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.’

Foreign Policy and Fund for Peace have published the 2008 Failed States Index. The main goal of the Index is to assess the vulnerability of states to slide towards further violence and chaos. There are twelve indicators of state vulnerability, which can be found here. At the top of the Index (most failed) is Somalia, where the political situation has continually deteriorated (like much of the world) on account of shortages and food riots (it was in third place in 2007). The chaos in Somalia has been directly linked to ongoing battles with the Islamist insurgency. Moreover, as mentioned in this blog several times, Iraq and Israel have been plagued with instability that often results from the role of religion in politics. The Failed States Index 2008 points out, for example, that Iraq’s score has improved (now 5th place; 2nd place in 2007), although “discord among sectarian factions has shown no real improvement.” With respect to Israel, the main force behind its new ranking in the top 60 (most failed states) is its “inability to fully integrate its Arab minority.” The ranking for Israel (now fifty eight) is reported to be based mostly on the political reality of the West Bank. There is also a precarious connection between religion and politics (meaning violence) in Sudan, which is ranked this year as the second most failed state in the world (compared to 1st last year). The full list of country rankings can be found here. The article explaining the Index does not directly address the role of religion as a factor for conflict or an element of instability. Instead, the focus of the 2008 analysis was more on 1) how the U.N’s peacekeeping presence in the Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Haiti helped improve their rankings; 2) how oil prices have helped provide lifelines to Presidents such as Omar Hassan al-Bashir (Sudan); and 3) how the rapid increase in the cost of essential goods such as flour and rice “can cause chaos.” One main question, therefore, was primarily left out of the analysis on failed states and political hardship.

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.

The former Finnish president, Martti Ahtisaari, has won UNESCO’s annual peace prize. Ahtisaari was the President of Finland from 1994 to 2000. The award is known as the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize, and Ahtisaari is the recipient of the award on account of “his life-time contribution to world peace.” Mr. Ahtisaari is the founder of the NGO, Crisis Management Initiative, through which he organized a week-long meeting (September 2007) between Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites to improve dialogue between the communities.  According to UNESCO, in 2000, Ahtisaari also supervised the disarmament process of the IRA in Northern Ireland.