Religious Violence |
Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violenceby Mark Juergensmeyer. Published by University of California Press. Religious terrorism is a dark spectre which has been haunting the world with increased bloodshed over the past three decades. At the same time, numerous religious leaders have tried to reassure people that their religions (and religion in general) are forces for peace, love and social harmony. If these leaders are correct, then why does the violence not only continue, but continue to worsen?
The destructive alliance between violence and religion is the subject of a recently updated book by Mark Juergensmeyer. As he is able to demonstrate, religion is not the inherent cause of violence or terrorism, and the violence might happen even without the religious context. Nevertheless, religion provides the "mores and symbols" which make horrific bloodshed easier to vindicate. Only religion provides the moral justification to commit violence in the name of a cosmic war between good and evil. Only religion polarizes a situation into such extreme absolutes that compromise and concession are no longer easy - or sometimes even possible.
Juergensmeyer examines the cases of a number of people who engage in, or somehow support, the use of violence for religious ends in different religious traditions: Christian (reconstruction theology, Christian Identity, abortion clinic attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing, Northern Ireland), Judaism (Baruch Goldstein, the assassination of Rabin), Islam (World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Hamas suicide bombers), Sikhism (assassinations of Indira Gandhi and Beant Singh), and finally Buddhism (Aum Shinrikyo). He also interviews those who participate in or advocate religious violence: Mike Bray, Mahmud Abouhalima, and others.
Throughout it all, there are a number of key characteristics which stand out as common to all the movements and people. One is a clear hatred of secular governments which force them to allow others to disagree, or even worse, engage in activities which the activists regard as immoral. Many of them hope to use violence to ensure that their religious views will become the basis of a new moral and political order for society.
Another important characteristic is the premise that a "war" is already being fought. Indeed, this war is often described in thoroughly Manichean terms as one of absolute good combatting absolute evil. Casualties from the movement are martyrs to a holy cause while victims on the other side, already demonized, can be disregarded as unimportant. This religious violence:
...has much to do with the nature of the religious imagination, which has always had the propensity to absolutize and to project images of cosmic war. It also has much to do with the social tensions of this moment of history that cry out for absolute solutions, and the sense of personal humiliation experienced by men who long to restore an integrity that they perceive as lost in the wake of virtually global social and political shifts.
Because a state of war already exists, the use of violence as a "defensive" measure is completely justified. This is how a person can reaffirm their religion's commitment to non-violence just before encouraging violent attacks. Oddly enough, this state of war is often encouraged and even valued by desperate and disillusioned people because violence provides them with an illusion of power. It provides status, meaning and identity in a world which no longer recognizes them.
Juergensmeyer calls these acts of violence "performance violence":
In speaking of terrorism as "performance violence," I am not suggesting that such acts are undertaken lightly or capriciously. Rather, like religious ritual or street theater, they are dramas designed to have an impact on the several audiences that they affect. Those who witness the violence - even at a distance, via the news media - are therefore a part of what occurs.
[...]
Public ritual has traditionally been the province of religion, and this is one of the reasons that performance violence comes so naturally to activists from religious backgrounds. ...The victims of terrorism are targeted not because they are threatening to the perpetrators ...but because they are "symbols, tools, animals or corrupt beings" that tie into "a special picture of the world, a specific consciousness" that the activist possesses.
The use of the term "ritual" might be seen by some as an attempt to minimize the events, but quite the opposite is true. As rituals, the acts of violence are timed, scripted and specially staged for all involved: activists, victims and audiences. As ritual, the acts of violence are given symbolic meaning which goes far beyond the immediate targets. Religion thus transforms the brutality and bloodshed into something transcendent and holy.
All of this should help make it clear just how difficult it will be to actually end such cultures of violence and achieve peace. The activists believe that they are in a cosmic struggle of good vs. evil - compromising with evil is not an option, and allies who try will be regarded as new enemies. They take a very long-term view of things and do not feel the need to "win" this year or next year - if it takes a hundred years to achieve their aims, they will pursue the violence for that long.
If religion is a reason used for justifying the violence and for helping it continue, the solution according to Juergensmeyer is not secularization but rather more religion. He argues that more religion in public life would help mitigate against violence, but his argument is not very persuasive. Aside from this, his exploration of the reasons behind the religious violence is very good and quite enlightening. Much of the craziness in the world today seems a bit less crazy and a bit more understandable after reading his book.
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