The Global Impact of Religious Violence

Gagne, Loumakis

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781498283069
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Acts of terror are everywhere! Not one day goes by without hearing about the latest suicide bomb in Baghdad, knife stabbing in Germany, or shooting spree in France or in the United States. A Christian extremist preacher claims that homosexuals deserve to die because he considers their lifestyle to be sinful; groups like ISIS perpetrate genocide against religious minorities and call for global jihad against infidels; Buddhist monks in Myanmar persecute the Rohingya for fear that the Muslim minority destroy their country and religion. All these actions seem to be somehow religiously motivated, where the actors claim to act in accordance with their beliefs. In the midst of this spiral of violence seen across traditions and geographical locations, there is a pressing need to understand why people act as such in the name of their faith. The Global Impact of Religious Violence examines why individuals and groups sometimes commit irremediable atrocities, and offers some solutions on how to counter religiously inspired violence.

1

Tyranny of Political Correctness and Religious Violence

André Gagné

There is currently a need for more scholars of religion and scriptural studies to speak on the rapport between religion and violence in a globalized world. Since 9/11, politicians, security experts, and even academics have been reluctant to attribute certain atrocities to religious thinking. Some purposefully avoid using the expression “religious violence” because they believe there is an “‘abuse’ of religion for the purposes of committing and justifying violence,” or that “violence does not immediately originate from the various holy books or religious traditions.”1 It is a way to somehow avoid attributing violence directly to religion. To partially disculpate religion, people simply recast “religious violence” as “violence in the name of religion” or even try to rule out the notion of “religion” from the equation.2 The basis for some of these arguments is that “religion” should be understood as a Western construct, comparable to capitalism, liberalism, or Marxism for example. The problem with this approach, as we will see, is that it does not take into account how people engaged in what is considered to be “religious violence” actually understand their own actions. Scholars who complain about the colonialism of the West3 can also become colonialists4 if they attribute intentions foreign to those who actually engage in violent actions. A recent research paper also stresses the idea that one should not deny the possibility that ISIS fighters have religious motivations for their actions:

Based on past debates about radicalization and the intersection between belief and jihadist recruitment, it seems likely that at least some observers will conclude from these documents that ISIS and its recruits are cynically using religion or that the phenomenon really has nothing to do with religion. However, such a conclusion would be unwarranted based on the evidence available, and takes a far too simplistic approach to understanding the complexity of the Shariah and Islamic knowledge in general. The relative weakness of someone’s knowledge of the Shariah does not necessarily say much about how religious they are or want to be. For one thing, a depth of knowledge of the Shariah is not particularly common for observant Muslims, and it is in many ways a construct of outsiders to think that it should be. . .Limited knowledge of an area of Islam traditionally left to dedicated experts says little about the contours of individual religious belief; if anything, it reflects our own projections onto others about modernity and education. . .we should not discount the role that faith plays in motivating the decisions of ISIS recruits, a faith that may not be dependent on specific religious knowledge or that may actively discount certain interpretations over others, even if these recruits do not think highly of their own learning in the Shariah.5

As an example of this, it has been well attested that the establishment of the so-called Islamic State was founded on the religious apocalyptic worldview of its shadow leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri, after the death of AQI’s (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) Abu Mas‘ab al-Zarqawi in June 2006.6 As an expression of Zarqawi’s desire to establish a caliphate, Masri went along with this idea fervently nourished by his own apocalyptic mindset and his belief in the imminent coming of the Mahdi, an end-time Islamic savior.7 The apocalypticism espoused by Masri led to catastrophic policy making and was sharply critiqued by certain jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, as well as by some leaders of al-Qaeda. They considered some of Masri’s actions as contrary to Islamic doctrine. Both sides used aspects of the same tradition in order to legitimize their actions. Masri’s apocalyptic mindset could also be found in Islamic Scriptures, mainly the ahadith, despite the fact that some opposed his ideas and interpretations of the tradition. In any case, this so-called caliphate is the result of religious belief.

Since 9/11, it has been difficult to address the issue of violence with respect to Islam, and the recent surge of Islamist groups, such as ISIS, Boko-Haram, Al-Shabab, and others, has made things even worse. Despite these difficulties, some scholars of religion have engaged in the academic study of religious violence.8 Muslims and ex-Muslims in North America, Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East9 have also been speaking out against Islamism, even if they encounter strong opposition from politicians, artists, and even scholars. In the aftermath of the recent terror attacks in Europe and elsewhere, it is quite surprising that very few scholars of religion and scriptural studies have been at the forefront of public discussions surrounding religion and violence.10 In the West, there are notable exceptions, especially in France, where some intellectuals and scholars11 have been publically engaged in confronting religious extremism and finding solutions to the growing problem of radicalization among youth. But, even in such instances very few specialists, if any, trained in religious studies and/or scriptural studies have been consulted on such relevant questions related to their field of research. It is partially in response to a lack of engagement from scholars of religion and scriptural studies that a colloquium on religious violence was held at Concordia University in Montreal in 2015. The responsibility that is incumbent on scholars to explain how religion and violence are sometimes related has been noted by Hector Avalos in the past:

As an academic scholar of religion, it is my responsibility to analyze how religion may contribute to the detriment or well being of humanity based on verifiable facts and reason. For the same reason, in order to make any progress in ameliorating the problem of violence, one has to confront violence in each religion in a frank manner.12

This is what I believe to be an important role scholars have to play in today’s world. Avalos is correct when he says that certain scholarship can sometimes be irrelevant.13 This is why students preparing for graduate work—Masters or PhD—should be asked “why?” they wish to pursue such an endeavor. This is especially true when it comes to the...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• List of Contributors
• Introduction: Religion and Violence on the Global Scene
• Chapter 1: Tyranny of Political Correctness and Religious Violence
• Chapter 2: Apocalypses and Superhero Mythology
• Chapter 3: The Common Good Gone Bad
• Chapter 4: Genocide and Religion in Rwanda in the 1990s
• Chapter 5: Discourse of Sacrifice
• Chapter 6: Is There Such a Thing as a Radicalized Brain?
• Chapter 7: Religion and Violence
• Chapter 8: Secularized Theology and the Propensity for Violence in the Modern State
• Chapter 9: The Global Impact of Religious Violence