Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States (Palgrave Studies in Populisms) 9819942616, 9789819942619

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Tables
1 Civilizational Populism in Nation-States and Democracy
Introduction
Civilizational Populism in Nation-States
The Populist and Civilizationalist Populist Challenge to Democracy
Description of Chapters
References
2 Civilizational Populism: Definition, Literature, Theory, and Practice
Introduction
Populism
Civilizational Populism
Civilizational Populism Beyond the Western “Christian” Context
Turkey
India
Myanmar
Conclusions
References
3 USA, France and Poland: Christian Civilizational Populism
Introduction
Civilizational Populism in the USA: The Trump Administration
The “Muslim Ban”—Executive Order 13769
Judeo-Christianity in Trump’s Foreign Policy
Civilizationism in France: National Rally
The National Front
Marine Le Pen’s Civilizational Populism
Civilizational Populism in Poland: Law and Justice Party
Civilizationism in Jaroslaw Kaczyński's and PiS' Discourse
Discussion
Conclusions
References
4 Turkey: Islamist Civilizational Populism
Introduction
The Fall of Secular Nationalism and Rise of Islamism and Neo-Ottomanism in Turkey
Civilizationism in Turkish Domestic Politics
Civilizationism in Turkish Foreign Policy Discourse
Civilizationism Within the AKP’s Transnational Populism
Conclusion
References
5 Pakistan: Islamist Civilizational Populism
Introduction
Birth of Populism and Civilizationism in Pakistan
The Early Populists and Traces of Civilizationism
Populist Civilizationism in Post-9/11 Pakistan: PTI and TLP
Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaaf
Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP)
Conclusion
Appendix A: List of Bhutto’s Speeches, Addresses and Works
Appendix B: List of Imran Khan’s Speeches, Tweets and Statements
Appendix C: TLP’s Populist Islamist Civilizationism
References
6 Malaysia: Islamist Civilizational Populism
Introduction
Malay–Chinese Relationship
Populism and the Institutionalization of Islam
Islamist Populists' Reaction to Obstacles
Domestic Democratization and Islamist Populism
Islamist Civilizationism in Malaysia: A Discussion
Conclusion
References
7 Indonesia: Islamist Civilizational Populism
Introduction
Islamism in Indonesia After the Fall of Suharto
Islamism and Populism in Indonesia
Populism in Contemporary Indonesia
Front Pembela Islam (FPI) History and Ideology
The FPI’s Populist Instrumentalization of the Ahok “Crisis”
The Influence of the FPI’s Civilizational Populism on Mainstream Indonesian Politics
Understanding the Role of Civilizationism in FPI Discourse
Conclusion
References
8 India: Hindu Civilizational Populism
Introduction
Hindu Civilizationism
Akhand Bharat
Golden Age
Denigrating Mughals
Hindutva’s Pseudo Science
Promotion of Sanskrit
Hindu Civilizationism in Hindutva Party Manifestos
Hindu Mahasabha Election Manifesto 1967
BJS Election Manifesto 1967
BJS Election Manifesto 1971
BJP Election Manifesto 1984
BJP Election Manifesto 1996
BJP Election Manifesto 2009
BJP Election Manifesto 2019
Conclusion
References
9 Sri Lanka: Buddhist Civilizational Populism
Introduction
Civilizational Populism: Religion, the People, and Belonging Beyond and Within the Nation-State
Populism, the People, and the Enemy “Other”
Civilizational Populism
Colonial Rule and Early Buddhist Civilizational Populism
Religion, the Nation, and Civilizational Populism in Contemporary Sri Lankan Politics
Conclusions
References
10 Israel: Jewish Civilizational Populism
Introduction
Zionism
Jewish Civilizationism of Israel’s “secular” independence leaders
Declaration of Independence (1948)
The State Symbols
Revival of Ancient Hebrew
First Debate in the Knesset (1949)
The Law of Return (1950) and Nationality Law (1952)
Israeli State’s Denial of the Existence of an Israeli Nation
Nation-State Basic Law
Yom Haatzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day)
Israeli banknotes Iconography
Conclusion
References
11 Civilizational Populism and Democracy
References
Index

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN POPULISMS SERIES EDITOR: IHSAN YILMAZ

Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States Edited by Ihsan Yilmaz

Palgrave Studies in Populisms

Series Editor Ihsan Yilmaz, Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia

This Palgrave Macmillan book series addresses the phenomenon of populism which has become part of mainstream politics. Its contested meanings and various shapes inform many aspects of political and social life across the world. In some cases, it emerges in the form of an individual leader; in others, in the form of a social movement or a political party. It is thus important that we understand not merely its defining features and causes, but also its relationship with other social phenomena. While populism’s relationships with globalisation, nationalism, and race are regularly discussed in scholarly literature, there is still need and also great interest in studies that look at different manifestations of populism in different parts of the world and in relation to a rich variety of contexts, polities, religions, and movements. This series includes works on political science, political psychology, sociology, anthropology, political economy and theology. It makes a significant contribution to populism studies and literature from different angles. There is an enormous interest among the scholars from different backgrounds in studying populism and this books series is an important avenue of publication for their studies.

Ihsan Yilmaz Editor

Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States

Editor Ihsan Yilmaz Alfred Deakin Institute Deakin University Burwood, VIC, Australia

ISSN 2731-3069 ISSN 2731-3077 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Populisms ISBN 978-981-99-4261-9 ISBN 978-981-99-4262-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Özgür Kesedar/EyeEm/Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Acknowledgments

This book contains revised versions of previously published Open Access material in the following articles: Chapter 2: Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Nicholas Morieson. 2022. “Civilizational Populism: Definition, Literature, Theory, and Practice” Religions 13, no. 11: 1026. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13111026. Chapter 3: Morieson, Nicholas. 2023. “Understanding Civilizational Populism in Europe and North America: The United States, France, and Poland” Religions 14, no. 2: 154. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel140 20154. Chapter 4: Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Nicholas Morieson. 2023. “Civilizational Populism in Domestic and Foreign Policy: The Case of Turkey” Religions 14, no. 5: 631. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel140 50631. Chapter 6: Shukri, Syaza. 2023. “Islamist Civilizationism in Malaysia” Religions 14, no. 2: 209. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel140 20209. Chapter 7: Yilmaz, Ihsan, Nicholas Morieson, and Hasnan Bachtiar. 2022. “Civilizational Populism in Indonesia: The Case of Front Pembela Islam (FPI)” Religions 13, no. 12: 1208. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel 13121208. Chapter 8: Saleem, Raja M. Ali. 2023. “Hindu Civilizationism: Make India Great Again” Religions 14, no. 3: 338. https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel14030338. v

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter 9: Gamage, Rajni. 2023. “Buddhist Civilisational Populism in Sri Lanka: Colonial Identity Formation, Post-War Othering, and Present Crises” Religions 14, no. 2: 278. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel 14020278. Chapter 10: Saleem, Raja M. Ali. 2023. “Jewish Civilizationism in Israel: A Unique Phenomenon” Religions 14, no. 2: 268. https://doi. org/10.3390/rel14020268.

Contents

1

1

Civilizational Populism in Nation-States and Democracy Ihsan Yilmaz

2

Civilizational Populism: Definition, Literature, Theory, and Practice Ihsan Yilmaz and Nicholas Morieson

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USA, France and Poland: Christian Civilizational Populism Nicholas Morieson

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Turkey: Islamist Civilizational Populism Ihsan Yilmaz and Nicholas Morieson

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Pakistan: Islamist Civilizational Populism Ihsan Yilmaz, Fizza Batool, and Kainat Shakil

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Malaysia: Islamist Civilizational Populism Syaza Shukri

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Indonesia: Islamist Civilizational Populism Ihsan Yilmaz, Nicholas Morieson, and Hasnan Bachtiar

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India: Hindu Civilizational Populism Raja M. Ali Saleem

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CONTENTS

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Sri Lanka: Buddhist Civilizational Populism Rajni Gamage

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Israel: Jewish Civilizational Populism Raja M. Ali Saleem

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Civilizational Populism and Democracy Ihsan Yilmaz

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Index

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Notes on Contributors

Hasnan Bachtiar is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Islamic Studies, University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), Indonesia. He is also a Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia. Currently, he has worked as a casual research assistant to Prof Ihsan Yilmaz at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization. Since 2020, he has been appointed as a Research Director at the RBC Institute Abdul Malik Fadjar and a Research Assistant to Prof Pradana Boy at the project of the Radicalization, Secularism and the Governance of Religion: Bringing Together European and Asian Perspectives (GREASE) in Indonesia, coordinated by European University Institute (EUI), Florence, Italy. He holds LLB majoring in Islamic law from UMM and Advanced Masters from the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies (CAIS), the Australian National University (ANU). Dr. Fizza Batool is a Policy Researcher and Academic, with research interests bordering on Democratization in South Asia, Comparative Politics, and Peace Studies. At present, she is serving as an Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at SZABIST while regularly contributing research papers and blogs in different periodicals. She has previously served as a Project Manager at Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Peace, Security, and Development Studies (CPSD). In 2020, she was the South Asian Visiting Fellow at Stimson Center, Washington DC.

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Rajni Gamage is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore (NUS). She graduated with a DPhil in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Queensland, Australia in 2022. Her research focus is on authoritarian politics, populism, and the politics of development in Sri Lanka and internationally. Her Ph.D. was a critical political economy analysis of the authoritarian populist Mahinda Rajapaksa regime in Sri Lanka, titled Nation as Village: Historicizing the Authoritarian Populist Regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka. Among her publications are “Buddhist nationalism, authoritarian populism, and the Muslim Other in Sri Lanka,” Islamophobia Studies Journal (2021), “Sri Lanka – Annual Threat Assessment,” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyzes (CTTA) (2023), and “Authoritarian politics and gender in Sri Lanka: A critical survey,” Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Sri Lanka (forthcoming). Dr. Nicholas Morieson is an Associate Research Fellow at The Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization, Deakin University, Melbourne. He is the Author, with Ihsan Yilmaz, of Religions and the Global Rise of Civilizational Populism (Palgrave MacMillan) and the Author of Religion and the Populist Radical Right: Secular Christianism and Populism in Western Europe (Vernon Press). Raja M. Ali Saleem is currently working with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a consultant. He has graduated from the University of Manchester, the University of Calgary, and George Mason University. Previously, he was an Associate Professor (Public Policy) at Forman Christian College University, Pakistan. He is a former civil servant and has more than 25 years of diverse experience in government and academia. He has consulted and worked on projects funded by World Bank, ADB, United Nations, CIDA, GiZ, USAID, FCDO, etc. His research focuses on religious nationalism, populism, the relationship between church and state in India, Pakistan, Turkey, Israel, local governments, public financial management, and democratic consolidation. In 2020, Dr. Saleem was a Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford. He is also a nonresident Senior Research Fellow of the European Center for Populism Studies, Brussels. His first book, State, Nationalism, and Islamization: Historical Analysis of Turkey and Pakistan, was published by PalgraveMacmillan in 2017.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

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Kainat Shakil is a Ph.D. Student and a Research Assistant at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization, Deakin University. Her PhD research focuses on themes of populism, gender, and citizenship with a focus on Muslim-majority countries. Her research interests also focus on populism. She is affiliated with the European Center of Populism Studies as a non-resident research associate. Previously, Kainat worked at a Pakistan-based think-tank—where her work has focused on reviewing public policies from a people-centric perspective for better public representation, ownership, and participation. Her consultancy works for the Governments of Punjab and Balochistan focused on exploring opportunities for human development. Syaza Shukri is an Associate Professor at the AbdulHamid AbuSulayman Kuliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia. She continues to do research in comparative politics, especially on democratization and identity politics in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. She has published numerous works on her research interests in various forms. Syaza is also a regular Commentator on local politics in Malaysian media. Ihsan Yilmaz is Research Professor of political science and international relations at Deakin University’s ADI. He is also a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Oxford University’s Regent College and Brussels-based think tank, the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). Previously, he worked at the Universities of Oxford and London and has a strong track record of leading multisite international research projects to successful completion. At Deakin, his projects have been funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Department of Veteran Affairs, Victorian Government, and Gerda Henkel Foundation. He has recently been working on authoritarianism, digital authoritarianism, populism, transnationalism, religion and politics, soft power, and sharp power, with special emphasis on Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan. He is currently leading two ARC Discovery projects: “Civilizationist Mobilization, Digital Technologies and Social Cohesion: The Case of Turkish & Indian Diasporas in Australia” and “Religious Populism, Emotions and Political Mobilization: Civilizationism in Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan.” He is also co-leading a Gerda Henkel Foundation (Germany) project: “Smart Digital Technologies and the Future of Democracy in the Muslim World.”

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table 5.1 Table Table Table Table Table Table

8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6

Comparing the case studies Summary comparison of populist civilizationism of by TLP and PTI Hindu Mahasabha (1966 manifesto) BJS (1967 manifesto) BJS (1971 manifesto) BJP (1996 manifesto) BJP (2009 manifesto) BJP (2019 manifesto)

93 155 247 248 249 249 250 251

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CHAPTER 1

Civilizational Populism in Nation-States and Democracy Ihsan Yilmaz

Introduction In a number of different political, religious, and geographical environments, populists have achieved political and electoral success by claiming that corrupt elites have created an existential crisis within the nation that threatens to destroy the identity, culture, and heritage of “the people.” This type of populism often incorporates claims that the people of the world can be classified by religious identification, and within several religion-defined civilizations, each possessing values inimical to some or all others. This “civilizational populism” is increasingly evident through the world, and common in the populist discourses of parties in Europe, India, Sri Lanka, Israel, and in several Muslim majority nations. Civilizational populists posit that democracy ought to represent the “will of the people” but attach a new element: a civilization-based classification of people. In most cases of civilizational populism, religion plays

I. Yilmaz (B) Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_1

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the defining role in the delineation of boundaries between civilizations, and as a result, civilizational populism is usually deeply connected with a particular religious identity. Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity have been instrumentalized by civilizational populists, who attempt to use religion to define the boundaries of people, nation, and civilization. The purpose of this book is to explore the rise of civilizational populism in democratic nation-states across the world. The book, therefore, discusses the civilizational aspect as an attribute of the worldwide populism phenomenon. It is intended to enrich our understanding of populism, a complex phenomenon understood differently by different scholars. The book will also contribute to the discussions on populism as an expression of nativism or xenophobic nationalism that incorporates the narrative of civilizationism. It will furthermore contribute to the literature on religion and politics by showing how religion in democratic nationstates is used as an element in the civilizational narratives for populist mobilization. This volume examines civilizational populism across a wide variety of physical, political, and religious geographies, to comprehend the phenomenon, how widespread it might be, how it succeeds, and why it appears to be increasing in political significance worldwide. In particular, the book investigates the relationship between civilizational populism and religion, crisis, and nationalism in a variety of contexts. While other books discussing the relationship between religion and populism claim that populists merely co-opt religion, this volume attempts to go deeper and show how, at times, religious groups may co-opt populism to gain political power. The volume also discusses the complex relationship between civilizational populism and nationalism and shows how nationalists often use civilizational identity to help define ingroups and outgroups within their own society. Finally, the book shows how the construction of crisis is a key element of civilizational populism, especially the construction and perpetuation of a master narrative, which frames global and domestic political events as part of a clash of religion-defined civilizations. Despite ruling over multireligious democratic nations, many powerful ruling populists, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have employed civilizational populism, and mobilized their supporters against the fellow citizens from other religions within the same democratic nation-state. This is real and is happening in real time. However, studies on this phenomenon are

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very limited in numbers, are not detailed, and do not look at all these cases holistically, let alone compare them. And while, in their book, Yilmaz and Morieson (2023) examine almost all major world religions with the civilizational populism lens. This edited volume investigates the same phenomenon at the level of democratic nation-states and analyzes a different democratic nation-state in each chapter. Thus, the two books complement one another and together provide of a holistic picture of civilizational populism across the world.

Civilizational Populism in Nation-States Populism has been defined in several ways, but the most commonly used definition is Mudde’s: a “thin ideology” separating society “into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (Mudde 2004, 543). Because it is a thin ideology, populism must be linked with a thick ideology such as socialism, nationalism, fascism, neoliberalism, or religion (Yilmaz and Morieson 2021) for content. Even though both left and right populisms are characterized by the antagonistic pitting of the people vs the elite, “the populist radical right is distinguished by the presence of the ‘Other’” (Sengul 2022, 3). Populists make use of crises or perception of crises in society. They may even perform a crisis to convince the public that they, their countries, lifestyles, etc., are in existential danger since these have been put at risk by “elites” and “dangerous others.” In response, they must elect a populist government that will “save” the public from the existential threat(s) (Moffitt 2016). One particular form of populism, which categorizes people according to their civilizational identities, has been influential in recent years (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023, 4). This civilizationism, when incorporated into populism, plays “a similar role to other ideas and ideologies that may be adhered to populism and which give its signifiers (i.e., ‘the pure people’, ‘corrupt elites’, ‘dangerous others’) meaning” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023, 4). Brubaker (2017, 1211) has identified how, inside the discourses of several populist parties in Europe “the boundaries of belonging and the semantics of self and other are reconceptualized in civilizational terms.” By this, he means that where populist parties had previously sought to define ingroups and outgroups within the nation through ethnic or racial

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identity. They now apply a civilization-based classification to all people to determine who belongs to the nation and who does not belong. Other scholars have confirmed the civilizational element within the populist discourses of the French National Front/National Rally, the Alternative for Germany, the Dutch Party for Freedom, and Hungary’s Fidesz Party (Brubaker 2017; Kaya 2021; Kaya and Tecman 2019; Morieson 2021). In each of these populist parties’ discourses, Muslims are framed as belonging to a foreign civilization possessing values incompatible with Europe’s Christian or Judeo-Christian culture. These parties also call for the cessation of Muslim immigration to their respective nations to defend (Judeo-)Christian Western civilization from the threat posed by Islam and Muslim immigrants and condemn government “elites” for permitting—or even encouraging—Muslims to immigrate to the West. Civilizational populists assert the incompatibility of different cultures and religions and are alarmist about ‘dangerous’ other civilizations. Religion, in most cases, plays a defining role in delineating the boundaries between these civilizations in the civilizational populist narratives (Yilmaz and Morieson 2021). As a result, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity have used by populist parties and movements to define the boundaries of people, nation, and civilization (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023, 7). Civilizational populism is defined by (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022) “as a group of ideas that together considers that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people, and society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’ who collaborate with the dangerous others belonging to other civilizations that are hostile and present a clear and present danger to the civilization and way of life of the pure people” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023). Civilizationalist populism, furthermore, “allows populists to frame ‘elites’ as morally bad insofar as they have betrayed and abandoned the values and culture of the people’s civilization. Equally, ‘others’ within the same society are framed as morally ‘bad’ because they belong to a foreign civilization with inferior values derived from an inferior religion” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023, 5). Equally, civilizational populists “claim that the nation and ‘the people’ are threatened by people belonging to a foreign civilization (e.g., Islam, ‘the West’) who with the help of traitorous elites are invading their society and destroying its core values and identity” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023, 8).

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The scholarship on civilizational populism has hitherto largely focused on the Western world, and on the “hijacking” of Christianity as a civilizational identity by right-wing populists. Yet civilizational populism is evident throughout the globe, though it is most often unrecognized by scholars. Yilmaz, for example, has examined the civilizational populism of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The AKP, having defeated its secular Kemalist rival parties, constructed a new non-secular populist ideology for Turkey, which “involved Islamist elements such as neo-Ottomanism, conservatism, and growing pious generations” (Yilmaz 2018, 54), and portrayed Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “the voice of deprived ‘real people’ and enemy of ‘elites’” (Yilmaz 2018, 54–55). The AKP, once ensconced in power, framed non-Muslims and Muslim enemies of the regime as threats not merely to the nation, but also threats to Islam and the ummah (the worldwide body of Muslims). At the same time, Erdogan portrayed himself and his party as leaders of the Islamic world and encouraged his supporters to be willing to sacrifice their lives in a cosmic battle between Islam and “dark forces” including the Christian West and Israel (Yilmaz and Erturk 2021). In India, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is inspired by Hindutva, a type of Hindu Nationalism, and applies a religion-based classification of people to define who belongs to India and who must be excluded (Saleem 2021; McDonnell and Cabrera 2019). The BJP define contemporary India as an extension of ancient Hindu civilization, which they seek to revive (Saleem 2021; McDonnell and Cabrera 2019). At the same time, they claim that Muslims belong to a foreign civilization and religion with values antithetical to the core values of Hinduism, and therefore, seek to exclude Muslims from the public sphere, and sometimes, endorse the destruction of Mosques and violence against and murder of Indian Muslims (McDonnell and Cabrera 2019). In each of these cases, national belonging is defined in civilizational terms, and civilizations are themselves defined largely by religion. In turn, religious identity appears highly important to civilizational populists, who use it to help construct the ingroups and outgroups crucial to populism. Yilmaz and Morieson (2023, 7) argue that “rather than worldwide civilizational conflict, the future is more likely to bring about conflict within states over their civilizational identity.” In many nation-states, populist leaders, parties, and movements are employing a civilization-based classification of their domestic populations to define the identities of “the people” and their enemies (i.e., opposition) within the borders of nation-states (Yilmaz

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and Morieson 2023, 7). In these narratives, there is an international and transnational dimension (Löfflmann 2022; Wajner 2022), and there are external hostile powers, enemy nations, and civilizations. However, rather than pursuing an active fight against these, mostly imagined, civilizational enemies, the populists focus their energies on the domestic puppets and pawns of these hostile actors. Thus, this book analyzes a different nation-state in its each chapter to show how different religions have been used by civilizational populists to undermine and “securitize” (Yilmaz and Shipoli 2022) their political opponents or sociopolitical and ethnoreligious minorities. Thus, in addition to their attacks on democratic institutions that will be briefly discussed below, the populists try to destroy democratic politics by aiming to eliminate the other political parties, opponents, and dissidents with the help of civilizational populist securitization.

The Populist and Civilizationalist Populist Challenge to Democracy When attacking “elites,” the populists often also attack institutions. Because populism defines democracy as the expression of the will of the people, populist governments often claim that they know the will of the people, and therefore reject checks and balances on their power claiming that these are merely examples of elites attempting to obstruct or deny the people’s will. As a result, despite their support for democratic rule, populist often move nations along a path toward dictatorship and away from free and fair elections, rule of law, and the separation of powers. Populists thus “undermine formal institutions such as the courts, legislatures, and regulatory agencies as creations of the ‘corrupt elite’ (Grzymala-Busse et al. 2020, p. 1). In democracies, this also means attacking democratic institutions such as judiciary and media. When they are in power, populists therefore often do serious harm to democratic institutions and thus, democracy. This is tragic in the sense that populists often come to power following a period of corrupt government, or following a period of serious misrule, and promising to return “power to the people.” Yet, once in power, as the many examples in this volume show, populists often turn authoritarian and attack institutions that protect democratic politics, pluralism, and the rule of law. Since the turn of the century, the number of populists in power around the world has significantly increased. From Latin America to

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Western Europe, and from Central and Eastern Europe to Asia, populist parties have won significant election victories or found ways to pressure governments into giving into populist demands, or mimicking populist discourses (Kyle and Gultchin 2018). As a result, there is now a growing literature on populists in power (Albertazzi and McDonnell 2007; Kriesi and Pappas 2015; Pappas 2014; De La Torre and Lemos 2016; Yilmaz 2018; 2021; Lewis et al. 2019; Enyedi and Whitefield 2020; Shakil and Yilmaz 2021; Saleem 2021). This literature has shown that after gaining power, populists try to change the constitutions, modify electoral laws, curtail the power of the independent judiciary, media, and civil society organizations, or try to co-opt them by demonizing these institutions as conspiring with external enemies that desire to divide and rule their country (see for example Batory 2016; Yilmaz 2021). The election of an outsider who mobilizes voters with an antiestablishment appeal is a major catalyst for the emergence of competitive authoritarianism. As winners of democratic elections, they do not constrain themselves and weaken formal institutions of liberal democracy (Grzymala-Busse et al. 2020, p. 1). Having an electoral mandate to destroy the “corrupt” elite and facing institutions of horizontal accountability controlled by those elite populists launch attacks on democratic institutions. Thus, when they succeed, weak democracies slide into competitive authoritarianism (Levitsky and Loxton 2013). Furthermore, the populists’ style generally challenges sociocultural standards of “proper behavior” (Ostiguy et al. 2020). Thus, they may possess “bad manners” (Moffitt 2016). This finds resonance in their “dirty institutionality” when they are in power, which refers to populists’ personalism, decisionism, rule-erosion, and antagonism (Panizza and Stavrakakis 2021). All forms of populism challenge liberal democratic values. However, civilizationism and the rise of civilization states present a grave threat to liberal democracy. Thus, when combined with populism, civilizationism produces a dangerous type of politics, insofar as it embeds the antagonistic divisions inherent in all forms of populism inside a civilizational frame and portrays domestic and global political events as part of a clash of civilizations. Civilizational populists thus undermine social cohesion by portraying, for example, minority religious groups as part of a foreign civilization with values antithetical to those of the nation in which they live. Equally, they portray elites as not merely corrupt or out of touch, but as actively seeking to destroy their own civilization either by changing its culture through the introduction of foreign ideas, or by

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replacing their citizens with people who belong to foreign civilizations. Moreover, that civilizational populists today have formed governments in several nations including India, the world’s most populous nation, and have formed powerful opposition parties and movements in many others, including in the largest states in Europe, demonstrates the significance of the phenomenon and the importance of studying its growth and influence.

Description of Chapters Following this introduction, the second chapter examines the key literature, theories, and concepts involved in the book’s examination of civilizational populism. Yilmaz and Morieson investigate the nature of the civilizational rhetoric emerging in several democratic societies in the twenty-first century and argue that this civilizationism is a discourse that uses a religiocivilizational classification of people to define national identity. This chapter discusses the concept of “civilizational populism” and provides an operational definition. It examines how populists incorporate and instrumentalize notions of “civilization” into their discourses. The chapter begins by discussing the concept of “civilizationism,” then describes how populism has been adhered to civilizationism to create a distinct ideology. It first discusses the literature on civilizational populism and shows how it has largely been described as a European and North American phenomenon. It then examines civilizational populism in three key non-Western nations representing three of the world’s major faiths: Turkey, India, and Myanmar. Finally, the chapter defines civilizational populism as a group of ideas that together considers that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people, and society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite” who collaborate with the dangerous others belonging to other civilizations that are hostile and present a clear and present danger to the civilization and way of life of the pure people. The following chapters are case study based and investigate how populists around the world create demand for civilizational populism. Each investigates the precise relationship between civilizationism and nationalism and each polity, and the role the instrumentalization of religion and emotions (via the construction of a crisis) plays in the creation of demand for civilizationism. The case studies also examine how religion

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is instrumentalized by civilizational populists, and how different civilizational populist movements and parties construct civilizational crises and, finally, consider the impact populist civilizationism has upon the polity or polities examined, and in particular the impact civilizational rhetoric has on relations between majority and minority groups, democracy, and pluralism. In the third chapter, Nicholas Morieson examines three manifestations of civilizational populism in three Christian majority Western nations: the Trump Administration in the United States, the National Front/National Rally in France, and PiS in Poland. The chapter asks: What role does civilizationism play in populist discourses? How do the civilizational populists in France, Poland, and the United States define “the people,” “elites,” and “others,” and what are the similarities and differences between the movements examined? The chapter finds that all three movements may be termed “civilizational populists” under Yilmaz and Morieson’s definition. It finds that civilizational populists posit that “elites” are immoral insofar as they have both turned away from the “good” religion-derived cultural values of “the people” and permitted the immigration of people who do not share the religion and values of “the people,” instead belonging to a foreign civilization—Islam—with different and even antithetical values. However, the chapter finds that “the people,” “elites,” and “others” are differently described by Trump, Le Pen, and Kaczynski. ´ In the fourth chapter, Ihsan Yilmaz and Nicholas Morieson investigate whether Turkish populism has undergone a “civilizational turn” akin to what Brubaker, Hayes, and Yilmaz and Morieson have described occurring among populist parties in Europe and North America. The chapter applies Yilmaz and Morieson’s definition of “civilizational populism” to Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) to determine whether the party confirms to this definition. The chapter begins with a discussion on the decline of secular nationalism in Turkey and the rise of Islamism, first in the form of Necmettin Erbakan’s Millî Görü¸s movement and its associated political parties, and later in the form of the related but more successful AKP, which won government in 2002 and has established itself as Turkey’s ruling party. The chapter then examines civilizationism in AKP discourse, especially in the discourse of its leader Erdo˘gan, and finds that not only is it present, but an important element within AKP discourse and ideology. The chapter then examines the impact of civilizationism on Turkish domestic and foreign policy under AKP rule.

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The fifth chapter, written by Ihsan Yilmaz, Fizza Batool, and Kainat Shakil, provides a brief political history of populism in Pakistan. It begins by contemplating the role of key elements such as Islam and civilizationism as co-opting factors in the country. The chapter charts the rise of the first populists, in the aftermath of the 1971 civil war, and continues to discuss political actors reliant on Islamist populism. The main part of the chapter is dedicated to discussing the most iconic populist of Pakistan, Imran Khan, and his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), but also engages with significant political populist actors who are instrumentalizing Islamist civilizationism. These groups include the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), which are also discussed in detail. In addition to examining the populist discourse of these parties, the chapter also considers the role of emotions in creating the public demand for an “ideal” society based on Islam, and in particular, on the early Islamic period. The chapter argues that, when civilizationism is integrated into populist categorization of “the people” and “the others,” it creates a discourse capable of mobilizing support, especially in a conservative society like Pakistan. The chapter finds that Pakistan’s political history has made it a fertile ground for Islamists, and for various civilizational populists, who are taking advantage of this environment. In Chapter 6, Syaza Shukri examines how Islam and ideas of Islamic civilization are used to unite Malaysian citizens, but also “other” and exclude, at times, non-Muslims and non-Malays from mainstream Malaysian society and the public sphere. Shukri shows that by mixing ethnicity and religion, Islamist and Malay nationalist groups, together with their respective leaders, employed populist discourses to ensure the ongoing support of voters, even at the expense of non-Muslim Malaysians. This chapter demonstrates that Islam-based civilizationism is successful in uniting the majority Muslim people in a polarized country like Malaysia when previous policies have failed to foster national unity. As a result, Malay-Muslims have increasingly sought a community beyond Malaysia’s borders, and with the emergence of Islamist politics worldwide, it has become much easier for Malay-Muslim politicians to emphasize the struggle of Muslims globally over that of their own co-nationalists. In Chapter 7, Yilmaz, Morieson, and Bachtiar examine whether a “civilizational turn” has occurred among populist movements in Indonesia. The chapter focuses on Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defender Front/

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FPI) and traces the FPI’s history and influence on Indonesian politics and society. It argues that the FPI has instrumentalized religious discourse and divides Indonesian society into three groups: the virtuous umma, corrupt elites, and immoral internal and external non-Muslim enemies, especially the civilizational bloc “the West.” The chapter shows how the FPI grew in power during the Ahok affair, in which Christian Chinese politician—Basuki Tjahaja Purnama—was accused of blasphemy by Indonesian Islamists, and later convicted on the same charge by an Indonesian court. The FPI portrayed Ahok as a non-Muslim Christian and, therefore, “foreign” enemy who was spreading moral corruption in Indonesia, and governing “elites” as complacent in combating immorality, and positioned themselves as defenders of “the people” or ummah. The chapter finds that the growth of the FPI during the second decade of the post-Suharto period, and their actions in leading the persecution of Ahok, demonstrates a civilizational turn in Indonesian Islamist populism. Raja M. Ali Saleem analyzes, in the eighth chapter, Hindu civilizationism and its key constituent policies and campaigns such as longing for Akhand Bharat, praising Vedic golden age, denigrating Mughals, reviving and mainstreaming Sanskrit, and celebrating Hindutva pseudoscience. He investigates and highlights civilizational rhetoric in the manifestoes of Hindutva parties starting from 1960s to 2019. This chapter argues that Hindu civilizationism is likely to continue to play a major role in Indian politics for the foreseeable future. The ninth chapter by Rajni Gamage discusses the evolution of Buddhist civilizational populism in modern Sri Lankan politics and society. She does this by historicizing early forms of Buddhist civilizational populism in the country, during its occupation by the British Empire during 1815–1945. The chapter shows that some of the key concepts of “civilizationism” central to leading social and political movements in British Ceylon were a result of the disruptions caused by centuries of European colonial rule. Consequently, political frames of identity and belonging that privilege the majority religion have been used by political leaders in the post-independence context, to a considerable degree of success. Gamage discusses what these dynamics mean for representative democracy and issues central to social justice in the post-war context. These insights are useful to understand the impact of the nation’s current debilitating economic crisis on the democratic space and the nuances of future national politics.

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In the tenth chapter, Raja M. Ali Saleem investigates civilizational populism in Israel. He analyzes the Israeli founding fathers’ statements, the Declaration of Independence, Israeli state symbols, the revival of the Hebrew language, the Law of Return, the denial of an Israeli nation, the first debate in the Knesset, Yom Haatzmaut, Israeli banknotes iconography, and the more recent Nation-State Law to demonstrate how Jewish civilizationism is essential to Israel and is old, mainstream, and not exclusively populist. He argues that there are three areas that distinguish the appearance of civilizationism in Israel. First, in contrast to many other countries, civilizationism in Israel is not a new phenomenon. It has been an essential part of Israeli nationalism or Zionism since the early twentieth century. Second, Jewish civilizationism in Israel is an article of faith for all major Israeli political parties. It is not a slogan raised only by the right wing, conservative part of the political spectrum. Finally, while civilizationism is the mainstay of populist leaders, in Israel, populism and civilizationism do not have a recently constructed relationship, because civilizationism is an integral part of mainstream politics. All politicians, populists, and non-populists, must pay homage to Jewish civilizationism in Israel to achieve electoral success. In the final chapter, Ihsan Yilmaz compares and contrasts the findings in the preceding chapters, and reflects on the rise of civilizational populism across the world, and on the impact, it is having not merely on populist parties but on mainstream politics, democracy, and pluralism in a variety of political, religious, and physical geographies.

References Albertazzi, Daniele, and Duncan McDonnell, eds. 2007. Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy. New York: Springer. Batory, Agnes. 2016. Populists in Government? Hungary’s “System of National Cooperation. Democratization 23 (2): 283–303. Brubaker, Rogers. 2017. Between Nationalism and Civilizationism: The European Populist Moment in Comparative Perspective. Ethnic and Racial Studies 40 (8): 1191–1226. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1294700. De la Torre, Carlos, and Andrés Ortiz Lemos. 2016. Populist Polarization and the Slow Death of Democracy in Ecuador. Democratization 23 (2): 221–241. Enyedi, Zsolt, and Stephen Whitefield. 2020. Populists in Power: Populism and Representation in Illiberal Democracies. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Representation in Liberal Democracies, ed. Robert Rohrschneider and Jacques Thomassen. Oxford Handbooks (2020; online edn., Oxford

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Academic, August 6. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198825081. 013.30. Accessed 6 Mar 2023. Grzymala-Busse, Anna, Didi Kuo, Francis Fukuyama, and Michael McFaul. 2020. Global Populisms and Their Challenges. Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Kaya, Ayhan, and Ay¸se Tecmen. 2019. Europe Versus Islam?: Right-Wing Populist Discourse and the Construction of a Civilizational Identity. The Review of Faith & International Affairs 17 (1): 49–64. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/15570274.2019.1570759. Kaya, Ayhan. 2021. The Use of the Past by the Alternative for Germany and the Front National: Heritage Populism, Ostalgia and Jeanne D’Arc. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 31 (2): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14782804.2021.1981835. Kriesi, H., and T.S. Pappas (eds.). 2015. European Populism in the Shadow of the Great Recession. Colchester: ECPR Press. Kyle, Jordan, and Limor Gultchin. 2018. Populism in Power Around the World, November 13. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3283962 or https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3283962. Levitsky, Steven, and James Loxton. 2013. Populism and Competitive Authoritarianism in the Andes. Democratization 20 (1): 107–136. Lewis, P., C. Barr, S. Clarke, A. Voce, C. Levett, and P. Gutiérrez. 2019. Revealed: The Rise and Rise of Populist Rhetoric. The Guardian, March 6. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2019/mar/06/revealed-therise-and-rise-of-populist-rhetoric. Löfflmann, Georg. 2022. ‘Enemies of the People’: Donald Trump and the Security Imaginary of America First. The British Journal of Politics and InterNational Relations 24 (3): 543–560. https://doi.org/10.1177/136914812 11048499. McDonnell, Duncan, and Luis Cabrera. 2019. The Right-Wing Populism of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (And Why Comparativists Should Care). Democratization 26 (3). https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2018.1551885. Moffitt, Benjamin. 2016. The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10. 2307/j.ctvqsdsd8. Morieson, Nicholas. 2021. Religion and the Populist Radical Right: Secular Christianism and Populism in Western Europe. Delaware: Vernon Press. Mudde, Cas. 2004. The Populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition 39 (4): 541–563. Ostiguy, P., F. Panizza, and B. Moffitt (eds.). 2020. Populism in Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach. Routledge. Panizza, F., and Y. Stavrakakis. 2021. Populism, Hegemony and the Political Construction of ‘The People’: A Discursive Approach. In Populism in

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Global Perspective: A Performative and Discursive Approach, ed. P. Ostiguy, F. Panizza, and B. Moffitt. London: Routledge. Pappas, T.S. 2014. Populist Democracies: Post-Authoritarian Greece and PostCommunist Hungary. Government and Opposition 49 (1): 1–23. Saleem, Raja M. Ali. 2021. Hinduism, Hindutva and Hindu Populism in India: An Analysis of Party Manifestos of Indian Rightwing Parties. Religions 12 (10): 803. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100803. Sengul, Adam K. 2022. Performing islamophobia in the Australian parliament: The role of populism and performance in Pauline Hanson’s “burqa stunt.” Media International Australia 184 (1): 49–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1329878X221087733 Shakil, Kainat, and Ihsan Yilmaz. 2021. Religion and Populism in the Global South: Islamist Civilisationism of Pakistan’s Imran Khan. Religions 12 (9): 777. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12090777. Wajner, Daniel F. 2022. The Populist Way Out: Why Contemporary Populist Leaders Seek Transnational Legitimation. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 24 (3): 416–436. https://doi.org/10.1177/136914 81211069345. Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Nicholas Morieson. 2021. A Systematic Literature Review of Populism Religion and Emotions. Religions 12 (4): 272. https://doi.org/10. 3390/rel12040272. Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Nicholas Morieson. 2022. Civilizational Populism: Definition, Literature, Theory, and Practice. Religions 13 (11): 1026. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/rel13111026. Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Nicholas Morieson. 2023. Religions and the Global Rise of Civilizational Populism. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Omer F. Erturk. 2021. Populism, Violence and Authoritarian Stability: Necropolitics in Turkey. Third World Quarterly 42 (7): 1524–1543. Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Erdoan Shipoli. 2022. Use of Past Collective Traumas, Fear and Conspiracy Theories for Securitization of the Opposition and Authoritarianisation: The Turkish Case. Democratization 29 (2): 320–336. https://doi. org/10.1080/13510347.2021.1953992. Yilmaz, Ihsan. 2018. Islamic Populism and Creating Desirable Citizens in Erdogan’s New Turkey. Mediterranean Quarterly 29 (4): 52–76. https://doi.org/ 10.1215/10474552-7345451. Yilmaz, Ihsan. 2021. Creating the Desired Citizen: Ideology, State and Islam in Turkey. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER 2

Civilizational Populism: Definition, Literature, Theory, and Practice Ihsan Yilmaz and Nicholas Morieson

Introduction In the twenty-first century, and throughout a wide variety of geographies and political contexts, “civilizationism,” a political discourse that defines national identity via a civilization-based classification schema, has become an important element of populist political rhetoric. Governing populist parties in India, Pakistan, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, and Brazil, and

This chapter is a revised version of previously published Open Access material in the following article: Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Nicholas Morieson. 2022. “Civilizational Populism: Definition, Literature, Theory, and Practice.” Religions 13, no. 11: 1026. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13111026. I. Yilmaz (B) · N. Morieson Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] N. Morieson e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_2

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opposition and minor populist parties and politicians in France, Britain, Germany, Indonesia, and Australia, have achieved political and electoral success using civilizational rhetoric (Saleem 2021; Yilmaz and Morieson 2021, 2022a, b, 2023; Yilmaz et al. 2021; Barton et al. 2021; Blackburn 2021). In India, Hindu Nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi described contemporary India as the manifestation of ancient Hindu civilization, which is today suffering under the deleterious presence of Islam and other non-Hindu religions (Saleem 2021). Populist politicians in a number of Western European nations have described contemporary Europe as a Christian or “Judeo-Christian and Humanist” civilization threatened by the influx of Muslim immigrants (Marzouki et al. 2016; Morieson 2021; Brubaker 2017). In Central and Eastern Europe, ruling parties in Hungary and Poland describe their nations as bastions of Christian civilization threatened by secularism, liberalism, and progressive ideologies on one side, and radical Islam on the other (Ádám and Bozóki 2016; Stanley 2016). In South America, former Brazilian President Bolsonaro and other members of his party claim Brazil to be part of a wider Judeo-Christian civilization, and that people of other religious traditions are unwelcome or threatening (Garcia 2020; Pachá 2019). In Turkey, President Erdogan claims his nation is the legitimate heir to the Ottoman Empire and the leading state of Islamic civilization (Hazir 2022; Uzer 2020), and portrays the West as an implacable and hostile enemy of Islam and Turkey (Yilmaz 2018). In all of the cases, civilizational rhetoric is used primarily in the domestic political realm, and to define national identity and belonging. In other words, by constructing “the opposition between self and other not in narrowly national but in broader civilizational terms” (Brubaker 2017, p. 1191), predominantly right-wing populist political parties and politicians have used Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity as tools in the service of a program in which religion helps to define national identity. This is perhaps surprising, because when we think of civilizationism in global politics, we might imagine clashing civilizations and global conflict between the core states, as Huntington (1993, 1996) put it, of civilizational blocs of nations. Yet, we do not see this occurring in the world, despite the prevalence of civilizational rhetoric in the domestic politics of democratic nations the world over. What, then, is civilizationism, what is its significance in contemporary democratic global politics, and why has it become a common form of rhetoric among many

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of the world’s democracies? This chapter, a revised and updated version of Yilmaz and Morieson (2022b), attempts to answer these questions.

Populism What is populism? Populism is described in several ways, as a set of ideas or a thin-centered ideology, a type of political strategy, or a discourse, or a style (Gidron and Bonikowski 2013). The most commonly accepted definition describes populism as a group of ideas that together “considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (Mudde 2004, p. 543). However, Mudde argues that “lacking the sophistication of other ideologies like socialism or liberalism,” populism—according to this approach—“is a thin-centred ideology and could be combined with other beliefs and ideas of politics” (la Torre 2019, p. 7). This definition is satisfactory insofar as it identifies the core aspect of populism: the division of society into two categories: “us” and “them,” and acknowledges that populism must always be blended with a “thick” ideology in order to give it content. Aside from this vertical dimension, populism may contain a second horizontal cultural dimension, in which “the pure people” (who are morally good) are distinguished from morally “bad” and dangerous “others” within society who are accused of threatening “the people” and their way of life (Mudde 2017). Mudde (2017) admits that “several ideologies are based upon …opposition between the people and the elite,” including socialism. However, unlike socialism, which is based upon class distinctions between people and elite, populism, Muddle claims, is “based on the concept of morality” (Mudde 2017). In populism, “the people” and “elites” are morally distinct insofar—he argues—as the people are pure and authentic and good, and elites are inauthentic, and therefore, impure and corrupt (Mudde 2017). However, this essential purity is not at its core ethnic or racial, but moral (Mudde 2017). One wonders whether is “moral” element is what makes so much of contemporary populism religious in nature, whether grafted onto a religious worldview, or itself a product of a religious organization. Elites’ immorality stems from their betrayal of “the people.” Indeed, Muddle writes, populists believe that elites come from “the people,” but have chosen to abandon the morals of “the people”

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and betray their interests. Elites, instead, he argues, put their own interests above those of “the people” and live according to a different set of morals (Mudde 2017). Thus, because Mudde (2017) argues, the distinction between “the people” and “elites” is based on morality and not class or ethnicity, millionaires and members of ethnic minorities “can be considered more authentic representatives of the people than leaders with a more common socio-economic status” or who belong to the majority ethnic group. Equally, populism is a form of democratic politics insofar as it sacralizes the “will of the people” and places it above all other considerations, including minority rights and the rule of law. Populism sometimes emerges at times of perceived crisis, and when a government or ruling class is perceived as corrupt, or fails to fulfil their election promises, or when populists can manufacture a sense of crisis among citizens (Moffitt 2015, 2016). Populism is neither an exclusively left-wing nor right-wing phenomenon, but can be grafted onto a left-wing, right-wing, or eclectic agenda. Or, to put it more accurately, populism requires some larger organizing principle or generator of ideological content to define the characteristics of “the people,” and the “elites” and dangerous “others” who are alleged to threaten them. Populism possesses either one or two dimensions (Taguieff 1995, pp. 32–35). Left-wing populism may be socioeconomic and contain only a vertical dimension insofar as it divides societies between “the people” and “the corrupt elite,” or between the people at the top, and those at the bottom. In this schema, “the people” or the virtuous community are the working classes, who are oppressed by a small group of powerful people who illegitimately dominate the economic and political spheres (Kyle and Gultchin 2018, pp. 21–22). Right-wing populism, certain forms of left-wing populism, and populisms that borrow eclectically from across the political spectrum, will often contain a second horizontal dimension insofar as they divide society between “the people” and “others.” They, therefore, take the form of a cultural populism that designates “the people” as the authentic people of the nation, and therefore, “others” ethnic and religious minorities and “cultural elites.” Kyle and Gultchin (2018, p. 21), for example, argue that “cultural populism tends to emphasize religious traditionalism, law and order, sovereignty” and portrays immigrants as an enemy other. Right-wing cultural populism, moreover, they argue, contains three core features: nativism, majoritarianism, and penalism or authoritarianism (Kyle and Gultchin 2018).

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Populism alone does not define the important social characteristics of “the people,” the “corrupt elite,” and “others.” However, blended with a thick ideology or set of ideas,—e.g., socialism, neoliberalism, racism, religion—populist rhetoric becomes a powerful tool of division and social creation. Indeed, in populism “the identity of both ‘the people’ and ‘the other’ are political constructs, symbolically constituted through the relation of antagonism, rather than sociological categories” (Panizza 2005, p. 3). Furthermore, “antagonism is thus a mode of identification in which the relation between its form (the people as signifier) and its content (the people as signified) is given by the very process of naming—that is, of establishing who the enemies of the people (and therefore the people itself) are” (Panizza 2005, p. 3).

Civilizational Populism Civilizationism is an idea that provides the content through which populists can distinguish between “the people,” “elites,” and “others.” For example, populists in Europe and North America have achieved varying degrees of political and electoral success while portraying themselves as defenders not merely of the nation, but of Western “JudeoChristian” civilization (Kaya and Tecmen 2021; Marzouki et al. 2016; Yilmaz and Morieson 2021; Morieson 2023). There is well established and growing body of literature concerning Christian identity populism in Western Europe, much of which describes how right-wing populists across the continent frame Muslim immigrants as threats to Christian or Judeo-Christian identity, culture, and civilization in Europe (Brubaker 2017; Vollard 2013; Marzouki et al. 2016; Roy 2013, 2016; Apahideanu 2014; van Kessel 2016; Brubaker 2017; Ozzano and Bolzonar 2020). In a widely cited paper, sociologist Rogers Brubaker (2017, p. 1193) argued several right-wing populist parties in North-Western Europe can be grouped together insofar as they perceive “opposition between self and other not in narrowly national but in broader civilizational terms.” The “civilizational turn” in European populism is the product of the immigration of large numbers of Muslims to Europe, and the increasingly visible presence of Islam. The growth of Islam in Europe—and the accompanying fall in non-Muslim fertility—has led to a sense among non-Muslim Europeans that their way of life is threatened by Muslim immigrants, who are “taking over” and will soon become the majority population, and who

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belong to an inferior yet powerful civilization (Kluveld 2016). The presence of Muslims in Europe, according to Brubaker, has led to a curious merging of secularism and Christian identity in populist rhetoric. “Just as [Muslims’] religiosity emerges from the matrix of Islam,” Brubaker argues, “so ‘our’ secularity emerges from the matrix of Christianity (or the ‘Judeo-Christian tradition’)” (Brubaker 2016). There is little “religious,” then, about European populist civilizationism, and despite the emphasis right-wing populists place on defending the Judeo-Christian tradition, European right-wing civilizational populism remains a form of nationalism, and should not be understood as an attempt to unite Christians across Europe into a political union (Brubaker 2017). While Brubaker found civilizationism in the populism of NorthWestern European populist parties, Kaya and Tecmen (2019, p. 49) demonstrate that the manifestos of five European right-wing populist parties, “Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany, National Front (FN) in France, Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy, and Golden Dawn (GD) in Greece), employ fear of Islam as a political instrument to mobilize their supporters and to mainstream themselves.” They also demonstrate that “right-wing populist party leaderships across Europe seem to be strongly capitalizing on civilizational matters by singling out Islam,” and in doing so, increase fears that Europe’s Christian heritage and Judeo-Christian traditions are threatened existentially by Muslim immigration (Kaya and Tecmen 2019, p. 61). Furthermore, in Central and Eastern Europe, Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) de-facto leader and co-founder, Jarslaw Kaczynski, ´ portrays Europe as a Christian-based civilization existentially threatened by secular progressive activists and politicians, as well as Muslim immigrants. PiS won national elections in 2016, promising to defend Christianity in Poland, and claimed that one of their goals was to “re-Christianize” Europe (Mazurczak 2019). Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán similarly emphasizes the Christian nature of European “civilization,” which he claims to be defending from globalists, progressive activists and NGOs, and Muslim immigrants (Ádám and Bozóki 2016). It is noteworthy that populists in Western and particularly North-Western Europe portray Christian civilization as the progenitor of the Enlightenment and liberalism, while civilizational populists in Central and Eastern Europe often portray secularists and liberals as enemies of Christian civilization.

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Beyond Europe, United States Republican Party Presidential candidate Donald Trump used civilizational rhetoric during his 2016 campaign. While Trump did not dwell as strongly on civilizational politics as many European populist parties (Brubaker 2017, p. 1207), he described the United States as a Judeo-Christian nation and vowed to protect America from Islam, which Trump claimed, “hates us” (Haynes 2020; Morieson 2023). Trump, like his European populist counterparts, singled out Islam as an enemy civilization. For example, speaking to a largely Hindu audience Trump exclaimed that he was a “big fan of Hindu” (sic) (Haberman 2016). One cannot easily imagine Trump calling himself a big fan of Islam. These examples demonstrate how the incorporation of ideas of civilization, and the clash of civilizations, in European and American right-wing populist rhetoric are well-established in scholarly literature. However, civilizational populism outside these regions is less examined, although there are many examples of the phenomenon. The best example of religious populism displaying civilizational undertones in contemporary Latin America is that of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is a populist (De Sá Guimarães and De Oliveira E. Silva 2021) who has long been supported by “Brazil’s conservative religious groups, such as the Neo-Pentecostal churches and Charismatic Catholics (those who pledge formal allegiance to Rome but adopt Pentecostalstyle worship practices” (Knoll 2019, p. 227). “Bolsonarismo,” Feltran argues, “seeks a major shift away from modern politics,” away from “party mediation,” “law,” “pluralism,” and “the constitution,” and toward “mass movement …male honour …identity …the gospel” (Feltran 2020). As part of this movement, he has described Brazil as belonging to Judeo-Christian civilization, language he has perhaps used to both bind Brazilians of different ethnic backgrounds together, but also to “other” religious and sexual minorities (Garcia 2020; Pachá 2019). Civilizationism is also a component of radical left-wing populist discourses in Latin America. Three politically influential Presidents of Latin American nations, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales, and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, “followed a dual approach of uniting among themselves in the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America— ALBA)” and “played active and leading roles in promoting broader continental unity” (Ellner 2012, p. 104). Having declared “themselves anticapitalist,” the three leaders “often clashed with Washington but also

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act in unison with moderate governments such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay” (Ellner 2012, p. 104). Chavez, Morales, and Correa drew on “the works of the Peruvian intellectual José Carlos Mariátegui,” who “proposed an Indo-American socialism adapted to the social and political reality of the continent,” and called “for the incorporation of indigenous and rural communities as part of the broader class and national struggle” and “recognized the interrelation between race and class in an economic system inherited from the colonial experience and the importance of creating a broad front with which to confront the forces of capital.” Inspired by these ideas, their radical left-wing populism sought to “incorporate previously marginalized peoples, including the indigenous, the Afro-descendent, peasants, women, and workers” and attempted to unite the continent in a struggle against neoliberalism and the United States (Ellner 2012, p. 107). Mudde and Kaltwasser (2013) argue populism in Latin America has often sought to incorporate the marginalized into the category “the people” rather than exclude them in the manner more common to right-wing European populist parties. Chavez, for example, constructed a struggle in which “the people” (i.e., the working classes, indigenous people, black people, peasantry) were pitted against the neoliberal elite and the Americandominated, imperialist, capitalist West (Weyland 2013; Sagarzazu & Thies 2019; Ellner 2012; de la Torre 2007). This struggle was not confined to the domestic realm. According to Kaltwasser (2013, p. 159), “the material inclusion of the poor promoted by Chavez and Morales is directly related to an anti-imperialist rhetoric and their adherence to the ideology of Americanismo, which has its origins in the anti-colonial struggle against the Spanish Empire and defends the existence of a common regional identity between the inhabitants of Latin America.” Moreover, Chavez supported and was supported by anti-Western leaders the world over, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, and Muammar Qaddafi, and attempted to “undermine US influence throughout Latin America and to enlist others to create a united front to that end” (Csmonitor 2013). The concept of “Nuestra América” (our America) is particularly significant in Chavez’ populist discourse. The term Nuestra América, (usually contracted to Nuestramérica) has a long history (Wajner and Roniger 2019, p. 460), but most significantly appeared in an 1891 essay titled ‘Nuestra América by Cuban José” and again in “the essays Temas de nuestra América by Peruvian José Carlos Mariátegui in the 1920s.” In

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“Nuestra América,” “Martí engaged in historical analysis and called on the peoples of the region to unite to retain their independence and deter the emerging North American power (“the tiger out”) and rival European powers (Belnap and Fernández 1998). Martí wanted to strengthen transnational Latin American solidarity, opposing Nuestra América to the other America, the United States” (Wajner and Roniger 2019, p. 460). Nuestramérica thus calls for regional unity for Latin American peoples to unite to defend themselves from the Western civilizational bloc dominated by the United States. Wajner (2022, p. 427) argues that Chavez’ “(re-)articulation” of Latin American “Nuestramérica” based transnational identity is analogous to “Orbán’s promotion of ‘Central Europeanness’, Erdo˘gan’s weaponization of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and Duterte’s identitybuilding in the ‘ASEAN family’.” Chávez and the political movement based on his ideology, Chavismo, may be understood as a form of “transnational identity politics” based on Nuestramerican unity, which has been embraced and spread primarily by Latin American radical left populist parties (Wajner and Roniger 2019, p. 458). Indeed, Chavez instrumentalized a “Nuestramérica”-based transnational identity to legitimize his political project in several ways. Chavez reorganized “existing integration frameworks” within Latin America and created “new regional organizations, which adopted the vision of Nuestramerican solidarity” (Wajner and Roniger 2019, p. 469). These new organizations and projects included “the ALBA Bank and the Bank of the South, the Trans-Caribbean Pipeline, and the Southern Gas Pipeline,” all of which were designed to increase regional unity and independence from the United States and Western-dominated international and transnational bodies (Wajner and Roniger 2019, p. 465). A key part of Chávez “Nuestramérica”-based identity politics discourse was “the negative framing of the ‘Yankees’,” a theme found among many left-wing populist leaders and parties not merely in Latin America but also in Europe, such as Spain’s Podemos and Greece’s Syriza (Wajner 2022, p. 425; Sagarzazu and Thies 2019; Wajner and Roniger 2019). “Yankees” were framed by Chávez as imperialists bent on dominating Latin America (Sagarzazu and Thies 2019), a framing which increased in prominence during periods in which the oil price was low and the Venezuelan economy weak. Chávez’ antiAmerican and anti-Imperialist rhetoric during these periods, Sagarzazu and Thies (2019) argue, was intended to distract voters from Chávez’s failed economic strategy, and to convince them that the United States was

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to blame for Venezuela’s economic problems. Following Chávez’ death in 2013, his successor “Nicolas Maduro and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega recruited a transnational grassroots network to ensure the aesthetics of festive mass mobilisation at their rallies around Latin America, in opposition to unpopular, ‘Yankee’-oriented regional frameworks,” further demonstrating the importance of “Nuestramérica”-based identity politics to the radical left in the region (Wajner 2022, p. 426). It is not merely right-wing populists who instrumentalize civilization-based identity politics, but radical left populists in the Global South, too, incorporate civilizationism within their populist discourses. Furthermore, the rise of a populist right in Latin America that places the continent within JudeoChristian civilization rather than in opposition to it may be a reaction to the failures of Chávez’ “Nuestramérica”-based identity politics. There is a growing body of literature in International Relations on the impact populists are having on international politics, some of which reveals the effects the “civilizational turn” has on populists’ foreign policy. This literature suggests that populists have a perceptible impact on international politics. According to Destradi and Plagemann (2019), “Populists centralise and personalise decision-making” and “seek to differentiate their international relations away from exclusive alliances” reinforcing “a trend towards multipolarity and the centrality of specific thick ideologies. “What emerges,” they suggest, “is a fluid and less intelligible international order, not a radical reconfiguration of world politics driven by populists’ ‘anti-globalism’.” Populists, then, may use foreign policy to construct new national enemies, and through these efforts portray themselves as protecting “the people” from foreign dangers. Indeed, Löfflmann (2022, p. 411) observes that “populists across the political spectrum can use insecurity as an ideational resource to construct the ‘people vs. elite’ struggle as a relationship whereby the existence of the former is threatened by the latter in a variety of ways.” However, populist governments also use insecurity as an ideational resource to construct a “people vs. elites” struggle (Destradi et al. 2022). For example, Foreign policy is often an important area of struggle against “elites” for populists in the Global South. Destradi et al. (2022, p. 475) find that populist Turkish President Erdo˘gan also “emphasises anti-elitism and extensively resorts to the politicisation of Turkish foreign policy by constructing foreign threats.” These foreign threats constructed by Erdo˘gan are often presented in civilizational terms, and as attempts by “the west” or

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“western powers” to dismember Turkey and destroy Islam (Destradi et al. 2022, p. 488). It is interesting to consider whether ruling populist parties, such as Erdogan’s AKP, or perhaps Orbán’s Fidesz in Hungary, externalize their populist rhetoric, portraying not domestic opponents as the “elite” they struggle against, but instead foreign nations, international organizations, foreign NGO, and foreign philanthropists as a broad international “elite” that threatens national sovereignty. What, then, is civilizational populism? Brubaker (2017), Kaya (2021), Kaya and Tecmen (2019), and Yilmaz and Morieson (2021, 2022a, b) have all described the civilizational turn among populists but have not yet provided a succinct definition, which clarifies the concept. Nor has the concept been explored beyond Europe and North America. We understand civilizationism to be playing a similar role to other ideas and ideologies that are adhered to populism and which give its signifiers (i.e., “the pure people,” “corrupt elites,” “dangerous others”) meaning. In other words, in the different forms of populism, thicker ideologies and ideas shape the boundaries of “the people,” “elites,” and “others,” and provide content which describes why “the people” are pure, authentic, and good and why “elites” and “others” are bad and inauthentic. In populism, “the people” are held to be morally good and pure (Mudde 2017). “Elites,” however, are perceived to be morally “bad,” because while they are of “the people” (however defined), they have betrayed “the people” by either introducing an economic scheme contrary to the interests of “the people,” or permitting mass immigration, which threatens the racial purity or cultural hegemony of “the people,” or for some other reason (Mudde 2017). Civilizationism is an idea which posits that the world and its people can be divided into several “civilizations,” most of them defined by religion. Adhered to populism, civilizationism defines self and others not primarily in national terms, but civilizational terms (Brubaker 2017). It gives content to populism’s signifiers by, first, categorizing people via civilizational identity (whether self-imposed or imposed by populists). Second, by framing “the people” as morally good because the civilization to which they belong is morally good and derived from good religious values. Conversely, civilizationism adhered to populism allows populists to portray “elites” as morally bad insofar as they have betrayed and abandoned the values and culture of the people’s civilization. Equally, “others” within the same society are portrayed as morally “bad” because they belong to a foreign civilization with inferior values derived from an inferior religion.

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Civilizationism is often an element of the “thick” ideology to which populism is attached. For example, India’s ruling BJP is deeply influenced by Hindutva, a form of Hindu Nationalism, which is not a form of Hinduism but rather a political project aimed at reviving Hindu culture and civilization (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022a, b). Equally, civilizationism may be an element of an anti-immigrant-based populist program, such as has become common across Europe and among right-wing populist parties including the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Lega Nord, and the Alternative for Germany (Kaya and Tecmen 2019, p. 61). Of course, both populists and non-populists may use a civilizational discourse. However, this chapter shows, populist uses of civilizational discourses differ from non-populist discourses insofar as they use civilizationism to construct internal divisions between an ingroup who they claim belong to “our” civilization (“the people”), and outgroups (“elites,” “others”) who they claim have either betrayed the civilization of the people or belong to a threatening foreign civilization. In contrast, the civilizationalist yet non-populist Putin regime in Russia alleges that Russia is the victim of a civilizational war with the liberal-democratic West but does not attempt to construct a “people vs. elites” struggle within Russia based on civilizational difference (Silvius 2015; Blackburn 2021).

Civilizational Populism Beyond the Western “Christian” Context Turkey Is the civilizational turn evident in right-wing populism in Europe and North America also occurring beyond the West? There is evidence that civilizationism is incorporated into the discourses of populists across a variety of parties in Muslim-majority democracies. This “Islamist populism” (Yilmaz et al. 2021), “is the embodiment of a civilizational aspect of populism within Muslim societies, and that its survival and maintenance are highly dependent on continued antagonism between Islam and its other, the Judeo-Christian West.” “Islamist civilizationalists use Islam and Muslim civilizational identity to frame the vertical and horizontal divides typical of populism” (Barton et al. 2021, p. 397), which frames the struggle between “the people and their enemies (“elites” and “others”) as part of a broader religious struggle between righteous

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Muslims and those outside of/hostile towards Islam” (Barton et al. 2021, p. 397; also see Hadiz 2016, 2018). Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is arguably the most successful Islamist populist party. Following their victory in the 2002 general elections, the AKP ended several decades of secular nationalist rule and implemented—over their two decades in power— a new national ideology that incorporated “Islamism, nationalism, and populism” (Ta¸s 2020, p. 2). The AKP’s populist discourse portrayed party leader and national leader Tayyip Recep Erdogan as “the voice of deprived ‘real people’ and enemy of ‘elites’” (Yilmaz 2018, pp. 54–55). At the same time, Erdogan and his party portrayed certain ethnic and religious minority groups, and political opponents of the AKP government, as threats to Islamic civilization in Turkey, and the pious and good Sunni Muslim Turkish people. To do this, Erdogan and the AKP have played on long-standing Turkish memories of the dismembering of the Ottoman Empire (“Sèvres syndrome”) and encouraged their supporters to view ethnic minorities (Armenians, Kurds) and foreign powers as enemies of Turkey who wish to dismember the country via ethnic separatism (Yilmaz and Shipoli 2022; Jung 2001). The AKP was initially elected as a pro-European Muslim democratic party. However, the party turned sharply toward authoritarian Islamism after 2013 (Yilmaz 2018, 2021a, b). As part of this turn, the AKP has increasingly drawn on Turkey’s Islamic and Ottoman heritage to define national identity and belonging. Moreover, Erdogan rhetorically positions Turkey as the leading nation of Islamic civilization, glorifies Ottoman history, and portrays the dominant West as the source of Turkey’s social and economic problems. In this way, the AKP construes opposition between “self” and the “other” not in a narrow, national manner, but in civilizational terms, and as a battle between the Islamic and Ottoman self and the Western and Judeo-Christian other. Equally, we might understand the AKP as externalizing and internationalizing populism by portraying the West as the “elite” group oppressing the Turkish “people.” Erdogan’s civilizationism is built upon the claim that Islamic civilization is morally, if not materially, superior to Western civilization. For example, in 2017, Erdogan remarked that there is a key civilizational difference between Islam and the West and claimed that Islamic civilization is based on “help for all who need it, treating everyone, even stray animals with compassion. Western civilization directly focuses on the individual, Islamic civilization

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is based upon an understanding comprising each area of social life” (Hazir 2022). At other times, Erdogan has claimed the Ottoman Empire ruled with Islamic values such as “justice,” “toleration,” and “compassion,” but that the West ruled only through violence (Hazir 2022). Unlike the West, he argued in 2014, Islamic society was peaceful and had never known racism (Hazir 2022). Erdogan portrays Turkey as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, describing the country as “heir to a civilization which, having flourished with various cultures, has left its mark on the history of humanity” (Erdo˘gan 2017). Remarking on Turkish people’s duty to perpetuate Islamic civilization, he claimed that “every vision of culture entails a vision of civilization as well, and thus one must also make efforts to build and revive the civilization while thinking over the culture.” This duty to revive Islamic civilization was the responsibility of wider Turkish “society, the business world, NGOs, universities, people of arts and culture” (Erdo˘gan 2017). As part of this process of reviving Islamic civilization Erdogan, in 2022, opened a “Museum of Islamic Civilizations” in Istanbul inside a large mosque, and remarked that the museum “represent[s] the thousand-year accumulation of Islamic civilization, which brought a brand-new face to these lands” (Daily Sabah 2022). Erdogan’s civilizationism also plays a role in legitimizing his government’s foreign and domestic policies. Domestically, Erdogan and the AKP legitimize their banning of opposition groups, and religious minority movements such as the Gülen Movement, by claiming that these acts are necessary defences of Islamic civilization in Turkey. For example, following the failed coup against the AKP government in 2016, Erdogan accused Gülen Movement leader Fethullah Gülen of masterminding the attempt to overthrow Turkey’s government, labeling his movement a terrorist organization and portraying himself as a savior protecting the pious Turkish people (Yilmaz 2021a; Yilmaz and Albayrak 2022). Erdo˘gan later claimed that the failed coup was a “gift from God” that had exposed “traitors” and “collaborators” with Western powers inside Turkey, who would be eliminated by his government (Gotev 2016). The political and economic problems from which Turkey suffers, moreover, are blamed by the AKP and its Islamist allies within the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) on the West, which they allege constructs “dark and evil traps” for Muslims globally (Yilmaz et al. 2021). According to one sermon issued by Diyanet, a state body that regulates Islam in Turkey, “Those who plan to dig pits of fire all around the Islamic world

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have used weapons of sedition, terrorism, and betrayal to cause brothers to hit one another. Using various plots, plans, tricks, and traps, they have targeted our existence and future survival, as well as our freedom and future. They have attempted to bring us, our noble nation, to have been the flagbearer of the Muslim ummah for hundreds of years to our knees” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). In using this language, the AKP and Diyanet portray the world as riven by civilizational conflict between the innocent Islamic world and the treacherous and morally corrupt West. Turkey, as the supposed successor state of the Ottoman Empire, is furthermore portrayed as the “flagbearer” of the “ummah” and the core state of Islamic civilization. Indeed, Erdogan is adamant that “the Republic of Turkey is not our first state,” but that Turkish people “are the heirs of a state that ruled over 22 million square kilometres of land on a global scale. We had a land of approximately 3 million square kilometres just before the foundation of the new Republic; shrinking from there, we are left with 780 thousand square kilometres of land” (Hazir 2022). Neo-Ottomanism is another key element in Turkey’s foreign policy under AKP rule. From the establishing of the Republic to the end of the Cold War, Turkish foreign policy was generally cautious and operated within the constraints placed upon it by the world’s great powers. Equally, because the Kemalists wished to Westernize Turkish society, they were perhaps fearful that greater engagement with Muslim-majority nations in the Middle East might draw Turkish people closer to their Ottoman heritage. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, Turkey found itself presented with new opportunities to increase its sphere of influence across the Middle East and Central Asia, including regions once possessed by the Ottoman Empire (Danforth 2008). ThenPresident Turgut Özal sought to end decades of Kemalist isolation from the Muslim-majority world while also maintaining Turkey’s pro-Western foreign policy and NATO membership (Danforth 2008). Upon their election in 2002, the AKP initially sought to improve relations with the West and join the European Union. AKP foreign minister and, later, Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto˘glu attempted to put Turkey on a new foreign policy path in order that it might “rediscover its historic and geographic identity” and achieve the AKP’s desire to harmonizing “Turkey’s European and Islamic identities” (Danforth 2008, p. 90). However, following the failure of their bid to join the EU, the party began to turn against the West and seek closer relations with Muslim nations. Yet, despite growing antipathy between Turkey and its European and North American allies,

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the AKP chose to remain a NATO member. This might be understood as a pragmatic decision, or recognition that despite the AKP’s increasingly Islamist orientation, Turkey cannot afford to become an enemy of the world’s only superpower or the European Union. AKP rule has seen Turkey involve itself more heavily with the Middle East and broader Muslim majority world than other previous Turkish government. For example, Turkey has used its military to intervene in the Syrian war, where it has attacked Kurdish separatists on a number of occasions. Equally, the AKP-led Turkish government has increased cooperation with Muslim majority Pakistan, Azerbaijan, and Afghanistan. For example, as Yilmaz and Shakil (2021) point out, “the American withdrawal from Afghanistan has also seen these two partners within the ummah take a leading role in negotiations with the Taliban and the Afghan government” (Yilmaz and Shakil 2021). Of course, there are limits to the AKP’s neo-Ottomanism. Erdogan, for example, has been very quiet on the oppression of Muslims in Xinjiang, perhaps due to increasingly close economic ties between Turkey and China. Equally, despite the AKP and its allies claiming that Turkey is the protector of the global ummah, AKP-ruled Turkey has re-established diplomatic relations with Israel, and maintains a close relationship with the anti-Muslim government of Hungary (Daily Sabah 2022). These examples demonstrate that Turkish foreign policy under AKP rule, which influenced by the party’s neo-Ottomanist notion that Turkey is the heir to the Ottoman Empire and thus, the leading nation of Islamic civilization, remains ultimately pragmatic. Moreover, they suggest that Erdogan’s foreign policy rhetoric is designed to fuel Turkish people’s insecurities, and to instrumentalize this “insecurity as an ideational resource to construct the ‘people vs. elite’ struggle as a relationship whereby the existence of the former is threatened by the latter in a variety of ways” (Löfflmann 2022). AKP rule in Turkey is predicated on the party’s ability to convince voters that it represents their voice and will. However, the Turkish economy has suffered since 2018 due to Erdogan’s insistence on keeping bank interest rates low, even during times of high inflation. Erdogan’s economic strategy has caused the Turkish lira to rapidly devalue against the US dollar, creating a debt problem for the country and weakening Turkey’s purchasing power. Yet, according to Erdogan, the devaluing of the lira has nothing to do with Turkey’s unusually low-interest rates, but is rather the result of the United States and other Western powers trying

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to weaken Turkey and bring “its people to their knees” (Voice of America 2018). In 2022, Turkey’s economic problems had deepened, causing public alarm and protests. However, Erdogan responded to public anger by explaining that “The swelling inflation is not in line with the realities of our country,” and that he was protecting Turkey from “foreign financial tools that can disrupt the financial system” (CNBC 2022). According to Erdogan, Turkey’s economic woes stem not from AKP economic police, but from a mysterious “interest rate lobby” working within Turkey, and which does the bidding of a variety of actors including, according to Steven A. Cook (2021) “the CIA, Zionists, the West and the billionaire philanthropist George Soros.” Rather than simply own up to his errors and correct them, Erdogan chooses to blame a shadowy Western economic elite for Turkey’s economic problems, who he claims work with his domestic enemies to weaken the country. It is interesting to observe how, by the 2020s, and perhaps because the AKP has established hegemonic power over Turkey and is almost without a serious political rival, Erdogan portrays not Kemalists but rather Western civilization and its most powerful entities as the ‘elite’ against which he fights on behalf of the Turkish people. Civilizationism plays a key role in legitimizing the AKP’s foreign policy by portraying global political events as part of a clash of civilizations between the “good” Islamic world and the ‘evil’ West, and by portraying Erdogan as a pious defender of all that is good. Erdogan also uses a civilizational discourse when legitimizing and justifying his domestic policies, and his increased authoritarianism and intolerance of dissent and political opposition. By defining Turkish national belonging in a narrow ethnoreligious manner, Erdogan can portray non-Sunni Muslim citizens, secularists, and all political opponents as inherent threats to the authentic and pious Turkish Sunni Muslim people of Turkey, and co-conspirators with foreign forces seeking to dismember Turkey. Finally, Erdogan’s civilizational populism is inherently crisis driven, insofar as it portrays Islamic civilization as under constant attack by foreign (mostly Western) forces, and Turkey as a particular target of Western powers seeking to divide and destroy the Muslim world. India In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won national elections and its leader, Narendra Modi, became Prime Minister of India. Modi, a Hindu

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Nationalist, ran a populist campaign for office in 2014 and in subsequent elections, presenting himself as a humble man of the people who would overthrow the secular elites of the ruling Congress Party and return power to the Hindu people of India, who had long been oppressed by Muslims, the British, and more recently, by Congress (McDonnell and Cabrera 2019, pp. 488–490). The key intellectual influence on the BJP and Modi is Hindutva, a nationalist ideology that claims “that Hindu religious or cultural identity is the national and primary identity of Indians” (Saleem 2021). Popularized and to a significant degree defined by Indian politician and activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1963), Hindutva emerged as an anti-colonial, nationalist ideology in the 1920s. However, Hindutva is not synonymous with Hinduism. Hinduism is often classified as the third largest religion in the world, yet it differs from the Abrahamic monotheistic faiths insofar as it does not possess an obvious founder and is exceptionally plural and fluid in its practices (Jacobs 2010, pp. 6–7). Hindus, though they may practice their religion in a variety of different ways, will often express belief in concepts such as karma, samsara (the cycles of life, death, and eventually rebirth), reverence for cows, and vegetarianism (Flood 1996, pp. 5–8). Due to their diversity of Hindu practices, the state of India does not define “Hinduness,” but rather under the statute of personal laws, Hindus are defined as people born of Hindu parents, or simply as one who does not specifically identify as a member of another religion (e.g., Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity). Hindutva, on the other hand, is a political doctrine or a form of identity politics based around identification with Hinduism. Formulated most precisely in Savarkar’s (2016) influential 1923 pamphlet Essentials of Hindutva (Hindutva defined India as a Hindu land, and described a Hindu as a person who considers India to be their motherland (matrbhumi), their ancestral land (pitrbhumi), and their holy land (punya bhumi). Thus, Hindutva is not a religion, but a political movement with ethnic, cultural, and religious dimensions. Savarkar, indeed, argued that “Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva” (Devare 2013, pp. 195–196). Thus, for Savarkar, Hindutva encompassed “Hinduism”—or the religious aspect of Hindutva—while also encompassing the Hindu people as a race, culture, and ultimately civilization. Indeed, Savarkar complained that “failure to distinguish between Hindutva and Hinduism has given rise to much misunderstanding and mutual suspicion between some of those sister communities that have

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inherited this inestimable and common treasure of our Hindu civilization… It is enough to point out that Hindutva is not identical with what is vaguely indicated by the term Hinduism. By an ‘ism’ it is generally meant a theory or a code more or less based on spiritual or religious dogma or system. However, when we attempt to investigate into the essential significance of Hindutva, we do not primarily—and certainly not mainly— concern ourselves with any particular theocratic or religious dogma or creed…” (Sakarvar 2021, Sect. 31). Savarkar’s Hindutva is, therefore, distinct from the religious practices together identified as Hinduism. Savarkar, for example, does not mention religious belief when he writes of the common bonds Hindus share due to the “love we bear to a common fatherland …the common blood that courses through our veins and keeps our hearts throbbing and our affections warm, but also by the tie of the common homage we pay to our great civilization—our Hindu culture” (Savakar 2009, pp. 94–95). At the same time, there remains a deep connection between Hindutva and Hindu religious beliefs and practices. Throughout the history of the movement, Hindutva-inspired activists have emphasized the importance of Hindu “spiritualists and social reformers” who used their power to encourage Hindus in India to form a “single distinct people” and fight “powerful foreign elites” (McDonnell and Cabrera 2019, pp. 485–486). Yet, Hindutva activists have also proven themselves to be pragmatic and willing to make alliance with non-Hindu movements to achieve political goals. Hindu Mahasabha, a political party inspired by Savarkar and Hindutva, formed a coalition with the Indian Muslim League, and refused to participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930 and the Quit India Movement (Visana 2020; Tharoor 2018, pp. 40–50; Bapu 2013, pp. 26–43; Gondhalekar and Bhattacharya 1999). Perhaps, the most influential Hindutva group throughout Indian history is Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Founded by K.B. Hedgewar in the city of Nagpur, RSS is not a political party, but a welfare and education organization which encourages “proper young Hindus” to embrace authentic “Hindu” traditions as described in the Vedic texts (Chatterji et al. 2020). RSS has a violent dimension insofar as it incorporates military training into its program, activities the group portrays as a method of creating strong and healthy youth capable of defending Hindu culture and values (Andersen and Damle 2019). Possessing perhaps six million members, RSS is a nationalist group which seeks to “remove any nonHindu socio-religious elements from South Asia” (Yilmaz et al. 2021).

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For example, RSS preacher Ramapada Pal teaches “the superiority of the Hindu kingdom,” and claims “If a Muslim living in India chooses their god before India, then why should he be allowed to live in our country? This country belongs to Hindus first” (Nair 2015). Moreover, the RSS official booklet claims “non-Hindus must be assimilated with the Hindu way of life. The words ‘Muslim’ and ‘Christian’ denote a religious phenomenon, while the word ‘Hindu’ is synonymous with the nation. Even in the United States, it is emphasized that non-Americans should be assimilated into ‘Anglo-Saxon’ culture” (Andersen and Damle 2019). A key element in RSS ideology is the belief that the Golden Age of Hindu civilization existed centuries ago during the Vedic period, and that this civilization was brought low by foreign invaders in the form of Muslims and later British colonialism (Leidig 2016). This belief has engendered ahistorical claims that Hindu civilization possessed technology and knowledge lost during the period of invasion (Thapar 2020; Jain and Lasseter 2018; Leidig 2016). RSS, despite not being a political party, has had a profound and increasing impact on Indian politics and society. One RSS member, Narendra Modi, is today Prime Minister of India and leader of the governing BJP. In the BJP, Hindutva and populism have merged into a political phenomenon that has desecularized and de-democratized India. However, it is important to note that the BJP is not an essentially religious party; rather, as a Hindutva-inspired movement, it has a fundamentally civilizational—and thus racial, religious, and cultural—conception of India as the land of the Hindu people. RSS members formed the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS) 1951–1977, intended to be the movement’s explicitly political wing (Carothers and O’Donohue 2020; Lahiry 2005). During Indra Gandhi’s “Emergency” period, the party merged with the Janata Party, forming the BJP in 1980, and over time, largely disassociated itself with RSS. Under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, twice Prime Minster of India (between 1996 and 2004), the BJP was a conservative and Hindu-dominated but not yet populism-oriented party (Yilmaz et al. 2021; Nag 2015). Throughout the 2000s, Vajpayee observed and at times criticized growing extremism in his party, particularly in the form of the increasing power of BJP Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. “I accept the Hindutva of Swami Vivekananda” Vajpayee said, “but the type of Hindutva being propagated now is wrong and one should be wary of it” (Varadarajan 2018). By the time Modi became Prime Minister of India in 2014, the party had transformed into a Hindu Nationalist and populist movement. Modi

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was a controversial figure alleged to have encouraged communal killings of Muslims while Chief Minister of Gujarat, and who refused to nominate any Muslim BJP candidates during the 2012 Gujarat elections (Jaffrelot 2016; Chakrabortty 2014). When campaigning for the BJP in the 2014 national elections, Modi portrayed himself as a humble man who had worked as a “chai wala” (tea seller), and who was fighting corrupt Indian National Congress party elites on behalf of people like himself (Yilmaz et al. 2021; Human Rights Watch 2020; Jaffrelot and Tillin 2017, p. 184). Curiously, Modi also presented himself as a pro-business candidate, promising to implement neoliberal reforms and make India more competitive (Filkins 2019; Jaffrelot 2016). Yet, Hindutva was the key element of Modi’s 2014 campaign. For example, the BJP set up billboards across India depicting a saffron-hued Modi beside text reading “I am a Patriot. I am Nationalist. I am Born Hindu” (Ghosh 2013). Modi was an RSS man and Hindutva devotee, who had as a young man visited the Vivekananda Ashram and—to use his own words—“loitered a lot in the Himalayas,” where he claims to have discovered Hindu spiritualism and “the sentiment of patriotism” and found that the two were essentially the same thing.” Under Modi’s leadership, the BJP merged Hindutva with populism. From Hindutva, the BJP drew an essentially civilizational concept of India, in which Hinduism represented the spiritual aspect of an Indianness which also contained racial, political, and cultural dimensions. Hindutva thus became the “thick” ideology to which populism was adhered, and which gave it the content it required to become political and socially effective. For example, Modi was portrayed by the BJP as a “born Hindu” and thus an “ideal Indian” capable of defeating the corrupt elites and treacherous Muslims who stood in the way of the revival of the hindu rashtra (Hindu kingdom—referring to the Hindu civilization of the Vedic period) (Lefèvre 2020). Indeed, Muslims are portrayed by the BJP as invaders and cultural enemies who must be struggled against to revive Hindu culture (Jaffrelot 2021, p. 188). Or as Waikar (2018, p. 188) puts it, “by labelling Muslims as invaders—thus, fundamentally foreign to the region—Hindutva actors (1) assume the historical people and polities of South Asia to have been held together by a collective consciousness of shared Hinduness (Mahmood 1993), (2) imagine the contemporary nation-state of India as possessing an essential relationship with those polities (Sharma 2011), and thus (3) characterize contemporary Hindus as the natural ‘inheritors of the past and claimants to dominance in the

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present’ because, to them, India has always been Hindu” (Thapar 2014, p. 119). Moreover, like other right-wing populist movements, the BJP sought to construct both vertical (people vs. elites) and horizontal divisions within society. In the case of the BJP, these divisions were defined via Hindutva. Congress party “elites” were not merely corrupt; they were preventing the rejuvenation of the Hindu Kingdom. For example, former Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was called “a shahzada (princeling) of the Delhi Sultanate” by the BJP (Peker 2019, p. 32). On the other hand, the BJP presented itself as the voice of the ordinary person, with Modi as an ascetic and the working class chaiwala who became an “anointed Hindu leader” (Peker 2019, p. 32). Yet, Modi is also portrayed as a holy man “sacralised with a halo indicating Hindu symbolism of gods who glow like surya (the sungod),” and who therefore deserves his position as “the leader” of “the people” (Peker 2019, p. 32). Equally, Muslims and other non-Hindus are portrayed by the BJP as oppressing Hindus and preventing Hindu civilization from rising again to its previous glory. For example, since 2014, the BJP has portrayed itself as “saving” the Hindu people from Muslim aggression through legislation such as the “abrogation of article 370” (which gave special status to Kashmir and Jammu), “the ban on cow slaughter and the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya,” all of which are framed by the party as necessary acts which protect Hindu culture and invalidate the Muslim “invasion” of India (Ammassari 2018, p. 8; Jain and Lasseter 2018). In a similar way, the BJP’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) targets displaced Bengali Muslims and is intended to render them stateless (Amnesty International 2021; Sharma 2020). The abolition of the articles and acts might be understood as part of the Hindutva demand for Akhand Bharat (Greater India), or the restoration of India’s borders to those of the alleged golden age of Hindu civilization (Rashid 2020). What role does civilizational populism play in Indian foreign relations? Destradi et al. (2022, pp. 484–485) argue that Modi’s rhetoric largely ignores foreign policy issues and does not often frame foreign policy issues in “populist terms.” Equally, despite acknowledging “the ascendancy of Hindutva’s civilizational symbolism since 2014,” Chatterjee and Das (2023) find that “India’s south Asia policy shows no paradigmatic change” suggesting that civilizational populist discourse in India is

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confined to the domestic realm. However, the party does project India in international forums as a Hindu nation, and employs “millenniumold traditions of eastern spirituality—exemplified by yoga practices …to highlight India’s cultural and moral superiority” (Haug and Roychoudhury 2023, p. 541). According to Haug and Roychoudhury (2023), “the rise in references to India as representing a Hindu-led civilization has manifested itself in how high-ranking Indian government officials, including Modi himself, have engaged with global spaces. More often than not, Hindu nationalist features have been introduced through tacit messaging.” For example, when attending the World Economic Forum in 2018 “Modi drew on Hindu philosophy to expand on the idea of India’s embodiment of the values of plurality and cooperation, quoting the relevant passage in its original Sanskrit.” Haug and Roychoudhury (2023) explain that this use of Sanskrit was significant because “Hindu nationalists believe that Hindi is the central vehicle for transmitting India’s cultural essence.” Furthermore, Modi attempted to establish an International Day of Yoga at the UN General Assembly in 2013, calling yoga “an invaluable gift from our ancient tradition.” Hindu practices including Yoga and Indian medical treatments “such as Ayaveda” are increasingly invoked, since Modi took office, “as tools to address global development challenges” (Haug and Roychoudhury 2023, pp. 537–538). More controversially, following the “COVID-19 pandemic, actors affiliated to the Indian government have been at the forefront of promoting the tools of ‘Hindu science’,” which they claim can cure the virus or aid patient recovery (Haug and Roychoudhury 2023, pp. 537–538). While the promotion of Yoga and Hindu science may seem benign, they are part of an attempt “to highlight the Hindu credentials of India’s trajectory and link them to Indian aspirations at the international level” (Haug and Roychoudhury 2023, pp. 537–538). Indeed, Modi and the BJP promote the notion that India is a Hindu nation-state or perhaps civilization state, claiming that Hindu Indians are “inheritors of Vedanta philosophy that believes in the essential oneness of all and celebrates unity in diversity: ekam satyam, vipra bahudha vadanti’” (Haug and Roychoudhury 2023, pp. 537–538). “This statement” Haug and Roychoudhury (2023, p. 536) argue, “mobilizes Hindu ideas and symbols to create a ‘we’ group, which, in this diplomatic setting, refers to the nationstate itself.” In this way, culture and territory come together to assert a

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very particularist notion of Indian national identity—essentially a Hinducentric one—on the international stage (Haug and Roychoudhury 2023, p. 536). A key difference between European right-wing populist parties and the BJP is over the issue of immigration. The BJP are not concerned with immigration Islamizing India. Rather, they are concerned with the growth of the existing Muslim population of India, which they appear to consider an existential threat to Hindu cultural hegemony. As part of the party’s attempt to portray Muslims as an existential threat to Hindus and Hindu culture, inter-religious marriage is condemned as “love jihad” when the man is Muslim and framed as an attempt by Muslims to reduce the number of Hindus in India, leading to violence against inter-religious couples (Asthana 2021; Pradhan 2020). Members of the party have also called for birth control programs in Muslim-majority regions of India to reduce the number of Muslims (Quraishi 2021). There is also an international dimension to the BJP’s populist civilizationism reflected in India’s worsening relationship with Pakistan under Modi’s leadership (Pandey 2019). A key element in the BJP’s agenda is the re-education of young people, who are taught to believe the Hindutva version of India’s history. RSS’s Manmohan Vaidya, a BJP ally, claimed that “the true colour of Indian history is saffron and to bring about cultural changes we have to rewrite history” (Jain and Lasseter 2018). The BJP’s rewriting of history involves the construction of a new school syllabus that denies the “existing version of history” (Jain and Lasseter 2018) and instead tells students that modern technology was present during the Vedic period and was in fact invented by Hindus. Indeed, Modi himself claims that Ganesh, the Hindu god with a human body and the head of an elephant, proves plastic surgery was invented by Hindus, that Vedic period Hindus also practiced forms of genetic manipulation and that the Mahabharat depicts airplanes, making Hindus the first people to build flying machines (Rahman 2014). Civilizational populism has proven electorally successful in India in the form of the BJP government led by Prime Minister Modi, and their combining of Hindutva and populism. Hindutva is an inherently civilizationalist ideology. It posits that Hinduism is the religion of the Hindu people, who are a racial and cultural group to whom the land of India is holy and to whom it belongs. Hindu culture and religion, and the land of India, are described together by Hindutva founder Sakarvar as Hindu civilization. Furthermore, Hindutva posits that the key task of the Hindu people is to rejuvenate the ancient Hindu Kingdom and return

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the Hindu people to their former glory. When populism is combined with Hindutva, the result is a discourse that portrays Hindu people as the rightful owners of the nation of India. At the same time, the BJP’s Hindutva-based populism also frames secular elites and non-Hindus, especially Muslims, as foreigners who do not belong inside Hindu civilization, and who are preventing the reviving of the Hindu rashtra. When viewed through the intellectual prism of Hindutva, Hindu things are always “good,” and anything not belonging to Hindu civilization is foreign. Moreover, foreign things viewed positival may be Hinduized by claiming they were invented in ancient times by Hindus. The BJP’s Hindutvabased populism also encourages nostalgia among Hindus for the Vedic “golden age” of Hindu civilization, and teaches followers to believe that Prime Minister Modi is the one man capable of returning India to former glory, giving it the respect it deserves among nations. Myanmar The relationship between Buddhism and populism is rarely studied, and yet, there are concrete examples of Buddhism being instrumentalized by populist leaders in several majority Buddhist nations (Zúquete 2017; Htun 2020; Yilmaz et al. 2021). For example, during Myanmar’s democratization period, a Buddhism-based populist movement emerged which portrayed successive governments as an illegitimate “elite” that permitted the country’s Muslim minority to establish dominance economic over the majority Buddhist population (Htun 2020; Shirley 2016). Equally, there is evidence, for example, that Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar and Sri Lanka are beginning to form a loose transnational alliance to ‘safeguard’ “Buddhist civilization” from its alleged Muslim enemies. While the Buddhist-Muslim conflict in each respective nation is the product of specific historical and contemporary political events, Buddhist nationalists in Sri Lanka and Myanmar alike portray these conflicts as a “clash of civilizations,” and Muslims as a transnational threat to Buddhist culture which requires solidarity among Buddhists to overcome. Myanmar is an ethnically diverse nation which has long relied upon a sense of shared religious identity to bind the population together. Between 1962 and 2011, Myanmar was ruled by the military and its official ideology blended Communist central planning and social controls with Buddhist and Burmese identity politics (Egreteau and

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Robinne 2016; Nakanishi 2013; Aung-Thwin and Myint-U 1992). While Buddhism has long been a powerful force instrumentalized by Myanmar’s political and military elite, the “use of Buddhism in both supporting and opposing political authority” is common in Myanmar (Walton 2015). For example, Burmese anti-colonial activists in the 1940s used the slogan “To be Burmese means to be Buddhist!” (Artinger and Rowand 2021). Later opposition movements, such as the 1988 “8888 Uprising” and the “Saffron Revolution” in 2007, as well as pro-military rule and antimilitary movements following the 2021 military coup, saw Buddhist monks playing key roles (Artinger and Rowand 2021). According to Wills (2017), throughout the 1990s, “Buddhist religious fanaticism with intense Burmese nationalism and more than a tinge of ethnic chauvinism” became increasingly mainstream in Myanmar, while as Walton (2015) argues, “the moral standing of monks comes from their detachment from worldly concerns (including politics) and a presumed lack of self-interested motivations, Buddhist monks in Myanmar have played an increasingly large role in politics over the past three decades, including during the democratic period. At the same time, Myanmar’s monks have justified their political role “with reference to their vocational role as defenders and propagators of Buddhism or their obligation to reduce suffering in the world (Walton 2015). Buddhist nationalist populism emerged during the democratization period in Myanmar (2011–2021), chiefly in the form of two linked movements: the 969 movement and the Organization for the Protection of Race and Religion”/MaBaTha (MBT). The 969 movement was a group of monks and non-cloistered Buddhists who demanded a boycott of all Muslim-owned businesses throughout Myanmar and claimed to be defending Buddhist women from Muslim predators (Bookbinder 2013). The movement is alleged to have been initiated by an ex-monk named Kyaw Lwin, who was made leader in 1991 of the military government’s Department for the Promotion and Propagation of the Sasana (“Sasana” means religion in the Pali language and refers to Buddhism), a body within the Religion Ministry. In 1992, the body produced a book allegedly written by Lwin called “How to live as a good Buddhist” which was republished in 2000 as “The Best Buddhist” and which featured the 969 logo on the cover, numbers with a special meaning to Buddhists (Marshall 2013). The booklet complained that minority Muslims were attempting to take over Myanmar’s economy and, by having more children dominate the Buddhist population demographically (Frydenlund 2018; Moe

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2017; Bookbinder 2013). Lwin’s booklet “urged Buddhists to openly display the numbers 969 on their homes, businesses and vehicles” to help Buddhists avoid Muslims and Muslim-owned businesses (Moe 2017). The booklet had a powerful impact on society, and its anti-Muslim, proBuddhist politics message was adopted by “Buddhist Sunday Schools, volunteer groups, legal clinics, relief campaigns, donation drives, and other community oriented activities” (Thu 2021, p. 205). The public face of 969 was the Monk Ashin Wirathu. Wirathu and his group urged Buddhists to make “three cuts”: “cutting off all business ties; not allowing Buddhists to marry Muslims; and severing of all social relations with Muslims, including even casual conversations” (Moe 2017). Demands of this kind led to Wirathu being imprisoned by the military in 2003, although public pressure led to his release with other political prisoners in 2012 (Hodal 2013). After his release, and with the 969 movement banned, Wirathu formed the MBT and became the movement’s leader. MBT preached “Buddhist conspiracy theories envisioning an Islamic takeover” and described Muslims as terrorists (Artinger and Rowand 2021; Frydenlund 2018; Bookbinder 2013). Equally, MBT portrayed itself as the “protectors” of “the Buddhist identity of the country” (Fuller 2018). In 2013, Wirathu was named “The Face of Buddhist Terror” by Time Magazine, and he has since been referred to as the “Buddhist bin Laden” and a “populist demagogue” (Ellis-Petersen 2019; Safi 2018; Hodal 2013; Marshall 2013; Voice of America 2017). Wirathu’s emotive speeches call for the “promotion of the Buddhist cosmology and code of values, the maintenance of its purity and the preservation of the Buddhist Burmese state” (Biver 2014). Moreover, “The Burmese monks” in MBT “make use of a certain politicized religion that utilizes faith as the basis for the national identity, as well as the source for ultimate values and authority” (Biver 2014). Wirathu claims that Muslims “target innocent young Burmese girls and rape them” (Hodal 2013). His words appear to have encouraged Buddhists to take up arms and riot, targeting the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State. Unsatisfied with the results of the Rakhine State riots of 2012, which displaced 125,000 Rohingya, Wiarthu in 2013 incited more anti-Muslim violence, stating “We [Buddhists] are being raped in every town, being sexually harassed in every town, being ganged up on and bullied in every town” (Hodal 2013; Human Rights Watch 2013). MBT quickly grew influential across the country in the first half of the 2010s, and at times received support from the military-affiliated Union

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Solidary and Development Party (USDP) and Aung Sung Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). Indeed, the movement’s “monks had close personal relations with numerous political parties, including the NLD; and both USDP and NLD politicians made donations to MaBaTha-affiliated monasteries” (International Crisis Group 2017). For example, Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD, afraid of MBT’s growing power, did not nominate Muslim candidates during the 2015 elections, which the party won, leading to “Muslim Free Parliament” (Thu 2021, p. 206). Suu Kyi’s government (2016–2021) also ignored MBT hate speech against Muslims, rhetoric which arguably helped lead to the 2017 genocide of Muslim Rohingya people in Rakhine state (BBC 2018). However, MBT generally supported the pro-military USDP, on the grounds that “it is the only party that can protect the race and religion of the country” (Thu 2021, p. 207). The relationship between the two groups has sometimes proven complex, as MBT—like other populist movements—often portrays the government as out-of-touch elites who are unable to properly protect “the people” from their enemies. For example, MBT pressure on the then USDP government led to the 2015 Race and Religion Protection Laws” which banned interfaith marriage and religious conversion (Carroll 2015). During his campaign to ban interfaith marriage and religious conversion, Wirathu stereotyped Muslim men in speeches as violent and murderous, suggested that Buddhist women who marry Muslims are often killed when they do not follow Islam correctly, and claimed that Muslim violence is a threat to “world peace” (Hodal 2013). His movement also claimed that interfaith marriages ought to be banned because they ultimately increase the number of Muslims in Myanmar, and the country, they claim belongs to Buddhists (Hodal 2013). The establishing of laws preventing interfaith marriage and religious conversion constituted a victory for MBT, which proved it had the power to influence government policy. MaBaTha is not merely a religious organization. Rather, their focus is on protecting Buddhism as a culture and identity and preventing the growth of Islam and the power of Muslims within Myanmar, as much as it is on promoting Buddhism as a faith practice. Anti-Muslim rhetoric, moreover, is a key element of its discourse. In MBT’s conception of Myanmar, the country belongs to the wider Buddhist culture of Asia and is the modern manifestation of the ancient Buddhist civilizations that flourished in the pre-colonial period. Muslim, in this conception, have no place in Buddhist Myanmar, and represent a foreign threat to the

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culture and identity of the nation. In this way, MBT and the 969 movement represent Muslims as an “other” which is an existential threat to the Buddhist “self,” and therefore, must be excluded from Myanmar. At the same time, this struggle is not merely national, but civilizational, and involves a wider struggle between Buddhists and Muslims across Asia. For example, Muslim violence against Buddhists in southern Thailand, clashes between Muslims and the Buddhist Bodu Bala Sena movement in Sri Lanka, and the Taliban’s destruction of Buddhist artifacts such as the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001, appears to have caused some Buddhists in Myanmar to view their own conflict as part of a wider clash of civilizations (International Crisis Group 2017). Furthermore, in 2014, then-969 leader Wirathu and BBS General Secretary Galagoda Atte Gnanasara signed an agreement to work together to “make the entire south and Southeast Asian region a peaceful region devoid of all forms of fundamentalist movements, extremisms and civil or international wars” (Columbo Telegraph 2014). “In order to achieve the said vision,” the agreement proclaims, “Both parties aim to work in collaboration and partnership for the protection, development, and betterment of Buddhists, Buddhist countries, Buddhist heritages and Buddhist civilization” (Columbo Telegraph 2014). BSB and 969 further agree to form a “Buddhist International” to work for greater networking between Buddhist groups throughout Asia, to protect Buddhist archaeological sites, improve “organizational and institutional capacities,” and to “research to stabilize Buddhism” in order to “carry out researches on Buddhist philosophy and subsectors such as economic, social, educational, political derivatives of Buddhist civilization and culture” (Columbo Telegraph 2014). Commenting on the agreement, Wirathu said “today, Buddhism is in danger. We need hands to be firmly held together if we hear alarm bells ringing” (Sirilal 2014). Wirathu also declared, ominously, that “once we [have] won this battle, we will move on to other Muslim targets” suggesting he intends to attack Muslims beyond South Asia and South East Asia (Hodal 2013). Despite advocating violence against Muslims, Wirathu does not portray himself as an inherently violent man, but instead claims that he is forced by the cruelty of Muslims into defending the Buddhist people of Myanmar from their violence, saying “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog” (Ellis-Petersen 2019). “Wirathu’s rhetoric,” journalist Sebastian Strangio (2023) observes, “contributed considerably to an intensification of sectarian tensions in many parts of the country and the military’s

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savage assaults against the Muslim Rohingya communities of Rakhine State in August 2017.” Thus, Wirathu and the Myanmar military worked hand in hand to demonize and then destroy the Rohingya, all while the then governing NLD and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi turned aside and permitted the atrocities to occur. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wirathu justified the mass murder of Muslim Rohingya by claiming violence was necessary to root out terrorism in Rakhine state (Oppenheim 2017). The NLD government, which won national elections in 2020, was evidently concerned by Wirathu’s growing influence and violent rhetoric. Tiring of his provocations, the NLD had the MBT leader charged with sedition on the basis that he encouraged “hatred or contempt” and illegitimate “disaffection toward the government” (Reuters 2020). Wirathu was jailed in November 2020, following a year of attempting to avoid being charged with sedition (Reuters 2020). However, he did not remain in prison long. Following a coup against the NLD government in February 2021, that brought a military junta into power, Wirathu was released from prison, having spent less than a year behind bars (Strangio 2023). Curiously, the military junta kept Wirathu behind bars for several months, releasing him in September, 2021. Since then, the MBT leader has rarely appeared in public (Strangio 2023). This suggests that the military may no longer regard him as useful, or perhaps they remain fearful that his wrath may be turned on them, and desire to keep him firmly under control (Strangio 2023). It may be, then, that fearful of his power and influence, the military rulers of Myanmar today seek to placate Wirathu and avoid conflict with his movement. Perhaps, as part of this appeasing of Buddhist nationalists, the junta plans to build the largest sitting Buddha statue in the world (Al Jazeera 2022). Populist civilizationism is, thus, evident in Myanmar and closely associated with Buddhist nationalism. In the populist civilizational discourses of 969 and MBT and its successor movements, Buddhism throughout Asia is portrayed as threatened by Muslims, and the government of Myanmar alleged to be failing to protect Buddhists and Buddhism from Muslim aggression. Yet, Buddhism is not understood as a mere religion by 969 and MBT members; rather, the religion of Buddhism is considered a part of a greater Buddhist civilization. While primarily nationalist movements, 969 and MBT construe opposition between “self” and “other” not in simple national terms, but in civilizational terms, and as a conflict between the Buddhist self and the Islamic other.

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Conclusions Civilizational populism, this chapter has demonstrated, is not endemic to Europe and North America, but evident beyond the majority Christian West and in the three other most widely followed religions: Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. It is global phenomenon in which national identities are increasingly defined via civilizational belonging, and as products of religion-defined global civilizations. Equally, the importance of the non-religious conception ‘Nuestramérica’ in the radical left populist discourses in Latin America indicates that it is not merely right-wing populists who instrumentalize civilization-based identity politics, but that left-wing populists may also incorporate civilizationism within their populist discourses. Civilizationism when incorporated into populism gives content to populism’s key signifiers: “the pure people,” “the corrupt elite,” and “dangerous others.” In each case studied in this chapter, populists use a civilization-based classification of peoples to draw boundaries around “the people,” “elites” and “others,” and declare that “the people” are pure, good, and authentic because they belong to a civilization which is itself pure and good, and which created the nation and culture which populists claim to be defending. Conversely, civilizational populists describe elites as having betrayed ‘the people’ by abandoning the religion and/or values and culture that shaped and were shaped by their civilization. Equally, civilizational populists describe religious minorities as “dangerous” others who are morally bad insofar as they belong to a foreign civilization that possesses inferior values antithetical to those of “our” civilization. For example, the BJP conceive of Hindus as the authentic people of the land of India, and heirs to the Vedic era civilization that once flourished in the region. The BJP accuses members of the once ruling Congress party of rejecting Hindu culture and embracing secularism, and in doing so betraying the authentic Hindu people of India. At the same time, the party rejects the notion that Muslims belong to India, but instead regards them as a dangerous “other,” which seeks to dominate the nation through “love jihad” and having large families. In Myanmar, the populist movements led by Wiranthu—969 and MaBaTha—frame Buddhists as the “pure” and authentic people of Myanmar, and part of an ancient and widespread Buddhist civilization which is threatened by Muslims, who are portrayed as morally inferior and prone to violence, and who

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seek economic conquest, and government “elites” who betray the interests of the authentic Buddhist people by refusing to take action to stop the Muslim takeover. In Turkey, President Erdogan and his AKP present Turkey as the core state of Islamic civilization, a civilization with superior values to the individualist West. Erdogan invokes conspiracy theories to explain the conflicts in many Muslim-majority societies including Turkey, and claims that the West is conspiring with internal traitors to dismember Turkey and weaken Muslim power. Erdogan increasingly portrays his enemies, including Kurdish activists, secularists, Gülenists, and dissidents in journalism and academia, as not merely enemies of Turkey, but enemies of Islam itself, and therefore as morally bad actors who hate the “good” and superior values of Islam. Civilizational populist rhetoric is especially effective when it involves claims that a crisis of civilizational proportions is occurring, but that the populist movement has a plan to overcome the crisis and return the nation to the glory it enjoyed before the domination of “elites” and people from “foreign” civilizations. The AKP regime has proven adept at portraying domestic and international political events as part of a global conspiracy, which threatens to destroy Turkey and keep the ummah weak and divided. Wars between Muslims are thus presented by the AKP regime as “traps” set by the West to destroy Islam, and internal political problems in Turkey also portrayed as part of an effort by the West to dismember Turkey. At the same time, Erdogan invokes nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire, and promises to create a ‘new’ Turkey which will match the glory of the Ottoman period. In India, the growing number of Muslims, and inter-faith marriages, are portrayed as a national crisis which threatens to destroy Hindu culture. Thus, the BJP government portrays its increasingly anti-Muslim, Hindu nationalist policies as part of a necessary attempt to defend the Hindu people and their Holy lands from Muslim “invaders, and restore to the glory of the Vedic era Hindu Kingdom. In Myanmar, Muslim economic power, and perceptions that the Muslim population is growing—naturally and due to inter-faith marriages—are portrayed as a crisis affecting Buddhists throughout Asia. At the same time, 969 and MBT portray Buddhist Civilization as superior to Islam, and are increasingly attempting to join forces with other Buddhist movements in the region to rejuvenate Buddhist civilization through research, organization, and networking.

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Religion is often a key element in civilizational populism, and the three civilizational populist movements examined in this chapter all incorporate religion into their discourses. Religion often provides identity of the civilizations which the populist movements we examined claim to be defending, and the movements examined patronize and are supported by organized religion, or in the case of Myanmar, themselves involved in organized religion. Religion is also used by civilizational populists to legitimize their actions. However, religious faith is not the most important element in civilizational populism. Rather, religious faith is but one element of a greater civilization which populists claim to be defending. This is most clearly expressed in Hindutva, which is explicit about Hinduism the religion, but an element of Hindu culture and civilization. However, the same notion is present in Buddhist Nationalist efforts in Myanmar to join forces with Sri Lanka’s BBS to promote and defend “Buddhist Civilization” across Asia, and in Turkish President Erdogan’s claims that the values of “Islamic civilization” are superior to those of the West. Civilizationism helps engender forms of transnational populism. This is evident in Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman agenda, in which Turkey is positioned as the leading “Islamic” power, and in Wirathu’s meetings and co-authored agreements with Sri Lanka’s BBS, which form the early stages of an effort to create a “Buddhist International.” Civilizational populists’ engagement with international politics, however, is not leading to clashing civilizations. Rather, populists use foreign policy rhetoric to construct new enemies of “the people” in a “people vs. elites and others” struggle, in which the former are said to be threatened by the latter. However, this struggle is oriented toward a domestic not foreign audience, and checked by geopolitical realities and domestic political realities. For example, Erdogan’s imperial goals are checked by other regional powers, and his concern for Muslim lives disappears when confronted by Chinese power. Wirathu’s effort to construct a Buddhist International with support from Buddhist nationalists in Sri Lanka has not brought forth a powerful Buddhist bloc of nations in Asia. Modi’s foreign policy rhetoric appears to be largely non-populist and “people-centric” (Destradi et al. 2022), although civilizationism does also appear to play an increasing role in India’s international project of itself as a Hindu nation-state. Civilizational populism thus remains a primarily nationalist phenomena, intended first and foremost to define national identity and form ingroups and outgroups based on civilizational belonging. Based on the case studies, we define

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civilizational populism as a group of ideas that together considers that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people, and society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite,” who collaborate with the “dangerous others” belonging to other civilizations and who present a clear and present danger to the civilization and way of life of the pure people.

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CHAPTER 3

USA, France and Poland: Christian Civilizational Populism Nicholas Morieson

Introduction Right-wing populist parties and politicians across Europe and the United States have, since the turn of the century, shed much of their former pariah status and increasingly entered mainstream politics. Right-wing populist parties have formed governments or taken part in ruling coalitions in Hungary, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and Czechia, and present a powerful political force in France, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Belgium (Zulianello and Larsen 2021). While right-wing

This chapter is a revised version of previously published Open Access material in the following article: Morieson, Nicholas. 2023. “Understanding Civilizational Populism in Europe and North America: The United States, France, and Poland” Religions 14, no. 2: 154. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020154. N. Morieson (B) The Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_3

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populism across the Western world is often deeply nativist, many rightwing populist parties increasingly perceive the “opposition between self and other not in narrowly national but in broader civilizational terms” (Brubaker 2017a, p. 1193). This type of populism may be termed civilizational populism. According to Yilmaz and Morieson (2022), who adopt Cas Mudde’s (2004) ideational definition of populism, civilizational populism is “a group of ideas that together considers that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people, and society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, who collaborate with dangerous” internal “others” belonging to foreign civilizations. Populists believe political and economic elites are a corrupt and immoral class that rules illegitimately over morally pure and authentic “people” (Mudde 2017). Civilizational populists, therefore, divide society between “the people,” who are morally good insofar as they belong to the superior civilization; “elites,” who are immoral insofar as they have abandoned the core values of the superior civilization; and “others,” who belong to inferior foreign civilizations (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022). The phenomenon of populist politicians using concepts such as religion or culture to construct ingroups and outgroups is, of course, not new (Zúquete 2017). In the United States, for example, southern populist politician Huey Long portrayed himself as an almost messianic religious figure. During the 1930s Depression, a “time of fear and uncertainty, Long cast himself as a charismatic” religious figure and associated himself and his political cause with “the metaphysical, the transcendent” (Hogan and Williams 2004, p. 163). Long claimed his anti-elite “Share our Wealth” plan was “approved by the law of our Divine Maker” and “prescribed by the Bible,” and that he understood Leviticus and the Book of James to demand that Christians ensure wealth was “scattered among the people” (Hogan and Williams 2004, p. 162). Long also used emotional religious language, almost as if he were a preacher, in his public speeches (Hogan and Williams 2004, p. 150). Following his death, Long’s supporters in Louisiana were reported to be venerating him into the mid-1970s, with some placing a photo of the “Kingfish,” as he was known, on their walls next to an image of Jesus Christ (The New York Times 1975). Beyond the American political context, French populist and long-time National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen portrayed himself as a defender of France’s Catholic traditions and values, and he was critical of both Gaullist laïcité and successive French governments’ decisions

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to encourage Muslims to immigrate to France (Roy 2016; Peter Davies 1999). These examples show how populists in the past have instrumentalized religion, both associating themselves with Christianity in order to appear righteous, but also to construct ingroups and outgroups based on religious identity. Civilizationism is also not a new concept in contemporary politics. For example, Samuel P. Huntington’s (1993, 1996) argument that postCold War politics would be defined by civilizational conflict, and that the peoples of the world can be divided into several civilizations, sometimes with a particular nation at the core of each civilization (e.g., the United States is the “core state” of Western civilization), was in certain respects prescient, or at least an idea that has exerted a powerful influence on perceptions of international politics. However, the combining of civilizationism, or the belief that the people of the world can be divided into several (sometimes incompatible) civilizations, and populism appears to be both a relatively new phenomenon and the product of several economic and political developments, including the rise of Islamist terror in the 1990s and 2000s, increasingly large-scale immigration from the non-West to the West resulting in rapid demographic change, the deindustrialization of parts of Europe and North America, and a reaction to the gradual dominance of “a new cultural politics” on the left, which “emerged around difference and identity” and either became co-opted by neoliberal capitalism or thrived within the neoliberal environment (Robertson and Nestore 2022). It is in this particular environment that civilizationism was combined with right-wing populism, as right-wing populists who had hitherto associated themselves with ethnonationalism began to reposition themselves as defenders of Judeo-Christian values and Western civilization. Right-wing populists turned away from explicit racism and instead claimed they were protecting “the people” from a loose alliance of cultural, business, and government elites, and left-wing progressives, who they claimed had abandoned Judeo-Christian values, and Muslim immigrants. Right-wing populist movements thus incorporated civilizationism, not only in the Huntingtonian sense of a clash between Islam and the West but also as a conflict within Western civilization between ‘the people’ and traitorous “elites” who had turned away from Western Judeo-Christian values. Equally, the right-wing populists sought to win support from people who felt alienated by economic, cultural, and demographic changes, and who felt their entire way of life was being attacked by the people running their nations (Robertson and Nestore 2022).

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Civilizational populism is present across Europe and the United States, yet there is curiously little research on this phenomenon, and Yilmaz and Morieson’s conception of civilizational populism has not been extensively tested. The work of Brubaker (2017a), Kaya (2021), and Kaya and Tecmen (2019), and Haynes (2020a), who discusses “Christian civilizationism” in populist and non-populist politics in the United States and Europe, are rare examples of social scientists describing this common yet surprisingly rarely studied phenomenon. The term “civilization” requires explication. As Huntington (1996, pp. 40–41) pointed out, civilization need not only refer to a particular cultural bloc (or “civilization in the plural,” as it can also be used to describe the boundary between the barbaric and the civilized (or “civilization in the singular”). This second sense of civilization is used by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who describes Israel as “the protective wall of western civilization” (EFE 2016) and Western civilization as facing “a constant battle between the forces of modernity and the forces of medievalism” in which the West and Israel are portrayed as modern and the Arab word and Iran as backward and uncivilized (Netanyahu 2022). Right-wing populists in Europe and the United States have also described Muslims as uncivilized. For example, Geert Wilders has described Islam’s founder Muhammad as “barbaric,” and Islam as “evil,” “barbaric and violent by nature,” “totalitarian,” inherently non-democratic, and incompatible with the modern, civilized West (SBS 2010; Wilders 2017). In 2017, Brubaker observed an emerging civilizational discourse among right-wing populist in parts of Europe. According to Brubaker (2017a, p. 1193), it is possible to identify and group together several right-wing populist parties in North-Western Europe insofar as within their discourses “the boundaries of belonging and the semantics of self and other are reconceptualized in civilizational terms” (Brubaker 2017a, p. 1193). The catalyst behind this civilizational turn, Brubaker (2017a) argues, is the increasing presence of Muslims in Europe and the perception among some Europeans that there is a civilizational threat posed by Islam. Beyond Northern Europe, civilizational rhetoric has entered— most often via right-wing populist parties—mainstream political discourse in a variety of Western nations, including the United States, Italy, and Hungary (Haynes 2020a). For example, Kaya and Tecmen (2019, p. 49) show how the party manifestos of five right-wing populist parties, “Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany, National Front (FN) in France, Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, Five Star Movement (M5S)

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in Italy, and Golden Dawn (GD) in Greece), employ fear of Islam as a political instrument to mobilize their supporters and to mainstream themselves.” They find that “right-wing populist party leaderships across Europe seem to be strongly capitalizing on civilizational matters by singling out Islam” and drawing upon notions of European heritage and Judeo-Christian civilization being endangered by the rise of Islam in Europe (Kaya and Tecmen 2019, p. 61). The political success of these parties indicates that a significant portion of each respective voting public is concerned that their respective culture and identity are threatened by immigrants from a foreign civilization. It also suggests that the combining of populism and civilizationism, especially when civilizations are identified according to a religion-based classification scheme (e.g., as Judeo-Christian or Islamic), creates a potent ideology capable of mobilizing widespread support. This chapter, a revised and updated version of Morieson (2023), examines the discourses of right-wing populist parties and movements in Europe and North America that portray themselves as defenders of Western or Judeo-Christian civilization, and tests the salience of the concept of “civilizational populism” in the context of contemporary North American and European politics. It is not possible to discuss every nation in which civilizational populism is present across Europe and North America. Therefore, the chapter focuses on three manifestations of civilizational rhetoric in three different countries: the Trump administration in the United States, National Rally in France, and PiS in Poland. These parties/movements are chosen, first, because they are examples of politically successful populist movements. Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in 2016, an event that appears to have fundamentally changed the Republican Party and center-right politics in the United States in a variety of ways. The French National Rally has not achieved the same level of electoral success, and it has consistently failed to draw enough support to have its candidate, Marine Le Pen, elected French president. However, National Rally—despite its electoral failure— has contributed to the country’s drift toward right-wing politics and populism. Poland’s PiS, on the other hand, won the parliamentary elections in 2015 and established itself as the nation’s most widely supported and powerful political party, winning the subsequent 2019 parliamentary elections. Second, these three parties/movements are based in three different geographic locations and political and religious contexts. The United States is a populous, multicultural nation in which 40% of the

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adult population identifies as a Protestant Christian, but which is growing increasingly secular (The Guardian 2021). France and Poland, while both majority Catholic nations, differ in terms of their religiosity, with France being largely secularized and Poland’s people being more inclined toward Christian belief and practice, with over 86% of the population identifying as Catholic (US Department of State 2019). The three parties/ movements chosen, then, provide an opportunity to study populist use of civilizational rhetoric in three distinct contexts, and therefore, contribute to a wider understanding of the phenomena and its meaning. This chapter asks two questions. What role does civilizationism play in populist discourses? And how do civilizational populists in France, Poland, and the United States define “the people,” “elites,” and “others,” and what are the similarities and differences between the parties/movements examined? To answer these questions, the chapter is split into four sections. The first examines civilizational populism within the Trump movement, particularly within the discourse and policies of President Donald Trump. The second examines civilizational populism in France, particularly within the National Rally party and the discourse of its leader, Marine Le Pen. The third section examines civilizational populism in the Polish context and within the discourse and policies of PiS and its leader, Jarosław Kaczynski. ´ The final section discusses and compares the three parties/movements use of civilizational rhetoric and answers the key questions.

Civilizational Populism in the USA: The Trump Administration Although his rhetoric when campaigning to be president in 2016 incorporated notions of America as a Judeo-Christian civilization facing a conflict with Islam, civilizational rhetoric in the United States did not begin with Donald Trump. To understand the Trump movement and administration’s conception of America as a “Judeo-Christian” nation and part of Western civilization, it is useful to first examine historical ideas of American civilization and its relationship with wider Western civilization. Equally, it is important to consider the influence Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations thesis had upon American domestic political discourse and foreign policy, especially on the decision to engage in military interventions in the Muslim majority world in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

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The United States was until recently an overwhelmingly ethnic European and Protestant society. Thus, while Americans long perceived themselves as belonging to an American culture separate from Europe, America remained a Protestant ethnic European-dominated nation in which most other identities were marginalized until the civil rights, immigration, and other legal reforms of the 1960s. Indeed, the “civil religion” of the United States, as Robert Bellah (1967) called it, merged American nationalism and Protestant Christianity. After the Second World War, an effort was made to include Catholics, Jewish immigrants within American identity, and to reconceptualize America as a “Judeo-Christian” country. For example, Silk (1984, p. 69) observes that “After the revelations of the Nazi death camps, a phrase like “our Christian civilization” seemed ominously exclusive; greater comprehensiveness was needed for proclaiming the spirituality of the American Way.” Thus, in the postwar period the term “Judeo-Christian” became “unstoppable,” with even President Eisenhower proclaiming that he could not explain democracy to Soviet commander Marshall Zhukov because the Bolshevik had not grown up in a Judeo-Christian world, whereas democratic practices came naturally to Americans because their “form of government was founded in religion” (Silk 1984, p. 69). “By the 1980s” Hartmann et al. (2005) observe, “the United States was widely believed to have a core Judeo-Christian culture; the term appeared primarily as a reference point in the so-called culture wars and was most often appropriated for conservative purposes” (Hartmann et al. 2005). In the post-9/11 environment the term’s use changed, “with overall references declining markedly and the term now associated mainly with discussions of Muslim and Islamic inclusion in America and renewed concerns about church–state separation” (Hartmann et al. 2005). Indeed, the inclusive spirit of Judeo-Christian rhetoric was sometimes abused by American politicians, who began to use it to exclude Muslims from American society (Hartmann et al. 2005). The demonization of Muslims was aided by the influence of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations thesis in Washington during the 1990s and 2000s. Huntington’s (1993, 1996) “clash” thesis, which claimed that international politics would become, post-Cold war, oriented around eight or nine civilizational blocs, was a particularly strong influence on the George W. Bush administration. Following the terror attacks on 11 September 2001, and guided by Huntington’s (1996) insistence that Islam was a hostile civilization with “bloody borders,” American politicians and political commentators

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increasingly described Islamic fundamentalism and, at times, Islam itself as a threat to the United States. The al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington were often held to be evidence of a clash of civilizations occurring between the “free” West, and the forces of Islam, which had attacked the United States because they hated its freedoms (Haynes 2020b). Moreover, the “War on Terror,” a deeply misguided attempt to defeat “radical Islam” and its associated terrorist groups, and the greater effort democratize the Middle East through military intervention and support for popular revolutions, appears to have been heavily influenced by Huntington’s clash thesis. Civilizationism, while influential on American foreign policymakers in the 2000s, was not yet weaponized by populists. The emergence of the populist movement known as the Tea Party signaled a new form of populism in the United States: a right-wing populism that brought together “libertarianism and fundamentalist religion” and ultimately “coalesced into the Tea Party’s concept of American exceptionalism” (Montgomery 2012, pp. 180–181). Civilizationism played a significant role in Tea Party rhetoric. For example, several Tea Party activists spoke of the importance of preserving America’s “Judeo-Christian values” (Braunstein 2021). Moreover, they often defined American culture in religio-cultural terms and as Judeo-Christian (Braunstein 2021), and they attributed America’s economic and social problems to the nation’s abandoning of Judeo-Christianity (Braunstein 2021). As the Tea Party declined in popularity in the 2010s, a new and more successful populist movement emerged centered on Donald Trump. The Trump movement largely abandoned the libertarian rhetoric of the Tea Party and replaced it with calls for economic protectionism (Young et al. 2019). However, Trump continued to characterize the United States as a JudeoChristian society clashing with Islam, and thus retained the “clash of civilizations” rhetoric common to Tea Party activists (Haynes 2017). When campaigning in 2016, Trump outlined a foreign policy different to that of both his Democrat and Republican opponents. Describing his guiding principle as “America First,” Trump condemned the Iraq War as a failure, promised to return American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan to the United States, and demanded European nations increase their military spending and take greater responsibility for European security. However, Trump also identified the United States more closely with “Judeo-Christianity” than his predecessors. For example, as Jeffrey Haynes (2017) noted, when Trump was questioned in an

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interview about whether he believed the United States was founded on Judeo-Christian values, he responded: “Yeah, I think it was. …when I look at football coaches being fired because they held a prayer on the field, like yesterday, I think it’s absolutely terrible, I think it’s a terrible thing. I see so many things happening that are so different from what our country used to be. So, religion’s a very important part of me and it’s also, I think it’s a very important part of our country” (Haynes 2017). Trump also claimed that Islam represented a threat to America and its Judeo-Christian culture when he remarked “Islam hates us” (Haynes 2017). Moreover, Trump’s chief advisors during his presidential campaign, Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, often took even stronger public positions on Islam and its alleged incompatibility with Judeo-Christian civilization. According to Gorka, who following Trump’s election victory became Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States, Islam is an “enemy ideology” at war with America. Gorka claimed that Islamist terrorism is motivated in essence by hatred of America’s Judeo-Christian traditions and that no more nuanced explanation for Islamist terror was required. Bannon claimed in 2014 that “the JudeoChristian West” was in an existential conflict with Islam that, if lost, “will completely eradicate everything that we’ve been bequeathed over the last 2000, 2500 years” (Hirsh 2016). Beyond Gorka and Bannon, Mike Flynn, national security advisor to President Trump, once tweeted that “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL,” characteristically—for a Trump Administration official—making no distinction between violent radicals and ordinary Muslim people (Hirsh 2016). During an official visit to Poland in 2017, the newly elected President Trump praised Poland’s right-wing populist government, suggesting that PiS’ strong anti-immigration, anti-Islam policies were protecting “the West” (Thrush and Hirschfeld Davis 2017). In a speech in Poland that further revealed the civilizationism inherent in Trump’s conception of world politics, Trump claimed that “the fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?” (Thrush and Hirschfeld Davis 2017). Historian Stephen Wertheim, writing shortly after this speech, described Trump’s “civilizational framework” as a continuation of Obama-era justifications for America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also as adding a

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new element in which America’s “forever wars” were framed as part of a policing of the “enemies of civilization” (Wertheim 2017). Furthermore, Haynes (2017, 2020b) describes Trump as repeating the orientalist tropes of Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations thesis in his rhetoric on the relationship between Islam and “Judeo-Christian” America. He argues that Trump did not follow Bush and Obama in stressing that the United States was at war with terrorism and not Islam. Instead, using reckless language, Haynes writes, Trump perpetuated the idea of a clash of civilizations between Islam and Judeo-Christianity and failed to distinguish between ordinary Muslims and violent Islamist terrorists. Equally, Trump showed little interest in fighting a “clash of civilizations” as president, dismissing both Bannon and Gorka within weeks of each other in 2017. On the other hand, several of the Trump administration’s decisions appear to be the product of Trump’s belief that the United States is a Judeo-Christian power incompatible with Islamic civilization. For example, in Executive Order 13769, derided as the Muslim ban, the Trump administration appears to draw on notions of America as a “Judeo-Christian” society threatened by Muslim immigrants and tourists. The “Muslim Ban”—Executive Order 13769 Following the murder of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016, a crime committed by Omar Mateen, a Muslim man who had sworn allegiance to Islamic State, then presidential candidate Donald Trump responded by speaking at length about the danger posed to the United States by what he called “radical Islam” (Time 2016). Speaking at a rally, Trump said that the Obama administration was partly responsible for the atrocity insofar as it had permitted the immigration of “thousands upon thousands” of Muslims to the United States (Time 2016). The United States, according to Trump, had a “dysfunctional immigration system” that was bringing vast numbers of people into the country who possessed “the same thought process” as the “savage killer” Omar Mateen (Time 2016). Trump had previously argued that Muslim refugees from war-torn nations in the Middle East threatened America. For example, in a tweet deleted by Twitter following his banning from the social media platform, Trump “used clearly existential tones by pronouncing that taking in refugees from Syria (who he assumed to be potential terrorists) would lead to ‘the destruction of civilization as we know it!’” (Hall 2021).

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Although Trump claimed that America possesses many “great” Muslim communities, he criticized American Muslims for failing to report “bad” people in their communities, such as Mateen, to law enforcement (Time 2016). Furthermore, portraying the nightclub shooting as part of a clash of civilizations, he claimed that many of the “radical” Islamic principles Mateen and other Muslims hold are “incompatible with Western values and institutions” (Time 2016). Trump claimed that “radical Islam is antiwoman, anti-gay and anti-American,” and even “enslaves women,” and that he personally refused “to allow American to become a place where gay people, Christian people, Jewish people are targets of persecution.” If elected president, Trump said, he would stop immigration from Muslim countries and alter America’s immigration policies in order that they reflect national self-interest (Time 2016). Using the language of what Reynié (2016) terms heritage populism, Trump promised that this policy change would help save America from its social and economic problems and return the nation to its previous greatness (Time 2016). Once elected president, in one of his first acts, Trump signed Executive Order 13769, often derided as the “Muslim ban.” The executive order appears to have been an effort to make concrete Trump’s promise to reform the immigration system to reduce the number of refugees the United States received on a yearly basis and suspend immigration from Muslim nations that produce terrorism. The order reduced America’s humanitarian refugee intake and banned entry to the United States by Iranian, Iraqi, Somalian, Sudanese, Syrian, and Yemeni passport holders (Executive Order 13769 2017). Curiously, the ban did not extend to citizens of US allies Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, nations that had previously exported terrorism and suffered deadly terror attacks. Moreover, the ban was not focused on individuals identified by American authorities as dangerous, but instead encompassed entire nations of people. This choice to not distinguish between ordinary Muslim people and Islamic terrorists was a theme that ran through Trump’s campaign and early presidency Haynes (2021). Executive Order 13769 exemplified this theme insofar as it treated Muslim people within the nations targeted as if they were not individuals but only representatives of a hostile religion too dangerous to be permitted within the United States.

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Judeo-Christianity in Trump’s Foreign Policy The Trump administration’s foreign policy was, in certain respects, reflective of Trump and his closest advisors’ populist ideology. Georg Löfflmann (2022), for example, argues Trump used a populist discourse that played on Americans’ feelings of insecurity to win political support. According to Löfflmann (2022), Trump established a “security narrative of an antagonistic international environment, marked by great power rivalry and ideological confrontation with China …(re)established an enmity-centric framing device to legitimate US foreign policy choices and the United States’ role in the world in the public realm likely to endure beyond the Trump presidency.” Trump, according to Löfflmann (2022), reframed the American “national identity through a populist security imaginary” and in doing so “elevated internal “enemies of the people” to an ontological status of equal, or even superior standing to that of external threats to national security.” By “portraying internal and external Others as equally existential threats endangering the ‘real’ United States,” Trump “informed both foreign policy choices and mobilised voters through an affective persuasion of audiences, actively dividing society for political gain.” Furthermore, Trump’s “populist appeals to resentment, fear, and anxiety constituted a shared affective space between Trump and his followers that provided a source of mutual ontological reassurance and the legitimation of America First measures from immigration restrictions to trade protectionism and a Jacksonian foreign policy” (Löfflmann 2022). For example, Löfflmann argues that “Trump’s narrative and political response to the pandemic was meant to bolster the public image of the President as a ‘winner’, who protected the American people against a world of foreign enemies, strategic rivals, and geopolitical foes. The unprecedented scope and severity of the global COVID-19 pandemic that came to dominate international politics and media headlines in 2020 thus acted as a catalyst that exposed the discursive dynamic of Trump’s populist security imaginary.” Löfflmann (2022) suggests that Trump’s blaming of China for the outbreak of the virus was part of a populist “narrative of existential crisis emanating from beyond the United States’ borders” that sought to “mobilise Republican voters in the 2020 presidential campaign through the antagonistic core logic of populist geopolitics” (Löfflmann 2022). While Löfflmann describes Trump’s foreign policy discourse as nationalist, there is strong evidence that civilizationism, often in the form of

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Christian or Judeo-Christian based identity politics, also influenced the Trump administration’s foreign policy. The notion that the United States is a “Judeo-Christian” power, which ought to advance Judeo-Christian values and protect Christians and Jews throughout the world, is evident in the Trump administration’s foreign policy in two different ways. First, in its promotion of “Judeo-Christian values” in its approach to America’s longstanding international religious freedom agenda, but also in its unusually strong support for Israel. The importance of winning the votes of Christian evangelicals, who are among the strongest supporters of the Republican Party, played a key role in shaping the discourse of the Trump Administration. “In the 2016 presidential election, 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump,” Marcia Pally (2020, p. 405) reports, meaning that his administration was reliant on their continuing support. Desirous of retaining this support, the Trump administration provided evangelicals with concrete actions on several significant issues, including America’s foreign relations. Haynes, for example, has shown how the Trump administration’s foreign policy was shaped by a Judeo-Christian conception of religious freedom and the role of the United States in the international sphere. “Judeo-Christianity” in the field of International Relations refers to the idea that the United States and its foreign policy represents the “fundamental values of Western society that are believed to come from both Judaism and Christianity” (Altshuler 2016). Hurd, for example, argues that whether the actual values of the United States reflect the influence of Judaism (via the incorporation of the Jewish scriptures into the Christian Bible as the “Old Testament”), and Christianity is relatively unimportant; what is important is that many American policymakers believe this to be true and will act in the international sphere as if it is (Hurd 2010). Religious freedom is a fundamental American value enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (US Constitution Amendment I). However, religious freedom does not appear to be a uniquely Christian or Judaic value. Many Americans, however, categorize their culture as Judeo-Christian and believe that the core American Judeo-Christian belief that each human being has a “right” to choose their religion ought to be universal (Hurd 2010). It is not surprising, then, that the United States has long supported the concept of international religious freedom. However, what was novel in the Trump administration’s approach was its “privileging of Judeo-Christian values,”

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which “replaced a more flexible Christocentric approach, which characterized the three prior administrations” (Haynes 2020b). “The Trump administration’s approach,” Haynes (2020b) writes, “was contoured by ideological commitment to a Judeo-Christian view.” As a result of this commitment to defending Judeo-Christian values and pleasing evangelical supporters, the Trump administration strengthened America’s commitment to spreading religious freedom, defunded foreign humanitarian and health agencies that provided abortions, and made a special effort to highlight abuses against Christian communities around the world (Haynes 2020b). The Trump administration’s support for Israel, including its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (Schake 2017), demonstrates the incorporation of the Jewish people within the administration’s conception of American identity and values, as well as within Western civilization, and its exclusion of Islam from both. The United States has long proven itself a close ally of Israel, not merely by supporting Israel’s right to exist, but also by supplying the nation with weapons and other aid (Lipson 1996). The Trump administration, however, presented itself as a supporter of Israel and sought to distance itself from the Palestinians. In a 2016 speech to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, Trump promised that his administration would “move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem,” and “send a clear signal that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable ally, the state of Israel” (Begley 2016). He further added that the “Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between the United States and Israel is absolutely, totally unbreakable” (Begley 2016). The notion that the United States and Israel are unbreakable Western allies and defenders of Judeo-Christian civilization played a role, according to Israeli academic Raphael Greenberg, in American foreign policy under the Trump administration. Greenberg (2021) begins by noting the increasingly frequent, in his view, use of the term “JudeoChristian” by “the American right to highlight its support of right-wing activism in Israel and its opposition to’secular liberals’ and the Islamic Other.” He finds an example of this in the visit of Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State in the Trump administration from 2018 to 2021, to Israel in November 2020. Greenberg (2021) describes how Pompeo visited the “high-profile, settler-run antiquities site of ‘the City of David’ in Israeliannexed East Jerusalem, in and beneath the Palestinian neighborhood of Wadi Hilweh (Silwan), less than two hundred yards away from the Temple

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Mount and the Al-Aqsa mosque.” The “City of David” is a site claimed by some Israeli archaeologists and the settler-run Ir David Foundation (or Elad) to be the city or citadel of David. A large archaeological park in Jerusalem, the site proves, according to Elad, that Jewish people were the earliest inhabitants of the region and thus the region’s true owners (City of David 2022). Pompeo’s visit the “City of David” was described by the Trump administration as designed to highlight “the more than 3000 years of Jerusalem’s heritage upon which the foundations of both the US and Israel rest” (Kempinski 2020). The visit offered, Greenberg observes, “a clear demonstration of a religious-political ideology that continues to reverberate in Israel and Palestine, even after the end of the Trump years” (Greenberg 2021). The American embassy installed a plaque in the City of David’s evacuation tunnels shortly before Pompeo’s visit, which reads “The spiritual bedrock of our values as a nation comes from Jerusalem. It is upon these ideals that the American Republic was founded, and the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel was formed” Greenberg (2021). Greenberg suggests this is compelling evidence that “Pompeo and the Christian right” view “the elevation of Donald Trump to the presidency …as part of God’s plan” and that, “in the words of Mike Evans,” a prolific author and evangelical advisor to President Trump, “Israel has received a gift from God in an evangelical Secretary of State, an evangelical Vice President and a President who is the most pro-Israel, pro-evangelical President in American history” (Greenberg 2021). The Trump administration’s exceptionally pro-Israel foreign policy did not appear motivated by a desire for more support—electoral or financial—from Jewish Americans. It was perhaps the result of the strong support the Trump movement required—and received—from American evangelicals, many of whom are Christian Zionists (Durbin 2020). Some of Trump’s evangelical supporters believe the existence of a Jewish state in Israel is a precondition for the End of Times, which they believe will lead to the second coming of Jesus Christ, and for this reason, they are among the keenest supporters of the Jewish state (Durbin 2020). Throughout his candidacy and early presidency, Trump’s civilizational rhetoric was focused on the threat posed by Islam to the Judeo-Christian West. However, following the “territorial defeat of ISIS and the relative decline of ‘lone wolf’ attacks in the West,” and after the firing of some of the most vociferously anti-Muslim members of his administration (such as Bannon and Gorka), “Trump …changed the primary target of his crisis rhetoric from terrorists to immigrants” (Hall 2021, p. 58). Civilizationism

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thus became less important to Trump during his presidency and as the War on Terror began to be perceived less as an existential conflict, and more as a disastrous war of choice the United States erred in waging. During his presidency, and perhaps especially after Trump’s defeat in the 2020 elections, the Republican Party and a number of other Trump supporters sought closer relations with Hungarian right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Orbán, who claims he is protecting Judeo-Christian Western civilization in Hungary by establishing a postliberal, Christian democracy, is an inspirational figure to many American conservatives (Morieson 2022). Such is Orbán’s appeal to American conservatives that in May 2022, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)—which is traditionally used by Republicans to promote themselves as future leaders of the party and to advance their particular agendas within the conservative movement—was held for the first time outside the United States and in Budapest, Hungary. Three months later, Orbán was invited to speak at the CPAC in Dallas, Texas. In his speech, Orbán claimed that the Democratic Party and President Obama were “globalists” who were trying to destroy Hungary’s “Christian and national values” (Website of the Hungarian Government 2022). At the same time, Orbán claimed that, like his American Republican allies, he was fighting “Brussels and Washington,” which he called the enemies of Western civilization (Website of the Hungarian Government 2022). Orbán, for his part, has cultivated an image of Hungary as the destination for people who believe that right-wing populism is the answer to Western civilizations’ existential problems. Hungarian institutions under the control of Fidesz have encouraged British and American social conservatives to travel to Hungary and take up positions as visiting scholars. For example, American conservative writers Rod Dreher, Sohrab Ahmari, Gladden Pappin, and John O’Sullivan have all developed institutional ties with Hungary and Fidesz. Dreher and Pappin, for example, were visiting fellows at Hungary’s Mathias Corvinus Colleguim (MCC), a private college for advanced studies, which is closely associated with Orbán and partly funded by his government (Kalan 2020; MCC Website 2021). Fox News television host Tucker Carlson is also associated with the MCC and gave a speech at its 2021 “MCC Feszt” (YouTube 2021). This growing cooperation between Orbán and supporters of the Republican Party suggests a degree of transnational collaboration between right-wing

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writers and politicians in the two countries, and demonstrates the significance of Orbán as a model—among American conservatives—right-wing populist and fighter for Western civilization and Judeo-Christian values.

Civilizationism in France: National Rally By the end of the 2010s, the French electorate had increasingly abandoned the once mainstream center-left and center-right parties that had governed France throughout the second half of the twentieth century. As the Socialist Party and Les Républicains declined electorally throughout the 2010s, new parties appeared including Emmanuel Macron’s centrist and pro-European En Marche! and National Rally, a rebranded National Front led by Marine Le Pen. By the 2020s, far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon had become the leading voice of the left, eclipsing the Socialist Party in popularity, while Marine Le Pen faced a challenge from rival right-wing populist Eric Zemmour, a television host and candidate for president in 2022. The results of the presidential elections of April 2022 demonstrate the increasing popularity of right-wing, antiimmigration candidates, and the consistent failure of the center-left to find support from voters (Voce and Clarke 2022). For example, Socialist Party candidate Anne Hidaldo received just 1.8% of all votes, fewer votes than the 4.8% won by Republican leader Pécresse and far below the 22% who voted for Mélenchon, a result that illustrates the collapse of the traditional governing parties of France (Voce and Clarke 2022). On the other hand, more than 30% of the electorate voted for either Le Pen or Zemmour in the first round, demonstrating the growing power of the populist right in France (Voce and Clarke 2022). France thus demonstrates a pattern common across many Western nations in which working-class voters are abandoning social-democratic parties, which increasingly represent the post-materialist interests of the professional classes, and instead voting for right-wing (and sometimes left-wing) populist parties (Piketty 2018). A consistent feature of the contemporary French center-right and right-wing populist discourses is civilizationism (Onishi and Alami 2022). During the 2022 Presidential election campaign, the leaders of the three largest right-wing parties and movements in France portrayed themselves, albeit in different ways, as protectors of European and/or Judeo-Christian civilization. For example, Marine Le Pen argued that French immigration policy and the duplicity of France’s economic elites threaten to destroy French civilization and ultimately Islamize France (France24

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2022). Zemmour also claimed that French elites are destroying JudeoChristian civilization in France, and presented himself as a national savior who will prevent the destruction of French identity and culture at the hands of Muslims and globalists (Szocs 2021). However, civilizationism is not confined to the discourses of right-wing populists in France. Perhaps in response to the collapse of the center-right and growth of populism, Les Républicains candidate in 2022 Valérie Pécresse portrayed herself as a defender of European civilization, which she claimed was threatened by outside forces (Twitter 2022). She furthermore promised to reduce immigration and prevent a “great replacement” of ethnic French with nonEuropean immigrants (Caulcutt 2022). Incumbent President Macron also claims to be a defender of “European civilization” (Staunton 2022). However, Macron and Pécresse have significantly different conceptions of European civilization. According to Macron, European civilization is not defined by a single set of Judeo-Christian derived values or Christian identity, but is rather epitomized by the European Union and a tradition of openness, artistic achievement, and opposition to ethnonationalism and xenophobia (Staunton 2022). Yet, while European civilization is in his conception “universal,” Macron gives it boundaries (Macron 2022). Macron speaks of a specifically European and not Western civilization, and therefore does not include the United States or the wider Anglophone world within European civilization. Equally, as president of France he claimed that Africans, by which he meant sub-Saharan Africans, have a “civilizational” problem insofar as they are unable to develop their economies or reduce population growth, perhaps suggesting that African civilization either doesn’t exist or has not yet been brought into existence (Anyangwe 2017). Civilizationism, or the notion that humanity can be divided into several distinct civilizations, is present across the right and center of the political spectrum in France. This presence betrays a deep and growing ontological insecurity in France, generated by the demographic and cultural changes that have taken place during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, especially the growth of Islam within the country. Equally, the increasingly civilizational political discourse in France is perhaps a reaction to the difficulties French governments have faced in eliminating social inequities between Muslims and non-Muslims (Liebert et al. 2020). More than any other politician over the past two decades, it was Marine Le Pen who revitalized right-wing populism in France and capitalized on growing discomfort with the increasing Muslim population

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of France. Her successful de-demonization project, which involved the re-naming of her father’s party, and vocal opposition to what she calls the “twin totalitarianisms” of globalization and Islam (Al Jazeera 2017) helped her maintain her position as the second most popular candidate for president among all voters for a decade. While she failed to win the presidency in April 2022, her popularity among working-class voters (more of whom voted for Le Pen than Macron nationwide)—and the emergence of other right-wing personalities who also incorporate populism and civilizationism in their respective discourses—ensured that civilizationism and populism remain important elements within right-wing and centrist political discourse in France (Turak 2022). What role does civilizationism play, then, in Marine Le Pen’s populist discourse? And how does she use it to generate support among the voting public?

The National Front Marine Le Pen became leader of the National Front in 2011, replacing her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the National Front—a successor party to earlier integralist and fascist movements— in the early 1970s, and his personality and convictions dominated the party throughout his period as leader. Under Jean-Marie Le Pen’s leadership, the National Front was a far-right, anti-Semitic, anti-immigration, anti-EU populist party that sought to construct an identity for France based on the Catholic identity, French nationalism, opposition to communism, opposition to immigration from North Africa and the Middle East, and socially conservative, Catholic-derived values (Roy 2016). Jean-Marie Le Pen opposed laïcité—France’s separation of church and state—and sought instead to entrench the Catholic identity and conservative social mores in French society and inside the state. Although not a religious movement, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front held traditional Catholic Masses during its rallies (Peter Davies 1999, p. 29). While the National Front was originally a vehicle for Jean-Marie Le Pen’s anti-communist, pro-Catholic politics, the advent of mass immigration gave the party a new raison d’etre: opposition to the immigration of people from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East in France (Roy 2016, pp. 82–83). Jean-Marie Le Pen grew in popularity during the 1970s and 1980s. While Le Pen received less than 1% of the vote in the 1974 presidential elections, in 1988 he won 14.4% of votes, establishing himself as a major figure in French politics (Marcus 1995).

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The increasing importance of religious identity among Muslims globally, and the increasing unacceptability of expressions of racism in Western societies, had an impact on the National Front during the 1990s and 2000s. Responding to these changes, Jean-Marie Le Pen began to speak more of the threat Muslims—rather than, for example “Maghrebins”— posed to France and its religious and civilizational identity (Betz 1994, p. 183). When running for president against Jacques Chirac in 2002, he claimed that Muslims possess values “different from those of the JudaeoChristian world” (Primor 2002). Muslims, he claimed, were a “grave phenomenon” who posed an existential threat to the republic and who spat “at the President of the republic” and did not sing along but rather “booed when the national anthem was played at a soccer game” (Primor 2002). While Jean-Marie Le Pen achieved his best result in a presidential election in 2002, winning through to the second round of voting, he was defeated by Chirac, winning just 17% of votes in the final round. The National Front fell into decline after 2002, and having been defeated so comprehensively in the previous election, the now elderly Jean-Marie Le Pen no longer seemed a credible presidential candidate.

Marine Le Pen’s Civilizational Populism The party’s electoral fortunes turned around following the elevation of Marine Le Pen to the position of party leader in 2011. Marine Le Pen sought to de-demonize the National Front. She condemned antiSemitism and racism, endorsed laïcité, and sought to alter the party’s conservative positions on abortion and other social issues and move the National Front toward the political centre (Cannane 2017). This did not mean that the party would abandon its anti-immigration platform; instead, under Marine Le Pen’s leadership, it sought to frame Muslim immigration as a threat to French and Judeo-Christian civilization. The Marine Le Pen-led National Front, with its more “moderate” positions on social issues and its secularism, framed Islam as a conservative religious force that threatened France’s secular constitution and culture. Le Pen also framed Islam as a threat to Judeo-Christian values, among which she included laïcité or secular differentiation between church and state. Unlike her father, Marine Le Pen strongly defended the 1905 law separating religion and politics in the French public sphere, and she portrayed Muslims as a force that might undo this vital separation.

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She also, however, claimed that while Islam was incompatible with secularism, Judaism, and Christianity were the progenitors of secularism and, together with the cultures of Rome and Greece, underpinned France’s secular culture (Alduy 2014). In 2007, the last presidential election contested by Jean-Marie Le Pen, the elder Le Pen won only 10% of the vote. In 2012, however, Marine Le Pen won 17.90% of all votes, a National Front candidate’s best result. In 2017, Le Pen won through to the second round of voting, where she won 33% of all votes but was soundly defeated by the center-right candidate for Les Républicains, Nicolas Sarkozy. Marine Le Pen’s political discourse in 2017 incorporated civilizationism in a somewhat vague manner. She described the coming elections as “a choice of civilization” and further claimed that France was engulfed in a crisis created by globalization and Islamic fundamentalism (Ganley 2017). Le Pen elaborated on these themes in her campaign launch speech in Lyon on February 5, 2017. The speech was designed to portray Le Pen as a defender of the “immaterial capital” of the French and as an enemy of globalization and Islam: the “two totalitarianisms” that she claims threaten French “civilization,” “values,” and “culture” (Morieson 2021, pp. 132–133). In her speech, Le Pen made a succinct case against globalization: “Globalization develops at two levels: from below with massive immigration and global social dumping; and from above with the financialization of the economy” (Morieson 2021, pp. 132–133). “Economic globalization,” Le Pen claims, “has weakened the immune system of the nation by dispossessing it of its constituent elements: borders, national currency, the authority of its laws in conducting economic affairs, and thus allowing another world to be born and grow: Islamic fundamentalism” (Morieson 2021, pp. 132–133). Globalization and Muslim immigration, according to Le Pen, have caused a crisis in France that means it is no longer certain that French “children” will “live in a free, independent, democratic country.” Encouraging her audience to fear Muslim immigration, Le Pen claims that it by no means certain that their children will “live according to our cultural references, our values of civilization, our style of living” (Morieson 2021, pp. 132–133). Globalization, Le Pen argues, erases cultural diversity “in order to facilitate the commercialization of standard products and to facilitate hyper profits at the cost of ecological depletion of the planet or child labour of the Third World.” She “denounces” the triumph of finance over culture and the manner in which globalists’ greed has facilitated the

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“establishment of Islamic fundamentalism” in France (Morieson 2021, p. 133). “Islamic fundamentalism” grows in France, she claims, because Muslims successfully instrumentalize “the principle of religious freedom in an attempt to impose patterns of thought that are clearly the opposite of ours,” essentially using French values against the French people in order to perpetuate their religion (Morieson 2021, p. 133). Islam’s “communitarian” conservative social mores, Le Pen argues, is a particular danger because they threaten to subjugate women and violate the key principles upon which France was founded. “These principles for which we are fighting,” Le Pen claims, “are affirmed in our national motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” which itself proceeds from a secularization of principles stemming from our Christian heritage” (Le Pen 2016). In this final statement, Le Pen defines, although somewhat vaguely, French civilization as both Christian and secular, and as a result incompatible with Islam, which Le Pen claims is “insoluble in secularism” (RF1 2011). Le Pen describes patriotism as “an act of love,” and she describes globalists as people who do not love the French nation and its culture (Morieson 2021, p. 133). She tells all non-Christian citizens that they must accept that “no other laws and values” will be permitted “in France than those that are French” (Morieson 2021, p. 133). Le Pen’s populist rhetoric decrying a civilizational crisis in France appears to have helped increase voter support for her bid to become French president. In the 2017 presidential elections, Le Pen won 21% of the vote in the first round, and although she was soundly defeated by centrist technocrat Emmanuel Macron in the second round, she won a party record 33.90% of votes. Throughout the complex and divisive period that followed, in which France, like other nations, was forced to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a deteriorating economy, support for Le Pen and her party—now renamed “National Rally”—increased. At the same time, the traditional governing parties, the Socialist Party and Les Républicains, saw their voter base annihilated. Public anger toward “elites” left the old centrist parties hollowed out, and in their place, new and often populist movements enjoyed vastly increased support. President Emmanuel Macron and En Marche!, a party centered on Macron himself, increasingly occupied the pro-European Union, liberal center of French politics, while the left and right became dominated by the rather extreme figures of Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marine Le Pen, respectively. At the same time, the emergence of

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Eric Zemmour, who for a brief moment challenged Le Pen’s position as the figurehead of the French right, demonstrates a widespread desire for a French leader who will defend Europe’s Judeo-Christian culture from Muslim immigrants. Zemmour, who is Jewish, claimed to be fighting for Christian values and civilization, and against the globalist class and the Muslim immigrants he charges with destroying France. For example, in an interview he remarked that “French intellectual René Girard, writes in one of his last books, Achever Clausewitz, that today we are entering a spirit of the age where we are closer to Charles Martell and the Crusaders than to the French Revolution and the consequences of the Second Empire’s industrialization. Today we are living through the same struggles between Islam and Christianity, East and West. This struggle never came to an end. One of the basic elements is demography” (Szocs 2021). Zemmour, however, did not perform well in the 2022 presidential elections, and his main impact on the election result may have been to make Marine Le Pen appear more moderate due to his sometimes extreme rhetoric. In the presidential elections of 2022 Marine Le Pen was again the leading candidate from the right and Macron’s most significant opponent. It was conceivable that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began less than two months before the first round of voting, might damage Le Pen and decrease support for National Rally. Le Pen had been a supporter of the Russian president, dismissed NATO as an anachronism, and is alleged to have received funding from the Russian government (Ivaldi 2023). Le Pen, however, condemned the invasion, and the issue appears to have had little impact on her popularity (Ivaldi 2023). According to Ivaldi (2023, p. 141), “Marine Le Pen successfully evaded accusations of sympathy for Putin by toning down her nativism and emphasizing instead her social-populist agenda, which foregrounds egalitarian social protection and economic nationalism” a tactic “allowed her to exploit war-related issues of energy and rising prices.” In the first round of voting, Le Pen received a party-record 23% of the vote and was second placed behind Macron. In a speech celebrating her winning through to the second round, Le Pen reiterated her core theme: globalist elites have imperiled France and only Le Pen and her party can cease the destruction of French culture and identity. At stake in the election, Le Pen claimed, “is not just a political decision,” but a “choice of society, even a choice of civilization,” suggesting that a vote for Macron is a vote for the incorporation of France into Islamic civilization (France24 2022).

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Le Pen, on the other hand, promised that should she win, her party would “defend the French language, our culture, our civilization,” “secular society,” and “equality between men and women” (France24 2022). Furthermore, she would “protect people from the power of money” and ensure France remained a sovereign nation (France24 2022). Using populist anti-elite rhetoric, she promised that, if she were elected, the “ignored” citizens of France would be listened to, that she would ensure there was law and order, that the “younger generation” would find a champion in her, and that French people would again be permitted to express their political opinions without fear (France24 2022). She also promised to solve France’s immigration problem, deal with the nation’s problem “migrants” (France24 2022) and restore France’s “prosperity and grandeur” (Harris 2022). This rhetoric proved relatively successful for Le Pen, who achieved her best result in a second round of the presidential election, winning more than 41% of the vote. However, she was soundly defeated by Macron. In the supposed battle for civilization that was the 2022 French election, Macron’s vision of France as a home of cosmopolitan European civilization proved more popular than Le Pen’s nationalist conception of French civilization as secularized Judeo-Christianity. This does not mean that Le Pen is a spent force in French politics. Polling in April 2023 indicated that Le Pen was the most widely supported of the likely candidates for President in 2027 and that if an election were to be held when polling took place, Le Pen won win the most votes in the first round, and had a chance of winning the second round (Harris Interactive 2023). Of course, a Le Pen presidency in France is unlikely. However, her continuing popularity demonstrates the anger in the French electorate toward Macron and the center-left and right, and the widespread appeal of Le Pen’s right-wing civilizational populism.

Civilizational Populism in Poland: Law and Justice Party Right-wing populism is a significant force in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly within Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia (Stojarová 2018; Havlík 2019). Explicit right-wing populist parties govern Poland and Hungary, and they have increasingly dominated the institutions and overall political discourse within their respective nations (Vachudova 2020). Civilizationism, too, has a presence in the discourses of populists

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in Poland and Hungary (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022). For example, the leaders of Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS), which has governed since 2015, present themselves as defenders of Christian values and identity in both Poland, and also across the wider European continent (Stanley 2016, p. 63). PiS has claimed, in somewhat grandiose terms, that among the party’s core aims is the re-Christianization of Europe. PiS is a rightwing populist party formed in 2001 by twin brothers Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski. ´ PiS was not the first party the brothers created. In 1990, following the collapse of communism and the Polish People’s Republic, the Kaczynskis ´ founded the Centre Agreement (PC), a party that “underscored legalism, tradition, as well as the importance of the Catholic Church and Catholic Social Teaching” (Pytlas 2021, p. 341). In 1991 PC, now the most powerful group within the Center Civic Alliance (POC), a coalition of Christian conservative parties, became part of a minority government in Poland led by the Democratic Union, a Christian and economically liberal party (Pytlas 2021, p. 341). PC won more than 8% of the vote in 1991. PC was not as successful in 1993, where they saw their vote halve and minority left-wing government take power. Now leaders of a minor opposition party, the Kaczynskis ´ began to claim that communists and liberals had hijacked the transition from communism to democracy (Pytlas 2021). The notion that liberals were an enemy of the Polish people, and were acting against their interest, thus made an early appearance in the Kaczynskis’ ´ rhetoric, and it would become a hallmark of their populist discourse in years to come. In 2001 the Kaczynski ´ brothers formed a new party: Law and Justice. The party’s name reflected two of their foremost concerns, and it grew in popularity following the “collapse of the incumbent centre-right electoral coalition” (Pytlas 2021, p. 341). PiS, in a typically populist manner, portrayed the government as corrupt and criminal, and claimed that PiS would defend the interests of “the people” (Pytlas 2021; Stanley 2016). Despite having existed for only four years, PiS won the largest share of votes (27%) at the 2005 Polish elections, demonstrating the power of populist discourse in Poland. Having established itself as the largest party in the country, PiS attempted to form a government. However, this task proved difficult, as the party could not negotiate an agreement with Civic Platform, a center-right (social conservative, economic liberal) party. PiS formed an unstable minority government with minor party support from the religious conservative League of Polish Families “and the agrarianpopulist Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland party” (Pytlas 2021,

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p. 341; Stanley 2016). PiS rule was short-lived. Following a major corruption scandal involving the Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland party elections were called, resulting in the liberal Civic Platform party winning enough seats to form government (BBC 2007). PiS, although it increased its overall number of seats due to a voter backlash against the League of Polish Families and the Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland party, entered a period of opposition, during which it again portrayed Poland’s governing parties as illegitimate and corrupt (Pytlas 2021, p. 342). As part of this effort to delegitimize opposition parties, PIS increased its populist rhetoric by claiming to uniquely represent the will of the Polish people and to be defending the Polish nation from foreign and domestic threats. The party also became increasingly anti-liberal and began to emphasize the difference between its own “social-solidaristic” policies and worldview and the socially destructive “liberal” worldview of its centrist enemies (Pytlas 2021, pp. 341–342; Szczerbiak 2007). As part of PiS’ anti-liberalism, the party began to assert the importance of protecting Poland’s Catholic values and identity, which it claimed were being attacked by Poland’s liberal and leftist parties (Stanley 2016; Pytlas 2021). Equally, the party increasingly portrayed LGBT Poles as a threat to the Catholic values of the Polish people, and therefore, sought to curtail their growing rights within the nation (Stanley 2016). The party’s populist delegitimization efforts paid off in 2015 when PiS was returned to power, winning 37.6% of the vote in the elections and decisively defeating its center-right rival, Civic Platform (Markowski 2016). Now the governing party of Poland, PiS quickly put into place its anti-Muslim, anti-liberal agenda. The party’s election victory in 2015 coincided with the wider rise of right-wing populist movements across the world, particularly in Europe and the United States. In a time during which wars in the Middle East were producing hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom sought asylum in Europe, PiS proclaimed themselves defenders of Polish sovereignty and declared that they would, if elected, prevent Muslim refugees from entering Poland. Describing the previous center-right government’s agreement to accept Muslim refugees as a “ticking time bomb” set to explode and destroy Poland’s homogenous Christian identity, PiS steadfastly refused to allow any Muslims refugees access to or asylum in Poland (Cienski 2017; Stanley 2016, p. 63). Perhaps sensing that this policy might trouble devout Christian Poles, one PiS official declared that support PiS’s tearing up of the refugee agreement was consistent with being a “good Christian” (Cienski 2017).

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Furthermore, in an attempt to convince Poles that Muslim refugees would threaten their safety, PiS rhetoric during the mid-2010s involved claims that Muslim immigrants were “Today refugees, tomorrow terrorists!,” but that under PiS rule, Poland would become “free of Islam!” (Bachman 2016).

Civilizationism in Jaroslaw Kaczy´nski’s and PiS’ Discourse Christian civilizationism plays an important role in justifying PiS’ immigration policies. Party leader and, after 2020, Deputy Prime Minister of Poland (and perhaps de facto leader), Jaroslaw Kaczynski, ´ defended PiS’s anti-Muslim policies by framing Muslim immigration to Poland as an element within a larger battle between two civilizational opposites: Christianity and Islam. According to Kaczynski, ´ Poland’s “Freedom and independence” is a product of its “Christian heritage” (Cap 2018, pp. 388–389). Thus, the presence of Islam in Poland, Kaczynski ´ claims, directly threatens not merely the values and identity of the Polish people, but also the very existence of Poland as a nation-state. Christianity, Kaczynski ´ suggests, safeguards Polish “freedom,” “peace, stability and economic progress.” Moreover, he claims that by preventing Muslim immigration, his party will ensure that the Polish people remain “masters of their own house” (Cap 2018, p. 389). PiS claimed that Islam and Christianity “simply cannot coexist” within a single nation due to the vast difference between the two in terms of their values, identity, and religious expression (Cap 2018, p. 389). Muslims were thus constructed in PiS rhetoric as an existential danger to “the people” and an “other” to be excluded from the nation to preserve its culture, identity, and independence. In language intended to facilitate a sense of fear and dehumanizing disgust, PiS claimed that Muslim refugees carry “all sorts of parasites and protozoa,” and therefore, cause “danger” to Poland’s people (Cienski 2017). Putting their rhetoric into practice, PiS used new laws to permit the Internal Security Agency to carry out deportations of Muslims to make Poland “safer” (Pikulicka-Wilczewska 2020). On the other hand, Christian Syrian migrants were welcomed into Poland by PiS, just as the party later showed welcome Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of their nation (Dudzinska ´ and Kotnarowski 2019; Zawadzka-Paluektau 2023). The party justified their anti-Muslim discrimination by claiming that Islam was too powerful to allow into an

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already weakened Europe: “Because the West has no religious identity, it is easy to dominate them, the French or Germans…If this happens, then really Islam will just eat us” (Dudzinska ´ and Kotnarowski 2019). PiS, however, differs from many other right-wing populist parties insofar as it does not declare Islam incompatible with Christianity on the grounds that Islam cannot be secularized or is too conservative. Rather, PiS claims that non-Christian “ethics” such as secularism and liberalism are forms of “nihilism,” and that the “re-Christianization of Europe” is a priority for ´ furthermore, called for a the government (Mazurczak 2019). Kaczynski, “moral revolution” and the creation of a “fourth Republic” in Poland that would be strong enough to withstand the onslaught of liberalism, Islam, and progressivism (The Economist 2015). To make their moral revolution a reality, PiS used illiberal, undemocratic tactics to ensure that its agenda was supported by Polish media and the judicial system (Duncan and Macy 2020–2021; Pytlas 2021; NPR 2020). The seizing of control over the Polish media, universities, and public institutions is important to PiS, as the party recognizes how the battle to control discourse is vital if the party’s social revolution is to continue and after the party inevitably loses government. PiS does not want its achievements to be immediately erased by a new liberal or leftist government and thus seeks to prevent the school system from teaching students liberal values. Thus, PiS swiftly moved to force “Poland’s public television and radio network, along with a number of partially state-owned enterprises …to strictly adhere to the party line” (Hoppe and Puhl 2016). “Museums, theatres and film producers,” furthermore, would “only receive government subsidies if they produce” so-called “National content” or content that does not challenge the nationalist, social conservatism of the ruling party (Hoppe and ´ defended these policies by claiming that Poland’s Puhl 2016). Kaczynski media “needs to be corrected, put in order, because at the moment we have a colonial mentality” (Tillies 2020a). These actions are part of PiS and Kaczynski’s ´ “cultural counterrevolution,” which is allegedly being waged against liberals and leftists who would introduce gay marriage and ultimately admit vast numbers of Muslim immigrants into Poland (Hoppe and Puhl 2016). Kaczynski ´ and his party maintain that Poland and Europe are engulfed in a crisis in which leftists and Muslims represent a threat to Christian civilization. The party thus attempts to create a sense of fear and urgency in the Polish public to prime them to support PiS’ social revolution and the policies that the party claims will save Poland from becoming

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another homogenized, globalized, de-Christianized, liberal democracy. For example, according to Kaczynski, ´ the world is increasingly dominated by commercial interests and people who want societies “without any identity,” and therefore, without structures based on religious and ethnic identities, and which are instead a mere “collection of consumers” ´ claims, are (TVP World 2020). Nation states and churches, Kaczynski perceived by these interest groups as an “obstacle” to be overcome (TVP World 2020). Liberalism is, therefore, framed by PiS as a deleterious force attacking the core elements of Polish identity: Christianity and Polish ethnicity. Opposition to “LGBT ideology” is a key element of PiS’ populism. For example, Kaczynski ´ has claimed that his party will not allow Poland to become like Ireland, a nation he calls a “Catholic wilderness with ´ also claims that rampant LGBT ideology” (Tillies 2020a). Kaczynski LGBT ideology threatens “our civilization,” and that his party will not let it “defeat” the Polish people. Therefore, he commits his party to fight LGBT ideology, particularly within schools and universities, where the party has proposed “a prohibition on the promotion of LGBT ideology and on conducting various [forms of] gender studies” (Tillies 2020b). This rhetoric is effective in drawing together fear among parents that their children will be drawn to homosexuality, and perhaps more significantly, transexual or non-binary identities, as part of a liberal-engineered social contagion, with deeper fears that Polish identity, religion, and culture are being erased. PiS, having constructed a civilization crisis, portrays itself as a national savior, willing to take decisive action to prevent the destruction of “our civilization.” Thus, Kaczynski ´ claims he will insist that schools teach children right from wrong and try to inculcate in them the values that will ensure Christian civilization in Poland will be perpetuated well into the future. He warns the Polish people that PiS’ anti-LBGT actions will draw accusations of homophobia and Nazism from European Union nations, but maintains his actions are necessary and should not be compared to totalitarianism (TVP World 2020). PiS’ parliamentary election victories in 2015 and 2019 demonstrate the continuing power of its populism. Although the party lost its upper house majority in the elections of 2019, PiS won a majority of 235 seats in Poland’s 460 parliament, triumphing over Civic Platform, which again saw its vote decrease (Markowski 2020). PiS’ election victory in 2019 suggests that its populist discourse has proven highly effective. PiS’ ability to divide Polish society between virtuous Christian people and

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their enemies, liberal elites, purveyors of LGBT ideology, and Muslims, and moreover, to frame the battle between these two forces as a crisis in which Christian civilization is threatened, appears to have given the party unprecedented support in the post-Communist era. “Christian civilization” in PiS’ discourse appears synonymous with traditional Polish culture and values and is a flexible concept that can mean whatever PiS and Kaczynski ´ require it to mean. Equally, ‘Christian civilization’ is defined mostly by what it is not: it is not Islamic or the progressive pro-LGBT ideology common in Western Europe. At the same time, while PiS calls for the re-Christianizing of Europe, the party is not a religious movement. The party does not attempt to force Polish people to believe in God or attend Church service. Rather, PiS is concerned most with preserving Poland’s traditional values—particularly the traditional gender roles and social mores—which it believes are inextricably linked with or predicated on Christianity. Kaczynski ´ and PiS portrays Poland’s social problems as part of a crisis in which the core “Christian” values of the Polish people are threatened. The party furthermore portrays itself as a civilizational and national savior standing in the way of cultural annihilation, and its enemies as threats to “our civilization.” For example, like other right-wing populist parties in Europe, PiS portrayed the mid-2010s influx of Muslim refugees as a crisis that threatens the nation and the wider Christian civilization to which the nation belongs. Where the National Front portrayed Muslim immigrants as inordinately religious and conservative, PiS—a non-secularist conservative party—framed the immigrants as culturally different, violent, and diseased. Moreover, they portrayed Muslims as an instrument of liberals, who are alleged to be using them to wage war on Christian civilization in Poland. This portrayal helps PiS justify the prevention of Muslims from entering the country as refugees, and the deporting of Muslims from the country on the basis that Islam is incompatible with Poland’s Christian culture and values. Moreover, PiS portrays itself as an instrument of “the people’s will” and claims this direct connection gives it the authority to control the media, schools, and universities and re-shape them until they reflect the will of the people. PiS thus justifies its attempts to dominate Poland’s state institutions as necessary actions taken to save Poland and restore Christianity to its rightful place at the heart of Polish identity and values.

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Discussion This chapter finds civilizationism present in the populist discourses of Donald Trump and his administration, Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party, and Jaroslaw Kaczynski ´ and PiS. The populists examined in this chapter posit that “elites” are immoral insofar as they have both turned away from the “good” religion-derived cultural values of “the people” and permitted or desired the mass immigration of people who do not share the culture, religion, and values of “the people,” instead belonging to a foreign civilization—Islam—with entirely different and even antithetical values. Le Pen and Kaczynski, ´ in particular, define national belonging “and the semantics of self and other” in civilizational terms, and therefore, they define “the people,” “elites,” and “others” through a civilizational classification scheme (Brubaker 2017a, p. 1193). Le Pen, Kaczynski, ´ and Trump may be called “civilizational populists” under the definition given by Yilmaz and Morieson (2022) insofar as they separate society “into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’ who collaborate with the dangerous others belonging to other civilizations that are hostile and present a clear and present danger to the civilization and way of life of the pure people.” However, “the people,” “elites,” and “others” are described by Trump, Le Pen, and Kaczynski ´ in different ways. Religion and religious identity played a key role in the Trump administration’s civilizational populism, informing its construction of ingroups and outgroups, and even elements of its foreign policy, including its religious freedom agenda and support for Israel. For example, Trump and his Administration at first largely conformed to the ‘clash of civilizations’ rhetoric established by the George W. Bush administration. Although Trump criticized the decision to invade Iraq and America’s disastrous nation-building efforts in Afghanistan, unlike his predecessors he made no effort to distinguish between violent radical Islamists and ordinary Muslims, and in doing so, he demonized all Muslims, framing them all as potential terrorists who belong to a religion that “hates” America (Haynes 2020b). On the other hand, Trump and his closest allies claimed that his administration would protect American civilization and its Judeo-Christian culture—including gay people and women—from Islam (Haynes 2020b). His decision to implement a travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority nations was predicated on this claim and

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framed as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to “save” America and Western civilization from Islamic radicalism. In France, Marine Le Pen claims that elites in the traditional governing parties have ignored the interests of “the people” and betrayed France’s culture and undermined its civilization. However, Le Pen does not use entirely consistent language when describing the civilization to which the French people belong. At times, the French have their own unique civilization, while at others, the French belong to Christian civilization. Le Pen is consistent, however, in describing France as a Christian yet secularized nation belonging to the Western civilization. Equally, she describes two core enemies of France and its secularized Christian culture: globalism and Islamic fundamentalism. Thus, globalists and Muslims are portrayed as enemies of France and make up the core outgroups constructed in Le Pen’s discourse. Globalists, according to Le Pen, are immoral insofar as they choose to destroy France by permitting mass immigration from majority Muslim nations and encouraging multiculturalism and consumerism (France24 2022; Al Jazeera 2017; Morieson 2021; Roy 2016). While Le Pen describes Islam as a regressive social force hostile to Jewish people, women, and homosexuals, her solution to the problem of Islamic fundamentalism is not to encourage mass conversion to Christianity, but to strengthen laïcité by banning religious clothing from public places. This demonstrates how her commitment to preserving Christian values in France involves a curious meshing together of Christianity and secularism, as if both were entirely compatible. Her father, of course, understood secularism as a threat to the hegemony of Christian belief and culture in France. Yet Marine Le Pen sees no problem in identifying laïcité as a continuation if not the culmination of almost two-thousand years of Judeo-Christian culture in France. Equally, for her, it is the religiosity of Muslims that poses a grave threat, a threat that cannot be cured by more religiosity (albeit of a Christian kind) but by the imprisonment of Islam within the private realm via secularization. The civilizationism of PiS and Jaroslaw Kaczynski ´ is anti-secular and defines Christian civilization in Poland as a conservative, religious force incompatible with Western liberalism and individualism. Kaczynski ´ does not frame Islam—as Le Pen and Trump do—as a regressive social force incompatible with the liberal values of the West. Rather, he claims Muslims belong to a foreign culture that does not belong within Poland. Moreover, he claims that the liberal values of the West, especially the ideology espoused by LGBT activists, are antithetical to the core values

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of the Christian civilization that built European and Polish culture (Table 3.1). While within civilizational populist discourses “the boundaries of belonging and the semantics of self and other are reconceptualized in civilizational terms,” in the three cases studied here, the populist leaders use civilizationism not to eliminate national boundaries, but rather to defend those boundaries (Brubaker 2017a, p. 1193). Muslim immigration is often the most significant cause of the success of right-wing civilizational populism in Western countries (Mehic 2019), yet the examples described in this chapter show that liberalism, globalism, and LGBT ideology and rights may be framed as threats to civilization. In all three cases, Christianity is important insofar as it helps define the identity of “our” Table 3.1 Comparing the case studies Case study

Civilizational discourse

Outgroups

Ingroups

Trump administration/ Donald Trump

United States is a Judeo-Christian power and core state of Western civilization. The United States and Western civilization are threatened by radical Islam and by elites who do not enforce strict border control France is a secular nation but is also part of Christian civilization. It is threatened by globalism, which erases its culture, identity, and borders, and permits “Islamic fundamentalism” to destroy French civilization from the inside Poland is a stronghold of Christian civilization. Christian civilization in Europe is threatened by liberal elites, who wish to erase all forms of ethnic and religious identity. Liberal elites encourage mass immigration from Muslim societies and promote anti-Christian LGBT ideology, which presents an existential threat to Christian civilization

Muslims (especially during 2016 presidential campaign), illegal immigrants, elites

American Christians, Christians, Jewish people

Muslims, globalists, elites

Secular French citizens, Christians

Liberals, LGBT activists, Muslims, elites

Christian ethnic Poles

National Rally/ Marine Le Pen

PiS/Jaroslaw Kaczynski ´

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civilization and culture. However, Christian piety is mostly absent—or, in the case of Le Pen, entirely absent—from the three populist movements’ discourses. Christianity is instead portrayed as valuable insofar as it helped form “our” civilization and its values, and it may act as a buttress against the intrusion of foreign values via Muslim immigration or through the activities of LGBT activists and traitorous elites. At the same time, Le Pen and Trump do not describe the civilization to which their respective nations belong in a consistent manner. Civilization, in their respective discourses, can mean Western civilization in its widest sense, or it can simply mean the culture of France or the United States. Civilization is thus a flexible term, and in the discourse of right-wing populists is often defined not by particular intrinsic qualities, but more often by the perceived characteristics of its “other(s),” especially Islam. It is not explicitly used to describe the boundary of the civilized world, but in some sense and insofar as Islam is portrayed as inferior and dangerous, there is often an implied double meaning in the use of “civilization” by the three populist leaders examined in this chapter, with Islam being tacitly framed as barbaric and the Judeo-Christian West as civilized. Finally, it is worth noting that Donald Trump’s failure in 2020 to secure a second term as president, Le Pen’s defeat by Emmanuel Macron in the 2022 presidential elections, and beyond Europe and North America, the narrow defeat of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil by the leftist Lula, might be evidence of the declining power of civilizational populism in the democratic West. However, the electoral defeat of these individual politicians does not itself demonstrate the defeat of civilizational populism as a popular idea.

Conclusions The growth of Christian civilizational populism is a reaction to the “perfect storm” (Brubaker 2017b, p. 377) of events that began with the rise of mass immigration and neoliberalism in Europe and North America, and culminated in the increasing social and political dominance of the socio-professional class and the non-material progressive politics embraced by this group (Robertson and Nestore 2022). In response to these developments, right-wing populists across Europe and in the United States positioned themselves as defenders of national sovereignty and Judeo-Christian values and identity against the loose alliance of neoliberals and progressives who embraced mass immigration, cosmopolitanism,

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and increasingly, a political agenda that sought liberation and rights for LGBT people. Thus, right-wing populists sought to represent citizens who increasingly feel alienated and, at times, demonized by mainstream center-right and center-left politicians, and who believe their country is being taken from them by illegitimate elites and foreigners. Populists in the West attracted greater support and became more civilizational in character following the Islamist terror attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the U.S.-led wars that destabilized the Middle East and West Asia, and the subsequent civil conflicts in Syria and Libya that caused or helped facilitate the movement of over one million mostly Muslim people from the Middle East and North Africa to Western Europe. Were it not for this perfect storm of events, it is unlikely that Christian-based civilizationism would have become such a significant political force in right-wing populist politics of the United States. It is interesting, then, to speculate on whether, because the United States does not face the same demographic “threat” from Muslims as European nations such as France, right-wing populist movements in the United States will cease portraying themselves as protecting Christian civilization from Islam. It is conceivable that, as the threat of Muslim terrorism in the United States recedes, right-wing populists will position themselves as defenders of Christian civilization from left-wing progressives. On the other hand, it is likely that Christian civilizational populism in Europe will continue to be defined by an anti-Muslim agenda, especially if low fertility rates persist among non-Muslim ethnic Europeans and the number of Muslims in Europe continues to increase. For many Europeans, the growth of Islam may indeed make them feel in some sense Christian, although this obviously does not mean they believe in the Christian God. Rather, as Roy (2013) asserts, the decline of Christianity as a faith—even in Poland, perhaps the most religious nation in Europe (Sadlon 2021)—now allows for a strong Christian identity that even an atheist may possess. It may be, then, that right-wing civilizational populism is especially appealing to Europeans and Americans who feel alienated, “othered,” or demonized as “deplorables” by the culturally dominant and largely progressive socio-cultural professional class, and who have lost their old identity as the morally good “people” of their nation. Equally, civilizational populism may appeal to European and North Americans who despair over the declining number of white Christians in the world, their declining influence over global affairs, and the rise of non-Western powers, and who believe that Western civilization

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is not synonymous with liberalism, open borders, and multiculturalism, but rather that the embrace of those concepts by Western “elites” plays a leading role in the present destruction of Western civilization.

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CHAPTER 4

Turkey: Islamist Civilizational Populism Ihsan Yilmaz and Nicholas Morieson

Introduction Since its initial election victory in 2002 Turkey’s Justice Development Party (AKP) has established itself as the nation’s ruling party. While the AKP won office in 2002 running as “Muslim democrats” and portraying itself as a force that would liberate the nation from authoritarian secular nationalism (Ozel 2003; Nasr 2005), over time the party became more authoritarian populist and less tolerant of opposition and dissent (Çınar 2018). A key element in the AKP’s populism is the claim that the party,

This chapter is a revised version of previously published Open Access material in the following article: Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Nicholas Morieson. 2023. “Civilizational Populism in Domestic and Foreign Policy: The Case of Turkey” Religions 14, no. 5: 631. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14050631. I. Yilmaz (B) · N. Morieson Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] N. Morieson e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_4

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and in particular its leader and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdo˘gan, represent authentic Ottoman and Islamic civilization. The party’s turn away from secular nationalism saw the AKP embrace a new nationalism in which Turkey was portrayed not merely as an Islamic nation-state, but as the “continuation of the Ottoman Empire” and thus the core state of the Sunni Muslim world (Moudouros 2022, p. 175). Scholars have described Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) as using rhetoric that defines Turkish identity not in a narrowly nationalist or ethnonationalist manner, but in civilizational terms (Hazir 2022; Yilmaz and Morieson 2022; Yilmaz et al. 2023). Language evoking a cultural clash between civilizations can be found in AKP leader and Turkish President Tayyip Erdo˘gan’s discourse. Turkey, according to Erdo˘gan, is “heir” to the Islamic civilization, and has called upon the people of his nation to revive it, claiming that this is the duty not merely of government but also general “society, the business world, NGOs, universities, people of arts and culture” (Erdo˘gan 2017). There is evidence, then, of a civilizational turn in Turkish politics, perhaps analogous to the civilizational turn in European and American populism identified by Brubaker (2017), Haynes (2017, 2020), Morieson (2023) and Yilmaz and Morieson (2021, 2022, 2023a, 2023b). This chapter tests this conception of civilizational populism in the context of Turkey, and the discourse and policies of the AKP-led Turkish government. To do this, the chapter asks two key questions: What role does civilizationism play in AKP discourse? And is civilizationism evident in Turkish domestic and foreign policy? The chapter begins with a discussion of Turkish politics in the twentieth century, and describes how following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his supporters won power and attempted to refashion Turkish identity to facilitate secular nationalism, and as a result downplayed the history and importance of the Ottoman Empire and Islam. At the same time, the chapter explains, while the Kemalist government allowed Muslims to practice their religion, it also attempted to control Islam and its practice through the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). The chapter then describes the AKP’s rise in the 1990s and 2000s as a reaction to the Kemalists’ failure to construct the Republic of Turkey as a democratic, secular nationalist nation. The second part of the chapter examines AKP discourse on civilization in the post-2016 period to understand how it is employed and for what purpose. It shows that AKP leader and Turkish President Tayyip

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Erdo˘gan combines populism and its division of society into two opposing groups (the pure people and corrupt elite), with neo-Ottomanism and Islamism. The result of this combining is a civilizational populism in which Turkish society is divided between the “pure people,” defined as Sunni Muslim ethnic Turks, corrupt secular “elites,” and dangerous “others” who collaborate with foreigners to corrupt and injure the pious Muslim people of Turkey. It then describes the impact of the AKP’s civilizational populism on Turkish domestic and foreign policy. It first focuses on how Diyanet has been repurposed by the AKP as an arm of the party, and used to help perpetuate the party’s rule by portraying the AKP as defenders of Islam and the Turkish people, and the party’s enemies (Gülenists, secularists, Kurds, “the West”) as anti-Islam. The section then discusses foreign policy, and shows how the AKP portrays Turkey as the core state of Islamic Civilization and successor to the Ottoman Empire, and thus as the key force defending the rights of Muslims the world over, but particularly within the lands controlled by the Ottomans. It further discusses how Ottomanism and a desire to defend the ummah and Islamic civilization defines Turkey’s foreign policy rhetoric in the AKP era, but that the party’s efforts to re-establish the glory of Pax Ottomana have been foiled by regional powers, forcing the party to adopt a pragmatic stance somewhat at odds with its fiery antiWestern rhetoric. Following this, the chapter discusses the AKP’s use of state institutions and television series to disseminate its ideology into the Turkish diaspora, and to Sunni Muslims across the world. Finally, the chapter discusses the particular civilizationism of the AKP and its leader Tayyip Erdo˘gan, and describes how it is fundamentally nationalist, and portrays Turkey as constantly threatened by Western interference and violence due to Turkey’s position as heir to the Ottoman Empire and thus the leading nation of Islamic civilization.

The Fall of Secular Nationalism and Rise of Islamism and Neo-Ottomanism in Turkey The Ottoman Empire was a large, multi-ethnic, multi-religious empire which, even when in decline during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, spanned much of North Africa, the Middle East, and the Dodecanese. Following the Ottoman conquest of Mamluk Egypt in 1517 the Ottoman Empire became the seat of the Caliphate and the central

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power of the Sunni Muslim world, and therefore gained religious significance for Sunni Muslims across the world, and which it held until the abolition of the Caliphate and the establishing of the Republic of Turkey in 1924. The Ottoman Empire thus held, for many centuries, enormous secular power across the Mediterranean, and its religious influence was felt across the Muslim world and especially by Sunni Muslims. The defeat of the Ottomans by the Allied Powers in the First World War led to the loss of Ottoman territories in North Africa and the Middle East, where the Empire failed to rouse Muslims against the Allies, and ultimately to the collapse of the Empire. The circumstances of the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in the First World War, and subsequent dismemberment by Western allied powers, have cast a long shadow over the Republic of Turkey and its politics and have continued to traumatize its elite (Yilmaz 2021). Secular nationalists, who had long viewed the Empire and its political culture as backward and requiring reform, emerged from the Ottoman defeat in the First World War in a strong position and established Turkey as a European style nation-state and to abolish the Caliphate. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the National Turkish Movement managed to defeat Greece in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, and established following this victory the Republic of Turkey. This transition involved ethnic “cleansing” of minority groups, especially Armenians but including Kurds, Assyrians and Greeks, and large scale population transfers in which Turkish people living in Greek territories and Greeks living in Turkey were “exchanged” (Shields 2013; Schaller and Zimmerer 2008), making modern Turkey a far less ethnically and religiously diverse than the Ottoman Empire, and cementing Turkish ethnicity and—despite the Kemalists’ attempts to secularize the Turkish people—Sunni Islam as the defining identities of the new Turkish republic. In 1924 the Caliphate was formally abolished by the Turkish Republic, and the last Caliph, Abdülmecid II, was sent into exile in France. “Abandoning the chimera of Empire,” Harris (1970, p. 438) observed, “new Turkey grew and formed within modest boundaries. In place of attachment to the sultan-caliph, the shadow of God on earth, Ataturk put allegiance to the nation state.” Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his newly formed Republican People’s Party (CHP) made sweeping reforms which sought to Westernize Turkey, banning forms of traditional dress, replacing Ottoman Arabic script with Latin script, replacing Islamic law with a new secular law code based on Swiss law, and attempting to control Islam

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within Turkey via the Diyanet (Mardin 1981). To encourage ethnonationalism, Kemal promoted the “Turkish history thesis” which argued Turks had “contributed to civilization long before they had been incorporated into the Ottoman empire” (Mardin 1981). According to this thesis, Turks “Originated an urban civilization in Central Asia from which many other civilizations had sprung” and “had maintained their cultural identity even after becoming a minority in a multinational empire” (Mardin 1981). To facilitate the secularization of the nation, the Kemalists sought to construct a new desired Turkish citizen, “Homo LASTus (the Laicist, Atatürkist, Sunni and Turkish people)” (Yilmaz 2021, p. 23). However, recognizing that it would be impossible to convince the majority of Turkish citizens, especially those living outside major urban areas, to embrace secular nationalism, the Kemalists constructed a tolerated Muslim citizen or “Homo Diyanetus’ (Yilmaz 2021, p. 23). ‘Diyanet man’ was moderate in his beliefs and habits, and would not challenge the secular foundations of the Republic of Turkey, or seek to construct a new state based on Sharia law (Yilmaz 2021, p. 23). Undesired citizens of Turkey during the Kemalist period included Kurdish people and non-Sunni Muslims, as well as conservative Sunni Muslims who opposed the Kemalists’ secularizing reforms. As Yilmaz puts it, the Kemalist CHP “relied heavily on secular nationalist education to create their own version of modern pro-Western secular homogenous Turkish nation” (Yilmaz 2022). Students were taught a version of Turkish history that was intended to disconnect them “from Ottoman history and religion, and thus the European-inspired Kemalist education system attempted to fashion young Turkish people into strong supporters of the nationalist and secular regime, and to view the Ottoman past and Islam as retrograde forces or irrelevant” (Yilmaz 2022). The Westernization of Turkey under Kemalist rule did not always ensure, however, good relations between Turkey and the West. Suspicion of Western intentions—a product of the Western-led dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and British support for Greece in the Greco-Turkish War—continued to influence Turkish foreign relations throughout the entire Kemalist period (Yilmaz 2021, pp. 1–7). Moreover, because the Kemalists were reluctant to allow free elections to take place or to permit non-secularist parties from holding power at a national level, Turkey did not transform into a Westernstyle democracy. Rather, the Kemalists ruled Turkey as a one-party state throughout almost the entirety of the 1923–1950 period.

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Following the Second World War, the defeat of fascism led the CHP ˙ ˙ and its then leader Ismet Inönü to reconsider its ban on opposition parties, leading to multi-party democracy being established in Turkey in 1946. In 1950 Turkey experienced its first free and fair elections and the first change of government, as the CHP were swept from power by the Democratic Party. However, in 1960 the military—increasingly alarmed at the Democratic Party’s inability to manage the Turkish economy (then transitioning away from reliance on U.S. monetary aid, perceived desire to draw the nation closer to the Soviet Union, and the growing anti-Democratic Party protests by students aggravated by the party’s authoritarianism—staged a successful coup and returned former CHP ˙ ˙ Prime Minister Ismet Inönü to power (Gunn 2015; Harris 1970). Across the following four decades, the military intervened directly in politics on three further occasions, in 1971, 1980, and 1997, all ostensibly to protect the secular nationalist or Kemalist character of the nation of Turkey. While it may at first appear that Turkey was culturally dominated entirely by secular nationalism during this period, and that as a result, civilizationism was absent in Turkish politics, this may not have been the case. For example, Bacik and Seker (2023) argue that anti-Western “clash of civilizations” narratives have long been present in Turkish political discourses, and that it is not merely Islamists but also Turkish nationalists who encourage Turkish people to view the West as a single bloc and to conceive of themselves as part of a singular civilization. According to Bacik and Seker (2023, p. 7), the best example of the Turkish Republic’s “official view of Western civilization” can be found in the following lines, written by Mehmet Akif Ersoy, in the Turkish national anthem ˙ Istiklal Mar¸sı: “The horizons of the West if bounded with the walls of steel, I have borders like my faithful bosom. Let it bellow out, do not be afraid! How can ever muzzle such a creed, The single-fanged monster you call ‘civilization?’” (Bacik and Seker 2023, 7). “Ersoy,” Bacik and Seker (2023, p. 8) write, draws a hard binary of “the self” and “the other” between the Turkish-Islamic and the Western civilizations. Thus, in Ersoy’s widely influential and state-promoted conception of the West, “Western civilization is recognized as strong, but this strength stems from material power. Otherwise, Western civilization is morally weak. And, relying only on material power, it does not deserve to be recognized as a civilization. On the contrary, ‘our’ civilization is superior, as it has faith” (Bacik and Seker 2023, p. 7). As a result, they write, “Ersoy imagines the Turkish-Islamic civilization and the Western civilization as two opposite

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and clashing camps: The former symbolizes morality; the latter represents immoral materialism” (Bacik and Seker 2023, p. 7). It must be pointed out here that the Turkish national anthem was adopted in 1921, and thus during a period not of Islamization, but rather of deep secularization. Bacik and Seker (2023) argue that the poetic works of Ersoy, and the later but highly influential writer Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, continue to influence Turkish understandings of Islamic and Western civilization. They observe (Bacik and Seker 2023) that both poets claim three things about civilizational relations between Turkey and the West: “i. Western civilization is materially strong but morally weak. Turkish-Islamic civilization is morally superior.. ii. Western civilization is hostile to the Turkish-Islamic civilization. iii. The collapse of the Western civilization is imminent” (Bacik and Seker 2023, p. 1). These ideas, Bacik and Seker (2023) argue, continue to influence the discourse of both Islamist parties such as Erdogan’s AKP, but also their nationalist allies such as the National Movement Party (MHP). Civilizationism in Turkey, then, is not simply a product of Islamism. Rather, the notion that Turkey belongs to a morally superior “Islamic civilization” has been expressed by nationalists and Islamists, and during periods of Turkish history in which the country was governed by secular nationalists. Indeed, Dalacoura (2019, p. 128) argues that Islamic civilization is a concept that arose only “in the very late period of the Ottoman Empire in the context of complex and multi-dimensional modernization and secularization processes,” and was “enunciated by the Young Ottomans in the 1870s and subsequently promoted during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876–1909) for political purposes.” Moreover, she writes, “Islamic civilization was conceived, at least in part, as a counter-point to European and other civilizations” Dalacoura (2019, p. 128). In this way, therefore, she argues, the very concept of Islamic civilizationism is secular in nature or rather “bears the imprint of secularism” Dalacoura (2019, p. 128). However, whatever the origins of Islamic civilizationism, and despite secular nationalist governments openly promoting the idea that Western nations form a single and morally inferior cultural bloc, Islamists appear to have found the concept to be an especially powerful tool. The rise of Islamism in Turkey in the 1970s, especially in the form of Necmettin Erbakan’s Millî Görü¸s movement and its associated parties, provoked a strong reaction from Turkey’s “deep state.” Erbakan’s National Order Party was banned in 1971 for violating Turkey’s secular constitution (Narli 1999, p. 39). His National Salvation Party, formed in 1972,

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governed as a junior member of a coalition led by the CHP, before being shut down following another military coup in 1980. However, Erbakan again founded a new Islamist party, the Welfare Party, in 1983 (Narli 1999, p. 50) which grew in popularity throughout the following decade, becoming the largest party in 1996 and installing Erbakan himself as Prime Minister (Narli 1999, p. 51). The growing power of Islamism in Turkey again precipitated a military coup intended to prevent the de-secularization of the state, and Erbakan was removed from power along with his party in the 1997 “postmodern coup.” During the same period, Welfare Party mayor of Istanbul Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan was jailed and banned from politics after reciting a poem perceived to attack secularism and the Turkish constitution (Yilmaz and Erturk 2023, p. 96). However, these actions would not prevent the rise of Islamism in Turkey. Following his release, Erdo˘gan founded the Virtue Party, and after it was banned in 2001, co-founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP) (Narli 1999, p. 51). The AKP did not present itself as an Islamist party. Rather, it portrayed itself as a pluralist, democratic, and pro-Western yet authentically Muslim alternative to authoritarian secular nationalism (Yilmaz and Bashirov 2018). This self-portrayal was vital if the party was to survive politically during this period of military and secular domination. The AKP grew in popularity during this period of secular authoritarianism, and its success was due in part to Erdo˘gan’s ability to present himself and his party as “the voice of deprived ‘real people’ and their champion of their interest against old ‘elites’” (Yilmaz 2018, pp. 54–55; 2021). In 2002, the AKP won government for the first time, and in subsequent elections established itself as the ruling party of Turkey, consolidating its power over all Turkish institutions including— after 2016—the military. Over time, however, the AKP abandoned its commitments to cultural and religious pluralism, its pro-Western orientation and support for Human Rights, and became increasingly populist, Islamist, and authoritarian. Conforming to the pattern set by previous Turkish governments, the AKP government grew increasingly intolerant of dissent, and sought to marginalize opposition parties and movements. It is interesting to observe that, in its initial “Muslim democrat” phase the party did at times incorporate idea of civilization into its discourse. For example, Çınar (2018) observes that in the first decade of its rule the AKP framed “Turkey’s integration with the EU in terms of a ‘reconciliation of civilizations’,” suggesting that the party “had from the very beginning identified Turkey with an unnamed non-Western civilization,

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but without explicitly rejecting the liberal political norms of European democracy.” Çınar (2018) argues that the AKP’s use of this discourse “represented the possibility of rendering Western political norms with the norms of ‘our civilization’.” However, over time this civilizational discourse changed as the AKP began to disavow Western-style democracy and the European Union. For example, the party ceased attempting to solve the Kurdish issue, began to use anti-Western rhetoric, and when young people began to protest against a development planned for Gezi Park in Istanbul, crushed the protests with violent force and demonized the protestors as anti-Muslim. Following a failed military coup in 2016, the AKP and its leader—and now the nation’s President—Tayyip Erdo˘gan, gained almost complete control of the nation’s politics and institutions (Yilmaz and Erturk 2023, p. 3). Following the AKP’s turn toward Islamism and authoritarianism populism in the early 2010s, and particularly after 2013, “Erdo˘gan began invoking the ‘our civilization’ discourse as a means of rejecting Western democracy as a reference point” (Çınar 2018). For example, Erdo˘gan claimed that “The core of democracy is cohabitation of differences, and it is rooted in our civilization,” and further claimed that “contemporary universal values and principles were strongly defended and practiced by the Ottoman and Seldjuki states” (Çınar 2018). Çınar (2018), moreover, argues that Erdo˘gan’s revised civilizational discourse, which was “coupled with the explicit rejection of liberal democratic principles like the separation of powers, delegitimization of all critics as Eurocentric, Islamophobic and non-national, and rejection of all Western criticisms as colonialist or Orientalist exercises” was designed to free the AKP of the burden of complying with democratic norms, and allowed the party to demonize their opponents as anti-Islamic. Purging the nation of alleged 2016 coup leaders and anyone associated with the—particularly people associated with Fetullah Gulen, who was alleged to have orchestrated the 2016 coup—Erdo˘gan and the AKP set about de-secularizing and Islamizing Turkey, and essentially attempting to remake the nation and its people in their preferred image (Yilmaz et al. 2020). With the Kemalists all but vanquished, the AKP and Erdo˘gan began implementing their new ideology, which consists of “electoral authoritarianism as the electoral system, neopatrimonialism as the economic system, populism as the political strategy, and Islamism as the political ideology” (Yilmaz 2021, p. 127; Yilmaz and Bashirov 2018) alongside the portrayal of Turkey as “the legitimate inheritor of

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Ottoman legacies and power, the leader of the Islamic world, and the protector of Palestine” (Hintz 2018, pp. 37, 113). The implementation of this ideology, which may be called Erdo˘ganism, has occurred in several ways. Perhaps most significantly, Diyanet, a body created by Kemalists to control Islam and orient Turkish Muslims toward secular nationalism, now became a close ally of the AKP. The AKP greatly expanded Diyanet’s budget and, through their written Friday sermons (which are read in Diyanet affiliated Turkish mosques across the nation) sought to perpetuate the AKP’s populist Islamist ideology (Yilmaz and Barry 2020). The AKP, with the assistance of Diyanet, has since the failed 2016 coup attempted to construct a new ‘desired citizen’ to replace the Kemalist “Homo LASTus.” This new desired citizen, which Yilmaz (2021, p. 165) has termed “homo Erdo˘ganistus” but which the AKP itself calls “Dindar Nesil, the pious generation” (L¨uk¨usl¨u 2016; Kandiyoti and Emanet 2017) is best described as “a practicing Sunni Muslim, believes in absolute authority, sees the Ottoman rule as the greatest era, believes their social purpose is to spread Islam in the public sphere, to provide aid to and deepen ties with Muslim and former Ottoman peoples and to regain Ottoman glory” (Yilmaz 2021, p. 165; Hintz 2018, pp. 37, 113). Thus, an important part of the AKP’s de-secularizing of Turkey has been its turn away from secular nationalism and toward neoOttomanism and Islamism. Where the Kemalists downplayed Turkey’s Ottoman heritage, the AKP seeks to portray modern Turkey as a continuation of the Ottoman Empire, with the same alleged mission of the Empire: to act as the leading Muslim power in the world, and defend Islam from its perceived enemies. This does not mean, obviously, that the AKP wish to literally revive the Ottoman Empire. Rather, the AKP’s conception of Turkish identity integrates “nationalism rooted in Turkic glorification and the Ottoman pride” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023b, p. 62), but with an added element of ummatism, “a postnational, political identity” based on the idea that Muslims across the world ought to bind themselves together as a transnational body of believers (Saunders 2008, p. 303). Pan-Islamism emerged as an increasingly important element in Erdo˘gan’s domestic and foreign policy rhetoric (Yabanci 2020) during AKP rule, especially following the failed 2016 coup and Turkey’s 2017 constitutional referendum, “which gave Erdo˘gan unprecedented power to re-make Turkey in an image of his choosing” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023b, p. 62). Following the 2017 referendum, which successfully changed Turkey’s system of government from a parliamentary system

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to an executive Presidency system, Erdo˘gan—who was previously Prime Minister—became president of Turkey, making him both head of government and head of state. Newly empowered, Erdo˘gan portrayed himself as the key leader of the Muslim World and the chief hope of the ummah (Yilmaz 2018). Moreover, Erdo˘gan portrays the world as divided between “two antagonistic blocs of the Muslim World and its enemies to legitimise his authoritarianism” (Yilmaz and Demir 2022; Castaldo 2018; Sawae 2020; Ta¸s 2022a; Yilmaz and Shipoli 2022). Portraying himself as the leader of the Islamic world, and with the AKP entrenched in power and dominating Turkish institutions, Erdo˘gan now moves his Islamist and populist ideology beyond Turkey’s borders, turning it into a transnational form of populism.

Civilizationism in Turkish Domestic Politics Civilizationism is manifested in AKP discourse in a variety of ways. In this section, we first discuss the role of civilizationism in the AKP’s ideology— Erdo˘ganism—and its populist division of society into three groups: “the pure people,” “corrupt elites,” and “dangerous others,” and attempt at constructing a new desired citizen and “pious generation.” Following this we describe the role of civilizationism in the AKP’s domestic politics, and the manner in which the AKP frames its repression and authoritarianism as a defense not merely of the Turkish nation, but of Islamic civilization and the ummah. Finally, we discuss the role of civilizationism in the AKP’s foreign policy discourse, and discuss how the party justifies its military intervention in Syria and its attempts to increase cooperation between majority Sunni Muslim nations as part of its responsibility as the core state of Islamic civilization and heir to the Ottoman Empire. Civilizationism is an important element of Erdo˘ganism, manifested in its glorification of the Ottoman Empire, and its claim that Turkey is “the legitimate inheritor of Ottoman legacies and power, the leader of the Islamic world, and the protector of Palestine" (Hintz 2018, pp. 37, 113). In this way, Erdo˘ganism combines Turkish nationalism with Islamism and neo-Ottomanism, and the result is an eclectic ideology that draws on the notion that majority Muslim nations ought to come together, for mutual protection against an aggressive West, as a civilizational bloc led by Turkey and its President, Tayyip Erdo˘gan. The notion that a “clash of civilizations” is occurring between the West and Islam is a critical component in the AKP’s construction of ingroups and outgroups in Turkey. The AKP

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portrays itself as defending pious Turkish Sunni Muslims (or the ummah) from their enemies: morally corrupt secular “elites” and dangerous nonMuslim “others” alleged to be working with Western powers to injure Turkey and destroy Islam. The AKP has attempted to create the distinction between “the people” (ummah) and their enemies (non-ummah), and to portray themselves are protectors of ummah, a variety of ways. The failed coup provided the AKP with an opportunity to ‘prove’ that its opponents were dangerous enemies of the Turkish people and Islam. For example, the AKP blamed the attempted coup squarely on Fethullah Gulen and the hundreds of thousands of members of the Gülen movement, and used the failure of their alleged attempt to remove the AKP from power to purge them entirely from all positions of authority in government and business. The Gülenists were subsequently branded terrorists by the government, which claimed that they were working with Western powers to destroy Turkish democracy (Ta¸s 2018). For example, shortly after the coup attempt Erdo˘gan remarked “This coup attempt has actors inside Turkey, but its script was written outside …unfortunately the West is supporting terrorism and stands by coup plotters” (Reuters 2016). Erdo˘gan furthermore claimed that the coup was a “gift from God” that allowed him to expose all of Islam’s and the Turkish people’s enemies within the country (Sik ¸ 2016; Ak 2022). Thus, the AKP portrayed the coup as part of a wider conflict between Islam and its enemies: perverters of Islam within Turkey (particularly Gülenists) and the West, including the United States. Equally, Erdo˘gan portrayed himself as acting in the name of God to protect the Turkish people from their enemies. The AKP’s response to the coup included increasing attempts to reeducate the Turkish people, and to entirely replace the Kemalist secular desired citizen with a new Islamist “pious generation”. This “pious generation” is instructed in newly Islamized schools and state-controlled mosques, in which the key ideas of Erdo˘ganism, including the glorification of the Ottoman Empire and conservative Islamic values, are taught. Equally, Erdogan and his party encourages Turkish Sunni Muslims to perceive “non-Turkish Muslims, such as Kurds and Lazes, …and non-Muslims, such as Christians and Jews” as enemies (Yilmaz 2021, p. 58). In the Turkey Erdo˘gan set about constructing following the 2016 attempted coup, these minority groups are now part of the AKP’s unwanted citizens, a group consisting of people involved in the Gulen movement, journalists critical of the government, human rights activists,

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and opposition political parties critical of AKP regime (Yilmaz 2018, 2021). These groups and individuals are increasingly portrayed by the AKP as “traitors” who do the bidding of foreign “dark forces” trying to “destabilize Turkey” (Yilmaz 2018). This categorization is intended to help Erdo˘gan both a sense of a common community in the ummah, but also fear and hatred of non-ummah, including Kemalist “elites” who wish to return to the secular nationalism of the twentieth century, and non-Sunni Muslim minorities, Gülenists, and non-ethnic Turks. As part of his efforts to construct a pious generation, Erdo˘gan has himself called for the revival of “Islamic civilization” in Turkey. According to Erdo˘gan, Turkey is “heir to a civilization which, having flourished with various cultures, has left its mark on the history of humanity” (Erdo˘gan 2017). He argues that Turkish “society, the business world, NGOs, universities, people of arts and culture” have a duty to “make efforts to build and revive the civilization while thinking over the culture” (Erdo˘gan 2017). Islamic civilizations such as the Ottoman Empire, Erdo˘gan claims, governed without resorting to violence and racism, and were bastions of “justice,” “toleration,” and “compassion” in which people and even “stray animals” were treated “with compassion” (Hazir 2022). Erdo˘gan argues that the revival of Islamic Civilization in Turkey ought to involve a rejection of Western style building techniques and architecture, and admonishes the Turkish people to “keep in mind that every civilization produces its own technology and every technology its own culture and value. Our ancestors constructed mosques with the aim of building the finest houses of prayer. And the techniques and technologies, employed in the construction of those mosques, reflect our civilization. Similarly, inns, caravansaries, bridges on trade routes are heritages of our civilization. If you do not produce your own technology and science, you cannot be determinative of its culture and value” (Presidency of the Republic of Turkey 2017). To encourage the Turkish people to identify more closely with their Ottoman past and with their fellow Muslims across the world, Erdo˘gan opened, in 2022, a “Museum of Islamic Civilizations” inside a mosque in Istanbul, which he said represented “the thousandyear accumulation of Islamic civilization, which brought a brand-new face to these lands” (Daily Sabah 2022a). Moudouros (2022, p. 157) argues that the AKP’s successful campaign to change the Turkish political system from a parliamentary system to a Presidential system was itself part of an “Imperial civilizational restoration” project involving the “centralisation

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of executive power … as a natural result of the restoration of the Ottoman imperial legacy.” Part of the AKP’s civilizational rejuvenation project and attempt to raise a “pious generation” is to encourage large families among Turkish Muslims. To facilitate this Erdo˘gan has attacked feminism as a foreign idea contrary to the teachings of Islam. According to Erdo˘gan, “Allah entrusted women to men. These feminists say “how is that? It is an insult.” Then you have nothing to do with our religion and civilization” (BBC 2015). Erdo˘gan calls upon Turkish Muslims “multiply our descendants” by avoiding contraception, claiming that while secularists, influenced by Western ideas, “talk about population planning, birth control…no Muslim family can have such an approach. Nobody can interfere in God’s work. The first duty here belongs to mothers” (Tharoor 2016). Another key element in the AKP’s attempt to raise a “pious generation” and revive Islamic civilization has been its use of the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). Under AKP rule, Diyanet has been transformed from a body created by Kemalists to encourage Turkish Muslims to accept, through a programme of social engineering involving control of the texts of Friday sermons, fatwas, and education, the new Turkish Republic and its secular constitution, to an instrument of the AKP itself. Following the 2013 Gezi Park protests, and especially after the 2016 attempted coup, Diyanet was given a new mission and a greatly enlarged budget (Yilmaz and Barry 2020). This new mission was to both Islamize Turkey, but also to encourage the Turkish people to perceive themselves not only as part of the wider ummah, but as the leading nation of people within the ummah and responsible for protecting Muslims throughout the world. The AKP, throughout its period in power, increasingly staffed Diyanet with AKP supporters (Yilmaz 2018; A¸slamacı and Kaymakcan 2017). As this occurred, Diyanet used its authority to support the AKP’s political agenda and feed the growing cult around Erdo˘gan, who the body portrayed in sermons as a pious Muslim who was liberating Turkish Muslims from secular authoritarianism. The AKP installed two successive pro-AKP Diyanet leaders, Ali Erba¸s and Mehmet Görmez, who sought to perpetuate Erdo˘ganism and help the AKP create a “pious generation” of youth. For example, Görmez sought to perpetuate Erdo˘ganism and its division of society between ummah and non-ummah, and demonization of the West and celebration of Islamic civilization by declaring that Muslims should not enjoin

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“Western” traditions such as celebrating the New Year. According to Görmez, “No one can say it is right for the pagan culture and consumption culture, converging with hedonism, to create a corrupt culture over our children and teens, especially if all those are joined by things like Christmas, pine tree, gambling, drinking, lottery and such forth, that will move a human away from himself and his God to create a tradition that will corrupt the society” (Diken 2014). This notion was echoed by another Diyanet official who instructed the faithful to, refrain from “celebration of new year in our schools and institutions,” and to “not use any ritual belongs to Christianity such as Christmas, Santa Clause, decorating a Christmas Tree etc. You shall stay away any social and cultural activity that are not associated with our national and religious values” (Korkmaz 2015). In these statements, Diyanet officials are not merely attempting to prevent Muslims from partaking in Christian rituals, but attempting to frame both Christian religious rituals and entirely secular activities such as celebrating New Year’s Eve and playing the lottery as “corrupt” and inherently Western and therefore as a foreign threat to the Turkish ummah. Erba¸s, Görmez’s successor, in his inaugural address called for Turkish people to “work harder than ever to deliver the eternal and everlasting messages of the God and his Prophet to humanity which flounder into the clamp of secularism and valuelessness” (Parlamento Haber 2017). Later, during a sermon upon the converting of the Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque, Erba¸s held a sword and spoke from the pulpit in imitation of an Ottoman Sultan, and in what was likely a deliberate affront to Christians and Turkish secularists (Hurriyet 2020). Friday sermons in Diyanet mosques are also used to perpetuate Erdo˘ganism, especially insofar as the sermons portray Turkish Sunni Muslims as part of a global ummah forever threatened by non-Muslim enemies, and by Gülenists and others false Muslims who pervert the religion, and whose corrupt activities are ultimately the product of the West attempting to create conflict among Muslims. These efforts have become increasingly pronounced since the 2016 attempted coup. For example, the Friday sermon on 15 April 2016 contained the phrase “…Today, as the ummah of Islam, let’s work together to turn the lands of Islam back into a land of knowledge, wisdom and ingenuity.” Similarly, in November 2016 the Diyanet Friday sermon urged “believers” to “rebuild the awareness of ummah today” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). Later, on 21 July 2017, the Diyanet Friday sermon claimed that Muslims are without “inhumane

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practices such as violations of rights, cruelty and savagery that will embarrass us in our history,” and that by uniting and returning to the Islamic values that made the Ottoman Empire great Muslims today will likely become a “great nation again” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). In January 2018 a Diyanet Friday sermon alleged that “Those who want to weaken us and to pit Muslims against Muslims are coming at us with the weapons of sedition, terror, and treachery. They are trying to pull our country in the pits of fire they opened in all corners of the Islamic geography. Our independence and future are targeted through various tricks and plots, plans and traps. They are trying to drive the Islamic ummah to despair by threatening our unity and peace” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). A later sermon, read on 11 October 2019, claimed the world is “full of dark and evil traps. Those who claimed to bring so-called independence to some places have rather invaded those places… Those who plan to dig pits of fire in all around the Islamic world have used weapons of sedition, terrorism, and betrayal to cause brothers to hit one another. Using various plots, plans, tricks and traps, they have targeted our existence and future survival, as well as our freedom and future. They have attempted to bring us, our noble nation to have been the flagbearer of the Muslim ummah for hundreds of years, to our knees” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). These sermons, although they name no specific enemy, imply that the West is attacking the Muslim ummah, and attempting to destroy Turkey “the flagbearer of the Muslim Ummah” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). Diyanet sermons attempt to frame Muslims as innocent victims of Western constructed violence. Even when Muslims attack other Muslims Diyanet—reflecting AKP ideology—frames the conflict as the result of Western attempts to divide the ummah. For example, a Friday sermon delivered on 4 October 2014 claimed that “By looking at the conditions the believers live in, it should be known how the power centers [i.e., the West] gather strength through the blood of the believers and how the brotherhood of faith that makes believers closer to each other is attacked and damaged and turned into fighting, violence and hostility” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). Each of these sermons re-enforce the AKP’s ideology of Erdo˘ganism insofar as they portray the world as riven by a clash of civilizations in which the Muslim ummah is forever threatened by the West, and in which Turkey—as the leading nation of Islamic civilization and heir to the Ottoman Empire—is the particular target of Western attacks on Islam.

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Equally, the sermons portray conflicts between Muslims as the product of Western attempts to weaken Islam, rather than the result of political, economic, and cultural differences between Muslims themselves. Erdo˘gan has also attempted to portray the damage caused his party’s unorthodox economic strategies, which have brought the nation close to economic ruin in the 2020s, as part of an economic war waged on Turkey by the West, which he claimed was attempting to bring “Turkey and its people to their knees” (Voice of America 2018). Contrasting the pious Muslim values supposedly shared by his followers with Western consumerism, and in an effort to rally support for his economic policies following the dramatic decline of the value of the Turkish lira, Erdo˘gan told the Turkish people to remember that “if they [the West] have their dollars, we have our people, our God” (CNBC 2018).

Civilizationism in Turkish Foreign Policy Discourse The civilizational turn in Turkish populism is evident in AKP rhetoric on Turkey’s foreign relations, where it has two purposes. First, the AKP often presents foreign conflicts to their domestic audience as part of a “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West, in which Turkey is targeted by Western powers because it is the leading nation within Islamic civilization. However, the AKP is also driven by a mixture of Erdo˘ganism and national self-interest, and its foreign policy is the product of the intertwining of Turkey’s new identity as their heir to the Ottoman Empire are protector of the ummah, and the government’s desire to increase Turkey’s power. Indeed, as Yavuz (2022) puts it, “Turkish foreign policy indicates …that the boundary between identity and national interest is intertwined, as the former plays a constitutive role in defining the latter. Islamiccum-Ottoman identity dominates President Recep T. Erdo˘gan’s sense of national identity and this, in turn, defines the Turkish national interest.” This is perhaps the best way of understanding Turkish foreign policy under the AKP, which gives the appearance at times of being “devoid of instrumental rationality,” or of being “a captive of [Erdo˘gan’s] ideological convictions,” convictions which have led some to “question the mental condition of Turkey’s “Islamist” strongman and project him as the nearest approximation of a mad king pursuing over-ambitious foreign policy activism in the region” (Ta¸s 2022b).

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According to Yavuz (2022) “the leaders of Islamic-oriented AKP, which has ruled the country since 2002, believe that the West, especially the United States (US), is a fading power and the twenty-first century multipolar system offers more opportunities for Turkey to carve out an autonomous foreign policy path which will better serves its interests.” Although Turkey, under AKP rule, continues to maintain close ties with the United States and other Western nations, particularly with other NATO partners, AKP elite possess a worldview “profoundly shaped by a neo-Ottoman identity” and have “jettisoned the old infatuation with the West and cultivated purely transactional and interest-based relations with the US and the European Union (EU), without any shared normative base as a guiding strategic philosophy (Yavuz 2022). As a result of this belief in the inevitable decline of American power and Western civilization, “the AKP had desired to pursue a more ‘independent’ foreign policy as a regional hegemonic power and demoted its foreign policy with the West to transactionalism” (Bashirov and Yilmaz 2020). Thus, the AKP, especially since its rule was threatened by the Gezi Park protests in 2013 and the 2016 failed coup, has attempted to maintain transactional relationships with Western countries while also using a discourse in which the West is portrayed “as the ‘other’ of Turkey” (Kaliber and Kaliber 2019). According to Kaliber and Kaliber (2019) “vehement anti-Westernism” has replaced, post-2013, the already “de-Europeanising dynamics in Turkish foreign policy discourse.” “Invoking the glories of the Ottoman period,” Ta¸s (2022b) explains the AKP has engaged in a (neo)imperial project” which has seen Turkey become highly invested in the Middle East region. Turkey’s involvement in the Middle East is “unmatched” in the Republic’s history, and “along with the country’s drift away from its Western orientation in the 2010s” demonstrates how the AKP’s ideological divergence from Kemalism has altered both its domestic and international politics” (Ta¸s 2022b). Following the Arab Spring, and in order to achieve its ideological aim of restoring the glory of the Ottoman Empire and “reinvigorating Pax Ottomana,” Turkey “pursued a maximalist, regional-hegemony-seeking” foreign policy in the Middle East, calculating “that the authoritarian regimes in the region would sooner or later crumble through the Arab Uprisings, paving the way for the rise of Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood) offshoots across the region (Ta¸s 2022b). Yet when the Muslim Brotherhood and its associated political parties were banned or marginalized following the failure of democracy across much of the Middle East and

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the re-establishing of secular authoritarianism, the AKP continued its neoOttoman foreign policy with an even “more hawkish tone after the siege of Kobani in 2015 and, more pronouncedly, the 2016 abortive coup” (Ta¸s 2022b). For example, Turkey has since 2016 pursued “largely unilateral involvements” in the region “such as oil and gas drilling in the Eastern Mediterranean basin or pre-emptive cross-border military operations in Northern Iraq and Syria,” and competes with other regional military powers for leverage “particularly through its involvement in the Libyan conflict, but also extended its direct presence from the Eastern Mediterranean basin to the Horn of Africa” (Ta¸s 2022b). Turkey’s actions in the international realm suggest that, even when the AKP’s initial hopes for a new Middle East ruled by friendly Islamist powers were foiled by the Arab Quartet (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt), a bloc that sought to end the democratic experiment in the region on the grounds that it was empowering Islamists, the party continued to seek regional hegemony, albeit under constraints placed upon Turkey by foreign powers (Ta¸s 2022b). However, Erdo˘gan’s fiery rhetoric did not always match his political reality. On the one hand, Erdo˘gan and the AKP portray themselves as fighting against the West and defending the ummah. For example, Erdo˘gan told delegates at a 2019 foreign summit that: Unfortunately, the Islamic ummah lost the grounds of coming together, doing common business and producing common solutions to their problems. Even today, we see this deficiency in many of our issues, including Jerusalem, Palestine, anti-Islamism, anti-terrorism, justice and human rights […] Muslims look for solutions in the Western capitals for their problems, instead of reaching out to their Muslim brothers and sisters for help. (Daily Sabah 2022b)

Presenting the West as a perennial enemy of Muslims and Turkey, Erdo˘gan claimed that: World War I was designed as a fight to grab and share Ottoman lands. In an era when the world order is shaken at the foundations, we will frustrate those who dream the same about the Republic of Turkey … We tear up those scenarios of those who want to siege our country politically, economically, militarily by realizing a much large vision … To those who are surprised by Turkey … rising again like a giant who woke up from its century old sleep, we say: ‘it is not over yet!’. (Global Village Space 2020)

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Erdo˘gan’s anti-Western “clash of civilizations” rhetoric is sometimes echoed in Diyanet Friday sermons. For example, a sermon delivered on 9 December 2016, argued “Because of the ambitions and power struggles of the hegemonic powers in our region, the Islamic lands are falling into ruins” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). A Friday sermon read in January 2018 asked listeners the rhetorical question: “Isn’t the greed of global powers the cause of the bloodshed and suffering in our geography?” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). Another told listeners that “What happened in the Islamic geography today clearly shows the point reached by those who try to destroy our women, children, lives, values, history, culture and civilization. In Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, the unity of the ummah, the honour of the nation, the respect of the country has been trampled” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). Although the names of the foreign nations allegedly attacking Muslims are not mentioned, the purpose of these remarks and questions is to suggest to the listener that Western powers are conspiring to divide Muslims and destroy their civilization, and to echo anti-Western remarks by Erdo˘gan and other AKP officials. Diyanet sermons have, at times, encouraged the faithful to believe that Turkey is the defender of all people who suffer oppression. For example, on October 11, 2019, a sermon told listeners that “Just as in the past, today, too, our nation will continue to be the remedy for the remediless people, be there for those people who has nobody by their side, and be the hope and safe haven for the victimized and the refugees” (Yilmaz et al. 2021). On the other hand, political realities and national self-interest force the party into negotiating and at times working directly with, and for a shared purpose, its supposed enemies including Israel and the United States. For example, in August 2022 Israel and Turkey re-established full diplomatic relations after a period of poor relations caused chiefly by an incident in 2016 in which a Turkish-led flotilla attempting to enter the Gaza Strip and break an Israeli blockade was raided by Israeli military forces (The New York Times 2022). And despite portraying himself and his party as a defender of the ummah worldwide, “the Turkish government and pro-government media carefully refrained from any public criticism of Trump’s Islamophobic statements or travel ban on Muslims” (Akkoyunlu 2021). Nor has the Turkish government taken a stand against China’s brutal treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang province, but instead sought to please China by signing “an extradition treaty opening the way for Uighurs in Turkey to be deported to China” (Akkoyunlu 2021). Turkey’s friendly relationship with Hungary—which is governed

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by a right-wing populist party that claims that Muslim immigration to Europe is destroying Christian civilization (Ádám and Bozóki 2016)— and Erdo˘gan’s “close friendship” (Daily Sabah 2022a) with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, also demonstrate that, at times, political pragmatism and national self-interest are ultimately more important to the AKP than protecting the ummah at every opportunity.

Civilizationism Within the AKP’s Transnational Populism Yilmaz and Demir (2022) find evidence that the AKP is attempting to win support from, and perpetuate Erdo˘ganism within, the 3.1 million strong Turkish diaspora, and increasingly among the wider and far larger European Muslim population. They argue that, like early secular nationalist Turkish governments, the AKP “have also tried to use the Turkish diaspora to foster a positive image of Turkey while trying to prevent undesired ideologies spreading among them and thus influencing Turkey’s domestic politics” (Yilmaz and Demir 2022). However, instead of promoting secular nationalism within the diaspora, the AKP has “reengineered the position of ideologically proximate conservative-nationalist diaspora Turks, as loyal allies that would help Turkey extend its legitimacy and soft power beyond its borders and to produce a new state-centric identity” (Arkilic 2021, p. 591). Furthermore, the party “has tried to mobilise its loyal diaspora against the dissidents abroad. It has also invested heavily in its diaspora policies and has created new institutions to reach out to the transnational diasporic spaces occupied by Turkish-speaking communities, especially in the West, and to proactively engage with the Turkish diaspora” (Yilmaz and Demir 2022). Yilmaz and Demir (2022) observe that “This policy shift has also been reflected in the state’s diaspora definition,” in which “YTB (Yurtdı¸sı Türkler ve Akraba Topluluklar Ba¸skanlı˘gı – Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities), in its Strategic Plan 2019–2023, included members of non-Turkish Muslim communities who are not from Turkey in its diaspora definition as ‘related communities’” (YTB 2019, p. 7). Yenigun and Adar (2019) suggest that the AKP is using a variety of institutional tools, including Diyanet and Turkish media, to “validate Turkey [as the] leader of the Muslim world and patron of the Muslim masses worldwide.” These include “formal institutions such as the Diyanet’s ˙ sleri Türk Islam ˙ overseas organization (DITIB, Diyanet I¸ Birli˘gi – The

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Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs) and its mosques,” but also Turkish embassies and consulates and other “state institutions that work with Turks abroad and related communities (YTB, Yunus Emre Enstitusu, Maarif, and others).” The AKP also operates or funds “country-specific organisations operating in Western Europe” including the Union of European Turkish Democrats (UETD) and the Turken Foundation, which “was established jointly by the pro-AKP TÜRGEV (Türkiye Gençlik ve E˘gitime Hizmet Vakfı—the Turkey Youth and Education Service Foundation),” and also the “Ensar Foundation in the USA and the UK operate for the purpose of transnational populism (Yilmaz and Demir 2022).” Diyanet plays an important role transnationally, as it does domestically, in reproducing the AKP’s ideology. An analysis of Diyanet Friday sermons under AKP rule concludes that “the interests of Turkey are weaved in by using identity-creating elements” (Carol and Hofheinz 2022, p. 18), suggesting that promoting Sunni Muslim unity under Turkish leadership is a core element of Diyanet’s messaging. Indeed, to spread the message of Sunni Muslim unity under Turkish leadership, “Diyanet has organised conferences and visits and sent out delegations to disseminate the Islamist civilizational populist narrative of the AKP regime” including “the Diyanet organised the First World Muslim Minorities’ Summit in Istanbul” in April 2018 (Yilmaz and Demir 2022). Finally, the AKP has also sought to perpetuate Erdo˘ganism, and especially the notions that Islam is under attack by the West, and that globally Muslims must unite under Turkish leadership on the grounds that Turkey is the heir to the glorious Ottoman Empire, to a worldwide audience of Muslims via television (Yilmaz and Demir 2022). Pan-Islamism and the glorification of the Ottoman Empire have become important elements in popular Turkish television programs during AKP rule over Turkey (Özçetin 2019a, p. 247). According to Çetin (2014, p. 2477), the AKP politicizes television dramas by using as a means of: “(1) dealing with contemporary political issues, (2) settling accounts with the past, (3) neoOttomanism, and (4) piety and the Islamic worldview.” Thus, Turkish dramas are intended to “disseminate the AKP’s narrative of historical and contemporary in-groups and out-groups” both within Turkey and across the Muslim world (Yilmaz and Demir 2022; Çevik 2020, p. 177). For example, Dirilis (Resurrection) and Payitaht (Abdulhamid, the Last Sultan are historical dramas that attempt, at times, to find parallels between the Ottoman past, in which the Ottoman Empire came into conflict with the Christian West and other non-Muslim civilizations, and Turkey’s present

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(Yilmaz and Demir 2022). Within these dramas, Muslims are portrayed as threatened by “Crusaders, the Templars, the Mongols, Byzantium and their contemporary successors such as the EU, the USA and the Jewish lobby” (Yilmaz and Demir 2022). At the same time, the dramas frequently present opponents of Islamism and the AKP within Turkey as “collaborators and pawns of these external enemies” (Yilmaz and Demir 2022; Özçetin 2019b, p. 947). Throughout these series, Muslims who act as guardians of Islamic lands from Christians and Jews—and against false Muslims who secretly collaborate with Muslims’ enemies—are portrayed as heroes (Yilmaz and Demir 2022). Thus, within these television dramas, as in Diyanet sermons to a domestic and transnational audience, the AKP—to borrow a phrase from Brubaker (2017)—construes opposition between “self” and the “other” not in primarily nationalist terms, but in civilizational terms, and as a conflict between the Ottoman-Islamic “self” and “Western” other.

Conclusion We surmise that a “civilizational turn” occurred within Turkish populism throughout the 2010s and 2020s, a period in which the governing AKP has increasingly sought to construe the Turkish “self” and “other” in civilizational terms rather than primarily national terms. This does not mean, however, that civilizationism is entirely new to Turkish politics. Indeed, the notions that Turkey cannot trust “the West,” that Islam and the West are clashing civilizations, and that Islamic civilization is morally superior to Western civilization, have long been common in Turkish political discourse (Bacik and Seker 2023; Dalacoura 2019). Equally, the reconfiguring of Turkish identity under AKP rule does not indicate, of course, that the party is fundamentally opposed to nationalism. Rather, the AKP’s “civilizational turn” is congruent with Turkish nationalism, albeit a variety of nationalism entirely at odds with the once-dominant secular nationalism of the Kemalists. Whereas the Kemalists, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, sought to refashion Turkey as a European style nation-state, the AKP has attempted to refashion Turkey as the successor to the Ottoman Empire and therefore as the leader of the ummah. For both the Kemalists and the AKP, this refashioning involved a social engineering programme in which the Turkish people were “re-educated” and given new identities. The Kemalists wished for Turkish people to identify first as Turkish nationalists and, if need be, secondarily as Muslims, and

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in this way to give up their previous Ottoman identity. The AKP, on the other hand, has revived Ottoman identity within Turkish nationalism, and sought to raise a “pious generation” that identifies themselves as part of the Muslim ummah, and Turkey as the natural leader of the ummah and thus of Islamic civilization, and which will go out and rejuvenate Islamic civilization in Turkey. The AKP’s civilizationism, this chapter has shown, impacts Turkish domestic and foreign policy in a variety of ways. Domestically, the AKP has attempted to perpetuate their rule by raising a “pious generation” who glorify the Ottoman Empire and wish to rejuvenate Islamic civilization within Turkey. As part of this project, the AKP has not only altered the school and university curriculum to reflect their ideology, but has greatly enlarged the budget, scope, and direction of Diyanet to encourage Turkish Sunni Muslims to believe that the AKP is protecting them from internal and external enemies who hate Islam and wish to destroy Turkey. The AKP and Diyanet portray Western culture and Christianity as corrupting influences on Turkish Muslims, and admonish believers to cease celebrating so-called Christian holidays including New Year’s Eve. Equally, the AKP has moved to eliminate traces of Christianity and secularism from Turkey by converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, and sought to encourage Turkish Muslims to think of themselves as part of a great Islamic civilization through their opening of a Museum glorifying Islamic civilizations and through his call for everyone in Turkey to “make efforts to build and revive the civilization while thinking over the culture” (Erdo˘gan 2017). The AKP’s civilizational turn has had a powerful impact on Turkey’s foreign policy. Erdo˘ganism, as an ideology, defines Turkey’s role in the world as leader of the ummah and successor to the Ottoman Empire, and possessing many of its responsibilities to the ummah. As a result of this ideology, Turkey under AKP rule has played a more active role in Middle East politics and sought to remove itself from the American sphere of power and carve out a more independent role in regional politics. After the Arab Spring, Turkey began to attempt to achieve the AKP’s goal of “reinvigorating Pax Ottomana,” and “pursued a maximalist, regionalhegemony-seeking” foreign policy, believing that American power was growing weak and that the secular authoritarian regimes in the Middle East were at an end. However, Turkish foreign policy is also constrained by the world’s great powers and its sole superpower, the United States. Far from acting consistently as a protector of the ummah and Palestine,

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Turkey has sought alliances with European nations such as Hungary, and remained in NATO despite Turkey being the only non-Western, non-Christian member of the alliance, and re-established full diplomatic relations with Israel. Equally, Erdo˘gan has remained quiet on China’s abuse of Muslims in Xinjiang, despite evidence of Muslim Uighurs being interned by the hundreds of thousands in concentration camps where they face secular “re-education.” This suggests that the AKP and Erdo˘gan are ultimately pragmatic actors, and will not act rashly to protect Muslims’ interests the result would be contrary to the national interest. Finally, the AKP is spreading its ideology within both the Turkish diaspora and the wider European Muslim population via a variety of organizations and through popular television series. In this way, the party attempts to move its ideology beyond Turkey’s borders, in an effort to convince diaspora Turks and Sunni Muslims in Europe to perceive themselves to be part of an aggrieved ummah facing constant attacks from the West, and Erdo˘gan and the AKP as the leaders of the ummah. Civilizationism, then, is a key part of the AKP;’s populist discourse, and a powerful driver—though not the sole driver—of AKP domestic and foreign policy. It not only provides the basis for a division—beneficial to the AKP—of Turkish society between “the pure people” (Turkish Sunni Muslims) and “others” working with foreign powers (i.e. the West) to corrupt and destroy Turkey and divide the ummah, but also a narrative of crisis which is designed to encourage Turkish people to feel afraid and angry, and to seek safety in the form of the AKP, which promises to protect the ummah from its enemies.

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Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Omer Erturk. 2023. The Use of TV Series for Civilizational Populist Necropolitical Propaganda. In Populism, Authoritarianism and Necropolitics. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978981-19-8292-7_5. Yilmaz, Ihsan, Mehmet Efe Caman, and Galib Bashirov. 2020. How an Islamist Party Managed to Legitimate Its Authoritarianization in the Eyes of the Secularist Opposition: The Case of Turkey. Democratization 27 (2): 265–282. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2019.1679772. Yilmaz, Ihsan, Mustafa Demir, and Nicholas Morieson. 2021. Religion in Creating Populist Appeal: Islamist Populism and Civilizationism in the Friday Sermons of Turkey’s Diyanet. Religions 12 (5): 359. https://doi.org/10. 3390/rel12050359. Yilmaz, Ihsan, Syaza Shukri, and Kainat Shakil. 2023. The Others of Islamist Civilizational Populism in AKP’s Turkey. Populism & Politics (P&P). European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). February 4. https://doi.org/10. 55271/pp0018. YTB. 2019. Stratejik Plan. https://ytbweb1.blob.core.windows.net/files/2021/ BELGELER/YTB%202019-2023%20Stratejik%20Planı%20(Güncellenmi¸s% 20Versiyon-2021)”%20-5ff6e3e27f475.pdf. Accessed 5 Nov 2022.

CHAPTER 5

Pakistan: Islamist Civilizational Populism Ihsan Yilmaz, Fizza Batool, and Kainat Shakil

Introduction In any discussion on Islamic nationalism or civilizationism, Pakistan deserves special mention. It is the first, and perhaps the only, country created on the principle of Islamic nationalism. The two-nation theory that led to the creation of Pakistan divided the residents of the British India on the basis of religious identity, claiming that Muslims and Hindus of India belong to two different civilizations. In his historic address on 23 March 1940 in Lahore—celebrated now as the Pakistan Day—the

I. Yilmaz (B) Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] F. Batool Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan e-mail: [email protected] K. Shakil Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_5

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founder of the country Muhammad Ali Jinnah summarized the main thesis of the “two-nation” theory: The Hindus and the Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and literatures. They neither intermarry, nor interdine together and, indeed, they belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspects on life and of life are different. (Jinnah 1940 as cited in Yusufi 1996, p. 1172)

The thesis was a novel combination of religion and nationalism in the post-Westphalian world where language and territorial identity were seen as the defining features of a nation and religion was believed to have lost its value. A notable Muslim population deciding to live in India instead of migrating to Pakistan, and later, the creation of Bangladesh on grounds of ethnic nationalism emasculate the idea of Muslims nationhood. Yet the Pakistani state kept experimenting with the notion of Islamic nationalism, coming up with its varying interpretations. To this day, the ambiguity surrounding this merger of Islamism with state nationalism is central to Pakistan’s (and Pakistanis’) search for identity and consequently, its political discourse. The ontological insecurity caused by this confusion over the role of faith in national identity has fostered an environment where populist civilizationism is flourishing in Pakistan. Although most are right-wing, contemporary Pakistani populists use both horizontal and vertical dimensions of populism to describe the Islamic national identity of the country and its people (Yilmaz and Shakil 2022a, b). Applying the vertical layer of populism to create the dichotomy of “the people” versus “the elite” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023; Mudde 2004, 2017; Taguieff 1995), populists in Pakistan underline how ghareeb awam (Poor public) has suffered under the selfishness and ignorance of the political elite (Yilmaz and Shakil 2021a, b; 2022a, b). Simultaneously, they use horizontal dimension of populism to pit “the nation” against “the others”—a group threatening the national identity (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023; Mudde 2004, 2017; Taguieff 1995). In this context, populist forces in Pakistan have gained mass attraction as the voice of the people securing them from “unIslamic,” “corrupt elites” and alleged scheming of “external enemies” such as Western nations and “Jewish lobby” (Yilmaz and Shakil 2021a, b, c; 2022a, b, c). This chapter is an attempt to understand civilisational populism (Yilmaz and Morieson

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2022) in the context of Pakistan. The fundamental definition of civilizationism is provided by Yilmaz and Morieson (2023, p. 36) as, “an idea which provides content through which populists can determine who belongs to ‘the people’, and who to the outgroups: ‘elites’, and ‘others’.” They demonstrate that religion plays a central role in the construct of “the people,” which populists try to present as a homogenous entity connected not just with a nation, but with a grand civilization existing beyond national borders (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023, p. 38). Keeping the definitional parameters in view, this chapter explores two contemporary case studies from Pakistan, testing their relevance with the framework of populist civilizationism. The chapter begins with an overview of the critical junctions in the political history of the country with an aim to understand the relevance of Muslim civilizationism in the national discourse. The chapter also includes a brief introduction to the populist parties and leaders from the 1960s and the 1970s, with particular attention to the populism of Zulfiqar A. Bhutto and his use of Islamic civilizationism, despite having a leftist ideological stance (for his populist speeches see Appendix A). The first sections set the stage for the following section covering the two case studies of populist civilizationism from present-day Pakistan. The first case study features the former ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) headed by Imran Khan. The second political party in focus is the far-right Tehreeke-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) founded by a cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi and currently led by his son Saad Hussain Rizvi. The data for the historical and contemporary analysis is based on the review of several works on Pakistan’s political history and an extensive analysis of speeches by main leaders of PTI and TLP (listed in Appendices B and C). On the basis of these sources, the conclusion provides a comparative analysis of the two parties’ use of populist civilizationism.

Birth of Populism and Civilizationism in Pakistan Pakistan was born through the frightful partition of India in 1947 when millions who had cohabitated Indian land for centuries were killed, abused, and forced to uproot in the quest for a promised “homeland.” While for most Indians, the “homeland” meant a United India free from colonial rule, a group of Muslims viewed it as a separate dominion for Indian Muslims, where they “can lead their own life in consonance with their religion, culture and laws” (Jinnah 1940, as cited in Yusufi 1996,

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p. 1296). The foundation of this demand was the two-nation theory: defining Muslims and Hindus as “two entirely distinct and separate civilizations” who could not be “yoked together” in a single state (Jinnah 1940, as cited in Yusufi 1996, p. 1172). The two-nation theory had been contested since its introduction; Indian Muslims were mainly divided among three schools of thought: pro-Congress seculars rejecting the two-nation theory; members and supporters of All India Muslim League (AIML) promoting it as a raison d’etre for a separate Muslim country; and supporters of far-right religious political parties accepting it but rejecting the separation of Ummah in two states (Haider 2011). The division manifested more strongly with the partition, as many Muslims stayed in India while many religious parties accepted Pakistan but with the political objective of establishing Shariah here. Jinnah, after seeing gory Hindu-Muslim riots and facing the question of the status of non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan, toned down the AIML’s civilizational rhetoric. In his infamous speech in the first session of the Pakistan constituent assembly on 11 August 1947, he finally acknowledged the splits within both Muslims and Hindus and the need to keep the state away from the religious affairs of its citizens: … even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus, you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on … You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. (Jinnah 1947)

Yet religion remained a recurrent subject in Jinnah’s speeches and public addresses as he presented “Muslim democracy” as Pakistan’s political system (Paracha 2019). What he meant by “Muslim democracy,” however, remains a mystery to this day with Islamists in Pakistan placing it close to a theocracy and the liberals describing it as a secular modern statehood (Jalal 2010). For over seven decades, Pakistan has been in an ontological state of ambiguity which no clear indication of its national outlook or identity.

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The Early Populists and Traces of Civilizationism With the loss of Jinnah just a year after Pakistan’s birth, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML, renamed from AIML), lacking popular support and internal democracy, failed in providing a constitution and organizing elections to commence the democratic process. The political and constitutional crisis continued for two decades till the growing public grievances with the neoliberal policies of the military dictator Field Marshal Ayub Khan developed a supportive environment for political parties to start campaigning for democracy. Democracy brought with it the first populist leaders of Pakistan. This was a period when populism was understood mainly in the context of the left-wing anti-elitist movements in Latin American countries (Yilmaz and Morieson 2021). Likewise, the populists in both East and West Pakistan used socialist slogans and rhetoric against the rich capitalist elite (Yilmaz and Saleem 2021). Yet there was a key difference. In East Pakistan, Sheikh Mujeeb-ur-Rehman, following the footsteps of Bengali socialist leaders like Maulana Bhashani, merged the vertical division between “the people” and “the elite” with the horizontal division between “the Bengali” and the “West Pakistanis.” In West Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, however, decided to keep intact the Islamic civilizationism for the horizontal division and merged it with the anti-elitist vertical division. He introduced the concept of Islamic socialism claiming that Islam and socialism are compatible with each other. With the loss of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and the appointment of Bhutto as the civil martial law administrator and the President of Pakistan in 1971, Islamist populism remained the only form of populist politics in Pakistan. Though the left-wing non-Punjabi (Balochi, Pashtun, and Sindhi) nationalist party, National Awami Party (NAP), had been able to form government in two smaller provinces of Pakistan, the success of Bengali nationalism in overpowering the idea of a Muslim ummah ushered distrust in Islamabad toward these ethnic groups (Ahmed 2007). Hence, the federal government under Bhutto continued with the stateled Islamic civilizational discourse to declare these ethno-nationalists as traitors and disbanded the NAP in 1975, alleging it of conducting antistate activities. In a public address during his Balochistan visit in 1976, he explained his reasons for dismissing the NAP government,

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They [NAP leaders] were against Pakistan from the outset. They belonged to Indian National Congress. After the establishment of Pakistan, they set up a new party, [and] gave it a new name: NAP… I can assure you that if they would support Pakistan and bear loyalty and unstinted allegiance to it, they would be running the government even today. (Bhutto, April 8, 1976)

Bhutto and his Pakistan’s Peoples Party (PPP) consolidated power in an environment of identity crisis and political chaos. The creation of Bangladesh weakened the idea of Islamic nationalism on which the country had built its identity. It was a great chance for Bhutto to let go of Islamic civilizational discourse. However, he chose to pair his charisma with Islamism (Taseer 1979). To counter Bengali nationalism as the foundational identity of Bangladesh, he equated it with “Muslim Bengal,” The break between East and West Pakistan does not, however, mean that Bangladesh is willing to be absorbed into India. On the contrary she vociferously proclaims her independence, an independence which can only be predicated upon her distinctive Muslim character and separateness. Bangladesh is in fact the former Muslim Bengal. (Bhutto, April 3, 1973)

Even on the subject of recognition of Bangladesh, he presented his argument in civilizational logic, Pakistan was created to safeguard the interests of the Muslims of the world, and if Bangladesh is not recognized, the Pakistanis will be answerable to God as to why the Muslims of East Pakistan were left in misery. (Bhutto, January 3, 1973)

His promises for “the people” such as curbing corruption and holding the capitalist elite accountable were merged with Islamic concepts of justice and equality (Niazi 1987; Nanda 1972). In his address to a public meeting in Gujrat in 1970, he held that those opposed to his call for Islamic socialism are against an Islamic cause: Islamic Socialism means Islamic equality and, my dear brothers, equality is a cardinal principle in Islam. Equality is the message of our Prophet. The Khulafa-e-Rashedeen based their governments on this principle. The people who are opposed to equality are not serving the cause of Islam. (Bhutto, March 1, 1970)

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He repeatedly used the term Mussawat-e-Muhammadi [the egalitarianism of Prophet Muhammad] in his speeches to refer to his notion of Islamic socialism. Despite belonging to a province with a large Hindy population, the strong anti-Indianism in Bhutto’s oratory sometimes includes harsh negative comments for Hindus. In a public address in 1968, he said, Why socialist parties have not succeeded in India is because Hinduism is against socialism, just as it is against Islam. Hinduism can never tolerate socialism, because the Hindu religion provides for various classes. (Bhutto, November 3, 1968)

He presented himself not just as a leader of Pakistan but of Muslim ummah. During his electoral campaign, he vowed to lead a Jihad against imperial India and rejoice at the “Shaukat-e-Islam Day” [Day of Islamic Victory] in New Delhi (Shah 2014). Similarly, he described the 1973 Arab-Israel War as “Jihad against the evils of Zionism, Imperialism, and Israeli expansionism (Shah 2014, p. 145). The most extensive use of Islamic nationalism in Bhutto’s rhetoric was surrounding his support for Pan-Islamism (Mirza 1989). Under Bhutto-led government, Pakistan intensified its relations with the Muslimmajority states in the Middle East. The reoriented foreign policy resulted in Pakistan emerging as an important member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and hosted its second Summit in Islamabad (Khan 2003). As Bhutto’s populism took an autocratic turn, he started tilting more and more toward the political right. No longer able to ignore the voices of religious political parties, in a last attempt to save his seat, Bhutto introduced Islamist changes to the constitution such as a ban on gambling, prohibition of the sales of alcohol to Muslims, and declaration of Ahmadis as a non-Muslims (Shah 2019; Paracha 2011, 2013). Despite these “compromises,” Bhutto was deposed by a military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, in 1977, and soon faced execution. With Bhutto, the era of populist democracy came to an end, but the Islamization process he initiated pushed Pakistan to a decade of religious fanaticism. Consequently, the next phase of populism saw intensification of civilizational rhetoric. Ushered into an era of the most intense Islamization under Zia, Muslim civilizationism was robbed of its modernist outlook developed most during Ayub Khan’s period. The introduction of Islamic laws,

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radicalizing of the school curriculum and patronage of religious parties erased any traces of pluralism in Pakistan’s political system (Yilmaz and Saleem 2021; Yilmaz and Shakil 2021c). Despite the return of democracy in the country during 1990s, the leadership of the first generation of Pakistani politicians and military generals ensured that religion gets a permanent space in the political arena. General Musharraf’s shortlived “enlightened moderation” in the 2000s also failed against years of religious instrumentalization by the state apparatus (Amin 2016).

Populist Civilizationism in Post-9/ 11 Pakistan: PTI and TLP1 With the re-entry of democracy in the twenty-first century, Imran Khanled PTI gave a populist turn to the deeply Islamised civilizationism in Pakistan. What started as a call to bring tabdeeli (change) in the political system gradually transformed into a movement to remodel Pakistan into Medina—a city in the seventeenth century Arab where the first Islamic rule was established. However, the most remarkable shift in Pakistan’s politics in the current era is the emergence of radical Islamic populism. While far-right Islamist parties such as JI and JUI have long been employing civilizational narrative, they lacked the populist appeal. With the emergence of a new Islamist movement-turned-party, TLP, Pakistan has entered the most radical phase of civilizational populism where a party openly celebrate extra judicial killings for protection of sanctity of Islam. Together, PTI and TLP have given a new peak to the civilizational discourse in the country, merging it with populist anti-elitism and Manicheanism.

1 This chapter’s major discussions surrounding PTI are revised and updated versions of two publications: (1) Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Shakil, Kainat. 2022. “Religious Populism and Vigilantism: The Case of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan.” Populism & Politics—European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). https://doi.org/10.55271/ pp0001. (2) Shakil, Kainat, and Ihsan Yilmaz. 2021. “Religion and Populism in the Global South: Islamist Civilisationism of Pakistan’s Imran Khan.” Religions 12, no. 9, 777. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12090777.

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Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaaf While Imran Khan established PTI in 1996 as a response to the growing discontent with the performance of mainstream political parties, he added Islamist populism in its political discourse during the late 2000s, when Pakistan was transitioning from its latest military dictatorship to a democracy (Batool 2023). It coincided with the bitter impacts of 9/11, particularly of the “war on terror” in Afghanistan and the birth of the global wave of Islamophobia. Because of Pakistan’s involvement in the war on terror, the country lost some 83,000 lives while its economy was drained of some USD126 billion (Jamal 2021; Iqbal 2018). This hefty economic and human burden provided Khan the ideal space to play the role of an anti-Western and pro-Muslim voice. As the Afghan conflict spilled over into Pakistan, Khan openly started to defend the Taliban and blamed “the West” for its militarized actions. He considered the presence of US airbases in Pakistan as an issue of tarnished sovereignty and vowed to end “foreign” influence from the country (Khan 2021; Afzal 2019; Bokhari 2019). For him, the Taliban were jihadist heroes who are indulged in a “holy war” by trying to reclaim their home and faith from the “foreigners” or “colonists” (Muzaffar 2021; Boone 2012). This explicit support to the Taliban earned him the title of “Taliban Khan,” which is a symbol of pride and “resistance” for him (Yilmaz and Shakil 2021a, b). The civilizational political framework also started mirroring Khan’s domestic politics—he called politicians in power “puppets” or “stooges” of the United States, who were letting the Western powers kill Pakistani and Afghan Muslims through drone attacks. He constantly criticized “the elite” for taking the “begging bowl” to the IMF which turn Pakistanis into “slaves” and the country into a “puppet state.” Khan vowed never to bend before the Western powers (Kari 2019). After PTI formed its first government in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2013, Khan coined the idea of “Naya Pakistan” (New Pakistan), which encompasses all dimensions of PTI’s populism relaying heavily on Islamist civilizationism. On the horizontal dimension, Khan presented “Naya Pakistan” as one where Islam is a model for all aspects of life and where people are not “misguided” by Western ideas. He held that the only solution to all issues faced by Pakistan is by embracing the “true” ideals of Islam thus, making Pakistan a homeland for Islamic civilization. On the vertical dimensions, Khan argued that he would bring

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the “looted” wealth of Pakistan from the bank accounts of Europe. Once returned, this would fund “New Pakistan,” while an import-driven economy would sustain long-term development. This silver bullet solution was a dream come true for voters. The hero worshippers of “idol smashers” now had a contemporary hero who would free them from the influence of Judeo-Christian “civilization” and their alleged ill intentions. The anti-corruption campaign to “empty” the “Swiss bank accounts” of PPP and PML-N leadership grew aggressive amidst the Panama Papers leaks (Cheema 2018). Interestingly, PTI’s demand for accountability from political elite had an Islamist angle. PTI used the constitutional article 62(1), introduced by Zia regime for Islamization of Pakistani constitution, to declare that “corrupt mafias” of Pakistan are no more eligible to hold office because they do not fulfill the criteria of being “Sadiq” and “Ameen.” The court ruling based on this article resulted in the life-time disqualification of Nawaz Sharif just a few days before the 2018 elections. Not surprisingly, PTI was finally able to score an electoral victory in 2018. Upon coming to power, PTI remodeled its populist vision for “New Pakistan” on Riyasat-i-Madina—an Islamist populist utopia rooted in the lost, idealized and fictionalized society of the first city-state established by the Prophet (Shaukat 2021). In this version of a promised land, Khan used a dash of nostalgia to mobilize a largely Muslim society around resurrecting the “lost” golden Muslim age. Just like Bhutto, Khan fashioned himself as a leader of the Muslim world and not just Pakistan (Yilmaz and Morieson 2021). He advocated for a transnational Islamic order hosting OIC summit of the Council of Foreign Minister in Pakistan. He also used his social media and international platforms to highlight the victimhood of the ummah. During his time in office, he called out increasing incidents of Islamophobia in the West and labelled bans on hijab as “secular extremism” (Dawn 2021b; Raza 2021; United Nations 2020). His Islamization project was aimed at alienating masses from their cultural lineage and connecting them with Arab society, equating Middle Eastern culture with Islamic culture. While in power, Khan promoted “Muslim content,” importing and mainstreaming pan-Islamist and neoOttomanist shows from Turkey (Hoodbhoy 2020a). At the same time, he pushed local media to feature “Muslim heroes” and “educate” the youth about Islam (The News 2021). Following this policy, in 2021, the Imran Khan-led government launched a National Amateur Short Film Festival

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(NASFF), with the aim to promote “soft image” of Pakistan. In the prize award ceremony of NASFF, Khan held, Speaking English and wearing Western clothes does not project a soft image, it only speaks of an inferiority complex… Soft image is projected through self-reliance… So, first respect yourself and the world will respect you in turn. (The News 2021)

At the same time, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) banned shows with strong female leads, movies that call out the abuse carried out in religious seminaries, and shows that discuss the culture of child abuse in Pakistan (BBC 2020; Isani and Alavi 2020). In addition to popular media, the “New Pakistan” project also attempted to instill “Islam” and “Muslims ethics” via formal education. A prime example of this was the hurriedly imposed Single National Curium (SNC). This idea advocated for a centralized syllabus for schools for ensuring “quality” education but also on protecting youth from “Western education.” Khan explained, on the launch of the first of the three phases of SNC, I had a vision to introduce the Single National Curriculum, but the elites making the most of the current system will not change that easily… When you acquire English medium education, you adopt the entire culture and it’s a major loss because you become a slave to that particular culture. (Dawn 2021a)

Hoodbhoy (2020b), a long-term critic of Islamism in Pakistan, notes that, “the huge volume of religious material they (SNC) contain beats all curriculums in Pakistan’s history.” Apart from the already compulsory Islamiat (Islam studies) subject, SNC introduced two additional compulsory subjects of Muamilaat (social matters) and Islam aur daur e hazir ke taqazay (Islam and requirements of the modern world), designed with close coordination with Ittehad Tanzimat ul Madaris Pakistan,2 (Geo News 2021). However, Khan struggled to materialize most of his promises around the establishment of a just society free from corruption. To mask his shortcomings, he increasingly instrumentalized religion. The circle of 2 The central board of Pakistani madrasas.

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“the others” was expanded to blame “rebel” groups such as Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) and Baloch separatists for not letting him focus on policy matters, while criticizing Western governments, nonMuslim “enemy” states such as India, and political opposition for scheming against him. Critics of Khan’s policies in media and civil society organizations were deemed “liberal fascists” (Kermani 2021; Khan 2020; Hamid 2018; Backer 2015). The failure to control rape crimes and violence against women was deflected to “Western” induced immoralities (BBC 2021; IANS 2020; Taseer 2019). Similarly, a culture of economic corruption in the country was linked to the moral and religious corruption of society (Hoodbhoy 2021; Wasim 2021). In 2022, as Khan was ousted from office through a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, his Islamist civilizationism reached a peak (Yilmaz and Shakil 2022d). In various interviews and public addresses during the last weeks of March 2022 (see Appendix B) he claimed that Pakistan’s sovereignty was under attack from internal “traitors” who were coconspiring with Western powers. Out of office, he now openly names an American official to write a “letter” threatening dire consequences if he was not ousted from office (Syed 2022; Hussain 2022). He constantly uses his misconstrued version of colonial history, labeling PDM leadership as “Mir Jaffar” and “Mir Sadique”.3 With PTI actively campaigning for the 2023 elections, the saga of “all evil” and “all good” continues to be part of the political narrative.

Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) PTI’s instrumentalization of religious populism pales in comparison to that of the TLP. A relatively new political contender, the TLP is a Barelvi (a Sunni sect) party born from a movement to protect Mumtaz Qadri, the assassin of then Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer in 2011 (Batool 2021a). Taseer was a strong proponent of revising the blasphemy laws, as he believed the laws were used to persecute non-Muslims and Muslim minority sects. He was campaigning for Asia Bibi, a Christian woman

3 Both figures (At separate times) betrayed the lords and kings they served in favour of the British. Their betrayal was instrumental in the British victory of key posts in South Asia. Over time these two names have gathered a negative connotation. Khan has used these names to represent the idea of the “internal enemies” who are allegedly working for the West.

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alleged to have committed blasphemy. Qadri, who was a government employee serving as a security guard of Taseer, justified his actions by claiming the governor of Punjab had committed blasphemy by advocating for Asia Bibi (Yilmaz and Saleem 2021). Following Qadri’s arrest, Khadim Rizvi, a Barelvi Muslim cleric having strong following in Punjab, established the Tehreek Rihai Mumtaz Qadri (a movement for the release of Mumtaz Qadri) naming Qadri the Mujahid of Islam (Ma¸toi 2021; Yusuf 2019; Sevea 2018). The movement got intensified after the judicial execution of Mumtaz Qadri, was renamed as Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasoolallah (TLYP), and later transformed into the TLP (Sabat et al. 2020). The party was led by Khadim Hussain Rizvi till his death in 2020. Since the death of Rizvi, the party’s leadership has passed on to his eldest son Hafiz Saad Hussain Rizvi (Saad Rizvi). Unlike other Islamists parties, the TLP has shown a remarkable electoral performance, receiving the third highest number of votes from Punjab in the 2018 elections and winning two seats in Sindh Assembly (Chaudhry 2018). This is far better performance than any other religious political party contesting elections for the first time. Moreover, the party has been able to showcase its strength through street power. The main success of these protests is the one-point agenda built around any sensitive religious issue such as the finality of prophethood or sanctity of Islamic personalities and symbols. Much like the PTI, this group feeds on the negative experiences faced by Pakistanis in the aftermath of the US “war on terror.” TLP projects the growing wave of Islamophobia and right-wing populism in the West as a “threat” to Islam (Ma¸toi 2021; Yusuf 2019; Sevea 2018). The group uses civilizational lens to present a world divided among the Muslims and the non-Muslim enemies of Islam and advocates for a foreign policy that unites Ummah against the Western powers. Many of TLP’s protests are a response to any comment or act in a Western country that the group saw as blasphemous. The leadership demanded “immediate” action by Pakistan by severing diplomatic ties or even taking military action against the blaspheming country (Yilmaz and Shakil 2022a; Sabat et al. 2020; Ma¸toi 2021; Yusuf 2019; Sevea 2018). It was not uncommon for Khadim Rizvi to demand the use of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons to “blow” Western blasphemous nations (see Appendix C). Domestically, the party presents the Barelvi Sunni as a majority, while otherizing Shias, Ahmedis and liberal moderate Muslims. In 2018, they successfully campaigned to remove Atif Mian from the Pakistan Economic

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Council because he was a member of the Ahmadi community (Hashim 2018a). Despite its Sufi roots, the party follows a very stringent and non-tolerant attitude, particularly toward the issue of blasphemy of Holy Prophet and his companions. (Yilmaz and Shakil 2022a). Another horizontal dimension of TLP’s civilizational populism hinges on gender conservatism. Unlike PTI, this party has a louder and harsher stance over “modernization” of women. The TLP leaders explicitly endorse limiting women to the domains of homes and ending their participation in the work force (see Appendix C). In their public speeches, they use gruesome depiction of punishment in hell for women who do not conform to “Islamic” ideas of womanhood (see Appendix A). The anti-feminist program of TLP is gradually gaining the form of a globalized agenda. Saad Rizvi strongly opposed the ban on veil in the province of Karnataka in India and deemed it a part of a global war against Muslims (see Appendix C). In 2022, TLP supporters actively used Twitter to demand abolition of the 2018 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act. This act provides basic rights to the transgender community in Pakistan such as right to access identity cards, education, positions in public offices, and other freedoms enshrined in the constitution (Geo 2022). Saad Rizvi also became a prominent voice critiquing bill by terming it directly “clashing with sharia” (see Appendix C). In addition to this horizontal divide, TLP also attack “the elite” calling them as “morally” compromised or “bad” Muslims for not defending Islam and its Prophet. Khadim Rizviwas of the view that the Pakistani political elite is secretly empowering the Ahmadis to appease their American and Western allies. In 2018, he called for the resignation of the then Minister of Law and Justice, Zahid Hamid, over changes to the wording of the Elections Bill 2017 drafted by the government (The News 2017). The changes were in the oath concerning commitment to the finality of Prophet Muhammad from “I solemnly swear” to “I believe.” Zahid Hamid’s home was attacked, and TLP vigilantes staged sit-ins until he was forced to resign (The News 2017). Clashes with police injured some 200 and killed four (Abbas and Rasmussen 2017). When asked about the party’s economic policy on a popular television show (see Appendix C), Rizvi showcased both his political acumen (using the language of people’s everyday experience) and apparent lack of economic expertise (eschewing detailed policy commitments), noting that when the Nizam-e-Mustafa was established, the country would prosper because the government would, like any ordinary household, just live

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within its means. However, when pressed for a specific policy, he launched into a classic rant against the state and used civilizational rhetoric to blame the elite for lacking piety as the cause of all problems. Following in his father’s footsteps, Saad Hussain Rizvi has also provided “quick” fixes for the economy rooted in populist civilizationism. In early 2023, as balance of payment crisis ushered in the country. S. H. Rizvi offered his solution, They are sending the prime minister (Shehbaz Sharif), his entire cabinet and chief of army staff to other countries to beg for economic aid… I ask why are they doing this? They said the Pakistani economy is in danger. […] Instead, I advise them to take the Quran in one hand and the atom bomb suitcase in the other, and take the cabinet to Sweden, and say that we have come for the security of the Quran. If this entire universe does not fall under your feet, then you can change my name! (see Appendix C)

Unlike PTI, or other populists in the past, TLP’s no-tolerance attitude toward blasphemy and support for Qadri-like fanatics has encouraged “the people” to carry out violent acts in a vigilante style. In the last five years, several individuals, claimed to be motivated by Rizvi’s speeches, have committed cold murders of innocent civilians. On January 23, 2018, Sareer Ahmed, during school hours attacked and killed his school’s principal who had reprimanded him for skipping classes to attend a TLP sit-in (Muhammad 2018). The same year PML-N politician and National Assembly Member, Ahsan Iqbal, was critically wounded by Abid Hussain, who charged Iqbal with committing blasphemy (Hashim 2018b). Next year, Khateeb Hussain, a young boy, killed his professor during a lecture over allegations of blasphemy (Imran 2018). Next year in the city of Khushab, a bank manager was shot dead by the bank’s own security guard for identifying as Ahmadi (Gabol and Niazi 2020). In 2021, the lynching of the Sri Lankan factory manager in Sialkot was also inspired by TLP supporters who declared him blasphemous for removing TLP banners from factory walls (Yilmaz and Shakil 2022a). In 2022 an angry mob stoned a mentally ill person to death for allegedly damaging a copy of the Quran (The Guardian 2022). While Khadim Rizvi was laid to rest in 2020, the legacy continues. Much like Qadri’s, Rizvi’s funeral procession became a huge fanfare with thousands flocking to support the man who is now revered as a baba jee (a saint) by his followers (Shah 2020). Under the leadership of his son

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Saad Rizvi, the party has held several rounds of protests against the blasphemous comment of the French President (Batool 2021b). Rizvi junior staged a major sit-in in 2021 and pressured the state into discharging him when he was being tried for inciting violence (Batool 2021b). Online, the TLP has amassed a strong following and regularly runs anti-state, antiAhmadiyya, and anti-Western social media campaigns (Sareen 2021). It has continued its sit-in and subsequent vandalism in the name of “saving the Prophet’s sanctity” at the cost of damaging peace, spreading hatred and loss of life of TLP members and security forces (Yilmaz and Shakil 2022a). Now that the TLP seems to be busy preparing for the next general elections where it will contest against the PTI, the country is going to witness a strong contest between the two claimants of the leaders of Ummah.

Conclusion Pakistan’s political history is a tale of different shades of civilizationism, starting from a rationale to demand a separate state for a religious minority to a tool used by right-wing parties to persecute religious minorities. The characterization of Muslims as one whole entity that laid the stone of Pakistan has since been used as a “filler” to forcefully create a homogeneous identity for the otherwise highly diverse population (Shakil and Yilmaz 2021; Yilmaz and Saleem 2021). While Islamic civilizationism appears to be a constant, the change is mainly in political actors operationalizing it. Under the rule of civil and military bureaucracy for the first two decades, Pakistan’s Muslim nationhood became a tool in the hand of the establishment to promote moderate or liberal Political Islam. As the country finally had its first elections in 1970, left-wing populism emerged as a dominant feature in both the Eastern and Western wings of Pakistan. However, after the creation of Bangladesh from East Pakistan, Bhutto popularized civilizational discourse to counter ethno-nationalist voices in the country. Whatever pluralism was left in the country, disappeared with the onset of another dictatorial period in 1977. Under Zia, Pakistan embraced a far more stringent version of Islamism. In the 1990s, as the country moved from direct military rule to indirect military interventions, almost all democratic or dictatorial political leadership employed Islamic rhetoric. As populism re-emerged as the dominant force in the post 9–11 context, it is now situated at the far right of the political spectrum.

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The country is not alone in being swamped by this tide of populist civilizationism. Many populists around the world today have incorporated civilizationism to expand their political relevance beyond national scale (Yilmaz et al. 2021). The Muslim World is seeing a rise of Islamic populism where populist rhetoric is attached to religion to make politics a holy struggle for supremacy of God over evil forces (Barton et al. 2021; Yilmaz and Morieson 2023). For Pakistan, where religion and civilizational discourse is an integral part of the state narrative and the institutional power play has placed the democratic forces in a constant struggle for their survival, it is not surprising that populists extensively exploit the idea of religion being the source of identity to gather popular support. From Bhutto till Khan and TLP, populists use the ideas of the fear of the West, feeling of defeat, emotions of betrayal, and blinding pride with homeland and religion. Each has their own tale spun around different categories of “the others” and “the people” but the subsequent results are the same. However, unlike similar cases of civilizational populism as in India or Turkey where religion is mixed with the local history as a call to revive the glory of the lost past, Pakistani populists do not talk much of the Muslim rulers of the region, as they are known for their secular and pluralist ideologies. Instead, they relate the Muslims of India with the Arab or Central Asian invaders. Fantasizing the Musawat-e-Muhammadi or Riyasat-e-Medina or Nizam-e-Mustafa they take their ideals from the earliest period of Islam while looking away from the lineage of the Indus civilization and its culture of tolerance and egalitarianism (Afzal 2015; Khalid 2018; Yilmaz and Saleem 2021). Owing to this absence of local connection, populists in Pakistan adopt an anti-nationalist narrative, prioritizing the Islamic identity over the ethno-nationalist identities. For populists, Pakistan is not just for Pakistanis, it is a garrison state to defend the Muslim Ummah. This civilizationism, hence, is not just used to add a moral ground to domestic politics or to protect the majoritarian rights; it is used as a foreign policy agenda to secure the rights of Muslims around the world, be it Palestine or Afghanistan, and to build a transnational order where all Muslim states could compete against the powers in Europe and Americas. Our case studies demonstrate that while TLP and PTI differ significantly in their formation, leadership, and even audience, at the core they share very similar ideas. These ideas are rooted in populist civilizationism

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(see Table 5.1). On both vertical and horizontal fronts, they use civilizationism to disrupt social trust and pluralism in the country. However, PTI has a much larger following than TLP, and has formed government both at the center and in provinces. Following catch-all populism, PTI’s characterization of Islamism is also milder as compared to that of TLP which relies more on extreme ideas and street power. Yet considering the gradual increase in PTI’s reliance on Islamic civilizationism, one cannot rule out further radicalization of its political slogans and stances. Unfortunately, populists are not the only one promoting Islamic civilizationism in Pakistan. From Pakistan Movement till today, the farright religious political parties are far more vocal and consistent in their call for safeguarding the Islamic identity of the state. Today, JI, different factions of JUI, and other small religious groups extensively use civilizational discourse to otherize Non-Muslims, Muslims of non-Sunni sects, and even Muslims with low religiosity. Even the mainstream political parties do not shun away from questioning the religiosity of their political opponents or raising Islamists slogans. Yet, the adoption of civilizational discourse by right-wing populists in the post-9/11 period poses a far serious challenge for it is attached with a global trend of liberal democratic deficit. As detailed by Yilmaz and Morieson in the first chapter of this book and elsewhere (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023), civilizational populists, despite being a democratic product, exploit this growing mistrust toward the system to blame the pluralist ideas of co-existence. They use democratic language, calling for supremacy of the general will of “the people” yet ultimately use “the people” as pawns against “the others” to establish an autocratic rule. In a country like Pakistan, where democracy has long suffered at the hand of a powerful military and the liberal institutions are already weak, rise of civilizational populism can have serious consequences. As the state has always patronized the narrative of Muslim nationhood, it is hard to counter the populist idea of civilizational-based classification of the demos (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023). With both PTI and TLP mobilizing public around a call to prepare for Jihad against the enemies of Ummah, it is unclear when and how this trend will fade. Dissenting voices have little room in both online and public domains to question, let alone challenge, these populist forces. No political actor is currently strong enough to compete with them as they thrive on extenuating existing crises to make people insecure and position themselves as their only source of salvation.

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Table 5.1 Summary comparison of populist civilizationism of by TLP and PTI Civilizational characterization

TLP

PTI

The people

• Barelvi Sunni Muslimsexplicit favour of the sub-sect • Outright rejection of other Muslim sections and religious minorities • Narrative of injustice and victimhood applied to “the people” • “The people” are urged to be pro-active protectors of faith—this leads to street violence and massive roadblocks

The elite

• All political parties in power since the inception of Pakistan • State institutions are blamed for not adopting sharia • Western countries—they are threatened directly with violence • Shows clear signs of antisemitism (Jewish lobby) • Local liberal/secular left-wing factions—seen as Western inspired. Seen as pawns of the West and bound to hell • Other sects such as Ahmadis and Shias usually painted as non-Muslims or blasphemers • Active acts of violence (sometimes leading to death) target religious minorities • Hard-line sharia driven state

• Caters to the sentiments of Sunni Muslims—no specific subsect. However, the term used is “Muslim” • No outright rejection, but discriminatory attitude toward other sects and minorities noticed in actions, statements and, at times, silence • Narrative of injustice and victimhood applied to “the people” • “The people” are urged to be pro-active- this leads to online activism and political rallies/ protests • All political parties in power since the inception of Pakistan

The others

Ideal homeland

• Western countries—seen a hard and soft power threat • India is also portrayed as an enemy of the people • Local liberal/secular left-wing factions—seen as Western inspired. Usually seen as agents of the West or misguided youths • A mixture of silence over atrocities faced by non-Sunni sects and outright discriminatory actions and comments as well • No direct comment made about religious minorities • No direct comment made about “Jewish lobby” conspiracies

• A modern inception of sharia driven state also called the “Riyasat-i-Madina”

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Table 5.1 (continued) Civilizational characterization

TLP

PTI

Portrayal as saviours

• Saviours of “the people” • Saviours of “the people” from from all “the others” and all of “the others” and “the “the elite” elite” • A leader who is the voice • A leader who is the voice and and representations of “the representations of “the people’s” desires people’s” desires • Seen as guides for the “rightful” for a peaceful afterlife

Appendix A: List of Bhutto’s Speeches, Addresses and Works Topic/Theme

Sources

The departing days in the cabinet of Ayub Khan (1965–1969): • Anti-India rhetoric • Islamic nationalism

https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1966-1969/on-indo-pak istan-war-1965-speech-in-the-national-ass embly-march-16-1966/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1966-1969/address-to-allpakistan-students-federation-conway-halllondon-august-13-1966/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1966-1969/starting-with-aclean-slate-address-to-the-muzaffargarhbar-association-january-17-1968/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1966-1969/role-of-womenaddress-to-p-p-p-women-workers-lahorejanuary-29-1968/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1966-1969/we-shall-notbe-cowed-speech-at-a-public-meeting-atmirpur-khas-february-18-1968/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1966-1969/a-new-class-oflandlords-address-at-larkana-bar-associ ation-march-12-1968/

After foundation of PPP/Campaigning for elections: • Islamic roots of socialism • Questioning religiosity of ruling elites and right-wing political parties • Anti-Indian rhetoric • Anti-Hinduism

(continued)

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(continued) Topic/Theme

Sources https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1966-1969/growth-of-peo ples-party-address-at-its-frontier-conven tion-sherpao-november-3-1968/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1966-1969/the-strugglecontinues-speech-at-a-public-meeting-pes hawar-november-5-1968/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1966-1969/why-ayub-felladdress-at-the-district-bar-association-hyd erabad-june-26-1969/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/launching-theelection-campaign-public-speech-in-nis htar-park-karachi-january-4-1970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/the-change-inforeign-policy-public-speech-liaquat-gar dens-rawalpindi-january-17-1970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/politics-of-thepeople-public-speech-at-jinnah-park-pes hawar-january-18-1970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/socialism-is-isl amic-equality-speech-at-a-public-meetingat-gujrat-march-1-1970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/indias-attackon-pakistan-speech-at-a-public-meeting-atmochi-gate-lahore-march-8-1970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/beware-ofvote-beggars-public-speech-at-peshawarapril-27-1970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/fighting-int ernal-imperialism-speech-at-charsaddaapril-29-1970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/ending-the-tri bal-voting-pattern-speech-at-public-mee ting-hathian-mardan-april-30-1970/

(continued)

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(continued) Topic/Theme

Sources https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/why-was-lia quat-all-khan-shot-public-speech-at-quettajune-14-1970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/go-from-doorto-door-speech-at-the-opening-of-the-ora ngi-p-p-p-office-karachi-july-7-1970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/prepare-for-apeoples-government-speech-at-a-publicmeeting-at-gol-bagh-lahore-october-141970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/campaigningin-lahore-a-public-speech-november-31970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/towards-a-newpakistan-address-to-the-nation-over-radioand-tv-november-18-1970/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1970-1971/thanking-thevoters-public-address-outside-the-assemblychambers-lahore-december-12-1970/

(continued)

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(continued) Topic/Theme

Sources

As CMLA and President: • Negation of Bengali nationalism as anti-Islamic • Calling other nationalist actors traitors • Pakistan the leader of Muslim Ummah

https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-delivered-in-1972/address-as-thepresident-of-the-national-assembly-of-pak istan-on-april-14-1972/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-delivered-in-1972/transcript-ofinterview-with-mr-richard-lindley-of-ind ependent-television-news-london-on-april25-1972/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-delivered-in-1973/speech-at-apublic-meeting-in-karachi-on-january-31973/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-delivered-in-1973/address-at-sha kargarh-on-january-29-1973/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-delivered-in-1973/address-at-thequetta-airport-on-february-27-1973/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-delivered-in-1973/speech-at-agarden-party-in-sibi-on-february-28-1973/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-delivered-in-1973/interviewwith-mr-hasnain-heykal-editor-in-chief-ofal-ahram-on-march-2-1973/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-delivered-in-1973/speech-at-areception-given-by-the-peoples-studentsfederation-peshawar-on-march-2-1973/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-delivered-in-1973/pakistan-daymessage-on-march-23-1973/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-delivered-in-1973/address-tothe-nation-on-march-29-1973/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1975-1976/speech-at-que tta-on-april-8-1976-ablolishing-sardari-sys tem/ https://bhutto.org/index.php/speeches/ speeches-from-1975-1976/speech-at-a-rec eption-in-honor-of-the-delegates-to-the-int ernational-congress-on-seerat-at-karachion-march-13-1976/

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Appendix B: List of Imran Khan’s Speeches, Tweets and Statements Topic/Theme

Sources

The Beginning Pro-Taliban and Anti-West rhetoric

https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-pakistan-seeing-asurge-in-taliban-support/a-58317041 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-drone-pro tests-idUSBRE89609Q20121007 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/mran-khan-says-joi ning-us-war-on-terror-after-9-11-attack-was-biggest-blu nder-2105964 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Holymess-US-mag-blames-Imran/articleshow/1111381.cms https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/ 2019/10/14/mran-khans-incomplete-taliban-narrative/ https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/ 6735/2162 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/14/ mran-khan-taliban-afghanistan-islam https://www.dawn.com/news/760981/khan-talibanand-the-crackpot-science https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/16/ china-russia-pakistan-expect-increase-influence-afghan istan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2gFbFH0IdA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3S2PNxnV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4uHgTNrP4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkzR6i_JzjU https://www.geo.tv/latest/341227-pakistan-back-ontrack-to-becoming-nation-guided-by-riyasat-i-madina-pri nciples-pm-imran-khan https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/855533-originalcontent-has-value-not-imitation-pm-imran-khan-on-pak istani-films https://www.dialoguepakistan.com/mran-khan-wishesscholars-to-conduct-researches-on-riyasat-e-madina/ https://twitter.com/imrankhanpti/status/126925899 4583035909 https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/855533-originalcontent-has-value-not-imitation-pm-imran-khan-on-pak istani-films https://tribune.com.pk/story/2299682/mranan-tur key-join-hands-to-stop-israeli-atrocities-on-palestinians https://images.dawn.com/news/1188092

Maturing of Civilizationism Ideas of Islamic societies, civilisation, and New Pakistan: • Contrasts with West • What Naya Pakistan looks like • Alliance with “brother” ummah

(continued)

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(continued) Topic/Theme

Sources https://images.dawn.com/news/1184828/pm-imrankhan-says-aurat-march-is-a-result-of-cultural-differenceslike-its-a-bad-thing https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/feminism-deg rades-role-of-mothers-says-imran-khan-starts-twitter-war1869328 https://www.geo.tv/latest/365458-pm-to-launch-firstphase-of-single-national-curriculum-on-Monday https://tribune.com.pk/story/2274877/hamza-ali-abb asi-imran-khan-talk-journey-to-islam-counterculture-andmedias-responsibilities https://www.dawn.com/news/1629100 https://www.dawn.com/news/1640988 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftfj55MU-QE https://bdnews24.com/world/south-asia/2022/04/ 16/days-after-ouster-imran-khan-is-back-on-the-trail-inpakistan https://www.dawn.com/news/1685299 https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20220403beleagured-pakistan-pm-imran-khan-faces-no-confid ence-vote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC088xj5F7ce. com/watch?v=NehN1kagFRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HPEJv_eLGQ https://www.dawn.com/news/1687085

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Appendix C: TLP’s Populist Islamist Civilizationism • Victimhood of ummah and call for vigilantism • Creating a crises “insult” of Islam and Prophet Mohammad • Categorization of “the others” and “the people”

Views on gender rights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KM0g8HwHYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBUbPY7hABI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdQg1j0_Wc0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N52DarVbeMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdILu5lNxCk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcqenS_lSkA https://www.memri.org/tv/mranan-khadim-hussainrizvi-calls-jihad-atom-cartoons-france https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTsGWKPGodg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnOlZ4PhbYE https://www.indiablooms.com/world-details/SA/ 37694/-hold-quran-in-your-right-hand-atom-bomb-onleft-pak-leader-s-startling-solution-to-economic-crisis. html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7TuDG552vs& ab_channel=LabbaikMediaCell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpL-gNb-ASQ& ab_channel=IslamicHadees https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtVtMvXVOwI& ab_channel=BOLNews https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNyFlyZrKSo& ab_channel=AllamaKhadimHussainRizviOfficial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-8uo01mxKw& ab_channel=AllamaKhadimHussainRizviOfficial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re3JRToE44Q& ab_channel=Al_NoorNewsTv

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CHAPTER 6

Malaysia: Islamist Civilizational Populism Syaza Shukri

Introduction Malaysia has gone through numerous political evolutions in its short history, from a more secular nation-state to a phase of Islamization in the 1980s and 1990s, followed by political democracy in the twentyfirst century that saw greater competition (Sreenevasan 2007). Following these processes and scenarios, Malaysia is presently witnessing an increase in populist parties and movements, particularly Islamist civilizational populism. According to the Federal Constitution, the country’s majority Malay population is legally required to be Muslims. As political parties

This chapter is a revised version of previously published Open Access material in the following article: Shukri, Syaza. 2023. “Islamist Civilizationism in Malaysia” Religions 14, no. 2: 209. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020209. S. Shukri (B) Department of Political Science, International Islamic University Malaysia, 53100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_6

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compete for the support and votes of this predominantly conservative Malay population (Shukri 2021a), they have instrumentalized Islam to their advantage. These political parties and leaders are classified as populists because they share features such as the separation of “the people” from “the others” (Mudde 2010). For Islamist civilizational populists, “the others” are often the ethnoreligious minority, who may also overlap with the wealthy, and “the people” who are the MalayMuslims are portrayed as in need of governmental attention through inclusive policies. Although Malaysia is not normally thought of as a country with a populist leader in the manner of Pakistan or the Philippines, there is no doubt that Islamist populist groups and leaders abound in the current political dynamics following the country’s historic change of administration in 2018. In 2022, the Perikatan Nasional coalition used a populist strategy to delegitimize its opponents, particularly the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party. In making the case for Malaysia, this chapter will employ Yilmaz and Morieson’s (2022b) term of civilizational populism to claim that ethnic Malays in Malaysia has adopted a civilizational rhetoric linked to the Muslim ummah in their enmity against the Chinese “others.” Under contrast to an out-group from another civilization, a civilizational identity becomes the people’s distinguishing attribute in civilizational populism (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b). Religion and the social construct of race are frequently interwoven with the concept of civilization. Given the accessibility of knowledge and communication via the internet across the globe, it is not surprising that populist speech today would take on larger civilizational dimensions. The language of civilizational populism is that of a civilization as well as a nation at peril. Many civilizational populists use nationalist vocabulary because it emphasizes the individual and affinity with “the nation” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022a, p. 24). This makes great sense given the existing nation-state system, in which leaders usually prioritize the domestic audience. Civilizational populism, on the other hand, situates nationalism within a larger global society. Right-wing populists promise to restore a civilization to its former glory as a reactionary force, despite the reality that the past existed inside an entirely different system. The social and economic justice concerns that are fundamental to Islam can be instrumentalized by Islamist populists to fulfill the anti-elite and xenophobic agendas that Islamist populists have (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023).

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Furthermore, Islamist populists characterize “the people’s” religion positively, while religion of “the others” are branded and portrayed as inferior and at the same time threatening. This allows Islamist populists to frame themselves as “saviours” of the ummah. Since Islam is a worldwide religion, Islamist populism must include a transnational component. The Ummah, then, is a worldwide group of Muslims rather than a group of Muslims within a nation (Yilmaz and Morieson 2023, p. 50). This chapter is a revision of Shukri (2023b). The goal of this chapter is to suggest that events since the 1960s have opened the way for Malaysian leaders to adopt civilizational discourses as a populist approach in the twenty-first century. Malaysian civilizational discourse refers to the Malay people as part of a wider and sacred group of Islamic civilization. Because of the Chinese’s strong economic and political standing in relation to the Malays and other ethnic groups, the Malays representing Islam as the superior religion are thought to be under threat from the Chinese “others” (Yeap 2020). The next section will briefly take a closer look at the Malay–Chinese relation, which is the most essential feature of the development of Islamist populism in Malaysia. Despite a relatively united Malaysia in the 1990s due to economic growth, Chinese othering returned in the twenty-first century in the form of civilizational populism. Following that, the chapter identifies the changes in Malaysia’s political history, develops counterfactual arguments, and evaluates the evidence. Four important events have been cited as having contributed to the growth of Islamist civilizationism in Malaysia because of this process: the 1969 race riots, the 1970s Islamic resurgence, the 9/11 attacks, and the defeat of Barisan Nasional in the 2018 general election. Finally, prior to the conclusion, there is an examination and discussion of Islamist civilizationism in Malaysia since the change of government in 2018 and its impact on Malaysia’s fragile democracy.

Malay–Chinese Relationship Malaysia was always diverse. By the close of the fourteenth century, Malacca in the western coast of peninsula Malaysia was one of the world’s most important locales for trade and home to a cosmopolitan society of over 100,000. Although traders from all backgrounds from Arabs, Chinese, Armenians, Javanese, Indians and Japanese interacted on the streets in Malacca, the Malays are regarded the “original occupants”

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of the Malay peninsula because their ancestors arrived 3000 years ago and migrated across the archipelago until the mid-twentieth century. Due to cultural and economic laissez-faire attitude, ethnic groupings got along back then (Wan Husin 2012; Ibrahim 2004). The Chinese Baba and Nyonya in Malacca adopted local attire, hairstyles, food, and language. Chinese Baba and Nyonya identities and increased knowledge of transnational Chinese culture have developed a unique Chinese identity in Malaysia (Matondang 2016). British colonization damaged relations among the main ethnic groupings. The British refused Chinese elites’ requests to work for the colonial government, saying they were trustees of the Malays. This reversed millennia of acculturation for a more ethnically defensive Chinese identity (Goh 2019). Before World War II, the Chinese made up 43 percent of the population to the Malays’ 41 percent (Purcell 1967). Thus, nonMalays dominated Malaya before independence. Given these figures, the relationship becomes more complex due to the Islamic and Chinese civilizational nature of both ethnic groups. The minority Chinese are proud of their 3000+ year civilizational heritage. Post-World War II Malay identity consolidation was a response to the British-imposed Malayan Union unitary system that challenged Malays’ privileged positions and hereditary monarchs (Omar 1993). Between 1948 and 1960, the Malays united against Chinese Communism. In the 1940s, Chinese learned to unite on a unified understanding of Malayness and realized they could easily return to Confucian ideals. In contrast, Dr. Burhanuddin Al Helmy, a prominent Malay nationalist, suggested that the idea of a “Malay” person should be founded on patriotism, not ethnicity. The Communities Liaison Committee, which addressed delicate ethnicity problems before independence, advocated a Malayan nationality. Malay nationalists rejected these concepts, hence Malaysia’s approach to inter-ethnic interactions is state-managed tolerance and accommodation (Adnan 2020). Laissez-faire failed. Despite these obstacles, the Chinese community worked with Malay elites to obtain independence, believing it would give them more autonomy. They soon realized independence in 1957 meant losing control over Chinese affairs. Article 160 of the Malaysian Constitution defines a “Malay” as someone who practises Islam speaks Malay, and follows Malay customs. Thus, a Malay must be Muslim and cannot be non-Muslim. Thus, Muslim Malays benefit from “indigenous” rights. The Malays’ special position contradicts Article 3 of the Constitution’s promise that Islam as the

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Federation’s religion is limited to personal and customary rules (Neo 2006). Malaysia’s first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, remarked, “Unless we are prepared to drown every non-Malay, we can never think of an Islamic Administration” (Von Der Mehden 2013, p. 590). These assurances gave the Chinese confidence in an independent Malaya (Malaysia). However, due to geopolitical reasons after 9/11, then-prime minister Mahathir declared Malaysia an Islamic state. The 1971 New Economic Policy, which aimed to end poverty and restructure society, worsened inter-ethnic relations in Malaysia. Unfortunately, “administocrats” (Heng 1996, p. 32) using affirmative action merely divide Malaysians by emphasizing racial distinctions (Gabriel 2016). The 1961 Education Act and 1967 National Language Bill limited Chinese education financing to six years of primary school and established Bahasa Malaysia as the only official language. Wan Husin (2012) noted the Chinese reaction to the 1971 National Culture Policy, which required non-Malays, including Chinese, to adapt to Malay culture and customs. In the 1980s, under Mahathir Mohamad, the Malays revived their religious identity, like the Chinese do with their Confucian civilization. Islam is the last identification marker that minorities have not adopted (the others being Malay language and royalty) (Shamsul 1996). Interethnic relations in Peninsular Malaysia were clouded by Islamic discourse and actions to strengthen Malay rule. Today, Islamist populism’s challenge to Malaysia’s already unstable democracy can be traced back to the development decades after independence which is discussed below.

Populism and the Institutionalization of Islam Malaya, Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak created Malaysia in 1963. Sabah and Sarawak were predominantly Kadazan-Dusun, Murut, Iban, Bidayuh, and Melanau, while Singapore was mostly Chinese. So-called indigenous people and Malays are lumped into one dominating (but heterogeneous) group in Malaysia to create the political term Bumiputera to offset the 1.2 million Chinese from Singapore (Tilman 1964). In a post-colonial society, this maintained the ethnic balance of the Bumiputera majority. The 1965 ejection of Singapore and 1969 national election tested this ethnic balance. On May 13, 1969, Malays and Chinese clashed in Kuala Lumpur and the state of Selangor following rising tension during the electoral campaigning period. This tragic event in Malaysian history disrupted ethnic relations.

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In response to this occurrence, the government introduced affirmative steps to eradicate poverty and erase the association of race with economic activities. Populism thrives in polarised societies where economic status and ethno-religious identity coincide to require a “saviour” to fix the imbalance. Abdul Razak’s government claimed that Tunku Abdul Rahman’s laissez-faire economic policies had unfairly favored the Chinese over the Malays. In response, the New Economic Policy (NEP) was proMalay in education, government procurement, equity markets, and public service because rural workers are mostly Malays. Some say that subsequent policies are still dependent on the NEP, even though it was scheduled to terminate and be re-evaluated in 1990. (The Economist 2005). State involvement created a developmentalist state from laissez-faire economics. Unfortunately, only a small number of ethnic groups have grown asset ownership (Jomo 2004). While absolute poverty was 8.4 percent in 2020 (DOSM 2021), financial disparities between classes, ethnicities, and nationalities remain. The NEP exacerbated the division between Malays who largely benefit from the programs, especially those with close affiliations to the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), with non-Malays. Any criticism would be labeled anti-Malay and undermine the Constitutional provision of special rights for Malays. The NEP may not have been pro-Bumiputera without the 1969 race riots. Before the riots, UMNO members were uneasy about Tunku Abdul Rahman’s dependence on Chinese tycoons. Thus, the NEP’s promotion of Malays as the country’s “people” who need protection from Chinese “others” led to Islamist populism in the 1970s. Since it focused on Malay identity rather than Islamic civilization, it is not yet a civilizationalist discourse. In the 1980s, competing Islamic narratives from the government, the Islamist PAS party, and other Muslim organizations like the reformist Malaysian Islamic Youth Association (ABIM—Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia) institutionalized Islam and strengthened Islamic identity. Mahathir called PAS “fundamentalists” and “deviationists” as part of his populist strategy to scare voters away. He also opposed PAS’ push to establish Islamic hudud legislation, which was perceived as measures to limit non-Muslims’ rights and freedoms, such as drinking alcohol and socializing with opposite-gender individuals, even though the legislation would not apply to them. Mahathir’s Islamization attempts were also a response to the people’s desire for a Malaysia that better reflects postcolonial Malay–Muslim values (Schottmann 2018). To continue in power,

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Mahathir is a proto-Islamist populist who portrays himself as a man of the people. His rhetoric was initially Malay nationalist. UMNO, the ruling party, has always had an Islamic agenda, from Tunku Abdul Rahman’s depoliticization of Islam, Abdul Razak’s cultural elevation of Islam, Hussein Onn’s complicity in Islamic resurgence, Mahathir’s overt Islamization policies, Abdullah Badawi’s Islam Hadhari, and Najib Razak’s wasatiyyah (moderation) policy (Hamid 2013). Nevertheless, as his premiership coincided with the global resurgence of Islam in the 1970s, Mahathir was perhaps the staunchest advocate of a Malayinfused Islamization agenda. Mahathir won Malay support by advocating Islamization. To increase his support among Malaysian Malay-Muslims, he replaced Malay nationalism with Islamization. Mahathir’s government held a symposium on “The Concept of Development in Islam” in 1981 and established Bank Islam in 1983 to provide Islamic insurance and mortgages. Malaysian Muslims passionately stated their desire for an Islamic financial system to replace conventional banking, making the Islamic bank’s formation one of the most significant milestones in Malaysia’s Islamization process (Mutalib 1993). Mahathir, an anti-establishment populist, promoted Islam to represent himself as of “the people.” Mahathir launched the “Clean, Efficient, and Trustworthy” campaign to reduce inefficiency and corruption, the “Leadership by Example” campaign, and the “Inculcation of Islamic Valus in Administration” strategy to enhance Malaysians’ mental and physical health. His goal was to produce personnel and leaders from all levels and sectors who practised values-based responsibilities according to Islam, forever changing Malaysia’s economic, political, educational, and bureaucratic landscapes. Mahathir may not have led Malaysia’s Islamization process without the 1970s global rise of Islam. Malaysia’s identity has become Islamic ever since. Mahathir co-opted charismatic ABIM leader Anwar Ibrahim as part of his populist strategy by recruiting Anwar to UMNO. Anwar was a student leader who openly criticized UMNO before joining the party. However, he became UMNO’s deputy minister of Islamic Affairs in the Prime Minister’s Department in 1982, a startling development as an Islamist. Mahathir wanted to appease Islamists by quickly putting Anwar in office. Mahathir, a populist leader within Malaysia’s semi-authoritarian system, uses Islam and Islamist leaders to his advantage. To gain support, Mahathir placed the Malays within the larger Islamic civilization and

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once said, “We are all Muslims. We are all oppressed. We are all being humiliated” (Berger 2010, p. 20). As the government marketed Sunni Islam based on the Shafiee madhab (school of thought in Islamic jurisprudence) as the only correct form of Islam in Malaysia, UMNO became an Islamist populist party. The government built large federal bureaucracies and expanded JAKIM’s (Department of Islamic Development Malaysia) influence. Islamic judges were promoted, and the Shariah Court became equal to the civil and magisterial courts. Interestingly, Mahathir’s attempts to enhance the federal government’s jurisdiction on Islamic affairs intrude upon state hereditary leaders as defenders of Malay rights and Islam’s position as the state religion (Munro-Kua 1996). Instead of genuinely caring about Islamic concerns in Malaysia—which is guaranteed by the constitution and the hereditary rulers—the government wanted to limit what Islam could represent to the populace to establish its apex position. Limiting what people can practise and believe can persuade the masses that the government should safeguard Islam from supposed “threats.” Like other populist leaders, Mahathir violently repressed Shiites, Ahmadis, and the Al-Arqam organization for the sake of national stability. These tough actions supported Mahathir’s authoritarian populist label (Munro-Kua 1996). On the international stage, Mahathir was revered as a prominent leader of the Global South with his anti-Israel position, and as a result, the Malay-Muslim population went global, and Malaysia became a global Muslim power.

Islamist Populists’ Reaction to Obstacles According to Yilmaz and Morieson (2022b), “civilizational populism is not merely a European or Christian based phenomenon, but a global phenomenon in which national identities are increasingly defined via civilizational belonging, and as products of religion-defined global civilizations” (p. 18). Instead of explaining a civilizational clash on a global scale, civilizationism has been deployed as a discourse inside a national context. Similarly, in Malaysia, after facing international issues, the decision to respond through religious themes and languages is aimed more toward the Malaysian people. Since 9/11 and George W. Bush’s Global War on Terror, Malaysia has felt compelled to act in defence of Islam. In 2002, Mahathir declared in Malaysian Parliament that the country is a “model of Islamic fundamentalist state,” rather than the more customary

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term of a moderate Islamic state. According to Mahathir, there is nothing to fear from the fundamentalist moniker since Muslims must reclaim what it means to be a fundamentalist for themselves (CNN 2002). He emphasized the need of Muslims abandoning extremism and embracing science and development during his speech to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 2003 as an outgoing prime minister and host (CNN 2003). Mahathir believes that rather than rejecting material progress in the name of faith, Muslims should embrace it. His speech established him as a global Muslim leader. If 9/11 had not occurred, there would have been no incentive for Malaysia, and especially Mahathir, to take the lead in regaining Islamic identity to be propagated at home. Although Mahathir was already known for his anti-Western rhetoric, 9/11 gave more cause for Malaysia to join forces with other Muslim countries as part of a broader civilization. If terrorists had not attacked America on that dreadful day, Malaysia may have continued its more liberal course in the 1990s where economic development brought Malaysians from all walks of life together under Mahathir’s “Vision 2020” framework. Unlike Anwar Ibrahim, who has written and spoken extensively about his concept of “Madani” or civilization, which has become his administrative framework as Malaysia’s tenth prime minister, Mahathir’s view of Islamic civilization is that opposed to the West. If Anwar’s talks are about developing a holistic society (Ibrahim 2023), Mahathir’s main ideals of an Islamic civilization are rooted on hard effort and a scientific mindset founded on Islamic notions of justice, as most visible in his discourse among world leaders. According to Schottmann (2013), Reflecting his personal leanings in faith (comparisons with Protestantism are not entirely inappropriate), Mahathir posited the conscience of the individual believer as the core site of the reconstruction of Islamic civilization in the modern world. Armed with what he invariably referred to as a ‘proper understanding of Islam’ (no doubt, these were the tenets of Islam as interpreted by Mahathir Mohamad), present-day Muslims could reconnect to Islam’s golden age in the same way that government propaganda portrayed ‘New Malays’ as inheriting Malaysia after 500 years of foreign domination. (p. 59)

Mahathir attempted to instill these principles at home because he believes they are critical to Malaysia being a developed nation on par with the West. Despite this rhetoric and Mahathir’s status as a renowned

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statesman, the reason for his appeal to this modern Muslim person is to distinguish his political movement from PAS. By presenting a ‘modern’ Islamic civilization, he hopes to entice Malay voters away from PAS’ allegedly more extremist views on Islam. In many ways, Mahathir’s depiction of Islam’s essential values as progress-oriented was especially liberal and supportive of attempts to democratize and expand civil society (Schottmann 2013). On the one side, Mahathir appears to promote strong inter-racial peace; nevertheless, with Malays being the majority of his supporters, he must constantly interact with the concept of Islamist civilizational populism through fostering the idea of a “threat” to Malay-Muslims and the global Ummah. Shifting geopolitical realities in the Muslim world, along with the widespread use of social media in the first two decades of the twentyfirst century, brought the misery of Muslims in other nations to the attention of Malaysians. Malaysians are now fully aware of the persecution endured by Muslims living in distant locations, thanks to the Arab Uprising in 2011 and subsequent wars in Syria and Yemen. This adds to the narrative of Islamist civilizationism, in which the West’s lackadaisical position in easing tensions in the Middle East through proxy players and friends is blamed for the daily challenges Muslims face. This contemporary geopolitical reality has compelled Malaysia to position itself with Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia as a bloc of moderate and neutral Muslim countries. When Mahathir organized the Kuala Lumpur Summit in 2019 to ostensibly “address the social, political, and economic issues affecting Muslims globally” (Waikar and Osman 2020), he was chastised by Saudi Arabia and her allies for assuming the role traditionally played by the OIC, which is based in Jeddah. More crucially, the Malaysian government was signalling its intent to become a leader of the greater Islamic civilization. Given Malaysia’s limited resources to take on such grand foreign policy objective, Mahathir’s rhetoric about “the ummah” is really meant for the domestic audience as argued in this book. Rather than being transnational, civilizational populism today has a national agenda.

Domestic Democratization and Islamist Populism Despite the above-mentioned foreign issues, Malay-Muslims in Malaysia face the greatest purported crisis at home: the growth of the opposition. Since 1999, when Anwar Ibrahim launched the reformasi movement,

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Malaysia’s opposition has gradually gained support and strength, particularly through diverse political coalitions. In contrast to the Barisan Nasional model, in which UMNO is considered the first among equals, these coalitions are made up of Malay and Chinese leaders sharing power. In what has been described as a political tsunami, the opposition succeeded in denying the ruling government its regular two-thirds majority in parliament in the 2008 general election (Newsweek 2008). The situation for the government deteriorated further in the 2013 general election, when the opposition led by Anwar Ibrahim won the popular vote (but lost the election due to the first-past-the-post system). This represents the start of a widening divide between rural and urban Malays, with the former siding with the incumbent and the latter siding with the opposition. On top of the Malay divide, Najib Razak, the prime minister in 2013, called the electoral outcome a “Chinese tsunami,” blaming the Chinese population for the government’s performance at the polls (Grant 2013). Thus, in the 2010s, the “others” endangering the country’s stability and security were limited down to Chinese and urban Malays. Even if Malays are Muslims, the argument goes, they are ‘less Islamic’ for cooperating with the Chinese and thereby endangering Islamic culture in Malaysia. Malay politics has been divided, particularly after 1999, when the opposition garnered a strong showing at the polls, garnering more than 40 percent of the popular vote. Since then, Malay voters have had several options, including UMNO, PAS, the People’s Justice Party (PKR—Parti Keadilan Rakyat), Amanah, and Bersatu. Of course, some Malays vote for non-Malay parties like the DAP. In such a crowded field, parties that rely on the Malay-Muslim vote have had to out-Islamize and out-Malay one another. This has resulted in ethnic fighting and polarization, with Malay parties using the race card to warn non-Malays not to act inappropriately. For example, in 2005, Hishammuddin Hussein, then-leader of UMNO’s youth wing, prominently displayed the keris, a Malay cultural dagger. His actions have been observed to represent UMNO’s shift to the right (Liew 2015). It is worth mentioning that this episode occurred a year after the Malays were empowered by Barisan Nasional’s landslide victory in the 2004 general election. Despite his censure, there is no doubt that the tide has shifted against the more moderate leadership. The Malay siege mentality promoted the concept of ‘othering’ non-Malays as pendatang (immigrant), a disparaging phrase used to portray non-Malays

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as not belonging to “the people.” This is particularly true for Islamist civilizational populists, whose platform is founded on identity politics steeped in Malay and Islamic discourses. With its rhetoric as defender of Malay and Islamic identity in Malaysia, UMNO clung to power in the 2010s. At the height of public outrage over Prime Minister Najib Razak’s 1MDB scandal, as well as the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, the opposition Pakatan Harapan alliance defeated Barisan Nasional at the federal level for the first time in Malaysian history. Make no mistake, despite the coalition shift, many of the persons in the Pakatan Harapan government leadership in 2018 were the same people who previously ran the country under Barisan Nasional, most notably Mahathir Mohamad. As a result, the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan administration only 22 months later should not come as a surprise, since there was perpetual disagreement about which path the country should take: liberalism or prolonged Malay feudalism. The growth of Pakatan Harapan is another example of punctuated equilibrium in Malaysian political history, which has contributed to the rise of Islamist populists. Pakatan Harapan, as a government, featured parties such as the DAP, a Chinese-based party that advocates a secular Malaysian Malaysia ideology in which unity in diversity is prioritized. Islamist populists in Malaysia tried to employ civilizational populism to portray an Islamic majority versus a non-Muslim minority after the PH government took office. The Pakatan Harapan government’s choice of non-Muslims like Lim Guan Eng as finance minister, Tommy Thomas as attorney general, and Richard Malanjum as chief justice prompted swift and vehement accusations that Muslim rights were being threatened. Islam’s place is guaranteed by the constitution, but Islamist populists have argued strongly that Malaysia is losing its identity as a Muslim country due to the dominance of non-Muslims in the administration. In July 2018, some 2,000 people gathered in Kuala Lumpur to protest what they saw as a loss of Malay-Muslim rights (Fuad 2018). Protesters objected to the government’s attempts to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and recognize the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) for Chinese private schools. If Pakatan Harapan had not won the 2018 general election, there would not have been such a rapid growth of Islamist populism because there would not have been an immediate ‘threat’ to the Malays’ position in Malaysia.

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Unfortunately, the Pakatan Harapan government was overthrown in a soft coup in February 2020 when Bersatu left the coalition. The pressure on the Malay leadership in Pakatan Harapan, particularly among Bersatu members (who are mostly former UMNO members), was so intense that in October 2019, government leaders, including Mahathir Mohamad, attended a so-called Malay Dignity Congress alongside other Malay leaders, such as Hadi Awang from PAS, to discuss the uplifting of Malays and Islam. During the conference, the chief secretariat, Zainal Kling, stated, “Malaysia belongs to the Malays” (Teoh 2019). This populist Malay rights rhetoric appears to resonate with the public, as a study conducted after the fall of Pakatan Harapan discovered that more Malays are content with UMNO, PAS, and Bersatu, while more Malays are dissatisfied with Pakatan Harapan (Merdeka Center 2020). Further evidence may be found in the subsequent state elections held during the pandemic, in which Pakatan Harapan was defeated in Sabah, Malacca, Sarawak, and Johor. “The Malays need a protector,” said a youth representative from the ruling Bersatu government. They have a neo-feudal mentality and are not ready to embrace a full-blown liberal democracy yet. At the end of the day, the societal nature of embracing a tribal mentality will persist” (The Vibes 2022). Despite admitting that Chinese and Indians are a part of Malaysia’s development story, these populists continue to cater to the Malays’ emotional need for crutches to survive against the encroaching “others” of a different religious civilization. A discussion of Islamist populism in Malaysia would be incomplete without Hadi Awang, the current head of PAS, dissected. Although he is recognized as a fiery party leader, he also epitomizes Islamist populism with his obvious delineation of Muslims as “the people” in comparison to the non-Muslim “others” who are resolute in their efforts to overthrow Islam in Malaysia. According to Mudde’s assessment, Hadi Awang is a classic populist because of his binary view of people. One example is a warning that “it is forbidden to be united with enemies of the faith and the ummah” (Malaysiakini 2021), implying that his political opponents are enemies of Islam. Hadi stated in July 2021 that Pakatan Harapan “set up a government which was not only liberal but also dared to challenge the position of Islam and the Royalty” (Free Malaysia Today 2021). In his political quest to maintain power, he deployed the civilizational discourse of Islam against the liberal “others” once more, including on the international front. “Now the Zionists have successfully appointed a new head of state, Volodymyr Zelensky, who in a statement said that Ukraine needs to

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be saved as much as Israel—showing his true colors,” Hadi wrote during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Awang 2022). As a populist who exploited the most important problem in the Muslim world—Israel’s occupation of Palestine—Hadi reflected Malaysia’s anti-Western feelings as expressed on social media (Azmi 2022). Islamist civilizationism has been a rhetorical choice of Malay leaders who rely on popular support. In the 2022 general election, the right-wing Perikatan Nasional won the majority of seats in the Malay heartland thanks to their Islamist civilizational populist approach. Due to fierce competition among Malay leaders, populism-laden hate speech increased during the 2022 general election, in which the DAP was accused of being pro-Communism and Islamophobic (Murugiah 2022). Because populism is an emotional strategy, right-wing populists in Malaysia were successful in creating a sense of crisis to the Malay–Islamic identity by exploiting their anxiety and fear for an uncertain future under Pakatan Harapan leadership and a nostalgic past when Malays were dominant within the government (Shukri 2021b). With Anwar Ibrahim as Malaysia’s 10th Prime Minister, leading the Pakatan Harapan administration since 2022, this technique is being used to establish a Malay-based opposition group. While bringing Muslims from different backgrounds under one civilizational bloc on a global scale may be impossible, it is preferable in a smaller national setting such as Malaysia. Malaysia’s level of democracy has fluctuated within the range of flawed democracy after decades of minor digital authoritarianism by the Malaysian government for the purpose of ensuring peace among Muslims. In such an environment of weakened institutions, Islamist populists such as PAS leaders took advantage of the situation to disseminate their Islamist civilizational ideology. If these Islamist populists were in opposition from 2018 to 2020, they were in government from 2020 to 2022 until the dissolution of Parliament in October 2022. PAS, a member of the Perikatan Nasional coalition, was previously ruled out as a viable challenger in the 2022 general election, which was expected to pit Pakatan Harapan against Barisan Nasional. PAS and Perikatan Nasional were able to gain support in Malay heartlands because of their large internet presence, particularly on TikTok. Although the internet’s democratization is welcomed for enabling broader involvement, it also has the potential to be abused by extremist and violent populist parties seeking to keep certain “others,” i.e., non-Muslims, away from the government (Shukri 2023a).

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To prove that PAS’ Islamist civilizational rhetoric was simply a populist strategy, we can see that the party, as part of the previous government, did not pursue its shariasition program while in office from 2020 to 2022. However, as the November 2022 election approached, there was an increase in Islamist populist rhetoric as the party sought to consolidate its power. For example, Hadi Awang, the head of PAS and a former special ambassador to the Middle East, stated in August 2022 that the majority of persons responsible for damaging Malaysia’s politics and economy were non-Muslims, meaning that the country’s minority Chinese were to blame for corruption (Loheswar 2022). This is a common feature of civilizational populism as discussed in this book which is that “the others” are deemed to be corrupt and immoral, thus endangering the nation’s stability. Following several complaints, the police investigated Hadi Awang under the Penal Code for words promoting injury and incitement. Because Islam is such a powerful force in Malaysia, it is used not just to quiet the opposition, but also to defend Islamist populists in the country. Following the election on November 19, 2022, Malaysians discovered that PAS had made strides across the country, winning 49 seats in parliament (22 percent). In attempting to comprehend the party’s appeal, there is no questioning the efficacy of its relentless campaign to portray its opponents as “evil” in populist parlance. PAS’ harsh and violent statement has always been directed against the DAP, which it previously accused of being a Chinese chauvinist party for advocating equality for Malaysians of all races and religions. During the 2022 election campaign, PAS accused the DAP of being pro-communist and hence anti-Islam to scare Muslims away from voting for the party and its coalition partner, Pakatan Harapan (Daim 2022). Muhyiddin Yassin, the former prime minister and leader of the Perikatan Nasional coalition with PAS, accused Christians and Jews of seeking to Christianize Malaysia in a last-minute effort to galvanize the grassroots (The Star 2022). Civilizational populism is the delegitimization of “the others” because they do not belong to the so-called correct and legitimate civilization, which in Malaysia is the Islamic ummah. Moreover, not missing a beat from Mahathir’s staunch anti-Western rhetoric, Islamists in Malaysia took to the streets to protest the burning of the Quran by an extremist Swedish politician (Mokhtar and Shahrulnizam 2023). The right to protest is a fundamental right in a democratic country. The point to be made is the sense of belonging among Malaysian Muslims, especially when led by populists such as the

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Perikatan Nasional coalition, with the entire Muslim community as part of a larger and transnational Islamic civilization. The government of Malaysia chose to condemn the act as well and announced the distribution of a million copies of the Quran in response (The Star 2023), which can be argued as a populist move as well.

Islamist Civilizationism in Malaysia: A Discussion Civilizational populism, as a subset of the intriguing concept of populism, has been used to explain how notions of “the people” and “the others” are separated into different civilizations with “the people” and its tradition requiring protection from supposed degenerate civilizational “others.” Malaysia is seldom used as a case study for this version of populism, but this chapter has shown that Islamist civilizational populism is well and alive in twenty-first century Malaysia. Not all Malaysian Muslims subscribe to the populist notion that they must form a unified front to safeguard their rights in the country. Opponents of these Islamist populists are largely supporters of the Pakatan Harapan alliance, which promised a more inclusive Malaysia. In his inaugural speech as Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim stated, “None shall be marginalized in my administration,” while emphasizing his commitment to maintaining the country’s unique status of Malays and Islam (Sinar Daily 2022). Unfortunately, Malay support for the Pakatan Harapan administration has declined from approximately 25 percent in 2018 (Free Malaysia Today 2018) to an anticipated 11 percent in 2022, with Malay swing votes falling to the Perikatan Nasional alliance as discussed in the previous section (Welsh 2022) proving the success of Islamist populism. While support for UMNO has declined in response to Barisan Nasional’s tarred image as a corrupt coalition, more Malays (an estimated 54 percent) voted for the PAS-led Perikatan Nasional coalition, whose strategy relied heavily on Islamist populist rhetoric against the Pakatan Harapan government both before and after the election. These populists refer to Malaysia’s majority Malay population as “the people,” while the Chinese are referred to as “the others” in a civilizational clash. The urge for Islamist populism stems from the Malays’ use of emotion to instill fear and resentment, particularly toward ethnic Chinese economic supremacy. As if to fuel this anxiety, the former prime minister stated in parliament in 2021 that the median income disparity between Chinese and Malays has grown fourfold since 1989. Looking

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at the numbers clearly, Lee Hwok Aun (2021) concluded that Bumiputera household income has expanded at a quicker rate than Chinese household income. This play on distinct ethnic groupings demonstrates how exclusionary civilizational rhetoric is motivated by politics rather than theology. Because the majority Malays represent the “will of the people” through sheer numerical potency, the aspirations of Islamist civilizational populists for hegemonic power take precedence over democratic norms and ideals like minority rights and the rule of law (Shukri 2023c). After the Pakatan Harapan government was depicted as failing the Malay public, Islamist populism rose more confidently in Malaysia. According to Canovan (1999), the appeal of populists develops only when people believe democracy has failed to ’properly’ represent the people’s desire. Because populism necessitates the appearance of democratic practise, it is easy to see why it has resurfaced now. Malaysia has experienced a hybrid government for decades after the 1969 race riots, with civil rights and liberties constrained despite conducting federal elections every few years. Populism could not arise at the time since the elite Malay leaders had an iron grip to make the required decisions without considerable opposition. However, with the opening of the political system in 2007 with enormous rallies for free and fair elections by the Bersih coalition of NGOs (which means ‘Clean’ in Malay), politicians sought to manipulate people’s emotions to get their support. It has been stated that the Pakatan Harapan government attempted to impose populist measures on the vertical dimension by presenting the Barisan Nasional government, particularly former Prime Minister Najib Razak who has been convicted by the highest court relating to the 1MDB crisis, as corrupt elites who do not have the people’s best interest (Halim and Azhari 2020). Nonetheless, in Malaysia, the ‘corrupt elite’ is not a powerful populist narrative. The Malays appear to be unconcerned about the ‘corrupt elite,’ therefore appealing to that passion does not generate populist support. Evidence can be gathered at the Johor state election in March 2022. Najib Razak, who was already convicted by the High Court of misappropriation of money, became the poster boy for the Johor state election campaign, with many people—Chinese and Malays—coming out to support him. Corruption may be tolerated in a parochial political culture (Moten 2011) if there is economic and political stability. On the other hand, as populists argue, having a significant Chinese influence in government is suggestive of projected instability and cannot be permitted.

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Islamist populism in Malaysia presents a rhetoric of a civilizational identity in Malaysia that sees no flaw in hierarchical ethnic and religious politics because of fear of cultural and/or religious identity change within the country. In this sense, civilizational populism rather than anti-elite discourse best represents Malaysia. Malaysia, like India and Sri Lanka (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022c), drifted away from its more secular roots shortly after independence. Today, the Malay–Muslim community is revered and elevated above others, particularly in government programs and the bureaucratization of Islam (Abbott and Gregorios-Pippas 2010). In Malaysia, Islamist populists use Islamic themes of justice and fairness to present themselves as somewhat pious to get adherents. However, by emphasizing Islamic justice, these political leaders are alluding to Islam’s unique status, which it has been argued does not imply equality for all (Malaysiakini 2022a). In this way, Islamist populists in Malaysia meet the requirements set forth by Yilmaz and Morieson (2022b), which include attaching themselves to a larger Islamic civilization, claiming that non-Muslims in the country pose a threat to the survival of Malaysia’s identity and way of life, and encouraging religious practise even if the leaders themselves are of dubious reputation and embroiled in corruption cases. It is not so much that Malays have grown unduly attached to the wider Islamic civilization, but populist politicians have succeeded in uniting people against a perceived threat under the unifying appeal of an Islamic civilization. Islam, like Christianity (Roy 2013), has been co-opted into a cultural identity above faith, according to Shukri (2021c). Because of the growing popularity of Islamist populists in Malaysia, political groups within the more liberal Pakatan Harapan alliance have used religion to their benefit as well. For example, during a dispute over the name Timah (which is usually used as a nickname for Malay females named Fatimah), the opposition’s so-called progressive Islamist party, Amanah, claimed that the name insulted the Malays and thus perpetuated conservative and populist claims that Malaysia’s Islamic identity is under threat (Kamarulzaman 2021). Although Amanah attempts to depict itself as a reformist Islamist party, its race-baiting demonstrates how religion and ethnicity are used to sway people. This has been the case for decades due to the strained relationship between the country’s two major ethnic groups—Malays and Chinese—within a civilizational discourse. How does this affect Malaysia’s democracy? Since Anwar Ibrahim became prime minister at the end of 2023 after more than twenty years of

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struggling in the opposition, Malaysia’s so-called democratic system has been applauded by the likes of President Joe Biden (Nizam 2023). The same scenario occurred in 2018 following the peaceful transition of power after being under a dominant-party rule for 60 years. Although flawed as an index, Freedom House awarded Malaysia 52 points in 2019 which is a 7-point increase from the previous year under Barisan Nasional. However, since the 2020 soft coup, Malaysia’s score has dropped each year to 50 in 2022 (Freedom House 2022). As happened during Pakatan Harapan’s short-lived first administration, Malaysia’s democracy could easily be upended due to the weak institutionalization of democratic norms in the country. The existence of Islamist civilizational populists renders this thin thread of Malaysia’s democracy utterly fragile and could easily be broken if not careful. While liberal democracy is about the application of the rule of law and protection of minorities—including political and ethnic minorities— Malaysia is currently faced with the onslaught of majoritarian democracy as endorsed by Islamist civilizational populists. Since Malay Muslims make up the majority, the argument goes, their sensitivity must be respected. For example, after the release of a horror movie trailer, former deputy religious affairs minister who is also a PAS central leader, Ahmad Marzuk Shaary, criticized the film Pulau for its allegedly obscene scenes (Malaysiakini 2023). While most conservative Malays support the criticism, it brings into question the role of government in mandating consumer’s choice. Similarly, a first-term PAS member of parliament went on a mall walkabout during the Chinese New Year shopping season to urge that the sale of alcohol be covered out of sensitivity to Muslims (Lo 2023). Typical of a populist leader, they believe that with support of the people, it is acceptable to act beyond the scope of their authority. If there are truly complaints by Muslim locals, they should have used the proper channel to resolve the matter instead of unilaterally imposing their will. Finally, to prove the effectiveness of the Islamist civilizational populism, even the newly minted prime minister went on state television to declare that his administration will not recognize communism, secularism, and LGBT groups (Malay Mail 2023). This is obviously an attempt to pander to conservative Malay electorate. This declaration is not problematic in and of itself, but it becomes an issue if it entails limiting the democratic rights of individuals who may fall into any of these categories.

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Conclusion This chapter examines Malaysia’s distinct style of Islamist civilizational populism. It is stated that, rather than having a demagogue as an Islamist populist leader, the language of Islamist populism as one manifestation of civilizationism cannot be overlooked in Malaysia. This chapter demonstrated, through process tracing, how various historical events such as the 1969 racial riots, the Islamic revival in the 1970s, the 9/11 attacks, and finally the Pakatan Harapan victory in 2018, paved the way for the rise of Islamist populism based on the discourse of belonging to the sacred Islamic civilization. These events are inextricably linked to the discourse of Malay nationalism, which evolved into a sort of Islamic civilizationism. Malays and Muslims are one and the same in Malaysia since Malays are legally obligated to be Muslims. While Malaysia lacks a traditional civilizational populist leader, the political sphere is teeming with Malay-based parties competing to out-Islamize one another to secure the crucial Malay vote. Some parties in Malaysia have become more extreme through their discourse of Malay–Muslims as “the people” of Malaysia and non-Muslims as “others” who are tolerated at best and eradicated at worst. True, Malaysia has not had widespread racial riots since 1969. However, racial baiting persists, as evidenced by the death of a firefighter during a disturbance at a Hindu temple, which was exploited by Malay populist politicians as proof that the liberal Pakatan Harapan administration was concealing the truth (Hassan 2019). Inter-ethnic relations are not improving, but individuals are merely relearning to live side by side, with little desire to interact with people from other ethnic groups. Unfortunately, following the 2022 general election, in which Pakatan Harapan was successful in forming a coalition government with Barisan Nasional, there were attempts to stir racial animosity on social media by persons who praised the deadly 13 May 1969 riots (Malaysiakini 2022b). Civilizationism, as a political strategy, has ‘succeeded’ in placing Malaysia on track to become a nation with 72.1 percent Malay population by 2040, securing Islam’s status in the country (DOSM 2016). This ‘success’ is, of course, the result of Chinese and Indians fleeing the country because of Islam’s continual politicization in a civilizational discourse. Given the ‘brain drain,’ it is difficult to understand the benefits of Islamist civilizationism in Malaysia, especially when it also leads to the eroding of already fragile democratic institutions in the country.

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CHAPTER 7

Indonesia: Islamist Civilizational Populism Ihsan Yilmaz, Nicholas Morieson, and Hasnan Bachtiar

Introduction Although the clash of civilizations discourse has never dominated Indonesia’s mainstream political debates, Islamist and populist political actors have expressed enmity toward “the West,” claimed that Indonesia’s elites are permitting the spread moral corruption via the adoption of Western culture, and called on Muslims to unite politically to defend themselves from this corruption. This rhetoric has been used by both violent

This chapter is a revised version of previously published Open Access material in the following article: Yilmaz, Ihsan, Nicholas Morieson, and Hasnan Bachtiar. 2022. “Civilizational Populism in Indonesia: The Case of Front Pembela Islam (FPI)” Religions 13, no. 12: 1208. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13121208. I. Yilmaz (B) · N. Morieson Deakin University, Burwood, MEL, Australia e-mail: [email protected] N. Morieson e-mail: [email protected] H. Bachtiar University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), Malang, Indonesia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_7

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extremist groups and non-violent socio-political movements in Indonesia, but also throughout other Muslim-majority democracies. For example, al-Qaeda claims Muslims are morally good yet oppressed by immoral and corrupt Muslim elites and non-Muslim Western powers, and wage jihad against these representations of “evil” (Laden 2009; Zúquete 2017, p. 449; Yilmaz et al. 2021a). Islamist populists, including in Indonesia, have adopted a similar discourse and claim that “the West” and local “elites” are working together to oppress Muslims worldwide (Hadiz 2018). This argument has often taken on a religious and moral character, and involves the bifurcation of the world into two moral categories: good and evil. Populism has been combined with Islam in a wide variety of cultural and physical geographies (Zúquete, 2017, p. 449; Hadiz 2018; Yilmaz 2021; Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b, 2023). In each case, Muslim populist movements have used Islam to help define populism’s key signifiers: “the people,” “the corrupt elite,” and “others.” In Islamic populism “the people” are the Muslim people of the nation, “elites” are the insufficiently Muslim and therefore immoral ruling class, who do not respect the will of the people, and “others” are non-Muslims, the West, secular and liberal Muslims, who are portrayed as conspiring to oppress Muslims. Hadiz (2018, p. 567) observes that in the case of Indonesia, Turkey, and Egypt, “…cultural idioms associated with Islam are required …for the mobilisation of a distinctly ummah-based political identity in contests over power and resources in the present democratic period.” Populism is present in the Indonesian public sphere, including in the highest levels of Indonesian politics (Mietzner 2015). Mietzner (2015), for example, argues that incumbent Indonesia President Joko Widodo (commonly known as “Jokowi”) and Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto may be considered populists. Jokowi, Mietzner writes (2015), portrayed himself as a champion of the Indonesian people who would end corruption among the ruling elite. Prabowo, a former General in Indonesia’s military, also attacked Indonesian “elites,” but also made alliances with Islamist groups while running for President and portrayed himself as a pious Muslim (Pinterpolitik 2018). However, he stopped short of demonizing non-Muslims and “the West,” and criticized people who

e-mail: [email protected]

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claim the West and Islamic world are locked in a clash of civilizations (Mietzner 2015). Specifically Islamist populist parties have not yet enjoyed electoral success in Indonesia. On the other hand, Islamist populism has exerted, at times, a formidable influence over Indonesian politics and society. The violent Indonesian Islamist social movement, Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) does not run candidates at elections, but through its street power and activism exercised significant influence over mainstream Indonesian politics throughout the 2010s, and before the group was banned and its leader, Muhammad Rizieq Shihab, imprisoned. The FPI portrays itself as a champion of the Indonesian people and enemy of the nation’s “immoral” and secular “elites.” The group alleges that Indonesia’s secular elites are permitting immorality to spread from the West throughout the country, and that Muslims must unite as ummah to overcome traitorous elites and Western imperialism. The FPI also claim that Indonesian minority groups, including Christians, Chinese (most of whom are Christian), Shia Muslims, and Ahmadiyya, are either spreading immorality among Indonesian Muslims or perverting Islam with incorrect teachings, and in doing so present an existential threat to pious Sunni Muslim people (Human Rights Watch 2013; Wahid Foundation 2016). The FPI was most influential during the Ahok affair. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (known by his Hakka name Ahok), is a prominent businessman and politician who, in 2017, was Deputy Governor of Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta. Ahok, a Chinese Christian, angered many Indonesian Muslims when he criticized conservative Muslims’ claims that the Qur’an demanded that no non-Muslim be permitted to rule over Muslims. Backlash against Ahok’s comments, much of it led by Rizieq and the FPI, led to mass rallies in which Rizieq found a new and large audience receptive to his Islamist populism. At these rallies, which attracted hundreds of thousands of people, Rizieq called for Ahok to be jailed, and for a social revolution in Indonesia to end the dominance of secular elites, curtail Western influence, and Islamize the nation. In response to a series of anti-Ahok mass rallies, President Joko Widodo began to distance himself from Ahok, and the Indonesian police and state prosecutors succumbed to public pressure and charged Ahok with blasphemy. Rizieq was called to give expert testimony at Ahok’s trial, which led to Ahok being convicted and imprisoned for blasphemy. Following this decision, both Jokowi and his rival for the Presidency, Prabowo, sought to ally themselves with Islamists and portray themselves as defenders of “the

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people” and pious Muslims. Yet, following Jokowi’s victory over Prabowo in the Presidential elections of 2019, the FPI were banned by the Jokowi government and Rizieq was jailed for four years for lying about Covid test results (Aljazeera 2021), while Ahok was released from prison in 2019, socially rehabilitated, and placed in charge of Indonesia’s largest state-owned enterprise (The Jakarta Post 2019b). This brings us to an important question: does the rise of the FPI suggests a “civilizational turn” among Indonesian populists similar to the civilizational turn among right-wing populists in Turkey, North America, and Europe? Or does the group’s banning in 2020 signal the triumph of pluralism over divisive populism in Indonesia? To answer these questions, and to understand the rise and impact of civilizational populism in Indonesia, this chapter examines the ideology and political activities of the Islamic Defenders Front in Indonesia. Specifically, the chapter questions whether civilizational populism is present in the discourse of the FPI and especially of its leader Rizieq. We focus on Rizieq’s discourse during the Ahok affair, which brought FPI mainstream attention and greater political significance, to comprehend the role of civilizational populism in Rizieq’s discourse and its purposes. In particular, we examine how Rizieq constructs and delineates the boundaries of “the people,” “elites,” and “others,” and the use of religious and civilizational belonging in constructing these boundaries. Finally, the chapter examines the impact the FPI’s activism had on mainstream Indonesian politics by investigating the actions of Presidential candidates Jokowi and Prabowo during campaigning in 2019. The chapter, a revised version of Yilmaz et al. (2022), begins with a short discussion on the relationship between Islamism and the state in Indonesia, and describes how although Islamist parties have consistently failed to draw support from voters Islamism remains a growing force in Indonesia. The chapter, then, examines the history and ideology of the FPI and the rhetoric of its leader, Muhammad Rizieq Shihab, and describes their growing political significance during the 2010s, and their seismic impact on Indonesian politics during the Ahok affair. The chapter demonstrates how the FPI use a populist discourse in which Indonesian Sunni Muslims are portrayed as part of a virtuous transnational ummah, and as victims of an aggressive West working with secular Indonesian elites and religious minorities to oppress the Muslim ummah in Indonesia. Equally, the chapter shows that although the FPI’s banning has all but eliminated the group, mainstream political actors including President

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Jokowi, General Prabowo, and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan coopted elements of the FPI’s discourse and forged alliances with other Islamists to prevent the FPI from growing in power.

Islamism in Indonesia After the Fall of Suharto The collapse of the secular-nationalist Suharto regime, and subsequent democratization process, led to both a more plural Indonesia but also opened space for a number of intolerant Islamist movements to grow. The 1999 election victory of Abdurrahman Wahid, leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, an Islamic civil society organization, seemed to point Indonesia toward a tolerant and pluralist future. Wahid had long been an opponent not only of the Suharto regime, but of religious bigotry within Indonesia, and the anti-pluralism evident in some interpretations of Islamic doctrine. In 1985, as leader of NU, Wahid told followers an “Islamic revival” was taking place in Indonesia, and that “the richness of [Islam’s] heritage from its deep perception of a true place for humanity in life, to its great tolerance, make a strong base for the Muslims to sail through the revival process” (The Jakarta Post 2019a).Wahid “conceived of Islam as a cosmopolitan civilization, which contains many cultures and different ideas which come from different sources” (Barton et al. 2021a; Mujiburrahman 1999, p. 346; Wahid 2007). He believed that democracy and a form of non-sectarian government could flourish in Islam even if they were originally “foreign” concepts, because they were harmonious with the core teachings of Islam, which support pluralism and government by the consent of the people (Mujiburrahman 1999, p. 346; Wahid 2007). Following the events of September 11, 2001, Wahid sought to downplay a “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islam, and argued that the problem of “Islamic militantism is caused by a misunderstanding of religion and a kind of inferiority complex towards Western civilisation” (Sydney Morning Herald 2002). Wahid also suggested that the “clash of civilization” thesis is rooted in a double standard applied to Muslims and in which violence committed by Muslims is portrayed as specifically Islamic in nature, but violence by Western people not framed as Christian (Sydney Morning Herald 2002). Equally, while he admits differences between Muslims and the secular West, he suggested that “differences do not mean enmity and clashes” (Sydney Morning Herald 2002; Wahid 2003, p. 155).

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While his presidency was short, Wahid’s conception of Islamic civilization as tolerant and plural proved influential, and encouraged Indonesia’s largest Islamic organizations—Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama—to teach their followers to practice religious tolerance (Barton et al. 2021a). Part of this encouraging of a plural, cosmopolitan Islam comes in the form of support for Pancasila, Indonesia’s governing principles enshrined in the nation’s constitution. Pancasila, or the five principles, insists that Indonesians believe in only one God (Barton et al. 2021a; Latif 2011). However, Pancasila, although not a secular doctrine, does not demand that Indonesians believe in Islam, only that they do not worship many gods or become atheists. Of course, in an environment in which 86% of the population is Muslim, it is not surprising that Islam has a privileged place in Indonesia (Barton et al. 2021a; Pradana and Bachtiar 2020). Yet Hinduism, despite its many gods, is acknowledged as one of the six religions (alongside Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, and Protestant and Catholic Christianity) recognized by Indonesian law, and is interpreted as a monotheistic faith. Equally, although not officially recognized, Orthodox Christian Churches exist and are tolerated. A significant degree of religious freedom thus exists in Indonesia, although it must also be admitted that religious and racial intolerance also exists (Setara Institute 2022; Wahid Foundation 2019), especially intolerance toward the Ahmadiyya community (Yosarie 2021, p. 6–58). Pradana and Bachtiar (2020, p. 279) for example argue that “in the last decade, the incidence of intolerance has remained high. In 2011, there were 185 cases [of attacks on religious minorities] reported; in 2012 these fell to 110 but then more than doubled in 2013, to reach 245. …in the period 2014–2017, the number of cases reported annually has remained over 200. While those involved in these incidents are members of the Muslim majority, hardliners, and the state apparatus, the victims are minority groups and communities, for example, Ahmadis, Shiites, Christians, and local indigenous believers.” Islam thus plays a complex and sometimes contradictory role in contemporary Indonesian politics and society post-Suharto. On the one hand, there is in Indonesia a culture of religious intolerance that shows its face when Muslim minority groups, for example, attempt to construct places of worship, or when Christians or Shia Muslims attempt to recruit new followers to their respective faiths. On the other hand, Islam is often a force for tolerance and pluralism. Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama—two Islamic civil religious organizations so large that perhaps a

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third of all Indonesians are affiliated with one or the other—have since the beginning of the Reformasi era insisted to their followers that Islamic civilization has always tolerated religious difference, and that violence against religious minorities is antithetical to the teachings of Islam (Barton 1995; Fealy and Barton 1996). Equally, the notion that there is a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, is downplayed even by politicians linked to Islamism such as Anies Baswedan (The Bali Times 2008).

Islamism and Populism in Indonesia In the reformasi era, a number of long-suppressed Islamic and Islamist group gained political significance. The first post-authoritarian President, B. J. Habibie, sought to end the violent chaos erupting throughout the country by permitting religious organizations and their related militias to police the streets and counter nationalist militias supported by proSuharto military elites (Hadiz 2016, p. 154). This helped Islamic political and civil society organizations to increase their public profile, and helps to explain why 20 of the 48 parties that ran in the 1999 general election were Islamic parties (Al-Chaidar 1999; Adiwilaga et al. 2019). These Islamic parties, and moreover the Islamic civil society organizations Muhammadiyah and NU, held widely different views on how Islamic civilization ought to be organized in Indonesia. Muhammadiyah and NU (whose leader, Abdurrahman Wahid served as Indonesian President in 1999– 2001) argued persuasively that Islamic civilization permitted religious freedom and therefore supported Pancasila, a position they maintain to this day. Muhammadiyah, in 2015, proclaimed that Indonesia is the state of Pancasila, and that the nation remained “the abode of covenant and the space of testimony” (dar al-ahd wa al-shahadah) (Bachtiar 2020; Bachtiar and Baidhawy 2022). NU, in a similar way, in 1983 stated that “Pancasila is inherently Islamic and it does not contradict the Islamic doctrine” (Sitompul 1989; van Bruinessen 1994). These statements should not be considered surprising. Rather, it remains largely in the interest of these two organizations to support religious pluralism in a society in which no single understanding of Islam and its correct practices exists. Other Islamic groups possess ambivalent positions on the question of whether Islamic civilization permits religious freedom. For example, one of the Islamic bodies that most benefitted from the transition away from the Suharto regime was the Council of Indonesian Ulama (MUI—Majelis Ulama Indonesia). The MUI, essentially the peak clerical Islamic body

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in Indonesia, was created by Suharto in 1975 to control Islam. After Suharto’s fall from power, the MUI increased in significance under the Presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–2014). Indeed, after 2004, the MUI—far from a tool of the state—became an overtly political organization in its own right. Moreover, the MUI is increasingly dominated by conservatives who do not believe that Islamic civilization permits religious freedom for non-Muslims (or indeed non-orthodox Sunni Muslims), or that non-Muslims ought to be permitted to hold positions of power over Muslims (Barton 2021). For example, the MUI has increasingly given opinions antithetical to Indonesia’s non-sectarian constitution, such as “forbidding inter-faith joint prayers” and “condemning interfaith marriages” (Barton 2021). Equally, the MUI has described Indonesia’s Ahmadiyya Muslims as apostates (murtad), and called upon the government to take action to prevent their communities from practicing their religion (Barton 2021; Zulian 2018). Zulian (2018, p. 182), furthermore, argues that “…the legal opinion (fatw¯a) on the whole has reinforced strong elements of conservatism within MUI. It seeks to preserve MUI’s authority within mainstream Islam or ahl al-sunna wa al-jam¯a’a against the perceived threat of competing religious voices seeking to undermine the faith of the Indonesian Muslim community (umma). In clinging on rigidly and emotively to selected interpretations and views on Islamic teachings and traditions, the legal opinion (fatw¯a)has essentialized, labeled and demonized the groups targeted while disregarding their potent and adverse consequences on the lives of those impacted. The legal opinion (fatw¯a) have impaired religious pluralism and intra-community relations with grievous implications on the rights of the members of the targeted groups as believers as well as their status as citizens.” While MUI fatwas are not legally binding, because they are issued by the peak clerical body they have the power to influence the behavior and beliefs of many ordinary Muslims. For example, in 2005, the increasingly conservative MUI issued a fatwa declaring secularism, pluralism, and liberal incompatible with Islam (Van Bruinessen 2006; Zulian 2018). According to Van Bruinessen (2006) the MUI fatwa was “ostensibly a frontal attack on the small group of self-defined ‘liberal’ Muslims of Jaringan Islam Liberal (JIL, Liberal Islam Network) centred around Ulil Abshar Abdalla but was intended to delegitimise a much broader category of Muslim intellectuals and NGO activists, including some of the most respected Muslim personalities of the previous decades.” The MUI fatwa

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played a role, as did many later fatwas, in demonizing liberal Muslims and secularists, and creating an environment conducive to Islamism. Moreover, the political significance of the MUI has grown over time, and the body now appears to exert power over the state and judiciary. For example, the MUI played an important role in preventing President (and NU leader) Wahid’s plan to revoke Indonesia’s blasphemy laws. As a result, since 2009 there have been at least 200 criminal convictions for blasphemy in Indonesia (Nardi 2019), and the increasing number of blasphemy convictions suggests that Indonesia’s judicial system is increasingly bowing to pressure from Islamists to punish anyone who deviates from mainstream Sunni Islamic practices or is seen to insult Islam (Lindsey 2012).

Populism in Contemporary Indonesia Populism, including Islamist populism, has become an increasingly powerful force over the past two decades in Indonesia. According to Indonesian scholar Marcus Mietzner (2015), the 2014 election—won by Jokowi, who defeated Prabowo winning more than 53% of all votes— pitted two forms of populism against one another. Prabowo offered a "textbook" populism in which he railed against elites and foreigners, who he claimed here working together to steal Indonesian wealth. Jokowi, however, Mietzner (2015) argues, represented a technocratic populism which did not demonize any particular group (including foreigners) but instead promised reform of every area of policy to improve society. However, Jokowi portrayed himself as a humble man of the people who could support the lower middle classes and improve their lives. Jokowi succeeded, in Mietzner’s (2015) view, because there was no great crisis in Indonesia in 2014 for a confrontational populism to exploit. Technocratic populism was more appealing to voters who wanted more democracy, but who were not concerned about existential crises engulfing the nation. However, he notes, 47% of voters wanted the authoritarian and radical Prabowo (Mietzner 2015). Violent populist Islamist groups have also emerged in post-democratic Indonesia. Indeed, there are Islamic groups in Indonesia that do not share with Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama the notion that Islamic civilization is plural and permits a degree of religious freedom. Nor are they concerned about the consequences of inflaming religious and ethnic tensions, or asserting that the ummah is threatened by non-Muslim forces

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and must defend itself. As Barton et al. (2021b) observe, “since the denouement of the Suharto regime in May 1998, religion and populism have become dominant political and social forces in Indonesia.” In particular, Islamist populism has become a powerful social force, particularly in areas where the influence of Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama is absent or waning. Perhaps the most politically—though not electorally— successful populist Islamist movement in Indonesia throughout the 2010s was the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), one of the first violent Islamist groups to organize following the fall of the Suharto regime.

Front Pembela Islam (FPI) History and Ideology While nowhere near as popular as the leading Islamic organizations in Indonesia—Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, who combined possess at least 70 million members (Al-Ansi et al. 2019)—the FPI claim to have seven million members (Fealy and White 2021) and enjoyed an outsized influence over Indonesian politics in the 2010s due to their ability to instrumentalize religion and portray Indonesia’s governing and business elites as corrupt and un-Islamic (Barton 2021). The FPI’s core message is that the ummah within Indonesia is threatened by secular, liberal, and non-Muslim forces which conspire to corrupt the morals of the ummah (Barton 2021; Fossati and Mietzner 2019; Aspinall and Mietzner 2019; Rosadi 2008; Syihab 2008). Indeed, the FPI promise a “moral” solution to Indonesia’s many social problems, or the nation’s “waywardness,” as the FPI put it (Barton 2021; Fossati and Mietzner 2019; Aspinall and Mietzner 2019; Rosadi 2008; Syihab 2008). According to Mietzner (2020, p. 425), radical Islamist groups such as the FPI assert that “pious” Muslims “are victimised, in Indonesia and elsewhere, by non-Muslim or otherwise sinful forces, mostly in the West but also, increasingly, China. In the Indonesian context, this means that devout Muslims are kept away from power through an inter-connected conspiracy by non-Muslim countries and Indonesian elites.” In this way, the FPI suggest that Muslims in Indonesia globally face constant attacks from non-Muslim enemies. The FPI was founded in 1998 by Muhammad Rizieq Shihab, a cleric inspired by Salafism, who serves as the group’s Imam Besar (Grand Imam). The group began as a vehicle for Rizieq’s ultra-conservative Islamism, and became involved in street violence and attacks on Muslim sects Rizieq perceived as blasphemous or insufficiently Islamic (Barton

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2021). The FPI’s founding purpose was “amar ma’ruf nahi munkar, or ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong’,” (Bamualim 2011, p. 270) and “has assembled a jemaah (community of followers) to manage religious activities and …mobilized laskars (soldiers) to enforce amar ma’ruf nahi munkar” (Bamualim 2011, p. 267). Essentially, the FPI believe that because the Indonesian state consistently fails in its duty to “command right and forbid wrong,” and that as a result the FPI and its supporters are compelled by their religion to punish evildoers (U˘gur ˙ 2015, p. 35; Republika 2020). However, the FPI are not only and Ince engaged in violence actions. Like Hezbollah in Lebanon (Haddad 2006), their popularity stems in part from the welfare they provide for the urban poor in the form of schools, food, and employment (Jahroni 2004; Hookway 2017). Mixing welfarism with Islamic ideas of social justice, the FPI claimed its violent attacks on venues serving alcohol or permitting gambling, and on Ahmadiyya and Shia places of worship, were justified acts required to defend Islam and protect the ummah from moral corruption (Gani 2011; Barton 2021; ABC News 2020). Indeed, the FPI were frequently involved in a kind of vigilantism they portrayed as acts necessary to protect the ummah and Islam from “vice” (Barton 2021; Amal 2020; Fossati and Mietzner 2019; Mietzner 2018). Moreover, like other populist groups, the FPI portray themselves as “saving the people” from an existential threat, in their case emanating primarily from the West, and secular and non-Muslim elites within Indonesia, a powerful narrative that has helped the group win influence over Indonesia’s mainstream politicians (Mietzner 2020; Peterson 2020; Waty 2020). For example, Rizieq Shihab encourages the FPI’s members to involve themselves in the political struggle of defending Islam, telling them “If you do not want to join at making such significant contributions on politics, the state will be dominated by corruptors and they are those who do not care about the importance of religion” (Audio Aswaja 2017). ˙ U˘gur and Ince (2015, p. 42) find “three major causes” behind the rise of the FPI in Indonesia: “the perception that Islamic faith is threatened by global and local forces and the faith should be protected, the demand that Islamic Sharia’s ‘universal’ laws should be implemented and enforced by the state, and the claim that they support state’s law enforcement officers in the fight against immorality, misdeeds and big sins.” The FPI thus capitalize on the apparent widespread perception in Indonesia that Islam requires defending—not merely in Indonesia but worldwide, and therefore claims that they will protect Islam and Muslims from morally

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corrupting internal and foreign forces when the state fails to act (Barton 2021; Mietzner 2018; Hadiz 2016, p. 112; Wilson 2015). The FPI do not focus on winning seats in parliament. In order to win power, the FPI pressure Indonesian politicians to adopt more conservative positions in line with their own Islamism through public protects, street violence, and other acts of intimidation. The group’s actions are often illegal under Indonesian law. However, the FPI believe they need not follow laws made by a government they consider insufficiently Islamic and therefore illegitimate, but instead claim that they follow the law of God (Barton 2021). Ultimately, the FPI are a populist Islamist militant movement that divides society between “the people,” or the majority Sunni Muslim indigenous Indonesian population, and “elites,” or the insufficiently Muslim government, liberal and secular Muslims, non-Sunni Muslims, Chinese Christian businessmen who permit Western culture and its immoralities to spread across the archipelago.

The FPI’s Populist Instrumentalization of the Ahok “Crisis” The influence of the FPI grew during the 2010s, when the group became a powerful presence in the Defending Islam Movement (Aksi Bela Islam/ ABI) and National Movement to Safeguard the Indonesian Ulema Councils Fatwa (Gerakan Nasional Pengawal Fatwa MUI/GNPF MUI). ABI, which was a coalition of far-right groups dedicated to Islamism and which included both the FPI and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), was formed to protest Ahok’s “blasphemous” remarks on the misuse of the Qur’an by Islamist activists and politicians (Maulia 2020; Nuryanti 2021; Adiwilaga et al. 2019; Fossati and Mietzner 2019; Hadiz 2018 Mietzner 2018). Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (most commonly known by his Hakka nickname “Ahok”), was accused in 2016 and later convicted of blaspheming against Islam. When Ahok visited Kepulauan Seribu on September 27, 2016 he delivered a speech, which was filmed, in which he described how he would not force anyone to vote him in the Gubernatorial election of 2017 and remarked “…do not worry even when you are being lied to by anyone who uses surah al-Maidah 51” (Viva 2016). In this particular surah (or chapter) of the Qur’an, Muslims are admonished to take neither Jews nor Christians as a leader. On Thursday, October, 6, 2016, Ahok’s video went viral due to its appearance on Buni Yani’s, a journalist, lecturer, activist

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and politician, Facebook account (Jakarta Post 2016; Viva 2016). The FPI seized on the video, distorted Ahok’s message, and claimed he was blaspheming against Islam (CNN Indonesia 2016; Nuryanti 2021). Indeed, many who viewed the video believed Ahok was insulting their faith, an interpretation encouraged by the FPI (Nuryanti 2021; Mietzner 2018). Despite Ahok attempting to clarify his statements, the public mood turned on the governor. Large protests erupted, and perhaps due to the size of the crowds and the growing conservatism of the body, the MUI declared Ahok’s remarks blasphemous and offensive (Official NET News 2016), and essentially a crime under Indonesian law (Nuryanti 2021; Mietzner 2018). Over the following months more rallies against Ahok were held, culminating in a mass rally in November and at which Rizieq himself addressed the crowd. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims, including members of Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama, attended these rallies during which speakers called for Ahok to be punished by the state for his alleged crime (The Guardian 2016; Harahap and Sardini 2019). In the midst of the crowds, one of the FPI’s leaders, Shobri Lubis, stated that the Indonesian police did not charge Ahok with blasphemy “the Islamic ummah either individually or together will impose the just law that is killing Ahok” (Bilal and Syaf 2016). The pressure applied by these protests almost certainly led to the police charging Ahok with blasphemy (Nuryanti 2021). Ahok was convicted, in 2017, of blasphemy by an Indonesian court (CNN Indonesia 2017). According to Peterson (2020, p. 110) “throughout Ahok’s case, key MUI figures, including Ma’ruf Amin, were able to use the MUI moniker with impunity. They successfully influenced law enforcement officials to arrest, indict, and convict Ahok of blasphemy, and they did so notwithstanding the fact that MUI is a non-elected body – a QUANGO – that issues legal opinions.” Peterson’s comments show how powerful the MUI has become in Indonesian society, and how it reaches deep into the judicial system. Equally, given the FPI’s influence over MUI’s decision to condemn Ahok as a blasphemer, it is difficult to deny the driving role the group played in Ahok’s conviction and imprisonment. The FPI might have been just one member of a broad anti-Ahok coalition, known as National Movement to Guard the MUI Fatwa (GNPF-MUI). And which included members of Muhammadiyah and NU, Hizbut Tahrir, and smaller Islamist groups (Fealy 2016), but they were the face of the movement, and coined its motto of “Defending Islam” (Fossati and Mietzner 2019, p. 774). According to Schafer (2019,

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p. 251), the Ahok case “illustrates how the MUI connects to the new high mobilization potential of religious issues. The protest ‘constituted the preliminary climax of a long build-up of Islamist groups since the beginning of the Indonesian Republic.’” Moreover, Ritonga et al. (2020) provides evidence that some Indonesian newspapers portrayed the antiAhok rallies as part of a clash of civilizations occurring between Islamic civilization (represented in the rallies by Muslim Indonesians) and the West and Sinic civilizations respectively (represented by Ahok). They describe how Ahok was presented in the Indonesian media simultaneously as a Chinese and Western threat to Islam, on the basis that he is Chinese yet also a Christian, and therefore religiously aligned to the West while being ethnically linked to China (Ritonga et al. 2020).

The Influence of the FPI’s Civilizational Populism on Mainstream Indonesian Politics Ahok’s downfall had a profound effect on Indonesian Presidential elections in 2019. The respective leaders of NU and Muhammadiyah were disapproving of the protests, but did not make strong calls for their members to support Ahok or stand aside from the protests (Barton 2021). This demonstrates how politically dangerous it was to defend Ahok after he was accused of blasphemy. For example, fearful of being associated with Ahok and eager to capitalize on anti-Ahok sentiment, both incumbent President Jokowi and then leading opposition politician Prabowo aligned themselves with well-known Muslim leaders. Moreover, Prabowo attempted to ingratiate himself with the FPI and portrayed himself as a keen supporter of the anti-Ahok movement. For example, during his campaign, Prabowo claimed that Muslim terrorists in Indonesia were, in fact, victims of poverty and foreign non-Muslim forces who were oppressing Muslims (Metro TV News 2019; Kennedy 2019). Meanwhile, Anies Baswedan, Ahok’s rival in the 217 Jakarta Gubernatorial election, sharpened the FPI’s populist rhetoric when using the term “pribumi” (indigenous Indonesians), which is positioned diametrically vis-à-vis “colonial.” In his speech, Baswedan claimed that in the past “We ‘pribumi’ people were oppressed and defeated. Now, after independence, it is time for us to be masters in our own country” he said, suggesting that Ahok was an illegitimate leader due to his Chinese and thus non-native ethnicity (Kapoor and Da Costa 2017). Jokowi, keen to shed his association with Ahok, chose NU cleric Ma’ruf Amin to be his running mate

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(Arifianto 2019). Jokowi, however, grew increasingly concerned by the influence of the FPI. A series of events led to Jowoki taking action against Rizieq in an effort to curtail his influence. When Rizieq fled Indonesia for Saudi Arabia in 2017, after being charged with pornography charges and “insulting the official state ideology, Pancasila” (Karmini 2020), former Indonesian Vice President, Jusuf Kalla helped Rizieq return from exile 2020 (Wirajuda 2020). Rizieq’s return to Indonesia coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic. While the Jokowi government perhaps did not have the required political capital to ban the group over its campaign of violence and intimidation against non-Muslims, it found a pretext in Rizieq’s decision to hold an illegal mass rally during the Covid-19 pandemic. When Rizieq began claiming his group would begin a “moral revolution” and staging mass rallies as part of the 212 Movement, the Jokowi government responded by demanding that Rizieq obeys the new laws which compelled him and his followers to be tested for Covid-19 (Majlis Alhanis 2020). Rizieq refused, and when FPI members were later found to be spreading the virus, the government decided to ban the group outright, arresting Rizieq after a supposed “encounter” between FPI militia and Indonesian police (Kelemen 2021). In 2021, Rizieq was sentenced to four years in prison for “announcing false information and purposefully causing confusion for the public” (Reuters 2021; Pikiran Rakyat 2021). Following the groups banning, some members of the FPI regrouped under the name “Islamic Brotherhood Front (Front Persaudaraan Islam),” and claim to be a “moderate” organization aligned with NU and which is willing to give conditional support to Pancasila (Tsauro and Taufiq 2022). However, the leader of the Islamic Brotherhood Front is Muhammad bin Husein Alatas, son-in-law of Habib Rizieq Shihab, which may indicate that Rizieq will remain an influence over the group well into the future. On the other hand, the group is apparently struggling to recruit members, suggesting that its new “moderate” face does not appeal to many former FPI supporters (Tsauro and Taufiq 2022).

Understanding the Role of Civilizationism in FPI Discourse Civilizationism plays an intriguing role in FPI discourse. The group combines populism and Islamism in a manner that requires the division of Indonesian society between two key antagonistic groups: ummah and

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non-ummah. This concept of “ummah” is very important to the FPI, and lies at the core of their civilizationism. The ummah is the international brotherhood of Muslims, and therefore a transnational body spread over the entire world. By constructing the key division in Indonesian society as a battle between the ummah and non-ummah, the FPI portray politics as a battle that internationalizes their Islamist populist doctrine, presenting it as a worldwide conflict between the forces of good (associated with the ummah) and evil (non-ummah). This permits them to portray themselves and their supporters as godly and good, and government and business elites, non-Sunni Muslims, and non-Muslims as evildoers who threaten the ummah. This does not mean that the FPI is attempting to establish, in the manner of al-Qaeda and Hizb al-Tahrir, a global caliphate. Although some of its members have fought for international Islamist terror groups these actions do not represent the mainstream tendency of FPI as an organization. Rather, the FPI is a populist-nationalist group concerned mostly with turning non-sectarian Indonesian democracy into an Islamic system of polity (Kompas TV 2020; MEI@75 2021; Idris 2018, p. 9). Moreover, as populists, the FPI endorse democracy, and furthermore the group disavows plans to revive a global Islamic state or Caliphate (Fealy 1994). However, the FPI was also found by an Indonesian court to have illegally “established ties with terrorist organization the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and incited people to pledge allegiance to then the group’s leader Abu Bakar Al Baghdadi” (Jakarta Globe 2022). Whether or not these charges were entirely justified, the FPI’s civilizationism is distinct from the civilizationism of the global jihad movement, and takes the form of a religious populism which divides Indonesian society between ummah and non-ummah. In this way, it is in certain respects similar to the civilizational populism of a number of European right-wing populist parties including the French National Front and Alternative for Germany, which define their societies as inherently Christian or Judeo-Christian, and use this narrow definition to defend the exclusion of Muslims from European society (Kaya and Tecmen 2019; Kaya 2021; Morieson 2021; Marzouki et al. 2016). These parties construct a crisis-driven victimhood narrative in which Judeo-Christian civilization is faced with an existential threat from Islam, and therefore argue that Muslim immigration must cease to protect Judeo-Christian civilization within “our” nation (Kaya and Tecmen 2019; Kaya 2021; Morieson 2021; Brubaker 2017; Marzouki et al. 2016). The FPI construct a similar yet inverted argument, and claim that the global ummah is under attack by “the West,” and that the Indonesian

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ummah is threatened by “immoral” Western culture. The anti-Westernism of the FPI is evident in the group’s opposition to secularism, pluralism, and freedom of religion (Saipul 2011), ideas the group says are foreign to Islam, and have resulted in “many heresies and immoralities” (U˘gur and ˙ 2015, p. 47). Globalization is also portrayed by the FPI as a threat Ince to the Indonesia ummah, insofar as it spreads Western values the groups hold to be inimical to Islam across the world, including into Indonesia ˙ 2015, pp. 42–43). Equally, globalization is perceived by (U˘gur and Ince FPI supporters as a kind of Western colonialism, and a “form of political, cultural, and social pressure to implement a new system/value that is clearly not suitable to be introduced to Indonesian society as the majority ˙ 2015, p. 43). Thus, the of our population is moslem” (U˘gur and Ince FPI call for the implementation of Sharia law for Muslims in Indonesia is an effort to counter the spread of ideas and immoralities associated with Western civilization. To understand the role of civilizationism in FPI discourse, it is helpful to examine the rhetoric of its leader and figurehead, Muhammad Rizieq Shihab. Rizieq’s authority stems in part from his qualifications in Islamic Law, which he studied at the Islamic University of Imam Muhammad ibn Saud, but also from his self-portrayal as a simple and pious Muslim who cares about the interests of the poorest members of the ummah (Bamualim 2011, p. 269). At the same time, Rizieq’s appeal lies in his explanation of politics as a battle between good and evil. According to Rizieq, Muslims must forbid evil and command good (al-amr bi al-ma ‘ruf wa al-nahy ‘an al-munkar), and this directive lies at the heart of his political discourse (Widiyanto 2017, p. 93). This particular phrase is found in the Qur’an in several places, including in verses 3:104 and 3:110, and commands Muslims to take action to prevent evil or vice taking place. Rizieq, inspired by these verses, argues that it is the religious duty of Muslims to fight evil, which he appears to conceive as a “social pathology” affecting Indonesian society, and which the FPI intends to “cure” (Widiyanto 2017, p. 105). This is not to say that Rizieq calls for violence against all wrongdoers. Rather, he argues that while violence is sometimes required to prevent “vice,” he also finds in the Qur’an and Hadiths examples of non-violent ways of combating evil (Widiyanto 2017, p. 103). Rizieq gained followers through a populist discourse which emphasized the victimhood of the ummah, and their oppression at the hands of the Indonesian government, various non-Sunni Muslim minorities, Western

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˙ civilization, Chinese businessmen, and Christians (U˘gur and Ince 2015). To evoke feelings of anger and fear within his supporters, Rizieq has attempted to ensure FPI “followers [were] kept constantly anxious about threats to their faith and way of life, and thus incentivized to hate ‘the Other’ and at times manifest that hatred and insecurity in acts of intimidation, symbolic violence and hate speech toward out-group members” (Yilmaz and Barton 2021). FPI followers are taught that evil is flourishing in post-Suharto Indonesia, where “Western decadence, secularism, liberalism and immorality” is permitted under the law (Bamualim 2011, p. 272). This evil takes the form, according to Rizieq and the FPI, of the “uncontrolled spread of businesses ‘peddling in vice,’ such as discos, bars, entertainment centres and other fronts for pornography, prostitution and illicit drugs” (Bamualim 2011, p. 272). The spread of Western decadence, according to Rizieq, has led to “a general breakdown in the moral fabric of society” (Bamualim 2011, p. 272). Yet this has not occurred, he says, by accident, but is rather the product of non-Muslims “with a vested interest in the success of the businesses to bring about the gradual decline and moral decay of Islamic society” (Bamualim 2011, p. 272). In using this rhetoric, Rizieq attempts to make his supporters fearful of Western cultural influence in Indonesia, which he portrays as a crisis affecting the nation, and angry at the Indonesian government for not protecting Muslims from this “evil” by insisting that all Muslims abide by sharia law. In response to the spread of Western influence and “evil,” Rizieq asks his followers to seek out the evil and then attempt to combat it by non-violent means. According to Rizieq, FPI supporters should first attempt to “enlighten” wrongdoers about the “noble message of Islam” and encourage them to mend their ways (Widiyanto 2017, p. 106). If a community wishes for the FPI to take violent action to root out evil within their community then, Rizieq says, his group “is obliged to assist the local community” in preventing unIslamic acts taking place (Widiyanto 2017, p. 107). To people who criticize the FPI’s vigilante attacks on bars, clubs, and non-Muslim places of worship, Rizieq argues that “evil itself is a kind of violence that does harm to people’s morality, which is more valuable than property” (Widiyanto 2017, p. 103). At the same time, Rizieq accuses the Indonesian government of having failed to improve the lives of Indonesia’s poorest people, and demands that his followers reject the “present situation” and take action to help the poor where the government will not (Bamualim 2011, p. 272). Moreover,

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Rizieq portrays the FPI’s criminal acts of violence as lawful under sharia, and claims that “true Mu’min [pious Muslim] must reject secularism, pluralism, liberalism, LGBT, apostasy, heresy, shamanism, corruption, khamr, drugs, gambling, prostitution, adultery, pornography, pornoaction, injustice, tyranny, immorality, evilness, and leadership of a kafir over Muslims, even when the constitution permits it because Qur’an and sunnah forbid it” (Sejati 2014). Thus, by invoking religion to reinforce his group’s anti-government agenda and vigilante violence, Rizieq attempts to generate among his supporters the necessary anti-elite anger and religious rage required to create demand for the FPI’s Islamist populism. The group’s vigilantism is therefore an extension of its populist division of Indonesian society. For example, when FPI militia attacks the worship places or businesses of minorities, their leaders categorize the attacks as necessary acts which “defend Islam” and the ummah in a country failed by successive governments unwilling to command good and forbid evil. Calls for jihad against infidels are a key element of Rizieq’s discourse. For example, Rizieq declared that “it is obligatory for Muslim to unite themselves, to unite all potential” to make certain that Indonesia “cannot be taken by infidels!” (Aswaja 2016; Pecinta Ulama 2020). This language is designed to make Indonesian Muslims fearful and angry that nonMuslims are attempting to “take over” Indonesia by spreading corrupt Western values and culture throughout the country. “Infidels” are lying to Muslims, according to Rizieq, and tempting them to engage in immoral Western practices, and he tells his supporters that “the enemy uses the weapons of lies” and that therefore Muslims must “use the weapon of honesty and truth” (Aswaja 2016; Aqielabdurrani 2021). In language designed to encourage FPI members to fight Western “decadence” and “vice” in Indonesia, Rizieq rhetorically asks his supporters “if the kuffar and hypocrites are so strong in attacking Islam, why are we afraid to defend Islam?” (Aswaja 2016; Aqielabdurrani 2021). Perhaps anticipating that his supporters will be punished for using violence against minorities, or criticized for dismissing Pancasila is insufficiently Islamic, Rizieq instructs followers to “strengthen your heart not to break easily, so that you say istiqomah fisabilillah” (steadfast in the cause of Allah) (Sofyan 2018; Aqielabdurrani 2021). Victory, he admits, is hardly assured, but the faithful still have an “obligation to fight” and to “struggle" (Sofyan 2018; Aqielabdurrani 2021). Thus, the fight to stop infidels corrupting the morals of Indonesian Muslims is first and foremost a spiritual and intellectual war, because, according to Rizieq, “in a physical war, winning &

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losing is essentially a victory for the mujahid, but in a war of thought, winning is an absolute price, because if you lose, faith is at stake” (Sofyan 2018; Arrahmah 2019). To further encourage a cult of death and martyrdom among supporters, Rizieq claims death in the physical world is something trivial, and that to die “fighting for Allah is a beauty that is second to none” (Sofyan 2018; Arrahmah 2019). This demand that one be willing to die for Allah encourages FPI supporters to perceive in death something glorious, and to seek it out to win the admiration of both God and other FPI supporters. FPI supporters may thus not merely by motivated by negative emotions (anger, fear), but also by a desire to do good, to win glory, and to win admiration and status in this life and the next. The Ahok affair provided Rizieq with an opportunity to portray a Chinese Christian politician as an enemy of “the people” or the ummah, and to prove that Indonesian elites were unwilling to protect “the people” from an immoral foreigner. As a cleric, Rizieq’s opinions were taken seriously by his many followers and, beyond them, other conservative Indonesian Muslims. Thus, his portrayal of Ahok as a blasphemer put pressure on the Indonesian police to charge Ahok. Furthermore, such was Rizieq’s standing that following the charging of Ahok with blasphemy, the Indonesian court trying Ahok relied upon Rizieq’s interpretation of the Qur’an and Ahok words when making their decision to sentence the governor to two years in prison (Kompas TV 2017; Allard and Suroyo 2017; Peterson 2020). Ahok’s imprisonment was a victory for Rizieq. However, his victory sowed the seeds of his ultimate defeat, as the growing power of the FPI led directly to its destruction by the state. The Indonesian government appears to have grown, during the anti-Ahok protests, increasingly aware of the threat posed to Pancasila and pluralism in Indonesia by the FPI and similar Islamist movements. In response, the Jokowi government attempted to arrest Rizieq on pornography charges in 2017, forcing the FPI leader to flee to Saudi Arabia. In a change of fortunes, Ahok was released from prison in 2019, and was shortly after gifted a job running Indonesia’s largest energy company. Rizieq was increasingly incensed by these developments, and claimed that Ahok was supported by the government “the president [Jokowi], the Indonesian police chief, the Armed Forces commander, KPU and KPK, backed by major political parties, and campaigned by the entire national media, together with several pollsters funded by the ‘nine red dragons’” (Tempo 2019). By this Rizieq meant that the reversal of fortunes between him and Ahok was part of a broader conspiracy involving Chinese businessmen

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and government elites who sought to empower Chinese and disempower indigenous Indonesian Muslims. When Rizieq returned to Indonesia in 2020, the Indonesian “government initially downplayed Shihab’s [Rizieq’s] return but was taken aback when more than fifty thousand supporters gathered to receive him at the airport” (Jaffrey 2022). Evidently, Rizieq was not going to tone “down his antagonistic politics” or lie low (Jaffrey 2022). Instead, Rizieq “met with several prominent politicians known for their opposition to Jokowi, including the incumbent Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan” and “held several mass events in and around Jakarta that defied COVID-19 restrictions,” where he called for a “moral revolution” which would Islamize the country (Jaffrey 2022). Jokowi responded to Rizieq’s rallies by instructing “both the police and the military to be tough on violations of COVID-19 protocols by the FPI, despite his government’s generally lax enforcement of mobility restrictions throughout the pandemic” (Jaffrey 2022). The chief of Indonesia’s military warned the FPI to observe the COVID-19 restrictions, and Indonesian military forces “in Jakarta ripped out the group’s billboards” (Jaffrey 2022). In a further show of their seriousness, the government fired “two police chiefs … for failing to disperse [Rizieq] Shihab’s gatherings” (Jaffrey 2022). When FPI members were suspected of spreading Covid, the government finally had the pretext to ban the group entirely, and without upsetting the broader Indonesia public, many of whom were sympathetic to the group’s core aim of “defending Islam,” if not their vigilantism. When Rizieq refused to be questioned by police over his group’s refusal to obey COVID-19 restrictions, the Indonesian police took action against his group. On December 6, 2020, “plainclothes officers shot dead six members of Shihab’s convoy in what the National Commission for Human Rights would later describe as unlawful killings” (Jaffrey 2022). Before a week had passed the FPI leader presented himself to police, who charged him with breaking COVID-19 restrictions (Jaffrey 2022). The Indonesian government then moved to discredit the FPI before their Islamist allies could mobilize, formally banning the organization and claiming that thirty-five FPI members were involved in terrorism (Jaffrey 2022). However, Jaffrey (2022) observes that most of the FPI members charged with terrorism had left the organization “before joining terror groups.” She observes that the ISIS members arrested on January 4, 2021 “were former FPI affiliates who had pledged allegiance to ISIS in a 2015 gathering,” and that although “the event was also attended

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by FPI’s secretary general, Munarman …there is no evidence to suggest he is supportive of ISIS” (Jaffrey 2022). While Jaffrey (2022) is no doubt correct when she writes that the policy had only “flimsy” evidence against Munarman, Munarman’s presence at the event suggests a degree of sympathy for ISIS among some FPI members. Murnarman was arrested and charged with terrorism offenses in April 2021, and Rizieq was himself sentenced to almost five years imprisonment for disobeying COVID19 restrictions (Jaffrey 2022), events Jaffrey accurately characterizes as “part of the government’s increasingly repressive approach to dealing with political opponents in general and Islamist groups in particular, whom Jokowi views as a threat to Indonesia’s national unity.”

Conclusion The rise and fall of the FPI demonstrates a “civilizational turn” in Indonesian politics, especially among Islamist groups, but also suggests that mainstream politicians have acted to prevent civilizational populism from dominating the public sphere. The discourse of FPI leader Rizieq mirrors, in certain respects, the discourses of Turkish President Erdogan and former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. All three emphasize the importance of unifying the ummah and claim that Western powers are conspiring with religious minorities within the nation to oppress Muslims. However, the political success of the FPI occurred without direct involvement with either parliamentary democracy or electoral politics. Unlike the AKP or Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the FPI was largely a street movement which won power by intimidating Indonesian politicians and forcing them to ignore its vigilantism. Equally, FPI is led by a credentialed Islamic cleric, “Imam Besar” (Grand Imam) Habib Rizieq, not a secular politician like Erdogan or Khan. Of course, Rizieq does not claim that he is rebuilding Islamic civilization worldwide by attempting to replace Muslim nation-states with a global caliphate. Rather, he is a nationalist whose rhetoric is confined largely to constructing a narrative in which governing elites are betraying the interests of the authentic Muslim people of Indonesia by allowing the West to spread its immoralities throughout the nation, and by allowing foreign businessmen—particularly Chinese Christians—to dominate the Indonesian economy and keep the authentic Muslim people of Indonesia poor. Rizieq’s populist discourse has proven significant insofar as it has succeeded in framing government support for religious freedom, and the economic power of

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Christian and Chinese businessmen, as part of a world conspiracy against Muslims, which is taking different forms in different places. Other Islamist groups have also claimed that the West conspires with local elites to oppress the ummah (Hadiz 2016, 2018; Yilmaz et al. 2021b; Yilmaz and Morieson 2022a, b, 2023). However, although the FPI differs from anti-democratic pro-Caliphate Indonesian al-Qaeda affiliated groups such as Jemaah Islamiyah and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, it claims that Muslim majority regions must be governed only by Muslim men, and that Muslims ought to live under Sharia law. Accordingly, the FPI call upon the Indonesian government to force Muslims to obey Sharia law and forbid non-Muslims to serve in high office positions. At the same time, the FPI urges Muslims to fear the “contagion” of Western immorality, which they claim is spreading throughout the Indonesian archipelago. It has also indoctrinated its followers to believe that ideas such as liberalism, secularism, pluralism, and freedom of religion are spread by infidels who aim to corrupt the ummah. Rizieq turned remarks by Ahok, an individual politician, into a crisis with national and civilizational dimensions by uniting a series of disparate and unrelated problems into a single calamity. While the ‘crisis’ was immediately caused by a Chinese Christian politician “blaspheming,” the FPI portrayed the Indonesian government as ineffectual and unwilling to protect the ummah from economic exploitation and the corruption of their morals, and furthermore portrayed Ahok as a non-Muslim “enemy” and source of “evil.” Rizieq’s populist discourse was thus aimed at exploiting existing religious divisions within Indonesia, and its success was the product of his ability to elicit deep feelings of religious rage, and fear of “infidels” attacking Islam and corrupting the morals of the ummah, among Indonesian Sunni Muslims. This discourse was aligned with his broader Islamist conception of international politics as a battleground between “good” and “evil.” The FPI therefore constructs an Islamist populist narrative in which the good and evil people may be identified by their religious identities: Sunni Muslims are “pious” and “good,” yet face an implacable enemy spreading evil and vice throughout the land they should govern legitimately as the majority group. This “enemy” incorporates Christians, non-Sunni Muslims, secularists, and liberal Muslims, all of whom are charged with spreading—or allowing the spread of—decadent Western ideas incompatible with Islam and deleterious to Islamic society throughout Indonesia. Like other populist groups, the FPI claim

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that they represent “the virtuous people” and are fighting for their interests and against corrupt government elites. Yet they add a civilizational dimension to this populist message, insofar as they define this “virtuous people” as the Muslim ummah, and further claim that the ummah globally faces attack from the West. The FPI and Rizieq apply this overarching narrative to Indonesian domestic politics, and therefore frame the political and social events occurring in Indonesia as part of a wider cosmic battle between the forces of good (ummah) and evil (non-ummah), and between the national and civilizational entities representing each. By telling Indonesian Muslims to identify primarily with their religion, rather than with fellow Indonesian citizens, the group encourages a degree of transnational solidarity with the wider body of Muslims, and antagonism toward non-Muslim peoples both within and without Indonesia. Thus, while the FPI remain a nationalist movement, the group appear to conceive of the world as a battleground between Islam and its civilizational enemies, particularly the West. Indonesia’s social and economic problems, according to Rizieq and his followers, are the result of Indonesians’ refusal to obey the teachings of Islam, and of the state neglecting to command good and forbid evil. Islam is thus presented as a solution to Indonesia’s problems, and the Islamization of Indonesia is portrayed as a noble goal for which FPI followers must fight. Yet beyond these earthly ambitions, FPI supporters are taught that if they should die “defending” Islam and protecting the ummah from the spread of Western corruption, they will receive a reward in the next life. The FPI and its “Imam Besar” constructed a populist narrative incorporating Islamism and its inherent transnational and civilizational elements, and in which the advance of Western culture in Indonesia is portrayed as a part of a wider battle between good and evil, or between the ummah and the West. This narrative is used to create demand for Islamist populism within Indonesia via an emotional narrative in which the “ummah” is portrayed as threatened by evil Western forces, and ultimately to justify and legitimize defiance of legitimate state authority, and violence against vulnerable non-Sunni Muslim minorities. The rise and fall of the FPI is a demonstration of the growing significance of Islamism and populism in Indonesia, and of the battle occurring within Indonesia between those who believe Islam and Islamic civilization is inherently plural, and groups such as the FPI who despise and attack pluralism. The banning of the FPI, the imprisonment of Rizieq, and the rehabilitation of Ahok following the completion of his prison sentence may give the

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impression that the pluralists are winning this battle. Yet this may not be the case. The growing conservatism of the MUI, the barely concealed support Rizieq and other Islamist groups enjoy within the state and its apparatuses, and the necessity of banning the FPI due to their increasing influence, suggests that Indonesia is increasingly intolerant of non-Sunni Muslim expressions of religiosity in the public sphere. Equally, the media coverage of the Ahok affair, which suggested at times that it represented a clash of civilizations between Islam, the West, and China, further suggests that there is an appetite in Indonesia for narratives asserting multiple civilizational threats to the ummah (Ritonga et al. 2020).

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CHAPTER 8

India: Hindu Civilizational Populism Raja M. Ali Saleem

Introduction India and Pakistan became independent in August 1947. Both Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first and longest-serving Prime minster, propagated secularism and deemphasized religious differences in order to keep British India united. They failed to prevent the Partition but secularism remained their mantra. The Hindu civilizationalists blamed the Congress Party, Gandhi, and Nehru for the division of Bharat Mata. After India’s independence, they argued that since Muslims have a separate country, there was now a stronger argument to declare India as a Hindu state but they remained unpopular, and the Congress kept winning

This chapter is a revised version of previously published Open Access material in the following article: Saleem, Raja M. Ali. 2023. “Hindu Civilizationism: Make India Great Again.” Religions 14, no. 3: 338. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel140 30338. R. M. A. Saleem (B) Independent Researcher, Islamabad, Pakistan e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_8

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elections and forming governments until the mid-1990s, with brief interregnums of non-Congress governments. So, secularism reigned at the policy level and Hindu civilizationalists remained out of power. Things began to change in the early 1990s when the political party representing civilizationalists (BJP) started consistently winning elections at the provincial/state level. By the end of the twentieth century, the BJP became the largest party in the Lok Sabha (lower house of the Indian Parliament) and formed its first government at the federal level. However, since the BJP was heading a coalition government, it could not implement its civilizationalist agenda. The BJP lost the next two elections but came back to power with a bang in 2014. It not only achieved a Lok Sabha majority for the first time in its history but also elected Narendra Modi as PM. Modi’s commitment to Hindu civilizationism was beyond doubt as he had joined the RSS at a very young age, progressed through the organization because of his commitment to the cause and organizing skills, worked in the BJP, and then delivered many victories as CM of Gujarat state after becoming “the Hindu Hriday Samrat (the Emperor of Hindu Hearts) in the wake of the worst anti-Muslim pogrom that Gujarat had experienced since Partition in 1947” (Jaffrelot 2021, pp. 34–38).

Hindu Civilizationism Hindu civilizationism builds on an identity that is not solely religious. From the start, both religion and ethnicity were used to explain Hindu civilizationism and to attract people to its cause. Savarkar, the first ideologue of Hindutva, defined Hindutva in ethnic, political, and cultural terms and deemphasized the religious connection. The idea was to not reject anyone just because (s)he is from a different religion. Savarkar chose the term ‘Hindutva’ to describe the ‘quality of being a Hindu’ in ethnic, cultural, and political terms. He argued that a Hindu is one who considers India to be his motherland (matrbhumi), the land of his ancestors (pitrbhumi), and his holy land (punya bhumi). (Tharoor 2018, p. 249)

One might be confused about Hindu nationalism or Hindutva and Hindu civilizationism. For Savarkar, the idea of civilizationism is part of Hindutva as Hindutva’s followers’ primary task is to save Hindu culture and civilization which is under threat from foreigners:

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Savarkar considered Hindu civilization as embodying and epitomizing an Indian identity to which Muslims posed a threat. Not only was their contribution to Indian culture totally disregarded, but since the start of the Khilafat movement, they were perceived as swearing allegiance to the Middle Eastern holy places of Islam rather than the sacred Hindu territory. (Jaffrelot 2021, p. 13)

M. S. Golwalkar, the second head of the RSS and one of the most important ideologues of Hindutva, in his book We or Our Nationhood Defined (1939), takes a step further and clarifies the choices for those who are not Hindus (Muslims and Christians). They can accept themselves as part of Hindu civilization (adapt and be proud of the Hindu race, culture, and language) and enjoy citizenship rights or live in India as subordinate people with no rights. Golwalkar’s model was Nazi Germany: Golwalkar’s model is Germany and its “political writers” who concocted an ethnic definition of nationhood. He believed Muslims had to either submit or leave: “[They] must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture …, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment—not even citizen’s rights.” The choice was thus between assimilation and a status not even worthy of second-class citizens. The first option meant that Muslims could continue to practice Islam as a faith, in private, but that they had to pay allegiance to Hinduism in society. (Jaffrelot 2021, p. 14)

Thus, Hindutva and Hindu civilizationism were similar concepts for the two most significant Hindutva ideologues. Although nationalists also focus on history and create an imagined history based on myth making and invented traditions, civilizationalists have a much harder task as they must show not only the simple presence of a group but also the greatness and magnificence of that group. Often, they also think that their civilization was better than other civilizations while also under threat from other civilizations. In the following section, the existence of Hindu civilizationism and Hindutva leaders’ hard work to prove the grandeur and glorious achievements of Hindu civilization will be shown. It will also demonstrate how Hindu civilizationism is being

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promoted by the Indian government since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014.

Akhand Bharat The most important evidence of Hindu civilizationism and rejection of territorial nationalism by Hindutva leaders and followers is the concept of “Akhand Bharat” or undivided India. According to this concept, the whole Indian subcontinent, sometimes Myanmar is also included, is one nation. This concept comes from prehistoric times, when Hindu civilization influenced not only South Asia but also Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Hindu civilization’s imprint is still visible in these countries. The Akhand Bharat idea is based on Hindu civilizationism as, otherwise, it will be impossible to explain how not only Pakistan and Bangladesh but also Malaysia and Thailand can be absorbed in India (Sengupta 2017). This idea was embraced by the Hindutva leaders, who were promoters of civilizationism, before the Partition in 1947 and, after the Partition, they vowed to reunite India. The RSS leadership during the last hundred years, as well as Savarkar, and leaders of Hindu Mahasabha, Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), and the BJP have all supported this idea and forsaken the territorial boundaries of India: In the Hindu Mahasabha’s 19th Annual Session held at Karnavati (Ahmedabad) in 1937, Savarkar delivered his Presidential address. He reiterated that “Hindustan must remain one and indivisible.” The Independent India of his dreams was one that was not only “united”, but also a “Unitarian nation” – from Kashmir to Rameshwaram, from Sindh to Assam. (Sampth 2019)

In the 1960s, President of Bharatiya Jan Sangh Pandit DeenDayal Upadhyay also supported the idea of Akhand Bharat and called all the land and people, living and dead, part of one nation and one integral culture (Organizer 2022). The General Secretary of the BJP Ram Madhav said in 2015 that Akhand Bharat will be created but through peaceful means and popular consent: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh still believes that one day these parts, which have for historical reasons separated only 60 years ago, will again,

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through popular goodwill, come together and Akhand Bharat will be created…As an RSS member, I also hold on to that view. That does not mean we wage war on any country, (or that) we annex any country. Without war, through popular consent, it can happen. (Express News Service 2015)

The current RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on August 14, 2022, reminded everyone that Akhand Bharat will happen: If we want Bharat to become big, we should understand that all languages in the country are national languages, people from various castes are mine, we need to have such affection…Why should we be afraid when we talk about Akhand Bharat? People wonder when it will happen. It will happen when we stop being scared. What was there will happen again? But we will need to become that Bharat and dream about that Bharat. (PTI 2022)

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Jammu & Kashmir also held a gathering and supported the idea of Akhand Bharat. Besides the Indian subcontinent, they also included Afghanistan, Tibet, and Thailand: In connection with nationwide programmes regarding the observance of Akhand Bharat (United India) Resolution Day (Sankalp Diwas) today, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) J&K also held a programme here at Shakti Ashram Rehari under the leadership of its working president, Rajesh Gupta, and general secretary, Abhishekh Gupta. Speaking on the occasion, speakers said that Akhand Bharat means bringing those areas of India back which were its part and parcel in ancient times. They said Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaysia, Tibet, Thailand, and other countries were part of United India. (Daily Excelsior 2022)

Thus, Akhand Bharat remains part of Hindu civilizationists’ agenda in the twenty-first century as it was in the twentieth century.

Golden Age A golden age is a period in the history of a nation, group, or civilization during which not only there was peace and harmony but great achievements in multiple fields, such as literature, politics, sports, science, etc., were also accomplished. For Greek civilization, the Classical period, 5th

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to 4th Before Common Era, is considered the golden age when there was an end to tyranny and a time of great cultural growth. For Islamic civilization, the Abbasid Caliphate, from the eighth century to the thirteenth century is considered the golden age. Hindu civilizationists have been depicting different periods of ancient Indian history as golden age to prove the existence and superiority of Hindu civilization (Thapar 2002, p. 17). Due to their hatred and rejection of Muslims, the Hindutva leaders and ideologues could not select the most obvious and pertinent choice, i.e., the Mughal period. Anyone searching for the golden age of Indian history may look no further than the Mughal Empire (1526–1857), especially the time of the Great Mughals (1526–1707). Evidence of Mughal greatness was everywhere in the form of magnificent buildings and architecture. There was also data to support it. During the times of the Great Mughals, there was unprecedented prosperity, and the Indian economy, along with the Chinese economy, dominated the whole world as almost one-fourth of the world’s GDP came from India. By 1700, the Indian economy was the largest in the world in terms of GDP, surpassing the Chinese economy (Angus 2003, p. 261). Shashi Tharoor quotes an American Unitarian Minister to demonstrate what a colossus Mughal Empire was before the conquest of India by the British: The India that the British East India Company conquered was no primitive or barren land, but the glittering jewel of the medieval world. Its accomplishments and prosperity – ‘the wealth created by vast and varied industries’ – were succinctly described by a Yorkshire-born American Unitarian minister, J. T. Sunderland: Nearly every kind of manufacture or product known to the civilized world – nearly every kind of creation of man’s brain and hand, existing anywhere, and prized either for its utility or beauty – had long been produced in India. India was a far greater industrial and manufacturing nation than any in Europe or any other in Asia. Her textile goods – the fine products of her looms, in cotton, wool, linen and silk – were famous over the civilized world; so were her exquisite jewellery and her precious stones cut in every lovely form; so were her pottery, porcelains, ceramics of every kind, quality, colour and beautiful shape; so were her fine works in metal-iron, steel, silver and gold. She had great architecture – equal in beauty to any in the world. She had great engineering works. She had great merchants, great businessmen, great bankers and financiers. Not only was

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she the greatest shipbuilding nation, but she had great commerce and trade by land and sea which extended to all known civilized countries. Such was the India which the British found when they came. (Tharoor 2016, p. 2)

Hindu civilizationists could not accept the Mughals and did not have a historically established golden age as is the case of Greek, Islamic, or Egyptian civilization, so they faced several problems. First, there was less and less evidence available as one moves back in Indian history. Some religious texts, such as Vedas, and archaeological evidence are present but there is meager historical evidence that can be relied upon. In these texts, myth and history are difficult to distinguish. Scanty historical evidence led to a difference of opinion within the Hindutva about the exact period of the golden age of Indian or Hindu civilization. Most Hindutva leaders choose the Vedic period, the period when Vedas, the earliest of Hinduism scriptures, were composed. The problem is that even the exact period of Vedas is not known. The rough estimates are between 1500 and 800 BCE or 500 BCE. The projection of a Vedic Golden Age is one of the cornerstones of the Hindutva ideology and the period from 1200–600 B.C. is popularly considered the Golden Age of the Vedic period. The proponents of Hindutva project the Vedic Age as an unblemished ‘Golden Age’ of greatest material prosperity, development in all branches of science, purity of religion, highest spirituality, perfect knowledge of the truth and unambiguous practice of morals, social equality and harmony. (Hindutva Watch 2019)

The Vedic civilization, however, was not the only choice. Many influential writers, including Savarkar, had different ideas. Savarkar wrote a book titled, Bharatiyil Itihaasil Saha Sone Pane (Six Glorious Epochs in Indian History, 1963) and identified not one but six glorious periods of Indian history. The first glorious period, according to him, was the early Maurya Dynasty which existed from 322 to 260 BCE. But it is the fifth glorious epoch of Marathas that Savarkar most praises because of their numerous successful battles against Muslims. Others consider the age of Ram or Rama Chandra, the seventh avatar of Vishnu (one of the principal deities of Hinduism) as the glorious age of Hinduism. It is difficult to establish whether Ram existed or not, but some people have concluded that he existed around five thousand BCE, so much earlier than the Vedic period (Zee News Bureau 2012). In other parts of India, the age of Maha

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Bali is described as the golden age. The periods of Gautama Buddha and Mahavira can also be called the golden ages of Indian spirituality (Hindutva Watch 2019). Ignoring the architectural and historic evidence and views of scholars, Hindutva leaders present ancient India as Vishwaguru (world leader). In 2018, the then Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu used Trump’s slogan (Make America Great Again) as the title of his article, “Make India Vishwaguru Again,” to promote the idea that India was once the leader of the world and Indian civilization was the greatest: Thanks to innumerable thinkers, researchers, and teachers who absorbed the best in the world and charted out a path on their own, India emerged as a global centre of learning and was described as “Vishwaguru”. The world looked up to India…India’s priceless contribution of the zero and decimal system and its advancements in the fields of metallurgy speak of its greatness as an early world civilisation. Kanad spoke of “anu” and its indestructible nature long before John Dalton propounded the atomic theory. Sushrutha is known as the father of plastic surgery. (Naidu 2018)

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 was the first national education policy in thirty-four years. Its importance could not be exaggerated as the world of education has transformed since the last national education policy in 1986. The NEP also endorsed ancient India as the golden age and highlighted the fact that ancient Hindu/Indian knowledge and thought is its guiding light. It eulogizes the Hindu civilization that valued wisdom, knowledge, and education. The NEP informs that ancient India had world-class educational institutions where scholars and students from around the world came for studying. And the ancient Indian education system produced great scholars. It is important to note that not one institution or scholar of the era when Muslims were ruling India was mentioned in the NEP (Government of India 2020). But anyone who believes that India was the Vishwaguru in ancient times also needs to explain how this Vishwaguru is now far behind the West in scientific and technological advancements. This is explained by blaming the colonial masters, sometimes British and at other times Muslims: We need to foster a new mindset — not the blind acceptance of any concept wherever it has emanated from but adopt an analytical stance. Some would describe this as moving away from the colonial mindset

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in which we unquestioningly adopt and borrow from others. Many like Koneru Ramakrishna Rao feel that the westernisation of India’s education system has robbed Indians of original thinking and made them develop a mindset of looking with awe at anything Western, while undervaluing one’s own culture and native ethos. The way to overcome this syndrome is to deepen our understanding of our intellectual lineage and draw lessons for the revitalisation of the education system. (Naidu 2018)

Denigrating Mughals Besides promoting ancient India as the golden age, the Hindutva leaders also denigrate the Indo-Islamic civilization in general and the Mughals in particular to support their anti-Muslim agenda and to prove that Mughal era was not the golden age of India, despite the evidence that everyone can see. This was not true of early non-Hindutva leaders of India who generally praised Mughals (even Aurangzeb) and appreciated the Mughal policy of tolerance and Sulah-e-Kul (peace to all). Following are a few excerpts from Nehru’s book The Discovery of India, which praises the Muslim rulers of India for their support of Indian culture, music, poetry, literature, etc.: The record of the Indo-Afghan, Turkish, and Moghul rulers, apart from some brief puritanical periods, is one of definite encouragement of Indian culture, occasionally with variations and additions to it. Indian music was adopted as a whole and with enthusiasm by the Moslem Courts and the nobility and some of its greatest masters have been Moslems. Literature and poetry were also encouraged and among the noted poets in Hindi are Moslems. Ibrahim Adil Shah, the ruler of Bijapur, wrote a treatise in Hindi on Indian music. Both Indian poetry and music were full of references to the Hindu gods and goddesses and yet they were accepted, and the old allegories and metaphors continued. It might be said that except in regard to actual image-making no attempt was made by Moslem rulers, apart from a few exceptions, to suppress any art-form. (Nehru 1989, p. 116)

Nehru was particularly appreciative of Akbar, the Great, and in his book, he included Akbar in the three personalities (along with Ashoka and Buddha) he admired (Nehru 1989, pp. 51–52). Nehru acknowledged

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that Akbar identified with India and the Mughals were an Indian dynasty, facts vigorously denied by the Hindutva leaders: As a warrior he [Akbar] conquered large parts of India, but his eyes were set on another and more enduring conquest, the conquest of the minds and hearts of the people…In him the old dream of a united India again took shape, united not only politically in one state but organically fused into one people. Throughout his long reign of nearly fifty years from 1556 onwards he laboured to this end. Many a proud Rajput chief, who would not have submitted to any other person, he won over to his side. He married a Rajput princess, and his son and successor, Jehangir, was thus a half Mughal and half Rajput Hindu. Jehangir’s son, Shah Jehan, was also the son of a Rajput mother. Thus, racially this Turko-Mongol dynasty became far more Indian than Turk or Mongol…It was in his [Akbar] reign that the cultural amalgamation of Hindu and Moslem in north India took a long step forward. Akbar himself was certainly as popular with the Hindus as with the Moslems. The Mughal dynasty became firmly established as India’s own. (Nehru 1989, pp. 259–260)

Mahatma Gandhi also did not see Mughal Era as a period of slavery or colonialism as present-day Hindutva present. He thought there was an element of local rule during Mughal Era. In 1921, he said: The pre-British period was not a period of slavery. We had some sort of swaraj under Mughal rule. In Akbar’s time, the birth of a Pratap was possible, and in Aurangzeb’s time a Shivaji could flourish. Have 150 years of British rule produced any Pratap and Shivaji (Sahu 2022)

During his campaign for making spinning and the usage of khadi popular, he frequently invoked Aurangzeb in support of his movement as the following two excerpts from his speeches show: The notion that a wealthy person need do no work should be banished from our minds…Aurangzeb had little need to work, but he used to sew caps. The underlying suggestion that a wielder of the sword will not wield the wheel is to take a distorted view of a soldier’s calling…Aurangzeb was not the less a soldier for sewing caps. (Sahu 2022)

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Mahatma Gandhi rejected the Hindutva notion that Hindus and Muslims were always fighting before the arrival of the British: He pointed out that internal conflict and chaos were the outcomes of the British policy of divide-and-rule. He pleaded with them to withdraw from India by drawing their attention to the pre-British period, when there were no Hindu-Muslim riots, which became a recurrent occurrence after the commencement of British rule. To drive home the point, he said that we never heard of riots even in the reign of Aurangzeb. Again, while speaking at the plenary session of the Round Table Conference in London, on December 1, 1931, Gandhiji said that “Hindus, Mussalmans and Sikhs were not always at war during the pre-British era, and with the onset of British rule and the policy to divide people along religious identities, such conflicts became more frequent”. (Sahu 2022)

In contrast to Nehru and Gandhi, the Hindutva leaders are bent on erasing Muslim heritage in general and Mughals in particular from Indian history or relabelling and redesignating them as villains. PM Modi and other Hindutva leaders regularly talk about “Bara so sal ki ghulami” (translation: Twelve hundred years of servitude or slavery), thus depicting Muslim rulers (both rulers of Delhi Sultanate and Mughals) as colonizers like the British, even when only the first generation of the Mughals and other Muslim invaders was born outside India and had loyalties to areas outside India. The next generations, unlike British colonizers, were born in India, lived their whole lives in India, and there is no evidence to conclude that they did not think of India as their only home. Mughals, unlike the British, were not robbing India and sending the money to their home (i.e., Central Asia) thousands of miles away. As Nehru pointed out Muslim invaders settled in India, adopted Indian cultural practices, married Indian women, and so they became as Indian as any other son of the soil. In June 2014, in his very first address to the Lok Sabha after becoming PM, Modi talked about twelve hundred years of slavery (Zee News 2014). A few months later, in his first trip to the US as PM, Modi again referred to thousand or twelve hundred years of slavery: We are well aware of the history of our freedom movement. The Britishers ruled over us and prior to them various others ruled us. Almost for 1000 to 1200 years, we were slaves. (Government of India 2014)

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In 2019, PM Modi, while laying the foundation stone of a Mandir complex in Gujarat, praised Hindu seers and sages for giving spiritual strength to Indians and said, “It was due to our spiritual force that we were able to fight for our pride, our culture, and our traditions during the 1000–1200 years of our slavery” (PTI 2019). As Audrey Truschke explains this rewriting of history is being done to discredit, otherize, and exclude Muslims and to present the pre-Muslim period as the only one that can be legitimately described as the golden age. Hindutva ideologues want Hindus alone to be indigenous to India so that this one social group can define what it means to be Indian and can exclude others from this category. They exclude as non-Indian many groups who have long been part of life and society on the subcontinent, above all Muslims. In Hindutva history—oxymoron though that phrase is—premodern India had two major phases: a glorious Hindu golden age followed by an era of Muslim oppression of Hindus. When describing the latter, Hindu nationalists like Narendra Modi speak of “1,200 years of slavery.” (Truschke 2020)

Besides relabeling the Mughals as invaders and colonizers, the Hindutva civilizationalists are also erasing signs of the Mughal era and changing textbooks to remove references to the Mughals. In 2014, the BJP, soon after coming to power, changed the name of Aurangzeb Road to Abul Kalam Road in Delhi. In August 2018, Mughalsarai (meaning Mughal inn or tavern) Junction, an iconic railway station, was renamed by the BJP government after RSS ideologue and BJS President Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. In October 2018, the BJP government changed the name of Allahabad, a city founded by the Mughals, to Prayagraj. Again in 2018, Faizabad district was renamed Ayodhya district. Many people linked it to the 2019 national elections. More recently, in July 2022, the BJP coalition government in Maharashtra state approved the renaming of two cities. Aurangabad, named after Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, will be renamed Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, and Osmanabad, named after the Muslim ruler of Hyderabad state, shall be renamed Dharashiv (Sen 2019; Zee News 2022). In January 2023, the iconic Mughal Gardens in Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of the Indian President, was changed to Amrit Udyan (garden of the sacred nectar) (Kothari 2023). The process of erasing Mughals from Indian geography continues unabated.

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In addition to changing names, Hindutva leaders are also changing the curriculum to omit or downplay historical references to Mughals and other Muslim rulers. The focus has shifted from fact-based recent Indian history to ancient Indian history based on myths and religious texts. Backto-back massive victories at the national level have allowed the BJP to cast a long shadow on the education system. The new textbooks promote the BJP’s political program and ideology. They argue for the veracity of Vedic myths, glorify ancient and medieval Hindu rulers, recast the independence movement as a violent battle led largely by Hindu chauvinists, demand loyalty to the state, and praise the policies of the BJP prime minister, Narendra Modi. One book reduces over five centuries of rule by a diverse array of Muslim emperors to a single “Period of Struggle” and demonizes many of its leading figures. (Traub 2018)

A recent change in the curriculum in 2022 makes it clear that the curriculum is being changed based on BJP’s likes and dislikes. Muslims, Mughals, and Nehru are either going to be erased or depicted in a bad light. In its most recent review of school textbooks, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) eliminated passages that challenged common misconceptions about Muslims, mentioned Jawaharlal Nehru and some Mughal rulers, and dealt with caste and religious prejudices…One of the omitted clauses was this one: “Like Christianity, Islam was a religion that laid stress on the equality and unity of all before Allah.” The Our Pasts-II book for Class VII no longer includes certain introductory material on the Mughal emperors Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb. (Muslim Mirror 2022)

The BJP’s civilization politics appears to be great for elections. Muslims are now linked with the Mughals and the Hindu majority is dog whistled to hate & punish today’s Muslims for the real and imagined crimes of the Mughals. However, it may lead to a drastic inability of the students to understand Indian history and culture. In fact, the whole idea of looking at the 331 years of Mughal rule with an anti-Hindu prism shows how the lack of education can gravely hinder one’s ability to understand history for what it was. The BJP has always

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held a deep hatred for Aurangzeb. Even if they want to discard all symbols related to him, what about Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and those Mughal rulers who were not only deeply pro-Hindu, much to the dislike of many ulemas of their times, but also gave India some of the greatest cultural gems — the Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, Red Fort, et al, which fill the coffers of BJP-ruled states. (Sikander 2020)

Hindutva’s Pseudo Science Hindutva leaders believe Hindus, Vedic culture, and Hinduism are the best and India was Vishwaguru before Muslim and Western colonialists invaded them. So, it is not enough to show Hinduism’s superiority over Indian Muslim or Islamic civilization. They must compete with the best, the Western civilization, and show the world that when they were not oppressed and suppressed by others, they were world-beaters. The problem, however, is that while the eminence of the West is unacceptable to Hindu civilizationalists, they cannot live without products of the Western civilization. Meera Nanda (2016) argues that Hindutva believers experience cognitive dissonance as the reality seems to contradict their belief that Hindu or Vedic civilization was the best. They experience a mixture of ressentiment and envy. The problem is this: We [Hindu nationalists] can neither live without modern science and the technologies it has spawned, nor can we make peace with the fact that this most fertile and powerful of all knowledge traditions is, after all, a melechha tradition. It rankles with us that these impure, beef-eating “materialists”, a people lacking in our spiritual refinements, a people whose very claim to civilisation we delight in mocking, managed to beat the best of us when it came to nature-knowledge… (Nanda 2016)

The mleccha (foreign or barbarian in Sanskrit) civilization cannot be superior to the Vedic civilization, and this has been propagated not only by the Hindutva leaders but also by Hindu revivalists since Swami Vivekananda and Dayananda Saraswati. Vedic/Hindu civilization as the greatest of all civilizations and mother of all that is good on other civilizations was promoted as a fact by most revivalists/nationalists and so it was easy to also claim that “Vedas are the mother of science.” Swami Vivekananda

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claimed that Hinduism (Advaita Vedanta school) is closest to science and appeals to modern scientists (Tharoor 2018, p. 220). To prove this theory of Hinduism being the most “scientific” religion, ancient rishis (Hindu saints or sages) are presented as scientists who knew (and used) rules of genetics, physics, mathematics, avionics, etc., thousands of years before the Western scientists “discovered” it. Some of the evidence presented to support the superiority of Hindu civilization borders rejection not only of history but also of rationality and reality. In its 2009 General Election manifesto, the BJP claimed that rice yields in India stood at 20 tons per hectare in ancient times, twice the yields today with all the modern science and technology. (Tharoor 2018, p. 371). In 2012, when PM Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he claimed that children in London were being taught Vedic Mathematics which was untrue (Modi 2012). In 2014, PM Modi claimed, while addressing doctors and health professionals, that knowledge of cosmetic surgery and genetics was available in India thousands of years ago. He presented the examples of the Hindu god Ganesh and warrior Karna from Mahabharata to prove his point (Rahman 2014). In 2018, India’s junior education Minister, Satyapal Singh, an MPhil in Chemistry, twice rejected Darwin’s theory of evolution as he did not consider himself a “child of monkeys” and sought to remove it from the curriculum. (Scroll 2018). Also in 2018, Biplab Deb, Tripura Chief Minister belonging to the BJP, claimed that ancient India had internet and satellite communications. (Sanyal 2018). Finally, in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the health minister of India, Dr. Harsh Bardhan, helped launch Coronil tablet by Patanjali, an ayurvedic medicine company, as a cure for the deadly virus. At the launch, it was claimed that the medicine was approved by the WHO. The WHO immediately denied this claim. Concurrently, the apex body of Indian doctors, the Indian Medical Association sought answers from the health minister for supporting fake claims and fake medicine (The Hindu 2021). These are just a few of the pseudo claims made by people working at the highest level in the Government of India. There are many more, including the claim by the then Union Minister of Science and Technology Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan that Stephen Hawking said that the Vedic theories are superior to Einstein’s equation E = MC2 (India Today 2018). Almost all these claims were made by the leadership of BJP. The earnest desire to prove Vedic knowledge superior to or equal to modern science is dangerous. But such bogus claims are regularly being made

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because it appears people who are now part of the government, including PM Modi, believe in the superiority of Vedic “science” and Vedic civilization. Therefore, such claims are readily accepted and even encouraged by the government, which is disastrous for India’s future. Such claims and other forms of pseudoscience rooted in Hindu nationalism have been on the rise since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. They’re not just an embarrassment, some researchers say, but a threat to science and education that stifles critical thinking and could hamper India’s development. “Modi has initiated what may be called ‘Project Assault on Scientific Rationality,’” says Gauhar Raza, former chief scientist at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) here, a conglomerate of almost 40 national labs. “A religio-mythical culture is being propagated in the country’s scientific institutions aggressively.” (Kumar 2019)

Promotion of Sanskrit Linked with the superiority of Vedic/Hindu civilization is the belief that Sanskrit, the language of Vedas and other Hindu religious texts is superior to all other languages or the mother of all languages. It is also called Dev Basha or the language of gods. The imagined superiority of Sanskrit further strengthens the claim of a magnificent ancient Hindu civilization. Moreover, by sanskritizing Hindi vocabulary, it is moved away from the influence of Urdu and Persian, two languages that are usually associated with Islam and Muslims. The former Vice President of India, Venkaiah Naidu, tweeted in August 2020, in praise of Sanskrit: Several scientific treatises that were much ahead of their time were written in Sanskrit. Sanskrit is a window to India’s grand cultural heritage and must be kept alive so that we may continue exploring and understanding our civilizational roots. #WorldSanskritDay

The Indian love affair with Sanskrit is old. In 1951, when Indian Constitution was promulgated, Sanskrit was only one of the fourteen (14) scheduled languages (as they were part of the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution) that was not spoken by anyone as a mother tongue. Now, there are twenty-two (22) languages in the Eighth schedule.

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This means the founding fathers of India preferred Sanskrit over eight languages that were spoken by millions of Indians as their mother tongue. Article 351 also confers special status to the Sanskrit language. It directs the government to promote the Hindi language (which was designated as the official language by Article 343) and to enrich its vocabulary using primarily the Sanskrit language: 351. Directive for development of the Hindi language It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages

In 1969, it was the Congress government of Mrs. Indra Gandhi that decided to celebrate Sanskrit Diwas or Sanskrit (commemoration or celebration) day at the national level. However, Hindutva leaders have praised and celebrated Sanskrit at a whole other level. They are not only trying to enrich Hindi with Sanskrit vocabulary but also trying to revive the Sanskrit language. PM Modi regularly celebrates Sanskrit and promotes its revival. In 2012, while honoring a Sanskrit scholar, he told the gathering that he has established a Sanskrit university in Gujarat and his government has worked to teach one hundred thousand families (around eight hundred thousand people) to speak Sanskrit. He also claimed that in Germany, programs in Sanskrit were being broadcasted on the radio before the same was done in India (Modi 2012). In 2015, he was the first Prime Minister to speak many lines from Hindu sacred texts in Sanskrit during his speech to the UN General Assembly (Modi 2015). In 2021, while talking to the nation in Mann ki Baat, he encouraged the learning of Sanskrit as according to him it nurtured knowledge as well as national unity and good relationship with other countries. Through its thoughts and medium of literary texts, Sanskrit helps nurture knowledge and also national unity strengthens it. Sanskrit literature comprises the divine philosophy of humanity and knowledge which can captivate anyone’s attention…It is our collective duty to cherish our

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heritage, preserve it, pass it on to the new generation.... and future generations also have a right to it. Now is the time to increase everyone’s efforts for these works as well. Friends, if you know of any such person engaged in this kind of effort if you have any such information, then please share the information related to them on social media with #CelebratingSanskrit. (ANI 2021)

The National Education Policy 2020 also confers special status to Sanskrit and the policy proclaims that Sanskrit will be mainstreamed. No other language, not even Hindi which is another favorite of the Hindutva leaders, has been praised as much as Sanskrit in the NEP. According to the NEP, Sanskrit will be mainstreamed: Due to its vast and significant contributions and literature across genres and subjects, its cultural significance, and its scientific nature, rather than being restricted to single-stream Sanskrit Pathshalas and Universities, Sanskrit will be mainstreamed with strong offerings in school - including as one of the language options in the three-language formula - as well as in higher education. It will be taught not in isolation, but in interesting and innovative ways, and connected to other contemporary and relevant subjects such as mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, linguistics, dramatics, yoga, etc. Thus, in consonance with the rest of this policy, Sanskrit Universities too will move towards becoming large multidisciplinary institutions of higher learning. Departments of Sanskrit that conduct teaching and outstanding interdisciplinary research on Sanskrit and Sanskrit Knowledge Systems will be established/strengthened across the new multidisciplinary higher education system. Sanskrit will become a natural part of a holistic multidisciplinary higher education if a student so chooses. Sanskrit teachers in large numbers will be professionalized across the country in mission mode through the offering of 4-year integrated multidisciplinary B.Ed. dual degrees in education and Sanskrit. (Government of India 2020, p. 55)

Hindu Civilizationism in Hindutva Party Manifestos Promoting, reviving, and eulogizing Hindu civilization has always been very close to the heart of Hindutva political leadership. Therefore, manifestos of Hindutva conservative parties usually have a specific policy action related to Hindu civilization (Saleem 2021; Saleem et al. 2022). In the following section, manifestos of three prominent political parties

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(Hindu Mahasabha, BJS, and BJP) are analyzed for praise and policy action regarding sacred Indian land, cow and its progeny, Sanskrit, ancient Indian history, and Hindu civilization. Hindu Mahasabha Election Manifesto 1967 The manifesto starts with the following sentence which contains a reference to Hindu civilization (Hindu Culture & traditions): Hindustan is the land of the Hindus from time immemorial…The Hindu Mahasabha believes that Hindus have a right to live in peace as Hindus, to legislate, to rule, to govern themselves in accordance with Hindu genius and ideals and establish… a Hindu state based on Hindu Culture and traditions so that Hindu ideology and way of life should have a Homeland of its own.

In addition, it talks about thousands of years old Hindu nation and civilization, the Hindu way of life, the tradition and culture of Hindus, and the protection of cow and its progeny. It further contains the following pledges and promises (Table 8.1). Table 8.1 Hindu Mahasabha (1966 manifesto) 1 2

3 4

5

6

“The Hindu Mahasabha stands for social and economic justice with its moorings in the moral and spiritual past of this sacred land” “The Hindu Mahasabha aspires to create a social order based on ‘Hindutva’ which advocates class-coordination and social-consciousness, as against class-conflict and individual consciousness…programmes of the Mahasabha are basically based on the aforesaid principles, which suit the genius of the people and on which the Hindu nation and civilization have survived for thousands of years” “A social and economic order based on Hindu way of life, can only stabilize the present imbalanced structure of Bharat, -nay of the world” “The Hindu Mahasabha considers it absolutely essential to amend the present Constitution…to ban the slaughter of cows, calves, bulls, and bullocks of every age and condition, under all circumstances” “The Hindu Mahasabha stands for resisting all attempts made to dislodge ‘Sanskrit-Nistha’ Hindi from the place it has been given in the Constitution as a Union Language” “Hindu Mahasabha, therefore, stands for recasting the Constitution of the country to bring it in consonance with the tradition and culture of the Hindus to make it a truly democratic Hindu State”

Source Hindu Mahasabha (1966)

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Table 8.2 BJS (1967 manifesto) 1 2

3 4

“The nation’s centuries old struggle for Swadesh, Swadhrarma, and Swatantra cannot thus be allowed to be frustrated under Swaraj” “By neglecting India’s basic values in regard to character and righteous conduct…this Government has created a climate in which corruption is having a field day” “The cow is our national point of honour… Bharatiya Jana Sangh will amend the constitution and impose a legal ban on the slaughter of the cow and its progeny” “Sanskrit will be declared as country’s National Language”

Source BJS (1967)

BJS Election Manifesto 1967 The 1967 election manifesto of the BJS talks about the nation’s centuriesold struggle for Swadesh (one’s own country), Swadhrarma (one’s own dharma, duties, or religion), and Swatantra (freedom, not controlled by others). It is most probably referring to the Hindu nation as when rightwing Hindutva leaders talk about swadharma and swatantra, they are not talking about constitutional duties, freedom for everyone, or financial autonomy. The manifesto also refers to India’s basic values, protection of cows, and promises to declare Sanskrit as India’s national language (Table 8.2). BJS Election Manifesto 1971 Compared to BJS 1967 manifesto, the 1971 manifesto has toned down civilizational rhetoric. There are fewer Sanskrit words and instead of Sanskrit, the emphasis is on the Hindi language. The reference to invaders and praise for assimilation is probably a reference to Muslims. There is also a reference to protection of cow family (Table 8.3). BJP Election Manifesto 1984 Strangely, there is nothing about Hindu civilization in the first manifesto of the BJP, except for one reference to cow protection: “Cow slaughter will be banned” (BJP 1984).

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Table 8.3 BJS (1971 manifesto) 1

2

3 4

“We [Jana Sangh] will give a positive, patriotic and moral content to education to inculcate in our children deep love of our country, our people and our cultural heritage. To this end, we will revise the textbooks.” “The diversity of castes, creeds, languages, and provinces only lend beauty and splendour to the unity of our national life, which is so assimilative that even those who came as invaders were absorbed in it” “Swaarajya is incomplete without Swabhasha… Jana Sangh will develop Hindi as the link language over the next five years” “We [Jana Sangh] will implement the forgotten Directive Principles of the Constitution and … protect the cow family (Article 48)”

Source BJS (1971)

BJP Election Manifesto 1996 The 1996 manifesto returns to strong praise for Hindu civilization that was seen in Hindu Mahasabha and BJS manifestos. There are references to our glorious past, the Bharatiya way of living & belief system, Bharat Mata, the concept of Rama, and the banning of cow slaughter (Table 8.4). Table 8.4 BJP (1996 manifesto) 1

2 3 4

5 6

7

“Our Manifesto [is] based on the four concepts of Suraksha, Shuchita, Swadeshi, and Samrasata. Hindutva, or cultural nationalism, shall be the rainbow which will bridge our present to our glorious past and pave the way for an equally glorious future; it will guide the transition from Swarajya to Surajya” “It [BJP] will redefine the concept of development to accommodate the Bharatiya way of living, belief system and values to reach the ultimate goal of Bharatiyata” “Promote Bharatiya classical music and performing arts through state support” “Discourage indecent representation of women in advertisements and publications, young minds. Sex and violence on the silver screen are beginning to gnaw at the moorings of our cultural ethos” “Hindutva is a unifying principle which alone can preserve the unity and integrity of our nation” “BJP will facilitate the construction of a Ram Mandir “which will be a tribute to Bharat Mata. This dream moves millions of people in our land; the concept of Rama lies at the core of their consciousness” “BJP will “Impose a total ban on the slaughter of cows and cow progeny by amending Article 48 of the Constitution to cover bulls and bullocks and prohibit all trading (state as well as private) in the slaughter of cows and cow progeny”

Source BJP (1996)

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Table 8.5 BJP (2009 manifesto) 1

2

3

4 5

6

7 8

“The civilizational consciousness of India has been well defined by the sages and philosophers and has its roots in Bharatiya or Hindu world view… and one can say that Hinduism is the most ennobling experience in spiritual co-existence” “No nation can chart out its domestic or foreign policies unless it has a clear understanding about itself, its history, its strength and failings. It becomes all the more important for any nation to know its roots which sustain its people in a highly mobile and globalised world” “It was most unfortunate that they never thought of creating a socio-economic and political paradigm of governance drawing from the civilizational consciousness of India. They, instead, tried to emulate whatever was being practised in this or that Western country. The disastrous results are before us” “The first section of the manifesto: “To build a prosperous, powerful nation, recall India’s past” “These leaders had a vision to reconstruct the political and economic institutions of India as a continuum of the civilizational consciousness which made India one country, one people and one nation” “All dharmic activities will be considered as ‘charity’ with appropriate tax incentives. A special cell will be created to make dharmic organisations’ interface with government agencies hassle-free” “The BJP will explore all possibilities, including negotiations and judicial proceedings, to facilitate the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya” “In view of the recent judgment by the constitutional bench of the Supreme Court, and in keeping with the Directive Principles of State Policy as contained in the Constitution, necessary legal framework will be created to protect and promote cow and its progeny”

Source BJP (2009)

BJP Election Manifesto 2009 The 2009 manifesto refers to the civilizational consciousness of India (twice), the Hindu worldview, recalling & learning about India’s past/ history, the Ram Temple, and the protection of the cow family (Table 8.5). BJP Election Manifesto 2019 The 2019 manifesto had a separate chapter titled, cultural heritage. The manifesto refers to civilizational ethos, civilizational continuity, traditions, cultural roots, Yoga promotion, Ganga, cultural values, and mainstreaming of Sanskrit (Table 8.6).

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Table 8.6 BJP (2019 manifesto) 1

2 3

4 5

6

7

“We will undertake every effort to ensure that the subject of faith, traditions and worship rituals related to Sabarimala is presented in a comprehensive manner before the Hon’ble Supreme Court” “The BJP reiterates its stand to draft a Uniform Civil Code, drawing upon the best traditions and harmonizing them with the modern times” “Since inception, the philosophy of the BJP is anchored in the civilizational ethos of India. As we build ‘New India’, we intend to actively invest in strengthening our cultural roots and preserving civilizational continuity. Far from seeing our cultural values as hurdles to progress, we see them as essential ingredients of our future” “With a focused effort on promotion of Sanskrit, we will ensure that the teaching of Sanskrit is expanded and popularized in the schools” “We are committed to conserve and promote all culturally, religiously and spiritually significant heritage sites related to every faith in India and the ongoing PRASAD scheme will be expanded to achieve this goal” “We are committed to ensure a clean and uninterrupted flow of river Ganga from Gangotri to Ganga Sagar. We will ensure that the sewerage infrastructure to deal with 100% of the wastewater from the Ganga towns is completed and is functioning effectively, and take steps to enhance the river flow” “We will further continue our efforts to promote Yoga globally as the world celebrates 21st June as the International Yoga Day”

Source BJP (2019)

Conclusion Hindu civilizationism started in the nineteenth century as Hindu revivalists tried to inspire their community to take pride in who they are and forge ahead. In the twentieth century, Hindu civilizationism’s banner was kept afloat by Hindutva leaders but it was not popular. The Indian governments in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were more interested in promoting an Indian civilization to which all religious and ethnic communities contributed. The focus was on science, development, and the future, not on the past, especially not the mythological past. PM Nehru was the epitome of this modernist attitude that remained supreme for the first fifty years of the Indian state. The Hindutva leadership and their civilizationism remained on the fringes. In 1998–1999, Hindutva came to power at the federal level for the first time and, after 2014, it became the dominant ideology. Hindu civilizationism is now the government’s policy as is clear from ruling party BJP’s actions and manifestos. Eulogizing the Hindu golden age, Sanskrit mainstreaming, Akhund Bharat, denigrating Mughals, and supporting pseudo (Vedic)

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science is now regularly done at the federal and state level by the BJP governments. The future of Hindu civilizationism and “civilizational populism” (Saleem et al. 2022; Yilmaz and Morieson 2021, 2022, 2023) appears bright in India. PM Modi is the most popular politician in India now and, unless the Congress, the main opposition party, gets its act together, appears likely to win a third term. The Congress has elected a new president, after more than three years and Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Joro Yatra (Journey/pilgrimage to unite Bharat/India) drew large crowds along thousands of miles of its route. Yatra certainly presented Rahul Gandhi, the heir of the famous Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, as a popular politician that can give PM Modi a tough contest but with only a year remaining in the 2024 general election, the opposition has a steep road to climb (Banerjee 2023; Biswas 2022). The question has also been asked about whether Gandhi is rejecting Hindu civilizationism outright and trying to create a secular state as envisioned in the Indian Constitution or wants a soft Hindu civilizationism of former BJP PM Vajpayee brand that gives minorities, especially Muslims, some space to prosper (Barman 2022). While Rahul talked about minorities and equal rights for all during the Yatra, visiting Vajpayee’s memorial in New Delhi and naming his rally a “yatra,” a term generally used for pilgrimage to Hindu religious sites suggests Gandhi still is not clear which way he wants to go.

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CHAPTER 9

Sri Lanka: Buddhist Civilizational Populism Rajni Gamage

Introduction As discussed in the Introduction of this edited volume, the occurrence of civilizational populism in democratic nations is increasingly common. Its politics in non-Western contexts however requires a nuanced consideration of the historical and social processes that make religion and the political imaginary of a cross-nation civilizational identity have political resonance with a section of the people. In this chapter, I discuss the dynamics of Buddhist civilizational populism in modern Sri Lankan society. I historically situate early manifestations of Buddhist civilizational populism in Ceylon, during its occupation by the British Empire (1815– 1945). This is important as anti-colonial sentiments provide a powerful vocabulary. This is observed, as in many other post-colonial societies, to resonate with the masses even several decades since independence. This makes it important to understand why such political registers continue to have mileage in substantially different national (and global) circumstances.

R. Gamage (B) Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore, Singapore e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_9

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Key ideas related to “civilizationism” have been central to leading anticolonial movements in British Ceylon (which Sri Lanka was previously known as). European colonial discourse to legitimize violent conquest and rule of foreign lands, as in the case of British rule in Ceylon, used the idea of a “civilizing” mission of “lesser developed” and “backward” colonies. In anti-colonial discourse, the colonial subject was often found to have internalized and to mimic such logics of civilizational superiority. In the speech and thought of the well-known Sinhala Buddhist nationalist, Anagarika Dharmapala, one can observe the idea of a superior Aryan Buddhist civilization juxtaposed against not only the Christian crusader, but also the local Dravidian Tamil and the Moor “Other” communities. These issues of identity and belonging have carried on to the postindependence period. Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism was institutionalized at the level of the constitution, laws, and state institutions, deeply penetrated social relations, and violently expressed itself in an ethnic conflict of around 26 years between the state and separatist Tamils. The Sinhalese majority has been characterized in academic and civil society commentary as one with a “minority mindset” due to the much larger Tamil constituency living just over the Palk Straits in neighboring India. As a post-war society, this tendency of Sinhala Buddhist nationalists to define existential “threats” as coming from outside the nation has continued, its latest form being that of fighting global Islamist extremism. The following section provides an overview of the concept of “civilizational populism” and the main debates in terms of explaining its dynamics.1

1 This chapter is a revised version of previously published Open Access material in the following article: Gamage, Rajni. 2023. “Buddhist Civilisational Populism in Sri Lanka: Colonial Identity Formation, Post-War Othering, and Present Crises” Religions 14, no. 2: 278. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14020278.

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Civilizational Populism: Religion, the People, and Belonging Beyond and Within the Nation-State Populism, the People, and the Enemy “Other” The issue of populist politics and leadership is now mainstream. This can be mainly attributed to the highly mediatized and personalistic politics that have been associated with populist leaders, foremost of whom was former US president Donald Trump. Donald Trump’s political brand, very different to the traditional types of political leadership previously seen in the United States, was a key moment for debates on political systems and democracy. The United States has long been the champion of liberal democracy, despite ironically fighting “long wars” in its name in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and several proxy wars, creating untold human suffering and destruction in these invaded countries. Under Donald Trump, these struggles were, in addition, centered and contested within the United States. The rise of a populist, anti-establishment political leader, who was more explicitly in favor of Judeo-Christian values and less reluctant in “othering” immigrants from parts of the non-European world, brought to the forefront the issue of identity politics and its role in liberal democratic systems. The revival and international solidarity movements, inspired by Black Lives Matter, which are drawing clear connections between struggles against racism, white supremacy, and new and old forms of colonialism, recognize the danger and violence inherent to these expressions of populist politics, i.e., in the form of majoritarianism. Despite this, scholars have pointed out that populism is not a novel phenomenon and has been a part of democratization in the nineteenth century (Urbinati 2019, p. 112).In the past, its politics has sometimes been described as a “subspecies of fascism” (Urbinati 2019, p. 112) or as a result of incomplete modernization (Minogue 1969); in more positive interpretations of it, it has been viewed as a healthy expression of democracy (Laclau 2005). Its increased presence, especially in advanced liberal constitutional democracies, is one explanation of renewed interest in it (Urbinati 2019, p. 112). The rise of populism over the last decade or so is also possibly a result of the failure of democratic political systems to reduce social inequality levels (with an emphasis on political rights over

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social and economic rights), with the resulting social discontents being mobilized thereafter using populist politics. Populism’s content varies depending on the context, but there are some common elements to it, such as the division of “the people” and “the established elite” (Mudde 2010, p. 1175). It thus involves a politics of exclusion and inclusion. Here, “the people” can refer to a class dimension (such as the ordinary, working classes) and/or a racial–religious dimension (such as a majority/dominant racial or religious group). “The people” are framed in such a way as being under threat and facing injustice, therefore deserving political priority (Hall 1985, p. 116). A narrative of historical injustice or “authentic” claims to nationalness over an alien (often racialized) “Other” group is often heard. Debates on populism are therefore often in relation to the quality of democracy. It involves power being concentrated within a small group of elites, its politics of representation being narrow and exclusive, and the state’s coercive apparatus mobilized to tighten the establishment’s grip on power (Germani 1978; Morelock 2018). Populist politics often downplay the value of democratic institutions and processes, as direct relations between the populist leader and “the people” are favored for being more responsive to the people’s needs (Stockemer 2018). The irony of populism is that, while legitimizing its politics through electoral systems (i.e., showing an electoral majority), in the process, it subverts democratic processes or at least seeks to do so, and ends up weakening the very future of populist politics (Urbinati 2019, p. 119). For example, some populist movements direct efforts at weakening key and constitutionally enshrined aspects of liberal democracy (such as the protection of minority communities’ rights over majority demagoguery). This is due to the charge that liberal and constitutional democratic systems fail to provide adequate representation for the majority in an overdrive to protect and ensure minority rights in the name of equality: “it questions electoral or mandate representation because of the gap it creates between the people as the principle of legitimacy and the people as an actual social reality, and thus between the electors and the elected” (Urbinati 2019, p. 113). Right-wing populism is typically considered authoritarian, while leftwing populism may or may not be authoritarian (Morelock and Narita 2018, pp. 140–41). This distinction lies in the exclusionary politics of representation and redistribution in right-wing populism, whereas leftwing populism can be exclusionary or inclusionary That is, right-wing

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populism is often pre-occupied with the defence of a class already occupying a position of relative privilege in society, whereas this is not always the case with left-wing populism (Morelock and Narita 2018, p. 141). A distinction between right-wing and left-wing populism may not always be possible, however, because populism “is not an ideology or a political regime and cannot be attributed to a specific programmatic content,” but rather is a “way of doing politics” (Mouffe 2016). The fluidity of ideological stances in populist politics is also increasingly common. For example, there are instances of secularism being criticized by the left and being reclaimed by the right, as, for example, the “national-populist right proclaims its liberalism and its commitment to philosemitism, gender equality, gay rights, and freedom of speech” (Brubaker 2017, pp. 1211–1212). These contradictions in ideological positions are often historically and locally contingent and a result of negotiating among various interest groups while consolidating power at the same time. Populist discourse emphasizes various issues; some populist movements mobilize discontent by framing religion, the nation, and the civilization of the majority people as facing existential threats. Not being mutually exclusive, others emphasize center–periphery and rural–urban disparities, and ideas of modernization and globalization against traditionalism and inward-looking, closed economies (Urbinati 2019, p. 115). Civilizational Populism I use the concept of “civilizational populism” to analyze populist movements and parties in Sri Lanka. In civilizational populism, a civilizational identity becomes the defining element of “the people.” This provides a basis for an in-group to define themselves in relation to an out-group who belongs to a “foreign” civilization, or elites from the majority group who are ostensibly betraying their civilization for power (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b, p. 8). As mentioned in the introduction, the idea of different and competing civilizations providing the basis for political mobilization is not new; it is a defining aspect of the Enlightenment and European colonialism. The social constructs of race, as well as religion, are closely tied to the idea of civilization. It is not unexpected that populist discourse would take on civilizational dimensions, as many of the forces that impact modern societies are global in nature, and historically, as well as in the present, were never limited to within the borders of the nation-state.

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Populism wants to fill that gap and make its people the measure of political justice and legitimacy, because it claims that this is the only strategy to respect the sovereign power of the nation against its internal and external enemies, such as the powerful few, the establishment, global capitalism, immigration, or Islamic fundamentalism—among the main slogans and themes in today’s successful populist rhetoric (Skocpol and Williamson 2012; Urbinati 2019, p. 115). With the end of the Cold War and the ideological rivalry of communism and capitalism becoming less clear-cut, as well as the events of 9/ 11, the idea of religious-centric civilizations as the fault line of global politics became mainstream (Lewis 1990; Huntington 1993; Haynes 2017, p. 63). These issues have since taken on the center stage, with the mainstreaming of right-wing and populist political leaders, parties, and discourse, mainly associated with the social forces around the election of President Trump in the USA, but also in European constitutional democracies, such as the politics surrounding France’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Victor Orbán. Its study is important due to the threat that such “anti-democratic” politics holds for the rights and safety of minority communities, who are at the receiving end of populist hate speech and policies of violent exclusion. In civilizational populism, there is a “clear transnational and international element” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b, p. 19). The threat is to the nation, but also to a civilization. Many civilizational populists are nationalists, in that the discourse is about the self and belonging to “the nation” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022a, p. 24). However, civilizational populism is also distinct to “nationalism” in that “civilizational discourse refers to a different kind of imagined community, located at a different level of cultural and political space, than national discourse” (Brubaker 2017, p. 1211). The populist promise is to restore a civilization to its former glory, despite its actual implementation being now imagined within the boundaries of the nation-state, and “could range from policies that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity and/or religion and which undermine democratic processes and institutions” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b, p. 2). Civilizational identity is, as in the case of Ceylon, often co-constitutive with religion. Religion is not just one among many identity markers instrumentalized within civilizational populist politics. Instead, the dominant religion of a given civilization plays a “defining role in delineating the boundaries of said civilizations” (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022a, p. 6).

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There are many overlaps in the logics of religion and populism. They both sacralize one group and ideology and create a dichotomy with an evil or corrupt “Other” and their own political party or movement as righteous, holy, and good (Mudde 2004, p. 543; Barton et al. 2021, p. 3). Invoking religion usually generates a very powerful emotional response among the target audience, as do populist narratives (Moffitt 2016, p. 52). In sacralizing politics in this way, a critique of norms closely associated with liberal democracy, such as secularism and religious plurality, is made. Over the past decade, the rise of civilizational populism in the West has been documented and debated by many scholars. They analyze how populists use Judeo-Christianity “to denote a secular, liberal order distinct from Islam, reflecting the culturalization of Christian religion in Europe” (Faber 2018; Hall 2021; Haraszti 2015; Kaya and Tecmen 2019; Vollard 2013, p. 94). This “civilizational turn” in European populism is identified by some scholars as a (commonly) right-wing response to the immigration of large numbers of Muslims in Europe (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b, p. 4), following the 9/11 attacks and the Allied “war on terror” in the Middle East. Civilizational populism is not a Western-centric phenomenon. There are analyses of the rise of civilizational populism in non-Western societies too, such as on Islamist, Hindu, and Buddhist civilizational populism (Ammassari 2018; Gamage 2021; Hadiz 2016; Lefèvre 2020; Jayasinghe 2021; Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b). What the presence of civilizational populism in politics around the world reveals is the global nature of the social struggles which drives this form of populism. Civilizational populism in the Global South is influenced by historical struggles against exploitation and the centralization of resources within the elite and colonial metropole, in the colonies’ experience of colonialism and capitalism. These struggles continue in the context of subsequent global capitalist relations, within which the former is deeply embedded. Civilizational populism in the Global South is therefore fundamentally informed by the histories and structural power relations that they are embedded in, in the post-independence context. These struggles are not only over identities and values but are also deeply rooted in the global political economy. In many Global South countries, most of which were former colonies of European powers, left-wing populists are observed to instrumentalize civilization-based identity politics (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b, p. 2). However, civilizational populism in the Global South is distinctly different

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to its politics in the Western world. For example, in its discourse, it is often Western values and ideas which come under attack, along with ethnic and religious minorities that have inhabited these countries historically, and who do not fit the category of recent immigrants, as in the West (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022a, p. 24). In British Ceylon, for example, civilizational populist discourse borrows extensively from nineteenth and early twentieth anti-colonial ideas that developed in response to colonial rule. At the time, local and regional anti-colonial movements were still looking for frames of reference for their nascent nationalism. Because the nation-state was still not final in its form, and independence was yet to come many decades later, populism during this period was often framed in civilizational terms. Because this anti-colonial discourse promised the upliftment of material conditions, with the state playing a foremost role in achieving this social equality and egalitarianism, as opposed to the violence and hierarchy under colonial rule, it was very much aligned with left-wing and social democratic sentiments. As we see in Sri Lanka, religion and socialism can be combined with populism, and it is to a discussion on this that I move on to next.

Colonial Rule and Early Buddhist Civilizational Populism Civilizational populism mobilizes support and manifests in different forms in various contexts and periods of time. In this section, I examine civilizational populism within a dominant strand of anti-colonial discourse in British Ceylon (1815–1948). This anti-colonial discourse by the Buddhist Revivalist movement in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century is perceived as providing the broad nationalist framework for post-independence Sinhala Buddhist nationalist politics in Sri Lanka. I argue that a closer examination of this discourse reveals that its civilizational populism embedded nationalism within a broader civilizational re-imagination. This has influenced the nature of nationalist politics and post-independence democracy in Sri Lanka. European colonial rule in Ceylon overturned the material order of the native peoples, as well as their traditional epistemologies. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the Buddhist Revivalist Movement was the leading movement which led the largely rural masses against colonial rule. This movement largely comprised low-country Sinhala Buddhist elites, as part of an educated middle class. The low-country Sinhalese

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had been exposed longer to colonial trade in the maritime regions, and this emerging elite was therefore more capable in navigating colonial rule in contrast to the Kandyan highlands, which had resisted colonial rule for longer. A pioneering figure of the Buddhist Revivalist movement was Anagarika Dharmapala, who is sometimes known as the “founding father” of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka (Gombrich and Obeyesekere 1989, p. 205). The movement’s Buddhist civilizational populism provided a pseudo-historical framework for dispossessed Sinhala Buddhist nationalists at the time, to make sense of their place in the world. Dharmapala played a leading role in enabling among the (primarily rural) masses a Sinhala Buddhist nationalist awareness of the political, economic, and social nature of their impoverished status (Guruge 1965, p. lxvii). His religious- and racial-infused nationalist discourse resonated with a native sense of lost identity, especially among (majority Sinhalese) rural communities in Ceylon which had been vulnerable to colonial extraction and capitalist modernity. Within Buddhist Revivalist thought, Sinhalese ethnicity and Buddhism were conflated as one and the same: “Sinhala ethnicity was integrated into the new conception of Buddhism, so that an affirmation made on behalf of Buddhism became an affirmation of Sinhala ethnicity as well” (Seneviratne 1999, p. 26). This merging of “Sinhala” and “Buddhist” identities as one made ethno-religious identity the main fault line of nationalist politics, over caste (Gunawardena 1984, p. 41). Importantly, ideas on nationalist authenticity are closely linked with the Sinhala Buddhist peasant and village. They cultivated a narrative and nostalgia for a past rural greatness and this in turn enabled Buddhist Revivalists to challenge the general colonial myth of the colonized being a “people without history” (Wolf 1982). On one occasion, Dharmapala states that history was cyclical and that a renaissance of Sinhalese Buddhist civilization must surely follow its present state of want and being under the rule of another civilization (Guruge 1965, p. 31). The use of nostalgia is a common strategy used by populist leaders around the world. However, what must be noted is that the egalitarian and democratic, selfsustaining rural order that is being described in this discourse was not truly representative of the actual feudal and caste-based society found in pre-colonial Ceylon (Morrison et al. 1979, pp. 11–12). In order to understand what enabled civilizational populism to be used by Buddhist Revivalists, the historical context at the time is important.

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Anti-colonial resistance in several colonies pushed back against the colonialism, and capitalist development (even if the political economy was not always framed as such and was rather described as the “colonial economy”). Anti-colonial politics was therefore not restricted to the borders of a nation-state and was transnational. At the turn of the twentieth century, this tricontinental (Asia, Africa, Latin America) solidarity was largely seen at the level of the Communist International, whose ideas took off in Ceylon in the 1930s under the leadership of the Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP). Such imperatives of anti-colonial, transnational solidarity were later seen in initiatives such as the 1955 Bandung Conference, after many of the former colonies had gained independence. While these ideological currents did not significantly inform the Buddhist Revivalist Movement, which took form much earlier, transnational anti-colonial ideas influenced its thought in the second half of the nineteenth century. For example, the Temperance Movement in Ceylon was closely linked to the Buddhist Revivalist movement, but also included others such as the Hindu revivalists who too agitated against the educational and societal monopoly of Christian missionaries on the island (Richardson 1997, p. 7). The Temperance Movement in Ceylon drew inspiration from the Temperance Movement in America around the 1880s, the latter which had become a global movement hinged on morality, such as avoiding intoxicating substances, sensual experiences, and profanity (Prothero 1995, p. 291). Another example of transnational influences on the Buddhist Revivalist movement was the Theosophical Society, which was established in America in 1875. The Theosophical Society had a significant impact on the Temperance Movement in Ceylon, and especially on the Buddhist Revivalist Movement. It emphasized the commonality of religions, with a particular involvement in studying and resuscitating Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, toward a “Universal Brotherhood of Humanity.” Despite retaining several ideas of liberal modernization and racism that were found within the official colonial discourse in Ceylon, the Theosophical Society is thought to have significantly influenced the Buddhist Revivalist Movement’s framework of a more civilizational, transnational Buddhism in opposition to the colonizer’s attempts at homogeneity and submission of local religions and culture to the logics of Christianity or secularism. Dharmapala’s missionary work during his time in the Theosophical Society was not limited to Ceylon. During his missionary work in India

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as part of the Theosophical Society, the influence of Bengali society and politics, and ideas such as boycott, swadeshi (country made), and swaraj (self-rule), significantly influenced Dharmapala’s thought (Amunugama 1991, p. 565). He called on the Sinhalese to follow these Gandhian ideas of self-sufficiency and to not pay mere lip service to them while leading Westernized lifestyles (Amunugama 1991, p. 588). His nationalist politics in Ceylon often denigrated the British and their culture, and this kind of language and politics could be observed in British India at the time (Amunugama 1991, pp. 584–85). The Anagarika also traveled extensively around the world to carry out Buddhist missionary work, and his speeches were tailored to the respective audiences and places (Blackburn 2010, p. 210). In Ceylon, the Buddhism that Dharmapala spoke about was more a social and political formation than a world religion. It was positioned in antagonism to the religion of the colonizer (Christianity) and of ethno-religious minorities (Hinduism and Islam) in the country. In India, however, Dharmapala’s Buddhism was more compatible with other faiths such as Hinduism, just as the Buddhism which he preached while in the colonial metropole was more accommodating of Christianity (Kemper 2015, p. 427). A second key feature of Buddhist civilizational populism during this period was its racialism, influenced by European sensibilities of social Darwinism, Aryan civilizationalism, and anti-Semitism (Gunawardena 1984, p. 42). Dharmapala calls ethnic and religious Tamils and Moor minorities in Ceylon “alien” and “foreign.” He attributes the pre-colonial achievements of Sinhalese civilizations to the alleged Aryan heritage of the Sinhala people (reinforced through colonial writings on the same), framed in antagonism to non-Aryans, most notably the Tamils but also the Moor community (Guruge 1965, p. 207). Consequently, the Sinhalese peasant is portrayed as being exploited by the outside world twice over—first from the colonial government taking over village land for the plantations industry, and then from immigrant trading communities who exploited the impoverished and indebted Sinhalese peasant (Kemper 2015, p. 327). Evident in this discourse is a “paranoid ethos” of Sinhala Buddhist cultural heritage being vulnerable historically as well as in the present in the face of multiple “foreign” forces (Dharmadasa 1992, p. 141). Dharmapala’s anti-colonial discourse also blames the inferiority and cultural degradation of Western civilization as responsible for the poverty within rural communities in Ceylon. He inverts the colonizer’s stereotype

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of the native by characterizing the (Christian) Englishman as a “barbarian” and referring to the followers of Buddhism as superior members of the Aryan group (Amunugama 1991, p. 585). The British people today take a pride in calling themselves Aryans. There is a spiritualized Aryanism and an anthropological Aryanism.Buddhism is a spiritualized Aryanism. The ethics of the Bible are opposed to the sublime principles of the Aryan Doctrine promulgated by the Aryan Teacher [the Buddha]. We condemn Christianity as a system utterly unsuited to the gentle spirit of the Aryan race. (Dharmapala, as cited in Guruge 1965, p. 442)

A third key feature of Buddhist civilizational populism during this period was a re-modernization of history. That is, contrary to the civilizational populism that resisted modernization, industrialization, and capitalism in some parts of the world, Dharmapala’s discourse was more aligned with liberal modernization. Buddhist Revivalist discourse advocated “rural development” which included “manual training schools,” i.e., vocational schools for rural youth to work in the industrial economy (Roberts 1997, p. 1021). Such measures were claimed to prepare the rural capacity for enterprise, over remaining an agricultural colony of the metropolitan center. This shares similarities with other instances of civilizational-related semantics on the self and the other found in the West, having “internalized liberalism—along with secularism, philosemitism, gender equality, gay rights, and free speech—as an identity marker of the Christian West [the ‘self’] vis-à-vis putatively intrinsically illiberal Islam [the ‘other’]” (Brubaker 2017, p. 1208). The idea of bringing back a pre-colonial, village-centric economy alongside liberal modernization was likely influenced by colonial discourse of a harmonious and prosperous “dual economy.” This is where capitalist and pre-capitalist economies supposedly co-existed and flourished side-byside (but independent of one another) under British rule in Ceylon. In reality, while semi-feudal aspects remained in many rural settings, they were firmly embedded within the global capitalist system (Silva 1992, pp. 89–90). Sinhala nationalists since have however drawn from this false dichotomy to call for a return to a self-sufficient, pre-capitalist economy, along with elements of modernity and technological prowess borrowed from the present:

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He [Dharmapala] dreamed of the day when Ceylon would be independent, the religion of the people restored to its pristine glory, the simple unaffected ways of Sinhala culture recognized and upheld and the people made enlightened participants in the scientific and technological advancements of modern times. (Guruge 1965, p. xxxvii)

Yilmaz and Morieson (2023, p. 9) argue that “when civilizational populism empowers religious fundamentalists, the result is often an attack on scientific institutions if not the scientific method itself.” This was not really the case in the case of the Buddhist Revivalist movement. Dharmapala, for example, claimed to be more scientific and rational than the colonizers and their faith, arguing that European rationality and science aligned with original Buddhist teachings and Buddhism was therefore the higher truth (relative to other “religions” and “civilizations”) (Guruge 1965, p. 325). In addition, there is a popular perception within subsequent nationalist discourse of Dharmapala (as a pioneer of the Buddhist Revivalist Movement) as a man of action who fought on behalf of the less well-off is significant. This is important as his political thought has been appropriated by nationalist leaders since, as part of their (ostensible) socialist politics. Dharmapala’s ascetic-like renunciation of personal wealth and donning of a simple white garb, similar to Mahatma Gandhi, partly earned him the reputation of rejecting materialism. This resulted in a popular conflation of personal lifestyle (which rejected materialism) and political views (which promoted liberal modernization) as one of austere moralism. An examination of Dharmapala’s writings and speeches reveals that he rarely talked about “class.” In the few instances he discusses class-related issues, he did so in relation to Buddhist civilizationism. For example, he claimed that the basics of Buddhist doctrine were to relieve human suffering. Therefore, one found no labor and capital (class) conflict in Buddhist societies, unlike in Europe, where capitalism was practised with unmitigated greed and sensuality (Guruge 1965, p. 394). Kings within ancient Buddhist societies (apparently) ate the same food and wore the same kind of dress as the ordinary layman: The prince and peasant sat together, ate together, conversed together, and from the centers where the Bhikkhus congregated love was diffused east, west, north and south. (Dharmapala, as cited in Guruge 1965, p. 70)

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According to Dharmapala, this (apparent) absence of a class struggle in Ceylon was a result of the two basic tenets of Buddhism: philanthropy and karma. Buddhist doctrine stipulates that the well-off should devote a quarter of their wealth to the poor and perform public welfare (and this was extended by Dharmapala to mean building rural public hospitals and roads) to accumulate good karma. Philanthropy, embedded within a civilizational cultural–religious paradigm, was framed as part of the solution (over more structural-oriented solutions) to conditions of inequality. Dharmapala also claimed individualism and democracy as inherent to early Buddhist teachings, much before liberal democratic values were “discovered” by Western societies (Guruge 1965, p. 428). Importantly, this contrasts with the more explicit populist anti-democratic agenda found within more recent civilizational populism in Sri Lanka. As discussed in this section, early civilizational populism in Ceylon was characterized by the transnational agenda of and influences on the Buddhist Revivalist Movement in Ceylon, such as the racialized logics which informed its discourse; and a nostalgia for a past rural civilization which was democratic and egalitarian, while also exhibiting elements of modernity and technological advances much prior to these landmarks were reached in “Western civilizations.” Next, I analyze the more recent manifestation of Buddhist civilizational populism in post-independence Sri Lanka.

Religion, the Nation, and Civilizational Populism in Contemporary Sri Lankan Politics In the immediate years after independence, Sri Lanka’s political leadership was dominated by a Westernized Sinhala Buddhist elite. This was partly due to the crackdown on the Buddhist Revivalist Movement by colonial authorities, in the aftermath of the anti-Muslim riots in 1915, following which the role of the Westernized Sinhala Buddhist elite became more prominent. This group went on to form the Ceylon National Congress in 1919, which later became the United National Party (UNP) in 1946. This party came into power at independence. With the main opposition Trotskyist Party, the LSSP, unable to perform well at elections, the main reactionary force that emerged against the UNP and its politics was the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). The SLFP was led by

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S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, who campaigned on a Sinhala Buddhist nationalist platform that drew heavily from the Buddhist civilizational populism of Dharmapala and the Buddhist Revivalist Movement. Post-independence, this tradition of religious nationalism and the political activist monk was reproduced within the two main monastic colleges (pirirvenas) in Sri Lanka: the Vidyalankara pirirvena (founded in 1875) and the Vidyodaya pirirvena (founded in 1873) (Seneviratne 1999, p. 57). Drawing on popular historical–mythological texts, political activism was ascribed as part of the “heritage of the monk” (Abeysekara 2002, p. 83). The activist role of the sangha continued to grow entrenched in the backdrop of a protracted civil war against Tamil separatists. The politically active monks took on what they thought of as their historically determined responsibility in protecting the Dhamma (the teachings of the Buddha): Since the early 1980s a variety of Buddhist discourses began to authorize a particular Buddhist image of the “fearless” young monk who would march to the “battlefront” and lay down his life to rescue and lead the Buddhist nation facing the threat of “terrorism”. (Abeysekara 2002, p. 204)

“Jathika Chintanaya” (National Ideology) was a significant Sinhala Buddhist nationalist movement that mobilized during this period against the influx of the open economy and liberal, cosmopolitan ideas, under the UNP government led by the J. R. Jayawardene from 1977. It was led by urban-based Sinhala intellectuals such as Gunadasa Amarasekera and Nalin de Silva (Dewasiri 2010, p. 77). The solution proposed by Jathika Chinthanaya to what it characterized as the nation’s economic dependence on global markets and being under a form of neo-colonialism, which it accused as being facilitated by the local ruling elite, was a Sinhala Buddhist “civilizational state.” This civilizational state was proposed to be based on a rural agricultural economy characterized by pre-colonial social relations (such as communal ownership of land, mutual aid, and caring for nature) (Matthews 2004, p. 63). It called for “a revolution by way of thinking” (chintanaya viplavaya), i.e., an epistemological rejection of Western “extreme rationalism” and of coming up with a specifically Sinhalese way of thinking and learning (Matthews 2004, p. 63). These ideological currents later manifested in the rise of Buddhist nationalist political parties, such as the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU or National Heritage Party), which played an active role in opposing the

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2002 Peace Process between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers (De Votta and Stone 2008, p. 38). After the civil war ended by military means in 2009, the post-war political landscape further fostered majoritarianism within state and society (Byrne and Klem 2015, p. 226). The Sri Lankan state has always had a deeply complicated relationship with religion. Among the most explicit manifestations of this is the official patronage of Buddhism in its constitution since 1972. In its post-war discourse, the Rajapaksa regime disseminated the popular idea of pre-colonial Sinhalese kings receiving legitimacy from the Buddhist monastic order in exchange for patronage in the form of status, land, and wealth (Roberts 2015). One consequence of such official rhetoric on the state as protector of the Sinhala race and Buddhist religion was the political impunity with which extra-parliamentary Buddhist nationalist movements, such as the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS or Buddhist Power Force), the Sinhala Ravaya, and Ravana Balakaya, operated during the Rajapaksa regime, in power at the time (Goonewardene 2020, p. 295). The BBS is the most prominent among these groups. It was formed in 2012 as a breakaway faction of the JHU and is led by Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero (De Votta 2016, p. 78). It advocates establishing a “Sinhale” nation, in which the Sinhala race and Buddhism are granted foremost status. While the BBS, like other Buddhist nationalist groups, identifies the enemy in a wide variety of actors—from Western States, to NGOs, and ethnic and religious minorities—its discourse is predominantly focused on constructing a Muslim Other. A theme song in a BBS pamphlet titled “Protect Buddhism, awaken a Dharmapala generation!” is akin to a Sinhala Buddhist “war cry” against an enemy Other. The invocation of Dharmapala within BBS propaganda indicates the continuing influence of Dharmapala’s nationalist thought on contemporary Buddhist nationalist movements (Gamage 2021, p. 135). The populist politics of these Buddhist nationalist groups go together with the kind of populist politics most closely associated with, in the recent past of Sri Lankan politics, the Rajapaksa regime. One example of the BBS enjoying impunity during the Rajapaksa regime followed the appearance of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as Chief Guest for the opening ceremony of Meth Sevana—The Buddhist Leadership Academy of the BBS (Gunasekara 2013). More pertinently, the Rajapaksa government did not take any substantial steps to address the issues of anti-Muslim (and other anti-minority) hate speech by these nationalist groups (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022a).

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The populism of the Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005–2015) and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa (2019–2022) regimes was mainly of the majoritarian, “nationalist” kind. There were elements to this nationalism that drew from the idea of a lost, past great Sinhala Buddhist civilization, of an agrarian society where minorities lived under the benevolence of a just Sinhalese king. Mahinda Rajapaksa successfully cultivated an image of being a “son of the soil” (as deemed by the “common man”). The President’s supporters carried a popular narrative of him being a reincarnation of the valorous second century BCE Sinhalese King Dutugemunu, after the state’s military triumph over Tamil separatists in May 2009 (Ismail 2009). Anti-elitism and Sinhala Buddhist nationalism were the two key pillars of Rajapaksa’s populist politics, and they defined the in-groups and out-groups—those who belonged and those who did not—within the post-war nation-state. During “victory” celebrations in May 2009, the former President famously declared there were no longer any minorities in Sri Lanka, only those who love the country and those who do not (Ismail 2009). Such discourse polarized public debate over political allegiance to the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime (conflated within its political propaganda as equivalent with “the nation”) based on the language of “patriots” and “traitors.” During the more recent Gotabhaya Rajapaksa regime, its politics involved anti-establishment and technocratic populism, embodied in civil society movements comprising professionals, such as Viyathmaga. The regime’s electoral mandate was for bringing about a more efficient and disciplined mode of governance, wherein decisions are based on expertise and technical competence, in the form of a “coalition between the military establishment as well as business and professional elite” (Dissanayake 2020, p. 9). This was offered as the solution to the inefficient nature of governance under the Yahapalana administration, which was in power from 2015 to 2019. The poor governance under this latter regime was accounted for its liberal democratic credentials, which were said to betray the interests of the majority and ordinary Sinhalese Buddhists. President Gotabhaya’s campaign also drew on the rural-centric Sinhala Buddhist nationalism more closely associated with his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, with a narrative of Gotabhaya also being a key part of the war “victory” (Dissanayake 2020, p. 30). His presidential campaign took off in the aftermath of the 2019 Easter Bombings by Islamist extremists. This campaign blamed the then-government for its lapses in national security and intelligence, in contrast to the Rajapaksa’s alleged capability on these

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fronts during the civil war (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022c, p. 9). This narrative resonated well with many people, and is said to have contributed in an important way to the landslide victory in 2019. Nationalist groups within civil society provided support for Rajapaksa’s campaign, foremost of which were groups such as Yuthukama (Dissanayake 2020, p. 31). In promising to restore the lost glory of the Sinhala civilizations through a modernist, developmental narrative of technocratic populism, many similarities emerged shared with Dharmapala’s civilizational populist discourse, examined in the previous section. The populism associated with the Rajapaksa regime and Buddhist nationalist movements such as the BBS share aspects of civilizational populism: First, since the end of the civil war, anti-Muslim sentiment within these political movements tapped into the broader Islamophobia following the 9/11 attacks and rise of international jihadism. The latter provided a ready framework and vocabulary of othering for Sinhala Buddhist nationalists that sought to attack Muslim minorities in Sri Lanka (Gamage 2021). This global Islamophobic dynamics was indicative of a broader civilizational populism mobilized in Europe against immigrant Muslims and closer to home in India, as part of the Hindutva characterization of its Muslim minorities as alien and other. Formerly, India and its significant Tamil population posed the main civilizational threat for the Sinhala Buddhists, a group which has been characterized as a minority with a majority mindset (Gunaratna 2018, p. 2). Since the 2000s, and especially in the post-war context, this new group became the center of nationalist othering. This was the Muslim minority, who was easily framed as a threat, due to the much larger global presence of this religious group and growing Islamophobia globally following the 9/11 attacks. This transnational element was perhaps most evident in the synergies between Sinhala Buddhist nationalist movements in Sri Lanka and Buddhist nationalist movements in Myanmar. In Myanmar, the 969 movement and the MaBaTha movement identified the Muslims as an existential threat to Buddhism, not just in Myanmar, but as part of a wider religious struggle between Buddhists and Muslims in Asia (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b, p. 17). In 2015, the monk leading the 969 movement, Ashin Wirathu, and the General Secretary of the BBS, Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, signed an agreement to respond to “the ground realities of subtle incursions taking place under the guise of secular, multicultural and other liberal notions that are

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directly impacting on the Buddhist ethos and space. These incursions are being funded from overseas and have made its impact globally and are subtly spreading into the local situations” (Colombo Telegraph 2014). Committing to forming a “Buddhist International,” this would involve among other things, that they “carry out researches [sic] on Buddhist philosophy and subsectors such as economic, social, educational, political derivatives of Buddhist civilization and culture” (Colombo Telegraph 2014). Since 2014, however, no new developments have occurred on this front. The importance or durability of transnational religious populism, as evidenced by this partnership, is therefore questionable to a certain extent. In Sri Lanka, the BBS’s anti-Muslim agenda manifests in different ways. Misinformation campaigns on various social media and mainstream media platforms by Buddhist nationalist groups, such as the BBS, have supported a climate of paranoia and social anxiety among non-Muslims. These campaigns invoke popular Islamophobic stereotypes to validate false and divisive propaganda of the Muslim Other resorting to underhand tactics to undermine the Sinhala majority, culturally, and economically (Jones 2015). This is seen in several conspiracy theories: from mosques having targeted socio-economic plans to support higher Muslim birth rates, to concealed sterilization chemicals in Muslim-owned eateries and cloth stores, and more recently, Muslim doctors accused of sterilizing Buddhist women (Jones 2015, p. 90). This latter incident occurred following an increased climate of paranoia in the aftermath of the April 2019 Easter bombings (De Silva 2022). Under the Gotabhaya Rajapaksa government, Islamophobia was further played up—whether through seeking the imposition of a permanent burqa ban following the Easter bombings or banning the burial of bodies in accordance with Islamic rites during the first year of the pandemic (Al Jazeera 2021). The latter claim did not have the backing of international scientific evidence, but was only lifted in February 2021 when the government faced increasing international pressure for accountability on human rights violations. The arrest and detention of human rights-defender and lawyer Hejaaz Hizbullah for 22 months under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and of poet Ahnaf Jazeem for 2 years, are all considered to be driven by similar impulses. Hizbullah was and is a vocal advocate against discrimination and violence against religious and ethnic minorities in Sri Lanka, and his arrest in April 2020, citing links to

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the Easter Sunday attacks, was widely considered to be politically motivated, as no conclusive evidence against him was later found (Frontline Defenders 2022). Likewise, Afnaf Jazeem was arrested in May 2020, and detained for 18 months under the PTA on grounds that Navarasam, a book of his poetry, promoted extremism and was linked to the Easter Sunday bombings (Haran and Perera 2021). Second, the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist movements tapped into a discourse of civilizational heritage and destiny. The “framing of this process as continuous with the political traditions of pre-colonial Sinhalese civilization” has been argued to feature structurally in the national constitution and concentration of power within the center and executive office (Dissanayake 2020, p. 30). This has provided the pretext for the establishment of the civilization state in place of the Western nation-state in Sri Lanka (Welikala 2020), and for populist discourse to define who the “original” inhabitants of the land (the Sinhala Buddhists) are and who the “outsiders” are (minority communities and those whose values are aligned with Western culture) (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022c, pp. 7–8). The desire to ensure the protection of the Sinhala people and Buddhism constitutionally is tied very strongly to material struggles over land and resources. The attack of Buddhist nationalists on the liberalization and “opening up” of the national economy since the 1980s is indicative of this. In BBS discourse, it portrays itself as at the brunt of a strategic campaign undertaken by opportunistic and traitorous politicians in collaboration with capitalist interests that seek to undermine its mission by labeling it as “racist” and “fundamentalist” (BBS 2019, p. 5). It describes the “law” in Sri Lanka and its claims to equality, as a fundamental part of democracy, ending up discriminating the Sinhala Buddhist majority. This is followed by the promise to fight for justice on behalf of the Sinhala Buddhist—a justice that the “democratic” state institutions are unable or unwilling to deliver, as they are held hostage to minority and/or foreign interests within the global capitalist system and religious communities, which form a “majority” worldwide (BBS 2019, p. 5). During colonial rule in Ceylon, the anti-Muslim riots in 1915 have partly attributed to the Sinhalese business classes deflecting blame for the poverty and exploitation of the majority rural poor, onto an “easy” scapegoat of the Muslim Other, who is accused of acquiring “unjust” wealth by allegedly exploiting the isolated and vulnerable Sinhalese villager (Jones 2015, p. 116). The Muslim Moors provided an easy target in Sinhalaspeaking areas, as they were a more visible and scattered minority than the

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Catholics and Tamils and were undergoing a religious revivalism around this period too (Rogers 1987, p. 592). They were also typically engaged in trade and were accused within Revivalist discourse of artificially inflating the prices of goods and imposing exorbitant credit rates, to dispossess vulnerable Sinhala peasantry who were unable to honor the debts of their land (Chandrasena 2016, p. 179). Similar dynamics could be attributed to more recent mob attacks and the boycotting of Muslim homes and businesses, as well as the increased intolerance of the visible markers of religious identity (Slater and Farisz 2019). These dynamics are reminiscent of the 1915 anti-Muslim riots, when communal divisions were used by the nationalist elite as a deliberate scapegoat to avoid the critical need for economic reforms, which included land reform (Meyer 1991, p. 50). Several Buddhist nationalist groups also contested ownership of land and minority religious sites in the newly opened North and East after the war (Seoighe 2016, p. 460). These groups claimed historical ownership over “sacred land,” based on the argument that precolonial Sinhalese kings had gifted large amounts of land to the Buddhist sangha (monastic order) (Jones 2015, pp. 43–44). In the post-war context, the military continues to land in former conflict and non-conflict areas (Sri Lanka Campaign 2022). In response to criticisms of such actions as state-backed colonization, Sinhala nationalist groups claim that they have the “right” to live in any part of the country, and that it is the majority Sinhala Buddhist community that is being discriminated, as the international community does not speak on behalf of their rights being violated by the undue place given to “minority rights” (Amarasuriya 2015, p. 52). This preoccupation with land among contemporary Buddhist nationalists has been attributed partly to the paranoia of Muslim “no-go” zones in the West (Jones 2015, p. 41). Through such campaigns, minority religions and ethnic groups were portrayed as foreign, while reinforcing the Rajapaksa regime’s exclusionary nationalist populism. Importantly, key elements of the populism of the Gotabhaya Rajapaksa administration have supported this call for a rule of law that does not “favor” ethnic and religious minorities, and pandered to the economic nationalism that was advocated by nationalist movements (though not limited to just them), such as the BBS. In October 2021, President Gotabhaya appointed the BBS General Secretary to chair a 13-member national task force titled “One Country, One Law.” The grouping was tasked with coming up with proposals for implementing “one law” applicable for all Sri Lankans and abolishing other religious and regional laws

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that do not come under the purview of a common national law (The Times of India 2021). The material implications of the regime’s majoritarian nationalism coupled with inward-looking economic nationalism, from tax cuts to anti-IMF rhetoric, are important, as they were among the structural conditions which led to the dire economic crisis that the country is undergoing at present. Finally, it has been observed that religious populism draws on the idea of a distinct civilizational past, not only when it comes to consolidating power domestically, but also in foreign policy (Yilmaz and Morieson 2022b, p. 7). In Sri Lanka, international politics surrounding the civil war have led many nationalist governments and groups to define themselves in antagonism to the foreign other, often on civilizational grounds. In the context of the current economic and political crisis as well, antiWestern discourse is observed to justify the increasing authoritarianism and mismanagement in governance that have led to the crisis, and which are being used to manage the current crisis (The Island 2022). However, there are limits to this influence as well. For example, in 2017, when a group of Buddhist monks led a mob attack against Rohingya refugees that were sheltered in a Colombo suburb, the government condemned the attack. A Buddhist monk was remanded, along with several others involved in the attack, and charged with creating communal disharmony and damaging property (Reuters 2017).

Conclusions In this chapter, I examined the evolution of Buddhist civilizational populism in modern Sri Lankan politics and society. I did this by studying the emergence of Buddhist civilizational populism in British Ceylon, and its impact on contemporary forms of Buddhist civilizational populism deployed by nationalist groups and political parties, the Rajapaksa regimes (2005–2015 and more recently 2019–2022) being the most closely associated with its politics of late. Historically grounding contemporary civilizational populism in this manner allowed me to examine why its politics continues to have relevance over time in Sri Lanka. Among the key arguments I made was that the idea of a superior Aryan Buddhist civilization was deployed within anti-colonial Buddhist nationalist discourse during British colonial rule in Ceylon. This was used to denigrate not just the Western, Christian imperial power, but also the local Dravidian Tamil and the Moor minority communities. This reference to

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a superior civilization is observed in more recent populist and nationalist politics, found among Buddhist nationalist movements and the Rajapaksa regimes that have been in power since 2005. A detailed elucidation of these politics was carried out in this paper. In addition, I discussed the prevailing social science debates on populism, and more specifically, civilizational populism. I discussed the importance of examining civilizational populism in non-Western, Global South countries such as Sri Lanka. I argued that the presence of civilizational populism in politics around the world reveals the global nature of these social struggles. I further argued that this type of populism in the Global South is distinct to its expression in more advanced Western democracies, because it is informed by historical struggles against the exploitation and centralization of resources within the elite and colonial metropole, in the colonies’ experience of colonialism and capitalism. For example, in the Sri Lankan context, anti-colonial civilizational populism promised to improve local people’s material conditions, with the state playing a foremost role in achieving this social equality and egalitarianism, as opposed to the violence and hierarchy under colonial rule. As a result, this civilizational populism was not only infused with Buddhist majoritarianism (in rejection of the Christian other) but was also very much aligned with left-wing and social democratic sentiments. In 2022, mass protests, comprising Sri Lankans from different ethnic and religious groups, although largely limited to participation in the country’s (Sinhala-majority) South, erupted in response to the nation’s ongoing and debilitating economic crisis. These protestors rejected not only the poor policy decisions made by the Gotabhaya Rajapaksa government, which directly led to the current crisis (such as its fertilizer policy and tax cuts), but also, to some extent, the political elite’s embrace of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka since its independence. The potential for civilizational populism being used by some political movements may therefore be reduced to some extent. Nevertheless, as the economic crisis evolves and the government is forced to pursue economic reforms that impact not just the working classes but a significant proportion of the middle class as well, the prospect for divisive nationalist politics as a means to retain or gain power remains. The politics of civilizational populism in the context of present conditions of global economic crisis and its specific impact on countries in the Global South, several of which have been the focus of individual chapters in this edited volume, therefore warrant close attention going forward.

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CHAPTER 10

Israel: Jewish Civilizational Populism Raja M. Ali Saleem

Introduction This chapter focuses on Jewish civilizationalism in the state of Israel. The previous chapters have explained the civilizational rhetoric emerging in several democratic societies across different continents. This global phenomenon, called civilizationalism, is defined as a form of discourse that uses a religio-civilizational classification of peoples to define national identity. While the focus of nationalism—as in other cases—is territorial, the civilizational rhetoric is not. The rhetoric prioritizes defending or saving a civilization, based on religion, not a state. The state is considered a single manifestation of civilization that spans many territories and millennia.

This chapter is a revised version of previously published Open Access material in the following article: Saleem, Raja M. Ali. 2023. “Jewish Civilizationism in Israel: A Unique Phenomenon” Religions 14, no. 2: 268. https://doi.org/10. 3390/rel14020268. R. M. A. Saleem (B) Independent Researcher, Islamabad, Pakistan

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_10

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Three aspects distinguish Israel from most other countries discussed in this book. First, in numerous countries, such as the United States, Turkey, India, and Poland, civilizationism, linked with religion, was until a few decades ago a fringe phenomenon (Saleem 2023). Scholars link it primarily to the twenty-first century. It might be the case for other countries but, as this chapter will show, for Israel civilizationalism is as old as the Israeli state, if not older. Israeli nationalism or Zionism is based on Jewish civilizationalism. From the First Zionist Congress in 1897 to the Nation-State Law passed in 2018, Jewish civilizationalism has monopolized Israeli nationalism and defeated attempts by many Israeli scholars and leaders to make Israel a state honoring the histories and lives of all its citizens equally. Second, in the previous chapters, civilizationalism is closely associated with right-wing nationalism and populism. It is the right-wing parties and movements that have raised the flag of civilizationalism, and they are its key torchbearers. Whether it is the Republican Party in the United States, the Justice and Development Party in Turkey, or the Bharatiya Janata Party in India, the right-wing conservatives spread the religiocivilizational rhetoric and are most impressed by it. This is not the case in Israel. It was the socialist, broadly secular leftwingers that raised the flag of Jewish civilizationalism and created the state of Israel. Even after the creation of Israel, the broadly left-wing parties ruled Israel for thirty years and kept Jewish civilizationalism alive. Finally, when one studies other country cases, one observes an affinity between civilizationalism and populism. Civilizational rhetoric is primarily the mainstay of populist leaders. Civilizationalism has played a key role in making such leaders win elections and dominate the political arena. Erdogan and Modi, two populist leaders, have used civilizationalism to completely change the politics of their countries. Now, even the opposition parties in Turkey and India have to resort to civilizational rhetoric to prove their authenticity. Populist leaders instrumentalize religion and religious identity to create a sense of fear that the national culture and identity are civilizational, and it is under attack by people from foreign civilizations living not only outside the state but also inside the state. In Israel, this exclusive affinity between populism and civilizationalism breaks down. As Jewish civilizationalism is not limited to leftwing or rightwing, similarly, it is not limited to populist or mainstream politics. Jewish civilizationalism is Israeli nationalism, as propagated by the state,

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and rejecting it means rejecting the basis of the state. Therefore, no political party can succeed in Israel without bowing to this altar. Israel is comparatively a new state but calls itself one of the oldest, if not the oldest of nations. Israel came into being in 1948. Although most of the Jewish people lived outside Palestine, they were always part of the myriad of people living in Jerusalem and Palestine. They were, however, never a majority or ruled Palestine since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Romans, Byzantine, and Persian ruled one after the other before Muslims conquered the area in the seventh century. After a brief interlude of Crusaders’ rule, Muslims ruled this area until the First World War. Sultan Selim defeated the Mamluk Sultan in the sixteenth century to make Egypt, Hejaz, and Palestine part of the Ottoman Empire. The rule ended in 1920, during the First World War when British forces conquered the Levant. The League of Nations granted Britain the mandate to rule Palestine. The Mandate period is a period of increasing tussle, and at times violent bloody clashes, between the local Arab Muslim Palestinians and mostly immigrant European Jews. The UN Partition Plan of 1948 was considered unjust by the majority Arab population and neighboring Arab states and the first of the three wars between the newly created Jewish state and the neighboring Arab states started in 1948. Israel was successful as it was in the next two Arab–Israeli wars fought in 1967 and 1973. Thousands of Palestinians were expelled by Israel, creating the worldwide problem of Palestinian refugees, a fact denied by Israeli politicians (Hirsch 2007). The Oslo Agreements of the early 1990s envisaged a two-state solution and started the gradual acceptance of Israel in the neighborhood. However, the increasing number of Jewish settlements and their support by Israeli governments made the two-state solution impossible to implement (Muasher 2022).

Zionism During the late nineteenth century, the Zionist movement, after debating the efficacy of other places, including Uganda and Argentina, began promoting the migration of European Jews to Palestine. Although most of the pioneer Zionist leaders were secular (as discussed below) and the movement was predominantly secular, its origin and basis were religious. Judaism, its history, culture, and civilization were what provided the vital and decisive link of Zionist European Jews with Palestine. The word Zion

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itself is of Biblical origins and means Jerusalem or the land of Israel. The following passage in the Bible informs about the capture of Jerusalem by King David: The king and his men marched to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites, who lived there. The Jebusites said to David, “You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off.” They thought, “David cannot get in here.” 7 Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion—which is the City of David. (2 Samuel 5)

Zionism was a movement to save Jewish people and Jewish civilization, irrespective of where they lived. Judaism was the basis of defining the specific group of people that needed to be saved and Jerusalem, or the ancestral holy land of Palestine-Israel, was the place to build this old-new nation because Judaism and the Bible predicted that it was the destiny of the Jewish people. “Exile” would remain exile unless Jewish people were settled in Eretz Israel. The following passage details the association of the secular Zionist movement with Judaism: Zionism as a political movement was preceded by various developments in the post-Enlightenment period. The term itself only appeared in the 1890s, but the importance of Zion in the life and thought of the Jewish nation was present throughout its history. The blessing ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ was part of the Passover ritual, and when praying in the synagogue Jews faced towards the east. In the history of the nation, the appearances of numerous messianic figures, including Shabbatai Zevi in the seventeenth century, were connected with the aspiration to return from exile. Numerous small Jewish settlements existed in the Holy Land throughout the centuries, and individual migration was a constant feature of Jewish life. (Cohn-Sherbok 2012, 2)

Jewish Civilizationism of Israel’s “secular” independence leaders Israel’s founding fathers were almost all non-practicing Jews. Some of them did not even believe in the Bible or God. What was important for them was Jewish people and their culture and civilization. Theodor Herzl is considered the father of Zionism and a founding father of Israel. A secular, assimilated European Jew, Theodor was not religious

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and remained secular all his life. Born in Vienna, he gradually rose in importance as a playwright and journalist. Jewish question was of little interest to him in his early years and his success as an assimilated Jew allowed him to overlook the need for a Jewish state. His only son Hans was given a secular upbringing and Herzl notably refused to allow him to be circumcized. However, several events close to the 1890s made him think about the horrors of European anti-Semitism. It must be understood that he was not interested in Zionism because of religious reasons. It was his second-best solution to the age-old (European) Jewish question. The first was always the equality of European Jews in their own states and societies. He wanted his fellow Europeans to discard anti-Semitism so that Jewish people, like him, could live peaceful, successful lives but after years of observing the European societies, he realized, it was not to be. We have sincerely tried everywhere to merge with the national communities in which we live, seeking only to preserve the faith of our fathers. It is not permitted us. In vain are we loyal patriots, sometimes super loyal; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow citizens; in vain do we strive to enhance the fame of our native lands in the arts and sciences, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In our native lands where we have lived for centuries we are still decried as aliens… The majority decide who the ‘alien’ is; this, and all else in the relations between peoples, is a matter of power. (Hertzberg 1959, p. 209)

Unlike religious Jews, Herzl did not have the option and patience to wait for the Messiah to come and release Jewish people from bondage as Moses did thousands of years ago. So, Herzl decided to come up with a solution, i.e., creating a state for Jews. However, although based on Jewish civilizationalism, Herzl’s vision was a modern socialist utopia, with public ownership of the majority of land and natural resources and agricultural cooperatives. He recognized that Palestinians already live in Israel and, therefore, dreamed of a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and pluralist state, with Arabs as part of the leadership. Judaism was supposed to play a minor role in this state, which was to be a model for other states. Herzl was against establishing a theocracy and priests were to be confined in their temples in this model state:

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Theocracy Shall we end by having a theocracy? No, indeed. Faith unites us, knowledge gives us freedom. We shall therefore prevent any theocratic tendencies from coming to the fore on the part of our priesthood. We shall keep our priests within the confines of their temples in the same way as we shall keep our professional army within the confines of their barracks. Army and priesthood shall receive honors high as their valuable functions deserve. But they must not interfere in the administration of the State which confers distinction upon them, else they will conjure up difficulties without and within.” (Herzl 1946, 147).

However, Herzl knew his non-theocratic, socialist Zionist project was “something colonial.” Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, wrote to Cecil Rhodes, a contemporary who was the most well-known proponent of colonialism in the world, seeking his stamp of approval on the Zionist plan for Palestine. In his letter, which appears in his diary, Herzl wrote that the request might be unusual for Rhodes because it “doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia minor, not Englishmen, but Jews.” Yet he wanted Rhodes’s support because “it was something colonial,” and “it presupposes an understanding of a development which will take twenty or thirty years…. And what I want you to do is not to give me or lend me a few guineas, but to put the stamp of your authority on the Zionist plan…. What is the plan? To settle Pales- tine with the homecoming of the Jewish people.” (Munayyer 2023, pp. 69–70).

Most of the other founding fathers of Israel also had a deep respect for Jewish culture and civilization and understood there could be no Israel without Jewish civilizationalism but, at a personal level, they were not only not religious but also disliked the religious orthodoxy of Jewish religious elite. Asher Ginsberg (Ahad Ha’am), considered the father of cultural Zionism, was a secular Jew. Although proud of the spiritual heritage of Judaism, he was critical of Orthodox Jews. Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel, was a world-renowned biochemist. He had orthodox schooling but later became secular and developed a strong dislike for orthodox Jewry because of their inaction. An ardent Zionist and scientist, he was deeply concerned about the lack of technological and scientific advancement and, in 1918, had bitter debates with the Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazi community to change the curriculum of religious schools. Chief Rabbi was, of course, outraged that a man

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who cared nothing for the Torah and traditions of Judaism would try to dictate to him about what should be taught in religious schools. Similarly, David Ben Gurion, the first and until recently the longest serving Prime Minister of Israel, belonged to a relatively assimilated Polish family. His father was not an observant Jew, supported Zionism, and had stopped wearing a long Jewish coat and adopted a short European jacket. David Ben Gurion did not like ultra-orthodox and contested the religious worldview that rejected anything secular. Despite being a leader of Zionists and a believer in Jewish civilizationalism, he went to a synagogue only a few times after he came to Palestine as a young man during the First World War. But perhaps nothing epitomizes early Zionist leaders’ relationship with Judaism than Prime Minister Golda Meir’s following quote: It is not only a matter, I believe, of religious observance and practice. To me, being Jewish means and has always meant being proud to be part of a people that has maintained its distinct identity for more than 2,000 years, with all the pain and torment that has been inflicted upon it. (Meir 1976, 386)

For Meir and many other Zionists, it was never about religion but about people, and their 2000 years old culture and civilization. Gold Meir also, when asked about her belief in God, famously said, “I believe in the Jewish people, and the Jewish people believe in God” (Carner 2015).

Declaration of Independence (1948) If civilizationalism is a form of discourse or rhetoric that uses a religiocivilizational classification of peoples in order to define national identity, then Israeli leaders have always used civilizationalism. The Israeli identity as promoted by the Israeli state has always been deeply informed by the Jewish identity. Let’s analyze the Israeli declaration of independence. The relationship between the people signing the most important document in Israel’s history and the land where they are establishing a new state is based on religion, religious history, religious books, and religious civilization. The references to the Jewish religion can be found all over the document. The word “Jews” has been mentioned 5 times while the word “Jewish” has been mentioned nineteen times in the one-page declaration. Israel is used twenty-seven times and the combination “Eretz-Israel” twelve times.

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Both these words have religious significance and come directly from the Bible (Knesset 2023a). Eretz Yisrael or Eretz Israel was mentioned for the first time in 1 Samuel 13:19 to refer to the land promised to the Jewish people: Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole Eretz-Yisrael because the Philistines had said, “Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears!”

Later, it is used many times again in the Bible, although the exact boundaries of the land are not clear. Similarly, the word Israel has biblical significance. In the Book of Genesis, Jewish Patriarch Jacob wrestled with a man until daybreak without being overpowered and was then blessed and given the name “Israel,” which means “one who wrestles/struggles with God.” This name was then used to denote Jacob’s progeny, specifically descendants of his twelve sons (the Twelve Tribes of Israel) and more broadly, the Jewish people. The very start of the declaration informs that the declaration was signed in Eretz-Israel and it is capitalized to point out its significance. The first paragraph also refers to the land as the birthplace of Jewish people, where they attained statehood, and created the Jewish civilization (cultural values of national and international significance). It also refers to the Bible as the eternal Book of Books that the Jewish people gave to the world. The declaration then refers to one of the most important events in Jewish history, the exile from Eretz-Israel, and how the people remained hopeful of returning to “their” land. This is a clear exposition of civilizationalism as people living in Ethiopia, Morocco, Poland, France, India, Palestine, Iran, Spain, etc., are all linked to the Eretz-Israel because they belonged to one religion. Although, one could argue that Jewish ethnicity is also common among all these people but the whole impression of the declaration is religious. Next, one observes a reference to the Jewish calendar, a calendar used by the Jewish people to mark religious events and holidays. Led by a secular Jew, most of the signatories of the declaration were secular European Jews, who had spent their lives according to the solar Gregorian calendar, but they decide to give precedence to the Jewish calendar thrice in this declaration. First, it is used to indicate the year of the First Zionist Congress. The Gregorian calendar year is also given but it is in parenthesis. Later, the ending date of the League of Nations’ mandate is given

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as “the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948).” Again, the Gregorian calendar date is given a secondary position. Finally, in the end, the signing date of the declaration is given as “ON THIS SABBATH EVE, THE 5TH DAY OF IYAR, 5708 (14TH MAY, 1948),” (capitalization in the original). The Sabbath is mentioned twice most likely to give further religious significance to the event. Jewish civilizationalism clearly permeates the whole document. The reference to the First Zionist Congress again justifies the struggle for the state of Israel as the “national rebirth” of Jewish people in their “own country.” The “historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home” is again referred to in connection with the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the League of Nations mandate. Then, in capitalized words, the state of Israel is declared established by the people gathered in the room again referring to the “BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT.” If the religious or Biblical idea of “promised land” is rejected or considered unimportant, all these above references cannot be understood. They only make sense because all of us know that although most of these European people, whose ancestors have lived in Europe for generations, have no direct connection with Palestine, they do have a historic religious connection. The end of the declaration is again replete with religious references. Israel seems more like a reimagination and recreation of the ancient Jewish kingdoms, instead of a modern state. Jewish immigration to the new state becomes significant action and Jewish people are not referred to as an ethnic community but as “Exiles,” a religious reference. Next, the universal values of freedom, justice, and peace are mentioned as the foundational values of the new Israeli state but the declaration makes clear that these values are envisaged in a specific religious way, “as envisaged by the prophets of Israel.” The final paragraph mentions “PLACING OUR TRUST IN THE ROCK OF ISRAEL” (capitalization in the original). The “rock of Israel” has again Biblical antecedents. In Psalm 19:15, God is referred to as people’s rock and redeemer: Let the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart find favor in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

This reference to the “rock of Israel” was a compromise between Orthodox who wanted to invoke the name of God and secular Jews, who

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opposed any mention of God. In the end, God could not be left out (Strum 1995).

The State Symbols After the creation of the state, Israel’s leaders had to choose symbols for the new state. Flag and anthem are particularly very important as the state is regularly identified by them. The colors, patterns, and pictures on the flag are chosen based on what is important for the state and its elites. As the Israeli state was created based on Jewish civilizationalism, symbols that are linked with Jewish civilization were chosen by the Israeli elite. Israel’s flag has many religious connotations. It has a blue Star of David in the middle and two horizontal blue stripes that are inspired by similar stripes on a tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl (Sapir and Statman 2015). The Star or Shield of David (Magen David) was not a uniquely Jewish symbol earlier but gradually became popular in many Jewish communities in the Middle Ages. It was associated with the Zionist movement from its inception. The Star became further associated with Judaism when Nazi Germany ordered that all Jews wear a yellow star as a badge or on an armband. The colors blue and white have also been associated with Jews since the late nineteenth century. The blue and white stripes which symbolize a life of purity, guided by the precepts of the Torah, and the Star of David, which symbolizes rebirth and new life for the Jewish people, tie the State of Israel, through its flag, to the past, present, and future. This is evidently why the Zionist flag prevailed over the political considerations that had prompted the leaders of the new state to propose substitutes for it (Gilad 2016). The Israeli anthem, Hatikvah (the hope), is from a nine-stanza Hebrew poem by a Zionist poet, Naftali Hertz Imber (1856–1909). It has many religious connotations. It gives voice to Jewish hopes that one day they will return to Zion, Jerusalem. The original poem mentions many symbols of Jewish civilization. It not only refers to Zion but also to the Jewish Temple, the (Western) Wall, (King) David, and the two thousand years of Jewish exile. It has also been linked to the Passover prayer, “next year in Jerusalem.” Associated with the Zionist movement from the start, it was sung at the First Zionist Congress in 1897 (Marx 2016; Aronson 2008,

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21). The translation of the two-stanza Hatikvah (truncated poem) that was adopted as the Israeli anthem in 2004 is as follows: As long as in the heart within, The Jewish soul yearns, And toward the eastern edges, onward, An eye gazes toward Zion.

Our hope is not yet lost, The hope that is two thousand years old, To be a free nation in our land, The Land of Zion, Jerusalem. (Marx 2016)

The state emblem of Israel is also religious and depicts a seven-lamp menorah surrounded on both sides by olive branches. The menorah is one of the oldest Jewish religious symbols. According to Bible, it was God that revealed to Moses the design for the menorah, which was then placed in the First Temple. The menorah represents the return of Jews to Jerusalem and the glory of Judaism in Jerusalem (Mishory 2018). The choice of these state symbols demonstrates beyond doubt, the importance of Judaism and the affiliated Jewish culture and civilization to the state of Israel. For Israel, religio-civilizationalism is not something new. It was the basis of Israel’s foundation in Palestine, and it is still important to it as it is criticized by many as a settler-colonialist state, established in the Middle East by Europeans.

Revival of Ancient Hebrew Hebrew is a three thousand years old language. It is part of a group of Semitic languages, which are a branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages family. Hebrew has been read or spoken since the fourteenth century BC and was the language of the ancient Jewish people in Palestine. However, by the nineteenth century, it was a dead language as it was no longer used by ordinary people for close to two thousand years. It was only used by the Rabbis in temples and synagogues. Now, it is the national language of Israel and is spoken by almost 9 million people. Its miraculous revival as a modern living language is a testament to Israel’s deep love and attachment to Jewish civilization.

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In the late nineteenth century, when a slow process of Jewish immigration to Palestine started, Jews spoke a variety of languages. Yiddish, a West Germanic language, was the language mostly spoken by Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern and Central Europe and was very common; most of the early Zionists were from this group. Therefore, many, including Herzl, thought German or Yiddish language should be the language of the future Jewish state. Many local Jewish communities and those who emigrated from the Middle East, Mizrahi Jews, however, spoke Arabic. There was no lingua franca in which everyone could communicate with everyone, although when Jews of different groups needed to talk to each other, some of them did use Hebrew with a Sephardic pronunciation but it had a very limited vocabulary (Kaufman 2005). At this point, one man, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, made the revival of Hebrew, the ancient language of Jews and Judaism, his life mission. He created hundreds of new Hebrew words, compiled the first modern Hebrew dictionary, and edited the first Hebrew-language newspaper. Later, the Zionist movement adopted Hebrew as the future national language of the Jewish state, and after independence, the state of Israel did everything to make millions of refugees coming from all parts of the world well conversant in Hebrew (Mann 2021; Rabin 1983). After independence, the imposition of Hebrew by PM Ben-Gurion was comparatively easy due to the usage of state patronage and power and because of the progress made in the previous seventy years: Ben-Gurion held several cards in his hand: an efficient Hebrew language school system with highly motivated teachers deeply dedicated to the new language, backed up by Hebrew-speaking youth movements; two to three years of compulsory service in the Israeli armed forces for men and many women; and the continued suppression of any public role for Yiddish (Hebrew’s only plausible rival) and total denial to it of educational or cultural resources. Finally, to buy the new nation’s cooperation and gratitude, Ben- Gurion employed a well-organized political patronage system that offered the immigrant masses party-sponsored employment, housing, health care, and free and compulsory education. (Glinert 2017, 213)

In short, both Yiddish and Arabic were more eligible than Hebrew to become the national language of the imagined Zionist state in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Hebrew was the mother tongue of not even a few hundred Jews. It was no longer spoken by any Jewish

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community existing in the world. But the Zionist movement and the state of Israel chose this language because it was the language most associated with Judaism and Jewish civilization.

First Debate in the Knesset (1949) Jewish civilizationalism is again evident when one analyzes the first significant debate in the new Knesset on April 4, 1949. The issue could not have been more important as it concerned the foundation of the new state. The question to be decided was the approval of the armistice agreement with Jordan, thereby ending the fighting and formally accepting Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank. But the debate was on an even bigger issue, i.e., was there going to be a Greater Israel, close to the Biblical version of “promised land,” or a smaller one based on what is possible? There was a lot of criticism as most members wanted a Biblical Israel. However, Ben Gurion made a historic speech and won the day. The speech is important as it shows that while negating members’ demand for a Greater Biblical Israel, Ben-Gurion never denied the legitimacy of their demands. He never questioned Israel’s right on the West Bank or the basis of Israel’s right on the West Bank, which certainly had only one basis, religious or Biblical. He only mentions practical difficulties that did not allow the nascent Israeli state from claiming its birthright. Let’s analyze the speech in detail. A Jewish state, or shleimut haaretz [the integrity of the biblical Greater Israel]? Well, a Jewish state … over the entire country can only be a dictatorship of the minority. A Jewish state, even just in western Palestine [i.e., not including Transjordan], cannot possibly be a democratic state because the number of Arabs in western Palestine is larger than the number of Jews. We want a Jewish state, even if not in the whole country. Who is “we”? The Zionist Movement, a large majority of the Yishuv and a large majority of the pioneers and the fighters and the soldiers and those who died fighting for it … And so, when the question before us was Greater Israel without a Jewish state or a Jewish state without Greater Israel—we chose a Jewish state without Greater Israel … We did [initially] demand a Jewish state over the whole country. And it would have been possible had the Mandatory Power [Great Britain] fulfilled its duty and enabled the immigration of a million Jews over two years … But now, we do not want to launch further war against the Arabs. I want one thing to be clear. We believe that the creation of the state, albeit less than Greater

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Israel, was the greatest act in Jewish history since ancient times … The criterion by which to judge these armistice agreements is whether they are better than no agreements, not whether they are better than a miracle. If a miracle happens and the Messiah comes, there will be peace in the world and all will be good. But it is our task to save the Jewish people by natural means, until the supernatural miracle happens. And judged by natural means, these armistice agreements have advanced our prospects. They have strengthened our international standing. They have enhanced our ability to bring in immigrants. They have enhanced the possibility of eventual peace and friendship with the Arabs.” (Peres and Landau 2011, pp. 233–235)

Ben-Gurion linked the state of Israel to Jewish civilizationalism by arguing that the Jewish leaders “did demand a Jewish state over the whole country” and that there would have been a Biblical (Greater) Israel, encompassing the whole country, if Great Britain had helped them. Then, he praised the creation of Israel, a Jewish state, as “the greatest act in Jewish history since ancient times” as if Israel was a continuation of what happened thousands of years ago. He was appropriating Judaism, Jewish history, and civilization to support the Israeli state and Israeli nationalism. Next, he brought two religious’ concepts, “miracles” and “Messiah,” to again use Judaism to justify the actions of the state. What he was contending was that all wishes of Jewish people, including that of Biblical Israel could only be fulfilled when Messiah arrives, as promised in the Bible, and there are miracles.

The Law of Return (1950) and Nationality Law (1952) Citizenship laws are usually based on blood (jus sanguinis, i.e., one or both parents of the person are citizens of the state) or on birth (jus soli, i.e., being born in the state, birthright citizenship). The Israeli Law of Return, passed in 1950 and amended twice in 1955 and 1970, is a very peculiar law. It grants Jewish people automatic citizenship in Israel. No other nation in the world has a law that grants citizenship on arrival to adherents of a particular religion born anywhere in the world. While Jewish people have a right to citizenship, Palestinians living in Israel for generations have limited rights to citizenship (Blecher 2005).

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This is linked to Israel’s establishment and identification as an explicitly Jewish state and Jewish civilizationism: Israel’s establishment as an explicitly Jewish state is a primary point of contention, with many of the state’s critics arguing that this by nature casts non-Jews as second-class citizens with fewer rights. The 1950 Law of Return, for example, grants all Jews, as well as their children, grandchildren, and spouses, the right to move to Israel and automatically gain citizenship. Non-Jews do not have these rights. Palestinians and their descendants have no legal right to return to the lands their families held before being displaced in 1948 or 1967 (Robinson 2023).

The law uses the religio-civilizational classification of Jewish people to define Israeli national identity. In the law, the word used for an immigrant to Israel is “Oleh.” The word for immigration to Israel is Aliyah, which is a Hebrew word and means “ascent” or “going up.” According to the Jewish tradition, a journey or pilgrimage to Eretz-Israel would result in the elevation of one’s spirituality so the choice of the word Aliyah and Oleh, one who does Aliyah. Israel’s founding father and first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion made clear, if it was not clear to anyone already, that Aliyah was based on Jewish religion, the Bible, and Jewish civilizationalism. While passing the Law of Return, he said: This law does not provide for the State to bestow the right to settle upon the Jew living abroad; it affirms that this right is inherent in him from the very fact of being a Jew; the State does not grant the right of return to the Jews of the diaspora. This right preceded (sic) the State; this right built (sic) the State; its source is to be found in the historic and never broken connection between the Jewish people and the homeland. (Edelman 1998)

The Nationality Law, passed in 1952, further strengthened the monopoly of Jewish people over Israeli citizenship. While forcibly expelled thousands of local Palestinians, who had lived in Palestine for generations, were denied citizenship, anyone belonging to Judaism was granted citizenship of Israel as a birthright, to be claimed whenever they liked. In 1970, automatic citizenship was extended from Jews to their non-Jewish children, grandchildren, and their spouses (Acco 2020). It can be argued based on the above discussion that these laws were based on Jewish civilizationalism which preceded the state, and created

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the state. Even an atheist Jew, who does not believe in God or the Bible, can come to Israel and will be immediately given Israeli citizenship.

Israeli State’s Denial of the Existence of an Israeli Nation The denial of a distinct Israeli nation comes not from the “usual suspects,” i.e., Palestinians, Arabs, or liberal critics of Israel, but by the Israeli state. In two seminal decisions, Tamarin v. State of Israel (CA 630/70 in 1972) and Ornan v. Ministry of the Interior (CA 8573/08 in 2013), forty years apart, the Israeli Supreme Court instead of defending Israeli nationhood, categorically rejected the existence of an Israeli nation. Furthermore, in both these cases, the court was not alone in denying Israeli nationality. The Israeli governments pleaded before the court to deny the existence of an Israeli nation and nationality and the court agreed with them. The court decisions clarified that there was an Israeli citizenship but no Israeli nation as accepting an Israeli nation would mean denying the foundations of Israel (Goldenberg 2013; The Nabka Files 2023). Simon Agranat, President of the Israeli Supreme Court, questioned the existence of a separate Israeli nation in the Tamarin case and argued that it might be a “subjective feeling” of the appellants that such a nation exists but based on objective criteria one could not prove its existence: President Agranat proceeded to examine the question of the nature of nation and nationality, relying on the conclusion of (then) Justice J. Sussman in the First Shalit Case, according to which “an array of objective and subjective factors, taken together, raise a group of people to the status of national group” (p. 514): the feeling of unity that exists amongst the members of the national group, mutual reliance and collective responsibility, as well as ethnic values and cultural heritage that characterize the national group and differentiate it from other national groupings. In applying the said criteria to the Israeli case, President Agranat found that “there is no merit to the claim of the appellant – not even prima facie – that there has been a separation from the Jewish nation in Israel, and the creation of a separate Israeli nation.” (Supreme Court of Israel 2013)

This denial of Israeli nation and the existence of a Jewish nation, which has the right to rule Israel, even when part of it do not even live in Israel is difficult to defend except based on Jewish civilizationism. In fact, it can be argued that these decisions are the basis of Nation-State Basic Law

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which asserts that “the State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People,” not of Israelis.

Nation-State Basic Law A recent boost to Jewish civilizationism came with the passage of the Nation-State Basic Law. It’s important to point out that Israel does not have a constitution. In the early years, there was a long debate in the first Knesset (Israeli Parliament) about the necessity for a constitution. Initially, there was a pledge by the government that a constitution would be debated and passed. However, later on, after much discussion, the suggestion of Knesset member Yizhar Harari (Harari proposal) was accepted, and it was decided that there would be no grand effort to approve an entire constitution. The Knesset would approve the constitution piecemeal. There would be two kinds of laws, regular laws, and Basic Laws. The regular legislation would require a simple majority of members attending the session while the Basic laws—which will be part of the future Israeli constitution—would be approved by a super majority. The Basic Laws would gradually become a constitution. Each Knesset from 1950 onward has thus acted not only as a Parliament and approved regular legislation but also acted as a constituent assembly and approve Basic Laws that are considered part of the (future) constitution of Israel (Knesset 2023b). A recent example of Jewish civilizationalism was the passage of the basic law “Israel – The nation-state of the Jewish people” in July 2018. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared it “a defining moment” in the history of Israel (Bard 2018) as unlike other laws, it clearly established the primacy of Judaism and Jewish people in Israel. The nation-state basic law declares “the State of Israel is the nation state of the Jewish People” and “the exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People” (Article 1) (Knesset 2022). This article links the state identity and state nationalism exclusively to people of a specific faith, i.e., Judaism. Although around twenty one percent of Israeli citizens are Arabs, Muslims, Christians, and Druze, they are excluded. It also provides constitutional sanctity to the state flag, state emblem, and national anthem that have clear linkages to Judaism or the Jewish people (Article 2). As discussed above, all three are associated with Jewish civilization. Article 2 of the basic law re-affirms Israel’s commitment

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to Jewish civilizationalism. Moreover, these have been given additional protection and significance by making them part of the constitution (Knesset 2022). Article 4 declared Hebrew as the sole state language. Previously, Arabic and Hebrew were both state languages, although the state never gave Arabic equal importance, status, or recognition. This article further strengthened the relationship between the state and Jewish civilization, due to Hebrew’s special relationship with Judaism and Jewish civilization, as explained above (Knesset 2022). The law also states that Israel will remain open for Jewish immigration (Article 5). It also makes it mandatory for the Israeli state to preserve ties with the Jewish diaspora and to “preserve the cultural, historical and religious heritage of the Jewish People among Jews in the Diaspora” (Article 6). Perhaps, most controversially, the law declares that Jewish settlement development is a national value and orders the state to encourage and promote the establishment and strengthening of such settlements (Article 7). Finally, the Sabbath and the Jewish holidays were established as state holidays, and the Hebrew calendar as the official state calendar (Articles 8 and 10) (Knesset 2022). All these changes codify Israel’s special relationship with Jewish civilization and the Israeli state’s efforts to promote Jewish civilizationalism. Supporters of the basic law have argued that many (or most) of the provisions in the law depict the reality of today’s Israel. However, it was only in 2018 that the basic law was codified for the next generations (Berger 2018; Bard 2018). They have also pointed out to constitutions and laws of other democracies that give similar importance to one ethnic or religious group. Malta and the United Kingdom prioritize not one religion but one sect over all others. Most of the democracies have one national language and languages of the minorities are not declared national languages. The Nation-State Basic Law also does not declare Judaism as the state religion even when Israel is the only state of Jews in the world (Kontorovich 2020). The above arguments ignore the fact that Israel is a settler colonial state and has long treated Palestinians, both inside proper Israel and in Gaza and the West Bank, as second-class citizens. Therefore, comparisons with laws and constitutions of European democracies, such as Denmark, Norway, and Greece, are unjustified and irrational. In those democracies, minority rights are guaranteed even when some laws or constitutional provisions of the past are still on the books. In Israel, the situation is

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completely different. Minority rights had been trampled for seventy years and the Nation-State Basic Law has been legalized and institutionalized this injustice. Comparisons with countries in the Middle East are also illogical as almost all of them are not democracies while Israel claims to be a democracy and most of the world accepts it as a democracy. If Israel accepts that it is not a democracy, most of the criticism on Nation-State Basic Law would become irrelevant. The de facto lesser status of non-Jewish people is Israel has now become de jure after the passage of Nation-State Basic Law and, unfortunately, this inequality and discrimination is widely supported by the Jewish Israelis: Israel’s 2018 Nation-State Law has even more boldly emphasized its Jewishness and downgraded the status everyone who is not Jewish. This law defines Israel as “the nation state of the Jewish People” and holds that “the exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People”; it makes no mention of democracy or equality for others. Relatedly, if Israel is to have a Jewish identity, then those who are not classified as Jewish will—and must—have a lesser status. How much lesser is a matter of debate. Some argue that non-Jews should have civil and political rights but should have restrictions on where they can live. The belief that Jews should have different and more rights than non-Jews is so ingrained among Jewish Israelis that a major 2014–2015 Pew Research Center study of 5,601 Israelis showed that 79 percent of Jewish Israelis say Jews deserve preferential treatment in Israel (Barnett et al. 2023, 20).

Yom Haatzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day) In all countries, national independence day is a day of national celebration but in very few countries, it is also celebrated as a religious day. Israel is one of the later group of countries. Yom Haatzmaut is a national and religious holiday and is linked to ancient Jewish civilization. As explained above, most of the leaders of independence of Israel were secular Jews but they chose the Jewish Hebrew calendar date as the independence day date and rejected the Gregorian calendar date. Israel’s independence day is celebrated every year on 5 Iyar and like other Jewish holidays, it starts at sundown and continues until the next day sundown. Yom Haatzmaut’s

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celebrations in 2022 were from May 4th sunset to May 5th sunset. The Chief Rabbinate of the State, a government-funded official institution in Israel, has declared that as in the case of other joyous Jewish holidays, Yom Haatzmaut would start with a recitation of Hallel (Psalms of Praise) as it marks the return of the Holy Land to the control of Jews after thousands of years. The following excerpt about Yom Haatzmaut from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows how the day is associated with ancient Jewish culture and civilization: Throughout their long history, the yearning to return to the Land of Israel has been the focus of Jewish life. Independence Day is a celebration of the renewal of the Jewish state in the land where the Jewish people began to develop its distinctive religion and culture some 4,000 years ago. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022)

One of the highlights of Yom Haatzmaut is the International Bible Quiz. This quiz was Ben-Gurion’s idea who wanted Israeli Jews return to the Bible, the eternal book of Jews. Ben-Gurion also started a Bible study circle at his home (Peres and Landau 2011, 263). International Bible Quiz is regularly attended by the Knesset Speaker and Education Minister and broadcast live on national television. Sometimes, the Israeli President and PM also attend the event. Jewish teenagers from around the world take part in this event, making it not only an Israeli national event but an international Jewish celebration of the Bible. Of course, as Israeli governments organize this event annually, it links Israel and Yom Haatzmaut with the Bible, Judaism, and Jewish civilization, areas from which most of questions of the quiz come from (Selig 2009; Zohar 2019; Hoffman 2022).

Israeli banknotes Iconography Jewish civilizationism is also visible in pictures selected to adorn Israeli banknotes. Starting from the first Israeli pound banknote series issued (1955–1957), Jewish symbolism was used regularly to highlight the civilizational past of the new Israeli state. In the first Israeli pound series, the 500 prutah banknotes depicted an ancient synagogue in Galilee. The word “prutah” was also linked with Jewish civilization as it means a small denomination coin in ancient Hebrew. The tomb of the Sanhedrin (ancient Jewish judges/elders/rabbis) in Jerusalem was depicted on the

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half Israeli pound banknote of the second Israel pound series (1959– 1960). In the same series, a roaring lion on an ancient Hebrew seal was depicted on the five pounds Israeli banknote. On the ten Israeli pound banknote, a passage from the Book of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls was depicted. Similar is the case of the next two Israeli pound series issued by the Bank of Israel. In 1960, due to currency depreciation, the Israeli government decided to change the subdivision of the Israeli pound from 1000 prutah to 100 agorot. The word agora had biblical origins. In 1980, Shekel was chosen as the name of Israeli currency (replacing the Israeli pound). Shekel was again linked to Jewish civilization. Shekel was the name of the currency in ancient Israel under Maccabees (167 BCE to 37 BCE), who famously led a Jewish revolt against the Seleucid king, ruled for seventy years and restored Jewish rule thereby protecting Jewish religion and civilization. Many of the personalities depicted on Israeli pound/Sheqel banknotes had been residents of other lands, sometimes passed away centuries before the creation of Israel. Their only connection with Israel was Jewish religion and civilization which again demonstrates the significance of Jewish civilizationism in Israel. Examples include such personalities are Maimonides (Spanish-Moroccan-Egyptian twelfth century), Moshe Montefiori (British nineteenth century), and Albert Einstein (GermanAmerican twentieth century) (Bank of Israel 2023). In its seventy five year’s existence, the Israeli state has never agreed to depict a non-Jewish figure on its banknotes: In its seventy years of existence, the state has issued ten series of banknotes and minted six series of coins. Out of the total of 53 banknotes, 33 carry human figures. The first banknote that carried a representation of a human figure was issued only in 1969…We wish to emphasize that despite the presence of minorities in Israel, among which Muslims comprise 17 percent of the Israeli population, the committee never suggested honoring an Israeli-Muslim figure on a banknote. The only time a non-Jewish figure was considered was in the refusal to memorialise Sheikh Amin Tarif, the head of the Druze sect, because he was alive at the time. (Sheffia and Firsta 2019, 770)

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Category

Number of Names (Years of depiction on banknotes) persons

Founding Fathers of Israel

4

Jewish before Israel

4

Israeli Politicians

5

Persons of Letters

7

Theodor Herzl (1969, 1975, 1980), Chaim Weitzman (1972, 1978, 1980), David Ben-Gurion (1977, 1980), and Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1980) Albert Einstein (1972), Moses Montefiore (1975, 1980), Edmund James de Rothschild (1982, 1986), and Henrietta Szold (1976) Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (1986, 1999), Zalman Shazar (1992, 1999), Moshe Sharett (1988, 1999), Levi Eshkol (1984, 1985), and Golda Meir (1984, 1985) Haim Nachman Bialik (1970), Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1985, 1999), Maimonides (1983, 1986), Rachel Bluwstein (2017), Shaul Tchernichovsky (2014), Leah Goldberg (2017), and Nathan Alterman (2015)

Source Sheffia and Firsta (2019)

As the above list shows, Christians, Muslims, or Druze were never depicted on Israeli banknotes. Even literary figures of these communities could not have this honor as it appeared to be reserved for the Jewish people. Even those who remained loyal to the Israeli state, despite criticism from their own communities, were denied this honor. Sheikh Amin Tarif, the Druze leader, was considered when he was alive but thirty years after his death, banknote with his portrait has not seen the light of day. It is Jewish civilizationism that links the above personalities with the ancient Galilee synagogue and the Sanhedrin tomb in Jerusalem as well as with shekel, agora, and prutah. If we remove Jewish civilizationism, one cannot explain why shekel and agora were chosen as names of the Israeli currency or why Einstein or Maimonides appeared on Israeli banknotes.

Conclusion As explained at the start of the chapter, Jewish civilizationalism in Israel is different and unique. It is neither new nor specific to right-wing parties and movements or populist leaders. It’s old, bipartisan, and used by both populist and mainstream leadership for the last 75 years. Both Ben-Gurion, a secular socialist Prime Minister in the 1950s, and Bibi Netanyahu, a conservative rightwing—and some say a populist—Prime Minister in the twenty-first century, believed in it and used it. The reason is its link with the Israeli state and its nationalism. The creation of a new Jewish state in the Middle East or Palestine cannot be explained without

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resorting to Jewish civilizationalism as most of the Jewish population in Palestine was not indigenous to Palestine. Unsurprisingly, David BenGurion, who was the first PM and founding father of Israel, justified the necessity of a Jewish state before the British Royal Commission in 1937 not by any law, rule, or principle universally accepted but by the Bible. He said, “The Bible is our mandate” (Masalha 2007, 16).

References Acco, Amit. 2020. From Palestinian Nationality to Israeli Citizenship: Legal and Historical Perspective. Kan-Tor & Acco blog. November 12. https://ktalegal. com/from-palestinian-nationality-to-israeli-citizenship-legal-and-historic-per spective/. Accessed 24 February 2023. Aronson, Marc. 2008. Unsettled: The Problem of Loving Israel. New York: Simon and Schuster. Bank of Israel. 2023. Notes. Assessed 24 February 2023 https://www.boi.org. il/en/economic-roles/notes/#BanknotesCoinsNav. Bard, Mitchell. 2018. Understanding Israel’s Nation State Law. Jewish Virtual Library. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/understanding-israel-s-nationstate-law#Hebrew. Accessed 24 February 2023. Barnett, Michael, Nathan J. Brown, and Shibley Telhami. 2023. Introduction: What Is Israel/Palestine? In The One State Reality: What Is Israel/Palestine?, eds. Michael Barnett, Nathan J. Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami. London: Cornell University Press. Berger, Miriam. 2018. Israel’s Hugely Controversial ‘Nation-State’ Law, Explained. Vox. July 31. https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/176 23978/israel-jewish-nation-state-law-bill-explained-apartheid-netanyahu-dem ocracy. Accessed 25 February 2023. Blecher, Robert. 2005. Citizens without Sovereignty: Transfer and Ethnic Cleansing in Israel. Comparative Studies in Society and History 47: 725–754. Brenner, Michael. 2022. Will Netanyahu Turn Israel into Everything Its Founders Wanted to Avoid? The Washington Post. December 1. https:// www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/12/01/netanyau-israeliherzl-right-wing/. Accessed 24 February 2023. Carner, Talia. 2015. Jewish Through and Through. The Jewish Journal. May 27. https://jewishjournal.com/judaism/obituaries/171478/. Accessed 24 February 2023. Cohn-Sherbok, Dan. 2012. Introduction to Zionism and Israel: From Ideology to History. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Edelman, Martin. 1998. Who is an Israeli? ‘Halakhah’ and Citizenship in the Jewish State. Jewish Political Studies Review 10: 87–115.

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Gilad, Elon. 2016. How Israel Got Its Flag and What It Means. Haaretz. May 11. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-05-11/ty-article/.pre mium/how-israel-got-its-flag-and-what-it-means/0000017f-f730-ddde-abffff7573f90000. Accessed 24 February 2023. Glinert, Lewis. 2017. The Story of Hebrew. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Goldenberg, Tia. 2013. Supreme Court Rejects ‘Israeli’ Nationality Status. The Times of Israel. October 4. https://www.timesofisrael.com/supreme-court-rej ects-israeli-nationality-status/. Accessed 27 April 2023. Hertzberg, Arthur. 1959. The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. Herzl, Theodor. 1946. Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) 1896. Translated by Jacob M. Alkow. Published by American Zionist Emergency Council, New York. Hirsch, Michal Ben-Josef. 2007. From Taboo to the Negotiable: The Israeli New Historians and the Changing Representation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. Perspectives on Politics 5: 241–258. Hoffman, Gil. 2022. Drama in Bible Quiz: Co-Champions Crowned. The Jerusalem Post. May 5. https://www.jpost.com/judaism/article-705952. Accessed 24 February 2023. Kaufman, Jeff. 2005. The Revival of the Hebrew Language. Penn State University. https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=4f9 85e3b7edb5a0bd3776022351641444940fc4b. Accessed 24 February 2023. Knesset. 2022. Basic-Law: Israel—The Nation State of the Jewish People. https://m.knesset.gov.il/EN/activity/documents/BasicLawsPDF/BasicL awNationState.pdf. Accessed 25 February 2023. Knesset. 2023a. Declaration of Independence. https://m.knesset.gov.il/en/ about/pages/declaration.aspx. Accessed 24 February 2023a. Knesset. 2023b. The Knesset as a Constitutive Authority: Constitution and Basic Laws. https://m.knesset.gov.il/en/activity/pages/basiclawsandconsti tution.aspx. Accessed 25 February 2023b. Kontorovich, Eugene. 2020. A Comparative Constitutional Perspective on Israel’s Nation-State Law. Israel Studies 25 (3): 137–152. Mann, Sarah. 2021. The History of the Hebrew and Yiddish Languages in Israel. December 13. https://www.beinharimtours.com/the-history-of-the-hebrewand-yiddish-languages-in-israel/. Accessed 25 February 2023. Marx, Rabbi Dalia. 2016. Tikvatenu: The Poem That Inspired Israel’s National Anthem, Hatikva. TheTorah.Com. May 10. https://thetorah.com/ tikvatenu-the-poem-that-inspired-israels-national-anthem-hatikva/. Accessed 24 February 2023. Masalha, Nur. 2007. The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post Colonialism in Palestine-Israel. London: Zed Books. Meir, Golda. 1976. My Life. London: Futura Publications.

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2022. Israel Celebrates 74 Years of Independence. https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/israel-celebrates-74-yearsof-independence-4-may-2022. Accessed 24 February 2023. Mishory, Alec. 2018. The Israeli State Emblem. Jewish Virtual Library. https:/ /www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-israeli-state-emblem-jewish-virtual-library. Accessed 25 February 2023. Muasher, Marwan. 2022. The Two-State Lie. Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center. July 25. https://carnegie-mec.org/diwan/87558. Accessed 25 February 2023. Munayyer, Yousef. 2023. Israel/Palestine: Toward Decolonization. In The One State Reality: What Is Israel/Palestine?, eds. Michael Barnett, Nathan J. Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami. London: Cornell University Press. Peres, Shimon, and David Landau. 2011. Ben-Gurion: A Political Life. New York: Nextbook/Schocken Publishers. Rabin, Chaim. 1983. The National Idea and the Revival of Hebrew. Studies in Zionism 4 (1): 31–48. Robinson, Kali. 2023. What to Know About the Arab Citizens of Israel? Council on Foreign Relations. March 9. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/whatknow-about-arab-citizens-israel. Accessed 15 April 2023. Saleem, Raja M Ali. 2023. Hindu Civilizationalism: Make India Great Again. Religions 14 (3): 338. Sapir, Gideon, and Daniel Statman. 2015. Minority Religions in Israel. Journal of Law and Religion 30 (1): 65–79. Selig, Abe. 2009. Kochav Ya’acov Student Wins 2009 International Bible quiz. The Jerusalem Post. April 29. https://www.jpost.com/israel/kochav-yaacovstudent-wins-2009-international-bible-quiz. Accessed 24 February 2023. Sheffia, Na’ama and Anat Firsta. 2019. The Power of Hegemony: Human Figures on Israeli Banknotes. Strum, Philippa. 1995. The Road Not Taken: Constitutional Non-Decision Making in 1948–1950 and Its Impact on Civil Liberties in the Israeli Political Culture. In Israel: The First Decade of Independence, eds. S. Ilan Troen and Noah Lucas, 83–104. Albany: State University of New York Press. Supreme Court of Israel. 2013. Ornan v. Ministry of the Interior. Versa: Opinions of the Supreme Court of Israel. https://versa.cardozo.yu.edu/opinions/ornanv-ministry-interior. Accessed 27 April 2023.

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The Statesman. 2022. India Is Most Refined Idea of Human Civilisation: PM Modi. December 13. https://www.thestatesman.com/india/india-is-mostrefined-idea-of-human-civilisation-pm-modi-1503138404.html. Accessed 12 February 2023. The Nabka Files. 2023. Tamarin v. State of Israel (CA 630/70). Accessed 25 April 2023. https://nakbafiles.org/nakba-casebook/tamarin-v-state-of-israelca-63070/. Zohar, Gil. 2019. Jerusalem Teen Wins International Bible Quiz. Religion Unplugged. May 17. https://religionunplugged.com/news/2019/5/16/jer usalem-teen-wins-international-bible-contest. Accessed 24 February 2023.

CHAPTER 11

Civilizational Populism and Democracy Ihsan Yilmaz

The contributors to this volume have shown how civilizationism is a common component of populist discourses throughout the democratic world and, in some cases, a long-standing part of mainstream politics. In each democratic nation-state studied in this book, populists have used civilizationism as a framing device, yet there are important differences between populists illuminated in this volume’s case studies, especially in their instrumentalization of religion, construction of crisis, and relationship with nationalism. The instrumentalization of religion is vital to all civilizational populists because it is religious identity—though not necessarily religious practice—that largely defines the world’s civilizations. However, the relationship between religion and populism differs throughout the examples investigated in this volume. For example, in much of Western Europe, as Morieson shows in his chapter, civilizational populists instrumentalize religion, but do not attempt to encourage genuinely religiosity, religious values, ethics, or

I. Yilmaz (B) Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6_11

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spirituality. Marine Le Pen, for example, might claim that France is a Christian society, but she frames Muslims as a threat not to Christian belief but to secularism, and the separation of church and state. Muslims, Le Pen complains, do not respect secular differentiation between religion and politics, and are too conservative in their behavior. This notion that Christianity is an inherently private and secular religion, and a progenitor of liberalism, was inherent in Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign rhetoric, in which he claimed Islam was a threat to women, gay people, and Jews. In Central and Eastern Europe Christianity is instrumentalized by populists in an entirely different manner. Poland’s ruling PiS government, for example, argues that Christian civilization in Poland is threatened by the secular, liberal West, which seeks to destroy the traditional values of the Polish people, and essentially replace them with Muslim immigrants. At the same time, PiS is not attempting to force citizens to return to Church to believe in God. Rather, their conception of Christianity is one broader than private faith, but encompassing culture, values, and civilization. The notion that secular and liberal values might threaten traditional morality and behavior is present, as Yilmaz, Morieson, and Bachtiar show, in the populism of the Islamic Defenders Front in Indonesia. The FPI claims that there is a conspiracy involving Western forces, Chinese businessmen, and liberal Muslims, to corrupt the morals of the ummah worldwide, including inside Indonesia. They insist that the ummah in Indonesia unite to fight this moral corruption and change the constitution to facilitate the transition to a more Islamic nation, and in which Muslims are forced to obey Sharia law. Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, as Raja Ali Saleem demonstrates, in a different way insists India has a Hindu identity, but also promotes Hindu religious practices. His party’s opposition to Islam is predicated both on the “threat” Muslims pose to the safety of Hindus, and to the revival of Hindu civilization, but also on the allegedly immoral practices of Muslims such as eating beef. Extremist Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalists too frame Muslims and other non-Buddhists as a civilizational threat as Gamage shows in her chapter on Sri Lanka, though in their case to Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka. Muslims, according to SBN deployed by extremist groups and some political factions, are a threat to the nation’s identity as a Buddhist State and allegedly enjoy economic benefits at the expense of the Buddhist majority, especially its rural and economically marginalized classes. Consequently, their politics appeal for a need to revive a lost and once-great Buddhist civilization in Sri Lanka.

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In Israel, civilizationism is part of the nation’s mainstream politics, and therefore it should not be surprising that it is a key part of different forms of Israeli populist politics as well. In Malaysia, as Shukri shows, increasing religious identification among the Muslim majority has led to a conflation of ethnic Malay identity and religion, and specifically with Islam. Thus, as Malaysia becomes increasingly perceived as an Islamic nation, and the majority population not merely citizens but part of the global ummah, so it becomes increasingly difficult for the Malaysian state to accept non-Muslims as citizens with equal rights. Thus, we see how, throughout a variety of religious and political environments the world over, populists use a religio-civilizational classification to divide society between “the people” and their enemies (“elites” and “others”), but also claim that people of foreign civilizations are in some way immoral and corrupt. Civilizational populists embed the vertical and horizontal dimensions of populism within a civilizational frame, and part of this is portraying “our” civilization in a positive light, and “their” civilization negatively. This is true of both conservative religious populists and secular populists, many of whom are supportive of women’s and gay rights. In each of these cases, and despite the instrumentalization of religion—which is inherently transnational (including, to a degree, in the case of Judaism and Hinduism) civilizational populists are first and foremost nationalists. Brubaker’s (2017, p. 1211) observation that Western European populist parties such as the Dutch Party for Freedom are reconceptualizing “the boundaries of belonging and the semantics of self and other …in civilizational terms” may thus be applied well belong the geographic boundaries he sets, and in a wide variety of geographies. Yet there are cases in which civilizational populism contains a transnational dimension (Yilmaz and Morieson 2021; 2022, 2023), such as when members of the Islamic Defenders Front have been found volunteering to fight with Islamic State, or when the Turkish President frames military intervention in Syria as required for the protection of the ummah, and the duty of the leading nation of the Islamic world. Equally, there was a transnational civilizational element in Donald Trump’s call for the protection of Christian civilization during a speech in Poland. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán seeks an “Eastern opening,” and the establishing of ties with China and Russia (Mészáros, 2021; Paszak, 2021). PVV leader Geert Wilders has gone on speaking tours and attempted to create networks of Christian identitarian movements and create links with other parties that attempt to “defend” Judeo-Christian values including

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secularism. At the same time, it is not possible to call these actions part of a genuine clash of civilizations, or any of the movements studied in this volume as transnational. Indeed, all are nationalist, and primarily interested in the protection of national culture and sovereignty, and often oppose globalization on the grounds that it weakens the nation-state. In a different context, as Shukri demonstrated in her chapter on Malaysia, civilizationism is surprisingly effective in uniting the majority Muslim citizens as “ummah” and has played a role in the “othering” of non-Muslims, who are sometimes portrayed as a threat to Islam and Muslims in the country. The construction of a crisis narrative, too, plays a key role in civilizational populist success. As Moffitt (2015, 2016) has pointed out, populists struggle to win political influence and elections without first convincing a large portion of society that they are threatened by a crisis generated by elites. For civilizational populists, this crisis moves beyond the national and takes on civilizational proportions and involves in various ways religious threats to a societies’ morals and ethical frameworks. The importance of crisis appears to be connected to populists attempts to create an emotional response from their supporters if not the general public. Civilizational populists, throughout all the cases studied in this volume, attempt to generate feelings of existential fear in their supporters—especially fear of their culture being erased by people belonging to another religion—and to keep them in this state of fear. At the same time, civilizational populists attempt to turn this fear into anger, and direct this anger toward government and other “elites,” and to convince the public that societies’ problems are the product of elites ignoring the will or needs of the people. Yet at times civilizational populists attempt to elicit positive or mixed emotions from the public, including nostalgia for a glorious past in which their civilization was at its height, and hope that they may witness its revival soon. Why, then, has this inherently anti-plural form of politics, which applies a religio-civilizational classification to all peoples, become so prevalent across so many different societies? There is no doubt several important factors. The rise of populism appears to relate to a belief that there is a democratic deficit within one’s society and may also appear as a response to government failure and corruption. It should not be surprising, then, that as Ihsan Yilmaz and Nicholas Morieson have demonstrated in their chapter, populism should emerge in Turkey, where decades of authoritarian rule and government corruption resulted in a populist backlash

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and the capture of the state by an increasingly populist president and his party. Equally, the rise of civilizationism is not merely a populist phenomenon endemic to the democratic world. Outside of democracies we find the regime in Russia portraying itself as a defender of Christian civilization, which it claims to be defending from Western liberalism (Silvius, 2015). Since 2012, the regime has emphasized the nation’s civilizational “distinctiveness from the West” and claimed that the West is a civilizational enemy attempted to destroy traditional values the world over. Western nations, Putin claims, are “rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilisation” (Costello, 2022). Indeed, he has been explicit about the threat the liberal West poses to the “traditional identities” of peoples everywhere, including their “national, cultural, religious, and even sexual” identities (Costello, 2022). Most Western powers, and particularly the United States, are generally supportive of liberal democratic values and societies (though there are obvious exceptions to this rule), and that Western NGOs have been active within many non-Western nations and involved in campaigns for human rights, women’s rights, and LGBT rights. And in an age defined by globalization (even if we are now entering a period of de-globalization), liberal social values are easily spread through television, film, and especially through the internet and social media. It is not difficult, then, to understand why people who wish to hold onto their traditional values, so to speak, would be fearful of change in such an age. However, it is interesting to observe how fearful people in the liberal West have felt since 9/11 at the prospect of globalization spreading Islam and its values into Western societies. Equally, and because globalization involves the fluid movement of labor across national borders, the immigration of Muslims to the West has created a powerful backlash against governments who are responsible for the admission of Muslims into their respective nations. This had led to hyperbolic claims of Sharia law coming to the United States or Western Europe, no-go zones, and fears that women and gay people would soon face discrimination from Muslim-dominated societies. Thus, civilizationism’s rise is, in part, a backlash against the liquid movement of people and ideas across national borders, and the spreading of new and different ideas in societies that may once have been largely homogenous. This is why we find both secularists, liberals, and deeply religious and conservative people growing fearful that their beliefs, identities, and indeed “civilization” might be destroyed. The growth of

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civilizational identity may thus be an attempt at finding ontological security in a period defined by shifting identities and change, and the breaking apart of once solid identities. Indeed, there is something deeply emotional about the rise of civilizationism, and this is no doubt the reason that populists have proven adept at exploiting the emotions of voters who feel aggrieved and fearful of the social and demographic changes they see in their societies. However, the rise of civilizational identity has not so far resulted in the kind of clashing civilizations predicted by Huntington. Indeed, there is an increased cooperation between supposed civilizational enemies in Russia and China, and a war between Russia and Ukraine, which Huntington claimed belonged to the same civilization (Huntington, 1993, 1996). In the Turkish case, the Sunni Islamist populist Erdogan and his AKP have demonized and securitized another practicing Sunni Muslim Turkish group (the Gülenists) and have framed it as a civilizational other who is at the service of the Crusader West (Yilmaz 2021; Yilmaz and Albayrak 2022; Yilmaz and Shipoli 2022). It appears, then, that Huntington’s precise conception of a clash of civilizations defining international relations in the twenty-first century was incorrect. At the same time, civilizationism is thriving within democratic nation-states, and as a tool politicians use to divide society, i.e., the citizens of the same country, between “us” and “dangerous them,” and to legitimize domestic and international policies by framing them as necessary acts to “defend” the civilizational and religious values of “our” nation. The consequences of civilizational populism have so far proven deleterious as far as democracy, pluralism, and social cohesion are concerned. Like other forms of populism, civilizational populism sacralizes the will of the people and therefore portrays liberal democratic checks and balances on majority power as anti-democratic. Equally, it portrays minority religious and cultural rights as threats to the majority’s right to cultural hegemony. At its worst, it justifies extreme violence and even the murder of minorities, such as has occurred—as the chapters in this edited volume have shown—in India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. The rise of populism throughout the world in the twenty-first century, and the combining of populism and civilizationism, presents a challenge to liberal democratic norms. At the same time, it highlights the internal weaknesses in many democratic nation-states, in which the basic contract between citizens and the state appears to be tearing apart. Populism of all kinds thrives in democracies when mainstream or ruling parties are shown to be corrupt,

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incompetent, or pursuing policies unpopular with the majority of citizens, and when citizens begin to perceive a democratic deficit in their society. In all of the nation-states studied in this volume, populists have achieved political success by highlighting the failures of incumbent governments, and of the wider governing class around them, and framing them—rightly or wrongly—as part of a wider crisis which can only be resolved when power is returned from “elites” to the people. Thus, while it is tempting to simply condemn populists for their actions, which are often deleterious, we must not permit mainstream parties to escape criticism. A stronger effort to effect good governance and anti-corruption measures in a variety of states is therefore required to prevent the further rise of populism. Indeed, the failure of governments in each of the cases studied in this volume is real and deserving of criticism. This does not mean, of course, that populism provides solutions to these problems. Rather, the growth of populism—and especially civilizational populism—shows how government failure and, in some cases, growing gaps between the wealthy educated classes and the less-educated lower middle working classes fuel anti-elite political movements that may begin with a promise to return power to the people, but often end in authoritarianism and social division. When ordinary citizens abandon the mainstream parties, they believe have failed or ignored them, they may embrace populist movements which offer them people to blame (elites, minorities) for their problems, and hope for a brighter future. While populism takes many forms, the contributors to this volume have shown how populists are increasingly framing government failure and, more broadly, important domestic and international political developments, as existential threats to citizens of their respective nations, and moreover to their respective civilizations.

References Brubaker, Rogers. 2017. Between Nationalism and Civilizationism: The European Populist Moment in Comparative Perspective. Ethnic and Racial Studies 40: 1191–1226. Costello, Tim. 2022. Vladimir Putin: A Miracle Defender of Christianity or the Most Evil Man? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentis free/2022/mar/06/vladimir-putin-a-miracle-defender-of-christianity-or-themost-evil-man. Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs 72 (3): 22–49.

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Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Mészáros, R. Tamás. 2021. As Hungary Lauds Its ‘Eastern Opening’ Policy, Statistics Fail to Show Benefits. EURACTIV , 12 May. https://www.euractiv. com/section/economy-jobs/news/as-hungary-lauds-its-eastern-opening-pol icy-statistics-fail-to-show-benefits/ Moffitt, Benjamin. 2015. How to Perform Crisis: A Model for Understanding the Key Role of Crisis in Contemporary Populism. Government and Opposition 50: 189–217. Moffitt, Benjamin. 2016. The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10. 2307/j.ctvqsdsd8. Paszak, Pawel. 2021. Hungary’s “Opening to the East” Hasn’t Delivered. CEPA, 8 March. https://cepa.org/hungarys-policy-of-opening-to-the-east-is-morethan-a-decade-old-but-it-hasnt-delivered-much-chinese-investment/. Silvius R. 2015. Eurasianism and Putin’s Embedded Civilizationism. In The Eurasian Project and Europe, eds. D. Lane and V. Samokhvalov. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/97811374729605. Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Nicholas Morieson. 2023. Religions and the Global Rise of Civilizational Populism. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Nicholas Morieson. 2021. A Systematic Literature Review of Populism, Religion and Emotions. Religions 12: 272. Yilmaz, Ihsan, and Nicholas Morieson. 2022. Civilizational Populism: Definition, Literature, Theory, and Practice. Religions 13: 1026. Yilmaz, Ihsan. 2021. Creating the Desired Citizen: Ideology, State and Islam in Turkey. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Yilmaz, Ihsan, and E. Shipoli. 2022. Use of Past Collective Traumas, Fear and Conspiracy Theories for Securitisation and Repression of the Opposition: The Turkish Case. Democratization 29 (2): 320–336. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 13510347.2021.1953992. Yilmaz, Ihsan, and I. Albayrak. 2022. Populist and Pro-Violence State Religion: The Diyanet’s Construction of Erdo˘ganist Islam in Turkey. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.

Index

A Afghanistan, 30, 43, 68, 69, 91, 145, 153, 233, 259 Africans, 78 Afro-Asiatic, 295 Afro-descendent, 22 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 22 Ahmadis, 176 Ahmadiyya, 197, 200, 202, 205 Ahmedabad, 232 Ahmedis, 149 Ahok, 197, 198, 206–208, 214, 217, 218 Akbar, 237, 238, 241, 242 Akhand Bharat, 232, 233 Al-Aqsa, 75 al-Assad, Bashar, 22 alien, 260, 267, 274 Aliyah, 299 Allied Powers, 108 All India Muslim League (AIML), 140, 141 al-Qaeda, 68, 196, 210, 217

Alternative for Germany (AfD), 4, 20, 26 Amarasekera, Gunadasa, 271 America First, 68, 72 Americanismo, 22 Amin, Ma’ruf, 207 anachronism, 83 antagonism/antagonistic, 3, 4, 7, 8, 19, 26 anti-Semitism, 267, 289 anti-Western, 22, 145, 152 anxiety, 72 Arab-Israel War, 143 Arab Muslim, 287 Arabs, 171 Arab Spring, 122, 128 Arab Uprisings, 122 Argentina, 22 Armenians, 27, 108, 171 Aryan, 258, 267, 268, 278 ASEAN, 23 Ashkenazi, 290, 296 Asia, 7 Assam, 232

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. Yilmaz (ed.), Civilizational Populism in Democratic Nation-States, Palgrave Studies in Populisms, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4262-6

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320

INDEX

Assyrians, 108 Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal, 106, 108 Australia, 16 authoritarianism, 18, 31 Awang, Hadi, 181, 183 Ayodhya, 36 Azerbaijan, 30

B bad manners, 7 Badawi, Abdullah, 175 Bahrain, 123 Balfour Declaration, 293 Bandung Conference, 266 Bangladesh, 138, 141, 142, 152, 233 Bannon, Steve, 69, 70, 75 Barelvi, 148, 149, 155 Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, 197, 206 begging bowl, 145 Belgium, 61 Bellah, 67 Bengal, 142 Bengalis, 140 Ben-Gurion, David, 291, 296–299, 304, 306, 307 Bharat, 233, 252 Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), 34, 232 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 5, 26, 31, 32, 34–39, 45, 46, 230, 232, 240, 241, 243, 247, 248, 251, 252 Bhutto, Zulfiqar A., 139, 141–143, 146, 152, 153 Bible, 73, 288, 292, 295, 298–300, 304, 307 Biblical, 288, 292, 293, 297, 298, 305 Black Lives Matter, 259 blasphemy, 148–151, 197, 203, 207, 208, 214 Bolivia, 21

Bolsonarismo, 21 Bolsonaro, Jair, 16, 21 Book of Genesis, 292 Brahmins, 140 Brazil, 15, 16, 21, 22 Britain, 287, 297, 298 British, 32, 34, 172, 229, 234–236, 238, 239 British Ceylon, 258, 264, 278 British Empire, 257 British India, 137 Budapest, 76 Buddhism/Buddhist, 2, 4, 16, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 200, 257, 258, 263–279 Buddhist International, 43, 47 Buddhist Nationalists, 312 Buddhist Revivalist movement, 264–266, 269 Burma, 233 Burmese, 39, 40 Bush, George W., 67, 70, 91, 176 Byzantine, 287

C Caliphate, 107, 108, 210, 216 capitalism, 262, 263, 268, 269, 279 Catholic, 62, 66, 67, 79, 85, 86, 200 Central Asia, 109 centre–periphery, 261 Ceylon, 257, 262, 264–270, 276, 278 Ceylon National Congress, 270 charismatic, 62 Chavez, Hugo, 21–23 checks and balances, 6 China, 30, 124, 129, 204, 208, 219, 313, 316 Chinese, 170–174, 179–181, 183–188, 208, 212, 214, 217 Chinese Christian, 197, 206, 214, 216, 217

INDEX

Chinese tsunami, 179 Chirac, Jacques, 80 Christian, 4, 9, 11, 16, 19, 20, 34 Christianity, 2, 4, 5 Christian West, 5, 45, 126 Christmas, 119 civilizational turn, 19, 24–26, 198, 216 civil society, 7 Clash of civilizations, 66–68, 70, 71, 91, 110, 115, 120, 121, 124 Cold War, 262 colonialism, 259, 261, 263, 266, 279 colonisation, 172 colonists, 145 colonizers, 239, 240 Communism, 172, 187, 262 Confucianism, 200 Congress Party, 32, 36, 45, 229 conservatism, 5 core values, 4, 5 Correa, Rafael, 21, 22 cosmic battle, 5 cosmopolitan Islam, 200 Council of Indonesian Ulama (MUI), 201 Covid, 198, 215 Covid-19, 72, 82, 209, 215, 216 crisis/crises, 1–3, 8, 9, 11, 18, 31, 46 Crusaders, 83, 127, 287 cultural populism, 18 Czechia, 61

D Dallas, 76 dangerous, 4, 7, 8 dark forces, 5 Dead Sea Scrolls, 305 decisionism, 7 Declaration of independence, 291 Democratic Action Party, 170

321

Democratic Party, 110 de Silva, Nalin, 271, 275 Dharmapala, Anagarika, 258, 265–272, 274 dictatorship, 6 dirty institutionality, 7 dissidents, 6 Diyanet, 106, 107, 109, 114, 118–120, 124–128 Dravidian, 258, 278 Dutch Party for Freedom, 4 E Eastern Europe, 7 Eastern opening, 313 East Pakistan, 141, 142, 152 Ecuador, 21 Egypt, 107, 123, 124, 287 elections, 6, 7 enemies of the people, 19 Englishman, 268 Enlightenment, 20, 261 Erbakan, Necmettin, 111, 112 Erba¸s, Ali, 118, 119 Erdo˘ganism, 114–116, 118–121, 125, 126, 128 Erdo˘gan, Recep Tayyip, 2, 5, 27–31, 46, 47, 106, 107, 112–118, 121, 123–125, 128, 129 Eretz-Israel, 291–293, 299 ethics, 311 Ethiopia, 292 ethnic minorities, 18, 27 Eurocentric, 113 Europe, 1, 3, 8, 9, 16, 19, 20, 23, 26, 45, 198 European, 16, 19–23, 29, 38, 106, 108, 125, 127, 129 European colonial rule, 264 European Jews, 287, 289, 292 European Union (EU), 78, 89, 113, 122

322

INDEX

evil, 31 evil traps, 120 existential danger, 3 existential struggle, 38, 43 existential threat, 197, 205, 210, 261, 274 F fascism, 3, 259 fatwas, 202, 203 fear, 65, 72, 81, 84, 87–89 Fidesz, 76 Fidesz Party, 4 Finland, 61 First World War, 108, 287, 291 Five Star Movement (M5S), 20 Flynn, Mike, 69 foreign policy, 24, 29, 30, 36, 47, 106, 107, 115, 121, 122, 128, 129 France, 61, 62, 64, 66, 77–84, 92, 94, 95, 292, 312 freedom of speech, 261 French National Front/National Rally, 4 Friday sermon, 114, 118–120, 124, 126 Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defender Front/FPI), 204 fundamentalism/fundamentalist, 68, 81, 92, 174, 177, 262 G Gandhi, Indra, 34 Gandhi, Mahatma, 229, 238, 239, 269 gay rights, 261, 268 Gaza Strip, 124 gender, 90 gender equality, 261, 268 general will, 4, 8, 17, 48

Germanic, 296 Germany, 61, 64 Gezi Park, 113, 118, 122 Ginsberg, Asher, 290 globalisation/globalization, 79, 81, 261 globalists, 76, 78, 81, 82, 92 Global South, 24, 263, 279 Global War on Terror, 176 golden age, 34, 36, 39, 233–237, 240, 251 Golden Dawn (GD), 20 Golwalkar, M.S., 231 Gorka, Sebastian, 69, 70, 75 Görmez, Mehmet, 118, 119 gospel, 21 Grandeur, 84 Greater Israel, 297, 298 Greece, 65, 81 Greeks, 108 Gujarat, 34, 35, 230, 240, 243, 245 Gulen, Fetullah, 113, 116 Gülenists, 46 Gülen Movement, 28, 116

H Habibie, B.J., 201 Hagia Sophia, 119, 128 hate speech, 212 Hatikvah, 294, 295 Hebrew, 294–296, 299, 302–304 Hedgewar, K.B., 33 Hejaz, 287 Herzl, Theodor, 288–290, 296, 306 Hindi, 237, 244, 245, 247–249 Hinduism, 2, 4, 5, 16, 26, 32, 33, 35, 38, 45, 47 Hindu Mahasabha, 232, 247, 249 Hindu Nationalism, 26 Hinduness, 32, 35 Hindu rashtra, 35, 39

INDEX

Hindus, 137, 138, 140, 143 Hindustan, 247 Hindutva, 5, 11, 26, 32–36, 38, 47, 230–232, 234–242, 245–249, 251 Hizbut Tahrir, 207, 217 Homo Diyanetus, 109 homogenous, 4, 8 Homo LASTus, 109, 114 Horn of Africa, 123 Humanist, 16 Human Rights, 112, 116, 123 Hungary, 15, 16, 25, 30, 61, 64, 76, 84, 85, 124, 129, 313 Huntington, Samuel P., 63, 64, 66–68, 70, 316 hybrid regimes, 185

I Ibrahim, Anwar, 175, 177–179, 182, 184, 186 Iconography, 304 identity, 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 11 identity politics, 23, 24, 32, 39, 45 Ikhwan, 122 Imber, Naftali Hertz, 294 immigration, 19, 20, 25, 38, 262, 263 immorality, 197, 212, 213, 217 Imperialism, 143 India, 1, 5, 8, 15, 26, 31–36, 38, 45–47, 137–139, 142, 143, 148, 150, 153, 155, 286, 292 Indian Muslims, 5, 139, 140 Indians, 171, 181, 188 Indo-Afghan, 237 Indo-American, 22 Indonesia, 16, 178, 312, 316 ingroups, 2, 3, 5 ˙ ˙ 110 Inönü, Ismet, insecurity, 24

323

Iran, 292 Iraq, 68, 69, 91, 259 Islam, 2, 4, 5, 9, 10, 16, 19–21, 25–28, 32, 42, 45, 46, 63, 64, 66–70, 74, 75, 78–83, 87, 90–92, 94, 95 Islamabad, 141, 143 Islamic Brotherhood Front, 209 Islamic Defenders Front, 312, 313 Islamic nationalism, 137, 138, 142, 143 Islamic world, 5 Islamism/Islamist, 107, 111–115, 127, 138, 142, 147, 152, 154, 197, 199, 203, 207 Islamist extremism, 258 Islamist populism, 26, 197, 203, 204, 213, 218 Islamophobia, 145, 146, 149, 274, 275 Islamophobic, 113, 124, 182 Israel, 1, 5, 12, 30, 64, 73–75, 91, 182, 285–306 Israeli nationalism, 286, 298 Italy, 64, 65

J Jakarta, 197, 199, 207, 208, 215 Jammu & Kashmir, 233 Japanese, 171 Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), 271 Javanese, 171 Jayawardene, J.R., 271 Jerusalem, 74, 75, 123, 287, 288, 294, 295, 304, 306 Jewish, 67, 71, 73–75, 83, 92 Jewish lobby, 127, 138, 155 jihad, 143, 154, 196, 210, 213 jihadist, 145 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali, 138–141 Jordan, 297

324

INDEX

Judeo-Christian, 4, 16, 19–21, 24, 26, 27, 146, 210, 259 judiciary, 6, 7 Justice and Development Party (AKP), 5, 9, 27–31, 46, 106, 112

K Kaczynski, ´ Jaroslaw, 66, 85, 87, 89–93 Kalla, Jusuf, 209 Kashmir, 36, 232 Kemalists, 5, 29, 31, 106, 108, 109, 114, 127 Khan, Ayub, 141, 143 Khan, Imran, 139, 145, 146, 216 Khatris, 140 Khilafat movement, 231 King David, 288 Knesset, 292, 297, 301, 302, 304 Kuala Lumpur, 173, 178, 180 Kurds, 27, 107, 108, 116 Kyi, Aung Sung Suu, 42

L Lahore, 137 Latin America, 6, 21–23, 45 Law and Justice Party (PiS), 20, 65, 66, 69, 85–92 Law of Return, 298, 299 left-wing, 18, 21–23, 45 Lega Nord, 26 Le Pen, Marine, 65, 66, 77–84, 91–94, 262, 312 Levant, 287 LGBT, 86, 89, 90, 92–95, 315 liberal democracy, 259, 260, 263 liberalism, 16, 17, 20 libertarianism, 68 Libya, 124 Lok Sabha, 230, 239

M Maarif, Ahmad Syafii, 126 MaBaTha (MBT), 40–46 Macron, Emmanuel, 77–79, 82–84, 94 Madrasis, 140 majoritarianism, 18 Malacca, 171, 172, 181 Malaya, 172, 173 Malayan, 172 Malay-Muslims, 170, 175, 178, 188 Malays, 170–175, 178–182, 184–188 Malaysia, 169–173, 175–178, 180–188, 233, 313, 314 male honour, 21 Mamluk, 287 Manicheanism, 144 Mariátegui, José Carlos, 22 media, 6, 7 Medievalism, 64 Medina, 144 Mediterranean, 108, 123 Meir, Golda, 291, 306 Mélenchon, Jean-Luc, 77 Messiah, 289, 298 messianic, 62 metaphysical, 62 Middle East, 68, 70, 79, 86, 95, 263 Millî Görü¸s, 111 missionaries, 266 modernisation, 259, 261, 266, 268, 269 Modi, Narendra, 2, 16, 31, 32, 34–39, 47, 230, 232, 239–241, 243–245, 252, 312 Mohamad, Mahathir, 173, 177, 180, 181 Moor, 258, 267, 276, 278 Morales, Evo, 21, 22 moral revolution, 88, 209, 215 Morocco, 292 Moses, 289, 295

INDEX

mosque, 28 Mughal Empire, 234 Mughals, 234, 235, 237–241, 251 Muhammadiyah, 200, 201, 203, 204, 207, 208 multi-religious, 2 Musharraf, 144 Muslim democrats, 105 Muslim Other, 272, 275, 276 Muslims, 63, 64, 67, 70, 71, 78, 80, 82, 86–88, 90–92, 95 Muslim world, 106, 108, 115, 146, 153 Myanmar, 39, 40, 42–47

N Nagpur, 33 Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), 199, 200, 203, 204, 207 Naidu, Venkaiah M., 236, 237, 244 National Awami Party (NAP), 141, 142 National Culture Policy, 173 National Education Policy (NEP), 236, 246 National Front (FN), 20 nationalism, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 105, 106, 109, 110, 112, 114, 115, 117, 125, 127 National League for Democracy (NLD), 42, 44 National Order Party, 111 National Rally, 65, 66, 77, 82, 83, 91 National Salvation Party, 111 nationhood, 138, 152, 154 Nation-state, 2, 3, 5, 6, 12 nativism, 2, 18 NATO, 83 Naya Pakistan, 145 Nazi, 231 Nazism, 89

325

Nehru, Jawaharlal, 229, 237–239, 241, 251 neoliberalism, 3, 19, 22 neo-Ottomanism, 5, 29, 30, 107, 114, 115, 126 neopatrimonialism, 113 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 64 New Delhi, 143 New Economic Policy (NEP), 173, 174 New York, 68 Nicaragua, 24 non-Western, 257, 263, 279 North Africa, 107, 108 North America, 63, 65, 94, 198 North American, 23, 29 Northern Iraq, 123 nostalgia, 146 Nuestra América’, 22 Nuestramérica, 22–24, 45

O Obama, 70, 76 opponents, 6 opposition, 5, 8, 16, 17, 24, 27, 28, 31, 40, 44 Orbán, Viktor, 20, 23, 76, 77, 125, 262, 313 Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), 143, 146, 177, 178 Orientalist, 113 Ortega, Daniel, 24 Orthodox Christian, 200 Orthodox Jews, 290 Ottoman, 27, 29, 287 Ottoman Empire, 16, 27–30, 46, 106–109, 111, 114–117, 120–122, 126–128, 287 outgroups, 2, 3, 5

326

INDEX

P Pakatan Harapan, 180–188 Pakistan, 15, 30, 38, 137–150, 152–155, 170, 178 Pakistan’s Peoples Party (PPP), 142, 146 Pakistan Day, 137 Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), 148 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), 10, 139 Palestine, 115, 123, 128, 287, 290–293, 295–297, 299, 306 Palestinians, 287, 289, 298–300, 302 Palk Straits, 258 Pancasila, 200, 201, 209, 214 Pan-Islamism, 143 Paraguay, 22 Party for Freedom (PVV), 20, 26 PAS, 174, 178, 179, 181–183, 187 Pathans, 140 pawns, 6 Pax Ottomana, 107, 122, 128 peasants, 22 penalism, 18 Persian, 287 personalism, 7 Peruvian, 22 Philippines, 170 philosemitism, 261, 268 pious generations, 5, 27, 28, 31 Podemos, 23 Poland, 15, 16, 20, 61, 65, 66, 69, 84–90, 92, 95, 286, 292, 312, 313 Pompeo, Mike, 74, 75 post-Communist, 90 post-Westphalian, 138 Prevention of Terrorism Act, 275 pro-Communism, 182 progressivism, 16 Protestant, 66, 67, 200

pseudoscience, 244 Punjabis, 140 puppets, 6 pure people, 3, 4, 8 Putin, Vladimir, 26 Q Qaddafi, Muammar, 22 Qur’an, 197, 206, 211, 214 R Rabbi, 290, 295, 304 racism, 19, 28 Rajapaksa, Gotabhaya, 272, 273, 275, 277, 279 Rakhine, 41, 44 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 33, 230–233, 240 Razak, Najib, 175, 179, 180, 185 real people, 5 Refugees, 124 religiosity, 311 religious freedom, 73, 74, 91 religious identification, 1 religious values, 311, 316 Republican Party, 21, 65, 73, 76 Republican People’s Party (CHP), 108 resentment, 72 Revivalist Movement, 264, 266, 269–271 right-wing, 16, 18–22, 24, 26, 36, 38, 45 right-wing populists, 198 Riyasat-i-Madina, 146, 155 Rizvi, 139, 149–152 Rohingya, 41, 42, 44 Romans, 287 Rome, 81 rule-erosion, 7 ruling class, 18

INDEX

Russia, 182, 313, 315, 316 Russian, 83, 87

S Sabah, 173 Salafism, 204 Sanskrit, 242, 244–246, 248, 250, 251 Santa Clause, 119 Sarawak, 173, 181 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 81 Saudi Arabia, 123, 178, 209, 214 Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar, 32, 33, 230–232, 235 Second World War, 110 secularism/secularist, 16, 20, 45, 107, 118, 119 securitization, 6 Semitic, 295 separation of power, 6 Sèvres syndrome, 27 Shafiee madhab, 176 Sharia, 205, 211–213, 217 Shariah, 140 Sharif, Nawaz, 146 Shia Muslims, 197, 200 Shias, 140, 149, 155 Shihab, Muhammad Rizieq, 197, 198, 204, 205, 209, 211 Shiites, 176 Sindh, 232 Singapore, 173 Sinhala, 258, 264, 265, 267–277 Sinhalese, 312 Slovakia, 84 social Darwinism, 267 socialism/socialist, 3, 17, 19, 22, 141, 143 Socialist Party, 77, 82 social justice, 11, 205 South America, 16

327

sovereignty, 25 Spain, 292 Spanish Empire, 22 spirituality, 312 Sri Lanka, 1, 39, 43, 47, 233, 258, 261, 264, 265, 270–279, 312, 316 Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), 270 Star of David, 294 Subianto, Prabowo, 196–199, 203, 208 sub-Saharan, 78, 79 Suharto, 199, 201, 204 Sunni Muslim, 27, 31, 106–108, 114–117, 119, 126, 129, 197, 198, 202, 206, 217 Sweden, 61 Swedish, 183 Swiss law, 108 symbolic violence, 212 Syria, 70, 95, 115, 123, 124 Syriza, 23

T Taliban, 145 Taliban Khan, 145 Tamil, 258, 271–274, 278 Tea Party’, 68 Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), 139, 144, 148–155 Temperance Movement, 266 territorial nationalism, 232 Texas, 76 Thailand, 233 The League of Nations, 287, 292, 293 the Middle East, 107, 108, 122, 128 the Mongols, 127 the Netherlands, 61, 64 Theosophical Society, 266, 267 the People’s Justice Party (PKR), 179

328

INDEX

the Templars, 127 the UAE, 123 the West, 4, 11, 107, 109–111, 115, 116, 118–123, 125–127, 129 thin ideology, 3 Tibet, 233 TikTok, 182 totalitarianism, 89 traditionalism, 18, 261 transactionalism, 122 transcendent, 62 transnational, 6, 23, 24, 39, 47 transnational populism, 126 Trotskyist, 266, 270 Trump, Donald, 9, 21, 65, 66, 68–76, 91, 92, 94, 259, 312, 313 TÜRGEV, 126 Turken Foundation, 126 Turkey, 15, 25, 27–31, 46, 47, 178, 196, 198, 286 Turkish, 24, 27–31, 47, 237 Turkish diaspora, 107, 125, 129 Twitter, 150

U Uighurs, 124, 129 Ukraine, 181, 182 ummah, 5, 11, 29, 30, 46, 107, 115, 116, 118–121, 123, 124, 127–129, 170, 171, 178, 181, 183, 312–314 UN, 287 Union of European Turkish Democrats (UETD), 126 United India, 233, 238 United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), 174–176, 179–181, 184 United National Party (UNP), 270

United States (US), 21–23, 30, 34, 61–74, 76, 78, 86, 93–95, 116, 122, 124, 128, 259, 286, 315 Uruguay, 22

V Vaidya, Manmohan, 38 Vajpayee, Atal Bihari, 34 vandalism, 152 Vashnavas, 140 Vedas, 235, 244 Vedic, 33–35, 38, 39, 45, 46, 235, 241–244, 251 Venezuela, 21, 24 Vienna, 289 vigilante, 150, 151 Vishwaguru, 236, 242 Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), 233 Vivekananda, 35 volonté générale, 17, 48

W Wahid, Abdurrahman, 199, 200, 203 war on terror, 68, 76, 263 Washington, 21, 68 way of life, 17, 19, 34, 48 Weizmann, Chaim, 290 Welfare Party, 112 West Bank, 297, 302 Western, 107, 108, 111, 116–124, 126–129 Western education, 147 Western Europe, 7, 19, 311, 315 West Pakistan, 141, 142 Widodo, Joko, 196, 197 Wilders, Geert, 64, 313 World War II, 172

X xenophobic nationalism, 2

INDEX

Xinjiang, 30, 124, 129 Y Yankees, 23 Yemen, 124 Yiddish, 296 Yom Haatzmaut, 303, 304 YTB, 125, 126

Yudhoyono, Susilo Bambang, 202 Yunus Emre Enstitusu, 126 Z Zelensky, Volodymyr, 181 Zia-ul-Haq, 143 Zionism/Zionist, 75, 143, 181, 286–294, 296, 297

329