Religion and Politics

Good day everyone, I am Patrick Frost, the FPA blogger for Central Asia, and Karin has been kind enough to let me do a post on this site from time to time. Please feel free to send me comments, critiques, and questions at patfrost1@gmail.com or just post them on this site.

Today, I would like to talk about a book I read about six months ago that challenged the way I saw the West’s political society based on secularization, other societies, civilizations, and political systems throughout the world, especially in Muslim dominated lands, and the current ‘war on terror.’ It is Mark Lilla’s, professor of the Humanities at Columbia University, The Stillborn God; Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. At its most basic, it is a philosophical history of Europe/US advancement from a society ruled by political theology to one ruled by secularization. But the book is about much more, in fact it is a warning against complacency of this type of political/societal system in the West.

Here is Lilla’s dramatic message;
‘Intellectual complacency, nursed by implicit faith in the inevitability of secularization, has blinded us to the persistence of political theology and its manifest power to shape human life at any moment.’

Lilla warns us in the West to not feel so safe and cozy with our secular system, for he argues that we are the ‘exception’, not the rest of the world, and that we are in fact still living in an ‘experiment.’ These are strong words and statements, but they are important for all to ponder. This is a pertinent book because it is based on a question not often asked; ‘Why don’t we understand the ‘enduring attraction of political theology?’ Instead of ‘why don’t they understand our (and copy) our political system and way of life?’

Lilla strongly believes that the argument over politics and religion will not end, and in fact ‘could not end,’ because it concerns the enduring question that all societies must answer and face, whether ‘to order their political affairs in light of a divine revelation, or to make their way alone.’

On Sunday, July 13, the Dalai Lama gave a public talk at Lehigh University as part of a “series of teachings,” which takes place from July 10-15. The public talk, held yesterday (on the topic of “Generating a Good Heart”), also allowed the Dalai Lama to answer questions from the audience, which had been earlier submitted in writing. The Associated Press apparently picked up on the talk because the Dalai Lama answered a question about Islam and then defended it as a peaceful religion. According to the AP, the Dalai Lama said that “it’s totally wrong, unfair” to call Islam a violent religion. Does this make the Dalai Lama’s discussion newsworthy – and why does the AP headline read: “Dalai Lama Defends Islam as Peaceful Religion”? How many people must say publicly that Islam is a non-violent religion before it stops making headlines and we assume it as fact. More interesting for this blogger is that the Dalai Lama also took a question on why so many Americans are depressed and anxious. Other than joking that he’s the wrong person to ask because he’s not an American, he said that the U.S. is too competitive and people always want “something more, something more, something more.” The Associated Press headline should have alerted Americans to the answers behind depression, not the clear reality that Islam (just as all the major religions) are based on peace. Otherwise, no comments were made about the Olympics.

The Lambeth Conference for bishops of the Anglican Communion (held once a decade) will take place from July 20 to August 2. This year, however, a real divide has emerged, and according to an article in the New York Times, “a quarter of the bishops are expected to boycott the conference and attend a rival meeting for conservative Anglicans in Jerusalem.” The schism centers on the debate over homosexuality. Two bishops have not been invited to Lambeth, one Gene Robinson, an openly gay bishop from New Hampshire and Bishop Martyn Minns, who ministers to conservatives in the Church of Nigeria, “who want to leave the Episcopal Church.” The rival meeting will not coincide with the Lambeth conference and takes place from June 22 to June 29 – the Holy Land 2008 meeting began on Sunday. According to the NYT article, about 10% of the bishops at the Jerusalem conference (the Global Anglican Future Conference or GAFCON) will also attend Lambeth. 1,200 delegates are in attendance at the Jerusalem gathering, and at the opening session, Rev. Akinola said that GAFCON was not going to break away from the Anglican Communion, but they “had no other place to go.” Also, for obvious reasons, you won’t find much information about GAFCON from the Lambeth conference website.

Several posts on this blog have discussed the place of dialogue and cultural understanding in world politics, specifically in the context of religion. Recently, a newsletter of the Organization for Defending Victims of Violence (ODVV is an Iranian human rights organization) raised the question of Islamic Feminism. In this regard, Hiba Arshad, the author of a paper on this topic, was cited by ODVV and writes, “there is an incredible need for understanding and cultural dialogue to take place in order to foster understanding and build peaceful relationships with the civilizations of the world.” Arshad’s short paper analyzes Islamic feminism in the context of UNESCO but first takes a general-historical approach and breaks down feminist movements in Islam into three categories: Islamic feminists, Muslim feminists, and Islamist feminists. The author says that “Islamists are advocates of a political Islam, the notion that the Qur’an can mandate an Islamic government; they advocate women’s rights in the public sphere but do not challenge gender inequality in the personal, private sphere.” The Islamic feminist movement, however, is allegedly the most dominant. Arshad further discusses the current trend for women scholars of Islam to read the Qur’an in such a way that it is female inclusive. Amina Wadud, an American convert to Islam, who wrote, “Quran and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Women’s Perspective” is an example of this new approach. Arshad poignantly concludes by writing “that the prominent political discourse is a speech that generates fear and stereotypes”.

This past Thursday, there was a deadly bomb attack in the Philippines. Three people were killed outside an Air Force base. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) – the largest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines – denied any involvement in the attack but was accused by the regional police chief. There are other Muslim armed groups like the Abu Sayyaf, which could have been involved in the bombing. Peace monitors arrived in 2004, which “reduced the level of violence to nearly zero.” Conversely, rebel negotiators walked away in December from a meeting that was part of peace talks that began in 1997. One of the main questions is finding a joint “determination of the scope of the Muslim homeland” in the Philippines, while there has been fighting for a separate Islamic state since the 1970s. Carlos H. Conde points out in the New York Times that a peace deal might be difficult to reach when the state cannot constitutionally hand over sovereign rights to territory.  

This past week, the former top Muslim insurgent – Nur Misuari – said that the Muslim National Liberation Front (MNLF) should abide by a 1996 agreement with the national government. Agence France Press reported that Misuari said that if the government failed to give the full autonomy the group was seeking, then they would march for peace. Misuari said he would work for a federal form of government with four states. To date, approximately 120,000 people have been killed, and about 2 million people were displaced in the Philippines. Despite these statistics, President Arroyo has spoken extensively about peace building and the role of dialogue. She has said, “I have personally advanced the process of peace in Muslim and Christian Mindanao to a new level of engagement, focused on interfaith dialogue, economic development and mutual security.”

(Photographed by Karin Esposito, 2004, Tehran)

The organization Search for Common Ground (SFCG), on April 7, 2008, published the results of a second poll that it took of 710 Iranian adults – both in rural and urban areas. The first extensive survey it took of Iranian citizens was published in January 2007. SFCG has complemented the survey of Iranians by asking similar questions to 703 respondents in the United States.

As the U.S. has now successfully managed to get the UN Security Council to support a third round of sanctions against Iran, the timing of this follow-up poll of Iran-U.S. attitudes and perceptions is excellent. Although the survey addressed many specific topics, such as Iran’s nuclear program and Iranian influence in the Persian Gulf, this blog is interested in the poll results related to religion, politics, and tolerance. Here are some of the main findings of SFCG’s poll:

·        “A growing majority of Iranians believe that it is possible for Islam and the West to find common ground.” – “64% percent – now say it is possible to find common ground (up from 58%)”

·        “The United States is widely perceived as seeking not only to assert control over the oil resources of the Middle East, but to weaken and divide the Islamic world and to purposely humiliate Muslims.”

·        “The United States is seen as pursuing goals hostile to Iran and to Islam in general.”

·        “64% saw the United States as purposely seeking to humiliate the Islamic world. Twenty-one percent thought the United States is disrespectful, but out of ignorance, and only 5 percent thought the United States mostly shows respect.”

·        “Seventy-eight percent said the United States is not very (16%) or not at all (62%) committed to the goal of creating an independent and viable Palestinian state.”

·        Only 32% of Americans surveyed (as Americans were also polled) said that it is a US goal to weaken and divide the Islamic world.

·        “Only 14% [of Iranians] wanted Shari’a to play a smaller role” in the way Iran is governed.