STATE AND
SECULARISM
Perspectives from Asia
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STATE AND
SECULARISM
Perspectives from Asia
editors
Michael Heng Siam-Heng
Ten Chin Liew
National University of Singapore, Singapore
World Scientific
NEW JERSEY
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SINGAPORE
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BEIJING
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HONG KONG
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TA I P E I
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CHENNAI
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STATE AND SECULARISM: PERSPECTIVES FROM ASIA
Copyright © 2010 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
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Preface
About 15 months ago, several of us got together to discuss the prospects of
a cultural and intellectual rejuvenation of Asia. It is an idea that has been
circulating around for some time, known popularly as Asian Renaissance.
It has attracted new interest lately with the emergence of China and India,
following that of Japan, as new economic powers. Such a rise is affecting
the global balance of economic and political powers — a point made all the
more evident by the ongoing financial crisis. However, the rise of Asia is
likely to exert an even more enduring influence if it is accompanied by a
cultural and intellectual rejuvenation. We formed a small study group and
chose Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian as a starting text. In the midst
of this, we were drawn to the complex nature of the issue of state and
secularism. It is an issue that holds great relevance for a number of Asian
countries. We decided to widen the scope of discussion to include scholars
from other Asian countries and preferably one or two from outside Asia.
We were fortunate enough to be able to bring together a group of
contributors from Bangladesh, China, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Pakistan, Turkey, and Singapore to share their thoughts in a
two-day workshop on 25–26 November 2008. They are scholars and
social activists with diverse backgrounds — sociology, political science,
philosophy, religion, law, and history — and their diverse backgrounds are
reflected in the chapters of this volume. This has its pluses and minuses, and
we believe different readers will form their own lists of the strengths and
weaknesses inherent in such diversity.
The diversity presented some difficulties in finding an overarching
framework to the book and has therefore played a part in influencing our
presentation of the chapters. We have departed from the normal practice of
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Preface
writing an introductory chapter which contains a summary of the various
papers. Instead, each chapter has a brief abstract, and we hope the reader
will take the trouble to thumb through the book to pick and choose what
catches his or her attention.
We would like to thank the Lee Foundation and the Asia-Europe
Foundation for sponsoring the workshop.
We are also indebted to Professor Wang Gungwu, Mr. Chew Kheng
Chuan, Mr. Bertrand Ford, Professor Zheng Yongnian and Professor Yang
Dali for their encouragement, support and guidance.
No workshop can be held without the authors, and we would like to
record our gratitude to all the contributors.
In bringing out this volume, we are fortunate to have the cooperation
of our publisher, World Scientific. We would like to record here our
appreciation for the patience and professional assistance of Ms. Yvonne Tan.
Michael Heng Siam-Heng and Ten Chin Liew
April 2009
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Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
v
List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ix
Chapter 1: An East Asian Perspective on Religion
and Secularism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Prasenjit Duara
1
Chapter 2: Secularism and Its Limits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ten Chin Liew
7
Chapter 3: The Secular State and Its Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Michael Heng Siam-Heng
23
Chapter 4: Rawlsian Liberalism, Secularism, and the Call
for Cosmopolitanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Saranindranath Tagore
Chapter 5: The Machiavellian Problem and Liberal Secularism . . .
Benjamin Wong
Chapter 6: Secularism, Critical Conviction and the 21st Century
Project of the European Union: Some Thoughts
from Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Barnard Turner
Chapter 7: Secular Religiosity in Chinese Politics:
A Confucian Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Tan Sor Hoon
vii
37
61
77
95
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Contents
Chapter 8: State and Secularism, the French Laïcité System . . . . . .
Anne-Cécile Robert and Henri Peña-Ruiz
Chapter 9: Secularism and the Constitution: Striking
the Right Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Kevin Y. L. Tan
123
137
Chapter 10: Secularism and Vaidic Worldview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Swami Agnivesh
155
Chapter 11: Secularism in India — A Minority Perspective . . . . . .
Asghar Ali Engineer
169
Chapter 12: The Pakistan Islamic State Project:
A Secular Critique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ishtiaq Ahmed
Chapter 13: State and Secularism in Bangladesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Habibul Haque Khondker
185
213
Chapter 14: The State, Egyptian Intellectuals, Intolerance
and Religious Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mona Abaza
235
Chapter 15: Perda, Fatwa and the Challenge to Secular
Citizenship in Indonesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Robertus Robet
263
Chapter 16: Malaysia: Multicultural Society, Islamic State,
or What? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Johan Saravanamuttu
279
Chapter 17: Religious Revival and the Emerging Secularism
in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Zhao Litao
301
Chapter 18: State and Religion in Turkey: Which Secularism? . . .
Recep Şentürk
319
Chapter 19: Pragmatic Secularism, Civil Religion, and Political
Legitimacy in Singapore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Kenneth Paul Tan
339
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
359
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List of Contributors
Mona ABAZA, Associate Professor and Chair of Department of Sociology,
Anthropology, Egyptology and Psychology at the American University,
Cairo, Egypt
Swami AGNIVESH, Founder and Chairman, Bonded Labour Liberation
Front (Bandhua Mukti Morcha); and Chairperson of the UN Trust Fund on
Contemporary Forms of Slavery from 1994 to 2004
Ishtiaq AHMED, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Institute of South
Asian Studies, and Visiting Research Professor, South Asian Studies
Programme, National University of Singapore
Prasenjit DUARA, Raffles Professor of Humanities, and Director of
Research, Humanities and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore
Asghar Ali ENGINEER, Chairman, Centre for Study of Society and
Secularism, Mumbai, India; and author of over 40 books
Michael HENG Siam-Heng, Senior Research Fellow, East Asian
Institute, National University of Singapore
Habibul Haque KHONDKER, Professor, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi,
UAE
Henri PEÑA-RUIZ, Professor, Institut d’études politiques de Paris,
France
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List of Contributors
Anne-Cécile ROBERT, Deputy Chief Editor, Le Monde Diplomatique;
and Professor, The European Institute of Paris 8 University, France
Robertus ROBET, Director of Association for Democratic Education;
and lecturer of sociology at Jakarta National University, Indonesia
Johan SARAVANAMUTTU, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Institute
of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore
Recep ŞENTÜRK, Professor of Sociology, Fatih University, Turkey; and
Research Fellow, Center for Islamic Studies, Istanbul, Turkey
Saranindranath TAGORE, Associate Professor, Department of
Philosophy, National University of Singapore
Kenneth Paul TAN, Associate Professor and Assistant Dean (Academic
Affairs), Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of
Singapore
Kevin Y. L. TAN, Professor (Adjunct), Faculty of Law, National
University of Singapore
TAN Sor Hoon, Associate Professor and Head, Department of Philosophy,
National University of Singapore
TEN Chin Liew, Professor, Department of Philosophy, National
University of Singapore
Barnard TURNER, Senior Fellow, EU Centre, Singapore; and Visiting
Senior Fellow, Department of English Language and Literature, National
University of Singapore
Benjamin WONG, Associate Professor, National Institute of Education,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
ZHAO Litao, Research Fellow, East Asian Institute, National University
of Singapore
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Chapter
1
An East Asian Perspective
on Religion and Secularism
PRASENJIT DUARA
A project on state and secularism in Singapore must, it seems, inescapably
create a canvas upon a palimpsest. In these opening remarks, I am going to
talk less about the state in the title than about the very division of the secular
from the religious.
Our first task is to see religion and secularism not as a given division but
dynamically co-constitutive, constantly shaping and re-shaping the other.
Second, this co-constitution or what I call “traffic” of the shaping and reshaping will have to consider the original division in the West as one very
important source. But the conceptual sociology of this traffic will have to
come largely from the empirical evidence of Asian societies. In other words,
the framework will require:
(1) the historical impact of the global — heretofore, largely Western —
history of secularization and Protestantization of Asian societies;
(2) the historical relations of the cosmological transcendent and the everyday
in our societies; and
(3) contemporary imperatives — often from the state — to drive something
as religious versus secular.
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PRASENJIT DUARA
This historical-sociological framework also enables us to grasp the roles
and relationships between the religious and the secular in the 20th century
within a comparative framework. It is particularly useful to grasp Asian
and non-Western societies which responded to the emergent notions of
“religion”, “secularism” and “nation”, but were often dominated by nonmonotheistic religions or cosmologies. I am a specialist of East Asia, but
another part of the world with which I am somewhat familiar is the Indian
sub-continent. The South Asian re-organization of the religious and the
secular from the late 19th century seems, at first blush, to be radically
different from the East Asian case. Yet, when we explore the underlying
“traffic” between religious and secular ideas — particularly in the area
of modern religious and national subjectivity — the situation becomes
much more comparable. Here, I want to focus on some conceptual issues
deriving from the case of China to see if we can come up with some
comparabilities.
My point of departure is the work of Talal Asad. Asad has defied a
universal definition of religion. He has argued that the very idea of religion
itself is a modern Western invention in delineating and reifying a separate
sphere. In a recent study of secularism, he develops the obverse side of this
argument. He tries to show how secularism has occupied many different
meanings within Western society itself and thus underscores the instability
of this division (Asad 1993).
It is obviously meaningless to talk about whether or not religion existed
in history; it has everything to do with how one defines the term. Martin
Riesebrodt has suggested that it is possible to consider religion as a category
throughout most of history and he explores this recognition through a
process that he calls “referential legitimation.” Thus, when the Moghul
emperor Akbar assembled the different leaders and thinkers from different
traditions in his Din Ilahi, he was recognizing the common referents
(Riesebrodt 2003). Confucianism is, of course, notoriously difficult to define
as a religion if we use metaphysical criteria since Confucius was a selfdeclared agnostic. But Riesebrodt’s method of referential legitimation works
well here to show that Confucians did recognize a class of activities and ideas
from Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, etc., that indicated that they were
working at least partially with an idea of religion. Thus, when Yongzheng
disputed the Jesuits, he recognized the common ground and argued that
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3
Jesus was an effort to embody tian in a human incarnation. This much is
true and we have to consider the limits of Asad’s assertion.
However, we see a breakdown of referential legitimation during the
modern period with the rise of science as the principle of cosmological
legitimation. Take again the case of China. Even until the late 19th century,
Western scientific knowledge, first brought in by the Jesuits, was seen to
have its origins in classical China. In Chinese historiography, this tendency
is known as the “Chinese origins of Western science.” Recently, Hu
Minghui has shown how Jesuit scientific cosmography was absorbed by
neo-Confucians by framing it within Chinese cosmology. This was not
simply a way of nationalizing science, but bringing it within the Chinese
moral and religious purview and utilizing it often for ritual purposes (e.g.,
modern astronomical knowledge to understand the will of heaven). While
many Confucians were engaged in this way of appropriating science, others
such as the anti-reformist Wo Ren warned that the spread of mathematical
knowledge among Chinese literati youth in the later part of the 19th century
would drive them into the arms of Christianity!
In retrospect, Wo Ren’s mistake was to regard science as part of the
Christian cosmology or somehow regard them as integral to each other.
But while we may think of this as a historical mistake — which was to be
more than cleared up during the May 4th movement — he was to some
extent led into thinking so by the missionaries who not only made such
claims, but occupied powerful positions in the translation and education
agencies that brought modern scientific knowledge into China. Indeed, we
can see the missionary effort itself as a means of affiliating Christianity with
the emergent legitimacy of science. During the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, many Confucian thinkers came to believe that unless China had
a national religion and science (like Japan and the West), it would not be
able to build a modern nation-state.
The larger point I am trying to make here is that historical figures
“mis-referencing” science as religion were not necessarily stupid. We could
make the argument that the assumptions of science do occupy the same
realm of categories as religion; that science does indeed make cosmological
claims. Science as cosmology differentiates itself categorically from other
cosmologies by its claims to demonstrable proof. Historically, however,
the categorical separation of science from religion was tremendously
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PRASENJIT DUARA
consequential. The older cosmologies were replaced by science in most
spheres as the locus of cosmological authority and were hived off as religions
that were sought to be contained in their own domains.
To be sure, this re-definition of the referential logic of religion had to be
learnt — with mixed results — all over the world, but as José Casanova has
persuasively argued, it did have an objective grounding in the institutional
differentiation of religion — what he means by secularization — from
political and economic domains all over the world. What Casanova denies is
that this differentiation necessarily led to either the decline of religious belief
or the privatization of religion, which happened to accompany institutional
differentiation only in Western Europe. What he calls “de-privatization” and
Bruce Lincoln (2003) calls the “maximizing” urge among some religions —
on two sides of the de-secularizing spectrum — refer more or less to the
effort of religious advocates to expand or transgress their assigned domains
(Casanova 1994).
The history of the religious-secular division in the world outlined above
is one that I agree with, but it is not sufficient. I do not only mean that
we have to take account of historical circumstances in different parts of the
world, including the historical relations between states and religions, but the
narrative itself represents largely the more visible part of the transformations,
particularly the separation and de-separation of religion and the secular at
the level of constitutions, laws and institutions. I want to draw attention here
to a less visible, pre-reflexive traffic of practices and ideas between what we
call the secular and the religious.
The message I take from Asad is not that there was no “religious”
phenomena in pre-modern societies, but that there was what we might
call a “cosmological fusion” of these phenomena with politics, society,
knowledge and perhaps even technology. The separate institutionalization
of “religion” together with allied concepts such as “differentiation”,
“secularization”, “disenchantment”, “privatization” and a host of different
modes of unraveling may, in an initial moment, be usefully likened to
the Big Bang. The Big Bang theory holds that the universe has expanded
from a primordial hot and dense initial condition (cosmic egg) and continues
to expand to this day. What is useful about this model is that it sees
the unraveling as a process of expansion and production that is based on
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5
those initial conditions. Similarly, I argue that religious elements from the
cosmological fusion — as embodied yearnings, ideas and imperatives —
scatter and combine dynamically with other institutions and ideas even as
religion is constituted as a separate domain of life.
For instance, we have not fully grasped the significance of the fact that
both Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek were Christians (Thomson 1969).
The notions of religious subjectivity and citizenship were deeply interconnected especially in the way Chiang conducted the New Life movement.
But let me give an example from a less famous leader in Republican China. I
was reading passages from the autobiography of Feng Yuxiang, the Christian
general who would baptize the troops by using a hose. Most striking here
was not any deepfelt sense of religiosity or conversion experience. Nor was
it instrumental. Rather, Christianity suggested to Feng ways to be a good
person according to the social circumstances of the day; indeed, one might
say, how to be a good citizen. Not only were the Christian people he
knew non-opium smokers and ethical do-gooders, they also had an upright
sense of their self — not subservient especially to imperialist authorities. He
provides an example of a foreign pastor who arrived to deliver a sermon at
Feng’s cantonment. Accustomed to his extraterritorial rights in China, the
pastor was mightily offended by Feng’s Christian soldier guards’ efforts to
inspect his bags. However, Feng notes that the guards were neither enraged
(read “Boxers”) nor subservient (to imperialists), but were principled about
national sovereignty. He was very proud of that (Feng 2002).
The program of inquiry that we might launch includes several questions
that we can apply to this pre-reflexive traffic which constantly re-constitutes
the meaning of a religious subject and a modern citizen. This traffic itself is
fed by globally circulating models such as the Red Cross, global Buddhism,
new religions, etc.
(1) How do globally circulating conceptions of religious citizenship
articulate with historical traditions in Asia of religious autonomy and
domination?
(2) How can we think about the relationship between the new model of
citizen subjectivity that intersects with old and new models of religious
subjectivity?
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PRASENJIT DUARA
(3) To what extent do religion and the religious subject become
subordinated to the national project and subsumed by national
and nationalist goals? How does the new globalization affect the
nation-state’s power over religious globalization and strengthening
alternative bases of authority?
REFERENCES
Asad, Talal (1993). Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and
Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Casanova, Jose (1994). Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Feng, Yuxiang (2002). Feng Yuxiang Zizhuan (Autobiography of Feng Yuxiang). Beijing: Jie
fang jun wen yi chu ban she.
Lincoln, Bruce (2003). Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Riesebrodt, Martin (2003). Religion: Just Another Modern Western Construction? http://
martycenter.uchicago.edu/webforum/122003/riesebrodtessay.pdf.
Thomson, James C. (1969). While China Faced West: American Reformers in Nationalist China,
1928–1937. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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Chapter
2
Secularism and Its Limits
TEN CHIN LIEW
It is often thought, not just by religious people, that secularism is opposed to
religion. This view is based on a failure to distinguish between different versions
of secularism. Perspectival secularism is indeed hostile to religion. It provides a
comprehensive outlook, a way of looking at the world, which is an alternative
to religious perspectives in that it finds no place for the God of traditional
religions or the afterlife. The secular perspective regards itself as superior to all
religious outlooks, which will eventually disappear. It is this claim of perspectival
secularism that religious believers strongly resist. But state secularism is a different
view that defines the proper functions and limits of the state. It does not seek
to eliminate religion, but to confine its scope and application in various ways
and for various reasons. Some of the advocates of state secularism are themselves
religious. Historically and conceptually, religion and state secularism have been, or
can be, allies. Both religious and secular perspectives can provide support for state
secularism, while continuing to compete within the limits set by the demands of
state secularism.
In trying to understand the relationship between religion and secularism, we
would need to distinguish between state secularism, which is a doctrine about
the proper functions and limits of the state, and secularism as a perspective
for looking at the world and human relationships. State secularism prohibits
the state from enforcing purely religious rights and duties. All citizens are
treated equally, and allowed to practice their respective religions without
harm to others, or to lead lives free from religious obligations they have
not voluntarily accepted. Perspectival secularism, as I shall call it, is opposed to
religion, at least to those religions based on belief in God and the afterlife.
It seeks to provide an alternative outlook to the religious. In so doing, it
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TEN CHIN LIEW
is comprehensive in its coverage, and sees itself as replacing the traditional
religions in human life. In the 19th century, August Comte (1798–1857)
provided one vivid example of the secularist perspective, which included
his Religion of Humanity.
This influenced the great liberal philosopher, John Stuart Mill (1806–
1873), who elaborated on the virtues of the Religion in his posthumously
published essay, Utility of Religion (Mill, CW, x, pp. 403–438). The Religion
of Humanity has no place for the supernatural, focusing entirely on the
human condition in this life. Mill acknowledged that the traditional religions
were like poetry in offering human beings something “grander and more
beautiful” than what they can find in “the prose of human life”. But
he argued that, although an individual human life is short, our “elevated
feelings” and higher aspirations can attach themselves to the indefinitely long
life of the human species. By cultivating a concern for the unity of humanity,
we find something that can serve the important function of traditional
religions, and which therefore may be called by the name of religion, even
though it does not postulate any existence beyond this world. Indeed, Mill
argued that the Religion of Humanity was superior to the supernatural
religions in that it does not extend the selfish element of human nature to
cover our own posthumous interests. On the other hand, the absence of the
afterlife is not a disadvantage. As the conditions of human life and the sources
of human happiness improve, our interest in the afterlife will diminish. If
we have lived a happy life, we are less likely to be afraid of death. Those
who have led happy lives might find immortality, rather than annihilation,
burdensome. But in another essay, Mill demurred with the hope, even
though he suggests that this cannot be based on any rational expectation,
that there would be an afterlife. It has been suggested that this hope was
the product of his deep-seated longing to be reunited with his beloved and
much-lamented wife who departed prematurely through illness.
Comte’s secular perspective is not confined to the Religion of Humanity,
but extends to a theory about the stages of intellectual development and
an account of social reorganization. For him, religious belief has a role
in the earlier stage of intellectual development that will be replaced by
a more enlightened stage. There are three successive stages of intellectual
development. In the first theological stage, observable phenomena are
regarded as the effects of supernatural agents. Then at the second
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metaphysical stage, abstract forces replace supernatural agents as the causes of
phenomena. At the final positive stage, phenomena are explained in terms
of general laws which connect them with a single general fact.
According to Comte, social reconstruction is to proceed by cultivating
benevolent emotions and eliminating those self-interested desires which are
not directed at the good of others. In the reconstructed society, there will be
an intellectual priesthood in charge of social and educational arrangements.
Various other groups in the hierarchical social structure will have different
roles, which Comte spelt out in detail.
Mill’s general enthusiasm for Comte’s secular perspective and for his
Religion of Humanity did not extend to Comte’s moral and political system
and its institutional structures (Mill, CW, x, pp. 263–368). In a letter, he
complained to his wife Harriet Taylor that Comte’s project of social reform
would result in liberticide (Mill, CW, xiv, p. 294). It was in part this fear of
Comte’s system that led him to write his famous essay, On Liberty. In that
passionate and sustained defence of individual liberty against the tyranny of
the majority (and indeed also of the minority), Mill slated Comte’s social
system as establishing “a despotism of society over the individual”. The kind
of “spiritual domination” that Comte advocated was, for Mill, no different
from that imposed by “churches and sects”. In other words, Comte’s
system was in the end just another unacceptable sectarian system, inimical
to the cause of individual freedom and toleration of diversity (Mill, CW,
xviii, p. 227).
A brief examination of Mill’s anti-Comtian case for individual liberty
will help to understand how a secular perspective, such as Mill’s which is
non-comprehensive, can find room for a whole range of different views and
lifestyles, including religious ones. Comte believed that once you acquire
the truth about religious matters, then this truth is to be established socially,
if not politically with the power of the state. But Mill recognized that the
social tyranny of organized public opinion can be even more oppressive
than political suppression by coercive laws, as it penetrates deeper into
people’s convictions. For Mill, social and political conditions have to be
made conducive for individuals to freely pursue their own conceptions of
worthwhile human lives. So while, like Comte, he himself accepted the
Religion of Humanity as against supernatural religions, unlike Comte, he
wanted to keep the channels of communication and discussion free and
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open to a variety of opinions. The human mind must be capable of seeking
out the truth. Ideas and ways of life have to compete with one another
in an atmosphere of freedom. Without freedom of thought and discussion,
the wrong ideas might go unchallenged. Even when correct ideas prevail,
they would be accepted dogmatically, and without a proper understanding
of their implications, rationale, or the considerations which count for or
against them. Having correct ideas but without such understanding is bad,
unworthy of beings who can rise to the dignity of thinking creatures, and
also bad in the long run because they are sources of errors and impediments
to new truths. As circumstances change, old ideas have to be reapplied to
new contexts. Without understanding, they will be misapplied, and will
block the entry of new and more relevant truths.
The atmosphere of freedom provides the resources for people to make
meaningful and authentic choices. It also gives them the opportunity and
capacity to act on their choices, and to shape their lives accordingly.
Intellectual progress is not seen, as it is by Comte, simply as the replacement
of obscurantist ideas and prejudice-driven ways of life by more enlightened
substitutes. Free choice is itself a crucial element of a desirable form of life.
This opens the possibility for there to be, in certain areas, a plurality of
conceptions of the good life, each suited to certain people under certain
circumstances, but none applicable to all under all circumstances. Choice is,
at most, a necessary condition for the good life. It is not sufficient. Nor need
the choice be continuous, as it has to be compatible with the free adoption
of commitments which bind us.
Although Mill’s essay is not specifically directed to a defence of religious
toleration, Mill explicitly builds his defence of individual freedom generally
on the more widely recognized foundations of religious toleration. He
believes that it is only in the religious sphere that we have acknowledged
some sort of principled defence of freely chosen variety and difference, and
the toleration, if not endorsement, of what we dislike or disapprove of. He
sought to extend the principle of toleration and liberty to cover other areas
of conduct. People should be left free to lead their lives in accordance with
their own fundamental values so long as they do not cause harm to others or
engage in conduct that is a public offensive nuisance. They should be free in
the same way as they should be free to practise their respective religions, even
when these religions are incompatible with the prevailing religious views.
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In Mill, therefore, we have an example of how someone from a secular
perspective can defend individual liberty in the sphere of religion and
elsewhere. Indeed, as it happened, that defence was invoked partly against
a fellow secularist hostile to the claims of traditional religions and eager
to see them fade away. Perhaps, at one time, Mill himself thought that a
supernatural religious outlook would disappear in the world in which it
freely confronts alternative, and more rationally plausible, outlooks. But
whether the secular or the religious perspective triumphs, or whether both
remain as permanent alternatives and competitors, should be left to the
combined effects of a series of independent choices made by different
individuals in an atmosphere of freedom. Certainly, neither the state nor
society is justified in using coercive laws or “spiritual domination” in order to
ensure that a favored religion wins, and is imposed on all. Left on their own,
free from the oppressive powers of the state, and sometimes perhaps even in
the face of the brutal exercise of such powers, religions have survived. Their
imminent demise, as predicted by so many secular perspectives, remains
resolutely premature.
We shall now examine how conclusions similar to Mill’s were reached
by some who adopted a religious perspective. A good example is John Locke
(1632–1704), another classical liberal, but also a deeply committed Christian.
(Recently, Martha Nussbaum has argued that another good Christian,
Locke’s contemporary, Roger Williams, who migrated to the United States,
also presented a sophisticated and persuasive case for liberty of conscience
(Nussbaum, pp. 34–71).) Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration pleaded for
toleration between different Christian groups. But the nature of his case for
religious toleration, if accepted, would extend toleration to various nonChristian religions, as well as to atheists and agnostics. Locke himself did not
always see it this way, and much has sometimes been made of his explicit
exclusion of Roman Catholics and atheists from toleration. However,
these exclusions are based on dubious empirical claims, extraneous to his
general arguments for religious toleration. Those who reject his empirical
claims, while accepting his general arguments, can consistently and more
convincingly include both Catholics and atheists among the groups to be
tolerated. Thus, Locke’s reason for excluding Catholics is that they owe
their allegiance to a foreign power, the Pope in Rome. And the basis for
excluding atheists is that they cannot be trusted to keep their promise to
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obey the laws of the state. Not believing in the afterlife, where they can be
punished for misdeeds undetected in this life, they have no motivation to
obey laws which they think they can break with impunity. But today we
have no good evidence that Catholics and atheists are less likely to be good
citizens of a secular state than those belonging to other churches and sects.
We, therefore, have no good reason to accept Locke’s speculations about
their general unreliability.
Locke’s arguments for religious toleration are of various types, and of
different strengths. Some of the arguments rest on the nature of religion or
religious beliefs, as he sees them. Others depend on more general moral and
political considerations. Thus, Locke maintains that Christianity is a peaceful
and loving religion, and the use of force and persecution to promote it
is incompatible with its true character. But more generally, Locke argues
that coercion is ineffective in changing religious beliefs. Belief can only be
changed by argument, evidence, and revelation. Coercion can only change
people’s external conduct, but not their inner convictions, and without true
belief, there can be no salvation. Locke’s argument here is not particularly
persuasive, as coercion can be used to limit the sources of arguments and
evidence available to citizens, and thereby influence, skew, or manipulate
the formation of beliefs. But his argument, even if successful, is limited in
scope as it does not apply to those forms of religious intolerance which are
not directed at beliefs, but instead seek to suppress practices and conduct
that reflect or embody unacceptable values.
Another type of argument invokes Locke’s conception of the state. First,
he maintains that the agents of the state are fallible, and if the state were
allowed to enforce a religion, it might well enforce the wrong religion.
Statecraft does not make people more knowledgeable about religious matters
than others. The comparison Locke makes is between political rulers and the
private individuals over whom they rule. But the argument is inconclusive
if the only issue is the likelihood of discovering the religious truth, rather
than Mill’s idea of understanding the rationale, implications, and proper
application of a contentious view. Individuals are also fallible, and, in the
absence of appropriate institutional arrangements, their fallibility can be
more disabling than the fallibility of the state, which can rely on corrective
resources denied to individuals. In a theocratic state, there is the significant
resource of true believers and scholars who can extract the religious truth
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from the relevant holy book. The word of God is not fallible. So the
argument from the fallibility of the state is likely to appeal only to members
of minority religions, who do not accept the infallible authority of the
majority’s holy book. The minority would want its conscience to be
protected against the erroneous demands of the majority. Are there reasons
internal to a religious outlook, whether it is that of the minority or the
majority, for not allowing the state to control religious life?
Locke provides a basis for the separation of the church and the state, in
his view that the church, unlike the state, is a free and voluntary association.
It should therefore be regulated by rules laid down and accepted by its own
members, and not those imposed by outsiders. People who violate the rules
of their voluntary association may be expelled, but they may not be punished
by physical force, material deprivation, or loss of liberty. The power of
such punishment falls solely within the province of the state. Nor should
any religious body, or any private individual, have the power to punish or
dictate the lives of non-members: “… no private person has any right in
any manner to prejudice another person in his civil enjoyments because he
is of another church or religion” (Locke, p. 24). Although the state has the
monopoly of the use of force, the scope of the application of force is limited
to civil matters, and does not extend to the punishment of sins, or offences
against religious rules. God has not given authority to the state, or to any
person, “to compel anyone to his religion” (Locke, p. 18). Thus, “the care
of souls” lies outside the jurisdiction of the state.
An illuminating way in which Locke characterizes the separate spheres
of church and state is in terms of different types of reasons for interference
with the conduct of individuals, rather than in terms of a strict demarcation
between different areas of conduct, described specifically or generally. State
interference in one and the same area can be justified when done in order
to promote certain interests, but unjustified when the rationale is different.
Locke famously used the example of the killing of a calf to illustrate the
point. The sacrifice of a calf for religious purposes should not be prohibited
by the state when it does not adversely affect the interests of others any
more than the killing of the calf for non-religious purposes, such as the
consumption of meat. Whether or not God disapproves of the sacrifice is
not the concern of the state: “…what may be spent on a feast may be spent
on a sacrifice” (Locke, pp. 39-40). However, if the stock of cattle has been
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severely depleted, and it is in the society’s interests to build up the stock,
then the state would be justified in prohibiting the killing of calves for any
purpose. He points out: “… in this case, the law is not made about a religious
but a political matter, nor is the sacrifice, but the slaughter of calves, thereby
prohibited” (Locke, p. 40). Here, he is in fact describing how a secular state
would approach the matter. This state secularism is underlined further by
his argument that the state should tolerate sins which “are not prejudicial to
other men’s rights, nor do they break the public peace of societies” (Locke,
p. 42). In the case of “the sins of lying and perjury”, they are punishable only
when they cause injury to “men’s neighbors and to the commonwealth”, and
not because they are “offence(s) against God” (Locke, p. 42). It is the “public
good” which is “the rule and measure of all lawmaking” (Locke, p. 36).
Locke also provided two other arguments for religious toleration, one
mainly prudential, and the other more fundamentally moral. The largely
prudential argument points to the desirable consequences of toleration
compared with the destructive effects of religious intolerance. A state which
seeks to enforce one religion on all will generate harmful conflicts. But
Locke’s argument here is limited in scope, and would not apply to the
toleration of those religions which are weak and have few supporters. They
can be successfully suppressed without risking social harm. But surely the
weak and vulnerable should not be excluded from the scope of toleration.
There are in fact in Locke’s argument considerations of fairness and equality
of treatment for all which make his toleration more inclusive.
He introduces the fundamental moral case for religious toleration
by suggesting that an idolatrous church should be tolerated because its
suppression would “in time and place” lead to a similar suppression of an
orthodox church. Although at first the argument sounds like an appeal to
the likely consequences of suppression, it is clear that Locke has in mind
the unacceptable principle or rule which is embedded in the practice of
religious suppression, and which informs and directs it. As he elaborates: “If,
therefore, such a power be granted unto the civil magistrate in spirituals,
as that in Geneva, for example, he may extirpate, by violence and blood,
the religion which is there reputed idolatrous; by the same rule another
magistrate, in some neighboring country, may oppress the reformed religion,
and, in India, the Christian” (Locke, p. 40). He reverts to this point when
he argues against the punishment of acts simply on the grounds that they are
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offensive to God. In accepting this rule, we would be committed to allowing
the persecution of Christians in a different country: “And what if in another
country, to a Mahometan or a pagan prince, the Christian religion seems
false and offensive to God; may not the Christians for the same reason, and
after the same manner, be extirpated there?” (Locke, p. 42).
So Locke in effect appeals to the Golden Rule argument in both its
positive and negative versions: Do unto others what you want them to do
to you; and do not do unto them what you do not want them to do to you.
The animating value of the Golden Rule is not that of mere consistency,
but that of fairness. Christians who are in the majority can consistently
justify intolerance to non-Christians while rejecting the principle that in
similar circumstances, when non-Christians are in the majority, they too are
equally justified in being intolerant to Christians. The requirement of formal
consistency is satisfied with the claim that only one religion is true and the
other is false, and intolerance may only be directed at the false religion. But
Locke requires us to go beyond formal consistency by placing ourselves in
the shoes of others, and seeing how they would reasonably interpret the
basis of our conduct directed at them. Since there is no agreement on which
religion is true, they would see us as acting on the principle that whoever
is in the majority, or in power, is justified in imposing their beliefs and
practices on others. The believers of each religion have, from their own
perspectives, good reasons to regard themselves as the true believers, thereby
distinguishing their own intolerant conduct from those of others. But once
they acknowledge that others can adopt a similar perspective when the
roles are reversed, there is no generally acceptable perspective which grants
exceptional treatment to one group. Just as I, with one religious belief, value
my religion, think it true and want to lead my life in accordance with it, I
also recognize that you, with a different religion, value your religion, think
it true and want to lead your life in accordance with it. I might also want
you to be governed by my religion. But I do not want to be subjected to
your religion, and I understand that you have a similar repugnance to be
forced to accept my religion. Each of us can thereby come to understand
and acknowledge the commitments we all have to our respective religions.
It is therefore unfair for the state to give the members of one religion the
privileged position of true believers, while not only rejecting the unrefuted
claims of others, but also denying them the freedom to regulate their
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own lives in accordance with their own beliefs. A fair resolution of the
disagreement, as Locke sees it, is to adopt a principle of toleration which
allows each group to practice their own religion, but not to impose it on
unwilling others. So Protestantism for Protestants, Catholicism for Catholics,
and atheism for atheists. This recognizes a principle of religious toleration
that is central to the secular state. It acknowledges that the values and beliefs
shaping the life of a religious person are not the same as the values and
beliefs, including the importance of toleration, which should regulate the
lives of different religious people living in the same community. Similarly,
there is also a gap between what God prohibits, as revealed in a holy book
or in other ways, and what God wants the state to enforce. The fact that
religious people want their own and others’ lives to be in accordance with
God’s will does not mean that they are entitled to use the power of the state
to achieve this aim, or even that a just God wants state power to be used in
this way to conform to His will.
The circumstances of religious pluralism and disagreement led Locke
to defend religious toleration as a fair basis for resolving and managing
such differences. A similar approach was adopted by the leading political
philosopher of the 20th century, John Rawls (1921–2002). Rawls explains
how reasonable people, operating under what he calls “the burdens of
judgment”, will disagree on important issues, including religious questions
(Rawls, pp. 54–58). The burdens of judgment refer to a number of factors
which produce disagreement among reasonable people: the difficulty of
assessing complex and conflicting facts relevant to an issue, the weight to be
attached to admittedly relevant considerations, the interpretation of vague
concepts, the differences in our total experiences which affect the way in
which we assess evidence and weigh values, and the difficulty of making
overall assessments of different kinds of conflicting normative considerations.
Given the burdens under which reasonable people make their judgments
about religious matters, the state should not impose one religious view on
all. A secular state can be seen as the recognition of religious pluralism,
diversity, and disagreement as permanent features of the world in which
we live. Far from such a state being hostile to religion, it seeks a political
arrangement in which people of different religious views and values can lead
their own lives in accordance with their own religious views and values.
Unlike a comprehensive perspectival secularism, which seeks to dump religion
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in the dustbin of history, state secularism is concerned with establishing fair
terms for religious people of different faiths, and non-religious people of
different views, to live peacefully and on equal terms in a just community.
Each can live in accordance with his wish, but he cannot insist that others
too be subjected to his wish.
It has sometimes been claimed that a secular state’s separation of church
and state seeks to confine religion to the private sphere and to banish it from
the public realm. This is misleading if it is treated as an issue of freedom
of expression, which is entrenched in the liberal, secular state. Religious
accounts of the good life, of what people should aim for in their lives, and
the motivations which should direct their private and public pursuits, may
be expressed openly for all to know, as may rival views, including those from
purely secular perspectives. If religious perspectives, or particular versions
of them, prove to be attractive, then they would be embraced by more
and more people. However, accounts of what are good or bad, desirable or
undesirable, should not be enforced by the power of the state, unless they
can be shown to advance some generally acknowledged common interest,
rather than the mere dictates of any religion. The fact that a form of conduct
is clearly required by a religion, and supported by an uncontroversial reading
of a particular holy text, or by a tradition of religious revelation or practice,
is irrelevant as far as legal enforcement is concerned. Religious toleration
allows religious people to direct their own lives in accordance with their
own religious beliefs and values, but not the lives of others. When religious
toleration is properly understood and accepted as a principle regulating the
relationship between different groups in society, people with a diversity
of conceptions of how human beings should live will each acknowledge
the right of all to bring to the table these various conceptions in order to
enlighten and persuade one another. But at the same time, each group would
accept a principle or practice which restrains it from using the law to impose
its favored view on others who do not freely accept it. Religious toleration
involves the freedom to express one’s own religious views and to practice
one’s religion, but not the freedom to impose them on unwilling others.
It has also been claimed that state secularism cannot be considered as
a just response to the fact of religious pluralism and diversity. Rather, it
takes a particular view about the nature of religions, namely that they make
competing truth claims about which the state should be neutral. But this
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is not fair to a different view that religions do not make truth claims, but
are instead sets of ancestral practices which define or bind a community
together.
In a recent interesting paper, “The Secular State and Religious Conflict:
Liberal Neutrality and the Indian Case of Pluralism”, S.N. Balagangadhara
and Jakob De Roover maintain that the Semitic religions, Christianity and
Islam, are different from Hinduism in that, unlike them, Hinduism is not
creedal, and has no particular doctrine or dogma (Balagangadhara and De
Roover, pp. 67–92). So, whereas Christianity and Islam make competing
claims, Hinduism does not regard Muslims and Christians as religious rivals
since it accepts different roads to salvation. Hinduism is not committed
to the truth of a set of doctrines and the falsity of an alternative set.
Hindu communities are differentiated from other religious communities by
different traditions. But traditions are neither true nor false, any more than
the Western practice for men of wearing trousers is true or false.
Hinduism is an expression of what the authors call the pagan, as
opposed to the Semitic, view. According to the pagan view, a religion is
identified with a tradition or a set of ancestral practices. Traditions and
practices are upheld, not because they are regarded as true, but because
they hold a community together. Hindus regard external interference with
a community’s traditions and practices as illegitimate. On the other hand,
the Semitic religions claim to embody universal truths for the whole of
humanity. Proselytism and conversion are central to Islam and Christianity,
but are ruled out by the pagan view. The authors claim that the state cannot
be neutral between the pagan view and the Semitic view, as they make
mutually exclusive claims, i.e., that no religion could be false, and that some
religion(s) could be false, respectively. The Western liberal states, claiming
to be neutral, have in fact decided that religion is a matter of truth. They do
not endorse the truth of any particular religion, and can indeed be neutral
between the competing truth claims of different religions. But they endorse
the Semitic view of religion against the pagan view, and cannot be neutral
with respect to the view that religion is a matter of truth.
In allowing conversion, the Indian state in fact endorses the belief that
religion revolves round doctrinal truth. The Indian secular state prohibits
coercive conversions, and permits religious conversion by persuasion. But
the authors argue that the view that conversion from one religion to another
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is a matter of persuasion presupposes that religion involves the question
of doctrinal truth: “One can be persuaded to convert only in so far as
one accepts the truth of one religion as opposed to the falsity of another”
(Balagangadhara and De Roover, p. 80). The authors maintain that if the
state is really neutral and does not take a stand on whether religion is a matter
of truth, then it should leave this for religious communities to decide. The
state cannot then interfere with religious violence, or try to reduce religious
conflict.
In taking over the western theory of the liberal state, the Indian
constitution creates and promotes religious rivalry. The secular Indian state
forces the framework of the Semitic religions onto the Hindu traditions.
This generates the so-called Hindu fundamentalism which systematically
persecutes other religions on the basis of religious truth. By granting freedom
to convert as part of religious toleration, the secular Indian state forced
Hindus to defend their value of non-interference by reacting to those who
interfere with it.
The authors conclude by denying that they are advocating a “faithbased” or “theocratic” political structure and processes. Nor do they wish
to ban religious conversions. Instead, they suggest that the state could act
to neutralize the effects of its secular policy on local cultural traditions
which do not see themselves as making truth claims. The current Indian
state secular policy, if left unchecked, will result in the continued decline
of these traditions. In order to prevent this, the state should stimulate
“explorations into the histories and theories of the Indian cultural traditions”
(Balagangadhara and De Roover, p. 89). As intelligent minds take up such
explorations, there is the possibility of “cultural rejuvenation”.
In assessing the authors’ objections to the secular state as being partial
to a particular conception of religion, let us assume that they are right
in their respective characterizations of the Hindu or pagan traditions as
non-truth-based, and the Semitic religions of Islam and Christianity as
truth-based. The authors also claim that the Hindu traditions value noninterference, whereas the Semitic religions regard conversions as central.
Is it the case that a truly neutral secular state would have to leave the
issue of non-interference vs. conversion to be decided by the relevant
communities, and cannot confine conversion to persuasion? As Locke has
noted, religious communities are voluntary associations, and violent and
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coercive conversions are incompatible with voluntary membership. On the
other hand, by allowing voluntary conversions, the state does not have to
side with either the Semitic or the pagan view of religion. Each person
can make that judgment for himself, and choose to remain with his current
religion, or voluntarily join another religion, for whatever reason. It is not
just ideas or beliefs, but also ways of life and practices which compete
with one another. Some people, confronted with new and, for them, more
congenial ways of life, might choose to abandon their traditional practices.
For example, some of those who convert from Hinduism to Christianity are
lower-caste Hindus who seek to abandon their erstwhile social status. The
authors seem to think that conversion involves the acceptance or rejection
of truth claims. But traditions and practices have been changed for a whole
variety of reasons, including convenience and changes of preference.
The authors blame the secular Indian state for forcing fundamentalist
Hindus to defend their value of non-interference by systematically
persecuting the members of other interfering religions. But the members of
any religion should have the right to leave that religion in the exercise of
their religious freedom. They are not locked in the religion of their birth.
Religions which are confronted with diminishing membership should look
more closely at some of their internal practices before they blame external
intervention. The authors treat conversion of Hindus as interference from
the Semitic religions. But conversion is better seen as the exercise of freedom
to live in accordance with a religion of one’s own choice. This means the
freedom to leave the religion of one’s birth and upbringing. The freedom to
propagate different religions provides the basis for people to make informed
religious choices. Sometimes such choices are to convert to other religions.
It is religious tyranny to prevent people from acquiring knowledge about
other religions, or to force them to remain in the religion of their birth.
So long as such religious freedoms are protected, some restrictions may be
placed on aggressive proselytism which constitutes a form of unwelcome
harassment and can be socially disruptive.
Although the notion and desirability of a secular state are reasonably
clear, there could still be considerable difficulties in implementing the
requirements for such a state in certain social and political circumstances. For
example, a religious group might be dominant in a particular geographical
area, able to impose its will on all, and unwilling to tolerate others. The
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creation of a secular state would then involve some external intervention,
and would lead to prolonged and damaging conflict. The result might not
be any stable state, but an anarchic situation of constant battles, or some
failed state in which the official state has no authority and little or no control
over various groups. The only stable state, for the current and foreseeable
situations, is a continuation of an illiberal, theocratic state. Thus, there might
be circumstances in which anarchy, with all its arbitrary brutalities and
uncertainties, is worse than a stable but systematically intolerant theocratic
state. If the destruction of such a theocratic state leads to anarchy, without
any real prospect of the emergence of a stable secular state in good time,
then even advocates of the secular state might demur until more propitious
social and political conditions emerge.
REFERENCES
Balagangadhara, S. N. and De Roover, J. (2007). The Secular State and Religious
Conflict: Liberal Neutrality and the Indian Case of Pluralism. The Journal of Political
Philosophy, 15(1), 67–92.
Locke, J. (1950). A Letter Concerning Toleration. Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill.
Mill, J. S. (1963–1991). Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, abbreviated as CW. Toronto:
Toronto University Press.
Mill, J. S. (1969). Utility of Religion, and August Comte and Positivism. In CW, Vol. X,
Essays on Ethics, Religion and Society.
Mill, J. S. (1972). CW, Vol. XIV, Later Letters, 1848–1873.
Mill, J. S. (1977). On Liberty. In CW, Vol. XVIII, Essays on Politics and Society.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2008). Liberty of Conscience. New York: Basic Books.
Rawls, J. (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
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Chapter
3
The Secular State and Its Challenges
MICHAEL HENG SIAM-HENG
As Asia modernizes, it is evolving new values, cultures and institutions to meet the
demands of a new social order. The process entails tapping into its own cultural
and intellectual heritage which includes the universal values of its religions. At the
same time, it must not close its mind to the experiences of other societies. On the
issue of dealing with religious matters in a plural society, there is much to learn
from the European experiences. It is a process of cultural cross-fertilization.
INTRODUCTION
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to speculate what the origin of religion
is. But we do know that by the time writing appeared, religion had become
a vastly complex phenomenon. In our time, it encompasses faith, morality,
values, beliefs, rituals, social practices, group allegiance, authority, hierarchy,
power, money, organization, etc. It has also exerted influence on literature,
arts, architecture, music and philosophy. To put it simply, it permeates all
aspects of the life of a pious believer. In ancient Asian societies and elsewhere,
religion was closely intertwined with political power structure.1 And in
many Asian societies, it has continued to do so, up till today. But as Asia
struggles to modernize itself, the issue of secularism has come to the fore.
As the Indian sociologist T. N. Madan commented in 1997: “Of all the
public debates that engage intellectuals in India today, the most significant, I
1 Some would argue that ancient China was different in that the concept of God did not feature in
Confucianism. But the concept of the divine was contained in the word tian or heaven. Together with
rituals and its subsequent evolution, Confucianism acquired features which bear similarities with other
religions. It has thus been seen as a secular religion.
23
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think, and also the most contentious, is the debate about secularism” (Madan
1997, p. 266). Though made 12 years ago, the comment is still valid today.
It is reflected in the lively and heated discussions presented by supporters
and detractors of Indian secularism in the volume edited by Needham and
Rajan (2007). Within Asia, India has produced the most literature on the
challenges of governing a multi-ethnic country of sub-continental size, and
this is not surprising. “For a country that is home to ancient religions like
Hinduism and Buddhism, and one that is home to one of the largest Muslim
populations in any single country, secularism is a very special phenomenon”
(Wang 2004a, pp. 124-5).
In simple terms, the issue can be framed in terms of two positions. The
first position holds that modernity is built on the basis of being secular. This
point has been borne out by Europe’s historical experience and it is being
reaffirmed by some other non-European countries. Because of its success
in the West, it is also applicable to non-Western countries undergoing
modernization. The second position holds that this European experience is
unique. It has very little, if any at all, relevance for other countries. This
chapter explores a third position, which lies somewhere in between. In the
course of their own modernization, Asian countries will tap into their own
cultural and intellectual heritage and develop new ideas, morality, culture
and institutions based on it. At the same time, they should not close their
minds to the experiences of other societies. Indeed, it would be rewarding
for them to borrow from the Western experiences.
Below, we shall briefly go through the two opposing positions
concerning secularism and devote more space to discussing the third
position.
SECULARISM AND WESTERN HISTORY
Secularism as a political ideology is the product of bitter and bloody conflicts
in Europe. Between the Reformation and the middle of the 17th century,
Europe experienced a series of religious wars. The most well-known was
the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648). By any measure, the war was extremely
destructive. Male population in some regions was reduced by half. There
were disease and famine. Many of the combatant powers went bankrupt. The
horror of the wars shocked the best minds of Europe, the ruling elites and the
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new Protestant Christian order. Hence was born the idea of separating the
state and religion, the severance of the cord between political powers and the
church. However, the end of the war did not usher in religious tolerance, as
evidenced by the reign of Louis XIV of France, a cruel persecutor of religious
minorities (Madan 1997). It took decades for European states, one after
another, to come to accept the ideology of secularism. Today, the Western
countries are essentially secular states, though there are minor variations in
the practical application of this principle (Robert and Peña-Ruiz 2009).
Even the concept of secularism does not admit a unified interpretation. In
other words, it is essentially contested, with no agreement on what it entails,
the values it seeks to promote, or how best to pursue it (Bhargava 1998).
For sure, there are occasional problems caused by religious extremism in
Europe, but European countries have managed to avoid the matters of the
state being influenced by private religious faith.
Secularism refers to the separation of the religious orders from the state,
neutrality of the state in religious matters, equal treatment by the state of
different religions, and religion being a matter of the private sphere which
is strictly separated from the public sphere. Based very much on rational
thinking, it is thus a product of the broader movement of the European
Enlightenment. Secular state, science and technology, industrialization,
democratization, and the idea of progress form the core of the Enlightenment
project (Wang 2002). As a result of such historical experiences, many scholars
in the West believe that secularism is an essential part of modernity and that
non-secular states cannot be considered modern (Gelvin 2005; Lewis 2002).
The American Constitution is the product of the first concerted and
conscious effort to incorporate secularism into the basic legal document
governing the political life of a state (Tan 2009). Inspired by its success,
other states soon followed. In Asia, the American Constitution was the main
source of inspiration for the state constitutions of the newly independent
nation-states after the Second World War. India was the most prominent
example, with the Nehru-Gandhi consensus seen as a political achievement.
Elsewhere in Asia, there were a range of variations in handling the separation
of state and religion. Turkey and China adopted a narrow interpretation of
secularism: the state assumed the power to regulate religious matters, though
this position has softened over the years.
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SUPPORTERS AND CRITICS OF SECULARISM
Looking at secularism from a broad and rational perspective, it could be
argued that secularism is indispensable in a multi-cultural and multi-religious
society. Diversity is an inherent attribute of all societies, and diversity tends
to be deep in multi-ethnic societies. Difficulties in all spheres of social
life abound. They have to be handled in a non-antagonistic fashion, and
secularism provides the best approach to resolve them. “In a society where
numerical supremacy of one religious group may predispose it to disfavor
smaller religious groups, secularism was to deter the persecution of religious
minorities” (Bhargava 1998, p. 1). To follow Bhargava, secularism, more
than anything else, is meant to impose limits on the political expression
of cultural or religious conflicts between different communities in a multireligious country. Many in these ex-colonies are attracted by the rationality
of secularism and see in it the relevance for multi-religious, multi-cultural
plural societies.
In a similar vein, Ahmed (2009) sees the degeneration of the social order
and the increasing sectarian violence and chaos in Pakistan as a result, at least
in part, of the departure from the theory and practice of secularism.
In the early years after achieving political independence, Asian countries
with secular constitutions and legal setups thrived pretty well. Secularism did
have some concrete achievements to show. This is all the more remarkable
given the colonial legacy of divide-and-rule policy pursued by the colonial
masters. Even critics of Indian secularism concede its positive contribution
in the early years of its nationhood (Nandy 2004).
But this period proved to be short-lived. As one of the biggest countries
in Asia, India is a showcase in many ways. Some of them are positive, e.g.,
its leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement. Some of them are negative,
and a disturbing example here is the outbreak of conflicts involving different
religious communities. Worse still, such outbreaks are occurring with
more violence. Elsewhere in multi-cultural and multi-religious countries,
secularism seems to be losing ground to religious intolerance and to the
greater role of religion or display of religiosity in state activities.
Such decline in the practical consequence of secularism has attracted
critical commentaries on the relevance of secularism for non-Western
countries. India has produced many articulate criticisms and a list of them
can be found in Sen (2005).
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Among the critical comments, the most articulate and also most relevant
for us here are those by the Indian sociologists Madan (1997) and Nandy
(2004).
Madan (1997) refers to the origin and rootedness of secularism in
the dialectic of Protestant Christianity and the European Enlightenment,
and suggests that it is therefore incompatible with India’s major religious
traditions.
Observing that secularism does not seem to work, Nandy (2004) looks
to the Indian traditional past for inspiration: “The opposite of religious and
ethnic intolerance is not secularism, but religious and ethnic tolerance” (ibid.,
p. 124). The answer to religious conflicts must not be found in imported
secularism, but in the traditional code of tolerance. In other words, India
has the cultural resources to manage the question of religious pluralism
(Balagangadhara and De Roover 2007). Nandy also alerts us to the fact that
in South Asia as well as in Nazi Germany, those who resist violence against
their neighbors in riots derive their courage from their religious faith.
Like other ideologies, secularism has various streams and tendencies.
Critics have found an easy target in the more dogmatic strain which was
adopted in the Soviet Union and in other socialist states. At the height of
the Cultural Revolution in China, it even took the form of blatant antireligion activities, with the Red Guards tearing down places of worship.
Inspired by Karl Marx, this stream sees religion as a tool used by the ruling
class to sedate the oppressed people from rising up. Religion is seen as the
ideological opium of the people. The noble values of religion are ignored,
while the negative aspects of religious practices are highlighted. This kind
of secularism is anti-religion and it is against the spirit of the Nehru-Gandhi
conception of secularism.
Another stream of secularism is akin to “scientific temper”, emphasizing
the role of scientific rationality in the constitution of society. The
secularization of society is seen as a form of social progress. With economic
development and education, science and reason will reduce dramatically
the role of religion. According to Madan (1997), Jawaharlal Nehru
belonged to this category of secularists. They are not religious, neither
are they anti-religion. In 1981, a group of prominent intellectuals in
India, concerned with the slow pace of secularization and recurrence of
religious intolerance, signed a joint statement calling for secularism to play a
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greater role in preventing and resolving such conflicts. In response, Nandy
issued an anti-secular manifesto, calling into question the viability and
suitability of ideas and institutions of secularism. The manifesto subsequently
received support from Madan and like-minded anti-secularist Indian
intellectuals.
Madan and Nandy are vocal representatives of a bigger group (see, for
example, the volumes edited by Needham and Rajan (2007) and Bhargava
(1998)). They see secularism as an intellectual stream of western modernity,2
with its worship of science and knowledge at the expense of spirituality and
religious faith. It is a kind of divinized human rationality and worship of
critical rationality, and therefore a devaluation of religion. By restricting the
role of religion in regulating societal activities, secularism has unnecessarily
provoked a reaction. Given such tendencies, it has contributed to the
worsening of religious-communal problems.
THE THIRD WAY — INDIGENOUS SEARCH
FOR AN INCLUSIVE NATION
In India, religion is the foundation of social life (Madan 1997; Nandy 2004).
In other words, religion provides the values, norms and morality to guide
human conduct, social behaviors and social relations. Before the advent
of British colonialism, religion provided the ideas for political governance.
With religion so deeply embedded in all aspects of life, it is difficult to
disentangle the link between religion and politics. This is a phenomenon
that is still occurring in the Middle East. If we see Confucianism as a secular
religion, a similar point can be made for pre-revolutionary China.
One major political figure who saw the central role of religion in social
and political life was Gandhi (Madan 1997). This great Indian leader was a
profoundly religious man. His vision was holistic, with religion as the source
of value for judging the worth of all worldly goals and actions. Religion
means, above all, altruism, self-assurance arising from inner conviction, and
the putting of one’s faith in the saving grace of God. Gandhi saw the
humanistic morality and values contained in religion as the ideological basis
of developing a fair and just polity. Inspired by such spirituality, he advocated
2 Nandy is taking a narrow interpretation of modernity, highlighting its flaws. He follows the critique
of modernity used by postmodernists.
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strongly for the Indian state to be accommodating of all religions and to
maintain an even-handed neutrality (Tambiah 1998).
Bearing Gandhi’s view of religion, one can perhaps appreciate why
he thought that politics divorced from religion becomes debasing (Madan
1997). Yet, in the context of a multi-religious society, he was a strong
advocate of the separation of religion and the state in order to build a united
nation (Tambiah 1998). Gandhi also famously said: “A society or group
which depends partly or wholly on state aid for the existence of religion,
does not deserve or, better still, does not have any religion worth the name”
(cited in Madan 1997, p. 237).
Unfortunately, social and political reality is likely to disappoint such
an idealistic position. In fact, what happened in India and elsewhere in
Asia has indeed disappointed Gandhians. In the real world, religion has
been used as an instrument for parochial power struggle. The lofty ideals
of the spiritual tradition so dear to Gandhi are overtaken by ugly features
of human weaknesses and follies, and we find ourselves in a situation that
would wrench the heart of Gandhi. In his own lifetime, he witnessed how
religion was used as a political tool to dismember British India into two
separate political entities.
However, Gandhi’s views and those of broad-minded traditionalists are
interesting and productive when seen from a different perspective. They
have alerted us to the enduring values of the spiritual tradition, namely:
respect for others, honesty, sincerity, integrity, modesty and compassion.
One often comes across the remark that in all religions and cultures,
there is a set of common values and ideals. This forms the philosophical
and intellectual basis for amiable relationships among spiritual leaders and
advocates of inter-civilizational dialogues. This set of common values may
thus be seen as the fundamental principles to deal with all kinds of issues. We
find such a mode of reasoning in operation when the leaders of a community
or religion sanction their fellow members who have carried out harmful acts
in the name of religion.
In the same way, broad-minded secularism is based on humanistic
values. For example, Bhargava (2000) names the following four values:
prevention of society from regressing into barbarism, religious freedom,
equality of citizenship, and equal rights in political participation. These
are also humanistic values of the European Enlightenment. Based on
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these values, there should be no fundamental differences between broadminded traditionalists and broad-minded secularists. This explains why the
traditionalist Gandhi and the Enlightenment-inspired Nehru could reach an
accord on the status of India as a secular state. The values can, and should,
form the basis for evolving a new set of practices to meet the challenges
of a modernizing Asia, including how to deal with the issue of harmony
in multi-cultural and multi-religious societies. Using this as a starting
point, I propose to explore the following two questions in the context
of state and secularism in Asia: (1) How should we look at our tradition
and cultural heritage? (2) How can we borrow from the experiences of
others?
THE QUESTION OF TRADITION
AND CULTURAL HERITAGE
The past provides us with psychological comfort and anchorage, cultural
and intellectual reassurance and a sense of identity. That is why people find
it so hard to come to terms with those aspects of their history which are so
blatantly evil; why nation-building projects draw on the glorious chapters
of their own history; why debaters like to draw on historical instances to
illustrate and buttress a point; and why novelists and poets like to rework real
or imagined historical events. There is therefore a lot of sense in what the
philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamar says: that the real force of morals is based
on tradition (quoted in Nandy 2004, p. 122). But at the same time, we must
not forget that tradition encompasses many (and sometimes incompatible)
ideas and beliefs, rituals and practices. A given school would possess within
itself a diversity of views. Moreover, they have changed over time, albeit
slowly. Just as they evolve to meet the demands of their times, they are
also gradually dropped when they fail to meet the demands of the new
circumstances. Such a process can be observed in the evolution of clothes,
languages, technologies, institutions and social systems.
In the case of religion, one can also find evolution of practices if we
take a long-term view. It is obvious that the Old Testament is different
from the New Testament. This example, however, needs to be qualified
as other religions may have different historical experiences. In Islam, the
Quran remains the same throughout the ages, but there have been reforms
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and modernizing developments seeking not to establish the “new” Quran,
but a return to the true teachings of the Quran which are open and plural
but which have been made complicated by the orthodox clerics. Armstrong
(1994) discusses the concept of living religion in her book, A History of God.
Religious practices have their social and historical contexts, and they need
to remain relevant to the lives of the believers.
LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS
Detractors of secularism often argue that secularism is European in origin.
Given that Asia has a different historical experience, it is not going to take
root here. This point may be true in some very specific cases. But it is
certainly not universally so. In fact, history is full of examples of foreign
ideas taking root well beyond their land of origin. In terms of geography,
the Christian faith is Asian in origin, yet the religion is now seen very much
as a European religion. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity have
spread to Southeast Asia and they have become major religions in this part of
the world. Therefore, an anti-secularist position based on the foreign origin
of secularism should not be taken seriously. In fact, the western experience
can help us in many ways. First, it can warn us of the difficulties, intricacies
and complexities of multi-ethnic societies.
Second, the experiences of the West with secularism also suggest that
such challenges are not going to wither away with industrialization and the
progress of science.
Third, as we briefly referred to earlier, there are varieties of secularism
in practice. Madan is right in pointing out that secularism has universal
applicability, but it also has culturally specific expressions: “That is how
many intellectuals consider it permissible to speak of Indian secularism”
(Madan 1997, p. 233). Likewise, we can speak of British secularism,
French secularism, Chinese secularism, Turkish secularism, and American
secularism.
Fourth, it may be a false premise to see secularism and religion as
antagonistic. At least, history does not show this to be so. As is well-known,
secularism is an intellectual product of Protestantism. The same could be said
of secularism in China. “A survey of the history of secular values shows that
spiritual needs of many different kinds have to be met, and that secularism
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has been enriched by at least two religions, Christianity and Buddhism”
(Wang 2004b, p. 118).
Indeed, there is much to be learned from studying how public-spirited
organizations and broad-minded people (both religious and otherwise)
handle the inter-religious conflicts in Asia. The author knows of groups
from Europe who have come to Southeast Asia to learn from its experiences
in dealing with inter-ethnic tensions and conflicts. One should not be too
surprised that the Asian experiences would give them a better understanding
of how secularism works in a non-European context.
TRADITION AND SECULARISM: TOWARDS
CULTURAL FERTILIZATION
As a society modernizes its economic life, it is bound to cause dislocation
in its cultural, social and political life. Such dislocation can be in the form
of tension between religious communities in multi-ethnic countries like
Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Pakistan. If all these problems have their
origins in the economy, then they may gradually become minor issues,
or may even disappear with economic development. People will become
less susceptible to narrow religious sentiments. This is similar to the view
cherished by Jawaharlal Nehru (Madan 1997). He believed that with modern
education, economic development, science and technology, people would
become non-religious. Factories, airports and dams would become the
new temples of modernity. And with that, problems arising from religious
differences would fade away. However, the problem cannot be simply
reduced to a problem of economic development.
To complicate the picture, economic modernization also takes place at a
time when these countries are also deeply involved in the process of nationbuilding. Is a person a Hindu (or Muslim) first and an Indian second? The
imperative of nation-building would require that the person sees his identity
as an Indian first and then his religious affiliation second. It illustrates the
nature of the issue facing young nations where the process of nation-building
is of utmost significance. In other words, modernization is at the same time
a process of evolving a new national identity, a process of constituting a
shared culture (Castells 1998). This process of forging a socially cohesive
nation encounters extra difficulties in a plural society with its multi-cultural,
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multi-racial and multi-religious background. One difficulty comes in the
form of religious parochialism, racial discrimination and other forms of
communalism. Another difficulty is opportunism of unscrupulous politicians
in fighting for power in the electoral process. They fan up racial hatred
and religious bigotry. It has been documented in many studies that some of
these politicians are not religious at all (Needham and Rajan 2007). These
two difficulties would not have led to actual flare-ups of sectarian violence
if the state had been strong and neutral. It is again well-documented that
in the various riots involving religious groups in India, the police did not
intervene to stop the violence and killings.
The situations in South Asia and the Middle East present those who
reject secularism with a real dilemma. The dilemma may be best articulated
in the words of Raimundo Panikkar: “The separation between religion and
politics is lethal and their identification is suicidal” (cited in Nandy 2004,
p. 109).
But all is not lost. As argued above, the dichotomy between the spiritual
tradition and the European Enlightenment can be both true and false. It is
true if we adopt a parochial view of religion and a narrow interpretation of
the Enlightenment. It is false if we go back to the fundamental values of the
spiritual tradition and the basic values of secularism.
If all of us are children of God, where then is the basis for the caste
system, for racial discrimination and for gender inequality? And there are
the two famous golden rules — do not do unto others what you do not
want others to do unto you; and do unto others what you want others
to do unto you. The two golden rules will render illegitimate all forms of
bigotry, prejudices, hatred and fanaticism. Similarly, those inspired by the
humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment may not be religious, but they share
those values cherished by the children of God. Again, a good example of
this is shown by Gandhi and Nehru. Their ideas show us a way for the
emergence of a cohesive society with a strong cultural and national identity.
The society must be founded on social justice, equality, integrity (especially
on the part of political leadership), inclusiveness, mutual respect, and other
forms of human rights. And it is also in the struggle for such goals that such
a society slowly takes shape.
On the journey to a multi-cultural and multi-religious plural society
in Asia, the social activists, intellectuals, community leaders and political
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leaders are challenged to dig deep into their cultural and intellectual heritage
for ideas. These ideas are interpreted and reinterpreted, very much in the
tradition of poetry, to provide inspiration. At the same time, they will have
to contend with the essential ideas and experiences of secularism, both at the
level of theory and practice. Secularism cannot be dismissed on the grounds
that it is foreign in origin.
It is salutary to appreciate that there is a tendency amongst various
religious traditions to absorb or adopt elements from each other: “Certain
saints, festivals and artistic traditions were shared by Hindus, Muslims and
Christians” (Balagangadhara and De Roover 2007, p. 88). This kind of
mutual and positive interaction still lives on in many parts of India today
(Das et al. 1999; Burman 2002).
The process of cultural fertilization is a drawn-out process and will
require far-sighted leadership displaying courage and integrity. If history is
a reliable guide, then we believe that the results of such cultural fertilization
is creative synthesis, leading to a high level of culture — richer in content
and form. Such experiences will be very useful to other culturally plural
societies.
CONCLUSIONS
The search for an inclusive state with diverse religious communities is a
key item in the agenda to build a modern state in the historical context of
globalization. The experiences gained in the process can provide interesting
insights for other items of the same agenda, namely: democracy, rule of law,
human rights and gender equality. These are concepts expressed in terms
coined by the West; these are values that have gained wide acceptance in
Asia. The point is not so much to criticize and reject them because of their
foreign origins, but to find ways to realize them in ways that have affinity
with the local cultural and intellectual heritage. In the case of introducing
democracy, this has proved to be no simple endeavor. Rather than seeing
the difficulties in terms of a clash of civilizations, a more rewarding way is
to see them as a conversation of civilizations. Seen in this way, it is a project of
peace, an ideal of the founders of religions.
Asia must not just aspire to attain the level of material development
already attained by the West. At least in some urban areas, Asia has done
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that. What is even more important is for Asia to address big issues in the
field of culture and ideas. Suffice it to name three here: nationalism, moral
crisis and hubris.
Just like the sectarianism in inter-religious conflicts, there is the sad
persistent problem of covert and overt conflicts instigated by narrow
nationalism. At a deep level, religious intolerance and narrow nationalism
are similar in nature, and they hurt the interests of the vast majority.
The most visible forms of moral crisis in Asia are corruption,
consumerism and crass materialism. These are totally alien to the spiritual
tradition, and even those Asian countries with long spiritual traditions seem
helpless to cope with them.
Hubris may also be seen as a kind of crass materialism, and takes the form
of mega-projects and grandiose architecture projects. Several big cities in
Asia boast some of the tallest buildings in the world. Their loud visibility in
the presence of abject poverty speaks volumes about the vision and wisdom
of the political leadership.
The project of modernity must include an agenda to deal with the three
big issues just mentioned as well as religious conflicts. They are all interrelated parts of the historical task of building an inclusive nation based on
humanistic values.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Ishtiaq Ahmed and Rahman Embong for their
insightful comments on an earlier draft. The usual disclaimer applies.
REFERENCES
Ahmed, Ishtiaq (2009). The Pakistan Islamic state project: A secular critique. In this volume.
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Balagangadhara, S. N. and De Roover, Jakob (2007). The secular state and religious conflicts:
Liberal neutrality and the Indian case of pluralism. The Journal of Political Philosophy,
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Bhargava, Rajeev (2000). Is secularism a value in itself? In Ahmad, Imtiaz, Partha S. Ghosh,
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Bhargava, Rajeev (ed.) (1998). Secularism and Its Critics. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
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Castells, Manuel (1998). The Power of Identity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Das, Veena, Gupta, Dipankar, and Uberoi, Patricia (eds.) (1999). Tradition, Pluralism and
Identity: In Honour of T.N. Madan. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Gelvin, James L. (2005). The Modern Middle East, a History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, Bernard (2002). What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Responses.
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Madan, T. N. (1997). Modern Myths, Locked Minds. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Nandy, Aishi (2004). Bonfire of Creeds. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney and Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder (eds.) (2007). The Crisis of
Secularism in India. Durham: Duke University Press.
Robert, Anne-Cecile and Peña-Ruiz, Henri (2009). State and secularism, the French laïcité
system. In this volume.
Sen, Amartya (2005). Argumentative India. London: Allen Lane.
Tambiah, Stanley J. (1998). The crisis of secularism in India. In Bhargava, Rajeev (ed.),
Secularism and Its Critics. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 418–453.
Tan, Kevin (2009). Secularism and the constitution: Striking the right balance. In this volume.
Wang, Gungwu (2002). Bind Us in Time: Nation and Civilization in Asia. Singapore: Times
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Wang, Gungwu (2004a). State and faith — Secular values in Asia and the West. In Benton,
Gregor and Hong, Liu (eds.), Diasporic Chinese Ventures: The Life and Work of Wang
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Chapter
4
Rawlsian Liberalism, Secularism,
and the Call for Cosmopolitanism
SARANINDRANATH TAGORE
In this paper, working within the Rawlsian conception of liberalism, I accomplish
the following. First, I propose a definition of the secular in terms of the principle
of state neutrality towards comprehensive accounts of the good, of which religion
is a token. Second, I argue that the norm of toleration within the constraints
of political liberalism must be produced by the state if we are to make sense of
reasonable pluralism that contributes to the making of the overlapping consensus that
legitimates the state. This act of production, I proceed to claim, is to be understood
in terms of a call for reasonableness that is drawn out in cosmopolitan terms.
In other words, the production of cosmopolitan citizens, in this view, becomes
a necessary ingredient of political liberalism. I end my remarks by indicating
the relationship between cosmopolitanism and secularism within the dynamics of
political liberalism.
I
The notion of secularism exhibits a diverse set of meanings in different sociopolitical settings. For instance, in the United States, the term “secular” is
used to designate the constitutionally invoked divide between the church
and the state. In India, another domicile of a liberal state, the term
“secular” takes up a broader extra-constitutional meaning when it is used
in conceptual opposition to the communalists marking out the ideological
schism separating the largely pluralist politics of the Congress Party from
the Hindu-based arguments that provide succor for the BJP and its allied
parties. This is the context in which Amartya Sen’s essay on secularism and
its discontents is to be understood.1 Again, in Islamic states, the secular may
1 Amartya Sen (2005). Secularism and Its Discontents. In The Argumentative Indian. London: Alan Lane,
pp. 294–316.
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become problematic because the distinction between the religious and the
political cannot be sharply drawn in the context of Islam. Making this very
point, Charles Taylor admits that the historical articulation of the secular
in its modern manifestations necessarily traces back to Christendom in the
idea of the saeculum, which refers to historical time in contradistinction to
a transcendent account of temporality that clocks the movement of the
heavens.2 Further varieties of the secular can be described but need not
distract us here. I raise this issue primarily to drive home the point that any
discussion of secularism, more so perhaps than many other conceptual items,
should begin with a summation of the sense in which the term is being used.
I will understand the term as an expression of statist-institutional
neutrality as it emerges in the discourse of political liberalism. It is a
commonplace description of the liberal state that it is neutral toward any
comprehensive conception of the good. John Rawls, in his classic account
of political liberalism, provides a highly nuanced analysis of the concept
of neutrality. It is best that we briefly echo Rawls’ discussion to develop
a fairly sharp understanding of the issues involved in a liberal conception
of neutrality. First, Rawls draws a distinction between a procedural and
a political conception of neutrality. The former meaning of neutrality
summons a sense of rules, not aiming at the fostering of any moral values,
though they may be founded on values such as impartiality or consistency,
generated purely to adjudicate between competing claims. The application
of a judicial precedent in a court of law may be taken as an example of
an act of procedural neutrality. Rawls claims that the idea of institutional
neutrality as an item of political liberalism is normatively substantive in that
it is situated in a publicly construed discursive space, drawing upon extant
comprehensive conceptions of the good (religious, moral or otherwise),
from what he calls “the formations of overlapping consensus.” The neutrality
of aim as opposed to the neutrality of procedure concerns institutional
neutrality towards those elements of any comprehensive account of the
good that cannot be a constituent of a public sphere derivative of an
overlapping consensus. Accordingly, Rawls arrives at two formulations of
liberal neutrality: (1) the state is to ensure for all citizens equal opportunity
2 Charles Taylor (1998). Modes of Secularism. In Secularism and Its Critics, Rajeev Bhargava (ed.). New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 31–32.
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to advance any (permissible) conception of the good they freely affirm; and
(2) the state is not to do anything intended to favor or promote any particular
comprehensive doctrine over another, or to give greater assistance to those
who pursue it.3
In my current formulation of the secular in the context of political
liberalism, I take religion to be a specific class of doctrines profiling what
Rawls calls “comprehensive conceptions of the good.” Indeed, for Rawls,
the whole point of political liberalism is directed towards theorizing a way
in which a pluralist social order reflecting competing (and irreconcilable)
conceptions of the good can preserve the conditions of justice. In his words:
“the problem of political liberalism is: How is it possible that there may
exist over time a stable and just society of free and equal citizens profoundly
divided by reasonable religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines? This
is the problem of political justice, not a problem of the highest good.”4
Religion has an answer to the question of the highest good; the problem
of political liberalism engages the religious dimension of human experience
once it is recognized that there is a plurality of religious responses to the
question of the good. Thus, religions in multi-religious societies such as
India, France, or the United States mark out an agonistic space that has to
be managed by the state subjected to the conditions of justice as fairness
or otherwise. Political liberalism deploys the condition of institutional
neutrality as a condition of just governance. I am using secularism as a
marker for the specific domain of state neutrality as it refers to the religious
dimension of human experience.
II
It is important to ask: what, if anything, on the grounds of political
liberalism, justifies state neutrality towards comprehensive conceptions of
the good, constituting a reasonable pluralism? In other words, what is
the political justification of neutrality? Rawls attempts a response in the
form of a reply to an objection that draws on the particularly divisive
3 For Rawls’ discussion of the distinction between procedural neutrality and neutrality of aims, see Rawls
(1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 191–192. Hereafter, this text will
be referred to as simply PL.
4 PL, p. xxv.
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example of religion. The objection states that political liberalism would
have to endorse “indifference or scepticism” towards the substantive values
inscribed in comprehensive agendas, otherwise liberal neutrality is not
achievable. However, this scepticism concerning the truth of the matter
about substantive values is deeply unwarranted, the objection continues,
because certain truths are deemed to be so important that their settlement
may even resort to civil war.5 Rawls replies that the conception of political
justice that structures the liberal state distinguishes between “those questions
that can be reasonably removed from the political agenda and those that
cannot.” The basis of a stable overlapping consensus can be found when
one bypasses religion and philosophy’s “profoundest controversies” in the
constellation of comprehensive doctrines. Thus, “faced with the fact of
reasonable pluralism, a liberal view removes from the political agenda the
most divisive issues, serious contention about which must undermine the
bases of social cooperation.”6
Within the contours of political liberalism, the notion of fit emerges
as a problem. The justification of the state must be able to show a fit,
however loose, between the neutrality that is normatively shaped by an
overlapping consensus which motivates the political agenda on the one hand,
and the various truth-centered values of the citizens who are committed to
comprehensive doctrines of the good, religious or otherwise. The question
can be reconstituted within the discourse of secularism by asking: what sorts
of symmetries can be located between the secular state and the religious
commitments that populate the space of reasonable pluralism? The points
of fit between the overlapping consensus and a particular comprehensive
doctrine are precisely those points that render degrees of commensurability
between the comprehensive doctrines. Thus, to take a simple example,
the prohibition of murder is to be endorsed by the state precisely because
it is an act that is prohibited by all comprehensive doctrines, religious
or philosophical. Thus, the political conception of justice is, in Rawls’
language, a “free-standing” view without being a claimant to any markers of
comprehensiveness such as a metaphysic or an epistemology; its neutrality
is founded on the nodes of commensurability flowing from the citizenry.
Thus, there is the liberal (political) hope that “citizens themselves, within
5 PL, p. 151.
6 PL, p. 157.
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the exercise of their liberty of thought and conscience, and looking to their
comprehensive doctrines, view the political conception as derived from, or
congruent with, or at least not in conflict with, their other values.”7
This liberal hope can be challenged. I offer these considerations not as
final critiques of political liberalism, but rather to motivate my contention
that political liberalism needs cosmopolitanism to kill off these concerns.
The exact nature of this claim will be made clear in due course. Let me offer
four directions from which this challenge can be mounted:
(1) Rawls is clear that the overlapping consensus is derived from reasonable
comprehensive conceptions of the good (reasonable pluralism), where
the accent is on the reasonableness of conceptions. For a conception to
be reasonable, it must display the virtue of tolerance by allowing other
conceptions to co-exist in civil society alongside one’s own. Rawls maintains
that a political conception of justice by advocating equal liberty of conscience
would remove religion, and the endorsing of equal and civil liberties
would remove serfdom and slavery, from the political agenda. But to
invoke the idea of fit, the political conception of justice can flag these
values precisely because they are conceptual items in a reasonable pluralism.
Equal liberty of conscience, for instance, itemized within a religiously
inscribed comprehensive conception of the good, would crystallize into
an attitude of religious toleration and will be on display within particular
religious traditions. In this sense, a reasonable religious pluralism will indeed
fit well with state neutrality towards religion. In other words, a node
of commensurability between the overlapping consensus and reasonable
pluralism would have been described: a successful translation from the
vocabulary of the good to that of the right will be achieved. My question
here centers on the unreasonable features of comprehensive conceptions. It
appears that in the Rawlsian program, a strict divide is drawn between
different programs, some of which are reasonable and others which are not.
This allows Rawls to focus on the reasonable conceptions to ferret out
the nodes of commensurability to develop the overlapping consensus. The
matter seems to me to be more complex because the reasonable and the
unreasonable are often packed together in the constitution of any single
comprehensive conception. Thus, it would violate the internal integrity of
7 PL, p. 137.
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a comprehensive conception to consider the elements atomically without
considering the whole account. Suppose there is a religious conception of
the good that endorses liberty of conscience, but also believes in a rigid
caste system that severely restricts the equality principle. The former (being
reasonable) can be picked up by an overlapping consensus, whereas the latter
(deemed unreasonable) will be left out. Thus, a tension develops between
these two principles as it pertains to the state’s relation to a single conception
of the good: the liberty of conscience principle would endorse neutrality and
thus non-interference, but the restriction of the equality principle would run
contrary to a political conception of justice. It is not clear to me that citizens
endorsing such a conception of the good, upon the exercising of their liberty
of thought and conscience, and looking to their comprehensive doctrines,
would view the political conception as derived from, or congruent with (or
at least not in conflict with) their other values. More generally, what is the
defence of the liberal hope that if not all, at least a majority, of the citizens
will be able to endorse the political conception in a way that would not
conflict with the internal integrity of the network of values embedded in the
comprehensive conception of their choice?
(2) The second sceptical pointer concerning what I am calling “the liberal
hope” issues from a politics of difference that is described by Charles Taylor
as a politics where we are asked to recognize the unique identity of an
individual or a group, “their distinctness from everyone else. The idea is that
it is precisely this distinctness that has been ignored, glossed over, assimilated
to a dominant or majority identity. And this assimilation is the cardinal sin
against the ideal of authenticity.”8 This line of reasoning that is championed
by much of postmodern theory, especially in the writings of Lyotard, when
transcribed to the Rawlsian vocabulary, would support the idea that the
location of nodes of commensurability is a hegemonic act because it attempts
to subvert the fundamental incommensurability of little narratives.9 From
the Lyotardian perspective, the rejection of totalizing grand narratives as
the stabilizing force of the social architecture complements the Rawlsian
neutralization of comprehensive accounts of the good at the political level;
8 Charles Taylor (1992). Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
9 For a vivid discussion of the contrast between little narratives and grand narratives, see J.-F. Lyotard
(1984). The Postmodern Condition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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but for Lyotard, the absolute valorization of difference between differing
conceptions of the good would rule out the possibility of any overlapping
consensus that can render extant conceptions of the good into a political
language of rights. It is not at all clear how Richard Rorty manages to be
a postmodern and a liberal at the same time, but it appears to me that, at
least from a Rawlsian point of view, Lyotard’s uncompromising defence of
the incommensurable fragment is at odds with the idea of the overlapping
consensus on which much of the state agenda of political liberalism rests.
This is not the time to discuss the feasibility of the postmodern state; it will
suffice to point out that the politics of difference challenges the liberal hope
by claiming that any consensus is a construction that suppresses the final
truth of difference. No consensus can be overlapping across comprehensive
conceptions.
(3) The third line of thinking on the problem of liberal hope issues from
the general direction of the politics of difference, in the form of a radical
version of multiculturalism, where the accent is not on the impossibility of
the overlapping consensus, but on the cultural insularity of liberalism. This
challenge states that liberalism itself, with its valorization of the neutrality
principle, is the reflection of a cultural more and its adoption as the
overarching organizing lever of the state — in the characterization of this
view offered by Taylor, a particular masquerading as the universal — may not
be sufficient in convincing the majority of the citizens to endorse the political
conception. This challenge would also thwart any universalizing tendency
that liberalism may harbor because once the issue is internationalized, voices
such as those of the proponents of Asian values would emerge as versions
of the politics of difference found within liberal democracies.
(4) Though secularism is not discussed in the last three points, religion
is implicated in the formulations as I take secularism to be a form of the
neutrality principle. The fourth line of reasoning, however, concerns the
idea of secularism directly. Quite simply, there will be religious voices within
pluralist societies that would counter the liberal hope on the grounds that a
particular religious view should, at the political level, trump the value of state
neutrality. These arguments can either take a historical form or they can be
founded on a view that refuses to endorse a divide between the religious and
the political horizons of human experience. The whole point of neutrality
is difficult to phrase in the face of these positions because neutrality cannot
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be neutral toward non-neutrality. It is furthermore not at all clear that the
liberal is best served by ignoring these challenges to liberal hope by terming
them non-rational, because significant portions of multicultural populations
hold such views without seeming intolerant. The question is whether the
recognition of such easily located postures within liberal democracies sits
well with the liberal hope that citizens themselves, within the exercise of
their liberty of thought and conscience, and looking to their comprehensive
doctrines, view the political conception as derived from, or congruent with
(or at least not in conflict with) their other values. It is not evident that
they do.
At this point, I need to say a bit more about what I am calling the
liberal hope. At a certain level of analysis, the entire edifice of Rawlsian
thought centers on the possibility of setting the political agenda without the
oppressive use of power. As Rawls says: “political power is always coercive
power backed by the government’s use of sanctions, for government alone
has the authority to use force in upholding laws.”10 On the other hand,
for political liberalism, “our exercise of power is fully proper only when
it is exercised in accordance with a constitution, the essentials of which all
citizens as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse in the light
of principles and ideals acceptable to their common human reason.”11 In
other words, the political agenda must include the entire citizenry without
the state imposing its hegemonic will. For Rawls, this can be achieved
within the frames of an overlapping consensus that emerges in a plural
citizenry through deliberation, where the parties to the deliberation are
“reasonable”. Thus, the liberal hope that is directed toward the result of
citizens freely agreeing to the political agenda is causally linked to the degree
of reasonableness available in a given domain of plurality. Rawls, on his
part, has an eminently reasonable account of reasonableness: “Persons are
reasonable in one basic aspect when, among equals say, they are ready to
propose principles and standards as fair terms of cooperation and to abide by
them willingly, given the assurance that others will likewise do so. Those
norms they view as reasonable for everyone to accept and therefore as
justifiable to them; and they are ready to discuss the fair terms that others
10 PL, p. 136.
11 PL, p. 137.
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propose.”12 I have just listed some concerns over how the liberal hope may
be challenged, pivoting on the general idea that there are conditions innate
in a plural citizenry that may severely restrict the adequate realization of
the construction of the political agenda without the oppressive use of state
power. It is not sufficient to label as unreasonable those voices that resist
the assimilative force of a liberal consensus because a transition between the
ideality of theory to the extant condition of the plural citizenry (reasonable
and unreasonable) has to be forged. It is better to be able to expand the
reach of reason than risk the visitation of violence as a consequence of
disenchantment on the part of those citizens who have been proclaimed
unreasonable by the liberal state, which brings me to the central point of this
paper: liberal neutrality hinges upon the ability of the state to expand the
reach of reason. Within the contours of political liberalism, as I understand
the program, the liberal hope engenders the need to develop an overlapping
consensus within the widest possible arc because the larger the consensus,
the greater the stability of the political order, and the less the possibility of
violence. Thus, reasonableness cannot be merely found in the articulation of
formal principles of toleration and cooperation, but must be actively engaged
in excavating nodes of commensuration across comprehensive conceptions
of the good inhabiting the terrain of pluralism’s cultural space. In my view,
this conception of cosmopolitan reason, existentially exploring the interstices
of the cultural mosaic, is inadequately grasped by Rawls, but is an essential
ingredient for political liberalism.
III
By overlapping consensus, Rawls means quite simply that “we look
for a consensus of reasonable (as opposed to unreasonable or irrational)
comprehensive doctrines.”13 Furthermore, Rawls crucially adds that the
political conception of justice based on an overlapping consensus does not
bend to existing “unreason”, but “to the fact of reasonable pluralism, itself
the outcome of the free exercise of free human reason under conditions of
liberty.”14 If political liberalism seeks social stability through the articulations
12 PL, p. 49.
13 PL, p. 144.
14 PL, p. 144.
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of an overlapping consensus that provides the scaffolding for what I have
called the liberal hope, then this dismissal of unreason through an appeal to
reasonableness nurtured by a tradition of political liberty is too abstract and
quick. The specter of “unreason” is all too ubiquitous in pluralist societies to
deserve such indifference on the part of political liberalism. Indeed, the very
stability that is sought by making the overlapping consensus a free-standing
structure independent of any one comprehensive doctrine risks unravelling
if the problem of “unreason” is not addressed by political liberalism. We
may enunciate the following motto for political liberalism: the thicker the
reasonableness of pluralism, the wider the consensus that overlaps, and the
higher the stability of the political order. In other words, reasonableness
should not solely capture the political norm of toleration that will not
widen the consensus across comprehensive doctrines, but on liberal grounds
also service a cosmopolitan norm that commissions the widening of the
consensus. Importantly, the idea of widening of the consensus through the
deployment of the cosmopolitan norm includes two claims: (1) The political
conception harbors substantive moral values that are universally applicable
to all citizens. All human beings (in political instance, all citizens) must be
equal in the eyes of the state and citizens should regard each other as equal.
Rawls is clear on this point. In his reply to the modus vivendi objection
to the idea of the overlapping consensus, he makes explicit that unlike
an international treaty that may be aborted when conditions change, the
political conception includes substantial moral values “as the overlapping
consensus is not … merely a consensus on accepting certain authorities,
or on complying with certain institutional arrangements, founded on a
convergence of group-interests.”15 For all citizens to freely acknowledge
this political norm (the liberal hope), they must have resources within their
comprehensive conception to mirror the liberal state’s view. My claim is
that the cosmopolitan norm motivates citizens to bring other comprehensive
conceptions in dialogue with one’s own. Thus, equality is not presented in
the abstract as a value of comprehensive liberalism, but each citizen, through
his or her openness to the cultural accomplishments of other cultures,
comes to existentially realize the equality of human beings. Ultimate salvific
concerns may still differ. (2) In this way, the reasonableness is expanded
15 PL, p. 147.
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within comprehensive conceptions and more citizens can be claimants to
the political consensus.
Crucially, this norm has to be produced by the state through education
because it is responsible for socio-political stability. Moreover, it is not at
all clear that the grammar of toleration can be phrased in a way that is
independent of comprehensive conceptions. Where, one might ask, does
toleration as a norm emerge from if not from a comprehensive conception?
Some such conceptions are tolerant, while others are not. Thus, it is
not at all clear that toleration can enter into the constellation of norms
that inhabit a free-standing structure because it may not describe a node
of commensurability across comprehensive structures. Here, Rawls may
respond by claiming that intolerant traditions are not reasonable and are thus
excluded from reasonable pluralism. However, this is exclusion through
moral stipulation and accordingly must be founded on some substantive view
of morality that is a comprehensive conception. In my reckoning, the state
neutrality of political liberalism brilliantly conceived by Rawls in terms of a
free-standing structure independent of any one comprehensive conception
of the good must be minimally committed to the view that reasonableness
must be drawn on cosmopolitan lines open to pedagogical interventions on
the part of the state, otherwise toleration as a political norm cannot appear
as a part of the overlapping consensus comprising the political conception
of the right.
Unlike some libertarians who maintain that the state should play a
minimal, if any, role in the educational system, Rawls maintains that the
state has a robust part to play in the education of the citizenry — though it
must be mentioned that, oddly, he says very little about education in Political
Liberalism. Nonetheless, what little he says is instructive for the cause of
political liberalism, and I quote the section in full. Responding to the charge
that some religious people oppose the culture of the modern world and the
requirements the state can impose, Rawls summons the issue of education
and tables the normative compass that liberal pedagogy requires:
It will ask children’s education to include such things as knowledge of
their constitutional and civic rights so that, for example, they know that
liberty of conscience exists in their society and that apostasy is not a legal
crime, all this to insure that their continued membership when they
come of age is not based simply on ignorance of their basic rights or fear
of punishment for offenses that do not exist. Moreover, their education
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should also prepare them to be fully cooperating members of society
and to be self-supporting; it should also encourage the political virtues
so that they want to honor the fair terms of social cooperation in their
relations with the rest of society.16
For Rawls, education, through the teaching of norms necessary for political
liberalism, is one important area where the state actively intervenes in
directing the normative composition of the citizenry. Indeed, knowledge
of citizens’ basic rights or the norms required to be cooperating members
of society are requirements for sustained political stability, which is an end
that the state desires. However, Rawls is quick to point out that these
pedagogical constraints do not call to presence the teaching of any one
privileged comprehensive account of the good, including the norms of
comprehensive liberalisms of Kant and Mill that champion the virtues of
autonomy and individuality. Thus, within the narrower frames of noncomprehensive (political) liberalism, norms that may be taught are purely
political in nature so that Rawls can claim that political liberalism wishes to
honor as much as possible the decision made by a religious mendicant who
wishes to retire from the world17 — a decision that may not be supported
by the values of comprehensive liberalism.
Martha Nussbaum, in many ways a disciple of Rawls, elaborates well
what I mean by a conception of education that attempts to produce reason
drawn on cosmopolitan lines. The gloss appears in her recent book on
India in the context of a comment on Rabindranath Tagore’s thinking
on education that epically celebrated the cosmopolitan requirements of
education. Nussbaum writes:
Tagore called his university Visva-Bharati, “All the World,” for a reason.
Citizens who cultivate their capacity for effective democratic citizenship
need an ability to see themselves not simply as citizens of some local
region or group but also, and above all, as human beings bound to
all other human beings by ties of recognition and concern. They have
to understand both the differences that make understanding difficult
between groups and nations, and the shared human needs and interests
that make understanding essential, if common problems are to be solved.
Doing this means learning quite a lot about nations other than one’s own
16 PL, p. 199.
17 PL, p. 200.
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and about the different regions and other groups that are part of one’s
own nation.18
Such a philosophy of education draws out a conception of reasonableness
that would service the program of political liberalism. However, just rotelearning about cultures other than one’s own is not sufficient in generating
the conditions among the citizens required for political liberalism to sustain
what I have called the liberal hope, which is not to say that curricular
implications can be ignored. A cosmopolitan educational system ought to
satisfy two requirements. First, such a conception of educational practice
ought to generate an attitude of openness to other cultures and other modes
of being that subverts the idea that one’s identity is fixed within a rigidly
demarcated closure. Second, a philosophy of education should be directed
towards the formation of an ethos.19 The first point may be illustrated by
Tagore’s reflection on the matter in his famous essay on education that I offer
in my translation:
If from childhood one is educated along with language instruction about
attitude formation (Bhābshikkha), and if one’s entire life is balanced with
this attitude, then only harmony can be established in life; we can then
live naturally and can apprehend the true measure of things.20
For Tagore, the attitude to be formed through pedagogical practice is
precisely the cosmopolitan attitude exemplified in the following lines:
Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly become
ours, wherever they might have their origin. I am proud of my
humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of other countries
as my own.21
Of course, Tagore’s thinking on cosmopolitanism ranges across different
national cultures, but nothing of importance is lost when we apply the
same idea to different comprehensive conceptions of the good that inform
18 Martha Nussbaum (2007). The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 293.
19 For a philosophical discussion of these points, see S. Tagore (2008). Tagore’s Conception of
Cosmopolitanism: A Reconstruction. University of Toronto Quarterly, 77(4), 111–125.
20 Rabindranath Tagore (1992). Shikkhar Herpher. In Shikkha. Kolkata: Viswa Bharati Press, pp. 13–14.
The translation of the passage is mine. Sensibility may be suggested as an alternative translation of the
key word bhãb. However, the word attitude, I believe, captures better the overall philosophical sense of
the passage.
21 Rabindranath Tagore (2002). Letters to a Friend. New Delhi: Rupa, p. 111. Emphasis added.
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different cultures within a particular nation. The idea of ethos as it relates to
attitudes is wonderfully captured in a summary by Michel Foucault in his
meditation on Kant’s essay, “Was ist Aufklärung?”:
Thinking back on Kant’s text, I wonder whether we may not envisage
modernity rather as an attitude than as a period in history. And by
“attitude” I mean a mode of relating to contemporary reality; a voluntary
choice made by certain people; in the end, a way of thinking and feeling;
a way, too, of acting and behaving that at one and the same time marks
a relation of belonging and presents itself as a task. A bit, no doubt, like
what the Greeks called an ethos.22
I am claiming that a cosmopolitan ethos is a requirement for political
liberalism and it is the task of education to produce it.
Here is the argument. First, let us recall the sense in which the notion
of liberal hope was used: “citizens themselves, within the exercise of their
liberty of thought and conscience, and looking to their comprehensive
doctrines, view the political conception as derived from, or congruent
with, or at least not in conflict with, their other values.” This idea of
legitimating the state without convening any account of the good from
the outside that would translate into the political deployment of oppressive
power is founded on the possibility of achieving a broadly based overlapping
consensus. Furthermore, the width of the arc of the consensus is directly
proportional to the depth of the stability of the social order. Now, the
larger the number of commensurable points between the comprehensive
accounts of the good, the wider the arc of the consensus. Suppose that there
is a social order where all citizens share exactly the same comprehensive
account of the good. The political norms of the state in that social
order on Rawlsian grounds would be exactly the norms advocated by
the singularity of the given comprehensive account. The good would be
identical to the right in this instance. Cosmopolitan norms do not reduce
plurality to singularity, but attempt to expand the reach of reasonableness by
making possible the expansion of the degree of commensurability between
comprehensive accounts. It accounts for what Rawls calls the depth of the
22 Michel Foucault (1984). What is Enlightenment? In The Foucault Reader, Paul Rabinow (ed.).
Pantheon, p. 39.
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overlapping consensus:
As for depth, once a constitutional consensus is in place, political groups
must enter the public forum of political discussion and appeal to other
groups who do not share their comprehensive doctrine. This fact makes
it rational for them to move out of the narrower circle of their own
views and to develop political conceptions in terms of which they can
explain and justify their preferred policies to a wider public so as to put
together a majority.23
Political deliberation of this sort requires an ethos of acting and behaving
that, at one and the same time, marks a relation of belonging and presents
itself as a task (in the language of Foucault), that encourages intelligent and
imaginative ways of relating to comprehensive conceptions or broad cultural
frameworks, religious or otherwise, that are not one’s own. Substantive
moral concerns of citizens emerge through the expressive horizon of
cultures, through religion, art, music, poetry and so on. We need to know
a good deal about other cultures and generate an attitude of openness to
alterity if the goal of public reason is to be realized:
As reasonable and rational, and knowing that they affirm a diversity of
reasonable religious and philosophical doctrines, citizens should be ready
to explain to one another in terms each could reasonably expect that
others might endorse as consistent with their freedom and equality.24
In other words, political theory must be able to give an account of
unreasonableness and it is never sufficient to focus just on the reasonable
dimensions of pluralism. The production of cosmopolitan norms as a
requirement for political liberalism would be able to generate just such an
account because the ethos of cosmopolitanism educates the unreasonable.
The cosmopolitan norm celebrates openness to the other — a way of
being, a collective ethos — that does not allow identity to close in on itself
within the orbit of a closure, but nurtures an attitude that keeps it open to
the touch of alterity. Indeed, the construction of such a sensibility would
require, as Nussbaum correctly points out, “learning quite a lot about nations
other than one’s own and about the different regions and other groups that
are part of one’s own nation.” Enjoyment and celebration — and I use
these words carefully — of the sameness and differences ranging across the
23 PL, p. 165.
24 PL, p. 218.
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voices of cultures generates a citizen who does not merely tolerate; she can
only, as a cosmopolitan citizen, see the political conception as a reflection
of an overlapping consensus as congruent with her own comprehensive
conception. It gives us the philosophical work that toleration does, namely
non-interference, but also gives us more: it generates an attitude that seeks
to plot unities across different conceptions of the good that can help realize
the liberal hope that calls for the free acknowledgment of the political
conception. Let me offer an example: Jack belongs to a culture that does
not see women as being equal to men. Thankfully, he gets exposed to an
alternative culture that believes in the equality of the sexes. Reading a novel
produced in this alternative culture, he becomes convinced that a conception
of the good should value gender equality. Jack returns to his own culture
and decides to find resources that can argue for the equality of the sexes.
Indeed, he discovers that such resources are available but were not wellprofiled within the conception. Jack lives in a society governed by a liberal
state. Now, he can claim that the political conception is congruent with his
own conception of the good. Jack did not merely tolerate the difference to
remain a pariah to the liberal conception of reasonableness, but through the
intercourse with alterity, adjusted without jettisoning his own conception
of the good.
The cosmopolitan norm encourages, through its insistence that the home
should be open to the world, the enrichment of the reach of reasonableness.
It makes no sense to say that comprehensive structures are unreasonable or
reasonable; rather, one should ask whether an individual situated within a
comprehensive structure is reasonable or unreasonable. Our identities are
textured by comprehensive structures, but the cosmopolitan norm resists
the closure of identity in terms of a given structure. Rawls seems to agree
with this point when he says that: “I have supposed that the comprehensive
doctrines of most people are not fully comprehensive, and this allows
scope for the development of an independent allegiance to the political
conception that helps to bring about a consensus.”25 The fostering of
the cosmopolitan norm leverages on this openness belying a totalized and
closed comprehensiveness to aid the construction of the consensus. Here
is the place where the difference between the norm of toleration and the
25 PL, p. 168.
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cosmopolitan norm can be profiled. Toleration assumes that identities are
completely closed by a comprehensive conception, thus the only viable way
of relating to alterity is by tolerating it. The norm of toleration subverts
the alternative conception of being that assumes points of commensurability
across comprehensive conceptions. The cosmopolitan norm, on the other
hand, structures an attitude that seeks to locate points of commensurability
across regions of cultural difference. I am of course assuming that all
expressions of culture are moored in some comprehensive conception or
the other. If it is argued that political liberalism minimally requires toleration,
then it can be better argued that political liberalism minimally requires the
cosmopolitan norm because it is in a better position to account for deep
consensus than toleration.
In my view, a possible objection to the cosmopolitan norm would
be that it requires too much, where the too much is understood in terms
of a cosmopolitan having to give up one’s own preferred comprehensive
conception. There are two liberal responses to this objection. First, if the
cosmopolitan attitude occasions the discovery of an alternative conception
and one converts to the new conception freely, there should be no liberal
objection to that. Second, the cosmopolitan attitude that is generated
through openness to other ways of being does not require conversion; it only
requires an attitude of openness to cultural alterity aiding in the development
of a public reason that can allow adherents in one comprehensive conception
to converse with members of other such structures. I am not claiming that the
norm of toleration should be jettisoned; in the absence of the cosmopolitan
norm, toleration is more expressive of reasonableness than non-toleration.
But I am claiming that the cosmopolitan norm as expressive of reasonableness
better satisfies the overall program of political liberalism than the mere
norm of toleration. Thus, the pedagogical cultivation of cosmopolitan
norms satisfies two purposes for the advancement of political liberalism.
First, a cosmopolitan citizenry would be situated within a pluralized
cultural space where the points of commensurability would be maximized,
enabling the construction of a deep consensus through the expansion of
the conversational space between different comprehensive conceptions of
the good. Second, the engagement with otherness encouraged by the
cosmopolitan norm would see difference not merely as the object of
toleration; rather, difference would emerge as an object of respect forever
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motivating the possibility that friendships can be forged with ways of being
that are radically different from one’s own. Democratic citizenship calls for
the possibility of such friendships to satisfy the political aim of stability in
the absence of the coercive power that seeks to unify through hegemonic
means. The openness to this possibility is important for the cosmopolitan.
The liberal hope, in my view, can best flourish in a reasonable pluralism
where the reasonable is produced along cosmopolitan lines.
To invoke Continental political philosophy, Rawls’ strategy of founding
the state on the formations of an overlapping consensus cuts a middle-way
between the hegemonic drive of modernity — where a grand narrative
(through what Lyotard calls a legitimating strategy) subverts alternative
narratives. Lyotard attempts to disarm this totalizing drive of modernity by
conceiving the global cultural sphere in terms of fragmented little narratives
defying the logic of unity and consensus. Thus, at best, in the absence of the
trope of unity connecting little narratives, Lyotard can only opt for an ethics
of toleration. The Rawlsian strategy rejects both these attitudes by invoking
the overlapping consensus that depends on unity in the face of pluralism.
The cosmopolitan attitude is necessary in widening the scope of unity given
the fact of the many.
A final point in this argument needs to be addressed. One can ask: is
the cosmopolitan norm not rooted in a comprehensive conception, thus
vitiating the Rawlsian distinction between comprehensive liberal doctrines
and non-comprehensive political liberalism in the general terms of political
liberalism and in the particular context of Rawls’ pronouncements on the
philosophy of education? After giving a list of the norms and facts that should
be taught to children, he asks: can it not be objected that “requiring children
to understand the political conception in these ways is in effect, though not
in intention, to educate them to a comprehensive liberal conception”?26 In
effect, the point is this: is it possible to learn about the “social cooperation in
their relations with the rest of society” without assuming the justification of
autonomy, which is a comprehensive liberal value? Rawls’ response to this
objection is inadequate. He merely says: “the only way this objection can
be answered is to set out carefully the great differences in both scope and
generality between political and comprehensive liberalism.”27 The careful
26 PL, p. 199.
27 PL, p. 200.
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delineation of the difference between the two is not in doubt; the issue
here is whether the norms of political liberalism can be taught without
simultaneously invoking comprehensive liberal values. A certain degree of
circularity is embedded in Rawls’ argument. Political liberalism needs certain
liberal norms in the citizenry already in place for the neutrality thesis to be
spelt out in terms of an overlapping consensus. One cannot merely define
these norms in terms of reasonableness. I think Rawls comes closest in these
passages on education to grant my point that the normative requirements
of the citizenry that would make possible the legitimation of the liberal
state depend upon the state in helping create enabling conditions. It is not
sufficient to vaguely suppose that these norms will already be in place in a
society that has flourished under conditions of liberty. Thus, I am not sure
it is possible not to suppose in advance some comprehensive liberal value —
Millian, Kantian or cosmopolitan — in the overall argument for political
liberalism.
The cosmopolitan norm, though comprehensive, is different from other
norms sedimented in comprehensive conceptions of the good, at least in
a way that is salient for political liberalism. It is a norm that facilitates the
construction of a deep consensus that is required for social stability, through
the realization of what I have called the liberal hope. In this sense, the
cosmopolitan norm operates as a meta-norm as it allows one to move between
normative structures offered up by extant comprehensive conceptions of
the good.
Chantal Mouffe voices the bafflement of western democratic theory
when confronted with contemporary pluralism:
Western democrats view with astonishment the explosion of manifold
ethnic, religious and nationalist conflicts that they thought belonged
to a bygone age. Instead of the heralded “New World Order”, the
victory of universal values, and the generalization of “post-conventional”
identities, we are witnessing an explosion of particularisms and an
increasing challenge to Western universalism.28
While the challenge to Western universalism, being mounted from various
quarters ranging from postcolonial historiography to some of Amartya
Sen’s recent work, is welcome for various reasons and can be rendered
consistent with the approach of political liberalism, the explosion of
28 Chantal Mouffe (2005). The Return of the Political. London: Verso, p. 1.
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particularisms (theorized as little narratives by Lyotard) deeply affects the
Rawlsian program. The play of the cosmopolitan norm puts a check on the
anarchic implications of particularism and, in so doing, renders possible an
overlapping consensus productive of stability.
IV
We started our reflections by defining secularism in terms of the refusal of
political liberalism to map any single comprehensive account of the good
available in pluralism onto the political realm. I will end these remarks by
briefly articulating some implications of the use of the cosmopolitan norm
within the program of political liberalism for the religious dimension of the
human experience, which provides one of the most salient examples of what
Rawls calls a comprehensive conception of the good.
The first point to be noted is that secularism, in the context of political
liberalism, does not entail a view of the state that is hostile to the religious
dimensions of the human experience. Indeed, Rawls wants to give a noncoercive account of the state that allows for the flourishing of reasonable
comprehensive conceptions of the good. The question is not whether the
state is hostile towards religion; rather, the question pivots on how the
state should relate to religion. In this regard, the state can assume one
of two postures: complete non-intervention or symmetric treatment. The
distinction is displayed well in Amartya Sen’s treatment of the relation
between the secular state and anti-blasphemy laws: “symmetry regarding
blasphemy laws can be achieved with different formulas — varying from
applying to all religions, to applying it to none. While the latter option fits in
immediately with a secularist withdrawal of the state from religious affairs,
the former pursues symmetry between religions in a way that favors no
religion in particular.”29 In this view, compulsory prayers in school cannot
be sanctioned, but the state cannot have an issue with the setting aside of a
room where people can pray whatever their religious background or choose
not to pray at all if one were an atheist. Thus, neutrality seen in terms of
symmetry blunts the argument that sees secularism as a political doctrine
that wants to subvert the religious experience.
29 Amartya Sen, Secularism and Its Discontents, p. 303.
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With the flourishing of the religious life in place, the articulation of
the cosmopolitan norm within the orbit of political liberalism generates
certain implications that should be attended to. Religion is one sphere of
belief that tends to profile comprehensive conceptions of the good within
doctrinal closures. Each religion is dependent on a set of truth claims that
militates against alternative truth claims supposed by other religion. Indeed,
the psychology of religious violence can be partly explained by the singleminded pursuit of remaking the world in terms of truths advocated by
a particular religion. Locke’s view of religious toleration is relevant here.
He argued that the state ought not to use coercive power to propagate a
particular religion in civil society because the religious goal of salvation lies
outside the civil interests that the state is designed to protect; furthermore,
religious organizations, given their voluntary nature, have no sanction to
coerce individuals inside or outside the group in regard to religious beliefs.
The second part of the Lockean claim is somewhat built into Rawls’
understanding of the “reasonableness” of reasonable pluralism. But I think
that the matter is more complicated when the idea of toleration is run
through the sieve of political liberalism. First, entire religions cannot be
characterized as tolerant or intolerant. There are tolerant Christians and
intolerant Christians, tolerant Hindus and intolerant Hindus, and so on.
Thus, the target of the discourse of toleration should be the individual
Christian or the individual Hindu, and so on. Indeed, the resources of
toleration can be found within each religious account of the good, though
a detailed defence of this position cannot be given here. Thus, in making
toleration a pedagogical value, political liberalism need not violate the
principle of symmetry defining neutrality. The suggestion then is to read
reasonableness at the level of individuals and not at the general structure
of comprehensive doctrines, though granted that individuals will subscribe
to some comprehensive system or the other. I have of course argued for
the primacy of the cosmopolitan norm that takes a step beyond the norm
of toleration. Within that context, perhaps some suggestions can be made
regarding how the cosmopolitan norm can be pedagogically nurtured in the
religious context.
The cosmopolitan attitude in regards to religion can be produced by
the state through the study of the world’s religions. This militates against
the belief in some quarters that the liberal state in advocating secularism is
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hostile toward religion. In such a course, taught in many universities under
the title of “world religions,” the trope of symmetry is in place. No effort
is made to trump one truth claim by another; rather, such a course operates
at a descriptive level where the argumentative target is the disclosure and
tightening of the cosmopolitan norm effected through the distillation of
unities across the terrain of difference that constitutes the religions of the
world. For instance, at one level, though there are fundamental doctrinal
differences between Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, it is nonetheless
important to note that there are remarkable convergences on reports of
religious experiences by practitioners of these traditions. Meister Eckhart
and Al-hallaj speak in a language that is not far removed from the vocabulary
of Advaita Vedānta. Of course, as Locke points out in a different context,
such reports have salvific but no political consequence, thus they cannot be
directly used to service the cause of Rawlsian consensus; but nonetheless,
the symmetrical study of religion can trigger the free assimilation of the
cosmopolitan norm. The point is not to flatten out the differences but to
realize that, perhaps at a deeper level, points of commensurability can be
located across divergent structures. There is at least one instance in history
that I am aware of where an attempt was made to derive political norms
of governance from an articulation of an overlapping consensus purely
through the consideration of religion, namely Akbar’s experimentation with
a universal faith he called din-ilahi. The cosmopolitan requirement need not
be that strong.
The cosmopolitan dimensions of political liberalism have implications
for secularism. Political liberalism, as I see it, wants to avoid two ways
of conceiving the relationship between the state and religion viewed as
comprehensive accounts of the good. The state should avoid the privileging
of any one religious conception on the one hand, and on the other, the
state should not be hostile towards religious expression on the part of the
citizenry. Indeed, both these political arrangements can be the cause of
violence. The great sustaining power of the political arrangement profiled
by Rawls takes a middle position wherein these two possibilities are avoided.
He allows for the flourishing of religious life whilst preserving pluralism.
This in effect is Rawlsian secularism. If I am right in claiming that the
cosmopolitan norm adds to the fertility of political liberalism, then opening
oneself up to the religious experiences of others can only serve the cause of
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consensus. And many areas of this consensus have political resonance because
many of the civic norms (as opposed to salvific norms) that people abide by
have their origins in religious faith. Furthermore, I think it is a mistake to
think of the religious traditions of the world purely in the context of items
of doctrine that are taken to be true by the adherents. While there is no
denying the truth-sensitive doctrinal dimensions of religion, the religious
horizon overflows the doctrines and comes to include other civilizational
regions such as music, art, literature and so on. The cosmopolitan attitude
opens up all these dimensions of human experience for possible inclusion in
one’s identity formation. If secularism is understood in terms of a political
liberalism informed by the need to foster the cosmopolitan norm, religious
education of the sort as described here becomes salutary. Indeed, because the
liberal-secular state values the free practice of all religions (comprehensive
conceptions of the good in general), the cosmopolitan check is necessary to
block the hegemonic intent that closed particulars appear to display.
I end with a poetic statement from Tagore that invokes the idea of
cosmopolitanism through an appeal to universal hospitality toward global
culture in an address delivered in Tokyo that bears the title “Ideals of
Education”:
We should have faith in ideals that have matured in the spiritual field
through ages of human endeavor after perfection, the golden crops that
have developed in different forms and in different soils but whose food
value for man’s spirit has the same composition. These are not for the
local markets but for universal hospitality, for sharing life’s treasures with
each other and realizing that human civilization is a spiritual feast, the
invitation to which is open to all; it is never for the ravenous orgies of
carnage where the food and the feeders are being torn to pieces.30
Political liberalism should have no argument with such a claim concerning
the cosmopolitan aims of education.
30 Rabindranath Tagore (1999). The Ideals of Education. In The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore,
Sisir Kumar Das (ed.). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p. 613.
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Chapter
5
The Machiavellian Problem
and Liberal Secularism
BENJAMIN WONG
This chapter presents the outline of a political account of the early liberal
conception of secularism or the separation of church and state. It aims to show that
the liberal conception of the secular state should be seen as part of a comprehensive
effort undertaken by thinkers associated with the Enlightenment to transform
radically the traditional view of relations between state, society, and religion.
INTRODUCTION
The Reformation, which challenged the authority and power of the
Catholic Church in the early part of the 16th century, fragmented the
Christian world. Subsequently, differences in religious doctrine “fueled
political ambitions and vice versa, in a deadly vicious cycle that lasted a
century and a half. Christians hunted and killed Christians with a maniacal
fury once reserved for Jews, Muslims, and heretics.”1 During the Thirty
Years’ War (1618–1648) that engulfed most of Europe, it was estimated that
German cities lost a third, and the countryside a fifth, of their population.2
The Enlightenment project emerged as a response to the unprecedented
violence and destruction caused by these religious wars in Europe during
the 16th and 17th centuries.
The end-product of the Enlightenment project was the liberal,
commercial republic. In addition to the separation of church and state,
the modern liberal state has features such as the separation of powers, and
a system of checks and balances including a system of individual rights
1 Mark Lilla (2007). The Stillborn God. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 52.
2 John Merriman (1996). A History of Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present. New York: W.W. Norton
& Co., p. 176.
61
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and competing political parties. Alongside these political innovations, the
modern liberal state also supports economic growth in a competitive free
market as well as scientific and technological development. An appreciation
of this complex array of social, moral, and political reforms is necessary for an
adequate understanding of the strengths and limitations of liberal secularism.
Liberal secularism, understood in terms of the separation of church and
state, entails the subordination of the church to the state. To effect this
fundamental change the Enlightenment thinkers had to provide arguments
to reform traditional political and theological thought. The Bible had to
be reinterpreted to accommodate the political changes envisaged by these
thinkers. This chapter will only deal briefly with the theological arguments
relating to the secularization of the modern state. The main aim of this
chapter is to set out the main political arguments that set the stage for the
evolution of the liberal secular state. The chapter will focus particularly on
the contributions of the English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John
Locke, as their political and theological ideas serve as the foundation for
the emergence of the liberal secular state. The chapter will proceed on the
basis that these thinkers approached the problem of religious conflict from a
Machiavellian perspective. The wars of religion were often led or inspired by
leaders who conformed in varying degrees to what Machiavelli teaches about
the “new prince” or the “armed prophet.” The complex structure of the
modern liberal state could be said to be designed to prevent a Machiavellian
prince from monopolizing power or otherwise dominating the state. This
paper will outline the strategies undertaken by Hobbes and Locke to deal
with the Machiavellian problem and show how their arguments contributed
to the liberal conception of the modern, secular state.
THE MACHIAVELLIAN PROBLEM
The ostensible purpose of Machiavelli’s most well-known work, The Prince,
was to educate an actual or potential prince with the knowledge and methods
to rid Italy of invaders and to unify the country. Italy then was made up
of more or less independent republics and principalities that competed with
each other for power and influence. The political situation, moreover, was
complicated by the role of the Catholic Church, which was then dominated
by popes with extensive temporal ambitions. This last posed a particularly
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challenging problem since it meant that, in attempting to unify Italy, the
prospective conqueror would have to confront the power of the church.
Machiavelli indicates that as far as the conquest of Italy was concerned,
there was no lack of ambition both internally and externally. But all the
would-be conquerors, all of whom were fierce and ruthless men, nonetheless
failed because they were unable to overcome their Christian conscience
or their fear of God. The French King, Louis XII, for instance, failed in
his attempt to take Italy because he could not get around his obligation to
the pope for annulling his marriage and for appointing one of his ministers
as a cardinal. And Cesare Borgia, who brutally disposed of his rivals and
henchmen, committed a fundamental error in choosing as pope a person
whom he had earlier offended in the belief that “among great personages,
new benefits would make old injuries be forgotten.”3 He erred in retaining
a belief in the Christian virtue of forgiveness. Through these examples,
Machiavelli shows how strong men who could commit spectacular atrocities
would somehow stumble in their confrontation with the church. The
examples of Louis XII and Cesare Borgia show that the power of religion
should never be underestimated; consequently, they illustrate the great
difficulty of any attempt to overcome the power of religion. Nothing less
than the introduction of “new modes and orders” is needed to overcome
the power of religion, and in this connection Machiavelli says: “nothing
is more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, nor more difficult to
manage than to put oneself at the head of introducing new orders.”4
To introduce a new order, the prince has to go against the church. But
this means he must liberate himself from its dominance. To be at the head of
a new order, the prince must ensure that his authority replaces the authority
of the church or that he becomes the authority for the church. This would
be possible if he were no longer afraid of the power of the established church
and its agents; but this means ultimately that he must be free from the fear
of God. Indeed, it could be said of the new prince that he has to aspire to
be a god or a prophet. But to succeed, such a prince would have to be an
armed prophet, for “all the armed prophets conquered and the unarmed
3 Niccolo Machiavelli (1985). The Prince, a new translation with an introduction by Harvey C. Mansfield.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 33.
4 Ibid., p. 23.
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ones were ruined.”5 Although the prophet Moses is held to be a model of
the armed prophet, Machiavelli is well aware that Christianity is based on
the teachings of a person who could be characterized as unarmed. But then
Machiavelli indicates in the chapter on arms (chapter 14) that being armed
means being in possession of the knowledge of the art of warfare, and in this
case he includes both psychological as well as spiritual warfare. To succeed
in attacking religion, one has to attack it with the weapons of religion.
For the new prince, Christian morality proves to be the major stumbling
block. Accordingly, Machiavelli sets out to overcome its influence on the
prince. He does this by arguing from the start that the desire to acquire is
not a bad thing, contrary to conventional religious belief: “And truly it is a
very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men
do it who can, they will be praised and not blamed; but when they cannot,
and want to do it anyway, here lie the error and the blame.”6
Those who wish to acquire and to sustain their acquisitions are often
compelled by necessity to do what are otherwise bad or immoral deeds: “to
kill one’s citizens, betray one’s friends, to be without faith, without mercy,
without religion.”7 But those who manage to sustain themselves through
such means may find some “remedy” even from God.8 God is not necessarily
against the godless who succeed in their endeavors. Furthermore, if one
“considers everything well, one will find something appears to be virtue,
which if pursued would be one’s ruin, and something else appears to be
vice, which if pursued results in one’s security and well-being.”9 Success in
an enterprise is all that matters; and it is worth recalling that those who do
succeed “will be praised and not blamed.” The end not only justifies the
means, it serves to glorify and even to sanctify them.10
5 Ibid., p. 24.
6 Ibid., pp. 14–15.
7 Ibid., p. 35.
8 Ibid., p. 38.
9 Ibid., p. 62.
10 Consider the 15th century Bishop of Verden, Dietrich von Nieheim, in his response to the problem
of schism in the Catholic Church: “When the existence of the Church is threatened, she is released
from the commandments of morality. With unity as the end, the use of every means is sanctified, even
cunning, treachery, violence, simony, prison, death. For all order is for the sake of the community,
and the individual must be sacrificed to the common good.” Cited in Louis P. Pojman (2006). Ethics:
Discovering Right and Wrong. Thomson Wadsworth, p. 121.
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Virtue and vice, as marks of good and bad reputation, exist only on
the plane of opinion. As such, they can be manipulated by a clever prince.
In order to gain followers and to build an army, he needs to create a
good impression of himself, often by unscrupulous means. In pursuing his
desire for acquisition, the prince is “compelled of necessity to know well
how to use the beast.”11 He needs to use the ways of “the lion” and “the
fox” which are metaphors for the use of force and fraud. The latter is
especially important. Precisely because he has to act against faith, charity,
and humanity, the prince has to “take great care that nothing escapes his
mouth that is not full of the above-mentioned … qualities and that, to
see him and hear him, he should appear all mercy, all faith, all honesty,
all humanity, all religion. And nothing is more necessary to appear to
have than this last quality … For the vulgar are taken in by the appearance
and the outcome of a thing, and in the world there is no one but the
vulgar.”12
In teaching the prince to submit to political necessity above all,
Machiavelli liberates the prince from the fear of religion and religious
sanctions. But in so doing, Machiavelli also paves the way for the prince
to manipulate religious beliefs for political purposes. In effect, one cannot
tell a Machiavellian prince from one who is a genuine religious zealot. The
Machiavellian prince is “beyond good and evil,” so to speak. But the success
of his projects depends on his subjects taking good and evil seriously. It is
his ability to manipulate and exploit man’s moral and religious beliefs that
allows him to succeed in his grand enterprise of introducing new modes
and orders. The Machiavellian prince cannot succeed if his followers do not
believe in justice, not least divine justice. Morality therefore works in favor
of the Machiavellian prince. Morality, especially religiously based morality,
thus becomes inherently problematic from a political point of view. This
is, in a nutshell, the Machiavellian problem. And the problem is such that a
solution to it requires concessions to Machiavelli’s teachings about politics
and morality. The following sections will explore the attempts by Hobbes
and Locke to deal with it.
11 Ibid., p. 69.
12 Ibid., p. 71.
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HOBBES’ RESPONSE TO THE
MACHIAVELLIAN PROBLEM
Evidence that Hobbes was responding to the Machiavellian problem may
be gleaned from his refutation of the “Foole” in the discussion of justice in
chapter 15 of the Leviathan:
The Foole hath sayd in his heart, there is no such thing as Justice; and
also sometimes with his tongue; seriously alleaging, that every mans
conservation, and contentment, being committed to his own care, there
could be no reason, why every man might not do what he thought
conduceth thereunto; and therefore also to make, or not make; keep
or not keep Covenants, was not against Reason, when it conduced to
ones benefit. He does not therein deny, that there be Covenants; and
that they are sometimes broken, sometimes kept … but he questioneth,
whether Injustice, taking away the feare of God, (for the same Foole
hath said in his heart there is no God,) may not sometimes stand with
Reason, which dictateth to every man his own good; particularly then,
when it conduceth to such a benefit, as shall put a man in a condition, to
neglect not only the dispraise, and revilings, but also the power of other
men. The Kingdom of God is gotten by violence: but what if it could
be gotten by unjust violence? were it against Reason so to get it, when
it is impossible to receive hurt by it? And if it be not against Reason, it is
not against Justice; or else Justice is not to be approved for good. From
such reasoning as this, Successful wickedness hath obtained the name of
Vertue: and some that in all other things hath disallowed the violation
of Faith; yet have allowed it, when it is for the getting of a Kingdome.
And the heathen that believed, that Saturn was deposed his son Jupiter,
believed nevertheless the same Jupiter to be the avenger of Injustice.13
The Fool could be conceived as a stand-in for Machiavelli. Following
Machiavelli, the Fool takes the view that self-interest is not incompatible
with injustice and that it is sometimes reasonable to break one’s promises,
especially when it comes to the acquisition of political power. Hobbes, on
the other hand, wishes to argue that justice consists in the performance of
covenants and that this is demanded by reason. But it should be noted that
for the most part the fool does not openly convey his teaching: he sometimes
says that there is no justice, but he never openly says there is no God. Yet,
in executing his design, he always appears as an avenger of injustice. And in
13 Thomas Hobbes (1991). Leviathan, Richard Tuck (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 101–102.
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pursuing his objectives, he would even appeal to “the attaining of an eternal
felicity after death.”14
Hobbes introduces the fool only after he has laid out the main premise
of his radical teaching about man and the state of nature, and (as will soon
be clear) his teaching contains Machiavellian premises that are necessary to
neutralize the challenge of the Machiavellian fool.
Hobbes conceives of man as a machine, no different from any other
animal that operates on mechanical principles. Hobbes does not regard man
from a Christian perspective — that is, as a being created in the image of God,
or as a being with a soul. Man as living machine is a being in constant motion;
indeed, life is nothing but motion for Hobbes. And as with a machine, man
is animated by two basic drives: Appetite and Aversion, or simply fear and
desire.15 This motion is based on man’s interaction with the external world,
which he does not have direct access to. He experiences the world only in
his head, through the representations or sense impressions of objects that he
encounters in his interaction with the external world. Human consciousness
is locked within the subjective world of sensuous experiences.
The mechanistic psychology is designed to meet related political and
theological objectives. First, it shows that it is “a hard matter … to distinguish
exactly between Sense and Dreaming.”16 The difficulty in distinguishing
waking from dreaming is used to give a naturalistic account of how men
come to believe in the existence of ghosts. Men, not realizing they were
dreaming, sometimes believe they have encountered ghosts or spirits. And
in the example Hobbes gives, he alludes to the Apostle Paul’s apparent
encounter with the spirit of Jesus Christ. Apart from promoting skepticism
towards the belief in supernatural entities, the psychology is used to cast
doubt on certain central tenets of Christianity. This is a fundamental strategy
in Hobbes’ attempt to rationalize and naturalize the interpretation of the
Bible, a move later adapted and refined by other Enlightenment thinkers to
argue for the secularization of the state.
Hobbes’ psychology is also used to show that there is no such thing as
universal, objective standards of truth or morality. Because a person’s body
is always in motion and constantly changing, it is “impossible that all the
14 Ibid., p. 103.
15 Ibid., p. 38.
16 Ibid., p. 17.
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same things should alwayes cause in him the same Appetites and Aversion:
much less can all men consent, in the Desire of almost any one and the
same Object … But whatsoever is the object of mans Appetite or Desire;
that is it, which he for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate,
and Aversion, Evill … There being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor
any common Rule of Good and Evill.”17
Given the way they are constituted, men cannot help but come into
conflict with one another. This arises out of a natural necessity. By nature,
men cannot help but seek to satisfy their desires. But in order to do so,
they require the means or power to obtain the objects of their desire.
Hobbes defines power as the “present means, to obtain some future apparent
Good.”18 For Hobbes, the future exists only as a fiction of the mind; the
good is only apparent because it is in effect an imagined good. What a person
believes is desirable for now may change in the next minute. And since the
future is unknown, a person can never be certain if his present means are
adequate to secure his future good, so his happiness or felicity depends on
his ability to satisfy all his desires. Consequently, human life is characterized
by “a perpetuall and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in
Death.”19 Man is power-hungry not because he “hopes for a more intense
delight … but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well,
which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.” Thus, in his quest
for power, other human beings become potential competitors.
Having established the natural condition of human beings, Hobbes next
asks what would happen if humans were put in a state of nature, which is a
state without government. As with the psychology, the introduction of the
concept of the state of nature is intended to further Hobbes’ teachings in a
number of related ways. First, the state of nature is used as a basis to argue for
man’s natural freedom and equality. In the state of nature, all men are equal
in their ability to kill, and each is free to do whatever he deems necessary for
his survival, including using another person’s body. And given the natural
drive for power amongst men, the state of nature is necessarily a state of
war, of every man against every man. In such a war, Hobbes says, “nothing
can be unjust. The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have
17 Ibid., p. 39.
18 Ibid., p. 62.
19 Ibid., p. 70.
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there no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no Law, no
Injustice. Force and Fraud, are in warre the two Cardinall vertues.”20
The concept of the state of nature is therefore used by Hobbes to show
that all men are by nature power-hungry Machiavellians, capable of using
force and fraud to achieve their personal ends. Thus, Hobbes reveals that
the means to deal with the Machiavellian problem is to radicalize it by
transforming all humans into Machiavellians. Hobbes’ political psychology
shows that there are by nature no selfless or noble avengers of injustice.
All human beings are by nature self-interested seekers of their own material
advantage. The recognition that all men are self-interested reduces the scope
for the Machiavellian to deceive. And since all are shrewd Machiavellians,
humans in the state of nature quickly realize that it is ultimately self-defeating
to continue in that perilous condition. As Hobbes shows, given the condition
of the state of nature, reason “suggesteth convenient Articles of Peace.”21
The solution for all men then is to contract among themselves to transfer
their rights to a person or assembly that would then set down laws to regulate
their conduct towards one another. Since all are equal, there can be no
quarrel as to who is more qualified to rule. The important thing is that once
a decision is made, it is absolutely binding on all to obey the ruler or rulers.
As the sovereign retains the full rights of nature that his subjects have
given away, he is all-powerful. He has the right and authority to determine
and to dictate all matters concerning religious belief.22 The sovereign has to
be obeyed even if he is not a Christian, and, according to Hobbes, Christian
salvation consists solely in obedience to the sovereign.23 The theological
arguments needed to justify state power over religion are very complex, but
they boil down to the strategy of equating the relevant laws of God with
the laws of nature, which serve as the basis of civil law: “And because he is
a Sovereign, he requireth Obedience to all his owne, that is to all the Civill
Laws; in which also are contained all the Laws of Nature, that is, all the Laws
of God: for besides the Laws of Nature, and the Laws of the Church, which
are part of the Civill Law … there be no other Laws Divine.”24 As the laws
20 Ibid., p. 90.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., p. 124.
23 Ibid., chapter 43.
24 Ibid., p. 413.
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of nature are in effect the “dictates of reason,” Hobbes’ overall strategy is to
use the tools of reason and science to interpret the Bible, with the aim of
rationalizing and naturalizing the scriptures. This involves treating the Bible
as a work of man and not the unvarnished word of God, a very controversial
theological move that requires Hobbes to examine highly sensitive religious
issues. For example, Hobbes has to cast doubt on the divine authority of
the Bible in order to justify his right to interpret scriptures, and he does this
by raising doubts about whether Moses was the writer of the foundational
books of the Old Testament. But these interpretive innovations are necessary
to ensure that the political prescriptions have theological support.
LOCKEAN REFINEMENTS TO HOBBES’
RESPONSE TO THE MACHIAVELLIAN PROBLEM
In keeping with Machiavelli’s insights into the seemingly intractable problem
of religion in the context of Italian politics, Hobbes recognizes that
the political reforms cannot be fully implemented without corresponding
changes in the traditional Biblical view of politics. Of the four books of
the Leviathan, the last two are devoted to Hobbes’ attempt to reform the
theological tradition through his rationalistic interpretation of the Bible.
Hobbes’ aim, of course, was to advance his political teaching, which he
claims is based on the secure foundations of a new science of politics, and
to show the way for the state to exercise control over religion.
Hobbes’ strategy did not succeed as well as he had hoped in part because
it was so explicitly radical. Readers of his time found his teaching deeply
shocking and offensive; an old Anglican acquaintance described the Leviathan
as “a farrago of Christian Atheism.”25 Rousseau, who was aware of the
divisive nature of Christian politics, had this to say of Hobbes:
Of all Christian authors, the philosopher Hobbes is the only one who
correctly saw the evil and the remedy, who dared to propose the
reunification of the two heads of the eagle, and the complete return
to political unity, without which no State or government will ever be
well-constituted. But he ought to have seen that the dominating spirit
of Christianity was incompatible with his system, and the interest of the
25 Ibid., p. ix. Hobbes’ Leviathan is said to contain “the most devastating attack on Christian theology
ever undertaken and was the means by which later modern thinkers were able to escape from it.” In
Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God, p. 75.
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priest would always be stronger than that of the State. It is not so much
what is horrible and false in his political theory as what is correct and
true that has made it odious.26
Hobbes’ strategy therefore had to be refined. Locke found a less provocative
way to convey what was “correct and true” about Hobbes and added features
that furthered the project of managing the role of religion in political affairs.
Like Hobbes, Locke would often cite the scriptures to support his political
and theological claims, but he would not always give reasons for all his
arguments, especially if they were particularly controversial. So even though
he follows Hobbes in asserting man’s freedom and equality, he offers no
argument or reason to support that claim in the Second Treatise of Government,
and instead cites a conventional theological source that does not vindicate
those political claims.27 And although Locke’s solution to the religious
problem of intolerance differs markedly from Hobbes’, his treatment and
understanding of Christian scripture is “identical to that found in Hobbes’
Leviathan.”28
In terms of religion, one of the major problems with Hobbes was that he
allowed for the imposition of a civil religion controlled by an all-powerful
sovereign. Locke’s solution was to do away with the need for a civil religion
and to argue instead for toleration and the disestablishment of state religion.
A Letter Concerning Toleration, which sets out Locke’s arguments for a liberal
approach to religion, proved to be the “most influential in the 18th century
Enlightenment.”29 With Locke, there was a clear separation of church and
state. For Locke, “every Church is orthodox to itself” and since different
churches have different views of salvation, each should be free to pursue
its beliefs without interference from the state or other religious groups.30
Thus, with Locke, religion was effectively privatized and Christian salvation
became a private matter.
26 J. J. Rousseau (1978). On the Social Contract with Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy, Roger D.
Masters (ed.). New York: St. Martin’s Press, p. 127.
27 John Locke (2000). Second Treatise of Government, Peter Laslett (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 269–271.
28 Thomas Pangle (1988). The Spirit of Modern Republicanism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
p. 305.
29 Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God, p. 97.
30 John Locke (1983). A Letter Concerning Toleration, James H. Tully (ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing Co. Inc., p. 32.
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Locke’s political and theological writings responded to the problem of
the potential abuse of power by Hobbes’ absolute sovereign by arguing
for limited government. In this context, Locke also addresses a problem
Hobbes did not fully resolve. Precisely because he invested the sovereign
with absolute power, Hobbes did not fully overcome the Machiavellian
temptation to seize power. For example, in his response to the fool, Hobbes
does not convincingly make the case that it is irrational to engage in political
deception or that it is impossible to succeed by deception.
Locke resolves these problems by introducing the concept of property.
Locke’s argument for the natural right to property is used to limit the power
of government. For Locke, the “great and chief end … of Mens uniting
into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the
Preservation of their Property” (emphasis in the original).31 The powerful effect
of property rights is demonstrated in the chapter on conquest (chapter 16)
in the Second Treatise of Government, where Locke shows how the conqueror
in a just war is severely limited in his claims on the property of the defeated.
Together with what he says about the need to institute a system of separation
of powers, Locke’s arguments make the pursuit of political power much less
attractive as a career option for ambitious Machiavellians. In so doing, he
removes the Machiavellian motive to seek political power. On the other
hand, the argument for the possibility of the unlimited acquisition of wealth
opens a new channel for the aspiring Machiavellians to seek their fame and
fortune in the economic realm.
As with Machiavelli and Hobbes, Locke’s view of man is by nature an
acquisitive being. His innovation is to transform the desire for power into
the desire for the acquisition of wealth. Lockean man is fundamentally an
economic being, and his account of man is used to moderate the character
of man’s religiosity. The economic depiction of man is extended to Locke’s
account of the reasonableness of Christianity, where Christian morality is
shown to have a mercenary character. Man’s willingness to obey the law of
nature, which is also the law of God, is based on a contract that those who
obey would be rewarded with eternal life.32 Locke thus extends the principle
of calculating self-interest into the realm of Christian morality and, in so
31 John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, pp. 350–351.
32 For a discussion of this, see Michael S. Rabieh (1991). The Reasonableness of Locke, or the
Questionableness of Christianity. The Journal of Politics, 53(4), 933–957.
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doing, rationalizes it. Locke’s God proves to be friendly to the bourgeois
way of life.
In all, Locke’s political and theological reforms deal more adequately
with the Machiavellian problem. The separation of church and state that
leads in effect to the privatization of religion deprives the Machiavellian
prince from using religion as a means to gain political power. In addition, the
separation of powers renders political office less attractive to the ambitious
Machiavellian. More importantly, the provisions for the right to acquire
unlimited wealth in the economic realm offer an alternative, and much safer,
channel for Machiavellians to pursue their ambitions.
CONCLUSION: SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE
NATURE AND LIMITS OF LIBERAL SECULARISM
The efforts of Hobbes and Locke to deal with the problem of religion
and politics have contributed greatly to the success of the Enlightenment
project. Western liberal societies, freed from the constraints of religious
authority and censorship, have made remarkable progress both economically
and technologically. But the success of the Enlightenment comes at a price.
As the account of Hobbes and Locke has tried to show, part of the solution to
the Machiavellian problem requires the acceptance of Machiavelli’s teaching
about the acquisitive and competitive nature of man. With Locke, this aspect
of human behavior is channeled into economics. But this means that the
distinction between rich and poor, or economic inequality, would become a
permanent feature of human life in societies based on the principles supplied
by Hobbes and Locke.
Adam Smith, the father of modern economic thought and a philosopher
who followed Locke very closely in his economic arguments, has said
that “where there is great wealth, there is great inequality.”33 He further
remarked that “civil government, so far as it is constituted for the security of
property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor,
or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”34
And the Machiavellian nature of the rich is evident from the observation that
33 Adam Smith (1994). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Edwin Cannan (ed.).
New York: The Modern Library, p. 766.
34 Ibid., p. 771.
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“people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and
diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or
in some contrivance to raise prices.”35 Smith’s view of economic life under
conditions of the free market shows that Hobbes’ and Locke’s solution to
the Machiavellian problem does not do away with the problem of injustice,
understood as the exploitation of the weaker by the stronger; it merely
mitigates the worst effects of that form of injustice. The solution replaces
political exploitation with economic exploitation.36
The secular nature of the state is in one sense a boon to religious groups as
they can practice their religion without fear of persecution. A liberal society
also affords opportunity for the proliferation of religious sects, thus creating
a situation where no one religion can exercise great influence in society.37
At the same time, the secular nature of the liberal state imposes limits on
the state’s ability to regulate morality. As Locke says in A Letter Concerning
Toleration, the “care of Souls does not belong to the magistrate.”38 This
means that it is not the place of the state to regulate morality. People in
liberal societies are free to indulge in certain private vices. This poses a real
challenge to those who are religiously or socially conservative: “For it does
not belong unto the Magistrate to make use of the Sword in punishing every
thing, indifferently, that he takes to be a sin against God. Uncharitableness,
Idleness, and many other things are sins, by the consent of all men, which
yet no man ever said were to be punished by the Magistrate. The reason is,
because they are not prejudicial to other mens Right, nor do they break the
publick Peace of Societies.”39 But as Adam Smith has noted, the poorer,
common people tend to adopt austere forms of morality typical of traditional
religions because they realize that the “vices of levity are always ruinous
to the common people.” For this reason, they tend to regard these vices
with the “utmost abhorrence and detestation.”40 Thus, it seems that liberal
societies expect their most unfortunate and probably least-educated citizens
to be the most tolerant members of society.
35 Ibid., p. 148.
36 This solution is very much in keeping with Hobbes’ view that the worst thing in life is the prospect
of a violent death.
37 Ibid., pp. 851–853.
38 Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, p. 35.
39 Ibid., p. 44. See also Steven Kautz (1995). Liberalism and Community. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
chapter 3.
40 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, p. 853.
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The unprecedented progress of science and technology has radically
transformed the conditions of material life for many people in the most
developed liberal societies. But at the same time, the advances in science
and technology have also brought about new challenges to those who
are religious. People who are sick or dying seek medical remedies, the
basis of which often challenge deeply held religious conceptions regarding
the sanctity of human life. The ability of science to create artificial life
forms also poses serious challenges to religious conceptions of what it
means to be human. Such advances in science and technology also have
the potential to increase the growing list of private vices. In a sense, the
separation of church and state has led to a situation where more and more
people focus on the needs of the body rather than the needs of the soul.
The secular state contributes to the secularization of society. In such a
society, people tend to become increasingly materialistic and hedonistic,
and this again poses great challenges to those who are more religiously
oriented.
Lastly, the freedom of thought and expression in liberal societies has
contributed to the vast development of knowledge in all areas of human
endeavor. But this has also led to criticisms about the goodness and justice
of liberalism. The rational foundation of liberalism has been called into
question by critics from both the left and the right.41 The liberal secular state
is accused not only of trivializing religion, but of being anti-Christian. Some
conservative critics have argued that “liberalism’s myopic preoccupation
with religious wars is outdated.”42 Others contend that it is self-defeating
for liberal secularists to exclude religion from politics. While recognizing
that there are “hateful preachers” in liberal society, scholars of religion
like Jeffery Stout suggest that civic “coalitions of the right sort” with
religious moderates would be more effective in dealing with religious bigotry
in a way that would preserve democracy.43 In short, there are growing
41 For arguments from the conservative side, see Robert P. George (2001). The Clash of Orthodoxies.
Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books. For an account of major left-leaning critics of liberalism, see J. Judd
Owen (2001). Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism. University of Chicago Press.
42 This appears to be the opinion of Nicholas Wolterstorff, a theologically conservative philosopher
of religion. The statement quoted was cited in Richard Rorty (2003). Religion in the Public Square.
Journal of Religious Ethics, 31(1), 145.
43 Stout counts himself among those who consider themselves “atheists, agnostics, or spiritual but not
religious.” See Jeffery Stout (2008). 2007 Presidential Address: The Folly of Secularism. Journal of the
American Academy of Religion, 76(3), 533–544.
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demands in liberal society for a re-evaluation of its fundamental principle of
secularism. Clearly, the liberal secular state both leaves and creates problems
it cannot fully resolve, but the question is whether attempts to challenge or
criticize its secular foundations would help to re-introduce the Machiavellian
problem.
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Secularism, Critical Conviction
and the 21st Century Project
of the European Union: Some
Thoughts from Asia
BARNARD TURNER
While the multiculturalism of the European Union often leads it to be considered
a primarily secular enterprise, the precise nature of this secularization should be
examined in sufficient detail. A historicist strategy, secularization articulates itself
differently according to context, and while there are good grounds for believing
(and, as with all statements about the future, we can only believe — or not)
that increasing educational levels and multiculturalism itself will relativize religious
absolutes, a secularism of a historical materialist sense is not yet observable. The
essence of the European project, as it is evolving in the 21st century and whether it
has yet reached the highest levels, is the necessity for critical conviction, for an open
debate which holds fast to a certain idea of Europe — President of the European
Commission Jacques Delors’ “soul for Europe” perhaps — but which continuously
keeps it available for nuancing and critique. This should, of course, be clear from
the trajectory of the European Union as an enterprise, southwards and eastwards
(if occasionally, as a consequence of the 2008 financial crisis, to the northwest, to
Iceland), to a once Ottoman, now partially Russian sphere of influence. As such,
expansion leads to a self-questioning, a krisis, of European values; the nature of the
Union’s approach to secularism will also be refined and new critical convictions
will emerge.
“Changes in discourse … that structure what we know and in what
terms we can know, involving language, argument, images,
and symbols … are just as important as changes in institutions
and daily practices.”
Mikael Hård and Thomas J. Misa (2008, p. 10)
77
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Secularization confronts with a turning point or krisis: a “crisis” in the sense
of an impasse of contentious judgments, in which no party can have the
definitive word. The hegemonic, restraining power of the secular national
state is itself relativized when states, such as those in the European Union,
pool sovereignty as they meet together only partially, imbricated in policy,
economics and strategic planning, but leaving aside more existential (and,
of course, existentialist) issues. As Stathis Gourgouris (2008) remarks —
a viewpoint with application to both European and Asian contexts —
secularization must always be seen as an ongoing, transient and temporizing
process which ceases to be such when it becomes secularism, a fixed belief
in a “set of definitions” and thus an abstraction from historical praxis:
“The secular is not given once and for all and thus cannot be totalized
and bounded; it has a differential history.” Even within Europe, closely
knit by rivers, trade and conflict, differentiation between nation-states
is not to be discounted.1 In his now largely neglected 1954 work, Die
Zerstörung der Vernunft [The Destruction of Reason], Georg Lukács continues
the classic distinction between Germany and Western Europe from a
strategic ideological viewpoint: the latter’s democratic populations can see
state politics as “their own work,” while this is not present in the former
(p. 49).2 In a sense, and although the rhetoric of bringing Europe close to
the people weighs against it,3 the prevalent view from European Union
1 In their influential joint statement “After the War, The Rebirth of Europe,” published in the
Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper (and subsequently in Constellations (2003) 10(3)), Jûrgen Habermas and
Jacques Derrida ask whether there are “historical experiences, traditions and achievements” which have
imprinted themselves on the European consciousness as a “commonly suffered political fate which can
be formed in common.” They give but a schematic, systemic answer (Christianity, capitalism, Roman
law, etc.), although they show more attention to that which has divided the continent.
2 If in this work, written around the time that the current European Union was originally envisaged,
Lukács aimed to restore a — needless to say, secular — rationality after the “Lektion” [‘vocabulary,’
but in some sense also ‘Lecture’] “which Hitler [had given] to the world” (p. 72), the founders of the
Union, themselves haunted by the specter of Fascism and conflict, began a limited partnership (the Coal
and Steel Community) with a clear goal which, as this particular specter haunting Europe has gradually
waned, has not been supplanted by any other prime motivation of such specificity. While a trading union
can but be secular, once other objectives accrete to its limited aims, as has happened with the European
Union in the course of the past half-century, and once therefore more nebulous categories like will and
mindset come into play, the basic secular impulse is questioned. The Schuman Declaration of 9 May
1950, proposing the Coal and Steel Community, talks of “concrete achievements which first create a
de facto solidarity”; this immanent, inductive method, intricately bound with an historical dimension, is
very far removed from all-or-nothing procedures.
3 For example, when French President Jacques Chirac addressed the Berlin Bundestag on 27 June 2000,
he stressed that “we want Europe closer to its citizens … [part of their] everyday life … [even if] many
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leaders is that the initiative to change to a more holistic, even greater union,
comes from them; the early 21st century impasse over the Constitution is
perhaps a most famous point of contention here, and even its defenders
(such as ex-German foreign minister Joschka Fischer in a 2000 speech at
Berlin’s Humboldt Universität) make pains to highlight the core value of “a
precise delimitation of the European and national-state levels.” To give the
nuance of the end-result of European integration, Fischer uses here a Latinate
noun, “Finalität,” which echoes an eschatological vision slightly at odds
with the secular means of its accomplishment. We must therefore, as C.J.
Sommerville (1998) points out, differentiate between various applications
of the word “secularization,” and in this regard at least between applications
at the state- or even the “super-state” level and those at the level of the
population at large or the constituent regions.
In its divergent global contexts, the secular as a category is historical
(belated, defined as the end-term of a previous definition), and historicist
(imbricated in the quest for diachronic laws by which, as a sociopolitical
category, it, like the contrary yet dialectical movement of spiritualization,
is motivated). The secular is, in Max Weber’s famous phrase, a
“disenchantment of the world” [“Entzauberung der Welt”] (2004, p. 30) —
but one which can itself enchant. Such a disenchantment is not, of course,
one with the world. The secular is thus but a reified category hypostatized
from its active movement, secularization, a process which can never be
complete but which is to be articulated divergently for each generation or
new social formation. Secularization as a process then is one of relativization,
and can occur within a religious formation, articulating more its worldly
attributes than the transcendent (as in the Reformation), applying a humanist
logic to that which hitherto had been a matter of belief as a way of life.
Indeed, it is a commonplace after Max Weber and Peter L. Berger, and
one taken up in Indian critiques of secularism, that such a reformation is a
peculiarly Protestant legacy. The homogeneity of the religious community,
as it had appeared in the past, is the site of fractures (as with the British
“state” religion, Anglicanism, over ecumenical issues, homosexuality, etc., at
present) and a new community — even within the secularist itself — arises.
In his 1844 Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right [Law] [Rechtsphilosophie],
Europeans consider it abstract, too far from their true preoccupations.” In order to do this, the Union
should become more democratic, not constructed so much by its own leaders and elites.
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Karl Marx claims that Germany has finished its critique of religion, but this
is to conflate secularism with secularization. Based on a typical dialectical
reversal (man makes religion, not vice versa) and an hypostatization, even in
the same move that would deny it as such (a person [“Mensch”] is the “world
of the person, state, society”), Marx takes as proven that which has only been
forcefully asserted, places in the forefront of his uncompleted observations,
on the threshold (dangerous, subliminal place for Hegel, as post-Hegelians
have commented with regard to his Philosophy of History), that which his
subsequent reasoning would be to prove, calls the “critique of religion” the
“precondition [“Voraussetzung”] of all critique” and thus oversteps this stage
of his argument which should support all the rest.
While the multiculturalism of the European Union — as of other
“federal” structures worldwide — often makes it appear a primarily secular
enterprise, the precise nature of this secularization should be examined
in sufficient detail. As a historicist strategy, secularization articulates itself
differently according to context, and while there are good grounds for
believing (and, as with all statements about the future, we can only believe —
or not) that increasing educational levels and multiculturalism itself will
relativize religious absolutes, a general or universal (statistically undeniable)
secularism is not yet observable. At a 1992 ecumenical conference, Jacques
Delors, then President of the European Commission, opined that “if, in ten
years, we haven’t succeeded in giving a soul, a spirituality, a signification
to Europe, we will have lost the game” (“A Global Ethic” 2002). Almost
a decade later, he reflected that “a long time ago I acquired firm ideas
(“convictions”) about the importance for the equilibrium of a society, and
for the individuals which compose it, not to lose their roots, about the
dynamism of local and regional initiatives and, finally, about the richness
which the diversity of the European territory represents” (Delors 2000, p. 1).
Between the general “soul for Europe” and the specificity of “the dynamism
of local and regional initiatives” emerges the strategy of the European Union,
and therefore the counter-attempts to displace the implications of its own
secular strategy. The essence of the European project, as it is evolving in
the 21st century and whether it has yet reached the highest levels, is the
necessity for critical conviction, for an open debate which holds fast to a
certain idea of Europe but which continuously keeps it available for nuancing
and critique.
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While the European Union’s commitment to multiculturalism as a set
of hypothetical norms appears a secular strategy, this is not enough to secure
its unification project (the coalescence of identity). As in other parts of the
world, secularism as a top-down policy does not entirely fit the living worldviews of the inhabitants, who therefore find it difficult to identify with (a
problem at the beginning of the 21st century, when the Union wants its
population to identify with it). The Eurobarometer 69 survey (June 2008)
found that 44% of Europeans thought that “there are no common European
values, only global western values” (that is, that there was little specific to
Europe that might single out some European way or Weltanschauung). Only
54% thought that EU states were close to each other in terms of shared values
(European Commission 2008, pp. 57–58). More than a century before the
founding of what is now the European Union, and a year after the European
“Year of Revolutions,” Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, in exile in Paris,
hailed the French “spirit, which has become a people” (1979, p. 172).4 Such
incarnate, fleshy, root and branch secularization as detranscendentalized
reverse euhemerism, is still a future project of the European Union.
This should of course be clear from the trajectory of the European
Union as an enterprise, southwards and eastwards, to a once Ottoman,
now partially Russian sphere of influence. As such expansion leads to a
self-questioning, a krisis, of European values, the nature of the Union’s
approach to secularization will also be refined and new critical convictions
will emerge. The EU project establishes a complex or corpus of policies, the
acquis communautaire, to which candidate states must ascribe before entry;
among these is an implicit secularism which may not be acceptable to a
population at large, and indeed, as in the French, Dutch and Irish votes on
the Constitution/Lisbon Treaty, may evince a divergence in the thinking
between this population and its leaders (the former being stable, the latter
changing from time to time, since one of the points of the acquis is, of course,
democracy).
That a religious conversion at the head of a society does not immediately
betoken a change among the general population is of course wellattested through European history. Roman Emperor Constantine (AD 312),
the French King Clovis I (AD 496) and the Northumbrian King Edwin
4 Leading article to the first issue of La Tribune des peuples (Paris, 14 March 1849); author’s translation
from a German source.
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(AD 627) are examples of rulers who (at least, if the chroniclers are to be
trusted) converted after testing the Deity to see if He could provide them
with military victory. Better recorded is a more contentious conversion, that
of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila in 1386. To create a greater union
(with Poland), to stop a continuous war of attrition with the Christianizing
Teutonic Order, to concentrate on conflict with Muscovy, and, last but not
least, to allow the modernization of social hierarchy and structures through
greater contact with Christian Europe, in 1382 he promised to become
baptized, but broke this promise when it was no longer expedient. After he
had made an advantageous marriage and had become King of Poland in 1386,
he deemed the time right for Christianization, particularly since this gave him
the upper hand over his rival, his uncle Ke stutis (Kiaupa 2004, pp. 59–61).
Inverting Sommerville’s distinctions, high society was Christianized, but the
population was not (1998, p. 250). Similarly, the mechanisms of a state (or,
in the case of the European Union, an amalgam or “pooling of sovereignty”)
can be secularized, but the population cannot be; in such circumstances,
as argued elsewhere in this volume in Asian contexts, secularism becomes
somewhat authoritarian.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000)
downplays the significance of religion, playing up instead humanist values.
The Charter’s first item concerns “human dignity,” a vague term in a
modernist European context, and which can be provided not by diktat
but at the most intimate, local level, intricately imbricated with the life of
the individual. Following the European Union’s principle of subsidiarity,
the highest level of its provision might be thought to be the state. While
essential to the well-being and incorporation of certain minorities, for
whom a freedom to practise religion in a supposedly secular European
frame is paramount, the absence of human dignity may not be that which
is so intensely felt by the European populace in general (as “liberté, égalité,
fraternité” were before the French Revolution [and of course after, during
the Reign of Terror and later]). Therefore, it is difficult to demonstrably
provide this secular aim, and any legitimation to be derived from its provision
is unstable.
While respect for religious diversity is guaranteed, religion itself is often
the second or later term in a collocation, as for example in the Charter’s
Article 10: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience
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and religion. This right includes the freedom to change religion or belief.”
Changing religion implies that it is a matter of a conscious choice by
the individual, rather than an ingrained, even inexplicable and inextricable
element of cultural belonging, a way of life. While the second paragraph
of the preamble mentions spirituality as the first item of an adjectival
collocation “spiritual and moral,” it goes on to talk about other humanist
values: “human dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity,” and — in a gesture
perhaps to the new European renaissance to be ushered in by the Union —
asserts that the “individual” is “at the heart of its activities,” annexing
to this a post- or supra-national eschatological nuance in its reference to
“citizenship of the Union.” The German translation of the second paragraph
adds to the specific reference to the “religiös” the “geistig,” a term with
an even less transcendent referent than the English/Romance “spiritual”
(for example, in the academic term “Geisteswissenschaften” [essentially, if
somewhat ironically, the humanities]). In Article 10, the word “belief” is
given as “Weltanschauung”; the “original” French (for a Charter done in
Nice) is “conviction.” The Dutch second paragraph has but “geestelijke”; the
Danish Article 10 refers to the right to “skifte religion eller tro,” which adds
both a brutism and an earthiness if the less Latinate words are translated into
a rough and ready English (“shift … trewe”). There are therefore secular,
worldly nuances, even to the terms used to designate the spiritual in these
contexts.
While — largely through Polish insistence — the Preamble of the Lisbon
Treaty now includes a reference to the “inspiration” of religion, this is
subsumed as part of a collocation, the first item of which is culture, and
an adjectival sandwich, the last item of which is “humanist”: “Drawing
inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe.”
“Inspiration,” in a Latin sense of course, is that which it is appropriate and
just to derive from religion, a Christian sense which protend the Greek
version (εµπνεoµενoι, with its roots in pneuma, breath) and the German
(“schöpfend”: “drawing on” [as from a well] [the Creator in German —
admittedly from a different, if related root, is “der Schöpfer”]). Yet, given
that these three aspects of the legacy have often been contending forces,
the singular (“inheritance”) is also notable; indeed, as if conscious of such
contention, the French version places the phrase in the plural. As may
be judged from the participle forms noted above, there are many such
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subtle changes of nuance in the various languages of the Treaty that lead
one to consider a disunity at the heart of its pronouncement. While the
usage of words with a religious or spiritual connotation may betoken a
reverse euhemerism (the spiritual gives rise to the secular, the mythic to
the historical) seemingly superseded since Nietzsche, the secular, euhemerist
stance (the secular grounds the significance, and religion is but a corollary
of culture) is that which the text itself would foreground. According to this,
religion is but a historical legacy, equal to that of humanism, and since no side
is taken on what is for many an ongoing debate, it fades into insignificance
for the framers of the 21st century Union. Instead, there is the multicultural
ethos, the view that “collective identities” are “multiple and diverse” (Smith
and Wistrich 2007, p. 28).
What is now on the books is the Council of Europe’s European
Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; Rome, 1950 and later protocols),
from which — a trend noticeable also in adopting the flag and anthem, and
in the revised Lisbon Treaty in revising the Constitution draft — the above
Article 10 is reproduced. The Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude
Juncker, in a 2006 essay “Council of Europe — European Union: A Sole
Ambition for the European Continent,” argued that the EU should sign up
to the ECHR and noted that the “EU Charter of Fundamental Rights … is
largely inspired by Council of Europe instruments.” The Council of Europe
(for which Juncker wrote this report), a grouping of now 47 countries, is
not to be confused with the EU of course (27 members), and given the
much wider geographical and cultural ambit of the former, a greater diversity
has to be admitted for any proclamation. The Council also sees religion
as a subset of culture, such that — in the phrasing of its official brochure
The Council of Europe, 800 million Europeans — “inter-cultural” replaces
“inter-religious” dialogue. The Council, for example, draws on academic
discussion and practical fieldwork to establish a “forum for dialogue,”
ensuring that Europe’s cultural AND religious communities in towns and cities
or in outlying areas have equal access to cultural activities.5 The Council’s
North-South Center, established in Lisbon in 1990 to foster dialogue
across the Mediterranean, does mention “inter-cultural and inter-religious
5 Author’s italics and capitals.
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subjects.” Generally however, religion is associated with culture, a derivative
but not its prime mover.
Low religiosity does not mean no religiosity, and spiritual beliefs of some
sort are still in evidence. Yet a secularizing trend is arguable, even if this
is but a trend which can be superseded if other trends intersect with and
counteract it. Conversely, just as that which is known (as a legacy) may not
be observed in actual life practice, it remains latent for future emanation.
John Laughlin, for example, notes that religion in Wales is at present of little
significance for identity, even though the tradition of non-conformism is
still known (2007, p. 60). One comparable trend is the raising of the schoolleaving age in Europe, although this may change in the face of demographic
and other changes. A 2005 Eurobarometer special survey for the European
Commission, Social Values, Science and Technology, found that the lower the
school-leaving age, the higher the tendency to believe in God. While other
factors (such as belief increasing with age, females more likely than males
to believe) are relatively constant throughout time (for example, it is not
logical to assume that if religious belief increases with age, religion itself
is dying out with the specific generation), steadily increasing participation
rates in European higher education would both increase secularization and
be one of its ideological markers. The counter-example would of course be
the United States, with much higher tertiary education participation rates
than most European countries and yet with a much greater percentage of
believers in creationism. Yet here we must note the divergent participation
rates for lower income students across the states (with 43.7% of people in
the age and qualifying income range attending college in Iowa, but only
13% in Louisiana), the greater percentage of colleges supported by or linked
to religious foundations, etc., and the proportion, comparable to that in
Europe, of people who believe in some force rather than a personal God.
Yet the trend is not uniform across the continent. Since the Second
World War (and, of more significance, since 1989), secularization has
taken divergent courses. Main lines can be traced between the nonsocialist (“western”) Protestant, especially Calvinist-Lutheran countries and
the Catholic countries. The former place lower importance on religion in
the European Values Survey (for example, 17.6% of respondents in the
Netherlands say that religion is very important, against 20.8% in neighboring
Belgium, with a greater proportion of Catholics in both the Flemish and
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Wallonian communities). Similarly, contrasts are notable between the exsocialist Protestant and Catholic/Orthodox countries, particularly in the
Baltics, where traditionally Lutheran Estonia places half the importance on
religion as does Catholic Lithuania (which itself is not that high).
The European Values Survey (1999–2000) found that religion was half as
important as work, family, or friends and acquaintances, equal in importance
to leisure time but about twice as important as politics. Such results appear
to fulfill Max Weber’s view in 1918 that “precisely the ultimate and most
sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental
realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human
relations” (Weber 2004, p. 30). Thus, the religious mindset is waning,
but the secular view (social organization through this-worldly politics) has
not stepped in to replace it. In C.J. Sommerville’s terms, secularization as
a “mentality” “shift[s] … attention” from “ultimate (religious) concerns” to
“proximate” ones, from eschatology to the immediate and the imbricated,
or from doxa to an independent, increasingly self-regulated praxis without a
regard for which all ideology is hypostatized (1998, p. 250). In post-socialist
Europe, political engagement on class lines has also waned, so this heavy
anchor of a historical materialist secularism has been lifted, leaving such
secularist rationalism drifting, unanchored but not without an anchor given
the right combination of circumstances for a spiritual revival, a return to a
true, even if to many a pagan religion, as in the revival of the Baltic religion
(for example, “romuva”). As French President Nicolas Sarkozy remarked in
a December 2007 speech at the Vatican, no statist or post-Enlightenment
(secular) ideology — be it individualism, democracy, social progress or the
“laicist world” — has been able to satisfy the deep need to reveal a sense in
existence.
An hypostatized secularism, as equally a neo-pagan revival, lacking a
historical foundation, exists in name only, no longer a worldview but instead
a hodge-podge of opinions, drives and fancies, not even worthy of the
term “psychological” secularism; its logic merely that of doxa, dialectic in a
common pre-Hegelian sense (common opinion), and of the marketplace of
ideas, trends and commodities. The 2005 Eurobarometer Social Values survey
found that only 18% of Europeans claimed to be agnostic or atheist. What
is appearing is a type of what Yves Lambert (2003) has called a “diffused
spirituality.” A plethora of religious identifications, including faith in the
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more traditional, orthodox currents, is noticeable among the young, and may
arise from personal conviction abstracted from socio-political interaction (as
among mid-teens), or as a reaction (sometimes unfortunately with a rightist
coloring) to a perceived loss of cultural and religious homogeneity, in the
face of the perception of a growth of other-minded migrants. Yet, what
is being defended is not necessarily religion as such, but other even more
amorphous concepts like “culture” or “way of life.”
The Social Values survey found little correlation between frequency of
thought about “the meaning and purpose of life” and belief in a God. While
some countries, for example Cyprus, Greece and Malta, were high on both
scales, others, like Sweden and the Czech Republic, were low on both.
Austria was at the bottom of the “purpose of life” scale, but in the top half
(11th out of 27) of the “belief in God” scale. Latvia was fifth on the former,
but 20th on the latter; the Netherlands showed a comparable shift of position.
A full 37% of Hungarians claim to think of the meaning of life rarely or never,
but they are in the mid-table for the belief in a God. Thoughts about the
meaning of life may therefore be couched in religious terms, but elsewhere
this is not the case. Nor is there any intrinsic connection between secular
values and political engagement. All are seemingly independent variables
rather than proportional categories.
While one can speak of certain European countries as “post-secular”
societies, since religion is such an insignificant factor in most people’s lives
that the opposition (secular/spiritual) which gives meaning to the term
“secular” hardly exists, with regard to other countries it is overly simplistic
and premature to talk of a secular Europe. As T.N. Madan says of the
South Asian context, secularist ideology can often be that of a technicist,
ratiocinative elite, which fails to account for the meaning of religion in
people’s lives; which sees secularism as co-extensive with progress; and
which therefore cannot be experientially and existentially meaningful (1987,
pp. 748–749). If religion gives a secure anchor to the expression of belief,
it is non-belief which is, in turn, an equally sustaining and potent force
as it must continually confront the grounds of this belief, and therefore of
belief itself. Even among the non-religious Estonians, Czechs and Latvians
(16%, 19% and 37% religious believers respectively against an EU as a whole
52%), a high percentage believes in some form of life force (54%, 50% and
49% respectively as opposed to an EU-wide 27%). As noted above, parts of
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the Baltics are renowned as one of the last bastions of paganism in Europe;
the growth of the Muslim population across Europe of course will make
this religion slightly more prominent, even though its increase is unlikely
to offset the effect of higher school-leaving ages. Two countries in which
the religious/atheist-agnostic divide are most pronounced are France (34%
religious and 33% atheist-agnostic) and the Netherlands (34% and 27%).
Unless, however, these two countries can be said to be the vanguard of a
trend (and there seems no reason for this), such a “diffuse spirituality” may
become more widespread as higher education levels offset the articulation of
religious sentiment but not its reason for being. Indeed, after “9/11,” there
was an upsurge in such spirituality. Belief in may be superseded, but not
belief itself, which is most evident, in fact, in the face of the lack of belief in.
Jean-Paul Willaime suggests that “the relativization of the nation-state,”
globalization (of the economy and the media) and European integration
itself lead to the “secularization of politics” (2006, p. 81). Religion can, of
course, be seen as a counterweight to globalization but here another muchreported trend comes into play in the process of relativization: the very
real life experience of mobility across Europe, made possible as one of the
cornerstones of European Union policy in the Schengen Agreement and
extended at the end of 2007 to include many of the countries of central and
eastern Europe. If, for Delors, a lack of rootedness was a problem, Schengen
makes this possible for a new generation who associate the idea of the
European Union with it. Eurobarometer 68 (December 2007) found that over
half (52%) of Europeans rated the “freedom to travel, study and work” as the
lead value of the Union, students being the second highest category with this
view (62%) after managers (68%), the latter for obvious reasons of moving
capital and labor. Yet, according to Alain Lamassoure, National Secretary of
the French Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (President Sarkozy’s party), the
EU’s mobility program, Erasmus, has benefitted only some 3% of European
students. In the face of relativization at many levels and in many areas of
life, mobility as a value is not then enough to replace rootedness, belonging
and belief either absolute or contentious.
The definition of European belonging is in part at least a traditional
matter, and finds its corollaries (and, as often remarked, its differences) in
Holy Roman, Habsburg or Anglo-French empires, the Papal empire of
the spirit, or Polish-Lithuanian and Hanseatic alliances. Yet, the European
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Union, as also often remarked, aims to negotiate and, on occasion, sanction
but not dominate. All past European unions have been set up in opposition
to some “other” against whose ideology, separate and therefore transcendent
to their own, they have formed their own holistic, hermetic worldview —
even if in opposing another’s creed or ideology they open themselves to
its articulation, and not just by “fifth columnists” (on the principle of nosce
hostem). Yet, the inclusivity of the current Union co-opts such “others,”
reaching out across nation, region, creed and ethnicity (all the markers of
an “ethnic group” in Max Weber’s famous definition6 ) in search of a real
immanent, functional and generally accepted unifying idea(l) to replace that
near, known and cherished, which religion could give as a way of life
and not a conscious, and thus rescindable, choice.7 Such co-option is the
acquiescence to the (needless to say, secular) acquis communautaire, the corpus
of laws and protocols to which candidate countries have to ascribe before
membership, and which may lay them open to the policy-taker problem.
The previous Empires, of course, have been transitional, unstable and
fractious through long periods of their history, and the European Union
may endure a similar ideological instability. What at the highest levels of
the European Union may seem so self-evident then, at the regional and
sub-levels conflicts with patterns of identification which are even more selfevident. The EU project relies on a homogeneity which is yet to come,
and this is its transcendent Vorsprung or leap into an unspecifiable future.
To identify with a strategy is not part of lived experience, especially since
the strategy is at once both secular (implicated in those structures which
will bring it into being, but not yet there) and transcendent, a prime mover
which has yet to be created, to its own means of creation.
The EU project at the “European” level offers up a simplified sense
of belonging in a collective identity (“being European”) that transcends
many of those markers of such collectivity at the national and regional
level (language, culture, political memory, religion), or rather subsumes
this heterogeneity into an institutional Europeanness as a culture in the
6 Including “shared political memories, or even more importantly in early times, persistent ties with the
old cult, or the strengthening of kinship and other groups” (Weber 1997, p. 20).
7 One of the factors which the rightist parties and the European Charter agree upon is the liberty to
change religion, which view would not arise in contexts — pre-globalization perhaps — where the
religious is the uncontested way of life, uncontestable perhaps since others are unknown.
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widest (yet Eurocratic) sense. Yet, this belonging is dwarfed by and detached
from that “sense of connectedness with an immense reality of which we
form a tiny part,” which is what, as Joseph Tharamangalam contends in
his critique of T.N. Madan and others on the Indian context, “creates the
universal experience of what we call the religious” (1995, p. 461). The EU
Project also, uncannily, contrasts with, but intersects, comparable simplified
collectivist projects at lower social and institutional levels. According to
Dirk Jacobs and Stefan Rummens on Flanders’ “new radical right” (“nieuw
radicaal rechts”) parties, their appeal is to give “something secure to hold on
to in that they reduce the complexity of communal problems to the simple
and superficial difference between what is ‘one’s own’ — and therefore
‘good’ — and what is ‘foreign’ — and to be disposed of ” (“een zeker houvast
omdat ze de complexiteit van de samenlevingsproblemen reduceren tot het eenvoudige
en overzichtelijke onderscheid tussen was ‘eigen’ — en ‘goed’ — is en wat ‘vreemd’ —
en ‘verwerpelijk’ is” [2003, p. 9]). In its 2005 manifesto, the Belgian rightist,
anti-immigration Vlaams Belang (“Flemish Interest”) party calls attention
to what it implies as a deficit of the European Union’s own principle of
subsidiarity. At the European level, religion (or its absence) is not a sufficient
marker of “estrangement” (hence the debate about Turkey’s accession is
not at this level about religion but about social, cultural and economic
markers, as if these could somehow be detached from the religious ambit);
yet at the national[-ist] and regional level, religion is sometimes of acute
importance, even if not signaled as such, especially in post-revolutionary
European Francophone territories which subscribe to principles of “laïcité.”
On the border of this francophonie, the Vlaams Belang in their Programmaboek
2004 mentions language and culture many more times than religion and
its synonyms (which appear, as might be expected, mainly when Islam is
discussed).
As noted above, the European Union has attempted to erect a vast secular
system of precendents and values, the acquis communautaire. However, as
Georg Lukács notes in his 1909 essay on Kierkegaard, “it is not possible
to live a system” (1974, p. 31). We are left, inextricably and ultimately
undeniably, with the immanent, with the separate and individual regulations,
but without that policing, even military emanation which would seal
its efficacy, making this binding and incontrovertible. (Such a military
force may be forthcoming, but the rhetorical strategy that would make
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it feasible and defensible to the population is not yet apparent.) Without
such “Prussian” regulation, the secularizing strategy of the European Union
moves through inextricable negotiation and contention, against which its
constituent leaders, not to mention its population at large and, in particular,
its sub-groupings, subcultures and individuals, often feel compelled or even
summoned to contend. The Eurosceptic Czech President Václav Klaus made
a state visit to Ireland in early November 2008 and had dinner with Declan
Ganley, a leading figure in the successful campaign to persuade Irish voters
to reject the Lisbon Treaty. Of course, other EU leaders have condemned
the meeting and the egregious statements, but without any transcendent
principles to proscribe such expressions, or any legal sanctions to police
them, they — and not the sanctioned actions — become normative, and
indeed are the only certain trace of engagement with the norms with which
they contend. As Myrto Tsakatika notes, the Constitutional process has
the best chance of succeeding once “popular participation and contestation
and therefore greater popular ownership of the democratic process” (2007,
p. 88) is assured. Thereby, European values would become internalized,
imbricated in unquestioned life-processes and thus, in turn, more akin to the
transcendent (that which is not locked into the historical even if of a relatively
long durée8 ) than the secular. And it is this engagement, this countervalance
to a transcendent even if secular dirigisme, rather than a taciturn acquiescence,
that can betoken insouciance, that is the issue in the general, contended
process of secularization, and is that which pervades its ongoing dialectic
of krisis. Given this engagement and that some form of spirituality has not
been abandoned in Europe, secularization may not remain normative in the
medium-term. To paraphrase Marx, in the current European context, the
critique of secularization is the beginning of all critique.
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at the Annual Symposium of the Erasmus Prize Foundation, The Netherlands. http://
www. notre-europe. asso. fr/ IMG/ pdf/ DiscoursXI00.pdf [4 November 2000].
European Commission (2008). Standard Eurobarometer 69.
8 The Latin root which gives rise to the English “secular” relates of course to an “age” or “epoch,”
sometimes to the duration of a century.
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European Commission (2005). Special Eurobarometer 225: Social Values, Science and Technology.
European Values Survey (1999–2000). http://www.europeanvalues.nl/.
Fischer, Joschka (2000). Vom Staatenverbund zur Föderation — Gedanken über die Finalität
der europäischen Integration. [From League of States to Federation — Thoughts
on the Finality of European Integration.] http://hermes.zeit.de/pdf/archiv/reden/
europapolitik/200106_20000512_fischer.pdf.
Gourgouris, Stathis (2008). De-transcendentalizing the secular. In The Immanent Flame.
http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/2008/01/31/de-transcendentalizingthe-secular/.
Habermas, Jú´rgen and Jacques Derrida (2003). Nach dem Krieg: Die Wiedergeburt Europas.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (31 May 2003). Reprinted as February 15, or What Binds
Europeans Together: A Plea for a Common Foreign Policy, Beginning in the Core of
Europe. Constellations, 10(3), 291–297.
Hård, Mikael and Thomas J. Misa (2008). Modernizing European cities: technological
uniformity and cultural distinction. In Urban Machinery: Inside Modern European Cities,
Mikael Hård and Thomas J. Misa (eds.). Cambridge, MA: MIT P, pp. 1–20.
Jacobs, Dirk and Stefan Rummens (2003). “We zeggen wat ù denkt”: Extreem-rechts in
Vlaanderen en nieuw radicaal rechts in Europa [“We say what you are thinking”: the
extreme right in Flanders and the new radical right in Europe]. Krisis, tijdschrift voor
empirische filosofie, 4(2), 41–59. http://users.belgacom.net/jacobs/JaRu.pdf.
Juncker, Jean-Claude (2006). Council of Europe — European Union: A Sole Ambition for
the European Continent. Report for the Council of Europe. http://assembly.coe.int/
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Kiaupa, Zigmantas (2004). The History of Lithuania. Vilnius: Baltos Lankos.
Lamassoure, Alain (2008). Le citoyen et l’application du droit communautaire. June 2008
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Lambert, Yves (2003). New Christianity: indifference and diffused spirituality. In The Decline
of Christendom in Western Europe, 175–2000, Hugh McLeod and Werner Ustorf (eds.).
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, pp. 63–79.
Laughlin, John (2007). The Welsh Case: Cultural Diversity of a Nation with Devolved
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Lukács, Georg (1974). Soul and Form. Cambridge, MA: MIT P.
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Madan, T. N. (1987). Secularism in Its Place. The Journal of Asian Studies, 46(4),
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Mickiewicz, Adam (1979). Lyrik/Prosa. Leipzig: Reclam.
Pour une Constitution européenne: Jacques Chirac’s Speech at the German Bundestag. Le
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Sarkozy, Nicolas (2007). Allocution de M. le Président de la république dans la salle de
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Smith, David M. and Enid Wistrich (2007). Collective Identities in a Changing World. In
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Sommerville, C. J. (1998). Secular Society/Religious Population: Our Tacit Rules for Using
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Tharamangalam, Joseph (1995). Indian Social Scientists and Critique of Secularism. Economic
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Tsakatika, Myrto (2007). Governance vs. politics: the European Union’s constitutive
‘democratic deficit.’ Journal of European Public Policy, 14(6), 867–885.
Vlaams Belang [Flemish Interest]. Programmaboek 2004. http://www.vlaamsbelang.org/
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Weber, Max (2004). Science as Vocation. In The Vocation Lectures, David Owen and Tracy
B. Strong (eds.). Indianapolis: Hackett, pp. 1–31.
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Willaime, Jean-Paul (2006). Religion in Ultramodernity. In Theorising Religion: Classical and
Contemporary Debates, James A. Beckford and John Walliss (eds.). Aldershot: Ashgate,
pp. 77–89.
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Chapter
7
Secular Religiosity in Chinese Politics:
A Confucian Perspective
TAN SOR HOON
As with so many categories employed in Western intellectual discourses, applying
antithetical concepts of secularism and religiosity to understand China causes all
kinds of problems. Attitudes and ideas associated with religious faith are common
in the politics of China from ancient times. Yet, we should not jump to the
conclusion that this is another example of the pre-modern mixing of church and
state to be remedied by modernization. For “religions” in China may be quite
different from the monotheistic religions that came to dominate the West, and that
have framed the discussions about secularism and the state in political philosophy.
By those standards, Chinese religions — especially if Confucianism is included as is
regularly done — are quite secular in outlook. This paper explores the anomalous
relation between the concepts of the sacred and the secular that complicates the
Chinese sense of religiosity, and how this in turn complicates the relationship
between Chinese religion and politics, both past and present.
PROVENANCE AND SPREAD OF SECULARISM
An English man, George Holyoake, invented the term “secularism” in 1846
to promote “the development of the physical, moral, and intellectual nature
of man to the highest possible point, as the immediate duty of life,” a worthy
common goal for “all who would regulate life by reason and ennoble it by
service.”1 For this task, he maintained that we need only secular knowledge,
“that kind of knowledge which is founded in this life, which relates to the
conduct of this life, conduces to the welfare of this life, and is capable of
being tested by the experiences of this life.”2 While Holyoake remained
1 Holyoake, George (1860). Principles of Secularism. London: Austin & Co., p. 17.
2 Dubray, C. (1912). Secularism. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13676a.htm [27 October 2008].
95
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agnostic and did not see secularism as “an argument against Christianity,”
another Secularist, his one-time collaborator, Charles Bradlaugh, argued that
“the logical consequence of the acceptance of Secularism must be that the
man gets to Atheism if he has brains enough to comprehend.”3
Atheism is the logical conclusion of what Barry Kosmin calls “hard
secularism” in contrast to “soft secularism” in his typology of modern
secularisms. Hard secularism, which often takes positivist science as the sole
arbiter of knowledge, is hostile to religion: “The hard secularist considers
religious propositions to be epistemologically illegitimate, warranted neither
by reason nor experience. It follows from this view that these propositions
are morally pernicious and politically dangerous.”4 In contrast, soft
secularism, premised on the fallibility of human intellect, is tolerant of
religion and religious differences, and favors political accommodation of
religion while rejecting state interference that may undermine religious
freedom. In contemporary discussions, “secularism contains a spectrum of
views, from a benign tolerance of religion to what we call a vituperative
atheism.”5
Secularism has been closely associated with modernity. Despite its
Western provenance, those who believe that progress for all human beings
means the same thing often also believe that secularism is applicable
everywhere, either in the inevitable march of universal history or as a
universal value. Once popular, this simplistic and often ideological view
has been questioned with increasing force and frequency. Modernization is
often viewed as a process of
human beings having lost or sloughed off, or liberated themselves
from certain earlier, confining horizons, or illusions, or limitations
of knowledge. What emerges from this process — modernity or
secularity — is to be understood in terms of underlying features of human
3 Ibid. The “Criticism” section in the same Catholic Encyclopedia entry agrees that “Only the Atheist can
be a consistent Secularist.”
4 Kosmin, Barry (2006). Hard and Soft Secularists and Hard and Soft Secularism. Paper presented at
the Annual Conference of the Society for Scientific Study of Religion. http://www.trincoll.edu/NR/
rdonlyres/9614BC42-9E4C-42BF-A7F4-0B5EE1009462/0/Kosmin_paper.pdf [27 October 2008].
See also Kosmin, Barry (2007). Contemporary Secularity and Secularism. In Secularism and Secularity:
Contemporary International Perspectives, Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar (eds.). Hartford, CT: Institute
for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, pp. 1–13.
5 King, Mike (2007). Secularism: The Hidden Origins of Disbelief. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co.,
pp. 11–12.
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nature which were there all along, but had been impeded by what is
now set aside.6
Taylor objects to such “subtraction” accounts of modernity in general, and
of secularity in particular; he spends several hundred pages of A Secular
Age detailing how secularity in Western Europe and North America “is
the fruit of new inventions, newly constructed self-understandings and
related practices, and can’t be explained in terms of perennial features of
human life.”7
One reviewer criticizes Taylor for ignoring the contributions of the
rest of the world to any account of modern secular order.8 Others would
applaud him for showing so clearly the historical and cultural specificity of a
particular secularism which developed in a long complex history of church
domination of all worldly domains in medieval Europe, internal pressures for
reform to achieve higher standards of spirituality, the anthropocentric shifts
of Providential Deism during the Age of Reason, and so on. This secularism
presupposes a separation between the secular and sacred sanctioned by the
New Testament — “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).9 This
particular separation of secular and sacred, Bernard Lewis argues, is unique
to Christianity and largely unknown in other religions.10
While its applicability beyond a specific historical context cannot be
taken for granted and its value in different cultural contexts should be
carefully scrutinized, the historical and cultural specificity of secularism does
not necessarily render it inapplicable to other times and other cultures. If
we focus on the primary meaning of secularism in political philosophy as
a doctrine of separation between religion and the state in order to protect
religious freedom, promote equality among religions and avoid conflict
among religions and between religion and the state, then it makes sense
to ask if such separation is possible or desirable in any society where both
religion and state exist. In practice, the “separation” is never clear-cut
6 Taylor, Charles (2007). A Secular Age. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, p. 22.
7 Ibid.
8 Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman (2008). Book Review of A Secular Age. Political Theory, 36(3), 486–491. It
should be noted that Taylor’s account is of A Secular Age, not The Secular Age.
9 For a more detailed and richer discussion of “secularism in the Biblical tradition,” see Coles, Robert
(1999). The Secular Mind. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 11–45.
10 Lewis, Bernard (2002). What Went Wrong? Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 96–97.
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TAN SOR HOON
and takes different forms.11 Outside Western Europe and North America,
secularism has also gained currency in India since independence. Some
argue for secularism as a central pillar of Indian democracy, while others
disagree. There is talk of a “crisis” of secularism in India.12 T.N. Madan
attributes the difficulties Indian secularism has encountered to the error of
assuming “the historical inevitability and progressive nature of secularization
everywhere.”13 This “secularism” as ideology fails to recognize that “neither
India’s indigenous religious traditions nor Islam recognize the sacred-secular
dichotomy in the manner Christianity does so.”14 Despite its frequent
appearance in modern Indian political discourse, Madan argues that “from
the point of view of the majority, ‘secularism’ is a vacuous word, a phantom
concept, for such people do not know whether it is desirable to privatize
religion, and if it is, how this may be done, unless they be Protestant
Christians but not if they are Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs.”15
Secularism as “the ideology that argues the historical inevitability and
progressive nature of secularization everywhere” is dangerously flawed.16
According to Madan,
By subverting religion as generally understood, secularism sets off a
reaction in the form of fundamentalism, which usually is a perversion of
11 Although liberal democracies are often associated with secularism, the relationship between politics
and religion in democratic polities such as the United States and Britain is complex and often confusing
if we are looking for straightforward “separation of church and state.” For an example, see Voas, David
and Abby Day (2007). Secularity in Great Britain. In Kosmin and Keysar, op. cit., pp. 95–110. Also,
see Woodhead, Linda (2008). Neither Religious nor Secular: The British Situation and Some Wider
Implications. Paper delivered at the National University of Singapore, 15 September 2008. The other
chapters in this volume also testify to the varied practices included under the vague label of “secularism.”
12 A recent publication on this topic is Needham, Anuradha Dingwaney and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan
(2007). The Crisis of Secularism in India. Durham: Duke University Press. A few examples from the
extensive literature discussing secularism in India are Bhargava, Rajeev (ed.) (1998). Secularism and Its
Critics. Delhi: Oxford University Press; Larson, Gerald James (2001). Religion and Personal Law in Secular
India: A Call to Judgment. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; Jacobsohn, Gary J. (2003). The Wheel
of Law: India’s Secularism in Comparative Constitutional Context. Princeton: Princeton University Press;
Srinivasan, T.N. (ed.) (2007). The Future of Secularism. Delhi: Oxford University Press; Sen, Ronojoy
(2007). Legalizing Religion: The Indian Supreme Court and Secularism. Washington, D.C.: East-West Center
Washington; Tejani, Shabnum (2008). Indian Secularism: A Social and Intellectual History, 1890 to 1950.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
13 Madan, T.N. (1997). Modern Myths, Locked Minds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 6.
14 Ibid., p. 261.
15 Madan, T.N. (1987). Secularism in its Place. The Journal of Asian Studies, 46(4), p. 749.
16 Madan (1997), op. cit., p. 6.
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religion, and has less to do with the purity of faith and more with the
acquisition of political power.17
The same worry is found in Wang Gungwu’s response to September 11. He
identifies three distinct sources of what constitutes the secular in Asia: the
separation of church and state from the Christian West; the experience of
establishing modern states in post-colonial countries such as India; and “the
rational and this-worldly attitudes towards religion of the ancient Greeks and
Romans, and also the Chinese.”18 Wang’s summary of the history of ancient
secular faiths, including Confucianism, shows that secular elites neglect the
people’s spiritual needs at their own and society’s peril. If there are alternative
conceptions of secularism more suited to Asia, including China, the most
workable form would be some kind of “soft secularism” which is able to
co-opt the spiritual for an integrated worldview.
RELIGION AND TODAY’S CHINESE STATE
In contrast to India, China is conspicuous by its absence in the large volume
of literature on secularism.19 While there is an increase in research on
religion in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) itself, the relation between
state and religion, if discussed at all, is very seldom discussed in terms of
secularism.20 The reason might seem obvious: secularism has no place in the
PRC. This does not mean absence of the problem to which secularism has
been proposed as a solution. Conflict between religion and the state is, if
anything, more intense and potentially dangerous in the PRC than in many
secularist states, and surely people in China do not desire or deserve religious
freedom any less than other people. Although its various constitutions since
1949 guarantee freedom of religious belief and disbelief, religion was one
of the “four olds” targeted by the Cultural Revolution; many suffered
severe persecutions for their religious convictions while countless religious
buildings and artifacts were destroyed.
17 Madan (1997), op. cit., pp. 260–261.
18 Wang, Gungwu (2002). State and Faith: Secular Values in Asia and the West. In Critical Views of
September 11: Analyses from Around the World, Eric Hershberg and Kevin W. Moore (eds.). New York:
New Press, p. 230.
19 A recent work on “contemporary international perspectives” on secularism only includes Iran, India,
and Israel outside North America and Western Europe. Kosmin and Keysar, op. cit.
20 Among the few exceptions is Yang, Fenggang (2004). Between Secularist Ideology and Desecularizing
Reality: The Birth and Growth of Religious Research in Communist China. Sociology of Religion, 65(2),
101–119. Zhao Litao in this volume disagrees with Yang’s analysis.
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The liberalization of the reform era saw rapid revivals of traditional
religions, diverse growth of new religions, and effervescent mixing and
transformation among them.21 However, the Communist state continues
to interfere in religious activities, to control religious organizations through
various means, and occasionally still resorts to repressive measures against
religious organizations and individuals. The Catholic Patriotic Association
and the orchestrated crackdown and campaign against the Falungong
which the PRC has labeled an “evil cult” are prime examples of the
disease which secularism is supposed to cure.22 In contrast to the frequent
21 This has received much attention among researchers, resulting in many publications both in English
and Mandarin. One example is the special issue on “Religion in China Today” edited by Daniel
Overmeyr, The China Quarterly, vol. 174 (Jul 2003). Earlier studies on the subject include Hunter,
Alan and Don Rimmington (eds.) (1992). All Under Heaven: Chinese Tradition and Christian Life in
the People’s Republic of China. Kampen: J.H. Kok; Tu, Wei-ming (1999). The Quest for Meaning:
Religion in the People’s Republic of China. In The Secularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and
World Politics, Peter L. Berger (ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, pp. 85–
101. Researchers in the PRC have produced an impressive volume of literature on religion in the
last three decades. Some examples include several volumes in the Dangdai Zhongguo Zongjiao Yanjiu
(Chinese Religions and Beliefs: a series of Contemporary
Jingxuan Congshu
Studies in China), general editors Lü Daji
et al. (Beijing: Minzu Press); Tang Yijie
(ed.) (1992), Zhongguo Zongjiao: guoqu yu xianzai
:
(Chinese Religions: Past and
(1994), Zhongguo Minzhong Zongjiao Yishi
Present) (Beijing: Beijing University Press); Hou Jie
(Chinese Popular Religious Consciousness) (Tianjin: People’s Press); Zhuo Xinping
(1999), Zongjiao Lijie
(Religious Understanding) (Beijing: Social Science Press); (2000)
(Collected Historical Texts of Chinese
Zhongguo Zongjiao Lishi Wenxian Jicheng
Religion), 120 volumes (Shanghai: Guji Press); He Guanghu
and Xu Zhiwei
(2001),
:
(Dialogue: Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism and
Duihua: Ru Shu Dao yu Jidujiao
Christianity) (Beijing: Social Science Press); Mou Zhongjian
and Zhang Jian
(2003), Zhongguo
Zongjiao Tongshi
· (A General History of Chinese Religions) (Beijing: Social Science Press); Mi
and You Jia
(2004), Zhongguo Yisilanjiao
(Chinese Islam) (Beijing:
Shoujiang
Five Continents Broadcasting Press); Xu Dunkang
et al. (2005), Zhongguo Zongjiao yu Zhongguo
Wenhua
(Chinese Religions and Chinese Culture), 4 volumes (Beijing: Chinese Social
(2006), Xinyang, Geming yu Quanli Yanjiu: Zhongguo Zongjiao
Science Press); Li Xiangping
Shehuixue Yanjiu
,
:
(Faith, Revolution and Power: Sociological
and Liang Ling
(2006), Zhongguo
Study of Chinese Religions) (Shanghai: People’s Press); Ren Jie
de Zongjiao Zhengce: cong gudai dao dangdai
(Religion Policy in China: From Ancient Times
to Contemporary Period) (Beijing: Minzu Press); Jin Yijiu
and Wu Yungui
(2008), Dangdai
(Contemporary Religions and Extremism) (Beijing: Chinese
Zongjiao yu Jiduan Zhuyi
Social Science Press). Several scholarly journals on religion have also been established, such as Shijie
Zongjiao Ziliao
(World Religions Resources) (Beijing: Chinese Social Science Press) since
(Religion) (Beijing: People’s University Publications Resource Center) since 1987;
1980; Zongjiao
Shijie Zongjiao Wenhua
(World Religious Cultures) (Beijing: Chinese Social Science Press)
(Religion Studies) (Beijing: People’s University Press) since 2003.
since 1995; Zongjiao Yanjiu
22 For a detailed discussion of the difficult balancing act involved in the PRC’s attempt to maintain
“sufficient authority for political control while presenting a broad image tolerance,” see Potter, Pitman
(2003). Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China. The China Quarterly, 174, 317–337. See
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recommendations, even haranguing, that the PRC has received from various
quarters to adopt liberal democracy and respect human rights, it is surprising
that not much has been said about its need to adopt secularism as part of the
“modernity” package.
Or perhaps it is not so surprising. Secularism might simply be subsumed
under liberal democracy and human rights recommended by some of the
PRC’s critics. On the other hand, the PRC in one sense is already committed
to one of the most strident forms of secularism, and might be said to practice a
form of authoritarian secularism.23 Given its ideology of scientific socialism,
it is committed to an atheistic “hard secularism” which views religion as
superstition, as “opium of the people” which will disappear just as the state
will wither with the coming of Communism. What has changed since 1978
is a recognition that this is not going to happen any time soon and the lesson
from history that too much repression by the state could backfire, increasing
rather than reducing popular resistance.24 Persecution could strengthen the
religious commitment of the persecuted as well as politicize them. Hence,
a more subtle approach is needed in the current stage of Chinese socialism.
In the words of one Chinese scholar, the “collective wisdom of three
generations of CCP leadership” has arrived at the current policy of “guiding
religion and socialism to mutually adapt to each other.”25
Some scholars argue that, throughout a significant part of Chinese
history, the state’s interference with the people’s religious lives is because
the state itself has had religious dimensions. The contemporary state
structure and Communist Party domination of public life have inherited
this tradition and have built upon it a pattern of ritual, vocabulary and
public discourse which is similar to that of theocratic organizations.26
also Richard Madsen’s “Catholic Revival During the Reform Era” (pp. 468–487) and Nancy Chen’s
“Healing Sects and Anti-Cult Campaigns” (pp. 505–520) in the same special issue.
23 See also Recep Sentürk’s discussion of authoritarian secularism in Turkey and Zhao Litao’s chapter
on “Religious Revival and the Emerging Secularism in China” in this volume.
24 Religion was a significant source of resistance to imperial rule as early as the Later Han Dynasty (Wang
2002, p. 235); see also Yu, Anthony (2005). State and Religion in China. La Salle: Open Court, p. 55. For
studies of the challenge religions have posed to the state’s power, see Ownby, David (1996). Brotherhoods
and Secret Societies in mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition. Stanford: Stanford University Press;
Perry, Elizabeth (2001). Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China. Armonk:
M.E. Sharpe. Ren and Liang (2006) present a historical account of how the Chinese state has had to
“manage” religion from ancient times in many different ways.
25 Ren and Liang, pp. 427–448. Author’s translation.
26 Bays, Daniel H. (2003). Chinese Protestant Christianity Today. The China Quarterly, 174 (Jul
2003), p. 492. See also Hunter, Alan and Don Rimmington (1992). Religion and Social Change
in Contemporary China. In Hunter and Rimmington, op. cit., pp. 11–37. Wang Gungwu also finds
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In my view, “religious dimensions” aside, the most significant similarity
with theocratic organizations lies in a certain understanding of authority
which renders problematic not just religious freedom but any other freedom.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees its authority as supreme and
indivisible. Individuals and organizations have authority in the PRC only
by delegation from the Party. It is impossible for the CCP to accept that
Chinese citizens should look to any other authority for anything in their
lives, unless it is sanctioned by the Communist state.
The CCP does realize that market reforms open up too many areas and
it is impossible and undesirable for the state to supervise let alone control all
areas. Some concessions have followed. For example, “Catholics are allowed
to express their ‘spiritual allegiance’ to the Pope, although they were not
supposed to allow the Vatican to interfere in Chinese Church affairs.”27
In other words, they can have as much freedom of belief as they wish, so
long as this does not result in actions that threaten the CCP’s monopoly
of power and authority. Such concessions notwithstanding, there can be
no fundamental separation of political authority from religious authority
with separate domains in which each is autonomous. Only the authority
of the CCP is ultimately legitimate. Therefore, religion must at all times
operate “within the sphere prescribed by law and adapt to social and cultural
progress,” as defined by the Party.28
A speech by Jiang Zemin during a tour of Xinjiang in 1998 actually
affirmed the “separation of religion and politics”29 — by that he meant that
religion must keep out of politics, but not that the state should keep out of
religion. The CCP reserves the right to decide what counts as religious. Any
religious activities or beliefs that oppose the CCP leadership or the socialist
system, undermine the PRC’s social stability or hinder its progress, or step
out of the parameters officially approved by the state are deemed guilty of
interfering in politics. While much that is “unofficial” may be tolerated by
evidence of “secular religions” in modern China, such as the god-like worship of Mao Zedong during
the Cultural Revolution. Wang, Gungwu (2003). Secular China. China Report (Delhi), 39(3), 305–321;
Meisner, Maurice (1999). Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic, 3rd Ed. New York:
Free Press, pp. 291–350.
27 Madsen, p. 472.
28 “Freedom of Religious Belief in China” 1997 White paper. In White Papers of the Chinese Government,
vol. 2 (1996–1999), compiled by Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of
China (2000). Beijing: Foreign Language Press, p. 247.
29 Potter, p. 323.
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the state in the current market socialism, the tolerance lasts only as long
as the unofficial organizations, individuals and activities do not rock the
CCP boat. From the Party’s point of view, the actions it has taken against
religious organizations, individuals or activities are not against religion or
religious freedom but against illegitimate incursions into the political domain
by organizations and individuals misusing the name of religion. They are
no different from other “trouble-makers” the state must deal with. As one
senior official put it in 1991,
The basic principle is simple: If they are obedient, then we treat them
well. If they are not, then we discipline them … Christians say they must
obey God, journalists say they are serving the public, intellectuals say
they are developing culture. But from our point of view these excuses
are all irrelevant. We treat these people as an administrative problem.30
To recommend secularism to the PRC is to expect it to accept the mutual
autonomy of the domains of politics and religion as the presupposition of
existing interactions between the two. In Europe, we see first a struggle
to establish the autonomy of the political from both the religious and
the ethical — this was the stage of secularization to separate church and
state especially after the religious wars, and the intellectual rise of political
realism of which Machiavelli was the central figure — followed by a further
struggle to establish the autonomy of the ethical from the religious in the
19th century Secularism movement of Holyoake and others who wished to
see modern science replace religion. Central to secularization in the West
was liberation from absolute religious authority that became too oppressive.
To value individual freedom means recognizing no absolute authority other
than one’s own reason and conscience. Is such thinking too alien to the
Chinese? Would it be cultural imperialism to impose such secularism on
them? Are there alternative approaches to the relationship between state and
religion which are more in tune with China’s cultural roots?
RETURNING TO CONFUCIAN ROOTS
Wang Gungwu points out that “unlike the West which had to deal with
a powerful Church for centuries, the Chinese had begun with a secular
30 Hunter, Alan and Kim-Kwong Chan (1993). Protestantism in Contemporary China. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, p. 28.
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outlook that ensured that no Church could be established to challenge
political authority.”31 With such beginnings, it is not surprising that the
absolutist authority the Chinese have to struggle against today is political
rather than religious. Many have alleged that this problem of absolutist
political authority has Confucian roots. I shall argue that whereas secularism
as political philosophy in the West attempts to segregate different domains
of human existence and to ensure that no one domain dominates the others,
Confucians have a more holistic outlook that keeps together the moral,
the political, and the religious to yield what they consider a truly satisfying
existence within the continuity of the personal, the familial-social, and the
cosmic-infinite. Confucians would deny the autonomy of both the political
and the religious. In Confucianism, the political is subordinated to the
moral, and the religious is accessible only through a significant level of
moral achievement.32 Human beings must focus their attention and effort
on the moral, and the rest will fall in place. The authority that has primacy
in Confucian life is therefore neither political nor religious, but moral.
One could challenge the authoritarian interpretation of Confucianism that
attributes to it a concept of authority which is absolute, but my task
in this chapter is more limited. I shall try to show that, because the
supreme authority in Confucianism is moral, there is a Confucian check
on absolutism which offers a different view of the legitimate relationship
between religion and state, and an alternative safeguard for religious
freedom.
There is no denying that Confucius resisted speculation about life after
death and insisted on the importance of this life. In China, the Confucians
were responsible for “the centrality of a secular political culture that had
permeated public concerns to such an extent that no religion-based systems
31 Wang (2003), p. 309. Joseph Needham and his team also maintained that “the Chinese mood
was essentially secular.” Needham, Joseph et al. (1971). Science and Civilization in China. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, vol. 4, part 3, p. 90, note a.
32 Cf. Zhang Jian
(2007), “Lun Zhengzhi yu Zongjiao de Duoceng Guanxi ji qi Hudong”
(“The Multi-level Relation between Politics and Religion and
(Research in Religious Studies), no. 2, reprinted in
their Interaction”), Congjiaoxue Yanjiu
Lü Daji
(ed.) (2008), Theoretical Studies of Religion, Dangdai Zhongguo Zongjiao Yanjiu Jingxuan
(Chinese Religions and Beliefs: a series of Contemporary Studies in
Congshu
China), general editors Lü Daji
(Beijing: Minzu Press), pp. 164–194. According to Zhang, the
Confucians turn religion into an instrument of moral politics (p. 182).
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could replace that culture.”33 But not everyone agrees that religion was
marginalized either culturally or politically in Chinese civilization, even
for the early period. To David Keightley, “Shang religion was inextricably
involved in the genesis and legitimation of the Shang state.”34 Furthermore,
he argues that “the strength and endurance of the Confucian tradition,
ostensibly secular though its manifestations frequently were, cannot be fully
explained, or its true nature understood unless we take into account the
religious commitment which assisted at that tradition’s birth and which
continue to sustain it.”35 His study shows that even though political culture
became increasingly secular in the Zhou dynasty, the form of political
authority that prevailed as the dominant form of authority in China for more
than two millennia (and some would argue exists even today) “continued
to manifest a commitment to the hierarchical, authoritarian, quasi-magical,
bureaucratic features whose presence may be discovered in the characteristic
generationalism and contractual logic of Shang ancestor worship.”36
Following Keightley, Rodney Taylor argues that Confucianism should
be interpreted by emphasizing its “religious core” — sagehood as a form
of ultimate transformation that connects the individual to the absolute.
Furthermore, the Confucian approach to political order makes more sense as
an act of religious faith.37 Many others, often with less scholarly interest and
expertise, simply lump Confucianism with other Chinese religions. After all
there are temples dedicated to Confucius, and he and his disciples are often
33 Wang (2003), p. 314. The citation in this paragraph does not imply that Wang held Confucianism
responsible for the political absolutism in Communist China — he certainly did not suggest this simplistic
view in his articles this paper refers to.
34 Keightley, David (1978). The Religious Commitment: Shang Theology and the Genesis of Chinese
Political Culture. History of Religions, 17(3/4), p. 212. Anthony Yu (2005) also argues that Chinese
politics has been inextricably bound up with religion from high antiquity. The unity of religion and
politics is also discussed in works by Chinese scholars, for example, Lin Suying
(1997), Gudai
Jili zhong zhi Zhengjiao Guan
(View of Politics and Religion in Ancient Sacrificial
(1997), Yin Zhou Zhengzhi yu Zongjiao
Rites) (Taipei: Wenjin), pp. 276–357; Zhang Rongming
(Politics and Religion in Shang and Zhou Dynasties) (Taipei: Wunan), pp. 251–271.
35 Keightley, p. 224.
36 Keightley, p. 223.
37 Taylor, Rodney (1990). The Religious Dimensions of Confucianism. Albany: State University of New
York Press, chap. 1. See also Taylor, Rodney (1986). The Way of Heaven: An Introduction to the Confucian
Religious Life. Leiden: Brill. A more recent collection of works by scholars exploring the religious
dimension of Confucianism and its contribution to spirituality is Tu, Wei-ming and Mary Evelyn Tucker
(eds.) (2003/2004). Confucian Spirituality, 2 volumes, World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of
the Religious Quest. New York: Crossroad.
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among those worshipped in many Chinese temples. Another reason may
be because historically, Confucian teachings have vied with Daoism and
Buddhism for followers as well as political power, even though it is fallacious
to infer from this that all three are religions.38 If one treats Confucianism
as a religion, then its close association with the Chinese state from the Han
dynasty onwards becomes evidence of the non-separation of religion and
state in China.
Even if Confucianism is a religion, it is important to emphasize that it
would be highly misleading to compare its dominance in Chinese politics
with the non-separation of church and state in medieval Europe which forms
the background of Western secularism as political philosophy. Instead of
Christianity’s distinction between secular and sacred, Confucian domination
of the political scene was grounded philosophically in secular moral influence
without repudiating the religious, while the source of authority of the
medieval Church was sacred and transcendent, and moral authority and
political authority were subordinate to it. Confucians perpetuated their
power socially through a network of contending lineages that interacted
and worked quite differently from the medieval Church’s hierarchy. The
ability of the Confucians to adapt to the challenge of religious rivals by
38 For research of scholarly merit, see Weber, Max (1964). The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism
(first published 1922), trans. Hans Gerth. New York: Macmillan; see also Legge, James (2004). Religions of
China: Confucianism and Taoism Described and Compared with Christianity (first published 1880). Whitefish,
MT: Kessinger Publishing. For examples of many recent works which include Confucianism among
Chinese religions, see Jochim, Christian (1986). Chinese Religions: A Cultural Perspective. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; Ching, Julia (1993). Chinese Religions. London: Macmillan; Adler, Joseph
(2002). Chinese Religions. New York: Routledge; Miller, James (ed.) (2006). Chinese Religions in
Contemporary Society. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio. Although Confucianism is not among the five
major religions (Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism) recognized by the PRC
state, many Chinese works on Chinese religions include Confucianism in their study. Ren Jiyu started
a controversy by arguing that Confucianism became a religion during the Han and Tang dynasties,
provoking strong protests from philosophers. Ren Jiyu
(1980), “Lun Rujiao de Xingcheng”
(“On the Formation of Confucian Religion”), Zhongguo Shehui Kexue
(Chinese Social Science), no. 1; cf. Li Jinquan
(1983), “Shi Xiqu Zongjiao de Zheli haishi Ruxue
de Zongjiaohua”
? (“Incorporating Philosophical Tenets of
(Chinese Social
Religion or Religionization of Confucianism?”), Zhongguo Shehui Kexue
Science), no. 3. Both articles were later included in a volume which collected works by several prominent
Chinese scholars who participated in that debate over two decades. Ren Jiyu
(ed.) (2000),
(Collected Essays in the Debate on Confucian Religion) (Beijing:
Rujiao Wenti Zhenglun Ji
Religious Culture Press). For a recent work which examines Confucianism as a “state religion,” brought
about by Emperor Wu of Han’s “Venerating only Confucian arts, dismissing and abolishing the hundred
schools” (
,
), see Zhang Rongming
(2001), Zhongguo de Guojiao
(State Religion of China) (Beijing: Chinese Social Science Press).
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accommodating and incorporating their ideas and practices to meet the
spiritual needs of the common people, while remaining committed to central
Confucian secular socio-political ideals, also differed greatly from the way
Christianity has dealt with internal doctrinal differences and the challenges
of other religions during the historical periods that fostered secularization.
Whether we characterize China as secular or religious, there can be no
easy clear-cut division between the secular and the religious, either in ideas,
beliefs, practices or institutions. This chapter attempts to uncover a small but
hopefully significant part of the philosophical roots of what I call “secular
religiosity” in Chinese civilization, a resistance to separating the religious
and secular.39 A full study of this secular religiosity, even a comprehensive
examination of it within the Confucian tradition, is beyond the scope of
a chapter. The accusation of authoritarianism has much more purchase if
one perceives the historical practice of Chinese politics under imperial rule
as central to the Confucian tradition. My interpretation of Confucianism
begins with what I take to be the core teachings of Confucius recorded in
the Analects, and from there, I measure all other parts of the admittedly rich
and complex tradition against those fundamental ideals. On that basis, most
Chinese historical political practices fail to live up to the Master’s teachings.
However, the discussion of Chinese secular religiosity in this chapter can
be extended, refined and made complicated if there were space to take
into account more texts, more schools of thought and a wider historical
perspective.
CONFUCIUS’ SECULAR RELIGIOSITY: LIFE
AS MORAL-RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT
Did Confucius continue the “religious dynamic” of the Shang dynasty as
Rodney Taylor claims? This may seem likely since Confucius insisted that he
“transmitted but did not innovate.”40 A privileging of continuity has often
39 This “secular religiosity” is already found in many explorations of Confucian religiousness and selfcultivation by other scholars, especially in the central concept of “unity of heaven and man” (tianren heyi
).
40 Analects 7.1. Unless otherwise stated, citations from this text are from D.C. Lau’s translation (1979).
Confucius — The Analects. Harmondsworth: Penguin. I make only slight modifications to Lau’s
translations, usually only to fit the citation into the text grammatically; however, I do prefer the translation
of junzi (chün-tzu) as “exemplary person” instead of Lau’s “gentleman.” For a justification of the former
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led Chinese thinkers to deny the radical innovativeness of their thinking,
as I believe is true of Confucius’ teachings generally. I shall try to show
how Confucius’ attitude to religion contrasts significantly with the general
Chinese attitude to religion from earlier times through his own to later
periods.41 Keightley highlighted that the political dominance of the Shang
royal house drew psychological and ideological support from its worship
of deceased ancestors who were believed to possess the power to influence
events in the world of the living in favor of their royal descendents: “Shang
religious practice rested upon the do ut des (‘I give, in order that thou
shouldst give’) belief that correct ritual procedure by the Shang kings would
result in favors conferred by Ti [the supreme deity of the Shang].”42 This
attitude pervaded ancient Chinese religions, which one scholar characterizes
as being “in search of personal welfare.”43 It is still very much present in
the ordinary Chinese people’s religious practice, both in folk religions as
well as the major world religions they have adopted, such as Buddhism and
Christianity (even though this attitude may be inconsistent with the central
teachings of these religions). According to Yuri Pines, “In the Chunqiu
period, the do-ut-des mode of relations with the deities evidently remained
prevalent at the personal level, but its validity in political life was seriously
questioned.”44
While Confucius clearly participated in various religious activities of
his time, he rejected this do ut des or “worship for favors” conception of
which emphasizes the junzi’s role as an exemplar, see Hall, David L. and Roger T. Ames (1987). Thinking
Through Confucius. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 182–192.
41 That he was innovative does not mean that Confucius was alone in challenging and reconstructing
religious thinking during that period; the Daoists and Legalists were also moving away from traditional
religious beliefs. See Zhong Guofa
(2003), Shensheng de Tupo: kan rufodao sanyuan yiti geju de
;
(Sacred Breakthrough: the source of Three-in-One
you lai
Unity of Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism) (Chengdu: Szechuan People’s Press), pp. 304–307; see also
Pines, Yuri (2002). Foundations of Confucian Thought. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, pp. 55–88.
42 This attitude is not unique to the Chinese; it has been identified as one of the elementary forms of
religious life and found in other civilizations. See Durkheim, Emile (1976). The Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life, trans. Joseph Ward Swain, 2nd Ed., first published 1915. London: Allen & Unwin, p. 29,
also more extensive discussion of ritual attitudes of “the positive cult” in book III, chapters ii to iv;
Dodds, Eric Robertson (1951). The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press,
p. 222 and p. 241.
43 Poo, Mu-chou (1998). In Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese Religion. Albany: State
University of New York Press. See also Zhang Rongming
(1997), Yin-Zhou-Zheng-Zhi-YuZong-Jiao
(Politics and Religion in Shang and Zhou Dynasties) (Taipei: Wunan Press).
44 Pines, p. 71.
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religion. Several passages in the Analects mention Confucius’ participation
in ji, religious acts of sacrifices to deities or ancestors (Analects 3.12; 10.9;
10.11; 10.18). He was well-known for his expertise in rituals (li ), including
religious rituals. He was especially careful in his behavior when in temples
(Analects 3.15; 10.1), and observed meticulously all the ritual aspects of
sacrifice (10.9; 10.11; 10.18), including “bowing to the ground” when
he received a gift of sacrificial meat, whereas “even when a gift from
a friend was a carriage and horses — since it lacked the solemnity of
sacrificial meat — he did not bow to the ground” (Analects 10.23). Confucius
advocated ancestor worship as an important part of filial piety (xiao ). When
explaining what he meant by explicating filial piety as “Never fail to comply”
),
(buwei
The Master said, “When your parents are alive, comply with the rites
in serving them; when they die, comply with the rites in burying them;
comply with the rites in sacrificing to them.” (Analects 2.5)
The “rites” (li ), such as sacrifices, funerals, marriages, and coming
of age ceremonies, are central to the human-centered religiousness in
Confucianism.45 The rites sustain various forms of social interactions and
structure the most important human relations — from the family to the
state — and thereby render the secular sacred in the Confucian way of life.
Ancestor worship, for Confucius, is an ethical responsibility that continues
from what is required in one’s relationship with one’s parents when they
are alive. Sacrifices should not be performed in expectation of “favors” or
assistance from the dead. Why did Confucius consider it “obsequious” “to
offer sacrifice to the spirit of an ancestor not one’s own”? (Analects 2.24)
The obsequious expects to win favors with his or her behavior. This is the
mostly likely reason anyone would offer sacrifices to ancestors not one’s
own — indeed, if sacrifices could “buy” favors from the dead, then what
matters would be the potency of the dead receiving the sacrifice and not
whether they are kin to oneself. What Confucius disapproved of is the
morally inappropriate relationship implied in such form of worship. It would
be as if children were to treat their parents well only to increase the chances
45 This view is not new, and has been well explored in works of various scholars. For an example, see
Hall and Ames (1987), pp. 241–246. The importance of rituals in Confucian spirituality is also evident
in several chapters in Tu and Tucker (2003/2004).
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that the latter would help them or leave them an inheritance — something
that Confucius would condemn as highly unethical.
It must be noted that although Confucius has been said to be “agnostic,”
his implied rejection of the common “worship for favor” attitude was not
based on skepticism about the existence of ghosts and spirits. Nor did he
deny that there were greater powers and authority than the human. On one
occasion he referred to the spirits as superior judges who would make good
use of talent and virtue when human judgment fails:
The Master said of Chung-kung [Zhonggong], “Should a bull born of
plough cattle have a sorrel coat and well-formed horns, would the spirits
of the mountains and rivers allow it to be passed over even if we felt it
was not good enough to be used?” (Analects 6.6)
On other occasions, he alluded to the impossibility of fooling Heaven (tian)
(Analects 9.12) and the futility of praying to various deities, never mind which
was considered more powerful, if one “offended against Heaven” (Analects
3.13). In these passages, although it seems that supernatural forces reward
good behavior, it is important to understand that the behavior would not
be truly virtuous if done for the sake of being rewarded.
According to Confucius, the appropriate religious attitude to adopt
(which “can be called wisdom”) is “to keep one’s distance from the gods
and spirits while showing them reverence” (Analects 6.22). To ask for or
expect favors presumes too much familiarity and closeness. To think that
we could “bribe” deities and ghosts, or even “serve” them would be equally
presumptuous. If there was any religious skepticism on Confucius’ part,
it had to do with human ability to know or to offer anything that could
“bribe” or “serve” the supernatural beings. One might see Confucius’ own
reticence about deities (Analects 7.21) as a deliberate acknowledgment of
human ignorance. Nor is the nature of deities the only religious knowledge
disclaimed by Confucius:
Some asked about the theory of the Ti sacrifice.
The Master said, “It is not something I understand, for whoever
understands it will be able to manage the Empire as easily as if he had it
here,” pointing to his palm. (Analects 3.11)
Rather than affirming the efficacy of the ritual in politics, given that he
knew more about ancient rituals than any of his contemporaries, he was
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more likely discouraging the interlocutor from pursuing an unproductive
and perhaps even illegitimate line of inquiry.46
While sacrificing to ancestors expresses reverence and continues the filial
piety owed to living parents, we have no way of knowing how to “serve”
the dead or the supernatural, and should therefore focus on the service we
owe to those who are alive:
Chi-lu [Jilu a.k.a. Zilu] asked how the spirits of the dead and the gods
should be served. The Master said, “You are not able even to serve man.
How can you serve the spirits?”
“May I ask about death?”
“You do not understand even life. How can you understand death?”
(Analects 11.12)
This passage is often quoted to highlight the “this-worldly” emphasis of
Confucianism. It is, however, a “this-worldliness” that does not deny the
existence of other dimensions or their relevance to human existence. It does
not imply an opposition of the sacred and the secular. On the contrary, if
we must use those binary terms at all, then the sacred is very much to be
found in the secular; the religious life, Confucian spirituality, begins very
much with what is of “this world” in human daily living.47
Skepticism about the existence of gods and spirits was probably not
unknown in Confucius’ time. Analects 3.12 explains that a common saying
“‘Sacrifice as if present’ is taken to mean ‘sacrifice to the gods as if the gods
were present.”’ This hints at a need to counter skepticism due to human
inability to detect the presence of supernatural beings. Rather than adopting
an agnostic, Pascalian, “play-safe” approach to the existence of supernatural
beings, Confucius understood the saying “Sacrifice as if present” differently,
in terms of personal involvement and commitment: “Unless I take part in
46 The Ti is a ritual only the Shang kings could legitimately perform since “it describe[s] the ceremony
for worship of deceased Shang kings.” Hsu, Cho-Yun and Katheryn M. Linduff (1988). Western Chou
Civilization. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 102. Therefore, Ti is not a ritual others could or
should appropriate for the sake of its alleged political efficacy. See also Confucius’ disapproval of the three
powerful families of Lu for their usurping of royal prerogatives in ritual matters, in Analects 3.1 and 3.2.
47 One of the most influential works written in English on Confucianism in the 20th century is Fingarette,
Herbert (1972). The Secular as Sacred. New York: Harper. This is also supported by Mary Evelyn Tucker’s
introduction to Confucian Spirituality: “The art of Confucian spirituality might be described as discovering
one’s cosmological being amidst daily affairs…. This is not a tradition that seeks liberation outside the
world, but rather one that affirms the spirituality of becoming more fully human within the world. The
way of immanence is the Confucian Way” (Tu and Tucker, p. 1).
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a sacrifice, it is as if I did not sacrifice” (Analects 3.12). This parallels his
approach to the moral life which begins with personal cultivation (Analects
12.1) and emphasizes the individual’s personal ethical responsibility to both
self and community. Just as one should not allow material comforts or lack
thereof to stand in the way of one’s practice of virtue, one’s commitment to
the practice of sacrifice takes priority over those considerations. Both moral
and religious commitments require overcoming selfish preoccupations:
The Master said, “With Yü [Yu] I can find no fault. He ate and drank
the meanest fare while making offerings to ancestral spirits and gods with
the utmost devotion proper to a descendent. He wore coarse clothes
while sparing no splendour in his robes and caps on spiritual occasions.
He lived in lowly dwellings while devoting all his energy to the building
of irrigation canals. With Yü [Yu] I can find no fault.” (Analects 8.21)
This passage resonates with Confucius’ recognition that it is difficult and
therefore especially laudable to remain virtuous in adversity. He praised
those who are “poor but delighting in the way; wealthy yet observant of the
rites” (Analects 1.15) and he contrasted the exemplary person’s preoccupation
with “what is moral” (yi ) with the petty person’s preoccupation with
“what is profitable” (li ).48 Analects 8.21 turns from the legendary sageking’s religious devotion to his devotion to the community’s welfare.
Indeed, his ability to fulfill both his religious and social commitments in
adversity stemmed from his virtue, for “One who is not benevolent (ren )
cannot remain long in straitened circumstances” (Analects 4.2; see also 15.2).
The religious and the social are once again brought together, as deserving
similarly reverent attention and care, in Confucius’ explication of the virtue
of ren to his disciple Chung-kung (Zhonggong): “When employing the
services of the common people behave as though you were officiating at an
important sacrifice” (Analects 12.2). The religious and the moral are therefore
not mutually autonomous realms. In Analects 1.9, Confucius’ student,
Master Tseng (Zeng), recommended “being circumspect in funerary services
and continuing sacrifices to the distant ancestors” as a way to nurture
“the common people’s virtue.” Religious practices were (and still often
are) valued for their moral consequences in this world. In Confucianism,
religious commitment is a continuation of moral commitment.
48 Analects 4.16; see also 14.12. This contrast between yi (the appropriate or right) and li (gain or profit)
subsequently became a central theme in the Confucian tradition.
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For Confucians, the only way to reach the spiritual is through moral
cultivation and a life dedicated to realizing the ideal of a harmonious
) — as the Great Learning
community of virtuous exemplars (junzi
describes it, beginning with personal cultivation, ordering the family,
expanding to governing the state well, and finally bringing peace to all under
heaven.49 We see the process of spirituality emerging from the moral life in
Confucius’ own synoptic account of the key stages of his life in Analects 2.4:
The Master said, “At fifteen I set my heart on learning;
At thirty I took my stand;
At forty I came to be free from doubts;
At fifty I understood the Decree of Heaven;
At sixty my ear was attuned;
At seventy I followed my heart’s desire without overstepping the line.”
The spiritual arises only when a high level of moral achievement has been
attained — Confucius himself only reached it at the age of fifty (tianming
is usually understood to have religious import). His achievement at
seventy is the highest moral virtuosity; at the same time, the coincidence of
happiness and virtue could be understood as a liberating spirituality.
Religious life is therefore not a matter of occasionally carrying out rituals
that are intended to achieve some specific limited purposes. Instead, it is a
matter of striving to live the most moral life possible, all the time:
The Master was seriously ill. Tzu-lu [Zilu] asked permission to offer a
prayer. The Master said, “Was such a thing ever done?” Tzu-lu [Zilu]
said, “Yes, it was. The prayer offered was as follows: pray thus to the
gods above and below.” The Master said, “In that case, I have long been
offering my prayers.” (Analects 7.35)
Confucius’ question did not arise from ignorance of the religious custom; he
was questioning, and implicitly criticizing, Tzu-lu’s superstitious attempt to
“cure” his illness through prayers — a typical “worship for favors” act that
49 For a translation of The Great Learning, see Chan, Wing-tsit (1963). A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
, is a chapter from
Princeton: Princeton University Press, chap. 4, pp. 84–94. This text, the Daxue
the Book of Rites (Li Ji
), which together with another Li Ji chapter, the Zhongyong
, the Mencius
and the Analects, was included by Song dynasty Confucian, Zhu Xi, in the Four Books, which became
the core curriculum of Confucian education and Civil Service examinations in China from the Yuan
dynasty onwards. (Legge translated the Zhongyong as “Doctrine of the Mean”; Tu Wei-ming translated
it as “Centrality and Commonality”; more recently Roger Ames and David Hall translate it as “Focusing
the Familiar”.) Rodney Taylor considered self-cultivation to be “the act of individual religiosity” in the
Confucian context (1986, p. 22).
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Confucius himself rejected. If the prayer were not aimed specifically and
futilely at attempting to change one’s worldly circumstances, but a show of
reverence to “gods above and below,” then Confucius considered his whole
life, in his striving for moral perfection and service to all under heaven, to
be in itself such a religious act.
THE MORAL ROOTS OF POLITICAL LEGITIMACY
Rather than ghosts and spirits, which point to what most would
consider a more primitive “religiousness,” philosophers debating whether
Confucianism is religious often focus on the concept of tian ( ) as an abstract
absolute or transcendence. Often translated as “Heaven,” tian in one sense
refers to the “round dome” that stretches over everything in early Chinese
cosmology, and hence tianxia (
), “all under heaven,” means “the world”
for the early Chinese. It sometimes refers to the abode of deities, but is also
), “Son of Heaven”) that
used in forms (e.g., the emperor as tianzi (
raise questions of whether it refers to some anthropomorphic supreme deity
intended to replace the Shang people’s supreme deity Ti (which is already
somewhat impersonal and abstract). The majority of scholars consider tian
to be transcendent but not anthropomorphic. However, transcendence
in Confucianism is often understood differently from transcendence in
the Judeo-Christian tradition. For example, Confucian scholars have
claimed that Confucian transcendence is “immanent transcendence” which
undermines the commonly accepted opposition between immanence and
transcendence. I agree with those who maintained that concepts of
transcendence and the absolute are imported into the Analects.50
For this chapter, the transcendence debate is of interest in so far as a
transcendent divinity is also the source of absolute power and authority,
because such divine nature is the source of ultimate, eternal, objective and
absolute principles since it cannot be limited by any earthly or human
50 For an argument against transcendence in Confucianism, see Hall and Ames (1987), pp. 204–208,
232–237; Hall, David L. and Roger T. Ames (1998). Thinking From the Han: Self, Truth, and Transcendence
in Chinese and Western Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 189–252; see also
Ames, Roger T. and Henry Rosemont Jr. (trans.) (1998). Introduction. In The Analects of Confucius: A
Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine, pp. 46–48. For differing views in this debate, see Tu,
Wei-ming (1985). Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation. Albany: State University of New
York Press, p. 137; Liu, Shu-hsien (1972). The Confucian Approach to the Problem of Transcendence
and Immanence. Philosophy East and West, 22(1), 45–52.
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powers. Political absolutism may appropriate the religious absolute, as in a
theocratic state, or it may result from the lack of a religious absolute imposing
limits on earthly rulers. Rebutting the claims about tian being transcendent
and absolute would undermine theocratic political absolutism. However,
Hegel attributed China’s total subordination to the emperor to tian’s lack of
transcendence, and therefore a lack of the independent realm of the Ideal,
to rein him in.51 Denying tian transcendence leaves this second type of
political absolutism unscathed. I wish to meet the challenge of absolutism by
showing that, even if one reads tian as absolute and transcendent, and central
to Confucian religiousness, the religious dimension of the Analects still does
not support the interpretation of Confucianism as political absolutism, or an
oppressive absolutist moralism. My chosen approach has the advantage of
working on both kinds of political absolutism mentioned above.
), “Heaven’s mandate” or “Decree
The concept of tian in tianming (
of Heaven,” as a theory of political legitimacy which developed in the
transition from the Shang to Zhou dynasty is critical in understanding secular
religiosity in Chinese politics.52 The support provided by religion to Shang
political power depended upon the potency of royal ancestors, partly due
to their achievement when alive, and further maintained by ritual sacrifices
by their royal descendents. The Shang rulers’ ability to ensure continued
“blessings” from royal ancestors interceding for them in the spirit world
with an impact on the human world, that is their religious ritual efficacy,
supported their political reign.53 From this perspective, political failures
might be blamed on the religious inadequacies of rulers, but what transpired
when the Shang dynasty fell was much more complex. The Zhou dynasty
justified what might be seen as revolt of a vassal against its overlord in terms
of a change of “Heaven’s mandate,” which was not due to any failure in
religious responsibility in terms of ritual performance but instead due to
moral failure on the part of the last Shang ruler. Rather than something
51 Speirs, E.B. and J. Burdon Sanderson (trans.) (1895). Hegel, G.W.F., Lectures on the Philosophy of
Religion. London: Kegan Paul, vol. 1, p. 337.
52 For more details on development of the understanding of tian and tianming during the Shang-Zhou
transition, see the discussion in chapter 3, “The Conquest of Shang and the Mandate of Heaven,” in
Hsu and Linduff, pp. 101–111.
53 For historical evidence and argument that the Shang king was also a shaman, see Chang, Kwang-Chih
(1983). Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, pp. 44–55. See also discussion of kingship and sacrifice in Ching, Julia (1997). Mysticism
and Kinship in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 22–29.
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that only began with them, the Zhou extended this concept of political
legitimacy retrospectively to all preceding dynasties.
Since then, the doctrine of tianming became the dominant understanding
of moral political legitimacy in China: change of the mandate occurs to
ensure that the most virtuous would rule the world. In theory, there
was a moralizing of political legitimacy. In practice, the moralizing of
political legitimacy was turned on its head almost from the beginning. Moral
meritocracy was never practiced consistently in the hereditary monarchy
that persisted in China for more than two millennia. The subsequent passing
of the empire from one ruler to the next, from father to son, was presented
as proof that the virtue of the royal house remained sufficient to retain
the mandate. To persuade those for whom lineage was still of paramount
importance, Zhou rulers began calling themselves tianzi, “Son of Heaven.”
For others whose conception of Heaven was not anthropomorphic, this title
which came with the mandate nevertheless elevated the ruler above ordinary
human beings. It also signifies the appropriation of heaven’s (absolute)
authority by de facto political power.
The Zhou concept of political legitimacy therefore shifted the emphasis
from the religious to the moral without repudiating the former — religious
support for, and legitimation of, political power depend primarily on moral
achievement. Therefore, Confucius may be said to be “following Zhou”
in making the religious dependent on the moral, although I contend that
he did not follow it all the way to condone the political appropriation
),
of the moral in practice. Although he did not talk about tiandao (
“the Way of Heaven” (Analects 5.13), which later became the common
Confucian term for the moral way, the “moralizing” of tian is certainly
evident in the Analects. Tzu-kung (Zigong) said of the Master, “Heaven set
him upon the path to sagehood” (Analects 9.6). Confucius himself claimed
that “Heaven is the author of the virtue that is in [him]” (Analects 7.23). After
an audience with Confucius, the border official of Yi informed Confucius’
followers,
The empire has long been without the Way. Heaven is about to use
your Master as the wooden tongue for a bell. (Analects 3.24)
The expectation that Confucius would rouse the empire to the moral life
through his teachings was accompanied by Confucius’ own sense of this
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moral mission. Instead of the Zhou idea of the ruler’s political legitimacy,
Confucius understood tianming in terms of the individual’s moral mission
when he claimed to know tianming at fifty (Analects 2.3).54 It is heaven’s
mandate as moral mission that the exemplary person stands in awe of,
unlike the petty person who was ignorant of heaven’s mandate (Analects
16.8). Although one could argue that there is a political dimension to the
Confucian moral mission, the moral is nevertheless of primary importance.
Tian is the highest moral judge and authority, bearing witness to the
moral behavior of humans. Hence, Confucius swore his innocence during
his audience with the notorious Nan-tzu (Nanzi) by calling on tian “to
curse him” if he had done anything improper (Analects 6.28). Immoral
behavior probably offends tian; in contrast to other deities who might accept
“bribes” in conventional belief, tian acts as an impartial, incorruptible, and
omniscient judge from whom no one could hide their vice (Analects 3.13).
In disapproving of Tzu-lu (Zilu) sending his disciples to serve as retainers
for the seriously-ill Confucius when the latter, being no longer in office,
was not entitled to them, Confucius asked, “Am I going to fool tian?” (9.12)
Appearances may fool fellow human beings, but the judgment that really
matters is that of tian, which cannot be deceived. Similarly, when the world
fails to appreciate virtue, the virtuous can, perhaps, still count on being
understood by tian:
The Master said, “I do not complain against Heaven, nor do I blame
Man. In my studies, I start from below and get through to what is up
above. If I am understood at all, it is, perhaps, by Heaven.” (Analects
14.35)
Besides a belief that he had received some kind of moral mission from
tian, Confucius also referred to tian as the model for the highest moral
achievement:
The Master said, “Great indeed was Yao as ruler! How lofty! It is heaven
that is great and it was Yao who modeled himself upon it. He was
so boundless that the common people were not able to put a name
to his virtues. Lofty was he in his successes and brilliant was he in his
accomplishments!” (Analects 8.19)
54 Although Confucians later gave Confucius the title of “uncrowned king” (suwang
), this is mostly
metaphorical; there is certainly no indication in the Analects that Confucius’ political ambition ever went
beyond being a virtuous official at some ruler’s court.
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On one occasion, Confucius himself expressed a desire to model himself
on tian:
The Master said, “I am thinking of giving up speech.” Tzu-kung
[Zigong] said, “If you did not speak, what would there be for us, your
disciples, to transmit?” The Master said, “What does Heaven ever say?
Yet there are the four seasons going around and there are the hundred
things coming into being. What does Heaven ever say?” (Analects 17.19)
The passage hints at tian having a special kind of efficacy. This would support
other passages such as Analects 7.23 and 9.5 in which Confucius dismissed
serious threats against his life on the basis of his heaven-nurtured virtue, and
that it was up to tian whether “this culture” vested in him should survive
or not. This might be read as expression of a faith in tian as a supernatural
power that will secure the moral order eventually.
There is little doubt that tian has both religious and moral connotations
in the Analects. What is less certain is whether Confucius believed that
tian had efficacy in the human world, particularly in politics, and would
ensure the triumph of virtue.55 Analects 17.19 above is ambiguous. One
might read this as “faith” in the eventual realizing of moral order as
“natural,” or it might mean that Confucius, in his frustration at not
making much of an impact with his teachings, wanted to let things
take their “natural” course. Confucius might be rejecting the efficacy of
“verbal” teaching and seeking to model himself on tian, which is efficacious
without speaking. However, this efficacy is that of the natural realm,
which might be distinct and separate from the moral. There is evidence
of contradictory trends of thinking about tian in Confucius’ times. Some
viewed it as a supreme religious entity and/or supreme moral authority;
others came to view it as “nature” which is neither moral nor religious.
Yuri Pines argued that during the Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn) and
Zhanguo (Warring States) period (722–222 BCE), “it was the thinkers’
reconsideration of the role of Heaven and deities in everyday life that made
new departures in political and ethical thought possible.” In particular,
“more and more Chunqiu statesmen gradually arrived at the conclusion that
55 Cf. Perkins, Franklin (2006). Reproaching Heaven: The Problem of Evil in Mengzi. Dao: A Journal
of Comparative Philosophy, 5(2), 293–312. Perkins explores this question within the larger context of the
problem of evil. He argues that tian in the Mencius is not benevolent or just in ensuring that the virtuous
always triumphs; tian is ethical only in the sense in that ethical imperatives derive from tian.
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human affairs should be settled here and now, without resort to divine
authority.”56
The merging of supreme divine efficacy with supreme moral authority
became increasingly difficult to maintain as the Chinese world moved
towards political and moral chaos. While Confucius’ contemporaries
commonly believed that “wealth and honor depend on Heaven” (Analects
12.5), there was no guarantee that these would go to the virtuous, and in
reality it seldom did. If tian’s authority were moral, then when the vicious
seemed to profit while the virtuous suffered, one would have cause to
“complain against tian” — why did it not stop such atrocities if it were
also supremely efficacious? Although Confucius claimed that he did not
“complain against tian” (Analects 14.35), he clearly could not help doing
so — exclaiming “Heaven has bereft me! Heaven has bereft me!” — when
his favorite and most virtuous student, Yen Yüan (Yan Yuan a.k.a. Yanhui)
died prematurely (Analects 11.9). Despite his almost fatalistic “leave it to tian”
attitude in extreme circumstances when there was not much he could do,
implying that his virtue would ensure his survival if not prosperity, it would
be difficult to say that tian ensured the political efficacy of Confucius’ virtue,
certainly not during his lifetime and arguably not even later. Confucianism
gained political power during the dynasties when it served as the state
orthodoxy, but in terms of putting Confucius’ philosophical ideals into
practice, that had been at best a “mixed blessing” since whatever benefits
it brought to the practice of government in imperial China, the ideals
were also distorted by political power and became mired in the historical
malpractices of imperial politics, and hence blamed for China’s failures in
modern times.
Religion enhanced political efficacy during the Shang dynasty. It
legitimized political power on the basis of virtue in the Zhou dynasty. The
tension between efficacy and legitimacy, already present in the Analects,
became a central problem for Confucianism. Its central commitment to
government by virtue means that, even when the cost is efficacy, Confucians
cannot sacrifice the moral for political success, or even declare the political
to be amoral, since the task of government is understood as part of a larger
moral ideal: “To govern is to correct. If you set an example by being
56 Pines, p. 56.
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correct, who would dare to be incorrect” (Analects 12.17). Hence, religion
cannot provide any separate sanction for politics apart from the moral.
Instead, it serves to elevate moral authority above the merely human and
conventional. Religious “faith” in politics, for Confucius and his followers,
takes the form of belief against all odds that the virtuous will eventually
triumph, not in being rewarded in the afterlife, in some timeless heaven or
paradise, but in this human world, given time enough, in the judgment of
history:
Duke Ching [Jing] of Ch’i [Qi] had a thousand teams of four horses
each, but on his death the common people were unable to find anything
to praise him for, whereas Po Yi [Bo Yi] and Shu Ch’i [Shu Qi] starved
under Mount Shou Yang and yet to this day the common people still
sing their praises. (Analects 16.12)57
CONFUCIAN MORALISM: ABSOLUTE MORAL
AUTHORITY WITHOUT ABSOLUTISM
Acknowledging tian as an absolute having both religious and moral meaning
in its teachings strengthens the view of Confucianism as a form of moralism,
in which moral authority is absolute. It is considered absolute in being higher
than any other authority, which must ultimately derive its legitimacy from
that absolute source; it is considered absolute in encompassing all within
its scope. Political absolutism in China has often worked by hijacking this
moral absolutism, by presenting itself as the earthly recipient of that absolute
authority. To resist this political appropriation of the moral, it should
be emphasized that, from the Confucian perspective, while the virtuous
should be in government, it does not mean that those who made it into
government at any time are virtuous. According to my interpretation of
the Analects, Confucianism should resist illegitimate appropriation of moral,
and by extension spiritual or religious, authority by de facto political powers
57 In the Zuo’s Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals (24th year of Duke Xiang), Shu Sunbao’s
explication of an ancient saying, “dying but not decaying” (si er buxiu
), which has come to
be understood as the Chinese conception of immortality — establishing words (liyan
), establishing
), and establishing virtue (lide
) — lauded the last as highest. The conversation
works (ligong
was supposed to have taken place in 549 BCE, when Confucius was two years old. Yang Bojun
(1981), Chunqiu Zuo Zhuan Zhu
(Annotated Zuo Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn
Annals) (Beijing: Zhonghua), vol. 3, pp. 1087–1088; Legge, James (1960). The Chinese Classics, 2nd Ed.
Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, vol. 5, p. 507.
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lacking in Confucian virtue. Those in politics are not to be the judges of
people’s morality (or of religion); they are themselves to be judged for their
virtue, understood mainly in terms of benefiting those they govern.
If one manages to resist political absolutism passing itself off as Confucian,
could one then be faced with the problem of oppression by moral absolutism?
Absolute morality per se does not oppress, any more than absolute truth
does — and not just because the absolute probably does not exist. Oppression
is committed by individuals and human organizations claiming to possess
such absolutes and seeking to force their “absolutes” on others. While there
are clearly authoritative figures within Confucianism, from sages to scholars
and teachers, recognized as being “authorities” on Confucian teachings, it
is worth noting that Confucius himself never claimed to have any absolute
authority. Confucians should emulate his humility by accepting fallibility in
their teaching and attempts to put Confucian ideals into practice. No matter
how convinced they might be about any moral matter, that fallibility should
stop them from coercing others who are not persuaded by one’s view.
The abhorrence of coercion is evident in Confucius’ resistance to use
coercive means to govern, such as punitive legislations and the death penalty.
Coercion, working through people’s fears, may be effective in social control
by changing people’s immediate behavior, but it fails if the desired result is
moral transformation:
The Master said, “Guide them by edicts, keep them in line with
punishments, and the common people will stay out of trouble but will
have no sense of shame. Guide them by virtue, keep them in line with the
rites, and they will, besides having a sense of shame, reform themselves.”
(Analects 2.3)
The ability of the virtuous to transform others should be natural, not
coercive:
Chi K’ang Tzu [Jikang Zi] asked Confucius about government, saying,
“What would you think if, in order to move closer to those who possess
the Way, I were to kill those who do not follow the Way?”
Confucius answered, “In administrating your government, what
need is there for you to kill? Just desire the good yourself and the
common people will be good. The virtue of the gentleman is like wind;
the virtue of the small man is like grass. Let the wind blow over and the
grass is sure to bend.” (Analects 12.19)
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In Confucian eyes, the people with the highest moral authority, the
sages, do not have to resort to coercion; therefore, those who do clearly
lack such authority:
The Master said, “If there was a ruler who achieved order without taking
any action, it was, perhaps, Shun. There was nothing for him to do but to
hold himself in a respectful posture and to face due south.” (Analects 15.5)
If Confucius subscribed to moral absolutism (which is itself debatable),
then its very moral character precludes the absolutism from depriving people
of their freedom. This non-oppressive moral absolutism has implications
for the Confucian view of the relationship between religion and state, and
religious freedom. There need not be vast differences between Confucians
and liberals in the tradition of John Locke or J.S. Mill in terms of policies on
religious freedom, although the underlying philosophical reasoning would
be quite different. Confucians would not argue for separation of religion
and the state, but would expect both to be governed by virtue. In the public
arena, political and religious behavior would probably be expected to live
up to a minimum of benevolence, or more appropriate, “humaneness” (ren),
which would preclude actions that harm others physically, or deprive them
of a basic livelihood. Those who transgressed these minimum standards could
be stopped by force if necessary in the interest of protecting the people, but
excessive force and penalties should not be imposed as those would in turn
be inhumane. While Confucians would disapprove of activities (including
religious activities) which they see as contrary to the Confucian way, and
which thereby obstruct moral cultivation and spirituality, they would not
coerce the participants, although they should try to persuade them to see the
error of their ways. Confucius’ tolerance and participation in the customary
religious practices of his times, despite his very different religious sensibilities,
supports the case for accommodating religious diversity (and disagreement
with Confucianism), and using pedagogical efforts and exemplary influence
rather than coercion to persuade critics and gain followers for the Confucian
way, both politically and spiritually, but first and foremost, morally.
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Chapter
8
State and Secularism, the French
Laïcité System
ANNE-CÉCILE ROBERT
HENRI PEÑA-RUIZ∗
Secularism in Europe is a living concept defining itself according to principles that
have to be re-affirmed regularly in a variety of ways and reflecting the special
history of each country. The secular transformation of the state in Europe has led
to four major systems defined by the political status they give to religions. But, in
spite of the variety of systems of secularity in Europe, the same questions seem to
appear everywhere. When looking closely at each legal system, one discovers that
there is a community of aspirations and a basic corpus of rights.
This chapter focuses on the French laïcité system. Laïcité is akin to universalism,
which is the essence of the republic, and defines a larger goal than secularism itself.
Secularism only means transferring the powers of political and social regulation to
civil authorities. It does not necessarily imply an equal status for all philosophical
options or beliefs. Recent years have shown a renewal of conflicts about the status
of religions in Europe: tribunals have been asked to ban books or movies because
people felt their religious beliefs were insulted. There are many reasons for that
phenomenon. The end of communist regimes in eastern Europe and the policy of
the Vatican under Pope John Paul II have led to a renewal of the Catholic Church
there. At the same time, the growing influence of Islam has brought new questions
about the separation of the public and the private spheres. Political and judicial
answers to those questions lead to the questioning of the identity of Europe itself
at a time of globalization.
In French, we have a special word for secularism: the word laïcité. Laïcité is
derived from the Greek word laos meaning population, and therefore refers
to a principle of union of the population grounded on values ensuring that
∗ Author of Histoires de toujours (Flammarion, Paris, 2008), Histoire de la laïcité (Gallimard, Paris, 2005),
Dieu et Marianne, philosophie de la laïcité (PUF, Paris, 2005).
123
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nobody will be discriminated because of his or her spiritual choices. The
Greek language has two words for people: laos and demos. Laos refers to the
people as an indivisible community represented by public institutions that
protect their rights and freedom. Demos refers to the people as a political
community of citizens; it has led to democracy as the political system
expressing the sovereignty of the people.1 Regis Debray’s works establish a
distinction between the people as an historical identity and the people as a
political field of expression. In the first case, the people are an identity prior
to the political debate; in the second case, the people can build a common
identity through the political debate. In both cases, historical identities exist.
In the first case, they limit the political field; in the second case, they are
only one element of discussion.2
Laïcité has emerged slowly through history. In France, the 1905 Act of
Separation of Churches and State is the result of a secular process starting
with the religious wars of the 15th and 16th centuries. It has strengthened
through the Enlightenment philosophy clarifying the opposition between
the secular power of the Church and the will for an emancipated human
character. In the early days of the French Revolution, separation was not
even an idea, even if the political role of the Church in supporting the
monarchy was obvious. The first measure taken by the revolutionaries in
1791 was to take control of the Church by paying the priests their salaries
(Constitution civile du clergé). But that could not last because a lot of people
did not trust the Catholic Church anymore and did not believe in God
either. They believed in politics. The idea that there was a political field
existing by itself, without dealing with the question of personal and cultural
identities, started to grow. When the 1905 Act was adopted, the evolution
was almost complete and France expressed itself as a political nation. Most
of the authors of the 1905 Act believed in God, but they understood that
the nation was something by itself.
Laïcité refers to the idea of Res Publica (republic). The republic addresses
everybody — believers, atheists and agnostics alike — and cannot therefore
favor anybody. What pertains to some cannot be imposed on all. The unity
1 Henri Peña-Ruiz (1999). Dieu et Marianne. Philosophie de la laïcité. Paris: Presses universitaires de France
(PUF).
2 Regis Debray (1981). Critique de la raison politique. Paris: Gallimard.
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of a population is based on the fundamental correlation between freedom of
conscience and the equality of the rights of all men, whatever their spiritual
choices. Laïcité is akin to universalism, which is the essence of the republic,
and it defines a larger goal than secularism itself. It does not only mean to
protect all religious identities; it aims to build a common field based on
reason. Secularism only means transferring powers of political and social
regulation to civil authorities. It does not necessarily imply equal status for
all philosophical options or beliefs. In Sweden, for example, the state and
the Lutheran church are separated, but the Lutheran church still has special
rights that other religions do not have.
The word laïcité exists only in French, but that does not mean that support
for laïcité does not exist elsewhere in Europe. It does not mean that laïcité
does not exist in countries other than France either. In fact, secularism in
Europe is a living concept defining itself according to principles that have
to be re-affirmed regularly in a variety of ways, reflecting the special history
of each country. Recent years have shown a renewal of conflicts over the
status of religions in Europe. Tribunals have been asked to ban books or
movies because people felt their religious beliefs had been insulted. The
end of communist regimes in eastern Europe and the policy of the Vatican
under John Paul II have led to a renewal of the Catholic Church there. At
the same time, the growing influence of Islam has brought new questions
about the separation of the public and the private sphere.
The secular recasting of the state in Europe has led to four major systems
defined by the political status they give to religions.3 We will describe three
of them and emphasize the laïcité system because it is the less known system
and, in our opinion, the most interesting one.4
In the first system, one particular religion is the official religion of the
state. It is the case, for example, in England, Greece and Denmark. In
England, the Queen is also a religious authority. She is the head of the
Anglican Church. The private life of Prince Charles is therefore a public
matter and his divorce was announced by Prime Minister John Major in
the House of Commons. Public events often have religious references. For
3 Since the end of the communist regimes, no country in Europe favors atheism over religion.
4 The fourth system is the socialist version of secularism. See Chapters 17 and 18 of this volume. (The
Editors)
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a long time, in Greece, identity papers mentioned the religious faith of
the bearer.
In those countries, the official religion enjoys a privileged status, which
the other religions often criticize. At a time of growing religious diversity
in Europe, equality of treatment of different religions becomes a frequent
demand. Moreover, the idea of an official religion itself goes against the
principle of equality of rights for all citizens, whether they have religious
beliefs or not.
In the second system, religions in general enjoy the benefit of a legal
status in recognition of their spiritual and social role. Therefore, the state
considers them of public interest and bestows upon them financial support.
This system is sometimes called Concordat.5 In Germany, Portugal, Italy
and Ireland, education and healthcare are partly in the hands of religious
institutions, justifying a certain amount of taxes collected by the state being
given to churches. However, some say that the state should not abandon
its responsibilities in the fields of education and healthcare. And people
with no religious beliefs feel discriminated. In Germany, for example, the
Constitution of 1949 defines churches as partners of the state. One percent
of the public taxes goes to churches and, every year, citizens have to pick
the religion they want to support. Last year witnessed what was called the
“quarrel over the crucifix.” In eastern Germany, some citizens had sued the
state for installing the crucifix (a symbol of Christian religions) in public
schools. The protestors based their case on the principle of freedom of
conscience. The tribunal ruled in their favor and the crucifix had to be
removed.
THE FRENCH SYSTEM OF LAICITÉ
The secular recasting of the state, initiated in France with the Acts of 1881
and 1886, followed by the Act of Separation of Churches and State of
5 The Concordat is a treaty between the king and the Pope organizing religious activities in a country.
The French Emperor Napoleon signed a Concordat with the Catholic Church in 1813. The Concordat
was abolished in France by the 1905 Act. Today, two French districts (Alsace and Moselle) still live
under the Concordat because they had been conquered by Germany at the time of the 1905 Act. Now
that Alsace and Moselle are French again, some ask that the Concordat should also be abolished in those
districts.
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9 December 1905, expresses the very etymology of the word: the Res Publica
addresses everybody.
In that sense, secularity is akin to universalism, which is the essence
of the republic. But it could not occur spontaneously. There had to be
a movement to emancipate the current law from religious interferences.
Hence, the republic is neither atheistic nor religious. It no longer arbitrates
between beliefs but arbitrates between actions, and is devoted only to the
general interest. Marianne, the feminine icon of such a republic, succeeds
Caesar. The latter is the emblematic name for the traditional power of
domination which had long performed the functions of the state and signed
a contract of mutual service with religions. This transition puts an end to
the confusion between the temporal and the spiritual, and in a way liberates
them from the corruptions inflicted on both.
At the same time, the ethical autonomy of the private sphere is
guaranteed. No conception of the good life can dictate law or extend the
normative function of the law beyond the interest of the citizens. Laws
tend to evolve from prescription to proscription. Indeed, human ethical and
spiritual autonomy implies that current laws cannot shape one’s private life
and they merely prohibit what might encroach on others’ freedoms. There
must be conditions to guarantee this autonomy. The secular emancipation
of the law goes together with a strict demarcation of the scope of the law.
Respect of the private sphere, which is independent from the public sphere,
imposes limits on the role of the state in order to preserve the autonomy
of each citizen. The effect is to protect man’s inner life from any intrusion
of the state, which emancipates religious as well as atheist spirituality. Kant
argues that the paternalist figure of the prince trying to dictate to his subjects
how to be happy is the worst type of covert despotism. Being treated in this
way, the people are neither free and autonomous, nor lucid. The republic
is not made up of subjects — in the sense that they are not subjected to
anyone or anything. As Rousseau points out, the republic is made up of
citizens. They craft the laws which they must obey. The two meanings,
both active and passive, of the word “subject” become reciprocal in a
democratic sovereignty, which is the collective form of political autonomy.
Such autonomy has a variety of forms for the individual as well as for society.
The individual has the status of a subject of rights, while the people function
as the sovereign authority.
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The type of union formed on that model cannot be interpreted in terms
of communities, for it would mean that the people have a right over their
members just as the king had a right over his subjects, i.e., according to a
unilateral domination instead of a reciprocal sovereignty belonging to each
and to all.
Autonomy itself requires a culture or an activity of the enlightened
mind, which is the product of a creative and thinking humanity. Mastering
knowledge and skills paves the way for rational thinking to understand basic
principles and their implications. This secularization in the cultural realm
is the condition for an enlightened citizenship, and it involves schools and
education. To make knowledge and rational judgment universal, their active
transmission must happen regardless of the students’ economic situations
and free from religious interference. The role of the republican state is
henceforth to promote what would not spontaneously occur in civil society.
The concept of public school as a vector for education for all can perform this
role. Condorcet insists on that point in Les Mémoires sur l’instruction publiques
(Memoirs on Public Education), and Jules Ferry acted on it by promoting the
secularization of the French school system.
Obviously, if the ideal of a secular emancipation is not to ring hollow, it
must be concerned with social justice. According to Jean Jaurès, the initiator
of the 1905 Act of Separation, the republic must be at once secular and
social. The state must intervene in areas that are in accord with its duty. And
secular liberalism must display a resolute political will when the common
good is at stake. Any withdrawal of the state from the domains where its
intervention is justified amounts to paving the way free for power struggles
in the civil society. The realm of the media which tends to shape public
opinion is one of the features of these power struggles, as is also the realm
of economic and social powers. While the French republic abstains from
arbitrating between beliefs which are free and individual, it actively promotes
reflective knowledge and a taste for truth which is its duty to universalize
as well as social justice. Those two instruments of emancipation are indeed
decisive if secularity is not to become a mere injunction.
The denominational neutrality of the republic cannot be a vague ethicopolitical relativism. On the contrary, it goes together with values which are
essentially universal. Freed from any particular belief, these values are not
hostile to any religious or atheist humanism. They are simply neutral. The
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republican triptych (liberty, equality, fraternity) encompasses all these values,
which are acknowledged by the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The
secular ideal takes it at its word: liberty, in particular the liberty of conscience
based on the autonomy of judgment; equality, in particular equality amongst
atheists, different believers and agnostics; and fraternity, the source of a
common world for all.
Beyond its neutrality in the domain of spiritual choices, secularity finds
its expression in the non-religious nature of the public sphere. Preserving the
latter from the influences of any religious denomination and the preference
of any community, it ensures that a civic space of encounter and dialogue
is really open to all. At the same time, it is seeking common grounds and
general interest. This situation is a world away from communitarism which
breeds tensions and conflicts between the supporters of different norms.
Conflicts often arise at the frontiers of specific communities. By staying
away from the religious differences which divide people, secularity can
allow their expressions in a self-reflective mode, which is a source of peace.
Because of its universalistic vocation, it is a principle of peace and concord. It
does not require the eradication of “differences.” Secularity provides room
for the differences to exist without negative impacts on the public sphere.
The differences have the potential to generate conflicts when they take an
aggressive and dominating turn.
Understood in this way, secularity covers simultaneously three things.
Firstly, a founding ideal links a certain idea of man and his freedom of action
with a certain idea of the political community. The ideal advocates equal
rights and the conditions for making it effective. Secondly, a legal system
of institutional separation and strict independence of State and Church
which guarantees freedom of conscience as well as equality. Finally, a
measured conception of the role of the state and public institutions that
differentiates between the different legitimate fields of intervention. The
ethical and spiritual field is the realm of free personal choice. Such autonomy
is in full accord with the principle of equality, where there is no room
for domination and privilege. Taking the individual as a unique subject
of rights does not imply indifference to the conditions needed by him or
her to exercise the rights. The measured regulation of social relations and
economic activity enhances individual rights. In this sense, secularity does
not encourage withdrawal to oneself. It does not confuse freedom of the
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individual with selfish individualism, nor the rejection of communitarism
with the negation of the essential character of social and collective life.
Secularity sets the conditions for free debate and possible disagreement, but
it cannot compromise itself. It is another matter if one challenges the essence
of secularity, in particular the strict equality between believers and atheists.
If its essence is compromised, then one cannot call this an “opening,” which
is in fact a debasement.
In France, laïcité entered the legal arena when laws were enacted to
free schools, public institutions, and the state from religious supervision.
It is essentially a separation of State and Churches, which rules out all
Concordat regimes. The official recognition of a certain religion involves
a double exclusion: that of other religions and that of non-religious forms
of spirituality. It encroaches on the public sphere, subjecting it to the
domination of religion. It makes no difference if several religions instead
of one are recognized. The Gallican, Concordat, or Anglican logic remains
closer to the traditional alliance between the throne and the altar than to
the secular emancipation of public power. Secularity is not just the religious
neutrality of the state. It is also its strictly non-religious character. The
concern for a civic space common to all excludes therefore any association
of the state and of public institutions with religion.
Laïcité is not against religion. After the 1905 Act, public boarding schools
accepted the presence of priests for the children who could not go back to
their village on Sundays and go to church. Most of the French presidents
have been Catholics, a prime minister was Jew, some ministers are Muslims.
The thing is that they have to be discreet and remain strictly neutral on
religious matters when in office. In this way, French laïcité is different
from the Turkish laïcité: Kemal prohibited religious outfits in the streets.
This has never been the case in France. Public institutions must not have
a religious or spiritual identity. But people are free to choose their faith
and express it through associations. Religious culture is not banned from
school even if there is no religious course in public schools. Religions are
presented amongst other cultural traditions such as the Greek or the Roman
mythologies, no more, no less. The idea of laïcité is to promote freedom
of choice and the ability for everyone to make up their minds over major
issues. It is useful to remember that in spite of our cultural differences, we are
all human beings. Laïcité emphasizes what links people, not what separates
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them. Truth is a social construction based on reasoning. Therefore, the
spheres of faith and reason must be separated. Reason is the major means
to build a common world. Ideas can be discussed; faith cannot be discussed.
School is the place where a taste for culture and science can be developed.
Faith can be taught in other places. This is the reason why, for example,
“intelligent design” cannot be taught in laic schools; it belongs to the sphere
of faith, not to the sphere of knowledge.
Secular emancipation was not the outcome of negotiation with the
dominant religious power which opposed it (Pope Pius X condemned it).
It was adopted through a democratic debate, during which every religion
had the opportunity to express its views. It is therefore an expression of
the sovereignty of the people. Many of the representatives of the National
Assembly who voted for the Act believed in God, but they also believed that
the church should not interfere with the state and political institutions. Emile
Combes, who was a minister, was a former priest. The present evolution
of the religious landscape in Europe has not suggested any need to revise
the secular principles. These principles were welcomed by the followers
of various religions of the time, i.e., Protestants, Jews, and Muslims, as
well as by agnostics and free-thinkers, and all the Catholics weary of the
theological and political compromises of their church. This background
helps us understand that the separation of the state from the churches is the
condition for the Republic to fully deserve its name. The state is free from
all religious domination while, at the same time, religions are free from
all political interference. The essence of secular law is not bound to the
dominant religions of the time, but to the demands which allow a republic
to conform to its fundamental universality, i.e., to respect and embody the
equality between believers and non-believers, as well as to display what
unites men beyond their differences.
The 9 December 1905 Act begins with two indivisible articles, grouped
under the heading “Title 1. Principles”:
Section 1: the Republic shall ensure freedom of conscience. It shall
guarantee free participation in religious worship, subject only to the
restrictions laid down hereinafter in the interest of public order.
Section 2: the Republic may not recognize, pay stipends to or subsidize
any religious denomination. Consequently, from 1 January in the
year following promulgation of this Act, all expenditure relating to
participation in worship shall be removed from State, region and
municipality budgets.
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Hence grouped under the same heading, the first two articles of the law
are obviously inseparable and are clearly referred to as principles. Religious
freedom is but one form of the freedom of conscience (Article 1) and is
viewed only as a particular illustration of the freedom. Having to coexist
with the freedom of choosing to be an atheist or an agnostic, the freedom of
opting for a religion obviously belongs to a more general category which is
the only one mentioned by the law. Insisting on “religious freedom” is in fact
preserving the privilege of a spiritual choice when the law henceforth rejects
all privileges. This is why Section 1 is inseparable from Section 2, which
stipulates that the Republic does not recognize any religious denomination.
This strictly means that it has moved from recognizing certain denominations
(before 1905, Catholicism, Lutheran and Reformed Protestantism and
Judaism) to renouncing all recognition. It is not passing from recognition of
some to recognition of all, as a multireligious or communitarist interpretation
would have it, but from a selective recognition to a strict non-recognition.
This principle of non-recognition is to be understood in its legal sense as
it confirms the fact that the state may not pay stipend or direct subsidy to
any church. It does not ignore, of course, the social existence of different
denominations or the atheistic or agnostic forms of conviction. Equality for
all is a key issue in such legal provisions as it reminds the people that the
state is only concerned with the general good. The 1905 Act does not just
stipulate that all churches are henceforth legally equal. It also extends this
equality to all spiritual choices, whether religious or not, by denying the
churches of any public status. Assigning religion to the private sphere entails
a radical secularization of the state. It declares itself incompetent in matters
of spiritual choice, and does not arbitrate between beliefs. Nor does the state
let them encroach on the public sphere to shape common norms. Separation
and abstention in precept, which Spinoza advocated in his A Theologicopolitical Treatise, is thus achieved. Most certainly, this abstention in precept,
the condition for complete spiritual freedom and actual equality between
atheists and believers, does not imply that the state does not acknowledge the
existence of worships. The 1905 Act takes them into account by integrating
their existence into the general case of the freedom of expression (whatever
the philosophy which inspires them) and of association.
Some religious buildings are owned by the state. Religious associations
may use them, so that they have their familiar places of worship as stipulated
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in Section 4. Section 13 provides for the creation of private law liturgical
associations to organize their use. These three articles obviously are no longer
about the constituent principles of secularity, but about the modality of
their enforcement and the smooth process of historical transition. They
are not part of the principles and do not express the norm of law. As to
the essential principle of respect of religious neutrality, Section 28 of the
1905 Act stipulates that: “It is henceforth forbidden to build or affix any
religious sign or emblem on public monuments or on any place whatever,
with the exception of religious buildings, burial places in cemeteries, funeral
monuments as well as museums or exhibitions.”
However, the Alsace-Moselle region is an exception. It has retained a
Concordat status, as those two districts in eastern France were under German
jurisdiction in 1905. In these districts, denominations are recognized and
subsidized, and religious study is taught to all children in public schools
except if their parents expressly ask for dispensation. The need for such a
request suggests that the norm is to attend religious study classes. Here is a
departure from the principle of the non-religious nature of public institutions
and the equality of citizens whatever their spiritual choice. Could one
imagine the opposite situation, i.e., a study of atheistic humanism for which
religious families would have to ask for a dispensation? This is contrary to
the principle that no one should be obliged to express one’s beliefs.
REMARKS AND PERSPECTIVES
(1) Recent years have seen a growing debate in France over the definition of
laïcité. French philosopher Jean Bauberot has criticized the lack of spirituality
of laïcité. He wrote that the public sphere cannot stay away from religiosity.6
But spirituality is not the problem of laïcité, and laïcité cannot be held
responsible for the emergence of nihilism in our societies. When President
Nicolas Sarkozy made his speech in favor of an “open laïcité” or a “positive
laïcité,” he seemed to side with Bauberot. Peña-Ruiz points out that Sarkozy
was going too far, especially when he said that the priests knew more
about morals than the teachers.7 People recognize that the French laïcité
6 Jean Bauberot (2007). Histoire de la laïcité en France, 4th Ed. Paris: PUF.
7 Jean Bauberot (2008). La laïcité expliquée à Nicolas Sarkozy et à ceux qui écrivent ses discours. Paris: Albin
Michel.
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system works. For example, France has the highest number of cross-culture
weddings in Europe. Nobody wants to lose that.
(2) In Europe, some countries have chosen what we could call “mixed
systems.” Belgium, for example, has established as early as 1831 a system
called “free churches in a free state.” Laïcité is officially recognized but it is
treated as a religious movement, one of the “pillars” of civil society. This is
odd because laïcité does not refer to any religious belief. It is the system that
guarantees the equality of all spiritual choices, religious and non-religious.
In Italy, the Constitution also recognizes the laïcité of the state; but at
the same time, churches — and particularly the Catholic Church — play a
special role in the public sphere of the society.
After the downfall of communist rule in Slovenia and Poland, where
church and state are separated, the Vatican is seeking to promote a greater
role for the Catholic Church in public schools.
(3) Three situations can result from religious differences. First, open
conflicts like the religious wars in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries
between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. Some Europeans fear
that the idea of a clash of civilizations suggested by some American politicians
and philosophers may lead to a new war of religions.
Second, a coexistence of communities that some would describe as a
“democracy of identities” and others as a kind of apartheid, because priority
is given to what separates and not to what unites people.
Third, a laic republic that promotes a universal public sphere while
guaranteeing freedom of religion.
History shows that in the countries where Catholicism is the major
religion, secularity has led to a separation between state and religion, while
in countries where Protestantism is the major religion, secularity has led to
a situation where churches play an official role.
(4) In spite of the variety of systems of secularity in Europe, the same
questions seem to appear everywhere. When looking closely at each legal
system, one discovers that there is a community of aspirations and a basic
corpus of rights. At the same time that churches ask for a new role in society,
associations are created to promote laïcité. In Greece, identity papers do
not mention the religious beliefs of the bearer anymore; in Italy, students
and teachers have demonstrated in the streets to prevent the Pope from
addressing students in a university; in Spain, the government of Jose Luis
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Zapatero has stopped compulsory religious courses in public schools; the
British government plans to de-criminalize blasphemy; Sweden has adopted
the French laïcité system.
It is interesting to note that in spite of their different histories, European
countries have adopted similar attitudes towards moral-ethical issues such as
abortion, gay rights and capital punishment. The great majority of countries
recognize the right to abortion.
(5) The Europeans are said to be less religious compared to their
American counterparts. In fact, people seem to believe less in the major
religions. They seem to make up their own religious beliefs, taking elements
from different religious movements. Spiritual philosophies like Buddhism
seem to gain following too. Religion seems to be a private matter leading to
a variety of expressions. People believe less in politics and try to find their
own spiritual ways in the jungle of the globalized world.
It appears that people think that religion is important and must find a
place in the public debate. The question is what kind of place can it take?
At the same time, people are afraid of religious extremism.
(6) The European institutions seem to vacillate between different
attitudes. In 1986, the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights)
authorized Austria to ban a movie (based on the book Le Concile d’amour by
Oskar Panizza) because it insulted religious beliefs. But in 1976, the Court
adopted the opposite decision based on freedom of speech.
In the EU (European Union), there has been a big debate on what some
call the “religious inheritance” of Europe. In 2000, a declaration of human
rights was discussed. Poland wanted it to mention God or at least the religious
inheritance of Europe. Most of the member states refused to mention God
in the declaration, but some agreed to mention religion. France wanted to
broaden it to refer to the spiritual and moral inheritance of Europe in the
name of laïcité.
But, in 2006, the Treaty of Lisbon (that is currently being ratified by
member states8 ) mentioned the “religious inheritance of Europe.” President
Sarkozy, who wants religion to play an official role in France and in Europe,
has accepted this. The Treaty also stipulates that European institutions have
8 In June, the Irish people rejected the Lisbon Treaty. Officially, the Treaty should be abandoned because
its ratification requires the acceptance of all the member states. But the European Union and a majority
of member states are looking for a way to save the Treaty.
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regular meetings and discussions with the different religious movements.
In 2005, another treaty (the European Constitutional Treaty) was rejected
in referendums by the French and the Dutch partly because of such ideas.
However, no referendum has been conducted this time in France and in
the Netherlands to ratify the Lisbon Treaty.
Mentioning the “religious inheritance of Europe” means giving a special
status to a particular way of seeing history and the way the world is organized.
Referring to religions also means referring to something that bitterly
divided Europeans in their history. Why not mention some other spiritual
inheritance, for example, the Enlightenment philosophy that has certainly
played an important role in the building of democracy? Moreover, the idea
of inheritance in the field of spirituality is, in our opinion, questionable
because when you inherit from one of your parents, you have the possibility
to refuse it (particularly when the deceased leaves you his debt!). When
talking about the “religious inheritance,” it seems that you can refuse it. We
know that democracy and freedom of speech in Europe have partly played a
role in defeating the churches that supported monarchies and official beliefs.
In the end, why mention any kind of inheritance? Why not simply mention
our actual common ideals and principles?
The building of Europe as a political organization will require a
deep reflection on these values and on our history. The EU consists of
27 countries. Those countries have a wide variety of religions and it will
grow wider as Europe opens up more to the world. The ideals of laïcité can
help us find a peaceful way of living together.
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Chapter
9
Secularism and the Constitution:
Striking the Right Balance
KEVIN Y. L. TAN
This paper looks at how various pluralistic states grapple with the relationship
between law and religion. Between the two extremes of purely theocratic states,
where a religion’s divine text forms the blueprint for the state’s constitution and
general law, and the atheistic secular fundamentalism of communist states, lies
a wide range of regimes that seek to accommodate religious diversity. After all,
Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that every
person “has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” and most
constitutions provide for the freedom of religious worship. Drawing from examples
in the British Commonwealth and elsewhere, the paper examines the various
models of accommodation and cooperation that have emerged and considers the
reasons for their relative successes and failures.
INTRODUCTION
On 17 August 2005, over 30 bombs went off simultaneously across 50
cities in the Islamic state of Bangladesh, killing at least two persons and
injuring some 50 others.1 The outlawed Islamic group, Jamaatul Mujahideen
Bangladesh (Party of Holy Warriors of Bangladesh) claimed responsibility.
The organization, which was founded in 1998, is believed to have over
100,000 members. Its main aim is to replace the current political system
of Bangladesh with an Islamic state based on the Shariah. The Jamaatul
Mujahideen Bangladesh rejects the current constitution as conflicting with
Allah’s laws and eschews the “democratic or socialist system that is enacted
1 “Bombs Explode Across Bangladesh.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4158478.stm
[accessed 1 November 2008].
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by infidels and non-believers.”2 Three years later, in June 2008, a coalition
group of religious minorities in Bangladesh calling itself the Bangladesh
Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, held a forum urging the
restoration of Bangladesh’s secular constitution that was abolished in 1988.3
The contest for the Bangladeshi state mirrors other similar struggles
occurring the world over, although the case of Bangladesh is especially
interesting. Beginning its political existence as East Pakistan in 1947, it
was originally established as an Islamic state.4 In 1971, after a brief civil
war with the central government in West Pakistan, it seceded to become
Bangladesh with a secular constitution.5 In 1982, a coup d’etat brought
General Hussain Ershad to power and in his efforts to stem the tide of
unpopularity, he declared Bangladesh an Islamic republic by promulgating
the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution in mid-1988.6
Indeed, the South Asian sub-continent has been the site of much religious
contestation over the last 50 years. The decolonization of British India
resulted in two states, India and Pakistan; one predominantly Hindu and
the other predominantly Muslim. India chose the route to secularism, while
Pakistan defined itself as an Islamic state and has been one ever since. East
Pakistan seceded in 1971 and as we have seen, vacillated between secularism
and Islam.
It is always easier to win an argument if you have the law on your
side. Arguments about the proper place of religion in political society are
thus often framed in legal terms and all legal arguments begin with the
constitution. Whether a particular religion or religious group is privileged
within any society largely depends on how the laws are drafted and whether
or not the state in question professes an official religion. To complicate
matters, few states today have a homogeneous population. Ethnically and
religiously pluralistic states must thus arrive at a stable, equitable and
workable system to manage religious rights and freedoms within the polity.
2 Ibid.
3 “Minorities Push for Secular Constitution in Muslim Bangladesh.” http://www.eni.ch/featured/
article.php?id=2064 [accessed 1 November 2008].
4 G. W. Choudhury, “The Constitution of Pakistan” (1956) 29(3) Pacific Affairs 243–252.
5 Abdul Fazl Huq, “Constitution-Making in Bangladesh” (1973) 46(1) Pacific Affairs 59–76.
6 Ali Riaz, God Willing: The Politics of Islamism in Bangladesh (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004),
at 37–38.
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Recognizing the need to strike a balance between competing religious rights
and conceptions of the state is one thing; actually accomplishing it is another.
This paper looks at the ways in which religious space is negotiated
through the constitution and how various pluralistic states grapple with the
relationship between law and religion. Between the two extremes of purely
theocratic states, where a religion’s divine text forms the blueprint for the
state’s constitution and general law, and the atheistic secular fundamentalism
of communist states, lies a wide range of regimes that seek to accommodate
religious diversity. After all, Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights declares that every person “has the right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion” and most constitutions provide for the
freedom of religious worship. Drawing from select examples, this paper
examines the various models of accommodation and cooperation that have
emerged and considers the reasons for their relative successes and failures.
LAW, RELIGION, AND THE MODERN
CONSTITUTIONAL STATE
Secularizing Moves: From Westphalia
to the American Revolution
After centuries of religious wars in Europe, the clear separation of church and
state in political affairs was seen as a major breakthrough in the development
of constitutional government. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) succeeded
in establishing a secular political order in Europe by “taking sovereignty
over religious affairs away from the discretion of territorial princes and
by establishing a proto-liberal legal distinction between private and public
affairs.”7 These treaties “changed the balance of power between territorial
authority and confessional groups in favor of the state.”8 Hugo Grotius, the
Dutch prodigy and the Father of International Law, advanced a legal system
based on natural law that did not depend on the existence of God or of a
7 Benjamin Straumann, “The Peace of Westphalia (1648) as a Secular Constitution” IILJ Working Paper
2007/7, at 21.
8 Roland Axtmann, “The State of the State: The Model of the Modern State and Its Contemporary
Transformation” (2004) 25(3) International Political Science Review 259, at 260.
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higher being and drove a further wedge between church and state.9 Herein
lay the seeds of the modern secular state.
Let us fast-forward some 140 years. The first conscious effort in drafting
a secular constitution was in the framing of the American Constitution in
1787. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of
America specifically forbids the establishment of a state religion:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment was adopted
on 15 December 1791 to provide greater guarantees for civil liberties. There
are two operative aspects to the First Amendment. First, that Congress shall
not establish a national religion, and second, that it shall not prefer one
religion over another, or religion over non-religion. The impact of the
American model was swift. The short-lived revolutionary constitution of
France of 1791 clearly eschewed a sectarian legal model in favor of a secular
one.10
While these developments were certainly dramatic, they were but
snapshots of society’s pendulum-like swings between sectarianism and
secularism. As political scientist Carl J. Friedrich observed:
In their development, the concept of church and state go together, but
of the two the church was the first offspring of the polis, the Roman
Civitas. But whereas the civitas had been a clan, and even the Roman
Empire had never succeeded in shaking off the fetters of this conception,
the church was built on faith and dogma. It was as such profoundly
different, and could truly claim for its faithful that it is the highest
and most comprehensive community, and that it is instituted to realize
the highest good, namely the salvation of the immortal soul. Thus the
pagan polis became the bride of Christ. The Church challenged and
eventually superceded the Roman emperors who had persecuted it with
9 Charles Edwards, “The Law of Nature in the Thought of Hugo Grotius” (1970) 32(4) The Journal of
Politics 784; Cornelius F. Murphy Jr., “The Grotian Vision of World Order” (1982) 76(3) The American
Journal of International Law 477; and William P. George, “Grotius, Theology, and International Law:
Overcoming Textbook Bias” (1999–2000) 14(2) Journal of Law & Religion 605.
10 The preamble of the French Constitution of 1791 proclaimed that “the law no longer recognizes
religious vows or any other obligation contrary to natural rights or the Constitution.”
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such ferocity in the correct realization of the fact that the Christian faith
in the equality and equal dignity of all men meant death to the pagan
polis of which the Emperor was the divine head, a mortal God.11
The demise of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Catholic Church
did not, of course, eliminate the need for secular government, but the
Church was now so powerful that governments needed its blessings “to
acquire the halo which would give its commands authority.”12 This led
to a period of absolutism that eventually gave way to a new, secular form
of constitutionalism epitomized by the American model that rested “upon
the belief in reason and property.”13 Hitherto, the secular state, based on
the strict separation between church and state, has long been seen as the
hallmark of modernity.
More constitutions were drafted in the 1950s and 1960s than in any
period of history. The decolonization of former European empires led to the
creation of numerous polities, each with its own political aspirations. For the
most part, the former European empires did not seek to impose any religious
element in these post-colonial constitutions. Most were quite happy to
depart their former colonies in as dignified a manner as possible. However,
a price had to be paid for the colonial powers’ divide-and-rule tactics
that reinforced, exacerbated and exploited cleavages between the various
ethnic, cultural and religious groups within the colony. For example, the
Germans, and then the Belgians, favored the Tutsis over the majority Hutus
in Rwanda on purely ethnic grounds, believing as they did that the Tutsis
were “superior” and more proto-Aryan. In the Sudan, Britain’s Southern
Policy encouraged the Islamization of the northern part of the state through
financial aid for mosque-building and pilgrimage travels. At the same time,
with the help of Christian missionaries, the British sought to prevent the
spread of Islam to the south to preserve a purely African way of life.
With the departure of the colonial powers, old ethnic, tribal and religious
rivalries resurfaced and old grievances gave rise to new constitutional
arrangements that sought to manage the emerging hostilities. A secular
constitution that did not favor or privilege any particular ethnic, religious
11 C. J. Friedrich, “The Deification of the State” (1939) 1(1) The Review of Politics 18, at 23–24.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., at 24.
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or linguistic group seemed an obvious choice. After all, the Americans had
pioneered a system of government that had stood the test of time and was
sufficiently accommodative of a pluralistic society. Most constitutions that
were drafted as a prelude to decolonization were thus secular, republican
constitutions that provided guarantees against discrimination, equality of
treatment, freedom of religion and protection of minorities.
The Religious Constitution
While the American Constitution is one of the most admired and
copied constitutions throughout the world, it was not the only model of
constitutionalism. Notwithstanding the secularizing tendencies from the
mid-17th century, various efforts have been made to impose a rule based on
religious doctrine. Significant among these was the Constitution of Tunisia
of 1861, the “first constitution in a Muslim country.”14 The Bey of Tunisia,
an autonomous monarch under a loose Ottoman suzerainty, remained head
of state and of Islam, and wielded executive powers. He was, nonetheless,
responsible to a Grand Council of 60 members. Judicial power was exercised
by an independent judiciary, and legislative power was shared between the
council and the government.15 Even though this constitution lasted all of
two years, the trend had been established.
As their empire crumbled, the Ottoman Turks — rulers of a oncegreat empire that straddled much of Europe and the Middle East — tried
to modernize their empire and laws. In 1876, a group of leading officials
and members of the ulama16 drafted a new constitution for the empire. It
was based on the Belgian Constitution of 183117 and also had parallels with
14 Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), at 113.
15 Bernard Lewis, The Shaping of the Modern Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), at 49;
see also Andrew Borowiec, Modern Tunisia: A Democratic Apprenticeship (Westport, CT: Praegar, 1998),
at 15.
16 Community of religious scholars.
17 Of relevance to us is Article 14 of the 1831 Constitution which states: “Religious liberty and the
freedom of public worship, as well as free expression of opinion in all matters, are guaranteed with the
reservation of power to suppress offenses committed in the use of these liberties.” Article 15 further
states: “No one shall be compelled to join in any manner whatever in the forms and ceremonies of any
religious worship, nor to observe its days of rest.” See Amos J. Peaslee (ed.), Constitutions of Nations,
Vol. 1 (Concord, New Hampshire: Rumford Press, 1950), at 128.
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the Prussian Constitution.18 The 1876 Constitution made Islam the official
religion of the Ottoman Empire,19 but guaranteed the “free exercise of all
religions recognized in the Empire.”20 In addition, the Sultan was given the
title of “Supreme Caliph” with the role of protecting the Muslim religion.21
The Ottoman Constitution made a clear break from the old notions
of absolutism and established a constitutional state much modelled along
European lines. While it took significant steps to encourage greater legal
equality between Muslims and non-Muslims, it stopped far short of
establishing a secular state.22 The Sultan was, for example, charged with
executing provisions of shariah and qunun law.23 This mandate to execute
sacred Islamic law interweaved into the Constitution a host of complex
issues on the role of Islam in politics and governance. To what extent, for
example, will Islamic law be applied to non-Muslims? What does one do in
the face of inconsistencies between secular law and religious law? Who is
the final arbiter of the proper law to be applied — the courts or the ulamas?
These issues would continue to plague virtually all the countries that adopted
this model of constitutional development.
Pakistan, the first post-war religious state, was established in 1947 when
it broke away from British India. After nine years of delay and heated local
debates, it adopted a constitution in 1956 that was more radical but still fairly
similar to that of the Ottoman Constitution.24 The preamble proclaims the
Constitution: “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful” and sets
out some key tenets of the Islamic state. First, it espouses the principles of
“democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated
by Islam” but that “adequate provision should be made for the minorities
18 Nathan J. Brown and Adel Omar Sherif, “Inscribing the Islamic Shari’a in Arab Constitutional Law”
in Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Barbar Freyer Stowasser
(eds.) (Walnut Creek: Rowman Altamira, 2004), 55–80, at 59.
19 See Article 11, “The Ottoman Constitution, Promulgated the 7th Zilbridje, 1293 (11/23 December,
1876)” (1908) 2(4) The American Journal of International Law, Supplement: Official Documents (October
1908), 367, at 368.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 Nathan J. Brown and Adel Omar Sherif, “Inscribing the Islamic Shari’a in Arab Constitutional Law”
in Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Barbar Freyer Stowasser
(eds.) (Walnut Creek: Rowman Altamira, 2004), 55–80, at 59.
23 Ibid., at 60.
24 G. W. Choudhury, “The Constitution of Pakistan” (1956) 29(3) Pacific Affairs 243.
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freely to profess and practise their religion and develop their culture” and
guarantees of fundamental freedoms including “equality of status and of
opportunity, equality before law, freedom of thought, expression, belief,
faith, worship and association, and social, economic, and political justice,
subject to law and public morality.”25
Broad principles are much easier to articulate than actuate, and
particularly problematic was Article 198(1) that provided that:
No law shall be enacted which is repugnant to the Injunctions of Islam
as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah, hereinafter referred to as
Injunctions of Islam, and existing law shall be brought into conformity
with such Injunctions.26
The Theocratic Constitution
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 brought about an even bigger challenge
to secular constitutionalism.27 The overthrow of Shah Reza Pahlavi in
January that year ushered in a revolutionary change; the 1906 Constitution
was jettisoned in favor of a new one establishing Iran as an Islamic state.
Originally, the draft constitution — which was based on parts of the
old 1906 Constitution as well as the Constitution of the French Fifth
Republic — were recognizably secular in nature. This did not meet the
approval of the clerics who spent three months redrafting the constitution
that institutionalized a theocratic state in which the faqih or supreme religious
jurist (or leader) ranked above all elected officials and was commanderin-chief of the army. The very lengthy preamble of the Constitution —
which came into force on 3 December 1979 — states that the “mission of
the Constitution is to realize the ideological objectives of the movement and
to create conditions conducive to the development of man in accordance
with the noble and universal values of Islam.”28 Furthermore, it establishes
25 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1956. http://pakistanspace.tripod.com/archives/
56_00.htm [accessed 1 November 2008].
26 Ibid.
27 Said Amir Arjomand, “Shi’ite Jurisprudence and Constitution Making in the Islamic Republic of
Iran” in Fundamentalism and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies and Militance, Martin E. Marty and
R. Scott Appleby (eds.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 88–109.
28 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/ir00000_.html [accessed
1 November 2008].
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Secularism and the Constitution: Striking the Right Balance
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leadership by a “Just Holy Person”29 to prevent “any deviation by the various
organs of State from their essential Islamic duties.”30
Article 2 establishes the Islamic Republic by proclaiming a system of law
based in the belief in Allah as the one and only God, and the fundamental
role of “divine revelation” in “setting forth the laws.” The belief in imamah
or continuous leadership and perpetual guidance of the clerics in “ensuring
the uninterrupted process of the revolution of Islam”31 meant a rejection of
the separation between church and state.32
Article 12 proclaims the official religion of Iran as Islam; but not just
Islam in general, but specifically the Twelver Ja’fari school of Shiite Islam. It
further goes to assure the other Islamic schools of “full respect” and freedom
in the performance of religious rites. Other than Islam, only Zoroastrianism,
Judaism and Christianity are recognized as “religious minorities” who are
“free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies, and to act according
to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious education”
so long as they act within the law.33 Article 14 requires Iranian Muslims
to “treat non-Muslims in conformity with ethical norms and principles of
Islamic justice and equality, and to respect their human rights” provided
these non-Muslims are not “engaging in conspiracy or activity against Islam
and the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The vexed questions resulting from the establishment of religious
constitutions are found in an even more exaggerated form in a theocratic
constitution, especially when an alternative non-elected powerbase is
reposed in the “supreme religious jurist.” Indeed, the Iranian government
ran into problems shortly after the 1979 Constitution came into force. In
1981, the Council of Guardians vetoed several pieces of legislation on land
distribution, nationalization of foreign trade, labor, distribution, hoarding
29 Article 5 of the Constitution defines this as a “just and pious person, who is fully aware of the
circumstances of his age, courageous, resourceful, and possessed of administrative ability.” Such a person
is to be determined under Article 107 by a group of “experts” elected by the people. Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Article 2(5).
32 Said Amir Arjomand, “Shi’ite Jurisprudence and Constitution Making in the Islamic Republic of
Iran” in Fundamentalism and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies and Militance, Martin E. Marty and R.
Scott Appleby (eds.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 88–109, at 93.
33 Article 13, Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ibid.
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and other economic measures — duly passed by the Majlis (the Iranian
parliament) — on the grounds that they were un-Islamic.34
THE SECULAR CONSTITUTION AS SUPREME LAW
The secular constitution replaces spiritual authority as the ultimate source
of legitimacy. No longer does one speak of the Mandate of Heaven or
the Divine Right of Kings. The right to govern and to rule is no longer
God-given but a function of representative government. There are several
benefits to this.
First, by running a state on secular lines, religious and other ethnic
contests are relegated to the level of ordinary law. This is significant because
no religious group within a polity may claim primacy or superiority over
the others. In many ways, this device ensures the protection of minority
groups within each state since each group — majority or minority — is
treated equally in the eyes of the constitution.
Even for states where a single religion is dominant, it is far wiser
not to raise religion on a constitutional petard. Interestingly, Bhutan,
which has traditionally regarded itself as a Buddhist country, consciously
rejected making Buddhism its state religion,35 but instead referred to it as
the “spiritual heritage” of Bhutan.36 It is noteworthy that the Bhutanese
Constitution further guarantees the freedom of worship of all religions by
making its “Dragon King,” the Druk Gyalpo, the “protector of all religions
in Bhutan.”37
Second, by not explicitly highlighting any particular religion in the
constitution, a higher value is created and placed on the notion of citizenship
than on religion. This requires one to think of oneself as a citizen of one’s
country first, and then as a religious being second. The creation of a citizen
identity is especially crucial in a pluralistic setting or even in a state with
34 Said Amir Arjomand, “Shi’ite Jurisprudence and Constitution Making in the Islamic Republic of
Iran” in Fundamentalism and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies and Militance, Martin E. Marty and R.
Scott Appleby (eds.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 88–109, at 96.
35 Richard W. Whitecross, “Separation of Religion and Law?: Buddhism, Secularism and the
Constitution of Bhutan” (2007–2008) 55 Buffalo Law Review 707.
36 Article 3(1) of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan states: “Buddhism is the spiritual heritage of
Bhutan, which promotes the principles and values of peace, non-violence, compassion and tolerance.”
37 Article 3(2) of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan.
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constant and sizeable immigration. Secular constitutions are not atheistic
constitutions and thus provide built-in guarantees of religious freedom and
worship.
Third, the removal of religion from a country’s supreme legal instrument
makes it much easier for accommodative politics to take place, making
it more conducive for the negotiation of space between religious groups
in a polity. A religious constitution will always necessarily privilege one
religion and its adherents over another, and no matter how accommodative
a government or judiciary might be, the dominant religion generally tends
to be afforded primacy.
CONSTITUTIONALISM IN PLURALIST STATES
If one religion trumps another, there is no room for accommodation. That is
why even in the most theocratic of states, an effort is made to give some kind
of guarantee to religious minorities and other minorities. The primacy given
to one religion necessarily means the diminution of another. If adherents of
one religion are allowed the unbridled freedom to practice their faith, this
will almost certainly mean that adherents of another religion will have their
freedom to practice theirs curtailed. It is a zero-sum equation that makes
it imperative for some kind of accommodation between groups if religious
strife is not to be an everyday occurrence.
Religious accommodation is oftentimes the purview of state policy and
sometimes the province of the courts, especially when claims are made on
the right to practice and propagate one’s faith. Most of the time, claims
on religious freedoms that are made in the courts are seldom made by one
religious group against another, but by the religious group against the state.
In such contests, the court plays a pivotal role in balancing and striking the
balance between the imperatives of the state and those of the religious group.
In many ways, such a contest is no different from a claim against the state
to establish and operate some other entity, say, a political party. One such
instance arose in Australia in The Australian Communist Party case,38 where
the High Court of Australia rejected the Federal Parliament’s right to enact
legislation to outlaw the Australian Communist Party.
38 Australian Communist Party v The Commonwealth (1951) 83 CLR 1 (High Court, Australia).
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Contests of this sort pit a religion, group or other entity against the
secular state whose primary concerns tend to be couched in the language of
public safety, public order and national security. Thus, in a number of cases
involving Jehovah’s Witnesses in Singapore, the Court of Appeal held that
even though the Singapore Constitution guaranteed the right of religious
freedom, the state had the right to ban religious groups that were thought to
be detrimental to public welfare and order since its conscientious objector
members refused to perform military service, salute the state flag or swear
oaths of allegiance to the state.39 The balance to be struck is thus between the
imperatives of the state and the religious freedom of the group in question,
rather than between religious groups inter se. This takes the contest into
the realm of human rights in which claims are being made against a secular
state rather than a contest for primacy between the various religions. To a
large extent, this reduces the volatility of inter-religious conflict since the
“enemy” is not another religious group but the secular state instead.
This balancing act which courts engage in becomes much more difficult
in countries that have an official religion. Do all religious groups enjoy
equality or treatment in these instances or will the official religion triumph
over the rest? Constitutional guarantees of equality do not outlaw every
instance of discrimination. After all, we discriminate between adults and
young persons for various purposes, such as in granting a licence to drive or
to watch a particularly violent movie. The problem that courts will face is
whether or not the object of the discrimination is allowable. If the constitution
prescribes an official religion, it is not difficult to argue that policies can and
should be discriminatory in favor of those professing that official religion.
THE LIMITS OF CONSTITUTIONAL
ACCOMMODATION
There is no quick or easy formula for the constitutional accommodation of
religious freedom claims. However, there is a need for certain ingredients
to be present if the law and the constitution can remain reasonable, credible
and legitimate arbiters of religious conflict.
The first requirement is a widespread belief and faith in a secular
conception of the rule of law. I have intentionally located this faith in
39 Chan Hiang Leng Colin v Minister for Information & the Arts [1994] 3 SLR 662.
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secularism because any attempt to impose a religiously based conception of
the rule of law is apt to immediately alienate some segment of a community.
If people have no faith in the rule of law, then the constitution and
the institutions it creates, especially the judiciary, will have little meaning
for them. Any judgment, no matter how sophisticated or fair, will lack
legitimacy. It is tempting at this point to consider the conditions necessary
for a sustainable rule of law, but that would entail a separate paper altogether.
Suffice to say, I do not believe that the rule of law can flourish in a polity
where there is a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots and where
social justice is absent. No matter how fair a prevailing law might be, how
accessible the courts are, or how affordable legal services may be, there will be
a lingering perception that the law is nothing more than an instrument of the
rich and powerful used to tyrannize the poor and keep them disenfranchised.
The rule of law needs support from a huge mass base if it is to be legitimate.
Only then will the law be seen as an honest broker, arbitrating between the
contesting parties in a fair and objective manner. There is a need for the
people to see the law as an unqualified good and not as an instrument of
oppression.
Second, secular politics should take precedence over religious politics.
Contests at a secular level are far easier for courts accustomed to rational
secular logic to deal with, while arguments over religious doctrine and the
applicability of religious or spiritual law will leave secular courts out in the
cold.40 This requires a polity to identify itself first as political citizens with
loyalty and affinity to their state, and to subjugate their religious beings
to that identity. The whole idea of a secularist legal order is to dissipate
and democratize religious sentiments. This is done by, on the one hand,
privileging no particular religion; and on the other, ensuring that every
person has an equal right to profess and practice his or her religion within
a secular framework. More importantly, the institution of secularism also
demands that individuals identify themselves first and foremost as citizens of
the state, and then religious beings. To this end, attempts by states to forge a
national identity around a canon of secular values are certainly helpful. The
40 On how the Indian Supreme Court dealt with religious cases, especially those involving Hinduism,
see Marc Galanter, “Hinduism, Secularism, and the Indian Judiciary” (1971) 21(4) Philosophy East and
West 467–487.
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Indonesian attempt to create a secular civil religion in its Pancasila is a case
in point.41
Third, a political and social culture in which accommodation is seen as
an important quality is necessary if religious conflict can be dealt with under
a constitutional rubric. Some measure of civic education is necessary if this
is to come to pass.
CHALLENGES TO SECULARIST
CONSTITUTIONALISM
In 1987, the eminent Indian sociologist T. N. Madan delivered a
controversial and influential address to the Association of Asian Studies in
Boston entitled “Secularism in Its Place,” which was eventually published
in the Journal of Asian Studies.42 In his lecture, Madan argued that:
… in the prevailing circumstances secularism in South Asia as a generally
shared credo of life is impossible; as a basis for state action, impracticable;
and as a blueprint for the foreseeable future, impotent. It is impossible
as a credo of life because the great majority of the people of South
Asia are in their own eyes active adherents of some religious faith. It
is impracticable as a basis for state action either because Buddhism and
Islam have been declared state or state-protected religions, or because the
stance of religious neutrality or equidistance is difficult to maintain since
religious minorities do not share the majority’s view of what this entails
for the state. And it is impotent as a blueprint for the future because,
by its very nature, it is incapable of countering religious fundamentalism
and fanaticism.43
Without offering any concrete solutions or proposals, Madan highlights
several reasons why secularism in India has failed “to bring under control
41 The word Pancasila is derived from two Sanskrit words meaning “five principles” and since 1945, has
formed the official philosophical foundations of the Indonesian state. The five principles are: (a) belief in
one and only God; (b) just and civilized humanity; (c) unity of Indonesia; (d) consultative democracy; and
(e) social justice for the whole of the people of Indonesia. Indonesia’s neighbors, Malaysia and Singapore,
have also attempted to forge such guiding principles of statehood. In 1970, Malaysia proclaimed its
Rukunegara or National Principles as: (a) belief in God; (b) loyalty to King and Country; (c) upholding
the Constitution; (d) the rule of law; and (e) good behavior and morality. Singapore’s Parliament adopted
the Shared Values in 1991 as a national ideology. Like the Indonesian and Malaysian cases, it comprises
five values: (a) nation before community and society above self; (b) family as the basic unit of society;
(c) community support and respect for the individual; (d) consensus, not conflict; and (e) racial and
religious harmony.
42 T. N. Madan, “Secularism in Its Place” (1987) 46(4) The Journal of Asian Studies 747.
43 Ibid., at 748.
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the divisive forces which resulted in the partition of the subcontinent in
1947.”44 One reason this is so, Madan suggests, is that the major religions of
South Asia — Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Sikhism — are “totalizing in
character, claiming all of a follower’s life.” As such, there is no true separation
between the religious and the secular.45 The second reason, argues Madan,
is that South Asia’s religious traditions never had, and had always resisted, an
ideology of secularism. Third, the idea of secularism is built upon Western
social scientists’ ideas of modernization, built “from the dialectic of modern
science and Protestantism, not from a simple repudiation of religion and the
rise of rationalism.”46
Madan’s arguments highlight what he regards as the missing ingredients
to make secularism a tenable and desirable way of organizing society. This
is made all the more problematic when the state takes a soft approach to
forging secular consensus. There is no super identity to tame the unruly
horse of religious chauvinism. There is nothing the law or the constitution
can do about this. Courts, when faced with competing religious claims, have
no way to encourage or foster the creation of a secular culture even if the
result and reasoning in a legal contest are based solely on secularist logic
instead of divine revelation.
The situation is made worse by what Amartya Sen calls “communal
fascism,” “sectarian nationalism,” and “militant obscurantism.”47 Communal fascism refers to “the use of violence and threat to achieve sectarian
objectives, the victimizing of members of a particular community, mass
mobilization based on frenzied and deeply divisive appeals, and the use
of unconstitutional and strong-arm methods against particular groups.”48
Sectarian nationalism refers to the use and abuse of current incidents or
historical events to advance sectarian interests. Sen’s third component in the
anti-secular movement is militant obscurantism, which is “the political use
of people’s credulity in unreasoned and archaic beliefs in order to generate
fierce extremism.”49
44 Ibid., at 750.
45 Ibid., at 751.
46 Ibid., at 754.
47 Amartya Sen, “Threats to Secular India” (1993) 21(3/4) Social Scientist 5–23, at 11.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid., at 19.
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For a constitution to deal swiftly and decisively with any of Sen’s
triptych of anti-secular actions, religious and other freedoms will need to be
compromised quite seriously. In Singapore, for example, the use of ordinary
criminal law, coupled with prohibition orders under the Maintenance of
Religious Harmony Act, as well as preventive detention under the Internal
Security Act, combine to provide the state with a powerful arsenal of legal
weapons to combat the kinds of anti-secular actions Sen discusses. That
being said, Singapore has been heavily criticized for its use of such draconian
measures to manage religious and ethnic conflict.
Beyond the fact that secularism does not flow naturally from many
religions, and given that religious zealots often use religion to mobilize the
masses to advance their own agendas, secularism faces threats from several
other quarters. Of these, three are noteworthy.
First, the rise of human rights in international law has given religious
freedom a superimposed legality on the national or municipal landscape. In
other words, the right to profess and propagate one’s religion is no longer
dependent on whether or not the constitution recognizes such a right. An
international rule that has attained the status of customary international law
is enforceable against any state regardless of the state’s own laws. If state
practice has raised Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
to the status of customary international law, a further inroad against state
sovereignty would have been made, and individuals can thus make claims
against the state for violation of international law.
Second, mass migration of people across borders brings to each host
country numerous problems. Beyond issues like housing, food and language,
migrants bring with them their religious beliefs and practices. States that
have hitherto been fairly homogeneous must now learn to cope with their
new citizens and accommodate alien religions.
Finally, the populations of many states have violently rejected secularism
which they see as being soulless and morally bankrupt. A state can exist
and perpetuate itself on a pure diet of economic growth and development;
human beings cannot. The human psyche aches for a connection with the
cosmic and supernatural forces that help explain the human condition, and
a purely secularist state provides no answers. This rejection becomes all the
more serious when the secularist state fails as a state. Secularism will then be
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153
seen as nothing but a convenient excuse used by opportunists and oppressors
to govern as they wish.
CONCLUSION
In matters of law and religion, there are many difficult questions and no
easy answers. The law and the constitution provide a good starting point
for the negotiation of religious space. The inclusion of anti-establishment
clauses coupled with guarantees of equality are good places to begin. But
the constitution must be worth the paper it is written on and an entire
infrastructure, beginning with an independent judiciary and a healthy respect
for the rule of law over the rule of man or God, must be established.
Notwithstanding the best of efforts and intentions, the law and the
constitution are defenceless against mob rule. There is a limit to the number
of people you can put in jail or prosecute. Mob rule respects no laws and
weak states have no capacity to act decisively in such instances. There is
nothing courts can do against religious extremists who fan hatred, stoke
ethnic tensions and appropriate religious discourse for their own secular
ends — except to wait for the state to prosecute. Scheming and unscrupulous
politicians who use religion to win votes are even more problematic. The
solution does not, alas, lie in constitutional deliberation or adjudication, but
in the building of a strong civic culture and tradition where respect, tolerance
and accommodation are second nature. It requires that people believe in
the value of human life, liberty and human dignity. One wonders then, is
it possible to have a workable secular state without having God somewhere
in the background?
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Chapter
10
Secularism and Vaidic Worldview
SWAMI AGNIVESH
The Vedic faith — which should not be equated with the sum total of the
popular versions of Hinduism we see today — is by nature a pluralistic vision
that accommodates a variety of spiritual quests and manifestations. The emphasis
here is on spiritual values rather than religious elaborations and prescriptions. The
Vedas do not recognize the hegemony of the priestly class. The Vedas do not see
truth and justice as the monopoly of any class, caste or race. It is quintessentially a
universal vision that sees the whole of the human species as comprising one family.
In that respect, it is also in harmony with the vision in the Bible that sees creation
as originating from the divine source and all humankind, therefore, belonging
together in the plan of God.
Secularism denotes the idea that the social affairs of society must be guided
solely by the present life itself. It overlooks anything above or beyond the
present life. Since the questions about God’s existence or immortality of souls
cannot be answered adequately, they are best left to the domain of personal
faith. The state has no business to embrace faith of any kind. Secularism was
the popular reaction to the extreme interference of the Catholic Church in
matters of state and governance. Knowledgeable people have not forgotten
the stiff resistance to nascent science, be it modern cosmology or biology.
The origin of secularism as an ideology is associated with Holyoake and
Bradlaugh. George Jacob Holyoake, who was born in Birmingham in 1817,
came under the influence of the political thinker Robert Owen in 1837,
and started to write and circulate literatures advocating socialism. From
1841–1847, he published three magazines: The Oracle, The Movement and
The Reasoner. In 1861, he merged the three into The Counsellor, which was
later merged with Bradlaugh’s National Reformer. It was pretty palpable in
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his writings that he abhorred the role of the church in political decisions.
He, therefore, took a leading part in economic and political agitations
including the law prohibiting the use of unstamped paper for the publication
of periodicals, abolition of all oaths required by the law, secularization
of education in public schools, disestablishment of the church and the
promotion of cooperative movement among the working class, etc.
Charles Bradlaugh, on the other hand, who was a zealous Sunday School
teacher in the Church of England, was very critical of Christianity in his
writings and was denounced as an atheist by Rev. Packer. Bradlaugh and
Holyoake presented a paper together in the USA at the American Secular
Union and Free-thoughts Federation, presided over by Mr. E.P. Peackock,
that became the cradle of secularism.
The nine points in the charter are:
(1) That churches and other ecclesiastical property shall be no longer exempt
from taxation;
(2) That the employment of chaplains in Congress, in state legislatures,
in the army and navy, and in prisons, asylums, and all institutions
supported by public money, shall be discontinued; and that all religious
services maintained by national, state, or municipal governments shall
be abolished;
(3) That all public appropriations for educational and charitable institutions
of a sectarian character shall cease;
(4) That, while advocating the loftiest instruction in morals and the
inculcation of the strictest uprightness of conduct, religious teaching
and the use of the Bible for religious purposes in public schools shall be
prohibited;
(5) That the appointment by the President of the United States and the
governors of the various states of religious festivals, fasts, and days of
prayer and thanksgiving shall be discontinued;
(6) That the theological oath in the courts and in other departments of
government shall be abolished, and simple affirmation under the pains
and penalties of perjury established in its stead;
(7) That all laws directly or indirectly enforcing in any degree the religious
and theological dogma of Sunday or Sabbath observance shall be
repealed;
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(8) That all laws looking to the enforcement of Christian morality as
such shall be abrogated, and that all laws shall be conformed to the
requirements of natural morality, equal rights and impartial justice;
(9) That, in harmony with the Constitution of the United States and the
constitutions of the several states, no special privileges or advantages shall
be conceded to Christianity or any other religion; that our entire political
system shall be conducted and administered on a purely secular basis;
and that whatever changes are necessary to this end shall be consistently,
unflinchingly, and promptly made.
Extremist religious believers have sometimes used the ugly mix of religion
and politics for gaining power with grotesque consequences. For example,
some member nations in the OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) are
poles apart from secular ethos and values, and are scuba-diving in the dark
depths of theocracy. Literature in these countries is bound by the barbed
wire of orthodoxies, and any kind of deviation may be punishable by death.
There is an acute divide between the sexes and women have to bear the
brunt — monstrous practices like the burqa, honor killing, stoning to death
for having an affair, etc., are rampant. Similarly, in Hinduism, one lobby
of extremist Hindus has always advocated for Hindu Rashtra or a Hindu
State. This Hindutva brigade has given its venomous dope in the form of
alienation of other religions. The Babri Mosque Demolition, the Gujarat
Carnage in 2002 and recently, the violence against Christians in Kandhamal
(Orissa) and the blasts in Malegaon and Modasa in Gujarat, all tell tales of
the murder of secularism in India.
Casteism was another diabolic head of this hydra in Hinduism. The
majority of the people who were socially outcast by the higher classes led a
pitiful life under this scourge for centuries and continue to do so even till
today in the 21st century. The practice of untouchability which came out
from the perversion of the Vedas and the Manu Smriti has been the greatest
form of terrorism in my opinion. The true philosophy of any religion has
been global and is of love, compassion, non-violence and justice; it was the
power-mongers who used these texts for their own evil plans from time to
time in the name of Jehad, Untouchability, Hindutva, etc.
Against this historical backdrop of religious extremism and the evolution
of secularism as a counter-ideology, the Indian Constitution adopted
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secularism with a mild modification. Here it is taken as equal respect for all
religions. In a democratic system as diverse a nation as India, it became a
tool for the majoritarian faith, and politics has been reduced to a number
game. Still, it is a lesser evil than a theological state.
Now let us go back further into prehistory and the Vedas for a better
insight into social issues and its spiritual management with amazing universal
appeal. The very first verse of the first Veda sets the tone for Vaidic wisdom.
It says in the Rig Veda, “Let noble thoughts come from all directions.” It
anticipated Gerry Spence’s thoughts of “I will rather have a mind opened by
wonder than one closed by belief ” many millennia back. The Vedas exhort
us to doubt, debate and, if necessary, dissent.
This liberal and rational perspective is without peer to date. The antiquity
of the Vedas may be in doubt, but its message of universal brotherhood and
the treatment of the whole world as one family are unique. The Vedas as the
oldest surviving literature is stating the obvious. But what is not so obvious,
especially for non-Indians and non-Hindus, is the fact that Hinduism, or
Sanatan Dharma to be precise, does not reflect the spirit and wisdom of the
Vedas. Hinduism, with its plethora of gods and goddesses and mind-boggling
varieties of attendant rituals, is not even a pale shadow of Vaidic ideas and
principles. Many reasons combined to rob India of Vaidic ideals, but that is
beside the point. I would like to dwell on the richness of the Vaidic vision.
The Vedas accept a single formless entity as the creator of the cosmos and
of the life that pervades it. In other words, Ishwara, or God, is eternal and
infinite. This grand concept of God precludes His reincarnation in any form
or the choosing of a messenger to guide us. This concept is radically different
from those of revealed religions or an incarnating god as in Hinduism.
Moreover, the Vaidic god does not demand worship, rituals or middle-men
to amuse Him. On the contrary, He is so benevolent and merciful that He
has endowed the souls with the power to be born again and again till they
realize that enough is enough. This series of births and deaths for each soul
takes care of our sins and virtues, and appropriates rewards and punishments:
we reap what we sow. Bad karmas have to be redeemed with good karmas.
Nothing else works. The Vaidic god is just and aloof to the workings of
natural and moral laws. In addition, this god is not at all partial to any race,
place, language or history. Likewise, He does not indulge in discriminations
on the basis of gender, man-made caste systems or biological species. Since
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He pervades the whole cosmos, He is not to be found in places of worship
or rivers or mountains.
After fixing the parameters of a benevolent, merciful and just god, the
Vedas define Dharma as living a life of love, compassion, truth and justice
and treating all life as similar to oneself. The implications touch every aspect
of human life. For example, the eating of flesh is a clear no-no. And all
superficial differences among races and species are done away with. It frowns
upon all forms of discrimination and does not accept that we are sinners by
birth because of a crime committed by our first ancestors — Adam and Eve
of Semitic religions. The bane of Hinduism, which is its caste system based
on birth, is anathema to Vaidic ideals. It sanctifies all lives and affirms its
interdependence, establishing a definite integrity of creation.
One of the greatest proponents of the Vedas, Swami Dayanand, exhorts
for free, compulsory and equal education for the children of kings as well
as those of paupers. He does not at all discriminate on the basis of gender,
caste or status, and bestows the right of selecting life partners exclusively to
marriageable girls. The Vaidic teachings are neither secular nor theocratic.
They advocate forcefully for the spiritual vision in all spheres of human life,
be it social, economical, political, educational or environmental. Because
it believes in the interdependence of all lives, its approach is holistic and
spiritual. In retrospect, it was far ahead of its time and, perhaps because of
this, it failed to make a great impact. But the universality of its discourse
makes it more relevant to our age and time. Had it been adopted on merit,
there would not have been the development at the expense of ecology and
at the cost of wars. Just imagine the Vaidic concern for the purity of air.
It asks us to perform havan everyday to purify the air and compensate for
the pollution caused by our breathing. We have witnessed the demise of
socialism and the death throes of capitalism. Both happened because they
were devoid of spiritual vision and concern.
Spirituality liberates us from religious ghettoes. It dismantles barriers
and enables inter-religious cooperation. This is basic to the liberation that
spirituality affords. The need for religions to shift from a relationship of
competition to one of cooperation is being increasingly realized the world
over. This is in part due to the fact that religions have failed to impact the
state of affairs in the world constructively, due to their mutual alienation
and suspicion. While the custodians of religions busy themselves with their
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petty quarrels, the destiny of our species is being hijacked by the forces
of economics and politics in the world. Our quarrels have served only to
marginalize religions from the text of human welfare.
When religions thus insulate themselves from the lived realities of the
world, they tend to develop a purely other-worldly outlook that shuts its
eyes on the burning issues of the times. Religious rituals and prescriptions
are resorted to, in order to secure the maximum advantage for oneself, even
to manipulate the will of God to one’s own benefit. It is this logic that
leads in due course, under certain political and economic conditions, to
communalism and sectarian violence.
This concept can only seem rather strange from the perspective
of conventional religiosity. All religions have developed, in one way
or another, religious “or doctrinal legitimizations for disowning their
responsibilities to the world around.” Some of the instruments in this
respect are:
• The idea of ritualistic pollution: In several religious traditions, whatever
is “of the world” is treated as a source of spiritual pollution. Even contact
with those outside of one’s religious fold is colored in this fashion. The
idea of ritualistic pollution has been one of the most powerful instruments
of inter-faith and inter-caste alienation.
• Fatalism: The fatalistic worldview discourages any initiative for
improvement. The idea of a breakthrough seems even impious. This
forestalls the possibility of forming inter-faith partnerships to address social
evils; the attitude to poverty and human suffering stems from a fatalistic
standpoint.
• The doctrine of sin and punishment: This doctrine allows a convincing
escape route from social action. Avoidable suffering can be explained as
the result of overt or covert sins for which it is just punishment. So long as
religion continues to be used as a means for legitimizing human suffering
and the organized exploitations in society, the idea of inter-faith dialogue
remains suspect.
• The doctrine of reward after death: Even when it is fully granted that
there is a life after death, irrespective of the color or shape that it might
assume, it should in no way become an excuse for diluting the right of
every human being to enjoy a high quality of life and to find the full
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development of his or her potential as a person in the here and now. The
extent to which the priestly class exploits our ignorance of, and anxiety
about, life after death is wholly condemnable. Often it seems that the idea
of life after death is used as the opium to dull the pains of life before death.
• Exclusive emphasis on personal salvation: As long as religions continue
to operate on the paradigm only of personal salvation, the scope for interfaith dialogue will remain slender. Corollary to the doctrine of personal
salvation is the idea of exclusivity. All claims of religious exclusiveness
hinge on the notion of personal salvation. This is the most formidable
hurdle in the path of inter-faith cooperation and dialogue.
The thrust in applied spirituality should be:
• A spiritual idea of God: The insult of God immanent in a communal or
sectarian idea of God needs to be fully exposed. Rather than see the
truth of the Divine as the invitation for personal and collective liberation
and universal harmony, religious traditions caricature God as a partisan
player in the market of petty-minded religiosity. All sectarian religions
bear false witness to God. Their god is too small to reflect the spiritual
splendor of the Universal God of all-embracing love. If God is recognized
as the source of the human family as a whole, the petty quarrels between
religions will at once look insufferably irreligious.
• The ecumenical vision: A shift from exclusion to inclusion (vasudhaiva
kutumbakam). All spiritually directed reform movements have militated
against the walls and barriers of religions. The ecumenical vision is a
mandate to see the unity of our species underlying its diversity and variety.
It is based on the truth that creation itself is a harmony of the one and
the many, of unity in diversity. While religious orthodoxy tends to be
allergic to the plurality of religions, spiritual robustness revels in it and
seeks to unveil the unity that underlies this richness and variety.
An incarnate spirituality, as distinct from disembodied piety that limits itself
to the practice of rituals and traditions aimed only at personal salvation or
moksha, is the sound alternative. The true nature of God, the authentic
dynamic of spirituality as well as the depth of scriptures — all these become
accessible to us, if at all, only in a state of dynamic engagement with the
realities of the world. Religions are not an anthology of magic formula,
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but manuals on life itself. Life does not lend itself to a dichotomy between
the internal and the external. The reconciliation between the two, and a
dynamic exchange between the two, are basic to the logic of life. In its
absence, spiritual death takes over, and religions that are de facto dead cannot
enter into dialogues.
A radical idea of worship is not just as a matter of going to have a date with
God, but also as an experience of equipping oneself to make the will of God
(or godly values, such as love, justice, truth and compassion) prevail in the
world. The flow towards the temple or church must be complemented by
the flow from the temple or church into the society to impact and transform
societies.
A thorough revision of our self-images and the images we entertain of
each other is desirable — a shift from seeing only ill in other religions to
claiming the freedom to see what is good and beautiful in them. Basic to
spiritual experience is the fact that others can be known truthfully only in
love. This means knowledge through engagement. So far, religions have
chosen to know each other from a distance. Knowing from distance yields, at
best, superficial knowledge. Distance distorts knowledge. To know in love is
to know at close quarters, and without any prejudice. It is to know positively,
rather than negatively. As long as the mindset of negativity is not removed
from inter-faith perceptions, the cause of dialogue will remain crippled.
Above all, a shift from profession and confession to a practice that
abandons paying lip-service and embraces spiritual values must be adopted.
The emphasis must be on realizing it in the given social, political,
economic and cultural contexts. Spirituality is a paradigm of engagement;
and engagement is the dynamic of transformation.
Applied spirituality must be seen, essentially, as a means for liberating
religions from the caves of exclusion to which they have consigned
themselves. It is unlikely that each religion, cocooned in its chosen shell and
refusing to move out, either develops applied spirituality or a culture of cooperation. It is by disowning spirituality that religions ghettoized themselves.
It is by developing spirituality that they can liberate themselves. Throughout
the history of religions, those who saw the light of the Spirit felt the urge to
come out of their religious caves into the broad sunlight of shared spirituality.
It is a pity, though, that most people still remain, in a religious sense, mere
cavemen.
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The basic dynamic of applied spirituality is the integration of the
sanctuary and the secular society. What connects the two is the river of love.
We must go to our places of worship so that our hearts may be filled with
God’s love for the world. If and when that happens, we shall return to the
society and incarnate that love through concrete actions. Applied spirituality
as a new theological concept will be yet another eye-wash.
When we return to the society and begin to engage in its complex
and demanding problems, we begin to see the limitations of the spurious
religiosity that we have absolutized all the while. Till that happens, we
shall go on mistaking the shell for the kernel of religion. It is our virtual
imprisonment in the places of worship that has prevented us from developing
our spiritual heritage or claiming our freedom to be effective spiritual agents
in the given context.
Why should religions meet? Their meeting as a mere religious fad or
as a concession to this age of multiplying conferences is a luxury we must
readily forego. Religions must meet, first of all, for their self-liberation.
Second, there must be an emphasis on their revitalization as agents of social
liberation and transformation. The focus here must be relentlessly on social
justice. The competitive and isolationist models of religion have failed to
bear witness to God’s passion for justice in this world. Third, religions must
meet and help each other in fulfilling their historical destiny as instruments
for peace and human welfare. The ultimate spiritual goal is not to dot the
landscape with places of worship, but to turn the whole earth into one
grand temple of God. It is when religions meet each other in a spirit of
truth and mutual trust that the architecture of the true temple begins to be
visible.
So there is a dialogic relationship between applied spirituality and the
meeting of religions. For religions to meet, there must be a preliminary shift
from conventional religiosity to applied spirituality. But the more religions
meet and understand each other and their shared destiny, the more they will
themselves shift from religiosity to applied spirituality. Applied spirituality
denotes a radical shift from doctrines and dogmas to the solidarity of a shared
mission, centered on God and committed to the health and wholeness of
the whole of creation.
In the end, religions will meet each other only if there is a genuine
and passionate desire to meet with the God of love who loves the whole
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of creation without any partiality. Applied spirituality is born out of the
spiritual insight that the love for God must express itself through the love
for our fellow human beings. The framework for the meeting of religions
must be the celebration of God’s love for all, which is the quintessence of
spirituality.
In the days ahead, we may not have any use for a spirituality that leaves the
oppressors untroubled. And peace should not be allowed to degenerate into
the rhetoric of the Establishment. The spirituality for the emerging global
order cannot afford to be a compendium of nice and toothless sentiments.
The oppressed and miserable people of the world have no use for such pious
ornaments. They are not looking for improved cages. They are crying out for
freedom. They want to be out of their cages. They long to be airborne and
belong to the heavens. The heart of our global spirituality must, therefore,
be an uncompromising commitment to social justice. The cultures of the
world must be graded no longer, as the West used to do, on the scale of their
rationality, but on the basis of their commitment to social justice. A society
that is unmindful of the claims of social justice must be branded primitive.
And the global community must evolve effective instruments to enforce
agreed norms of justice on the systems and governments of the world. The
clichéd argument that social justice is an “internal affair” of nation-states
should no longer be entertained. In a globalizing world, fundamental values
and bottom-line justice should not be left to the charity of nation-states.
But we do not have, as of now, an instrument with sufficient credibility and
moral authority, free from the angularities of a global order based on power
and inequality, to address this task.
Spirituality is not an anthology of multi-faith dogmas or scriptures. It
is, instead, the priorities and compulsions that emerge through an active
engagement with the given context from a position of love for humankind
and reverence towards God. Spirituality is the foremost resource for human
empowerment. But empowerment itself can be, and has been, understood
culturally, rather than spiritually. As has been understood in the West,
and adopted by the rest of the global community, empowerment amounts
mostly to negotiations of power-sharing. To empower is to equip a deprived
individual or group to negotiate effectively with the systems and powers that
be, so as to share the resources and opportunities in the given context. While
this is important in the given scheme of things, this is not the final reach of
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empowerment in the spiritual paradigm. The goal of empowerment is not
only to negotiate power-sharing, but also to transcend the power-paradigm
itself in the macro-situation.
Every human being needs to be empowered to attain the fullness
of his/her hidden human scope. Also, conditions conducive to the full
unfolding of the human potential in all people must be created. History
bears witness to the fact that such a goal cannot be achieved within the
current paradigm of power. The business of true spirituality, in the end, is to
supersede power with love as the shaping paradigm for the human species.
The essence of the spiritual light that all great religious seers have brought is
the need for the human species to shift from the love of power to the power
of love. Compassion, fellow-feeling, selfless commitment to an altruistic
cause, the spirit of sacrificial service, social justice, respect for human worth
and human equality are all the authentic expressions of the power of love;
whereas the love of power sees them either as superfluous or as liabilities.
If the emerging global order is not imbued with the imperatives of such a
spiritual paradigm shift, there can be no guarantee that it will be different
in spirit and scope from the old colonial mechanism that has invented a
new strategy of large-scale exploitation. This nightmare looms large over
the horizon of “the children of the lesser gods” who people two-thirds of
the world.
The Parliament of World Religions could prove historical, if it were to
address this issue in a serious and sustained way in the coming years. On the
contrary, it will be a momentary flash in the twilight of the dying civilization
if it dodges this crucial and epoch-making task.
The spirituality for the new millennium must celebrate a renewed global
responsibility to protect the integrity of creation. But we must refuse to
buy into the canard that nature can be saved by some cosmetic changes
or technological fine-tuning. The harsh truth must now be faced. The
integrity of creation hinges on our integrity as the caretakers of creation.
The environmental crisis that torments us today is the product of predatory
consumerism and unbridled covetousness. Scandalous global inequality and
inflated lifestyles, rather than the poor of the world and their multiplication,
are what endanger creation. Going by our experience so far, it is obvious
that nothing short of a spiritual revolution in the global village can rescue
the environment from its present endangered state.
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But compassion for creation has to be taken to its full logical conclusion.
How can compassion for creation co-exist with cruelty to animals? How
can a genuine culture of peace be nurtured when violence on the nonhuman world is countenanced? Human beings are meant to be keepers and
defenders of life, and not the killers and consumers of life in the animal
kingdom.
The equal worth of all human beings, insofar as all embody the divine
equally, is the foundation of spirituality. Spirituality is uncompromisingly
egalitarian. It denounces every system and ideology, religious or secular, that
belittles the worth of human beings. This is good news for the oppressed,
but is bad news for the oppressors. The last thing that the oppressors want
to do is to recognize the humanity or worth of their victims. This is as true
of the high priests of the caste system in India as it was of the ring-leaders of
apartheid in South Africa. Materialism, in contrast, is perforce an outlook
to which inequality of human worth is endemic. The insult in materialism
is that it values human beings not for who they are, but for what they have.
There can never be any standardization of what human beings may own.
And, therefore, human equality seems an unattainable, even undesirable,
goal. Any overt or covert endorsement of “in-egalitarianism” favors the rich
and the powerful, as has happened in all societies. The passion for justice
that characterizes all spiritual traditions is based on the equal worth of all
human beings. Systemic and endemic injustice has always been sustained
and legitimized only by apportioning unequal worth to different sections of
the society.
Barring rhetoric, “in-egalitarianism” still remains the operative outlook
of the global community. The dangers of this unspiritual outlook could
aggravate many times because of globalization. If the worth of human beings
is defined in terms of materialistic development, we have to subscribe to an
ascending order of human worth calibrated on the scale of material affluence.
The life of an American today, for example, is globally more precious than
the life of an African or Asian. Within our own societies, the life of an
ordinary citizen is nothing compared to the life of our Very Very Important
People (VVIPs). This is an insult to the spiritual dignity and enlightenment
of our species, and it is imperative that the global community in the new
millennium is rid of this anathema.
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In the Sangathana Sukta (Unity hymn) of the Rig Veda, God exhorts
the people belonging to every country, every religion, speaking different
languages, living different cultures, to proceed in perfect unison after mutual
discussions, and to share the material wealth and resources of the world. That
is what I call spiritual socialism and that is what we desperately need today.
In fact, this idea comes from a great philosophical doctrine — that is,
social spirituality. When I talk of social spirituality, I am not talking about
anything strange or new. I am talking of an old tradition. I am talking of
Sanatan Dharma, which has been a living tradition right from the Vaidic times
to the later period of the Upanishads, Geeta and Ramayana. In fact, what we
have been calling “dharma” is another name for social spirituality. When
that dharma became Hindu Dharma, Muslim Dharma, Christian Dharma
or some other Dharma, it lost its original substance. It became somewhat
adulterated. Rituals and Karmakandas got into these Dharmas and they began
to appear different from each other. But dharma in its pristine form was
social spirituality — perhaps spirituality by itself could have been sufficient.
With a plethora of spiritual shops mushrooming all over the world, it
is natural that you find a basic question inexorably tied with this: what is
the form of God? This is a fundamental question, for different believers see
their gods in different forms. Also, there are many religions which do not
believe in the existence of God. The Buddha Dharma and Jainism declare
that they do not believe in the existence of God, but in justice and love.
God is not a man/woman sitting in the seventh sky or fourth sky, dispensing
punishment to some people and rewards to others who please Him by their
prayers. I believe there is no such God. God is made of attributes. God
is all-powerful, omnipresent. God is just, kind, loving and compassionate.
So first let us enthrone this God in our hearts and then go on to talk of
social spirituality. Then we can easily comprehend social spirituality. If we
perceive God as furious, always angry, striking those who are irreligious and
rewarding those who are His sycophants, we shall get everything wrong.
The false gods who have hands and feet, can walk, laugh and play, marry,
eat, drink and sleep, who need to be fed several times a day, are bogus
things, not God. Those who do not believe in such forms of God, but
believe in compassion, justice and love, are closer to God than those who
believe in false gods.
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SWAMI AGNIVESH
For understanding the true nature of social spirituality, we should pose
some questions to ourselves: What am I here for? And what is it that I need
to achieve in my lifetime? What is the aim of my life? What shall I carry
with me beyond my life? These basic questions are related to spirituality.
These are connected with the relationship of God and human spirit. If we
keep these questions before us, we will be fairly successful in understanding
our duty, our human responsibility and our universal responsibility. We
may not gather this understanding from books or charters or through the
agencies of the United Nations. Every person who believes in such power,
which is the personification of love, compassion, justice, and has respect for
the same, can have spiritual understanding. For doing so, we must establish
direct communion with God; for our true life, our every heartbeat, is derived
from God. Therefore, we should first of all know the real form of God and
also seek the answer to the question: “Who am I?”
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Chapter
11
Secularism in India — A Minority
Perspective
ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER
India became a secular democratic republic for a number of reasons. First, the
freedom fighters were mainly inspired by the ideals of freedom, democracy and
secularism, and hence they saw to it that India remains a secular democracy where
all its citizens enjoy basic rights. Second, the partition of India on a religious basis
meant the leaders resolved not to allow religion to be associated in any manner
with affairs of the state. Third, India is a bewilderingly diverse society, though
Hindus constitute its majority.
However, religious minorities are worried about their religions and cultures
in the midst of an overwhelming Hindu majority. Thus, Nehru and other leaders
provided constitutional guarantees for the religious and cultural rights of minorities.
Though the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court often protects these
rights, there are many problems in practice. The practical politics is dominated by
majoritarianism, and minorities feel deprived of their security. Communal violence
often breaks out, and the police and bureaucracy often ignore secular ideals and
have been heavily influenced by the communal ideology of the Sangh family —
a Hindu religious rights family.
This chapter deals with these problems and discusses how Indian secularism
can overcome them.
India became a secular democratic state in 1950 when its constitution was
promulgated on 26 January of that year. It was, in a way, the fulfillment of
a promise made by the Congress leaders during the freedom struggle. Thus,
upon the promulgation of the constitution, all citizens of India irrespective
of their caste, creed, color and sex received equal rights and became equal
before the law. It was a great social revolution for the people of India in a
caste-ridden hierarchical society where large numbers of people were treated
as “untouchables.”
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India had met with great tragedy at the time of its independence as it
was divided into two nations — India and Pakistan. M.A. Jinnah believed
that Hindus and Muslims were two nations which could not live together,
which also eminently suited the interests of British colonialists, and thus
India was divided. From the colonial days, due both to the machinations
of British colonialists as well as the interests of Hindu and Muslim elites,
Hindu-Muslim conflicts came to the fore and communal problems became
one of the main problems of modern India.
The problem indeed was not religious but political. It was a result of the
struggles for political power between the educated middle and upper classes
of both communities. Had it been a religious problem, the religious leaders
would have led it. But the two-nation theory was propounded by Jinnah, a
law barrister who was almost a non-religious person and was, more or less,
unaware of the teachings of Islam. However, profoundly religious scholars
like Maulana Abulkalam Azad and the organization of Islamic theologians,
Jami’at al-Ulama-i-Hind, vehemently opposed it and supported composite
nationalism on religious grounds.
Thus, India in its pre-independence days was confronted with communal
problems which were, among other problems, a major obstacle for freedom
from colonial rule. The Indian National Congress, however, was committed
to a secular democratic state despite the communal problems and redeemed
its promise on 26 January 1950 by promulgating the constitution. It was
indeed a milestone for multi-religious India.
However, promulgation of the constitution was also the beginning of
new problems. To resolve to make a country secular is one thing; to manage
successfully a multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-caste society is
something else. Also, nation-building is a far more complex and challenging
process than nationhood. It is easy to declare a country as a nation, but it is
extremely challenging to carry out the task of making it a nation.
The real test came while implementing the provisions of the constitution.
The constitution gives equal fundamental rights to all castes and creeds, but
the upper-caste Hindus who controlled all key political and bureaucratic
positions, finance and industries did not show a readiness to share all
resources equitably.
A democratic society has to be an equitable, if not egalitarian, and a just
society distributing jobs and economic resources equitably. And for this,
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politics has to be value-based so as to enact provisions of the constitution
honestly and with a sense of integrity. Our politicians violate these values
and principles with impunity. Immediately after independence, most were
proud of being Indians. Today, Indian identity has vanished into thin air.
We are today less Indian and more Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Sikh
at one level, and Brahmin or Rajput or OBC (Other Backward Castes) or
Dalit at another level, and Maharashtrian or Kannad or Tamil, etc., on a
third level. We fight for power on the basis of these parochial identities. We
are proud of these parochial identities and our politicians appeal for votes
on the basis of these identities. Those who often parade their patriotism are
most guilty in this respect by appealing to Hindu caste identities. Today,
BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) relies on Hindu and other caste identities within
its fold most unabashedly.
These identities are emphasized for the distribution of power and
economic resources as well as for government jobs. There is no wonder
that minorities suffer in the process and develop a strong sense of being
discriminated against. Now, even the judicial system, at lower levels more
than at higher levels, is tainted with these identities. Thus, in multi-religious
and multi-cultural societies, it is much more challenging to have a smooth
nation-building process.
The real purpose of having a secular democratic constitution in India
was to do justice to all sections of society and to not discriminate against
anyone. The leaders of the freedom movement were inspired by these secular
democratic values and had assured all sections of society that their being in
the minority or the majority would not make any difference as all citizens
would be treated equally.
When the Indian National Congress came into existence in 1885, all
sections of Indian society — Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis —
supported it whole-heartedly. The slogan raised in the freedom movement
was “Hindu-Muslim-Sikh-Isai” (hain sab bhai bhai), i.e., people of all these
religions are brothers united in their struggle against foreign rule. It is not
widely known that Muslim theologians too supported the Indian National
Congress enthusiastically.
Maulana Rashid Ahmed Gangohi urged Indian Muslims to join the
Indian National Congress and fight against British colonialists. These ulama
of Deoband School also published a book entitled Nusrat al-Ahrar (to help
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freedom fighters) in which they collected more such fatwas. And a retired
Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, Badruddin Tyebji, joined the
Indian National Congress along with 300 Muslim delegates. Justice Tyebji
also became the President of the Indian National Congress.
By making him, Pherozshah Mehta (a Parsi) and W.C. Bonnerji (a
Bengali Christian) presidents of the INC, it was clear that the INC was a
secular and not a Hindu party. Gandhiji, though he used to describe himself
as a Sanatani Hindu (an orthodox Hindu), was secular to the core and
believed in equal respect for all religions. It should also be noted that in the
Indian context, secularism never meant being religious or anti-religious, but
treating all religions with equal respect.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and himself an
agnostic, defined Indian secularism in his speech at Oxford in the mid1950s as the state giving equal protection to all religions while keeping equal
distance from all religions. Nehru had a strong conviction for secularism and
never deviated from his commitment to secularism. He was also committed
to protecting minorities and giving them a just share in political power as
well as in economic resources. In fact, he was the spirit behind the secular
nature of the constitution.
The Congress had committed itself to secular democracy and
fundamental rights for all its citizens in its Karachi session of 1931, and it
tried to assure minorities that they would not be discriminated against. While
Jinnah was not convinced, the ulama (theologians) accepted this assurance
and fully cooperated with the Congress during the struggle for freedom.
And these ulama have stood by their commitment till today. They have been
allies of the secular, democratic Congress party.
Nehru, as pointed out before, remained committed to secular values but
was surrounded by those Congressmen who hardly held secular convictions
and were in the Congress party not because of their secular democratic
convictions but for power. In fact, they had communal attitudes. Thus,
Nehru’s dream met great obstacles. He knew much depended on the
educational system to cultivate modern secular and scientific values.
Unfortunately, the education system in post-independence India never
changed. This education system was devised by Macaulay to produce clerks
rather than critical intellect or scientific temper of mind. The British, in their
own interests, made the education system divisive so as to rule over India.
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Thus, in post-independence India there was a need for thorough changes
in the education system. Zakir Husain, who later became President of
India, had devised the basic education system in consultation with Mahatma
Gandhi. But it remained on paper and was never implemented seriously.
Nehru believed that communalism will die its own natural death when
scientific and technological education is imparted and scientific temper is
cultivated. But it was only a pipe dream of Nehru. The Congressmen
surrounding him never wanted such a radical change in the education
system. They were more interested in retaining the status quo in education
as it served their interests better. They were not at all interested in social
change and an attack on age-old customs and traditions, including the caste
hierarchy.
Though the Kothari Commission was appointed in the mid-1950s to
make recommendations for changes in the education system, and Prof.
Kothari made excellent suggestions, they were totally ignored. Thus,
scientific temper and critical mind were not developed. Also, access to
education itself was, and still is, quite limited. Even primary education has
still not been made compulsory after 61 years of independence.
Primary education in municipal and government schools is far from
satisfactory. Its quality is poor. The middle and upper classes do not send
their children to these schools but only to private schools beyond the reach
of the poor. The concept of neighborhood schools was never accepted by
the elite ruling class. The government and municipal schools perpetrate caste
hierarchy as the poor mostly belong to lower castes and minorities. It is
impossible in modern India to transcend these barriers.
Thus, the education system imparts traditional values and perpetrates
communal divisions. And in BJP-ruled states, the social science syllabus
openly promotes hatred against minorities, especially Muslims and
Christians. Worse are schools run by the RSS (Rashtriyaswayam Sevak
Sangh). Their textbooks are full of hatred for Muslims and declare Islam
and Christianity as outside religions, not part of Indian India. For them,
Indian religions are Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Thus,
Hindu children studying in these schools are made to feel that Muslims and
Christians are outsiders.
One Standard XII textbook in Rajasthan even praises fascism and says it
is more desirable for India as it enables one leader to take right decisions at
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the right time. The RSS schools teach children that Islam spread in India by
shedding rivers of blood, with the Qur’an in one hand and a sword in the
other. What kind of mindset will this create among young children? They
simply grow up with hatred for minorities. There is no emphasis on value
education at all. Without value education, children will not acquire healthy
minds and secular and democratic values.
Also, political campaigns are heavily loaded in favor of religious and caste
biases. The media too has been communalized, and the mainstream media
both in English and vernacular is biased in favor of the majority community,
though the English media is comparatively better and more subtle. But
vernacular media in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, etc., is much more biased and
at times openly partisan. The role of regional or vernacular media during
communal riots is highly partisan and at times very crudely so.
I have covered several major riots, from the Jabalpur riot of 1961 to
the Gujarat riots of 2002, and have carefully analyzed the role of vernacular
media and found it unabashedly partisan. Unfortunately, despite provisions
in the law against provocative writings and speeches, the police just looks
the other way. The Gujarati newspapers openly provoked riots especially
during 1969, 1985 and 2002, yet no police action was taken against them.
The role of the Marathi media during the post-Babri demolition riots
of 1992–1993, especially of Samna which is the mouthpiece of Shiv Sena,
was highly objectionable. Unfortunately, apart from the public, most of
the policemen read Samna every morning and they are exposed to biased
views about minorities. It is no surprise that the policemen were highly
communalized during the 1992–1993 riots in Mumbai and other places.
However, the role of English newspapers, especially that of Times of
India, was very laudable. The whole editorial team at that time was highly
committed to secularism. But the problem is that English papers are read by
very few people — the educated elite. But those who indulge in riots and
the constabulary who handle law and order situations read vernacular papers.
The same thing happens in Gujarat. The Gujarat papers, which are highly
communalized, are read by the constabulary and the mass of people who
imbibe raw prejudices and misinformation through these vernacular papers.
And now the electronic media has made things even worse. Newspapers
are read mainly by educated people, but the electronic media is accessible
even to the illiterate. Electronic media, even if not communalized (though
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vernacular channels very much are), thrive by the sensationalization of
news and showing it repeatedly on 24-hour channels, thus becoming highly
provocative. Also, on these channels minorities are stereotyped, further
confirming the prejudices acquired through other sources as well.
The political campaigns play an even worse role in this respect. As
pointed out before, all appeals for votes are on the basis of caste and
religion. There is hardly any exception to this. The caste-based parties like
SP (Samajwadi Party), BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) or RJD (Rashtriya Janta
Dal), though claiming to be secular, reinforce caste prejudices all the time.
Then, of course, the BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) is a Hindu rightwing party and its politics depends on hate campaigns against Muslims and
Christians. It targeted Muslims primarily throughout the 1980s but has
now added Christians too from the 1990s onwards. Its political influence
has grown on account of its communal agenda alone. Its mainspring of
ideology is RSS (Rashtriyaswayam Sevak Sangh) which wants to establish
Hindu Rashtra in India. It was founded in 1925 by Dr. Hedgewar to
“counter Muslim communalism” in Nagpur. It was earlier based mainly in
urban areas, but has now penetrated into villages throughout the country.
The role of RSS is quite sinister and has grown gradually to great
proportions. If there is any force in India today which impedes the growth
of secularism and secular values, it is RSS. The BJP (known earlier as Jan
Sangh) has also grown significantly thanks to the efforts of RSS. Its claim
that RSS is a non-political cultural organization cannot be taken seriously.
Now, the BJP does not even try to hide the fact (which it did earlier) that
its connection with the RSS is that of an umbilical cord.
The Jan Sangh in the early 1950s hardly wielded any influence. In the
first election in 1952 after the promulgation of the constitution, it got no
more than 3.1% of votes and won three seats in Parliament. There were
many reasons for this. It was a newly formed party (though the Hindu
Mahasabha of pre-independence days was its predecessor), and the Congress
had tremendous prestige among the people as it had mainly led the freedom
struggle and successfully liberated India from British colonial rule.
Even in the next election in 1957, it won only 5.9% of votes, nearly
doubling its percentage but winning only four seats. Then in 1962, it got
6.4% of votes but won 14 seats. In 1967, it got 9.4% of votes but won
35 seats. This was so because now the Congress was losing its popularity.
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Nehru was dead and the Congress was faction-ridden. Also, due to famine,
prices had increased and opposition parties now formed alliances in states
like Uttar Pradesh where Hindu rights had great influence.
In 1971, Mrs. Indira Gandhi acquired great prestige as she succeeded
in breaking up Pakistan and creating Bangladesh, and so she successfully
trounced the opposition in the 1971 elections. The Jan Sangh got only 7.4%
of votes and won two Lok Sabha seats. However, things changed again due
to the imposition of emergency by Mrs. Indira Gandhi which was highly
unpopular, and a new political formation, i.e., the Janta Party, came into
existence under the leadership of Jaiprakash Narain, a socialist leader. The
Jan Sangh merged with it and took the pledge of “Gandhian socialism” and
“secularism.”
This was a highly opportunistic step on the part of Jan Sangh as it
knew it would be wiped out if it did not change its ideological stance.
However, this was only a tactical move. It never renounced its communal
ideology as it refused to sever its relation with the RSS, its ideological
mainspring. In fact, the Janata Government fell mainly because it refused to
sever its connection with the RSS. It is known as the “double membership
controversy” (membership of the RSS along with that of the Janata
Party).
The Jan Sangh now took another birth under a new name, BJP, and
again repeated — for tactical purposes of course — its pledge to accept
Gandhian socialism and secularism. But soon it discovered that by accepting
this ideological stance, it lost its very identity. It lost very badly in the 1984
elections, winning only two seats in Lok Sabha. While with the Janta Party
it had won 80 seats in the 1977 elections (mainly due to alliances with other
parties), it was now reduced to a political non-entity in the 1984 elections. It
therefore returned to its communal politics with a vengeance to rediscover
its original identity.
In its new form, it had pretended to accept “secularism.” Mr. Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, who had cultivated his image as a “moderate,” was made
president, but after the political disaster of 1984 there was a change of guard
and L.K. Advani, known for his aggressive communal stance, was made
president. Advani tried to revive the original ideology of communalism with
a new strategy, i.e., questioning the very concept of Congress secularism.
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Firstly, he described the very concept of secularism as Western in origin
(which is what the RSS had always maintained); and secondly, he called
the Congress secularism “pseudo-secularism” based on “appeasement” of
minorities. He alleged that the Congress appeases Muslims for their votes
and discriminates against Hindus. He came up with a strange theory that
the Hindus have been “besieged” in their own country due to the politics
of appeasement pursued by the Congress.
This appealed to Hindu middle classes who had developed a sense of
insecurity for a number of reasons, e.g., the Khalistan movement in Punjab.
The ASSU movement in Assam was based on the opposition to infiltration
of Bangladeshi Muslims in large numbers. Also, Muslim leadership played
a very opportunistic role during the Shah Bano movement based on the
Supreme Court judgment for maintenance after the iddah (three months
after divorce) period.
The opposition to the Shah Bano judgment made Hindu middle classes
quite apprehensive about Muslims rejecting a secular judgment based on
secular laws of the country, and that made Advani’s theory of “appeasement”
of Muslims true for Hindu middle classes. The issue of reservation was also
quite unpopular with the newly emerging professionals among upper-caste
Hindus, and BJP shrewdly utilized this controversy in its own way.1
When the Mandal Commission was implemented by Mr. V.P. Singh,
the then Prime Minister whom the BJP was supporting, all hell was let loose.
The BJP faced a dilemma — the Mandal Commission was not acceptable
to the upper-caste Hindus who constituted the main political base, yet the
BJP could not oppose the Mandal Commission openly for fear of losing
OBC (the Other Backward Castes) votes as BJP was trying to woo OBCs
for their votes too.
It resolved this dilemma by raising the issue of the Ramjanambhoomi
temple, which was created by the Rajiv Gandhi government opening the
doors of Babri Masjid for the worship of Ram Lalla and laying the foundation
stone for Ramjanambhoomi Mandir. Thus, it can be seen that the Congress
party showed no less opportunism for the sake of gaining votes and starting
1 In 1979, the Mandal Commission was asked by the Indian government to study the question of seat
reservations and quotas to redress caste discrimination. In 1980, the Commission’s report endorsed the
affirmative action practice under Indian law.
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a controversy which had great communalizing potential. It had done so to
fight the Hindu wrath as the Rajiv Gandhi government had overturned the
Supreme Court judgment on the Shah Bano issue.
Thus, at this juncture, both Congress and BJP were competing with
each other in destroying the secular values of Indian politics. It was this
competitive communalism of the two major parties that made the last two
decades of the 20th century the most communal in post-independence
India. From 1980 to 1992–1993, several major communal riots took place,
for example in Moradabad (1980), Biharsharif (1981), Baroda and Meerut
(1982), Neili, Assam (1983), Mumbai, Delhi (1984), Ahmedabad (1985),
Meerut (1987), Bhagalpur (1989) and Mumbai (1992–1993). It can be seen
that most of these riots took place in North India, which has been a major
center of communal politics as this area has been the center of Hindu
communalism as well as of Muslim communalism before independence.
Also, U.P. (Uttar Pradesh) and Bihar together have the largest population
of Muslims in India compared to the southern and western states.
Here I would like to point out that, basically, Congress is not a communal
organization. Ideologically speaking, it is committed to secularism and
secular values in politics, and even today its commitment stands out
compared to BJP which is a Hindu communal party. But in practice,
the Congress has not been able to redeem its image. Also, because it has
to compete with the BJP for votes, its actions are often determined by
consideration of Hindu votes. BJP is quite aggressive in its communal
politics, but Congress is not in its secular politics.
Gujarat is the best example of the soft communalism of the Congress.
BJP is quite strong in Gujarat and plays its Hindu card quite aggressively. BJP
has succeeded eminently in selling its communalism to the Hindu middle
class, and Congress has lost all its political courage to win this middle class
to secular values. It either becomes neutral to BJP politics or simply accepts
it with slight murmurs.
Fortunately, one factor goes against the BJP and that is India’s
bewildering diversity. Had India not been diverse to the extent that it is, BJP
would have come to power on its own. I would like to explain further as
this is a most interesting phenomenon. The BJP started with a very narrow
political base. It received only 3.1% of votes as the Congress enjoyed great
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prestige and the educated Hindu middle class base was very narrow to begin
with.
However, BJP expanded slowly as the Hindu middle class expanded and
as competition for developmental resources and political power increased
between Hindu middle classes and the middle classes of other communities,
particularly that of Muslims. Similarly, the struggle for resources and power
also increased between upper Hindu castes and scheduled castes and OBCs.
In fact, Hindu communalism reached its nodal point at the end of the 1980s
when reservation for OBCs was announced, showing that communalism is
the result of competition for political and economic resources.
Now coming back to diversity. The caste diversity, especially in North
India, acts as a great deterrent to BJP’s communalism. The increased political
awareness among Dalits and OBCs has effectively checkmated BJP both in
U.P. as well as Bihar. During the Ramjanambhoomi campaign, North India,
particularly U.P., was the main epicenter of Hindu communalism. The BJP
won state legislative elections during the height of the Ramjanambhoomi
campaign.
But Dalit leaders like Kanshi Ram and Mayawati were working hard
to bring political awareness with a strong message against upper-caste
domination. This effectively weaned away Dalits from both Congress as
well as BJP. Now, BSP (the Dalit party) became a force to be reckoned
with. Congress had lost out to BJP at the height of the Ramjanambhoomi
movement (also because Muslims were unhappy with the Congress for
laying the foundation stone for Ramjanambhoomi temple), and now BJP
began to lose to the BSP. Then, BSP and SP (the party of Yadavs and other
OBCs) came together to defeat BJP in the post-Babri Masjid demolition
phase. Thus, the BJP lost to the Dalit and OBC party in its own heartland,
thanks to the caste diversity in India. Now, in both U.P. and Bihar, BJP has
been completely marginalized and caste-based parties have come to power.
Also, apart from religious diversity, the Hindu religion itself, as pointed
out earlier, is far from being a homogenized entity through the length and
breadth of India. Hinduism is as diverse as India. For this reason, BJP is
unable to grow simultaneously in all parts of India among Hindus themselves.
Thus, it finds it very difficult to gain entry into southern states. It recently
succeeded in forming a government in Karnataka, a southern state, out of
four southern states.
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In southern states, Dravidian castes are supreme, particularly in Tamil
Nadu. No party can succeed without the support of one or the other
Dravidian party. At times, these two Dravidian parties also enter into
alliances with BJP, but BJP is not able to win more than a couple of seats.
In Tamil Nadu, some backward castes like Thevar (which is a landlord
party) have sharp contradictions with Dalits and therefore support the
Sangh Parivar.
In A.P. (Andhra Pradesh), apart from caste contradictions, linguistic
factors play an important role. Thus, either Congress or the Telugu Desam
(state language is Telugu) party competes for power. Though at one point
Telugu Desam allied itself with BJP, BJP could not make much headway in
A.P. politically. Also, after the alliance with BJP, Telugu Desam lost power
in the 2004 elections as the Muslims of A.P. were angry with it for allying
with BJP at the Center.
The state of Kerala has remained beyond BJP’s reach for different reasons,
though caste also plays a role. Kerala has large populations of Muslims and
Christians, both at about 20% each, and Dalits are also at about 20%. Also,
communist parties, particularly CPM (Communist Party Marxist), are quite
strong and the Communists or Congress alternately form the government.
Though RSS is trying very hard to penetrate, BJP does not have a respectable
presence in the state. In Karnataka too, BJP only succeeded in forming the
government thanks to the division of secular votes between two secular
parties — the Congress and Janta Dal (Secular) — and also thanks to the
opportunistic alliance of JD(Secular) with the BJP earlier.
Thus, it can be seen that BJP manages to widen its political space due
to the lust for power of some of the secular parties who enter into alliances
with it. But for these opportunistic alliances by secular parties with BJP, it
would not have been able to widen its political space to such an extent. BJP
once used to shun secular parties to protect its ideological purity. However,
it soon realized that it could not come to power on its own. Hence it entered
into alliances with secular parties, compromising its ideological purity but
gaining much politically. This also helped it strengthen its various front
organizations like RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal.
BJP is therefore facing a very complex situation in the country today. On
one hand, it has been checkmated due to the diversity of castes and religions.
On the other hand, it is trying to expand its political space through these
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alliances. The main advantage of coming to power through such alliances
is the expansion of the RSS base, which is committed to Hindu Rashtra
and anti-minorities. Once in power, RSS cadres have been able to infiltrate
various government services like education, the police and bureaucracy.
These are very crucial services. Today, there are many more RSS people
in these services. In the states under its control, BJP permits government
employees to attend RSS shakhas (branches where RSS indoctrination takes
place).
Another advantage of these political alliances has been that BJP’s front
organizations like VHP and Bajrang Dal have become much stronger than
they were before, and they have been emboldened to take very aggressive
public postures. They are the storm troopers of BJP. In all communal riots,
these organizations attack minorities. In the Gujarat riots, VHP and Bajrang
Dal mainly attacked Muslims, and recently in Orissa these organizations
were involved in attacking Christians.
It can thus be seen that secular India has been considerably weakened in
recent years and communal forces have grown. Also, the police, judiciary
and the bureaucracy have been more and more communalized, which has
considerably increased the woes of minorities. Whenever any terrorist attack
takes place, innocent Muslims become suspects and all rules of law are
thrown to the wind; indiscriminate arrests are made and suspects tortured to
obtain confessions. Often the judiciary denies bail despite a lack of objective
evidence because, thanks to Sangh Parivar propaganda, Muslims are seen as
terrorists. The judiciary, especially at lower levels, often falls prey to such
propaganda.
It is again a result of increasing communalization that while SIMI
(Students Islamic Movement of India), a militant organization, has been
banned, VHP and Bajrang Dal (equally militant Hindu organizations) have
not been banned despite all the proof of their involvement in various terrorist
and violent activities. Justice demands that they also be banned like SIMI so
that terrorism and violent attacks can be more easily controlled.
There is no doubt that today, minorities like Muslims and Christians feel
much more insecure than during the earlier decades after independence.
Nehru had hoped that with greater education in the country, there would
be more and more secularization of society. Unfortunately, the opposite
has happened. There is more and more communalization instead. Thus,
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there are contradictory forces working in the political processes today.
Increasing democratization should have meant more secularization, but
increased democratization is instead resulting in increased communalization.
We have tried to explain this contradiction above.
SECULARISM AND ITS FUTURE
Does this mean that there is no scope for the future of secularism in India?
I think this will not be the correct conclusion. There is definite hope for
a secular future. As pointed out above, political processes are extremely
complex and finely balanced. There are different factors which determine
the democratic polity of the country. These factors are regional, linguistic,
cultural, religious and caste-based. The impact of these factors together does
not favor the infinite growth of communalism in India. In other words,
Hinduization of India is a remote possibility. Certain institutions of Indian
democracy like the Supreme Court of India have proved to be a strong pillar
for protecting democracy and democratic values including secularism.
In one of the judgments on fundamental rights (the Golaknath case in
1967 and the Keshvanand Bharti case of Kerala State vs. Supreme Court in
1973), the Supreme Court observed that even a new Constituent Assembly
cannot change the basic structure of the constitution (i.e., its secular and
democratic values, fundamental rights, etc.). This judgment is of great value
and it is because of this judgment that the NDA (National Democratic
Alliance) government led by the BJP could not change the basic structure
of the constitution. It was otherwise on the agenda of the RSS and BJP to
change the basic structure of the constitution.
In other words, secularism will continue to be the basic feature of Indian
democracy and no government will be able to change it. It is the real
strength of Indian democracy. Also, when the NDA government appointed
a commission headed by the retired chief justice of India, it met with strong
protests and the NDA government had to modify the terms of reference of
the commission.
Thus, we see that the functioning of secular democracy in India for
the last 61 years has generated a strong base which will be very difficult to
temper with. All the marginalized sections of Indian society — tribals, Dalits,
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minorities and also some sections of the upper-caste majority community —
will never allow Indian secularism to be weakened, let alone be replaced by
Hindu Rashtra. It is secularism which guarantees the protection and security
of these weaker sections of society.
Apart from these weaker sections of Indian society, the peripheral ethnic
minorities in the northeast and those in the south will never accept rule by
Hindu Rashtra. It is because of ethnic, religious and caste-based minorities
that the BJP could never get majority votes even in its heyday. The
maximum percentage of votes BJP got was in 1998 when it won 25.6% votes.
This was reduced to 22.2% in 2004. Thus, 75% of people do not support
any such radical change in the constitution and instead opt for secularism.
Even among those who vote for BJP, many vote for reasons other
than the core ideology of Hinduism. They vote because of caste and other
considerations. It is therefore difficult to say whether all support the ideology
of Hindu Rashtra and oppose secularism. It is for this reason that BJP also
has to maintain publicly that it accepts secularism. The future of secularism
in India is safe and sound.
Today, since most of the key posts in administration, teaching and the
police are held by upper-caste Hindu officers, many of whom are under
the influence of RSS ideology, the implementation of secular values and
the secular spirit of the constitution appear to be wanting. That should not,
however, make us feel that the future of secularism is despairing in any way.
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Chapter
12
The Pakistan Islamic State Project:
A Secular Critique
ISHTIAQ AHMED
When Pakistan came into being, Mohammad Ali Jinnah (the founder of Pakistan)
presented a patently secular idea of nation-building without mentioning the
word “secular.” The Islamists mounted a concerted campaign against secularism,
declaring that it was the anti-thesis of Islamic faith. They wanted to make Pakistan
an Islamic state in which the Shariah would be supreme: all laws would be consonant
with the Shariah. They did not overrule democracy, pluralism or the idea of human
rights, women’s rights and minority rights, but argued that Islam had its own
approach to pluralism and the rights of women and non-Muslims. They were able
to advance their project during the time of General Zia-ul-Haq. This study will
analyze the implications of the anti-secular rhetoric in terms of its actual impact
on democracy, pluralism, human rights, women’s rights and minority rights.
INTRODUCTION
A debate on the ideological foundations of Pakistan has been going on since
it was carved out of the Indian British Empire as a separate state for Indian
Muslims on 14 August 1947. The All-India Muslim League, which led the
struggle for Pakistan, had asserted that Indian Muslims were not simply a
minority but a separate nation based on Islamic faith and culture. Once
Pakistan had come into being, the central question that arose was this: would
it be simply a Muslim-majority state or an Islamic state based on dogmatic
Islamic law (the Shariah)? During the struggle for Pakistan, Mohammad Ali
Jinnah, the supreme leader of the Muslim League, had deliberately evaded
committing himself to any particular ideology that Pakistan would adhere
to. This strategy was adopted to maximize support from all sections of people
who had been included in the census records as Muslims.
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The more-than-1000-year-old Indian Muslim community was
constituted by diverse linguistic and ethnic groups which were further subdivided by sectarian and class divisions. Consequently, any discussion on the
relationship between Islam and the state was bound to open a Pandora’s Box
of divergent and conflicting beliefs and interests. In some pronouncements,
Jinnah assured the British, the Western world and the rival Indian National
Congress that Pakistan would be a modern democracy. On the other hand,
to the religious conservatives among the Muslims, he gave a pledge that
suggested obliquely the establishment of an Islamic state. Thus, for example,
in a letter to an influential spiritual leader, the Pir of Manki Sharif, he wrote
in November 1945:
It is needless to emphasize that the Constituent Assembly which would
be predominantly Muslim in its composition would be able to enact laws
for Muslims, not inconsistent with the Shariah laws, and the Muslims
will no longer be obliged to abide by the Un-Islamic laws (Constituent
Assembly Debates 1949, p. 6).
Not only were such commitments given, the Muslim League decided
also to mobilize mass support in the Muslim-majority provinces — a
task it realized could be carried out most effectively by the ulama. The
problem was that the radical ulama of the Deobandi school (founded in
1867) had already entered into an understanding with the Indian National
Congress to join forces so as to bring colonialism to an end. They justified
it by arguing that from an Islamic point of view, it was permissible
for Muslims to enter into an alliance with other religious communities
in a struggle to liberate the homeland (watan) from colonial occupation
(Faruqi 1980). Under the circumstances, the Muslim League decided
to mobilize the rivals of the Deobandis, the Brelawis. While both the
Deobandis and Brelawis were Sunnis, the Brelawis were not known for
their political activism. They were connected to Sufi orders and were
supported by the landowning conservative classes. However, they were
the biggest group in terms of control of mosques and Sufi shrines, and
once they entered the Muslim League’s election campaign, they began to
describe the demand for Pakistan as a demand to establish an Islamic state
(Gilmartin 1988).
The British called provincial elections in 1946 to ascertain the mood of
the people. It was clear that they were leaving India, but they were not
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sure if India should be left united or divided as the Muslim League wanted.
The 1946 election was contested on diametrically opposite platforms by
the Indian National Congress, a secular party dominated by Hindus that
sought support for keeping India united; and the Muslim League which
demanded Pakistan. The Muslims, who constituted roughly one-third of the
total population of India, voted overwhelmingly in favor of Pakistan. The
Muslim League won 440 seats of the total 495 reserved seats for Muslims.
On the other hand, the Congress received a clear mandate from Hindus and
others included in the general category of voters in favor of keeping India
united. It received 905 seats out of a total of 1,585.
Thereafter followed months of political uncertainty as the British tried
unsuccessfully to broker a power-sharing deal between the Muslim League
and the Indian National Congress. When the negotiations broke down,
communal riots broke out in many parts of India. Finally, in mid-August
1947, the subcontinent was partitioned into two states. It is estimated that
between one and two million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs lost their lives
during the partition slaughters.
Given the religious basis of Pakistani nationalism, the role of the Brelawi
clerics in popularizing the demand for Pakistan in the name of Islam,
and the bloody partition riots that followed, there could be no denying
that the Islamic factor had to be adjusted in its national identity — the
question was to what extent? Three distinct modes or clusters of thinking
emerged in the discussions over national identity that ensued in the public
sphere. A moderate version sought synthesis between modern democracy
and Islamic values; an Islamist version stood for an all-encompassing and
comprehensive remodelling of state and society on the basis of Shariah laws
and principles; and a secular version suggested that Islam and secularism were
not irreconcilable. The moderate and Islamist positions served as the basis
for the constitution and law-making, while the secularist position remained
the counterpoint position.
The present study reviews the constitutional and legal undertakings
during the moderate and Islamist periods, and advances an argument in favor
of the secular state. It will be demonstrated that neither the moderate Muslim
state nor the Islamist version can fulfil the normal, contemporary standards
of legitimate government that treats individuals and groups that constitute
its population as equal citizens. This is proved both through a critique of
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the reasoning put forth in favor of these two versions of state and through
the empirical evidence that has accumulated over more than 60 years.
Both the moderates and Islamists rely on rhetoric rather than sound
reasoning to justify their versions of the state. Rhetoric here is understood
as the art of using eloquent and persuasive language that appeals to emotions
and sentiments rather than the rules of logic and consistent reasoning.
One useful way to critique rhetorical language and writings is to test their
outcomes in practice. Medieval thinkers and debaters among both Christians
and Muslims could engage in ongoing debates over beliefs and doctrines
for centuries without coming to any conclusion because the participants in
such scholasticism were not willing to test their claims in the real world.
The Pakistani moderates and Islamists argue in a similar vein. The secular
critique of these two positions that is attempted below seeks to justify the
adoption of secularism as the necessary precondition for democracy, internal
amity and harmony, and regional peace.
It should be mentioned that Pakistan has never officially abandoned the
goal of establishing democracy. Rather, the moderates have tried to show
that Islamic democracy is superior to secular democracy, while the Islamists
have demeaned it as inferior to their “theo-democracy” (Maududi 1980,
pp. 139–140).
In order to put the discussion into perspective, a brief review of the
Islamic political and cultural heritage is presented below as a necessary
background to make sense of the controversy.
The Islamic Political and Cultural Heritage
The five articles of Islamic faith are the following: belief in God, in His
angels, in His revealed books of which the Quran is believed to be the last
Book, in His prophets and in Muhammad as the last Prophet, and in life
after death. Conventionally, five obligations have been derived from these
cardinal beliefs that every Muslim is expected to render to God: prayers,
fasting, paying the alms tax (zakat), going on pilgrimage to Mecca if one can
afford it, and jihad when required (Maududi 1965, pp. 85–141). This view
is generally associated with the Sunnis, while other sects emphasize some
other minor points too.
The concept of an Islamic state has its origins in the belief that the Prophet
Muhammad established the most just and perfect state in Medina in the
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7th century. However, there was no general theory of state or government
given in the Quran. Only a particular theory — referring to the role of a
specific person, the Prophet Muhammad, establishing a system of authority
and law including the collection of taxes — can be inferred from the sacred
sources. Muhammad claimed to have received divine guidance through
revelations over a period of 22 years (from 610–632 AD). Upon his death
in 632 AD, conflicting claims to succeed him were put forward by different
factions of Muslims. That was to serve as the basis of the Muslim community
splitting subsequently into hostile sectarian groups. The Sunnis consider the
period of 29 years after Muhammad’s death when his four successors, Abu
Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, also known as the legendary pious caliphs
(632–661 AD), were in power as a continuation of perfect government
established by the Prophet.
These four rulers were chosen in different ways. Abu Bakr was proposed
by Umar and then an oath of allegiance was sought from notable Muslims.
Umar was nominated by Abu Bakr and then the elders gave their consent.
Uthman was elected by a restricted board of six elders from the Quraish tribe
to which Muhammad and these four caliphs belonged. Ali was chosen by
an assembly of people who wanted him to succeed Uthman. Sunni theory
which evolved subsequently restricted the candidates for caliph only to the
Quraish, but later, even that condition was waived when the Ottoman Turks
became the leading Muslim power in the Middle East. The Shias restricted
the period of the ideal Islamic state after Muhammad only to the time when
Ali (656-661), the last and according to them his only legitimate successor,
was in power. Their position was that the leader, the Imam, had to be a
close relative of Muhammad and since Ali was his cousin and was married
to his daughter, Fatima, only Ali and Fatima’s male descendants could be
leaders of the Muslim community. Shia theory also claimed that the Imam
was infallible and had to be obeyed without any objections (Ahmed 1987,
pp. 46–62).
In any event, the pristine Islamic state claimed its legitimacy on the
basis of imposing what came to be known as Islamic law, the Shariah. The
origins of the Shariah were supposed to be divine revelation and not human
agency. The sources recognized by the scholars of Islam were primarily the
Quran and the Sunna (the doings and sayings of the Prophet preserved in
several authoritative collections known as books of hadith) of the Prophet
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(Faruki 1971; Qadri 1981). Other minor sources and procedures were
also developed by the jurists to determine Shariah laws. The Shariah was
developed and systematized during the pre-modern period: between the 7th
and 16th centuries — a period during which Muslim societies evolved from
tribal to agrarian economies with trade flourishing during periods of high
culture and achievements. In that long period, women were, as a rule, absent
from public life and non-Muslims were marginal to the political order.
During that period, intellectual controversies and political conflicts
between different schools took place. Among them, the most important
were the literalists who demanded strict adherence to the wording of the
Quran and hadith and rejected rationalism, and the followers of free thought.
Although the literalists finally triumphed in the early 12th century and
dogmatic theology became the dominant mode of thinking and theorizing,
it is interesting to note that Muslim philosophers made some daring advances
in free thought. Thus, Al-Kindi (801–866 AD) spoke his mind very
clearly:
We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth from whatever source
it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and
foreign powers. For him who seeks the truth, there is nothing of higher
value than truth itself (quoted in Hourani 1991, p. 76).
The general assumption upon which Muslim philosophers built their
argument was that if reason was applied correctly it could furnish certain
knowledge about the universe, but as Muslims it was necessary to believe that
some knowledge essential to human life had come only through revelation
(ibid., p. 77). Some extremist positions were also expressed. For example, a
famous scholar of medicine, Abu Bakr Al-Razi, went so far as to suggest that
human reason alone could give certain knowledge, and that the claims of
revelation were false and religions were dangerous (ibid., p. 78). The SpanishArab philosopher, Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), emphasized the pre-eminence of
human intelligence and philosophical reflection over the apparent meaning
of Quranic verses. In case of a contradiction between the truth discovered
by philosophy and what the Quran appeared to indicate, Ibn Rushd wanted
the Quranic verses to be considered only metaphorically and not literally
(ibid., pp. 174–175; Arnaldez 2000).
However, in the tussle for intellectual hegemony that raged during the
medieval period, the man whose ideas finally prevailed and established
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the reigning dogma that to this day continues to inform scholastic Islamic
thinking was Imam Ghazali (died in 1111 AD). He argued that revealed
truth ipso facto cannot be in error. On the other hand, the knowledge of
the philosophers can be impaired even when the most brilliant minds are
involved. Therefore, in the case of a clash between the two, the authority
of revelation must prevail. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a leading Pakistani physicist,
believes that the triumph of Ghazali’s thought over that of Ibn Rushd’s
sealed the fate of subsequent Muslim intellectualism and poorly prepared
the Muslims for adopting a scientific attitude towards material and social
phenomena (Hoodbhoy 1992).
In any case, most intellectual endeavors of Muslim intellectuals in the
early and medieval periods were directed at elaborating the Shariah. The
four Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence, known as Fiqh, reached a tacit
agreement that all matters in law and theology had been tackled and that
the principles and procedures for reaching decisions on particular matters
had been elaborated. Consequently, ijtihad or independent reasoning in the
interpretation of the Islamic sources was no longer needed in future. Instead,
taqlid or compliance with the decisions of the earlier generations had to
be adhered to. Known as the “closing-of-the-gates-of-ijtihad” doctrine, it
represented a worldview which seemed to assume that the development of
society had reached a stage of maturity which will remain unchanged until
it degenerates towards the end of time, when life on earth ceases and the
next stage of reward and punishment begins in another world. The Shias
did not abandon ijtihad but used it only to justify dissenting opinions from
the Sunnis within a worldview that assumed a social order of the medieval
type with its tribal and agrarian configurations (Ahmed 1987).
The medieval Muslim/Arab civilization received severe blows when the
Mongols invaded Baghdad and wreaked havoc in 1258. Later, the center
of Islamic power moved away from the Arab heartland to the peripheries.
A caliphate in southern Spain thrived for some time until Muslims were
expelled from Spain in 1492 by a revived Christian power under Ferdinand
and Isabella. In 1299, the Ottoman Turks emerged as the strongest power,
while the Mughals in India and the Safavids in Iran established their
empires in the 16th century. These empires relied essentially on the legal
developments of the earlier period and very few significant innovations were
introduced during their existence.
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Beginning with the colonial encounters of the late 18th century, Muslim
societies went into a negative mode. When Napoleon landed at Alexandria
in 1798, Muslim polities went into decay and retreat for quite some time.
Napoleon had come with a mission to spread the rational and emancipatory
ideas and values of the Enlightenment. He brought with him many scientists
and philosophers who sought to popularize rationalism and science. The
dynamic Western civilization offered a new conception of time and space
and particularly emphasized change in a futuristic direction. Indeed, the
profundity of that encounter cannot be overstated (Tibi 1997, pp. 79–81).
Among the Egyptian elite, some were converted to notions of rationality
and progress on the lines of European modernity and the Enlightenment.
However, among these Muslim modernists, the dominant view was that
Islam and modernity were reconcilable. The roving champion of an Islamic
revival, Jamaluddin Afghani (who was actually an Iranian), established the
standpoint that Islam was a rational religion, but insisted that revealed
truth was superior to rational truths and science. Therefore, the modernist
sought primarily a synthesis between European and Islamic ideas and ideals.
Some purely secular positions were also adopted, while the movement for
an Islamic, authentic path to regeneration rejected European civilization
and its rational and scientific methods. That group was supported by
the traditional middle classes and peasant-proprietors (Hourani 1983,
pp. 34–244).
Islam in the Indian Subcontinent
The Muslim presence in South Asia dates from 711 AD. For the greater
part of the period between the early 13th century AD and the Great Mutiny
against British rule in 1857, Muslim dynasties dominated the northern part
of the Indian subcontinent. Under Islamic law, a sharp line was drawn
between Muslims and non-Muslims; the latter were referred to as dhimmi.
Among them, Christians and Jews were recognized as legitimate minorities
and accorded communal autonomy and other rights, while political and
military power remained in Muslim hands. In return for this “protection,”
these minorities were required to pay a special tax ( jizya).
Some Muslim theologians and jurists in India interpreted Islamic law
liberally, classing Hindus as monotheists and thus creating scope for a protopluralist society (Ikram 1965, pp. 125–126; Naqvi 1995, p. 46). This meant
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that as long as the Hindus paid the jizya, they could retain their religion
and practise it more or less freely. However, there were movements in
the other direction too that demanded that the state should apply strictures
against polytheism and idol-worship. Despite a long period of Muslim rule
in northern India, most of the inhabitants of the subcontinent remained
Hindus. Two types of people converted to Islam. Those from the lower
castes who suffered an extremely degraded status under the Hindu caste
system, and those who found it expedient to change their religion in order
to retain their property and other privileges. There were indeed also forced
conversions from all sections of society, but on the whole, force was not the
main reason for the change from Hinduism to Islam.
Although the institution of slavery was present during Muslim rule, it
seems to have been rather loosely organized. Generally, conversions to Islam
won freedom for slaves, and several Muslim dynasties founded by former
slaves ruled in India. Most Indian Muslims were Sunnis, but a Shia minority
also existed among them. The Muslim rulers were, in principle, guardians
of all their subjects. This was the established tradition in South Asia and
the Muslims had adapted themselves to that model. As long as the rulers
nominally adhered to the Shariah in public life, the Muslim theologians
preached that obedience should be rendered to them. However, whenever
the state was perceived to have deviated from its Islamic character, some
form of censure sooner or later ensued from the orthodox establishment
(Ahmed 2005, pp. 190–192).
During the British period, rationalism and scientific methods also
attracted some sections of the Muslim elite. Thus, for example, Sir Syed
Ahmed Khan founded a rationalist mode of thinking which came to be
called as the Nechari (naturalist) school of thought. It argued that there
could be no conflict between the discoveries of science and the Islamic
faith, because the latter was based on reason and God had urged believers to
study and understand natural phenomena in the light of rational knowledge.
Sir Syed was in principle arguing in favor of scientific methods and
rational thinking. His school of thought proved too radical and most of
Sir Syed’s followers later adopted a middle, or rather moderate, position
that sought a synthesis between Islamic revealed truths and scientific truths.
In political terms, it meant Islamic democracy and not secular democracy
(Ahmad 1967).
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Among them was the poet Sir Muhammad Iqbal, who is generally
regarded as the philosopher who thought of the idea of Pakistan, and
who believed that each generation of Muslims was entitled to exercise
reason to deal with contemporaneous problems. However, he subscribed
to the traditional standpoint that religion and state were inseparable in
Islam. He was convinced that an interpretation of the Shariah in the light
of modern ideas could bring about egalitarian and progressive changes
in Muslim society. Iqbal rejected secularism as untenable with Islam
(Iqbal 1960, pp. 154–155). The main opposition to modernization and
rationalism, however, came from the ulama (clerics) and fundamentalist
ideologues.
THE THREE STANDPOINTS ON THE STATE
IN PAKISTAN
The Secular Standpoint
The secularist position ironically was set forth by none other than Pakistan’s
founder, Jinnah. In an address to the members of the Pakistan Constituent
Assembly on 11 August 1947 — three days before Pakistan achieved
independence as a separate state as the Muslim nation of India — the founder
of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, after being elected President of the
Pakistan Constituent Assembly, made a speech in which he portrayed a
vision of a future Pakistan that corresponded completely with the democratic
type of secular state. He observed:
You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to
your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan.
You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to
do with the business of the State … We are starting with this fundamental
principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State... I think
we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in
due course, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease
to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal
faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State
(Speeches of Mr. Jinnah 1976, pp. 403–404).
Jinnah’s speech has generated endless controversy as it negated the
confessional basis on which the demand for Pakistan was made. The
question then is: if Pakistan was going to be a secular state, then what
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was the justification for demanding a separate state for Muslims? Part of
the reason must have been the fact that Pakistani Muslims were not a
monolithic community comprising only Sunnis. Even among Sunnis there
were different sub-sects. Moreover, Jinnah, a non-practising Shia himself,
had been a liberal constitutionalist committed to keeping India united before
he began to champion a separate state for Muslims in a predominantly Sunni
environment. Once he took up the cause of separate Muslim nationhood, he
increasingly employed religious criteria for justifying that. By the early 1940s,
he had realized that Pakistan could be brought into being only if the ulama
were mobilized to win broad sympathy of the Muslim masses. Accordingly,
the Muslim League allied itself to the largest group among religious leaders,
that of mainstream Sunnis belonging to the Brelawi school who controlled
thousands of mosques and Sufi shrines. From around 1944 onwards, Islamic
slogans and emotional appeals in favor of Pakistan became the standard
practice of the Muslim League election campaign. Such a strategy paid rich
dividends when elections were held in 1946.
The Shia minority was wary of a Muslim state coming into being
that might be based upon Sunni principles. Similarly, the Ahmadiyya
sect, considered heretics by both Sunni and Shia ulama, was also reluctant
to support the demand for a separate Muslim state because of fear of
persecution. To all such doubters, Jinnah assured that Pakistan will not be a
sectarian state. Consequently, besides various sections of the Sunni majority,
the Shia minority and the Ahmadiyya also supported the Pakistan demand.
Moreover, when Pakistan came into being, Hindus and Christian minorities
were also residing in its territories.
Given the diverse sectarian and religious composition of Pakistan, Jinnah
was probably proposing in his 11 August 1947 address to the Constituent
Assembly that Muslim nationalism, which had served as the basis for claiming
separate statehood, should be supplanted by an inclusive concept of Pakistani
nationalism. If one reads the text carefully, there can be no doubt that he was
advocating the privatization of religion. Current definitions of secularism
emphasize the following: the state must guarantee individual and corporate
freedom of religion, deal with the individual as a citizen irrespective of
his or her religion, and it must not constitutionally privilege a particular
religion nor seek to either promote or interfere with religion (Ahmed 1987,
p. 36).
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It should be quite clear that the versions of the state that existed among
the Muslims during the pre-colonial period were by no means secular and
democratic in the modern sense, though pluralism of a communal type did
exist in that period. Therefore, Jinnah could not possibly have been alluding
to some ideal from the past; rather, he tried to portray his vision of the state
in secular terms but without mentioning secularism. This was clever politics
but left many of his followers confused and bewildered.
It can be wondered, however, how much his personal status and
authority as the supreme leader of Pakistan, popularly acclaimed as the
Quaid-e-Azam (“Great World Leader”), could suffice to alter the fact that the
whole idea of a separate state was based on Muslim exclusiveness as a nation,
and this fact could not be discounted once the state had come into being
on such a basis. Examined in the background of the idea of and struggle for
Pakistan, it is not surprising that the vision he portrayed for the state he had
founded was bound to be highly controversial. It is to be admitted, however,
that he did not use the word “secularism” in his speech. That fact itself has
served as the basis of the apologist rhetoric that Jinnah was not speaking in
favor of a secular democracy but an ideal Muslim/Islamic polity! After his
death on 11 September 1948, the succeeding governments suppressed it. It
was deleted from the government compilation of Jinnah’s speeches.
In any event, Pakistani left-wing liberals and Marxists continue to invoke
that speech in defence of a secular-democratic Pakistan, while right-wing
conservatives and Islamists consider it a statement in favor of an ideal
Islamic state which they believe practised religious tolerance during the precolonial era. In particular, the former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Muhammad
Munir, argued in his book, From Jinnah to Zia (1980), that Jinnah wanted
a secular Pakistan and that Islam did not forbid the establishment of a
secular-democratic state. He showed that most of the ideas of the Islamists
were outdated and outmoded and invariably resulted in an oppressive
political order in which the state practised discrimination and persecution
of dissenters and minorities in a routine manner.
The Moderate Viewpoint
In any case, Jinnah’s successors, mostly professionals and bureaucrats, decided
to experiment with “Islamic democracy” rather than a secular type of
democracy. They were aware of the fact that Islam had been used profusely
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to popularize the demand for a separate state and therefore the Islamic
identity had to be incorporated into their version of the state. However, since
they were modernists who believed that Islam was a rational religion, they
believed that Pakistan could legitimately incorporate many of the modern
ideas of democracy, human rights and freedom. The moderate vision sought
a synthesis between Islamic political values and English constitutional theory.
Thus, for example, the Objectives Resolution presented in the Pakistan
Constituent Assembly by Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan on 7 March 1949
proclaimed that sovereignty over the entire universe belonged to God,
but that He had delegated His powers to the elected representatives of
the people of Pakistan! Furthermore, the minorities were assured that they
would enjoy civil liberties in consonance with Islamic values. Khan went
on to say that a non-Muslim could be the prime minister in such a state
(Constituent Assembly Debates 1949, pp. 1–2). Secular critics described it
as a hoax as it was more decorative than substantive and was an example
of rhetorical flourish rather than sound reasoning; further, that it was a
significant deviation from the model Jinnah had enunciated. Meanwhile, the
ulama were cautiously optimistic that sovereignty residing in God meant that
the supremacy of the Shariah had been established (Binder 1961; Constituent
Assembly Debates 1949).
The first constitution of Pakistan, adopted in 1956, declared Pakistan
an Islamic republic. The head of state was to be a Muslim. Further, it
contained a commitment to bring all laws into conformity with Islam (Binder
1961). It could not be put into operation because the civilian government
was overthrown in a military coup in October 1958. Nevertheless, the
commitment to bring all laws into conformity with the Quran and Sunna was
celebrated by the ulama as a firm and irreversible commitment to gradually
convert Pakistan into a state consonant with their idea of an all-embracing
Shariah.
The second Pakistani constitution adopted in 1962 by the military
strongman, General Mohammad Ayub Khan, initially declared Pakistan
simply as a republic, but immediately protests from the ulama and other
conservatives resulted in the first amendment which restored the epithet
“Islamic,” and Pakistan was again called the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
In any case, the second constitution reiterated the commitment to bring
all laws into conformity with Islam. More importantly, the Muslim Family
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Ordinance introduced by Ayub Khan reformed the traditional Shariah
laws on marriage, divorce and inheritance. Most significantly, practising
polygamy was made difficult (Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961).
The third constitution of 1973 went even further in ascribing an Islamic
character to Pakistan. This time it was adopted by a newly elected National
Assembly dominated ironically by the Pakistan People’s Party, which was
led by the Islamic socialist, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Thus, unlike the first
two constitutions that only required the president of the republic to be a
Muslim, the third required the prime minister to be a Muslim too. It further
obliged both of them to take an oath testifying their belief in the finality of
Prophet Muhammad’s mission (Gankovsky and Moskalenko 1978). Such
a concession was a significant gain for the Islamists because it effectively
excluded a potential candidate from the Ahmadiyya sect from qualifying as
the Ahmadis did not conform to the finality of Muhammad’s prophethood.
It was converted into a constitutional and legal provision when, in 1974,
the National Assembly declared the Ahmadiyya sect non-Muslim (Ahmed
1999, pp. 227–228). Later, Bhutto was to concede to the demand of the
ulama for a ban on horseracing and gambling and on alcoholic drinks.
All the three constitutions upheld democracy, universal adult franchise
and a bill of fundamental rights deriving from English constitutional theory.
No specific laws were introduced about the rights of women, but they
enjoyed the right to vote and to contest public office. Nevertheless, the
incremental steps taken to somehow make Pakistan an Islamic democracy
inadvertently weakened the moderates and strengthened the fundamental
standpoint of the ulama that the Shariah was ipso facto the supreme law of a
state established by Muslims.
Thus, the formula that sovereignty belonged to God while the elected
representatives had been given delegated powers meant that they could
not make laws that contradicted the Shariah as understood by the ulama.
Not surprisingly, the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance resulted in protracted
agitation by the Islamists. Also, it put into doubt the scope of religious
freedom that the three constitutions had prescribed. For example, it was
not clear if a Muslim was entitled to change his faith. According to the
dogmatic Islamic law, leaving Islam meant committing apostasy for which
the classic Shariah prescribed the death penalty. The moderate idea of an
Islamic democracy therefore proved to be in constitutional and legal terms
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“neither fish nor fowl” and failed to establish hegemony over state and
society, notwithstanding the fact that modernist Muslims were in power
during 1947–1977.
The Islamist View of the State
The thought group that benefited most from the failure of the modern
elite to establish a credible Islamic democracy was Islamism, also known
as Islamic fundamentalism, militant radical Islam, political Islam and so
on. They subscribed to the dogma that all Muslims should submit to the
supremacy of the Islamic law, the Shariah, because it was based on divine
revelation and therefore represented God’s will. The Islamists sought the
revival of the ideal Islamic state established by the Prophet Muhammad in the
7th century.
After Pakistan came into being, the Islamists became very active in
propagating that constitution and law-making should conform to the Shariah
in a substantive sense, and not just as piecemeal and ad hoc changes
and commitments. The man who spearheaded that movement was the
controversial Syed Abul Ala Maududi (1903–1979). He had opposed both
the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress on the grounds that
both stood for a secular state. However, once Pakistan came into being,
Maududi began to clamor that since the Muslim League had won Pakistan
in the name of Islam, it was potentially an Islamic state. As the ideologue and
supreme leader of the main Islamist party, the Jama’at-e-Islami, Maududi
prepared in 1951 a 22-point program which proposed that the constitution
of Pakistan should be based on dogmatic Islamic law, i.e., the Shariah.
Although the principle of elections was accepted and the 22 points ostensibly
were accommodative of civil liberties, there could be no doubt that Maududi
aimed at getting the Shariah recognized as the supreme source for regulating
the constitutional, legal, political and other sectors of life (Maududi 1980,
pp. 332–336).
He declared such a state to be a “theo-democracy” and also developed
the novel idea of “unoccupied areas.” By that he meant that God had not
spoken on all matters affecting human beings. Therefore, in such unoccupied
areas, new laws could be made by the elected representatives of the people
provided they were consistent with the overall teachings and philosophy
of the Shariah (Maududi 1980, p. 51). Thus, the elected representatives of
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the people could not make laws that conferred equal rights on women and
non-Muslims. With regard to women, he observed:
As regards the election of women to the legislative assemblies, it is
absolutely against the spirit and precepts of Islam, and there is nothing
more than blind imitation of the West. According to Islam, active politics
and administration are not the field of activity for womenfolk. It [sic]
falls under the men’s sphere of responsibilities (ibid., p. 262).
With regard to non-Muslims, Maududi candidly states that a nonMuslim cannot be permitted to be the head of state or a member of the
advisory council, but he can be allowed to participate in the legislative
assembly as long as it does not adversely affect the Islamic basis of the
state. Therefore, it was important that separate electorates be introduced in
which non-Muslims should only vote for non-Muslims. Nationhood is to
be derived exclusively from a religious basis, he asserted (ibid., pp. 296–305).
His overall writings on Islam, state, society and politics indicated a clear
preference for totalitarianism. For example, he wrote:
A state of this sort cannot evidently restrict the scope of its activities.
Its approach is universal and all-embracing. Its scope of activities is
coextensive with the whole of human life. It seeks to mould every aspect
of life and activity in consonance with its moral norms and programme
of social reform. In such a state, no one can regard any field of his
affairs as personal and private. Considered from this aspect, the Islamic
State bears a kind of resemblance to the Fascist and Communist States
(ibid., p. 146).
In external matters, Maududi wanted the classical Islamic ideas of Darul-Islam (abode of peace where Islamic law applies) and Dar-ul-Harb (enemy
territory) to be observed by the state. It meant that the Islamic state could
establish peace with its neighbors through treaties, but in the ultimate
sense no real peace could be consolidated between the world of Islam
and non-Muslims, and Dar-ul-Islam was bound to prevail universally at
some future point in time (Maududi 1981). As the supreme leader of the
Jama’at-e-Islami, Maududi spearheaded the Islamist movement in Pakistan.
His party and other Islamist parties representing different Sunni sub-sects
embarked upon a concerted campaign for the so-called Islamization of
Pakistan.
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Anti-Ahmadiyya Riots
The first major outburst of Islamism in the political arena took place when
the clerics started a campaign in 1953 to have the Ahmadiyya sect declared
non-Muslim. The controversy stemmed from claims of Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad (1835–1908), born at Qadian in the Punjab, to be a prophet. Such a
claim was irreconcilable with the belief of Sunnis and Shias that Muhammad
was the last of the prophets. In addition, Mirza made statements that declared
jihad (holy war) against the British obsolete. In any case, Jinnah had included
the Ahmadiyya among Muslims and sought their support for Pakistan. He
even made a leading Ahmadi, Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, Pakistan’s first
foreign minister. It was widely believed that Ahmadi officers in the army and
the civil service were using their influence to spread their beliefs in Pakistan.
After Jinnah’s early death, there was no other charismatic leader who could
ward off the Islamists’ offensive that since the Ahmadis had abandoned
true Islam by denying the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad, they
could not hold key positions in the state (Report of the Court of Inquiry 1954,
pp. 200–214).
In 1953, the Sunni and Shia ulama launched a campaign to have the
Ahmadis declared as non-Muslims and thus removed from key posts in
the state because, according to their ideology, only genuine Muslims could
hold strategic positions in an Islamic state. Many Ahmadis were killed
and looting of their property was widespread. The central government
of that time imposed martial law and the agitation was crushed (Ahmed
1999, pp. 233–235). The Court of Inquiry headed by two judges of the
Lahore High Court, Justice Muhammad Munir and Justice Rustum Kayani,
which examined the responsibility for the riots, found that not only the
clerics but also leading figures of the Muslim League provincial government
in Punjab were involved in those riots. They further made the startling
observation:
Keeping in view the several definitions by the ulama, need we make
any comment except that no two learned divines are agreed on this
fundamental. If we attempt our own definition as each learned divine
has done and that definition differs from that given by all others, we
unanimously go out of the fold of Islam. And if we adopt the definition
given by any one of the ulama, we remain Muslims according to the
view of that alim [scholar], but kafirs [infidels] according to the definition
of everyone else (Report of the Court of Inquiry 1954, p. 214).
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General Zia-ul-Haq and Patronage of Islamism
In any event, the Islamists had to wait until 1977 to find a proper patronage of
their ideology. On 5 July 1977, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq captured
power by overthrowing the elected government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
With the coming into power of General Zia, an unabashed champion of
fundamentalism was now in power. He succinctly declared his political
mission: “I consider the establishment of an Islamic order a prerequisite for the
country” (Noman 1988, p. 118). This he elaborated to mean that all sectors
of life including the administration, judiciary, banking, trade, education,
agriculture, industry and foreign affairs were to be regulated in accordance
with Islamist criteria.
In 1979, the government announced the imposition of the Hudud
Ordinance, i.e., punishments laid down in the Quran and Sunna for
the offences of adultery (death by stoning), fornication (100 lashes), false
accusation of adultery (80 lashes), drinking alcohol (80 lashes), theft (cutting
off of the right hand), and highway robbery (when the offence is only
robbery, cutting off of hands and feet; for robbery with murder, death either
by the sword or crucifixion). In 1983-1984, further legal restrictions were
imposed on the Ahmadis who were forbidden to use Islamic nomenclature
for their worship, places of worship and so on. In 1984, a new Law of
Evidence was adopted which reduced the worth of the evidence of a female
witness to half the worth of a male witness in a court of law (Ahmed 1999,
p. 231). In 1986, a Blasphemy Law was introduced under Section 295-C of
the Penal Code:
Use of derogatory remarks etc. in respect of the Holy Prophet: Whether
by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations, or by
any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles
the sacred name of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) shall be
punishable with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall be liable to
fines (Ahmed 2005, p. 203).
Oppression of Women
The moderate governments that came to power in Pakistan before the
Zia regime had gradually expanded educational facilities for women.
Consequently, women had started working in increasing measure as
doctors, nurses, and teachers and in various other capacities. Among legal
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measures purporting to improve the situation of married women was the
promulgation of the Muslim Family Law Ordinance of 1961. Under General
Zia, however, the overall policy was directed at arresting the egalitarian
processes, although the ostensible objective was to protect the honor and
dignity of women. Thus, the Law of Evidence clearly suggested that women
were less intelligent and rational than men. Also, proving rape under the
Hudud laws became extremely difficult, since it required four pious male
witnesses to testify that the felony had been committed in their presence
(Jahangir and Jilani 2003).
Besides such legal provisions, a campaign to impose an Islamic code
of behavior and dress was also introduced. In 1980, a circular was issued
to all government offices that prescribed proper Muslim dress for female
employees. Wearing of a chador (loose cloth covering head) was made
obligatory. A campaign to eliminate obscenity and pornography was also
announced. However, it took the form of hostile propaganda against the
emancipation and equal rights of women. The ulama, notorious for their
opposition to female equality and emancipation, were brought onto national
television to justify their misogynist opinions (Mumtaz and Shaheed 1987,
pp. 77–96). As the general situation of women’s rights deteriorated, some of
the educated women of the larger cities of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad
organized demonstrations demanding a stop to the anti-women campaign.
In subsequent years, the general climate has worsened for women in
Pakistan.
Since 1997, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has
been publishing annual reports that list violent crimes committed against
women by religious fanatics (State of Human Rights 1997–2007). Among
them are not only cases of rape in which the victims have been punished
because they could not present four male witnesses to testify in their favor,
but also a marked proliferation of so-called “honor killings” of females by
relatives incensed by a narrow and rigid view of their womenfolk being
virtually their chattels (Jahangir and Jilani 2003).
Oppression of Non-Muslims
The notion of a separate homeland for Muslims in Muslim-majority
areas of British India contained inherently the likelihood of non-Muslims
being treated as second-rate citizens of the Pakistani state. As already
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mentioned, symbolic discrimination against non-Muslims began to creep
into the constitutional system as the moderates battled with making the
constitution both Islamic and democratic. However, until 1974, the usual
type of liberal civil rights was formally assured to all citizens. The most
dramatic move against that enlightened spirit was the declaration of the
Ahmadiyya sect as non-Muslim in 1974 by the Pakistan National Assembly.
Later, the Blasphemy Law introduced by General Zia served as an excuse
for brutal murders of mainly Christians accused of having spoken abusively
about Muhammad. Those who escaped the daggers of the killers were
tried by the lower courts which often passed the death sentence on them.
However, the superior courts often converted this into lighter sentences.
Many such people later had to leave Pakistan. Also, forced conversion of
Hindu and Christian girls and attacks on churches and temples increased
rapidly after Zia’s Islamization was imposed on Pakistan (Ahmed 2002,
pp. 57–89; State of Human Rights 1997–2007).
Impetus to Sectarian Violence
Although sectarian tension and clashes between Sunnis and Shias have been
a regular feature of South Asian society, it was not until General Zia came to
power and introduced his Islamization policies that the Shias openly began
to defy the government. This problem came to the fore when the state
began to collect the alms tax, zakat, from all Muslims. The Shias refused to
pay zakat claiming they would not pay it to a Sunni state. These difficulties
were compounded further when, in the late 1980s, powerful external actors
began to cultivate their lobbies in Pakistan. Thus, Saudi Arabia and Iran
were believed to be sending large sums of money, books, leaflets, audio and
video cassette-tapes and other means to propagate their views in Pakistan.
Such propaganda offensives were backed by the inflow of firearms and other
weapons. Sunni and Shia militias began to menace and terrorize society.
Consequently, assassinations of several rival Sunni and Shia ulama and regular
gun battles and bomb explosions have taken place in Pakistan in recent years
(Ahmed 1999, pp. 232–233).
Terrorism in the Name of Jihad
The increasing radicalization of the Islamists in Pakistan received a big boost
after the Soviet Union marched into Afghanistan in 1979. An undeclared
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jihad (holy war) to liberate Afghanistan from occupation rendered Pakistan
the main frontline state from where a US-Saudi sponsored jihad was
launched. Muslim warriors were brought to bases in northern Pakistan
where they were indoctrinated into a fiercely militant jihad ideology.
After the Soviet Union withdrew in 1989, the Pakistani militants began
to promote jihad in Indian-administered Kashmir, and in Afghanistan the
Pakistan military succeeded in getting the Taliban into power. The Taliban
were committed to holy war (Rashid 2000).
However, the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 ordered by AlQaeda in the United States resulted in Pakistan being threatened with dire
consequences by the Bush Administration. The Pakistani president, General
Pervez Musharraf, decided to join the “war on terror” rather than expose
Pakistan to an American military assault. It meant providing intelligence
about Al-Qaeda operatives and curbing the Taliban in Pakistan. This greatly
angered the Pakistani Islamists. The more extreme sections among them,
including a group called the Pakistani Taliban who had links with the
Afghan Taliban, embarked upon terrorism directed against Pakistan. It
included bomb blasts, suicide bombings as well as assassination attempts
on Musharraf and other senior generals. This terrorism reached alarming
proportions in 2007 when almost every week, sometimes several times
in a week, suicide bombings wreaked havoc in Pakistan. The terrorists
targeted mainly government, especially military, personnel and installations,
but many civilians were also killed. The very existence of Pakistan seemed
to be in jeopardy. The election of a civilian government in February 2008
did not bring the terrorist attacks to an end. Pakistan has been facing
scathing criticism from the United States, the European Union and indeed
neighboring states such as India and Afghanistan for not doing enough to
crush terrorism (Ahmed 2008).
A SECULAR CRITIQUE
The “Islamic versus secular state” controversy in Pakistan needs to
be considered in the context of the central problem confronting
contemporary Muslims: how to come to grips with modernity and the
modern world. Modernity signifies the end of religious authority as the
source of objective knowledge about the world, and instead relies on
reason, science and scientific procedures for understanding and analyzing
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contemporary phenomena, both material and social. The Islamists (as well
as fundamentalists of other religious persuasions) find modernity and its
uncertainties disturbing and disorientating and seek certainty. Therefore,
in essence, the problem is ontological and epistemological; between a
worldview that is based on revealed certainty and one that is subject to
constant correction and adjustment to our perception of material and social
reality on the basis of experience and empirical evidence.
In political terms, the Islamists seek to rectify the perceived uncertainty
by establishing an Islamic state, which they believe has laid down clear
and unalterable rules and procedures for realizing perfect order and justice.
Therefore, they advocate and campaign for a utopia, representing from
their point of view a higher truth. One need not labor the point that,
notwithstanding the psychological needs for such certainty, in practice such
a predisposition induces a backward-looking, reactionary mindset. From
the Islamist point of view, humanity reached its pinnacle of moral and legal
attainments in the 7th century when the Prophet Muhammad lived; since
then it has been deviating or is in decline and, therefore, all effort should be
made to restore the original pure Islamic society and state.
No doubt pre-modern Islamic societies did practise justice and
maintained law and order, including a communal peace that allowed nonMuslims to live in the Islamic state as protected minorities. In some ways,
the medieval Islamic orders and later the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal
empires practised greater tolerance than many European states. However,
the pace of reform did not proceed beyond the consensus reached in the
classic period over law and societal development.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world did not stand still. In the long
historical process, bitter religious controversies and persecution, ideological
debates, wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing and other traumatic experiences
visited great suffering on Western societies while, like the Muslims, even
Hindus, Buddhists and other peoples suffered colonial domination and other
indignities. However, in the aftermath of the Second World War, the
adoption of the United Nations Charter (1945) and especially the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948) by the world community set forth
democracy as the norm for legitimate government. It entailed respect for
freedom to practise religion and also inclusive secular citizenship in which
all religious communities, ethnic groups, minorities, cultural groups and
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women enjoy freedom and equal rights, including group-based rights for
the weak and historically disadvantaged, and which can serve as the basis of
a fair and free society.
In the increasingly globalized world that has come into being, there is a
much greater need and urgency for applying universal standards of justice,
freedom and equality so that minorities enjoy security and equal rights.
There are Muslim minorities in almost all parts of the world, and in Muslimmajority states there are non-Muslim minorities. Some are indigenous, while
others are the result of migration. Rationally and morally, it makes no sense
that whereas Muslims in minority contexts should enjoy the rights that under
the UN conventions are the entitlements of all human beings, the same
should be denied to non-Muslims settled in Muslim-majority states.
There is no word that evokes so much antipathy in mainstream Pakistani
political parlance as does “secularism.” It is translated as anti-religious rather
than a-religious or religiously neutral, as should be its correct connotations.
Historically, some secular states and ideologies have been hostile to religion.
These would include the Communist dictatorships as well as the racist
ideology of Nazi Germany. However, democratic secularism does not mean
hostility to religion, but rather its privatization in constitutional and legal
terms. One can argue that whereas a secular state need not be a democracy,
a democracy must be secular in order to have a consistent, substantive,
coherent and egalitarian political formula.
The evidence that the so-called Islamic state engages in systematic
discrimination of its citizens on the basis of religion, sect and gender is both
overwhelming and incontrovertible. It has been shown amply above with
a review of both the discussion and practice of the Islamic state. Given that
all contemporary attempts to establish the utopian Islamic state have ended
up as dystopias — Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and
the current situation in Pakistan — there is enough empirical evidence to
indict the Islamic state as an obsolescent and reactionary model of organizing
society politically. The ruling elites impose their will on the people through
intimidation and force, and it would be absurd to believe that their rule
enjoys the consent of the people.
Of course, given the fact that the Islamists consider the creation of an
Islamic state as a matter of faith, it will not be easy to persuade them by
reference to actual conditions to change their minds. However, the review
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of the classic Islamic period shows that the dogmatic version of Islam and
the Islamic state was challenged by free thinkers of those times. Even in
the modern and contemporary periods, some intellectuals and writers have
questioned the dogmatic stance on the Shariah and the Quran. Thus, for
example, an Indian scholar, Chiragh Ali, wrote in 1883:
The Koran does not profess to teach a social and political law … The
more important civil and political institutions of the Muhammadan law,
Common Law based on the Koran, are mere inferences and deductions
from a single word or an isolated sentence … In short the Koran does
not interfere in political questions, nor does it lay down specific rules
of conduct in the Civil law. What it teaches is a revelation or certain
doctrines of religion and certain rules of morality (Ahmad and Von
Grunebaum 1970, pp. 49–52).
The former Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court and who was
one of the two judges who held the Court of Inquiry on the anti-Ahmadiyya
riots of 1953 wrote, “The Quran is a revealed book, a great book but it is
not a book of history, chemistry, physics or astronomy; not even a book of
law” (Munir 1980, p. 143). He went on to justify secularism by referring to a
hadith of the Prophet: “I am no more than a man but when I enjoin anything
respecting religion receive it, and when I order anything about the affairs of
the world, then I am nothing more than a man” (ibid., pp. 145–146).
Given the rise of the jihad movement in Afghanistan and later its
terroristic outbursts in Pakistan, the milieu in which to revive the rationalist
approach to Islam and to justify secularism has greatly worsened, but there
is nothing to suggest that it can never be revived. One can expect at some
stage a growing resistance from within the Muslim communities to these
repressive state forms. The present study does point out some cases of protest
and agitation by women but, thus far, popular upsurge against Islamism
remains muted.
It should be quite clear that notions of Islamic democracy and especially
of “theo-democracy” are exercises in rhetoric more than anything else. An
Islamic state, moderate or Islamist, cannot be a democracy. At most, it can
become a tyranny of the majority by passing discriminatory laws against
minorities and women.
Perhaps the more crucial question is: can Muslims legitimately establish
a secular state without their faith in Islam being compromised? Those who
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argue in favor of an Islamic state do not base their standpoint on solid,
uncontroversial religious grounds.
As already shown above, the Prophet did not bequeath any general
theory or model of state, government or constitution. There is neither in
the Quran nor in the hadith literature anything resembling political theory
proper. There are indeed verses in the Quran that suggest that government
should be by consultation; force and violence should not be used arbitrarily;
and peace is to be preferred to strife. Such exhortations can easily be accepted
as universal political norms and incorporated into a modern Islamic political
ethic. However, some of the verses in the Quran can be interpreted to
imply that certain punishments have been mandated for particular offences.
Indeed, contemporary Islamism relies on such an interpretation of the Islamic
message.
The question is therefore: on what basis can the so-called Islamic state
be made an essential premise of Islamic faith? The honest answer would
be: upon an interpretation of history rather than upon a strict interpretation
of the core Islamic faith. While the stamp of history cannot be ignored in
ascertaining how a particular faith looks upon different social and political
phenomena, it need not be elevated to the status of faith itself. Islamism is
only one interpretation of the very complex religious and cultural heritage
of the Muslims; other interpretations are possible.
Pakistani Muslims have to choose whether they want to adhere to the
outdated ideology of the Islamists, or step into the future and establish a
political system that respects Islam as a source of ethical and moral inspiration,
but modernize this ideology in the light of current ideas of democracy,
secularism, human rights, minority rights and women’s rights, and establish
non-discriminatory universal citizenship and an inclusive nation. 60 years of
experimenting with Islamism has led Pakistan nowhere except down into
the abyss. It is time to change course.
REFERENCES
Ahmad, Aziz (1967). Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan 1857–1964. London: Oxford
University Press.
Ahmad, Aziz and Von Grunebaum, G. E. (eds.) (1970). Muslim Self-Statement in India and
Pakistan 1957–1968. Wiesbaden.
Ahmed, Ishtiaq (1987). The Concept of an Islamic State: An Analysis of the Ideological Controversy
in Pakistan. London: Frances Pinter.
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Ahmed, Ishtiaq (1999). South Asia. In David Westerlund and Ingvar Svanberg (eds.), Islam
Outside the Arab World. Richmond: Curzon.
Ahmed, Ishtiaq (2002). Globalisation and Human Rights in Pakistan. International Journal of
Punjab Studies 9, No. 1 (January-June).
Ahmed, Ishtiaq (2005). The Politics of Group Rights in India and Pakistan. In Ishtiaq Ahmed
(ed.), The Politics of Group Rights: The State and Multiculturalism. Lanham, Boulder, New
York, Toronto, Oxford: University Press of America.
Ahmed, Ishtiaq (2008). Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence: A Profile, ISAS Insights No. 35.
Singapore: Institute of South Asian Studies.
Arnaldez, Roger (2000). Averroes: A Rationalist in Islam. Indiana, USA: University of Notre
Dame Press.
Binder, Leonard (1961). Religion and Politics in Pakistan. California: University of California
Press.
Faruki, Kemal A. (1971). The Evolution of Islamic Constitutional Theory and Practice. Karachi:
National Publishing House Limited.
Faruqi, Ziya-ul-Hasan (1980). The Deoband School and the Demand for Pakistan. Lahore:
Progressive Books.
Gankovsky, Y. V. and Moskalenko, V. N. (1978). The Three Constitutions of Pakistan. Lahore:
People’s Publishing House.
Gilmartin, D. (1988). Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan. Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Hoodbhoy, Pervez (1992). Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality.
London: Zed Books.
Hourani, Albert (1983). Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1935. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hourani, Albert (1991). A History of the Arab Peoples. New York: Warner Books.
Ikram, Sheiykh Muhammad (1965). Aab-i-Kouthar. Lahore.
Iqbal, Sir Muhammad (1960). The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Lahore: Sh.
Muhammad Ashraf.
Jahangir, A. and Jilani, H. (2003). The Hudood Ordinances: A Divine Sanction? Lahore: Sange-Meel Publications.
Maududi, Abul Ala (1965). Towards Understanding Islam. Lahore: Islamic Publications Ltd.
Maududi, Abul Ala (1980). The Islamic Law and Constitution. Lahore: Islamic Publications Ltd.
Maududi, Abul Ala (1981). Al-Jihad Fi Al-Islam. Lahore: Idara Tarjuman-ul-Quran.
Mumtaz, Khawar and Shaheed, Farida (1987). Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One
Step Back? Lahore: Vanguard.
Munir, Muhammad (1980). From Jinnah to Zia. Lahore: Vanguard.
Naqvi, Mushtaq (1995). Partition: The Real Story. Delhi: Renaissance.
Noman, Omar (1988). The Political Economy of Pakistan. London and New York: KPI.
Qadri, Anwar Ahmad (1981). Islamic Jurisprudence in the Modern World. Lahore: Sh.
Muhammad Ashraf.
Rashid, Ahmed (2000). Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Speeches and Writings of Mr. Jinnah (1976). Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf.
Tibi, Basam (1997). Arab Nationalism: Between Islam and the Nation-State. London and
Houndmills: Macmillan Press Ltd.
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GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS
Constituent Assembly of Pakistan Debates, Vol. 5 (1949). Karachi: Government Printing Press.
The Muslim Family Laws Ordinance (1961). Karachi: Government Printing Press.
Report of the Court of Inquiry constituted under Punjab Act II of 1954 to enquire into the Punjab
Disturbances of 1953 (also known as the Munir Report) (1954). Lahore: Government
Printing Press.
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Chapter
13
State and Secularism in Bangladesh
HABIBUL HAQUE KHONDKER
With a Muslim population of 130 million, Bangladesh is the third largest Muslimmajority country and has the fourth largest Muslim population in the world; yet, it
has retained a fairly tolerant and secular character for most of her history. Although
there have been occasional drifts towards religious extremism, the secular character
has never been threatened seriously. The newly independent Bangladesh in 1971
incorporated secularism as one of the four principles on which the constitution
of Bangladesh was based. When Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding leader
of Bangladesh, and his regime were removed in a military coup in 1975 (less
than four years after the country’s independence), the new military government
of General Zia which took control after months of instability removed both
the principles of socialism and secularism from the constitution. The military
government in Bangladesh sought to introduce not only a neo-liberal economic
policy, but also introduced Islam into the body politic, thus shaping the political
process. The military regime brought religion to the national politics to win the
support of the religious right. Bangladesh politics continues to be embroiled over
the secularism/religion divide. What role does the modern state play in resolving
the apparent conflict between religious and secular ideologies, especially when the
state itself has been de-secularized? Does broader socio-economic progress limit or
enable the state’s role as an adjudicator? This chapter will explore both the complex
processes of global and local/national politics in exploring this transformation and
continued tension.
INTRODUCTION
Bangladesh follows Indonesia, Pakistan and India as the fourth largest Muslim
population and is the third largest Muslim-majority nation in the world
(see Table 1). The large Muslim population in Bangladesh historically and
culturally maintained a unique identity that separates it from the Muslims in
the Middle East and has some resemblance with the Muslims in Indonesia.
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Table 1
Country
Indonesia
Pakistan
India
Bangladesh
Population
% of Population who are Muslims
Muslim Population
239.9 million
172.8 million
1,149 million
153 million
86.1%
95%
13.4%
85%
206.5 million
163.4 million
153.9 million
130 million
Sources: Population data, Population Reference Bureau estimates for mid-2008 population; Percentage
of Muslim population, CIA Fact Book (except for Bangladesh).
Like them, Muslims in Bangladesh have incorporated the local cultural
idioms and practices that have an indigenous cosmopolitan and secular
character. The geographical area that constitutes present-day Bangladesh has
been resistant to radical or puritanical Islam. In that context, it is a worrying
trend to see the occasional rise of religious extremism in Bangladesh which
has sometimes been referred to as “de-secularization.”
The tension between secularism and religion in Bangladesh is rooted
in the history of national formation in the Indian subcontinent. In 1947,
when the British rulers left the Indian subcontinent they left two squabbling
nations: the so-called Hindu majority but secular India, and a semi-religious
Pakistan made up of two outlying Muslim-majority regions known as West
Pakistan and East Pakistan with the Indian state in-between. Not only
was the geography of Pakistan bizarre, so was the justification for creating
a separate “homeland” for the Muslims of India. The rationale became
less convincing as India remains home to over 150 million Muslims. The
rationale was further hollowed when Bangladesh, which was given the name
“East Pakistan,” wanted provincial autonomy tantamount to independence.
A military crackdown by the Pakistani rulers led to a liberation war in 1971
which culminated in the independence of Bangladesh with active support
from India.
In principle, the nationalist leaders of Bangladesh sought to build a secular
democratic state which would ensure an end to semi-colonial exploitation.
Pakistan was created on the promise of democracy, which soon degenerated
into a combination of a military-bureaucratic oligarchy and tilted towards a
so-called Islamic republic. The newly independent Bangladesh in 1971 made
secularism one of the four principles on which the constitution of Bangladesh
was based. The other three founding principles were nationalism, socialism,
and democracy. When Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding leader of
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Bangladesh, and his regime were removed in a military coup in 1975 (less
than four years after the independence of the country), the new military
rulers were unable to bring a semblance of political stability. After months of
political uncertainty and instability, General Ziaur Rahman, the army chief,
emerged as the military ruler who, in a bid to drum up support and legitimacy
for his regime, wooed the religious right both internally and externally.
He removed both the principles of socialism and secularism from the
constitution. The military government in Bangladesh, as in Pakistan under
General Zia, sought to appease Western donors by introducing neo-liberal
capitalism and also introduced Islam back into the fiber of political processes.
His successor, General Ershad, used the religious card to purchase legitimacy
for his illegal regime too. Religion-based politics, which was supposed to be
defunct with the demise of Pakistan, was brought back by the military leaders
as mainstream politics. Bangladesh politics continues to be embroiled over
the secularism/religion divide. What role does the state play in retaining
its secular character and in adjudicating the apparent conflict between
religious and secular ideologies? Do political circumstances influence the
state’s capacity as an adjudicator? In addressing these questions, this chapter
will explore both the complex processes of global and national political
dynamics. It will explore these transformations and tensions between the
secularist and the Islamist forces in Bangladesh, where almost 85% of its 153
million people are Muslims.
On 29 December 2008, after many doubts and trepidations, national
parliamentary elections took place in Bangladesh which swept a secularist
party and its alliance, which included a couple of small left parties, to power.
The Awami League-led alliance won 262 seats in a 300-strong parliament
against the rightist opposition alliance which managed to win 32 seats. What
surprised many pundits was the scale of the victory. The electoral victory of
the secularist Awami League and its alliance also rekindled a discussion on
the role of religion, especially Islam, in Bangladesh politics. The Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) used the religious card, alleging that if the Awami
League won the election, Islam would be endangered in Bangladesh, and
their slogan “save the country, save the people” was a not-too-subtle hint
at that. In the past, such propaganda (that with the return of the secularist
Awami League, not only Indian hegemony will be established but Islam
will be threatened in Bangladesh) worked to a certain extent as seen in the
support for the rightist coalitions. The Jamaat-e-Islami party, a religious right
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and a coalition partner of the BNP, managed to win only two seats in the
recent election compared to 17 seats in the last parliament (2001–2006). A
marked decline of popular support for the pro-Islamic parties in Bangladesh
has baffled many who predicted a close competition. As voters, of which
32% were first-time voters, turned out in huge numbers, they dealt a severe
blow to the right-wing coalition. Does this mean that the Islam factor in
Bangladesh politics has lost its grip or is it part of a pendular swing?
In order to address the complex subject of the relationship between the
state and religion in Bangladesh, it may be useful to begin with an analytical
distinction between the state and society, arguing that although both secular
and religious undercurrents characterize Bangladesh society, the state that
was born through a violent and bloody war of independence in 1971 was a
secular state. Over the years, as the founding leader and the Awami League
government that led the independence war came to an end following the
military coup in August 1975, the secular character of the state has been
gradually eroded with the increasing influence of political Islamism. The
state clearly wears a religious character, at least at the symbolic level.
In the existing literature on the subject of the religious turn in
Bangladesh, one can identify two schools of thought: one school suggests
discontinuity or rupture; and the other school tends to see an ideological
continuity. The discontinuity thesis argues that the fall of the Awami
League government and the establishment of military rule since 1975 sharply
dismantled the secular state and ushered in a brand of Islamism at the heart of
the state. Others suggest a more continuous process, arguing that Islam has
remained central and they question the secularity of the Bangladesh state to
begin with. In this chapter, I argue that both these theses can be integrated
into a single explanation.
In order to reconcile these opposing schools of thought, we need to
re-conceptualize the problematique. First, we need to introduce an analytical
distinction between the state and society. Following that, I would argue that
while the society of Bangladesh has remained and continues to remain a
deeply religious society in the sense of spiritual and intellectual religion, the
state of Bangladesh was established on a secular basis. There were two sources
of the secularist ideology: at one level it was a reaction to the religion-based
polity of Pakistan; at another it was the crystallization of the aspirations of
the people of Bangladesh. The vast majority of people who supported the
establishment of Bangladesh were composed of various classes of people.
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The urban intelligentsia who were the backbone of the Awami League
had an ambivalent relationship with Islam. They were liberal and secular.
The Islam in practice in rural Bengal has been viewed as “syncretistic”
(Roy 1983) or what in the Indonesian context Clifford Geertz (1960) called
abangan Muslims. Like the abangan Muslims who are adat-oriented, Bengali
Muslims are deeply embedded in local traditions which are not viewed
favorably by puritan Muslim leaders. The rural Muslims of Bangladesh,
who constitute the majority, incorporated local cultural practices, Sufi ideas,
and philosophical undercurrents of other religions. The secular state of
Bangladesh was compatible with the spiritual/religious cultural framework
of the society. However, the incorporation of the symbols of Islam at the
state level by certain self-seeking politicians and political Islam at the societal
level by certain groups with links to external sources has not only changed
the character of the state, but has also sought to undermine the spiritual
character of Bangladesh society by turning it to a more religiously extremist
and intolerant direction. In this effort, the influx of external ideas, especially
that of Salafism, and a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam are playing a
more visible role than before. Such a change of direction, however, has
apparently created a backlash as revealed in the electoral outcome of 2008.
However, it would be premature to declare the victory of secularism over
sacralism. The electoral outcome marked a landslide victory against the
religion-based political parties who sponsored high-handed corruption and
nepotism. So the backlash was not a wholesale repudiation of religion-based
politics.
The tension between the puritanical and the secularist tendencies was
illustrated in the following incident. On 15 October 2008, the Civil Aviation
authority, a government body, under pressure from 200 or so madrassa
students, pulled down some sculptures from the traffic roundabout in front of
Dhaka’s international airport, known as Baul chattar (or squire). The madrassa
students protested that those “statues” were “un-Islamic,” i.e., contrary to
the values of Islam. They demanded that anything that offends the religious
sentiments of the Bangladeshis, the majority of whom are Muslims, should
not be displayed in public. Here, they were upholding an image of a puritan
Islam.
The Civil Aviation authority used the excuse of design flaw to pull down
the sculptures which were built at government cost. The liberal sections
of Dhaka citizenry did not accept this excuse. Students and intellectuals
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outraged at the capitulation of the authority protested, organized rallies in the
Dhaka University campus and demanded the reinstatement of the sculptures
that represented the Baul singers. Ironically, Baul is a genre of folk music that
is an ideal representation of the spiritually inspired, religiously syncretistic,
inclusive traditions of Bengali culture. One of the Islamist parties, Islami
Oikya Jote (United Islamic Front), and its leader Mr. Fazlul Haq Amini,
who is also the head of an organization known as “Committee for the
Implementation of Islamic Laws,” threatened that if they or other Islamist
parties get elected in the national elections scheduled for 18 December 2008,
they would tear down all such “statues” from the public spaces of Dhaka that
were built by Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government (The Daily Star,
18 October 2008). Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman,
was elected as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and served between 1996
and 2000. During her rule, some new sculptures were built to beautify the
city of Dhaka (but not too numerous so as to be targeted for demolishment),
and attempts were made to revive and strengthen the secular, nationalist
traditions which had been swamped by the Islamicists under various military
and semi-military governments since 1975. One of the memorials that
was built during her tenure was Shikha Onirban (eternal flame), which
commemorates the sacrifice of the soldiers during the liberation war in
1971. Mr. Amini, in a press conference, singled out Shikha Onirban as “fire
worship” and demanded its removal.
The liberal section of the citizenry and the Dhaka intelligentsia saw such
threats as attacks on Bengali culture and traditions. Some speakers in a public
rally at Dhaka University’s Aparajeyo Bangla, a sculpture that memorializes
the sacrifice of the freedom fighters in the liberation struggle, feared that
this could be just the beginning of a systematic onslaught against symbols of
secular Bengali traditions that informed Bengali nationalism.
The October 2008 incident was but a more dramatic confrontation
between the secular, liberal segments of Dhaka citizenry and their religious
opponents. Contestation over the public spaces of Dhaka, the capital city of
Bangladesh, illustrates the contemporary debates over secularism, Islamism,
pluralism and democracy. These political and ideological debates inscribe
the discourse of nation-building in Bangladesh in which the role of the
intelligentsia is pivotal. Dhaka, as the provincial capital city of East Pakistan,
was the fountainhead of the nationalist movement. Dhaka was historically
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the mediator of globalization and cosmopolitan values since it was the site of
modern education, various reformist movements and assorted cultural drafts
from outside since the colonial days; a recent entrant has been Islamism. As
a center of political power, the public space of Dhaka is fiercely contested
(Khondker 2009).
Bangladesh presents an interesting model of a secular state for Muslimmajority countries in other parts of the world. Bangladesh’s founding
constitution included secularism as one of the four state principles of the
country. However, with the changing political situation at home and the
changed ideological situation in the world where Islam became resurgent,
the secular basis has become somewhat tenuous.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SECULARISM
The term “secularism” was coined by George Jacob Holyoake (1817–1906)
in the mid-19th century. The 16th century was the century of religious
reformation in Europe, the 17th century was the age of reason, and the
18th century was the century of rational enlightenment. Secularism emerged
as an heir to the Enlightenment in the 19th century and was represented
in the writings of Nietzsche, Marx and Freud. However, even before the
advent of the term “secularism” formally in Europe or the United States, in
the Christian world, the Protestant Reformation had laid the foundations
for both modernity and secularism. The idea of the individual taking
responsibility for his or her own actions and the acceptance of the world
seriously were important factors in the later development of secularism.
Some writers such as Peter Berger suggest that secularism is a product of
Christian tradition.
Secularism in the West took at least two distinct forms: the AngloAmerican style of secularism and the French-continental model. In French,
the term “secularism” is used in the phrase Laicisme. In Anglo-American
secularism, the founding principle was the separation of the church from the
state. Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar; and to Jesus what belongs
to him. This separation was to protect the autonomy of the state, which
wanted a free hand in governance unencumbered by religious injunctions.
But that did not mean that religion was marginalized. In fact, many
Christian values were undergirding the seemingly secular laws. Another way
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of the separation can be read as the autonomy of the religious sphere from
the intrusion and interventions of the state. Religion too sought a space of its
own. Secularism, in the broad sense, was not denial of religion or the death
of God; rather, it was a truce that gave each domain its boundary markers.
In the French model, however, Laicite is not just separation of the
church from the state; it is a system where the state is in control of the
religious domain. In reality, it meant the marginalization of religion. In
the Anglo-American model, religion was firmly embedded in the social
sphere and remained present in state functions only symbolically. In the
French tradition, not only was the symbolic presence of religion in state
affairs banished, its social presence was also questioned. In 1882, religious
instruction in state schools was abolished. The French brand of secularism
or Laicite “found its clearest expression in the 1905 law on the separation
of church and state. At the time, the enemy was the Catholic Church
(‘clericalism, that’s the enemy!’), and Islam has now taken the place of
Catholicism” (Roy 2007, p. 2). Veiled women — Catholic nuns — were
chased from public places in 1905 (Roy 2007, p. 13). Today, the caste has
changed and public schools chase the veiled Muslim girls and women.
Without overstating the case, it can be said that the secularism practiced
by the newly independent Bangladesh state was more of an American rather
than French version of secularism. More appropriately, Bangladesh drew its
secularist idea from the deep roots of its own indigenous secular tradition.
Amartya Sen (2006) argues that Ashoka’s code of tolerant public discussion
that forbade disparagement of other sects and extolment of one’s own, and
the Moghal Emperor Akbar’s sponsorship for dialogues between adherents
of different faiths, predated by centuries the rise of Western secularism.
BACKGROUND OF THE SECULAR/RELIGIOUS
DIVIDE: PAKISTAN PERIOD
The independence of Bangladesh was significant in the context of the larger
debate over the viability of a religion-based state in the 20th century. The
demise of Pakistan less than 25 years after its independence made a simple
point that religion as a basis of national unity was tenuous at best, and the
idea of a religion-based state was incongruous in the latter part of the 20th
century. In order to understand the dynamics of the religion/secularism
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debate, we need to recollect, albeit briefly, the history of Pakistan — a state
ostensibly created as a homeland, an abode, for the Muslims of the Indian
subcontinent.
What is Bangladesh today was part of the province of Bengal during the
pre-colonial (Moghal and British) period. Over the past 100 years, Bengal
has experienced three partitions. These partitions should not be viewed
as three episodes in the history of Bengal; rather, they may be seen as
moments connected by a common theme of Bengali identity influenced by
the interplay of religion, linguistic identity, class and politics of necessity.
Bengal was first divided in 1905 by the British colonial rulers, apparently
to placate the Bengali Muslims who were ostensibly lagging behind their
Hindu compatriots in various indices of socio-economic development. It
was assumed that under a protective geographical space they would do
better; thus Dhaka was made the capital of East Bengal. The arrangement
surely pleased many Muslims but angered the economically powerful and
educated Hindus who saw in it a devious “divide-and-rule” motive. In the
face of massive resistance, the partition was annulled in 1911. Then in 1947,
the eastern part of Bengal, based on the numerical majority of the Muslims,
became the eastern wing of Pakistan. The outgoing British rulers acceded
to the demands of the section of the Pakistani leaders headed by Mr. Jinnah,
who argued on the basis of what he called the “two-nations theory” that the
Hindus and the Muslims were two separate nations, separated by religion,
culture, traditions, food habits, etc., and they deserved two separate nations
out of India. In this formula, Muslim-majority regions of the undivided
India would be marked off as far as possible to form Pakistan, a homeland
for the Muslims. The argument for creating Pakistan was advanced on the
basis that the laggard Muslim community needed space for development.
Once Pakistan became independent, perhaps to the pleasure of the
majority of the Muslims, especially the poor working class and the aspiring
middle classes, the founding leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah claimed that
“Pakistan has come to stay.” There were, however, Muslims in India
and Bengal in particular who were never persuaded by the arguments of
Mr. Jinnah; some of them achieved some success in their careers and as
individuals even in the face of so-called adversity from the Hindus. It
may be added parenthetically now that some of the narratives of the socalled Hindu opposition to the Muslim’s socio-economic progress were
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perhaps overdrawn. Those sections of Muslims who were not convinced
that Pakistan would bring great prosperity and change the fates of the poor
and deprived Muslims, chose to remain in India or kept a low profile under
Pakistan. As the euphoria and celebratory mood settled down, the hard facts
of poverty and misery sank in. Mr. Jinnah himself was the most unlikely
leader of a religion-based, if not a theocratic, state. According to reliable
biographies, Mr. Jinnah was a very Westernized leader with a passion for
Western dress, and a liberal attitude towards food and drink. Shortly before
the independence of Pakistan on 14 August 1947, Jinnah in his Presidential
address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11 August issued a call
for unity and accommodation and, in fact, envisaged a secular Pakistan.
He stated:
If you will work in cooperation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet,
you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in
a spirit that every one of you, no matter to what community he belongs,
no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what
is his color, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this state
with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the
progress you will make.
I cannot emphasize it too much; we should begin to work in that spirit
and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority
communities, the Hindu community and Muslim community … will
vanish.
You are free: you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go
to your mosques or any other places of worship in this state of Pakistan.
You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to
do with the business of the state. … We are starting with the fundamental
principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.
Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you
will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and
Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because
that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as
citizens of the State (quoted in Ahmed 1994, p. 81).
Had Jinnah championed such a progressive line of thought earlier, he could
have saved the trouble of creating an artificial state of Pakistan with colossal
human tragedy in its trails. He was probably stating his personal liberal vision
rather than that of the Muslim League leadership who wanted a state that
would nominally reflect the values and ideals of Islam. The Muslim League
was able to mobilize the majority of the Muslims to rally behind the cause of
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Pakistan. Other secularized parties were unable to mobilize popular support
despite their links with the grassroots:
Before India’s partition in 1947, Bangladesh’s politics was divided
roughly between two parties. The first was the small but influential
Muslim League, founded in 1906 (in Dhaka) and comprised of old
families that wanted to integrate Islam into political life … The second
was a much larger secular movement led by Fazlul Huq, Huseyn
Shaheed Suhrawardy, and Abul Hashem, who represented widely
popular sentiments. The movement was influenced by European labor
and communist movements and was spread in Bangladesh by young
graduates of English colleges in Calcutta and Dhaka (Novak 1993, p. 90).
The urbanized and educated classes steeped in secular values were not able
to stand up against the tide of religion-based politicians which created
bipolarity between the Hindus and the Muslims. The Muslims in Bengal
were mobilized not so much as soldiers for Islam, but as Muslims whose
future would improve in a nation of their own. The cultivated anti-Hindu
sentiment played a central role which was inadvertently helped by the rise of
the Hindu right. The secular visions of Gandhi, Nehru and other secularists
in Bengal failed to gain ground. The difference between the dominant
Pakistani ideology and the incipient Bengali outlook was evident in the
differential reactions to the news of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi,
who was gunned down by a Hindu fanatic on 30 January 1948. Mr. Jinnah,
the undisputed leader of Pakistan, reacted by saying: “India lost a great
Hindu.” The Bengali leader Hussain Shahid Suhrawardy’s reaction was:
“Weep India weep, if you have the tears in your eyes, shed them now”
(quoted in Kamal 2001, p. 44). The reaction of Mr. Tajuddin Ahmed, the
first Prime Minister of Bangladesh and the main organizer of the liberation
war in 1971, was found in his diaries. He wrote in his diary: “The Sun
disappeared from the horizon and the beacon of humanity went down … but
can you destroy the light, the light that shines from the North Star which
will continue to guide us..?” (Ahmed 1999, p. 153). The reactions to the
death of Gandhi was one small but significant example of the divide between
the two regions that made up Pakistan:
… By the early 1950s a secular party, the Awami League, rose phoenixlike from ashes, due to the dynamism of two leaders, Suhrawardy and
Sheik Mujibur Rahman. This party absorbed the older secular parties
founded by Fazlul Huq before the formation of Pakistan (Novak 1993,
p. 90).
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SECULARISM IN BANGLADESH
In 1971, Bengali Muslims and Hindus and others fought for the creation of
a secular Bangladesh, a sovereign state. The western part of Bengal remained
a province of the state of India. Bangladesh fought a liberation war to free
herself from the domination of Pakistan, which turned out to be a military
dictatorship with an Islamic leaning. In principle, the nationalist leaders of
Bangladesh sought to create a democratic and secular state which would
ensure an end to external domination. The newly independent nation in
1971 embraced secularism which was one of the four principles on which the
constitution of Bangladesh was based. The four principles were: nationalism,
socialism, democracy and secularism. The secularism of Bangladesh was
often attacked by the leftist intellectuals as not being secular enough. They
termed the Bangladeshi version of secularism as “poly-religious” as state
radio and television would give equal time to all the major religions. In
fact, Bangladesh adopted a more tolerant version of secularism based on the
idea of freedom of religion. It never wanted to ban religious symbolism.
In fact, in the most famous speech of Sheikh Mujib on 7 March 1971
which energized the whole nation to fight for the independence, he used
the phrase “God willing (Insha-Allah), we will free Bangladesh.” Following
the independence of Bangladesh, the major Islamic parties were banned as
they had collaborated with the Pakistani authority in the fight against the
majority of the people who wanted independence. Some of the leaders of
these religious parties were active members in the anti-liberation activities
and were suspected of committing war crimes. One author who highlights
the banning of Islamic political parties in Bangladesh as an explanation for
the backlash against the Awami League neglects to mention that these parties
were banned for their role as collaborators with a marauding army (Ahmed
2008). When Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh, and his
regime were removed in a military coup in 1975 (less than four years after
the independence of Bangladesh), the new military government of General
Zia removed both the principles of socialism and secularism.
The Proclamation (Amendment) Order 1977 declared on 23 April 1977:
1. In the beginning of the Constitution, above the Preamble, the
following shall be inserted, namely:BISMILLAH-AR-RAHMAN-AR-RAHIM (In the name of Allah, the
Beneficient, the Merciful).
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The second paragraph of the Preamble of the Constitution read:
Pledging that the high ideals of absolute trust and faith in the Almighty
Allah, nationalism, democracy and socialism meaning economic and
social justice, which inspired our heroic people to dedicated [sic]
themselves to, and our brave martyrs to sacrifice their lives in, the
war for national independence, shall be the fundamental principles
of the Constitution (The Constitution of the People’s Republic of
Bangladesh, Appendix XVII, The Proclamation (Amendment) Order
1977, pp. 156–157).
The military government in Bangladesh, as in Pakistan under General Zia,
brought not only neo-liberal capitalism back but also religion. The military
leaders relied on religion as a ploy to earn popular support and much-needed
legitimacy. Yet, the new regime could not completely reconfigure the
secular aspects of Bangladeshi culture. In 1998, Lt. Gen. Ershad amended the
constitution by adding the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution which
proclaimed that “the state religion of the Republic is Islam.” According
to one writer, “At the symbolic level these actions certainly offended
Bangladesh’s large Hindu and Buddhist minorities, who were made to feel
like second-class citizens” (Wilkinson 2000, p. 222). What is important to
note is that these actions were only symbolic. Government officials have
not persecuted minorities, and unelected Muslim clerics do not have any
constitutional role in vetting laws passed by the government (Wilkinson
2000, p. 222). There is no official compulsion for implementing Shariahcompatible laws.
Following the removal of the Mujib government, the military rulers
found it expedient to use Islam as a mobilizing force. The new regimes
sought to mobilize forces who were against the Awami League. They
gradually allowed the religion-based parties to contest in the elections. The
removal of the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and other right-wing parties who
had collaborated with the Pakistan regime during the war of independence
strengthened the anti-secular forces. Neither Zia nor Ershad was personally
very religious and their symbolic use of Islam earned them popularity with
religious constituencies within the country, but also helped them improve
relations with Saudi Arabia and the petrol-economies in the Gulf. After the
removal of military-backed governments through mass movements, even
the elected government of Khaleda Zia, the widow of Zia, benefitted from
the support of the religious constituencies both at home and from abroad.
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Khaleda Zia, the chairperson of BNP (founded by her husband, General
Ziaur Rahman), was elected into office in 1991 and again in 2001. On both
occasions, she ruled with the support of the Jamaat-e-Islami and other proreligious parties.
It was quite baffling as to why the radical Islamic groups would
blast bombs — as they did in August 2005 — during her tenure. One
interpretation is that although some of the radical groups were being used
by the government to intimidate and terrorize the main opponents of the
government, namely the Awami League and its left-leaning supporters, the
government did not have full control over their covert activities. Others,
however, maintain a conspiracy theory of close nexus between the BNP
government and the right-wing, Islamic radical groups.
Bangladesh politics has become highly polarized between the two major
parties: the Awami League and its allies, mainly left-leaning small parties on
the one hand; and the BNP and its right-wing, religion-based political parties
on the other. The main religion party, Jamaat, is ostensibly a democratic
party and seeks to pursue electoral politics. However, as there is a wide
range of pro-Islamic parties who vary in their degree of radicalism, some of
the splinter-radical groups probably wanted to go on their own and enjoy
a higher degree of autonomy for their activities.
After the events of 11 January 2007 when a military-backed interim
government took over administration to officiate neutral elections, many
of the radical groups lost their support base from the BNP government
whom the interim government replaced. The major Islamic party, Jamaat,
was not much affected by the arrests of the leaders and activists of the two
major political parties. With the exception of a few leaders who had held
cabinet positions in the BNP administration, the party as a whole remained
unscathed. While the interim government was tolerant of religious parties
like Jamaat-e-Islami, the government was not soft on the religious extremists
and the death sentence was carried out against six Islamist militants who were
involved in killing two judges in 2005. The members of the extremist group,
known as Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen or JMB, sought to replace the secular penal
code with the Shariah (The New York Times, 31 March 2007).
Although Jamaat-e-Islami distanced itself from such extremism, it was
still under scrutiny for its alleged role in the liberation war in 1971 as
collaborators with the Pakistani occupation forces. In early November 2008,
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the Sector Commanders’ Association demanded the trial of the collaborators
with the Pakistani occupation forces in Bangladesh, and they published a list
of the top collaborators who they pleaded with the Election Commission
for a ban from competing in the elections of 18 December.
Earlier at the national convention on 21 March 2008, the Sector
Commanders demanded the trials of the collaborators in public meetings and
named names, many of whom were the top leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami
Party. In response, the Secretary-General of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Mr. Ali
Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, termed the remarks derogatory:
The speeches delivered by leaders of Sector Commanders’ Forum and
the tirades launched against Jamaat-e-Islami leaders are nothing new to
the party. For a long time, such a speech has often been delivered either
by a section of reformist Awami League leaders or by a section of leftist
leaders like Hasanul Haque Inu and Rashed Khan Menon. The sector
commanders’ national convention on 21 March has unmasked their real
faces. With their demand, banning Jamaat-e-Islami along with other
pro-Islamist parties, the sector commanders have unveiled their plan and
cleared their position. It has become evident that their main goal is to
ban the parties working with Islamic ideals, particularly Jamaat as it is
the biggest Islamic party. It is because if they succeed to weaken the
most popular one (Jamaat), their mission will be very easy. It has also
become clear that they have floated an organization after 37 years of
independence of the country, aiming at implementing some agenda of
some vested quarters.
In the parlance of Bangladesh politics, this often means the Awami League
or alleged Indian interests.
The Jamaat leader also said:
We have been observing for a couple of years that some “activists”
of a certain political party under the banner of Sector Commanders’
Forum have been conspiring to distablise [sic] the political situation
of the country by giving objectionable and instigating speeches. We
condemn and protest at their ill-bred remarks. Historically it is true that
the architect of our independence and former president Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman along with family was killed when Sector Commanders’ Forum
leaders Major General (Retd.) Shafiullah and Air Vice Marshal (Retd.)
AK Khandakar were chief of army staff and air force chief respectively,
and subsequently they expressed their allegiance to President Khandakar
Mushtaq only to justify Mujib’s killing and also to corroborate their
links with the killing. But to save their skin, they become turncoats
and got nomination from Awami League to contest in election earlier
and remain still involved with AL politics. Another leader of the Sector
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Commanders’ Forum and also former chief of army staff Major General
(Retd.) M Harun-or-Rashid took part in a procession organized by
Awami Leaguers, flouting the existing laws of the land. Their another
leader, as the president of a communal organization, Major General
CR Dutt (ousted from army), very often launches tirades against JIB by
making offensive and instigating speeches that threaten to distablise [sic]
the country. Another leader of the forum, AK Khandakar, who was a
minister of former dictator HM Ershad, did not file any objections or
raise questions when he was in the cabinet. Using the banner of Sector
Commanders’ Forum they are launching attacks, thanks to information
terrorism and yellow journalism. Their speeches and statements are
instigating, indecent and above all they are made out of jealousy. Jamaate-Islami Bangladesh is a legal and constitutional political party which
firmly believes and responsibly practises democracy in every tier of its
organization.
Those who are hatching plots, issuing statements against the party
and stigmatizing its democratic image are out to destroy democracy and
the constitutional process of the country. Had their intention been good,
they would not have created chaos about a matter settled long before
by both the architect of independence and founder, President Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman, and the proclaimer of independence, President Ziaur
Rahman. The valiant freedom fighters are respected by all. Following
the independence of the country, many of them have floated their
organization or forum. As the freedom fighters work for every political
party, so Jamaat has also several thousand activists who really actively
participated in the War of Independence. A real freedom fighter
cannot split and divide the nation. So what the sector commanders
are conspiring to do goes completely against the ethics of the patriotic
freedom fighters, and regrettably, their statements go in favor of those
who beat several people to death in broad daylight on 28 October in
2006.
I quote the Jamaat leader at length to highlight the cunningness of the party’s
new postures. In the statement quoted above, they seemingly recognize
the role of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and yet malign the commanders of
the liberation war for their alleged support for the Awami League. In the
last sentence he refers to a tragic incident when an angry mob — allegedly
supporters of the Awami League — beat an opponent to death in a clash
on 28 October 2006, which received much media attention. That incident
was also a prelude to the declaration of emergency on 11 January 2007.
The Jamaat leader put the blame predictably on India and affirmed that
nothing will stop them from pursuing the religion-based movement:
I want to articulate saying that the war criminal issue is a brainchild
of Indian intellectuals — Bhaskar Roy, Sandwip Dixit and Hiranmay
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Karlekar. They not only wrote on the issue but also delivered speeches
at some gatherings in the country, aiming at proving that Bangladesh is
a failed and dysfunctional state. Shahriar Kabir, a leader of Ghatak Dalal
Nirmul Committee, is now visiting different countries of the world with
a mission to try the war. Thus it makes very clear that Jamaat is made
a target only because it is an Islamic movement. So we want to inform
you that we promote the Islamic movement in response to the demand
of our faith or Imam. It is our constitutional right to practise Islam and
no threat or intimidation can stop us from exercising the religious tenets
(http://www.jamaat-e-islami.org/index.php?option=com_statement&
task=detail&info_id=17 [accessed on 8 November 2008]).
The Indian intellectuals named above are mostly journalists of high
standing. One of them, Hiranmay Karlekar, wrote a book titled Bangladesh:
The Next Afghanistan? The book created a lot of controversy in Bangladesh.
It had its share of speculations but was not devoid of facts. The title of
the book drew a lot of criticism from all sections in Bangladesh as it
unwittingly suggested a possible takeover by the Al-Qaeda — the possibility
of which remains very far-fetched. However, Karlekar recognizes that the
vast majority of Bangladeshis remain moderate in their approach to religion
and that the militants are a tiny minority in this country of approximately
141 million people. What was worrisome was the presence of over 50,000
Islamic extremists belonging to more than 40 militant groups. In recent
years, a multitude of radical Islamic organizations have sprung up, funded by
Islamic charities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The synchronized bombings of
63 of the 64 districts in Bangladesh on 17 August 2005 clearly demonstrated
their power and organizational strength: “In an unprecedented scale of terror
attacks, a banned Islamist militant group yesterday simultaneously blasted at
least 459 time bombs in 63 of 64 districts across the country. … Jama’atul
Mujahideen Bangladesh, the banned militant group, claimed responsibility
for the blasts through leaflets that left the countrymen in shock” (The Daily
Star, 18 August 2005).
The terrorists meticulously exploded the bombs between 11:00 am and
11:30 am, targeting government establishments, mainly the offices of the
local district administrations and courts. In the leaflets (in Bangla and Arabic)
found with the bomb devices, Jama’atul, which had been banned on 23
February 2005, said: “It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh.
There is no future with man-made law.” The suspected bombers distributed
leaflets during serial bombings across the country under the letterhead of
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the outlawed Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) with a demand to
establish Islamic rule, failing of which they would launch a counteroffensive
against the government. The leaflets claimed: “We are the soldiers of Allah.
We’ve taken up arms for the implementation of Allah’s law the way Prophet,
Sahabis and heroic Mujahideen have done for centuries.”
Although not many people in Bangladesh were worried about an
impending Taliban rule, the rising trends in the growth of Islamist parties
and the mushrooming of madrassas in the face of the declining public
education system led to some genuine concerns about the de-secularization
of Bangladesh society. In 1999, there were 64,000 madrassas in the country,
of which only 7,122 were run with government assistance. The rest, known
as Qwami madrassas, were funded by local and external sources and their
curricula are often not vetted.
The Daily Star, a popular English daily, found over 30 religious militant
organizations with networks across the country since 1989 with the central
objective of establishing an Islamic state. Many of them received training to
conduct jihad. These militant organizations were: Harkatul Jihad, Jama’atul
Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB),
Islami Biplobi Parishad, Shahadat Al Hiqma, Hizbut Towhid, Hizb-utTahrir, Ahle Hadith Andolon, Towhidi Janata, Bishwa Islami Front,
Juma’atul Sadat, Al Jomiatul Islamia, Iqra Islami Jote, Allahr Dal, Al Khidmat
Bahini, Al Mujhid, Jama’ati Yahia Al Turag, Jihadi Party, Al Harkat
al Islamia, Al Mahfuz Al Islami, Jama’atul Faladia, Shahadat-e-Nabuwat,
Joish-e-Mostafa, Tahfize Haramaine Parishad, Hizbul Mojahedeen, Duranta
Kafela and Muslim Guerrilla. Many of their activists were Afghan and
Palestinian war veterans who fought there after receiving training in
Pakistan, Libya and Palestine. After returning to Bangladesh, these militants
scattered throughout the country and started militant activities since the
early 1990s.
According to intelligence agencies, about 7,000 members from different
organizations including the Freedom Party were trained in Libya in the early
1980s and 1990s. Sources said over 200 Bangladeshi Jihadis were killed and
500 wounded in battles in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine.
When they returned from foreign frontiers, a number of them set up
madrassas as a cover, mainly toeing the Qwami line, which is the more
orthodox system of Islamic education and needs no government registration.
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They chose the forests of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, mosques and the
Qwami madrassas mainly in the north to train their activists.
Although the government did not admit the existence of any extremist
organizations, it banned Shahadat Al Hiqma on 9 February 2003, and
JMJB and JMB on 23 February 2005. A press note issued on 23 February
said: “These groups are engaged in murders, robberies and bombings … by
capitalizing on religious sentiments.” But Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on
1 July 2003 had previously told parliament that no Al-Qaeda men existed
in Bangladesh. “There are no fundamentalists or zealots in the country,”
she told ulamas (Islamic scholars) on 6 September 2003. On the contrary,
however, ruling coalition partner Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ) Chairman Fazlul
Haq Amini on 8 March 1999 told a public meeting: “We are for Osama [bin
Laden], we are for the Taliban and we will be in government in 2000 through
an Islamic revolution.” “An Islamic revolution will take place by Qwami
madrassas,” Amini said at an Islamic conference in Comilla on 1 March 2005
(Ahsan 2005).
The theme of the rules or laws of Allah often recurs in the demands of the
pro-Islamic parties in Bangladesh. In 2008, the Jamaat-e-Islami, a party that
does not propose an armed struggle, challenged the interim government’s
support for passing legislation towards gender equality in terms of inheritance
of property under the rubric of “National Women Development Policy
2008.” Jamaat termed this proposal as “a de facto violation of rules and
regulations given by Allah and His messenger.” The Ameer of Jamaat,
Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, reminded the government that “it is not
the government’s duty to enact laws that go against Al-Quran. Rather, the
government’s duty is to ensure women’s rights that the Quran had granted
them. No one has the right to alter the divine laws given by Allah” (http://
www.jamaat-e-islami.org/index.php?option=com_statement&task=detail&
info_id=22).
The Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh does not see itself only as a political
party. It views itself as a social movement in the broadest sense of the
term. It “upholds Islam in its entirety. It aims at bringing about changes
in all phases and spheres of human activities on the basis of the guidance
revealed by Allah and exemplified by His Prophet Muhammad, peace be
upon him. Thus the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh is at the same time a
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religious, political, social and cultural movement …” (http://www.jamaate-islami.org/index.php?option=com_about&task=introduction).
Bangladesh has a large number of Islam-based political parties. While
some of them are parties that favor the adoption of Islamic principles and
injunctions to be the guiding principles in the society and the Islamic laws
to inform the polity, others want a radical transformation of society. After
the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the members of IOJ — one of the
constituents of the ruling coalition led by the BNP — took to the streets
chanting, “We will be the Taliban, and Bangladesh will be Afghanistan”
(Griswold 2005). The Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh is the largest, oldest and
the most organized, well-funded party in Bangladesh:
The Jamaat is now the largest and most active Islam-based political
party in Bangladesh. It has strong institutional networks and support
throughout the country. With a considerable number of followers
among the students, intelligentsia, civil servants, military and other strata
of the society, Jamaat has already emerged as a force to be reckoned with
in national politics. It has also attracted a sizeable portion of the votes
cast in all recent national and local elections. The Islami Chatra Shibir,
the student wing of the Jamaat, has gained ground steadily both among
the students of traditional madrassas and modern institutions (Hossain
and Siddiquee 2004, p. 385).
The above claims were perhaps somewhat short-sighted. The Jamaat
won only two parliamentary seats in the 2008 parliamentary elections and
its poor showing was instrumental in the failure of the BNP-led fourparty coalition to win the election. It did not fare very well in the 1996
parliamentary elections either, managing to win only three parliamentary
seats, and most of its candidates lost their deposits. In 2001, however, Jamaat
had a better showing, winning 17 out of the 31 seats they were allotted by
the coalition, with marginal losses in some of the other 14 constituencies
they contested. In 2001, Jamaat’s alliance with the BNP had proved so
successful that the ruling coalition was able to gain an absolute majority in
the parliament from 2001 to 2006. Such an overwhelming control of the
legislature gave the coalition led by Khaleda Zia a free hand at patronage
politics and the resultant rampant corruption.
In recent years, Mullahs in rural Bangladesh have issued various
objections against sculptures or other arts which they redefined as “statues,”
and invoked the scriptures against idolatry as found in a certain reading
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of the religious texts. In the waz-mahfil (a makeshift lecture event by the
Mullahs), various “religious” issues are routinely discussed and sermons are
given over loudspeakers denouncing all kinds of so-called “un-Islamic”
practices ranging from wearing high-heels and carrying fashionable bags by
women to keeping dolls or sculptures at home. The contents of these lectures
vary from covering social issues to political issues. In the past, the social
issues were the staple of these harangues, while in recent decades, political
issues seem to receive wider attention. The vast majority of the Muslims in
rural Bangladesh are not always swayed by such “teachings,” as displayed in
their voting behavior. The 29 December 2008 elections marked a decline
in the share of votes that the religion-based political parties received. One
ought to be cautious so as not to overestimate the impact of Jamaat-inspired
religious teachings in rural Bangladesh. Elora Shahabuddin suggests that
“poor, rural women and Jamaat have different notions of what connotes
‘Islamic’ or ‘religious’ leadership. Village women are impressed that Sheikh
Hasina has performed hajj twice and covers her hair … ” (Shahabuddin
1999, p. 164). The village women had no problem with seeing a woman
as the leader of the country — in fact, they preferred a woman to a man as
leader (Shahabuddin 1999, p. 165). The growing popularity of Islam among
the diasporic Bangladeshis in the West (Kibria 2008a) is not linked to the
radicalization of Islam and the onslaught against secularism in Bangladesh.
The rise of Islamic radicalism in Bangladesh has to be situated in the
context of the rise of political Islam informed by puritanical or the Salafi
form of Islam, a strain that wants a return to Islam’s puritanical roots as
practiced during the first three generations of the religion. Since the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan and the resultant conflicts, there has been a gradual
growth of Salafists around the globe. Bangladesh, with her closer ties with
Pakistan since the post-1975 political changes, has also been affected. The
Salafist ideology has been exported from Saudi Arabia to the rest of the
world where oil revenues play a contributing role. Saudi Arabia and other
charities linked to the Gulf are often among the major donors to the growing
religion-based Bangladeshi NGOs and private madrassa education. Many of
the Bangladeshi migrant workers who go to the Gulf for work return home
with a zeal for Islamization (Kibria 2008b), but it is not clear how much of
that zeal lends support to extremism. Yet, it poses a challenge to the secular
values of Bangladesh. Islam in Bangladesh — which has traditionally been
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spiritual, tolerant and syncretistic in nature as idealized in the folk songs of
Lalan Shah — is now faced with challenges from the radical strains of Islam
often grown in the context of globalization that produces shifting identities
and a condition of generalized hopelessness and alienation.
REFERENCES
Ahmed, Mumtaz (2008). Islam, State, and Society in Bangladesh. In Esposito, John L., Voll,
John O. and Bakar, Osman (eds.), Asian Islam in the 21st Century. New York: Oxford
University Press, pp. 49–79.
Ahmed, Salahuddin (1994). Bengali Nationalism and the Emergence of Bangladesh. Dhaka:
International Centre for Bengal Studies.
Ahmed, Tajuddin (1999). Tajuddin Ahmeder Diary (in Bengali). Dhaka: Proti Bhash.
Ahsan, Zayadul (21 August 2005). Inside the Militant Groups–1: Trained in Foreign Lands,
They Spread Inlands. The Daily Star, Dhaka.
Geertz, Clifford (1960). The Religion of Java. Glencoe, Ill: Free Press.
Griswold, Eliza (23 January 2005). The Next Islamist Revolution. New York Times.
Hossain, Ishtiaq and N.A. Siddiquee (2004). Islam in Bangladesh Politics: The Role of
Ghulam Azam of Jamaat-i-Islami. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 5(3).
Kamal, Ahmed (2001). Kaler Kollol (in Bengali). Dhaka: Mouli Prakashani.
Karlekar, Hiranmay (2005). Bangladesh: The Next Afghanistan? New Delhi: Sage.
Khondker, Habibul Haque (2009). Dhaka and the Contestation over Public Space. City,
13(1).
Kibria, Nazli (2008a). The ‘New Islam’ and Bangladeshi Youth in Britain and the US. Ethnic
and Racial Studies, 31(2), 243–266.
Kibria, Nazli (2008b). Muslim Encounters in the Global Economy. Ethnicities, 8(4), 518–535.
Novak, James (1993). Bangladesh: Reflections on the Water. Dhaka: University Press Limited.
Riaz, Ali (2003). God Willing: The Politics and Ideology of Islamism in Bangladesh.
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and Middle East, 23(1/2), 301–320.
Roy, Asim (1983). The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Roy, Oliver (2007). Secularism Confronts Islam. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sen, Amartya (2006). The Argumentative Indian. London: Penguin Books.
Shahabuddin, Elora (1999). Beware of the Bed of Fire: Gender, Democracy, and the Jama’ati-Islami in Bangladesh. Journal of Women’s History, 10(4), 148–171.
The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (1986). Government of the People’s
Republic of Bangladesh: Ministry of Law and Justice.
The Daily Star (18 August 2005). 459 Blasts in 63 Districts in 30 Minutes.
The New York Times (31 March 2007). Bangladesh Hangs 6 Islamist Militants in the Killings
of 2 Judges.
Wilkinson, Steven I. (2000). Democratic Consolidation and Failure: Lessons from Bangladesh
and Pakistan. Democratization, 7(3).
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14
The State, Egyptian Intellectuals,
Intolerance and Religious Discourse
MONA ABAZA∗
It has been often argued that Islamization from the top was a tactic initiated by the
late President Anwar al-Sadat to counteract the opposing secular and leftist forces.
Islamization in Egypt started from the top. Islamization proceeded alongside
the liberalizing of the economy, a major component of Sadat’s shifting allegiance
away from the Soviet Union and a socialist economy, to the United States.
Sadat, the champion of a liberal laissez-faire economy, introduced the Islamic
shariah law into the constitution. Islamists were given much more freedom under
Sadat. Religious television programs multiplied, and the construction of mosques
was allowed as a tax exemption. Later, secularism came under strong attack
because most of the corrupt Arab regimes fought their Islamic opponents under
a secularist banner. This claim of “secularism” to oppose the “dark” Islamists is
just a semblance, however, since doses of religiosity have been injected into all
cultural and political spheres in recent years. Religion has been incorporated in the
modern Arab state with most Muslim countries adopting shariah law within their
legal systems.
The return of the “religious” as a central theme in the discourse on
modernity seems to go together with the trend of the disenchantment
with the values of enlightenment, rationalization and progress. Evidently
this is not a novel trend. Its roots can be traced to the German Romantic
movement with its emphasis on nature and the neglected powers of
instinctive forces. For 20th century philosophical thought, the writings of
the Frankfurt school, in particular the work of Adorno/Horkheimer in the
∗ The views developed here could be read as a continuation of some ideas I developed earlier in “Rethinking Debates on Islamization in Egypt” (1999), in Discourses in Contemporary Egypt, Enid Hill (ed.),
Cairo Papers, The American University in Cairo, 22(4), 85–118. I would like to thank the Netherlands
Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) for awarding me a wonderful fellowship during 2006–2007 to
work on the topic of the debates on enlightenment in the Arab world.
235
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now classic Dialectic of Enlightenment, is considered a landmark in its modern
critique of the Enlightenment. The Culture Industry, which epitomized
the height of mass production, was understood as a form of banalization
and homogenization of culture that was ultimately heading towards
undemocratic rule. The Frankfurt school insisted that the emphasis on
rationalization, empiricism and classification — all being essential premises of
the Enlightenment age — has eventually led to the disaster of “instrumental
reason” which hardly ever questioned the Holocaust. The discontent with
civilization for being entrapped within the “iron cage” of rationalization
has become the main concern of 20th century thinkers from Freud to
Max Weber and Norbert Elias, and then to Michel Foucault. Foucault
insisted upon the reverse side of the Enlightenment, which went with
the enforcement of discipline, control and punishment as part and parcel
of power construction. Foucault’s main concern was that no civilization
is erected without the suppression of its inherent madness, without the
invention of confinement of the chaotic, uncontrolled, unwanted “Other.”
It is perhaps the Foucaultian upshot, understood by many as one of the
harshest critiques of post-modern meta-narratives (even though Foucault
refused to be called a post-modern), having equally influenced a whole
school of post-colonial studies, which triggered a fierce debate about the
deadlock of Euro-centricity in the European Enlightenment. Certainly,
equally important was Edward Said’s Orientalism, which traced the long
history of ethnocentrism in the making of the academic spheres in inventing
an imagined Orient.
The interest in the return of the religious seems to have gained
prominence amongst social scientists in recent years.1 Perhaps the most
pertinent critique of Western secularism as having had its roots in religion
is Talal Asad’s work, which challenged the idea of the linear simplistic
progression from the religious to the secular.2 Asad’s merit was to reveal
the intricacies and myths about a homogeneous evolution in Europe in the
separation of religion from secular institutions in government.3
This prelude was to explain that in spite — if not because of — the long
heritage of the European Enlightenment, the ambiguity and intricacy of
1 I am thinking of the recent works of Charles Taylor, Talal Asad, Nilufer Göle, and Sabah Mahmud.
2 Talal Asad (2005). Formations of the Secular. Stanford University Press, pp. 1–2.
3 Ibid.
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modernity and religion still remain unresolved in the Western “democratic”
world. A closer look at most of the Muslim countries today will tell us
that they have always maintained an equally ambiguous relationship with
their management of religion within the confinements of the modern
nation-states.
Modernization for a significant section of contemporary Arab
intellectuals was synonymous with renaissance (nahda) and enlightenment
(tanwir). It saw the light with the movement of tanzimat in the Ottoman
period. Without the reforms of the tanzimat, there would not have been
a movement. At least, this is what a section of secular intellectuals like
the Syrian philosopher Sadeq Jalal al-Azam have argued. This means that
a material transformation had already occurred as an overture before the
intellectual movement took place. The tanzimat movement started around
1830 through a decree. These universal reforms appealed to reason. As
Aziz al-Azmeh argued, this was the trigger for modernity, with the notion
of citizenship replacing religious affiliations.4 Most of the Arab countries
then experienced a process of modernization with the colonial encounter.
Parliaments, the press, secular and educational institutions erected by
missionaries, foreign schools, modern national universities, modern armies,
dormitories, disciplinary conventions and training borrowed from Western
countries were introduced from the second half of the 19th century.
Students were sent to Europe, and accounts about the manners and customs
of the Westerners were popularized. Consumer culture and European
lifestyles in housing, ornamenting salons and in dressing were spread. The
Haussmanian, grid- or boulevard-inspired rational and modern city was
erected in contradistinction to the traditional labyrinth of the Islamic city.
Translations and commentaries of the European Enlightenment thinkers had
an impact in opening up visionary perspectives of ruling and governing.
Novels were written and theater became popular. All these were the crucial
elements of burgeoning nationalism. However, with the advent of the
nationalist post-colonial regimes, and the wave of Islamization of both
the regimes through fighting the religious opposition, religion has been
incorporated in the modern Arab state with most Muslim countries adopting
shariah law within their legal systems. This is part of what Sami Zubaida calls
4 Aziz al-Azmeh (2003). Laicité et Culturalisme dans le Monde Arabe. In Réformer l’islam, une introduction
aux débats contemporains, éditions de la découverte, Abdou Filali-Ansary (ed.). Paris, pp. 149–150.
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the “etatization” of religion and law, where religion is submitted to political
authority rather than separated from it.5
Equally in recent years, secularism has come under strong attack because
most of the corrupt Arab regimes fought their Islamic opponents under
the secularist banner.6 The claim of “secularism” to oppose the “dark”
Islamists is just a pretence. Doses of religiosity have been injected into all
cultural and political spheres for almost four decades. Islamization in Egypt
started from the top. In the 1970s, the late President Sadat encouraged
Islamists onto university campuses and distributed free Islamic attire to
counteract communists and secular trends. Islamization proceeded alongside
the liberalizing of the economy, a major component of Sadat’s shifting
allegiance away from the Soviet Union and a socialist economy, to the
United States. Furthermore, Sadat encouraged the banned Muslim Brothers
organization to return to Egypt and allowed them to publish journals.
Sadat, the champion of a liberal laissez-faire economy, introduced the Islamic
shariah law into the constitution.7 Islamists were given much more freedom
under Sadat, who called himself the “president believer” (al-ra’is al-mu’min).
Religious television programs multiplied and the construction of mosques
was allowed as a tax exemption.
Under Mubarak, the politics of becoming more royalist than the king
continued. State violence was perpetrated not only against Islamists but also
against poor citizens. Quotidian violence against the poor was one strategy to
remind people that opposition would be ruthlessly crushed, as it was during
the bread riots in 1977, or the mutiny by security forces conscripts in 1986.
Repression still goes on, as demonstrated in the December 2006 response
to strikes by 20,000 textile workers in Mahalla. Terrorist attacks against
government officials and clashes between the police and Islamic jihadists
significantly multiplied in the 1980s. This violence reached a peak in the
early 1990s with the murder of the sardonic secular intellectual, Farag Foda,
5 Sami Zubaida (2003). Law and Order in the Islamic World. I.B. Tauris, p. 159.
6 Egypt scores as one of the most corrupt regimes in the MENA region, according to the corruption
perception index. In 2002, 48 high-ranking officials were convicted of corruption. See Gamal Essam ElDin, “Catching up with High Profile Corruption,” in al-Ahram Weekly, 4–10 March 2004. According
to the report of the administrative control authority, in the last five years there have been 80,000 cases
of corruption in Egypt (see http//www.ikwanweb.com/home, 8 March 2007).
7 During Sadat’s rule, there were two amendments to the constitution (1971 and 1980). The first included
the following sentence: “Islam is the religion of the state, Arabic is the official language; and the principles
(mabadi’) of shariah are a principal source of legislation.” See Sami Zubaida (2003), p. 166.
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and a terrible record of human rights violations.8 Egyptian law, we are told
by Sami Zubaida, does not make apostasy an offence, neither does it specify
what it is. However, there were repeated attempts to charge the philosophy
professor Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd in the years 1992–1996, claiming that his
writings provided sufficient evidence for such a charge.9
Yet this happened in parallel with an official government endeavor to
promote a campaign of enlightenment (tanwir) via the Ministry of Culture.
This schizophrenic behavior, Islamizing state apparatuses on the one hand
and claiming a “secular” façade on the other, was designed to maintain
international credibility and attract foreign aid. The state managed to coopt the secular and former leftist intellectuals into media apparatuses and
Ministries of Culture, a process that has been brilliantly described by Nasr
Hamid Abu Zayd.10 These intellectuals used Enlightenment discourse as an
instrument against both those representing the religious institution of alAzhar, which was implementing state Islamization, and the Islamists. This
led to an unconditional elitist support of the government characterized by
statements like: “… The hell of military despotic regimes is more merciful
than the heaven of the preachers.”11 Islamization became obvious in the
spread of Islamic attire, the imposition of sex segregation on university
campuses, and increasing displays of ritual and religiosity in public spaces.
Equally, the Islamists taxed the government endeavor to spread official
Enlightenment propaganda.12 They attacked moves by Egypt’s First Lady
to empower women, the Ministry of Culture’s project to reprint works by
Arab pioneers of the Enlightenment, the fostering of the arts by the Minister
of Culture, and the creation of a television “channel of enlightenment.”
Even more aggressively, the Islamists have defined secular intellectuals as
“secular Westernizers” and as traitors. In the Islamists’ jargon, secularism
8 According to the Muslim Brothers organization, some 20,000 Muslim Brothers were arrested in around
the past 15 years.
9 Sami Zubaida (2003). Law and Order in the Islamic World. I.B. Tauris.
10 Abu Zayd uses the Arabic word tagnid, meaning to mobilize or recruit intellectuals to the service of
the state.
11 Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, “Wizarat al-thaqafa: i‘laan fashal al-tanwir al-bragmaati, hal hunaka tariq
aakhar? al-tathweeir la al-tanwir” (“The Ministry of Culture, Declaring the Failure of Pragmatic
Enlightenment, Is There another Path?”), in Akhbar al-Adab, 18 February 2001.
12 Gaber Asfur (2000). didd al-ta’ assub (Against Fanaticism). Cairo: mahragaan al-quira’ lil gamii‘ maktabat
al-usra, p. 303.
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connotes atheism or unbelief and thus the license to takfir.13 The secular
camp believes that the license to incite the killing of unbelieving opponents
is inherently embedded within the state discourse. Various protagonists have
appropriated the term. The confrontation between the government and the
Islamists, which is undertaken through co-opting of a significant section
of the secularists, seems to take a fascinating dimension; one and the same
identical language, historical figures and symbols are today dissected and torn
apart by each camp. Precisely at the moment when the government is trying
to sell to the Western “democratic” and free world an image of a civilized
“enlightened” government, combating its “dark” opponents, it has itself reinvented Middle Ages practices such as publicly sexually harassing protesting
female demonstrators and the stripping off of their clothes by thugs paid by
the regime in May 2005. These unprecedented events in Egypt’s history
have instigated a series of public sexual harassments by young Egyptian males
following the example of the regime, as well as further research by human
rights organizations on the shameful and despicable state of the arts of sexual
harassment and how police forces are just as appalling in their sexist attitude
by equally practicing sexual harassment.14 Government Enlightenment has
combined with the regime’s mounting of barbaric practices in its attempts at
harshly disciplining the unruly. The situation reached its peak in 2008 with
escalating political tensions, including handcuffing in hospitals the seriously
wounded workers of Mahalla al Kubra who demonstrated during April 2008.
TRADING WITH TANWIR
I would like to depict here four different positions to portray how the term
“trading” has been used, abused and recycled by several opposing factions
of intellectuals. The first intellectual is Galal Amin who has written two
books in Arabic on the subject, al-tanwir al-za’ef (False Enlightenment)15 and
dedd al-taqaddum (Against Progress). The second intellectual, Nasr Abu Zayd,
published a series of articles on the topic, which he compiled later into a
book. These two intellectuals might be opposing each other politically on
13 Gaber Asfur (2000), p. 303.
14 See the inspiring article by Mona Eltahawy (2008). Shame and Sexual Harassment in Egypt. Distributed
by Agence Global.
15 Galal Amin (1999). al-tanwir al-za’ef (False Enlightenment). Cairo: dar al-ma’aref.
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the issues of religion and secularism. However, both seem to direct a bitter
critique regarding the current use and abuse of the concept of tanwir amongst
both the Egyptian intellectuals and state officials. Refa‘at al-Sa‘id and Jaber
‘Asfur represent the secular authoritarian “Government Enlightenment.”
Texts need to be read in context. This is why these four intellectuals can
only be read as complementing each other.
Against Progress is written in a simple, easygoing style, which explains
its overwhelming success, being translated in many reprints, in addition to
the English translation by AUC Press. Apparently, it has recently found a
wide reception in Egypt with the growing Islamization of the public sphere.
The negative stand towards the idea of progress could be understood as a
simplistic justification for the critique of a nebulous entity seen as the West.
Indeed, Amin here seems to want to convey to the Arab reader that he is
the first intellectual who critiqued progress, and through undertaking this he
appeals to the growing nationalist sentiments, and even more so, to populism
which has been generated by the long history of defeat with the colonial
encounter epitomized in the Arab-Israeli conflict. But Amin’s success in
the Egyptian intellectual field says a lot about the significance of erasure
of history and forgetfulness, or rather about the conscious suppression of
the Western critical philosophical tradition as part and parcel of a conscious
misreading of the “Other” West.
Galal Amin is an Egyptian economist, a veteran adherent of the
dependencia school, who won in recent years the state prize for his book,
Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? Amin has shifted in recent years to
adopt an increasingly nationalist tone. His position, interestingly enough,
converges with numerous standpoints defended by the Islamists. In fact, one
could read him as a strong apologist for the Islamists and their witch-hunting
of novelists and intellectuals. Amin’s starting point, which is certainly not
novel, is that the values of the Enlightenment are not universally applicable.
Amin begins the opening chapter in False Enlightenment with the title
“Tanwir, or the feeling of Shame” by recalling that when he was a PhD
student of economics in London, he and his colleagues from various Third
World countries agreed on one point: that there existed two worlds, a
developed and an underdeveloped world. The main point was that all stages
of development were converging on one path; thus, some nations had taken
a more advanced path, while other nations were lagging behind. There
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was nothing more noble than to attempt to bridge this gap between “Us”
and “Them” by trying to climb progressively up the stages. Amin tells us
that like many of the students of the time, he believed naively in Rostow’s
stages of development, which naturally implied that the Third World was
then experiencing a lower stage of development. Through imitating the
American model, it was believed that it was possible to reach the same
standards of living. It was indeed, according to him, naive thinking.
Another problem, Amin argues, was that “We,” meaning all those newly
coming to Europe, had a strong feeling of shame because “We” came from
an underdeveloped world. Amin wants to convey that he did not have
this feeling of shame as an individual, because he considered himself to be
amongst the elite of his own society. Had he not originated from the elite,
he would still have been granted the PhD and therefore he would have still
ended up amongst the elite. Indeed, Amin felt that he was amongst the lucky
few, but he still felt ashamed vis-à-vis the “Other,” the foreigner, for reasons
that need explanation elsewhere.16 As time went by, Amin discovered that
development was not at all an issue of stages. The West can easily fall back
to a former stage, or to tradition. History is no longer seen as stages like a
ladder, but rather like multiple, intertwining paths.17
Amin then develops his main thesis. He argues that those who claim to
be enlightened are as authoritarian as the non-enlightened. If enlightenment
meant the triumph of reason over the magical and the mythical worldview,
it did not necessarily mean that reason took over. If the enlightened argue
that their values are about respect for the opinion of others, tolerance and
universal values, the prevalence of reason and science, this might not be
constantly true because these values were never realized in an absolute
manner.18
Most defenders of tanwir, who are fighting for freedom of thought,
freedom of expression and tolerance for others, have ignored the content of
what some “free thinkers” and some writers have written in their claim that
the freedom of expression is absolute.19 Amin insists that there is no absolute
freedom; everything, including thinking structures, entails a boundary.
16 Galal Amin (1999), p. 7.
17 Ibid., p. 9.
18 Ibid., p. 24.
19 Ibid., p. 28.
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Voltaire, one of the dominant Enlightenment thinkers, was willing to give
up the attack on freedom and intolerance when it did not match with his
main argument.20
It is erroneous to believe that transcendental and religious beliefs would
in the main lead to intolerance, violence or disasters. It is also wrong to
believe that religious beliefs would lead in general to the destruction of
science or to a deviation from the logical structures of scientific thinking.21
Put differently, the rejection of religious thinking and worldview is neither a
necessary condition for eradicating intolerance and violent acts, nor is it the
symbol of the triumph of science or objectivism. One could be a religious
scientist and be equally tolerant of others and reject violence. One could
also be a kafir,22 and maintain a hostile attitude towards science, and be
very harsh in dealing with those who have different opinions.23 All these
requirements for the freedom of thought and the freedom of expression
were always qualified. They are very similar to the notion of freedom in
ancient Greece which excluded the slaves.24
Secularist intolerance can be as anti-scientific and destructive, much like
religious fanaticism was against science. This applies similarly to the fanatic
communists of the Soviet Union and the Fascists as well as the American
media in their attack on all those who are trying to threaten the American
way of life.25
Amin further argues that in Egyptian cultural life, there is a glorification
of works that are considered innovative, even if they are superficial. Amin
elaborates on this idea by insisting that these works are celebrated because
they insult and debase religion. Under the excuse of freedom of expression,
the enlightened or tanwiri intellectuals can say what they please.26 Much
like the tanwir, intellectuals (muthaqaful-tanwir) are exercising a form of
oppression. Clearly, here Amin is arguing that one should not allow
total freedom of expression, similar to the idea that there are limits to
tolerance. One can read Amin’s statements as an invitation to legitimizing
20 Ibid., p. 29.
21 Ibid., p. 25.
22 Amin uses this term to mean disbelief, and possibly to include atheists.
23 Ibid., p. 35.
24 Ibid., p. 29.
25 Ibid., p. 37.
26 Ibid., p. 39.
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the recent government endeavors, aided by the al-Azhar religious institution,
of censoring the literary works and witch-hunting writers and artistic
productions with the excuse that these works are offending public morality.
Amin then challenges the idea that humanity is continually progressing or
improving and that it will reach the highest stage of perfection.27
For Amin,28 it would seem that the traders of enlightenment (tanwir)
in contemporary Egypt are in reality the staunch defenders of the “New
World Order” and the “Free World,” which is nothing but American
imperialism. He refers to the Cold War period when the US, threatened
by communism, used religion to counteract nationalist movements. These
movements were regarded as communist and thus as faithless atheism. Amin
reminds the Arab reader that the shaping and defending of the “Free World”
went hand-in-hand with the anti-communist, witch-hunting politics of
McCarthyism and the growing role of the CIA in instigating coup d’etat in
several nationalist Third World countries. He then focuses on the class of
Egyptian intellectuals who were, according to him, the “lackeys” of the
Americans after World War II. He points to some journalists in the Akhbar
al-Youm newspaper who were known for their pro-American views and the
publication of al-Mukhtar magazine as propagating an American worldview.
However, politics changed drastically with the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the failure of communism. The friendly relationship between the US and
Israel was strengthened further. Since fighting communism was no longer
the issue, Fukuyama replaced it with the celebrated notion of the End of
History. In Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, Islam replaced communism
as the next Manichean-Other-enemy. It is thus clear that Islamic terrorism
has become the future demon to be extinguished. Amin tells us that similar
to the defenders of the pro-American “Free World” of the earlier period,
the staunch attackers of Islam as a religion of terror seem to be playing the
same pro-American card. Amin seems to blame (the secular) intellectuals
for using a similar tactic through attacking the Islamic camp, though with
divergent aims. If religion was meant to be protected from communism
27 Ibid., p. 40.
28 In the following passages I will summarize Galal Amin’s ideas in the chapter entitled “The truth about
(tanwir) under the light of the new world order” in al-tanwir al-za’ef (False Enlightenment) (1999). But
the book was also published as Galal Amin (2005). al-tanwir al-za’if, second edition. Cairo: dar al-‘ain
lil-nashr.
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during the Cold War, today the argument runs as follows: it is for defending
the freedom of opinion from religion. If in earlier times any defender of
social justice was regarded as kafir (non-believer), the charges today are just
the opposite: to pass hasty judgments on others as kafirs. In other words,
if in the past the charge was that faith was not strong enough, today too
much faith is perceived as a danger. Amin’s conclusion is thus that those
who are today raising the banner of tanwir, are the “traders” and defenders
of American values, and by deduction they are thus defending Israel as a
lackey of imperialism. Earlier, Amin dedicates long passages to the role of
Israel as a key actor in what he regards as a triumphant Israeli era. Although
disagreeing with many of the premises Amin advances, I agree with his idea
that there is an overwhelmingly powerful Zionist project and the opposition
to it is often regarded as terrorism and Islamic fanaticism.29
One can only agree with Amin’s criticism of the imperialist PaxAmericana expansion, and that Islam has replaced the communist threat and
was made enemy number one in the Western world. However, it is his
affinity with the Islamists in attacking secular intellectuals that is disturbing.
Is Amin here not reproducing the familiar fear by reducing everything to a
Zionist and Orientalist conspiracy which Sadeq Galal al-‘Azm vehemently
criticized with great irony? In a paper criticizing Hassan Hanafi’s naive
Occidentalism, Adonis’s re-inventing of the spiritual Orient versus a
materialist-technical-reason-oriented West as a form of “Orientalism in
reverse,” as well as Jean Braudrillard’s sheer simplistic Orientalism, al-‘Azm
brilliantly showed the contemporary effectiveness of the conspiracy theories
in our part of the world. Conspiracy theory is one way to interpret the
unconditional support of Americans for Israel and yet the Arabs have to
face the dilemma of remaining faithful allies because of oil interests. The
Arabs needed an explanation for the hegemonic policies of the US. For
years, the blame was directed against Jewish-Zionist organizations and the
conspiracies. For al-‘Azm, it seems that the Iranians have excelled amongst
the Arabs in championing conspiracy theories. Collateral to conspiracy are
the secret “agents” who are a vital element in the conspiracy theory.30
Al-‘Azm maintains that Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses was perceived as
a work of a secret agent of resurgent Shi’ism and that there was a secret
29 Galal Amin (1999), p. 56.
30 Sadik J. Al-‘Azm (2006). Orientalism and Conspiracy. Unpublished paper.
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agreement between Khomeini and Rushdie, since the fatwa of the death
sentence led indirectly to the glorification of Khomeini.31 I am afraid that
Amin’s analysis implies that all secular intellectuals and novelists as well as
all those who consider themselves as belonging to the liberal camp are, in
the end, effectively the “agents of Western conspiracies.”
Amin’s new book32 is much celebrated amongst official circles. The
disturbing thing about Amin’s critique of the Enlightenment is his rejection
of the long-standing Western philosophical and sociological tradition of
critiquing the very premises of Enlightenment. Much has been written about
the unresolved relationship between the secular and the sacred in Europe.
Talal Asad’s recent work mainly looks at the complexity of secularism in
the West to argue as follows: “The question of secularism has emerged as an
object of academic argument and of practical dispute. If anything is agreed
upon, it is that a straightforward narrative of progress from the religious to
the secular is no longer acceptable. But does it follow that secularism is not
universally valid?”33 Here again it would seem that Amin has never really
looked into any of these vigorous contemporary debates. He has ignored
the crucial critique of the Enlightenment of the Frankfurt school and their
views of modern barbarism as exemplified in the Holocaust; the writings of
Michel Foucault about civilization and power, which entail a sharp critique
of the limits of reason; the critical writings of the German sociologist Norbert
Elias on the process of civilization and barbarism; Stuart Hall’s Formations
of Modernity, which devotes a whole chapter to the history of the critique
of the idea of progress; and not to forget the brilliant critiques by the
Indian subaltern studies group against both colonial domination and the
association of progress and reason with modernity. Amin’s analysis portrays
a simplistic understanding of the Enlightenment as a monolithic movement,
and refers to Voltaire and Condorcet as if they are contemporaries and as
if no critical works have been produced amongst Western academics about
them. His reference to Western sources leaves a lot to be desired. Take,
for instance, Jonathan Israel’s brilliant study on “Radical Enlightenment”
where he argues that there were strong differences between the moderate
mainstream Enlightenment of Locke, Newton and Voltaire, and the radical
31 Ibid., p. 47.
32 The Illusion of Progress in the Arab World: A Critique of Western Misconstructions (published by AUC Press
in 2006).
33 Talal Asad (2005). Formations of the Secular. Stanford University Press, p. 1.
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Enlightenment which included Bayle, Fontenelles, Boulainvilliers, Tyssot
de Patot, Lahontan and others.34 Radical Enlightenment was epitomized in
the writings of Spinoza and in Spinozism. The merit of Israel’s work is that
it stresses the intricate and complex relationship between the history of ideas
and material conditions, and equally the multi-faceted and complex streams
of intellectualism which teaches us that the Enlightenment in Europe has
never been homogenous.
Equally, it seems that Amin has never heard of post-modern
deconstruction. Likewise, no mention is made of the serious works of the
subaltern studies group in India and the challenge of Western modernity.
Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical
Difference35 is a skillful example of the deconstruction of a mythological
Europe from a postcolonial perspective. It finely discusses the paradoxes
of “authoritative enlightenment” imposed by the colonial encounter.
Chakrabarty takes a subtle stand by arguing that “Nativism” cannot replace,
or be a solution to, Eurocentrism. Although he points out the limits
of Western Enlightenment, he remains a universalist by insisting on the
significance of social critique to understand various non-Western societies,
like India. Chakrabarty’s writings are easily applicable to the Egyptian case.
In fact, compared to another prominent subaltern studies group, like Partha
Chatterjee’s theorization on nationalism, Amin’s writings are simplistic,
indeed chauvinistic,36 and no doubt fall into the trap of a Manichean
dichotomy of a monolithic West versus an entity seen as the Third World.
But the timing of its publication seems to be crucial in serving a populist
purpose.
THE SLANDER OF TAHA HUSSEIN
Taha Hussein, the dean of Arabic culture of the “liberal age”37 and one of
the most important literati of modern Egypt, maintained that education is
a necessity like water and air and therefore should be free for all. In recent
34 Jonathan I. Israel (2006). Enlightenment Contested, Philosophy, Modernity and The Emancipation of Man
1670–1752. Oxford University Press, p. 43.
35 Published by Princeton University Press in 2001.
36 Concerning Amin’s chauvinism, see the book review of Galal Amin’s False Enlightenment by Nur
Elmessiri, “Better than More,” in al-Ahram Weekly, Issue No. 433, 10–16 June 1999.
37 I borrow this term from Albert Hourani (1983). Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939.
Cambridge University Press.
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years, the late Taha Hussein has been subjected to harsh attacks from the
Islamists. He was accused of being a lackey of the Orientalists and a mere
imitator of the West. His thesis that Egypt belonged to the Mediterranean,
Greco-Roman culture, which he developed in his book, The Future of
Culture in Egypt, has been simplistically and unjustly misinterpreted to portray
him as a blind follower and imitator of the West. He and other similar
figures became the battlefield upon which the secular-Islamist camps are
sharpening their controversies. His books have been banned from school
curricula. I agree with Fauzi M. Najjar that Taha Hussein “has become the
object of abuse, condemnation and ridicule by Islamic extremists.”38
Galal Amin seems to ride on the wave of the smear campaign against
Taha Hussein by sharing a common ground with the Islamists in attacking
the liberal age thinkers. Unfortunately, the liberal age thinkers mainly
fought the enemies of European bourgeois enlightenment, which were in
reality far from being theirs. They imitated the West in countering religion,
which discredited them. But Amin believes that it was not necessary for
“our form of tanwir,” be it political, technological or scientific progress, to
fight religion. Individualistic values and liberalism were adopted to struggle
against anything considered as antiquated. Amin raises the following tricky
questions: Did Taha Hussein really need to attack so vehemently the men of
religion and the clergy of al-Azhar? Did he need to create this unnatural case
(quadiyya mufta’ala) about pre-Islamic poetry? Was pre-Islamic poetry really
pre-Islamic?39 To simply raise such a question, would it not be debasing
Islam and a falsification of issues? Was he not simply repeating what some
British Orientalists said, and getting unnecessarily excited because it was
a new idea?40 Did Taha Hussein’s enlightenment really need to advocate
the teaching of Greek and Latin as preconditions for a rejuvenated Arabic
literature, simply because these two languages are much celebrated in the
French education system?41 By so arguing, Amin seems to obfuscate what
was at stake, namely the courageous battle which cost Taha Hussein a
38 Fauzi M. Najjar (1996). The Debate on Islam and Secularism in Egypt. Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 18,
p. 2.
39 In 1926, Taha Hussein published a book on pre-Islamic poetry, which led to a scandal and to him
being attacked by al-Azhar ulama for defaming religion. He was prosecuted, strongly attacked in the
press, and his book was banned. It was nevertheless published later with modifications.
40 Galal Amin (1999), p. 47.
41 Ibid., pp. 48–49.
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scandal and a ban on his writings. We are back again to the issue of banning
thoughts for the sake of public morality. For Refa‘at al-Sa‘id, the distortion
of Hussein’s courageous stand is in itself symptomatic of a political and
ideological struggle. The attack on Taha Hussein took place because he had
the courage to stand out against the corrupt men of al-Azhar who were
given a free hand to punish anyone who opposed them and to impose
what pleased them. Islam thrived for centuries without the assistance of alAzhar in censoring its opponents. In fact, Taha Hussein was aiming at the
antiquated clergy, which only followed the whims of rulers and failed to cope
with the major societal transformations brought about by modernization,
Westernization and colonialism.42
To sum up, it seems that veteran leftist and dependencia theorist Galal
Amin has been increasingly flirting with the Islamists’ way of argumentation
by his attacks on Zaki Naguib Mahmud and Taha Hussein. Tasgheer alkubaraa’ (“The belittling of the intellectual giants”) is the title of a chapter in
False Enlightenment. For Amin, it seems that what these so-called intellectuals
are after is the attack on all sacred icons and symbols (muqadassat) under
the banner of tanwir and progress. Their stand reflects their wish to attract
the attention and gain the favor of foreigners at the expense of debasing
their own people. Amin then argues that this approach was already present
in Europe, as exemplified through L. Strachey in England, E. Ludwig
in Germany and A. Maurois in France, as well as H. Adams in the US,
who all aimed at character assassination.43 He compares this attitude to
the adolescent’s Oedipal complex, which, by rebelling against his parents,
belittles them. However, this reveals nothing but an act of immaturity. Amin
remains unclear about who these intellectual giants are and who their critics
are. In fact, his protest against the attack on the sacred icons is nothing but a
defense of nasty censorship and the banning of literary works. Even though
I have reservations from a cinematographic point of view about the films of
the director Youssef Chahine, I find that Amin’s harsh attacks of Chahine
are no different from the Islamists’ stand and that of those who sought to ban
the screening. Amin again adopts an ultra-nationalist tone against Youssef
Chahine to argue that his cinema is directed at Western audiences and that
42 Refa‘at al-Sa‘id (1995). al-irhab, islam am ta’aslum (Terrorism, Is It Islam? Or Islamization?). Cairo:
Sina lil nashr, p. 334.
43 Galal Amin (1999), p. 80.
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he is not a “real Egyptian.” To remind the reader, Chahine, who is Egyptian,
is of Levantine Christian origin.
However, the question is, why has Amin gained so much popularity?
It could be his easy, journalistic style that slips into populism. It is no
coincidence that he shares so many affinities with the Islamists. But Amin’s
success could be interpreted differently; namely, that the field of sociological
academic production is seriously defective in Egypt. Many believe that
critical academic intellectual production is non-existent. If it ever existed,
what purpose does it fulfill? And whom would sociological studies serve?
Who would be the public concerned? In other words, would sociological
investigation on the army or the impact of the 1967 defeat on society, the
youth, or the sexuality of Egyptians, ever be taken seriously by the officials?
Would policies advocated by social scientists ever be implemented? Would
studies undertaken for only social engineering targets be seriously taken
into consideration by state officials? This is very doubtful. For example,
the Egyptian sociologist Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim was jailed for spying and
for tarnishing the country’s reputation. Surprisingly, his plight was met
with silent approval from the opposing intelligentsia which sided this time
with the government. Many today would argue that critical sociological
investigation is hardly possible because of the omnipresent role of the
authoritarian state in interfering and controlling research. Yet, research
centers have witnessed in recent years a flourishing that coincided with the
privatization of research since most of them are based on foreign funding.
Paradoxically, when interviewed by al-Ahram Weekly, most university
professors stated that these research centers play a minimal role as thinktanks in influencing politicians.44 Academics are entirely dependent on the
institutions of the state. No critical sociology, outside the influence of the
government apparatus, could exist. Therefore, what developed instead was
the model of the “public intellectual,” who was able to gain cultural capital
through public visibility on television and in the press at the expense of
being less and less prominent in the academic field. The journalistic style,
rather than academic work, is much celebrated today in Egypt. Sa‘ad Eddin
44 According to the Cairo University Professor of Political Science, Mustafa Kamel El Sayyed, there are
30 research centers specialized in political and strategic studies. See Magda el-Ghitany, “What’s in a
Centre?” in al-Ahram Weekly, Issue No. 724, 6–12 January 2005.
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Ibrahim,45 Nawal El Sa‘adawi and Galal Amin would belong to the category
of public intellectuals who are raising stormy issues such as minorities’
and women’s status. Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim, for instance, influenced by
the “discourse of activism,” aspired to fulfill the function of the organic
intellectual. He translated the Gramscian idea of the organic intellectual
into becoming the adviser to the princes and rulers as the intermediary
interpreter of reality. This can perhaps explain why he attracted the wrath
of the authoritarian princes who, after having celebrated him, turned against
him because they were unable to accept minimal criticism. Ibrahim was the
first promoter of the discourse of civil society, but with the double-bind
situation of receiving substantive funds from the West, of becoming a tycoon
in the field of research and foreign funding, and in maintaining close relations
with the US by the fact of his double American-Egyptian nationality. All
these privileges meant also disadvantages for a section of some nationalists.
Ibrahim has for a long time been one of the staunch defenders of including
the Islamic opposition in the official political arena.
THE SECULAR CAMP: ( JABER) GABER ‘ASFUR
(Jaber) Gaber ‘Asfur is the Secretary-General of the High Council of
Culture in Egypt and one of the brains behind the official project of
enlightenment (tanwir), which, through the Ministry of Culture, allocates
funds for publishing inexpensive books of the pioneers of enlightenment
and promotes translations of significant social science and literary works into
Arabic. He is a central figure in creating the series of books (kutub al-tanwir).
He has organized numerous conferences featuring the most prominent
intellectuals from all over the Arab world. His book didd al-ta‘assub,46
(Against Fanaticism), is worth analyzing since ‘Asfur deals with the major
contemporary takfir (disbelief) and ridda (apostacy) cases as well as the witchhunting and scandals which several intellectuals and novelists underwent
in the Arab world during the last two decades. Several chapters have been
45 One has to state that Ibrahim combines both portraits, the academic and the public figure. Sa‘ad Eddin
Ibrahim has undertaken serious sociological work on the Islamists, on urban Cairo and poverty, and on
minorities. Perhaps because he was successful as both an academic who could attract significant amounts
of foreign funding, and as a public intellectual, he instigated resentment and perhaps jealousy.
46 (Jaber) Gaber ‘Asfur (2000). didd al-ta‘assub (Against Fanaticism). Cairo: mahrajan al-quira’ lil jamii‘
maktabat al-usra.
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previously published in the al-Hayyat newspaper. It is noteworthy to state
that the book was published by the series founded by the First Lady Suzaan
Mubarak, the maktabat al-usra, which celebrated its seventh year in 2000,
priding the fact that it published 1,700 titles with about 30 million copies.
Although ‘Asfur is a staunch secularist, in the incident of the banning of the
three novels, as a state official he had to behave as a “commissar” (a term I
borrow from Ferial Ghazoul)47 and support Faruk Hosni’s approval of the
withdrawal of the novels.48 As I argue in this section, this incident entirely
contradicted ‘Asfur’s writings. Here again, ‘Asfur the intellectual has been
compromised because of his position as a state functionary.
‘Asfur begins his book by arguing that freedom of expression is an
essential part of the doctrinal, political and social freedom of man. Innovation
requires attempts at trials and errors. The supremacy of reason means the
right to differ and to experiment with innovation. The right of thinking and
innovation is a religious responsibility for anyone who believes in religion.
‘Asfur then stresses that there is no freedom of thought without liberating
thought from all its chains. There is no sense in the existence of universities
that place restrictions on the professors and impose a clannish or tribal way of
thinking, deciding upon what is allowed. There is no real innovation with
the predominance of censorship, just as there is no future for an intellectual
movement without the courage to challenge, to question and to doubt.
‘Asfur believes that there is a specific mindset that leads to intolerance. He
provides several reasons for this flaw, but one main reason is the long history
of authoritarian rule in the Arab world, resulting in social and intellectual
fanaticism. He argues that the rise of authoritarian military regimes went
hand-in-hand with religious authoritarianism, leading to the curtailment
of freedom. Censorship and repression were then exercised externally and
internally. In fact, his book aims at revealing that there is a logical chain
in the fanatic mindset and a long history during this century of suppressing
47 Ferial Ghazoul, “The Artist vs The Commissar,” in al-Ahram Weekly, Issue No. 518, 25–31 January
2001.
48 The event happened in January 2001 when a Muslim Brother parliamentarian protested against the
publication of three novels by one of the government institutions for indecency. The interrogation
undertaken by the Ministry led to the formal dismissal of the series editor Mohammad al-Busati, together
with the managing editor, and the banning of the three novels. Concerning the details of the banning of
the three novels, see the excellent article by Samia Mehrez, “Take Them Out of the Ball Game: Egypt’s
Cultural Players in Crisis,” in Middle East Report, No. 219, Summer 2001.
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intellectuals and thinkers who opposed injustice and aspired for change
in society. It is no coincidence that ‘Asfur and many other intellectuals
direct much attention time and again to Taha Hussein, who is regarded
as “the courageous” intellectual who fought the Azharis relentlessly. The
freedom which Taha Hussein aspired for was difficult to obtain and was
the consequence of a hard confrontation, similar to ‘Ali ‘Abdel Raziq’s
confrontation with al-Azhar after the publication of al-Islam wa usul alhuqm. Therefore, ‘Asfur reminds us that the struggle is one and the same.
A few months after ‘Ali ‘Abdel Raziq’s scandal, Taha Hussein published
his book on pre-Islamic poetry, leading to another scandal, similar to the
witch-hunting against the ijtihad of Sheikh Bekheit on the rules of fasting
and Naguib Mahfouz’s banning of awlad haritna (The Children of the Alley),
all the way to the apostatizing of Nasr Abu Zayd.
‘Asfur then directs a strong critique against the Islamists known as jama‘at
al-ta’aslum al-siyasi (the groups of political Islam). They are responsible for
the escalation of violence, through organized murders and intimidation of
tanwiri intellectuals (al-muthaqafin al-mustaneerin). This again goes hand-inhand with advocating a theological state that violently eliminates opponents.
‘Asfur points to the atmosphere of terror experienced by witch-hunted
actors and film directors (actress Youssra, film directors Youssef Chahine,
Wahid Hamed, and actor ‘Adel Imam) and novelists like ‘Ala’ Hamed
who was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for writing a novel
allegedly offending public morality. Furthermore, the Islamists managed to
intervene and change some texts published by al-haya’ al-‘amma lil kitab,
the government’s publishing house, by interfering in the printing process.
Similarly, previously published novels of Ihsan ‘Abdel Quddus were later
censored and whole sections removed.49
‘Asfur then devotes two chapters to the Nasr Abu Zayd case, combining
the chronological events with the minute details of the case. He spends
another chapter on the takfir case of the Sorbonne-trained Professor Hassan
Hanafi and argues that the public reaction to Hanafi’s takfir was not the same
as Abu Zayd’s. Hanafi never departed from the religious bonds according to
‘Asfur. Hanafi’s close relationship to the Muslim Brothers and his later studies
with Catholic professors, leading to his rapprochement with prominent
49 Gaber ‘Asfur (2000), p. 292.
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Christian figures, made him a celebrity. The fact that Hanafi was much
influenced by the Latin American theology of liberation, which shaped his
Left Islam and his sympathies with the Iranian revolution, made him more
acceptable to the Islamic camp. ‘Asfur, however, notes that Hanafi has been
for a long time flirting with the Islamic movement and insisting that he is
the spiritual son or follower of Sayyed Qutb. Yet, this did not spare him
from the wrath of the Islamists who still consider him a traitor. In fact, he
is a dangerous traitor because he attempted to “humanize” religion.50 Here
‘Asfur notes that takfir is used by established figures such as the Islamicoriented Mohammad ‘Immara to terrorize opponents. ‘Immara openly stated
that Hanafi’s project emptied religion of its content and desacralized it
through having borrowed the values of Western enlightenment.51
REFA‘AT AL-SA‘ID
For the Marxist intellectual Refa‘at al-Sa‘id, an active member of the
Nasserite-Marxist coalition party, al-tagammu, the story of enlightenment
and Islamism is told differently. Refa‘at al-Sa‘id has received in recent years
death threats from the Islamists. He regards them as much more dangerous
than the regime which al-Sa‘id is willing to work closely with. Al-irhab,
islam am ta’ aslum (Terrorism, Islam or Islamizing?) is one of the many books
which al-Sa‘id published on secularism, Islam and tanwir.52 The book is a
compilation of newspaper articles, mostly published in the left-wing al-Ahali
newspaper in the early 1990s. For al-Sa‘id, it seems that Egypt has recently
witnessed a “mad era”; it is a structured, planned madness, which he then
defines as an “Islamized madness” (gunun muta‘aslim).53 He reminds us that
one should differentiate between religion and religious thinking which is
man-made, leading to confusion. Al-Sa‘id then argues that the main cause
for this disaster is what he labels as “Bedouin Islamization” (al-ta’aslum albadawi), which invaded Egypt with the coming of the petro-dollars and
petro-Islam. In other words, the Pax-Saudiana has been the major force in
dictating this ugly and frightening transformation.54 Like many intellectuals,
50 Ibid., p. 301.
51 Ibid., pp. 294–295.
52 Refa‘at al-Sa‘id (1995). al-irhab, islam am ta’ aslum (Terrorism, Is It Islam? Or Islamization?). Cairo:
Sina lil nashr.
53 Refa‘at al-Sa‘id (1995), p. 8.
54 Ibid., p. 12.
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al-Sa‘id targets the irrationality of some known Sheikhs such as the notorious
Sheikh Ben Baz’s fatwa regarding the flatness of the Earth, and Sheikh
Sha‘arawi’s fatwa favoring slavery, particularly in a situation of war. He
shows that these are simply unacceptable positions violating human rights.
He concludes that all these pronouncements are directed at their enemies
(i.e., the secularists).55 These ideas slipped very easily into violent acts and
murders. Did Sheikh al-Ghazali not compromise with terrorism in the case
of the late Farag Foda (assassinated by Islamists) by authorizing takfir, thus
giving a green light to kill the opponent? We are in the era of Semeida
(symbolizing a coarse peasant name, also probably symbolizing the triumph
of ignorant populism) who filed a case to divorce the Cairo University
professor of philosophy Nasr Abu Zayd from his wife.56
The book states recurrently that Egypt’s main problem has turned out to
be an Islamized terrorism (al-irhab al-mutaslim). The first chapter starts with
a set of points about the Islamic movement and terrorism. I would like to
summarize a few of these points:
(1) Hassan al-Banna was the initial starter in terrorizing the Wafd Party
(before the 1952 revolution). He promulgated the slogan that: “God
is with the king.”
(2) Hassan al-Banna was the main actor behind all terrorist operations.
(3) Historically, the Muslim Brothers did exercise violence in different
periods, and there was no violence directed at them.
(4) There is no distinction between extremists and moderates in the Islamic
movement, i.e., they are all extremists.
(5) There has been an organized plan from “above” aiming at changing the
general intellectual atmosphere of the Egyptian society for the service
of extremism.
(6) Iran has been the main source of terrorist action in the region.
(7) It has never happened in Egypt’s history that the successive Sudanese
governments have been hostile to Egypt. The change came only when
the Iranians interfered with financing counter-movements to reduce
the role of Egypt in Africa and the Arab world.
(8) The military camps training the extremists in the Sudan have all been
well-known. Sudan does not seek to hide the fact that it is involved
55 Ibid., p. 17.
56 Ibid., p. 20.
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in such trainings. It even uses this to exercise pressure on the Egyptian
government.
(9) The Americans should provide an explanation to the queries raised by
Egyptian officials concerning the presence of Sheikh ‘Abdel Rahman
in the US.
(10) The Islamic groups believe that the Copts are the “bent wall,” meaning
that they have become the main problem of Egypt. This is, of course,
very problematic.
(11) The al-Sha‘b newspaper does play a major role in stirring up
confessional conflicts between Copts (the Christians of Egypt) and
Muslims.57
Al-Sa‘id then picks up these points and provides a detailed analysis to
support his argument. On the issue of refusing to categorize the Islamists into
moderates and extremists because they all fall under the banner of intolerant
violent groups, he insists that when these groups decide that the whole
society is a jahili (pre-Islamic society), the only way to change it is through
violence. Their opponents are considered enemies of God to be eliminated
by violence. On this point, al-Sa‘id seems to agree with Abu Zayd’s main
argument in his work, The Critique of the Religious Discourse, namely that the
difference between the moderate and extremist Islamists is only a matter of
degree. There are no basic disagreements on the intellectual premises.
When asked by the al-Hayyat newspaper to comment on a conference
held on the Muslim liberals, al-Sa‘id refused to use the term “Islamists” and
proposed instead the term muta’slimun (I would translate it as “artificially
Islamizing, Islamicizing”). The entire article is about how illiberal Muslim
thinkers, like veteran Marxist Mohammad ‘Immara or Kamal Abul Magd,58
turned to Islam on the issue of power negotiations. They all speak of
democracy and confuse it with Shura. They speak of dialogue with the
“Other,” but once they come to power they will declare the opponents as
kafirs (non-believers) and prosecute them.59
57 Ibid., p. 36.
58 Ahmad Kamal Abu al-Magd is a constitutional lawyer. He is vice-president of the Egyptian National
Council for Human Rights. Both he and ‘Immara have been critical of Azhari and are labeled by some
as representing a Muslim liberal line. Some secular intellectuals still view them as sharing many points
with hardline Islamists.
59 Ibid., p. 129.
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Rashed al-Ghanoushi, Fahmi Huwaydi and Sheikh Mohammad alGhazali are all put together in one basket. They are, according to ‘Asfur,
(mis)taken for liberals, and they are far from being so. Sheikh al-Ghazali, for
instance, claimed that Michel ‘Aflaq, the founder of Arabism, married the
daughter of Golda Meier, and that Arabism is a Zionist crusaders’ creation.
Al-Sa‘id tells us that some were angry with his attacks against the so-called
“moderate sheikh” who allowed the charges of apostasy. Tanwir is for alSa‘id not only an idea, but a struggle. Tanwir is aspiring towards the freedom
of thought and giving a free hand to reason; it is a fierce struggle against the
muta’ slim trend which wants to turn off all the lights of thought and reason.
It is only through the words and action with the people that the muta’ slim
trend will be defeated.60
NASR HAMID ABU ZAYD
Although Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd underwent the sad fate of being declared
an apostate, and was defended by a section of secular intellectuals, he
seems to direct bitter criticism at both camps, the secularists and Islamists.
Abu Zayd interprets the government’s endeavor in publishing the series of
enlightenment books, silsilat kutub al-tanwir, as a clear policy to counteract
“terrorism.” It was part and parcel of what he takes as the “cultural-security
confrontation” against terrorism (al-mawagaha al-thaqafiyya al-amniyya didd
al-irhab), in the aftermath of the series of attempts to murder the President
of the People’s Assembly, Rifa‘at al-Mahgub, and the murder of the
secular satirical intellectual Farag Foda by Islamists.61 According to Abu
Zayd, there were two contradictory policies initiated by the government.
One consisted of negotiating with the Islamists, and the other was to use
violence. Negotiations took place three times. The first was in 1992 in jail
between the officers and the Jihad group. The second was in 1993 between
the intellectuals and the ulama, like Sheikh Metwalli al-Sha‘arawi, ‘Abdel
Sabbur Shahin, Mohammad al-Ghazali, the journalist Fahmi Huwaydi and
Mohammad ‘Immara. The Minister of Interior Abdel Halim Musa had also
participated in the discussions. The third time was when the Amir of the
60 Ibid., pp. 204–207.
61 Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, “wizarat al-thaqafa: i‘lan fashal al-tanwir al-bragmati, hal hunaq tariq akhar?
al-tathwir la al-tanwir,” in Akhbar al-Adab, 18 February 2001.
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Jama‘at (the Prince of Jama’at, the spiritual leader) was on trial in Aswan and
he proposed to negotiate, but alas the government refused. Abu Zayd claims
that there was a move to mobilize (tagnid ) the intellectuals for a war against
terrorism, and to co-opt them to key positions in the Ministry of Culture.
The intellectuals then came up with ready-made enlightened solutions to
rescue the government from the “fire of fundamentalism” with simplistic
idioms like al-‘aql badilan ‘an al-naql: reason instead of imitation, tolerance
instead of fanaticism, accepting the Other instead of reclusion, innovation
instead of imitation. Abu Zayd holds that the discourse of tanwir became
associated with the discourse of elites — it became devoid of content. It
was pragmatically and ideologically used as an instrument in a war against
terrorism.
Tanwir thus became associated with supporting the government. The
muthaqaf nahdawi (the enlightened, renaissance intellectual) sought to always
work within the parameters of the government, even if he would from time
to time be rebellious. He never transcended the state employee mentality,
shifting between co-optation and conquest. The institutions that produced
modernization were by definition weak and young in their formation.
Abu Zayd talks of modernization without modernity, tahdith bila hadatha,
meaning that an infrastructure, a cinema, an opera, the press, political
parties, trade unions and parliaments were erected, but these evidently
did not produce modernity. The nahda discourse was an elitist, middleclass movement that took place only in the two metropolises, Cairo and
Alexandria, and existed nowhere else.
In another article, Nasr insists that the project of the nahda at the
beginning of the last century is in fact an accommodative or eclectic project
of trying to blend Islamic heritage with Western European heritage and
scientific discoveries.62 This accommodative attempt has continued until
today and is very much influenced by the confrontational relationship
between the East and the West.
Abu Zayd argues that the contradiction between the self and the Other
and the crisis of identity began really with the colonial confrontation. This
confrontation was one main reason why the search for solutions was directed
towards accommodative solutions. The argument leads to the idea that “only
iron can bend iron.” Thus, in order to reform and compete, the Muslims
62 Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, “mashru‘al-nahda bayna talfiqiyyat al-tabaqa wal-turath al-talfiqi,” in al-Muhit
al-thaqafi, 1 March 2002.
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had to borrow all Western innovations and fight back with the same tools.
This explains the advocacy of the scientific explanation of the Qur‘an, that
the jinns are nothing but the psychological forces that are stirring lust, and
that tayr al-ababil (the ababil bird in the Qur‘an) is nothing but the plague.
This position involves the denial of miracles. But the Europe as perceived
by the 19th century Arabs was homogeneous. They confused the Europe of
18th century Enlightenment with the colonial, imperial Europe of the 19th
century. This led to a dualist understanding of Western heritage. Abu Zayd
argues that this position became even more complicated because the Islamic
rationalist heritage which could compete with the European Enlightenment
values, as exemplified in Muslim thinkers, philosophers and scientists like
Averroes, al-Razi, Ibn al-Haytham and Ibn al-Nafis, was marginalized in
the Islamic civilization. It was marginalized at the expense of the school
of law of Hanbalism, the Ash‘aris and the Sufis. The resulting uncertainty
contradicted the project of enlightenment itself. Taha Hussein had to retreat
from his project of analyzing the modern aspects of poetry, similar to Sheikh
‘Ali ‘Abdel Raziq’s publication of islam wa usul al-hukm (Islam and Fundaments
of Rule) and Naguib Mahfouz’s awlad haretna. Abu Zayd insists that tawfiq
(accommodation) led to talfik (eclecticism), which ran parallel with a lack
of class-consciousness.
Abu Zayd quotes the late Egyptian Marxist intellectual Ghali Shukri
to stress that this accommodative situation led to the decline of the nahda
project. The early nahda reformists were, by virtue of their training, men of
religion. They admired Europe and always sought in their argumentation to
accommodate religion with science. This accommodative position was not
accepted by al-Azhar clergy, leading to the reformists’ works being banned
and their positions being endangered. It forced these liberal intellectuals to
retreat and submit themselves to censoring instead of fighting back. In spite
of these chastisements, the social system, the constitution, the parties and
women’s rights all seemed to have adopted the accommodative position but
went beyond it.
However, Abu Zayd argues that the state has always dealt in a paradoxical
manner with opposing secular intellectuals. It gives a free hand to al-Azhar
institutions to censor their works and uses the internal security services
to constantly harass them. Yet, ironically, the liberal projects of these
intellectuals do not contradict at all the aims of the regime. For example,
Abu Zayd reminds us that it is difficult to consider the judge Mohammed
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Sa‘id al-‘Ashmawi an opponent of the regime. In fact, he is a highly placed
state functionary and yet his books have been banned by al-Azhar.
CONCLUSION
I have attempted in this article to trace the various positions and discourses
pertaining to tanwir. I tried to look closely at the stand of some secular
intellectuals who have been co-opted in the government channels. In recent
years, many veteran left-wing intellectuals, like Tareq al-Bishri, the late
‘Abdel Wahhab al-Messiri, the late ‘Adel Hussein and Galal Amin, have
shifted their orientation towards Islam. I have elsewhere analyzed some
of the writings of Tareq al-Bishri and ‘Abdel Wahhab al-Messiri, which
have some affinities with Galal Amin’s stand. As mentioned earlier, it seems
that Amin, like many Arab intellectuals, perpetrates a simplistic, unilateral
understanding of Western enlightenment. Abu Zayd’s explanation of the
closure of nahda as a consequence of its accommodative stand in merging
faith with reason is equally questionable. This stand was, however, exactly
what Jonathan Israel coined as the trend of “conservative enlightenment”
in contrast to “radical enlightenment.” He further argues that there were
always streams and counter-streams in the debate on “whether reason alone
reigns supreme in human life or whether philosophy’s scope must be limited
and reason reconciled with faith and tradition.”63 The accommodative stand
is therefore not a particularity of Muslim reformism; it is just that the social
conditions in the West allowed the flourishing of “two enlightenments”
which led to the dominance of one stream over another. A close look at
Refa‘at al-Sa‘id’s statements reveals that he denies the fact that the regime
has been the main instigator of violence against the Muslim Brothers (and by
the way, also against the communists by jailing both groups in the 1950s and
1960s and hanging two workers for demonstrating during the early years of
the 1952 revolution). For al-Sa‘id, it is as if violence was mainly perpetrated
by the Islamists, ignoring the escalation of violence dating back to the 1950s
perpetrated by the authoritarian, military state. He seems to discard the
fact that Sayyed Qutb was made a martyr by being hanged by the Nasser
regime, and thus al-Sa‘id repeats the same one-sided arguments by holding
the Islamists responsible for all evils. Al-Sa‘id condemns the al-Sha‘ab weekly
newspaper for spreading fanaticism. It is hard to disagree with both al-Sa‘id’s
63 Jonathan I. Israel (2006). Enlightenment Contested. Oxford University Press, p. 10.
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and ‘Asfur’s condemnation of the Islamists’ witch-hunting of novelists and
writers, but their interpretation is too simplistic. Samia Mehrez, in providing
the background of Haydar Haydar’s scandal,64 reminds us that just before
this event, three al-Sha‘ab reporters were arrested and charged for slandering
the then Minister of Agriculture Youssef Wali, who was later convicted
for importing carcinogenic fertilizers and banned products from the EU.
Wali has a long record of high-level corruption and for having undertaken
massive collaborative projects with Israel in the agricultural sector. Thus,
the Islamists had correctly opened the files of corruption. Al-Sha‘ab used
the Banquet for Seaweed to react against the regime’s oppressive measures
towards the Islamists. It was a way to embarrass the corrupt regime. As
Mehrez puts it, “The cultural players inevitably got caught in the middle
of the showdown between the Islamists and the political field.”65 Richard
Jacquemond espouses a similar view:
The indeterminate boundary between censorship and criticism appears in many
literary controversies, where criticism of a work can degenerate into calls, more
or less explicit, for its censorship. Contrary to the generally accepted idea here,
which opposes, in Manichean fashion, “reactionaries” or “fundamentalists” in
the role of censors to “progressivists” or “secularists” in the role of the defenders
of freedom, contemporary history shows that writers can always be found in
both camps, and also in the conflicts internal to each, who are ready to use their
positions within the field of power to silence their peers who do not share their
opinions.66
Abu Zayd develops perhaps an equally nuanced and subtle analysis in
blaming both the government and the Islamists for adopting inflexible stands.
It seems all players are caught in an escalating autism.
64 A Banquet for Seaweed was published by the prominent Syrian writer Haydar Haydar in 1983, 17 years
before the explosion of the scandal in Cairo (in 2000). The novel has been a success and was reprinted
several times during these years. Haydar Haydar published several novels before the Banquet, which were
all well received. The question then was why was it that suddenly, a novel that probably none of the alAzhar clergy or the protesting students ever read, attracted so much anger? Why was it that the Islamists
and in particular the Islamic-oriented al-Sha‘ab magazine rode on the event and decided to demonize the
Ministry of Culture for reprinting it? It is important to note here that the Islamic opposition launched
a harsh campaign against Haydar Haydar for being a kafir.
65 Samia Mehrez, “Take Them Out of the Ball Game: Egypt’s Cultural Players in Crisis,” in Middle East
Report, No. 219, Summer 2001.
66 Richard Jacquemond (2008). Conscience of the Nation, Writers, State, and Society in Modern Egypt. Cairo:
The American University Press, p. 44.
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Chapter
15
Perda, Fatwa and the Challenge
to Secular Citizenship in Indonesia
ROBERTUS ROBET
By its nature, Pancasila, the Indonesian state ideology, is secular. It was formulated
and implemented with the confident belief that only through an open and pluralist
state can Indonesian unity be fully achieved. Eventually, this has become the basis
of Indonesian citizenship. Pancasila is a feature of cultural and political identity.
However, this has been challenged by the emergence of Islamic political ideology.
It has appeared on two fronts: in the politico-legal area, and in the transformation
and the expansion of fatwa. Consequently, it leads to tension between a secular
interpretation of state ideology and Islamic political ideology. The fate of what
constitutes an Indonesian depends on the interplay of these two tendencies.
INTRODUCTION
On the occasion of commemorating the birth of Soejatmoko, the late Dan
Lev once delivered an amazing speech entitled “Democracy or Republic.”
One key point in the short speech was about the constant tension between
religion and the state. The tension occurred because religion and the state
were both battling for the loyalty of the same subjects, namely the citizens.
Lev said:
… the competition for the allegiance and submission of the people,
which the state asks from its citizens and which religion asks from
the followers of God and religious observations. Both demands are
sometimes considered absolute. If one or the other prevails, we can
imagine how hard and dangerous it would be, and the problem could
become so embedded in our history such that a solution will never be
long-lasting …1
1 Lev, Daniel S. (1995). Demokrasi atau Republik. Speech in Yayasan Soejatmoko, p. 11.
263
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From Lev’s perspective, the character of the state is not based on the
existence of legal formal institutions, but on its civil political structure
and nature. In this case, how far does the population identify with the
legal principles of an open and secular state on the one hand, and manage
its relationship with a particular religious worldview on the other? From
a theoretical perspective, Lev’s view is similar to Turner’s concept of
citizenship, namely that citizenship can be defined as the set of practices
(juridical, political, economic and cultural) which defines a person as a competent
member of society.2
This paper, holding fast to Lev’s view, describes state–religion relations
through the changes in the concept of citizenship in Indonesia, especially
those driven by the regulation, normalization and institutionalization of
religion in personal life.
THE BASIS OF SECULAR NATIONALISM
IN INDONESIA
Officially, Indonesian nationalism is not based on ethnicity, religion or race,
but on a secular view. The secular nature of Indonesian nationalism can be
understood in the establishment of Pancasila as the ideological foundation of
the Indonesian state, which is particularly meant to avoid including religion
as part of the foundation.
As it is known, after Soekarno’s speech on 1 June 1945 at the BPUPKI
(Badan Penyelidik Usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia/Investigating
Committee for the Preparatory Work for Indonesian Independence), the
debate on the foundation of the state escalated and intensified. The debate
was whether or not to include religious thought in the first principle of
the Pancasila. This debate split the BPUPKI into two political groups: the
“Nationalist” group represented by Soekarno, Hatta and Yamin; and the
“Islamic” group who then proposed the Jakarta Charter (Piagam Djakarta).
The split culminated in the 22 June 1945 debate, which in turn gave birth to
what Soekarno labelled a “gentlemen’s agreement,” whereupon the Jakarta
Charter was then accepted.
2 See Turner, Bryan S. (1993). Contemporary Problems in the Theory of Citizenship. In Citizenship and
Social Theory, Turner (ed.). London: Sage Publisher, p. 2.
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However, on 18 August 1945, the “gentlemen’s agreement” was
cancelled by removing several words from the Jakarta Charter, namely:
“Ke-Tuhanan dengan kewajiban menjalankan Sya’riat Islam bagi pemeluknya”
(“The belief in God with the obligation to carry out the Islamic law/syariah
for Moslems”). The removal of these words was said to be mediated by Hatta
with the Islamic figures. Hatta was sympathetic to the pleas of prominent
figures from the eastern part of Indonesia. They argued that the Jakarta
Charter had not taken into account the “feelings” of the regions where
the predominant population was not Moslem. With that in mind, Hatta
proposed that in order to achieve a “solid unity,” the several words were
to be erased.3 It is clear then that Indonesian nationalism was to prevent
the emergence of a religious state, based on the need to establish a united
Indonesia.
Unfortunately, the political agreement could not resolve various
ideological challenges that would constantly develop, and nation-building
was fragile. The consensus on Pancasila reached on 18 August 1945
was replaced in 1956–1959 by the Konstituante (Constitutional Assembly).
In the debate regarding the state foundation, the Konstituante was
divided into three major alignments. The first alignment wanted the
Pancasila to be the state foundation. It consisted of PNI (Partai Nasional
Indonesia/Indonesian National Party), Partai Katolik (Catholic Party), PSI
(Partai Sosialis Indonesia/Indonesian Socialist Party) and PKI (Partai Komunis
Indonesia/Indonesian Communist Party). The second alignment was
supported by parties such as Murba (Musyawarah Rakyat Banyak/Consensus
of People at Large), Partai Buruh (Labor Party) and Acoma (Angkatan Comunis
Muda/Young Communist Generation). The third alignment wanted the
founding of an Islamic state, and it consisted of Partai Masyumi (Majelis Syuro
Muslimin Indonesia/Indonesian Consultative Council of Moslems) and NU
(Nahdlatul Ulama/Awakening of Ulamas).
The ongoing struggle and debate finally ended, this time not because of a
compromise and lobbying as in 1945, but because of Soekarno’s Presidential
Decree of 5 July 1959. It was issued under pressure from the army. The
Decree ended the ideological debate by re-establishing the UUD 1945
(1945 Constitution) and disbanding the Konstituante. From that point on, the
3 Mangkusasmito, Prawoto (1970). Pertumbuhan Historis Rumus dasar Negara dan Sebuah Proyeksi. Djakarta:
Penerbit Hadayu.
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Pancasila of 18 August 1945 was re-affirmed together with the beginning
of the Era of Guided Democracy (Demokrasi Terpimpin).4
The secular nationalism enshrined in Pancasila survived even after the
fall of the Soekarno regime. The rise of Soeharto and the army enhanced
the political character of this secular national system. Unfortunately, this
was based on repression of the following groups — first, the leftist groups
and supporters of Soekarno (the 1965 Incident); second, the socialist
and nationalist remnants (the Malari Incident of 1974); third, the Islamic
groups (Priok Incident, Lampung Incident, etc.). The resulting political
landscape became a complex combination of ideology, nationalism and
repression. Because Pancasila was part of the New Order establishment,
secular nationalism was also identified with repression.
This identification carried a hefty cost, in that when the New Order fell,
blows directed at it were also aimed at Pancasila and other attributes of the
Old Order.
DEBATING PANCASILA: CHARGES AT AND
SHIFTS IN THE SECULAR NATIONAL
PRINCIPLES OF INDONESIA
The shifts in the Indonesian secular paradigm can be seen in the debates on
Pancasila. After the fall of the Soeharto regime, the dispute on the position
of Pancasila by the factions within the MPR (Majelis Permusyawaratan
Rakyat/People’s Consultative Assembly) could be observed through the
UUD 1945 amendment proceedings in the First Ad Hoc Committee of
MPR’s Working Group. Here, the debate on Pancasila was on how to
position Pancasila both as a basic value and as a national ideology.
The factions of parties with Islam as the ideology (Fraksi PDU/
Perserikatan Daulathul Ummah/People’s Sovereignty Union, Fraksi PBB/
Partai Bulan Bintang/Crescent Moon Party, and Fraksi PPP/Partai Persatuan
Pembangunan/Unity Development Party), the Fraksi PKB (Partai Kebangkitan
Bangsa/People’s Awakening Party) and Fraksi Reformasi (Reform Faction)
wanted Pancasila to be a basic value that would have its place only in the
Preamble of the UUD 1945. They considered the word “Pancasila” to be
unnecessary and therefore recommended it to be removed from the UUD’s
4 See Nasution, Adnan Buyung (1995). Aspirasi Pemerintahan Konstitusional di Indonesia: Studi Sosio-Legal
atas Konstituante 1956–1959. Jakarta: Grafiti Pers.
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chapters. As a substitute, the faction of Islamic parties proposed to mention
only the concept of the Foundation of the Indonesian State.
The Partai Bulan Bintang Faction (Fraksi PBB) and the Partai Daulatul
Ummah Faction (Fraksi PDU) proposed to change the title of the first chapter
to “Form and Sovereignty,” so that the Dasar Negara (Pancasila) would not be
included in the first chapter. This was also the view of the Fraksi Reformasi,
as was stated by Patrialis Akbar of the Partai Amanat Nasional (PAN):
Article 1 Paragraph (2): Foundation of the State. The Foundation of the
Indonesian State is: The Belief of the One and Only God, A Just and
Civilized Humanity, The Unity of Indonesia, Democracy Guided by
the Insightful Wisdom in Unanimity/Representation and Social Justice
for all the People of Indonesia. […] In the Foundation of the State, we
also explicitly did not include the phrase “Pancasila” in order to avoid
misinterpretation. After seeing the actual practices, we firmly maintain
the phrase of the Foundation of the State.5
The view of the Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa Faction (F-PKB) was expressed
by Abdul Khaliq Ahmad:
Article 1 Paragraph (2): The Indonesian State is founded on the
Belief of the One and Only God, a Just and Civilized Humanity, the
Unity of Indonesia, Deliberation Guided by the Insightful Wisdom
in Unanimity/Representation and Social Justice for all the People of
Indonesia …. […] So we did not explicitly mention Pancasila but its
principles are affirmed in this Article 1 Paragraph (2).6
On the other hand, factions of parties supporting the Pancasila ideology
chose to place Pancasila in two positions, i.e., as a basic value and as an
ideology. The view of Seto Harianto of the Fraksi PDKB (Faction of the
Partai Demokrasi Kasih Bangsa/Love of the Nation Democratic Party) is one
that represented this position. Fraksi PDKB proposed that the first chapter be
“Form and Sovereignty,” with its first article expanded into three paragraphs,
as was stated by Seto Harianto:
The reason for the amendment is that we have been so prioritizing
unity instead of plurality that the co-existence or the diversity of the
values that are alive, growing and expanding was never recognized as a
sociological and cultural reality. Therefore we have amended Article 1
5 See Minutes of the 32nd First Ad Hoc Committee Meeting of the MPR Working Committee on
factions’ proposals about chapter I of UUD 1945, Wednesday, 17 May 2000.
6 See Minutes of the 32nd First Ad Hoc Committee Meeting of the MPR Working Committee, 17
May 2000.
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to read The Indonesian State is a Republic Unitary State based
on Pancasila.7
The argument of Fraksi PDKB was also supported by the Utusan Golongan
(Special Groups Representatives) Faction (UG), through Valina S. Subekti.
This position was also supported by the Fraksi TNI-Polri (Indonesian
National Armed Forces — National Police), which at that time still had
a place in the MPR, through Hendy Tjaswadi who proposed Article 1
Paragraph (3): The State Foundation is Pancasila. The Fraksi PDIP (Partai
Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan/Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle),
through Soetjipto, also took a position of including the word “Pancasila”
explicitly in the chapters of the UUD 1945:
In the past, many groups in society challenged the position of Pancasila as
the State Foundation by asking whether or not the principle set out in the
Preamble can be appropriately called Pancasila, because not one word of
Pancasila was included in the entire chapters of the UUD 1945. Bearing
that in mind, our faction proposes that the Pancasila State Foundation
be included in the first chapter, which is an integral part as it is
inscribed in the fourth paragraph of the UUD 1945 Preamble.8
The debate on whether or not the word “Pancasila” should be inserted into
the UUD (Undang-undang Dasar/Constitution) was a phenomenon worthy
of close attention. Fraksi Reformasi, through Patrialis Akbar (PAN/Partai
Amanat Nasional/National Mandate Party), explicitly opposed the inclusion
of the word “Pancasila” in the UUD for fear of abusing its meaning. The
Fraksi Reformasi referred to the practices of the New Order that used
“Pancasila” as a deadly weapon to suppress the people and its political
opponents. The insertion of the word “Pancasila” meant giving a “blank
cheque” or an “ultimate weapon” to a power that can abuse it.
For factions such as PDIP, Golkar and FTNI, not including the word
“Pancasila” as a referential representation of the five precepts in the Preamble
would allow free interpretation of each of the five precepts. This opportunity
is feared as an entry point for the re-emergence of the concept of a religious
state.
7 See Minutes of the 32nd First Ad Hoc Committee Meeting of the MPR Working Committee, 17
May 2000.
8 See Minutes of the 51st Plenary Meeting of the First Ad Hoc Committee (PAH I) MPR Working
Committee. Final statement from factions on the Final Formulation of the Constitution, 29 July 2000.
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From the preceding sections, we can see that even though the Ad
Hoc Committee decided to keep Pancasila as a State Foundation, the once
seemingly untouchable Pancasila had again been challenged, similar to the
Jakarta Charter in 1945 and the Konstituante.
After the decision, the secular nature of the Indonesian state was
determined by its constitution. Nonetheless, the explicit form of that
position still did not provide security for the secular public life it is meant to
protect. The demands for a religious state appeared as regional regulations
and fatwas, i.e., in subtler form and at lower levels.
THE SHIFT IN THE DISCOURSE OF CITIZENS
IN INDONESIA
The emergence of the New Order regime can be seen as the second chapter
in the decline of liberal tradition in Indonesian politics, the first of which
was Soekarno’s “Guided Democracy.” In the retreat from liberalism, one
of the spearheads and political strategies of the New Order was to use
Pancasila to reach out and define social life, including private and most subtle
aspects. One of the most important dimensions here was the anthropological
dimension. This was where Soeharto’s political ideology was built,
namely through the formulation of the citizenship concept that is almost
totalitarian.
In the New Order’s “organism perspective,” the concept of the
individual is unknown because the individual is always seen as part of the
state. The upholding of citizen rights will always be related first and foremost
with the supremacy of the state and “public interest.” Therefore, citizens are
defined as “passive bearers of duty.” This was the core of Soeharto’s citizen
politics.
The citizenship concept is then formulated as the “Indonesian person,”
the “complete Indonesian,” and even “the Pancasila family and children.”
This is the type of discourse that Philip Kitley explained in his study on “the
New Order’s image of children and ideal family” through the TV series “Si
Unyil” which was very popular during the New Order era.
“Si Unyil” was the propagandic figure which was intended to provide
the role model of a wholesome or complete Indonesian, namely religious
(portrayed as wearing a peci and a sarong) but at the same time pluralist and
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tolerant (portrayed as very sympathetic to the character Melan, who was
of Chinese descent), not feudalistic yet not Western-oriented. In short, “Si
Unyil” was the most perfect image Soeharto saw as “a person with Pancasila
personality.”9
The biggest challenge to the New Order’s “Indonesian person” came
mainly from the idea of human rights. With regards to this, a number
of intellectuals such as Rahman Tolleng and Marsillam Simanjuntak, who
would later establish Forum Demokrasi together with Abdurahman Wahid,
played a central role in presenting alternative discourses that challenged
the New Order conception of being Indonesian. Along with them, there
emerged NGOs, especially those that fought for the human rights issue based
on law such as the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH), which also played a very
central role in furthering the alternative citizenship conception.10
Their critique was presented in the form of a challenge to and an
evaluation of the repressive political practices of the New Order regime.
The evaluation was mainly based on the principle of humanism in the
conception of human rights. Therefore, the communitarian perspective of
the “Indonesian person” was challenged by a new view of “universal being.”
The universality of being human was interpreted to accommodate
the various new agents of social change such as laborers, farmers, and
the poor in general. This was where the cluster of the new alternative
citizenship concepts emerged, which was expressed in the normative
identifications such as “labor rights,” “farmers’ rights” and “the people’s
rights,” as the counter to the “complete Indonesian human” concept. This
universal identification concept became the main basis of Indonesian reform
movements — even those based on Islam — until the fall of Soeharto’s
regime in 1998.
However, the relatively open, universal and liberal citizenship concept
was not stabilized for a long time. Following the fall of Soeharto’s political
pillars and ideology, Indonesia’s politics has been colored by the emergence
9 Kitley, Philip (1999). Pancasila in the Minor Key: TVRI’s “Si Unyil” the Model Child. Indonesia
No. 68, October.
10 See Bourchier, David (1997). Totalitarianism and the “National Personality”: Recent Controversy
about the Philosophical Basis of the Indonesian State. In Imagining Indonesia: Cultural Politics and Political
Culture, Schiller and Martin-Schileer, Barbara (eds.). Ohio: Ohio University Centre for International
Studies, pp. 167–171.
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of multi-ideology politics, which includes specifically Islamic politics.
Islamic political groups had always operated under the cover of the liberaluniversal human and citizenship concept (i.e., taken shelter under the human
rights conception) before the fall of the Soeharto regime. After its fall, they
started to formulate their own idea of citizenship. This has been evident in
the formation of political parties and organizations based on Islam, with the
objective to form an Islamic government through democratic channels.
Although the effort to formulate alternatives other than Pancasila as
the secular nationalism precept was not successful at the state level during
the constitutional amendments from 1999 to 2002, the effort to push
for a political life based on religion began to emerge. This can be seen
from two phenomena. One is through legal channels but at a lower level,
namely through the implementation of syariah-inspired regional government
regulations (or Perda), followed by various efforts to reconstruct a new
religious identity. The second is widening the scope covered by fatwas issued
by the MUI (Majelis Ulama Indonesia/Indonesian Ulama Council).
SYARIAH REGIONAL REGULATION:
THE REGULATION AND NORMALIZATION
OF RELIGIOUS BEINGS
Two of the products of reform are Law No. 22 of the year 1999 on Regional
Autonomy and Law No. 25 of 1999 on the Balancing of Financing between
the Central and Regional Government, which was amended to Law No.
32 of 2004 on Regional Government. The law was expected to reduce
centralism, which during the New Order era was one of the obstacles to
democracy. With autonomy, power distribution and regions’ independence,
it was expected that there would be policies based on the needs of the local
communities, thus expanding the scope of justice.
However, the procedural freedom enabled by regional autonomy has not
automatically produced a new and healthier political system. In fact, what
really happened was that the institutional set-up was used by the old power
networks, namely the bureaucrats nurtured by the New Order, local bosses
and gangsters, to enhance their interests. In other words, the changes and
institutional reforms at the local level, which happened without the removal
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of old elements and elites, have been utilized to facilitate the return of old
powers that reproduce inequity and identity politics.11 Within this kind of
relations, the syariah regional regulations have emerged. They are not only
the instrument and symbol of rejuvenation of Islamic politics in Indonesia,
they have also become the basis for accommodation of interests between
the local elites. From here on, it becomes clear why parties such as Golkar
have taken part in the implementation of the Syariah Regional Regulations.
Since Regional Autonomy was initiated, there have been at least 30
regions, including provinces and districts/cities, implementing Syariahinspired Regional Regulations. The Southern Sulawesi province has
become one of the provinces with the most number of districts
implementing Syariah Regional Regulations. Bulukumba occupies the first
position with five Syariah Regional Regulations already in place. Other
districts in the same province have also implemented the Syariah Regional
Regulations, namely the Enrekang, Gowa, Takalar, Maros and Sinjai
districts.12
In Bulukumba district, Syariah Islam has been rapidly implemented up
to the village level. Some of the Syariah regional regulations in this region
stipulate the obligation for women to wear Moslem attire or jilbab (head
cover), whereas couples who intend to be married are obligated to know
how to read and write Al-Qur’an. Aside from that, the citizens are obligated
to pay zakat, infak, and sedekah.13
Moreover, 12 villages have been designated as the pilot Moslem villages
in this district. In a further development, this activity became the trigger for
competition between the villages so they could be chosen as pilot villages.14
The implication was that each village then formulated for itself the standard
11 See Hadiz, Vedi R. (2003). Power and Politics in North Sumatra: The Uncompleted Reformasi.
In Local Power and Politics in Indonesia: Decentralization and Democratization, Aspinal and Fealy (eds.).
Singapore: ISEAS and Jakarta: CSIS, pp. 119–131.
12 The acceptance of Perda can be linked with the role of Komite Persiapan Penegakan Syariat Islam
Sulsel. At the beginning, this committee was chaired by Abdul Aziz Kahar Muzakkar, son of
Kahar Muzakkar (the leader of Darul Islam/Tentara Islam Indonesia). Abdul Aziz has succeeded in
establishing representatives in every Kabupaten in South Sulawesi. See “Syariat Isalam di Jalur Lambat”
(http://www.tempointeraktif.com/hg/mbmtempo/free/nasional.html).
13 See also “Menguji Perda Syariat di Ranah Majemuk” (http://www.liputan6.com/view/
8,127209,1,0,1155170742.html).
14 The spread of the implementation of Syariah Islam in the villages as a pilot project happened very fast.
In some cases, it was even faster than Perda in Kabupatens and Provinces.
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of Islam for the inhabitants of the village. For example, the enactment
of Village Regulation No. 5 of 2006 on Flogging Punishment in Padang
Moslem Village stirred up much controversy. The Village Regulation
stipulates that anyone who consumes alcohol beverage is punishable by 40
times of flogging; adulterers shall be subjected to 100 times of flogging;
accusing others of adultery without the testimony of four witnesses is
punishable by 80 times of flogging; anyone who gambles shall be subjected
to 40 times of flogging; and anyone who commits assault shall be flogged
20 times.15
In the meantime, the effort to implement the Syariah Regional
Regulations also occurs in other regions, for example, in several districts
in West Java, West Sumatera (Sumbar), Aceh, South Kalimantan (Kalsel),
Banten, Riau, Mataram, and Pamekasan district, etc. An assortment of syariah
regulations have been enacted in these regions in various forms. Several
syariah regulations were issued in the form of regional regulations, Qanun,
circular letters, or Regional Regulation decrees.
In West Java province, some of the districts that have already
implemented Syariah Regional Regulations are: Indramayu, Tasikmalaya,
Garut, Cianjur districts, and Cianjur cities. Several notable experiences
during the implementation of syariah have occurred in these regions. In
Cianjur, the formalization of Syariah Islam actually became the subject
of political bargaining by the then candidate Mayor, who at the time
was still the regional secretary. Wasidi Swastomo Msi in 1999 promised
to uphold Syariah Islam if he was elected to be the Mayor. When he
was, Wasidi established the agenda of “Marhamah Gate” in the form of
religious symbolism through naming roads with Arabic names and passing
the regulation to wear jilbab through the Circular Letter No. 061/2896/Org
dated 29 August 2003. The regulation was implemented by the principal of
Government High School SMUN 1 as obligatory.16
Research by The Wahid Institute states that syariah implementation in
Indonesia has proceeded in five stages. First, through family law, which
governs marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Second, through economic and
finance law, including Islamic banking institutions and zakat. Third, through
15 See “Desa Muslim” (14 August 2006), Jaringan Islam Liberal.
16 See Imparsial Team Research (2006). Unification and Totalization of World Life as a Threat to Human
Rights, Study Policy Report December 2006. Jakarta: Imparsial.
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religious practices and the establishment of religious personalities, in the
form of the obligation to wear jilbab, and the prohibition of gambling and
alcohol. Once the first and second stages have been well implemented and
have been considered as normal at national level, the third stage is to work
at the regional level through regional regulation.
The fourth stage is the implementation of Islamic criminal law, and the
fifth and last stage is to have Islam as the foundation of the state. According
to Rumadi from The Wahid Institute, the implementation of syariah at
lower levels will simultaneously give the space for its execution at a higher
level.17 Therefore, it can be stated that the stages of syariah implementation
are systematic and expansive.
The possibility of expansion in the implementation of Syariah Islam
can easily be understood when one considers the views of Mutamminul
‘Ula, one of the figures in Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (Welfare Justice Party).
When touching on the issue of Syariah Islam’s implementation in Aceh,
Mutamminul stated that:
The implementation of Islamic Criminal Regulations in NAD (Nanggroe
Aceh Darrusalam) has to be more expansive than what has been proposed
by NAD’s DPRD (Provincial People’s Representative Assembly). In
the elucidation of Law on Religious Court Article 49, it is stated that
individuals or legal entities voluntarily subject themselves to Islamic Law.
With the existence of the words “voluntarily subject themselves,” it
can be stated that non-Moslem individuals can also choose Islamic Law
as the basis of dispute resolution, as long as the matter falls under the
jurisdiction of the Religious Court.18
From there, Mutamminul ‘Ula then arrived at the conclusion:
Based on this formulation, the enactment of Syariah in Aceh in the
Draft Law of Aceh Government is not only for Moslems, but also for
non-Moslems subjecting themselves to Islam.19
If, in the case of ‘Ula, the intent to expand the implementation of syariah
at the level of this region was expressed in the form of opinion, in various
regions the expansion is conducted legally and explicitly in the articles of the
regional regulations themselves. One example is the Regional Regulation
17 http://www.wahidinstitute.org/indonesia/content/view/270/52.
18 See ‘Ula, Mutamminul (2006). Guarding Law Enforcement. Jakarta: Pustaka Inovasi, p. 47.
19 Ibid.
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of Lima Puluh Kota district in West Sumatera, No. 5 of year 2003 on the
Compulsory Moslem Attire. Regarding the target subjects of the compulsory
Moslem attire:
Article 5
(1) All male and female employees of the State and Private Entities,
students of Government and Private universities, high schools and
their equivalent, junior high schools and their equivalent, as well
as elementary schools and their equivalent, are obligated to wear
Moslem Attire.
After stipulating the legal subjects of the syariah obligation, the Regional
Regulation further expands the scope to go beyond the Moslems. This can
be seen in Article 6:
(1) All members of the general public of all professions and on all
occasions are requested to always wear Moslem attire.
With the structure and expanded scope, the Regional Regulation is openly
and explicitly directed at the non-Moslem population. Therefore, the
Regional Regulation’s enforcement capacity, in principle, is greater than
the Jakarta Charter, which limited the implementation of Syariah only to the
Moslems. Thus, without even having to change the foundation of the state,
the implementation of these regional regulations has automatically become
an instrument for a religion-based socio-political life.
THE EXPANSION OF FATWA AND THE SHIFT
IN CITIZEN IDENTITY
Aside from the implementation of local laws which is directly impacting on
the effort to reconstruct and control public morality, the regional regulations
are also aimed directly at the body and physical identity. The regional
regulations represent a new discourse on what is human. This is evident
from the continuation of the regional regulations’ implementation over the
bodies of the students, starting from the alteration of the type of uniform
to the change in the model of the uniforms themselves, from one that
is “more nationalistic” into another that is more Islamist. With such a
process, students, public employees, and the public in general begin to
be incorporated into a new identification system, from being citizens into
believers of a religion. Here, the role of the secular state is diminished.
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The shift is furthered even more by the strengthening and expansion of
the roles and functions of fatwa from the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI)
and the accommodation of MUI’s fatwas that exclude certain citizens. This
can be seen from the case of haram fatwa against pluralism, liberalism and
secularism, and the MUI’s fatwa determining Ahmadiyah as a heretical sect.
Previously, fatwa had a more social function and was used “only” as
guidelines in exercising personal Moslem duties and acknowledging the
authority of God in religion in general.20 In this context, fatwa was more
limited to the specific and private religious relations.
However, in 2005, the MUI issued a controversial fatwa, namely fatwa
No. 7 of 2005 on Pluralism, Liberalism, and Religious Secularism. The fatwa
declares pluralism, liberalism, and secularism as haram. More was to come.
MUI issued fatwa No. 11 of 2005 on Ahmadiyah.
Although MUI claimed that the fatwa on pluralism, liberalism and
secularism was only for Moslems, it is difficult to ignore the reality that
the fatwa is considered to have triggered a number of cases of violence
and destruction of prayer houses of minority religions in various places in
Indonesia.
The expansion of fatwa into public life can be seen even clearer in the
Ahmadiyah case. The fatwa not only appealed internally to the Moslems; it
has also been used to pressure the state to adopt repressive policies to disperse
the Ahmadiyah sect.
This is the point where fatwa has changed its character. It is no longer
circulated as an internal guideline; instead, it has expanded and challenged
the established constitutional citizenship. In this case, by pressurizing
the government to disperse Ahmadiyah, the fatwa intends to change the
concept of citizenship from legal and constitutional-based into one based
on religion/fatwa.
Fatwa has therefore created a new tension between the inclusive
citizenship principles based on the constitution which protects everyone
as citizens, and the principle of religion-based citizenship which demands
exclusion for the believers of Ahmadiyah. The pressure on the state was
evident when the then Government of Indonesia issued a decree in the form
of a Joint Ministerial Decision (SKB) between the Minister of Religious
20 Hooker, M.B. (2003). Indonesian Islam: Social Change Through Contemporary Fatawa. Honolulu: Asian
Studies Association of Australia in association with Allen and Unwin and University of Hawaii Press.
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Affairs and the Attorney-General’s Office, stating that Ahmadiyah is a
prohibited organization; yet it has not dispersed. Although not dispersed,
the SKB has clearly advanced the interests of many conservative religious
groups in Indonesia. Therefore, although the constitution still seems to grant
protection to Ahmadiyah, the SKB has in an essential manner transferred
the conception of Indonesian citizenship into the hands of religion. This
is a prominent sign of the shift in conception from the open and secular
“Indonesian citizen” to an increasingly exclusive one.
CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF SECULAR
CITIZENSHIP
When viewed from the constitutionalist position, the concern that Indonesia
will turn into a religious state — at least in the next 10 to 15 years — is
still almost groundless. This is based on the fact that such a situation will
require the total defeat of the nationalist-secular factions such as PDI-P,
some elements in PKB and NU as well as Golkar. Such a major defeat is
hard to be achieved in such a short span of time.
However, although the installation of a religious state remains difficult
and faces tremendous challenges, it does not mean that the secular character
of the Indonesian state is secure. The major source of concern is not the
birth of a religious state through open constitutional channels, but the retreat
of secular culture, which results in reduced individual rights and freedom of
expression as well as ever-expanding intolerance.
More substantially, in the political arena, religion’s encroachment
through legal means and cultural restrictions has resulted in the decline of
egalitarian and democratic citizenship principles. Citizenship is no longer
based on the quality and participation of citizens in the social and political
sphere as well as in other fields, but rather determined primarily by religious
categories — ranging from simple public offices (such as regional heads),
all the way to the large and prestigious ones. The shift in the concept of
citizenship has not only eroded the principle of equality before the law,
which is the basis and foundation of a modern constitutional democratic
state, but it has also destroyed the powerful cornerstones of Indonesian
society.
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Not only should we pay close attention to the official form of the
state, but more so to the substance of the conceptual shift, from an open,
secular citizenship to one with a religious identity. The effort and tension
towards this end can be seen in the development of two situations. First,
the strengthening role of fatwa and ulama, which increasingly have equal
standing with the constitution and the state’s legal apparatus. Here, fatwa has
expanded far beyond its old function to one which engages itself publicly
in social change; it has morphed into an instrument that forms the more
subtle changes of political, law and citizenship identity. Second, the use of
the body politic to define and transform individuality within the framework
of religion, for example, through Regional Regulations and the recent Law
on Pornography. In this area, the target is no longer the formal state, but
the bodies and personalities of the citizens.
To sum up, we should watch out for the shifts towards the more powerful
influence of views and claims on “purity” (purity of religion, etc.) that
provide the basis for extremism and fanaticism, which in turn shall end up
in violence and disintegration.
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Chapter
16
Malaysia: Multicultural Society,
Islamic State, or What?
JOHAN SARAVANAMUTTU
One central issue in Malaysian politics is the contestation over Islam’s political
role. It has given rise to two forms of statist Islam sponsored respectively by the
dominant ruling Malay party, UMNO, and the oppositional Islamic party, PAS.
This chapter will delve into the history and politics of this contestation and examine
its ramifications on Malaysian multicultural society. At the peak of this contestation,
leaders of the ruling UMNO have declared Malaysia to be an “Islamic state.”
This is, however, contested by secular political actors and constitutional experts.
Contestation over the role and place of Islam in society has also spilled over into
civil society, with the surfacing of numerous ethnic altercations over cultural rights
issues such as apostasy and religious conversions. This chapter will examine the
aborted attempt by civil society actors to form an Inter-Faith Commission in 2005
and explore its social and political ramifications. The chapter argues that the route
to a multicultural secular practice of recognizing the “equal worth” of citizens
remains stymied in a contested political moment with democracy serving as the
most significant and enabling conditionality for progressive change.
INTRODUCTION
Malaysian society is undoubtedly unique in its history, colonial legacy and
contemporary manifestation. Famously epitomizing the colonial condition
of a so-called “plural society,” this social formation morphed into its formal
modern shape as a semi-democratic multicultural polity in 1957, complete
with a political pact dubbed as the “social contract” among the major
ethnic communities of Malays, Chinese and Indians. The major features
of the consociational pact were that citizen rights would be granted to
all on the principle of jus soli (by virtue of birth-right, not blood-right),
but that the special position of the Malays (later, Bumiputeras or sons of
soil) would be preserved; and that religious freedom would be guaranteed,
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though Islam is privileged as the “religion of the federation.” Such a potent
mix of constitutional provisions was bound to presage social and political
conflict, but miraculously Malaysia has survived a half-century of arguable
social peace, save for the major incident of 13 May 1969. With ethnic
confrontation in check, contestations over Islam’s political role have now
become increasingly prominent and have given rise to two forms of statist
Islam sponsored respectively by the dominant ruling Malay party, United
Malays National Organization (UMNO) and the oppositional Islamic party,
Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS). This chapter will delve into the history
and politics of this contestation and examine its ramifications on Malaysian
multicultural society. At the peak of this contestation, leaders of the ruling
UMNO have declared Malaysia to be an “Islamic state.” This is, however,
contested by secular political actors and constitutional experts. Contestation
over the role and place of Islam in society has also spilled over into civil
society, with the surfacing of numerous ethnic altercations over cultural
rights issues such as apostasy and religious conversions. The chapter argues
that these contestations are occurring in an “actually existing multicultural
society” which has produced a hybrid or hybridized state, neither fully
religious (Islamic) nor fully secular. In such a situation, the route to a
multicultural secular practice of recognizing the “equal worth” of citizens
remains stymied in a contested political moment with democracy serving as
the most significant and enabling condition for progressive change.
MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY
At the point of independence from Britain in 1957, Malaya was already
undeniably a “multicultural society.” However, multiculturalism as such
was never acknowledged as political practice by the newly formed Malayan
government. Indeed, its ideological and political creed was that of ethnicism,
allowing for the valorization of ethnic discourse and politics. The ruling
coalition, the Alliance Party, comprised three organizations representing
the three largest ethnic communities, namely: the United Malays National
Organization (UMNO), the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) and the
Malayan Indian Congress (MIC). Nevertheless, it should be noted that in the
run-up to independence, there were groups and organizations that opposed
the overt ethnicization of politics. Some 10 years before independence,
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the coalition of groups known by the acronym PUTERA-AMCJA1 put
forward a “People’s Constitution” under which all Malayans were entitled
to be called “Melayu,”2 clearly a deliberate move to remove overt ethnic
connotations from political practice.
In actual fact, Malayan society was deeply steeped in ethnicity from
the outset. J.S. Furnivall’s (1948) discourse of the “plural society,” while
Orientalist in conception, captured the contours of Malaysian society rather
succinctly and accurately, viz.:
• The presence of different ethnic groups brought together only for
fundamental commercial ends.
• They meet typically in the “marketplace” with no real social mixing and
cross-cultural contact.
• Economic specialization and an ethnic division of labor.
• The lack of shared values and “common will.”
• The society is held together by dint of colonial power.
• The plural society is inherently an unstable social form.
Furthermore, for writers like M.G. Smith, plural societies were marked
by “mutually incompatible” social structures, values and belief systems as
well as systems of action at the “cultural core,” and hence, merely a formal
diversity in the basic system of compulsory institutions as explicated below:
• internal ethnic integration of ethnic groups, and consistency within closed
socio-cultural units.
• a political order in which a cultural section(s) is (are) subordinate to the
other(s).
• social and political relations defined by “dissensus” and “conflict.”3
Still within the discourse of plural society, Arend Lijphart (1977),
whose model takes its point of departure from European experiences, has
provided a somewhat more liberal and sympathetic treatment. Lijphart’s
fundamental points were that ethnically divided societies could live with
1 PUTERA stood for Pusat Tenaga Rakyat (Center for People’s Power) and AMCJA, All-Malayan
Council for Joint Action. The former comprised Malay groups while the latter, non-Malay. Interestingly,
Tan Cheng Lock of the MCA was the initial leader of the AMCJA.
2 “Melayu” is the Malay term for “Malays”; allowing everybody this privilege meant the devalorization
of “Malayness” itself.
3 See Smith (1965), which is a collection of his writings.
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their ethnic cleavages, that conflict could be contained by elites and leaders
of ethnic communities, that democracy is possible within such ethnically
divided societies and that formal institutional arrangements such as federalism
and proportional representation could be used to contain conflict. He
suggested four conditions for the successful implementation of what he called
“consociationalism” or consociational democracy, namely:
•
•
•
•
grand coalition of all ethnic groups.
mutual veto in decision-making.
ethnic proportionality in allocation of opportunities and offices.
ethnic autonomy, often through federalism.
Writers like Milne and Mauzy (1978, p. 352) have shown that
consociationalism could be applied with some modification to Malaysia.
I am inclined to accept this thesis, but would stress that looking at Malaysian
politics through the lens of consociationalism does not provide the full
picture, including important class and political economy dimensions, and
most importantly now, Islam as a factor central to the current phase of
Malaysian politics.4
From the perspective of multiculturalism, the plural society paradigm
qua consociational democracy has a rather static quality about it. It is
pragmatic and realist, but remains essentially within the discourse of conflict
management (as opposed to that of conflict resolution) and does not
account sufficiently for the role of human agency in positive (or negative)
dynamic change over time. Put differently, it is basically a status quo,
unreflexive approach to ethnic relations. Because social and political relations
change dynamically over time, this has affected not only pluralism as
discursive practice but also, concomitantly, the understanding and advocacy
of multiculturalism by political and social groups within Malaysia. It is
important now to briefly review and interrogate the evolution of Malaysia
as an actually existing multicultural society.
Initially, the practice of multiculturalism, such as it was, fitted to a tee
the plural society mould described above. The Alliance government, which
comprised the three dominant communal parties of Malaya, crafted the
famous formula of inter-ethnic accommodation between Malays, Chinese
4 For an attempt to go beyond the plural society, see the cultural approach advocated by Kahn and Loh
(1992). An important recent effort to look beyond ethnicity and yet not ignore it is Maznah and Wong
(2001).
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and Indians as the basic social contract of the newly independent Malayan
state. Something of the M.G. Smith notion of ethnic domination by one
group existed, in this case, the Malays as primus inter pares, based on the
notion of ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy). Hardly anyone questioned
the fact that the Malays were an originary ethnic community who provided
the basis of polity prior to the arrival of colonists in Malaya.5 However, there
has always been only a grudging acceptance, if not rejection, of a secondary
citizenship by the non-Malays. Chinese political groups, in particular the
Democratic Action Party (DAP), rejected the implied non-equal worth of
citizens in political practice, as has the newly formed and now proscribed
Indian Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF).
Certainly the concept of ketuanan Melayu could not be applied to Sabah
and Sarawak, which joined Malaysia in 1963, where non-Malay indigenes
were in the majority (Kadazan) or were the largest plurality (Iban). Hence,
the term Bumiputera (sons of soil) was coined to accommodate the change.
The Barisan Nasional (BN) government today incorporates political parties
representing all ethnic communities, with UMNO acting as the dominant
political force. And today, as in the past, Bumiputeras receive special rights
and affirmative action in educational and employment opportunities up to
the point of their numerical strength. In other words, proportionality is
maintained. One should stress that all communities have largely accepted
the positive discrimination policies as correctives for the economically
disadvantaged Bumiputeras. A defining moment in Malaysian political history
occurred on 13 May 1969 when communal riots broke out in Kuala Lumpur
after a general election, eventually leading to the suspension of parliament.
Remarkably, some 22 months later, in 1971, democratic processes were
restored but new restrictions were imposed on civil liberties through the
Sedition Act, among others. More importantly, the new five-year plan of
1971–1976 introduced a plethora of measures to further uplift Bumiputera
economic conditions. A quiescent non-Bumiputera minority was hardly
able to object when presented with hard facts of continued Bumiputera
“backwardness,” now touted as the root cause of the 13 May event.
In some sense, the M.G. Smith form of plural society was applied
a fortiori post-1969 and may be said to have further justified excesses
of an authoritarian state such as the crackdown on 107 social activists
5 Cf. the earlier work of Gullick (1958) and more recent work of Milner (1982) on this subject.
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and opposition politicians in 1987. But a major difference in political
mobilization has perhaps occurred since the 1980s, evidenced by the rise of
middle-class forces from all ethnic groups within a nascent civil society. They
have protested against illiberal legislations ranging from the amendments
to the Societies Act (1981) and the Official Secrets Act (1986), and they
continue to oppose legislations like the Internal Security Act, which allows
for detention without trial.6
The state, in a particularly “secular” political moment, introduced in the
1990s an apparent shift of approach to ethnic relations, enunciated through
Mahathir’s Vision 2020 policy. It called for:
• national integration and the development of a Bangsa Malaysia (Malaysian
“race”).
• creating a psychologically liberated and secure Malaysian society.
• developing a mature and democratic society based on communitarian
democracy.
• establishing a matured liberal and tolerant society.
• establishing a caring society and a caring culture.
• ensuring an economically just society.
• establishing a moral and ethical society.
In its most recent incarnation in the early 2000s, the Malaysian state may
have morphed into yet a third form with the emergence of a more selfconscious political Islam. Islamization had already crept into practice under
the Mahathir tenure, but was given much more play during the tenure of
his successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The next section deals with how
this Islamization may be equated or seen as a palpable movement toward
the formation of an Islamic state, but in effect, has led to a hybridized semisecular state.
ISLAMIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS
It would not be incorrect to say that a form of political Islam surfaced
on the eve of independence in Malaya in the 1950s. The nascent Islamic
party, Hizbul Muslimin, existed for a number of months in 1948 before
the British banned it along with the radical Malay party, Parti Kebangsaan
6 See my analysis of middle-class politics and the political awakening of Malaysian civil society (2001a,b).
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Melayu Malaya (PKMM), or the Malay Nationalist Party. PAS (Parti Islam
Se-Malaysia) was formed one day before the closing of nominations for the
1955 elections, in which it took one seat.7 Like the United Malays National
Organization (UMNO), PAS was known by its English name, Pan-Malayan
Islamic Party (PMIP), and initially based its politics on Malay rights within
the framework of Islam. Only in 1971 did PMIP officially adopt the acronym
PAS. Viewed more broadly, the politicization of Islam may be said to have
traversed the phases of Islamic resurgence in the late 1970s, state-sponsored
Islamization policies from the 1980s, contestation over Islamization within
society and among statist actors (political parties) from the 1990s, and the
introduction of the policy of “civilizational” Islam (Islam Hadhari ) post-2004
under the Abdullah Badawi government.8
Contestation over Islamization at the statist level reached a peak in the
aftermath of the 1999 general election when PAS captured the state of
Terengganu while retaining control of Kelantan. Both state governments
have passed legislation — Kelantan since 1992 — to introduce Hudud
and Qisas (criminal) laws under the syariah (Islamic) system of law, which
is currently largely confined to family law. Hudud and Qisas laws deal
with mandatory punishments derived from the Qu’ran and Sunnah. Under
Hudud, theft, robbery, illicit sex, alcohol consumption and apostasy are
considered offenses. Punishments for these are corporal in nature, involving
whipping, stoning to death and amputation of the limbs. Qisas law refers to
offenses that involve bodily injury or loss of life. The punishment is death
or imprisonment, but compensation in the form of money or property is
acceptable if the guardian of the victim forgives the offender.9
The Kelantan and Terengganu state enactments are thwarted by a
constitutional and a de facto impasse that the federal government, under
the BN, will not endorse such legislation. This has not prevented either
state from introducing various Islamic practices like compulsory veiling
for Muslim women, or more explicitly in October 2005, naming Kota
Bharu (the capital of Kelantan) as an “Islamic City.” In late 2001, after
the September 11 event, the Islamic State issue captured center stage in
7 For the most comprehensive study of PAS to be written to date, see F.A. Noor (2004).
8 For a depiction of political Islam in terms of the UMNO–PAS contestation in the Mahathir period,
see Liow (2004).
9 See “Q and A on the Hudud and Qisas Enactment,” Aliran Monthly, 22(6), 25–29.
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political debates in Malaysia. The Prime Minister got into the fray when he
suggested that Malaysia was already a practicing Islamic State (Negara Islam),
and governmental ideologue and Law Minister Rais Yatim echoed this. PAS
called for the matter to be openly debated as did the DAP, for diametrically
opposite reasons. The DAP left the Alternative Front of opposition forces
in August 2001 because of disagreements with PAS over the Islamic State
issue. Meanwhile, a spokesperson of PAS, the former Chief Justice Salleh
Abas, argued that Malaysia would not be an Islamic state until it introduced
comprehensive syariah law for all Muslims in the country.
A shift in the statist nuance of Muslim politics came with the landslide
electoral victory of the BN in 2004 under the leadership of Abdullah Badawi,
whereby the coalition not only captured 90% of the parliamentary seats but
dealt a blow to the Islamic party, PAS, as well as to Parti Keadilan Nasional
(PKN). PAS failed to retain control of Terengganu and nearly lost its base
in Kelantan as well. PKN, which had an effective merger with the Parti
Rakyat Malaysia (PRM), was only barely able to hold on to the seat held by
its president, Wan Azizah Ismail, the wife of the then jailed Anwar Ibrahim.
After assuming the helm of leadership in October 2003, Abdullah introduced
a softer version of a modernist and moderate Islam, known by the term his
government coined Islam Hadhari or “civilizational Islam.” This concept of
Islam has been the hallmark of his orientation towards the Western world
and especially in the face of the American-led “global war against terrorism.”
The tenets of Islam Hadhari were adumbrated by Dr. Abdullah Mat Zin,
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, as follows10 :
Rationale for the policy:
1. Malaysia as an Islamic state
2. Improvement of the Islamization policy (embedding Islamic values)
3. Making Islam the means for resolving current challenges
Definition:
An approach to human development, society and the Malaysian state that is
comprehensive based on the parameters of growing Islamic civilization with the view
of producing individuals and an Islamic society which is spiritual, intellectual, with
material strength, self-reliance, competitiveness, is forward-looking, innovative as well
as capable of handling current challenges in a manner that is wise, rational and peaceful.
10 This exposition was carried out in a talk (in Bahasa Malaysia) sponsored by the Islamic development
management group of the School of Social Sciences, USM, Penang, on 30 July 2004. The translation,
based on a summary, is mine.
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Vision:
Make Malaysia a role model for an Islamic state.
Mission:
To implement a development agenda for the state and the ummah premised upon
Islamic teachings which are progressive, civilized, tolerant and balanced.
Objectives:
1. To fulfill Muslim duties and obligations (akidah), law (syariah) and Islamic
morality (akhlak ummah)
2. To practice Islam as a basis for national development in various fields of endeavor
3. To make Islam as the catalyst for implementing the development of the ummah
and the state
Pillars:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
A society that is knowledgeable, moral, and possesses virtues
Development which maintains a balance between the spiritual and the physical
Enjoyment of the comforts of life
An approach that is moderate and thoughtful
Holding on to the heritage of the past along with new legacies which are
beneficial
6. Universalism
Features:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
Using Islamic sources
Good governance
Prosperous livelihood
Improving quality of life
Strengthening integrity
Dynamism
Completeness
Pragmatism
Self-reliance
Freedom, creativity and innovativeness
Strengthening the institution, scope and focus on family
Educational development
Economic development
Development administration and management
Development of science and technology
Agricultural development
However, it appeared that even a “moderate” Islam Hadhari, as depicted
above, left little room for tolerance of non-believers. This became evident
in the highly publicized action of the demolition of the “Sky Kingdom”
in Terengganu in July 2005. The “kingdom” in question was a commune
with structures and quaint buildings looking like teapots set up by one Ayah
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Pin (a pseudonym). The “Sky Kingdom” commune had earlier witnessed
a mob attack by unidentified assailants and a religious authority raid, which
drove Ayah Pin and his wife, Che Minah, into hiding. The wife had also
filed a petition in the High Court against the demolition which the Court
dismissed.11
I would argue that there are now two contrasting versions or constructs
of Islamic statehood of UMNO and PAS, and that these constructs inform
certain levels of articulation of Muslim politics. More often than not, the
rhetoric, debates, and even policies of such statist discourse and practices are
lost to the ordinary Muslim person. In the heady politics of the Reformasi
period, following the Anwar Ibrahim episode and leading on to the 1999
general election, PAS was able to capitalize on Muslim discontent and
outrage to capture the state of Terengganu. For years prior to this, its Islamic
rhetoric and ultra-conservative leadership under the fiery Hadi Awang had
failed to make a significant dent in Terengganu politics. Clearly, the UMNO
approach to Islam under the new leadership of Abdullah Badawi presented
a more “moderate” and universalist version of Islamic statehood. While
there may be no substantial change to existing policies, its palpable shift
has blunted PAS’s agenda for a more thorough-going Islamism. Abdullah’s
failure in the March 2008 general election shows that Islam Hadhari had lost
its luster, and poor governance and a series of faux pas by the now outgoing
prime minister overwhelmed its symbolism.
As for PAS, the soft-pedaling of its Islamist agenda was particularly
evident in the run-up and campaign of the March 2008 general election.
Instead of the usual call for an “Islamic State,” PAS in its election campaign
proposed the idea of Negara Berkebajikan, that is, a welfare state.12 In fact,
nowhere in its official manifesto calling for “A Trustworthy, Just and Clean
Government” was an Islamic state mentioned. The Kelantan manifesto used
the slogan Membangun Bersama Islam (Develop with Islam).
A HYBRIDIZED STATE?
The debate on the Islamic State question has reached a point in Malaysia
where practitioners and scholars alike have bifurcated on two sides of the
11 The series of events pertaining to the “Sky Kingdom” received wide coverage on the Internet and in
the local press. See, for example, coverage by the Internet paper, Malaysiakini.com, 16 January 2006.
12 See Ooi, Saravanamuttu and Lee (2008).
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Table 1
Politicians
Mahathir Mohamed
(Already Islamic state, 929 statement)
Abdullah Badawi, Najib Razak
(Islamic State, various pronouncements)
Nik Aziz Nik Mat
(Islamic welfare state in Kelantan — Negara
Berkebajikan)
Salleh Abbas
(Not without comprehensive syariah)
Lim Kit Siang
(Secular state based on constitution)
Anwar Ibrahim
(Islamic civil society — Masyarakat Madani)
289
Islamic State Debate.
Scholars
Joseph Fernando
(Constitutional framers created a secular, not
Islamic, state)
Ahmad Ibrahim/Abdul Aziz Bari
(Islam’s constitutional supremacy, state not declared
as “secular”/imperative to improve syariah)
Patricia Martinez, Joseph Liow, Meredith Weiss
(Not Islamic yet, but deepening Islamization)
Zainah Anwar, Maznah Mohamad
(May be Islamic for Muslims)
Farish Noor, A.B. Shamsul
(Islam already embedded in many contexts)
Kikue Hamayotsu
(Advanced syariah system in place)
Shad Saleem Faruqi
(Hybrid system, need to plug constitutional loopholes)
debate, some inclining toward the notion that Malaysia is already one
and others insisting that Malaysia is still a secular state. I summarize the
various positions and stances of politicians and writers in Table 1, providing
the reader with a smattering of the most well-known protagonists in the
debate.13
My view, as indicated earlier, is that the Malaysian state may be a
hybridized or hybrid state which functions on the basis of a fundamentally
secular constitution which, however, has seen the increasing penetration
of Islamic precepts in both the discursive and practical realms of state
practices. Figure 1 indicates how this hybrid state has become manifested.
Constitutional provisions since the time of independence in 1957 allowed
for what could be called a “Muslim exceptionalism,” which has become the
wedge for such penetration of Islamic practices. This has been effectuated
through the enhancement of the syariah court system and a growing plethora
of federal institutions and agencies, given Islam’s designation as the religion
of the federation. Furthermore, in 1988, Article 121 was amended to insulate
13 A good recent summary of the debate and its various protagonists on the political stage and in civil
society can be found in Tan and Lee (2008).
State-Level Institutions:
Conference of Rulers
Sultans as Heads of State
Muftis as Heads of Islam
Religious Departments
Fatwa Committees
Islamization at federal level
Islamic courts and authorities at state
and federal level
Three tiers of syariah state-level courts:
magistrate, high and appeal
Dept. of Islamic Development
(JAKIM since 1997 replaced BAHEIS,
1968)
State authorities: JAWI, JAIS, etc.
Fig. 1
The Malaysian Hybrid State.
PAS-led Statist Islam:
Islamization at state level
(Kelantan and Terengganu)
Regulation of social norms, dress
code, etc.
Enactment of Hudud and Qisas
but no implementation
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Kelantan (Muslims 90%+)
Terengganu (Muslims 90%+)
Perlis (Muslim dominant)
Kedah (Muslim dominant)
Pahang (Muslim dominant)
Johor (Muslim dominant)
N. Sembilan (Muslim dominant)
Malacca (Muslim dominant)
Selangor (Mixed)
Perak (Mixed)
Penang (Non-Muslim majority)
Sarawak (Non-Muslim majority)
Sabah (Non-Muslim majority)
UMNO-led Statist Islam:
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JOHAN SARAVANAMUTTU
YDP Agong as Head of State
Legislature: Parliament (2 houses)
Executive (Cabinet form with Prime
Minister)
Malaysian Judiciary (5 tiers of
courts: federal, appeal, high,
sessions, magistrate)
12:9
Federal Institutions:
Religious freedom — Article 11
Muslim exceptionalism — Article 11
Islam in state list of purviews
Islam as Religion of the Federation (Article 3)
Insulation of Syariah Courts from Civil Courts
(Article 121 (1A), 1988)
Syariah enactments, 1965, 1984, 1997
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Constitutional Provisions since 1957:
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the syariah courts from judicial oversight by the High Court or Federal
Court.14 Appellate syariah courts were also created at the state level. Both
UMNO-led and PAS-led Islamization led to the further expansion of Islamic
bodies and bureaucracies at the state and federal levels, as indicated in
Figure 1.
The only reference to date of a hybrid state is by constitutional law
specialist Shad Saleem Faruqi (2005). Other constitutional experts differ
at two extreme positions of the debate. For example, Fernando (2006)
maintains that Malaysia is a secular state in conception and intention, while
Abdul Aziz Bari (2005) is equally resolute that Islamic moral precepts are
embedded in Malaysia’s constitutional provisions.15 Social scientists such as
Liow (2004) and Weiss (2004) are closer to the spectrum of scholarship
that argues that a deepening Islamization has yet to produce a full-fledged
Islamic state. Another view is that an Islamic state may already be the order
of the day for Muslims in Malaysia (Zainah 2005; Maznah 2004) or that it is
already embedded in the nature of Islamic governance or cultural practice
(Noor 2003, 2004; Shamsul 2005). Finally, some scholars have shown in
no uncertain terms that the Islamic legal structure has grown through the
institutionalization of syariah courts, while the promulgation of a series of
syariah enactments has spawned a veritable Islamic bureaucracy and a de facto
Islamic state (Hamayotsu 2003).
THE IFC CONTROVERSY
We now turn to the contestation that developed over the proposed
establishment of an inter-faith commission, proposed by various groups
in civil society. The contestation over the setting up of the Inter-Faith
Commission of Malaysia (IFC) in February of 2005 provides an interesting
case study of Muslims and their everyday politics. It should be stated at
the outset that the very idea of discussing the establishment of an interfaith commission was itself rather remarkable, but the proposal soon became
controversial. The problem hinged around the issue of Islam as the official
state religion, as some would have it, or more correctly, the religion of the
14 See footnote 19.
15 Bari’s often publicly declared view is that whether Malaysia is a secular state is debatable since the
constitution is silent on it.
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federation. In any case, there was little doubt that it is the recognized primus
inter pares of faiths in Malaysia. That being said, the Malaysian Constitution,
under Article 11, guarantees the freedom of worship of all other faiths.
Members of the human rights subcommittee of the Bar Council mooted
the IFC idea some years ago. Some advocates of the idea, which included
prominent Muslims, in particular Malik Imtiaz Sarwar,16 felt that the existing
inter-faith dialogue mechanism — the Malaysian Consultative Council
for Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikhism (MCCBCHS) — was
inadequate to deal with thorny inter-faith matters, not least of all because
Muslims were not members of the MCCBCHS. Indeed, Muslim groups
partook of no formal inter-faith mechanisms. Hence, the idea of the
Commission came about. All religious groups, and especially Muslim groups,
were invited to participate in this initiative of the Bar Council. The Bar
Council, incidentally, was at the time led by a Muslim lawyer, Khutubul
Zaman Bukhari. The long and short of it was that eventually, after many
meetings, a broad consensus was arrived at to hold a national conference
to discuss the setting up of the IFC. The main objective was to iron out
differences and reassure doubters about the bona fide intentions and the
value of having such a commission. It should be said that right from the
outset, some Muslim groups were not overly enthusiastic about the idea,
but no strong objection was registered. Groups like ABIM (Muslim Youth
Movement) participated in the early decision-making but later chose to
stay out. One other such group which demurred participation was the
Movement for a Just World, led by Muslim intellectual Chandra Muzaffar.
In contrast, the Sisters in Islam, a liberal-minded Muslim women’s group,
supported the idea and participated actively in the conference.
The holding of the conference, involving some 200 multi-faith
participants representing various faiths, was itself an achievement. It was also
interesting that a minister, Rais Yatim, a lawyer by profession, officiated
at the event. But the inevitable happened. A coalition of 13 Muslim
groups calling itself the Allied Coordinating Committee of Islamic NGOs
(ACCIN) demanded that the government scuttle the idea of the IFC. A
spokesperson of ACCIN, Mustapha Ma, made statements to the effect that
there was deep hatred against Islam among some of the proponents of the
16 Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a prominent human rights advocate and lawyer, was chairman of the Steering
Committee of the IFC initiative.
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293
IFC idea. As quoted by the Internet paper Malaysiakini, he also allegedly
remarked:
It was said that Malaysia would have achieved Islamic State status if not for the
interference of the colonial masters and the arrival of non-Muslims. Are we now
witnessing the regression of our country into a secular state with Islam as a mere
ornament? (www.malaysiakini.com, accessed on 1 March 2005)
It became a supreme irony that the very idea of an inter-faith commission
proposed by civil society groups turned out to be an issue requiring the
eventual intervention of politicians and the prime minister no less. Prime
Minster Abdullah Badawi stepped in at the height of the controversy to
pronounce that the IFC idea should be shelved and that the government
was only prepared to consider it at a later time. The boldness and inaccuracy
of the ACCIN spokesperson’s remark may be attributed to the fact that the
previous prime minister had proclaimed Malaysia to be already an Islamic
state, although in actual fact the Malaysian Constitution only states that Islam
is the religion of the federation. Many constitutional experts have argued that
this means that the Malaysian state remains one not based on any particular
religion, but one that guarantees freedom of all faiths as stipulated in Article
11 of the Constitution. However, in 1988 when the Amendment 121 (1A)
was passed, the syariah courts were seemingly given absolute discretion over
matters of Islam. This introduced yet another perhaps intended consequence
on matters pertaining to religious freedom as we shall see below.
FAITH AND BODY POLITICS: MOORTHY
AND LINA JOY
Let me now touch on two controversial legal cases which no doubt had
a bearing on the aborted IFC. These two cases were among a slew of
controversies swirling around the issue of whether syariah courts have
primacy over the civil courts in matters pertaining to Muslims and even
non-Muslims who are related to Muslims.
In December 2005, a major religious controversy engulfed Muslims
and non-Muslims, in particular Hindus, sparked by the Kuala Lumpur
religious authority, JAWI,17 laying claim literally on the dead body of one
17 Jabatan Agama Wilayah Persekutuan (Federal Territory Religious Department).
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Moorthy Maniam (alias Mohammad Abdullah)18 on the grounds that he
had converted to Islam some time prior to his death. JAWI approached
the KL Syariah Court on 22 December and got the ruling that Moorthy’s
conversion to Islam was valid. This was, however, disputed by his wife S.
Kaliammal, who took the matter to the High Court which heard the case on
28 December. The three-paneled Court of Appeal ruled that there was no
“relief ” for Kaliammal on the grounds that Article 121 (1A) of the Malaysian
Constitution proscribed a civil court from ruling on matters of Islam. The
Constitutional Amendment Bill of 1988 which allowed for the insertion of
Article 121 (1A) states that civil courts, despite being federal courts, shall
have no jurisdiction with respect to any matter within the jurisdiction of
syariah courts, which are state-level religious courts.19
A sequence of events followed which is typical of Malaysian
consociational politics. Some 35 Hindu organizations, led by the Malaysian
Hindu Sangam, protested the action of JAWI and called for an amendment
to Article 121 (1A) of the Constitution. A similar stand was then taken by the
inter-faith MCCBCHS which called on the government to “urgently cure
the grave defect in our legal system by making the necessary amendments
to the Federal Constitution and all other legislation so that jurisdiction to
determine the validity of conversions into and out of Islam is vested in
the High Court where all Malaysians can be parties and have equal rights
as witnesses.” At the peak of the controversy, nine non-Muslim ministers
in the Cabinet submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister for the
matter to be brought up for discussion in the Cabinet. It was clear from
this request that the non-Muslims were greatly perturbed by the Moorthy
decision and wanted the Prime Minister to take a stand more sympathetic to
them. However, the Prime Minister did the opposite and prevailed on the
ministers to withdraw their request after privately discussing the issue with
five of the ministers (Utusan Malaysia, 22 January 2005). For the non-Muslim
18 Corporal Moorthy, who died at the age of 36 from serious head injuries, was one of the 10 individuals
in the Malaysian team, two of whom reached the peak of Mount Everest on 23 May 1997, the first
Malaysians to achieve the feat. Moorthy was posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant in the
midst of the controversy.
19 See Aliran Monthly, 25(11/12), 2005, for a discussion of this. The inserted Section 1A of Article 121
simply reads: “The courts referred to in Clause (1) [High Courts] shall have no jurisdiction in respect of
any matter within the jurisdiction of the syariah courts.”
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ministers, this move effectively meant that they had failed to represent the
interests of their constituents.
After Moorthy, another case that made international headlines was that
of Lina Joy, a Muslim woman of 43 years who embraced Christianity in
1988. She applied to the National Registration Department (NRD) for a
change of name and religious status in 1997. In 1998, the NRD allowed
the name change, but not the change of religion. Lina Joy appealed against
this decision in the High Court in 2001. The High Court ruled against the
change of religion, stating that the jurisdiction in conversion matters lies
solely in the hands of the Syariah Court. In 2004, Lina Joy’s case to the Court
of Appeal was dismissed on the grounds that the Syariah Court or any other
Islamic authority did not confirm her renunciation of Islam. In her appeal,
Lina Joy’s application to have her conversion to Christianity validated was
struck off by the highest court of the land, the Federal Court, on 30 May
2007, ending a 10-year legal battle. The Court ruled in a 2-1 split decision
that the NRD was correct to ask Lina Joy to seek a declaration from the
Syariah Court to confirm her conversion. The Chief Justice, who sat on
the three-man bench, argued that Muslims could not change their religion
at their own whim and fancy. The dissenting judge, a Christian, argued
that the NRD’s demand on Lina Joy was unreasonable, discriminatory and
unconstitutional.
It should be noted that the Moorthy controversy was compounded
by another similar controversy involving the burial of a certain “Nyonya
Tahir” which emerged at about the same time. This was a case of a 89year-old woman, of mixed Malay-Chinese parentage, who was married to
a Chinese man who did not convert to Islam. Nyonya Tahir lived her life as
a Buddhist and had also declared herself as such before a Commissioner of
Oaths. Her family asked that her body be released by the Negeri Sembilan
Islamic religious authority for Buddhist burial rites. The Seremban Syariah
Court granted the request on the grounds that Nyonya Tahir did not live as
a Muslim, at worst was an apostate, and thereby could not be buried under
Muslim rites (Utusan Malaysia, 22 January 2005).
There have also been other cases of controversial conversions that have
surfaced in the recent past. One such case surfaced in April 2004, when
the High Court dismissed the suit of one Shamala Sathiyaseelan who had
asked for nullification of the conversion of her two infants to Islam by her
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estranged husband. The Court averred that only the syariah courts could
decide on such a matter and moreover, that Shamala, not being Muslim,
had no standing in a syariah court. The High Court, however, gave joint
custody of the children to Shamala and her husband, with the caveat that
the children should be brought up as Muslims and observe its strictures, or
she would lose custody of them (Aliran Monthly, Vol. 25, No. 11/12, 2005).
It could be said that Malaysia reached a new dangerous threshold of
ethnic relations by the year 2007 because of the issues and contestations
discussed above.20 The core of this new context of ethnic relations was an
inter-ethnic, as well as an intra-Muslim, conflict, debate and discourse over
Islam and religious rights. One side considered that Islam was becoming too
embedded and was impinging negatively on the lives and rights of ordinary
Malaysians and that Malaysians should look to the constitution for guarantees
of civil liberties and freedom of religion. Contrariwise, the other side argued
that while Islam was constitutionally embedded, there had been an erosion of
its status and, furthermore, that all questions of religious rights and freedoms
must be cast in terms of the dominant status of Islam as the official religion
of the state. The second group often turned to the amendment to Article
121 (1A) which gave syariah courts full jurisdiction over questions of Islam.
An impasse remained, nonetheless, as such matters are still referred to the
civil courts and non-Muslims do not have legal standing in syariah courts.
However, the highest legal authority, the Federal Court, had ruled in the
Lina Joy case to confirm the primacy of syariah courts in matters pertaining
to Islam.
Inevitably, the implications of such a complex problem and its resolution
or lack of resolution have impacted on Muslim–non-Muslim (in the old
mould, Malay–non-Malay) relations. Undeniably, Muslim–non-Muslim
relations at the formal level have greatly strained the government’s
consociational model. Evidently, such cases as Moorthy and Lina Joy had
pushed the non-Malay cabinet ministers to hand over a memorandum
on inter-faith issues to the Prime Minister. The failure of Abdullah
to deal sympathetically with the problem undermined the legitimacy
20 In some ways, the 8 March 2008 General Election was the political safety valve that allowed for the
venting of angst and grievances on the part of non-Muslims. That said, the fact that PAS was able to
enter into an electoral pact and later into a political alliance with the People’s Justice Party (PKR) and
the Democratic Action Party (DAP) augurs well for the resilience of Malaysian society.
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of his non-Muslim political partners in the ruling coalition. At the
civil society level, the Malaysian Consultative Council for Buddhism,
Christianity, Hinduism and Sikhism was greatly exercised over such interfaith controversies and supported the formation of the IFC, which,
unfortunately, was shelved by the government for reasons that remain
opaque.
CONCLUSION: MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY,
HYBRIDIZED STATE
If Malaysian society was indeed at the new threshold of a changed context
of ethnic relations, what then would have been plausible directions for
a new political understanding amongst the political class and within civil
society? The Malay-led political class seemingly had no appetite or gumption
to tackle the problem. The governing UMNO party represented by
the then Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi took umbrage over his non-Malay
ministers’ mild protest and handled the newly emergent religious issues in
an authoritarian manner by basically silencing their dissent. Mahathir, while
known to be “modernist,” introduced Islamization and announced that
Malaysia was already an Islamic state in 2001. By putting the lid on the IFC,
the Abdullah government seemed to have given the pro-syariah Muslims
reason to believe they had succeeded in winning an important round of the
inter-religious debate. This changed context of ethnic relations indicated to
the broad public that there was now a new conservative political ideology
of the ruling coalition in conflict management, and that conflict avoidance
may have become the preferred approach of the UMNO-led government.
This was further enforced by the fact that civil society remained largely
politically divided and fragmented along ethnic lines, despite the presence of
a strong section of progressive Muslims who continued to rely on democratic
procedures rather than violent altercation to resolve outstanding issues. The
good news is that religious differences in Malaysia have remained within the
realm of civil contestations and have not morphed into militant, intractable
conflict.
This said, Malaysia, for all intents and purposes, is still an intensely
divided, conflicted and hybridized state, although not any more in the old
mould of the “plural society.” Ethnic communities are increasingly in direct
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contact and in friction, although cultural separation and polarization is still a
feature of society. Religion has become the major cleavage rather than race
or ethnicity. Malaysia’s “secular” constitutional provisions tend to guarantee
civil liberties, but at the same time the constitution provides that Islam is the
religion of the federation. This set of contradictory provisions, augmented by
ad hoc amendments of the UMNO-led government, permits secularists to
argue for the implementation of minority cultural rights while also allowing
Islamists to argue for a syariah-compliant state. To complicate matters, over
time, two constructs of statist Islam have emerged in rhetoric and political
practice: one propagated by PAS and the other by UMNO. Kelantan, a state
run by PAS for almost two decades, has instituted a form of “Islamic state”
in which an Islamic society and an Islamic lifestyle have become embedded
in the social fabric. Terengganu remains contested by the two Malay parties,
but is also for all intents and purposes “Islamic” in political practice. PAS
now shares power in Kedah and also in Perak and could well try to introduce
elements of Islamic lifestyle consonant with its notion of Islamic society.
The 8 March General Election of 2008, which has been termed a
“political tsunami” by many commentators, has added a new dimension
to the morphing of the hybrid Malaysian state. The Barisan Nasional
(BN) government, led by Abdullah Badawi, lost its two-thirds majority in
parliament and lost four state governments to the opposition parties, while
PAS retained the state of Kelantan. It is clear that the inter-faith fractures
discussed above greatly impacted on the poor showing of BN, which suffered
the worst defeat in its history. It triggered the impending retirement from
politics in 2009 of Abdullah Badawi, the ineffectual leader of the BN. One
of the factors that created such a result was the massive swing of Indian
voters to the opposition parties, a factor related to the event organized
by the Hindu Rights Action Front (HINDRAF) on 25 November 2007.
HINDRAF, which was formed after the Moorthy decision discussed above,
fought for the religious rights and the betterment of the Indian community.
The Abdullah government again took umbrage when thousands of Indians
took to the streets on 25 November to demonstrate, among other things,
against the wanton demolition of Hindu temples and the alleged economic
marginalization of Indians. Abdullah used the draconian Internal Security
Act to detain five HINDRAF leaders. In the general election, only three
Indian parliamentarians of the BN were returned and the leader of the
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Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), Samy Vellu, lost his seat. Religious
issues like the Lina Joy case also greatly influenced Malaysian Christians to
vote against the BN candidates. There is arguably a silver lining for interfaith developments as a consequence of the 2008 election. The opposition
coalition of parties — led by the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR/People’s
Justice Party), with its partners the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and
Islamic Party (PAS) — has now muted the call for an Islamic state, and
inter-faith matters are being prioritized for more sustained resolution. The
BN government on its part may be forced now to address inter-faith issues
in a more consistent and compassionate manner.
REFERENCES
Bari, Abdul Aziz (2005). The Enforcement of Morality through the Law. Paper presented
at the National Law Symposium 2005, organized by the Law Students Society,
International Islamic University Malaysia, Nikko Hotel, Kuala Lumpur.
Faruqi, Shad Saleem (2005). The Malaysian Constitution, the Islamic State and Hudud Laws.
In Islam in Southeast Asia: Political, Social and Strategic Challenges for the 21st Century, K.S.
Nathan and Mohammad Hashim Kamali (eds.). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies.
Fernando, Joseph M. (2006). The Position of Islam in the Constitution of Malaysia. Journal
of Southeast Asian Studies, 37(2), 249–266.
Furnivall, J.S. (1948). Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands
India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gullick, John M. (1958). Indigenous Political Systems of Western Malaya. London: Athlone
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Hamayotsu, Kikue (2003). Politics of Syariah Reform: The Making of the State ReligioLegal Apparatus. In Malaysia: Islam, Society and Politics, Virginia Hooker and Narani
Othman (eds.). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Kahn, Joel S. and Francis K.W. Loh (eds.) (1992). Fragmented Vision: Culture and Politics in
Contemporary Malaysia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Lijphart, Arend (1977). Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven,
London: Yale University Press.
Liow, Joseph Chinyong (2004). Political Islam in Malaysia: Problematising Discourse and
Practice in the UMNO-PAS “Islamisation Race”. Commonwealth and Comparative
Politics, 42(2), 184–205.
Maznah, Mohamad (2004). Women’s Engagement with Political Islam in Malaysia. Global
Change, Peace and Security, 16(2), 133–149.
Maznah, Mohamad and Soak Koon Wong (eds.) (2001). Risking Malaysia: Culture, Politics and
Identity. Bangi: Penerbit UKM in association with Malaysian Social Science Association.
Milne, R.S. and Diane K. Mauzy (1978). Politics and Government in Malaysia. Vancouver:
University of British Columbia Press.
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Milner, A.C. (1982). Kerajaan: Malay Political Culture on the Eve of Colonial Rule. Tuscon:
University of Arizona Press. Association for Asian Studies Monograph 40.
Noor, Farish A. (2004). Islam Embedded: The Historical Development of the Pan-Malaysia Islamic
Party PAS (1951–2003), Vols. 1 & 2. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Sociological Research
Institute.
(2003). The Localization of Islamist Discourse in the Tafsir of Tun Guru Nik Aziz
Nik Mat, Murshid’ul Am of PAS. In Malaysia: Islam, Society and Politics, Virginia Hooker
and Norani Othman (eds.). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Ooi, Kee Beng, Johan Saravanamuttu and Hock Guan Lee (2008). March 8: Eclipsing May
13. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Saravanamuttu, Johan (2001a). Is There a Politics of the Malaysian Middle Class? In Southeast
Asian Middle Classes: Prospects for Social Change and Democratization, Abdul Rahman
Embong (ed.). Bangi: Penerbit UKM.
(2001b). Malaysian Civil Society — Awakenings? In Risking Malaysia: Culture, Politics
and Identity, Maznah Mohamad and Wong Soak Koon (eds.). Bangi: Penerbit UKM in
association with Malaysian Social Science Association, pp. 93–111.
Shamsul, A.B. (2005). Islam Embedded: ‘Moderate’ Political Islam and Governance in the
Malay World. In Islam in Southeast Asia: Political, Social and Strategic Challenges for the
21st Century, K.S. Nathan and Mohammad Hashim Kamali (eds.). Singapore: Institute
of Southeast Asian Studies.
Smith, Martin G. (1965). The Plural Society in the British West Indies. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press.
Tan, Nathaniel and John Lee (eds.) (2008). Religion Under Siege? Lina Joy, the Islamic State
and Freedom of Faith. Kuala Lumpur: Kinibooks.
Weiss, Meredith L. (2004). The Changing Shape of Islamic Politics in Malaysia. Journal of
Southeast Asian Studies, 4, 139–173.
Zainah, Anwar (2005). Law-Making in the Name of Islam: Implications for Democratic
Governance. In Islam in Southeast Asia: Political, Social and Strategic Challenges for the 21st
Century, K.S. Nathan and Mohammad Hashim Kamali (eds.). Singapore: Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies.
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Chapter
17
Religious Revival and the Emerging
Secularism in China
ZHAO LITAO
China has been de-secularizing since the early 1980s when the government shifted
from a policy of suppressing religion to one of co-opting and controlling it. As
a central player in re-defining the state–religion relationship, the state has been
more tolerant of religion while also more effective in managing it. This chapter
will review the management system put in place by the Chinese government,
highlighting how this system allows for a nationwide religious revival on one hand
while maintaining a firm grip on politically threatening religious movements on
the other. It will also discuss how factors such as the central–local relationship, the
changing economy and society, and the international environment have shaped the
state–religion relationship in China, examining the reviving folk religions and each
of the five institutional religions — Buddhism, Daoism, Catholicism, Protestantism
and Islam.
China began to shift from Mao’s radical policies to Deng’s economic
reforms in the late 1970s. Profound economic and social changes have
occurred in the past three decades. Religious revival, as reflected in rebuilt
worship places, the re-emergence of religious activities, and the increasing
number of religious believers, has become a fact. Deng’s economic reforms
have resulted in growing spiritual needs that the economic reforms per se
cannot address, thereby creating a situation in which religion is allowed to
come back.
It is beyond dispute that religion is playing a larger role in the social
life of the Chinese people. The issue is whether the reviving religion(s)
will present a serious problem to the party-state ruled by the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP). There have been episodes of conflicts between
religious organizations/sects and the CCP. As religious believers strive for
more freedom, no one can rule out the possibility of violent confrontation.
301
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But, so far, the religious revival has largely been a non-violent and nonconfrontational one. By and large, the tension between religion and the state
has been less salient than in many other countries. The discussion about the
relationship of religion and state has not assumed a central place in the public
discourse as well, in part because the CCP does not allow any debate on this
subject, but also because the dominant discourse in China is modernization
defined in secular terms.
China seems to be in a contradictory dual-transition process. On the
one hand, there is a growing interest in, and a strong revival of, religion.
Some scholars describe this change in terms of de-secularization (Yang
2004). On the other hand, China is seeking to modernize the country by
endorsing secular values and creating secular institutions, such as education,
trade, investment, enterprise, rule of law, and so on. Religion is regarded
as unimportant or irrelevant because it does not provide a model of
modernization. This seemingly contradictory dual-transition is clearly taking
place in China. This chapter will provide an analytical framework to account
for this change, based on a typology of secularism proposed by Wang
Gungwu (2004) that contrasts Chinese and Indian secularism with that of
the West. It highlights that China is shifting not from a secular state to
a religious country, but from an extreme form of secularism to a more
moderate form of secularism, even though the term “secularism” is rarely
used in the Chinese context. The shift gives more freedom to religious
believers, but fundamentally the party-state remains dominant in the state–
religion relationship, a position unlikely to change no matter how much
religion has revived in China.
THREE TYPES OF SECULARISM
From China’s own experience, there are at least three types of secularism,
if the term is used in a broad sense. The first type of secularism originated
from China’s past and is associated with Confucianism, which has been
modified by Buddhism and Daoism over time. With an emphasis on this
world, this type of secularism features rational and this-worldly attitudes
towards religion (Wang 2004a). From the Han dynasty onward, this type of
secularism had largely prevailed in China until the turn of the 20th century.
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The introduction of Buddhism and the appearance of Daoism about 2,000
years ago did not fundamentally change the “secular” outlook of the
Chinese, even though the term “secular” or “secularism” was rarely used
to describe China’s state–religion relationship (Wang 2004b). During the
last few hundred years, some kind of Low Confucianism emerged among
ordinary Chinese, which included a whole range of syncretic values and
practices derived from Buddhism, Daoism and folk religions (Wang 1988).
To the extent that it was embedded in family and community, religion
simply became part of everyday life. Yet, despite the countrywide presence
of religion, it has never become a dominant model of economic, social, and
political organization in China. By and large, religion has always been weak
vis-à-vis the state: “For many hundreds of years, the Chinese state in all its
forms has assumed that it has the right and obligation to control every aspect
of life, including religious beliefs and practices” (Overmyer 2003, p. 308).
Although the state capacity for control varied from time to time, religion
was never allowed to develop into an independent source of power that
could challenge and replace the secular state.
The second type of secularism was imported from the West from
the 19th century. It is associated with modernization in Western Europe
and North America. This modern secularism, which was the end-product
of the difficult separation of church and state, emphasized secular values
and institutions as the precondition for modernization. With the global
expansion of capitalism, this type of secularism has gained a dominant
position in the world in the last two or three centuries. As China’s own
secularism failed to respond to foreign invasions since the mid-19th century,
Chinese reform-minded officials and intellectuals began to search for ways
to modernize the country. It became clear to many that the West provided
the only model of modernization. Japan’s success made the argument even
more convincing. In the early 20th century, many Chinese came to see
science and democracy as what could make China rich and strong. Thus, the
Chinese began to accept the concepts and ideals associated with the second
type of secularism.
This type of capitalism-secularism, however, quickly lost appeal among
left-wing intellectuals and young revolutionaries. To them, the major fault
line was not between the secular and the sacred, but rather between the
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haves and the have-nots. The second type of secularism was not seen as
universal, but associated with capitalism, while the truth lied in communism.
With the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, China
quickly embraced communism before the second type of secularism was
able to take root.
Communism as a third type of secularism shares many aspirations and
ideals with the second type of secularism. But unlike the second type that
sought to achieve progress through secular institutions “liberated” in the
process of church–state separation, communism was an extreme form of
secularism. It became the state ideology as well as the way of organizing the
economy and society. As a result, religion became the enemy of the state in
China. Communism was also in sharp contrast to China’s own secularism as
it took religion much more seriously, something that most Chinese would
not expect and could not understand. As the most extreme manifestation
of the hostile relationship between communism and religion, the Cultural
Revolution (1966–1976) destroyed almost all worship places and suppressed
any religious activity. This scope and extent of state intervention was
unprecedented in Chinese history.
Since the late 1970s, China began to abandon Mao’s repressive policies
and shift from political struggle to economic development. This shift
involved a transition from central planning to market allocation. It therefore
signaled a shift away from the third type of secularism towards the
second type of secularism, at least in the way the economy is organized.
Central to Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms was a renewed emphasis on
science, technology, materialistic incentives, and integration with the world
economy dominated by the US and Europe. Underlying this modernization
project was the secular and materialistic culture originating from Western
Europe and North America, rather than the secular fundamentalism
practiced in communist countries especially Maoist China. To a large extent,
China still rejects liberal democracy and civil society. Transition from
communism to the second type of secularism is therefore, at best, partial.
However, even this partial transition has created enough room for religion
to revive at an unprecedented pace. Meanwhile, there have also been calls
to revive traditional Chinese culture. Therefore, some elements of the first
type of secularism may come back as well.
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DEPARTURE FROM EXTREME SECULARISM
In late 1978, the CCP began to move away from Mao’s radical policies. This
in turn led to a departure from the repressive policy on religion. The official
Party policy on religion was issued in 1982, widely known as “Document
No. 19.” The CCP, of course, was rhetorically committed to communism.
But at the policy level, there was a fundamental change from suppression
to respect for, and protection of, the freedom of religious belief. The new
Party directive recognized religious belief as a private matter, and regarded
it as counterproductive to prevent religious belief through coercion (Potter
2003). The distinction between the private and the public was not exactly the
same as the separation of church and state. Nevertheless, such a distinction
allowed the state–religion relationship to shift from secular fundamentalism
to a more moderate form of secularism.
There were still many restrictions, which have attracted much attention
and criticism from scholars and religious communities. While the state
acknowledged the freedom to believe in religion, it privileged the freedom
to not believe in religion, and was committed to using propaganda
and the school system to marginalize religious belief (MacInnis 1989).
Moreover, the state recognized only five religions — Buddhism, Daoism,
Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism — and excluded folk religions and
other forms of belief from legal protection. It also attempted to confine
religious activities to worship places that were recognized by and registered
with the government, and prohibit preaching and proselytization outside
worship places.
The restrictions on religious belief and activities hindered the transition
from secular fundamentalism to moderate secularism, but did not prevent
that transition from happening. The CCP tried to legitimize the transition
by reference to the positive function of religion in the Chinese society.
It acknowledged the influence of religion among religious believers, and
emphasized the important role of religion in unifying diverse groups of
people into a United Front. Such positive functions of religion created
favorable social conditions for modernization. In this connection, the
CCP’s tolerant policy on religion was linked to the second type of
secularism.
There remained some discrepancy between the state ideology and
religious policy. The CCP’s commitment to communism was at odds with
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its tolerant policy on religion. To minimize the tension resulting from this
discrepancy, the CCP argued that religion would eventually disappear and
communism would prevail in the end. Based on this argument, the CCP
decoupled the ideological core — communism — from the imperative
social and economic conditions. It went on to argue that the right way
to get rid of religion was not through coercion and suppression, as what
was done in the Cultural Revolution, but through economic development
and social progress, which would remove socioeconomic conditions that
produce and sustain religion. This interesting argument was not inconsistent
with what Marx wrote about religion. It provided a way out of the secular
fundamentalism practiced in the Mao period.
The new argument was in sharp contrast to the old one that was dominant
in the Mao period. The old argument saw religion as an impediment to
social and economic progress, a wrong ideology that had to be destroyed
in the first place before modernization could be achieved. Under this
extreme secularism, religion was given no place whatsoever. The CCP’s
new argument in the early 1980s continued to see religion as undesirable, but
stressed modernization as the precondition for religion to disappear. Social
and economic progress should take precedence over the disappearance of
religion, not the other way around. Modernization not only became the end
in itself, but also a means to get rid of religion. The CCP’s new argument
therefore placed its tolerant policy on the grounds of moderate secularism,
shifting away from the Maoist repressive policy on religion.
CONSOLIDATING TRANSITION THROUGH
“RULE OF LAW”
The 1982 “Document No. 19” set the tone for China’s policy on religion in
the reform era. Domestic and international changes in the 1980s and 1990s
prompted the CCP to review its religious policy, in an effort to prevent
religion from becoming a source of social instability, ethnic conflict and
political challenge. Subsequent policies did not move beyond the framework
of moderate secularism, although there were exceptions of harsh crackdowns
on separatist movements and the “evil cults” such as Falungong.
The CCP felt the need to co-opt religious adherents while repressing any
challenge to its power in the aftermath of social unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang
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in 1988–1989 and the Tiananmen incident in 1989. It issued “Document
No. 6” in 1991 as a policy update. The 1991 policy reaffirmed the principle
of non-interference with “normal” religious activities and the internal affairs
of religious organizations. Of course, what was “normal” was ambiguous
and subject to Party interpretation. For religious activities deemed as not
normal, the CCP emphasized regulatory control (Chan and Hunter 1995).
This was the first time that the CCP brought the issue of religious regulation
under the framework of rule of law. The Religious Bureau under the State
Council was responsible for drafting religious regulations; at the sub-national
level, provincial governments were allowed to issue local regulations in
accordance with national regulations.
The 1991 “Document No. 6” established a second approach to manage
the state–religion relationship. The first approach, the United Front one,
emphasized tolerant management and co-option of religious adherents,
and was established in the 1940s when the CCP was fighting a civil war
with the Kuomintang (KMT). This approach was recognized in the 1982
“Document No. 19” as China was mobilizing social support for Deng
Xiaoping’s market-oriented reforms. The second approach, established in
the 1991 “Document No. 6,” emphasized the need for a limited tolerance
and strict enforcement of state regulations on religion. For instance, the
1991 Document directed public security organs to curb those who use
religion to “engage in disruptive activities,” “stir up trouble, endanger public
safety, and weaken the unification of the country and national unity,”
or “collude with hostile forces outside the country to endanger China’s
security” (Spiegel 1992).
With different emphases, these two approaches formed the basis of the
Party’s response to the evolving state–religion relationship. Depending on
the situation, one approach may be emphasized over the other. The two
approaches may also be used jointly to strike a balance between tolerance
of “normal” religious activities and repression of what was deemed as
heterodoxy (Potter 2003). Despite an emphasis on limited tolerance and
regulatory control, the second approach should not be viewed as a return
to Maoist secular fundamentalism. In fact, the second approach attempted
to transform the religious issue, which is complex and involves values,
identities, sentiments and perhaps politics, into a legal issue, which can
be discussed in value-neutral and rational terms. The concept of “rule of
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law,” which was used to legitimize the second approach, was central to
the separation of church and state and the state-building in the West. Seen
in this light, the second approach consolidated the transition from extreme
secularism to modern secularism characterized by an emphasis on secular
institutions such as rule of law.
More regulations were issued in the 1990s to strengthen regulatory
control on religion. Special attention was given to the places of worship.
In January 1994, the State Council issued Regulations Regarding the
Management of Places of Religious Activities; in July 1996, the State
Council issued Method for Annual Inspection of Places of Religious
Activities. Every worship place should be formally registered and undergo
annual inspections. The annual inspection covered a wide spectrum of
activities and performance, including compliance with laws, regulations and
Party policies; religious activities; and financial management. In terms of
compliance with laws, regulations and Party policies, the bottom line was
that the places of worship should not engage in activities that would harm
national unity, ethnic solidarity, social stability, physical health of citizens, or
obstruct the educational system. The annual inspection allowed the partystate to control religion in a more institutionalized and effective way.
The regulatory control also extended to religious activities by foreigners.
In January 1994, the State Council issued Regulation on the Management
of Religious Activities of Foreigners in the People’s Republic of China.
According to this regulation, foreigners can undertake religious activities
in churches or other worship places that are formally registered, and
establish relationships with Chinese religious practitioners through official
religious organizations at the provincial or national level. The donation
by foreigners or foreign organizations for training Chinese religious
personnel overseas should be managed by China’s national religious
associations. Foreign organizations are prohibited from interfering with
China’s independence and autonomy in managing worship places and
selecting and promoting religious personnel. Foreigners are prohibited
from proselytizing; recruiting candidates to go abroad for instruction; and
establishing religious organizations, worship places, religious schools or
training sessions inside China (Potter 2003).
From the viewpoint of religious freedom, many have criticized China’s
stringent control on religion. Compared with the Cultural Revolution,
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however, there has been a fundamental change in the mechanism of
control. The Cultural Revolution used large-scale social movements to
attack religion, even to the point of losing government control. In contrast,
the control on religion since the 1990s was taken as a legal and administrative
issue. There was an effort to insulate secular institutions such as education
and sovereignty from the interference of religion. By and large, the shift
from social movements to regulatory control reflected a profound transition
from secular fundamentalism to moderate secularism.
TRANSITION TO A HYBRID FORM
OF SECULARISM
I have briefly described the departure away from Mao’s extreme secularism.
It remains an issue whether a distinctive form of secularism is taking shape.
There are at least two alternative forms of moderate secularism that can
define China’s state–religion relationship. One form is derived from China’s
own past. Within this type of secularism, religions existed without becoming
a model of economic, social, and political organization for the larger society.
There was no need for an emphasis on the separation of church and state,
because religion was generally weak and under the control of the state (Yang
1961). While religion occasionally became a source of resistance and peasant
uprising, it did not change its weak position vis-à-vis the state when order
was restored or reestablished.
Another form of moderate secularism is associated with modernization in
the West. Of course, it took centuries of worldly competition for wealth and
power before the West modernized. The process of state–religion separation
and state-building was difficult, involving a much higher degree of violence
than the type of state–religion relationship in China’s past. Nevertheless,
when compared with the communism practiced in the Cultural Revolution,
the type of secularism derived from the Enlightenment project in Europe was
much more favorable towards religion, and was therefore a more moderate
form of secularism.
China’s three decades of transition are long enough to allow some
preliminary assessment of the shape of the state–religion relationship. In
the past three decades, with the decline and collapse of communism, the
West provided China the only model of modernization. While China
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selectively learned from the West, focusing on economics more than any
other experiences, the Western emphasis on secular values and institutions
such as science, technology, education, and rule of law has strongly shaped
China’s transformation. One possible scenario is therefore a convergence
of the state–religion relationship to the type of secularism that has matured
in the West in the past two centuries. The modern state and the secular
institutions become the most important determinant of social and economic
well-being. Another scenario is a return to the traditional form of secularism,
as China regains some confidence in its past with its reemergence from
hundreds of years of humiliation.
Transition to Modern Secularism?
There are certain aspects of modern secularism in China’s state–religion
relationship in the reform era. Modern secularism features a separation of
secular functions and religious activities and an emphasis on building secular
institutions to promote economic development, public health and social
welfare (Smith 1970). In China, considerable efforts have been made to
institutionalize and rationalize secular functions. In the past three decades,
China looked to the West instead of its own past for clues about how to build
a market economy, expand the legal system, and reform the government
structure. Pursuing secular goals, which are defined in economic, social and
political terms, has been China’s focus in the past three decades. To a large
extent, the CCP’s religious policy is oriented toward the achievement of
secular goals.
Two examples illustrate the CCP’s effort to create modern secularism by
preventing religion from interfering with secular functions and goals. The
first is the protection of schools from religious penetration. On one hand,
discrimination in educational opportunity based on religion is prohibited;
on the other hand, religion is not allowed to interfere with the state
educational system.1 “Activities such as recruiting believers among primary
and secondary school students, propagating religious ideology in school,
establishing illegal (that is, not properly approved and registered) religious
schools and enrolling young people” violate the regulation that religion
should not interfere with state education (Potter 2003, p. 326).
1 See the Education Law (1995) Article 9.
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Another example is more controversial, but it clearly shows the CCP’s
stronger commitment to secular values than religious and sacred ones.
The CCP has developed a strong commitment to secular values such as
sovereignty and national unity, which have become the bottom line. To
protect such secular values from being challenged by religion and other
forces, the CCP takes tough measures whenever it perceives any such threat.
In Tibet, the outbreak of unrest in 1988–1989 prompted a series of measures
from the CCP that sought to maintain order and marginalize the influence
of the Dalai Lama, including the imposition of martial law, the ban against
the display and possession of the Dalai Lama’s photograph, the use of school
education to subordinate religion, and the re-education and, in some cases,
expulsion of monks over their loyalty to the Dalai Lama (Karmel 1995).
While these measures may look counterproductive to religious scholars
and China watchers, they clearly show the CCP’s determination to put
sovereignty and national unity ahead of religious freedom.
In Xinjiang, regulation of Islam has also tightened over time. With the
rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia, the CCP sees the need to
sustain the loyalty of Chinese Muslims while isolating and containing Turkic
separatists in Xinjiang (Gladney 2003). As a result, while the religion is
generally not considered a political threat in other parts of China, Islam
embraced by the Uighur remains heavily regulated in Xinjiang. As Potter
(2003, p. 329) described:
religious activities and personnel must remain within the localities
where they are registered, and religious teaching and the distribution
of religious materials is closely controlled. Education and training of
religious personnel is permitted only by approved patriotic religious
groups, while people in charge of scripture classes must support the
leadership of the Party and the socialist system, and safeguard unity of
all nationalities and unification of the motherland.
Since the 9/11 event, the CCP has used the US-led “War on
Terror” to justify repression of Islamic activities in Xinjiang. The CCP’s
crackdown on Islamic separatists is not framed as a conflict between religious
fundamentalism and modern secularism, but rather in secular terms as a
conflict between separatism and national unity.
The more difficult relationship between the CCP and Catholicism
(than that between the CCP and Protestantism) also sheds light on China’s
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determination to defend secular values such as sovereignty and autonomy
even at the cost of alienating some domestic religious believers. The hostility
between the CCP and Catholicism can be explained by the Catholic faith
owing its religious authority to the Roman Catholic Pope in the Vatican
City, and with conversion entailing recognizing one’s religious allegiance to
the Holy See while subjecting national loyalty to doubt. Church law requires
a priest to receive approval from the Vatican to be licitly made a bishop,
while the CCP insists that China’s bishops do not need such approval. The
CCP’s approach, which emphasizes autonomy and non-interference from
foreign religion and manages Catholicism by subsuming it under “internal
affairs,” has created a great deal of tension between the official Patriotic
Catholic Association and the unofficial underground Catholic churches.
While the CCP and the Vatican have worked out some practical ways
to minimize the bishop approval dispute, many hurdles remain to prevent
the two sides from establishing normal diplomatic relations. The conflict
between the CCP’s emphasis on religious autonomy and the Vatican’s
demand for religious authority continues to be the root of the problem
(Madsen 2003).
From the early 1980s, the CCP has approved five major religions —
Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism — and sought to
regulate them within the modern framework of “rule of law.” In spite of
a shift from repression to tolerance towards these religions, the CCP has
always been skeptical of their interference with secular values and functions
throughout the reform era, more so for those that are formally structured
and/or more susceptible to foreign influence. Regardless of the basis of
such skepticism, the CCP has taken religion seriously. Heavy emphasis is
placed on prohibitions against using religion to challenge CCP leadership,
disrupt social order, or destroy unity among nationalities. The CCP sees the
need to protect sovereignty, national unity and social stability as both the
ultimate secular values and the preconditions for China to eventually achieve
modernization. While its religious policy has drawn criticism for limiting
religious freedom and disrespecting human rights, the CCP’s suspicion of
religion and its effort to build a buffer zone between religion and secular
functions nonetheless remind us of the bitter separation of church and state
in the West. The very criticism that the CCP has taken religion too seriously
underscores the difficult transition to modern secularism characterized by
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the structural separation of church and state and an emphasis on the need to
build secular institutions to achieve secular goals.
Return to Traditional Secularism?
While some elements of modern secularism are evident in China’s transition
away from communism, such a transition also paves the way for some
elements of traditional secularism to come back. The secular values in
ancient Chinese thought “had begun not with God or gods but with a faith
in the three-part continuum of Heaven, Earth and Man, in which Man
and Earth had prominence and Man was given a firm if not exactly equal
place” (Wang 2004a, p. 113). Confucius endorsed this position with an
emphasis on this life rather than the afterlife. Over the next 2,000 years,
the early secularism of Confucianism underwent profound changes, as the
introduction of Mahayana Buddhism and the rise of Daoism prompted
Confucian elites to reinterpret their own classics by recognizing the spiritual
needs of the people and incorporating some of the doctrines of Buddhism
and Daoism (Wang 2004a).
China’s own secularism eventually failed, and China began to embrace
modern secular values from the West at the turn of the 20th century as a
replacement. Communism was chosen, but failed quickly in a short span
of three decades from 1949 to 1979. The failure of communism led to
a critical reexamination of both modern Western cultures and traditional
Chinese culture (Gu 1999). Many have come to emphasize the virtues
and possibilities of Chinese traditional culture and religion (Fang 1988;
Ge 1987).
Within this larger context, there has been a strong revival of traditional
secularism, which features active syncretism of different doctrines and rituals
and an emphasis on the utilitarian purposes of religion. Traditionally, the
Chinese have been syncretic in their religious beliefs and inclusive in their
religious practices. Active syncretism over the centuries has intertwined
numerous religious elements in Buddhism, Daoism and folk religions
together and it is now difficult to distinguish them, especially among the
people’s common beliefs. It helps to soften the conflicts between different
schools of thought and doctrine, thus minimizing the potential tension
common among the monolithic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
The ordinary Chinese people embrace religion for utilitarian purposes. They
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turn to religion for healing, good fortune and divination, not for political
advice and participation; and they worship different gods and deities as long
as these gods and deities are believed to possess supernatural power. There
have been no conflicts in showing loyalty to different powers, be they secular
or religious.
The syncretic and non-political nature of the traditional Chinese faiths
is best demonstrated in local communal religions, which combine beliefs
and practices from Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism and take the
form of ancestor and protective deity worships, geomancy, exorcism, and
prognostication. Unlike the five major faiths that are approved by the state,
the CCP’s narrow definition of religion leaves local communal religions out
of legal recognition. In practice, however, none of the five major faiths can
match the revival of local communal religions, which had been part of family
life and communal identity for centuries. Their revival is most evident in
Southeast China, where annual festivals for local and regional gods often
mobilize the entire village population for elaborate rites and rituals. At the
local level, the boundary between the secular and the religious is blurred, as
local elites from both traditional secular institutions (such as lineage heads)
and modern secular institutions (such as retired cadres) are actively involved
in the organization of religious activities in local communities. Moreover,
the “remarkably dense network of local temple alliances and clusters of
nested hierarchies of temples … has taken on many local administrative
tasks, forming an unofficial second tier of local governance” (Dean 2003,
p. 342).
While modern secularism emphasizes the separation of church and
state, the reviving communal religions in China reflect a different type of
secularism and a different kind of relationship between the secular and the
sacred. In this type of secularism, it is custom rather than law that regulates
the religious activities. Religion is embedded in the larger structure that
involves both secular institutions and religious beliefs and practices. With
the help of ritual specialists, local secular elites provide the authority and
organizational skills to make annual festivals for gods happen. In short, this
type of secularism removes the tension between the sacred and the secular
by embedding religion in local communities. It was this embeddedness that
characterized the type of secularism in China before China began to accept
modern secularism from the West. Since the 1980s, China’s departure from
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communism has paved the way for this type of secularism to revive in many
parts of China.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
China’s transformation is not finished yet, as political and social reforms
have yet to begin or take root. In the ongoing transition from communism,
China’s emerging secularism is likely to be shaped by both modern concepts
and institutions from the West and China’s own experience in the past,
because the West provides the only model of modernization while China’s
confidence in its past has increased with its re-emergence as one of the big
powers in the world.
The way the CCP seeks to regulate religion has been strongly influenced
by modern secularism derived from the West. The CCP has embraced the
ideal of “rule of law” and stressed the need to regulate religion in accordance
with law. Its (over-) emphasis on the non-interference of religion with
secular institutions and values can be traced to the long rivalry and eventual
separation of church and state in the West, not from its own past. With
the regained legal recognition, the five major faiths — Buddhism, Daoism,
Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism — have revived their activities and
organizations; rebuilt their temples, mosques and churches; and claimed
growing numbers of believers. In the case of Catholicism, the estimated
membership increased from about 3 million in 1949 to 10–12 million in
2001; Protestantism has expanded even more rapidly, from less than one
million to 25–30 million (Zhao 2008).
Despite the strong religious revival, the state–religion relationship in
China has been criticized as an unbalanced one in favor of the state. Many
hope for a more balanced relationship, which would be closer to the
Western model that allows for more religious freedom without undermining
secular institutions and values. Whether China will follow this path depends
on whether China will transform into a liberal democracy. As advocated
by Zhou Tianyong, an adviser to the CCP’s Central Committee, “by
2020, China will basically finish its political and institutional reforms . . . .
There will be many more non-governmental organizations, chambers of
commerce, industry associations and other social groups. Religion should
also be given a wider platform to play a position role. We should protect
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religious freedom” (quoted from The Daily Telegraph, 15 October 2008).2
Zhou’s proposal, however, has yet to become a Party consensus. The
direction and pace of China’s political reform remain unclear so far.
The CCP’s regulatory focus on the five major faiths allows local
communal religions to revive even more strongly. The revival of local
communal religions, however, reflects the emergence of a different type of
secularism, which is not derived from the West but from China’s own past.
This type of secularism sees religion not as an independent source of power
and morality that rivals the secular state, but as one of the many institutions
embedded in local communities. Local communal religions had been part
of family life and community identity for centuries. To local people, they
are effective in dealing with their wishes and pains. To the CCP, given that
people turn to religion for healing and blessing rather than for social and
political mobilization, and as long as the revival of local communal religions
is non-violent and non-confrontational, there is no need to suddenly shift
away from the current tolerant policy. Nevertheless, the CCP’s suspicion
of local communal religions as intertwining superstitions makes it unwilling
to legalize local communal religions. For this reason, the type of secularism
embodied in the revival of local communal religions is unlikely to be
promoted by the CCP. As a result, there is a limit to the re-emergence
of traditional secularism as a new model for managing the state–religion
relationship. In short, both types of secularism, one influenced by the West
and the other by the past, are likely to continue their emergence in the
foreseeable future without converging.
REFERENCES
Chan, Kim-Kwong and Alan Hunter (1995). New Light on Religious Policy in the PRC.
Issues and Studies, 31(2), 21–36.
Dean, Kenneth (2003). Local Communal Religion in Contemporary South-east China. The
China Quarterly, 174(2), 338–358.
Fang, Litian (1988). Zhongguo fojiao yu chuantong wenhua [Chinese Buddhism and Traditional
Culture]. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press.
Ge, Zhaoguang (1987). Daojiao yu zhongguo wenhua [Daoism and Chinese Culture]. Shanghai:
Shanghai People’s Press.
2 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/3195370/China-will-be-a-democracy-
by-2020-says-senior-party-figure.html [accessed 20 October 2008].
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Gladney, Dru C. (2003). Islam in China: Accommodation or Separatism. The China Quarterly,
174(2), 453–467.
Gu, Edward X. (1999). Cultural Intellectuals and the Politics of Cultural Public Space in
Communist China (1979–1989). Journal of Asian Studies, 58(2), 389–431.
Karmel, Solomon M. (1995). Ethnic Tension and the Struggle for Order: China’s Policies
in Tibet. Pacific Affairs, 68(4), 485–508.
MacInnis, Donald E. (1989). Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice. Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis.
Madsen, Richard (2003). Catholic Revival during the Reform Era. The China Quarterly,
174(2), 469–487.
Overmyer, Daneil L. (2003). Religion in China Today: Introduction. The China Quarterly,
174(2), 307–316.
Potter, Pitman B. (2003). Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China. The China
Quarterly, 174(2), 317–337.
Smith, Donald Eugene (1970). Religion and Political Development. Boston: Little Brown.
Spiegel, Mickey (1992). Freedom of Religion in China (Appendix 1). Washington, London and
Brussels: Human Rights Watch/Asia.
Wang, Gungwu (1988). Trade and Cultural Values: Australia and the Four Dragons. Current
Issues in Asian Studies Series, No. 1. Victoria, Australia: The Asian Studies Association
of Australia.
Wang, Gungwu (2004a). State and Faith: Secular Values in Asia and the West. In Gregor
Benton and Hong Liu (eds.), Diasporic Chinese Ventures: The Life and Work of Wang
Gungwu. London: RoutledgeCurzon, pp. 103–123.
Wang, Gungwu (2004b). Secular China. In Gregor Benton and Hong Liu (eds.), Diasporic
Chinese Ventures: The Life and Work of Wang Gungwu. London: RoutledgeCurzon,
pp. 124–139.
Yang, C. K. (1961). Religion in Chinese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Yang, Fenggang (2004). Between Secularist Ideology and Desecularizing Reality: The Birth
and Growth of Religious Research in Communist China. Sociology of Religion, 65(2),
101–119.
Zhao, Litao (2008). Zhengce zhuanxing yu zhongguo de zongjiao fuxing [Policy Change
and China’s Religious Revival]. Twenty-First Century, 109, 15–25.
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Chapter
18
State and Religion in Turkey:
Which Secularism?
RECEP ŞENTÜRK
Turkey is the only secular Muslim country which wants to be a part of a nonMuslim union, the EU. Turkish secularism is confusing to outside observers, in
particular to the Europeans, and poses a problem in its integration into the EU.
Turkish secularism is usually compared to French secularism. Yet there are major
differences between them. The only parallel that can be found in the world to
Turkish secularism is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Chinesestyle secularism where the state controls religion. The present political tensions
in Turkey should be analyzed in the light of this phenomenon. The current
main political cleavage in Turkey is not between Islamists and secularists, but
between advocates of Western-style democratic secularism and advocates of the
authoritarian-style secularism. The latter are against the Western-style democratic
secularism and therefore against the EU.
In modern Turkey, secularism was introduced as synonymous with
modernism during the first half of the 20th century. Therefore, secularization
has become part of Turkish modernization and Westernization. It was
argued that the secret of the success of the triumphant Western nations
lied in their secular approach and institutions. Consequently, secularism has
been accepted as a prerequisite of being modern following the model of the
developed Western nations.
However, in the world, there are divergent practices of secularism. As
a result, determination to make Turkey a secular country brought about
another pressing question: which secularism? Specifically, is it the AngloSaxon, French, German or the Soviet secularism that Turkey should adopt?
This question has yet to be answered clearly in Turkey. Some advocate that
Turkey should adopt the American form of secularism, while some advocate
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that the French model should be adopted. Others defend preserving the
present model which — as I will demonstrate below — has striking structural
similarities with the Soviet model, but it is not an exact replication of it.
Consequently, today in Turkish society, there is a consensus on accepting
secularism, but there is a conflict over the meaning of it and how it should be
implemented. A significant segment of the Turkish society, from majority
and minority religious groups, is critical of the practices of the present
authoritarian secularism, though for different reasons, and demand reform
toward a more liberal and democratic secular model following the Western
democratic countries. These demands increase in parallel to the progress of
Turkey’s membership application in the European Union (EU).
The persistent lack of clarity on the meaning of secularism is reflected in
the successive Turkish constitutions. The Republic of Turkey was declared
in 1923 on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire (1299–1923) following its
defeat in the First World War against European powers.1 The first Turkish
Constitution, which was accepted in 1924, stated that “the religion of the
state is Islam.” This article was removed from the Constitution in 1934.
Laicism entered the Turkish Constitution for the first time in 1937, a year
prior to the death of Ataturk (1881–1938). It has been kept in the later
constitutions of 1961 and 1982.
However, all Turkish constitutions have been completely silent about
what is meant by laicism. Why has this been so? How should we interpret
this silence? What is it that the authors of the constitution aimed to achieve
by remaining silent on such a critical issue? This lack of clarity regarding the
definition of laicism and its social, legal and political implications constitute
the problem I will explore in this paper. Prior to that, I will provide a brief
survey of the history of secularization in Turkey to illustrate the context for
those who are not familiar with it.
The silence of the Turkish Constitution on the meaning of laicism has
been the source of great tension and controversy among politicians, lawyers,
journalists, intellectuals and the general public. The still pressing question
is how to understand laicism: Is it freedom of religion and separation of the
state and religion? Is it total state control over religion? Is it atheism and
de-establishment of religion? The liberals argue that secularism is separation
1 For a brief survey of Turkish history from the rise of the Ottoman Empire to the present, see Feroz
Ahmad (2003). Turkey: The Quest for Identity. Oxford: One World.
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of religion and state and the guarantee for freedom of religion. Yet for the
advocates of authoritarianism, secularism is the state control over religion.
Presently, Turkey has a social consensus on adopting secularism by all
strands in the political spectrum, but each political group has a different
and sometimes opposing concept of secularism. However, this can hardly
continue for a long time without clarifying what is meant by secularism and
building a consensus on the meaning of secularism as well. The future of
Turkish secularism may witness efforts to build consensus on the meaning
of secularism.
Since its first adoption in 1937, the secularist ruling elite has been
excessively vigilant and very concerned to protect the secular nature of
the Republic against possible threats from within the Turkish society
by “reactionary” and ideologically “backward” segments. The official
discourse, especially during the celebration of national days, explicitly
reflects this angst. As a result of this anxious approach, the present Turkish
Constitution, which was accepted in 1982 after a coup d’état, made “laïcité”
an unchangeable principle of the Constitution. The Constitution prohibits
even proposing or suggesting any such amendment.
HISTORY OF SECULARIZATION IN TURKEY
The present Constitution of Turkey, which was accepted two years after the
military coup in 1980, is not the first one to adopt laicism as the fundamental
feature of the Turkish political system. Laicism became part of the Turkish
Constitution in 1937 through a constitutional amendment. However, some
historians trace the roots of laicism back to the Tanzimat era2 (1839), the
reform period under Sultan Mahmud II, followed by the First and the
Second Ottoman constitutional periods in 1876 and 1908. As we will see
below, some historians even trace it to the classical period of the Ottoman
Empire.
Although laicism was legally accepted in 1937 by the Grand National
Assembly of Turkey, in practice it may be considered to have been the last
phase of a process which had been initiated in 1923 when representative
2 In Turkish, “tanzimat” means reform. It refers to the reform movement initiated by Sultan Mahmud
II by a declaration in 1839. The purpose of Tanzimat was to save the Ottoman Empire by reforming it
following the model of Western states.
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democracy was accepted. Subsequent radical reform efforts under Ataturk
to build a secular state, society and culture continued.3
Laicism was accepted as one of the pillars of Kemalism as symbolized in
the “Six Arrows” which are used to sum up the Kemalist ideology. The
Six Arrows were formulated and accepted in the general meeting of the
People’s Republican Party (founded by Ataturk), then the only and ruling
party of Turkey, in 1927 and 1931 as part of the party statute. Soon they
were included in the Constitution. The Six Arrows are also pictured in
the flag of the People’s Republican Party, which ruled Turkey during the
single-party regime until 1950. Placing the principle of laicism in its broader
context may require us to take a brief look at the fundamental principles of
Kemalism.
The first arrow of Kemalism symbolizes republicanism, meaning antimonarchism rather than democratic res publica. The republican system
was adopted to replace the Ottoman system which was based on Islamic
political doctrine. The Ottoman Sultan came from the Ottoman dynasty
and combined in himself both the religious authority as the Caliph (the
leader of Muslims worldwide) and the political authority as the ruler of
the state. This model of leadership was inherited by Muslim leaders from
Prophet Muhammad (571–632), who served as the leader of his community
in both religious and political issues. The office of the Sultan and the Caliph
was separated in 1922; the monarchy was abolished and the last Ottoman
Sultan, Vahdettin, was expelled from the country. In 1924, the Caliphate
was abolished and the last Caliph, Abdulmecid (1868–1944), was exiled to
Europe.
The second arrow of Kemalism is secularism, which means that there
would be no state religion and there would be secular control of religion,
law and education. The efforts to secularize law led to the abolition of
the Shari’ah courts in 1925 together with the adoption of the Swiss civil
and Italian penal codes in 1926. Secularization also led to the suppression
of the Sufi lodges and religious schools, the latinizing of the alphabet, the
3 On the history of secularization in Turkey, see Niyazi Berkes (1998). The Development of Secularism in
Turkey. London: Hurst & Company; Yael Navaro-Yashin (2002). Faces of the State: Secularism and Public
Life in Turkey. Princeton: Princeton University Press; Andrew Davison (1998). Secularism, Revivalism in
Turkey: A Hermeneutic Reconsideration. New Haven: Yale University Press; Esra Özyürek (2006). Nostalgia
for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey. Durham: Duke University Press; Soner
Cagaptay (2006). Islam Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk? London: Routledge.
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enforced change to a Western style of dress, emancipation of women, and
Turkification of the Qur’an and the adhan (the Islamic call for prayers).
The third arrow of Kemalism is nationalism. Adopting a nationalist
ideology was also part of the de-establishment of Islam which emphasized
belonging to the global Muslim community (ummah). National Turkish
identity was introduced to replace the global Islamic identity. The state
officially promoted the idea that anyone who speaks Turkish is a Turk. From
this perspective, the Turkish language identifies the members of the nation
and national identity is devoid of racial, religious or ethnic sense. Instead, it
encompasses all those who live within the confines of Turkish territory.
The fourth arrow of Kemalism symbolizes populism. It stresses sovereignty
of the people as opposed to the ruler’s will or religious law (shari’ah), the
mutual responsibility of state and individual, and also the absence of social
class. This principle was developed against the elitism of the Ottoman
dynasty. People are expected to express their will through elections to elect
their representatives. However, the single-party rule in Turkey until 1950
was justified by the claim that the Turkish people were not educated or
enlightened enough to make right choices to vote for the right party, i.e.,
the People’s Republican Party.
The fifth arrow of Kemalism symbolizes revolutionism. It refers to the
top-down radical and comprehensive transformation of society to bring it
into the family of advanced nations in the West. However, revolution for
Kemalism does not mean changing the infrastructure or the class structure
as understood by socialist revolutionaries. Instead, it aims to change the
super-structure such as culture, alphabet, dress, social norms, law, science
and technology.
The sixth and final arrow of Kemalism stands for Étatism. It means
that the state should play an active role in economic development and in
social, cultural and educational activities. It also indicates that very little
room, if at all, should be given to civil society and free market economy. It
resembles the socialist state practices regarding economy and society which
were fashionable at that time.
We need to understand the concept and practice of Turkish laicism within
the above-mentioned broader context of Kemalist ideology and its policies
on the ground. It is, in general, a thinly formulated ideology compared to
Marxism and other modern ideologies. Consequently, its view on secularism
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is also thinly formulated. This is expected, because for the revolutionary of
that time, theory should follow practice.4
It should also be added that there are different interpretations of
Kemalism. Similar to other grand ideologies, Kemalism has also been
interpreted in different ways. Some of these interpretations are extremely
friendly in their approach to religion, while others present Kemalism as
antithetical with religion.
It seems the purpose of formulating such a secular ideology was to replace
the existing religious worldview derived from religion, namely Islam. The
religious political ideology was inherited from the Ottomans and shared by
the majority of the society. The newly established Republic of Turkey had
to grow under the shadow of this glorious past. Consequently, it disinherited
the Ottoman legacy.
There was another reason why a secular ideology was needed: providing
legitimacy for the top-down revolutions and other state actions. In the
Ottoman Empire, the ulama (religious scholars) provided legitimacy for
state actions on religious grounds. Yet in a secular regime, the views of
the ulama would not help in justifying secular reforms. Therefore, a secular
intelligentsia was called to task to produce an ideology that would bring
legitimacy to state actions.5
Therefore, practice counts more than theory regarding secularization
in Turkey. For this reason, it would be necessary to look at the practices
on behalf of laicism. The revolutionary policies which aimed at secularizing
Turkish culture, political structure and society focused in particular on the
following areas:
• State structure: The Ottoman Sultan was also the Caliph who was the
leader of all Muslims. The Caliphate was abolished and the last Caliph was
exiled to Europe. The sovereignty was no longer with the Sultan-Caliph
but it was said to be transferred to the people of Turkey as represented by
4 Bernard Lewis (1968). The Emergence of Modern Turkey. London: Oxford University Press.
5 Ideologically speaking, secularization in Turkey meant transition from Islamic Fiqh to Western social
sciences. The Ottoman ulama relied on Fiqh, which is a traditional Islamic discipline studying human
action with regard to its normative aspects, while addressing the issue of political legitimacy. In contrast,
secular intellectuals relied on the modern Western social sciences, in particular Durkheimian sociology,
in providing legitimacy to state actions from a secularist perspective. Ziya Gökalp was a leading sociologist
of the time whose ideas influenced both the Young Turks during the late Ottoman Empire and also the
politicians of the Republic of Turkey.
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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the Grand National Assembly. Yet, Turkey was ruled by a single-party
regime from 1923 until 1950. The sovereignty of the people was not
allowed; instead, the ruling elite acted “for people but despite people.”
Law: Islamic law (shari’ah) was abolished and secular codes from Western
countries were adopted.
Education: Education was standardized using a secularist perspective and
put under the monopoly of the state by the Unification of Education
Law. According to this law, only the secular state could give education,
including religious education. This caused great concern within the nonMuslim minorities, whose schools came under the control of the Ministry
of Education. Islamic religious education was not given at all during the
early decades of the Republic.
Religious groups: Sufi brotherhoods were banned and the Sufi lodges
were outlawed as bastions of reactionaries. Sufism was seen as an obstacle
before modernization because it did not promote rationalism and scientific
progress. It was criticized for promoting laziness and inertia.
Pious foundations (awqaf): Pious foundations in the Ottoman Empire
had funded seminaries, mosques, hospitals and Sufi lodges among
other religious and charitable institutions. They were formed by civil
society outside the control of the state. A special ministry, Ministry
of Foundations, had managed them. They were all closed down and
their property was nationalized under the newly founded Directorate of
Foundations.
Holiday: The holiday was shifted from Friday (an Islamic holiday) to
Saturday (traditionally the Jewish day for holiday) and Sunday (a Christian
holiday) following the Western countries.
Calendar: The Gregorian calendar was adopted instead of the Islamic
calendar, the Hijra calendar.
Script: The Latin script was adopted instead of the Arabic script.
Dress code: Traditional Islamic and Turkish attires were outlawed and
they were replaced by Western dress; in particular, the hat was made
obligatory to wear. This was known as the Hat Revolution.
Clergy: The ulama order, which means religious scholars and clergy,
were outlawed as their knowledge was seen as obsolete and contradictory
with modern science. This period could be compared to the period
of anti-clericalism in France. The modern secular academicians and
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intellectuals were expected to take the place of the ulama. The clergy
(imam and mufti) were turned into civil servants. Turkey became the only
Muslim country without the ulama.
• Civil society: Civil society groups, in particular religious ones, were
outlawed and religion was made a part of state bureaucracy. The
Presidency of Religious Affairs was established to offer religious services,
control mosques and publish religious books. Traditionally, the mosques
and the clergy had been funded by charitable civil groups, in particular
pious foundations.
At that time, secularization was not seen as an option but as a necessity.
The goal of these reforms was to make the Turkish state, society and culture
a Western one. This was seen as the only way to save the nation from the
backwardness and darkness of the Middle Ages. The purpose was to shift
Turkey from the domain of Islamic civilization to the domain of Western
civilization — a goal that has yet to be achieved completely. It was believed
that there was only one civilization: the Western civilization. Turkey had
to become part of it in order to survive.
One can observe from the above list, which has no claim to be exhaustive,
that these changes were state actions. The statesmen made the decision about
them and carried them out in a swift manner in such a way that there was no
preceding public debate to convince the society about their necessity. The
secularist intelligentsia produced public arguments for legitimacy following
the reforms initiated by the statesmen.
As the above listed top-down reforms demonstrate, secularism or
“laïcité”6 has not been practiced in Turkey as the separation of state and
religion.7 In contrast, the state has tried to control religion through the
Presidency of Religious Affairs, whose president reports to a minister of
the state. The duties of the Presidency of Religious Affairs are to supervise
the activities concerning the beliefs, worship, and ethics of Islam, enlighten
6 I use, in this paper, secularism and laicism interchangably. The presently used Turkish word for
secularism is “laiklik.” It is derived from the French word “laicism.” The usage of the AngloSaxon words “secularism” and “secularization” (Turkish spelling “sekülerizm” and “sekülerizasyon” or
“sekülerleşme”) has started recently. Sometimes a distinction is made between “laicism” and secularism,
but it is difficult to ground such a distinction. The word “laicism” was first translated into Turkish as
“lâdiniyye.” Sometimes, secularization is translated as “dünyevileşmek.”
7 For authoritarian secularism in Turkey, see Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im (2008). Islam and the Secular
State. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 182–222.
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the public about their religion, and administer the sacred places of worship.
All mosques are under the control of the Presidency of Religious Affairs and
the imams are civil servants who are paid by the state.
These reform efforts are commonly known as Kemalist revolutions.
Their aim is remodeling religion and its place in Turkish social, cultural and
political life. At times they amount to religion-building. They are under
constitutional protection and are among the irrevocable laws.8
Ironically, some of these reforms are no longer relevant such as the legal
obligation to wear a Western-style hat because presently no one wears a hat
but it is still in the Constitution as an irrevocable article. This obligation
was introduced by a law during the “Hat Revolution” which outlawed the
old-style Turkish hats, in particular the turban used by the ulama. Some
ulama refused to take off their turbans and were penalized severely for being
anti-revolution.
Political sociology demonstrates that despite all these legal restrictions —
if not because of them — Islam has been a strong force in Turkish politics.9
Restrictions on freedom of religion had been common especially during the
single-party regime until 1950. During this period, Turkey was under the
ideological influence of August Comte’s evolutionary ideas which believed
8 Part Five of the 1982 Constitution is dedicated to this issue. Under the title “Preservation of Reform
Laws” the following is stated:
Article 174. No provision of the Constitution shall be construed or interpreted as rendering
unconstitutional the Reform Laws indicated below, which aim to raise Turkish society above the level
of contemporary civilization and to safeguard the secular character of the Republic, and which were in
force on the date of the adoption by referendum of the Constitution of Turkey.
1. Act No. 430 of 3 March 1340 (1924) on the Unification of the Educational System;
2. Act No. 671 of 25 November 1341 (1925) on the Wearing of Hats;
3. Act No. 677 of 30 November 1341 (1925) on the Closure of Dervish Monasteries and Tombs, the
Abolition of the Office of Keeper of Tombs and the Abolition and Prohibition of Certain Titles;
4. The principle of civil marriage according to which the marriage act shall be concluded in the presence
of the competent official, adopted with the Turkish Civil Code No. 743 of 17 February 1926, and
Article 110 of the Code;
5. Act No. 1288 of 20 May 1928 on the Adoption of International Numerals;
6. Act No. 1353 of 1 November 1928 on the Adoption and Application of the Turkish Alphabet;
7. Act No. 2590 of 26 November 1934 on the Abolition of Titles and Appellations such as Efendi, Bey
or Pasha;
8. Act No. 2596 of 3 December 1934 on the Prohibition of the Wearing of Certain Garments.
9 Binnaz Toprak (1981). Islam and Political Development in Turkey. Leiden: Brill; see also Şerif Mardin
(1989). Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The Case of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi. Albany: State
University of New York.
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that religion is bound to disappear as the society makes progress in science.
Those who did not abandon their religious faith and identity were accused
of being backward reactionaries and obstacles in the way to progress. They
were also seen as a potential threat to secularism.
However, Islamic concerns have always been on the agenda of the major
parties after 1950 such as the Democratic Party headed by Adnan Menderes,
the Justice Party headed by Suleyma Demirel, the National Salvation Party
headed by Necmettin Erbakan, the Motherland Party headed by Turgut
Ozal, the Welfare Party headed again by Erbakan, and most recently the
AK Party headed by Tayyib Erdoğan. Political parties have to respond to
the popular demands for more freedom of religion and less restrictions on
religious practice. However, the legal constraints would not allow them
to accommodate these popular demands. Several parties were closed down
by the Constitutional Court for violating the principle of laicism. In 2008,
the ruling AK Party, which won 48% of the votes, came on the verge of
being banned for being the focus of anti-secular activities. The Turkish
Constitutional Court penalized the AK Party by cutting half of the state
subsidy to it based on the accusation of becoming the focus of anti-secularism
by using anti-secular language.
We will now take a closer look at these legal rules on secularism and
freedom of religion.
CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES ON LAICISM
Although the Turkish Constitution is completely silent on the definition
of laicism, which gives rise to contesting interpretations and expectations,
there are detailed regulations in the Turkish legal system about secularism
and religion. Therefore, it would be instructive to take a closer look at the
relevant principles of the Turkish Constitution to better comprehend the
official view on laicism and its legal implementation. This exercise may also
help us figure out what the authors of the constitution meant by secularism
which they intentionally left undefined.
Turkey has witnessed three military coups in 1960, 1971, and 1980.
Each coup d’état produced a new constitution, but the secularism clause has
been preserved in all of them. Yet, the current constitution which was
prepared after the 1980 military coup strengthened its legal position by
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including it among the unchangeable founding principles of the Turkish
Republic.
The 1982 Constitution10 asserts that Turkey is a democratic and secular
republic,11 deriving its sovereignty from the people.12 This sovereignty rests
with the Turkish Nation, who delegates its exercise to an elected unicameral
parliament, the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Article 4 declares the
irrecovability and immutability of the founding principles of the Republic
defined in the first three Articles:
(1) “secularism, social equality, equality before law”
(2) “the Republican form of government”
(3) “the indivisibility of the Republic and of the Turkish Nation.”
The Constitution bans proposing amendments to these articles.13 This
is because they define the fundamental features of the Turkish Republic as
a secular nation-state.
For the same reason, according to the Constitution, human rights
and freedoms14 cannot be used to undermine the secular system. The
Constitution also requires that the political parties cannot contradict this
secularism in their statutes, programs, activities or ideas. Such an act would
constitute grounds for closing the political party by the Constitutional Court.
10 For the English translations of the Turkish Constitution as a whole text, see http://www.anayasa.gen.
tr/1982constitution.htm.
11 The preamble of the Constitution states the following: “The recognition that no protection shall be
accorded to an activity contrary to Turkish national interests, the principle of the indivisibility of the
existence of Turkey with its state and territory, Turkish historical and moral values or the nationalism,
principles, reforms and modernism of Atatürk and that, as required by the principle of secularism, there
shall be no interference whatsoever by sacred religious feelings in state affairs and politics.”
12 At the outset, the characteristics of the Republic are defined in Article 2 as follows: “The Republic
of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law; bearing in mind the
concepts of public peace, national solidarity and justice; respecting human rights; loyal to the nationalism
of Atatürk, and based on the fundamental tenets set forth in the Preamble.”
13 Under the title “Irrevocable Provisions,” Article 4 states that “The provision of Article 1 of the
Constitution establishing the form of the state as a Republic, the provisions in Article 2 on the
characteristics of the Republic, and the provision of Article 3 shall not be amended, nor shall their
amendment be proposed.”
14 Article 14 (as amended on 17 October 2001) in the section on the “Prohibition of Abuse of
Fundamental Rights and Freedoms” states that “None of the rights and freedoms embodied in the
Constitution shall be exercised with the aim of violating the indivisible integrity of the state with its
territory and nation, and endangering the existence of the democratic and secular order of the Turkish
Republic based upon human rights.”
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The Presidency of Religious Affairs was also founded by the
Constitution. It is a state organ which is required to function in accordance
with the principles of secularism.15
Article 24 under the section on “Freedom of Religion and Conscience”
in the Constitution grants freedom of religion but makes the primary
religious education, which can be given by the state alone, compulsory:
Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religious belief and conviction.
Acts of worship, religious services, and ceremonies shall be conducted freely,
provided that they do not violate the provisions of Article 14.
No one shall be compelled to worship, or to participate in religious ceremonies and
rites, to reveal religious beliefs and convictions, or be blamed or accused because
of his religious beliefs and convictions.
Education and instruction in religion and ethics shall be conducted under state
supervision and control. Instruction in religious culture and moral education shall
be compulsory in the curricula of primary and secondary schools. Other religious
education and instruction shall be subject to the individual’s own desire, and in the
case of minors, to the request of their legal representatives.
No one shall be allowed to exploit or abuse religion or religious feelings, or things
held sacred by religion, in any manner whatsoever, for the purpose of personal or
political influence, or for even partially basing the fundamental, social, economic,
political, and legal order of the state on religious tenets.
The most controversial element in this clause is the one about
compulsory religious education which raises the following questions: Can
the secular state give religious education? Which religion will be taught?
How will the religious education be given? Controversy over these questions
persists even today.
From the above survey, it could be concluded that for the authors
of the constitution, laicism meant state control over religion but not
separation of religion and state. However, this is not explicitly stated in
the Constitution. One can easily reach this conclusion by surveying the
relevant articles in the Constitution and the practices justified by them.
The most recent controversial example of authoritarian secularism has
been the ban on Muslim women’s headscarves (hijab) in the public sphere
15 “Article 136. The Department of Religious Affairs, which is within the general administration, shall
exercise its duties prescribed in its particular law, in accordance with the principles of secularism, removed
from all political views and ideas, and aiming at national solidarity and integrity.”
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including all government offices, hospitals and schools. In the universities,
this ban has been applied not only to the employees but also to the
students.
SECULARIST AND RELIGIOUS CRITICS
OF AUTHORITARIAN LAICISM
The existing regulations and practices of secularism in Turkey have been
criticized by both secularist and religious segments in Turkish society. The
criticism of each side is based on different arguments which derive from a
particular interpretation of secularism. This goes back to the lack of clarity
and consensus as to what is meant by secularism.
Some secularist critics and members of minority religious groups argue
that the Turkish state’s support for and regulation of Sunni religious
institutions — including mandatory religious education for children deemed
by the state to be Muslims — amount to de facto violations of secularism.
Non-Muslim children are exempted from the compulsory religious
education. Yet the Alevi children are also required to attend these lessons.
Some of the Alevis are not happy that their children learn the Sunni
interpretation of Islam. It is claimed that this cooperation between Sunni
Islam and the secular state arose in the 1960s during the Cold War,
as the result of an anti-leftist alliance between secular and religious
conservatives.
Conversely, some religious intellectuals and politicians argue that
Turkish secularism unduly restricts individual religious freedom. Debate
arises over the issue of to what degree religious observance ought to be
restricted to the private sphere. Most famously, this critique has been raised
in connection with the issues of headscarves and religion-based political
parties. The issue of an independent Greek Orthodox seminary is also a
matter of controversy with regard to Turkey’s accession to the European
Union.
Some religious intellectuals criticize the state for producing a statetheology because the Presidency of Religious Affairs and the Ministry of
Education adopt a particular interpretation of Islam at the expense of others.
This version of religion which is adopted and propagated by state institutions
is seen as state intervention in religion and favoring one interpretation
over others.
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WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF TURKISH SECULARISM?
There is yet another controversy about the origin of Turkish laicism. There
are several conflicting claims regarding the origin of the Turkish model of
secularism. Below I will try to summarize these claims.
The first is that it is a continuation of the Ottoman tradition because the
Ottoman state was secular, and not an Islamic one.
The second is that Turkish secularism has been borrowed from the West
because the Ottoman Empire was an Islamic state, a theocracy. Accepting
this view raises another question: Which Western model was adopted by
Turkey — the liberal democratic or socialist model?
Those who try to demonstrate that secularism is not a rootless ideology
in Turkey advocate the first claim: Turkish secularism is a continuation of
the Ottoman tradition. Their emphasis is on continuity. They also think
that the legitimacy of Turkish secularism can be obtained from the historical
precedent in the Ottoman Empire. Implicit in this approach is that secularism
has not been only a Western phenomenon.
The second claim that secularism was adopted from the West is advocated
by those whose emphasis is on discontinuity and the revolutionary nature
of Turkish reforms. For them, justification for secularism cannot be derived
from the Ottoman tradition because it was a theocracy. From their
perspective, secularism is a product of modern Western civilization and it is
impossible to find it elsewhere.
Below, I will critically examine these claims by summarizing the
arguments of each opposing strand.
Secularism was Inherited from the Ottoman Empire
This controversy revolves around whether the Turks had a secular political
tradition before the Turkish Republic. Historians are divided on the issue
into two groups.
Some prominent historians such as Halil İnalcik and Ömer Lütfi Barkan
advocate that the Ottoman Empire had a secular tradition because some laws
were formulated outside of religion. These laws were called kanun. They
reflected the will of the Sultan on matters outside the Islamic law. Each
sultan produced a kanunname.
Yet this view is rejected by other respected historians of Ottoman law
such as Mehmet Akif Aydin, Ahmet Akgündüz and Halil Cin. They argue
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that kanun was part of the Islamic legal tradition and it was also produced by
the ulama (Islamic scholars) similar to Islamic law. Furthermore, there was
only a single-court system to implement both Islamic law and kanun.
In my opinion, there are two conceptual problems in this debate. First, it
is difficult to understand the Ottoman system by retrospectively projecting
our present concepts to the history. Second, it is difficult to understand the
Ottoman Empire by applying to it theories derived from Western political
history. Briefly put, we need a conceptual framework for the Ottoman
Empire which recognizes its differences from the West of that time and also
from the present age.
For this reason, we cannot call the Ottoman Empire a theocracy or a
secular state. Theocracy is a Western type of rule where the church rules in
the name of God, but in Islam there is no church. The Ottoman Empire
was not ruled by a church or clergy. But it was not a secular state either
because it derived legitimacy from Islam, saw itself as the defender of Islam
and practiced Islamic law under the leadership of a Caliph-Sultan.
However, we should also recognize that there are structural similarities
between the way religion was managed in the Ottoman state and in modern
Turkey. For instance, in the Ottoman state, religion was part of the state
bureaucracy and the head of the clergy, Shayk al-Islam, was appointed by
the head of the state. This is similar to modern Turkey where the head
of the Presidency of Religious Affairs is appointed by the President of the
Republic.
Secularism was Borrowed from Western Europe
Turkish secularism is one of the most confusing political-cultural models
in the world for the outside observers. It was introduced as part of the
Westernization project during the first quarter of the 20th century. One
wonders which Western country served as the model for Turkish secularism
because each Western country has a different model of secularism and there
are striking differences from country to country in Europe and America.
Yet, this search to determine the Western origin of Turkish secularism is
futile because one cannot find a parallel model to Turkish secularism in
Western countries.
This is what makes Turkish secularism intriguing: it was introduced and
presented inside the country and abroad as a Western model, but there is
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no parallel to it in the West. Today, very few people are aware of this.
The majority are under the impression that the Turkish model was borrowed
from France, which has the most strict model of secularism.
However, there are serious structural differences between the French
and Turkish models. In France, the church has been preserved and given
autonomy. Conversely, in Turkey, the state has monopoly over religion and
religious education, as the religious establishment was completely abolished
and management of religious institutions has been made a part of the
government system while the Turkish Constitution recognizes the Turkish
state as the sole provider of religious education. In Turkey, no one is legally
allowed to give religious education or open mosques other than the state.
However, in France, these activities are carried out by the church.
Secularism was Borrowed from Socialist Countries
If the present laicism in Turkey has not been borrowed from a liberal
democratic European country, then where did the Turks receive this model?
To be able to answer this question, we must turn to the non-Western models
of secularism where religion is subjugated to state authority and government
regulations. Such a model existed in the USSR, China and other socialist
countries. We should also remember that during the early years of the
Republic, there were friendly relations between the USSR and Turkey.
Ideologically speaking, socialist countries have seen religion as part of
a super-structure, the main instrument of justification in the hands of the
ruling class for the exploitation of lower classes, the opium of masses, a
manifestation of alienation, and a major block that needs to be removed for
the progress of the country.
Politically speaking, the socialist government model established a
monopoly for the control of society without leaving any social or economic
elements outside government control. Therefore, there has been almost no
civil society in the socialist states.
Consequently, for these ideological, political and administrative reasons,
the socialist states abolished religious hierarchy and put worship places
under government control. The socialist state raised the clergy on an
ideologically loaded religious education and paid their salaries. This policy
turned churches into government offices and the clergy into civil servants
to help the government establish an extremely strict control over religion.
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These similarities may lead to the conclusion that some important features
of Turkish secularism have been borrowed from Eastern socialist countries
instead of Western democratic countries. However, it is paradoxical that it
was installed in Turkey as part of the Westernization project and introduced
to the Turkish population as a Western model.
PRESENT CLEAVAGE IN TURKISH POLITICS:
WHICH SECULARISM?
Complete state control over religion — although it is not explicitly stated in
the legal documents — has thus far been the dominant practice of laicism in
Turkey, which shaped the ensuing practices in the legal, political, cultural,
educational and religious domains. This understanding and practice has, as
mentioned above, no parallel except in the former socialist countries like the
USSR. Yet those who have viewed laicism as freedom of religion based on
a separation of religion and the state have objected to such an authoritarian
definition of laicism and the resulting restrictive practices.
The increasing realization that the present model of secularism in
Turkey and the practices justified by laicism have no parallel in the modern
democratic countries of Europe and America makes it more questionable
and objectionable, particularly for the liberal-minded new generation. There
are four important factors that contribute to the critique of laicism as
conventionally understood and practiced in Turkey:
(1) The collapse of the USSR, which demonstrated that the model adopted
by Turkey had failed in its own homeland.
(2) The process of accession of Turkey to the EU, which pushes Turkey
towards adopting Western standards of freedom of religion and the
relations between religion and the state.
(3) Globalization and the media, which increased the familiarity of
the Turkish population with the way secularism is practiced in
the democratic Western countries where a democratic approach to
secularism is adopted.
(4) Upward mobility and the rise in the educational and economic levels
of the population, in particular those religious segments who used to be
seen as the periphery.
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The current cleavage in Turkey regarding secularism is not about
whether Turkey should remain secular or become an Islamic theocracy,
but whether Turkey should reform its secularism following Western models
and abandon the present model which failed even in its home country (the
USSR).
Turkish liberals, be they religious, a-religious or non-religious, advocate
the view that laicism is freedom of religion, and the state should not put
unnecessary restrictions on the practice of religion. These liberal-minded
religious politicians, academicians, intellectuals and journalists defend their
claim for reform by referring to the liberal practices of secularism in Western
democratic countries.
Yet they are frequently accused by the defenders of the present model of
authoritarian secularism as being Islamists and anti-secularists. In the polemic
over secularism, it is used at times as a political weapon to attack political
opponents and rivals. For instance, the current ruling party, the AK Party, is
accused by the People’s Republican Party as undermining the secular system.
Accusing the AK Party for being pro-Islamist and anti-secularism is not
always convincing to the public as Turkey is the only Muslim nation which
seeks to become part of a Western club, namely the EU. The paradox lies
in the fact that the policy of EU accession has been pushed more by the
politicians who are accused by their opponents as being Islamists, such as
Turgut Özal and Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan, than their colleagues who present
themselves as the champions of secularism. The population therefore sees
that it would be unimaginable for a pro-Islamist, anti-secular politician to
push Turkey’s membership in a non-Muslim union.
CONCLUSION
The fact that the Turkish Constitution is completely silent about the
definition of laicism, despite its repeated and excessively detailed emphasis
on laicism, has caused wide-ranging controversies in Turkey. Consequently,
a conflict has emerged between those who understand laicism as freedom of
religion and separation of state and religion, and those who understand it as
complete state control over religion.
The most striking feature of laicism in Turkey is that religion is not left
to civil society; instead, it is made a part of the state apparatus. There is an
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increasing awareness among the Turkish population that the present model
of laicism has no counterpart in the West. As a result, there is a growing
critique and demand for reform following the European democratic models
of secularism.
The EU has recently emerged as a new actor in the controversy over
the meaning of secularism and the way it should be implemented. Both the
liberals and the advocates of authoritarianism attempt to elicit EU support
for their particular camp. When the ECHR (European Court of Human
Rights) sided with the authoritarians regarding the ban on the headscarf of
women in universities, the liberals were greatly disappointed with the EU.
It is possible that the EU may play a constructive role in clearly defining
what is meant by laicism from a liberal democratic perspective.
The present cleavage in Turkey is not between defenders and enemies
of secularism, but between the advocates of liberal and authoritarian models
of secularism. “Which secularism” is the pressing question to be answered
in the near future. A social consensus must be built around the concept of
secularism because presently, the society is divided between those who want
to conserve the present authoritarian model and those who want to reform
it following liberal democratic models in the West.
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Chapter
19
Pragmatic Secularism, Civil Religion,
and Political Legitimacy in Singapore
KENNETH PAUL TAN
This chapter analyzes the discourse and practices of Singapore’s nation-state as a
kind of civil religion, identifying in particular their “religion-like” elements that
have played a part in securing the People’s Action Party (PAP) government’s
political legitimacy since the country attained independence in 1965. The chapter
locates the evolution of Singapore’s civil religion within a public sphere defined by
a “pragmatic” mode of secularism and the contradictory tendencies of transactional
and transformational modes of leadership that the government, endeavoring to
secure the economic and moral bases of its authority, has tried to control.
The discourse and practices of Singapore’s nation-state are a kind of civil
religion. In particular, their “religion-like” elements have played a part in
securing the People’s Action Party (PAP) government’s political legitimacy
since the country attained independence in 1965. The chapter locates the
evolution of Singapore’s civil religion within a public sphere defined by
a “pragmatic” mode of secularism and the contradictory tendencies of
transactional and transformational modes of leadership that the government,
endeavoring to secure the economic and moral bases of its authority, has
tried to control.
SECULARISM
José Casanova differentiates three different propositions that are often
confounded in discussions about secularization: (1) “secularization as decline
of religious beliefs and practices,” (2) “secularization as differentiation
of the secular spheres from religious institutions and norms,” and
339
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KENNETH PAUL TAN
(3) “secularization as marginalization of religion to a privatized sphere”
(Casanova 1994, p. 211).
In contemporary Singapore, proposition 1 is not supported by the most
recent census data of 2000: 42.5% of the population say that they are
Buddhists, 14.9% Muslims, 14.6% Christians, 8.5% Taoists, 4.0% Hindus,
0.6% that they belong to other religions, and 14.8% that they have no
religion (although some from this category may practice certain religious
rites). Over the decades, Singapore’s multi-religious character has continued
to be strong, with a major decline in Taoism, but a clear growth in
Christianity and strong indications of a revival in Buddhism. Since 1980,
the percentage of Singaporeans with no religion has increased by less than
2% (Tong 2008). In ultra-modern Singapore, there are tensions between
industrial and post-industrial values — tensions which have not led to
a decline of religious belief and practices, but to their revival. Often,
individuals look to religion for thick community, moral anchors, and higher
meaning to escape the alienation of a capitalist-industrial society. As one
of the most open economies in the world, Singapore is set to face more
frequent and perplexing periods of economic crisis, creating conditions
that could induce people to turn to religion. At the same time, the logic
and resources of capitalism have provided religion with new techniques
for expansion, in many cases through the dynamics of mass production,
marketing, advertising, and customer satisfaction. Religious organizations in
Singapore’s civil society, traditionally active in performing their welfare and
social service roles, have become more confident, empowered, and skilful
in articulating their views with regard to matters of public importance.
Proposition 2 most adequately describes the Singapore case, where the
state and politics are insulated from religious institutions and norms, whose
de-politicized forms are allowed and at times even encouraged to flourish
in the community life of a multi-religious society as long as inter-religious
harmony and public order are maintained. Eugene Tan notes how freedom
of religion, as provided in the Constitution, is interpreted according to a
“belief-action distinction,” where religious adherents are free to believe the
tenets of their respective faiths (including proscribed faiths), but acting on
these beliefs in ways that are contrary to law and order will be deemed
as illegal (Tan, E. 2008). The Penal Code and Sedition Act are available
for dealing with criminal offences that relate to religion; but in more
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Pragmatic Secularism, Civil Religion, and Political Legitimacy in Singapore
341
serious cases that require pre-emptive action, the Internal Security Act
provides for preventive detention without trial or judicial review, for twoyear periods that are renewable. A less draconian measure to prevent the
mixing of religion and politics is the Maintenance of Religious Harmony
Act introduced in 1990. Through this Act, religious leaders who engage in
politics can be issued with restraining orders.
While the secular state prohibits the politicization of the religious sphere,
it also secures its moral authority over a multi-religious society by not
taking sides, performing a crucial role as a reliably fair and neutral arbiter
in the settlement of possible disagreements among religious communities.
The state’s authority, rather than being derived from or aligned to the
divine mandate of a dominant religion, actually depends on its demonstrated
equidistance from all religions and their respective logics and beliefs in the
settlement of contentious matters. According to a Hobbesian logic, religious
minorities and majorities, in their own ways, stand to benefit from ceding
some of their freedoms to a neutral authority collectively in order to secure
peace and self-preservation. Although the government maintains “a policy
of strict neutrality,” Thio Li-Ann observes a “qualified secularism” practiced
in Singapore. The government is, for example, required by the Constitution
to protect racial and religious minorities, and to safeguard the “special
position” of the Malays in particular, which includes promoting their
religious interests (Thio 2008). The Malay-Muslim community receives
government assistance in mosque-building efforts and tertiary education fees,
and Muslims can refer to separate shari’ah courts for legal matters pertaining
to marriage and divorce. This qualified secularism, however, has not been
carefully rationalized, and appears implicitly to draw arguments from both
“indigenous rights” thinking as well as “positive discrimination/affirmative
action” approaches to leveling the playing field for an effective meritocracy.
To maintain hegemony, the state — through the use of persuasion and
(often as a last resort) coercion — continually works to align and articulate
with the dominant ideology the contradictory interests of classes and forces
in society, including religiously defined ones (Gramsci 1971). While the law
and the state’s instruments of enforcement make up the coercive framework,
the state also relies strongly on its ideological apparatuses to get the religious
groups to buy into the system. Multiracialism and meritocracy, for example,
have been codified as Singapore’s version of multiculturalism that all should
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adhere to, lest the racial riots of the 1950s and 1960s — vividly documented
in The Singapore Story — should re-emerge to tear apart Singapore society.
The state’s ideological work is greatly helped by its skilful practice of
state corporatism, where the traditional leadership of religious communities
and groups is, to some official degree, co-opted, making it more difficult
for them to challenge the state since their legitimacy is also derived from
the state. No less than two-thirds of the membership of the Presidential
Council for Religious Harmony, whose function is “to consider and report
to the Minister on matters affecting the maintenance of religious harmony
in Singapore which are referred to the Council by the Minister or by
Parliament,” is constitutionally required to be made up of representatives of
the major religions in Singapore. Administrative bodies such as the Islamic
Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) and the Council on Education for
Muslim Children (MENDAKI) for the Malay-Muslims, the Hindu Advisory
Board and Hindu Endowments Board for the Hindus, and the Central
Sikh Gurdwara Board and Sikh Advisory Board for the Sikhs are heavily
supported by the state, which also has a strong influence on the appointment
of their office-holders. After the events of 9/11, the government set up
Inter-Racial Confidence Circles (now called Inter-Racial and Religious
Confidence Circles) and Harmony Circles to promote dialogue and build
confidence at the constituency and workplace levels respectively. The
government also initiated a “grassroots” project that saw religious leaders
coming together to work on a code of conduct for religious communities
called the Declaration of Religious Harmony, which reads:
We, the people in Singapore, declare that religious harmony is vital
for peace, progress and prosperity in our multi-racial and multireligious Nation. We resolve to strengthen religious harmony through
mutual tolerance, confidence, respect, and understanding. We shall
always recognize the secular nature of our State, promote cohesion
within our society, respect each other’s freedom of religion, grow
our common space while respecting our diversity, foster inter-religious
communications, and thereby ensure that religion will not be abused to
create conflict and disharmony in Singapore.
These initiatives on the ground, which Eugene Tan describes as “soft-law
instruments” (Tan, E. 2008, p. 73), have all been part of the government’s
strategy to secure ideological hegemony.
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If the state is sensitive to the potential for resistance and opposition from
religious quarters and the threat they pose to hegemony, the state is just
as aware of religion’s usefulness for building and strengthening hegemony.
A significant number of organs within civil society such as schools and
voluntary welfare organizations are managed by religious groups, which
receive substantial state funding support to supplement their own fundraising
efforts. Through these organizations, the government is able to sustain its
ideological resistance to comprehensive state welfare while making sure that,
through voluntarism and indirect state assistance, people in need are not
left uncared for. Religious groups are, to the government, a very important
component of civil society, not only in their performance of a vital welfare
and social service role, but also in their widespread promotion of the spirit
of voluntarism in the service of others. The government’s preference for
a de-politicized “civic” society — as opposed to the more liberal notion
of “civil” society — is well-illustrated in its enthusiasm for the religious
communities’ service roles while discouraging any turn to political advocacy.
Eugene Tan observes how
religious groups are entitled to preach their values and beliefs to their
communities, [but] they must not mobilize their congregations to be
confrontational in their engagement with the state. Neither should
religious groups undermine the government’s authority, legitimacy as
well as the democratic process (Tan, E. 2008, p. 70).
In the 1980s, the government made direct use of religion as a moral and
cultural resource to deepen its own efforts at nation-building. The years of
industrialization and socialization following political independence had led
to a realization by the government that Singaporeans may not have adequate
moral and cultural bearings to make sense of, and to act sensibly in, a more
complex world, presented at the time in terms of negative influences from
the West. Economic development and growth, for instance, were starting
to put pressure on the patriarchal family unit as wives and mothers were
actively being recruited into the workforce, their traditional family roles
being taken over by an influx of migrant female domestic workers from
the region. Masses of Singaporeans, once the power base of militant trade
unions, were being trained to be good industrial cogs, docile enough to be
part of an attractive industrial infrastructure and tax incentive package that
the government used to lure foreign investors and multinational companies.
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Singaporeans, reduced to being merely efficient worker-consumers, may be
too thinly rooted to their country and perhaps to the government, since
such rootedness would be almost entirely dependent upon their material
gratification rather than anything more spiritual and inspirational.
In 1982, the government decided to introduce Religious Knowledge
into the secondary school curriculum as a compulsory and examinable
subject. Students could choose to study Bible Knowledge, Buddhist Studies,
Islamic Religious Knowledge, Hindu Studies, Sikh Studies, or Confucian
Ethics. Although Confucianism was not generally regarded as a religion, it
was probably the most important option offered for Religious Knowledge
as far as the government was concerned. The 1980s saw East Asian countries
like Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore reaching doubledigit growth rates and, aside from being collectively known as “Asian
tiger” economies, these countries and their remarkable success were being
explained in neo-Weberian fashion in terms of their Confucian values.
Confucian respect for learned authority and its somewhat rigid notions
of hierarchy were also viewed positively by an authoritarian government
whose leaders were selected mainly on the criterion of academic success
and whose deep and wide exercise of power required cultural as much as
material reasons for obedience.
The Religious Knowledge experiment was short-lived. In 1986, the
Internal Security Department published a report that detailed a rise in
“religious fervor” in Singapore, “over-zealous” proselytizing by evangelical
Christian groups, and religious leaders who preached political messages from
the pulpit. In 1987, 22 people were detained under the Internal Security Act,
charged for conspiring to turn Singapore into a Marxist state. They were in
fact a group of socially conscious individuals ranging from social workers,
lawyers, theater practitioners, women’s issues activists, opposition party
members, and Roman Catholic church workers, volunteering to advance
the rights and well-being of low-skilled migrant workers who were mainly
in the construction and domestic service sectors. The religious connection
drew attention to the radical activities of proponents of liberation theology
that appeared to be gaining ground in Southeast Asia, especially in the
Philippines. In 1990, Religious Knowledge stopped being a compulsory
subject in the curriculum. The favored Confucian Ethics option turned
out to not be as popular as expected, with most students electing to read
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the more overtly religious Buddhist Studies and Bible Knowledge options
instead. Subsequently, students were given the option to study Religious
Knowledge as an O-level subject, but they had to take classes held outside
of school hours. Before long, the subject withered away on the vine. In
its place was a new and overtly more secular Civic and Moral Education
subject.
While Thio Li-Ann observes a “quasi-secularism” operating in Singapore
(Thio 2008, p. 80), what many religious leaders and their communities are
nervous about is the prospect of this non-dogmatic practice of secularism
transforming into Casanova’s proposition 3: that religion would be exiled
from the public sphere into a very limited private sphere where — though
it is celebrated by the state for its good works in social services — it is
effectively marginalized in ways that curtail its moral force for advocating
good in the world. Thio also fears the “religious cleansing of the public
square” and a “religious apartheid” that attempts to “de-legitimate and
silence religious voices” (Thio 2008, p. 93). One manifestation of this
is a complete evacuation of religious reasons from the public sphere,
dominated by reasoning that is dictated by the profit-making and consumerdriven imperatives of the market and the technically rational policy-making
and legitimacy-generating imperatives of the state. This marginalization
of religious reasoning, they fear, could be justified by setting up a false
dichotomy between secular and religious modes of understanding and
judgment, with the religious modes unfairly classified and characterized as
dogmatic, unscientific, emotional, irrational, and therefore inadmissible in
any universal and reasonable sphere of argumentation. Already, Anglican
Bishop John Chew, in a newsletter to his congregation, has lamented what
he perceives as a “crooked and perverse generation” in a more liberal
Singapore:
Singapore has to be a “fun” city attractive to its own and open to the
world, so they argue, albeit with moderation but evolution as time and
tide of society norms change. In order to be globally attractive and
competitive, society has to loosen up and be in tune and in line with the
progressives, the so-called “mature,” so they say. In the midst of all these,
for God’s faithful people, Paul’s sentinel call should be voiced and heard
clearly once again: “Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that
you may be blameless and innocent, children of God, without blemish
in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you
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shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life…” (Phil 2:1416; also 2 Tim 4:1-4). But don’t get Paul wrong! He is challenging us
to build up extra robust capacity over the childish level of debate and
controversy, and it could not be more timely and urgent (Chew 2003).
In a study of religiously inflected “anti-gay” arguments represented in letters
published in the Singapore media, I concluded that:
formalizing a public secularism that excludes all religious reasons from
the public sphere can effectively distort the capacity for more open public
dialogue motivated by a collective pursuit of higher-order knowledge
of what is good. A strict and formal secularism can have the effect of
demonizing religious reasons and transforming them into a defensive
discourse. Complexity, subtlety, variety and engagement are distorted
into simple “us” versus “them” modes of reasoning. In the case study,
it is clear that religious people and even authorities can have a range of
views that are anything from conservative to the most liberal. However,
a siege mentality reduces discussion into a battlefield of rigid notions of
good and evil and right and wrong, all marked by suspicion and hostility
between the forces of religion and secularism. The capacity to step into
“other people’s shoes,” that is, to think with empathy and an enlarged
mentality, is severely diminished (Tan, K. 2008b, p. 429).
Demerath identifies in the US a paradoxically symbiotic relationship
between its clear separation of church and state on the one hand, and its
civil religion on the other. Each legitimizes the other by guarding “against
the other’s excesses.” Demerath observes how the pronounced existence
of “overarching civil religious ceremonials” ensures that the “substantive
separation of church and state in important matters of government policy” is
“never a total rupture” (Demerath 2003, p. 355). In a loosely similar though
certainly more complicated way, perhaps, Singapore’s separation of religion
and the state (as well as politics) needs the countervailing influence of a civil
religion. As well, since a Singaporean civil religion cannot be substantively
based on any one particular existing religion, it will have to be constructed
in a much more pragmatic than dogmatic way, and adherence to it will
need to also be tempered by a pragmatic approach. But it is also pragmatism
itself — demonstrated in the government’s economic opportunism and
response to crisis at the global level — that creates ideological tensions
in the hegemonic struggles to contain resistance and opposition from the
religious sphere.
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PRAGMATISM
In Singapore, pragmatism is understood to mean doing “what works.”
Looking back at Singapore’s history of economic success, Lee Kuan Yew
explained, “If a thing works, let’s work it, and that eventually evolved into
the kind of economy that we have today. Our test was: Does it work? Does
it bring benefits to the people?” (Lee 1998a, p. 109). However, the actual
meaning of the term shifts according to circumstances.
At times, Singapore-style pragmatism describes an opposition to the kind
of arguments and positions that it dismisses as naively idealistic, unrealistically
utopian, or hypocritically high-minded. In this way, pragmatism offers a
mode of deflecting criticisms based on ideals such as individual freedom,
equality, democracy, and human rights, as well as those based on religious
doctrine and values. At other times, Singapore-style pragmatism opposes
substantive ideologies such as Marxism and liberalism, falsely assuming and
asserting that pragmatism itself is not ideological. The fact that pragmatism’s
association with capitalism is obscured, and that the ideological roots of
both are actively disguised, makes pragmatism deeply ideological — since
ideology masks its own ideological condition.
Yet, at other times, pragmatism reflects an aversion to systematic
approaches, generalizations, and theory that seeks to universalize. Chua
Beng-Huat describes pragmatism as an “operant” concept “governed by ad
hoc contextual rationality that seeks to achieve specific gains at particular
points in time and pays scant attention to systematicity and coherence as
necessary rational criteria for action,” contrasting it with “utopian rationality
[that] emphasizes the whole and at times sacrifices the contextual gains to
preserve it, if necessary” (Chua 1997, p. 58). According to pragmatism,
policies need to be terminated or adjusted if no longer effective. Policies
need to adapt to changing circumstances so as to avert crises and to seize
opportunities. Neo Boon Siong and Geraldine Chen have argued that
systems and institutions of governance need to be dynamic by ensuring that
they have the capability to “look ahead,” “look across,” and “look again”
(Neo and Chen 2007).
Often, Singapore-style pragmatism prefers to learn best practices from
other systems and to adapt them to local context in a sensitive and meaningful
way, rather than to reinvent the wheel. Copying from others helps to
accelerate development as well as avoid the costs of experimenting with
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new approaches. Singapore-style pragmatism is concerned with adopting
and perfecting “value-free” means, techniques, and methods for achieving
given ends, but the ends themselves are not generally open to philosophical,
much less religious, investigation. Chua argues that Singapore’s overriding
end is “continuous economic growth” (Chua 1997), and so questions of
efficiency and profit will always be at the forefront. As far as pragmatists
are concerned, modes of reasoning must involve concrete and quantifiable
evidence to support arguments that are linear and free of metaphysics.
Otherwise, they are inadmissible in any public debate and will be ignored.
The public sphere, then, is reduced to technical considerations expressed
purely in problem-solving mode; questions of larger philosophical, ethical,
and aesthetic significance are rendered meaningless.
Singapore-style pragmatism often takes on an elitist complexion,
dismissing democratic participation as a noisy, uneducated, distorting, and
irrational force in public policy-making, threatening to corrupt the purity
of coordinated technocratic solutions to complex technical problems. The
selection of Singapore’s political leaders and public managers has been
described as stringently meritocratic, so that meritocracy itself comes to
be seen as a principle of good governance, held as an alternative to the
checks and balances prescribed by liberal democracy (Tan, K. 2008a). Public
consultation is conducted according to agendas set by the government, in
the hopes of obtaining useful inputs and feedback from the ground and
frontlines without necessarily committing to taking these views seriously,
especially if they differ significantly from the preferred official lines. Chua
argues:
Since it admits no inviolate principles, pragmatism as the basis for
government will not contribute to democratization. Instead it may stand
in its way because, for democracy to be established, certain principles
must be maintained regardless of contingent societal conditions (Chua
1997, p. 192).
In many ways, these various meanings of pragmatism would all seem to
point towards Casanova’s third proposition: Religious reasons — viewed as
naively idealistic, unrealistically utopian, doctrinally inflexible, and mostly
unquantifiable — should not be democratically admitted into Singapore’s
rational public policy debates, especially when they stand in the way
of economic growth. However, the PAP government has not generally
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marginalized religious voices by calling for a “religious cleansing of the
public square”; paradoxically, also for pragmatic reasons.
To maintain hegemony, the government has had to balance two
quite different modes of leadership: transactional and transformational
(Burns 1978). Transactional leaders motivate their followers through the
mechanism of an exchange: For their success or compliance, followers
are rewarded, and for their failure or disobedience, they are punished.
Singaporeans have generally offered their votes and obedience to the
PAP government in exchange for material comfort and security, which
the government has for the most part been able to deliver, or indeed
to convince Singaporeans that they have been able to deliver. However,
this instrumental, utilitarian, and largely conditional acceptance of the
government’s authority based on material advantage and gratification
constitutes only one form of legitimacy. Without an overarching framework
of public morality and sense of belonging to a meaningful community,
this legitimacy may be too fragile, particularly at a time of frequent crises
witnessed on a global scale.
The government, therefore, also needs to be active moral agents
attempting to transform citizens into moral beings with purposes that
are higher than the pursuit of material benefit in the private sphere.
Transformational leaders work towards achieving a deep and lasting
relationship with their followers. Through this relationship, both leaders and
followers are mutually elevated to higher levels of motivation and morality,
especially in relation to conduct and ethical aspirations. Transformational
leadership is built upon moral authority, while transactional leadership is led
by pragmatic reasons and materialistic goals. As self-declared pragmatists,
the PAP government knows the importance of being able to deliver
the economic goods, but also appreciates the importance of effecting a
transformational and moral basis of leadership, if only to motivate and inspire
Singaporeans in ways that are conducive to nation-building, economic
flourishing, and state legitimacy.
In this regard, culture, values, and morals — the vocabulary of
transformational leadership — can be viewed pragmatically as a synthetic
technology for capitalism which can motivate, support, and justify the
desired productive and consuming behaviors. It is really pragmatism, then,
that explains the Singapore government’s interest in constructing and
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reconstructing an official Singaporean culture and value system, variously
appropriating “Western values” such as rugged individualism and “Asian
values” such as thrift, diligence, group orientation, and respect for authority
that are imagined and strategically drawn up to describe the ideal Singapore
worker-consumer-citizen. The state also excluded “unsuitable” values such
as Asian superstitiousness and contempt for merchants and soldiers, as well
as Western individualism, freedom, equality and mistrust of government, all
loosely associated with classical liberal democracy.
Clearly, this latter set of values also contradicted the PAP government’s
authoritarianism, which partly explains why the government invoked an
essentialist language of Confucian values mainly in the 1980s and Asian
values mainly in the 1990s to repel its liberal and human rights critics
mostly based in the West. In this sense, the “Asianization” of Singapore
was really a thoroughly modern project that employed the “traditional”
as cultural materials for the economy and authoritarian politics. Today,
it is a pragmatic project — an inauthentic transformational leadership —
that picks and chooses useful and harmful values for the nation-state’s
survival and prosperity, marks them off arbitrarily as “Asian” and “Western,”
and then promotes and demotes them respectively under these labels to
generate a synthetic Singaporean culture conducive to and supportive of
Singapore’s performance within the context of neo-liberal global capitalism
and, simultaneously, the government’s political legitimacy.
HEGEMONIC NEGOTIATIONS
As part of the continuous ideological work to maintain its hegemony, the
PAP government has had to ensure that it fully exploits the opportunities
of being a global city plugged into the neo-liberalized global economy,
while exerting strong political control to mitigate the crises and social
divisions that inevitably accompany neo-liberal globalization. Part of this
state control will have to involve transformational leadership abilities to
motivate Singaporeans to make sacrifices for their nation-community and
to come together as a cohesive and resilient nation.
Richard Florida’s account of the creative class helps to explain the
strategies and policies that the PAP government has adopted in order to
fully exploit the global economic opportunities. Florida argues that US
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cities with high-performing economies are closely correlated with high
levels of technology, talent, and tolerance — the last signaled by the
concentration of immigrants, artists, and gays living and working in the
city. Since homophobia is thought to be the last bastion of bigotry, a city
that is welcoming of gays sends a very positive signal about tolerance to the
creative class which include “nerds,” “geeks,” eccentrics, and people who
have chosen alternative lifestyles (Florida 2002). In a 2003 interview with
journalists for an article in Time magazine, then Prime Minister Goh Chok
Tong replied to a question about the then unimpressive results of Singapore’s
foreign talent policies, with an announcement that his government adopted
a non-discriminatory hiring policy that made it possible for openly
homosexual employees to be placed even in sensitive civil service positions.
Gay activists saw an opportunity to move forward in their efforts to
gain acceptance for homosexuals in mainstream society and to convince the
government to decriminalize gay sex; but this was met by anti-gay arguments
and objections that emerged from the more conservative end of the religious
communities, the most well-organized of which were the Christians (Tan
with Lee 2007). In a letter published in The Straits Times, an emboldened
reader issued a veiled threat to the government for appearing to ignore the
wishes of the silent majority: “a government that does not appease the wishes
of its people may not last long … the Government has shown quite clearly
by its action that it has lost its moral authority” (Lim 2003). To bring closure
to the heated public debates in cyberspace and the print media, Goh stated
emphatically in his National Day Rally speech that he did not “encourage
or endorse a gay lifestyle,” nor any policies that would “erode the moral
standards of Singapore, or our family values.” In the speech, he warned gays
of a possible “backlash” from the “conservative mainstream,” and praised
conservative Singaporeans and religious leaders for articulating their views
on the matter in a clear and responsible way (Goh 2003).
The following year, in 2004, the government decided to allow two
casinos to be built in Singapore as a way to give the global city more of a
buzz in order to attract tourists and foreign talent. Although the matter was
extensively debated in public where economic and social benefits and costs
were clearly stated and evaluated, and even though there appeared to be as
many Singaporeans who were against the casinos as there were for them, the
government went ahead with the decision. The main objections predictably
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came from the religious communities; but this time, their views were not
heeded, other than through government assurances that it would do its best
to contain the mainly social problems that could arise from having casinos
in Singapore. In this regard, the government put in place a prohibitive entry
charge for Singaporeans and made sure that the developments were not
just casinos but integrated resorts housing cultural, educational, and familyoriented entertainment facilities as well.
Why did the government choose to appease the conservative religious
communities (by playing the moral authority and transformational leadership
card) when it came to the gay issue, but not the casino decision? Were the
outcomes simply the result of the government’s careful technical evaluation
of the various arguments in the public sphere? Was there more at stake in
the casino decision than in the gay issue? And if so, was the government
being tactical by losing one battle in order to win a more important one?
Pragmatism in these sorts of hegemonic negotiations needs to be carefully
managed, or else the government’s ability to lead with moral authority may
quickly lose its appearance of authenticity. If the government is going to
make a show of taking religious claims “seriously” when it suits them and
then overturn these religious reasons by mouthing the pragmatist (and even
secularist) rhetoric whenever it seems more profitable to do so, then the
government will need a higher and more compelling account of nationhood
to maintain hegemony. For a pragmatic approach to policy-making in a
secular public sphere that does not exclude religious reasons, the government
will need to upkeep a civil religion that transcends any particular religion
and provides a sense of identity, common framework of morality, a shared
culture, and a fundamental basis for stability.
CIVIL RELIGION
In the final years of the last millennium, a time marked by prolonged
pessimism provoked by the Asian economic crisis of 1997, independent
Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew wrote his memoirs in two
separate volumes. His older testament chronicled the monumental events
that had led to the creation of a nation-state, whose pre-creation narrative
dovetailed in a strangely logical way with the protagonist’s own coming of
age — the memoirs were, in fact, titled The Singapore Story (Lee 1998b). Lee’s
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newer testament was a synoptic revelation of the teleological story of nationbuilding, of how Singapore developed “from Third World to First” (Lee
2000). Through this second volume, Lee codified the articles of faith that
have come to dominate the way Singaporeans are meant to understand and
relate to their nation and state. The principles of “good government” that
have included meritocracy, pragmatism, and honesty have not only served
as a moral-political compass in Singapore, but also as doctrinal resources to
secure widespread obedience to an authoritarian state.
Goh Chok Tong, Lee’s successor from 1990 to 2004, ushered in a new
period of kinder and gentler government that promised to be more open and
consultative. Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s third prime minister, envisioned
a more compassionate, open, and inclusive society for his new Singapore
and spoke in a somewhat visionary way about a “vibrant global city” (Lee
2005), loosely analogous with prophetic visions of New Jerusalem. Goh,
too, had adopted such psalmic imagery as “valleys” and “highlands” in his
National Day Rally speech in the gloomy climate of 2003. And Lee Kuan
Yew, in his first National Day Rally speech in 1966, explained how “It is in
the nature of things that we must talk in parables. And the older I become,
the more I am convinced that sometimes perhaps, the Prophets spoke in
parables because they had also to take into account so many factors prevailing
in their time” (Lee 1966). In its outlines, independent Singapore’s political
history resonates with Biblical language, figures, narratives, tropes, motifs,
and iconography.
The PAP also appears self-consciously to model itself after a kind of
priesthood. Party members wear an all-white official uniform — a kind
of priestly vestment — to strongly signify purity and incorruption. Party
candidates for parliament do not generally come from the Party rank and file,
but are talent-spotted and invited to meet with the Party’s inner sanctum at
fabled “tea sessions” through which the patriarchs decide if they are worthy
to be anointed. In his memoirs, Lee explains how he devised the PAP’s
cadre system which he adapted from the Vatican system in which the Pope
nominates the cardinals, who in turn elect the Pope (Lee 1998b, p. 287).
The PAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) — most of whose members
are also Cabinet ministers — appoint an estimated 1,000 secret cadres from
ordinary members, who in turn vote every two years for the members of the
CEC. A cult of secrecy mystifies the internal workings of both organizations.
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In the school system, students stand in front of the national flag at
assembly every morning to sing the national anthem and recite the national
pledge (“We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united
people regardless of race, language, or religion …”). On the back page of
their exercise books are printed a list of the five Shared Values which were
officially codified in 1991 to anchor a Singapore/Asian identity and value
system at a time of heightened sensitivity to global opportunities and threats:
• Nation before community and society above self
• Family as the basic unit of society
• Community support and respect for the individual
• Consensus, not conflict
• Racial and religious harmony.
Once a year, since 1966, Singaporeans become grandly transformed
into a national congregation through the spectacle of their annual multimillion-dollar National Day Parade, meant to commemorate national
independence gained on 9 August 1965. Since the mid-1980s, in addition
to a traditional ceremonial and mainly military segment, these parades have
included multimedia-saturated mass performances that mostly re-enact the
official Singapore Story before climaxing in a grand display of fireworks. In
one of the country’s most blatantly nationalistic activities, Singaporeans —
enraptured by the multi-sensory spectacle — drop any inhibitions they
might have about patriotic expression and participate enthusiastically in
the celebration of their national challenges and achievements, the latter
attributed to the courageous and prophetic efforts of pioneer leaders of the
PAP. The parade begins with the mass singing of patriotic songs before the
solemnly announced arrival of members of the ruling party who, dressed
in their all-white uniforms, ceremonially enter and take their seats on
the grandstand, as the people cheer them on. The program’s format, that
remains very much the same each year, is a liturgical sequence of rituals and
congregational singing of national “hymns.”
A couple of weeks after the parade each year, the prime minister addresses
the nation through the National Day Rally Speech, Singapore’s version of
the United States president’s State of the Union address. Carefully staged
before a hand-picked audience/congregation meant to represent the crosssection of Singapore society and televised with translations into every official
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Pragmatic Secularism, Civil Religion, and Political Legitimacy in Singapore
355
language, the speech-event enables the prime minister — speaking in Malay,
Mandarin, then English — to take stock of Singapore’s accomplishments for
the year and to chart the way forward. Its predictable format always includes
a reiteration of Singapore’s vulnerabilities, challenges, and achievements; a
rallying call for Singaporeans to unite against adversity; and a slew of policy
announcements for the year. Embedded in the speech are national values
and principles such as “survivalism,” “multiracialism,” “meritocracy,” and
“pragmatism.” The tone is generally hyperbolic and the style is meant to
inspire the wider citizenry (Tan 2007).
The discourse and practices of Singapore’s nation-state are clearly an
example of “civil religion.” The intellectual tradition of Emile Durkheim’s
sociology of religion, on which is based the orthodox thinking about civil
religion today, is described by Michael Hughey (1983) as holding
that every relatively stable society will possess a set of shared beliefs
and symbols that express the highest values of the society and that are
considered sacred. Against the many conflicts present in everyday life,
the collective sharing of these values serves to remind members of society
of what they hold in common, thereby providing for the order, stability,
and integration of the society as a whole. Periodic collective rites, during
which the shared values are celebrated and reaffirmed, constitute the
specific mechanisms through which these states are attained and sustained
(Hughey 1983, p. xiii).
Similarly, N.J. Demerath III, in a discussion of civil society and religion
in the United States, defines civil religion as “any society’s most common
religious denominator which consecrates its sense of nationhood and pivots
around a set of tenets and rituals forged in the fires of a shared history”
(Demerath 2003, p. 353). While he identifies the Judeo-Christian tradition
as a “passive cultural legacy” which has formed the basis of American civil
religion, the case of Singapore’s civil religion — as described above — is
much more like what he describes as “an activist political decision” (p. 354),
but one that also seems to rely for its form, style, and imagery on a JudeoChristian tradition which, oddly, is held by only about 15% of Singapore’s
multi-religious population.
Demerath argues that civil society and civil religion are mutually
dependent, where the former in all its diversity requires “some degree
of shared cultural bearings” for successful coordination in the name of
civility, which the cultural climate defines. In the competition for public
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KENNETH PAUL TAN
endorsement, those agents of civil society “that cleave closest to the civil
religion are,” according to Demerath, “best able to use it as a source of
both legitimacy and cultural power.” In turn, civil religion requires the
infrastructure of a coordinated civil society in order to be activated when
necessary (p. 357). The “religion-like” elements of Singapore’s nation-state
discourse and practices have played a small part as a source of civil society
legitimacy and cultural power, but they have played a much greater role in
securing the PAP government’s political legitimacy.
The evolution of Singapore’s civil religion can be located within a public
sphere defined by a pragmatic mode of secularism obtained largely through
transactional leadership. To fill the moral authority deficit created by overly
pragmatic and materialistic policy-making, and exacerbated by strategic but
unsustainable appeasements to religious communities, the government has
had to develop a civil religion that transcends each particular substantive
religion while retaining the form and style of religion. As Singapore becomes
more deeply embedded in the global network of opportunities and threats,
its government will have to work harder at securing both the economic and
moral bases of its authority.
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Chua, Beng-Huat (1997). Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore. London and
New York: Routledge.
Demerath III, N. J. (2003). Civil society and civil religion as mutually dependent. In Handbook
of the Sociology of Religion, Michele Dillon (ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 348–358.
Florida, Richard (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work,
Leisure, Community, & Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.
Goh, Chok Tong (2003). From the valley to the highlands. National Day Rally Address by
Singapore’s then Prime Minister, 17 August 2003. Text available from Speech-Text
Archival and Retrieval System (STARS) website managed by National Archives of
Singapore. http://stars.nhb.gov.sg/stars/public/.
Gramsci, Antonio (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated by Quintin
Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. New York: International Publishers.
Hughey, Michael W. (1983). Civil Religion and Moral Order: Theoretical and Historical
Dimensions. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
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Lee, Hsien Loong (2005). National Day Rally Address by the Prime Minister, 21 August
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public/.
Lee, Kuan Yew (1998a). Speech in parliament on the White Paper on Ministerial Salaries
on 1 November 1994. Reproduced in Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas, Han
Fook Kwang, Warren Fernandez, and Sumiko Tan (eds.). Singapore: Times Editions,
pp. 313–316.
Lee, Kuan Yew (1998b). The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew. Singapore: Times
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Lee, Kuan Yew (2000). From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965–2000. Singapore:
Times Editions.
Lim, George (2003). Government should rethink hiring of gays. The Straits Times, 15 July.
Neo, Boon Siong, and Geraldine Chen (2007). Dynamic Governance: Embedding Culture,
Capabilities and Change in Singapore. Singapore: World Scientific.
Tan, Eugene (2008). Keeping God in place: The management of religion in Singapore. In
Religious Diversity in Singapore, Lai Ah Eng (ed.). Singapore: ISEAS, pp. 55–82.
Tan, Kenneth Paul (2007). Singapore’s National Day Rally speech: A site of ideological
negotiation. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 37(3), 292–308.
Tan, Kenneth Paul (2008a). Meritocracy and elitism in a global city: Ideological shifts in
Singapore. International Political Science Review, 29(1), 7–27.
Tan, Kenneth Paul (2008b). Religious reasons in a secular public sphere: Debates in the media
about homosexuality. In Religious Diversity in Singapore, Lai Ah Eng (ed.). Singapore:
ISEAS, pp. 413–433.
Tan, Kenneth Paul, with Gary Lee (2007). Imagining the gay community in Singapore.
Critical Asian Studies, 39(2), 179–204.
Thio, Li-Ann (2008). Religion in the public sphere of Singapore: Wall of division or public
square? In Religious Diversity and Civil Society: A Comparative Analysis, Bryan S. Turner
(ed.). Oxford: The Bardwell Press, pp. 73–103.
Tong, Chee Kiong (2008). Religious trends and issues in Singapore. In Religious Diversity in
Singapore, Lai Ah Eng (ed.). Singapore: ISEAS, pp. 28–54.
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b805-Index
Index
Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, 198, 202
bigotry, 33
BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party), 171, 175
Blasphemy Law, 202, 204
BN (Barisan Nasional), 283, 298
BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party), 215
Bradlaugh, Charles, 96
Brelawis, 186, 187, 195
British, 170–172, 175
Buddhism, 100, 106, 108, 301–303, 305,
312–315
Buddhists, 206, 340, 344, 345
Bumiputera, 279, 283
burdens of judgment, 16
absolutism, 104, 105, 115, 120–122
Abu Zayd, Nasr Hamid, 239, 257, 258
acquis communautaire, 81, 89, 90
adultery, 202
Advani, L.K., 176
afterlife, 7, 8, 12
agnostic, 11, 96, 110, 111
Ahmadiyya, 195, 198, 201, 204, 208
AK Party, 328, 336
al-Azhar, 239, 244, 248, 249, 253, 259–261
al-Banna, Hassan, 255
Al-Qaeda, 205
al-Sa‘id, Refa‘at, 241, 249, 254, 260
Amin, Galal, 240–242, 244, 245, 247–249,
251, 260
Analects, 107, 109–122
Anglicanism, 79
Anglo-Saxon, 319, 326
apostasy, 239, 257
Asad, Talal, 236, 246
‘Asfur, Jaber, 251
Ataturk, 320, 322, 329
atheism, 96
atheists, 11, 12, 16
authoritarian, 101, 104, 105, 319, 320,
326, 330, 331, 335–337
autonomy, 103, 104
Awami League, 215–218, 223–228
Caliph, 322, 324, 333
capitalist-industrial society, 340
caste, 20, 169–171, 173–175, 177, 179,
180, 182, 183, 193, 194
Catholic Church, 123–126, 134
Catholics, 11, 12, 16, 85, 86
CCP (Chinese Communist Party), 102
Central Sikh Gurdwara Board, 342
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the
European Union, 82
Chirac, Jacques, 78
Christianity, 12, 18–20, 96–98, 100, 101,
106–108
Christians, 340, 344, 351, 355
citizenship, 263, 264, 269–271, 276–278
civil religion, 339, 346, 352, 355, 356
civil society, 340, 343, 355, 356
Communism, 101, 304–306, 309, 313, 315
communitarism, 129, 130
Bajrang Dal, 180, 181
Balagangadhara, S.N., 18, 19
Bangladesh, 213–221, 223–233
belonging, 83, 88–90
Bengali culture, 218
359
December 16, 2009
12:9
9in x 6in
360
compassion, 157, 159, 162, 165–168
Comte, August, 8
Confucianism, 95, 99, 100, 104–109, 111,
112, 114, 115, 119–122, 302, 303, 313,
314, 344
Confucius, 104, 105, 107–114, 116–122
consociationalism, 282
conversion, 18–20
cultural heritage, 23, 24, 30, 34
cultural imperialism, 103
Cultural Revolution, 99, 102
Daoism, 100, 106, 108, 301–303, 305,
312–315
DAP (Democratic Action Party), 283, 296,
299
Dar-ul-Harb, 200
Dar-ul-Islam, 200
De Roover, Jakob, 18
de-secularization, 302
Declaration of Religious Harmony, 342
Delors, Jacques, 77, 80
democracy, 185–188, 193, 196–199,
206–209, 256
democratic, 237, 240
demos, 124
Deoband, 171
Deobandis, 186
diversity, 9, 16, 17
“Document No. 19”, 305–307
doxa, 86
Dravidian castes, 180
ECHR (European Court of Human
Rights), 135, 337
economic reform, 301, 304
emancipation, 127, 128, 130, 131
England, 125
Enlightenment, 25, 27, 29, 30, 33
enlightenment (tanwir), 237, 239, 244, 251
Erbakan, Necmettin, 328
Erdoǧan, Recep Tayyip, 336
Ershad, General, 215, 225
EU (European Union), 77, 78, 80–82, 84,
87–91, 135, 320
euhemerism, 81, 84
b805-Index
Index
Eurobarometer, 81, 85, 86, 88
Europe, 24, 25, 32
European Constitutional Treaty, 136
European Convention on Human Rights,
84
European Values Survey, 85, 86
extreme secularism, 305, 306, 308, 309
fairness, 14, 15
fallibility, 12, 13
Falungong, 100
family values, 351
fatwa, 263, 269, 271, 275, 276, 278
filial piety (xiao), 109, 111
Fiqh, 191
Fischer, Joschka, 79
Foda, Farag, 238, 255, 257
fornication, 202
Foucault, Michel, 236, 246
France, 124–126, 130, 133–136
freedom, 9–11, 15, 17, 19, 20
fundamentalism, 19
Gandhi, Indira, 176
Gandhi, Mahatma, 25, 27–30, 33, 173
gay, 346, 351, 352
Ghazali, 191
globalization, 88, 89
Golden Rule, 15
Gourgouris, Stathis, 78
Greece, 125, 126, 134
Gujarat, 174, 178, 181
Habermas, Jûrgen, 78
hadith, 189, 190, 208, 209
Hanafi, Hassan, 245, 253
hard secularism, 96, 101
Harmony Circles, 342
Hat Revolution, 325, 327
Haydar, Haydar, 261
Heaven (tian), 110, 114
hegemony, 341–343, 349, 350, 352
HINDRAF, 283, 298
Hindu Advisory Board, 342
Hinduism, 18, 20
December 16, 2009
12:9
9in x 6in
b805-Index
Index
Hindus, 169–171, 177, 179, 187, 192–195,
206
Holyoake, George, 95
Hoodbhoy, Pervez, 191
Hudud, 285
human dignity, 82, 83
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan,
203
humanism, 84
Husain, Zakir, 173
Hussein, Taha, 247–249, 253, 259
Iban, 283
Ibrahim, Sa‘ad Eddin, 250, 251
ijtihad, 191
‘Immara, Mohammad, 254, 256, 257
immortality, 8
India, 98, 99, 169–175, 178, 179, 181–183
Indian National Congress, 170–172, 186,
187, 199
individual freedom, 103
“Indonesian person”, 269, 270
Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence
Circles, 342
Internal Security Act, 341, 344
Iqbal, Sir Muhammad, 194
Iran, 191, 204, 207
Islam, 18, 19, 98, 100, 106, 238, 244, 245,
248, 249, 253, 254, 256, 259, 260, 320,
322–324, 326, 327, 331, 333
Islam Hadhari, 285–288
Islamic democracy, 188, 193, 196, 198,
199, 208
Islamic fundamentalism, 199
Islamic jurisprudence, 191
Islamic state, 185, 186, 188, 189, 196,
199–201, 206–209, 279, 280, 284–289,
291, 293, 297–299
Islamism, 199, 201, 202, 208, 209
Islamist positions, 187
Islamists, 185, 187, 188, 196, 198–202,
204–209
Islamization, 200, 204
Israel, Jonathan, 246, 247, 260
Italy, 126, 134
361
Jacquemond, Richard, 261
Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, 229, 230
Jamaat-e-Islami, 215, 225–229, 231, 232
Jiang, Zemin, 102
jihad, 188, 201, 204, 205, 208
Jinnah, Mohammad Ali, 170, 185, 194, 221
John Paul II, 123, 125
Juncker, Jean-Claude, 84
jus soli, 279
justice, 155, 157, 159, 162–168
Kadazan, 283
kafirs, 201
Keightley, David, 105
Kemalism, 322–324
ketuanan Melayu, 283
Khan, Liaqat Ali, 197
Khan, Mohammad Ayub, 197
Kothari Commission, 173
krisis, 77, 78, 81, 91
laïcité, 123–125, 130, 133–136
laicism, 320–324, 326, 328, 330–332,
334–337
Lamassoure, Alain, 88
Lambert, Yves, 86
laos, 123, 124
legitimacy, 339, 342, 343, 345, 349, 350,
356
legitimacy (legitimation), 114–117, 119,
120
liberal democracy, 98, 101
liberals, 98, 101, 122
liberation theology, 344
liberty, 9–11, 13
Lisbon Treaty, 81, 83, 84, 91, 135, 136
Lithuania, 86
Locke, John, 11
logic, 160, 162
love, 157, 159, 161–165, 167, 168
Lukács, Georg, 78, 90
Madan, T.N., 23–25, 27–29, 31, 32, 87,
90, 98
Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act,
341
December 16, 2009
12:9
9in x 6in
362
b805-Index
Index
Malay, 341, 342, 355
Mandal Commission, 177
Marxists, 196
Maududi, Abul Ala, 199
Mecca, 188
Mehrez, Samia, 252, 261
Melayu, 281, 283, 285
MENDAKI (Council on Education for
Muslim Children), 342
meritocracy, 341, 348, 353, 355
metaphysical, 9
MIC (Malayan Indian Congress), 280, 299
Mill, John Stuart, 8
modernity, 24, 25, 28, 32, 35, 96, 97, 101,
192, 205, 206, 235, 237, 246, 247, 258
modernization, 24, 32, 95, 96, 194, 237,
249, 258, 302–306, 309, 312, 315
Mongols, 191
moral authority, 341, 349, 351, 352, 356
moralism, 115, 120
MPR (Majelis Permusyawaratan
Rakyat/People’s Consultative
Assembly), 266
Mughals, 191, 206
MUIS (Islamic Religious Council of
Singapore), 342
multiculturalism, 77, 80, 81, 341
multiracialism, 341, 355
Munir, Muhammad, 196, 201
Musharraf, Pervez, 205
Muslim Brothers, 238, 239, 252, 253, 255,
260
Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 198, 203
Muslim League, 185–187, 195, 199, 201
Muslims, 170–173, 175, 177–181, 340–342
non-violence, 157
Nussbaum, Martha, 11
Nandy, Aishi, 26–28, 30, 33
Narain, Jaiprakash, 176
nation-building, 30, 32
National Day Parade, 354
Nazi Germany, 27
NDA (National Democratic Alliance), 182
Negara Berkebajikan, 288, 289
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 32, 172
neutrality, 18
Qisas, 285
Quaid-e-Azam, 196
Qur’an, 174, 323
Quran, 188–190, 197, 202, 208, 209
Ottoman, 189, 191, 206, 320–325, 332,
333
pagan, 15, 18–20
Pakistan, 170, 176
Pakistan Constituent Assembly, 194, 197
Pakistan National Assembly, 204
Pakistan People’s Party, 198
Pakistani nationalism, 187, 195
Pancasila, 263–271
PAP (People’s Action Party), 339
PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia), 280, 285
peace, 163, 164, 166
Penal Code, 202, 340
People’s Republican Party (Turkey), 322,
323, 336
Perda, 263, 271, 272
Pines, Yuri, 108, 118
PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat), 299
plural society, 279, 281–283, 297
pluralism, 16–18
Poland, 134, 135
polygamy, 198
pragmatism, 346–349, 352, 353, 355
PRC (People’s Republic of China), 99
Presidency of Religious Affairs (Turkey),
326, 327, 330, 331, 333
Presidential Council for Religious
Harmony, 342
Prophet Muhammad, 322
proselytism, 18, 20
Protestant, 16
Rahman, Ziaur, 215, 226, 228
Ramjanambhoomi temple, 177, 179
rationality, 192
rationalization, 235, 236
December 16, 2009
12:9
9in x 6in
Index
Rawls, John, 16
Reformasi, 288
reformism, 260
reformists, 259
religion, 23–34
Religion of Humanity, 8, 9
religious freedom, 96, 97, 99, 102–104,
122, 132
religious inheritance, 135, 136
Religious Knowledge, 344, 345
religious revival, 301, 302, 315
renaissance, 237, 258
ritual (rite), 101, 108–111, 113, 115
RJD (Rashtriya Janta Dal), 175
rootedness, 88
RSS (Rashtriyaswayam Sevak Sangh), 173,
175
Safavids, 191, 206
Said, Edward, 236
Sarkozy, Nicolas, 86
Saudi Arabia, 204, 207
scientific temper, 27
secular, 169–172, 174, 175, 177, 178,
180–183
secular citizenship, 263, 277, 278
secularism, 7, 14, 16, 17, 23–34, 77,
79–82, 86, 87, 155–158, 185, 187, 188,
194–196, 207–209, 213–215, 217–220,
224, 233, 235, 236, 238, 239, 241, 246,
248, 254, 339, 341, 345, 346, 356
secularization, 77–81, 85, 86, 88, 91, 98,
100, 103, 107, 339, 340
Sedition Act, 340
Semitic, 18–20
separation of church and state, 13, 17
separation of religion and politics, 102
September 11, 99
Shah Bano, 177, 178
Shared Values, 354, 355
shari’ah, 322, 323, 325, 341
Sheikh Hasina, 218, 233
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, 213, 214, 218,
224, 227, 228
Shias, 189, 191, 201, 204
b805-Index
363
Sikhs, 171
SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of
India), 181
Six Arrows, 322
slavery, 193
Slovenia, 134
soft secularism, 96, 99
Sommerville, C.J., 79, 86
“soul for Europe”, 77, 80
SP (Samajwadi Party), 175
state, 25–27, 29, 30, 33, 34
state corporatism, 342
subsidiarity, 82, 90
Sufi, 186, 195, 217, 322, 325
Sunna, 189, 197, 202
Sunnis, 186, 188, 189, 191, 193, 195, 201,
204
survivalism, 355
syariah, 285–287, 289, 291, 293–298
Taliban, 205, 207
Tanzimat, 321
Taoists, 340
taqlid, 191
Taylor, Charles, 97
Taylor, Rodney, 105, 107, 113
terrorism, 244, 245, 249, 254, 255, 257,
258
Tharamangalam, Joseph, 90
The Singapore Story, 352
theo-democracy, 188, 199, 208
theological, 8
tolerance, 25, 27
tradition, 17–20, 27, 29, 30, 33–35
traditional secularism, 313, 316
transactional leadership, 349, 356
transformational leadership, 349, 350, 352
truth, 9, 10, 12, 17–20, 155, 159,
161–163, 165
Turkey, 319–329, 331–337
ulama, 171, 172, 186, 194, 195, 197, 198,
201, 203, 204, 324–327, 333
ummah, 287
December 16, 2009
12:9
364
UMNO (United Malays National
Organization), 280, 285
United States, 205
universal values, 23
universalism, 123, 125, 127
USSR, 319, 334–336
Vaidic, 155, 158, 159, 167
Vatican, 102, 123, 125, 134
violence, 14, 19
Vlaams Belang, 90
9in x 6in
b805-Index
Index
Wang, Gungwu, 99, 101–103
Weber, Max, 79, 86, 89
Willaime, Jean-Paul, 88
Williams, Roger, 11
women’s rights, 185, 203, 209
zakat, 188, 204
Zia, Khaleda, 225, 226, 231, 232
Zia-ul-Haq, Muhammad, 202
Zubaida, Sami, 237–239