: A WESTERN TERM WITH CONSEQUENCES1

PETER ANTES

1. "Fundamentalism" as Western label

Bruce Lawrence correctly argues that the term "religious Fundamen- talism" is widely used to designate present-day anti-modem move- ments in World all over the globe. As such the term is found in both mass media and scholarly studies on religions and can certainly not adequately be replaced by any other term suitable to cover the phenomena indicated by it. Therefore, the use of the term can be seen as a great success of Western scholarship and will con- tinue in the years to come to serve as the key word for further research in the field. Historically, the term "fundamentalism" refers to the "fundamen- tals" that American Protestants formulated in the beginning of the 20th century (Barr 1977). Their aim was to clearly define the essen- tial points of their creed against all attempts of liberal Protestants who adopted modem principles in their interpretation of Christian faith. Fundamentalism, thus, is an anti-modem challenge to modem Protestant Christian theology concerning dogmatics and ethics in general and the principles of Bible exegesis in particular. It is meant as a self-presentation of a religious group in conflict with other con- temporary tendencies of religious interpretation. During the so called Islamic Revolution which led to the Shah's departure from Iran and the establishment of an Islamic government under Ayatollah Khomeiny in the beginning of 1979, the term "fun- damentalism" was used by journalists to designate Shiite Muslims who played an important role in this revolutionary process. Later on, the journalistic use of the term was adopted in scholarly works as well and inspired comparative studies on Protestant and Shiite funda- mentalisms (Riesebrodt 1990). In the meantime, "fundamentalism" as a term was so successful that it was, moreover, applied to other

' Ed. Note: This essay was originally presented as a response to papers by Bruce Lawrence and Hans G. Kippenberg. 261

radical Muslim groups which, in the name of Islam, were opposed to modernization policies, not excluding violence as a means to achieve their goals. Consequently, all Muslim groups that make a political of Islam and are willing to put that into practice at any price (including violent and terrorist acts) are thus labeled as "Muslim fundamentalists" without any distinction between the various groups with regard to what they criticize, what they want and how they propose to achieve their goals. The unspecified use of "fundamentalism" for all kinds of opposi- . tion groups in the name of Islam opened the way to an even broader use of the term, namely its application to religious anti-modem, and often violent, opposition groups in politics with reference to religious value systems. Thus, since the late 1980s, it has become common to speak of "Hindu fundamentalism", 'Jewish Fundamentalism" and so forth, though it is extremely difficult to specify what the "fundamen- tals" of might be, as convincingly pointed out in Daniel Gold's report. As a consequence of this development, a work such as Fundamentalism Observed (Marty and Appleby 1991 ) gives details of fundamentalist tendencies in all religions of the globe. In conclusion, and Bruce Lawrence says this very clearly, the use of the term "fundamentalism" for all these different groups of reli- gious protest against modernity is a Western labeling which as such is highly successful and can certainly not be replaced anymore by something else because its use is wide-spread in both mass media and scholarly work. However, it seems to me that the moment has come to ask whether this description of religious tendencies is appropriate to the scholarly analysis of our present-day world of (s) and what the consequences of such a way of looking at the world are.

° 2. The analytic value of "Fundamentali.sm"

As already stated, fundamentalism is a term used in Western societies for various movements in different religions. Unlike its historical be- ginnings, the term now designates these groups from outside; fun- damentalism, consequently, is not a self-presentation of these groups. Moreover, it is a comprehensive concept embracing different reli- gious groups which, obviously, have very little in common. The ques- tion, therefore, arises whether such a common denominator is of any value if the term is so successful. analytical and, not, why ' My answer to the question whether this term is of great analytical