RELIGIOUS , , AND PEACE A RESPONSE TO MARK JUERGENSMEYER

Gerrie ter Haar

Introduction

Professor Mark Juergensmeyer has provided us with an insightful address on a topic of the greatest importance. This concerns a eld in which he has made an indelible mark already, notably through his book Terror in the Mind of , in which he analyses the contemporary use of by religious believers and in different religious traditions.1 In a similar vein he makes a number of important and interesting points in his keynote address. They are made in the course of addressing two questions that he sets out with great clarity. First, he asks why is implicated in violence. And secondly, he wonders why is this happening now. In this response I will limit my observations to these two central issues. I will particularly comment on certain aspects of the relationship between religion and politics, which is so central to the contemporary debate. I will not dwell much on the question of religion and violence as such, not because this is unimportant, but because most people who have a basic understanding of religion as a social phenomenon are fully aware of the fundamentally ambiguous nature of religion. There are certainly some people in the world who believe that religion is always a force for good, in the same way as there are some who believe that it is invariably a negative element in society. It is easy to demonstrate from history that religion has a recurrent connection to violence. In fact, violence has always been part of the religious imagination, as Mark Juergensmeyer has pointed out. By the same token, religion is morally ambiguous, as it is—unlike what many people may prefer to think, especially in Europe—neither inherently good nor inherently bad, and may serve different interests. In this respect, we may say, religion is like politics. Both religion and politics legitimise the use of

1 Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of , Berkeley: Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003 [3rd ed. revised and updated; originally published in 2000]. 20 gerrie ter haar violence in particular circumstances with reference to the fact that we are not living in ‘normal’ circumstances, and that exceptional condi- tions require exceptional measures.2 Personally, I would say that the ‘global war on terror’ is a good example of the latter type of reason- ing. Hence, religion and politics may have more in common than may appear at rst sight.

Religion and Politics

Nowadays, it is often commented upon how much religion has become politicised, especially with reference to . To a large extent this is an awareness that has grown since the 9/11 attacks in the United States and subsequent events, which mark the dramatic escalation of a political process in which the gap between different civilisations has deepened. In the popular view, this gap is often represented in terms of a religious con ict, adding substance to the idea that religion is often a root cause of the violent con icts that affect our world today. In other words, there is a widespread that religion has become politicised in recent years. Bearing this in mind, it is striking how Professor Juergensmeyer has reversed this idea. He suggests that it is not so much religion that has become politicised, but politics that have become religionised. This being the case, he argues, worldly con icts have been turned into sacred , and this makes violence perpetrated in the name of religion extraordinarily dif cult to counter. This is an interesting perspective that underscores the reality that religion is becoming the political language of the twenty- rst century. It also highlights the fact that religion and politics constitute alternative sources of power, located in the material and spiritual spheres respectively.3 Both sources of power can be drawn upon for political purposes. It is precisely because they are competing powers that religion and politics are always in an uneasy relationship. It is important to realise in this respect that for most people in the world ‘religion’ refers to a way of viewing the world, rather than to

2 See R. Scott Appleby, ‘, human rights and social change’, in Gerrie ter Haar and James J. Busuttil (eds.), The Freedom to Do God’s Will: Religious and Social Change, London and New York: Routledge, 2003, pp. 197–229, notably at p. 200. 3 Cf. Stephen Ellis and Gerrie ter Haar, Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa, London: Hurst & Co./New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.