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Global Rise of Secular Nationalism

Global Rise of Secular Nationalism

The Global Rise of Religious

Mark Juergensmeyer

As we see every day in the news, a disturbing aspect of the globalization of is the violent conflicts, worldwide, that are rooted in religion or expressed in religious terms. To author Mark Juergensmeyer, such conflicts are expressions of religious nationalism, an that combines traditional religious beliefs in divine law and authority with the modern notion of the -state. Frequently associated with quests for ethnic , religious nationalism draws on a religion as a repository of powerful symbols, ready to be tapped and put into action, as come to be seen in religious terms. Citing examples from across the globe, Juergensmeyer identifies patterns common to all such movements, discerning surprising similarities in such cases as the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Iranian revolution of 1979. The present article was originally published shortly before the World Trade Center tragedy of September 11, 2001. Readers may wish to consult Juergensmeyer's books on this topic, including Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (University of California Press, 2000).

If it can be said that the modernist ideology of the Their enemies seem to most of us to be both post-Enlightenment West effectively separated benign and banal: modern secular leaders such as religion from public life, then what has happened Indira Gandhi and Yitzhak Rabin and such in recent years––since the watershed Islamic symbols of prosperity and authority as revolution in Iran in 1979––is religion's revenge. international airlines and the World Trade Center. After years of waiting in history's wings, religion The logic of their ideological religious view is, has renewed its claim to be an ideology of public although difficult to comprehend, profound, for it order in a dramatic fashion: violently. From contains a fundamental critique of the world's Algeria to Idaho, a legion of religious activists post-Enlightenment sect culture and politics. In have expressed a hatred of secular governments many cases, especially in areas of the world where that exudes an almost transcendent passion, and modernization is a synonym for Westernization, they dream of revolutionary changes that will movements of religious nationalism have served establish a godly social order in the rubble of what as liberation struggles against w their supporters the citizens of most secular societies regard as perceive to be alien , and foreign modern, egalitarian democracies. powers. "Palestine is not completely free," a leader of 's policy wing told me, "until it is an Mark Juergensmeyer, "The Global Rise of Religious ." The Hamas activist voiced this Nationalism," in /GLOBALIZATIONS: opinion only a few months before the January THEORIES AND CASES, pp. 66-83. Copyright © 1996 elections, an event that not only brought 2001 by Duke University Press. Reprinted by Yasir Arafat triumphantly into power but also permission of the publisher. fulfilled the Palestinian dream of an independent

466 nation. Yet it was not the kind of nation that the terrorist incidents: the bombing of the federal Islamic activist and his Hamas colleagues had building in Oklahoma City on 19 April 1995, for hoped for. For that reason, they refused to run instance, or the 20 March 1995 nerve gas attack candidates for public office and urged their on a Tokyo subway station. In the Oklahoma City followers to boycott the polls. They threatened case, the Christian militia movements with which that the movement would continue to carry out Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols have been "political actions" as the Hamas leader called associated have accepted a certain conspiratorial them––terrorist attacks such as the series of view of American politics: the nation is not free, suicide bombings conducted by a militant faction they reason, because of a vast international that rocked Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and elsewhere in conspiracy involving Jews and Freemasons. They in February and March 1996, threatening to believe that the nation needs to be liberated destroy the peace process and Arafat's fragile through an armed struggle that will establish alliance. America as an independent and Christian nation. On the Israeli side of the , Jewish Strangely, the same conspiracy was activists have also attacked the secular leadership articulated by members of Aum Shinrikyo (On of their nation, and again a virulent mixture of Supreme Truth), the eclectic Buddhist-Hindu religion and politics has led to bloodshed. Yigal religious movement in Japan that has been Amir, who is accused of assassinating Israel's accused of unleashing canisters of nerve gas in a prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv on 4 Tokyo subway station, killing twelve people and November 1995, claimed that he had religious injuring thousands. A young man who had been reasons for his actions, saying that" everything I public affairs officer for the main Tokyo did, I did for the glory of God." Amir has headquarters of the movement at the time said that adamantly rejected attempts by his lawyers to the first thing that came to his mind when he assert that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. heard about the attack was that the "weird time "I am at peace” he explained, insisting that he was had come": the Third World War was about to "totally normal." His murder of Rabin, Amir begin. He had been taught by his spiritual master, argued, was deliberate and even praiseworthy Shoko Asahara, that Armageddon was imminent. under a certain reading of that He had also been taught that the Japanese allows for a defense against those who would government, in collusion with America and an destroy the Jewish nation. international network of Freemasons and Jews, A few weeks before the assassination, a had triggered the January 1995 Kobe earthquake conversation with Jewish activists near Hebron and then planned the nerve gas attack. He was indicated that they shared many of Amir's views. surprised when Asahara himself was implicated in They were still grieving over the killing of Dr. the plot––after alt the spiritual leader had Baruch Goldstein by an angry Muslim crowd in portrayed himself as the protector of Japanese February 1995, after he murdered thirty-five society and had begun to create an alternative Muslims as they were saying their prayers in the government that would control the country after mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs, revered as Armageddon had ended. the burial place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In all these cases, the alleged perpetrators Goldstein's grave has now been made into a possessed world views that justified the brutality shrine. The militant Jews at the site explained that of such terrorist acts: they perceived a need to acts such as Dr. Goldstein's were necessary not defend their faiths and held a heady expectation only to protect the land but also to defend the very that what they did would lead to radically new notion of a Jewish nation––one that for reasons of social and political orders. The events they staged redemption and history had to be established on were therefore religious as much as they were biblical terrain. Religious duty required them to political and provide examples of religious become involved politically and even militarily. involvement and political change that might seem, "Jews" one of them said, "have to learn to worship at first glance, to be curiously out of step with the in a national way." twentieth century. This potentially explosive mixture of But these religious rebels against nationalism and religion is an ingredient even in are becoming increasingly vocal. Their small but incidents that might appear initially to be isolated potent groups of violent activists represent

467 growing masses of supporters, and they exemplify opposite: it religionizes politics. It puts political currents of thinking that have risen to counter the issues and struggles within a sacred context. prevailing modernism the ideology of Compatibility with religious goals becomes the individualism and skepticism that in the past three criterion for an acceptable political platform. centuries has emerged from post Enlightenment The Islamic revolution in Iran, for instance, Europe and spread throughout the world. For that was a classic example of ideological religious reason, and because of the rising tide of violence nationalism that turned ordinary politics upside associated with movements of religious down. Instead of a nonreligious political order nationalism in the Middle East, South Asia, and providing space for religious activities––which in elsewhere, it is important to try to understand the West we regard as the "normal" arrangement– what religious nationalists want: why they hate –in Iran, a religious authority set the context for secular governments with such a virulent passion, politics. In fact the constitution of the Islamic how they expect to effect their virtually Republic of Iran provides for a "just ruler” a cleric revolutionary changes, and what sort of social and such as the Ayatollah Khomeini, who will be the political order they dream of establishing in their ultimate arbiter in legislating the moral basis of own vision of a coming world order. politics. For that reason, the Iranian experience was a genuine revolution, an extraordinary change The Ideological Dimensions from the modern Westernized nation that the Shah of Religious Nationalism prior to the Ayatollah had imagined for Iran. Because ideological religious nationalism Some forms of religious nationalism are largely embraces religious ideas as the basis for politics, ethnic––that is, linked to people and land. The national aspirations become fused with religious struggle of the Irish––both Protestant and quests for purity and redemption, and religious Catholic––to claim political authority over the law replaces secular law as the pillar of land in which they live is a paradigmatic example. governmental authority. Although the enemy of The attempts of Muslims in Chechnya to assert ethnic religious nationalists is a rival ethnicity–– their independence from the rule of , and usually the dominant group that has been other Muslims in Tajikistan to assert a cultural controlling them––ideological religious element to Tajikistan's resurgent nationalism, are nationalists do not need to look beyond their own examples that have emerged in the wake of the ethnic community to find an ideological foe: they collapse of the former Soviet Union. In what used often loathe their own kind. As Yigal Amir to be Yugoslavia, several groups of ethnic dramatically illustrated when he shot Yitzhak religious nationalists are pitted against one Rabin, religious nationalists may target as another: Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and enemies the secular leaders of their own . Muslim Bosnians and Kosovars. In South Asia, For that reason, tensions have been growing in the independence movements of Sri Lankan Tamil nominally Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Hindus, Kashmiri Muslims, and to some extent , and Turkey, where militant Islamic the Khalistan supporters in the are also revolutionaries have identified their own moderate movements of ethnic religious nationalism. In Muslim leaders as obstacles to progress. In the these cases, religion provides the identity that United States, it appears that this passionate makes a community cohere and links it with a hatred of secular government led to incidents such particular place. as Ruby Ridge and the bombing of the federal Ideological religious nationalism is attached building in Oklahoma City. In , a widespread to ideas and beliefs. In using the term "ideology” I disdain for secular politics has propelled the mean a framework of values and moral positions. (BJP) into becoming the In the case of religious nationalism, the ideology largest movement for religious nationalism in the combines traditional religious beliefs in divine world. Buddhist movements in , law and religious authority with the modern Mongolia, and Tibet have characterized their notion of the nation-state. If the ethnic religious secular political opponents as being not just nationalism politicizes religion by employing immoral and unprincipled but also enemies of religious identities for political ends, an dhammic (righteous) social order. ideological form of religious nationalism does the Some religious nationalists see their own

468 secular leaders as part of a wider, virtually global immediately before and after the January 1996 conspiracy––one controlled by vast political and elections––a poll that Hamas wished to discredit. economic networks sponsored by European and The leaders of the movement believed, as their American powers. For that reason, they may hate founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin said in a not only the politicians in their home countries but conversation several years ago, that "the only true also these leaders' political and economic allies in Palestinian state is an Islamic state." This means lands far beyond their own national boundaries. that the movement must simultaneously war Islamic militants associated with Egypt's radical against both Israeli leaders such as Rabin and Gamaa i-Islamiya (Islamic Group), for example, Peres and secular Palestinian leaders such as have attacked not only Egyptian politicians–– Arafat. killing President Anwar Sadat and attempting to Like the militant Muslims in Hamas, the Sikh kill his successor, Hosni Mubarak––but also separatists that flourished in Northern India until foreigners. 1993 were both ethnic and ideological and, like The Gamaa i-Islamiya literally moved its war their Palestinian counterparts, also had a double against secular powers abroad when its leader, set of enemies. In the Sikh case, the Khalistani Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, moved to New Jersey side of the movement aimed at creating a separate and became involved in a bombing attack on the nation of and tried to purge the rural Punjab World Trade Center on 26 February 1993 that of Hindus. But there was also a more killed six and injured a thousand more. The trial ideologically religious side to the movement, the that convicted him in January 1996 of conspiracy one led by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, in the attack also implicated him in an elaborate which aimed at establishing the Sikh religious plot to blow up a variety of sites in the New York tradition as authoritative in both secular and City area, including the United Nations buildings political spheres and targeted moderate Sikh and the Lincoln Tunnel. Algerian Muslim activists leaders and secular politicians as foes. Followers have brought their war against secular Algerian of this wing succeeded in assassinating several leaders to Paris, where they have been implicated important secular politicians including Prime in a series of subway bombings in 1995. Hassan Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. A spectacular Turabi in Sudan has been accused of orchestrating explosion that killed Punjab's chief minister, Islamic rebellions in a variety of countries, linking Beant Singh, on 31 August 1995, shows that some Islamic activists in common cause against what is aspects of the movement are still potent threats to seen as the great satanic power of the secular civil order. West. In some cases, this conspiratorial vision has Other movements of religious nationalism–– taken bizarre twists, as in the view shared by both even ones that appear to be primarily ethnic––may the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo and certain also have, at some level an ideological American Christian militia movements that Jews component. This is so because religion, the and Freemasons are collaborating to control the repository of traditions of symbols and beliefs, world. stands ready to be tapped by those who wish to Often religious nationalism is "ethno- develop a new framework of ideas about social ideological” in that it is both ethnic and order. In the case of the former Yugoslavia, for ideological in character. Such religious example, the anger of Serbs frequently described nationalists have double sets of enemies: their in the media as the residue of ancient ethnic ethnic rivals and the secular leaders of their own rivalries––is also fueled by an imaginative people. Their efforts at delegitimization are "split" religious myth. The Serb leaders are Orthodox between secular and religious foes. The Hamas Christians who see themselves as surrogate Christ movement in Palestine is a prime example. While figures in a contemporary political understanding waging a war of independence against Israel they of the Passion narrative. A drama and an epic are simultaneously sparring with Yasir Arafat; poem have been invented to retell the New often the attacks leveled at Israelis are also Testament's account of Christ's death in a way that intended to wound the credibility of Arafat's portrays historical Serbian leaders as Christ fledgling Palestinian Authority. It is not a figures, and Muslims in both Bosnia and Kosovo coincidence that the Hamas suicide bombings as Judases. This mythologized dehumanization of aimed at Israelis increased in the months the Muslims allows them to be regarded as a

469 subhuman species, one that in the Serbian fifteen years have had significant social imagination deserves the genocidal attacks of repercussions. The public sense of insecurity that "" that killed so many in the has come in the wake of these changes is felt not darkest hours of the Kosovo conflict and the only in the societies of those nations that are Bosnian civil war. As these cases show, there is economically devastated by the changes–– often a fine line between ethnic and ideological especially countries in the former Soviet Union–– forms of religious nationalism. but also in economically stronger areas as well. In general, ethnic religious nationalism is The United States, for example, has seen a easier for modern Americans and Europeans to remarkable degree of disaffection with its political understand, even though it may be just as violent leaders and witnessed the rise of rightwing as ideological nationalism. The London terrorist religious movements that feed on the public's bombings by the Irish Republican Army after the perception of the immorality of government. At cease-fire broke down in February 1996, and the the extreme end of this religious rejection are the Sri Lankan Tamils' suicide attacks that militant Christian militias and cults such as demolished downtown Colombo in January 1996, Waco's Branch Davidian sect. Similar movements are examples. Yet these acts of violence are have emerged in Japan, which is also experiencing understandable because they are aimed at a disillusion about its national purpose and destiny. society that the terrorists regard as exerting direct As in America, the critique and sectarian military or political control over them. The experiments with its alternatives often take violence of ideological religious movements is religious forms, including new religious focused on those who are ideologically different– movements such as Soka Gakkai, Agon-shu, and –secularists––and whose control over them may the now infamous Aum Shinrikyo. be cultural and economic, and therefore less The global shifts that have led to a crisis of obvious. But their impact on the changing shape national purpose in developed countries have, in a of global politics is perhaps even more profound. somewhat different way, affected developing nations as well. Leaders such as India's Jawaharlal The Logic of Ideological Nehru, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Iran's Religious Nationalism Riza Shah Pahlavi had once been pledged to creating versions of America––or a kind of cross Since the mid-1980s, I have been following between America and the Soviet Union––at home. movements of ideological religious nationalism in But a new generation of leaders is emerging in various parts of the world with the hope of countries that were formerly European colonies, discerning common patterns or themes within and they no longer believe in the Westernized them. Although each movement is shaped by its vision of Nehru, Nasser, or the Shah. Rather, they own historical and social context, there are some are eager to complete the process of common elements due in part to the massive decolonization. They want to assert the economic and political changes of this moment in of their countries' own traditional values in the history, an experience that has been shared by public sphere, and to build a "postcolonial" many around the world. What follows, then, is an based on indigenous culture. This attempt to identify the stages in development of eagerness is made all the more keen when ideological religious nationalism that has resulted confronted with the media assault of Western from this common experience, beginning with the music, videos, and films that satellite television disaffection over the dominance of modern now beams around the world, and which threaten Western culture and what is perceived to be its to obliterate local and traditional forms of cultural political ally, secular nationalism. expression. The result of this disaffection with the culture Despair over Secular Nationalism of the modern West has been what I have called a "loss of faith" in the ideological form of that The shifts in economic and political power culture, secular nationalism. Although a few years that have occurred following the breakup of the ago it would have been a startling notion, the idea Soviet Union and the sudden rise and fall of has now become virtually commonplace that Japanese and other Asian economies in the past nationalism as we know it in the modern West is

470 in crisis, in large part because it is seen as a imperialism to think of them in any other way. cultural construction closely linked with what Those who hold this view would solve the Jürgen Habermas has called "the project of problem of secular nationalism by replacing what modernity." Increasingly we live in a they regard as an inappropriate religion, multicultural, postmodern world where a variety "Westernism” with Islam or some other religion of views of nationhood are in competition, and the related to the local population. very concept of nationalism has become a matter At the same time that religion is solving of lively debate among scholars. It has become political problems, politics can help to solve even more important––a matter of political life religious ones. In the view of Messianic Zionists and death––to leaders of nations that are still such as Dr. Baruch Goldstein and his mentor, struggling to establish a sense of national identity, Rabbi Meir Kahane, for example, the redemption and for whom religious answers to these questions of the world cannot take place until the Messiah of definition have extraordinary popular appeal. comes, and the Messiah cannot return until the biblical lands including the ––are Seeing Politics in a Religious Way restored to Jewish control. "Miracles don't just happen," Kahane said in a conversation in The second step in the development of Jerusalem a year before he was assassinated in ideological religious nationalism is the perception New York City by Muslims associated with Sheik that the problem with politics is, at some level, Omar Abdul Rahman's New Jersey mosque. religious. This means "religionizing" politics, as I Referring to the return of the Messiah, which he described it earlier in this essay, in two ways: by felt could only come after Jews had created the showing that political difficulties have a religious right political conditions, Kahane said, "Miracles cause, and that religious goals have a political are made." solution. If one looks at politics from a religious Some Messianic Jews think that the correct perspective, it may appear that secular nationalism conditions for the return of the Messiah include has failed because it is, in a sense, religiously the reconstruction of the Jerusalem temple inadequate. As one of the leaders of the Iranian described in the Bible on its original site––now revolution put it, secular nationalism is "a kind of occupied by the Muslim shrine, the Dome of the religion." He went on to explain that it was not Rock. Some of these activists have been only a religion but one peculiar to the West, a implicated in plots to blow up the shrine in order point that was echoed by one of the leaders of the to hasten the coming of the Kingdom. One who Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Behind this charge served time in prison for his part in such a plot is a certain vision of social reality, one that said that the rebuilding of the temple was a involves a series of concentric circles. The "national obligation" for the sake of redemption, a smallest are families and clans; then come ethnic political position for which Israel should make groups and nations; the largest, and implicitly "no compromise." most important, are religions, in the sense of Religious activists who embrace traditions global civilizations. such as Millenarian Christianity and Shiite Islam, Among these are to be found Islam, which have a strong sense of the historical , and what some who hold this view call fulfillment of prophecy, look toward a religious "" or "Western civilization" or apocalypse that will usher in a new age. The "Westernism." Particular nations such as leader of Aum Shinrikyo, borrowing Christian Germany, France, and the United States, in this ideas from the sixteenth century French astrologer conceptualization, stand as subsets of Nostradamus (Michel de Nostredame), predicted Christendom/Western civilization; similarly, the coming of Armageddon in 1999 in the form of Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, and other nations are World War III after which the survivors––mostly subsets of Islamic civilization. From this vantage members of his own movement––would create a point, it is both a theological and a political error new society in the year 2014, led by Aum-trained to suggest that Egypt or Iran should be thrust into "saints." Activists in other religious traditions may a Western frame of reference. In this view of the see a righteous society being established in a less world, they are intrinsically part of Islamic, not dramatic manner, but even Sunni Muslims, Western, civilization, and it is an act of Hindus, and Buddhists have articulated a hope for

471 a political fulfillment of their notions of religious when both the Shah and President Carter were society. They believe that "dharmic society can be referred to as Yazid (in this context an "agent of established on earth" as one activist Buddhist satan"). "All the problems of Iran" the Ayatollah monk in Sri Lanka put it, by creating a religious Khomeini elaborated, are "the work of America." state. By this he meant not only political and economic problems but also cultural and intellectual ones, Identifying the Enemy fostered by "the preachers they planted in the religious teaching institutions, the agents they Perceiving politics in a religious way leads to employed in the universities, government the next step, identifying who or what religious educational institutions, and publishing houses, power is at fault when things go wrong. In a and the Orientalists who work in the service of the religionized view of politics, the root of social and imperialist states." The vastness and power of political problems is portrayed in religious terms. such a conspiratorial network could only be An opposition religious group––perhaps a explained by its supernatural force. minority group such as the Tamils in Sri Lanka, or the Coptic Christians in Egypt––is sometimes The Inevitable Confrontation targeted as the corrupting influence in public life. Or the foe of religion may be seen as irreligion––a Once the enemy of religion has been force opposed to religion altogether. The secular identified, the fourth step follows naturally: the state could fit either of those categories, idea of cosmic war. There are parallels in many depending on whether one sees it as the outcome religious movements to the idea of the coming of a "religious" tradition––"Westernism"––or as Armageddon that was feared by both Christian the handmaiden of those who are opposed to militia members in the United States and members religion in any form. A great many religious of the Aum Supreme Truth in Japan. Rabbi Meir activists regard anyone who attempts to curb the Kahane, for instance, spoke of God's vengeance influence of religion––for example, by promoting against the Gentiles, which began with the a civil society shaped by secular values––to be humiliation of the pharaoh in the exodus from opposed to religion. Hence anyone who Egypt more than three thousand years ago and encourages is, in a sense, a religious continues in the present with the humiliation of foe. Arab forces that resulted in the creation of Israel The most extreme form of this way of and would come to a head in what Kahane thinking is satanization. Some members of the expected would be a great struggle against Arabs Christian militia in the United States refuse to pay and other corrupting forces in Israel in the near taxes in part because they feel that the government future. "When the Jews are at war" Kahane said, is controlled by an evil foreign power. During the "God's name is great." Another Israeli activist early days of the Gulf War in 1991, the Hamas explained that "God always fights against His movement issued a communiqué stating that the enemies” and that militants such as himself "are United States II commands all the forces hostile to the instruments of this fight." Islam and the Muslims" and singled out George Elsewhere I have argued that the language of Bush, who, it claimed, was not only "the leader of warfare––fighting and dying for a cause––is the forces of evil" but also "the chief of the false appropriate and endemic to the realm of religion. gods." As this communiqué indicates, this line of Although it may seem strange that images of reasoning often leads down a slippery slope, for destruction often accompany a commitment to once secular institutions and authorities begin to realizing a more harmonious form of existence, loom larger than life and take on a satanic luster, there is a certain logic at work that makes this the conclusion rushes on that secular enemies are conjunction natural. In my view, religion is the more than mortal foes: they are mythic entities language of ultimate order and for that reason and satanic forces. provides those who use it with some way of Even in 1997, Iranian politicians, without a envisioning disorder, especially the ultimate trace of hyperbole, could describe America as the disorder of life: death. Most believers are "Great Satan." This rhetoric first surfaced in Iran convinced that death and disorder on an ultimate during the early stages of the Islamic revolution scale can be encompassed and domesticated.

472 Ordinarily, religion does this through images wanted to precipitate a confrontation where none projected in myth, symbol, ritual, and legend. The had existed, or rather––in their mythologized view cross in Christianity is not, in the eyes of the of the world––to bring to public attention the fact faithful, an execution device but a symbol of that an extraordinary war, albeit an invisible one, redemption; similarly, the sword that is a central was raging all around them. Their acts would symbol of both Islam and Sikhism is proudly bring this cosmic confrontation to light. worn by the most pious members of those faiths not as weapons of death but as symbols of divine The Future of Religious Nationalism power. Thus violent images are given religious In a strange way, the point of all this terrorism and meaning and domesticized. These violent images violence is peace. Or rather, it is a view of a are usually symbols––such as the cross, or historic peaceful world that will come into being when the battles, or mythical confrontations––but cosmic war is over, and when the vision of occasionally the image of symbolic violence is not righteous order held by militant religious a picture or a play but a real act of violence. The nationalists triumphs. The leader of the policy sacrifice of animals and, of course, human wing of the Palestinian Hamas movement told me sacrifice are examples from ancient traditions. that the bombings in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Today conceptual violence can be identified with elsewhere would ultimately "lead to peace." The real acts of political violence, such as leader of Japan's Aum Shinrikyo––convicted for firebombings and political assassinations. his alleged masterminding of the subway nerve These religious acts of political violence, gas attack––prophesied that after a colossal global although terribly destructive, are sanitized by conflict around the year 2000 involving nerve gas virtue of the fact that they are religiously and nuclear weapons, a thousand years of peace symbolic. They are stripped of their horror by would be ushered in, led by the coming of a new being invested with religious meaning. Those who messiah who would establish a "paradise on commit such acts justify and therefore exonerate earth." them because they are part of a religious template What is common to these and virtually all that is even larger than myth and history: they are other "terrorists"––as those of us who experience elements of a ritual scenario that makes it possible their shocking violent actions usually regard for people involved in it to experience the drama them––is their self-conception as peacemakers. of cosmic war. They are soldiers in a war leading to peace. What For that reason, it is necessary for the activists they do not agree on, however, is the kind of who support such acts of terrorism to believe that peaceful world they want to bring about. This a confrontation exists, even when it does not difference in political goals is caused not only by appear to, and even when the other side does not a difference in religious backgrounds but by an seem to provoke it. When one visits Gaza, one can uncertainty about what form of politics is most feel a tremendous sense of anticipation among appropriate to a religiously defined nation. many proHamas activists that the real battle for Yet the prognosis for peace in a world freedom is yet to come, coupled with a deep increasingly filled with religious nationalists is disappointment over the superficial freedom guarded. Ideological religious nationalism is a resulting from the peace efforts of Yasir Arafat. It strident and difficult force in contemporary world was as if the peace that Arafat was entering into affairs. As I have described in this essay, it had been purchased too cheaply: it had not come follows a process that begins with a disaffection as the result of an extraordinary denouement. with secular nationalism, then moves to They expected––perhaps even wanted that perceiving politics in a religious way, identifying eschatological moment of confrontation: some mortal enemies as satanic foes, and envisioning great war that would usher in the beginning of the world as caught up in a cosmic confrontation, their new age. The suicide attacks carried out by one that will ultimately lead to a peaceful world young and remarkably committed Palestinians in order constructed by religious nations. The result the months before and after the January 1996 of this process is a form of global order radically elections were in some sense attempts to deny the different from secular versions of globalization, a very normalcy that elections imply. It is as if they difference so severe that it could usher in a new

473 cold war, an ideological confrontation on virtually the Soviet and American models of nationhood, a global scale. they turned to their own past, and to their own This process of religionizing politics, cultural resources. however, is still mercifully rare. Most forms of Politicized religious movements are the religion do not lead to religious nationalism. The responses of those who feel desperate and reasons why the process begins and is nurtured are desolate in the current geopolitical crisis. The to be found in the social and historical contexts in problem that they experience is not with God but which it emerges. That is to say that the with politics, and with their profound perceptions religionizing process I have described is largely a that the moral and ideological pillars of social response to social and political crises. This is order have collapsed. Until there is a surer sense certainly the case with the phenomenal growth of of the moral legitimacy of secular nationalism, religious nationalism in recent years. The religious visions of moral order will continue to common geopolitical crisis experienced appear as attractive solutions, and religious throughout the world explains why there have activists will continue to attempt to impose these been so many movements of religious nationalism solutions in violent ways, seeing themselves as in such disparate religions and places within the soldiers in a cosmic drama of political last ten years. redemption. Can these religious nationalists In the present period of social turbulence and succeed? Certainly for a time. They may terrify political confusion––which the collapse of the political leaders, shake regimes to their Soviet Union and the decline of American foundations, and even gain the reigns of power in economic power have created around the world–– unstable states such as Iran. But it remains to be it was inevitable that new panaceas would emerge seen whether nations can long endure with only that involved religion, sometimes perceived as the the intangible benefits that religious solutions only stable rudder in a swirl of economic and provide. political indirection. Moreover, as nations rejected

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