The Revenge of God? (Scott) PDF

Chapter 1 “The Revenge of God?” The Twentieth Century as the “Last Modern Century” he concept of religion was invented as part of the T political mythology of liberalism and now has emerged as a universal concept applicable to other...

Chapter 1 “The Revenge of God?” The Twentieth Century as the “Last Modern Century” he concept of religion was invented as part of the T political mythology of liberalism and now has emerged as a universal concept applicable to other cultures and civilizations. This understanding of religion is used to legitimate a form of liberal politics that considers the mixing of politics and religion to be violent and dangerous to reason, freedom, and politi- cal stability. The global resurgence of religion, however, challenges the concepts of social theory that interpret public religion in this way. It challenges the idea that secular reason can provide a neutral stance from which to interpret religion, and it opens up the possibil- ity of multiple ways of being “modern,” making “progress,” or being “developed” consistent with a variety of cultural and religious traditions. The Invention of Religion The concept of religion used in this book refers to the primary world religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, along with Sikhism, Jainism, Taoism, or Shinto— which comprise about 77 percent of the world’s population.1 There is something that is both concrete and illusive about the concept of the world religions. On the one hand, what is concrete about the concept is that it refers to what are identifiably global religions that have adherents around the world. On the other hand, what is illusive about the concept is that identifying the main world religions as one of the subjects of this book does not settle what it is about religion that is being examined, nor why the world religions are important for the study of international relations. 22 Global Resurgence of Religion Some of the most important questions in international relations theory that have been asked since September 11 include the follow- ing: were these horrific events about religion, or were they about something else? What are the root causes of Islamic terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, and what can we do to prevent this kind of activity in the future? The problem with the way these questions are asked is that they seem to assume there is a social activity out there in the world that can be identified by a universal category called “religion,” it is a phenomena that seems to occur in all societies, even though it was supposed to decline with modernization, and this seemingly universal human activity can be studied in a way that can give satisfactory answers to these questions.2 What has been remarkably odd following September 11 is that many of the same kind of questions political scientists and scholars of international relations are now asking about culture and religion, scholars of early modern Europe have been asking about the “wars of religion” for more than a generation. Therefore, understanding the nature and causes of the wars of religion in Europe—the civil war between Catholics and Protestants in France (1550–1650), and in the Thirty Years’ War that engulfed all of Europe in one of its most bloody and devastating conflicts (1618–1648), is crucial for the way culture and religion are interpreted in international relations today. History, it is often said, is a fable agreed upon, and the fable in this case is the political mythology of liberalism surrounding the wars of religion. The fable liberal political theorists tell us about the wars of religion is central to the way most people still interpret the mixing of religion and politics, and so it is central to the way that concepts such as fundamentalism, political religion, or religious extremism are constructed. According to this political myth, what the wars of religion indi- cate is that when religion is brought into domestic or international public life—when religion is politicized or de-privatized as a type of political theology or political religion, it inherently causes war, intolerance, devastation, political upheaval, and maybe even the collapse of the international order. Therefore, the story goes on to say, the state—the liberal or secular state, is needed to save us from the cruel and violent consequences of religion. The modern state, the privatization of religion, and the secularization of politics arose to limit religion’s domestic influence, minimize the affect of religious disputes, and end the bloody and destructive role of reli- gion in international relations.3 Thus, the political mythology of  “The Revenge of God?” 23 liberalism is the myth of the modern secular state as our savior from the horrors of modern wars of religion or clashes between civilizations.4 The only problem with this myth is that it is historically untrue, but like many myths, it stays with us because its totemic power tells something we want to believe about ourselves as modern men and women. Most scholars of early modern Europe now recognize that the debate and confusion over the role of religion and other political, social, or economic forces in the wars of religion in Europe—like we see being reproduced right now in many of the debates on the role of religion in ethnic conflicts or terrorism, was based on retrospectively applying a modern concept of “religion,” as an ideology or set of privately held beliefs or doctrines, to societies which had yet to make this kind of social and cultural transition. What many historians and anthropologists of early modern Europe now recognize is that no universal concept of religion applicable to all societies and cultures is possible, despite the attempts since the Enlightenment to find one, and not only because the elements of religion are historically specific. Most importantly, the concept of religion is itself the historical product of the discur- sive practices and history associated with one particular culture, religion, or civilization—Latin Christendom—which has now become the liberal modernity of Western civilization. These social changes then went on to influence ideas about the state, the nation, nationalism, and international society. In other words, at the outset we have to recognize that the very concept of religion is itself the invention of liberal modernity. The “modern” reading of religion has distorted our understand- ing of what the wars of religion in early modern Europe were all about, and given the global resurgence of religion, it continues to inhibit our understanding of the role of religion in ethnic and internal wars or in international conflicts today. If we interpret the wars of religion as a backward and barbarous period of European history when people killed each other over clashing religious doctrines—such as the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist— then we will probably also misinterpret the role of religion in the Balkans wars, the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world. This does not mean religion was an unimportant part of the wars of religion or that it is unimportant in wars or ethnic conflicts today. At issue is the meaning of religion in early modern Europe, and how 24 Global Resurgence of Religion this has influenced our understanding of religion in international relations today. Scholars have come to adopt a social definition of religion, which they believe is compatible with how people understood their religious, moral, and social lives at that time. “Religion” in early modern Europe should be interpreted as a “community of believers” rather than as a “body of beliefs” or doctrines as liberal modernity would have it. Therefore, what was being safeguarded and defended in the wars of religion was a sacred notion of the community defined by religion, as each community fought to define, redefine, or defend the social boundaries between the sacred and the profane as a whole. How does this social definition of religion help us to better understand the contemporary international order and the pressures that the global resurgence of religion has placed upon it? What this section seeks to show is what I call the invention of religion, as a set of privately held beliefs or doctrines, was a product of state- building—necessary for the rise of the modern state, modern nationalism, and the rise of modern international society. How did the transition from religion as a community of believers to religion as a set of privately held beliefs and doctrines take place? The full story of this transformation has been told elsewhere.5 What are important here are those elements of a social theory of religion, which help us to recognize the way the invention of reli- gion has framed the kind of questions we ask about religion in international relations. During the Middle Ages the term, religio, referred to the monas- tic life, or it was used to describe a particular “virtue” supported by practices embedded in the Christian tradition, as part of an ecclesial community (called the church). In other words, this social definition of religion, as a community of believers, meant the virtues and prac- tices of the Christian tradition were not separated from the tradi- tion and community in which they were embedded and which sustained them.6 This social understanding of religion can also be called mainstream or “traditional religion,” and this is what Christianity signified for most people in early modern Europe.7 As a result of the modern concept of religion, the virtues and practices of the Christian tradition come to be separated from the communities in which they were embedded. The modern concept of religion in Latin Christendom begins to emerge in the late fifteenth century, and first appears as a universal, inward impulse or  “The Revenge of God?” 25 feeling toward the divine common to all people. The varieties of pieties and rituals are increasingly called “religions,” as representa- tions of the one (more or less) true religio common to all, apart from any ecclesial community. A second major change takes place in the early sixteenth or seventeenth centuries when religio begins to shift from being one of various virtues, supported by practices of an ecclesial community embedded in the Christian tradition, to a system of doctrines or beliefs that could exist outside the ecclesial community. Religion was embedded in the practices of power and disci- pline regulated by the authoritative structure of the ecclesial community—the Roman Catholic Church in Latin Christendom. What did the rise of the state and rise of nationalism mean for this social understanding of religion? “Religion,” as a set of moral and theological propositions, had to be made compatible with the power and discipline of the new monarchies of Europe, by detach- ing them from the virtues and practices embedded in the religious tradition embodied in the ecclesial community. Religious belief, conscience, and sensibility were privatized by the secularization of politics, and the previous discipline (intellectual and social) of religion was taken over by the state, which was now given the legit- imate monopoly on the use of power and coercion in society. The invention of religion—as a body of ideas—is presupposed rather than critically examined when scholars try to evaluate the impact of religion or theology in early modern Europe, in the rise of nations and nationalism in ethnic or internal conflicts, on promot- ing international cooperation, or the beginning of modern interna- tional society. The growing civil dominance over the Catholic Church by princes and the rise of state power and state churches in Latin Christendom incorporated a transition from a social to a privatized or nationalized concept of religion. For the state to be born, religion had to become privatized and nationalized. The state used the invention of religion to legitimate the transfer of the ulti- mate loyalty of people from religion to the state as part of the consolidation of its power—the process of state-building and nation-building, which we have come to call internal sovereignty. The shift to a modern concept of religion was fundamental for the creation of modern international society. For international soci- ety to be born religion had to be privatized and nationalized by the state, which is what the princes legitimated as part of the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years’ War, and helped to create 26 Global Resurgence of Religion European international society. The new concept of religion, allowed the state to discipline religion in domestic society, and the agreement not to interfere in the religious affairs of other countries was used to secure the external sovereignty and independence of states in European international society. The problem with applying the modern concept of religion to the study of many of the societies in central Europe, central Asia, and most of the non-Western world is that they have still not entirely made, or are struggling not to make, this transition to a modern concept of religion. The privatisation or marginalization of religion is not entirely a part of the Greek Orthodox world, nor is it a part of many non-Western societies incorporated (through colo- nialism and imperialism) into the modern international society. This is why strong religions and weak states still characterize much of the developing world. These states and faith communities are being forced more than ever before, to define, defend, or redefine the social boundaries between the sacred and the profane in the face of modernization and globalization.8 The Global Resurgence of Religion The global resurgence of religion, as the concept is used in this book, can be defined in the following way: the global resurgence of religion is the growing saliency and persua- siveness of religion, i.e. the increasing importance of religious beliefs, practices, and discourses in personal and public life, and the growing role of religious or religiously-related individuals, non-state groups, political parties, and communities, and organizations in domestic politics, and this is occurring in ways that have significant implications for international politics. The global resurgence of religion describes the ways religion and politics are being mixed together around the world. What is increasingly being challenged is an idea that is part of the political mythology of liberal modernity. This is the idea that religion is, or should be, privatized, restricted to the area of private life in domes- tic and international politics. The global resurgence of religion is about what Robert Wuthnow has called the “restructuring of religion” in a global era. A focus on the remolding or restructuring of religion may provide a better way of interpreting how the forces of social and cultural change are  “The Revenge of God?” 27 coming together because of globalization to bring about a long- term cultural shift in domestic and international politics.9 The global resurgence of religion is global in a geographic sense because it is not confined to any particular region of the world, the American South, Central Asia, or the Middle East, and from a comparative politics or comparative religion perspective, it is happening in countries with different types of political systems, and it is occurring in each of the main world religions.10 The global resurgence of culture and religion is also taking place in countries with different religious and cultural traditions and in countries at different levels of economic development. This means it is not limited to failed states such as Somalia, Liberia, or Afghanistan, or poverty-stricken regions such as Sudan or Bangladesh, nor those with low levels of economic development, such as Egypt, Sri Lanka, or Thailand. The global resurgence of religion occurs in oil-rich Saudi Arabia as well as some of the most successful of the Newly Industrialized Countries in the Pacific Rim, such as South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and in the countries with emerging markets in Latin America. Religion, of course, remains an impor- tant feature of politics in the United States, the most modern country in the world. The idea of a religious resurgence in cultures and countries around the world at different levels of economic development can be understood in an empirical sense and in a theoretical sense. In other words, religion—rituals, practices, ideas, doctrines, dis- courses, groups, or institutions, in an empirical sense was a dor- mant, marginal, or less important part of politics during the 1950s and 1960s—the heyday of the theory of modernization. It is now a more observable part of people’s private and public lives, and so scholars, if often reluctantly, now acknowledge religion to be a global aspect of politics in the late twentieth century. Unfortunately, as we also discover in this chapter, an empirical approach to the global resurgence of religion cannot be separated from a theoretical approach, which examines the concepts and assumptions scholars bring to the study of culture or religion in international relations. Another possibility, to put the matter most starkly, is to say religion has always been a part of politics and society in developing countries because the concerns of religion are an inevitable part of what it means to be human. Religion is as much a part of human life as any other aspect of society or culture.11 28 Global Resurgence of Religion However, on this reckoning, religion is more obvious today only because social scientists have taken off the kind of ideological blinders, which have hidden the role of religion from politics and history. Social scientists are looking at the same phenomenon they were always looking at, but with new or different lens, no longer colored or distorted by the ideologies that have dominated the social sciences—materialism, positivism, and Marxism. This book takes what might be called an intermediary position. There is a global resurgence of religion, but this global and cultural shift is also prompting scholars to rethink their theories and assumptions regarding the study of religion in international relations. The Levels of Analysis Among scholars of international relations the concept of the level of analysis was developed to help them sort out the multiplicity of actors, influences, and processes useful for explaining events in international relations. The various levels of analysis—global, inter- state, the state and society levels, and the individual level, that is, the role of key individuals—are perspectives that brings together the actors, influences, and processes at each level of analysis.12 This framework is set out in figure 1.1. The impact of the global resurgence of religion on international relations can be seen at each of these levels of analysis. In using this framework it is possible to indicate more fully some of the various aspects of the global resurgence of religion examined in this book. Global Level The global or world level of analysis seeks to explain the out- comes in international relations in terms of global natural, social, or GLOBAL INTERSTATE STATE SOCIETY INDIVIDUAL Figure 1.1 The levels of analysis  “The Revenge of God?” 29 technological forces that transcend the relations between states at the level of analysis of the international system. It is this level of analysis that is becoming increasingly important because of the integrating and fragmenting effects of globalization on interna- tional relations. Many of the world religions—religious institutions and commu- nities, such as Sufi orders, Catholic missionaries, and Buddhist monks, have had a global influence for centuries. In more recent times this influence was often intermingled with trade, imperialism, religious pilgrimage, and proselytizing or evangelism. What is called transnational religion describes the crossing of state bound- aries of religious individuals, institutions, and movements. This activity, like the activity of most religious non-state actors, some- times predates and increasingly transcends the division of the world into the states that make up the interstate level of analysis. Many scholars consider the global resurgence of religion to be a part of globalization. Globalization refers to a set of technological processes affecting the world economy, telecommunications, infor- mation technology, travel, and growing economic interdependence between states and peoples that is altering our sense of time and space, and is creating the possibility that the world will become a single social space.13 Globalization, it is argued, has created a “shrinking world,” and so the metaphors abound—spaceship earth, our global neighborhood, global society, global civil society, and global international society. It is argued globalization is rapidly dissolving the social and economic barriers between states, transforming the world’s diverse popula- tions into a uniform global market, and at the same time ethnic, reli- gious, and racial hatreds are fragmenting the political landscape into smaller and smaller tribal units. Thus, according to some theorists of globalization, the global resurgence of culture and religion is coming about in response to the paradoxical interdependence of these social forces. Globalization is creating a more unified and a more frag- mented or pluralistic world at the same time.14 At the global level of analysis the resurgence of religion around the world can be identified as one of the “megatrends” of the twenty-first century. It is one of a number of large scale social and cultural changes taking place across many cultures and countries at the same time that can be examined at the global level of analysis.15 Globalization is changing the religious landscape throughout the world. First, globalization is rapidly changing what religion is, and 30 Global Resurgence of Religion what constitutes religious actors in international relations. Ever since Samuel Huntington popularized the notion of the “clash of civilizations” most accounts of religion in international relations have followed an analysis of the static and rather well-delineated blocs that make up the main world religions and civilizations— Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. However, this assumes a stability in the global religious landscape, and a rather static approach to religious non-state actors that is quite at odds with the reality of religion in the twenty-first century. Scholars concerned about change in international relations also need to be concerned about how globalization is changing religion as well, and what effect this may have on international relations.16 There is a constantly evolving role of religion in international relations. Rapid religious and social changes are taking place in the Islamic world, which has produced a variety of the Islamic non- state actors we see in the newspapers every day now—al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and so on—but there are a variety of Islamic non-state actors that are not terrorist groups, and a variety of new non-state actors in all of the other world religions as well. There is a whole array of what are called new religious movements in the sociology of religion—such as the Fulan Gong and Pentecostalism—which have millions and millions of followers around the world. They are also shaping the global cultural, religious, and political landscape on which states and non-state actors operate. Pentecostalism, for example, is at the cutting edge of Christian growth in China, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. Although this region is constantly referred to as the Pacific Rim, how would it change our image of world politics if we recognized that it could also be called the “Christian arc” above Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world?17 Second, globalization is helping to create or expand the existing ethnic and religious diaspora communities around the world. The mass migration across state boundaries, usually for economic or political reasons—to flee poverty or oppression, or in the case of slavery, as a result of oppression—has been going on for several centuries. Although there are other factors, such as the aftermath of war, globalization is helping to create and expand religious diaspora communities around the world. Religious diaspora communities are one of the most significant types of non-state actors in world politics in the twenty-first century. It is already complicating the issue of security and global  “The Revenge of God?” 31 terrorism—for example, in Europe is Hamas a social welfare orga- nization or is it a terrorist organization? The fact that al-Qaeda can use the hawala network, the global, informal networks of Islamic finance, to move money around the world does not make this form of finance illegitimate; it only speaks to the pervasiveness of Islamic diaspora communities in world politics.18 Another aspect of religious diaspora communities is the chang- ing nature of global missions. Missionary activity, as a North–South activity, has long dispersed new or different religious and cultural ideas and values around the world. What is new, facilitated by global travel, with the vibrancy of religious life in developing coun- tries, is that missionary activity is becoming a South–North phe- nomena, with a variety of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians from developing countries promoting America’s and Europe’s re-evangelization. The way more radical, militant, conser- vative, or extremist forms of religion (there are no neutral terms to use here) have appeared in the West is only one aspect of this global phenomenon—what Felipe Fernandez-Armesto has called “counter-colonization.” If he is correct, then the spread of Hinduism, Buddhism, and “New Age” spiritualities in the West is also another aspect of it, and is part of the “revenge of the East” that is transforming the notions of religion and spirituality in Western modernity.19 Third, globalization is facilitating the more rapid spread of cultural and religious pluralism. One of the most commented on features of globalization is the way diverse cultures and religions are no longer in exotic, faraway places of which we know very little. Most of us now live in communities with a variety of churches, mosques, temples, and synagogues, and their worshipers are our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and classmates. It is an inherent part of what we identify as the postmodern world.20 Fourth, the large-scale religious changes in world politics are being accompanied by the global vitality and growth in Islam and Christianity. The media often casts Islam as the defining religion of the developing world, but this can be contested. The global spread of Christianity is shifting its center of gravity from the industrial- ized countries to the developing world. The majority of Christians in the world by 2050 will be nonwhite, non-Western, will be from the developing world, will espouse forms of Christianity that are far more emotive and charismatic than those found in the West, and many of them will be living as minorities under non-Christian and 32 Global Resurgence of Religion often hostile regimes.21 The support for freedom of religion has become a key aspect of U.S. foreign policy (as opposed to supporting these elements as an overall human rights foreign policy). This shift in U.S. foreign policy, as we see in chapter 8, partly emerges from these changes in global religion. What happens when the vitality of Islam and Christianity meet in countries throughout the developing world? This social and political situation is unprecedented in world politics, and scholars have not even started to think through its consequences for inter- national relations. A similar situation has not existed since the Middle Ages. There were crusades and wars of religion, but as any study of Thomas Aquinas shows, it was also the last time intellectu- als in the West took Islam seriously—its ideas, values, culture, and civilization.22 This is the other side of the story of the clash of civilizations. Fifth, the spread of new religious movements has hardly had any impact on the study of non-state actors in international relations theory. Much of the study of non-state actors, as we see in chapter 4, is still dominated by the notion that NGO coalitions and new social movements are forming a brave new world of global civil society. This kind of partial vision has missed the full impact of the revival of Islam and Christianity in the global South and the spread of new religious movements that are also creating global religious subcultures, which may play as important a role as transnational NGO coalitions—on human rights, the environment, or world poverty, in shaping the future of world politics, world civilization, or global civil society.23 In the aftermath of the Cold War, it is all of these types of global subcultures that are going to be part of the contested and competing meanings of world politics in the twenty- first century.24 Interstate Level The global resurgence of religion can also be examined at the more common level of analysis of the international system. At this level there is a more conventional understanding of states and their interests, including foreign policy—military power, arms races, alliances, the balance of power, and the spheres of interest, as well as the role of states in conflict and international cooperation. The general issue at this level of analysis is that religion was no longer supposed to be a part of international politics because of  “The Revenge of God?” 33 the “Westphalian presumption” in international society. This is the notion that religious and cultural pluralism cannot be accommodated in international public life, and is part of the political mythology of liberalism surrounding the wars of religion. The origins of the modern international system goes back to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) that brought the Thirty Years’ War to an end. These treaties ended the legitimacy of religion as a source of international conflict among the states of Christendom. The new Westphalian system recognized the state as the dominant actor, replacing the transnational authority of the Catholic Church, and it established political realism and the secular principle of raison d’etat (reason of state) as the main principles of statecraft by replacing religion as the basis of foreign policy. However, for some time now religion has been returning from exile, overturning the Westphalian presumption in international relations. This can be seen in less spectacular ways than the Iranian and Polish Revolutions or in the rise of global religious violence. It can be seen, as part two shows, in the rise of faith-based diplomacy, the World Faiths Development Dialogue started by Dr. George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, in the role of the world’s religious leaders at the United Nations, and at the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and in the growing role of religion in peacemaking and conflict resolution. The early English School, as we see in chapter 6, argued that the various international systems in history have been based on a common culture—most often influenced by religion, such as the ancient Greek city–state system. It drew attention to the cultural foundations of the working of the balance of power in European diplomacy, and more generally, to the role of culture and religion in international cooperation. Questions about the meaning of the cultural or religious foundation of a state system has surfaced with the debate Jacques Delors, the former president of the European Commission, started over the idea of the “the soul of Europe,” and it is part of the debate over the place of Europe’s Judeo–Christian heritage in the European Constitution. The role of culture and religion also surfaces in the debate over Turkey’s membership—as an Islamic state in the new Europe after the fall of communism. The early English School posed the question about the cultural foundations of state systems during decolonization, when more and 34 Global Resurgence of Religion more countries were gaining their freedom and independence. What had been a European international society was expanding to become a global international society. What would be the common culture underlying this global international society? The answer they gave, during the heyday of modernization theory, was that Western modernity would provide the culture of global interna- tional society. However, developing countries have reacted to the way the culture of Western modernity is being imposed on their societies. This can be seen in the debates at the UN conferences on human rights, women, and population, and in the way religion continues to influence foreign policy. State and Society These levels of analysis considers the types of social, economic, or political actors that influence the state’s domestic and foreign policies, and the wider political culture in which these actors and influences are embedded. The politics of ethnic conflict and nationalism, the resurgence of religion in states at different level of economic development, the religious challenge to the secular state, or the impact of the military–industrial complex are located at these domestic levels of analysis. At the state and society levels of analysis global religious communities and subcultures are starting to complicate multi-faith relations in the West on a host of social policy and public policy issues. They challenge the way religion has been separated from the public square. Religion has become one of the new types of what are called “intermestic” policy issues in international relations, that is, issues that symbolize the merger of domestic and international politics. This concept has mainly been used to examine the way domestic economic issues have an international dimension, such as when American shoe companies want lower tariffs on Japanese imports of American shoes, but it also increasingly applies to multiethnic as well as multi-faith relations.25 The uproar among British Muslims regarding Ayatollah Khomenei’s fatwa against Salmon Rushdie, and the issues it raised regarding freedom of speech, religious toleration, and the laws on blasphemy is only the most prominent example of the way multi- faith relations has become an intermestic issue in world politics. French foreign policy toward Algeria is closely related to French domestic policy toward North African immigrants. Young French  “The Revenge of God?” 35 Muslims, for example, who were born in France, but whose parents may come from Algeria or Morocco, are coming to recognize in Islam a transnational identity. In France they may be a minority, but in pan-Islamic unity with other Muslims around the world they perceive themselves to be in the majority. Multi-faith relations have become an intermestic issue in Britain. This can be seen in the problem of so-called “honor killings” among Muslim families in Britain and Pakistan. If young Pakistani women in Britain choose a husband on their own without the approval of the more traditional family, there are instances when she or her husband or boy friend are murdered by members of her family. This issue combines globalization with problems of murder, immigration, individual freedom, and religious freedom, and with the broader issue of how religious and cultural traditions are interpreted. A number of other multi-faith issues are becoming intermestic issues in world politics as well because of the way what are perceived in the West as minority religious communities are really a part of global religious subcultures. The politics surrounding the ritual slaughter of animals is one such increasingly emotive issue in multi- faith relations. At issue is whether in democratic and pluralistic soci- eties are there ways in which religions are above the law or a law unto themselves? The particular Jewish and Muslim regulations for the kosher and halal ritual slaughter of animals can come into conflict with animal rights activists, or possibly even secular society’s general guidelines regarding the humane treatment of animals.26 The issue of young girls wearing the Islamic veil in schools erupted in France right after the Rushdie affair, and, in the after- math of September 11, it has made headlines again with France’s ban on wearing conspicuous religious symbols—headscarves, skull caps, turbans, or crosses. It is argued French law protects freedom of religion and conscience, but such symbols contradict the French principles of laïcité (secularization), which seeks to exclude religion from public life, allegedly in the interests of religious toleration. What is at issue in many of these examples is the way liberal modernity has invented religion as a system of private belief, and so religious freedom is interpreted as an aspect of freedom of conscience, and is defended by European human rights provisions in this way. However, there is still a social dimension to many global religions, and so private belief and public practice and observance cannot be so easily separated. The way multi-faith relations has 36 Global Resurgence of Religion become an intermestic issue in world politics illustrates the ideo- logical assumptions behind what are often thought to be the state’s neutral notions of religion and toleration, and the way these notions are challenged by the global resurgence of religion. Individual Level The individual level of analysis covers the perceptions, choices, values, and beliefs of individuals, and the impact they can have on international relations. Globalization has facilitated the role of individuals in world politics, and explanations at this level of analysis probe how different individuals, with different beliefs or characteristics make different choices. A cautionary note is in order. The individual level of analysis emphasizes the role of individuals, personality traits, education, socialization, and cognitive or psychological factors that influence individuals and their decision-making. However, there are often unstated assumptions at this level of analysis, as we see in chapters 2 and 3, regarding liberal notions of “the self,” individual freedom, and autonomy. These assumptions, and the rational choice theory on which they are sometimes based, examine individual decisionmak- ing quite apart from the cultural or religious traditions in which such notions of choice and rationality are embedded. Many scholars have not recognized until recently that respected religious leaders or individuals—Ayatollah Khomeini, Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, Oscar Romaro, Desmond Tutu, Gandhi, or Aung San Suu Kyi can become actors in international relations. Some of these people are what Peter Paris has called “moral exemplars in global community,” and have had an impact on the ideas and values in world politics.27 Ordinary people also can become actors in international relations at extraordinary times—A. T. Ariyaratne, a teacher who became the founder of the Sarvodaya community development movement in Sri Lanka, Lech Walesa, the unemployed electrician, who played a key role in Solidarity, or Beyers Naude, the Afrikaner who founded the Christian Institute, and sat with the ANC delegation when it met with the South African government for the first time. We are now more aware of what Thomas Friedman, the foreign affairs columnist at The New York Times, has called the angry, “super- empowered individuals,” who are involved in terrorist activity, but this underplays the role of a Gandhi, a Rosa Parks, a Martin Luther King,  “The Revenge of God?” 37 or a Albert Lutuli, and how their efforts influenced the ANC in South Africa, aboriginal struggles in Australia, and countless other struggles for nonviolent political change around the world. Now, after September 11, we may be more aware that individuals as non-state actors can have a devastating impact on world politics. However, right- eous or indignant, committed individuals, if not super-empowered ones, are also involved in world politics, and they will always be there, as long as people feel compelled as active citizens to work peacefully for social justice and political transformation. Globalization can facilitate the positive action of individuals in world politics as well. Explaining the Global Resurgence of Religion The concept of the global resurgence of religion raises some of the same kind of analytical difficulties Samuel Huntington encountered when he examined the global spread of democracy.28 If the concept can be defined by what social scientists call a similar or general type of event occurring in different places and in different cultures or religions at about the same time, then the global resurgence of religion may be explained in a number of ways. It is important to be clear about the phenomena this book is trying to explain or understand in international relations. The dependent variable in this book is not greater religiosity per se, for in that case it would be a book about comparative religion or the sociology of religion. What is being explained is how the greater levels of religiosity or even spirituality are taking place in public life, and doing so in ways that have an impact on international relations. It is for this reason the concept of the global resurgence of religion is broader than religious extremism or fundamentalism. Huntington has said that the following types of explanation are not exhaustive, nor are they mutually exclusive, nor do they have to be con- tradictory. They all may be at work in various ways. What these differ- ent types of explanation bring out is the importance of the different levels of analysis for understanding the global resurgence of religion. Single Cause If the global resurgence of religion is occurring within separate, or diverse states, societies, cultures, or religions—the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the rise of the Moral Majority in the United States, or the global spread of Pentecostal Christianity, then this 38 Global Resurgence of Religion may indicate that there is a single cause or a common influence on these events. It may indicate a single cause within a particular region of the world, or maybe even a single cause within a particular religious tradition. If there is a global resurgence of religion as the concept has been defined in this book, then the first questions to ask about it are, “What is the phenomena that is being explained by the global resurgence of religion,” or “Is this a coincidental trend?” The global resurgence of religion is far from cohesive in its goals, objectives, or tactics. It includes an Islamic resurgence in both Arab and non- Arab Muslim countries—Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the growth of evangelical Christianity, liberation theology, and Pentecostal Protestant Christianity in Latin America, Jewish revivalism, and the growing role of spirituality in corporate America as well as Hindu and Sikh activism in India.29 Possibly, in a more direct sense, it is easier to see this single cause explanation operating within particular religious traditions rather than influencing all of them at once. The global impact of Vatican II, for example, leading to a change in the Catholic Church’s support for democracy rather than authoritarianism influ- enced the spread of democracy in Catholic countries, particularly in Poland, the Philippines, in Latin America, and elsewhere.30 Remarkably, the global spread of Pentecostal Christianity that may be transforming the possibilities for democracy and economic development in Latin America began with a single cause, the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles at the beginning of the twentieth cen- tury. A group of poor, down and out black and white hymn singers, itinerant evangelists, domestic servants, janitors, and day workers in a run down section of Los Angeles believed a new Pentecost was happening, a new outpouring of the holy spirit in today’s world.31 The defeat of the Arabs in the Six Day War in 1967, is another single cause, which led to a crisis in Arab nationalism is often seen as one of the main factors contributing to the rise of Islamic funda- mentalism. It should be remembered, however, that this had at first a greater impact on Arabs than it did the broader Muslim world (although with the globalization of Islam this is changing). Parallel Development The global resurgence of religion may be caused by a parallel devel- opment in separate states, societies, cultures, or religions. In other  “The Revenge of God?” 39 words, the same independent variables manifest themselves almost simultaneously in different countries. Huntington’s example of this type of explanation is the idea that a country is likely to develop democracy once it passes certain thresholds in economic development. This type of explanation for the global resurgence of religion goes to the heart of the contemporary debates among scholars regarding the causes of the September 11 tragedy and the spread of religiously motivated terrorism or fundamentalism. It is the idea that there may be a common independent variable or a common influence in these separate states or societies, which is behind the cultural antagonism that causes religious extremism, fundamentalism, and terrorism. Scholars disagree over what may be the common cause explain- ing the global resurgence of religion as a parallel development in different societies or communities—social exclusion, world poverty, or the absence of democracy. It is this latter explanation, for example, that is behind the analysis of the Arab Human Development Report.32 This chapter argues that the common influence leading to the parallel development of the global resurgence of religion is the impact of globalization on a wide-ranging cultural revolt against secular modernity (here, please note the adjective, secular, in front of modernity). What this book defines as the global resurgence of religion is often rather narrowly identified by many scholars as reli- gious extremism, terrorism, or fundamentalism, and is identified with a fundamentalist revolt against modernity. The problem with this explanation is that it is based on unstated and often unchal- lenged assumptions regarding religion, modernity, and secularism that are a part of the political mythology of liberalism. Snowballing Effect The global resurgence of religion might be the result of a snow- balling effect, in which the religious revivalism in one country starts to affect other countries. The possibility of this explanation is increased by globalization because knowledge of social or political events in one country can trigger off events that are comparable in other countries. In other words, demonstration effects, or what scholars have called “emulative linkages” are more likely because global information and 40 Global Resurgence of Religion telecommunications more closely link together states and societies around the world.33 After the Iranian Revolution there was a fear among Western policymakers that “Iran-style” popular religious upheavals could spread to other Arab or Islamic countries. The way the Indian army stormed the Sikh’s holist shrine, the Golden Temple at Amritsar in Punjab, which led to prime minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination, angered the global Sikh community. Now, there is a concern that suicide bombing may become a type of emulative linkage in world politics. It may be copied by sympa- thetic Islamic groups in other countries (Bali, Madrid, Israel), or as we see in chapter 5, in the violence between Amal and Hezbullah in Lebanon (and maybe now in Iraq among the Shiite groups), suicide bombing and terrorism were copied as part of the rivalry between religious groups. Prevailing Nostrum Another possibility is that the global resurgence of religion may have taken place because of changes in the prevailing nostrum, or the prevailing remedy—in this case modernization. It is possible that the immediate causes of the global resurgence of religion differ significantly in each country, but that these different causes prompt a common response if the elites in a country or possibly, even the mass population, share a common enough belief in the efficacy of the zeitgeist’s prevailing remedy or nostrum. A break-down in the zeitgeist is the opposite possibility, and so a common belief develops that something else should be tried—Arab nationalism, Hindu nationalism, and so on. The specific individual causes for the global resurgence of religion act on a common set of beliefs, or in this case, a breakdown in the common set of beliefs. Democratic transitions, for example, may have taken place in different countries to cope with a variety of problems—military defeat, inflation, a breakdown in law and order, or deepening eco- nomic recession. The global resurgence of religion may be a response to the crisis of the liberal state in the West as well as the crisis of the secular and modernizing state in the developing world. Questioning the Secular State The global resurgence of religion can be seen as one of the results of the failure of the secular, modernizing state to produce democracy  “The Revenge of God?” 41 or development in the developing world. Developing countries, since the period of colonial occupation, have been confronted with a dilemma: should they emulate the West and spurn their own cul- ture in order to gain equality in power, or should they affirm their own cultural and religious traditions but remain materially weak?34 In many countries this dilemma of identity and development was resolved in the first years after independence by emulating the West—development, modernization, and Westernization all appeared to mean the same thing. The first generation of Third World elites that came to power beginning in the late 1940s— Nehru’s India, Nasser’s Egypt, Sukarno’s Indonesia (and going back to the 1920s, Ataturk’s Turkey)—espoused a similar “modernizing mythology” inherited from the West based on the rather taken- for-granted superiority of Western scientific, technological, plural- istic, and democratic values and assumptions based on the Enlightenment. The modernizing mythology was based on the notions of democracy, secularism, socialism, and nonalignment between the superpowers in foreign policy. The elites believed strong states could promote political stability and economic development, and this would be undermined if religion, ethnicity, or caste dominated politics.35 This modernizing mythology failed to produce democ- racy or economic development. There was a general failure of the modernizing, secular state, evident by subsequent “political decay,” the decline of politics into corruption, authoritarianism, and patri- monialism, since the late 1960s, and by the rise of failed or collapsed states since the late 1980s.36 What is called political religion or politicized religion emerges out of a perceived failure of secular, state-run, nationalism to produce democracy, and the failure of the neo-liberal prescription of free mar- kets and open economies, which produced more inequality than development. The conflict between religious nationalism and secular nationalism intensified to became one of the most important devel- opments in the politics of developing countries in the 1990s. This can be seen in a variety of conflicts from Sri Lanka to India to Central Asia, and, of course, in the Balkans, Egypt, Israel, and Palestine.37 Authenticity and Development The global resurgence of religion can also be seen as part of the search for authenticity and development in the developing world. 42 Global Resurgence of Religion The global resurgence of religion in developing countries can be seen as part of the “revolt against the West.” Three “waves of revolt” can be identified; the first, from the 1940s through the 1960s, was the anticolonial struggle for independence and sovereign equality, but this revolt was expressed within a Western intellectual discourse— the ideas about freedom, democracy, and self-determination came from the West; the second, from the 1970s through the 1980s, was the struggle for racial equality—seen most vividly in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and in the struggle for economic justice—the call for a North–South dialogue; and now the third— the struggle for cultural liberation— is the reassertion of traditional and indigenous cultures in the developing world.38 The third wave of revolt, or global “struggle for authenticity,” became more powerful in the 1990s. In developing countries the modernizing, secular state has failed to provide a legitimate basis for political participation and a basic level of economic welfare for its citizens. In many developing countries secular nationalism, Arab or African socialism in Algeria, Egypt, Zambia, and Tanzania during the 1960s, or Afro-Communism in Angola, Ethiopia, and Mozambique in the late 1970s failed to produce economic development and extend political participation. Thus, authenticity has begun to rival development as the key to understanding the political aspirations of the non-Western World. In the search for a more authentic political system the debate is increasingly about how to mix political and reli- gious authority as well as promote economic development.39 Conclusion: Religion in a Postmodern World The global resurgence of religion can be seen as part of the larger crisis of modernity. The resurgence of religious faith is a type of cultural critique of the kind of world modernity has brought us. It marks the end of a certain kind of modern faith in the idea of progress, and an optimism about the ability of science and technol- ogy to solve the problems created by the modern world. The global resurgence of religion does not signal an end to a belief in reason, but it does indicate the end to a belief in secular reason. The roots of the struggle for authenticity and the questioning of modernity go back to what Gilles Kepel has called, “the revenge of God,” the great reversal of the 1970s when faith in science and tech- nology, along with modernity and progress in the West, and in the  “The Revenge of God?” 43 modernizing mythology espoused in developing countries lost their totemic power and started to go into reverse.40 A new religious approach began to take shape in the 1970s based on the search for authentic identity, meaning, and economic development. In the West there had been earlier attempts to “modernize” Protestantism—the creation of liberal Protestantism, which tried to help Protestant Christianity come to terms with the Enlightenment and to adapt religion to the modern world. A similar attempt to “modern- ize” Catholicism—liberal Catholicism—also took place in the nineteenth century, but it was resisted until the Second Vatican Council.41 However, the point of departure for these efforts at religious modernism was a recognition that religion had to come of age, and had come to terms with the fact that science, technology, and progress had created a new form of life—called modernity, which was now the global home of all of us. What can be defined as the global resurgence of religion results from a collapse in the faith of modernizing religion, and is moti- vated by the desire of people of different faiths and cultures to rethink and reevaluate how religion and modernity are related. It reflects a deeper and more widespread disillusionment with a modernity that has reduced the world to what can be perceived and controlled through reason, science, technology, and leaves out the sacred, religion, or spirituality. Thomas Friedman tapped into this phenomenon while traveling around the United States to promote his book on globalization. People kept asking, he says, “[e]ven if we get the right politics, geopolitics, geo-economics and geo-management for sustainable globalization, there is another, less tangible, set of policies that need to be kept in mind—the olive tree needs in us all: the need for community, for spiritual meaning and for values with which to raise our children. Those have to be protected and nurtured as well for globalization to be sustainable.”42 Gilles Kepel has identified this disillusionment with modernity as part of the resurgence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam around the world. “Like the workers’ movement of yesteryear,” he goes on to say, “today’s religious movements have a singular capacity to reveal the ills of society, for which they have their own diagnosis.” He continues to explain, Our working hypothesis will be that what these movements say and do is meaningful, and does not spring from a dethronement of 44 Global Resurgence of Religion reason or from manipulation by hidden forces; rather it is the unde- niable evidence of a deep malaise in society that can no longer be interpreted in terms of our traditional categories of thought.43 At this point Kepel’s analysis is close to that of William James, who believed it was the “sick souls” rather than the optimistic, “healthy-minded” ones who had a “profounder view” of the modern situation.44 It was, as Charles Taylor has observed, an Augustinian insight, which James built his theory of religion on, “that in certain domains love and self-opening enable us to understand what we would never grasp otherwise, rather than just following on under- standing as its normal consequence.”45 What if the global resurgence of religion can no longer be interpreted within the traditional categories of social theory? Such a perspective has hardly made any inroads in the mainstream study of international relations. What this suggests is that the global resurgence of religion cannot only be interpreted as a “fundamentalist” or “anti-modern” reaction to the inevitable and inexorable spread of modernization and globalization. Like Kepel, Casanova argues, “Against those evolutionary theories which prefer to interpret what I call the ‘deprivatization’ of modern religion as anti-modern fundamentalist reactions to inevitable processes of differentiation, I argue that at least some forms of ‘public religion’ may also be understood as counterfactual normative critiques of dominant historical trends, in many respects similar to the classical, republican, and feminist critiques.”46 Thus, the global resurgence of religion can be under- stood as a parallel development in the developed world and in developing countries that is part of a wider, already existing, critique of global modernity, authenticity, and development. A postmodern perspective begins with a recognition that moder- nity’s discontents have shown us that the Enlightenment’s promise of freedom, autonomy, and meaning through rationality and knowl- edge has turned out to be a hallow one.47 It shares a basic insight with those artists, theologians, and cultural critics who recognize the limits to the disenchantment of the world, a trend foreseen by George Simmel over a century ago, who worried that the growing attachment to this “world of things” would steadily devalue the human world.48 At least in the developed world, from the United States or Europe to the Pacific Rim, with rising affluence, the renaissance of  “The Revenge of God?” 45 the arts and culture, represents this perspective, and is another one of the “megatrends” of the twenty-first century. The arts are contributing to a deeper, may be even spiritual, examination of life, and so what it means to be human is expressed in a variety of cultural and literary revivals in different regions of the world.49 Thus, the postmodern world is turning out to be a post-secular world as well. It is giving rise to what is increasingly called post- modern theology and spirituality, which recognizes that identity is linked to relationships with the family, society, and the natural world, which can be seen as part of a larger divine reality.50 What a postmodern perspective opens up is the possibility that there may be other ways of being “modern,” making “progress,” or being “developed.” Although postmodernity can mean a lot of things, in this sense it suggests that rather than there only being one path to modernity—Westernization, there may be multiple paths, “multiple modernities,” or multiple ways of being modern appropriate to the different cultural and religious traditions in the developing world.51 This is one of the promises of what is called a postmodern world. For all these reasons the twentieth century may be the “last modern century.”52 It may be very misleading to view the global resurgence of religion through such lenses as the “clash of civiliza- tions,” “fundamentalism” or religious “extremism”—as if the global resurgence of religion is an aberration in an otherwise “modern” world. A truly multicultural international society is being formed for the first time, and finding out what it means to take cultural and religious pluralism seriously is one of the most important aspects of international politics in the twenty-first century.