 311; Walzer, p. 5.
5. Does Democracy have a Future? Tolerance as its Condition
Tolerance, therefore, is a multileveled compound of cognitive, social, institutional and psychological factors. For tolerance to be a successful practice, three dimensions must be addressed in the search for a
tolerant and democratic culture and social arrangement:
a) As the anthropologist Hofstede has shown, power distance and
tolerance are key dimension structuring any society and culture. Its
patterns, however, are not something that fall from above but are constructed through dynamics learnt in family, school and workplace.41
Acknowledging the complex ways in which subjectivities are formed
and reshaped by the micro-dynamics of family, religion and affection (or
lack thereof), we cannot dismiss the psychological and symbolic ground
that instils certain views about tolerance. Background theories, social
experiences and religious symbols are critical factors which set the parameters for an axiological universe which evokes different types of
values.
(b) But in order for this micro-dynamic to flourish, a corresponding
receptive environment is necessary, i.e., a democratic horizon and regime that gives sustenance to the bio-political network stemming from
the communications and relationships of the multitude. While the patterns of true democracy are created in the collaborative and respectful
cooperative practices from below, the institutional guarantees provided
“from above” are also necessary.
(c) Finally, all that can be said about tolerance evaporates into thin
air if the grievances and sufferings that may breed intolerant reactions
are not redressed. Speaking about tolerance, therefore, implies the formation of a new world system where the services and resources involved
in the business of reproducing and expanding life are more or less
41
See Hofstede, pp. 23ff.
equally shared and fairly exchanged. In other words, tolerance calls for
new cooperative and communicative networks of labour and production.
Let’s have a closer look at the three levels:
To (a) The first level has to do with the psychological and epistemological openness that is communicated through mythic narratives and/or
hermeneutics – either sacred or secular. It is the most immediate filter
through which psychological lives of individuals and communities are
formed. Thoughts, feelings, intention and adaptive practices are drawn
from the range of belief system a culture present to them. Given the latemodern lifting of philosophical and ideological interdicts on religion, its
symbols, narratives and myths acquire a renewed vitality and interest.
This poses the ethical and theological endeavour in a new light, considering the fact that values never appear in a vacuum, independent from
mythic narratives. We do not know what the human is outside our telling
a story that intertwines the challenges and conflicts of values that face
the realisation of that which is the human condition. Most of these stories, however, have deep “religious” roots – either because they refer to
a reality lying “beyond” the paramount one, or because they appear as
“eruptions” and “gifts” from an unconscious level. Of course, these
types of stories are effective to the extent that the primary caretakers not
only socialise youth in this atmosphere, but are also committed to the
realisation of values and prospects grafted into the myth.
Theological reflection offers here critical clues for the interpretations
of these myths and symbols, enhancing thereby its formative powers.
Notions regarding the nature of the divine, time, space, will, animals,
plants, land, and the human condition, have a direct effect in the way
people situate themselves in face of otherness, plurality, and difference.
Thus one of the foremost challenges faced by a theological discourse
committed with critical openness would be the deconstruction of monotheistic God-symbols inherited from the axial age, allowing for a vision
of transcendence able to accommodate the integrity and substantial
difference of other beliefs and conceptions of the sacred.42 Again, it is
not a matter of simple and uncritical acceptance, a sort of “postmodern”
embrace of everything in order to hold nothing, but a critical openness
that is possible because of the non-exclusivist clues provided by the
specific convictions of one’s religion.43 Values pointing toward openness and tolerance can and must be found within the integrity of one’s
own narrative –a veritable art considering that much of religious written
sources were carved out from the corpse of a disparaged “other”. But the
craftsmanship of a theological endeavour will be measured by the ability
to reconstruct a language of freedom, equality and tolerance by deconstructing texts that once served for legitimising oppressive dominion.
This is alchemy of sorts, yet it is an urgent task since the emphasis
upon an absolute One, either ontologically or theologically understood,
has served as the foundation for concepts of sovereignty and dominion
forcing the heterogeneous multitude into a suffocating Unum: One God,
one People, one Leader.44 This level, therefore, is a key in the conformation of a spiritual and psychological otherness that would be the basis
for any challenge to hegemonic and intolerant views. The recent history
of Christian theology and ecumenical agreements, moving from intolerance towards pro-active tolerance, shows that it is possible for a religious outlook to discover new views. We must never close this possibility to other world religions, however rigid they may seem, to explore
new dimensions of the sacred. At the same time, it is also true that to
create this climate, other variables must come into play, that is, key
grievances must be institutionally and socially addressed – as we will
mention below.
42
Cfr. Mark Heim, The Depth of Riches: a Trinitarian Theology of Religious
Ends (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 6f.
43
In the case of Christianity, the concepts of grace, agape or justification by
faith, point to this reality.
44
Cfr. Hard and Negri, Multitude, p. 329.
Of course, we are not only socialised through religious narratives –
school (state) and Hollywood also possess an incredible formative
power. Religious views are constantly intertwined with other narratives,
“background theories” and experiences, which in turn slowly modify –
or manipulate – the prospective tolerant dimensions found in religious
stories. These contextual aspects can never be dismissed; pluralised
scenarios already constitute a powerful enticement for reviewing any
sorts of exclusivism and intolerance. But while for some this is a blessing in disguise since it catalyses values and behaviours seen as central to
one’s own religious outlook – as can be freedom, integrity, self-esteem,
choice, diversity – for others, however, this same scenario is simply
harrowing, cognitively and psychologically impossible to bear, thus
encouraging an epic account that places the stressful conscience in the
path of either a militant, apocalyptic or messianic release. In this fashion, intolerant attitudes are one of the possibilities that a confusing and
pluralised semiotic context may elicit, seeking a sort of totalitarian order
that promises to reduce stress by negating alterities.
To (b) Consequently the virtue of tolerance requires not only particular moral (and religious) sensitivities, but also of a political regime or
arrangement providing the guarantees for a minimal climate of tolerance
– which must accommodate different degrees of tolerance – precisely
because of the crisis generated by diversity. Moral and religious sensitivities, as they are not independent of certain narratives, neither are they
uncoupled from political and structural regimes. This is the second level
to which we referred before, which points to democracy as both a cultural horizon for the containment of the multitude, as well as a political
and institutional regime that aims to locate sovereignty in the hands of
people.
Following the polarisation during the Cold War, the concept of democracy has been unanchored from its rigid moorings and set adrift,
providing a new opportunity for re-conceiving it.45 In effect, the forces
of globalization seem to pose formidable challenges, and opinions differ
strongly as to the compatibility and future of democracy in the new
globalised and late-modern scenario. From the left, social democratic
arguments claim that democracy is debilitated or threatened by globalization, especially by its economic forces and fundamentalist reactions.
The reassertion of the sovereignty of nation-states seems therefore the
best strategy in the present global system. On the other hand, liberal
cosmopolitan arguments stress that the forces of globalization, while not
always beneficial at first, release the democratic potential of people by
precisely promoting freedom from the rule of nation-states. From the
right, neo-conservative ideologues stress that only the intervention by
the coalition of the willing nations – lead by the U.S. – is able to foster
democratic forces and institutions. Traditionalists, on the other hand,
contest both the role of the U.S., and the compatibility of democracy
with the cultural values of non-Western peoples.46 None of these views,
however, seem sufficient for confronting the new demands for tolerance,
justice, peace and democracy. For democracy is confronted today with a
leap of scale, where the local appears more intensively related to the
global superseding the mediation offered by the boundaries of traditional
nation-states. The present grievances against political, ecological and
economic aspects, including the current state of war, are all symptoms of
a crisis within the present world system, a rebellion against the formal
mechanisms of sovereignty and its failing system of representation and
decision making processes.
More than ever, local problems demand global solutions, and therefore tolerance as an active practice that signals openness to other expressions of the multitude is a key value in the conformation of a new biopolitical and democratic network capable of addressing and redressing
45
46
See Ibid, p. 232.
See Ibid, pp. 233-237.
harmful, divisive, and exploitative scenarios. The tolerance that is expressed through this democratic network becomes thus a key factor for
peace; for peace is not merely the absence of violence and war, but the
basic precondition for reason, imagination, desire, emotions, feelings
and affections, working its anarchic but lively ways through the maze of
our world. Without tolerance, without peace, no cooperation, communication, forms of life and social relationships can emerge from the incredible potentiality of the swarming multitude. These are the weapons
that signal the democratic critique of arms, launching a critique of the
massive means of destruction at disposal of the core powers of the system, as well as of the equally disturbing weapons of the dispossessed,
namely, the immolation of their own bodies. While these martyrdoms
may well be considered a response to destruction and injustice, and a
cunning strategy to deny sovereign exploitative powers of their object of
sovereignty (the bodies of people), it is still a cog of intolerance that fits
well in the grinding machine of the present world system.
To (c) as the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once asserted, human capability for justice makes of democracy something possible; but its inclination to injustice makes of democracy something necessary.47 The
same can be said regarding tolerance. Therefore democracy should be
measured both by its capability to voice grievance pertaining to a singular group as well as by the ability to connect different kinds of groups:
economic, representation, poverty, human rights, education, ecology and
health. These grievances give countenance to a multitude through which
the future of democracy is at stake. This requires of a bio-political democratic ethics, that it bridge ideas, hopes and affection allowing an
emotional yet also rational identification with a network of differentiated
democratic power.
47
Cfr. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944).
With this we reach a third level that relates to how we redress global
and local grievances, above all, of economic, social and ecological natures – different forms of intolerance that also generate intolerant reactions. If the “world-system” cannot show possibilities toward a more
egalitarian arrangement, then the appeal of fundamentalisms will certainly be strengthened. For grievances and suffering bring us to the bedrock of human existence; it is the source of “local knowledge” that signals the inadequacies of ideological, social and economic systems.48
Grievances, therefore, voice the “insurrection of subjugated knowledges” against hegemonic ideologies – which also include the different
forms of fundamentalisms.49 Of course, suffering is never without interpretation, but our bodies make of it a mediated immediacy, enclosing
thus a negative universality challenging programmes and systems that
thrive on elusive promises and concrete duress.
Deprivation and poverty may breed anger, indignation and antagonism, but revolt arises only on the basis of “wealth” – a surplus of intelligence, vision, experience, knowledge and desire that is generated by a
shift in social practices and cultural patterns. Here lies, precisely, the
inadequacy of the intolerant strategies and weapons of fundamentalisms
for a pluralised scenario crossed by grievances of every sort. They recoil
from the most fundamental weapon of all, a pro-active tolerance that
comes with love. Without it, neither justice nor peace can permeate the
increasing webs connecting us all in this fragile but beautiful planet. We
are not saying that fundamentalists are incapable of loving, or that they
are all equally “violent,” but that they are blind to the political dimension of love. In this they are not alone; if both the forces that create
economic disparities as well as many of the fundamentalist reactions
48
Cfr. Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, “The Crisis of Hermeneutics and Christian
Theology,” in Sheila Greeve Davaney, ed., Theology at the End of Modernity
(Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991), p. 135.
49
See Michael Foucault, Power/Knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books,
1982), pp. 80f.
make of violent behaviour and intolerance a prime weapon in this time
of bifurcation, then violence can only grow exponentially until it destroys us all.
This is why fundamentalism is a symptom of the disruptive forces of
an unfair globalization, but not its cure. It is one of the powerful fluctuations indicating a possible bifurcation. But so are the powerful cultural
and political experiences disclosing a common bio-political desire that
rests on a pro-active exercise of tolerance as an affirmation of life in its
multiple expressions. For that to happen, the fight for democracy must
always be tied to a relentless pursuit of fairness and the eradication of
poverty, which can only be reachable through a serious reorientation of
the disparities generated by capitalism and its global division of labour.
For only when the grievances of the majority are duly heard and redressed, when we are ready to look at the grim face of asymmetrical
power, then shall we be able to walk in the full promise and creative
force of tolerance and democratic affirmation.
Contributors 207
CONTRIBUTORS
Editors
Hadsell, Heidi
Prof. Dr,. Professor of Social Ethics and President of Hartford Seminary,
USA. Themes: environmental ethics, economic ethics, interreligious
encounters and ethics, the public voice of the Churches, methods of
ethics in a global context. Recent publications: Bejond Idealism, ed.
with Robin Gurney and Lewis Mudge. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing 2006; “Environmental Movements as Forms of Resistance”,
in: Stone, Ronald/Stivers, Robert (eds), Resistance and Theological
Ethics, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
Web:
www.hartsem.edu
E-mail: [email protected]
Stückelberger, Christoph
Prof. Dr, Founder, former chairperson and since 2008 Executive Director of Globethics.net. Director of the Institute for Theology and Ethics of
the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches in Bern, Switzerland, until
2007. Professor of Ethics at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Reformed pastor. Director of the Swiss protestant development organisation “Bread for all” (1993-2004). Author of various books on economic
ethics, environmental ethics, peace ethics. Regular visiting professor in
developing countries.
Themes: economic and business ethics, environmental, peace and justice
issues, bioethics, global ethics. Recent publications: Global Trade Ethics. An Overview, WCC Publications: Geneva, 2003 (also in German,
French, Chinese); with Mugambi, Jesse K.N. (eds), Responsible Leadership. Global and Contextual Perspectives, Geneva: WCC Publications,
2007.
Web:
www.globethics.net; www.christophstueckelberger.ch
Authors
Adeney-Risakotta, Bernard
Prof. Dr, Executive Director of the Indonesian Consortium for Religious
Studies (ICRS-Yogya), a Ph.D. consortium of Gadjah Mada University,
State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga and Duta Wacana Christian
University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Asian Studies at University of
Wisconsin, Asian religions at University of London and Religion and
Society at the GTU, Berkeley. From 1982 until 1991 he taught at the
GTU, Berkeley. Has lived in Indonesia since 1991. Currently writing
and researching on Islam and Power in Indonesia. Themes: Interreligious ethics, Christian ethics, Islamic ethics. Publications: Strange Virtues. Ethics in a Multicultural World, Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press, 1995; Etika social lintas budaya, Yogyakarta: Penerbit Kanisius,
2000.
Web:
www.icrs.ugm.ac.id; www.ukdw.ac.id
Contributors 209
Dower, Nigel
Prof. Dr, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Aberdeen and Academic Consultant, Until 2004 fulltime professor in Aberdeen, Zimbabwe, USA. Former president of the International development Ethics Association IDEA. Themes: World ethics, ethics of development, global citizenship. Recent publications: World Ethics: The New
Agenda, Edinburgh: University Press, 1998; An Introduction to Global
Citizenship, Edinburgh: University Press, 2003; Global Citizenship - A
Critical Reader, edited with John Williams, Edinburgh: University
Press, 2002.
Web:
www.abdn.ac.uk
Fernando, Joseph Isidore
Dr, Lecturer in Philosophy at the Graduate School of Philosophy and
Religion, Assumption University, Bangkok, Thailand. Themes: Hermeneutics, Ethics, Social Philosophy, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion,
Thomistic Philosophy, History of Western Philosophy. Aristotle, Aquinas, Heidegger, Marx, Dostoevsky, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Philosophy of Technology, Justice, Peace, Non-violence, and Globalization.
Web:
www.au.edu
Hansen, Guillermo
Prof. Dr,. Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics at the
Luther Seminary, Minnesota,USA. 1996-2008 at ISEDET University,
Buenos Aires, Argentina as Chairperson of the Department of Systematic Theology and Director of Post-Graduate Studies. Born in Argentina.
Themes: public theology, Christian theology and late-modernity, ethics
and globalisation, science and theology. Recent publications: he is finishing three books on the doctrine of the trinity, science and theology
and the Lutheran concepts from a Latin American perspective. “Reasoning through Theology. The Encounter with the Sciences in Times of
Cultural and Social Fragmentation,” in: Studies in Science and Theology
10, 2005/6; “Neoliberal Globalization. A Casus Confessionis? in: Karen
Bloomquist (ed.), Communion, Responsibility, Accountability. Responding as a Lutheran Communion to Neoliberal Globalization, Geneva:
Lutheran World Federation, 2004.
Web:
www.luthersem.edu
Mohammed, Girma
Ethiopean, PhD student in Amsterdam/Netherlands. Dissertation on
Towards a Hermeneutic of Covenant: Reconceptualizing the Interface
between Religion and Society in Ethiopia. 2001-2004 Lecturer at Evangelical Theological College in Addis Ababa/Ethiopia. Last publication:
Beyond the Polarity: The Fundamentalism vs. Liberalism Debate and its
Implication to the African Hermeneutics, in: Henk Geertsema & Jan van
der Stoep (eds.), Philosophy Put to Work: Contemporary Issues in Art,
Society, Politics, Science, and Religion. (Amsterdam: VU University,
2008.
Contributors 211
Pavlovic, Peter
Rev. Dr, Study secretary of the Church and Society Commission of the
Conference of European Churches CEC in Brussels/Belgium. Secretary
of the European Christian Environmental Network ECEN. Physicist,
protestant pastor. Themes: Economic globalization, climate change,
bioethics, church and society. Recent Publications: Drafter and editor of
many church statements and publications such as: Church and Society
Commission of the Conference of European Churches: European
churches living their faith in the context of globalisation, Brussels 2006.
Web:
www.cec-kek.org
Salkeld, Brett
MA Student in Theology at the University of St. Michael's College,
Toronto School of Theology, Toronto, Canada.
Web:
www.utoronto.ca/stmikes
Wijaya, Yahya
Prof. Dr, Professor of Ethics and Director of the Center for Business and
Professional Ethics at Duta Wacana Christian University in Yogyakarta,
Indonesia. Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary
and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Leeds. Themes: business ethics, intercultural ethics, political ethics. Recent Publications:
Iman atau Fanatisme? (Faith or Fanatism?), Jakarta: BKP, 1997; Business, Family and Religion. A Public Theology in the Context of the Chinese-Indonesian Business Community, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2002.
Web:
www.ukdw.ac.id
Wiratmoko, Nickholas T.
Researcher at the independent Percik Institute (Institute for Social Research, Democracy and Social Justice), Salatiga, Indonesia. He obtained
his first degree in agronomy and his Master in development studies both
from Satya Wacana Christian University. Themes: His research activities are centred on advocacy of good governance, territorial reforms, and
local politics. He has been an active member of the Salatiga Circle for
In-depth Study of Science and Religion Relation (SCISOSARR) and he
has also been working with several NGOs mostly in the area of environment, water advocacy, energy policy advocacy. Publications: several
papers in Indonesian journals and conference proceedings.
Web:
www.percik.or.id
*****
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overcoming fundamentalism

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