Fw: Why religion has become the new politics

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From: "WHALE Center"
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Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 1:59 PM
Subject: Why religion has become the new politics


> Why religion has become the new politics
>
> Financial Times. [Commentary]. Stephen Ellis, Gerrie Ter
> Haar 18/01/2005.
>
> Religion is the emerging political language of our time. In the United
> States and the Middle East this is clear, but also throughout most of
> what we used to call the third world. Even in Europe, which introduced
> the separation of church and state, religion is taking on a new
> significance through the political expression of Islam.
>
> One of the best places to see how religion operates as a political
> idiom
> is Africa. Everywhere there are signs of religion in public space,
> whether it is rows of kneeling men saying their midday prayers on the
> street in Muslim areas, or the proliferation of churches, especially
> Pentecostal and charismatic ones. There are also visible revivals of
> traditional religion, including in the numerous private armies whose
> young
> fighters wear amulets for spiritual protection. The media are full of
> religious stories, often concerning witchcraft and frightening spiritual
> experiences. Tales of people who claim to have visited the spirit world
> are common. Often, they concern transactions that determine the
> distribution of power in the material world.
>
> Odd though it sounds, stories such as these are political comments by
> people who believe that all power has its ultimate origin in the spirit
> world. Consequently, they consider spiritual and political power to be
> connected. Many Africans debate issues of governance in spirit terms,
> a
> popular idiom with deep roots in local cultures. Popular stories often
> describe not only corrupt politicians but also international
> institutions,
> including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as
> purveyors
> of evil, without moral sense.
>
> The separation of religious from political thought was invented in the
> west and exported to the rest of the world in colonial times. However,
> most Africans believe in the existence of a spirit world that is
> distinct but not separate from the material one, one that affects their
> daily lives. In fact, this is the sense in which people in most
> continents
> experience religion - as a world of spiritual beings, to paraphrase the
> Victorian anthropologist Edward Tylor. Most westerners do not think of
> religion in this way. For them, religion is more a matter of ultimate
> meaning.
>
> To believe in invisible forces that govern our lives is not at all
> eccentric. Some would argue that this is what capital is. In this view,
> the manipulation of spiritual forces is essentially no different from
> speculation on international markets. In both cases, gains and losses
> depend on interaction with an invisible force. Intrinsic
> to Europe's financial revolution more than three centuries ago was the
> use of mathematics as a way of calculating risk, prompted by a new
> theology emerging from the Reformation. The spirit of capitalist
> enterprise was originally associated with a religious view of the world.
>
> In most of the world, the current religious revival and its political
> consequences have to be understood by reference to colonial conquest.
> There was nothing novel about being ruled by foreigners in most of the
> territories colonised by European powers in the 19th and 20th
> centuries.
> Nor was foreign influence unprecedented in places that were never
> formally
> colonised, such as Turkey or China. What was new about
> the European imperialism of those days was the eventual attempt by
> metropolitan powers to modernise and develop traditional societies. This
> was often associated with an ideology of the civilising mission, but it
> was above all an attempt to develop colonial resources for the benefit
> of
> the imperial rulers.
>
> The golden decades of African economic development were the 1950s and
> 1960s, during the longest and widest economic boom in the history of the
> world. Millions of people moved from villages to towns. Many gained
> salaried employment. They sent their children to school. Development
> planners generally saw this as a movement from tradition to modernity
> but
> neglected the spiritual aspect of this transition, seeing religion as an
> obstacle to progress. But for many people, it now transpires, progress
> is
> not a material issue alone. Moreover, development has too often failed
> to
> deliver even the material benefits it promised. The end of the cold war
> and the new wave of democratisation made space for the re-emergence of
> religious ideologies. The current resurgence of religion is a modern
> attempt to harness traditional resources for contemporary use.
>
> Religion has emerged as a new global language also because both the
> White House and al-Qaeda see themselves as locked in a cosmic struggle
> between good and evil. When they insist that the world is either for
> them
> or against them, they create a risk that political and social struggles
> everywhere will be redefined as religious battles. Politicians may
> encourage such a stark approach as a way of gaining support.
>
> Religion is simultaneously a way of understanding the world and of
> relating to other people. These are important ways in which it is allied
> to politics. This fact alone should impel us to understand this new
> idiom.
>
> The writers are co-authors of Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and
> Political Practice in Africa, (Hurst/OUP 2004)
>
>
>


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