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.