Week 14

Yesterday marked the last class of the semester, thus, I found it appropriate to use this blog to reflect on all that I have learned since day one back in August. During our second class of the semester, we had to write down the answers to various questions regarding religious conflict and hand them into the professor. During yesterdays class we were given these back and I think the majority of us had a good laugh at our answers. At least for me, it was apparent that I had learned a good deal about the cause and complexity of religious violence and the motivations that lie behind it.

One thing that I seemed to overlook before this course was how religions do not need fanatical individuals or fundamentalist leaders to create religious violence. Rather, ordinary followers of a religion will be at odds with those of another not because they are extremists, but simply because of the boundary and social divide that religion creates. I never took the time to realize or understand that religious groups often acted as interest groups with political, economic, and social concerns in the same way that any other groups in society do. I did not see that religion was only the separating factor and not the driving force or motivation behind so much of the conflict and violence.

I also overlooked the personal dimension to peacemaking. Although, I admit, I had never given much thought to the topic of religious violence or how to cure it, I don’t think I ever gave the ability of the individual enough credit. I had somewhat assumed that the solution would lie in political action or institutional intervention and did not give enough consideration to the actions of community leaders (the Pastor and the Imam) or members of society (women in Liberia).

Overall, I feel this course has opened my eyes to an issue in our world today that I had not understood beforehand. It has allowed me to analyze religious conflict on a subjective level and revealed the different ways in which conflicts such as these can be overcome, an ability which I can apply to various aspects of life.

Week 13

The other day in class we watched a movie documenting the religious violence in Liberia at the turn of the century. The movie outlined the actions of courageous women who, Muslim and Christian alike, came together and protested for peace among their nations warring factions. Although they were faced with much adversity and stalled peace talks that seemed hopeless, they never ceased to stand together, day by day through the hardest of times, until their peace terms were met.

This movie illustrated a few themes that we have been discussing all year. The first was how political and ethnic controversies can be placed under the guise of religious conflict. The current president, Charles Taylor, and rebel warlords were fighting one another for political power and wealth and, although they may have been separated by religious affiliations, were not fighting for religious motives. The second theme that it brought up was a more recent one, the importance of acceptance and forgiveness in religious peacemaking. This can be seen both in the women’s actions of banding together, Muslims and Christians, and accepting and forgiving each other in order to initiate peacemaking. In addition, this can also be seen in the women’s proclamations of forgiveness in their reform ideas. They state how they have forgiven the violent actors and that they don’t ask for repercussions of the past. They know this will only continue the cycle and feel that this forgiveness is a necessary action in order for Liberia to move forward and reform/overcome its violent past.

Although this movie depicted the mass violence that occurs in places all over the globe, it provides a hopeful outlook. It proves that peace can be found in the most distressed and violent places and that the will of a brave few can change a nations outlook for the future.

Week 12

In class on Monday we watched the movie “The Pastor and the Imam,” a movie about just that, a pastor and an Imam, who are working to create peace in Nigeria between the Christians and Muslims. Throughout the film, the two were showed holding workshops with religious leaders and followers in various towns/villages across Nigeria. Each time they separate the listeners into their respective religious groups, discuss likes and dislikes of the other, then reconvene and present these findings. This offered the context of dialogue that allowed the different groups to relate, sympathize, and understand one another. The movie was very powerful and moving, but even after watching all of these workshops they held, the part that resonated with me most was the final minute of the move. This last scene was a shot of the Pastor and the Imam, sitting side by side, explaining what allowed them to get along and respect one another even though they were from different religions. Both returned to their respective religious texts, with the Pastor stating “love thy neighbor” and “thou shall not kill,” while the Imam said “Allah tells me to make space for everyone.” Through returning to the original teachings of their own religions, each can find a clear overtone of peace and understanding required by each of their Gods.

In relation to my previous post, the Pastor and the Imam are perfect examples of how dialogue, especially dialogue initiated by religious leaders, is so effective in conflict resolution and religious peacemaking. Although it is a method that takes time and possibly generations to accomplish, I think it is the most sufficient and successful way to sustain peace and understanding between two conflicting groups. It has the ability to not just cover up, but heal the wounds caused by years of fighting and hatred in its ability to transform human sentiment and foster cooperation.

Week 11

This week in class we shifted our focus to religious peacemaking. We talked about the importance of relationship building and the dynamic of inter- and intra-faith interactions. Within these spaces, the context of dialogue is key. Once a group talks amongst themselves and undergoes intra-faith dialogue, they create collective group identity and identify common fears, wants, needs, likes, and dislikes (in relation to themselves and other religions). Once two separate groups go through this process, then they are staged for successful conflict resolution through inter-faith dialogue. As two groups come together, they can recognize commonalities between religious practices and begin to relate to one another in the pain and suffering that they go through. In addition to this, they are able to make out commonalities between their religious beliefs and understand that forgiveness and peace are a part of both. From this point, it is in hopes that each religious group will come to terms with the wrongful actions of their own group and find legitimacy in the other (as human beings with feelings and as a founded religion).

When reading about this process of conflict resolution and peacemaking it made complete sense. Not to be too simplistic, but as a child, the last thing that seems instinctual is to go and sit down with someone you dislike and try and calmly and peacefully talk out your problems. Rather, a child will portray their hatred or dislike through their words and actions and see no need to get along with the other. I bring this up not to say that religious groups are childish or immature, but that an instinctive part of human nature seems to be the internalization of feelings and expressing them through words and action rather than the feeling/need to love the one you hate.

However, since so many religions do preach this concept of peace and understanding and to “turn the other cheek,” there seems to be a hope that once these inter- and intra-faith dialogues are initiated, there is a likely chance that conflict resolution will ensue.

Week 10

In James W. Jones’s Blood That Cries Out From the Earth, the theory of “splitting” as a causal factor of religious conflict is brought up. This theory, as Jones describes, functions on two levels. On the individual level, it is the idea that “I am good, but Satan is tempting me and making me do something bad.” In conjunction with this, on a societal level it is the idea such that “Hindu’s are good, but Muslim’s are making me do something bad.” In both cases, it gives provides an individual with someone to hate, meaning they do not have to hate themselves for their imperfections or the bad things they do. This idea of projecting ones discomfort with themselves outwards on another, according to Jones, is a key psychological factor behind religious conflict.

I think this theory makes a lot of sense, however, it attaches a perpetual discomfort and dissatisfaction to religion. Rather than religion providing a positive meaning to life, it seems to suggest that religions demand such unachievable excellence from individuals that it inevitably leads them to feel failure and inadequacy. This seems particularly odd to me considering the Western view of religion and its characteristics of providing individuals with a positive purpose in life.

Week 9

This week in class we talked about the three different responses to victimization that Kakar outlines in The Colors of Violence. He describes how these responses are (1) loss of agency/disempowerment, (2) Andulus Syndrome (mourning a loss and grandiose past), and (3) fundamentalism. The later of the three is different than the other two in that it focuses on the humiliation felt by the victims rather than a feeling of mourning or grieving. This, in turn, leads to the anger and rage embodied by fundamentalist groups and results in their violent attributes. I found this an interesting insight into the drive behind fundamentalism. It reminded me of all the times as a child where the feeling of humiliation, due to fights or arguments with my friends, left me so angry that it felt like the only way to get over it was to retaliate with physical aggression. As simple as a comparison as this may seem, it made me realize how much this characteristic of humiliation and violence are basic human instincts. Only as I grew up and matured did I develop the self control and composure needed in life and learn that physical aggression no longer stood as a viable reaction to discontent. However, when one grows up in a culture and society that is plagued with poverty and violence, this learned need for restraint in reaction to frustration/humiliation may not take precedent. Although it offers no excuse, this idea presents a forum for understanding why such violent fundamentalist groups exist.

week 8

In chapter 5 of The Colors of Violence, Sudhir Kakar explains how tensions between Muslims and Hindus during riot times are escalated. One example he cites inparticular, stood out to me. In describing how small confrontations quickly escalate into big ones, Kakar gives the hypothetical example of a Hindu policeman and a Muslim boy. He writes, "when the police arrive, there are tense confrontations, say between a young Hindu policeman intent on entering and searching a house and a Muslim youth defending what he believes is the honor of his family" (Kakar 125). Here, we can see that in this context of a riot time, the pride of individuals is elevated to the pride of a religion through centuries of struggle. The policeman not only feels empowered by his legal status and pride in upholding that, but the pride of defending his religion against the enemy and not letting a Muslim boy stand up to him. In addition to this, the Muslim boy not only feels the pride of defending his family, but defending his family against a Hindu man who his family and religious community have been fighting for years. I think this is an important example because it helps illustrate the extent of Juergensmeyer's explanation of the cosmic war.

week 7

While reading Sudhir Kakar’s The Colors of Violence, one of the stories that stuck out to me was that of the Pardis. As Kakar explains, the Pardi are not “Hindu” until they come in contact with Muslims. In other words, they do not self identify as Hindu or consider themselves a part of the larger Hindu community until they think of themselves in relation to Muslims. This immediately made me think of our discussions of the power that the sense of community provides for religious groups. Additionally, it illustrates the strength of the feeling of “us” vs “them” and the need one feels to be a part of something and hate what is not a part of it.

After reading this chapter, it made me think of when I traveled to Brazil with my soccer team a few summers ago. All of my life, when I was asked where I was from, I always responded “Philadelphia.” However, once I was in Brazil, this response turned into “the United States.” What struck me most of all though, was the fact that I responded this with an air of loyalty and defensiveness because I knew most Brazilians that asked had a negative view of the United States. Rather than identifying myself with the city I grew up in like I always have, I placed myself into the larger picture. I felt defensive about my position as a US citizen knowing that many of them did not like us and felt a feeling of “us” v “them.”

week 6

In Monday's class we watched the movie Earth, directed by Deepa Metha. It revealed the tension, violence, and rioting that erupted in response to the partition of India in 1947. It was a very powerful movie with many important undertones, but what stood out most to me was the ability that religion had to transcend one’s own consciousness and divide a group of friends. In the film, a group of friends – which contained Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs – is split because of the religiously based controversy and violence that is going on around them. Religious difference had the power to make friends, who had no direct conflict or problem between them, hate and kill one another. I think this is important to note because, although disturbing, it shows how conflict with religious undertones can be escalated to extreme levels. Especially when we consider religious conflict as a cosmic war, which puts contemporary controversy in the context of thousands of years of struggle and competition, a whole new dimension is added. It provides such a powerful motive to hate the other that reason and consciousness can be overlooked. Although the particular religious conflict in Earth happened decades ago and has since calmed down, it is important to realize and understand that religion and the religious separation that created the controversy still exist today, making religious violence an ever-present possibility.

week 5

Throughout our course we have been talking about the idea of "us" v. "them" and the in-group/out-group dichotomy that religion provides. The connection/commitment one feels to those in their belief system, and the resulting separation from those of other belief systems, is extremely strong. Especially when put in the context of the 'cosmic war' and thousands of years of struggle, this separation seems to quickly turn into animosity and hate. In Sudir Kakar's The Colors of Violence, we can see this "us" v. "them" manifest itself in the social construction of the city of Hyderabad. When describing how the city has become more and more culturally diverse as it has grown over the years, we can see that although these cultures all exist together in the same physical space, they remain distinct and somewhat intolerant of each other. As Kakar writes, “these groups tended to cluster together in separate enclaves where they could follow their own ways of religious and community life” (Kakar, 10). In addition to this, he explains how, “on the whole, the lifestyles of the various groups in the rest of the population – their customs, mores, architectural styles, food habits – remained distinctive” (Kakar, 10). This illustrates how the relationship between the Hindu’s and Muslim’s in Hyderabad is a “multicultural coexistence rather than any merger into a single composite culture” (Kakar 10). This is important to note because it shows how the power of religion transcends all other aspects of social togetherness and acts to maintain a separation and hinder assimilation. It makes me wonder if the interconnected world that trade and technology have created, which has produced a high level of cultural tolerance, will be able to facilitate the generation of any religious tolerance?

week 4

In Mark Juergensmeyers book Terror In The Mind Of God he talks about a self proclaimed "religious leader" who leads a cult-like religious sect. When reading about this it made me think of the power of community. As we talked about before in class, community is one of the defining characteristics of a religion and works to add legitimacy in a set of beliefs. It acts as "strength in numbers" and enables one to find support in their feelings and acts by those who hold the same beliefs. However, it was interesting to see that this community feeling can be so strong in an unfounded "religion." All it took was a charismatic leader giving a group of people someone to look up to to transform them into a extremist cult. The feeling of community among this "religious group" was so strong that it gave them a feeling of authenticity on fabricated ideals. This is important to note because if the feeling of community is strong in an unfounded cult, it must be even stronger in a founded religion that has been around for thousands of years.

week 3

Last week we read an excerpt from the book Cruel Creeds, Virtuous Violence in which Jack David Eller explains how religious groups often act as interest groups. This idea ties directly into the writing of Mark Juergensmeyer in Terror In The Mind of God when he discusses the different types of Westerner religious groups that align themselves with Christianity. He explains the Christian Identity movement and how they feel it is a "necessity for the Anglo-Saxon race to retain its purity and political dominance, and the need for Western societies to establish a biblical basis for government" (Juergensmeyer33) and how in the US this "ideology has taken a more strident and political turn" (34). This shows how rather then their only/main goal being to spread their religion and convert others, the Christian Identity have the goal to improve the social dominance of a race and increase their political power. In other words, they are acting in group interest for power and stature rather then to simply spread religion. The reason I bring this up is because I think it is important to realize that this is another way conflict and religion are tied together. It is an example of the way that groups separated by religious difference tend to oppose each other politically, socially, and economically as well, once again leading to conflict between religious groups that is not directly caused by religion.

Week 2

In his book Cruel Creeds, Virtuous Violence, Jack David Eller speaks of the conflicts between ethnoreligious groups. He starts off by explaining how religion and ethnicity are often infused in creating "ethnoreligious" groups that embody the classical theory of "us" vs "them," leading to conflict between these groups that "are not exclusively about religion but are about other things too" (Eller 208). This, consequently, creates conflicts between ethnic and groups that is often pinned on religion but, as Eller proves through multiple case studies, is rooted in various other factors as well. One of the factors that stood out to me was the fact that the boundary that separates two groups often becomes the focus of each group, rather then "the cultural stuff that encloses it" (Eller 210). This presents the idea that these ethnoreligious groups function on the grounds of self interest. As Eller explains, "they are certainly not trying to covert each other to their religion nor are they disputing each other's doctrines," rather "what they are disputing against each other is access or control over 'mundane areas like development plans, education, trade union, land policy, business/tax policy, army' and other worldly concerns" (Eller 212).

This is an important point to notice because it displays how religion becomes the blame for global violence, when often time it is only one of the factors that separate these groups and not the cause of violence at all. All it serves as is a distinction of "us" vs "them" and once "us" starts fighting "them" it is blamed on their religious differences. But if one were to step back and look, they would see that the fighting may be instead over access to goods and political power. This makes me wonder, if a common nationality that became the primary form of self identification could be be established among the warring religious sects in various nations, could this creation of a common interest group through nationality help end ethnoreligious violence? or would it only bring escalate it to a national level?

Violent Religion or Religious Violence?

How can one define or justify religious violence? Are religions violent or are people? The difficulty in answering these questions lie in the fact that religion is based on belief and interpretation, both of which are arbitrary and subjective forms of evidence. In his book Holy Terrors, Bruce Lincoln breaks down religion and writes that it is defined by four domains: discourse, practice, community, and institution. Through his explanation, he successfully breaks down religion and helps explain why violence, along with various other aspects, are characteristics of religion.

One of Lincoln's most compelling arguments was his statement that, "religious discourse can recode virtually any content as sacred, ranging from the high-minded and progressive to the murderous, oppressive, and banal, for it is not any specific orientation that distinguishes religion, but rather its metadiscursive capacity to frame the way any content will be received and regarded." This brings up the strength of the role that interpretation plays in religion. It poses the idea that religion can be, and often is, used as a form of justification for acts that break a societies collective moral code. Furthermore, Lincoln states that "no practices are inherently religious, and any may acquire a religious character when connected to a religious discourse that constitutes them as such," which expands on the role of interpretation even more. It suggests how susceptible something, no matter how seemingly perverse to the masses it may be, is to becoming a practice justifiable by religion. As long as a religious leader can find in their scripture a historic act, story, or phrase that can be interpreted to condone an act such as violence, violence then becomes a religious act.

Although I may be taking this to the extreme and applying these ideas directly to violence rather then other nonviolent religious practices, these ideas help to explain the foundation and existence of religious violence. After all, the individuals who commit these violent acts in the name of religion are often not inherently violent psychopaths, but persons inspired by their religious ideology.