POLITICS OF THE

EXTREME:
RELIGIOUS
FUNDAMENTALISM
POL 100 - SESSION 8 BY RIDA ASHFAQ
INTRODUCTION
• Fundamentalism – from fundamentum – Latin word for base
• Religious fundamentalism:
• characterized by a rejection of the distinction between religion and politics
• Religious principles are not restricted to personal or 'private' life, but are seen as the
organizing principles of 'public' existence – exist in every religion

• Religious fundamentalism are can co exist or be revolutionary

• Revolutionary:
• they aim to construct a theocracy, in which the state is reconstructed on the basis of religious
principles
• political position is linked to one's place within a religious hierarchy
MODERN TIMES

• It has been more prominent in modem times

• Confounds secularization thesis
• Religious revivalism has become extremely political
• Arises in deeply troubled societies, particularly societies afflicted by an actual or perceived crisis
of identity – search for meaning in times of uncertainty
• Clash of civilizations by Samuel Huntington:
• Fill in the gap as ideological allegiances fade and economic identities become less distinct; people seek
meaning in their distinctive culture and the larger civilization within which it is embedded.
• Idea that a world of growing cultural difference will be characterized by antagonism and conflict,
civilizational differences being irreconcilable e.g. global terrorism
• As evidence of conflict between rival fundamentalist trends within each civilization
FUNDAMENTALISM
• Other factors contributing: Secularization, postcolonialism & globalization
• Secularization:
• has contributed to a decline of traditional religion and a weakening of 'moral fabric' of society.
• Fundamentalism is a moral protest against decadence and hypocrisy; it aims to restore 'rightful' order
and re-establish the link between the human world and the divine.
• Postcolonial societies:
• Colonizers devalued and often suppressed indigenous cultures, meaning that colonized inherited a
weakened sense of identity
• Political independence also failed to bring about social emancipation; continuing global inequality
• religious fundamentalism offers the prospect of a non-western, and often specifically anti-western,
political identity, and articulates the aspirations of the urban poor and the lower middle classes
• Globalization
UNTYPICAL IDEOLOGY

• Untypical ideology – cuts occur religions, it is a style of political thought

• Tendency to recognize certain principles as essential or unchallengeable truths
• Some Characteristics:
• Religion as politics
• Fundamentalist impulse
• Anti-modernism
• Militancy
RELIGION AS POLITICS
• Rejection of distinction between religion and politics - “Politics is religion”
• Body of beliefs concerning some kind of transcendent reality, usually expressed in a set of approved activities and
practices.
• ‘Transcendent’: may refer to anything from a supreme being, a creator God, to the experience of personal
liberation, as in the Buddhist concept of nirvana, the 'extinction' of the personal self
• Religion restricted in pol life because of liberal culture and ideas, particularly prominent in the industrialized West.
• Key feature of liberal culture is the maintenance of public/private divide
• Religious fundamentalisms refuse to accept that religion is merely a private or personal matter
• fundamentalism establishes religion as the primary collective identity giving its members and supporters a
rootedness and sense of belonging that they would otherwise lack
• Existing structures must be replaced with a comprehensive system founded on religious principles and embracing
law, politics, society, culture and the economy
• Secular realm is corrupt: two kinds of responses:
• Passive fundamentalism: Withdrawal and create society of believers away from larger society
• Active fundamentalism: opposition and combat - look to seize, or at least exert influence over, the modern
state, seeing it as an instrument of moral regeneration, totalitarian?
FUNDAMENTALIST IMPULSE

• Commitment to ideas and values that are seen as 'basic' or 'foundational’ – opposite of relativism
• Scriptural literalism: A belief in the literal truth of sacred texts, which, as the revealed word of God, have
unquestionable authority is necessary to extract out its 'fundamentals'. These are a set of simple and clean
principles that provide an exact and unambiguous definition of religious identity
• Supported 'activist' reading of texts that enables them to reduce the complexity and profundity of scripture to a
theopolitical project
• True interpreter must be a person (invariably male) of deep faith and moral purity, as well as an activist, whose
spiritual insight has been, charismatic leadership
FUNDAMENTALIST IMPULSE
• Psychologically:
• its appeal is based on its capacity to offer certainty in an uncertain world
• provides solutions that are straightforward, practical and above all absolute
• Socially:
• its appeal has extended to the educated and professional classes, has been particularly successful
in addressing the aspirations of those who feel economically and politically marginalized
• offering a secure identity and the prospect of social order and social justice
• Limitations of fundamentalism: its simplicity and stripped down character prevent it from dealing with
complex problems or developing comprehensive solutions
ANTI MODERN
• Turns its back on the modern world
• Selectively traditional but also selectively modern; a mixture of resentment and envy characterizes its
relationship to modernity
• Form of moral conservatism – demands that they conform to a prescribed and divinely ordained moral
system
• Conservatism vs fundamentalism
• Conservatism is modest and cautious, is disposed to protect elites and defend hierarchy, favors
continuity and tradition, looks to a glorious past
• Fundamentalism is strident and passionate; embodies populist and egalitarian inclinations; is
radical and may be revolutionary, looks to build a purified future
• Enthusiasm for particular aspects of modernity - mass comm, tech, use the internet and other new
media, the machinery of the modern state and even accept nuclear weapons, economics, science
MILITANCY

• Often vigorous, militant and sometimes violent

• Factors:
• Those who act in the name of religion are often inspired by, what they believe to be a divinely
ordained purpose, which clearly takes precedence over all other considerations
• Serves to define who a people are and gives them a collective identity, us vs them mentality
• Generally embrace a Manichaean world-view, one that emphasizes conflict between light and
darkness, or good and evil
• However protest overwhelmingly peaceful and usually legal as well, but many times it is violent, they
are intended to eradicate evil, to fulfil the will of the divine
FORMS OF FUNDAMENTALISM
• They derive from very different religions
• Fundamentalisms emerge in very different societies
• Differ according to the political causes they are associated with
• means of achieving comprehensive political renewal, which is particularly attractive to marginalized or
oppressed peoples
• as a way of shoring up an unpopular leader or government by creating a unified political culture
• as a means of strengthening a threatened national or ethnic identity
• Main forms:
• Islamic fundamentalism
• Christian fundamentalism
• other fundamentalisms
ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM

• Means an intense and militant faith in Islamic beliefs as the overriding principles of social life
and politics, as well as of personal morality
• Wish to establish the primacy of religion over politics
• In practice, this means the founding of an 'Islamic state', a theocracy ruled by spiritual rather
than temporal authority, and applying the Sharia.
• 1920s Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Iran 1979
• Jihad of the 1980s-1990s
• ISIS in the 2010s
RISE OF ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM
• Clash of civilizations - view implies that there is a basic incompatibility between Islamic values and those of the
liberal-democratic West, sees Islam as inherently totalitarian
• Ignore primacy of jihad of self, ignores the impact of Islam on Western culture
• Due to historical circumstance:
• Argued that the Muslim world is in crisis largely because of the decline and stagnation of the Middle East
and the sense of humiliation that has therefore gripped the Islamic, and more specifically Arab, worlds,
collapse of Ottoman Empire, humiliation in Arab-Israeli conflict,
• Can be viewed more as a political rather than a cultural phenomenon, breeding from a resentment against
both 'un-Islamic' or apostate leaders (the 'enemy ,within') and the USA
• Failure of two western ideas: socialism and secular Arab nationalism
• Manifestation of a much broader and, arguably, deeper ideological tendency: anti-Westernism:
• light, political Islam promises to rid society of corruption and immorality and to make society anew as a
'single blocklike structure, solid and eternal.
• larger context of 'occidentalism’, - prospect of organic unity, moral certainty and politico-spiritual renewal,
a rejection of the cultural and political inheritance of the West, particularly as shaped by the Reformation
and the Enlightenment
VARIETIES OF ISLAMISM

• Wahhabis:
• seek to restore Islam by purging it of heresies and modern innovations; amongst other things, they
ban pictures, photographs, musical instruments, singing, videos and television, and celebrations of
Mohammed's birthday
• Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, Taliban
• Sunni sect - Sunnis have tended to see Islamic history as a gradual movement away from the ideal
community, which existed during the life of Mohammed and his four immediate successors
• Shia sect - that divine guidance is about to re-emerge into the world with the return of the 'hidden
imam', or the arrival of the mahdi, a leader directly guided by God.- complexities of Iranian regime
• By comparison with Christianity, Islam has generally been tolerant of other religions and rival belief
systems
• Mix of Islamism and political pluralism – Turkey
CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISMS

• Three main divisions have emerged:

• the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches
• Increasingly becoming a personal religion, geared more to the spiritual salvation of the
individual than to the moral and political regeneration of society.
• Rather than seeking to establish a theocracy, they have usually campaigned around single
issues, or concentrated their attention on moral crusading.
• Ethnic nationalism in Northern Ireland
NEW CHRISTIAN RIGHT

• The new Christian right, emerged in the late 1970s, sought to fuse religion and politics in attempting to 'turn
America back to Christ’.
• An umbrella term that describes a broad coalition of groups primarily concerned with moral and social
issues and intent on maintaining or restoring what is seen as 'Christian culture
• Factors:
• the post-World War II period the USA experienced a significant extension of the public sphere
• the increasing political prominence of groups representing blacks, women and homosexuals, whose
advance threatened traditional social structures, particularly in rural and small-town America.
• the influence of the new Christian right has fluctuated significantly, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump
OTHER FUNDAMENTALISMS
• Sub-varieties of ethnic nationalism
• Religion rather than nation: Provides a supposedly primordial and seemingly unchangeable basis
for the establishment of group membership, which is, why it tends to be associated with the
emergence of an enclave culture
• Hindu Fundamentalism:
• old roots in anti colonialism, since then its key goal is to challenge the multicultural, multi-ethnic
mosaic of India by making Hinduism the basis of national identity. Hindutva of RSS and BJP
• Sikh fundamentalism:
• associated with the struggle to found an independent nation-state, not with the remaking of a
national identity within an existing one, Demand for Khalishtan, Damdami Taksal takeover of
Golden Temple, assassination of Indira Gandhi
• Jewish (Around Israel) and Buddhist (Sri Lanka, Myanmar) fundamentalisms
RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM IN A
GLOBAL AGE
• Religion has often served as the cultural dimension of imperial expansion
• Certain religions may have a stronger global orientation than others by virtue of their doctrinal character
• Emergence of fundamentalist movements in many countries coincided with the period of 'accelerated'
globalization in the 1970s and 1980s
• Supports a form of modernization that has distinctively western characteristics and is linked to the,
possibly irresistible, spread of liberal democracy
• As 'core' areas and countries prospered, seemingly at the expense of 'peripheral' ones, widened the
gap between rich and poor in many parts of the developing world. This created a crucible of bitterness,
resentment and disappointment
• Globalization imposing alien values and practices has provoked a backlash, through the emergence of
counter-globalization movements
• Organizational effectiveness of fundamentalist groups and movements has been significantly increased
by their willingness to utilize modern information and communication technology, made available by
the process of globalization