Religion and Politics

The Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute, with the Institute for Gulf Affairs, published this year an extended brief titled, “2008 Update: Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance.” The Introduction describes the Center for Religious Freedom as an institution that “promotes religious freedom as a component of U.S. foreign policy.” It joined the Hudson Institute in 2007, following ten years of affiliation with Freedom House. The Center – in its own words – “is increasingly engaged in ensuring that American policymakers defend the principle of religious freedom and believers who are persecuted purely for their religious beliefs.” The Foreword presents the current world political situation and says that “it has become quite clear that extreme Islamist ideologies have been gaining adherents throughout the world.” The paper looks at how Saudi Arabia encourages extremist thinking and radical views through textbooks and educational materials at schools, all the while funding madrassahs (religious schools) world-wide. The subsequent claim of the Center, therefore, is that “the world has been slow to respond to this new ideological challenge.” Furthermore, the goal of the report is to reveal the content of the textbooks posted on the website of the Saudi Ministry of Education and argue that it includes “violent and intolerant teachings against other religious believers.” It is an update from a 2006 document, which looked at a dozen textbooks published by the Saudi Ministry. The analysis is summarized in 12 key points on how the textbooks encourage religious discrimination. The points are further broken down into three categories regarding 1) Sunni, Shiite, Sufi and other non-Wahhabi or non-Salafi Muslims; 2) Christians, Jews, Polytheists, and other infidels; and 3) anti-Semitism. In the end, the report argues that the U.S. needs to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for its adherence to its international obligations to respect freedom of religion – particularly as the U.S. State Department in 2006 “publicized that Saudi Arabia confirmed it would revise its textbooks and make other related reforms within two years” during the course of bilateral discussions.

Last week, the Economist published two articles about religious conversion and the right of people around the world to follow their own religious path. One article, The Moment of Truth, questions whether the liberal understanding of religion, which puts emphasis on the right to change one’s belief, is actually widespread or perhaps an exception in certain countries like the United States. Readers are reminded that “one in four Americans moves on from the faith of their upbringing,” but that in most countries conversion has far more serious consequences because religious affiliation is often directly connected to power structures and political dynamics. The Economist describes this as a situation “where religion and authority (whether political, economic, or personal) are bound up,” and therefore, conversions cause controversy and shock waves. “It has been assumed that the wider community, in the form of the family, the village, or the state, has every right to take an interest in the matter.” The article further analyzes countries and settings that have historical remnants and contemporary issues of political power being divided and allocated along confessional lines, such as Lebanon. Therefore, the conclusion appears to be that “in many ways, religious freedom is receding, not advancing.” A second piece, titled, In Death’s Shadow, discusses the political ramifications of conversion and focuses on “an increasingly hard line across the Muslim world.” This article looks briefly at countries that impose the death penalty for apostasy – such as post-Taliban Afghanistan and the issue of Muslim-Christian conversion. Now, in India, there are also movements to make conversion from Hinduism ever more difficult, and in Malaysia, where sharia courts have increasing power, the judges “rarely let a registered Muslim quit the fold.” This second piece of writing looks at arguments being made in the Muslim world, and it starts with an analysis of the decision of Egypt’s grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, that Muslims can in fact convert to other religions – that it is a matter between the believer and God.

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.’

AlJazeera.net continues its coverage of the violent clashes in Indian-administered Kashmir (particularly in Srinagar), which have already lasted more than eight days. It reports that the violence stems from protests over a “controversial plan to transfer land to a Hindu trust organization.” The aim was to provide 99 acres of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, which assists hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to come to the holy site. As the New York Times reported on June 28, 2008, the protestors are accusing the Indian government of planning to build Hindu settlements in “India’s only Muslim-majority state in an effort to change the demographic balance in the region.” This would arguably negatively impact their religious identity, although the Indian government has flatly denied the allegations. The fears of the local Muslim population, however, have not been calmed. Since the announcement of the land allotment on June 23, four people have died and more than 300 injured. Two days ago, Kashmir’s chief minister said the plan was dropped, but it’s not clear in media sources, whether there has been “a formal revocation.”  This news (and the unfortunate violence) directly relates to religious communities, such as Muslims in Kashmir, and their fear of “marginalization.”

(Photo from the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board website)

Amnesty International’s Report 2008 considers the current state of the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’ sixty years after it was adopted. In the section ‘At a Glance,’ Amnesty International challenges world leaders to apologize for six decades of human rights abuses and “to deliver concrete improvements.” The press release said that the “most striking images of 2007 were of monks in Myanmar, lawyers in Pakistan, and women activists in Iran.” In the section on Facts and Figures, Amnesty International cites Article 18 of the Universal Declaration, which declares that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” In contrast to the legal right, Amnesty International says that the reality in 2008 is that 45 countries are actively detaining Prisoners of Conscience.

Perhaps you are from one of the countries that U.S. presidential candidate John McCain criticized yesterday in his Vision for Defending the Freedom and Dignity of the World’s Vulnerable. Despite his Straight-Talking Express view of the world, Senator John McCain has this to say about the countless differences in today’s world:

“There is a tendency in our age to accede to the spurious excuse of moral relativism and turn away from the harshest examples of man’s inhumanity to man…”

            The first part of that sentence must be the most obscure language used to date in the presidential campaign. According to Senator McCain, there are countries in the world that are “protecting traditions that should have been ended long ago.” If he were referring to genocide or torture, this blog entry might have had a slightly different tone. Although we may all agree that forced marriage and FGM is beyond our comprehension in the U.S., the language in his speech reflected more the typical paradigm we have known for too many years now: Good versus Evil.

He summed up his vision of the world as such:

“No society that denies religious freedom can ever rightly claim to be good in some other way.”

But to what extent must a society limit religious freedom before every other positive aspect of its government is erased from popular imagination and U.S. rhetoric becomes uncompromising? If a Central Asian country, for example, insists on excessively tough registration procedures for one or two Christian sects, how do we grade their level of religious freedom – and do all state initiatives to provide welfare and security to their people then become meaningless?  

The presidential candidate is, at the least, being direct with voters about his agenda: “I will make respect for the basic principle of religious freedom a priority in international relations.” Prediction: If Senator McCain wins the general election, he will “confront this evil” by challenging Iran (and only Iran?) to accept this most ”fundamental” of rights.