The New Religious Politics: Where, When, and Why Do "Fundamentalisms" Appear? Author(S): Nikki R

Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History

The New Religious Politics: Where, When, and Why Do "Fundamentalisms" Appear? Author(s): Nikki R. Keddie Reviewed work(s): Source: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 696-723 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/179307 . Accessed: 19/03/2012 15:04

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http://www.jstor.org The New Religious Politics: Where,When, and Why Do "Fundamentalisms"Appear? NIKKI R. KEDDIE

Universityof California,Los Angeles

The reasonsfor the recentand simultaneousappearance, or rise in influence, in much of the world of "fundamentalist"or doctrinallyand socially conservative religiopoliticalmass movements have been analyzedfor individualgroups but rarely in a way that compares all the main religions and the regions in which they are strong.' Rarerstill have been analyses of why such movements have expandedin most areas only since the 1970s, what causes exist in areaswhere these movementsare strongand why they differ from those regions where they are weak or nonexistent,and what, aside fromreligion, producesdifferent types of movements. Here we will try to see if there are common factors in time and in space that help explain these movements and will look for causes of their similaritiesand differences.Explanations presented here will stress differences between religious nationalism (or communalism) directed primarily against other religious communities and conservative religious politics directed primarily against internalenemies. Differences between types and levels of pre- existing religious beliefs will be examinedto suggest why some areashave such movements and others do not. World-widefactors that help to account for the recent rise of religious politics will also be explored. To deal with such large problemsin one essay requiresthe simplificationof complex and variedmovements and permitsonly a brief treatmentof theirhis-

Thanksgo to the following readersof this essay: HouchangChehabi; Henry Munson, Jr.; Perry An- derson, CharlesTilly, Val Moghadam;and to RaymondGrew for all this help. I Most comparativevolumes on fundamentalismare collections, with most authorsdiscussing one area. Exceptions are Mark Juergensmeyer,The New Cold War?Religious Nationalism Con- fronts the Secular State (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1993) and Bruce B. Lawrence, Defenders of God: The FundamentalistRevolt against the Moder Age (San Francisco:Harper and Row, 1989). Useful collections include the five volumes of the FundamentalismProject of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences, editedby MartinE. Martyand R. ScottAppleby andpub- lished by the Universityof Chicago Press (Chicago, 1991-95; full referencein note 3); RichardT. Antoun and Mary Elaine Hegland, eds. Religious Resurgence: ContemporaryCases in Islam, Christianity,and Judaism (Syracuse:Syracuse University Press, 1987); Lionel Caplan,ed., Stud- ies in Religious Fundamentalism(Albany, SUNY Press, 1987); John StrattonHawley, ed., Funda- mentalismand Gender(New York:Oxford University Press, 1994); and Contention,4:2, 3, and 5:3 (1995, 1996), sections on comparativefundamentalism.

0010-4175/98/4501-0320$9.50 ? 1998 Societyfor ComparativeStudy of Societyand History

696 THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 697 torical backgroundand development, much of which has been well covered elsewhere.2 These movements, arising as they do from many countries with very differentreligious traditionsand regional histories which affect theirshape and nature,have several variations.This essay explores those factorsthat make the movements comparabledespite majordifferences in the religions, regions, and circumstanceswhere they appear-factors that arise largely from modem developments, especially of the past three decades. Emphasized are general- izations; detailed treatmentsof each movement must, because of space, be de- ferred.

THE TERMINOLOGY OF RELIGIOPOLITICS Although I accept only some of the objections to the term fundamentalism,I preferto employ, when possible, a more neutralterm, New Religious Politics, shorteningit to religiopolitics or NRP.This termdoes not cover all recent religiopolitical movements but can be applied when movements exhibit certain specific features.These featuresinclude, first, an appealto a reinterpreted,ho- mogenized religious tradition,seen as solving problems exacerbatedby various forms of secular,communal, or foreign power. Second, these are populist movements that aim at gaining political power in order to transformgovern- ments on the basis of their religiopoliticalprogram. Third, they are not led by liberals or leftists and have predominantlyconservative social views. For most groups this includes patriarchalviews regardinggender, family relations and social mores, althoughthere are a few exceptions analyzedbelow. Using the categoryof NRP avoids some problemsof employingthe termfun- damentalist,including the connotationsof its U.S. Protestantorigin, the inclu- sion of apoliticalreligious groups,or the implicationof extremism.3My terms involve a specialized use of the broadterm "religiopolitics,"but no satisfacto- ry short alternativenow exists; terms like religious (or Islamic, Christian,or Hindu)revival or resurgenceare unsatisfactoryin stressingthe religious at the

2 Basic informationon most such movements is found in the relevantchapters of the five volumes edited by MartinE.Marty and R. Scott Appleby, FundamentalismsObserved, Fundamen- talisms and Society, Fundamentalismsand the State, FundamentalismsComprehended, Account- ingfor Fundamentalisms(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 1993, 1993, 1994, 1995). Overall, the descriptivearticles are very good and are superiorto many of the generalizingpieces. My analyses often differ from those found in the four summarychapters at the end of Fundamen- talism Comprehended.For a debate about the series see Henry R. Munson, "Not All Crustaceans are Crabs:Reflections on the ComparativeStudy of Fundamentalismand Politics,"Contention, 4:3 (Spring 1995), 151-66; R. Scott Appleby, "ButAll Crabsare Crabby:Valid and Less Valid Criti- cisms of the FundamentalismProject," ibid., 195-202; and Henry Munson, "Responseto Apple- by," ibid., 207-9. 3 Mark Juergensmeyer,"Response to Munson: Fundaphobia-The IrrationalFear of Funda- mentalism,"Contention, 5:3 (Spring 1996), 127-32 argues that in popularuse "the term fundamentalism has become a political weapon,"compared in the West to communism and in India to Naziism (p. 128). Adherentsof the U.S. ChristianRight also oppose being called fundamentalists. See Pat Robertson,The TurningTide (Dallas: WordPublishing, 1993), 141-2. 698 NIKKI R. KEDDIE expense of the political.4The proposedterms have the advantageof neutrality and of makingclear both the political contentof the movementsthey cover and their contemporarynature.5 The word fundamentalistwill be used rarely,with implied quotationmarks. This does not indicate that the use of fundamentalist by othersnecessarily reflects any particularbias or vitiatestheir scholarly work; some of the best work in the field has been done by writerswho use this term.6 No single term would be acceptable to partisansof these movements, who often call themselves "Muslims,""Christians," "Hindus" and the like, and do not include politics in their terms for themselves. Participantsin these movements do not see themselves as part of a world-wide trendbut, rather,as true followers of their own religions. To adopt their terminology would renounce comparisonand deny true religion to others, as their favored terms, including "Christian,"and "Muslim,"imply that only they are truebelievers. (The wide- ly used "Islamist"is disliked by some as it appearsto privilege "Islamists"as the true Muslims.)7While those who follow universalistbeliefs like democracy, socialism, or communismaccept identificationby a single term worldwide, those who stress the boundariesof their belief want to be called by a particu- larist name. It may thus be fruitless to seek a term acceptableto various religiopolitical movements.Clearly, a single comparativeterm cannot fully define any movement,each of which must be understoodin terms of its own context, ideas, and actions. Comparabilitydoes not mean sameness. The informative volumes published by the FundamentalismProject of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences found fundamentalist or "fundamentalist-like"religious movements in most of the world, but many of these do not have the featuresemphasized here, such as the stress on a homog- enized common doctrine,which is presentedas the truereligious tradition(al-

4 I proposed"New Religious Politics/NRP"at the Middle East StudiesAssociation meetings in 1995, where it was well received; whetherit will last is anotherquestion. Regarding scholarly use of "fundamentalism"until an alternativeis accepted, I would, however, echo what Gyanendra Pandeysays of "communalism."Saying why he continuesto use the term,without quotation marks, "in spite of my argument . . that it is loaded and obfuscating.The answeris thatthe needs of com- munication,and of a convenient shorthand,have dictatedthis. The term has passed into the political and historiographicalvocabulary" (The Constructionof Communalismin Colonial NorthIndia, [Delhi: Oxford UniversityPress, 1990], viii.) This explanationalso covers my use of "communalism" below. 5 The term New Religious Politics might also end some confusion among scholars as to the meaning of fundamentalism.Scholars differ on such points as whetherfundamentalist movements mustbe political or involve gender.Some use fundamentalismonly for pre-modernmovements like the Wahhabisand call later ones neo-fundamentalist;some use fundamentalismfor both early and recent movements;and some reservethe termfor recentones. ErvandAbrahamian, in an otherwise excellent book, defines fundamentalismby criteriafew scholarsaccept, andconcludes thatKhome- ini was no fundamentalistbut rathera populist (surely only a partialdefinition of him) (Khomein- ism [Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1993], ch. 1). 6 It is clear from my notes for this essay that I have profited greatly from the works of many scholars who use the term fundamentalism. 7 See, e.g., Henry Munson, Jr., "IntolerableTolerance: Western Academia and Islamic Funda- mentalism,"Contention, 5:3 (Spring 1996), 99-117. THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 699 though it is in fact new in many ways) or, especially, a high level of political activism, ultimatelyaimed at takingpower. (The latterwas not importantin the first wave of fundamentalismin the United States during the 1920s, which would not meet the definitiongiven above.) Here a more limited group, seen as more similar and significantly comparable,will be discussed; and a different analysis will be made of the reasons for the rise of religiopolitics in certainar- eas, afterfirst noting relevantfactors that exist in much of the world.

WORLDWIDE TRENDS FAVORING RELIGIOPOLITICS Common factors behind these movements may be found in recent world-wide trends.8Some of these trends also exist where these movements are weak or nonexistent, something which can be explained. Such distinctions are needed to distinguishcauses that are necessarybut not sufficient and requireother factors if a phenomenonis to occur.9Many of the socioeconomic and political reasons often cited for the rise of these movements are in this necessary but in- sufficient category, as these reasons are also present in areas without such movements. Factorswidely presenteverywhere help explain the nearly simul- taneous rise and timing of contemporaryfundamentalist movements, influenced by world-wide socioeconomic, political, and culturalchanges, although more is needed to explain why these factorshave led to movementsin some areas but not in others. Global trendsthat have favoredthe recentrise of religiopoliticsare often cited when discussing particularmovements. There follows a list of trends that have favoredreligiopolitics in many areas.Some have been felt stronglyalmost everywhere,while others are mitigatedin some areas, such as the first two for East Asia until 1998. These trendsinclude: First, recent expansive developments in capitalism (the main element of globalization),which have increasedtotal productionbut are highly uneven by region, class, race, and gender. Income distributiongaps have grown in most areas, along with job insecuritiesand forced migration-all factors in discontent or concerns about identity. Second, economic slowdowns, stagnation,and insecurity in the developed world, the Middle East, much of South Asia, Africa, and Latin America have encourageddiscontent and right-wingpopulist movements, which tend to nationalism in some areas and to religiopolitics (often combined with nationalism) in others. Third, increasing migration,which may improve living standardsbut pro- duces certain other strains.Urbanizing and internationalmigrants experience prejudice, which can encourage counterideologies. Some religiopolitics first 8 World-widetrends favoring new religious politics, including in Iran, Israel, and the United States are discussed in Peter Beyer, Religion and Globalization(London: Sage, 1994). 9 A work that fruitfullyuses this method of comparisonis Henry Munson, Jr.,Islam and Revo- lution (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1988). 700 NIKKI R. KEDDIE centerabroad, as with Sikhs in Canada."Fundamentalist" ideologies may seem more familiarto uprootedrural-urban migrants than secular nationalism. There are also anti-immigrantreligiopolitics. Fourth,greater choice for women in lifestyle, jobs, marriage,and mother- hood, while reducingpatriarchal problems, has led to new stresses, such as ris- ing divorce, inadequatechild care, and disputed challenges to male preroga- tives. This encouragesnostalgia in some for the way things used to be. Other recent changes in family structuremake young people more independentand eager to find new identities. Fifth, the continued growth in secular state power, while bringing social gains, favors some groups but creates regulationsopposed by many. Govern- ments are blamed for socioeconomic change. With a failure-both by capital- ist and socialist systems-to solve some problems,there is a tendency to turn to ideologies both new and familiar, whether right-wing nationalism or religiopolitics. Sixth, education and urbangrowth allow many people to express their dis- contentmentmore effectively. This favors religiopolitics,which seem familiar, can claim a moral high ground and are independentof discreditedstates and parties. Seventh, global culturalhomogenization brings reactionsbased on identity politics, including nationalismand religiopolitics because they are seen as expressing needs better than the currentsecular order,which favors universalist modem western values. In some areas (such as Sri Lankaand the formerYu- goslavia) religious and ethnic or linguistic divisions coincide, increasingdivi- siveness. Many also perceive a crisis in moral terms, one that requiresa religious solution. Eighth, in the Global South improvementsin health have led to increases in population.Population growth has broughtnew strainsand skewered the de- mographicsof the populationtoward very young age groups, groups that are the main supportersof religiopoliticalmovements in this region. No movementarises simply as a reactionto such generalfactors; all involve active individualsmoving in ways that are unpredictable.In orderto be comparative,this articlemust stress generalfactors at the expense of individualfea- tures. 10

WHY HAVE RELIGIOPOLITICS ARISEN WHERE THEY HAVE? If we look for movements expressing New Religious Politics, we find impor- tant ones chiefly in the United States, South Asia, the Muslim World,and Is- rael. Among Muslims the strongestmovements are in the Middle East; movements in Southeast Asia, Africa, and CentralAsia till now are less salient. 10 An alternativeand thoughtfuldiscussion of world-widereasons for fundamentalism,some of which overlap with mine, is William H. McNeill, "Fundamentalismand the Worldof the 1990s," Martyand Appleby, eds., Fundamentalismand Society, 558-73. THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 701

LiberationTheology, strongestin Latin America, is differentin not being tra- ditionalistin ideology and in being more, not less, liberal or socialist than the official church or doctrine. Neither liberal nor socialist movements fit the NRP's stress on conservatismand homogeneous religious doctrine, so Chris- tian Democraticparties and others who accept existing liberal or social demo- cratic states are not included, even though the borderbetween them and moderate fundamentalistsis not rigid. Although many Roman Catholics do fit part of the above definition, only the small numberwho belong to movements that aim at takingpower in a state in orderto enforce theirinterpretation of doctrine qualify-and the same is true for other religions. There are otherreligiopoliti- cal movementsthat also fit the definitionin LatinAmerica, Africa, Europe,and non-MuslimEast Asia; but their scale and importanceis smallerthan in the areas stressedhere. Some scholars, based on differentdefinitions of fundamentalism,limit the concept to those who follow monotheistscriptural religions, so they put Hindu and Buddhist revivalists into anothercategory.11 Given my emphasis not on monotheistscripturalism but on religious politics, conservatism,and populism, however, I include nationalistHindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists.The communalism or religious nationalism found in South Asia has many parallels among monotheistsin countrieswith a recent history of communalstruggles for power or territory,including Israeli Jews, andMuslims in SoutheastAsia, Palestine, and some other areas. Although there is no rule as to what is comparable,it seems useful to include Hindus,South Asian Buddhists,and the partiallyscrip- tural Sikhs in New Religious Politics, since their religiopolitical movements meet the NRP definition. OmittingSouth Asia would sacrifice the understanding of New Religious Politics that can be gained from studyingcommunalism. The first major ideologist of Islamic fundamentalism,Maulana Maududi, emerged from and reflected a communalenvironment and background12(the earlier Egyptian Muslim Brethrennot having produced such an overall sys- tematic ideology). Maududi,who first theorizedkey concepts such as the Is- lamic state, greatly influenced the main activist theoreticianof Egyptian and Arab religiopolitics, Sayyid Qutb.13 Looking at the United States, SouthAsia, Israel, and the Muslim world, one

11 Comparisonsof only Islam, Christianity,and Judaismare found in Antoun and Hegland,Re- ligious Resurgence;Lawrence, Defenders of God;and Gilles Kepel, TheRevenge of God,Alan Bra- ley, trans. (University Park:Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994). Henry Munson, Jr., "Not All CrustaceansAre Crabs,"also explicitly excludes Hindu movements. 12 See the relevantdiscussions in Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, "Communalismand Fundamentalism: A Re-examinationof the Origins of Islamic Fundamentalism,"Contention, 4:2 (Winter 1995), 121-40; idem, Mawdudiand the Making of the Islamic Republic (New York:Oxford University Press, 1996) and The Vanguardof the Islamic Revolution:The Jama 'at-i Islami of Pakistan (Berke- ley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1994). 13 On Maududiand Qutb, see especially LeonardBinder, Islamic Liberalism (Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 1988); and Sayyed Qutb, Islam and Universal Peace (Indianapolis: AmericanTrust Publications, 1977). 702 NIKKI R. KEDDIE is struckmore by majordifferences among these areasthan by similarities.Sev- eral religions are represented,as are nations with very differentlevels of development and histories. The United States is an economically developed su- perpowerthat has dominatedother regions; Israel is developed and combines a history of persecutionwith that of dominance;South Asia and most of the Muslim world are much poorer,less developed, and have a history as colonies or semi-colonies. While these differences are reflected in these regions' religiopolitics, with the thirdworld's being anti-Westernand seeing Judaismand Christianityas the culturalarms of neo-colonialism,there are nonetheless major similaritiesin their religious politics. Is it just an accidentor a trendof the times that New Religious Politics is found in these very differentareas, especially since there seems to be little direct influence from one fundamentalist culture to another?Or have we not looked in the right places for comparable features? The features leading to New Religious Politics include those listed above, such as a search for a secure identity in the face of rapid socioeconomic and culturalchanges; growing income gaps; changes in the status of women, the family, and sexual mores; and the growing and often unpopularpower of secular central governmentsand their failure to meet the economic and cultural needs of their subjects. Such factors arejustly stressedin discussions of NRP movements,but many exist as much in countrieswithout strong movements as in those thathave them. These factors,thus, do not answerthe question of why these movements appearwhere they do. Hence, despite their importance,they will not be reiteratedbut will be assumed as a backgroundcommon to many countrieswith and without the emergenceof significantNRP movements. To state in advance an explanatoryhypothesis: Significant NRP movements thus far tend to occur only where in recent decades (whateverthe distantpast) religions with supernaturaland theistic content are believed in, or stronglyiden- tified with, by a large proportionof the population.In addition,either or both of the following must also be truein recenttimes: a high percentageof the pop- ulationidentifies with the basic tenets of its religious traditionregarding its god or gods, its scripturaltext, and so forth.The only single word for this phenomenon is a term,normally used differentlybut recognizable-religiosity. Or else, or in addition, at least two strong religious communitiesexist; and there is a widespreadquasi-nationalist identification with one's religious community as against other communities.This second variety will be called religious nationalism or "communalism,"which, like "fundamentalism,"is still used even by many who dislike it because it is the only appropriateway to refer to it in one word. The factors of religiosity or communalism are often the main ones distin- guishing communitieswith or without significantNew Religious Politics; religiosity in the above sense distinguishesthe United Statesfrom Western Europe, THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 703 and Muslim countriesfrom Confucianones, for example.14 Such factors have rarelybeen discussed by scholarsexcept in discussions over whethermonothe- istic scripturalismis necessary to fundamentalism,a question which does not explain the contrast in levels of fundamentalismbetween the United States, where levels of belief and church membershipare high, and WesternEurope, where they are low.15For all the pitfalls in discussing levels of religious belief and identification,which vary over time and region, such levels are often recognizable enough to supportgeneralizations in the contemporaryperiod when New Religious Politics develop. Both communal and fundamentalistgroups have been mobilized by steps taken by secularizing governments and hegemonic elites. The measures of- fending many believers of these groups include the U.S. SupremeCourt decisions since 1962, affirmativeaction programsin the United States and India, and reforms in law, education, and gender and family mattersin the Muslim world and elsewhere. There has also been widespreaddisillusionment in many regions with secular governmentsthat have come to power because they have been unableto meet majorproblems in manyregions, whetherthe governments are socialist or capitalistin orientation. Both rapid and often unpopularrecent socioeconomic and political change and religiosity or communalismseem necessaryfor fundamentalismto become strong. Religiosity and communalism strongly influence whether a strong movementof New Religious Politics will develop in an areathat fits an appro- priate socioeconomic and political profile, but socioeconomic and political causes appearto be the most importantfactor in explaining when they occur. Further,major religiopolitical movements have occurred from the 1970s on only after certain socioeconomic and culturalchanges typical of these recent decades have taken place in areas with a recent history of religiosity or communalism. LatinAmerica (and some other areas)may be a case for the future,since that region has both religiosity and many of the requisitesocioeconomic and political problems.There, however, the fundamentalistsare mostly Protestantswho are not yet oriented toward overthrowingold power centers. To date, Roman Catholics, even in believing areas, have resisted fundamentalism,aside from

14 Socioeconomic distinctionsexist but are insufficientto accountfor differencesin religiopolitics. East Asia has developed more rapidly than the Middle East, but this was far less true when religiopoliticsfirst expandedin the 1970s; and differencesin socioeconomic egalitarianismand the social safety net between WesternEurope and the United States were also less salient then. 15 Churchmembership statistics according to a 1981 Galluppoll asking "Areyou affiliatedwith a church or religious organization?"saw 57 percent of Americansanswer yes, but only 4 percent of the French, 5 percent of Italians, 13 percent of West Germans, 15 percent of Spaniards,and 22 percentof the British.The gap betweenAmericans and Europeanson religion's importanceto them was also great. Reportedin BarryA. Kosmin and Seymour P. Lachman,One Nation under God: Religion in ContemporaryAmerican Society (New York:Crown, 1993), 9. Otherpolls also show this large gap between the United States and WesternEurope. 704 NIKKI R. KEDDIE

"integralist"traditionalist movements that are not politically significant.Those Catholics whose traditionalismcenters on questions stressed by the Pope can support these policies without joining a Catholic fundamentalistmovement, while a full-fledged ideological movement would probablychallenge Rome. Roman Catholicism is the only major religion with a single doctrinal leader (there were Shi'i rivals to Khomeini), a dynamic which may inhibit the flexi- bility needed for local fundamentalisms.'6Inhibiting factors may also exist elsewhere, so that while the factorsmentioned earlier seem necessaryif strong fundamentalistmovements are to emerge, their presence does not guarantee that a strong movementhas appeared. Religiosity or communalismhelp to explain why NRP is found both in more (United States) or less (third-world)economically developed countries.17The relative weakness of NRP in East Asia reflects both a lower degree of religiosity, as defined above, and higher levels and more egalitariannature of that region's economic development, when compared to areas with strong NRP at least until 1998. Religiosity contributesto the gender-conservativeideologies of most NRP movements, which see patriarchalpractices as having religious and scripturalsanction. Most of the socioeconomicand political factors listed above exist in countries with strongNRP movements. (This list excludes some countriesin Africa with weak states and development;it partlyexcludes some EastAsian and European countries with income distributiongaps that have not widened significantly.) Until now, the emergence of strong NRP movements requiresboth a series of socioeconomic and political developmentscharacteristic of the recent decades of globalizationand a strongbackground of religiosity or communalism. Many persons who participatein religiopolitics may have either mainly religious or mainly political motives and ideas, but their movements combine both. Not all the movements considered here have continued to grow: Some have been suppressedor weakened due to government action, improved socioeconomic or political conditions, revulsion from extremistacts, or internal political errors.

COMMUNAL RELIGIOPOLITICAL MOVEMENTS Until this point, communalism was listed together with other trends, but the most striking subdivision among religiopolitical movements is probably between those wherecommunalism (religious nationalism) is primarywith the focus directedmainly againstother communitiesand those where the movement

16 On Catholics, see William. D. Dinges and James Hitchcock, "RomanCatholic Traditional- ism andActivist Conservatismin the United States,"in Martyand Appleby, eds., Fundamentalism Observed,66-141; and Daniel H. Levine, "Protestantsand Catholicsin LatinAmerica," Marty and Appleby, FundamentalismsComprehended, 155-78. 17 One scholar suggested to me in early 1996 that the weakness of social insurancein the Unit- ed States causes fundamentalism.While it may contribute,the difference from other developed countriesin fundamentalistreligious backgroundis more directlyrelevant. THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 705 is primarilydirected against one's own governmentbut only secondarily,or not at all, against other communities. South Asia is the largest and most variegatedarea with a majormodern development of communalism or religious nationalism.The colonial and post- colonial period saw the development of quasi-ethnicidentification with con- structednationalist versions of Hinduism and similar constructions,partly in reaction to Hindu nationalism, followed in Islam, Sikhism, and Buddhism. These versions had roots in nineteenth-centuryreligious modernismsbut developed especially after the two world wars and were alternativesto the secular nationalismof the Indian National Congress and the later Congress Party. Religious nationalism developed in part out of nineteenth-centuryHindu reform movements like the Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj and similar movements in other religions.18 In the interwarperiod the Hindu-centerednationalist ideology was developed especially by the RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh (RSS), foundedin 1925. Its ideology centeredon the concept of Hindutva,put forth in a 1922 book by that name by the RSS leader, Savarkar.The book and the RSS, followed by some laterHindu nationalists, argued that Hindus were all who lived in, and ac- knowledgedcultural ties to, ancientIndia. This often includedSikhs, Jains, and untouchables,with only Muslims and Christiansregarded as enemies. Some RSS publicists suggested that the best analogy to their understandingof na- tionhood was found in Zionism.19 Althoughit lost much popularityafter it was associatedwith MahatmaGan- dhi's assassination,the RSS has since been greatlyrevived and has contributed to two newer Hindunationalist organizations in the past two decades, the Vish- na HinduParishad (VHP) and the BharatiyaJanba Sangh (BJP) political party. The recent growth of Hindu nationalismis in part due to disillusionmentwith the acts of seculargovernments. Most scholarsconsider the key initial point for the contemporaryefflorescence of religiopoliticalnationalism in Indiato be the 1975-77 emergency rule of Indira Gandhi, a time when civil liberties were curbed,opponents jailed, and Congress lost its popularity.As the RSS entered more actively into politics undernew leaders in the 1970s, some of its leaders helped form the new religiopolitical groups. The RSS and some other religiopolitical groupsin Indiado not demandparticular acts of worshipor beliefs so much as an overall belief in Hinduism.The RSS has also been notable for having a separateand militant women's organizationsince 1936 which combined traditionaland modernideas.

18 On moder Hindumovements, see the fine summaryarticle by Daniel Gold, "OrganizedHin- duisms: From Vedic Truthto Hindu Nation," in Marty and Appleby, eds., FundamentalismsOb- served, 531-93. 19 Ainslie T. Embree,"The Function of the RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh: To Define the Hin- du Nation," Marty and Appleby, Accountingfor Fundamentalisms,617-52; WalterK. Andersen and ShridharD. Damle, The Brotherhoodin Saffron:The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hin- du Revivalism(Boulder: Westview Press, 1987). 706 NIKKI R. KEDDIE

RSS membersand several Hindureligious leaderswere among the founders of the VishvaHindu Parishad (VHP, or WorldHindu Council) in 1984. The RSS has been heavily involved in the VHP, which also includes independentreli- gious leaders.One of its aims is to bringtribal people and untouchablesinto the Hindu fold (which would thus be much enlarged).Like the RSS, the VHP has a broad definition of Hinduism that includes all but Muslims and Christians, seen as foreign and hostile. The VHP uses the Hindu nationalistargument that an ancientjust Hindu society was conqueredby foreign oppressors,first Mus- lim and then British.Hindu religious inclusiveness is called tolerance(following some western scholars), while Muslims are seen as fanatical and bigoted and secularistsas anti-nationalagents of the West. The growing popularityof the VHP is partly due to, and expressed by, its mass religiopolitical rituals. These have included processions of "chariots" (trucks)with images of MotherIndia and holy Ganges water.The processions' popularitycontributed to a movement to rebuild Hindu temples allegedly de- molished to build mosques. The Babri mosque in the pilgrimagecenter, Ayod- hya, alreadya site for conflict between Hindus and Muslim, became the center of action. VHP pressurebrought a 1986 judicial rulingthat the disputedsite for the mosque should be opened to the public, a decision which resultedin com- munalviolence all over India.The religiopoliticalBJP party, which also had direct ties to the RSS, enteredheavily into the issue from 1986 on.20The issue culminatedin the destructionof the mosque by a Hindu crowd in December 1992, followed by terribleHindu-Muslim riots in several cities. Anti-Muslim agitation, including a focus on such issues as Kashmir sepa- ratismand Rajiv Gandhi'sconcessions to Muslim pressurein favor of Muslim family law in the 1980s, has been the main featureof recentHindu nationalism. Hindu identificationhas also been increased by television series dramatizing the ancient Hindu epics. Anotherpoint of Hindu nationalistagitation came after V.P. Singh's governmentin 1990 increasedthe reservationsfor "backward castes" in educationand government(while some nationalistswanted to make these people more Hindu,most did not want to give upjob privileges for them). The governmentwas seen as favoring Muslims and borderlineHindus above true Hindus. Indian scholars have shown how Hindu fundamentalismgrew out of anti- Muslim Hindu communalism,which in turnwas in large part an evolving and interactiveresult of Britishimperialism.21 Hindu nationalism fits betteras New Religious Politics than as a fundamentalism,since it has the main NRP char- 20 Peter van der Veer, "HinduNationalism and the Discourse of Modernity:The Vishva Hindu Parishad,"Marty and Appleby, eds., Accountingfor Fundamentalisms,653-68. 21 Recent subtle discussions include TapanRaychaudhuri, "Shadows of the Swastika:Histori- cal Reflections on the Politics of Hindu Communalism,"Contention, 4:2 (Winter 1995), 141-62; GyanendraPandey, The Constructionof Communalismin Colonial North India; and SandriaB. Freitag,Collective Action and Community:Public Arenas and the Emergenceof Communalismin North India (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1979). THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 707 acteristics but not always religiously fundamentalistones. Hindu nationalists have constructedmodem thoughpolitically conservativedoctrines and organizations: They are intolerantof other doctrines,including both those defined as religious Othersand secularism;mobilize militants arounda creed that claims to be traditionalbut is mostly novel; and seek state power in the name of this creed. They are also highly concerned to have Hindu control of both territory and culture, while they are hostile to minorities, especially Muslims, who are seen as threateningthat control. Pre-colonialHinduism was neithermonothe- istic nor scriptural,and some scholarsdeny that it was even a single religion,22 but Hindunationalism, building on Hindumodernism, supports a creed thathas become far more like the monotheistic,scriptural religions it fights thanthat of the decentralizedHinduism of the past. This is partlydue to the large presence in India of non-Hinduscripturalist religions, Muslim and Christian,seen as effective enemies by Hindu nationalists,and also due to the need for a unified doctrineto supporta unified movement.To organize nationalmovements and combat non-Hinduscriptural religions, Hindu nationalistscreated a more unified set of doctrinalpropositions which privilege a partof their literature.23 A parallel development toward a unified scripturalismis seen in modem Sikhism, which formerlyhad a varietyof doctrinaltrends, some of which were seen by theirfollowers as compatiblewith Hinduism.In recentyears Sikhs have become far more doctrinallyunified, scriptural,and nationalist,with many advocating a separateSikh nation to be carved out of Sikh-majorityterritory in the Punjabregion.24 Indira Gandhi's violent suppressionof nationalistSikhs in theirGolden Temple in 1984 did not reduceSikh nationalismbut resultedin her assassinationby a Sikh bodyguard.(The assassins of MahatmaGandhi and Ra- jiv Gandhialso had religiopoliticalmotives.) Anotherpartially parallel religious nationalismin pre-partitionIndia is found among IndianMuslims. It is seen in the increasinglyseparatist program of the Muslim League, which early in the twentiethcentury demanded only Muslim representationvia separateelectorates and after WorldWar I carriedout joint projects with the Indian National Congress stirring up agitation against the British.Many Muslims belonged to the Congress,but theirsentiments changed especially afterthe experienceof Congress-majorityprovincial governments of the late 1930s. In this period and especially after partition,Maududi's ideology favoring a revived Islamic politics and state and his Jama'at-i-Islamiorga- nizationwere importantin the developmentof religious nationalism(although neither he nor certain ulama organizationsfavored the formationof Pakistan 22 See especially the chaptersby GuentherD. Sontheimerand RobertEric Frykenbergin Guen- ther D. Sontheimerand HermannKulke, eds., HinduismReconsidered (Delhi: Manohar,1989). 23 Among the writings on such questions, see Juergensmeyer,The New Cold War,and Robert Eric Frykenberg,"Hindu Fundamentalism and the StructuralStability of India,"in Martyand Ap- pleby, eds., Fundamentalismsand the State, 233-55. 24 HarjotOberoi, "Sikh Fundamentalism:Translating History into Theory,"Fundamentalisms and the State, 256-85. 708 NIKKI R. KEDDIE until faced with a fait accompli). The Pakistanmovement and the formationof Pakistanin 1947 embodied a latent contradiction.Although the chief founder, MuhammadAli Jinnah,did not favor a religious state,the very existence of Pak- istan as a Muslim state opened the door to an increasednumber of Islamic interest groups. The influence of Islamic nationalistgroups has grown in recent decades, especially since the movementagainst Zulfiqar Ali Bhuttoin Pakistan in the 1970s focused resentmentagainst high-handedactions by secular governments.25The succeeding governmentof Zia al-Haqqintroduced many features of Islamization,including several Islamic punishments,the collection of Islamic taxes throughbank accounts, Islamic bankingpractices, and new judicial rules. Although there were movements that resisted these changes, partic- ularly those of Shi'i and women's organizations,and althoughsome rules were altered as a result, most of the legal changes remained.Islamic identity,especially that partopposing HinduIndia, is today the only real unifying force in a Pakistantorn by sub-nationaland Islamic sectarianconflicts. Ideologically, religious nationalism contains about as many novelties in South Asia's Islam as in Hinduism,even though Islam is more amenableto a single set of beliefs andpractices shaped and focused by legislation.The whole concept of Pakistanwas novel: While it favors Muslim rule in conqueredterri- tory, Islamic traditionhas nothingto say about carvingout a state from territo- ries with a Muslim majority.In addition,the idea stressedby Islamists everywhere-that the shari'a should be the state's fundamentallaw code in all spheres-is a novelty, althoughsome steps towardcodification were taken by the nineteenth-centuryOttoman state. Traditionallythe shari'awas more anal- ogous in its proceduresto Westerncivil law, since shari'a cases were brought by individuals,and not the state, against other individuals. In the postwarperiod, fierce ethnic and social conflicts in Sri Lanka and in the Sikh areasof the Punjabhave addedto SouthAsian religious nationalism.26 Religious nationalismdoes not always involve a high level of belief (though many of its adherentsare very religious) but utilizes or invents increasingly popularreligious symbols and successfully identifiesreligion with the nation.27 A communalbackground with analogies to the SouthAsian situationis also 25 RafiuddinAhmed, "RedefiningMuslim Identityin SouthAsia: The Transformationof the Ja- ma'at-i-Islami,"Marty and Appleby, eds., Accountingfor Fundamentalisms,669-705; and Nasr, Vanguard. 26 T.N. Madan,"The Double-edged Sword: Fundamentalism and the Sikh Religious Tradition," 594-627; Donald K. Swearer,"Fundamentalistic Movements in TheravadaBuddhism," 628-90, both in Martyand Appleby, eds., FundamentalismsObserved; R. Gombrichand G. Obeyesekere, BuddhismTransformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1988); S.J. Tambiah,Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1986); James Manor,"Organizational Weakness and the Rise of Sin- halese BuddhistExtremism," Marty and Appleby, eds., Accountingfor Fundamentalisms,770-84. 27 An original discussion of religious nationalismin SouthAsia is found in Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1994). In MarkJuergensmeyer's The New Cold War,the term "religiousnationalism" is used dif- ferentlythan I do, since he includes Islamic and other movements. THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 709 found in some other societies with large minority religious communities, including Israel-Palestine,Nigeria, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka (all on the territory of ex-Britishcolonies).28 Communal defense of one's religion againstrivals became political andwas often tied to a defense of inventedtraditions that favored groupsand classes who felt left out by secularmodernization. This groupingof those "left out" crossed class lines and included, in differentareas, lower- and middle-classpeople disruptedby modernizationand secularization,classes tied to the traditionaleconomy, and some special groupslike the Hinduupper castes favored by religiously sanctionedpractices and disfavoredby affirmativeaction programsand Israeli OrientalJews, who feel discrimination. While communalismis often consideredonly for South Asia, it can also be identified, whethercalled communalismor not, in several British ex-colonies, partly as the result of British policies defining people by religious groups and assigning them alternatefavors based on these categories. Three special features of religious nationalism are notable. First, similar movements have arisen from very differentreligions, suggesting that moder circumstancesmay be as importantas the original religious material.In South Asia, early Buddhistdoctrine was not militantor religiously exclusive; yet the Buddhistsof Sri Lankacreated a militantmovement against what they saw as a HinduTamil threat.29Hindus, who began the nationalisttrend in SouthAsia, had in pre-colonialtimes very little unity in their doctrineand no unified leadership, but Hindu nationalistgroups producedboth later, when needed. Stress on the centralityof Hindu-Muslimdifferences began when colonialists andear- ly Hindu reformers,then other religious groups, took similar positions. The communalists'creation of more unified doctrines,boundaries, and leadership is striking;along with setting newly rigid boundaries,these movements and their ideologies, by a dialectical process, came to appearmore alike. Second, the religious nationalistor communalwing of NRP has had a longer, more varied, and more gradualevolution than has the non-communalwing. In India, Hindus have had over a centuryof religionationalistorganizations, and Muslims and Sikhs became increasinglynationalist in the course of this century. Elsewhere,religious nationalismamong Zionists was importantfrom the beginning, and developed and subdivided over a century.The turningpoint toward strengtheningNew Religious Politics, however, happened during the 1970s for SouthAsia andIsrael just as it had for the non-communalMiddle East and United States. Even areas with older communalismshave experienced an upsurgein religiopolitics in recent decades, along with the invention of newly militantideologies. Third, some communal religiopolitics differs from non-communal religiopolitics in that less stress is placed on mores, including the enforcementof

28 Religious nationalistidentifications are also importantelsewhere, as in Irelandand former Yugoslavia,but neitheryet has importantmovements that meet my initial definition. 29 See especially Swearer,"Fundamentalistic Movements in TheravadaBuddhism." 7I1 NIKKI R. KEDDIE patriarchalcategories that fundamentalists tend to stress as partof religion. The role of gender among South Asian communalistsis importantbut also varied and complex: While two majorcommunal issues of the 1980s, one concerning Islamic divorce law and the state and the othersati, involved defense of gender traditions,the RSS and some other Hindu nationalistshave mobilized women in a partiallymoder manner.30For some Hindunationalists, more equal treat- ment of women has become an anti-Muslimweapon. The IsraeliGush Emunim put much less stress on patriarchyand social mores than do more orthodoxIs- raeli movements. Those advocating communal religiopolitics, which appeals both to more and less religious persons, often put less stress on religion as such and speak more of culturalheritage or the like, as does the BJP,the chief religiopolitical partyin India. This reduced stress on mores, patriarchy,and even religion arises largely from the communalistmovements' goal of strengtheningone communityat the expense of othercommunities. Insistence on conformityin religious belief and practice can interferewith this goal by alienatingothers in one's community. For example, PalestinianHamas startedwith a straightMuslim Brotherhood programbut over time have stressednationalism more and Islamic rules less.31 Certainrules, such as Islamic dressfor women, areenforced, however, and have even become almost a visible badge for those in these movements, whether communalor non-communal. Although communalreligiopolitics tend to have a longer evolution and put less stress on religious conformitythan do non-communalreligiopolitics, it is useful to consider them together because the lines between the two are often blurredand because in many areas one spills or changes into the other.Those in Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Israel, and elsewhere who fight against other communitiescombine featuresof communaland non-communalfundamental- ism.32As noted, communalismlay behind the first ideological formulationof Islamic fundamentalism,by Maududi,a developmentthat has influencedMus- lim fundamentalistselsewhere. Communal(nationalist) factors exist in Islamic, Christian,and Jewish religiopolitics even thoughcommunalism is often unfairlyreserved for SouthAsia.

30 PeterJ. Awn, "IndianIslam: The ShahBano Affair";John S. Hawley, "Hinduism:Sati and Its Defenders,"in John S. Hawley, ed., Fundamentalismand Gender;and the articles by Paola Bac- chetti and AmritaBasu in a special issue of the Journal of Women'sHistory, 10:4 (Winter 1999), on women and the new religious politics, Nikki R. Keddie and JasaminRostam-Kolayi, eds. 31 Communicationof WalidAtalah, UCLA 1996, who has done researchon this movement.On Palestinianmovements and their movementtoward nationalism and militancy,see ZiadAbu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalismin the West Bank and Gaza (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994). 32 See John O. Voll, "Fundamentalismin the SunniArab World: Egypt and the Sudan,"Funda- mentalismObserved, 345-402; Abu-Amr,Islamic Fundamentalism;Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam:Musa al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); idem, The Arab Predicament(New York:Cambridge University Press, new ed., 1992); and Ehud Sprinzak, TheAscendance of Israel's Radical Right (New York:Oxford University Press, 1991). THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 711

The elements of communalism in Islamist theories, in ultra-Zionism,and in some othermovements are reflectedboth in hostility to othercommunities and in a focus on communalcontrol of territoryand of centers of power and influence. The Zionist righthas strongcommunal elements supportingits exclusive identity against anothercommunity competing for the same territory. SouthAsian communalistswere in a sense pioneerswhen they organizedef- fective right-wingreligiopolitics, having a history now of a centuryof organization, action, and ideology. This may be why some scholarsof SouthAsia hes- itate to place a movement that to them is both historically familiar and nonscripturalin a class with recent scripturaland noncommunalmovements. Recent South Asian movements do, however, display NRP novelties-chiefly an unprecedentedpolitical organizationand strength,including provincial elec- tion victories and pluralitiesfor the BJPin the nationalIndian elections of 1996 and 1998-which make them part of the internationalresurgence of religious politics. A BJP-led governmentfrom March 1998 toned down its anti-Muslim rhetoric,in partto secure allies from other parties. Communalreligiopolitics focuses on controlling territoryand suppressing other communities.In SouthAsia, Hindu, Buddhist,and Sikh nationalistscon- centrateon such programsof control and suppression;in Israel, religiopolitics stresses control over disputedterritories and denies Arab claims; and in Pales- tine religiopolitics calls for Muslim Arab control of all former Palestine. The primacyof territorialand power issues sometimes means paying less attention to religion. In some areasreligious and ethnic communalismare intermixed,as in Nige- ria andMalaysia, where Muslims compriseabout half the populationand where most non-Muslimshave differentethnicities. Muslims there have had less education and less opportunityto enter modern economic sectors, and Islamist claims have helped strengthenthe economic and political clout of Muslims.33 Although it has earlier roots, communalismis tied to colonialism and continues to be so in the post-colonial period.As noted previously,communalism is especially characteristicof British colonies and to the playing of communal politics by British colonizers. It was also a part of the backgroundof the Is- lamist Moro revolt against U.S. colonialism in the Philippinesbut apparently was less importantin France'scolonies, possibly because of the Frenchprefer- ence for universalismin their educationalsystem and in some otherpolicies. CommunalistNRP trends are less religiously cohesive than are movements with a greaterbackground in religiosity.In Hinduismthis is often attributedto the lack of a single god, scripture,and ritual; but this is also trueof the very varied trendsin political Judaism,where there is one scriptureand one God. Like Hindu nationalists,the newer Israeli groups like Gush Emunim and Kach fo-

33 See Nikki R. Keddie, "Ideology, Society and the State in Post-ColonialMuslim Societies," ch. 1 in Nikki R. Keddie, Iran and the Muslim World:Resistance and Revolution(New York:New YorkUniversity Press, 1995). 712 NIKKI R. KEDDIE cus on nationaland territorialgoals; while older groups, like the traditionalist Haredimand the religiousparties, stress religious strictness.34The emphasison nationalismand territoryleads some to exclude Jewish and Hindupolitics from fundamentalism.Given the definition here, both belong, however, to the New Religious Politics, even though some communalor religious nationalistmove- ments have fewer religious requirements.These movementsare especially dis- tinguishedby hostility to otherreligious or religio-ethnicgroups and by a stress on the controlof a territoryby theirown religious group.Hostility to their own government,based largely on that government'ssecularism and its supposed complaisanceto the main targetgroup, is often a secondarytheme.

NON-COMMUNAL MOVEMENTS: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES There are two major non-communalor less-communalreligiopolitical group- ings: those in the Muslim world and those in the United States. These differ from communalmovements because they place a greaterstress on religion and reflect conservativepositions on genderand family issues, andon replacingevil governments rather than taking or controlling territory.While communal- nationalist religiopolitics have a significantly similar set of causes, non- communalreligiopolitics in the Muslim world andthe United Stateshave rather differentcauses for similarresults. While Islamism has appealedto many different kinds of Muslims, the U.S. ChristianRight has generally appealedonly to an evangelical Christianminority. Christian and Muslim religiopolitics may thus be seen as separatesubcategories, to be differentiatedbelow. AlthoughIslam has not, contraryto what is often said, always unitedreligion and politics, the Muslim world has been open to NRP, mainly because of three elements. First,early ties between Islam and politics have continuedas a mod- el even after being much reduced in practice since the early rise of non- religious hereditaryrulers; and Islamic institutionshave also long controlled law, education, and social services, which has made secularizationdifficult. Second, mass movementsof oppositionto existing governmentsin the Muslim world have usually had religious ideologies. Third, hostile contacts with the West, includingits backing of Israel and interventionsto protectoil and strate- gic interests,have generatedstrong feelings of resentmentleading to some hostility to westernideas. The strengthof Islamic movementsis suggested by their victories in Iranand Sudan, and their near victory in Algeria.35In Turkeydur-

34 See Aviezar Ravitzky,Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism,M. Swirsky and J. Chipman,trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), and Ehud Sprinzak,The As- cendance of Israel's Radical Right (New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1991). 35 There is a vast bibliographyon Islamist movements in the Middle East. For general works, see especially John O. Voll, Islam, Continuity,and Change in the Modem World(Boulder: West- view, 1982); Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam (London:Routledge, 1991); EmmanuelSivan, Radical Islam (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1985); John L. Esposito, Voicesof ResurgentIslam; R. HrairDekmejian, Islam in Revolution(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1985); Dale Eickel- man and JamesPiscatori, Muslim Politics (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1996); Fred Hal- THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 713 ing 1996 the IslamistWelfare Party gained a plurality,and its leader was-until mid-1997-prime minister in a coalition government.Elsewhere, Islamist movements are also powerful, especially in the Middle East.36 Islamist movementsare often salient where socioeconomic and political dis- contents are great, such as in the Middle East and Pakistan,and are growing in CentralAsia, but not until 1998 in the more prosperousSoutheast Asia or in the weaker states of Africa. (While the relative weakness of Islamism in Malaysia and Indonesia is sometimes attributedto governmentsuppression, that same kind of suppressionhas been less successful in some Middle Easterncountries, such as Iran and Algeria.) Islamism comprises many differenttypes of groups but can be roughly divided both into Sunni and Shi'i and into moderate(stressing organization,persuasion, and electoral politics) andradical (legitimating violence).37Key dates in the developmentof these movements are the founding of the EgyptianMuslim Brethren(1928), the Israelidefeat of Egypt (1967), and the victory of the IranianRevolution (1979), all of which gave impetus to the spreadof religiopolitics.38The IranianRevolution in particular,which showed that organizationand activism could topple a powerful rulerand install a gov- ernmentseen as Islamic, encouragedorganization and agitationin many Mus- lim countries.The special featuresof Iran'sShi'ism were rarelyconsidered by oppositionistselsewhere. Otherprecipitants to the spreadof activist Islamisminclude Saudi financing of Islamic institutionsand teachings abroad,which inadvertentlyencouraged oppositional Islam, and the anti-Soviet struggle in Afghanistan during the 1980s, supportedby the United States via Pakistan.This version of Islamism traineda numberof prominentactivists, some implicatedin terroristacts in the United States and worldwide.39These built upon other precipitants of Is- lamism, such as grievances againstthe West and the failureof indigenous gov- liday, Islam and the Mythof Confrontation(London: I.B. Tauris, 1996); and Sami Zubaida,Islam, the People and the State (rev. ed., London:I.B. Tauris, 1993). On Algeria, see especially the relevant chaptersin John Ruedy, ed., Islam and Secularism in North Africa (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1994). 36 An extensive contemporarysurvey covering several countriesand stressing militant movements is JudithMiller, God Has Ninety-NineNames: Reportingfrom a MilitantMiddle East (New York:Simon and Schuster), 1996. An earlierbut still valuable survey is EdwardMortimer, Faith and Power: The Politics of Islam (New York:Random House, 1982). 37 On Shi'i movements,see JuanR.I. Cole andNikki R. Keddie,eds., Shi'ismand Social Protest (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); MartinKramer, ed., Shi'ism, Resistance, and Revolu- tion (Boulder:Westview Press, 1987); and Ajami, The VanishedImam. Sunni movementsare covered in other notes and, along with Shi'i ones, in James Piscatori, ed., Islamic Fundamentalisms and the Gulf Crisis (Chicago:The FundamentalismProject, 1991). 38 Among works covering the Egyptian events are Gilles Kepel, Muslim Extremismin Egypt (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1986); RichardP. Mitchell, The Society of MuslimBroth- ers (London:Oxford University Press, 1969); and Abdel Azim Ramadan,"Fundamentalist Influ- ence in Egypt:The Strategiesof the Muslim Brotherhoodand the TakfirGroups," in Martyand Ap- pleby, eds., Fundamentalismsand the State. On Iran,see note 39, below. 39 See the extensive reportin the Los Angeles Times,with the overall title, "Afghanistan:Lega- cy of Fear,"Aug. 4, 1996, A1 if., and Aug. 5, 1996, A1 f. 714 NIKKI R. KEDDIE ernmentsand prior ideologies to meet nationalneeds, which a politicized Islam has promised to do. Among socially conservative Muslims (as well as Chris- tians), changes in family structure,and particularlythose giving new indepen- dence to women, were especially resented;and governmentswhose laws sup- ported such changes were considered evil and targets for radical change or overthrow. Although each country's Islamist movements have special features, some general points about the strengthof Islamists' oppositionto their own government's unpopularpolicies and excessive ties to the West can be seen by making a close examinationof any of the majorIslamist movements. Here, a brief examinationof Iranwill point up similaritieswith other Middle Easterncoun- tries despite special featurescentering on the developmentof Shi'ism and its powerful clergy in Iran.The governmentsof several Middle Easterncountries, particularlyin the 1970s, were seen as too complaisantto the West and to Is- rael, not meeting the needs of those who did not profit from the Western-tied economy, being too autocratic,and tryingto suppressIslamic law and practice, especially in the realmof genderand the family. The wealth and power of newly westernizedgroups were resented, especially given rapid urbanizationand the increasedspread of educationto rural,small-town, and popular classes, who became more politically articulatebut could not take full economic advantage of their urbanor educatedstatus. Iranfelt many of these problemsand contradictionsin especially acute form. Virtuallyall the modernizationthat occurredin Irantook place in a brief half century,from 1925 to 1978, under the rule of the two Pahlavi shahs. The ra- pidity of socioeconomic change was, underthe late shah, especially fueled by oil income, a director indirectfactor in many Middle Easterncountries. Rapid modernizationof the economy, with its accompanyinginternal migration, population growth and youthfulness,and growing gaps between rich and poor and between traditionaland modernsectors, was not accompaniedby political de- mocratizationbut, rather,by increasingautocracy. Both shahs took on the typical secular modernizingrole of wresting control from the clergy over education, social services, andlaw, with a controversialchange toward greater gender equality,especially in the Family ProtectionLaw of 1967/75. The Pahlaviscar- ried a penchantfor westernizationand confrontationwith Islamic leaders fur- therthan some otherMiddle Eastern rulers, with Reza Shahbeing the only such rulerto outlaw veiling (althoughthis lapsed afterhis 1941 abdication),and his son's arrest and exile of the leader of the oppositional ulama, Khomeini, in 1964, initiatinga scurrilousnewspaper attack on him in early 1978. The associationof the shah with secularism,pro-westernism (he was seen as a puppet of the United States), and relations with Israel, meant that effective oppositionwas increasinglyassociated with total rejectionof these policies and that in this opposition Islamist ideologies had great advantagesover secular ones. By the 1970s, Islamists in Iranand elsewhere, dissociated from the peri- THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 715 od many decades earlierwhen Islam had been largely tied to old regimes, could presenta new vision of Islam as a socially egalitarian,just, and indigenous answer to western control. In Iranthe oppositionalclergy, chiefly Khomeini and his studentsand disciples, could also build on the groundworkfor Islamismlaid by non-clericalintellectuals and activists like the writerJalal al-e Ahmad;Ali Shariati,the ideolgical hero of the educated youth; Mehdi Bazarganand his FreedomMovement; and the Islamic leftist "urbanguerillas," the Mojahedin- e Khalq. Sections of the ulama in Iran, owing partly to the way IranianShi'ism had developed since the eighteenth century,had a traditionof independenceand participationin anti-governmentmovements, notably the constitutionalrevo- lution of 1905-11. The structureand modem history of IranianShi'ism created a situationin which a clerical leader,Khomeini, and his immediatefollow- ers could take the leadershipof a mass oppositional movement in a way not duplicatedin other, Sunni-Muslimcountries. But Sunni movements had many ideological similaritiesto the Iranianone, and all were hostile to existing governments. The shah, who had deliberatelyfragmented his leading supportgroups, had also lost much of his class-based supportwith his land reformsof 1962-63 and hesitated to crack down early on the opposition. He was forced, in February 1979, to give in to the largestmass-based revolution in Middle Easternhistory. By this time much of the Iranianpopulation had utopianexpectations of a newly defined Islam and of Khomeini-expectations that were largely,though not entirely,belied in the revolution'saftermath.40 In other Islamic, especially Middle Eastern, countries, there was little un- derstandingthat a strong independentclerical traditionin Iranmade a certain type of Islamic revolutionpossible therebut not elsewhere. On the otherhand, the Iranianrevolution gave an impetus to the furthergrowth of Islamist movements, which were nearly always headedoutside Irannot by ulamabut by men with western or westernized educations and which in countries like Algeria, Egypt, and Sudanbecame very strong. Nearly all the movementsin the Muslim world are directedprimarily against theirown governments:The strengthof the Iranianmovement lay largely in its being directedagainst the shah and his policies; the Egyptianmovement, in being against Sadat and Mubarak;and of the Algerian movement, in its hostility to the secular governmentand its policies. To be sure, communalismalso en-

40 In the huge literatureon Iran,see especially Shaul Bakhash,The Reign of the Ayatollahs(rev. ed., New York:Basic Books, 1990); E. Abrahamian,Khomeinism; Said Amir Arjomand,The Tur- banfor the Crown(New York:Oxford University Press, 1988); Nikki R. Keddie, Roots of Revolu- tion (New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1993); H.E.Chehabi,Iranian politics and Religious Mod- ernism: TheLiberation Movement in Iran underthe Shah and Khomeini(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); David Menashri,ed., The IranianRevolution and the Muslim World(Boulder: West- view Press, 1990); John L. Esposito, ed., TheIranian Revolution: Its Global Impact(Miami: Flori- da InternationalUniversity Press, 1990). 716 NIKKI R. KEDDIE ters into Islamism where religious minoritiesare strong, such as Christianmi- norities in Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon,Nigeria, and ethnic-religiousminorities in Malaysia;but Islamismcan flourishas much where religious minoritiesare not numerous,such as in North Africa or Iran.Hence religious nationalismis not key to the rise of Islamism, while opposition to governmentsseen as secular, westernized,and oppressive often is. The United States presentsa differentpicture, one in which only a religious minority,Evangelical Christians,have been prone to fundamentalism,though NRP now attractssome Catholicand even Jewish allies. Welcomingsuch allies is a trendof recentdecades anddemonstrates a realizationthat such groupsneed allies to attainpolitical majorities.Though Evangelicals are growing, they re- main a clear minority.Understanding the New Religious Politics in the United States requiresa focus on the discontentsof the involved minoritiesmore than on those of a largergroup, as in many Muslim countries.There are nonetheless some parallels,by contrast,to the communalcountries, since both Islamic and Christianmovements greatly stress threatsto conservativepositions on such issues as gender relations,the family, and sexual mores. Both also centrallyde- monize seculargovernments and their growing power. While Muslim movements have often had leaders who were formerly nationalists or Marxistsbut saw in Islam a more potent instrumentof change, the U.S. ChristianRight arose out of literalist and conservativeProtestant Chris- tianity.This extended its interests to politics at first in order to achieve what were consideredreligious goals, particularlyto reverse court decisions regarding abortion,prayer in the schools, and the teaching of evolution. Both the United States and the Muslim world have experiencedboth gradu- alist-compromising and radical-uncompromisingreligiopolitics. In recent years most U.S. religiopoliticshas concentratedon a policy of gradualchange, stressingelectoral victories in local races and chipping away at laws and regu- lations governingschool prayer,creationism, and abortion,41though the Chris- tian Right's effort to control the RepublicanParty shows its continued aim of seeking nationalpower. Gradualistand local tactics were epitomizedby Ralph Reed, the first and now former executive directorof the ChristianCoalition, who retainsan influence, but are opposed by some in the ChristianRight. Such local and electoraltactics are less possible in several undemocraticstates in the Muslim world, where the only hope of controlmay seem to be throughrevolu- tions or acts of violence. When electoral politics are possible, Islamist movements often have a broaderbase of appeal than does the U.S. ChristianRight, as seen in Turkeyor pre-1992Algeria, Muslim Brotherhoodalliances with sec-

41 MatthewC. Moen, The Transformationof the ChristianRight (Tuscaloosa:University of Al- abamaPress, 1992); idem., "TheFourth Wave of the EvangelicalTide: Religious Conservativesin the Aftermathof the 1994 Elections," Contention,5:1 (Fall 1995), 19-40; Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-WingMovements and Political Power in the United States (New York:The GuilfordPress, 1995), partsII and III. THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 717 ular parties in Egypt, Islamist strength in Jordanianelections, or strong- though unsuccessful-attempts to be recognized as an electoral party against governmentopposition in Tunisia.42 Religiopolitics in the United States and the Muslim world are similar in stressingreligion and conservativebehavior rather than territorialgoals and in wanting to replace secular governments;but they differ in points of origin and in the groupsto which they appeal.They both have a centralemphasis on policies that affect women and the family, see contemporarymores as contraryto religion and morality,and call for a returnto an idealized past with patriarchal family structuresand limits on women's control of their bodies and activity in the public sphere.43 The decentralizeddemocratic politics of the United States make it possible for the ChristianRight to act throughmany differentorganizations and in many diverse ways, including supportingcandidates and propagandaat all levels and pushing for a variety of nationaland local laws to chip away at abortion,favor Christianityin the schools, block many rights for homosexuals, and so forth. The very political natureof today's ChristianRight, includingdirect entry into various forms of partisanand non-partisanpolitics, differentiatesthem from most of those who called themselves fundamentalistearly in the twentiethcentury.The achievementof political goals, includingthe political enforcementof ideological goals, now takes priorityfor most of the ChristianRight.

COMMONALITIES AND DIVERGENCES IN NRP MOVEMENTS The argumentthus far has three main distinctive features. First, it provides a list of socioeconomic, political, and culturalfactors in religiopolitics. Second, it gives a definition of New Religious Politics, not based only on scriptural monotheism,which accountsboth for primarilycommunal movements and for those based more on religiosity.Third, it sees religiosity and communalism,as defined, as two key factors demarcatingthe areas where New Religious Poli- tics are to be found and notes differences in movements with these two bases. Despite major differences among religiopolitical movements, it is striking

42 .Roy Mottahedeh,"The Islamic Movement:The Case for DemocraticInclusion," Contention 4:3 (Spring 1995), 107-27; Nazih N. Ayubi, "Rethinkingthe Public/PrivateDichotomy: Radical Islam and Civil Society in The Middle East," Contention4:3 (Spring 1995), 79-105. On Tunisia, see the relevant chaptersin Ruedy, Islam and Secularism in North Africa; and Nikki R. Keddie, "The Islamist Movement in Tunisia,"The MaghrebReview, 1:1 (1986), 26-39, which includes in- terviews with Islamist leaders. 43 On religiopolitics and gender, see ValentineM. Moghadam, ModernizingWomen: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East (Boulder:Lynne Reiner, 1993); ValentineM. Moghadam, ed., IdentityPolitics and Women(Boulder: Westview, 1994); MargaretLamberts Bendroth, Fun- damentalismand Gender: 1875 to the Present (New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1994); Hawley, Fundamentalismand Gender;Mahnaz Afkhami, Faith and Freedom: Women'sHuman Rights in the Muslim World(Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995); ParvinPaidar, Women and the Po- litical Process in Twentieth-CenturyIran (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1995); Fariba Adelkhah,La revolutionsous le voile (Paris:Editions Karthala,1991). 718 NIKKI R. KEDDIE how many of them developed rapidly beginning in the late 1970s. Relevant events include IndiraGandhi's Emergency Rule in 1973-75, which gave impetus to Sikh and Hindu politics and to Muslim movements in Kashmir;the Iranian 1979 revolution and its influence; the Soviet 1979 invasion of Afghanistanand the Islamist-ledresponse; Zia al-Haqq'sfavoring of Islamist laws and groupsin Pakistan;and in the United States,the foundingof JerryFal- well's Moral Majority,in 1979.44 Among the reasons for this simultaneityis the intensificationof socioeconomic discontent and dislocation: Few parts of the world have been exempt from rapidand unequalsocioeconomic change, thoughmore equal income dis- tributionsor social safety nets in East Asia and Europeand some recent favor- able economic changes have helped defuse opposition.In some countries,specific causes have stimulatedthe emergenceof strongNRP movements, such as anti-imperialismin the Global South or relationswith Israelin the Middle East. On the other hand, it is more difficult to determinethe extent to which other factors-such as challenges to patriarchyby women and theirallies-have as- sisted in the emergenceof NRP movements. Since they are found in both NRP and non-NRPcountries, it is obvious thatthese factorscannot alone accountfor the NRP.One factorthat seems strongerin countrieswith NRP movementsthan in those without them is the disillusionmentwith recent seculargovernmental policies, whetherthey are called socialist, welfare state, free market,or something else. Discontent with socioeconomic policies, which often accompanies opposition to perceived government hostility toward religion, is felt among many Hindus,Muslims, Christians,and Jews.45 Also in recent decades, communistand socialist movements have lost their internationalbacking and much of their appeal.In the Muslim world and elsewhere,not only do fundamentalistsoften come from the same background(stu- dent and professional)that used to produce communists;but a numberof ex- leftist intellectualshave become prominentin New Religious Politics. Religiosity and communalismare historicallydeveloping and changingphe- nomena.They have variedover time but have been on the rise in many partsof the world, though not without setbacks, in recent decades. As with many factors that can be called causes, they are also both the effects of othercauses and the consequence of a dialectical interpenetrationof many operativefactors of cause and effect. Communalismor religiosity are also involved in areas where religiopolitics are only partial, as in the ethnoreligious struggles in ex- Yugoslavia,Central Asia, Ireland,and MuslimAfrica, or religiopoliticaltrends in LatinAmerica. 44 Regardingthe United States, SaraDiamond, Roads to Dominion,ch. 7, stressesthe late 1970s as the years the ChristianRight became organizedopenly and on a massive scale, with an emphasis on issues concerninggender and the family. 45 The importanceof secularcentralizing governments in encouragingreactive religiopolitics is noted in Said Amir Arjomand,"Unity and Diversity in Islamic Fundamentalism,"Marty and Ap- pleby, eds., FundamentalismsComprehended, 179-98. THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 719

In attemptingto answer the question why some countries have more religiopolitics than others,we could startwith why only the United States, among either countries of advancedindustrialization or of Christianmajorities, has a majorNRP movement, even though many of the others may have constituent elements expressed in movements such as ChristianDemocracy, Catholic In- tegrism, LiberationTheology, or non-politicalfundamentalism.46 The most convincing reply as to why the United States has more fundamentalism than any other Christian-majoritycountry is that such a Christianreli- giopolitics seems possible only with the multidenominationalsituation there, and especially its far higher levels (shown in numerouspolls) of belief in God, in the literal truthof the Bible, and in such things as special creation,than in any otherindustrialized country with a Christianmajority. To cite only a few of manypoll data,72 percentof Americanshave said the Bible is the Wordof God, with 39 percent indicating it should be taken literally and 44 percentprofess- ing that they believe God createdthe world "in pretty much its presentform" within the past 10,000 years.47Of the largenumbers of people attendingchurch, many belong to evangelical denominationsthat believe in the inerrancyof the Bible. This lattergroup has provided,ever since the late-nineteenth-centuryrise of religious modernismand Darwinism, a large base for fundamentalismthat does not exist elsewhere. In Europe,belief in God, the Bible, and basic Chris- tian doctrines is far less widespread.48There is today no basis in Europe in widespreadreligious belief for mass oppositionto Darwin, abortion,birth control, or any of the other points that U.S. fundamentalistssee in the Bible. We do not have good religious poll data for developing countries, and in many of them one could not poll people about their beliefs; but there is little doubt about the strengthof belief in Islam and the importanceof scripturein the contemporaryMuslim world. In Israel, although the founders were secu- larists,and secularismcontinues to be strong,there has been an increasingpush, strengthenedby the heavy immigrationof more religious OrientalJews, to have Jewish religious identificationbe a strongerpart of Israel'sidentity. As in South Asia, strong communal identity centering on a religious traditioncan in part play a role similarto that played by belief. In the Muslim world, althoughsome of the socioeconomic and anti-secular

46 On early U.S. fundamentalism,see Nancy Ammerman,"North American Protestant Funda- mentalism,"in Marty and Appleby, FundamentalismsObserved, 1-65; Norman F. Fumiss, The FundamentalistControversy (New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1954); GeorgeM. Marsden,Fun- damentalism and American Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980); and Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). An illumi- nating comparativestudy is MartinRiesebrodt, Pious Passion: The Emergenceof ModernFunda- mentalism in the United States and Iran, Don Reneau, trans. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), one of the few workswith adequateanalysis of the genderand patriarchy components. 47 George Gallup,Jr., Public Opinion 1982 (Wilmington,Del: ScholarlyResources, 1983), cited in Ammerman,"North American Protestant Fundamentalism," 2. For a broaddata-based survey of Americanreligion and churchmembership, see Kosmin and Lachman,One Nation under God. 48 One Nation under God, 8-9. 720 NIKKI R. KEDDIE backgroundfor fundamentalismis similarto thatelsewhere, many of the groups affected have been different from those in the United States. Islamist movements did not arise so much from defendersof literalistorthodoxy as from pro- fessionals, intellectuals,and studentswho might in earlierdecades have turned to nationalism,socialism, or communism.Disillusionment with the failure of Nasser, the symbol of nationalism,to defeat Israel or solve internalproblems and with the failures of socialism and capitalismhelped turnpeople toward a search for an idealized Islamic past as the embodimentof a more distinctive identity thanthat offered by nationalismor Marxism.It became fashionableto thinkthat Islamic solutionscould meet moder problems,especially when gov- ernmentswere seen as too secular,too pro-Western,and too compromisingin dealing with Israel.49 Despite these differencesin background,in most countrieswith strongNRP movements, we may point to a few key governmentalsecular measures that helpedarouse mass religiopoliticsin the pastquarter century. In the UnitedStates, measuresthat were greetedwith unqualifiedenthusiasm by liberalswere equally despisedby biblical literalists.Among these were the proposedEqual Rights Amendmentand some key SupremeCourt measures, especially the outlawingof prayerin the public schools in 1962 and the grantingof abortionrights in 1973. These were partof a growing trendafter the 1930s to give the SupremeCourt power over the states.Although the notion of the separationof churchand state is an ideal going back more thantwo centuries,the SupremeCourt made several key decisions in the 1960s thatbroadened the meaningof the Bill of Rights and appliedit in the states. FundamentalistChristians believe thatthe Bible forbids abortion(though the texts they cite seem irrelevantto others)and thatoutlawing school prayeris an abomination.Most objectto the teachingof evolution,and in the postwarperiod they inventedwhat they called creationscience in an attempt to includethe biblicalaccount of creationin the official curriculumof the public schools. They have had considerablesuccess, obtainingde facto limits on the teaching of evolution as a part of their continuingefforts in many parts of the country.Especially in many parts of the South, prayerin the school continues even though the SupremeCourt has long outlawedit. The SupremeCourt is a very visible aspect of the strengtheningof the centralgovernment, and its non- representativenature makes it an easy targetfor populistattack.50

49 Olivier Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, Carol Volk, trans.(Cambridge: Harvard Univer- sity Press, 1994), 4, notes that "fromCairo to Tehran,the crowds that in the 1950s demonstrated underthe red or nationalflag now marchbeneath the green banner. . .The continuityis apparent not only in these targetsbut also in the participants:the same individualswho followed Nasser or Marxin the 1960s are Islamists today." 50 Regardingthe United States,including the SupremeCourt, see OneNation underGod; Robert S. Alley, ed., TheSupreme Court on Churchand State (New York:Oxford University Press, 1988); LeonardLevy, The EstablishmentClause (New York:Macmillan, 1986); Ralph Reed, Politically Incorrect(Dallas: WordPublishing, 1994); idem.,Active Faith (New York:The Free Press, 1996); GaryWills, Under God: Religion and AmericanPolitics (New York:Simon and Schuster,1990); and LaurenceH. Tribe,Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (New York:W.W.Norton, 1990). THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 721

In Muslim countriesresentment against governmenthas centeredon a variety of measuresthat alteredtraditional law and mores generally consideredIs- lamic. A common featurein Muslim, and also in many non-Muslim,countries has been the use of increasedcentral government power in ways consideredin- imical to religion and tradition.Islamic institutionsand ulama had controlled most education, courts, and social services, all areas crucial to modernizing states;and friction as the state took these over was inevitable.Traditional ways of dealing with gender, the family, and social mores came increasingly to be seen as Islamic. Newer ways are viewed as not being Islamic. These include growing governmentcontrol of educationand law, and especially legal reforms regardingthe family and the role of women.51India also saw various forms of secularizationand actions that favored Muslims and other minorities,plus the reservationof educational and job positions for the lower castes. Significant both in Indiaand the Muslim worldwas the interferencewith moresin the name of modernization.In the Muslim World,concern centeredon reformsin family law, state encouragementof a presence of women-usually unveiled-in jobs and schools, and both governmentaland private flouting of traditional modes of dress and behavior.52 The considerablepost-colonial failure of governmentalsolutions to socioeconomic andcultural problems has broughta growing alienationbetween people andtheir governments. In the Muslim world, governmentshave often found it difficult to suppressIslamist movements because of theirdecentralized organization, use of mosques and religious networks,and their increasingpopular- ity resultingfrom their provision of social services, especially to the poor. A feature special to the Muslim world is the presence of Israel. To Muslim and many third-worldeyes, Israelis a colonial implant.The Israelisentered under the protectionof western governments.For a while, it seemed not unrea- sonable to think the Israelis could be ejected by force, much as the Frenchhad been in Algeria, as the last stage in a movement againstthe westernoccupation of Muslim lands. Only after several militarydefeats did many Muslims come to believe they could not reversethe dynamicsfavoring the continuedpresence of Israel.Not believing this are the Islamists,whose refusalto accept a statethat has taken over land formerlycontrolled and populatedby Muslims has created an impetus for religiopolitics among Muslims. Anotherphenomenon characteristic of, thoughnot exclusive to, severalMus- lim countries and South Asia, is what I have called the phenomenonof "two cultures,"which could also be called culturaldualism. Although culturetoday

51 See the articleson Muslim countriesin Contention,4:3 (Spring 1995); and the articlesby An- dreaB. Rugh, ShahlaHaeri, and Majid Tehranian in Fundamentalismsand Society andby Ann Eliz- abeth Mayer in Fundamentalismsand the State. 52 On the interactionbetween state secularismand fundamentalismsee Nikki R. Keddie, "Sec- ularismand the State:Towards Clarity and Global Comparison,"New LeftReview, no. 226 (1997), 21-48. 722 NIKKI R. KEDDIE is most often tied to ethnic groups, there are other forms of differentiationthat are equally significant.In Iranbefore 1979, the Middle East, and SouthAsia we find, broadly,two groups. One group of people has had a westernizedor mod- ernized, often secular,education, cultural mores and aspirations,and ways of dress and behavior.Another group has followed culturalways consideredtra- ditional. (The word "traditional,"however misleading, signals a practice that prominentlyincludes local pre-modernelements.) In the two-culturephenom- enon, the size of the gap betweenthe two sides is particularlystriking. The mod- ernized culture includes western forms of dress and consumption,heavy de- pendence on westerncultural sources, and command(often everydayuse) of a western language as a mode of discourse. Its followers tend to be secular,cos- mopolitan,and oriented to Westernideas. Most in this cultureoften regardthose practicingthe ways of the traditionalculture as backward,superstitious, fanatical, irrational,and so forth.Those in the traditionalculture follow formsof gender relations that are closer to those of pre-moderntimes, such as those typi- cally separatingthe sexes socially, giving men much control of sisters and wives, insisting on strict limits on sexual relations for women.53Though this two-culturedivision was named first (with apologies to C.P.Snow)to address situationsin Islamic countries,much of it exists in SouthAsia, and a variation exists in the United States. There, fundamentalistChristians are offended by contemporarymores and look on their practionersas harmful sinners, while secularistssee fundamentalistsas irrational,benighted, and so forth. These two-culturedivisions preceded,and have provideda fertile groundfor, the rise of New Religious Politics. Those who followed traditionalways often resentedthe modem mode, especially if, as in the Global South, they saw it as being tied to westernersthey disliked. The existence of a large bloc of people who had never modernizedprovided the popularbase for more educated and ideological fundamentalists.The latter often came from rural, small-town, or urbantraditional backgrounds. They felt torn between Westernand traditional ways, so they looked favorablyon movements that encouragedboth technology and traditionalismand gave them a mass following. Educated men and women who opt for a "traditional,"fundamentalist, and populist identity often find a mass base largerand more enthusiasticthan they could have found in the modernsector. Anotherfeature religiopolitics have in common is their hostility towardthe growing power of secular centralizedstates. The relationshipbetween fundamentalismand the statehas rarelybeen given the weight it deserves.54In Egypt chargeswere raisedagainst Nasser's socialism, which centralizedthe economy and increased controls over the ulama and the highest Muslim university,as

53 H. E. Chehabi, forthcomingbook manuscripton cultural and social dualism in twentieth- centuryIran. 54 See Deniz Kandiyoti,"Women, Islam, and the State:A ComparativeApproach," in JuanR.I. Cole, ed., ComparingMuslim Societies (Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, Comparative Studies in Society and History book series, 1992), 237-60. THE NEW RELIGIOUS POLITICS 723 well as against Sadat's and Mubarak'sopen-door capitalism and their foreign policy. In the pre-revolutionaryIran of the Shah, religious objections were raised to many measures, including land reform, votes for women, and coop- eration with the United States and Israel. Post-colonial states often interfere with all aspects of life more than did colonizers, who were wary about inter- fering with personaland family arrangements.The Islamistreaction in the Mid- dle East was largely directed against state actions perceived as tyrannicaland anti-Islamic.In India, Israel, and the United States, state interferencein social questions also grew in the postwarperiod and was a source of resentmentfrom conservatives,whether fundamentalist or not. Scholars of fundamentalismmore often stress changes in society and the economy which introducenew strains,income gaps, and dislocations.Some of these changes have underminedthe belief in the progressivenature of modern social processes, causing feelings of alienationand a need to search for community.For some, these feelings and needs have been answeredby religiopolitics; while others, especially in countrieswhere religiosity and communalism are weak, have turnedto nationalismor other types of identitypolitics. Anotherreason for the spreadof religiopolitics has been the force of example: Just as revolution spreadin the nineteenthcentury and after 1917, so religiopolitics has gained wider supportpartly through example. The early Egypt- ian Muslim Brethrenstimulated interest in similar groups elsewhere, and the IranianRevolution inspiredboth Shi'i and Sunni religiopolitics.The spreadof religiopolitics in the Arab world afterIsrael's 1967 defeat of Egypt was in part based on a strengthattributed to Israel by its identificationwith religion. Such imitation of anotherreligious group is also found in the development of religiopolitics in the various communitiesof South Asia, which was in part a reaction to priorHindu nationalism. And phenomenalike the anti-abortionmove- ment in Englanddraw heavily on the U.S. example. Hence, commonalitiesin the causes and policies of New Religious Politics are notable and explicable; and differences can also be explained. This essay has not exhaustedall the points on which religiopolitics are comparable,and in stressingthese points it has had to deal lightly with the specifics of each movement. Individualmovements or specific featuressuch as militancy or different gender attitudesand practices have received much published discussion elsewhere.55The great variety in tactics and ideology and changes over time are materialfor other works, while the stress here has been mainly on comparable features. On the specifics of each movement, a large literaturenow exists and shows no signs of abating. Here, I have tried ratherto stress overall analytic points that may tell us something new about this novel phenomenon. 55 On gender see note 36. On militancy,aside from generalworks cited above, see HenryMun- son, Jr., "IntolerableTolerance: Western Academia and Islamic Fundamentalism,"Contention, 5:3 (Spring 1966), 126; Beth Baron, "TolerableIntolerance? Silence on Attackson Womenby Funda- mentalist,"in ibid., 119-26. See also Martyand Appleby, Fundamentalismsand the State, Part3, "Remakingthe Worldthrough Militancy," chapters by David C. Rapoport,Ehud Sprinzak,Olivier Roy, Nikki R. Keddie and FarahMonian, MartinKramer, Faye Ginsburg,and Stanley J. Tambiah.