Chapter V
RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM

It is hard to dispute the fact that over the past decade or so militant Islam has been on the rise in various Muslim countries of the world. However, it would be quite wrong to imagine the spread of the so-called fundamentalist ideas as being uniquely Muslim. Fundamentalist religious views are in fact flourishing openly in many different societies,  with religion and politics intertwined for, among others, Zionists in Israel, Sikhs in India and 'born-again' Christians in the USA. In the USA a vigorous Christian fundamentalist revival is going, ranging from the New Right Christian Churches to Creationism, the rejection of Darwinism in favor of a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of creation. A revivalist crusade in the 1980s, against the 'permissive society' and current liberal or humanistic ideas, has been launched -- not by Muslims but by Christian preachers in the USA.1

Christianity, long regarded in the West as non-political or apolitical, became a vehicle for political ideas from the 1960s. There are an estimated 60 million fundamentalist or 'born-again' conservative Christians in the USA, i.e. more than a fifth of the population. They provided the core support for the arch-conservative 'televangelist' Pat Robertson's unsuccessful 1988 presidential campaign, and for Pat Buchanan's in 1992. The growth of fundamentalist Christianity was also clearly manifested in Latin America,  where an estimated nine or ten thousand Catholics each day make the switch to conservative forms of Protestantism. Growth in conservative Protestantism in not confined to the Americas.2

The growing role of religion in politics, a trend that took root in the 1980s, has now become a global phenomenon affecting most major faiths and dozens of otherwise disparate governments. Here are examples of how the role of religion in politics is growing and affecting most major faiths and many governments:

Algeria:  The army moves to halt a certai n  victory of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in parliamentary elections in 1992.

Armenia and Azerbaijan: Religion becomes defining force in conflict between Christian Armenians and Muslim Azebaijanis in these former Soviet Republics.

Brazil: Activist Roman Catholic Church endorses strikes, factory takeovers in protest over failed government anti-poverty programs.

India: Militant Hindu movement becomes leading opposition party --Bhartia Janta Party (BJP) -- in 1991 general elections and emerges as the largest single political group in 1996 and 1998 polls.

Israel: Religious right with hard line on Mideast peace enjoys unprecedented political power.

Mangolia:  Even the long-dead and dormant Bhuddism is now asserting its presence in Mongolia after the collapse of the Soviet system.

The West is not concerned about the religious movements gaining ground in other than Islamic countries like theocratic Israel, where the Jewish right-wing leadership now enjoys a n unprecedented political power, or secular and democratic India where the BJP, spear-heading a militant Hindu movement,  took over power in the 1998 elections. The alarm bells do not ring in the Western capitals on these events. The reason that only Islam is seen having "fundamentalists" worth getting alarmed over is best understood in its political context. Essentially "fundamentalism" of any kind means a return to the fundamentals of a particular ideology. It is a profound revolt against the control of ideas by foreign intellectuals and actors. That is why Christianity and Judaism do not have "fundamentalists" in the traditional sense of the world. A return to Christian or Jewish fundamentals would not involve a revolt against Western civilization in any way. Hindu "fundamentalists" do not threaten the economics and politics of the West and are therefore not recognized as "fundamentalists." Only Islamic "fundamentalists" have the power to tak e a vital commodity from the West and place it under non-Western jurisdiction. Therefore, only Islam has the type of "fundamentalists" that the western world deems threatening. Today, Islam happens to sit on top of vast oil reserves and its resistance to Western cultural imperialism is perceived as a threat to the smooth functioning of the world economy.

Political extremism is a phenomenon which obtains in the Muslims as well as other countries of the world. Every region in the world, including Western Europe and North America, has seen its own extremist tendencies in one form or another. Whereas political struggles elsewhere in the world are seen in their proper perspective, i.e. Tamil separatists, Irish Republicans, Serb rebels, Hindu extremists, Catholic terrorists and Greek orthodox separatists respectively, similar extremist movements involving Muslims are invariably distorted in description and given a religious bias such as the struggle in Chechnya, Bosnia, Kashmir or occupied West Ba nk. As all militant movements have a need to underpin themselves in some ideology, a proportion of these movements adopt religion as their sheet anchor. In the 1980's, the Roman Catholic church got increasingly involved with the rebel forces in Central and South America in what was, at the time, called, liberation theology. Extremism is not a cause but a symptom of political instability in certain Muslim countries and remedy therefore lies not in denigrating Islam but helping these countries achieve a stable political system.

Whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, religious fundamentalism has become a force in the balance of the international power, according to a US study. Religious fundamentalism is on the upsurge around the globe -- but exactly what the term signifies is less clear. It is applied to movements that are distinguished as much by their  difference as by their similarities. "For most Westerners accustomed to a separation of church and state -- the concept of religion as a politi cal engine that drives the balance of global power is a big revelation," says Caludia Hamston Dlay, executive producer for the US public radio segments of "The Glory and the Power."  It is plain that the return to religious roots, and the mobilization of religious faith to reform a corrupt or decadent society, are far from being limited to Third World countries, let alone to Muslims. Its manifestation and symbolism vary from religion to religion and culture to culture, but despite the difference, there are some intriguing parallels in the organization of fundamentalist groups, and in the methods used by activists to arouse popular response.3

RELIGIOUS ZEAL AND MODERNIZATION
The western view, which acquired strength in the 19th century, was that the industrial revolution and modern science had eroded the importance of religious faith in general including Islam. This did not prove a correct assessment. "Eighteenth century philosophers had a very simple explanation for the ge neral weakening of beliefs. Religious zeal, they said, was bound to die down as enlightenment and freedom spread. It is tiresome that the facts do not fit this theory at all."  The view which de Tocqueville associated with philosophers of an earlier age generally remains conventional wisdom: as societies industrialize, urbanize and are led by secular leaders, religion will increasingly appear as an anachronism, as a remnant from the past, doomed to privatization and even, ultimately disappearance. Most analysts of the Third World political developments took such premises for granted until very recently.  Unquestionably the position of religion in politics globally has been of much greater salience, variety, and longevity than originally thought 30 or even 20 years ago. Confidence that the growth and spread of urbanization, education, economic development, scientific rationality and social mobility would combine to diminish significantly the socio-political position of religion in the Third Worl d in particular has not been well founded.4

Contrary to early conventional wisdom of political analysis, it would be incorrect to see the secularization of a society as an inevitable end-result of modernization, given the way that some modernized, increasingly industrialized societies (e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil) are also highly religious. This is to argue that in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and elsewhere a process of ideological secularization has been revered: the basic values and belief systems used to evaluate the political realm and to give it meaning have become couched in religious terms.5  The conventional wisdom used to be that seven decades of atheistic propaganda had effectively undermined the strong religious traditions of the societies of the former Central Asian republics. Wrong. One estimate now is that 10 new mosques are opened daily somewhere in the five new Muslim states.

What  perhaps stands out most clearly is the widespread apparent absence of faith in secu lar alternatives to religion as facilitators of aspirations. This is not only the case in Muslim countries, but also among Christian communities in the Third World. It is as though at the current historical juncture neither vanquished communism nor victorious capitalism (as its political vehicle, liberal democracy) has the ability to appeal politically. Why is this the case? The simple answer is that neither of the previously hegemonic secular ideologies has been seen to 'deliver the developmental goods' in the Third World. Governments in secular and capitalist Nigeria and Indonesia have been as unsuccessful as regimes in secular and socialist-oriented India in satisfying popular socio-economic aspirations. A result has been that each country experienced religio-political resurgence, which obviously encompassed differing religions (i.e. Islam, Christianity, Hinduism) but had in common a serious dissatisfaction with the political status quo.6

In the context of failed modernization and inadequate govern ment people are highly susceptible to radical alternatives which hold out the promise of transforming this world. Such a process is universalized because while many people in developing countries have become materially poorer over the past 20 years, they have acquired access to different religious ideologies and teachings.7 Most of the 'fundamentalist' religious groups seek social and political change in order to improve the lot of adherents: they wish to tie the undesirability of Western-derived political and social changes (such as democracy and sexual equality) to the words of their holy books.8

Religion in Third World societies often serves as a vehicle of political opposition. This is especially  the case when rulers are unwilling to open up the political debate to those outside their circle, much less to give up political power through competitive elections. Religion as a vehicle of political opposition has grown in importance over the past 20 years. This has been because of two factors: th e failure of state-promoted development plans and programs and the inability of secular ideologies generally to serve as galvanizers or repositories of popular aspirations.

THREE CATEGORIES OF RELIGIOUS RENAISSANCE
According to Jeff Haynes, there are three categories of movements and ideas within the global religious renaissance:

The first type, religio-political, includes those, not exclusively in the Islamic world, whose leaders utilize religious ideologies, often invoking God's 'pure' doctrine, to attack the socio-political legitimacy and economic performance of incumbent governments. Thus militant Islamist movements, such as the Islamic Republican Party in Iran (that was later disbanded by Khomeini), Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front, Al-Nahda in Tunisia and others in Jordan, Egypt, Afghanistan, Morocco, Indonesia and elsewhere, fall into this category.

The second type of religious orientation is religious revivalism. Followers are dedicated to society's moral re-awakening and at times have a national political dimension. Such groups include conservative Protestant sects and churches which seek to form and produce 'new' Christians. Sects of this type, often labeled 'fundamentalists' by their adherents, are to be found in Europe, North and Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific Rim. The aim is not to establish a Christian state, but rather to establish communities of right-minded people to do God's will on earth. This is not to say that they wish to stay out of politics. Fundamentalist Christians made a big impact upon politics in the USA in the 1980s and 1990s with their campaigns about religious teachings in schools, while 'born again' Christians became rulers of El Salvador and Honduras in the 1980s. Throughout South America as a whole Protestantism spread quickly in the 1980s, posing a challenge to the ascendancy of the Catholic Church. In addition, United States foreign policy aims dovetailed nearly with such leaders' anti-Communism. In Nigeria growing numbers of self- proclaimed Christian fundamentalists became of political salience in the context of serious clashes with Islamists.9

The third type, syncretic hybrids, are amalgams of Christian or Islamic religious beliefs and traditional practices. Examples are to be found in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Pacific Rim. Such groups may have a nationalist orientation which question the whole concept of, for example, 'Christian civilization' as progress, and seeks to highlight the pre-Christian belief structure. Such groups may or may not be politicized. The crucial factors are the legitimacy, authority and economic performance of incumbent governments.10