Not So Strange Bedfellows : The Nexus of Politics and Religion in the 21st Century [1 ed.] 9781443865845, 9781443848008

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Not So Strange Bedfellows

Not So Strange Bedfellows: The Nexus of Politics and Religion in the 21st Century

Edited by

Jim Jose and Rob Imre

Not So Strange Bedfellows: The Nexus of Politics and Religion in the 21st Century, Edited by Jim Jose and Rob Imre This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Jim Jose and Rob Imre and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4800-X, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4800-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures ........................................................................ vii Part I: Introduction Chapter One ................................................................................................ 2 Situating the Nexus of Politics and Religion in the 21st Century Jim Jose and Rob Imre Part II: The Religion of Politics: Foundations of the Nexus Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 14 On Keeping Religion Out of Politics Stephen Chavura Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 26 Mainline Calvinists, Pamphlets and Democracy in Revolutionary Britain 1641-1646 Graham Maddox and Tod Moore Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 45 Dynamic Confucianism in the Sinic World: Nationalism, Democracy, Postcolonialism Christine Doran Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 60 Colonialism, Civilization and Indigenous Law: The Protection of Aboriginal Spiritual Interests in Land in American and Canadian Courts Guy Charlton Part III: The Politics of Religion: The Nexus Explored Chapter Six ............................................................................................... 78 Soft Identities and Hard Realities: The Limits of Governance and Non-Territorial Identity W. John Hopkins

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Chapter Seven........................................................................................... 91 The Role of Religion in Poland’s Relations and its Eastern Neighbours Des Brennan Chapter Eight ............................................................................................ 98 Helmut Kohl’s Catholic Nationalism Christian Wicke Chapter Nine........................................................................................... 117 Reconstruction and Religion: The Case of Iraq, Ayatollahs and Local Ownership Hawzhin Azeez Chapter Ten ............................................................................................ 133 Re-imagining Islamist Violence in Indonesia: Radicalization and the State Josh Snider Chapter Eleven ....................................................................................... 149 The Value of Faith in the Provision of Welfare: An Australian Perspective Sandra Reeves Chapter Twelve ...................................................................................... 168 The Relationship between Politics and Religion in Nigeria: A Not So Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? Richard Oloruntoba Part IV: The Persistence of the Nexus Chapter Thirteen ..................................................................................... 186 Religion and Nation Building in Australia and East Germany: “Getting our money’s worth?” Dominic Fitzsimmons Chapter Fourteen .................................................................................... 195 No Gods, No Masters: The Sine Qua Non of Political Rule? Jim Jose Contributors ............................................................................................ 209 Index ....................................................................................................... 213

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Tables Table 3.1: Typology of Calvinist Political Thought ................................. 28

Figures Figure 11.1: CASS - Client Responses to ER Provision ........................ 157 Figure 11.2: CASS - Client ER requests ................................................ 161

PART I INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE SITUATING THE NEXUS OF POLITICS ST AND RELIGION IN THE 21 CENTURY JIM JOSE AND ROB IMRE Introduction This volume on religion and politics explores the nexus created by belief in doctrine and adherence to socio-political cultural conventions. This nexus has traditionally been approached from a standpoint that posits the idea of secularity as the governing principle. Hence, when politics and religion are seen as intersecting with each other the problem is seen in terms of encroachment or clash. Our approach challenges this orthodoxy. Our critical perspective offers a novel approach for understanding the nexus between religion and politics. In the first place we start from the idea that treats “democracy”, the desirable face of politics, as a doctrine in the same way as “Christianity” is taken to be a doctrine. That is, each involves a particular system of beliefs, values and practices that over time ossify critical analysis such that contemporary debates become trapped within constantly shifting “fixed” positions. Such positions are fixed in the sense that they are seemingly beyond question, yet they are treated as constantly shifting in order for protagonists to justify their places as the appropriate authorities. Thus, for example, from our novel perspective, attendance to worship—acting on religious convictions—need not be a function of belief any more than voting—acting on political convictions—need be a function of belief in the efficacy of democracy (and hence of a belief in politics). Both religion and politics involve institutional arrangements that give substance to a range of beliefs, and each arrangement can accommodate a diversity of beliefs that need not be entirely self-consistent. Both domains can be foregone conclusions in that each “works” simply because an institutional arrangement is present. Yet as configured within our contemporary Western societies, political and religious institutions serve to reinforce each other, no less than in non-Western, non-Christian

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societies. It matters little whether the political institutions are democratic or otherwise, nor does it matter what brand of religion is involved. In our view, the institutional intersections will vary according to historical contingency while at the same time exhibiting a level of constancy denied in orthodox accounts, especially those predicated on ideas about a “clash of civilizations” (c.f. Huntington 1997). Our critical approach to the nexus of religion and politics demonstrates how the two are entwined in what some have referred to as “habitus” (e.g. Bourdieu 1990), some regard as a “discourse of power” (e.g. Foucault 1984;1980), and some see as an entwining of modern ideologies such as Marxism combining with progressive Catholicism to produce liberation theology (Berryman 1987). Our premise rejects outright the clash of civilization thesis, a rejection done effectively already by a number of scholars (e.g. Ali 2003; Rasheed 1997). Indeed, we also reject the key trope used by scholars to engage in this debate, namely the idea of a “clash”, which locks Huntington’s critics into the terms of his unhelpful and limiting discourse (Imre & Jose 2010). Our concern is more probing since we question how we arrived at where we are in the first place. We problematise the relationship between religion and politics through a number of inter-related, though by no means homogenous approaches. Our contributors examine the ways in which nation-states actively participate in the construction of this nexus even as they extol their commitment to secular values. Various essays demonstrate how nationstates develop political religions, how they actively promote a politics infused with religiosity, and how they transfer symbols and meanings from one socio-political construct to another. As such our contributors demonstrate how civil society and religion are mixed. More importantly, and most politically, they demonstrate in one way or another that “secular” democracy (and indeed secular politics of any kind) is not radically separate from religion. Indeed, the position common to a number of the contributions is that secularity presupposes the necessity for the presence of religion in one form or another. In short, if there was no religion, politics would have to invent it. We argue that religion as an institution has political and social influence more subtle and nuanced than the simplistic “God vs. democracy” dichotomy. This volume develops this nuanced understanding via an examination of various institutional dimensions. The contributors examine activities in a number of historical and geographic locations involving diverse religious and political movements. In sum the essays decidedly repudiate the currently dominant orthodoxies on the nexus between religion and politics by offering novel interpretations of this nexus. In short we understand the

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nexus as less an intertwining and more as a fusion, a point underscored emphatically by the argument developed in Chapter 2 that the separation of the two is next to impossible. We also see this fusion as captured quite nicely by the term “political religion”. We take up a discussion of this later in this chapter, but before doing that we want to make a number of points in the next section that pertain to the themes already noted.

Politics, Religion and Faith We are not suggesting that religion and politics are identical phenomena. Nor are we suggesting that “democracy” and “Christianity” (or any other religion) are identical. We are suggesting that in upholding the values particular to democracy and Christianity respectively people invoke similar habits or ways of articulating their commitment to them. That is, both democracy and Christianity involve routinized forms of behaviour that could be described as rituals, and in that sense a predominantly religious or spiritual term finds common ground with a supposedly secular term. What we are aiming to get across here is not the presence of rituals but that people tend to rely on ritualized modes of understanding and seemingly non-rational modes of behaviour. The intersection of religion and politics then becomes very blurred. But more importantly, it enables the one to be seen as much like the other (and vice versa) and hence blurs the crucial lineaments of power peculiar or specific to each. As such it undermines how we might understand the social organisation of power in any given society. While it is commonly accepted that in a religious context faith prevails over reason (though it does not necessarily exclude reason) in the political context of democracy reason is assumed to prevail and, in contradistinction to religion, to exclude faith. Yet if we probe a little deeper, faith also circulates within democratic political systems, if not openly then certainly within the capillary-like byways of the circulatory system of power that is understood to constitute the political logic of democratic political systems. This logic, particularly apposite of majoritarian democracies, has been described as the “loop model of democracy” (Miller and Fox 2007, 4), reflecting what Colebatch (2009, 62) has described as “the modernist liberal democratic narrative of government”. Miller and Fox identify six elements of this model that in combination authorise some to make decisions and exercise power on behalf of the rest of the population, usually loosely described as “the people” who are assumed to be the sovereign authority in the last instance. Even in polities where “the people” are not formally regarded as sovereign

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(e.g. Australia) there is widespread belief that governments are authorised, that is legitimised by “the people”, the voters who elect them. To see how this logic is structured it is worth reproducing here the key points from Miller and Fox’s model. 1. The people are aware of what they want or need. 2. Competing candidates (or parties) for electoral office— political entrepreneurs—offer alternative packages of wants or needs that can be satisfied by particular methods. 3. People choose a representative by voting for which alternative package seems best to match their preferences. 4. Coalitions of winning entrepreneurs pass laws reflecting the people’s choices. 5. A vigilant populace pays enough attention to the process and the results to judge the elected representatives as either successful or wanting. 6. If satisfied with the results, people will reward incumbents with their votes; if unsatisfied they will vote for alternative entrepreneurs offering alternative packages (Miller and Fox 2007, 4-5). In sum, something called “government” is democratically called into existence, that is, to say given existential form, and is identified “with a loosely-defined condensation of political and bureaucratic authority” to which “the people” defer (Colebatch 2009, 62). But it is not just “government” and its authority that is given existential form through this process. The entity known as “the people”, supposedly the very origins of this authority, is also called into existence, indeed given its form by the political process itself. Yet as Miller and Fox suggest, “the phrase the people masks the radical absence of any such monistic aggregation, of any such consensus” (2007, 5. Emphasis in original). The loop is fed by a sort of belief, by faith, in a process that becomes self-validating. A similar loop could be said to characterise religion. Instead of the authority of the “people” there is the authority of “God”, or the divine, which is taken as the originating source of spiritual enlightenment. It is believed to have enlightened “the people” as to their needs, duties and practices. However, such enlightenment is not usually immediately visible to everyone. Rather it appears in the first instance to a privileged few who take “the word” as revealed and disseminate it, which in turn calls for the need for institutional organisation of various forms. These institutions, churches of a similar kind, become the means not just to disseminate the

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revealed truths; they become the means to call forth the congregation, the set of believers who give the process its substance. In turn the congregation, by its presence at regular meetings overseen by the representatives of the institutions that have come to embody the original beliefs and revealed truths, reaffirms the authority of those institutions and their functionaries, thereby bringing into existence, in the last instance, the divine source of that authority. The first and last instance are thereby united by faith and belief and, like the “loop of democracy”, becomes selfvalidating. While there might be some quibbles over the specific details of these two models, the political and the religious, we would suggest that our characterisation of them is not too far off the mark. Both are driven by a series of beliefs and involve entities that gain their existential import and authority from the practices that constitute them. Both depend less on the rule of reason, certainly far less than their proponents would accept, and more on belief in nominalistic if not metaphysical entities. This means that the separation of the one from the other is less effective than either would allow. More importantly, if nominalistic or metaphysical entities underpin each then it becomes impossible for authorities in each sphere to engage in meaningful dialogue in the sense that neither is able to concede any ground to the other. After all if “the people”/“God” have spoken then what room for manoeuvre is left for their respective representatives? The positions are fixed in advance, regardless of the intentions of the participants. And when authority figures argue from fixed positions, demonization of those with whom one disagrees becomes normalized, both as a political and religious practice. We can see this in the various invocations of the “war on terror”, of “crusades”, of “jihads”, and so on. But it is not just the so-called extremists, political, religious, or any other categorization. Indeed, it is more the case that it is the so-called moderates, especially in political circles, who often turn out to be the most dangerous because they operate within belief structures that deny any fixity of position. Safe in their belief that they are not dogmatists but reasonable people they are able to project themselves as open to negotiated outcomes. Yet precisely because they represent the will of “the people”, and are mandated by the electoral process to protect that “will” come what may, they are already operating from a metaphysical position. Seen from this perspective wherein lies the difference from their religious counterparts?

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Political Religion(s) The concept of “political religions” is usually identified with totalitarian politics. The work of Roger Griffin (2006) and Emilio Gentile (1996) build on the work of Eric Voegelin who developed the concept in the 1930s. They based their work on totalitarian political systems that sought to substitute religion with the secular state. What we aim to identify is something that will add to the political religions literature rather than reignite and already overused “secular politics” vs religion debate and all of its exigencies. The political religion discussion is far more interesting in terms of opening up new debate on the intertwined situation that exists between religion and politics. The concept of “political religion” has changed and developed since the end of the Cold War and the re-ignition of a “fear politics” in the post 9/11 era has created a new interpretation of this fear. While debate about political possibilities opened up in the 1990s with discussions about post-socialism and post-Marxism (Badiou 2012, 2012a; Bosteels 2011), this was quickly quashed with the “war on terror” in democracies around the world as Badiou and Bosteels chronicle in their works on post-Marxist alternatives. We were then left with a near hegemony of liberal-democracy, and global capitalism. The repercussions for the nexus of politics and religion thus conjure up considerations that push well beyond a simple clash of civilizations. A major shift in thinking about this nexus revolves around the role of messianism. Messianism presents us with a ubiquitous problem in contemporary politics, whether in election campaigns, policy debates, or in general media discourse within liberal democracy. There is a posited necessity to hang political fortunes on those imbued with the quality of “leadership” aggressively driving a political agenda, the charismatic leader no less. Typically, the political agenda is presented in the form of a “crisis” and the leader then must deliver the people from that crisis. This obvious stifling of policy debate, as well as political reform, means that leadership takes on a messianic quality similar to the valorisation of CEOs within the corporate structures promoted by neoliberal philosophies. A demand emerges for a charismatic leader, and whether any given leader begins with messianic qualities or not, the ever-present demand quickly imbues one or other political actor with messianic qualities. Political debate is often framed around the deliverance of the state from a current crisis, manufactured or otherwise, to lead it towards the economic and political stability of its polity. This is akin to a global continuation of the “Cult of the Supreme Being” established by Robespierre during the French Revolution. Replacing the monarchy with some form of

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unquestioned set of personal characteristics, often sociopathic, constrained the radical democrats of the revolution to act in an authoritarian manner. They galvanized the nation in an attempt to defeat the counterrevolutionaries, and in more recent times this galvanizing approach has become a ubiquitous characteristic of contemporary politics. There is a direct lineage between fascism/totalitarianism and this Robespierrean version of a “state religion”. In this case we see the establishment of the “Cult of Reason” that delivers a new ideology at the end of the 1700s designed by Robespierre to supplant the religious fervour of his newly established co-nationals in France. Here, the actual concept of “Reason” was meant to contain the devotional characteristics of a populace so used to God(s), and led to Robespierre being beheading by Napoleon. The twentieth century version of this, according to Emilio Gentile, was Italian Fascism. The attempt to build a “new man” and a new society was based on the sacralization of the state in Mussolini’s Italy. Gentile’s analysis points out precisely the ways in which symbols and rhetoric of the Catholic Church were simply transposed with the new symbols of the state. Similarly, Figes and Kolonitskii (1999) write of the political religion of the Russian Revolution. Figes and Kolonitskii demonstrate how the Russian Revolution, like the French Revolution, brought about a state religion, replacing one with the other, and continued on through Stalin’s Russia, maintaining the symbols of the Russian Orthodox Church. Indeed, their thesis was borne out in part by both the seamlessness of the first shift away from the Orthodox Church to the orthodoxy of Marxism-Leninism during post-Revolution Russia, and then seamlessly, once again, from Marxist-Leninist ideology to the contemporary version of Putin’s state-centric, church-supported political religion.

Alternatives? While contemporary politics remains trapped within the modern problem of political religion, specifically that of entwining religion and politics, there may be alternatives. For example, the postmodern challenge to the modern state, as developed by Zygmunt Bauman in his Postmodern Ethics, has sought to counter the radical distinction between “self” and “other” in modern politics. Bauman’s concern is that modern states retain the religious nature of definitions of the polity that will guarantee a demonization of a particular group or category of person. Surrounded by devils and demons, the modern state attempts to counteract this evil by locking up asylum seekers, creating moral panics around gay marriage, or

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substituting apostasy for “loyalty” questions around migrants. Bauman’s challenge is to discard all of this for a radical ethic of care in which the needs of the other are placed first (Bauman 1993). Granted, many religious doctrines embrace, or at least would claim to embrace, the same ethical concern: Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, will all agree on the primacy of human dignity and the attenuate evil of poverty and disadvantage. However, the problem is that religious organizations and their willing embrace of the institutional protections of the state end up sacrificing this ethical doctrine to facilitate their internecine battles over religious dogma on the one hand, as well as on the other, entering into a “power bargain” in which power over constituencies becomes more important than the discussion about universal care of the other. States look after citizens, unless they breach a commandment just as religious organizations look after their own constituents, rather than concern themselves with those outside of their own spiritual realm. It is an interesting question as to why religious organizations place access to power above the doctrinal care of the other, as required by so many of these religious approaches. Perhaps the only thing missing from a contemporary system of political religion is the discarding of utopianism by most democratic polities. In the post-Cold War period, and indeed the post-9/11 period, most state leaders have stopped engaging in grand nation-building schemes, mostly as a result of the entrenchment of neo-liberalism (Harvey 2007). In discarding the utopian ideal of a fully functioning state, the primary ideological position is one that claims the state cannot incur financial debt in order to build infrastructure. Infrastructure building must be cost-effective as well as financially viable; indeed, make a profit or privatize, but no debt! This is one of the greater innovations of the neoliberal state: the end of utopia. An alternative to maintaining political religion might be something that involves the return of a utopian condition, as a counter to living with the apocalyptic catastrophism written about by Zizek (2012). Rather than loyalty to the state or nation, or loyalty to a religious position, a utopic condition to counter this messianism as well as the “coming apocalypse” can deliver an alternative view, albeit not without the danger associated with utopias of the past. Coupled with messianism and Zizekian catastrophism, political leaders have managed to imbue a sense of permanent crisis on their polities, to be remedied by a leader, charismatic if not messianic, to lead the people out of the manufactured crisis. Economies that have weathered the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2009 quite well, such as Australia and Canada for example, still frame their political rhetoric in terms of “strong leadership”,

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fear of the other, and the necessity of placing associated dangers at the forefront of policy and political decisions. The final point we make about an alternative to political religion is the possibility of the rejection of contemporary politics through a “politics of the multitude” or the various forms of the “occupy” movements around the world. These movements were triggered by the rejection of the dominance of global financial capital, the various austerity programs that followed, and the deeply entrenched links between governments and large banks and multinational corporations (MNCs). Bailout programs designed to benefit large banks and MNCs ensured that the benefits would be applied at a particular level of the global capitalist system where a vast majority of people would not be able to access these “rescue packages”. Neither messianic nor (although possibly) apocalyptic these “occupy” and/or “multitudinal” movements sought to express their disdain for their own governments by taking over spaces in cities around the world. Indeed, their rejection of political religions created the question about “what do they want” as a negative characteristic of these complaints. Rejecting “politics as usual” the mass protests did not engage the political system with traditional demands. Worker’s rights, wage demands, or other types of political change were but a small part of what the protests were about as most of the demonstrations involved calls for such wholesale changes to the system of political religion that the demonstrations were dismissed outright as impossible to even understand. A detailed analysis of this phenomenon is beyond the scope of the essays presented here, but for an introduction to some of these issues see Badiou (2012a).

Conclusion As we have stated above, what we are trying to do in this book is to challenge the idea that when politics and religion are seen as intersecting with each other it is a problem to be understood in terms of encroachment or clash. Our approach challenges this orthodoxy. Our critical perspective offers a novel approach for understanding the nexus between religion and politics. Hence in the section on the foundations of the nexus, the contributors therein discuss the ways in which this complexity has been established. Often we assume that there is a “classical” distinction between political power and interests, and religious power and interests. This classical element assumes that Locke and Mill, Indigenous peoples, and various civilizations have a kind of “primordial” and/or pre-modern concern with religion and when the “modern” state develops, this state then sheds its primordial origins. The various authors in this section

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demonstrate that this need not be the case. In fact, the locus of power never shifts, and this assumption of a pre-modern position does not change. The establishment of the modern state and all of its problematics are imbued with a power that stems from overtly religious ideologies and overtly spiritual concerns. Classical and modern may indeed have different characteristics, but religion and politics do not disentangle their spiritual origins with the onset of modernity. In the largest section of the book the authors present analyses of various aspects of the nexus. The ubiquitous nature of contemporary political religions is demonstrated. The essay on “Radicalization of Islamists in Indonesia” provides a case study of political resistance framed in a religiosity that is the single alternative to rule by powerful governments that have the interests of capital and employ religion in an instrumental manner. This contest is not a doctrinal dispute, but rather a dispute over resources and access to power, framed in a religiosity that is precisely our problem with the nexus. And when faith-based organizations take on the role of citizens’ welfare, in economic terms, we see the rise of religious influence, and the further entrenchment of the confluence of religion and politics, when policy-making and policy solutions are left in the hands of religious leaders. Several essays look at nation-building or political reconstruction. Despite the different geographical and historical lineages of the nations in question, it can be seen that all have in common the intractable nature of the nexus in question. We conclude the book by discussing the persistence of our politics/religion nexus. In this persistence, we conclude that political religion will mark the beginning of the new millennium in a number of ways. Polities around the world maintain the sacralized view of politics. All of the points characteristic of political religions remain strong in both policy and ideology. Political decision-makers frame their questions as sacred ones: “national lands” being invaded by barbarians, the holy sepulchre of capitalism must remain even with all of its failures, and organized religion continues to act as moral arbiter with a noted lack of critique of government policies. Our masters then, have all of the gods on their side.

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Works Cited Ali, T. 2003. The Clash of Fundamentalisms. London: Verso. Badiou, A. 2012. Philosophy for Militants. London: Verso. —. 2012a. The Rebirth of History. London: Verso. Bauman, Z. 1993. Postmodern Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Berryman, P. 1987. Liberation Theology: Essential Facts about the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America and Beyond. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bosteels, B. 2012. The Actuality of Communism. London: Verso. Bourdieu, P. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Colebatch, H. K. 2009. “Governance as a Conceptual Development in the Analysis of Policy.” Critical Policy Studies. 3 (1): 58-67. Figes, O. and B. Kolonitskii. 1999. Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Foucault, M. 1984. The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction. Translated by R Hurley. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books. —. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. Edited by C. Gordon. Translated by C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham and K. Soper. Brighton, UK: Harvester Press. Gentile, E. 1996. The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Griffin, R. 2006. Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion. London: Routledge. Harvey, D. 2007. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Huntington, S. P. 1997. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York, Simon & Schuster. Imre, R., and Jose, J. 2010. “Religious and Political Violence: Globalising Syncretism and the Governance State.” Religion, State and Society. 38: 153-168. Miller, H. F. and C. J. Fox. 2007. Postmodern Public Administration. Rev. ed. Reprint. New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India. Rashid, S. , ed 1997. The Clash of Civilizations? Asian Responses. New York: Oxford University Press. Voegelin, E. 1986. The Political Religions. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press. Zizek, S. 2012. “A Modest Plea for Enlightened Catastrophism.” ABC Religion and Ethics. 11 July 2012. Accessed 10 March 2013. http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/07/11/3543824.html.

PART II THE RELIGION OF POLITICS: FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEXUS

CHAPTER TWO ON KEEPING RELIGION OUT OF POLITICS STEPHEN A. CHAVURA Introduction Recently the British philosopher Mary Warnock published her own contribution to the current skirmish between secularists and religionists regarding the rationality and utility of religion; Warnock’s (2010) contribution was entitled, Dishonest to God: On Keeping Religion out of Politics. I have no idea how seriously Warnock takes the subtitle of her book, but many contributors to the debate over religion and public life take it very seriously indeed (Cf. most recently Blackford 2012, passim).1 There is no shortage of activists, philosophers, political scientists, journalists, and biologists who call for the “separation of religion and politics”. This is a relatively new demand by advocates of so-called secular politics, for the traditional terminology of choice was a “separation of church and state” or a “secular state”. The French term laïcité connotes a system, educational and governmental, not controlled by priests or the church. The English ecclesiastical term word “laity” ultimately derives from the same Greek word that the French laïcité takes its meaning from, OȐȠȢ: “the people”, as opposed to the clergy. The terms “separation of church and state” and laïcité posited two institutions, relatively clearly defined, which would inevitably overlap, but were not meant to usurp the other’s rightful spheres of influence, that is not to interfere with or trespass upon one another (Hamburger 2002; Bowen 2007, 6-21; McLeod 2000, 52-80). The problem with agreements to honour borders is the borders themselves are contestable, and the agreement to honour borders in the abstract becomes as much a source of conflict as it was supposed to be a source of peace. So as Europe passed through the 19th Century the state 1

Even while writing this chapter I received an invitation from the Macquarie University Atheist League to attend a symposium on “how to disentangle religion and politics and advance secularism in Australia”.

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expanded its functional borders to include education, welfare, and hospitals; indeed, the expansion of the state over the last two hundred years is very much a story of the contraction of the church as the settled administrator of educational, welfare, and health institutions (McLeod 2000). We have been left with two institutions, the church and the state, whose functional borders are in dispute on more fronts now than ever before. For example, during the Medieval period there were skirmishes between theologians, kings, and popes regarding who ultimately owns (dominion) land and material possessions, as opposed to who is able to use them (usus); not to mention controversies over the immediate source of royal power: was it directly from God or indirectly from God via the church (Tierney 1964; O’Donovan and O’Donovan. 1999, Parts 2 and 3)? The answers to the questions were crucial, and they often led history’s greatest minds down recondite paths of Scriptural exegesis: If Christ is sinless then the whole world must be the dominion of the church; for unless Christ himself owns the whole world his destruction of the herd of pigs would have been an assault on another’s dominion, which is a sin. But Christ is sinless; thus, Christ owns the world, and the See of Peter, as his representative…QED (Cf. Marsilius 1956, II.3)! Although the question of who had ultimate authority in worldly affairs was contentious, nobody really thought to question the notion that the king was responsible for taxation and security, domestic and foreign, and the church was responsible for education, alms, and health. Even less contentious was whether political discussion, policy, and law derive their sustenance from church dogma: indeed they had to, or at least could not be in stark opposition to it: For if justice is a spiritual property and a perfection of soul and not of body, then it will rest with the spiritual power to judge concerning such justice; and earthly and bodily power will have no capacity to judge concerning it unless it does so by virtue of (a delegated) spiritual power. And so all imperial laws and those of the earthly power must be subordinated to the canons of the church, so that they may derive strength and also firmness from them (Giles of Rome [c.1301] 1999, 370).

Such was the accepted wisdom in the Middle Ages. Things are, of course, very different today, and the changing nature of religion and the state has made the terms “separation of Church and State” and “secular state” more contentious than ever. As well as the state increasing its borders the current meaning of “religion” has changed, having little to do with the common use of that word up until the seventeenth century and in many cases well into the nineteenth century. It

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has become a remarkably broad term to denote any belief in a transcendent reality or system of behavior linked with a worldview, as was established in the US Supreme court in the case of Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), which recognized secular humanism as a religion. Prior to the seventeenth century it tended to denote a fairly defined set of rules or customs linked to a particular mode of piety: there was the Anglican religion, the Catholic religion, countless Dissenting religions, the Hindu religion; few spoke of “religion” as a universal category linking myriad particulars (Cf. Smith 1991 [1962], Ch. 2; Tregenza 2013). This was still largely true for the use of “religion” into the nineteenth century. Thus, when people spoke of a “religion” they often meant a particular church, and by “Church and State” they meant the influence of the clergy in government and or the influence of the government over church polity and doctrine. When people spoke of a separation of church and state they referred to the ideal of the church and its clergy not violating the proper functioning of the state, and of the state not violating the proper functioning of the church and the conscience of individual believers. In England and Western Europe the emphasis tended more to be placed on the state not interfering with the church as an institution in its doctrine and government. In America the emphasis tended to be more on the state not violating the consciences of individual religionists. In this way the idea of a separation between the church and the state took on slightly different flavours, largely owing to America’s rejection of the idea of “the church” as a single, recognized institution: there was no church, just individuals and their congregations (Chadwick 1971; Dreisbach 2002). Today calls for a separation of church/religion and state tend to be fairly diffuse in their meaning; demanding a total absence of religious voices in the public sphere, law and policy not explicitly or motivationally based on religious reasons or sentiments, the political arena as a clergyfree zone, and the state not funding any religious causes or institutions (Chavura 2011). Proponents of this program see themselves as continuing within the liberal tradition as it has emerged over the last three hundred years. Indeed, the whole idea of a separation of church and state, as opposed to the subordination of the church to the state or vice versa, is quintessentially liberal, and when we offer normative discourse on separating the church from the state we are entering into a liberal discourse. For example, despite recent calls for the separation of religion and politics, it has become a truism to say that it is impossible to eliminate religion from politics. Not so much in the sense that political concepts historically have taken their shape and substance from religious or theological concepts (Cf. Schmitt 1985: 33), but because both religion and

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politics are human dispositions and activities and, both being part of the human condition, they will inevitably interact, like conversation over the dinner table. It is when we seriously try to envision a program of removing religion from politics that we discover how liberal we are. Presumably it would be the state removing religion from politics rather than religion removing itself, and so coercion would need to be as strong and pervasive to the degree that religion stubbornly finds myriad ways of influencing politics. Incorrigible religionists could not be trusted to hold office in political or legal institutions; the education system would need to be purged of any content that could plausibly promote religion and religious belief; citizens would have to be subjected to religiosity tests to ensure that religious beliefs and motives do not influence elections; religious institutions would have to be tightly controlled so as not to influence the general population, corrupting the citizenry. If civil society influences the political sphere, that is, the sphere of political decision, then civil society would need to be purged of religion for politics to be purely secular. All of this could be done; indeed, the experience of religionists in communist countries throughout the twentieth-century would see it more as a bad memory than a thought experiment. But our instinctual apprehension to such a program of removing religion from politics serves to show that the separation of Church and State is an ideal meant to promote greater ideals such as freedom and equality, the very ideals so obviously plundered in the hypothetical program just described. As soon as we admit that religion and politics cannot be wholly separated from one another, the question becomes what sort of relationship the two may legitimately have. It makes sense partially to look to the historic liberal tradition as a heuristic method because the whole idea of a separation between these realms was adopted by and developed within this tradition. Indeed, it was the various models of church-state practiced in the medieval and early-modern periods against which Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke and Thomas Jefferson formulated their ideas. Pre-Enlightenment models or ideal-types can be categorized as follows (O’Donovan and O’Donovan, eds. passim): 1.

Church over state: The state is absolutely bound to enforce the moral and religious teachings of the church. Though the church has no direct coercive power whatsoever, it has the right to absolve believers of their duty of obedience to governments that shirk the church’s authority.

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2.

3.

State over church: At its strongest, the state has the sovereign power to determine the religion of the nation, thus the Westphalian right: cuis regio, eius religio. In its strongest Hobbesian formulation the state has the right to determine all matters of church doctrine and polity. State with church: Like 2 above, the interactive model rose mainly out of the Reformation and holds that both institutions have their authority directly from God, thus, neither is dependent upon the other for its authority. Nonetheless, the state is bound to take an interest in the cura religionis and must enforce the national religion on all subjects. Yet neither institution is thought to dominate over the other, as in the other two models.

Although these ideal-types all differ in their relation of church to state, they all agree on their relation of church-state to nation, that is, they all take for granted the legitimacy of enforcing religion upon subjects and citizens. It is this to which the Enlightenment church-state separation advocates were responding. Locke’s Letter concerning Toleration (1689) was written against “men striving for power and empire over one another” (Locke 1947, 21). The whole Letter is a series of (often theological) arguments against any power of the state to coerce religious adherence (Cf. Waldron 2002; and the contrasting view of Tate 2013). Locke’s arguments are often theological in that they begin with a particular (to be specific, protestant Arminian) conception of God as concerned with people’s internal beliefs and their free assent to the message of salvation. Ultimately he argues that there is a kind of absurdity in coercing religion, for “God will not save men against their wills” (Locke 1947, 37). Further, Locke argues that “it appears not that God has ever given any such authority to one man over another, as to compel anyone to his religion” (25). Magisterial coercion is futile for the magistrate’s power “consists only in outward force…but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind” (26). Furthermore, if a single religion was enforced upon a nation, given the multiplicity of religions, what would be the chances that it would be the right one? (27). Not only can a magistrate not determine the doctrine of the church (as Hobbes would have) but he cannot pick which pre-existing church to foist upon the people, for he has no special knowledge of which church is correct (Locke 1947, 39-40). Locke offers a summary conclusion of the whole Letter of which I quote only in part:

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The sum of all we drive at is that every man may enjoy the same rights that are granted to others. Is it permitted to worship God in the Roman manner? Let it be permitted to do it in the Geneva form also…Let no man’s life or body, or house, or estate, suffer any manner of prejudice upon these accounts (Locke 1947, 62).

What we see here is that Locke is wholly concerned with the imposition by the state of a particular religion upon the citizens. This also means he is concerned with religious forces taking over the reins of state and imposing a religion on the citizens. Put another way, he is concerned with religious freedom. It is about displacing the magistrate’s right, even duty, to attach his coercive powers to a particular church, thus denying nonconformity. The separation of Church and State refers to a time when the two institutions were not separated, that is, when the coercive power of the state was used to enforce a religion upon nations. The opposite of this tradition is exactly what Locke is advocating: the loosening of the state’s coercive rights from religion. Thus, if Locke’s Letter is the classic statement of separation of church and state then the nature of such separation is religious liberty and freedom from religion only in the sense of freedom from state-imposed religious observance. The second locus classicus of the idea of a separation between religion and the state is Thomas Jefferson’s recommendation of a wall of separation between the church and the state. Jefferson’s preoccupation was ensuring that religion remained free and uncoerced. His reasons were essentially Lockean and, therefore, for the most part theological: true religion comes from conviction, and conviction cannot be coerced. The essence of Jefferson’s views on religion and the state were contained in his 1777 Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom: no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods; or shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities (Jefferson 1999, 391).

In his famous Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association (1802) he wrote the words that would become so important in post-WWII American

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Supreme Court decisions.2 Again we see that the premises upon which he builds his wall are first order theological propositions about God’s expectations of his rational creatures: religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions [and should] “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State (Jefferson 1999, 397).

Locke and Jefferson were concerned with religious freedom; freedom from state-church control. But how helpful are Locke and Jefferson today in liberal democracies characterized by social pluralism? Both Locke and Jefferson believed in a polity that was founded on what we would call religious presuppositions. For Locke this was natural law as an expression of divine will; for Jefferson it was natural rights endowed upon all by the Deity.3 In continuity with political thought since Plato, Locke and Jefferson believed in a state grounded on metaphysics, indeed theology. Twentieth-century liberal thought, on the other hand, has often rejected the legitimacy of any metaphysical or comprehensive foundations for law and legislation. Before the twentieth-century a broad Christian ethos in politics was not considered control but a reflection of the nation. What constitutes control in a pluralist liberal democracy? For example, do religious politicians, lobby groups, and voting blocs constitute a form of religious control or domination over politics? Conversely, would it constitute state domination over religious institutions if such institutions were no longer permitted to discriminate based on religion, morality, or sexuality? In the first case religionists would simply say that they are exercising their democratic rights, and therefore their activity is not 2

Namely beginning with Everson v. Board of Education (1947). For church and state in US jurisprudence see Eastland 2005; Patrick and Long 1999; Greenawalt, 2006; Davis 2010. 3 See Locke’s lectures on the law of nature delivered at Oxford University between 1663-4. His view that reason does not establish moral laws but merely discovers them, which have their origin in the will of God and provide the foundation for all law, also played a significant role in his Second Treatise of Government and especially his Letter concerning Toleration, in which he refuses to extend toleration to atheists because they reject the existence of the only entity upon which laws can be grounded. See “Essays on the Law of Nature”, in Locke 1997, 81, 113, 120. For Jefferson’s rational creator and his political ideas in general see Jayne 1997.

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domination any more than other interest group activity. In the second instance the state may say that it is not exercising arbitrary, self-seeking control over religious institutions, but merely doing its job of ensuring that people’s rights are not violated. The notion of “control” or “domination” hinges on the prior concept of “arbitrariness”, but “arbitrariness” itself is a concept that only makes sense if there is prior agreement on what is not arbitrary, that is, what constitutes a good reason for coercion (Pettit 1997, 55-8, 63, 174-5, 184-5, 230-1; Barry 1965, 306). Thus, the bounds of religious activity in the state and vice versa are determined by concepts that by their very nature are contestable. It seems that we cannot in good conscience even attempt to pry religion apart from politics, nor can we hope to have much agreement regarding the limits of influence they may have on one another. A good example of this is the ongoing debate on religious motivation and justification in politics carried on by various writers working roughly within a liberal-democratic tradition (See Audi and Wolterstorff 1996; Audi 2000; Greenawalt 2006, 1995; Smith 2010; Habermas 2008). Furthermore, in continuity with the concerns of Locke and Jefferson not to foist any particular mode of worship on predominantly religious community, current liberal theorists argue that, given the fact of social pluralism, it is illegitimate to base law and policy on any sort of comprehensive doctrine, religious or otherwise. In other words, public reason may have been quite legitimately theological (though nonsectarian) in earlier Western societies not so affected by modernity (Cf. Greenawalt 1995: 9), but now, in an age of pluralism, public reason must thin out even more, focusing on the bare essentials of peace, efficiency, and justice (Rawls 1951; Rawls 1993, Lecture VI; Rawls 1997). But is this public reason pressed a step too far? Can there be such a thing as public reason, that is, a discourse unhooked from controversial metaphysical and religious propositions and suspended wholly on liberal democratic essentials, or propositions essential to the sustenance of a society of free and equals? If such a discourse exists then it has yet to be discovered, and, indeed, our strongest candidates for public discourse tend to beget the most controversy. The language of human rights and the harm principle are the most obvious candidates for a public normative discourse, mainly because they both speak of themselves as based on the human condition considered very abstractly: a rational animal capable of flourishing and suffering. Yet, if these discourses are truly public in the sense that they presuppose no theories of human nature that are unreasonable to reject, how is it that they generate as much, if not more, controversy than they settle?

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Consider for example, debates over same-sex marriage, abortion, recreational drugs, freedom of speech, or the war on terror; such debates are not conducted with one side using esoteric arguments and the other using public discourses such as the harm principle or human rights, both sides of the debate use the same discourses. Opponents of same-sex marriage claim that it will devalue the institution of marriage, thus perpetuating the trend of family breakdown and all its social consequences. Proponents of same-sex marriage say that excluding gays from marriage confirms social stigmatization, perpetuating disadvantages—psychological and health—in the gay community. This is not to mention the human rights factor that also fuels the debate: children have a right to a mother and a father; gays have a right to enter into that institution still considered by the majority of people as the exemplar of a legitimate intimate partnership. Much like Hobbes’ lex naturalis, the harm principle and human rights have as much potential for conflict as they do resolution (Smith 2006; Smith 2010 91-2, 94, 105). This is not even to raise equally vexatious public debates such as abortion rights and freedom of speech. The problem is that the candidates for public concepts, or concepts upon which to hook our public discourse—equality, rights, harm, autonomy—are deeply contested because they are all deeply metaphysical. They all presuppose some ideal of what it is to be truly human, and when the ideal fails to obtain and the failure can be traced to human agency, we say that rights are violated, harms are committed, autonomy is stifled, and equality is denied. In this way the call to purge religion from politics, as well as being an affront to the liberal mind when we take seriously the means necessary for it to obtain, fails to appreciate the inescapably metaphysical nature of political norms in the first place. Of course, some may address this by invoking Kantian notions of norms being expressions of reason; thus, to follow norms (and force others to follow them) is simply to cast off heteronomy and become truly autonomous (Cf. Rawls 1971, passim). This may be true, but it is hardly uncontroversial. So what becomes of the uneasy relation between religion and politics? Sociologists and political scientists are very sceptical of the once canonical “secularization thesis”, that is, the theory that with the growth of the state, the market, and scientific knowledge, religion would recede more and more. The theory seems to hold true for much of Western Europe (although the influx of Muslim immigrants over the last five decades may be a game-changer), but not at all for the US (Casanova 1994; Fox 2008; Hanson 2006; Jenkins 2007; Taylor 2007). Thus, there is good reason to think that religion is going to be around for a long time. Politics will not

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be purged of religion any more than religion will be purged of politics, and the ideal of a state whose coercive activity is in no way justified by reasons attached to controversial metaphysical doctrines seriously misunderstands the very concepts that breathe life into modern liberal democracies. Arguably, the point of politics is not to transcend to a higher level where conflict no longer exists, but to manage conflict through a generally agreed upon mode of conflict resolution: a political system. The fact of pluralism in liberal democracies shows that people are not likely to agree upon a single monological discourse with which to justify all law and policy. On the other hand, the remarkable peacefulness of liberal democracies shows that people generally accept its modus operandi of managing conflicting claims and ideals. To expect more than this is both strangely otherworldly and may be the first step towards domination, religious or otherwise.

Works Cited Appleby, J. and T. Ball, eds 1999. Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Audi, R. and N. Wolterstrorff. 1996. Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate. Lexington, KY: Rowman and Littlefield. Audi, R. 2000. Religious Commitment and Secular Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barry, B. 1965. Political Argument. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Blackford, R. 2012. Freedom of Religion and the Secular State. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Bowen, J. R. 2007. Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Casanova, J. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chadwick, O. 1971. The Victorian Church, Parts 1 and 2. London: Adam and Charles Black. Chavura, S. 2011. “The Secularization Thesis and the Secular State: Reflections with Special Attention to Debates in Australia.” In Religion and the State: A Comparative Sociology, edited by J. Barbalet, A. Possamai, and B. S. Turner, 65-92. New York: Anthem Press. Davis, D. H., ed 2010. The Oxford Handbook of Church and State in the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Dreisbach, D. 2002. Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation between Church and State. New York: State University of New York Press. Eastland, T. , ed 2005. Religious Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases that Define the Debate over Church and State. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Feinberg, J. 1984. Harm to Others, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, vol.1, New York: Oxford University Press. Fox, J. 2008. A World Survey of Religion and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giles of Rome. 1999. “On Ecclesiastical Power.” In From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought 100-1625, edited by O. O’Donovan and J. L. O’Donovan, 362-378. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Greenawalt, K. 2006. Religion and the Constitution, 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press. —. 1995. Private Consciences and Public Reasons. New York: Oxford University Press. Habermas, J. 2008. Between Naturalism and Religion. Cambridge: Polity. Hamburger, P. 2002. Separation of Church and State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hanson, E. O. 2006. Religion and Politics in the International System Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jayne, A. 1997. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence: Origins, Philosophy, and Theology. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. Jenkins, P. 2007. God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Locke, J. 1947. On Politics and Education. New York: D. Van Nostrand. —. 1997. Political Essays. Edited by M. Goldie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marsilius 1956. Defensor Pacis. Translated by A. Gewerth. New York: Columbia University Press. McLeod, H. 2000. Secularization in Western Europe, 1848-1914. London, Macmillan. O’Donovan, O. and O’Donovan, J. L. 1999. Eds. From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought 100-1625. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Patrick, J. J. and G. P. Long, eds 1999. Constitutional Debates on Freedom of Religion: A Documentary History. Westport, CT: The Greenwood Press. Pettit, P. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Rawls, J. 1951. “Outline for a Decision Procedure for Ethics.” In John Rawls: Collected Papers, edited by S. Freeman, 1-19. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. —. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. —. 1997. “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited.” In John Rawls: Collected Papers, edited by S. Freeman, 573-615. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. —. 1999. John Rawls: Collected Papers. Edited by S. Freeman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schmitt, C. 1985. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. Translated by G. Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Smith, S. D. 2010. The Poverty of Secular Discourse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —. 2006. “Is the Harm Principle Illiberal?” American Journal of Jurisprudence 51: 1-42. Smith, W. C. 1991 [1962]. The Meaning and End of Religion. Fortress Press: Minneapolis. Tate, J. W. 2013. “Dividing God from Locke: The Limits of Theology in Locke’s Political Philosophy.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 39 (2): 133-64. Taylor, C. 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, Harvard University Press. Tierney, B, ed 1964. The Crisis of Church and State, 1050-1300. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Tregenza, I. Forthcoming 2013. “Secularism, Myth, and History”. In Secularisation: New Historical Perspectives, edited by C. Hartney. Newcastle-on-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press. Waldron, J. 2002. God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke’s Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Warnock, M. 2010. Dishonest to God: On Keeping Religion out of Politics. London: Continuum.

CHAPTER THREE MAINLINE CALVINISTS, PAMPHLETS AND DEMOCRACY IN REVOLUTIONARY BRITAIN 1641-16461 GRAHAM MADDOX AND TOD MOORE Introduction The years 1641 to 1646 saw a transformation of the political nation, the beginning of mass politics, and a rapid and revolutionary expansion of what is sometimes called the “public sphere”. Elections, sermons, processions, petitions, demonstrations, pamphlets and politicized conversations, brought “men that do not rule” (and sometimes women too) into active engagement with public affairs (Cressy 2003: 68; also see Moe 2010, 693).

In particular, books and pamphlets provided a “commodious outlet” for the leading intellectuals of the revolutions themselves (Raymond 2003, 224). These printed sources reveal a surprising amount of interest in the concept of democracy, one example being the following excerpt from John Cotton of Massachusetts, who in 1645 defended the regime of the “godly” against comparison with the pagan Greeks: A democraticall government might do well in Athens, a city fruitfull of pregnant wits, but will soone degenerate to an Anarchie (a popular tumult) amongst rude common people.

1

This chapter is based upon research that was supported under the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme (DP0452200). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Research Council.

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Answ.1. It is unworthy the spirit of so godly learned a man as maketh this objection, to preferre Athens before Jerusalem, pregnant wits before sanctified hearts. Answ.2. Though the government were democraticall (as it is not) yet there is no tumultuous disorder, where not the will of each man beareth the sway, but the voyce of Christ alone is heard, who is the Head and wise Monarch of the Church.

Clearly Cotton shared the general aversion to democracy,2 but he seems here to allude to a form of participatory government in which the “sanctified heart” is better able to manage the affairs of a community and is less prone to the agitation and disorder thought at that time to be a chief characteristic of (ancient) democracy. A modern consensus that democracy did not come into fashion as an idea until the mid-nineteenth century is here questioned by the prominence given to the term in the debates surrounding the controversy between the Presbyterians and the Independents over the reconstruction of the English Church during the revolutions of the 1640s. Our hypothesis proposes that the term “democracy” enjoyed continued currency since ancient times as an element in the so-called “mixed constitution,” where it was said to be tempered by its ties to monarchy and aristocracy. Even Machiavelli’s own idea of such a mixed republic has fairly democratic aspects in terms of greater popular participation, a point ignored by scholars until very recently (McCormick 2011, 142). We ask whether the strains of conflict, and especially the attitudes and practises of the Independents, gradually loosened the internal bonds of the mixed-constitution compound, undermining the claims of kingship and challenging the ascendancy of the nobility, so freeing democracy to emerge into greater prominence. Of particular interest is the practice of democracy within congregations, and the use of Scripture as a source of key passages in support of radical sociopolitical change, and also of interest is the manner in which the pamphlet wars themselves confirm the emergence of a public sphere within which democracy could function, as the claims of different sections were able to be evaluated by readers (Zaret 2000, 21 et passim; Lake and Pincus 2007, 9).

2

Despite considerable searching we have thus far failed to locate the passage being quoted by Cotton in the first paragraph. It may come from a pamphlet which has been lost.

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The Types of Calvinist political ideology We propose the subdivision of mainline Calvinist political theory according to a simple binary model (see Table 3.1) derived by analysing the broad political philosophies espoused in over a hundred separate works published by the groups involved in the pamphlet wars on church government, which took place in Britain and New England roughly from 1641 to 1645 (about sixty of these were directly useful). Specifically, these groups were known to each other and to subsequent history as the Independents and the Presbyterians, with Separatists disassociating themselves from the mainstream. We therefore name our variants of Calvinist political thought “Independent”, “Presbyterian,” with the first representing the ideas typically associated with Independents, and the second the ideas typically found in Presbyterian writings clustering around the “Grand Debate” of the Westminster divines, 1643-45 (Paul 1985). Table 3.1: Typology of Calvinist Political Thought

Theology: Ideal State: Ethos: Style: Emphasis: Scope: Attitude: Action: Culture: Obligation:

Independents

Presbyterians

Bible-Calvinism (Republic?) Democratic Direct Laity Local focus Participation Self-exile Toleration PersonalCovenant

High Calvinism Limited Monarchy Anti-democratic Representative Elders and Pastors National Covenant Discipline Armed resistance Non-toleration ContractualCovenant

It is important to stress that these are typologies—that is, abstractions of the principal features of the ideas of the groups participating in the debate. We acknowledge the limitations of such abstractions, yet seek to impose some order on the political orientation of puritans out of the “jungle growth of opinions” in the Calvinist arena (James 1999, 39). These categories do not necessarily apply perfectly to the political thought of every Independent or Presbyterian writer, and some Independents may well exhibit Presbyterian tendencies, just as some Presbyterians are sure to exhibit Independent traits.

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The most distinctive differences among the types are in their approaches to the idea of democracy, and in the theological basis within the broad Reformed tradition traced from Luther and the first generation of Reformers, through Calvin the synthesizer, to the later Reformed writers like Theodore Beza, Gisbert Voetius, Franciscus Gomarus, William Perkins, and William Ames. Independents emphasised the New Testament within this tradition, and placed great stress on Ames and Perkins, whereas the Presbyterians, while still focused on the Bible (especially the Old Testament), were usually much more erudite, and placed particular stress on the later Genevan theologians and other representatives of “High” Calvinism. Combined with this theological divergence we find in the writings a variation on the terms of trust in politics, which leads the Independents to a more positive view of democracy and lay participation than the more elitist and sin-obsessed Presbyterian propagandists. This divergence has its roots in Calvin himself. He recommended no form of polity, arguing that the model ought to vary according to the circumstances, basing all political considerations on the reality of original sin. The human propensity to take advantage of power in order to dominate others makes all power relations inherently corruptible: “The fall from kingdom to tyranny is easy; but it is not much more difficult to fall from the rule of the best men to the faction of a few; yet it is easiest of all to fall from popular rule to sedition,” (Calvin 1960, 1493; see also Hancock 1989, 69). This in turn creates a tension in Calvin between following the injunction in Romans 13 to obey the powers that be, and the fear of sin’s taking hold and perverting those same powers to the point where they lose this protection—that is, they cease to be godly in any sense at all, and obedience no longer applies, especially in any situation where this would “lead us away from obedience to [God]” (Calvin 1960, 1520). We see this view of sin in his statement that “however excellent anyone has been, his own ambition always pushes him on—a blemish with which all virtues are so sullied that before God they lose all favour” (Calvin 1960, 294). Calvin himself did not attempt to resolve this dilemma, but he did endorse the view that it is “safer and more bearable for a number to exercise government,” demonstrating a philosophical preference for aristocratic forms of government, or mixed forms; and in the same passage from the Institutes: For if the three forms of government which the philosophers discuss be considered in themselves, I will not deny that aristocracy, or a system compounded of aristocracy and democracy, far excels all others in the absence of complications arising from sin (Calvin 1960, 1493).

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When the revolutions in Britain in the early 1640s gave British Calvinists the opportunity of remaking the realm and the church in conformity with Reformed beliefs, the mainline Calvinists split into two principal fractions, the Independents and the Presbyterians, which Woodhouse (1938, 4) ascribes to the centre and right of the revolution’s ideological spectrum respectively (with the left of that spectrum reserved for the ultra-radical Separatists who evolved into Quakers and Baptists). The wrangling of Independents and Presbyterians over government in church and state spawned a huge literature of pamphlets and books, and it is this body of writings which enables us to construct the two typologies which profile their contrasting political ideologies. These variant ideologies took shape within a broad Calvinism setting out much common ground, for example the belief in the right and duty to resist tyranny, which Calvin neither supported nor condemned, but which became one of the distinguishing features of later Calvinism (McNeill 1949; Eales 1996; Coffey 1997, 177; McLaren 2006, 23). Another important area of common ground was the characteristic protestant idea, deriving ultimately from Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, that the individual conscience is supreme, and that the spark of divinity in every person can only be restrained by God. From this flows a regard for all people as being born free and equal in terms of their “light” or innate capacity for conversion and the understanding of Scripture—a democratic notion (Maddox 1996, 149, 262 n. 40; Perry 1964, 107). All Calvinists subscribed to such core protestant ideas and the typologies we propose are not intended to cut across this basic unity. A simplified scheme for these types is presented in Table 3.1 above.

Independent Calvinism The Independents derived their name from the reaction of some delegates at the Westminster Assembly to the doctrine championed by the Scottish delegates that congregations were not to be independent of presbyteries (Morrill in Coffey and Lim 2008, 72). Here the first thing to notice is the prominence of the ideas and practices of the exiles who had sailed to Massachusetts Bay in the early 1630s, the puritan pioneers of the greater part of New England. Independents favoured a literal approach to scripture combined with respect for the use of covenants voluntarily to establish individual parish churches, leading each congregation to conduct its affairs along arguably democratic lines. The testimony of the New England churches, established as autonomous congregations, became an important element in the debate, even though the delegates invited from

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the colonies were unable to attend the deliberations of the Westminster Assembly of divines (Paul 1985, 125). This positive attitude toward democracy, which according to Hanson (1989, 68) is nearly unique for writers in the early modern period, is construed by Thomas Goodwin (1641, 4-5) as a preference for the poor, so that: when Christ came at first, the poore receive the Gospell; not many Wise, not many Noble, not many Rich, but the Poore: so in the Reformation of Religion, after Antichrist began to be discovered, it was the common People that first came to look after Christ.

The Massachusetts minister Richard Mather, and other (unnamed) ministers (Mather 1643, 53-57), argued that in New England “Church government is in part Democraticall or popular”, and in part aristocratic, and significantly that it is “in respect of the people a Democratie.” The leading New England theologian, John Cotton, was sometimes content to emphasize the mixed nature of congregational government (Cotton 1645, 100), but elsewhere (Cotton 1648, 97) he declared that as far as the primitive Christian church of the New Testament was concerned, “their Form of Government was like well-nigh, or almost to a Democracy” because “they did no act of Church-Government without concourse and censure of the Bretheren.” The democratic tendency of the Independents existed within the ideal mixed form of aristocracy plus democracy, familiar from Calvin (above), and endorsed by Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye in their Preface to John Cotton’s THE KEYES Of the Kingdom of HEAVEN, AND Power thereof (Goodwin and Nye in Cotton 1644, A4 recto-A4 verso). While both Presbyterians and Independents placed great stress on the Bible and on Calvin as sources of political ideas, the Independents tended to emphasize Scripture (Cotton 1643, 1; Cotton 1644; Goodwin 1641; Anon. 1641). They not only believed in the priority of the New Testament text, but also felt that they had had the benefit of insights or “new light” which post-dated Calvin, the Genevan Consistory, and the presbyteries which were modelled on that Consistory (Goodwin 1643, 4, 23). Their careful reading of key passages in the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline Epistles suggested a congregation which was more autonomous than those following a strict Genevan model, with an unquestioned right to vote to expel minister and member alike. An example is in Cotton’s THE KEYES Of the Kingdom of HEAVEN (1644, 12-16), where we see him using readings of Acts 15, Acts 14 and Galatians 5 to support congregational autonomy, in the sense of “the votes of the people [being] needfull in all admissions and excommunications” (Goodwin 1644, 8). Their congregational

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model gave the Independents a strongly local bias, enshrined in the town meeting, and evincing a suspicion of overarching institutions. This is not to say that there were no higher structures at all, and Cotton (1644, 15-16, 28-29) allows as scripturally warranted the holding of periodic synods for the discussion of urgent matters, with the proviso that these synods make recommendations back to the autonomous congregations for action. This is as far as Independents are generally prepared to go, and they condemn the permanent institution of powerful presbyteries and synods as in the Scottish Presbyterian model, and the classis as found in the Dutch Reformed model (Bradshaw 1641 [1605], 7; Anon. 1641, 1; Woodward 1644, 13; Holmes 1644, 13; Anon. 1644a, 45; Goodwin 1644, 9; Goodwin 1645, 7). The congregational model not only emphasizes the role of the laity, but also has a problematic relationship with worldly rulers, especially monarchs, evident in history from the republican Cromwellian administration which followed the execution of Charles I. As we have seen, Calvin himself was anti-monarchical (McNeill 1949), and this mistrust of monarchy is also evident in a late work3 of John Cotton (1656, 72): A Prince himselfe cannot tell where hee will confine himselfe, nor can the people tell: But if he have liberty to speak great things, then he will make and unmake, say and unsay, and undertake such things as are neither for his owne honour, nor for the safety of the State. It is therefore fit for every man to be studious of the bounds which the Lord hath set: and for the People, in whom fundamentally all power lyes, to give as much power as God in his word gives to men…

Independents were not always republican, as we can see from the remark made by the early Independent William Bradshaw in 1605 (1641, 6) that it is “the Monarchicall State, which they acknowledge to be the best kinde of Civill Government for this Kingdome [i.e. England].” It is not our intention to attribute all modern democratic thought and practice to the Calvinists of New England. Quite apart from the appalling reputation they acquired after the Salem witch hunts, which William Lamont acknowledges were not typical to New England, and were not particularly “puritan” (Lamont 1996, 160-162), we refer to the intolerance and exclusiveness that caused anxiety to such as Roger Williams and John Clarke, who developed a more separatist type of Calvinism. Nevertheless, the puritans of Massachusetts were no more exclusive than the ancient 3 It should be noted that Cotton’s pamphlets were not printed in chronological order (Field 2009, 19-21).

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Athenians, who gave democracy its name and basic form. In the modern world they were undoubtedly pioneers of certain democratic practices, their legacy an unbroken tradition of faith in the worth of the ordinary person, even if that person had to be a true believer.

Presbyterian Calvinism Presbyterianism was the preferred form of Calvinism among British puritan elites in the era of what John Coffey (1997) terms the British Revolutions, and when the Westminster Assembly met in 1643 it was a foregone conclusion that the English and Scottish divines (ministers) meeting there would endorse a Presbyterian system. The delegates known as the “Scottish commissioners” were especially active in promoting their position beyond the Assembly via printed books and pamphlets (Peacey 2004: 120). In the ensuing pamphlet war, the Presbyterians frequently took their Independent opponents to task for giving power to the laity, and for making pro-democratic statements. George Gillespie defended the Scottish Kirk against the Independent alternative, because “the exercise of Ecclesiasticall power and jurisdiction in a particular Congregation, ought not to bee committed to the whole collective body thereof” or else “the Government of the Church must needs be popular”, and this meant exposing the elite to “the rudenesse of the vulgar sort” (Gillespie 1641, 109, 114). Samuel Rutherford (1642, 16) stated bluntly that “[t]hat which maketh the government of Gods house Democraticall and popular is not to bee taught,” and Adam Steuart (1644, 43-45) argued against autonomous congregations as places which “excitate the ignorant people” and give power to the untrustworthy “ordinary Mechanick.” The frequency of statements similar to these can leave us in no doubt about either the Presbyterian position on democracy, or their sincerity in maintaining such a position (Edwards 1641, 16; Steuart 1644, 46; Rathband 1644, 26; Gillespie 1644, 1; Forbes 1644, 39; Edwards 1644, 92; Rutherford 1644, 480; Baillie 1645, 125). In keeping with the tenets of strict or “High” Calvinism, they expected all ministers to be educated as well as called, and the basis of ministerial education was fluency in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and the ability to interpret any passage from Scripture (Anon. 1644, 2), hence their erudition bred contempt for the “illiterate” (Edwards 1644, 79; Rathband 1644, 23). Like the Independents, they preferred a mixture of aristocracy and democracy, but the Presbyterians leaned decidedly toward the aristocratic side. Against the autonomy of congregations, the Presbyterians insisted on the need for permanent representative institutions (Herle 1643, 11) based

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on the ministers and elders of a locality, region, and ultimately the nation itself, to decide all controversies of religion and to present potential ministers to individual congregations lacking a minister (Anon. 1644b). This system, which had been established in Scotland by John Knox and Andrew Melville as a national equivalent of the localized Genevan Consistory, was subsequently defended from attempts to replace it by bishops, by means of the national Covenant, a perpetual oath of support given before God in imitation of Old Testament Israel (Vallance 2001; Coffey 1997). Presbyterians were at pains to point out the need to be able and ready to resist the secular powers, accusing the Independents of tying their own hands in this respect by failing to establish a strong overarching institutional framework above their congregations (Gillespie 1641, A4 recto; Steuart 1644, 10; Prynne 1644a: 9). One consequence of the system of synods and presbyteries was the intolerant attitude the Presbyterians displayed toward any whom they regarded as heretical, for failing to conform to Calvinist theology as they defined it (Gillespie 1644, 31; Prynne 1644b, 12). It should be noted here that although New England churches were a great deal less tolerant than the Independents in England were, “dissidents” like Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer would only have been barely tolerated in London (Field 2009, 6). The last and most difficult theme of the Presbyterian literature from the Grand Debate is their development of a republican political theory. In part this emerged from the theory of resistance, so that Rutherford (1644, A4 recto) is able to declare that: we say, Presbyteries professe that Kings are under the coactive power of Christs keys of discipline, and that Prophets and Pastors, as Ambassadors of Christ, have the keyes of the kingdom of God, to open and let in beleeving Princes, and also to shut them out, if they rebel against Christ; the law of Christ excepteth none…

If this were the full extent of their republicanism, then they would differ little on that score from the Independents. But their republicanism was also developed from ideas of natural law and civic humanism, although even here there was a Calvinist twist, as it was the spark of divinity which gave the people an irresistible prior right to determine and to unmake the constitution (Mclaren 2006, 32). Popular sovereignty is affirmed by Rutherford (1644, 66), who asserts that “there is an absolute Majesty in the people” (391) which underpins any particular form of government. He relies in part on a natural law argument, for example in his idea (413) that “power of Government, by the light of nature must be radically and originally, in a Communitie.” Government exists for the sake of public

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order (57) and particular regimes need only be supported as long as they maintain good laws for the defense of life and religion (106), a state of affairs that proceeds from an initial contract to establish society (4), and a second contract to establish the regime (399). The Presbyterian writers show a clear preference for limited monarchy, other things being equal (Herle 1643, 7; Rutherford 1644, 8, 17, 387), and so it is not possible to say that they were republicans in the sense of opposing all forms of monarchy, even though their republicanism is arguably more classical than a purely Biblical approach would allow for. The Presbyterian writings use of a wide array of sources from the civic humanist tradition, including Aristotle (Steuart 1644, 16; Rutherford 1644, 65), and Tacitus (Cheynell 1643, A4 recto; Gillespie 1644, 3, 38; Rutherford 1644, A4 verso), only occasionally Cicero. They also use important Huguenot works with republican themes, such as Francois Hotman’s Francogallia and the Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos (Rutherford 1644, 156, 178, 349). Generally speaking the Presbyterians combine Scripture, including the Old Testament, with secular citations, whereas the Independents infrequently use secular sources and prefer New Testament Scripture. The Presbyterian conception of natural law is Calvinist, in that for them natural reason has been clouded by the Fall (Calvin 1960, 368) and is therefore not to be relied upon in the same sense as Scripture. Yet they do endorse a form of natural law argument, as we see from Edwards (1641, 13), who rejects Independency because “the God of Nature and Reason hath not left in his Word a government against the light of Nature and right reason”. Pure reason remains suspect because of original sin, and confirmatory empirical evidence is therefore necessary, a point developed in detail by the scientifically minded English Presbyterian Robert Greville (1641).

Discussion The field of historical scholarship defined by the British revolutionary period has undergone many episodes of revisionism since the days of ASP Woodhouse (1938), Ralph Barton Perry (1944), and AD Lindsay (1943), when puritans were understood as having been democrats in some sense, and therefore interesting. Reacting to linear “Whig” history and the use of non-archival printed sources scholars have continually relegated these voices from the revolutionary era. John Morrill (2001, 27) for example portrays the Independents and Presbyterians as completely unrepresentative of public opinion. He emphasizes that what most people wanted was:

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In parallel with this rustic view of the Independents and Presbyterians as bloody minded revolutionary elitists, there has been much writing on the least numerous and most radical of all of the revolutionaries, the sectaries and separatists. The Levellers and the Diggers have had their enthusiasts, such as Christopher Hill, and even the Ranters have been celebrated in various studies which it would be tedious to enumerate. It is our contention that this period needs to be clearly understood as a revolutionary one and that this means taking seriously the key ideas of the mainstream fractions within the revolutions themselves. It seems odd to expect a revolution not to overstep its triggering factors and the initial discontents of the people, and we clearly ought to be interested in the developing theories of the leading players. In drawing attention to the debates between Presbyterians and Independents over democracy we do not seek to answer the causal question which such a consideration naturally generates. As tempting as it may be to ascribe the causes of these democratizing impulses to theology or religiosity, it is no less likely that religion and theology were simply vehicles for the expression of a politics which had more social causes. We can no longer write off the Independents as minor gentry as was done in the past (Yule 1958, 47), yet little is known about the lives of active members of urban congregations. Until we can learn more about the social bases of the Independent congregations especially, the causal argument is probably best left alone, although there is some evidence that these were not merely abstract ideals. We may now be grateful that studies have brought to light the participatory practices of such parishes as Swallowfield, and Buntingford-with-Leyston (Hindle 1999). Moving from the Elizabethan period to the time of the British revolutions there are examples, from 1645, of the direct election of elders by London congregations, as in St Olave Jewry and St Dunstan in the West, where the assembled parishioners voted, or in St Peter Cornhill, where the laity voted semi-secretly “to choose six elders from a list of seventeen nominees by placing strokes by the names they favoured” (Lindley 1997, 277).

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The theological and Biblical setting of these ideas about democracy and radical social equality is possibly quite significant for the more recent emergence of similar ideas. The Bible is unlike the body of writings available from ancient Rome, in the sense that it contains a number of passages which can easily be used to buttress such ideas, whereas no such writings are to be found in the classical Latin canon. Quentin Skinner, by contrast, has claimed that it was the emergence of a secular and neoRoman political culture that paved the way for modern modes of politics, including, of course, the democratic: the seeds of modernity are to be discovered in the early-modern era, in the emergence of the autonomous activity of politics, an evolution quite removed from anything religious (Skinner 1978). John Coffey and Alister Chapman (2009, 3) argue that Skinner displays an almost “Whiggish” aversion to religion in his writings, choosing to emphasize the anti-religious writings of Machiavelli and Hobbes. The result of Skinner’s dominance has been for scholars to “downgrade” the study of religious pamphlets and books in charting the early emergence of modern political ideas such as democracy and republicanism. For example it has only recently been demonstrated by Eric Nelson (2010) that Hebrew religious writings played an important role in ideas of republican liberty and wealth redistribution in the Seventeenth century. Whatever the social origins of the ideas we have been considering, it is hard to see how they could have been pursued in the absence of the theological and Biblical apparatus. The period in which these views of democracy were in dispute was one in which religious texts were mainstream, not divided off into a specialist category (Coffey and Chapman 2009, 5). The role of these writings in later democratic thought therefore becomes a matter of some importance in evaluating Skinner’s approach including his dismissal of the scholarship of William Haller (1955). While it is beyond the scope of the present paper to investigate this in any detail, some brief observations are possible. In his latest history of democracy John Dunn (2004) tends to by-pass the British Revolutions, although he concedes that the door opened a crack to democracy during the seventeenth century, particularly in Spain and the Netherlands. However his main narrative begins with the French revolution. He argues that the radicalism of the English Levellers offered no public role to the term “democracy,” although there is some concession to Hobbes’s complaint that English radical sentiment was boosted by the translation of the Bible into the vernacular. Hanson (1989: 68-89) notes the disfavour incurred by democracy, as “a dangerous and unstable form of politics,” until the middle of the nineteenth century, and he too gives some space to

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the Levellers. In both cases we might imagine the authors would have had more to say if they had looked at our sources, yet they would still not be able to easily explain the gaping gap between the 1640s and the rise of modern democratic thinking in the nineteenth century. Before the intellectual ferment of the French Revolution and its diverse aftermaths there was at least one place where democratic sentiment did survive from the 1640s and that was in America. It has long been accepted that Calvinism made a contribution to the radical features of American democracy, and the radical implications of the covenant theology give rise to two claims in the literature: first, that covenant theology produces activist, reformist, and democratic ideas; second, that in New England, it led to the first modern, secular, practical democracies. Owing to the ambiguity of Calvinism, however, some confusion is evidenced by the demonstrable inability of commentators to make convincing connections between early experiments in democracy in New England, including wide franchises and the role of town meetings, and the avowedly antidemocratic republicanism of the Constitution and of the literature of the Revolutionary era. Both Independent and Presbyterian types of theology flourished in the American colonies, the former in New England of course, and the latter via the huge Ulster migrations of the 1720s and 1730s which brought large numbers of Presbyterian Calvinists to the Middle Colonies (Westerkamp 1988, 137). Calvinism was further strengthened by the “Bishop’s War,” which revolved around the challenge of prelacy, against which Calvinists (both types) had had long standing objections; in the case of the Irish Covenanters these objections were especially fierce. Presbyterians of the middle colonies who were prominent in the campaign against bishops in 1768 included William Livingston, Francis Alison and sometime Quaker John Dickinson (Greene 1991, 18) and later Presbyterian impulses came via John Witherspoon and Alexander Hamilton. Although the Presbyterian approach to democracy prevailed in 1787, it was by no means the only radical tradition present in the Calvinist United States. This merely opens the discussion and we cannot deal here with the massive US literature on religion and political culture (Bercovitch 1975; Bozeman 2006; Cornell 1999; Driesbach et al. 2004; Goff 1998; Griffin 1994; Gura 1988; Hancock 1989; Hiemert 1966; Kelley 1979; Lambert 1999; May 1976; Miller 1962 and 1967; Niebuhr 1954; Noll 1993; Sandoz 1990; Sher and Smitten 1990; Stout 1986). The suggestion is that the democratic discourse in Calvinism and surviving democratic impulses and precedents have tended to become eclipsed by the success of the antidemocratic side within Calvinism. Perhaps it has always been thus.

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Revolutions are bound to be followed closely by division of the revolutionary party into a less and a more radical fraction, just as they are bound to tumble forward under their own momentum, well past the initial goals of many of their original supporters. If we learn anything from the precocious emergence of democracy at this time it might be that the seeds of distant political futures can germinate in the disintegrating ground of a revolutionary movement which is itself destined to fail.

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Gaustad, E. S. 1976. Historical Atlas of Religion in America. New York: Harper & Row. Gillespie, G. 1641. AN ASSERTION OF The Government of the Church of SCOTLAND. Edinburgh: James Bryson. Gillespie, G. 1644. A LATE DIALOGUE BETWIXT A CIVILIAN and a Divine, concerning the present condition of the church of ENGLAND. London: Robert Bostock. Goff, P. 1998. “Revivals and Revolution: Historiographic Turns since Alan Heimert’s Religion and the American Mind.” Church History. 67: 695-721. Goodwin, J. 1644. M.S. TO A.S. WITH A Plea for Libertie of Conscience in a Church way. London: H. Overton. Goodwin, T. 1641. A GLIMPSE OF SIONS GLORY: OR, THE CHURCHES BEAUTIE specified. London: William Larnar. Goodwin, T. et al. 1643. AN Apologeticall Narration HVMBLY SVBMITTED TO THE HONOURABLE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. London: Robert Dawlman. Goodwin, T. et al. 1645. A COPY OF A Remonstrance LATELY DELIVERED IN TO THE ASSEMBLY. London: n.p. Greene, J. P. and J. R. Pole, eds 1991. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. Greville, R. 1641. THE NATURE OF TRUTH Its Union and Unity with the SOULE. London: Samuel Cartwright. Griffin, K. L. 1994. Revolution and Religion - American Revolutionary War and the Reformed Clergy. New York: Paragon House. Gura, P. F. 1988. “The Role of the ‘Black Regiment’: Religion and the American Revolution.” The New England Quarterly 61: 439-454. Haller, W. 1955. Liberty and Reformation in the Puritan Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press. Hamilton, A, J. Madison and J. Jay. 1992. The Federalist Or, The New Constitution. London: J. M. Dent. Hancock, R. 1989. Calvin and the Foundations of Modern Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hanson, Russell N. 1989. “Democracy.” In Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, edited by T. Ball, J. Farr and R. L. Hanson, 68-89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herle, C. 1643. THE Independency on Scripture OF THE Independency of Churches. London: n.p. Heimert, A. 1966. Religion and the American Mind from the Great Awakening to the Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Hindle, S. 1999. “Hierarchy and Community in the Elizabethan Parish: The Swallowfield Articles of 1596.” The Historical Journal 42 (3): 835-851. Holmes, N. 1644. A COOLE CONFERENCE Between the Scottish Commissioners Cleared Reformation, and the Holland Ministers Apologeticall Narration, brought together by a well-willer. London: n.p. Keeble, N. H., ed 2001. The Cambridge Companion to Writing of the English Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kelley, D. R. 1979. The Cultural Pattern in American Politics. The First Century. New York: Knopf. Kloppenberg, J. T. 1987. “The Virtues of Liberalism: Christianity, Republicanism, and Ethics in Early American Political Discourse.” The Journal of American History 74: 9-33. Lake, P. and S. Pincus, eds 2007. The Politics of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Lambert, F. 1999. Inventing the “Great Awakening”. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lamont, W. 1996. Puritanism and Historical Controversy. London: University College of London Press. Lindley, K. 1997. Popular Politics and Religion in Civil War London. Aldershot: Aldgate Press. Lindsay, A. D. 1943. Religion, Science and Society in the Modern World. London: Oxford University Press. McCormick, J. P. 2011. Machiavellian Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McLaren, A. 2006. “Rethinking Republicanism: Vidiciae Contra Tyrannos in Context.” The Historical Journal 49: 23-52. McNeill, J. T. 1949. “The Democratic Element in Calvin’s Thought.” Church History 18: 153-71. Maddox, G. 1996. Religion and the Rise of Democracy. London: Routledge. Mather, R. et al. 1643. Church-Government AND Church-Covenant DISCVSSED. In an Answer of the Elders of the severall Churches in NEW-ENGLAND. London: Benjamin Allen. May, H. F. 1976. The Enlightenment in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Miller, P. 1962. The New England Mind—From Colony to Province. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —. 1967. The New England Mind—The Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Moe, H. 2010. “Everyone a Pamphleteer? Reconsidering Comparisons of Mediated Public Participation in the Print Age and the Digital Era.” Media Culture Society 32(4): 691-700. Morrill, J. 2001. “The Causes and Course of the British Civil Wars.?” In The Cambridge Companion to the Writing of the English Revolution, edited by N.H. Keeble, 13-31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nelson, E. 2010. The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Niebuhr, R. 1954. “The Idea of Covenant and American Democracy.” Church History 23: 126-35. Noll, M. A. 1993. “The American Revolution and Protestant Evangelicalism.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23: 615-638. Paul, R. S. 1985. The Assembly of the Lord - Politics and Religion in the Westminster Assembly and the “Grand Debate”. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Peacey, J. 2004. Politicians and Pamphleteers—Propaganda During the English Civil Wars and Interregnum. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. Perry, R. B. 1964. Puritanism and Democracy. New York: Harper & Row. Prynne, W. 1644a. TWELVE Considerable Serious Questions touching CHVRCH GOVERNMENT. London: Michael Sparke. —. 1644b. Faces About. OR A RECRIMINATION charged upon Mr. JOHN GOODWIN, In the point of fighting against God, and opposing the way of CHRIST. London: Robert Bostock. Rathband, W. 1644. A BRIEFE NARRATION OF SOME Church Courses Held in Opinion and Practise in the Churches lately erected in New England. London: Edward Brewster. Raymond, J. 2003. Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rutherford, S. 1642. A PEACEABLE AND TEMPERATE PLEA FOR PAULS PRESBYTERIE IN SCOTLAND. London: John Bartlet. —. 1644. LEX, REX: The Law and the Prince. A Dispute for the just PREROGATIVE of KING and PEOPLE. London: Iohn Field. Sandoz, Ellis. 1990. A Government of Laws. Political Theory, Religion, and the American Founding. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Sher, R. B., and J. R. Smitten, eds 1990. Scotland and America in the Age of the Enlightenment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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Skinner, Q. 1978. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols, vol. 2: The Age of Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Steuart, A. 1644. SOME OBSERVATIONS AND ANNOTATIONS Upon the Apologeticall Narration. London: Christopher Meredith. Stout, H. S. 1986. The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England. New York: Oxford University Press. Vallance, E. 2001. “‘An Holy and Sacramentall Paction’: Federal Theology and the Solemn League and Covenant in England.” The English Historical Review 116: 50-75. Westerkamp, M. J. 1988. Triumph of the Laity: Scots-Irish Piety and the Great Awakening, 1625-1760. New York: Oxford University Press. Williams, R. 1644. The Bloudy Tenent, of Persecution, for cause of Conscience, discussed, in A Conference betweene Truth and Peace. London.: n.p. Woodhouse, A. S. P. 1938. “Puritanism and Democracy.” The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 4: 1-21. —. 1974. Puritanism and Liberty. London: J. M. Dent. Woodward, E. 1644. INQVIRIES Into the causes of our miseries. London: n.p. Yule, G. 1958. The Independents in the English Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge Uiversity Press. Zaret, D. 2000. Origins of Democratic Culture—Printing, Petitions, and the Public Sphere in Early-Modern England. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

CHAPTER FOUR DYNAMIC CONFUCIANISM IN THE SINIC WORLD: NATIONALISM, DEMOCRACY, POSTCOLONIALISM CHRISTINE DORAN Introduction This paper demonstrates the dynamic political potential found within Confucianism in the Sinic world–that is, in regions strongly influenced by Chinese culture–from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. During this period Confucianism has widely had a reputation as a rather ossified, elitist and obsolescent form of religion. In fact it has been quite common for Western commentators in particular to deny that it was a religion at all. Yet Confucianism, as will be shown, contained within it intellectual resources which enabled it to contribute to the development of modern discourses of nationalism, democracy and postcolonialism in various parts of the Sinic area. The first part of the paper examines the deployment of religion in the effort to raise nationalist consciousness and promote democratic thought among the Chinese community in colonial Singapore in the early twentieth century. It has often been noted that religion played a significant role in the emergence of nationalism and political resistance in colonised Asia. However, the religions usually thought of in this context have been Islam and Buddhism, rather than Confucianism (Chong 2009, 2). With the formation of the Young Men’s Buddhist Association in 1906, which inaugurated moves towards nationalist consciousness in Myanmar (then Burma), or the organisation of the Sarekat Islam in 1912, an early milestone in the development of the Indonesian nationalist movement, Buddhism and Islam demonstrated their dynamic potential in the realm of politics. The political possibilities of Confucianism, on the other hand, have generally been overlooked by historians. This first section of the

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paper focuses on the intellectual contributions of an outstanding Chinese Singaporean community leader, Lim Boon Keng. Lim looked to Confucianism as a source of national pride for the diasporic Chinese community living under British colonial rule in Singapore. Directly contradicting Western assumptions about the rigidity and authoritarianism of Confucianism, Lim offered an interpretation which highlighted its dynamic, progressive political potential. In particular, he developed the case for Confucianism as a source of democratic political impetus, and thus as a challenge to the autocratic, elitist nature of the British system of colonial rule. The second part of the paper shows that, contrary to many rumours, Confucianism never really died within the Sinic world during the twentieth century. Despite many challenges and efforts to suppress it, Confucian scholarship continued to develop in mainland China and especially in more peripheral parts of the Sinic zone, most notably Taiwan. Moreover, from the 1980s there was a strong Confucian revival within diasporic communities in the United States, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. From the late 1990s to the present the initiative has come mainly from the Chinese homeland, which has produced a full-blown popular resurgence of interest in the Confucian tradition.

Dynamic Confucian Thought in Singapore In Singapore the period from 1890 to 1920 was one of marked demographic shifts, social transformation, rapid economic development and intellectual ferment. At that time Singapore was a British colony, ruled as part of the British Empire according to policies laid down by the Colonial Office in London. From the time of its acquisition as a colony in 1819, as an outcome of the strategic manoeuvrings of Thomas Stamford Raffles, the British had adopted a policy of free trade and of welcoming unrestricted immigration from a wide variety of sources. The result was a multi-cultural population, numerically dominated by Chinese, with Indians and Malays making up the two other main ethnic groups. By 1890 the population numbered about 180,000, with Chinese representing approximately two-thirds of the total. Singapore can be seen as emblematic of the contact zones of empire, evocatively described by Mary Louise Pratt as social spaces where “disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination” (Pratt 1992, 4). The period from 1890 to 1920 can justly be regarded as the zenith of British imperialist domination in Asia, and indeed throughout the

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world. The colonial government that the British set up in Singapore was very far from being democratic. The system of administration consisted of a governor, an Executive Council made up of British officials, and a Legislative Council also composed mainly of British officials with a small number of non-official members who were nominated by the British rulers. This was also the time when China had just been carved up like a so-called “melon” by Western imperialist powers including Japan. The great priority in the minds of Sinophiles all over the world, including the descendants of the great Chinese diaspora resident in Singapore, was the aim of reinvigorating China so that it could reclaim its sovereignty. Discussions about democracy became an integral part of this intense rethinking of the Chinese political tradition. The questions uppermost in their minds included: Were the autocratic tendencies of the Chinese imperial system responsible for China’s weakness in the face of international challenges? Was there a Chinese tradition of democracy? If so, could it or should it be revived? How should the political system be reformed to make it more democratic? These were some of the central issues in the political debates of the day in Singapore. A prominent leader of the Chinese community in this period was Lim Boon Keng (1869-1957), a second generation Straits-born Chinese. His grandfather had immigrated from Fujian province in south-eastern China to Penang thirty years before he was born. Lim Boon Keng attended mainly English language schools in Singapore, including the elite Raffles Institution. After completing his schooling, Lim took up a scholarship to study medicine in Edinburgh, returning to Singapore in 1893 to start his own practice. In 1895 he was appointed to represent the Chinese community in the Straits Settlements Legislative Council, an advisory body chosen by the British governor. He served five three-year terms on the Council. He also represented the Chinese on many other committees, such as the Chinese Advisory Board and the Municipal Commission, and in 1918 was awarded an OBE. His links with China were also strong. In the last days of the Manchu dynasty he accepted the post of medical adviser and inspector-general of hospitals in Beijing. After the revolution of 1911, he was appointed as confidential secretary and personal physician to Sun Yat-sen. Lim returned to Singapore when Yuan Shikai took over the presidency of the new republic. In 1921 he became vice-chancellor of the University of Amoy (now Xiamen) and remained in China until the Japanese invaded in 1937. When the Japanese occupied Singapore in 1941, he was imprisoned but later represented the Chinese community in negotiations with the Japanese. Throughout his career Lim published

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prodigiously. He was also a successful entrepreneur in the rubber, tin, shipping, media, insurance and other industries. In his published seminar papers, scholarly articles, books, newspaper contributions and pamphlets, Lim developed the notion that China and Singapore could move forward politically by looking backwards in a fresh manner. The recovery of a Chinese tradition of democracy became an essential part of his political strategies. Singapore is not usually thought of as a site of intellectual creativity, but it is one of the implications of this study that this assumption is in need of revision. Within the apparently uncongenial milieu of Singapore under British colonial rule, Lim advocated a resurgence of Confucianism as a way of encouraging nationalist awareness among the Chinese community. In particular he argued that the intellectual resources of Confucianism could be used to support progressive political change. Lim’s conversion to Confucianism was gradual, but by 1899 he identified himself as a convert. He objected strongly to Western commentators’ attempts to deny that Confucianism was a religion (Lim 1917, 1). Lim Boon Keng made the claim that Confucian principles of government were democratic. Indeed, he believed that democracy had already been achieved in China’s early history, referring proudly to the “important democratic institutions of the ancient Chinese” (Lim 1915a, 94). In an important paper delivered in 1915, he argued that the Confucian conception of the State was founded on democratic principles (Lim 1915a, 97), and that paper will be analysed in detail to show the religious basis of his political ideas. According to Lim, Confucianism comprises a number of closely interrelated “departments:” (a) Philosophy; (b) Theology; (c) Anthropology; (d) Ethics; and (e) Politics. This range of concerns made Confucianism, in Lim’s view, a complete and rounded study of humanity, chiefly from a pragmatic point of view, as well as an “all-sufficient religion” (Lim 1913, 142). In order to understand Lim’s political thought, it is necessary to outline briefly his interpretation of Confucian principles within each of these departments. Under the heading of Philosophy, Lim asserted that there is an allpervading law, absolutely true, underlying all natural processes whether physical, mental or spiritual. Consequently there is a “right way for all things human or divine” (Lim 1915a, 94). The way (dao) is unitary, hence for human beings to flourish they must bring themselves into harmony with it. Lim’s theology was based on the claim that behind all the multiple phenomena of the world there is a Supreme Being, or Supreme Ruler. The terms of Lim’s argument thus slip easily from theology to theocracy.

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However, the wishes of this divine ruler were to be interpreted according to the common aspirations and ideals of humanity. As he put it, the “Vox Populi is the only recognisable Vox Dei” (Lim 1915a, 94). This is, to say the least, a marked democratic move in Lim’s argument. By identifying the vox populi as the only accessible source of information about the desires of the divine authority available to humanity, he gives the people the ultimate say. In this formulation the source of political legitimacy is not the will of the people as such; instead legitimacy is established on transcendent sacred origins. Nevertheless, the will of the people is recognised as a direct and directly perceptible reflection of the will of the transcendent deity or of Heaven. Under the heading Anthropology, Lim acknowledged humanity as the highest product of evolution, a concept that he believed originated in ancient China. Because human beings had developed knowledge and conscience, they were fitted to act as instruments of the divine in working upon and transforming the natural world. Implanted with the germ of benevolence, under the guidance of the sages, humanity has the capacity to move towards altruism and eventually to achieve a universal global community of peace. Ethics demands that humanity must be ruled by and bring itself into alignment with the universal law. In this way the social relations of communal life would be harmonious. To prevent any falling back into barbarism, education is indispensable and therefore education should be universal (Lim 1915a, 94). Finally, under the heading of politics, Lim Boon Keng puts all the emphasis on democratic principles. Under Confucian conceptions, the State is to be governed for the benefit of the people. The chief authority to whom Lim turned to support this view was Mengzi (or Mencius; 371-289 BCE). Mengzi is generally acknowledged to be the most creative and influential follower of Kongzi (or Confucius; 551-479 BCE), born about one hundred years after Kongzi’s death. Mengzi laid out an order of priority in the political realm: “the people are the most important; next comes the country, and lastly stands the ruler” (Lim 1915a, 95). Thus according to Mengzi, it was the ruler’s first duty to provide for the welfare and prosperity of the people. In much of his thinking on democracy, Lim Boon Keng revealed a heavy debt to Mengzi. Lim followed Mengzi in the view that human nature is essentially good (Lim 1915b, 47-8). Mengzi argued that the political legitimacy of a government derives from the acceptance or consent of the people. He stated clearly that the people may always justly overthrow a ruler who harms them. Mengzi’s idea of the right to rebel can be compared to John Locke’s right to revolution, as expounded in his Two Treatises of Government.

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In his discussion of democratic politics, Lim also appealed to the contributions of a more recent Confucian authority, Kang Youwei (or K’ang Yu-wei; 1858-1927). Kang had almost lost his life by proposing a programme of political reforms to the rulers of the moribund Manchu dynasty during the 1890s. Kang set out the progressive stages of development of the State as follows: (1) nomadic tribal state; (2) territorial chieftaincy; (3) feudal state; (4) imperial state; (5) republic; (6) communist state. Lim endorsed this categorisation as representing the progressive changes in the form of the State over the course of Chinese history. He certainly saw no contradiction between Confucianism and republicanism, and also believed that certain socialistic policies, such as nationalisation of land, means of communication and public utilities, could be justified by Confucian arguments (Lim 1915a, 97-98). From these premises and arguments Lim drew significant conclusions about the proper functioning of a Confucian State: The people are the foundation of the State. The country is for the benefit of the people. The ruler and administrators are to serve the people…The sole raison d’etre of the State is for the preservation and maintenance of the people, and for the provision of all human requirements in peace and prosperity (Lim 1915a, 96).

From these fundamental principles could also be deduced the appropriate rights and duties of the component parts of the State. The ruler is in theory “the viceregent of God.” He (never she) must “serve the State in the interests of the governed” and is responsible both to God and to the people (Lim 1915a, 96). The people have the right to life and liberty if they discharge certain definite obligations to the State. In return they are to receive protection, education and government. The reciprocal rights of the people also encompassed rights to justice, to property, to freedom of religion, and to a share in administration or self-government. The right to rebel against tyranny or misgovernment Lim, like Mengzi, considered “inalienable” (Lim 1915a, 97). Lim Boon Keng readily admitted that these Confucian ideals had not always been put into practice during the course of Chinese history. He conceded that “tyrants have oppressed the people from time to time,” but pointed out that China was “not the only land where high ideals have failed to become realised to their fullest extent” (Lim 1915a, 97). Furthermore, even though Confucian principles had never been thoroughly applied in practice, yet they “had achieved greater moral results than any other system of religion or morals” (Lim 1913, 136). Even in “degenerate times,” when Chinese governments had become oppressive, no central

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government had dared to deny that the people were paramount. At the end of the last dynasty in 1911, even the Manchus declared when abdicating that the emperor yielded to the will of Heaven and the voice of the people (Lim 1913, 136). Lim traced the democratic foundations of Chinese civilisation back to the earliest period of ancient Chinese history, or prehistory, associated with the emergence of culture heroes and sage kings. Like most Confucian scholars, he stressed the prime importance of this era, which laid the foundations and established the cultural patterns that would guide Chinese development for nearly five millennia. This period can be dated as approximately 2800 to 2200 BCE, before the first dynasty, the Xia dynasty (2100-1600 BCE). Lim characterised this formative period of Chinese history as one of social equality. For leadership, the people willingly gave their allegiance to a number of morally outstanding rulers. According to Lim, the principles of the sage founders of Chinese civilisation were “essentially democratic.” He regarded the kings of this time as moral exemplars and model rulers (Lim 1913, 134). These god-kings were altruistic and used their supernatural powers to improve the lives of the people. About two thousand years later, Kongzi and his disciple Mengzi talked a great deal about the merits of these legendary kings, endorsing and preserving these ideas about correct political relationships and “thus imparting upon the politics and administration of China the democratic characteristics which distinguish Chinese institutions from those of the West” (Lim 1913, 135). Lim most definitely did not look to Western concepts of democracy as the source of his ideas. In fact, the historical trajectory he described was one where the Jesuit missionaries who arrived in China from the sixteenth century were so impressed by Chinese political developments, “and with their profound democratic import,” that when they reported what they had seen in Europe, the Chinese model inspired the works of Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Lim 1913, 138). For Lim it was one of the great ironies of history that these European philosophical works were then being imported into republican China and avidly consumed by the Chinese as new insights. Lim repeatedly drew contrasts between China and the West, always with a sharply critical eye on Western theory and practice. At times these contrasting pictures must have been unsettling for his European audience, threatening to overturn their preconceptions about the general hopelessness of the Chinese and the superiority of all things Western. For instance, Lim pointed to an immense gulf separating social relations in Europe and in China. Whereas in Europe there had existed slavery and

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serfdom until very recent times, “the free people of China have been contented with their domestic and village liberties” (Lim 1913, 134). Contrasting the Confucian conception of the State with comparatively recent Western notions, Lim insisted that “‘L’etat s’est [sic] moi’ is the very antithesis of the Confucian conception” and that it is, from the beginning to the end, the very opposite of the prevalent idea of Machiavelli, that in the interests of the State the ends may justify the means, even if immoral (Lim 1915a, 95).

In making his argument for the consistency of Confucianism and democracy, Lim found the intellectual resources available within Confucianism sufficient to his needs. He was able to appeal to Confucian authorities such as Kongzi, Mengzi and Kang Youwei. He also referred to an idealised portrait of a Golden Age with democratic characteristics in the distant Chinese past. On these bases he was able to draw unfavourable comparisons between Europe and China, in terms of both theory and practice, explicitly challenging Western claims to own democratic thought. Lim lived alongside a dominant British caste whose attitude towards Chinese traditions–religious, political and social–was generally one of disparagement and depreciation. He lived among a Chinese immigrant community in danger of losing its connection with the living traditions of the homeland, and beset at the same time by feelings of humiliation, shame and a deep sense of inferiority resulting from the military defeats of China, the imposition of the detested “unequal treaties,” and the thousandand-one everyday cuts to which the Chinese people were exposed during what the imperialists referred to as the slicing up of the Chinese melon. These were far from propitious conditions in which to attempt to revive interest in Chinese religion and culture, to reassert the value of Chinese traditions. In spite of the challenges of the unconducive colonial environment in which he lived, Lim Boon Keng was able to deploy the resources of the Confucian religion to mount a challenge to autocratic rule and provide a basis for the recovery of a sense of Chinese nationalist pride.

Recent Confucian revivals in the Sinic world Since the beginning of the twenty-first century there has been a revival of Confucianism in China itself, a movement usually referred to as guoxue re or national learning fever. Historically this is a remarkable phenomenon, and the aim of this section of the paper is to explore some of its salient dimensions as a cultural process, particularly from the point of

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view of its political implications. Yet, as Michel Foucault has commented, discussion of revivals is fraught with danger and often with presumption because such significant social phenomena have often been continuously in existence, though perhaps not with equal prominence (Foucault 1994, 331). Indeed, Confucianism has had a continuous presence in Chinese thought and culture throughout the twentieth century, in spite of serious challenges from the radical modernisers of the May Fourth movement of the late 1910s and early 1920s, the victory of communism thirty years later, and the Cultural Revolution in the decade after 1965. Far from becoming defunct after the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Confucianism was in fact always already reviving. Since Liang Qichao, one of its great advocates, first used the term in 1902, the meaning of guoxue (national learning) has shifted according to the demands and priorities of the time, though always with Confucianism at its centre; “for different people or social groups it means different things and serves different interests” (Xie 2011, 39). For example, Liu Dong has traced in some detail the changing meanings of the term guoxue, both laudatory and denunciatory, and the ongoing debates over its cultural and strategic significance from the late Qing through the Republican period (Liu 2011, 47-54). Liang Shuming was one of the outstanding Confucian thinkers of this period. Then from the 1930s to the 1950s Chinese intellectuals, located most notably in Taiwan and Hong Kong, worked to develop what became known as “New Confucianism.” During the 1980s and 1990s a strong movement developed urging a revival of Confucianism. This was promoted to some extent within mainland China, where it coincided with a retreat from communism after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, and the introduction of a major marketbased economic transformation. However, it had powerful support from Chinese diasporic academics resident in the West, especially in the United States. As in the time of Lim Boon Keng, scholars outside of the Chinese homeland took up trends developing there and forged ahead with them. One of the most fervent and influential contributors to this revaluation of Chinese religious traditions was Tu Weiming of Harvard University. (Tu 1984; Tu 1989; Tu 1994). In a period when the economies of several East Asian “Mini-Dragons” were booming, such as Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea together with Japan, it was argued that “Asian values” and in particular the Confucian work ethic and social ethos in general lay at the basis of these spectacular success stories (Dirlik 1995). Some of the reasons given for the economic success of these so-called “miracle” economies, and attributed to the continuing influence of Confucian values, included the prevalence of family-run businesses; a

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strong belief in the primacy of the collective good as opposed to individualism; and a corporatist co-operation between capitalist enterprise and the State (Tai 1989, 6-37). Tu Weiming identified the relevant values as: “sympathy, distributive justice, duty-consciousness, ritual, publicspiritedness, and group orientation” (Tu 2000, 264). These themes were taken up and elaborated upon by Asian political leaders, notably Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore (Milner 2000). It often appeared, especially to Western observers, that these Asian leaders were using the concept of distinctive “Asian values” based on Confucianism to defend illiberal forms of government. As T.B. Macaulay commented long ago, There is a certain class of men, who, while they profess to hold in reverence the great names and great actions of former times, never look at them for any other purpose than in order to find in them some excuse for existing abuses (1909, 357).

Confucianism was now said to be good for business, an engine of economic development, and was compared to the puritan ethic lauded by Max Weber as the ideological foundation for the rise of capitalism; an ironic position given that Weber himself had emphasised the lack of such a dynamic spirit within Confucianism. This particular strand of Confucian revivalism was seriously buffeted by the impact of the Asian financial crisis beginning in 1997, which threw a lot of its triumphalist rhetoric into doubt. More recently revivalist moves have gathered pace within the People’s Republic of China itself in the widespread outbreak of the so-called guoxue re or national learning fever (Chen 2011). This refers to a popular frenzy surrounding the profiling of Chinese indigenous learning, in contradistinction to foreign learning. Confucianism has been at the heart of the movement (Xie 2011, 44). Some of the ways in which this trend has been manifested have included: a range of discussion and lecture forums on Confucianism appeared on television; leading universities began offering training courses for managerial personnel to nourish their spiritual resources; school pupils began studying the classic texts and learning Confucius by heart; an official statue and portrait of Confucius were released internationally; there was a huge publishing boom on the subject; there is even a beer named after Confucius. This has been a complex and in many ways an ambiguous cultural phenomenon. On the whole it has been a popular and spontaneous cultural movement, deriving not from the top down but from the bottom up. Xie has argued that the movement clearly demonstrates collusion between the State, the academic elite and consumer markets (Xie 2011, 44-45). Yet the Chinese government has not

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been the principal driver of the movement, which has been mainly an initiative of academics and the people. The attitude of the Chinese government has been ambivalent and rather half-hearted. Nevertheless, the government has given it some support, for example with the proliferation of Confucius Institutes throughout the world as an instrument of soft diplomacy. The Chinese government wishes to foster nationalist sentiment, believing that it helps to unify and stabilise the state and thus to legitimise its political control; hence their emphasis on the Confucianderived concept of the “harmonious society.” This current movement for the revival of Confucianism has coincided with China’s economic take-off, and has been associated with a growing sense of self-confidence and self-assertion on the part of the Chinese populace. The Chinese economy has generated spectacular increases in GDP over the last decade and China has become the biggest exporter and largest holder of foreign exchange reserves in the world. China is taking its place as a global economic power, moreover at a time when Western economies have been struck by financial crisis and recession. As they begin to enjoy the material benefits flowing from the success of the “four modernisations”—of agriculture, industry, science and technology, and the military—the Chinese are no longer apologetic about their religious and philosophical traditions, but have found a new national pride. Furthermore, in a context of globalisation, Confucianism has been promoted as providing the solid core of Chinese identity, a foundation from which they can negotiate rapidly intensifying interactions with other cultures (Liu 2011, 52). Less optimistically, there has been much speculation that the guoxue fever has been exacerbated by a loss of ideological direction in twentyfirst century China, a value vacuum created by the decline in adherence to Marxist-Leninism or Maoism. Perhaps it is not so much a vacuum of values as a surfeit of available contesting ideologies: capitalism, Marxism, social harmony, economism, Confucianism, developmentalism. Since the implementation of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in the 1980s, which involved the use of market mechanisms in addition to planned, centralized management of the economy by bureaucrats, many of the Chinese people have become increasingly disillusioned with what is seen as characterless government. Within a context in which “the marketization of politics has caused the degeneration of the moral dimension of politics,” Confucian revivalism “attempts to return to classic Confucian moral principles, and find a new type of moral politics” (He 2010, 25). Confucianism is perceived as an effective means to regulate public moral life.

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More broadly, social analysts have diagnosed a widespread moral anomie among the Chinese people. On this reading the revivalist movement is seen as revealing a yearning for a different social order and indeed new ways of being human. Interestingly, during the same period there has been a comparable resurgence of popular and academic interest in “character” in the West, championing the “return” of character in an apparent effort to revive a healthy civic culture based on shared community values and the virtues of good citizenship (White 2005, 475).

Xie contends that guoxue re reflects an innermost nostalgic yearning among the Chinese for what is long lost—the Confucian values such as unity between Heaven and humanity, human-relatedness, social cohesion and harmonious interpersonal relations, and familial and societal solidarity prioritised over economic development” (Xie 2011, 45).

Another perspective on the popular turn towards Confucian thought is that it signals a growing awareness of the negative consequences of modernisation and the social disruption caused by rapid economic growth (Liu 2011, 46). Offering the Chinese a framework within which to reflect on the nature of modernisation, Confucianism could provide the basis for a contemporary critique of modernity. This would represent a delayed answer to the harsh rejection of Confucianism as decadent and degenerate by the iconoclastic student activists of 4 May 1919. Alongside the popular revivalist push evident especially at the local level, there has been a renewal of academic interest in the “national learning” within China. From the academic point of view, the focus on guoxue has been, in part, a form of intellectual resistance against the hegemonic power of Western Sinology. In particular it has developed as a counterpoint to American “Chinese studies,” which has taken over the mantle of the study of China throughout the world from the previously dominant European and Japanese Sinology. Guoxue study in China seeks to explain Chinese culture from within, adopting an internal perspective and distinguishing itself from external “Chinese studies” and Sinology as pursued in America, Europe and Japan. Although these academic fields share a common subject matter, there have been significant discursive fissures separating them as a result of differences in “research agenda, thinking habits, problematics, and academic tradition” (Liu 2001, 51). It has been argued that if Chinese scholars were to succumb to these powerful ideological currents originating overseas, “we

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would catastrophically lose our intellectual initiative and misrepresent Chinese experience” (Liu 2001, 51). Sinology from this perspective is regarded as basically part of Western learning and therefore enmeshed in a different discourse system, a point also developed though with a slightly different emphasis by Dutton (2005). For some Chinese intellectuals, questions about the status of Confucianism in the academy touch upon basic issues of personal identity. In this sense the current Confucian revival can be interpreted as an example of a broader phenomenon of the postcolonial recuperation of indigenous pasts. Though strictly speaking never colonised, China was subject to the humiliations of Western imperialist domination and the Chinese have suffered the disintegrative effects of subjugated cultural positioning under imperialist ideologies. The revaluing of traditional values in the postcolonial aftermath serves to shore up a sense of a distinctive Chinese cultural identity.

Conclusion In the wake of the traumatic experience of military and cultural invasion by the Western powers and Japan in the nineteenth century, Confucianism came to be widely regarded in China, as in the West, as the main obstacle to the regeneration, restrengthening and modernisation of China. In the context of the catastrophe of foreign domination, many Chinese, especially the younger generation, turned against what they saw as an antiquated and stagnant Chinese cultural tradition; they instead advocated innovation, often along Western lines, and repudiated established tradition. Confucianism was seen by the Chinese themselves as holding China back, keeping it backward and weak, stifling progress. The movement for Confucian revival at the turn of the nineteenth century, of which Lim Boon Keng was a part, developed within this context of political and economic weakness. It was at the same time an attempt to modernise the Confucian tradition from within, and to assert its value as a basis for national pride. The recent movements of Confucian revivalism, on the other hand, have been associated with a dramatic reversal of economic fortunes in the Sinic world, first in the “Mini-Dragons” of the Chinese diaspora, more recently in mainland China itself. Instead of an impediment to modernisation, Confucianism came in the 1980s to be promoted as an economic dynamo. The current revival in China itself is more nuanced, exhibiting a range of meanings and holding differing significance for different groups in Chinese society, whether they be academic, official or popular. But whatever those shifting meanings might be, the current frenzy

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for Confucianism is an unmistakeable sign of the resurgent confidence of the Chinese people as a whole at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

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Tu, W. 1984. Confucian Ethics Today: The Singapore Challenge. Singapore: Federal Publications. —. 1989. Centrality and Commonality: An Essay on Confucian Religiousness. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Tu, W. ed 1994. China in Transformation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tu, W. 2000. “Multiple Modernities: A Preliminary inquiry into the implications of East Asian Modernity.” In Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, edited by L. E. Harrison and S. P. Huntington, 256-66. New York: Basic Books. White, M. 2005. “The Liberal Character of Ethological Governance.” Economy and Society 34 (3): 474-494. Xie S. 2011. “Guoxue Re and the Ambiguity of Chinese Modernity.” China Perspectives 2011/1: 39-45.

CHAPTER FIVE COLONIALISM, CIVILIZATION AND INDIGENOUS LAW: THE PROTECTION OF ABORIGINAL SPIRITUAL INTERESTS IN LAND IN AMERICAN AND CANADIAN COURTS GUY CHARLTON Introduction While procedural and substantive legal rules are crucial determinants in a particular dispute, previous attitudes and paradigms relating to particular areas of policy often continue to inform subsequent policy and legal changes. Invariably the courts must self-consciously grapple with the legal categories and doctrines handed down through precedent to address new situations and fill in the interstices of statutory enactments. This process is not simply by a neutral and detached application of rules to facts at a particular historical point but is the product of a sequence of decisions which have embedded and institutionalised certain outcomes (Shapiro and Stone Sweet 2002, 114). Within these outcomes history and the present are compressed into a decision which will in turn condition and in some sense direct subsequent decisions to move legal doctrine toward a preferred construct of how and why the rules should be applied; implicating and reflecting a wider legal tradition, governmental policy and socio-political order which undergird that tradition (Merryman 1994, 3-4). The legacy of cultural, socio-economic, political attitudes and institutional bias in the law manifests itself in those judicial decisions involving the religious freedoms of indigenous peoples. This area of law is premised on a liberal conception of individual rights, culture and history and western conceptions of religion which in many instances is a poor fit for indigenous religions. This paper will discuss the difficulty individuals who practice indigenous religions have vindicating their rights to various

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lands considered sacred under current American and Canadian judicial approaches to freedom of conscience and religion. It argues that individualist liberal ideas concerning the appropriateness of these spiritual traditions inherited from earlier indigenous policy are more evident in American religious jurisprudence than in Canadian case law as such civil rights litigation has been recast as aboriginal rights claims under s. 35(1) of the Charter. However, while these collectively based claims may have more traction or congruence with indigenous spiritual tradition, they continue to suffer from the thinking ingrained in the liberal ethic upon which settlement originally occurred, precluding larger constitutional protections for these religions.

Liberalism, Civilization and Suppression of Indigenous Religious and Cultural Practices When the nascent American and Canadian polities were articulating their fundamental legal and policy frameworks towards indigenous peoples two primary factors—colonialism (and its incipient racism) and the overwhelming desire to wrest control of the natural resources away from the indigenous population in order to “improve” otherwise nonproductive land were paramount considerations.(Weaver 2003, 46-87). These factors were justified by a liberal philosophy which called for the legal and political recognition of universal individual rights and limited government within the national state on the one hand, and the use of state power and the application of legal rules and cultural norms based on a division of population into “civilized and savage” on the other (Blaut 1993, 21-6). This historical conjunction of the rise of individualism and the national democratic liberal state coupled with state supported imperial expansion and the concomitant dispossession of territory and political marginalization of indigenous peoples is not surprising. Despite liberalism’s trans-cultural claims and its ideal of a limited state, the liberal ethos did not extend automatically to indigenous peoples. As stated by Mill in On Liberty liberal precepts do not apply to “those backward states of society in which the race itself may be considered as in its nonage.” When dealing with such barbarians, “[d]espotism is a legitimate mode of government…, provided the end be their improvement and the means justified by actually effecting that end” (Mill 1997a, 936). Thus for Mill, “[n]othing but foreign force would induce a tribe of North American Indians to submit to the restraints of a regular and civilized government” (Mill 1964b, 178).

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For Uday Mehta, this exclusionary aspect of liberalism “is neither theoretically dictated nor merely an occasional happenstance of purely contingent significance” (Mehta 1997, 62). Rather it is based on the anthropological premise of liberalism that allows a theoretical space to justify political exclusion (what Mehta calls “raising the ante” for political inclusion) based on the racial, cultural and political condition of the individual and peoples. The anthropological idea of human nature, (i.e. humans have certain entitlements and rights because they are human) means that the actualization of a liberal society is accompanied by a “thick set of social inscriptions and signals” (Mehta 1997, 70). This premise assumes that individuals are free to the extent certain social, economic and political structures or conventions are present. These social structures and conventions operate below the “threshold of consciousness and theoretical discourse” and include a particular “ordering of society and…set of distinctions that the society incorporates” (Mehta 1997, 67). In short, liberal thought can be used to deny the natural, political and civil rights of indigenous peoples based on their social and cultural status (Mehta 1997, 70). The liberal inspired ethos supported by state authority over indigenous peoples was evident in the “civilization” policy pursued by the American and Canadian governments (Berkhofer 1979, 113). In this process religious freedom was ignored as the missionary efforts to convert the Indian became merged with government policy aimed at settling the frontier and transforming them into citizens. The goals were supported by the belief that Indian institutions and character had to be transformed to allow the “savage” to enjoy the benefits of the superior Christian civilization (Berkhofer 1965). The American government supported and relied on missionaries as agents for implementing policy from the early days of the Republic (Beaver 1966). These efforts reached a high point when the Grant Administration initiated the “Peace Policy” in 1868 to root out corruption and bring the comforts of civilization “through the instrumentality of the Christian organizations, acting in harmony with the Government” (Prucha 1984, 482). The policy established a Board of Indian Commissioners, composed of prominent Christians (an unstated requirement), which was given general supervisory responsibilities over Indian affairs, sought to replace all corrupt or secular Indian agents, and allotted the various Indian agencies among the various Christian groups. After the policy was abandoned in 1881, the government continued to award school contracts to religious groups and virtually every major denomination operated schools under the federal contract system.

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As part of this project, the government attempted to ban what officials called “pagan” or “heathenish” tribal dances and other religious practices, such as forbidding funerary bundles and giveaways considered necessary to assist departed souls (DeMallie 1982, 401). The ceremonies were proscribed because some agents disputed their religious character and/or because they were considered a barrier to governmental objectives relating to pacification of the frontier. The effect was to destroy the tribal structure of Indian society, and economic development. From 1882 Indian agents were told to compel the discontinuance of dances should the tribes be unwilling to discontinue them voluntarily (Dussias 1997, 792). The suppression was attempted in various ways: government rations were withheld from dance participants—forcing Indians confined to the reservation with a choice of ceasing to engage in the ceremonies or starvation, destroying dance houses, preventing Indians from leaving the reservation to participate in dances elsewhere, imprisonment and military intervention, an eventuality which resulted in the 1890 Wounded Knee atrocity. In 1892 the Bureau of Indian Affairs issued regulations to be enforced by Courts of Indian Offense designed to suppress dances (Dussias 1997, 792). These courts were also charged with enforcing regulations suppressing medicine men, polygamy and the destruction of property which accompanied some religious ceremonies. The efforts survived the demise of the publically funded missionary education system on the reservations which increasingly came under attack on First Amendment grounds.1 For example in 1921, the Office of Indian Affairs released Circular no. 1665 (April 26, 1921) which read: The sun-dance, and all other similar dances and so-called religious ceremonies are considered “Indian Offenses” under existing regulations, and corrective penalties are provided. I regard such restriction as applicable to any dance which involves...the reckless giving away of property...frequent or prolonged periods of celebration...in fact any disorderly or planning excessive performance that promotes superstitious cruelty, licentiousness, idleness, danger to health, and shiftless indifference

1

By 1900, all funding for sectarian contract schools was cut. In part opposition was not advocacy for religious choice or separation of church and state but was due to the success of the Catholic Church, which had procured almost two-thirds of the contract funds—a proselytization success rate that aroused Protestant concern President Roosevelt approved the use of Tribal Trust monies for church-run schools should the tribe choose to participate, a policy approved by the Supreme Court in Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U.S. 50 (1908) (Dussias 1997, 785).

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However, in light of the increasing problems on the reservations, all efforts to suppress dances and traditional activities were abandoned in 1934 with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act. In Canada, Indian policy was similarly premised on the notion that Aboriginals were best assimilated into white society and that an indispensable aspect of civilization was the conversion to Christianity (Miller 2000). This destruction of Aboriginal culture was supported by underlying notions of the “vanishing” Indian and innate Indian savagery (Samak 1987). In 1830, the “Indian civilization” program was initiated. The program was based on three principles: Aboriginal protection, the improvement of Aboriginal living conditions; and assimilation. It sought to implement these principles through a system of land cession treaties, a set of supervised reserves and an educational system designed to acculturate Indians and prepare them to enter white society (Leslie 2002, 24). Mission schools, training in farming and trades, and instruction in Christianity were the major aspects of the “civilization” and education component of this policy. After Confederation, the 1876 Indian Act continued the policy but enhanced its assimilative aspects. It sought to eliminate tribal governing structures, relegated individual Aboriginals to the status of wards and placed the reserves under extensive administrative control. The1884 amendments prohibited the potlatch and the Tamanawas dances. Both dances were multifaceted ceremonial activities having significant cultural and religious significance which Christian missionaries found objectionable. While not as successful as initially envisioned, the official disapproval and harassment using various trespass provisions to evict non-compliant Indians, and mass arrests undermined the cultural significance of these activities. Later amendments prohibited further cultural practices such as the Blackfoot sundance and the Cree and Saulteaux thirst dance. In 1918 the anti-cultural powers were increased when Indian agents were granted the authority to prosecute the antidancing and anti-potlatching when acting as a justice of the peace. Restrictions on tribal dancing were eliminated in the 1950s. These anti-cultural or religious prohibitory policies were supported by extensive efforts to educate Aboriginals so that they might assimilate into settler society. An important component of this education was separating an aboriginal child from his language and culture and inculcating Christian values. These values were seen as crucial to assimilation; and no consideration of an Aboriginal’s freedom to choose their religious or spiritual orientation was given (Grant 1984). As pointed out by a 19th

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century catholic principals’ memorandum “all true civilization must be based on moral law.” As such, aboriginal spirituality, which was nothing more than a “pagan superstition,” had to be replaced by Christianity. As noted by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Rights this emphasis on moral education held that in the schools and aboriginal communities there could be no compromise, no countenancing Aboriginal beliefs and rituals… [which] …”being the result of a free and easy mode of life, cannot conform to the intense struggle for life which our social conditions require” (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1995, 315).

The result was the establishment of a system of day and residential schools on and off reserves largely funded by the government in concert with Catholic and Protestant churches; a relationship which lasted until 1969 when the federal government ended the partnership.

The Protection of Aboriginal Religion and Sacred Lands in American and Canadian Case law The direct suppression of Aboriginal religions which was the result of the above policies in Canada and the United States has been abandoned. The normative beliefs and legal efficacy of aboriginal religions to maintain a claim of constitutional protection is no longer questioned. Nevertheless various practices and religious claims have had difficulty achieving legal vindication under either the First Amendment in the United States or Section 2(a) of Canada’s Charter of Rights. This is especially so when indigenous people seek to prevent the use of territory they consider sacred or of spiritual significance. The liberal notions that religiosity in a secular society is composed of analytically separate categories of individual “belief” and “practice”; and that the occupancy and use of land is for economic development and improvement (as opposed to nondevelopmental religious purposes) continue to inform judicial reasoning. In those cases where tribes advance religious claims over tracts of land held to have religious significance, the courts have often held that the government has a compelling interest which outweighs any religions objections. In Canada, these liberalist presumptions have generally been subsumed aboriginal title and rights jurisprudence under s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act 1982 with all its attendant advantages and disadvantages. Given the history of religious suppression in the United States, it is ironic that the leading decision on governmental authority to burden religious practice was announced in a case involving the use of peyote as part of a Native American religious ceremony. In Employment Div., Dept.

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of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (cited hereafter as Oregon v Smith) the Supreme Court abandoned the “compelling interest” test established in Sherbert v. Verner in favour of an approach which held that general laws that incidentally burden religious practices are not subject to First Amendment challenge. Justice Scalia argued for the majority that it was not “appropriate for judges to determine the ‘centrality’ of religious beliefs before applying a ‘compelling interest’ test”, and this inherently subjective enterprise would “court anarchy” as it would presumptively invalidate “any regulation of acts that does not protect an interest of the highest order” (Oregon v Smith 1990, 887-8). In response, Congress enacted Religious Freedom Restoration Act [RFRA] which stated that the government could not “substantially burden” the exercise of religion unless it demonstrates that the action is in furtherance of the “compelling governmental interest” set forth in pre-Oregon v Smith case law and the means chosen are the least restrictive (RFRA 1993, §2000bb(b)(1)). While the Supreme Court has held that RFRA does not to apply to state and local governments, it has been used to invalidate some laws that would not have been protected under Oregon v Smith. Despite RFRA, Native American religious practitioners have had difficulty arguing that their religious practice has been “substantially burdened” or that the government must recognize religious claims on areas where the tribes have no current proprietary interest. This is because the courts have generally narrowly defined the concept of “substantial burden” and the incompatibility the jurisprudentially preferred liberal notions of religious belief and religious practice has with Native American religions. For example, in Navajo Nation v. United States Forest Service (cited hereafter as Navajo v USFS) the Court of Appeal found that the use of treated effluent to make snow at a San Francisco Peaks ski hill located in a national forest does not substantially burden the religious practice of the 16 tribes who hold the peaks sacred. The affected tribes had argued that the treated effluent would be offensive to their religious sensibilities and practice and destroy the sacredness of the area. However, the Court of Appeal which noted that the tribes’ religious beliefs were sincere and that the religious activities on the Peaks constituted an “exercise of religion” within the meaning of RFRA and the First Amendment refuse to proscribe the use of effluent water. Following Oregon v Smith it held that an action would only “substantially burden” (thus triggering heightened scrutiny) religion under the statute in two situations: first, where someone was forced to forgo a governmental benefit due to his/her religious belief or practice or second, where the individual is coerced into acting contrary to the religious sentiments

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because of the threat of criminal or civil sanctions (Navajo v USFS 2008, 1069-70). The Court reasoned in a situation where practitioners were neither precluded from access nor coerced into performing or refraining from some practice by criminal or civil sanctions, the use of recycled water would only be offensive to the tribes “religious sensibilities” and not any religious practices. The court noted: The Plaintiffs remain free to use natural water in their religious or healing ceremonies and otherwise practice their religion using whatever resources they may choose ( Navajo v USFS 2008, fn 24).

This damage to the subjective nature of the Indian’s religious experience is not the “kind of objective danger RFRA and the First Amendment were designed to prevent” (Navajo Nation 2008, 1069-70). Thus for the Native Americans who held the Peaks to be sacred, “the diminishment of spiritual fulfilment – serious though it may be—is not a ‘substantive burden’ on the free exercise of religion” (Navajo v USFS 2008, 1070). The reasoning in Navajo v USFS assumes a bifurcation of “belief “ and “practice” that is clearly not compatible with many Native American religions which have no separation between the sacred and the secular. Rather these religions hold that an entire area is sacred and have no “central locus of ritual and practice” (Fonda 2011, 5). Moreover this categorization easily elides into a jurisprudential identification of “religion” with “culture” effectively removing the constitutional protection, as evident in South Fork Band v. United States Department of the Interior (cited hereafter as SF Band v USDI). In SF Band v USDI the Band sought to enjoin a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approval of an expansion of an open pit and underground gold mine in an area considered sacred. While the Court did not question the sincerity of the beliefs, it dismissed the RFRA action noting that the Band “will continue to have access to the areas identified as religiously significant.” It further noted (echoing the “religion is culture” legerdemain) that the BLM, as part of its duty to protect Indian “sacred sites” under an Executive Order “went to great lengths to evaluate potential impacts on Native American traditional values and culture [emphasis added]”( SF Band v USDI 2009, fn 9). The hesitancy to recognize the territorial aspect of various Native America religions is also related to a concern about the extent to which recognized religious claims would impact land use and development. This is no small consideration given the amount of land having religious significance to tribes should the courts be amenable to finding a substantial burden on a Native American religious practice. As the

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Supreme Court stated in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association (cite hereafter as Lyng v NICPA) which concerned the building a road across approximately 17,000 acres territory deemed sacred to the Indians: No disrespect for these practices is implied when one notes that such beliefs could easily require de facto beneficial ownership of some rather spacious tracts of public property. Even without anticipating future cases, the diminution of the Government’s property rights, and the concomitant subsidy of the Indian religion, would in this case be far from trivial… (Lyng v NICPA 1988, 453).

Similarly in Navajo v USFS the Court of Appeals noted that within the “Coconino National Forest alone, there are approximately a dozen mountains recognized as sacred” and that some of the plaintiffs to the case “consider the entire Colorado River to be sacred”. Moreover “[n]ew sacred areas are continuously being recognized” by the Plaintiff tribes (Navajo v USFS 2008, 1066). This notion that government can and should be able to proceed to use its property without concern for the religious sentiments of those affected, i.e. because it is “after all, its land,” underscores the underlying assumption that lands must be “used” in some sense for economic development or some other use not limited by holistic religious sentiments (Lyng v NICPA 1988, 453). In effect, where Native American claims are concerned, the government’s use of its land generally cannot be a “substantial burden” of the affected religious tradition, logic seemingly at odds with the thrust of the First Amendment and RFRA. The concern about the extent of religious claims to territory is reinforced by an unwillingness to see the nuances in Native American religions as they relate to land use and preservation at religiously significant sites. As the dissent in Navajo v USFS pointed out, the types of “sacred” sites recognized across the Peaks vary in religious importance. In effect, the courts have treated all “sacred” sites as analogous to a holy shrine or church in western religion, an analogy if realized in law which would prevent the large scale use of much territory—yet one which has little traction in Native American religions. Ironically, this unwillingness to disaggregate the religious significance of particular sites, or make determinations about the relative impact various non-Indian uses (e.g. logging v. hiking) would have on religious practices, has led the courts to find an Establishment Clause violation where the government has made an effort to set aside territory for religious uses by restricting various activities (Wyoming Sawmills, Inc. 2001).

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In Canada religious claims to land by aboriginals under Section 2(a) of the Charter of Rights and Freedom which guarantees to “everyone” the “freedom of conscience and religion” are rare. This is somewhat surprising given that s. 2(a) has been interpreted to require a broad accommodation to protect religious practices where the belief is “sincere” and it has an objective “nexus with religion, including the belief in an obligation to conform to a religious practice” (S.L. v. Commission scolaire des Chênes 2012, Para. 24). Moreover the amount of “injury” such religiously authorized practices can have on others is higher than the American standard. An action or practice arising from a sincere religious belief can fall within the scope of constitutional protection even where the challenged law is neutral or has equal application across all of the affects individuals and is not motivated by anti-religious animus (Multani v. Commission scolaire Marguerite-Burgeoys 2006). In effect, a determination of a compelling justification to burden religious practices is more difficult to sustain and the “reasonable” accommodation for a religious practice is higher than under the First Amendment or RFRA. For example, in Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem the Court held that the sincere belief by Jewish residents allowed them to circumvent the prohibitions in the condominium by-laws (to which they had agreed) by building a succah on their balcony. Government does retain the right to prohibit an individual from undertaking various religious practices or burdening religion practices if the legislation is justifiable as a “reasonable limit” under s. 1 of the Canadian Charter but “equal treatment”; noncoercion and non-discriminatory motive in and of themselves do not end the analysis under s. 1 (R. v. Edwards Books and Art 1996). While there is no Establishment Clause, the courts have held that state support for or sponsorship of one religious tradition amounts usually to discrimination against others but the accommodation of religious practices extends beyond that afforded in the U.S. under Oregon v Smith or RFRA (Hogg 2010); and protection of aboriginal religions interests by the government would not be disallowed under The Establishment Clause analysis used in Wyoming Sawmills, Inc. (Canadian Civil Liberties Assn 1990). Nevertheless, the collective nature of aboriginal religious beliefs, the belief v. practice dichotomy, and the impacts religions claims to land may have on other individuals and the government creates difficulties for aboriginal religious claims due to the underlying liberal presumptions that inform the reasoning process. For example, in the pre-Charter case R. v. Jack the aboriginal defendants claimed to have hunted deer out of season to perform a religious ceremony which involved the burning of meat to satisfy the needs of deceased ancestors. The Court, in a critical evaluation

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of the “spiritual content” of the practice (an inquiry to be eschewed under controlling case law) disregarded the holistic nature of the ceremony which required a ritual killing of the meat to be burned: There was some evidence that the type of food to be burned was of significance and that raw deer meat was required in this case, but no evidence as to the circumstances or methods of obtaining it, except by theft, which would render the meat unsuitable. There was no evidence that the use of defrosted raw deer meat was sacrilegious as is alleged in appellants’ factum. There was evidence that the food had to be disposed of in several plates to provide for the guests of the honoured spirit, that the shaman presiding over the ceremony pronounced a name over each plate, that attendants had to remain at a certain distance from the fire, that cedar wood was preferred for the burning…By contrast, there was no evidence that the killing of the deer was part of the religious ceremony (R v Jack 1985, Para 36-7).

This seeming inability to appreciate the different nature of aboriginal practice has tended both the courts and litigants to argue the religious practice is a component part of a larger aboriginal title/rights claim under s. 35 rather than under s. 2(a). Under s. 35(1), a constitutionally protected possessory or usufructuary aboriginal interest provides significant management rights which can prevent unwanted desecration of spiritually significant territory. Where aboriginal title or rights are established the rights may only be justifiably infringed upon under the relatively high standard established in R. v. Sparrow. Moreover such re-categorisation has been facilitated as aboriginal spiritual beliefs and practices are now considered to be part of the criteria used to determine both the scope and content of aboriginal rights under s. 35(1) (Delgamuukw. 1997; Gladstone 1996; Van der Peet 1996). This is evident in R. v Sioui, which involved a claim by the Huron that they engaged in various gathering activities pursuant to a treaty which guaranteed their free exercise of religion in the ceded area (R v Sioui 1990: 105). The Court, while noting the essentially religious nature of the claimed practice redefined it as a territorial claim; thereby neatly categorizing a religious claim over a particular religion belief and practice to an aboriginal rights claim with all its attendant jurisprudential and doctrinal limitations. Although this case does not involve a territorial claim as such…the Hurons are not claiming control over territory…[the] exercise of the right they are claiming has an essential territorial aspect. The respondents argue that they have a right to carry on their customs and religious rites in a

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specific territory…. The substantive content of the right cannot be considered apart from its territorial content. Just as it would distort the nature of a right of way to consider it while ignoring its territorial aspect, one cannot logically disregard the territorial aspect of the substantive rights guaranteed by the treaty (R v Sioui 1990, Para. 107).

The result has been that an aboriginal religious claim over territory often resolves itself into litigation surrounding the protection of sacred sites as an aboriginal title or rights claim (Ross 2005). For example in Kelly Lake Cree Nation v. British Columbia (Minister of Energy & Mines) (cite hereafter as Kelly Lake v BC) the Aboriginal Plaintiffs made a claim under s. 35 and s. 2(a) to prevent exploratory gas drilling near an area they considered of the “utmost spiritual significance” (Kelly Lake v BC 1999, Para. 187). They argued that mere presence of the wells “will defile an image of sanctuary that they are by their prophesies entrusted to preserve” (Kelly Lake v BC 1999, Para. 192). The court citing Sioui noted the territorial aspect of the claim but found minimal interference with the religious practices and it held that 2(a) could not support a claim without a finding of aboriginal title, explicitly linking the religious claim to possessory claim. While not satisfied with the intrusion into the area generally, the [plaintiffs] do not point to any actual deprivation or incursion of the right to religious freedom as a consequence but rather it is the defilement of a concept that is paramount. Thus, I conclude that there is no contemplated activity that inhibits or coerces the right to exercise religious beliefs or practices either on an actual usage basis or in an intellectual sense in this area as viewed by those who regard themselves as stewards of it (Kelly Lake v BC 1999, Para. 197).

Colonialism, Land and Indigenous Religions American and Canadian courts have taken different approaches toward religious claims to use or proscribe the use of certain territory. They have on occasion protected non-Christian minority religious practices in face of strongly justified governmental regulation (Gonzales v O Centro 2006; Multani v Commission 2006) and protected sacred sites and prevented land uses which are offensive to indigenous religious sensibilities. Nevertheless these claims fit uneasily within accepted legal paradigms and the history of supressing indigenous religions. American courts have approached the claims from a more liberalistic perspective, separating the religious notion of belief and practice, equating the religious claims to land as “cultural” claims, or re-interpreting the proffered religiously significant areas into

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Christian notions of holy places and practices. At the same time they have minimized the sacrosanct nature of the claims (which often exclude other non-religious uses) due to widely-held liberal notions of “improvement” and property rights. Canadian courts, while continuing to subscribe to liberal and colonialist assumptions, particularly in relation to land use, have intertwined religious claims with s. 35 aboriginal rights (effectively linking them with aboriginal cultural claims) reflecting a more collectivistculturalist approach to the religious rights. These differences suggest an important and growing difference between the two constitutional jurisprudences. Yet both approaches continue to reflect the legacy of the earlier suppression of indigenous religions. As Bell suggests, rules and functions of law reflect an underlying sense of what kind of society and what is appropriate to that society within which the court operates—a context and a constellation of ideas which are unlikely to change quickly (Bell 1994, 24). Indigenous spirituality is often legally constructed under contemporary religious freedom jurisprudence in such a manner as to exclude these beliefs and practices. The domination of mainstream Christianity and the rhetoric of individual rights which minimizes the systematic disadvantages suffered by aboriginals, or the group rights nature of aboriginal religious freedom claims, coupled with the legacy of colonist attitudes simply take aboriginal religions outside of constitutional protections (Beamon 2002, 136). In both American and Canadian jurisprudence the liberal justification for the use of state power and economic development—be it for road building, making snow for a ski hill or drilling for gas—is in some sense conceptually equivalent to an indigenous religious claim. The Navajo v USFS and Kelly Lake v BC reasoning, with its determination that only certain government actions can produce a “substantial burden” to particular religious “practices” rather than considering the effects of governmental action on the holistic nature of indigenous religions, is a re-articulation of colonialist and cultural biases. Rather than understanding the Native American religion and culture on its own terms (and therefore engaging with the question of what a constitutionally impermissible burden on the belief and practice would be in the context), the continued efficacy of the strong liberal state action to “act” and to promote economic development in the face of indigenous claims is simply accorded superior weight in the decisional process. The more solicitous Canadian approach involving religious claims tied to aboriginal rights, which more readily embraces the idea that religious and

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cultural sentiments of indigenous peoples are tied to a particular territory, has a certain attraction given the parameters of aboriginal spirituality. However equating religious matters with cultural practices eliminates the special protection other non-indigenous religious beliefs and practices have in the constitutional system. For example, if a religious claim is made over territory where aboriginal title rights had been extinguished (which was legally permissible prior before the 1982 Charter protections were enacted) the religious claim based on aboriginal title would also be extinguished (Christie 2005). Given the constitutional salience of religious protection, this is a strange standard; but one in accordance with earlier law and policy suppressing aboriginal religions. In addition, the requirement that a s. 35(1) aboriginal right is necessarily based on “precontact” cultural practices is seemingly at odds with the idea of spirituality and alien to the idea of trans-historical universal human rights. Indeed the idea that the religious sentiment is in some sense a “cultural practice or belief” (found in American and Canadian decisions), a sentiment clearly traced to colonial and Christian notions of what constitutes “religion”, lowers its substantive constitutional protection. The right to a cultural practice and belief simply cannot be equated with the fundamental right to conscious and religion accorded to individuals by the Canadian and American constitutions as well as international legal instruments.

Conclusion Indigenous religious jurisprudence, like indigenous law more generally, involves the interaction of indigenous concepts and culture, the detritus of history—emphasizing different aspects of the Indigenous/governmental interaction—and western legal categories and cultural sensibilities. The failure to protect indigenous religious claims is due to the incompatibility of American and Canadian presumptions underlying current doctrine as well as the artificiality of the religion vs. cultural divide where religion and spirituality are not distinct aspects of the culture. One aspect of enhancing protection would be to dispense with the doctrinal distinction between “subjective” religious experience and “objective” religious practice when entertaining these claims. In Indigenous religions, practice and religious feeling are often bound up within particular context, often with a particular parcel of land. Unlike western “revealed” religions which have an institutional basis and an accepted dogma, and which generally accord the location (as opposed to the act itself) of a particular ceremonial act as a secondary consideration, indigenous religions are non-dogmatic, and envision spirituality as a

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continual interaction within a specific communal/environmental context. Maintaining the distinction has allowed the courts to equate indigenous spiritual activities with as “objective” artefact of indigenous culture, subject to all the legal indeterminacy such a characterization implies In these cases, the courts have held that the government can burden or disregard the religious rights of Indians in a manner which suggests that these religions are perhaps less deserving of protection; for their protection would necessarily mean an embrace of a spiritual and cultural framework contrary to the idea of civilization and economic development embodied in earlier policies.

Works Cited American Indian Religious Freedom Act Report. Washington, DC: Department of Interior, 1979. Beamon, L. G. 2002. “Aboriginal Spirituality and the Legal Construction of the Freedom of Religion.” Journal of Church and State 44(1): 135149. Beaver, R. P. 1966. Church, State and the American Indians: Two and a Half Centuries of Partnership in Missions Between Protestant Churches and Government. Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House. Bell, J. 1994. “Comparative Law and Legal Theory.” In Prescriptive Formality and Normative Rationality in Modern Legal System: Festschrift for Robert Summers, edited by W. Krawietz, N. MacCormick, and G. H. von Wright, 19-31. Berlin: Dunker & Humblot. Blaut, J. M. 1993. The Colonizer’s Model of the World; Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. New York: Guilford Press. Berkhofer, R. F. Jr. 1965. Salvation and the savage An Analysis of Protestant Missions and the American Indian Response, 17871862.Westport: Greenwood Press Publishers. Berkhofer, R. F. Jr. 1979. The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian, from Columbus to the Present. New York: Vintage Books. Christie, G. 2005. “A Colonial Reading of Recent Jurisprudence: Sparrow, Delgamuukw and Haida Nation.” Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 23 (1): 17-53. DeMallie, R. J. 1982. “The Lakota Ghost Dance: An Ethnohistorical Account.” Pacific Historical Review 52 (4): 385-405. Dussias, A. M. 1997. “Ghost Dance and Holy Ghost: The Echoes of Nineteenth-Century Christianization Policy in Twentieth-Century

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Native American Free Exercise Cases.” Stanford Law Review 49 (2): 773-857. Fonda, M. V. 2011. “Are They Like Us Yet? Some Thoughts on Why Religious Freedom Remains Elusive for Aboriginals in North America.” The International Indigenous Policy Journal 2 (4): Art. 4. Grant, J. W. 1984. Moon of Wintertime: Missionaries and the Indians of Canada in Encounter since 1534. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hogg, P. W. 2010. Constitutional Law of Canada, 2010 Student Edition. Toronto: Thomson Reuters Canada Limited. Leslie, J. F. 2002. “The Indian Act: An Historical Perspective.” Canadian Parliamentary Review 25 (2): 23-27. Mehta, Uday S. 1997. “Liberal Strategies of Exclusion.” In Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, edited by F. Cooper and A. L. Stoler, 59-86. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Merryman, J. H. 1994. “The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America.” In The Civil Law Tradition: Europe, Latin America and East Asia, edited by J. H. Merryman, D. S. Clark and J. O. Haley, 3-5. Charlottesville, Virginia: The Michie Company. Mill, J. S. 1997. On Liberty. In Classics of Modern Political Theory, edited by S. M. Cahn, 930-96. New York: Oxford University Press. —. 1964. Utilitarianism Liberty Representative Government. With an Introduction by A.D. Lindsay. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. Miller, J. R. 2000. Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: A History of IndianWhite Relations in Canada. 3rd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Prucha, F. P. 1984. The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Vol. I. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples: Looking Forward, Looking Back. Vol. 1. Ottawa: Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996. Ross, M. L. 2005. First Nations Sacred Sites in Canada’s Courts. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Samak, H. 1987. The Blackfoot Confederacy, 1880-1920: A Comparative Study of Canadian and U.S. Indian Policy. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Shapiro, M., and A. Stone-Sweet. 2002. On Law, Politics and Judicialization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Weaver, J. C. 2003. The Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, 1650-1900. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.

Legal Opinions Cited Canadian Civil Liberties Assn. v. Ontario (Minister of Education) (1990), 71 O.R. (2d) 341. Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010. Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon. v. Smith 494 U.S. 872 (1990). Gonzales v O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao Do Vegetal et al, 546 U.S. 418 (2006) Kelly Lake Cree Nation v. British Columbia (Minister of Energy & Mines) [1999] 3 C.N.L.R. 126. Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 485 U.S. 439 (1988). Multani v Commission sclaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys [2006] 1 S.C.R. 256. Navajo Nation v. United States Forest Service, 535 F.3d 1058 (9th Cir. 2008). R. v. Edwards Books and Art Ltd., [1986] 2 S.C.R. 713. R. v. Gladstone, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 723. R. v. Jack, [1985] 2 S.C.R. 332. R. v. Sioui, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 102. R. v Sparrow, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 1075. R. v. Van der Peet, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 507. Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963). S.L. v. Commission scolaire des Chênes [2012] 1 S.C.R. 235. South Fork Band v. United States Department of the Interior, 643 F. Supp. 2d 1192 (Nev. 2009). Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem, [2004] 2 S.C.R. 551. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 ((1972). Wyoming Sawmills, Inc. v. The United States Forest Service, 179 F. Supp. 2d 1279 (Wyo. 2001).

Legislation Cited Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (November 16, 1993).

PART III THE POLITICS OF RELIGION: THE NEXUS EXPLORED

CHAPTER SIX SOFT IDENTITIES AND HARD REALITIES: THE LIMITS OF GOVERNANCE AND NON-TERRITORIAL IDENTITY W. JOHN HOPKINS Introduction: Governance and Identity The subject matter of this chapter is not religion per se, but rather the question of how non-territorial identities, of which religion is often one, can be represented in current constitutional frameworks. It explores how current “modern” structures of governance fail to reflect individual or group identities and the limits such structures impose upon the concept of governance and identity. In essence it argues that although soft-bordered models of governance are necessary to ensure that constitutional structures reflect non-territorial identities, the continued dominance of the territorial hard-bordered paradigm makes such innovative approaches difficult to implement. It concludes by arguing that the evidence suggests that, although the nation-state may be in decline, the hard-bordered concept of territorial governance that underpins it retains its status as the paradigm of jurisdictional organisation. Discussions of identity and governance, at least in the political area, continue to be focussed on “nation”. In a more democratic era, the continued reliance upon the national myth has seemed less acceptable, as non-national identities and cultures, both religious and secular, have attempted to have their voices heard within, and at times beyond, the boundaries of the nation-state. The rise of such non-national identities has tended to be ignored or suppressed by national regimes and the international legal order as a whole. They do not fit within the universal state model. In essence, the nation-state system is one of winner takes all and without the “national” status sub-state identities cannot claim their “prize”. At its extremes this drives such identities towards the creation of

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ethnically and religiously “pure” territories capable of calling themselves a “nation” and thus claiming the right to a state. However, despite the importance of non-national and non-territorial identities to individuals and groups, the politics of identity has become rather unfashionable in recent times. In both popular and academic writings the claims of non-national groups for autonomy are often portrayed as a throwback to a pre-modern era. This chapter challenges this approach. Far from being an issue from our history, identity and its constitutional representation remain at the heart of most governance models. The nation-state in particular remains legitimised by reference to a national identity. Rather than supplanting identity politics, the nation-state merely privileges a particular form of territorial identity over all others (Tivey 1981). The concept of the nation-state is so fundamental to the organisation of government and governance in the 21st century its role often goes unnoticed in discussions of identity politics and law. Yet, it is the basis upon which all legal systems are organised, from the domestic to the international, and thus its impact is all pervasive. From “new” states such as New Zealand to “old” Europe, the language of legal legitimacy remains openly nationalist. From the anti-immigration rhetoric of populist politicians and claims that Maori identity conflicts with “New Zealandness”, to the UK government’s cringing attempts at manufacturing “Britishness”, identity remains key to the legitimacy of legal regimes. However, such attempts to shore up national identities are actually evidence of something far more important. The national model is fraying round the edges and in some cases is coming apart at the seams. This should not surprise us. The concept of the nation-state and more importantly, the governance structures that it imposes are not based on the realities of human identity. Rather they reflect nineteenth century attempts to legitimise existing territories by reference to a single, manufactured, identity. Given the nature of its genesis, in a time where democratic ideas and identity politics were in their infancy, it should not surprise us that the traditional hard-bordered concept of governance epitomised by the nationstate is in decline at least in some parts of the world. Perhaps the real surprise should be that it survived so long. The underlying problem for the current state-model of territorial governance is that human identity is both multi-faceted and overlapping. The single hard-bordered territorial idea, upon which the idea of the nation-state is based, can never legitimately represent all identities. More importantly, no arrangement of such borders will ever do so. It is not that the current border lacks the relevant “fit” with the realities of individual

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and group identity but that the idea of such a hard-border can never do so. By extension, micro-nationalism and sub-state political movements are never the solution to the problem of identity and the state. It is only by adapting our concept of governance to recognise the multi-level and nonterritorial nature of identity can we hope to satisfy the demands of nonnational identities. This chapter argues that the only solution to this lack of fit between identities and states is to resort to non-territorial and over-lapping governance structures, capable of recognising different identities within the same territory. This requires a shift towards (or perhaps back to) a concept of soft-borders, with overlapping structures of governance focussed upon the individual rather than territory. However, the few examples where a soft-bordered approach has been implemented have struggled to avoid applying a hard-bordered approach in practice. Although these examples may more accurately reflect the realities of overlapping identities their difficulties show the continued resilience of the dominant model. The requirements of identity may require a soft-bordered approach to the concept of governance, but the legacy of the hard-bordered state is such that, although a shift is necessary, it will prove difficult to deliver. The continued dominance of the hard-border can be seen in the response of European states to the challenges of micro-nationalism in the latter half of the 20th century. It is noticeable that those micro-national identities which have been the most successful in achieving recognition are those which have been able to mimic the hard-bordered requirements of the nation-state. At its extremes this drives such identities towards the creation of ethnically and religiously “pure” territories capable of calling themselves a “nation” and thus claiming the right to a state. The tragedy of Bosnia-Herzegovina is only one example of this phenomenon (Malcolm 1996). The difficulties encountered by soft-bordered models suggest that those identities which can fit themselves into a hard-bordered quasinational model stand a far greater chance of achieving a degree of autonomy or recognition than those that remain non-territorial in nature. Even as it declines, the hard-bordered legacy of the nation-state casts a long shadow on the recognition of identity in governance and law.

The Concept of the Hard Border The concept of the hard-border is so fundamental to modern ideas of governance that it often passes without comment. It is nevertheless worth

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reminding ourselves of the basis of the current hard-bordered model as it is these very fundamentals that make it so difficult for the nation-state model to adapt to a world of non-national identities. The hard-bordered model is based upon a presupposition that all government can be exercised territorially. Jurisdiction is primarily exercised according to the territory upon which an activity takes place. Legitimacy and thus identity, is therefore related to territory alone. Thus, if an individual is in territory A they will be subject to the laws and governance of the government of territory A, however it is organised. By crossing the hard-border into territory B, the individual becomes subject to the laws and constitutional structures of territory B. The basic elements of the concept can be summarised as follows: x that governments exercise power over a territorially defined area, x that they claim a monopoly of public power over the territory and the population within their borders, x that the territory is exclusive (i.e. all public authority is defined by the boundaries of the nation-state). The first element is self-explanatory. In general, the state is responsible for all individuals within its territory. It has control over the land within it and any other territorially definable features. A state may claim extra-territorial jurisdiction but will run into the territorial jurisdiction of other states when and if it attempts to exercise it. By definition, the hard-bordered state is a territorially defined entity. The second element sees the authority of the state as beyond challenge within this territory. Although some element of federalism may exist within the state, the state apparatus remains supreme. Finally, and most importantly for this chapter, the state is hard-bordered. Where one jurisdiction ends, another begins. The development of this model of governance, although intimately connected to the nation-state in modern discourse, was a distinct development prior to its legitimation through the concept of the nation and thus long-precedes that of the “nation” itself. Some authors have argued for a form of proto-nationalism prior to the creation of the state and there is clearly evidence for some form of pre-nationalist identity (Orridge, 1981). However the modern concept of the “nation”, linked as it is to the legitimacy of the hard-bordered state structure, is a much later development. Such pre-nationalist movements may have some connection with current state identities, but this has more to do with their adoption by modern national movements rather than any true connection. Such a connection only appears when viewing historical facts through modern

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eyes (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992). The widespread acceptance of the hard-bordered approach to governance is generally dated to the Westphalian compact of 1648, often incorrectly referred to as the Treaty of Westphalia. Although in fact a complex series of treaties, these documents nevertheless replaced a soft-bordered approach of multiple allegiances and overlapping personal loyalty with an embryonic hard-bordered state model. The modern system of international law in particular dates its conception from this point, when the concept of the single territorial sovereign unit was recognised, amongst the European powers at least, as the basic governmental unit. Such a formalist approach fails to recognise that the change in governance on the ground was far less dramatic. The Peace of Westphalia did nevertheless provide a legal framework for the already occurring shift away from the pre-state model to the hard-bordered concept of the “modern” state. Indeed, in the years after 1648, a patchwork quilt of single jurisdictional territories only slowly replaced a system of overlapping boundaries and inter-woven links of dynastic governance. The reality of legal and constitutional unity within each territory was also often more apparent than real, with many states (such as France) maintaining internal tariff borders and jurisdictions. Nevertheless the principle that jurisdictional boundaries in Europe started and finished at a fixed territorial border was nevertheless legally established in 1648. The establishment of this territorial “hard-bordered” model as the norm had huge impacts upon the development of law, legal systems and governance structures in Europe and latterly throughout the globe. Over time it has supplanted all models of soft-border jurisdiction making law and legal analysis a state based concept (Zweigert and Kotz 1998, 48). This concept of the hard-border remains fundamental to the organisation of all legal structures around the globe. It divides the world into neat packages which define the application of all policy. Even supra-national and international entities will be defined as a collection of such units. The European Union, for example, despite its strong supra-national elements, remains, at heart, a union of states. These hard boundaries legally define almost all aspects of the individual’s life and legal identity. They define the rights an individual enjoys, the taxes they pay and the economic model in which they live, amongst an almost endless list. Most importantly for this chapter, they also define an individual’s identity, at least in the eyes of the law. On one side of the border we are Poles, on the other we are Czech. Legally, other identities are subsumed. A Slovene in Austria or a Dane in SchleswigHolstein enjoys particular rights related to their ethnicity but such rights

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are through recognition of their status as a special “minority” within the territorial state. For this reason the Austrian Land of Styria is within its rights to refuse to recognise the Slovene minority as an ethnic minority while its Carinthian neighbour does so. The rights accorded to these minorities are related to the approach of the territorial governments of the hard-bordered state and are not through their connection with their linguistic and cultural brethren across the hard-border. The same is true of the recognition of the rights of non-territorial identities. Roman Catholic instruction within the Scottish state school system exists due to the recognition of the rights of this religious minority within the hard-border. The hard border does not recognise any inherent jurisdiction from outside the border for such a community.

Hard Borders and Identity The fact that most identities are not reflected in existing territorial governance models should not surprise us. Individual identity is a multifaceted concept with a single individual holding multiple identities. Religion (or the lack of it), language, culture and ethnicity are rarely bundled into a single neat package. More likely an individual aligns with a variety of groups that intersect. By definition, therefore, this multi-faceted nature of identity cannot be captured by the single territory approach that is at the heart of the hard-bordered model. Such an approach must either be identity neutral or create a territorial identity to legitimise the rule of the particular hard-bordered state. Few have pursued the former model with most polities, as a matter of necessity, attempting to legitimise their existence through territorial identity (Kedourie 1961). Lacking such a unifying identity, the hard-bordered state manufactured its own, “imagined community” to match the territory of the border (Anderson 2006). At the birth of the European hard-bordered model in 1648, states and empires continued to rely upon their previous justifications for their legitimacy. Reference to the demos was unimportant in a pre-democratic era with reference to power, monarchical tradition and the divine right of a ruler more common as forms of legitimacy, if any were required at all. As such pre-democratic systems crumbled, however, states required a new form of legitimacy to justify their hard-borders. The problem they faced was that existing pre-national identities failed to match the borders of the then existing states while the previous mechanisms of legitimacy were incapable of legitimising the 19th Century post-revolutionary government model. This left the new regimes with little option than to create such identities themselves (Dyson 1980, 129).

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France is often seen as the classic example of this process. In the aftermath of the French revolution, the issue of legitimacy became acute as the pre-revolutionary mechanisms could no longer apply. The legitimacy of a republican government over the territory known as “France” could not be based upon that of the Ancien regime that had preceded it. Neither could any cultural or normative identity realistically be used to justify a single government in Paris that claimed to have jurisdiction over the entire territory. A large minority (and possibly the majority) of the peoples over whom the new government laid claim did not speak French and whether they identified as French is open to serious doubt (Beer 1980). In addition, the government of France wished to impose uniformity over the territory for pragmatic reasons as the existing division caused restraint of trade and complexity within the system. Such an approach required an authority beyond that of its monarchical predecessor. For these reasons, the legitimacy of the new regime did not rest upon the people, but the territory upon which they lived. The French “nation” comprised those who lived on “French” soil. In any event, they were given no choice. Where the people did not agree with the idea of French identity they were forcibly assimilated into the state. The state according to the French legitimacy model represented the French “nation” and the French state apparatus set about ensuring that the population was “French”. The classic French imposition of national culture and nation-building was to provide a global blue-print for the practice of nation-building (Gellner 1983). Those who did not conform to the nation-state identity promoted by the central authorities had one of two options—to resist or accept assimilation (Gellner 1983). When allied with the concept of the hard-bordered state, the creation of national identities meant that there was no middle way. The most obvious example of this was through the imposition of “national” languages on populations whose language did not conform to the national norm. In Europe this saw the near extinction of the various Occitan languages as well as the Celtic languages of the western fringe amongst many others. In colonial states it saw the active repression of indigenous languages such as Te Reo Maori as well as the wealth of Aboriginal languages. In all cases, the purpose was the same. The legitimacy of the hard-bordered state relied upon the “national” identity and thus the nation-state could brook no opposition to its privileged culture (Tivey 1981). To do so would risk the legitimacy of the hard-bordered territorial unit and without this there was no rational reason for it to exist as a single jurisdiction or sovereign entity. Part of the process of legitimising existing territorial hard-borders also involved the creation of national histories and national myths. This process

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has been well documented and now largely discredited (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). However, the discrediting of ethnic nationalist legitimation for the current patchwork of nation-state borders has led to alternative legitimation arguments being employed particularly in the post-1945 era. The most vocal in the democratic world are those of self-identification. This argues that the nation-state represents a self-identified national community which exists within a particular territory. Given what has been said above, this is actually a self-fulfilling prophecy. It also has an underlying weakness. Even assuming that it is possible to assess such selfidentification within the state, what happens when significant numbers clearly do not fully identify with it. More complex still are those identities that cannot be classed as national or do not follow territorial boundaries. There are two issues that need to be identified here. Firstly, despite the best efforts of most nation-states, many non-national identities survived in one form or another. Many re-invented themselves as micro-nationalities, using the very language of nation-statism against the nation-state itself. Others continued as non-threatening cultural identities, reluctantly tolerated by national elites (Harvie 1993). This resilience of non-national identity was to prove important as the nation-state began to weaken its grip on the politics of identity in the Europe of the 1970s as some of these cultural identities began to politicise. Secondly, such politicisation of the non-national identities could only succeed when the identity could claim a territorial legitimacy. Non-territorial identities could never be fully incorporated into the hard-bordered model and even a re-drawing of the borders would never satisfy the needs of such identities. How can the single territory nation-state claim to represent these non-territorial or nonnational identities? The answer is clearly that it cannot.

Governance, Identity and Soft Borders: The European Experiment During much of the 20th century the key argument in favour of the hard-bordered approach to governance was that although the nation-state model did not in fact enjoy any particular normative legitimacy, by and large it worked as a form of governance structure. The nation-state may be imperfect and suffer from a number of practical problems through its inability to recognise non-national and non-territorial identities but by and large it allows the delivery of the requirements of governance and the “Law Jobs” better than any alternative (Llewlyn 1940). In the post-war period, the idea that the nation-state model enjoys a form of legitimation based on pragmatism is no longer tenable.

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Particularly in Europe, the cradle of the hard-bordered nation-state, this pragmatic argument has lost a significant amount of traction due to the emergence of apparent alternatives (MacCormick 1999). Most obviously this has occurred in the form of the European Union’s fledgling supranationalism, but for our purposes of more interest is the “unexpected rebellion” of Western Europe’s micro-nationalities (Beer 1980). The rise of micro-nationalism in Western Europe was a surprise to most. The European Union’s (then European Economic Community) role in this development is not to be underestimated. It provided both the protective umbrella that allowed such non-national identities to emerge without being seen as a danger to the state. In addition it provided clear evidence to those groups that did not fully identify with the national state that an alternative to the nation-state was a possibility. The emergence (or politicisation) of a series of non-state identities in Western Europe in the mid to late 1970s clearly presented a significant challenge to the states concerned. These supposedly stable states (primarily Belgium, Spain, Italy Portugal and the UK) responded by instituting constitutional change in the form of new sub-national governance structures (Keating 2000). However, although the emergence of these regional governments led many to argue that they were part of a wider weakening of the nation-state, closer examination reveals that these responses were almost universally traditional and within the limits of the state model (Elazar 1995). In the main, the unexpected rebellion was only successful for those identities capable of establishing strong territorial claims. These identities were able to co-opt the hard-bordered paradigm of the nation-state model for their own ends and in many cases achieved a degree of constitutional recognition. Those non-national identities, which lacked strong territorial links, were far less successful in gaining constitutional recognition. In addition those few non-territorial models which emerged have struggled to maintain their soft-borders against the pressures of the hard-bordered territorial paradigm.

From Soft Borders to Hard Realities: The Belgian Model One of the few examples of soft-bordered governance that developed in response to the complexities of addressing micro-national movements was found in Belgium. Belgium is, as a former Prime Minister once quipped, a happy country comprising three oppressed minorities. Belgium, as a state, sits astride the European language divide, between the Romance and Germanic linguistic families. Within its borders live French, Dutch and German linguistic “Communities”. The majority are Flemish (Dutch

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speakers) with around 40% of the population speaking French (mostly Walloons). The small German Community numbers 80,000 and lives in a small area in the South East of the Country, largely in areas annexed from Germany in 1919. The original constitution of 1840 favoured the French speaking elite, who dominated the country’s politics until the first half of the TwentiethCentury. As universal suffrage empowered the numerically superior Flemish areas of the state, Walloons slowly began to demand some protection, not of their linguistic culture (secure as they were with their French identity), but of their economic interests. These differed significantly from those of the Flemish territories. By the 1960s the relations between the two main language groups had become very poor and civil disturbances had occurred, particularly at Universities, which were linguistically divided as a result. The need for a resolution led to moves towards a form of federalism unique to Belgium. This established two forms of government, Communities and Regions. The former were responsible for matters of personal interest and represented individuals. The Regions on the other had were territorial governments in the traditional sense. The reason for this unusual dualist structure was to be found in the history of the Belgian state. Whilst the Flemish population were in the majority, they feared language dominance by the French minority. In contrast the Walloons feared that economic policies that favoured the post-fordist economy of Flanders would be detrimental to their traditional heavy industry, much of which needed modernisation. In addition, the economic regional areas and the linguistic areas did not coincide, particularly when Brussels was brought into the equation. Brussels is a French enclave within the Flemish linguistic area. It also has a significant international community and does not identify particularly strongly with the rest of French speaking Belgium. Perhaps most importantly, it is relatively affluent. Today the formal structure of Belgium reflects these early compromises and the soft-bordered approach that they represented. The three linguistic groups are represented by French, German and Dutch Community governments. These are responsible for education, health and a variety of other “personalised matters”. Alongside them operate the three overlapping regions of Flanders, Brussels-Capital Region and Wallonia. These are responsible for primarily economic matters such as transport, planning and energy. However, in practice the system has evolved significantly from the early days of Belgium’s dual federal model. The original Community idea was based upon a soft-bordered approach with individuals being part of their Community wherever they lived in the state.

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In practice this never occurred as the Flemish in particular feared a creeping Francophonia. Instead the language border was hardened, with limited and (it was argued by some) transitional rights for those who wished to communicate with the state in municipalities close to the linguistic border. This situation remains today (Hopkins 2002). The carefully crafted dual layered system of soft-bordered Communities and hard-bordered Regions has slowly morphed into predominantly hard-bordered model of two “mini-states” in the form of Flanders and Wallonia. Only the awkward issues of the small German minority in the South East of the country and bi-lingual Brussels has demanded the survival of at least some elements of the soft-bordered approach. Even amongst these surviving soft-bordered examples the German Community is constantly agitating for further authority to be treated as another hard-bordered sub-state entity. Only in the uniquely complex example of Brussels has the principle of personalised governance been delivered with relatively little controversy in the field of culture and education. It is important to note, however, that in Brussels the softbordered, personal approach to governance continues to function. The latter example shows that such models can clearly function and in the case of Brussels allows the two linguistic and cultural communities (of Flemish and French) to have governance structures that reflect their choices while living in the same territorial space. Nevertheless, such a system remains very much the exception. The fate of the Sami of Scandinavia and Roma people of Central and Eastern Europe provide further evidence of the limits of Europe’s micronational revolution and the governance of identity. Although the Sami have achieved limited recognition of their identity in the Scandinavian states, this varies on a state by state basis, with Sami issues continuing to be dealt with through national Sami assemblies, despite the obvious fact that the Sami themselves occupy a territory spanning three states (Norway, Sweden and Finland). The situation of the Roma is of course far worse with no recognition and active persecution continuing throughout their homelands. Despite an estimated European population of nearly 10 million people, their lack of a territorial “home” means they fail to “fit” within the hard-bordered paradigm. That all these identities exist within the European Union further emphasises the dominance of the territorial governance model. Despite the existence of a supra-national entity and the creation of European citizenship, the reality for non-national identities remains little changed. The dominance of the hard-bordered model makes it difficult for nonterritorial identities to achieve constitutional recognition. Indeed, non-state

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identities are even willing to reduce their claims to fit within existing hardborders and thus avoid challenging the existing paradigm. It is notable for instance that both Catalan and Basque nationalists have avoided claims to French territory which would fall within the historical boundaries of both these micro-nationalist groups. The obvious reason is that such a claim would threaten the Franco-Spanish hard-border and thus be a challenge to the paradigm. As such its chances of success would significantly diminish. Instead, the Catalan claims to autonomy (and now independence) in particular have been couched solely in terms of a hard-bordered state carved from what is presently Spain. The message is clear, only a nonstate identity framed in terms of a hard-bordered territory has a realistic chance of success. Those that share a cross border or non-territorial identity simply cannot fit the acceptable hard-bordered model.

Conclusion: Hard Borders and Non-Territorial Identities The limits of Europe’s micro-nationalist “rebellion” betray a deeper problem concerning governance and identity. Those identities which are able to emulate the characteristics of the nation-state, and identify themselves with a territorial identity, appear far more likely to achieve some form of constitutional recognition than those that do not. Territorial micro-nationalities talk the language of the nation-state. This strengthens the hand of such identities as the nation-state finds it very difficult to respond without challenging its own legitimacy. In addition, such responses can usually be tailored to fit the hard-bordered territorial model, through some form of regional or federal arrangement. Such concessions, although accepting some variation within the state, largely remain territorial and do not challenge the external hard border. This is particularly true when an historical territory or state has previously existed (e.g. Scotland, Flanders, Catalonia). Those parts of the historical territory which conflict with an existing state border will often be sacrificed to allow the lesser territorial claim to succeed (such as in the Catalonian example). In contrast, European identities with no such territorial “homeland” have conspicuously failed to gain governance recognition within the existing state structure. Even as it declines, the legacy of the hard-bordered state as promoted through the nation-state appears likely to cast a long shadow on the recognition of identity in governance and law. This is not to say that such soft-bordered approaches must fail. Non-national and nonterritorial identities, both religious and secular, seem destined to become more conspicuous rather than less, as the mono-cultural national myth of

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the state comes under pressure from alternative indigenous, immigrant and non-national identities. If the dangerous spectre of ethnic nationalism and exclusive territorial rights are to be avoided such calls for the recognition of identities without a strong territorial link need to be answered. To achieve this will require some recognition of the soft-bordered reality of individual identity but how this is to be delivered remains unclear. The long shadow of Westphalia seems destined to dog attempts to resolve questions of governance and identity for many years to come.

Works Cited Anderson B. 2006. Imagined Communities. New York: Verso. Beer W. R. 1980. The Unexpected Rebellion: Ethnic Activism in Contemporary France. New York: New York University Press. Dyson K. 1980. The State Tradition in Western Europe. Oxford: Martin Robertson. Elazar, D.J. 1996. “From Statism to Federalism: A Paradigm Shift.” Publius 25 (2): 5-18. Gellner E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Harvie, C. 1993. The Rise of Regional Europe. London: Routledge. Hopkins W. J. 2002. Devolution in Context: Regional, Federal and Devolved Government in the European Union. London: Cavendish. Hobsbawm, E., and T. Ranger, eds 1983. The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press. Keating, M. 2000. The New Regionalism in Western Europe: Territorial Restructuring and Political Change. Aldershot: Edward Elgar. Kedourie, E. 1961. Nationalism. Rev. ed. New York: Praeger. MacCormick, N. 1999. Questioning Sovereignty: Law, State, and Nation in the European Commonwealth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Malcolm, N. 1996. Bosnia: A Short History. London: Macmillan. Orridge, A. W. 1981. “Varieties of Nationalism.” In The Nation State: The Formation of Modern Politics, edited by L. Tivey, 39-58. Oxford: Martin Robertson. Tivey, L. 1981. “Introduction.” In The Nation State: The Formation of Modern Politics, edited by L. Tivey, 1-12. Oxford: Martin Robertson. Zweigert K., and H. Kotz. 1998. Introduction to Comparative Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER SEVEN THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN POLAND’S RELATIONS WITH ITS EASTERN NEIGHBOURS DES BRENNAN Introduction This chapter looks at the role of religion in Poland’s relations with its three immediate neighbours to the east: Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. It mainly covers the period of the 20th century, particularly between 1950 and 2000, and then focuses on changes in the role of religion after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1989-1991. The main religions in the region are Roman Catholicism (in Poland and Lithuania), Eastern Orthodox Christianity (in most of Ukraine and Belarus) and Greek Catholicism (in western Ukraine). In most of the last 200 years in the territory which became Belarus and Ukraine, being Roman Catholic usually meant being considered Polish and vice versa. Much of the Roman Catholic priesthood in Belarus and Ukraine is Polish, and the Roman Catholic Church in those countries is still often seen as a “Polish” church. This chapter focuses on the role that these main religious denominations have played in relations between Poland and its eastern neighbours. The link between Roman Catholicism and Polish nationalism strengthened during the 20th century. Poland and Lithuania remained strongly Roman Catholic societies throughout the years of communist rule, when the Roman Catholic Church was a parasol under which the dissident and opposition movement was able to manoeuvre. However, in the 21st century, the importance of religion in Poland has diminished as the Polish economy improved and Poland became more firmly integrated into Western institutions. In Belarus and Ukraine, the Orthodox religion has been less closely associated with national identity and pro-independence sentiment. In both countries, a cleavage exists between those who identify more with Russia (who live mainly in the east of those states and mainly have an Eastern

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Orthodox Christian heritage) and those who have a greater sense of national identity (who live mainly in the capital cities and in areas close to Poland). Many of the latter have (Roman or Greek) Catholic heritage.

Historical Background The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have interwoven histories. This is especially the case for the peoples of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. Poles, Belarusians, and Ukrainians are Slavs, speaking closely related languages. Belarusians and Ukrainians share a heritage in Kievan Rus, an early Slavic state. For much of the last millennium, most of the territory which now forms Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine was united in a loose political entity in two principal parts—the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Polish-Lithuanian Union of Lublin of 1569 eventually led to the nobility and much of the urban population throughout what later became Belarus and western Ukraine becoming Roman Catholic. In these lands, this Catholicisation was also, in large measure, a process of “polonisation”. Within a century of the union, the landed class throughout the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was Polish in language and culture. The Greek Catholic (or Uniate) Church dates from the 1595 Union of Brest, under which much of the Ruthenian church broke away from the Orthodox communion and accepted the Roman Pope as spiritual leader, while retaining eastern Christian religious rites. Until World War II, Judaism was also an important part of the region’s religious picture. Ukraine and Belarus first became independent states—briefly—at the end of World War I. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Ukraine and Belarus gained a more lasting independence. After being partitioned and vanishing from the map of Europe for 123 years, an independent Poland re-emerged in 1918. In the unsettled years after World War I, Lithuania and Poland fought a short war over Vilnius and surrounding regions. In the interwar period, Vilnius and surrounding districts were in Poland. The Vilnius area had a predominantly Polish-speaking population until the deportations of the late 1940s, and a large Jewish minority in the city of Vilnius until World War II. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Republic of Poland, which included Vilnius, Lviv, and what is now western Belarus within its borders, was a multi-ethnic state, with ethnic minorities amounting to almost a third of the population. While western and central parts of interwar Poland were predominantly Polish (with significant Jewish and German minorities in urban areas), eastern Poland was

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ethnically mixed. A strip running along the border with Lithuania, including the cities of Grodno and Vilnius, was predominantly Polish. During World War II, Stalin assigned this area to the Lithuanian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics. Today, it is divided between Lithuania and Belarus. The territory south of Lida as far as Brest and the Pinsk marshes—which now forms most of western Belarus—had a mixed population of Belarusians, Poles, “Tutejsi” (“locals”), and Jews. The Tutejsi were Slavs who lacked a clearly defined national identity. By the mid-20th century, most Tutejsi were Orthodox Christian. Further south, Volyn and eastern Galicia had Ukrainian majorities, but, until the 1940s, also had significant populations of Poles and Jews. By the 20th century, religion and nationality had become deeply intertwined, so that Roman Catholics in the area were seen as Poles, while Greek Catholics or Orthodox Christians were considered to be Ruskie (Ruthenians or, later, Ukrainians). The first half of the 20th century was a time of generally poor relations between Poles and their neighbours, with a low point during the nightmare of World War II, when ethno-religious conflicts turned bloody, particularly between (mostly Roman Catholic) Poles and (Orthodox and Greek Catholic) Ukrainians, in Volyn and Galicia. Volyn, in particular, was the scene of many massacres, mainly of Jews and Poles by Germans and Ukrainians. Most of the Jewish population of Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania died during World War II, murdered by the Nazis and their allies. During World War II and its aftermath, borders shifted. Poland’s eastern provinces, which contained most of the country’s Orthodox and Greek Catholic populations, were annexed by the USSR in September 1939 under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Starting in 1939, and continuing until 1956, most of the Polish population of these provinces was deported. The first deportations in 1939 and 1940 were carried out by the Soviet authorities, who forcibly transported hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens (most of them Polish-speaking Catholics, but also many Jews, Ukrainians and Belarusians) east, deep into the Soviet Union. During World War II, the Nazis deported thousands more Poles to Germany for slave labour. After World War II, most remaining Poles were forcibly transported to the emptying lands taken from Germany and given to the new communist Polish state. A significant number of rural and less educated ethnic Poles were left behind in western Belarus and eastern Lithuania. Most of the (mainly Lutheran or Roman Catholic) Germans who had been living in what became Poland’s western and northern territories fled the Soviet

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advance or were deported to Germany in the years immediately after World War II. This shift left Poland comparatively homogeneous, with as much as 97% of the population regarded as being of Roman Catholic Polish background. Direct Soviet rule was harsh on openly practised religion. The Soviet authorities killed and deported clergy. In Ukraine and Belarus, churches were destroyed and turned into barns and stores. In communist Poland, the authorities found it easier to tolerate the Roman Catholic Church. The decades of communist rule limited interaction between Poland and its eastern neighbours and kept a lid on ethnic tension. The communist regime in Warsaw aimed to assimilate what was left of the ethnic and religious minorities. Although suppressed and much diminished during the communist years, religious and ethnic minorities survived. Today, Poland’s religious minorities include Lutherans (mainly in Silesia), Orthodox Christians, small communities of Muslims and Jews, and newer Christian denominations/sects. Most of Poland’s Lutherans are ethnic Poles, though some are members of the German minority. The Eastern Orthodox presence is linked with the Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian minorities. Poland’s Belarusian minority lives mainly near the border with Belarus. The Ukrainian minority is scattered around Poland, with the largest numbers in northern and western Poland, where most of post-war Poland’s Ukrainian minority was relocated in the late 1940s. There are several less numerous ethno-religious minorities, including Muslim Tatars (also found in Crimea and in small numbers in Lithuania and Belarus).

The Recent Past and Today Lithuanians are sensitive about the Polish past of Vilnius and the continued presence of Poles in Vilnius. Today, a significant proportion of the population of eastern Lithuania still speaks Polish and considers itself to be Polish. In Vilnius city, about 20 per cent of the population is ethnically Polish. In some districts adjacent to Vilnius as much as 80 per cent of the population is ethnically Polish. Lithuanian nationalists describe Poles in Lithuania as “polonised” Lithuanians. From 1988 until the mid1990s, there were moves among some in the Polish minority to secede from Lithuania, or at least to achieve an autonomous district covering the areas with a Polish majority. Many ethnic Poles in the area who had become irreligious during Soviet times embraced Catholicism as the Soviet system collapsed. Since 1989, there has been conflict between Poles and Lithuanians in the Vilnius area over the language used in Roman

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Catholic Church services. After 1990, the increased use of Lithuanian in church services catering mainly to Polish-speaking parishioners was one of the main grievances of Lithuania’s Polish minority, which felt that Lithuania’s authorities were discriminating against it. Most of Ukraine lies in the area traditionally dominated by Eastern Orthodox Christianity, although the westernmost part of Ukraine (Galicia and Transcarpathia) is predominantly Greek Catholic. Ukraine’s Orthodox community is divided between a Ukrainian branch of the Moscow Russian Orthodox Church and an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which broke away from the Moscow Patriarchate after Ukraine’s independence. Galicia is the main centre of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. In most of the rest of Ukraine, adherents of the Orthodox Churches heavily outnumber Greek Catholics. The religious divide in Ukraine between an Orthodox majority and Greek Catholic minority remains strong. The Greek Catholic community is a subset of the more nationalist-orientated political formations in Ukraine. The Orthodox community itself is divided between those with a more proRussian outlook and those who are more nationalist in outlook. The Greek Catholic Church has moved its headquarters from Lviv to Kiev in an effort to be seen as a mainstream Ukrainian church, rather than a regional church in western Ukraine. Scattered throughout Ukraine, but mainly in the western third of the country, are a few hundred thousand Roman Catholics, mainly people of Polish ethnicity or ancestry. Ukrainian nationalism is traditionally linked with the Greek Catholic Church, which was suppressed during Soviet times. During the late 19th and early 20th century, the two main nationalist ideologies competing in western Ukraine were Polish nationalism and Ukrainian/Ruthenian nationalism. As the religious dimension of the latter, the Greek Catholic Church was strongly opposed to Polish nationalism, one of whose dimensions was Roman Catholicism. An improvement in relations between the Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic Churches after 1990 was linked to the improvement in relations between Poland and Ukraine, and between Poles and Ukrainians. Relations between Poland and Belarus today are worse than relations between Poland and any of the country’s other neighbours. Official Belarusian and Russian media often portray the Belarusian opposition as being a “Polish” or Polish-influenced movement led by Roman Catholics of Polish background and/or sympathies. For example, in the run-up to the last presidential elections in Belarus, the Russian media wrongly described the main opposition candidate, Aleksander Milinkevich (an Orthodox Christian), as a Roman Catholic.

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Most Belarusians belong, at least nominally, to the Russian Orthodox Church, although there is a large Roman Catholic minority in the west of Belarus, and a much smaller Greek Catholic community. The Soviet regime suppressed both Catholic churches, especially the Greek Catholic Church. The Greek Catholic Church was driven underground, but today a small Greek Catholic community has been revived, based mainly among the Poleszuk community in the south west of the country. The Poleszuks, who were often formerly included within the “Tutejsi”, speak what many linguists regard as a dialect of Ukrainian. The Orthodox Church has long had an unfavourable stance towards Belarusian nationalism and the democratic opposition. Most native Russian-speakers (a group which tends to favour closer relations with Russia) in Belarus belong, at least nominally, to the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church hierarchy has a mutually beneficial relationship with the Belarus regime. While clamping down on Belarusians’ freedoms in most other areas, President Aleksander Lukashenko’s regime has been careful to permit religious freedom for the country’s main denominations. For example, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, long neglected and abused church buildings have been renovated to become centrepieces of more attractive town and city centres. The religious toleration extends to the less favoured Roman Catholic Church, provided it stays well clear of political discourse. However, the regime continues to paint (or taint) the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus with “Polishness”, despite the fact that in the past two decades the church in the country has undergone “Belarusianisation”. During the 19th century and first half of the 20th century, Roman Catholicism in the territory that today is in Belarus was identified strongly with Polishness. Belarusian nationalists tend to describe Catholics in Belarus today as being “polonised” Belarusians. Although it is true that the Polish minority of Belarus is largely Roman Catholic, most Catholics living in Belarus today speak Belarusian as their first language and consider themselves to be Belarusian, rather than Polish. About 17% of residents of Belarus are Roman Catholic, whereas the Polish minority amounts to only about 4 per cent of the population of Belarus, according to official figures. Many still associate the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus with the country’s Polish minority. Older Roman Catholics in Belarus, particularly in rural areas near the border with Lithuania, tend to regard themselves as Polish and consider the Slavic dialect they speak to be Polish. Their urbanised grandchildren tend to see themselves as Belarusian and regard Belarusian as their first language. (In fact, the everyday speech of most people in Belarus lies on a continuum of Slavic

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dialects. Some of these dialects are more similar to Polish, others to Ukrainian or Russian). During the past 20 years, hundreds of Polish priests have been sent to Belarus and Ukraine to cater to the Roman Catholic populations in those countries. However, an increasing proportion of Roman Catholic priests in Belarus are Belarusians rather than Poles. Often, Belarusian national feeling is most strongly held among Belarusian Roman Catholics. Catholics form a significant section of the opposition movement in Belarus. Some elements of the church in Belarus are being increasingly identified with a modern version of Belarusian nationalism which sees Russia and russification as being the main threat to the continued existence of a distinct Belarusian nation. Organized conventional religion is no longer persecuted in the region, although certain churches are favoured in each country. In Poland and Lithuania, the Roman Catholic Church enjoys a privileged position. In Belarus, the Russian Orthodox Church has the most favoured position. In Ukraine, the two main Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church are the officially favoured churches. After the trauma of the Soviet Union’s collapse there was a religious revival in Belarus and Ukraine. The Roman Catholic Church, and, potentially, the Greek Catholic Churches, could play a role in strengthening ties between Poland and its eastern neighbours. However, overall, during the past 20 years, religion has probably become a less important aspect of relations between Poland and its eastern neighbours, largely as a result of the westernisation and secularization of Poland and Lithuania and the gradual decoupling of the attributes of “Polishness” and the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus and Ukraine.

CHAPTER EIGHT HELMUT KOHL’S CATHOLIC NATIONALISM CHRISTIAN WICKE Introduction Nationalism and religion have always had interesting and often subtle relationships. Nationalism, as a parasitic ideology, can easily mingle with other worldviews that endow individual notions of nationhood with meaning. This chapter studies the former German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl (b. 1930 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein), as a Catholic Nationalist. The personal nationalism of this politician was shaped by his Catholic socialisation. His religiosity gave him an authentic biographical feature, which he could use to personify the westernisation of his stigmatised nation, while promoting its re-nationalisation against the backdrop of the Nazi past and the territorial division during the Cold War. He was able to use his religious background to highlight an (auto)biographical image of the guiltless German and personify his own ideal of western normality, which stood in contrast to the notion of Germany’s abnormal Sonderweg. Catholicism provided Kohl with an advantage during his mission to disseminate a “normal” nationalism in post-war Germany: his notion of the nation stood not only in contrast to Nazism—but also to the traditional, Prusso-Lutheran gulf in Germany, which was associated with the nation’s negative historical path to 1945. Followed by some remarks on the interplay between religion and nationalism, and a particular focus on the Catholic-Lutheran divide in Germany, this chapter looks at Kohl’s religious upbringing, his early political socialisation, and at his self-representation as the epitome of his own propagation of Christian Democracy as the ideal ideology for the Germans to achieve normality.

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Interplays between Nationalism and Religion That nationalism has proto-religious tendencies has been argued by scholars of nationalism since the 1920s (Hayes 1926 and 1960; Kohn 1948; Mosse 1989; Hobsbawm 1990, 85; Anderson 1991). Nationalism has been identified, especially by primordialist and ethno-symbolist observers, as something historically Western and closely related to the Christian imagination (Smith 1986; Grosby 1991, 2002). The belief that the world could be rationalised, or what Max Weber called “disenchantment,” may have facilitated nationalism’s birth and upbringing (Weber 1994, 9). However, this disenchantment was forced to remain incomplete with the triumph of nationalism. Nationalism and the creation of modern nation-states can be understood as an outcome of the dialectic processes of secularization since the Enlightenment, and the need to fill the arising vacuum of political legitimation by modern myths (Taylor 1998, 2007). Nevertheless, it is evident that nationalism has not been able to develop into a complete substitute or replacement for religion. Nationalism and religion have traditionally formed alliances, and nations have occasionally defined themselves essentially through their religion (Kohn 1946, 15; Hobsbawm 1990, 68-69). In recent times, this type of religious nationalism has been on the rise, and it seems likely that religion will remain an important element of the study of nationalism (Juergensmeyer 1996, 1; van der Veer 1994; van der Veer and Lehmann 1999). Interestingly, different religions or religious denominations within one nation, can lead to different notions and representations of the same nation, and to competition over the meaning of the nation amongst its internal religious groups. Germany’s divide between Roman Catholic and Lutheran Christians is an interesting example in this respect (as I will briefly outline in the next section). There is another interesting interplay between nationalism and religion that is important for Kohl’s worldview and representation. In this instance, the idea of the nation is theorised by the nationalist as religious per se. Pope John Paul II, for example, whom Kohl greatly admired, theorised the category of the nation as explicitly Christian and as based on the idea of patrimony. Patriotism involved the preservation of the cultural and assigned territory of the native land, and was a Christian duty, as “the fourth commandment … obliges us to honour our father and mother” (John Paul II [JP] 2005: 73-4). The former Pope regarded the global divide into nations as essentially good, natural and inevitable: “Catholic social doctrine holds that the family and the nation are both natural

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societies, not the product of mere convention” (JP 2005). Therefore, “in human history they cannot be replaced by anything else” (JP 2005, 77). The nation was God-given and the soil upon which a democratic state could grow (JP 2005, 78). The Pontiff thus conflated ethnic nationalism with Catholic theology as well as liberal nationalist ideals. The Messiah came from the chosen people of Israel, but the Church had become “the new and universal Israel [in which] every nation has equal rights of citizenship” (JP 2005, 79, 81). His Catholic interpretation of liberal nationalism provided him with a particular conception of the Enlightenment and the European peninsula: “it was evangelisation which formed Europe, giving birth to the civilisation of its peoples and the cultures” (JP 2005, 104). The Enlightenment ideas that originated in Europe were “profoundly rooted in the Christian tradition” (JP 2005, 110, 122 ff.). These ideas “prepared the way for a better understanding of human rights [which] were already known to be rooted in the nature of man created by God in his own image” (JP 2005, 121). However, according to John Paul II, one should also remember that the intellectual development associated with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution had also had very negative effects: Marxism (JP 2005, 121). This kind of thinking was symptomatic of Kohl’s Catholic nationalism.

Catholicism and German Nationalism While Protestantism in Germany during the second half of the 19th century focussed primarily on the power of the modern nation-state under Prussian hegemony (which had been realised in 1871), Catholics more often favoured less secular notions of the German Volk and Reich and the Hapsburg monarchy (Hastings 2001; Ritter 2000; Wehler 2008a, 13791396). Austria’s defeat of 1866, which paved the path towards a kleindeutsch solution of German unification, was interpreted as the victory over Catholicism (Gramley 2001: 140). This struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism was most sharply signified by Otto von Bismarck’s Kulturkampf in 1873 (Walser Smith 1995; Altgeld 2001; Gross 2004; Evans 1981). Bismarck defamed the CDU’s forerunner, the Catholic Centre Party, as enemies of the Reich (Blackbourn 1983). Protestantism, in the Second German Reich, was represented as German Christianity, while Catholicism was Roman Christianity and therefore un-German (Gramley 2001, 93, 151, 175). The memory of this tension would loom large over Germany’s troubled twentieth century (Richter 2000, 24-5). Their exclusion of Catholics from the official Prusso-German nationalism

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provided them with the reputation of being less nationalistic (Nipperdey 1990, 456). At the beginning of the First World War, Catholics were still being accused of lacking patriotism. German Protestants embraced the war as their war. By the end of the war Pope Benedict XV declared Luther as also defeated (Scholder 1977, 7). In Germany, the Catholic Centre party was subsequently blamed for the shameful defeat. Matthias Erzberger’s involvement in the peace resolution of 1917 and the armistice of 1918, and Johannes Bell’s signature under the abhorred Treaty of Versailles, left Catholics among the scapegoats in the revanchist atmosphere of the Weimar Republic (Winkler 2010, 401). Anti-communism assisted German Catholics to escape their national underdog status by turning the focus to the defence of the Christian occident. The Vatican issued its Codex Juris Canonici in 1917, in an attempt to unify all Catholics in all states under one body of canonical law through bilateral treaties (Code of Canon Law 1983). The desire to secure the codex in Germany, vis-à-vis the developments in Russia, proved more important than the Curia’s suspicion of Nazism. The Pope, moreover, warned against any cooperation between the Centre Party and Social Democrats, which had in fact been crucial in securing the stability of the Republic. Instead the Vatican tried to coerce the Centre Party to ally with right-wing parties and implement the concordat. While German Catholics remained largely suspicious of the propositions from Rome and opposed to any cooperation with the Nazis, the Holy See considered such an alliance towards the end of the Weimar period. As the implementation of the concordat remained unsuccessful, Pope-to-be Pacelli (Pius XII) and his advisor, Ludwig Kaas (Centre), took the treaty with the Italian fascists as a model for liaison with Hitler (Scholder 1977, 65-6, 189-190, 202-6; Rhodes 1973; Kershaw 1990). When Chancellor Brüning (Centre) refused to comply with Rome’s demands, Pacelli declared the rising Nazis to be a Christian party, which should ally with the other Christian groups to counter the communist advance (Wehler 2008b, 449). Kaas lobbied for Hitler within his circles, expecting he would agree to the concordat if he came to power. In 1932, Franz von Papen (Centre) replaced Brüning and began to mediate between Hitler and the Pope (Jones 2005, 191). On 23 March 1933, all Centre representatives in the Reichstag approved of Hitler’s Enabling Act, and Hitler accepted the long-awaited Reichskonkordat (Scholder 1977, 192-3, 198, 200, 307, 312). Despite this the Nazis dissolved the Centre party in July 1933 (Morsey 1977). The relationship between the Catholic Church, including the Vatican, and Nazism remains a controversial issue to this day (see, e.g., Dietrich) 1988;

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Cornwell 2000; Kertzer, 2001; Sanchez, 2002; Kringels-Kemen and Lemhöfer 1982; and for the relationship between the Catholic Church and Nazism in Kohl’s hometown, see Wetzlar 1994, 1995). In his PhD thesis from 1958, Kohl admitted that there was a feeling of guilt among former Centre politicians because they had supported the Enabling Act (Kohl 1958, 80). But he would later conceal the complicit position of the Vatican and the Centre Party (and of the German mainstream in general). Kohl sought to mediate Catholic complicity in Hitler’s rise by drawing attention to the greater level of Protestant support for the Nazi party (Hamilton 1982, 40-1). A few years ago, he delivered the laudation for Theo Schwarzmüller’s book about two villages in his home region, a Catholic and a Protestant one, which signified exactly this denominational divide during the early 1930s (Kulke 2007). Against this backdrop it becomes evident that the nexus between religious denomination, political ideology and national identity is an important and sensitive field of scholarship worth further exploration.

Kohl’s Catholic Background After his election as Chancellor in 1982, Kohl immediately attended the Sunday service at his local parish with his family (Ludwigshafener Rundschau 4 October 1982). He had always enjoyed the public image of himself as the “Black Giant”, which referred not only to his large body size, but also to his origin in the Catholic milieu of Ludwigshafen. Kohl wrote in his memoirs that the Church had been formative to his life, from the Catholic Kindergarten to his political heyday (Kohl 2004, 22; 2005, 991), and emphasised the “good personal relationship” that he developed with John Paul II (Kohl 2004, 495-6, 516-7; 2005, 446-7, 512-13). Because of his Polish nationality, Kohl stated in 1980, the Pope knew “what it means when the homeland is violently cut up” and he knew “also that an unflinching consciousness of national unity proves stronger than any political power” (Kohl 1980). After his life in politics was over, the German media published images of Kohl with Pope Benedict XVI, who gave him a personal audience in Freiburg (FAZ 24 September 2011). In order to showcase himself as the epitome of Germany’s Western normality and naturally opposed to Nazism, Kohl presented his family background as thoroughly Catholic (for the concept of normality in German discourse and historiography see, for example, Habermas 1995; Taberner and Cooke 2006; Berger 2007). Kohl saw himself as the lateborn son of innocent Catholic parents in the Palatinate, who could radiate his national pride, without being associated with the alleged traditions of

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the Sonderweg (for this concept of see, for example, Kocka 1988; for the Protestant element in Germany’s alleged abnormal historical trajectory, see, in particular, Fischer 1951; and Große Kracht 2003). It was his selfrepresentation, which caused concern during his travel to Israel in early 1984, when it was communed as national self-absolution. As part of a wider movement in West Germany, which sought to step out of Hitler’s shadow and normalise German identity (see, for example, Maier 1998 and Evans 1989), Kohl then stated: I speak as someone who could not become guilty in the Nazi-time, because he enjoyed the Gnade der späten Geburt (grace of late birth) and the good fortune to come from a special parental home (Kohl 1984, 112).

The journalist Jörg Lau described Kohl’s milieu succinctly as “the conservative spirited Catholic petty bourgeoisie of South Germany”, in which “the fathers were supportive of the state and the mothers were pious”. Lau explained that “one was nationally spirited in these circles”, but at the same time “the passionate Catholicism of the mothers and the basic aversion of the fathers against the rude SA-tone helped to immunise with antifascism (Lau 2001, 4). These observations about his background were central to Kohl’s autobiographical claims. He defined the ideology inherited from his exemplary parents as: “Catholic, but at the same time liberal, and modestly national, without ever underlying the danger to get into nationalistic waterways” (Kohl 1984, 315). Redolent of his parents’ innocence, he explained: That one was national was self-evident. The national feeling that dominated at home, however, was free from nationalistic or sectarian elements. My parents felt themselves bound to the fatherland they were born into, they identified with its interests, without denying the ones of “the others”, they had the dates of German history in mind, they were proud of the cultural achievements of their Volk, they loved their Heimat, its customs, its traditions, its language, and they naturally used the word “Fatherland”. Their scale of values, however, was clearly dominated by Christianity (Kohl 1984, 316).

Kohl wrote that his parents had voted for Catholic parties, either Centre or the Bavarian Peoples’ Party (BVP), but never for the Nazis (Kohl 2004, 51). He took them as examples of good, German Catholics, without indicating any sense of generational conflict between his and their worldviews. Kohl’s father fought in both world wars, and was strongly patriotic about nation and army. He had been a member of the anti-

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democratic Stahlhelm organisation until Hitler’s coming to power. But he did not join the Nazis, although it would have helped his career. He remained loyal to the political Catholicism of his region (Kohl 2004, 23; Maser 1993, 23; Dreher 1998, 18). Both father and son joined the Christian Democrats after the breakdown of the Nazi regime. Kohl stated that his motivation to join the CDU of his hometown at the age of sixteen was mainly due to his religious socialisation: it was “the ‘black’ milieu from which I originate” (Kohl 2004, 57; Filmer and Schwan 1990, 47). In 1946, a local priest encouraged him to attend the political Sunday school of a neighbouring parish, where the conservative cleric, Father Johannes Finck, warned of a break-up of Germany and propagated against its disintegration and introduced Kohl to the principles of Christian Democracy (Kohl 2004, 50-55; Schwarzmüller 2002, 104). Kohl was probably too young to understand completely the instructions in Catholic Social Teaching. However, he became convinced of the importance of Christianity for the new state (Kohl 1975, 105; 2004, 54; Ramstetter 2005). The political lessons remained an important source of Kohl’s aversion to socialism and communism. Kohl also learned about the Catholic idea of subsidiarity and federalist ideas, which he believed would prevent any regression to Prussian centralism and its fascist subsidiary (Kohl 13 October 1982, 38-40). The atheist failures of Nazism were taught as equally prevalent in socialist materialism, which threatened the occidental culture from the East (Kohl 2004, 49-50; see also Mitchell 1995, 278). Finck instructed him that “religious socialism, Christian socialism are contradictions in themselves. It is impossible to be a good Catholic and a real socialist at the same time” (cited in Kohl 1958, 86). An equality of classes and a balance of property seemed desirable to Kohl and his teachers, although “the system of planned economy must be in accordance with the occidental idea of the free and responsible individual” (Kohl 1958, 87). Kohl also saw in Finck’s authorisation of de-nazification certificates that granting absolution to former Nazis was an act of Christian magnanimity in recognition of human fallibility (Schwarzmüller 2002, 88). His mentor, Johannes Finck, was an experienced Centre Party politician and brother of Albert Finck, whom Kohl equally admired. Albert Finck has been recognised as the instigator of the recovery of the German national anthem after the Second World War: at a public assembly in 1949 in the Palatinate, he initiated the singing of the third stanza of the Deutschlandlied, which would become the anthem of the FRG (Finck 1949). Kohl remembered this event as one of the most important occasions in his life:

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many had tears in their eyes—and nobody doubted anymore that the Palatinate would remain in Germany. These were not nationalists or chauvinists, but patriots (Kohl 2004, 72-3).

Like his parents, the Finck brothers embodied archetypes of the unsuspicious Catholic tradition in German nationalism to Kohl and represented the patriotic obligation to fight for the unity of the nation (Kohl 2004, 55). In his PhD, Kohl recognised the roots of the CDU in the Catholic faction of the Prussian parliament (Kohl 1958, 79). His PhD had strong autobiographical undertones. He wrote for the first time extensively about his favourite story: Germany’s renewal on the basis of established ideological traditions, his most fundamental generational experience—or what Jeffrey Herf called “multiple restoration” (Herf 1999, 49-55). Moreover, Kohl portrayed Finck’s parish as the centre of the restoration of Catholicism in the Palatinate (Kohl 1958: 62-88). After the downfall of the Third Reich, Kohl perceived the Churches to be the major continuous force in Germany, and of high importance for the nation in the search for normality (Kohl 1958, 82). In contrast to Protestantism, Kohl wrote that Catholicism especially had the advantage of a long tradition of political involvement (Kohl 1958, 78-9). Kohl historicised German Catholicism as patriotic as well as naturally opposed to Nazism. He wrote that the former Centre politicians stood in contrast to the “atheist” failures of the Nazis (Kohl 1958, 72). As Christian Democrats, after the war, they presented the cooperation between church and the German state as necessary for “the renewal of the abendländische Kultur” (occidental culture) (Kohl 1958, 73). At the same time they intended to “restore the good name of the German people in the world and to win confidence in the German people” (Kohl 1958, 84). He took the fact that Christian clerics had been persecuted alone as evidence for the conclusion that “one can justly talk about a Christian defence front in the Third Reich” (Kohl 1958, 77). Kohl’s religiosity thus strongly affected the way he imagined national history. This is still evident in his memoirs, where he described the Nazi-era as “apostasy from God” (Kohl 2004, 340). It is important to note, however, that clear distinctions between Catholics and Protestants were rare in Kohl’s rhetoric. Centre politicians had realised immediately after the war that cooperation with Protestants will be necessary to form a solid Christian party (Pridham 1977, 27). The CDU partisans were consequently forced to refer to Christianity (or JudeoChristian culture) in general—instead of regressing to the old denominational frontlines, particularly as the structural circumstances of both German Protestantism and Catholicism had changed greatly with the

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Cold War and the division of the country. In the FRG, the former Protestant dominance within the kleindeutsch empire had shifted automatically towards Catholicism: for geographic and demographic reasons the historical Prussian-Protestant centre was now in the GDR (Wehler 2008c, 205-207, 366-373). Bonn became the provisional capital and the former [Catholic] Reichsfeinde turned their exclusion from power in Berlin into a virtue, allowing them to reject both Prussian militarism and its National Socialist stepchild (Granieri 2004, 340).

In the context of the perceived communist threat from the East, Konrad Adenauer, head of the CDU and first Federal Republican chancellor, called for “salvation of Christian culture” through European integration (Granieri 2004, 336). Adenauer embodied an alternative to the Sonderweg. The old Centre politician personified in many ways what Kohl himself sought to represent: Adenauer was Rhinelander, citizen of Cologne, Catholic and thanks to his background an opponent of anything to do with Prussia, which he blamed for the unfortunate development of the German Reich into a nationalistic military state (Sontheimer 1991, 17).

Adenauer stood for the Westernisation of German conservatism (Herf 1991, 42). And next to this opposition to Prussian militarism and Nazism, he also stood for a strong opposition to socialism. Like Kohl’s mentor, Finck, Adenauer was influenced by the two Papal Encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno (Williams 2000, 221). Accordingly, he perceived Christianity and socialism as contradictory (Williams 2000, 308). Kohl would later stress the importance of both Encyclicals for the foundation of his party in the British zone of occupation (Kohl 1977, 17588). The new state could, in Adenauer’s belief, only be built upon the foundations of the western Christendom (Williams 2000, 314). In the context of the Cold War, foreign policy would hence be presented as “the protection of das christliche Abendland” (Granieri 2004, 341-2). Also domestically, anti-socialism was packaged by Adenauer in the leitmotif of “freedom”. The free market economy was advocated as a social market economy, which symbolised the rejection of Christian socialism in favour of liberal premises. This programmatic decision was marketed as the “precondition for the primary goal of re-establishing an organic, Christian society [in opposition to] the godless East German regime” (Spicka 2007, 18; Pridham 1977, 21-34). Kohl, who was often portrayed as Adenauer’s political grandson, saw Adenauer as Germany’s major national hero, and

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an anti-ideological politician “who understood himself primarily as a Christian” (Kohl 1989).

Kohl’s Christian Democratic Ideology The triumph of Christian Democracy after the Second World War reflected the allegedly anti-ideological zeitgeist that emerged with the sensitization of communist and fascist totalitarianism in West Germany (Bell 1960). Throughout his political career, Kohl sought to preserve the spirit of the Adenauer era, arguing that the Christian component of the CDU’s political philosophy prevented any “ideological narrowing” (Kohl 1971). All ideologies—including Social Democracy—were anachronistic, intrinsically dogmatic and utopian in Kohl’s opinion. The Christian ethos of the CDU, in contrast, helped to extract a fruitful mix of social, conservative and liberal ideas from established but imperfect ideologies (see, for example, Kohl 1964; 1973, 53; 1976, 157; Kohl 1989). As federal chairman of his party, Kohl presented Christian Democracy in consequence as the most progressive force for Germany’s westernisation and against any “secular utopia” (Kohl 1973, 41). In his first policy statement as Chancellor in 1982, Kohl recalled Adenauer’s Chancellorship as the “most successful era of post-war politics in Germany”, during which the combination of “social, Christian and liberal thought was the formative feature” (Kohl 1982, 15). It was this ideological blend that Kohl presented as the foundation of his personal political identity (FAZ 17 September 1989). Kohl has been remembered as rebelliously secular during his rise to power within the CDU. However, his rhetoric during the 1960s reveals Kohl’s conservative attitude with regard to the Churches’ function in society and politics (Kohl 1964, 11-12; Neander 1968). Kohl insisted that the CDU was not an ideological party, but a “Weltanschauungs-Partei”, entrenching the worldview of the Christian religion (Kohl 1964, 11). He moreover declared that political engagement itself was a Christian obligation: “the force of this divine duty is to supervise worldly areas of life, which must not become independent” (Rhein-Zeitung 11 January 1968). Also after taking over the federal chairmanship of his party in 1973, Kohl continued to employ religious oratory. His book Zwischen Ideologie und Pragmatismus (Between Ideology and Pragmatism) of the same year described the liberal system as threatened by the re-ideologisation of society, which only Christian politicians could prevent (Kohl 1973, 20). With regard to the secularization of German society, he claimed that “the

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Christian spirit and Christian principles go beyond the institutionalised Christianity of the churches” because Christianity was for Kohl more than an institutionalised religion; it was the core of West Germany’s liberal culture, as carried by Protestants, Catholics, and potentially even atheists. Kohl therefore insisted that, in practical terms, “our contemporary society is perhaps not Christian as such, but it features Christian convictions” (Kohl 1973, 23). After all, Germans were all somehow Christians in Kohl’s account. Such holistic imagination of culture and society was typical of Kohl’s worldview. Kohl argued that the existence and functioning of modern democracy was greatly supported by a common, Christian belief (Kohl 1973, 24). Reminiscent of John Paul II’s writings, he merged religious and liberal language: “values like freedom, equality and justice [are] fruits of the Christian spirit [and] are simultaneously the basic social values and postulates of the 1970s” (Kohl 1973, 25). Kohl found that for the present, the pluralist society, in which we live, appears as the best form of society for the development and realisation of the values, which arise from the Christian context (Kohl 1973, 26).

Christian as well as Jewish religions facilitated, in his view, the realization of social obligations, trust, and morality. In liberal societies, “reason and patriotism” were, in Kohl’s opinion, not enough to replace this religious platform (Kohl 1973, 24-5). It is worth noting in this respect, that Kohl’s personal nationalism went beyond liberal nationalist theory, as promoted by, for example, Yael Tamir (1993) and David Miller (1995) in that he added the factor of religion to the assumption that liberalism would be sufficient enough to tame, and ultimately to perfect, nationalism. Kohl sought to represent a nationalism that was based on Christian values and stood in opposition to the atheist nationalism, which had caused two world wars: for the Christian in any case, patriotism means not only a positive attitude towards the own fatherland, but always also the respect of the love of fatherland of the neighbour and thus the rejection of any form of national arrogance (Kohl 1992a, 427).

In Kohl’s rhetoric, the important things—he himself, his party, state, nation and Europe—were things that had been given their particular characters essentially by their cultural foundation in Christianity. When his party gained power from the SPD in 1982, he diagnosed the West Germans as being in a spiritual-political crisis, and declared it to be a “liberal duty” to preserve the “Christian truth” (Kohl 13 October 1982, 15-

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6). In trying to repair the cultural dysfunctionality of his time, he sought to remind the Germans that “the basic values of freedom, solidarity and justice, the inalienable dignity of the human being [and] Human Rights [have] deep roots in Christian faith” (Kohl 12 February 1974, 230). Kohl’s “Christian patriotism” responded to the zeitgeist of the late 1970s and 1980s, when the Germans of the West thought of themselves as an increasingly anomic, atomised, and overly technologised society—and not as a real nation anymore. Unification remained quasi-utopian, and Kohl demanded “to ensure that not pessimism but the belief in the future of our country, as deriving from our trust in God, determines our actions. That is lived patriotism in 1984!” (Kohl 1974, 246). As Chancellor, he presented himself as a remedy for the symptoms of “this secularised world, where the search for the meaning of life has become more difficult, and the fear of life ever greater” (Kohl 1987, 7). Internationally, Kohl has been foremost remembered for his role during the European integration process. Germany’s integration into Europe was an important part of Kohl’s quest for normality. Like Germany, Europe was for him not a geopolitical concept, but primarily a cultural and “spiritual-moral one”, with Christianity its most fundamental underpinning (Kohl 1973, 63). He complained about a more general decline of religiosity all over Europe and contrasted this to the United States, where faith is lived in a very simple, in a deep, in a pure way, which is for a European often hardly understandable. This should make us think, here in the old world, which calls itself occident [Abendland] (Kohl 1985, 32).

During the last months of the Soviet Union, Kohl demanded that the Catholic Church “sharpen again the consciousness for the spiritual-moral dimension of Europe” (Kohl 1991b, 360). Kohl saw an even greater threat of secularism in the former communist states than in his own society: “in wide parts of Europe the people were systematically alienated from Christianity” (Kohl 1991b, 360). Anti-socialism remained intrinsic to Kohl’s language after the end of the Cold War, as he could finally proclaim: today we can assert that Marx erred in his prediction that the days of religion were numbered. It all happened differently. Under communist dictatorship people realised that Marxism does not have an answer to the meaning of life (Kohl 1991b, 367).

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Yet, with Pyrrhic caution, he warned that “no totalitarian teachings of salvations must stream into the spiritual vacuum, which communism left in the East of Europe” (Kohl 1991b, 369). For him, “Europe is underpinned by almost two thousand years of Christian tradition” (Kohl 1991b, 373). Kohl recalled the millennial anniversary of Russia’s Christianisation (Kohl 23 June 1991, 361). His European vision was “about drawing an ecumenical bow from the monasteries and chapels of Ireland to the churches and cathedrals of Kiev and Moscow” (Kohl 1991b, 369). A “homecoming” to a conciliated Europe would not only offer the opportunity for the democratisation of formerly communist states, but also a chance for their re-Christianisation (Kohl 1991b, 361). Also at the CDU congress on Europe at the PolishGerman border in October 1991, he spoke about this “common cultural heritage”, which should serve as the foundation for a “European patriotism” (Kohl 1991a). Europeans would share “common and religious roots” and yet each European nation would have its own cultural core, which they were obliged to preserve (Kohl 1992a, 418). After the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, Kohl was convinced that European integration was functionally impossible without Christianity: the contribution of the Christians is indispensible. Primarily Christians, deeply engrained in their belief, had gone up after the end of the Second World War to build the European Community in the free part of our continent (Kohl 1992a, 427).

Thus, the ideology on which he based his identity, and which he presented as the ideal ideology for the Germans to achieve normality, Christian Democracy, was to Kohl not only the midwife of the Federal Republican success story, but also of the united Europe, which he had envisaged since the end of the Second World War.

Conclusion This case study of Kohl demonstrates that religion and nationalism have been able to remain strange bedfellows in the late twentieth century. Kohl’s Catholic background endowed him with a precious asset in his representation of a conservative, but Westernised nationalist, who aimed at a new German normality that nobody need fear: rehabilitated from the Nazi past, strong enough to resist communism, and self-confidently patriotic within a unified Europe. Kohl sought to embody the political ideology of his party, Christian Democracy. He promoted this as the healthiest ideology for the German state and nation, and himself as the

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natural personification of this political movement: the ideal German. He was probably correct in his claims that neither national nor religious feelings of belonging will become obsolescent in the near future. It thus remains an important task for scholars to keep a critical eye on the politicisation and conflation of nationalism and religion.

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CHAPTER NINE RECONSTRUCTION AND RELIGION: THE CASE OF IRAQ, AYATOLLAHS AND LOCAL OWNERSHIP HAWZHIN AZEEZ Introduction The 2003-2011 invasion and subsequent reconstruction of Iraq by the United States presented the secularization theory with monumental epistemic and empirical challenges. The field of state reconstruction is a challenging area of study in political science; least of all for the continuously evolving nature of the field, often subject to shifting trends, variable societal demands and other environmental, economic and sociopolitical factors. Before proceeding any further it is necessary to clarify how the term “reconstruction” is understood in this chapter. “Reconstruction” encompasses both the state, as well as the society, as the two dominant actors in the processes of “fixing”, “rehabilitating” or “developing” a nation-state. The main argument of this chapter highlights the importance of separating nation-building from state-building as two separate (yet linked) concepts rather than synonymous theories, as it currently stands within the field. In defining nation-building as distinct from state-building, through the analysis of religious actors, this chapter also posits the importance of focusing just as actively on producing nationbuilding and society-orientated policies (through promoting local ownership and legitimacy) designed to address long held grievances. Hence the terms “state-building” and “nation-building” are not treated as synonymous. Reconstructions normally entail a concerted effort by the international community to establish, often for the first time, good governing mechanisms and relevant institutions, and to produce a degree of sociopolitical engineering to increase state capacity and function, and hence, reduce avenues for social conflict and instability. This chapter argues that

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the reconstruction of Iraq demonstrates the necessity of adopting an alternative response method to the influence of top level religious leaders, and that secularization theory as espoused in liberal peace theory is limited in accommodating powerful traditional leaders in producing peaceful and speedy transitions to democracy. Though instances of state reconstruction existed prior to the Cold War era, it was nevertheless the end of the bi-polar world order that failing, weak and conflict ridden societies emerged as an international concern. The New World Order no longer sustained violent authoritarian regimes who acted as proxy satellite states so necessary to the superpowers. Consequently, economic instability, vast human rights violations, civil conflicts, the impact of internally displaced people and refugees, the spread of infectious diseases and illicit drugs ensured that domestic problems of weak states fast became a regional and often a global issue, necessitating the provision of aid, funding, support and at times, direct interventions by the international community. As a result, the international donor community, usually entailing the powerful states of the developed world, commonly under the leadership of the United States, garnered decades of experience in reconstructing war-torn, conflict ridden and weak or failing states. Additionally, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), and the World Bank, among other organisations, provided a wide variety of administrative, legislative, logistical, military and monetary support to such missions. Consequently, vast numbers of UN endorsed and US-led missions ensued including Haiti (1995-96), Bosnia (1996-97), Liberia (1993-97), Kosovo (2000-01), Afghanistan (2002-), and Burundi (200407). More recently the field has been dominated by the unique challenges posed by reconstructions in deeply religious societies such as in Afghanistan and Iraq. The reconstruction efforts in Iraq demonstrate that religion and religious leaders are powerful sources of social cohesion, policy and decision making and continue to be a dominant, if not the most dominant, factor in non-democratic societies. Iraq highlighted that secularization theory has largely failed to entice religious societies, even where alternative secular methods are provided, and where given a chance, people will choose to retain their religious beliefs to the detriment of liberal values. This is particularly so in weak and conflict-ridden societies as often ethnoreligious factors have been a source of group conflict and marginalisation. To date, no reconstruction has had to deal with the unique characteristics of Iraq, not only because of the ethnoreligious configuration of the country, but also because the country is host to some of the most

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powerful religious leaders in the Islamic world. Traditionally, reconstructions have adhered to a top-down, liberal institution and market-orientated values, which subjects weak and failing states to a specific, limited and linear reform agenda. Liberal peace theory revolves around the introduction of democratic norms by strengthening the governing system and its associated institutions, as well as establishing the rule of law (see Newman, Paris and Richmond 2009). Most crucially, the field involves the utilisation of the “wall of separation”, which is executed tacitly through the application of secular democratic governing procedures and institutions. However, the deeply religious nature of Iraq, the residence of top level Shia religious leaders, the existence of powerful seminaries such as those in Najaf, and Islamic shrines in conjunction with the nature of Shia relations with the state complicated the implementation of secularization theory. Though previous cases of reconstructions had occurred in religious societies the socio-political, ethnoreligious and historical legacies within Iraq created a situation unlike any previous cases, directly encouraging the involvement of exceptionally powerful religious leaders. As a post-colonial state, whose artificial borders presented the modern state with a unique ethno-religious configuration, the reconstruction of Iraq was far from a simple process. The country consists of Shi Arabs (60%), Sunni Arabs (20%) and Sunni Kurds (20%). Traditionally the regime adopted an explicit Sunni Arab identity to the exclusion of other ethnoreligious groups. This idealised “Iraqiness” was contested by Kurds and Shi’ites resulting in a state that widely lacked legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the citizens. Resistance and dissent was met with increasing government brutality as evident by the brutal Anfal campaign and the government response to the 1991 uprisings (Entessar 2010). Consequently, post 2003 religious tensions, rather than ethnicity dominated the national discourse (largely because the Kurds were assured of their continued autonomy). As the Saddam Hussein regime toppled almost effortlessly, spoiler groups and long-held resentment between religious groups erupted to the surface. As Sunnis and Shi’ites came into direct violent confrontation, different Shi’ite factions began to attempt to subvert and dominate the reconstruction. As a result of this violent process, religious actors emerged as powerful voices, advocating a range of interests and views, and steered policies and decision making. Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani, as the Grand Marja of the Shi’ite world, emerged as one of the most powerful voices. As the supreme, and most learned leader of the Shi’ite world (widely fulfilling a similar role to that of the Catholic Pope), Sistani wielded great socio-political clout; and played a decisive role in adopting a largely moderate view towards the coalition forces and

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the reconstruction. This was reflected in his edict that Shi’ites should not take up arms against the coalition forces and should represent their interests in peaceful democratic measures such as non-violent protests (Vallely 2004). However, in 2004 Sistani was quick to criticize Paul Bremer’s plan to transfer sovereignty over to an unelected provisional government. This resulted in thousands of Shi’ites taking to the streets and demanding a democratically elected government. Further, when clashes occurred between al-Sadr’s militia in 2004 and the US forces, Sistani was the decisive factor in the emergence of a cease fire (Al-Rahim 2005). Crucially, Sistani rejected an Iranian style theocracy and advocated for democracy, so long as it did not fundamentally contradict Islamic values. Traditionally Sistani adhered to the “Quietest” school of non-interference in the affairs of the state. Sistani adopted this view as a result of the Ba’athist regime’s increasingly repressive nature, particularly towards the religious ulama who could possibly encourage a Shia resurgence. Muqtada al-Sadr and his family legacy represented one such example. Though alSadr was of a much lower religious ranking than the revered and highly learned al-Sistani, his family legacy of adherence to the school of religious political “Activism”, ensured that al-Sadr also wielded a high level of respect and legitimacy. The influence of these religious actors superseded religious boundaries traditionally relegated to the civil society sphere. Instead, such actors employed extensive economic and socio-political influence. Further, each directed and controlled a largely well-armed and functioning militia group who were crucial in controlling the religious dialogue, particularly towards the state. Muqtada al-Sadr’s notorious al Mehdi army played an active and crucial role in protecting Shi’ites from Sunni insurgency particularly following the 2006 bombing of the sacred Askariya Shrine in Samarra, and provided security as well as basic services to the poor Shi’ite communities (Frederking 2007, 176). At the same time al-Sadr began to counter the policies of various powerful Shia political parties such as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa Party (Phillips 2005) demonstrating the increasing political sophistication of the most violent religious voices. A crucial role that such top level religious actors occupy is in contributing to the promotion of a sense of ownership of the reconstruction. For instance when Grand Ayatollah Sistani advocated for societal cooperation with the coalition forces, the majority of the educated, middle class Shi’ites, who have traditionally followed Sistani, adhered to that order. Likewise when the generally belligerent al-Sadr attempted to become integrated into the political process by forming a coalition with the political parties (Phillips 2005) the level of violence reduced

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dramatically. Fostering a sense of ownership produces a higher likelihood of greater success and peaceful transition and religious leaders can be crucial in this area. Paris and Sisk (2009), for instance, identify the issue of local “ownership” as one of the inherent dilemmas of post-war state-building. They argue that a significant way the international donor community reduces local ownership is through the selection of “legitimate” local leaders. This often means that parties or groups that had perpetuated past injustices and violence are recycled back into the new “democratic” system, which plays an increasingly harmful part in post-conflict peace (Paris 1997, 2004; Paris and Sisk 2009). This was evident in the promotion of Ahmad Chalabi, an exiled politician of dubious character, despite his lack of legitimacy in Iraq (Thomas 2007). The traditional religious leaders who could have played a positive role were excluded and marginalised, and their contributions ignored. Thus, the separation of Church and State prevails, to the detriment of protracted values that define communities, and the legitimacy and ownership of the reconstruction compromised. Crucially, the model imposed often exacerbates identity conflicts and does little to reduce social tensions. More recent articles that have emerged demonstrate a more informed analysis which takes into account past failures and experiences as well as a generally more informed view of state-society relations. The OECD (2011), for instance, argues that identifying the root causes of conflict and state weakness is an essential part of the reconstruction. Identifying sources of conflict, or actors who could possibly contribute to peace building, should be an elementary part of the reconstruction process. These studies identify the essential need to return the state-building processes to the local population, though clearly this does not often happen according to plan. Nevertheless, such studies suggest a current understanding of the need to return the right of self-rule to local actors, as well as the need for the international community not to hand pick local leaders, or decide who is within the sphere of “legitimacy”, or who falls outside that distinction. However, these studies do not necessarily point to religious leaders as possible leaders. They perpetuate the same secular international norms in allowing multiple elites to contribute to the rebuilding process. Local leaders are often labelled “legitimate” by the donor community when they present similar Western values. Thus, other legitimacy-owning actors such as religious actors fall outside this distinction and their voices remain unheard, not because they necessarily do not want or share in democratic values, but because they are often the most vocal in their argument for a more visible role for religion in post-conflict societies.

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Additionally, it is evident that individual actor designation is limited in political analysis and often political theorists rely on “collectivities (group actors) wherever feasible” (Frey 1985, 127). Analysis of conflicts and their resolution has utilized and relies on the Waltzian system. Political elites are analysed in their contribution to the conflicts along with other factors such as policy and decision making behaviours, with traditional elites generally marginalised. Religious elites have been analysed as bystanders or reactive and violence-producing elements within the reconstruction. As a result, “idiosyncratic, curbstone, journalistic, and unthinking actor designations are the rule” (Frey 1985, 137). Yet, theorists have noted the important role of individual religious actors. Berger (1999, 13), for instance, notes that “in religion…individual personalities play a much larger role than most social scientists and historians are willing to concede.” These limitations have ensured that the study of the reconstruction in Iraq has failed to focus adequately on prominent religious figures. This is linked to another significant problem: the widespread marginalization of religion within not only political science, but also within the context of reconstructions. The dismissal and decline of religion within the state has been subject to many sociological studies (Sharot, Ayalon and Ben-Rafael 1986). This has largely manifested itself in the study of secularism with the general consensus that secularism is not only the only appropriate method of accommodating religion, but that it is also universally desired. Experts such as Norris and Inglehart (2004) and Davis (2007), for example, have noted the widespread belief that traditional institutionalized religion is experiencing a decline. Indeed the Enlightenment era largely proposed the decline of superstitious and reactionary values, religion and other sacred rituals through industrialization, rationalization and urbanization (Norris and Inglehart 2004, 3). However, Putnam (2001) argues that this decline is also being experienced in both political and civil spheres, where political parties and civil society groups are facing difficulties in retaining their supporters. This demonstrates a more complex global trend where established institutions, other than religion, are facing challenges posed by modernization and globalizations processes. Moreover scholars are increasingly pointing to the increasing flaws in the secularization theory (Beyer 1999; Dobbelaere 1999; Lambert 1999) and have noted its general decline. Indeed, significant pro-secular theorists such as Peter L. Berger (1999) have reversed their relations towards secularization and have argued that secularization theory has largely been falsified and the world is increasingly becoming religious. Researchers have also focused on the demoralizing tendency of modernity as well as the general conflict

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between religious nationalism and that of secular nationalism, particularly in the post-cold war Third World (see Juergensmeyer 1993; Haynes 1994; Westerlund 1996; Thomas 2000). However, the fundamental problem with secularism is that it attempts to account for the presence of religion, as opposed to its absence (Davis 2007, 6), and so it tends to analyse religion and religious related behaviour in a specific and restricted context. Others concur with this view and insist that a role reversal for religion is required within political science and the necessity “to treat religion not as the generator of repression, but as the ‘victim’” (Pavlos and Hatzopoulos 2003, 1). The alternative trend is one towards the non-secular and the traditional. The increasing popularity of religion is linked to a backlash towards modernity, and religious movements are largely produced as “movements of protest and resistance against a secular elite” (Berger 1999, 11). Such research suggests that if the literature attempted to focus on the reason why religion has been increasingly marginalized or excluded, then a whole new set of theoretical position may appear, which may play a more conciliatory role in reconstructions. The secularization discourse, hence, is limited in holistically accommodating religion. This is particularly problematic in situations where the reconstruction of a conflict-ridden society is in question, where notions of local-ownership are of paramount importance to a speedy and peaceful transition. Yet when the transition is directly dependent on the significant accommodation of religious leaders the field’s fundamental norms are challenged. Lack of precedence exacerbates the problem further, with little to no previous experience to draw on, leaving the field with a profound normative and empirical gap. Following the events of September 11 and the rise of Islamic revivalism and its global significance, religion’s relationship with concepts such as modernity, secularization and westernization has been reassessed. This process has led to what Esposito and Voll call the de-secularization of the world. They argue that the the global tendency toward de-secularization has challenged the presuppositions of modernization, the progressive Westernization and secularization of societies which had often been articulated as inevitable evolutionary principles of development (Espisoto 1996, 192).

This is particularly important where the general trend within conflict prone societies is one of groups attempting to increase feelings of security, through forms of primordial identity such as clan, religion or ethnicity (Lederach 1997, 13). Further to these arguments, Harpviken and Roislien

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(2008) argue that religion operates as a normative system of values and beliefs, and serves as a source of identity formation, as well as a vehicle for social organization. However, de-secularization has not correlated with an increased utilization of religion in political analysis, instead religion is often coterminous with other concepts such as “ethnicity”, “culture” and “tends to be dealt with as a subset of some other topic, and when discussing that topic, religion is somehow de-emphasized” (Fox 2004, 14). Nevertheless, religion is “the most important expression of the basic ideas, attitudes, and assumption found” in cultures (Smith 1970, 169); while for Anderson, religion is central to the formation of “cultural systems” themselves (Anderson 1991 cited in Danopolous, Vajpeyi and Bar’or 2004, 5). This discourse reveals two separate discursive practices and dispositions: on the one hand, secularization theory is facing significant challenges in modern states as religion continues to be a crucial and influential element of identity. Secondly, academics are still ignoring the power of religion in shaping political processes in reconstructions, despite the fact that increasingly religions have played a major role in peace development in south Asia and Africa (Haynes 2009). Where discussed, religion is attributed a negative representation, re-enforcing the Westcentric theory of secularism. Nevertheless, religion is gaining increasing influence in modern states. Even the most democratic and secular states such as the United States retain a high level of religiosity (Wuthnow 2007; Abrams 2001), attesting the durability of religion. More significantly, the leaders of religious faith still retain considerable influence, over not only the societies that they reside in, but also at an international level (Formicola and Morken 2001; Haskins and Benson 2008). As a result, as Berger (1992, 32) has pointed out, the world, including the so called modern secular states, is “as religious as ever”. Likewise, Thomas argues that modernization has produced .

widespread disillusionment with “modernity” that reduces the world to what can be perceived and controlled through reason, science, technology, and bureaucratic rationality (Thomas 2000, 816).

Thomas concludes that the persistence of religion in the Third World is an attempt to locate “authenticity and development” (2004, 134) which may play a crucial role in developing a sense of local ownership within reconstructions. Thus, the theoretical utility of using religious actors as the focal point in reconstructions is precisely because of the large political, socioeconomic and religious capital that they encompass. Yet secularization

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theory prevents the more positive influences of religion from occurring. Warren, for instance, argues that an appropriate level of analysis of political violence is to initiate such a discourse with the knowledge that theorists orientalize and essentialise “the other”—that is to freeze, simplify, and polarize cultural differences through the use of totalizing Western dichotomies, such as traditional/modern, religious/rational, domestic/political, and rural/urban (Warren 1993, 2. See also Said 1978; Clifford 1988).

Consequently, a reanalysis of the relationship between religion and states is required in the field of reconstruction. This requires adopting what Esposito and Voll call a “renewed awareness and sensitivity to religious identity and values with politics” (1996, 194). At the same time, the utility of religion and its relevant institutions are gradually being recognized as an important source of peace-building. As Alger (2002, 105) highlights, religious organizations and their peacebuilding efforts are increasingly becoming institutionalized, with an increased level of diversity in the role that such institutions play in conflict management. In turn, increased levels of training, support and programs exist that promote the diversification of the roles played by religious organizations. Reychler (1997, 30), for instance, identifies six key factors that allow religion, its institutions and actors to influence peace-keeping and peace-building processes: Reychler (1997) notes the moral legitimacy of religion as a contributing force to conflict resolution. Other factors include the fact that religious institutions can exercise neutrality in resolving certain conflicts. Reychler (1997) uses the example of the Pope’s 1978 successful mediation of the Beagle Channel dispute, because the Vatican had little interest in the territories under dispute. Additionally, religious institutions can advance the cause or the political standing of a politician, or a particular event, by virtue of the large number of followers and supporters that they command. This process can play a crucial role in the mediation of peacekeeping. Likewise, the ability of such institutions to reach a wide international audience garners more interest in and, hence, more pressure on a conflict to be resolved as quickly as possible. Such religious organizations also wield access to large networks of information and contacts that allow them to gather interest in, support for or activism towards causes. Finally, the ability of such institutions to adhere to confidentiality norms allows them to mediate conflicts. Unlike governments that are required to behave as transparently

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as possible, such organizations can be relied upon to hold sensitive information or to “keep a secret” (Reychler 1997, 30). Abu-Nimer (2001, 686) argues that the most important challenge facing religious actors and institutions is one of facilitating “a change from the participants’ narrow, exclusionist, antagonistic, or prejudiced attitudes and perspectives to a more tolerant and open-minded attitude.” On this account, Reychler (1997, 35-36) contributes further to the idea of promoting a more positive attitude towards the inclusion of religion into peace-building activities. He notes that well over two thirds of the people in the world belong to one religion or another; such organizations thus exert a significant amount of soft power over followers. This puts such organizations in an influential situation to impact peace-building activities within reconstruction missions. Likewise, they have the financial, as well as moral and ethical, capacity to mobilize people towards causes, promote forgiveness and reconciliation, or at least strongly advocate for it (see Droogers 2002; Burrell 2006). Moreover, religious organizations can fulfil functions that traditional diplomatic processes are not equipped to do. Finally, such organizations have direct access to actors in the field, as well as victims and other relevant players. Reychler (1997), however, also acknowledges the negative impact of religious organizations by noting that such institutions do play a role in perpetuating violence, as well as being reactive players in conflicts. Such organizations might also lack effective cooperation with other religious organizations. Finally, perhaps most crucial of all, is the fact that such institutions may also lack relevant training and experience to be able to provide adequate support in the field. Reychler’s account of the positive as well as the negative interpretations of religion’s contribution to peace-keeping is of some significance. Yet, the fact remains that his analysis of the role of religion and its transformative power focuses on the collective power of religion, as well as its institutions. There is a distinct lack of analysis on the relevance of specific religious actors. The nature of religion and its role in Iraq’s reconstruction point more towards the influence of individual religious actors, rather than the religion itself or its relevant institutions. Thus, while there have been attempts to view the role of religion in reconstructions, there has been little attempt to theorise as to the direct influence of prominent actors. Likewise, while there have been attempts to understand the agendas of the individual religious actors, there have been minimal and limited attempts to view their influence within the confines of the reconstruction sphere as rational political actors instead of merely outspoken elements of civil society.

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The significance of this trend provides an important framework which reconstructionary processes could utilize and take into account, depending on the level of religiosity of the recipient society. Consequently, such sources can be useful elements of peace implementation through promotion of local ownership and hence legitimacy, or at least a means to identify the underlying causes of conflict for the purpose of policy formation. Yet, the current preoccupations of liberal peace theory promote a lack of understanding and acceptance of the differing political-culturalreligious history of these “other” states and the significant role such factors play; it is assumed that the “secular” nature of Western states is the ideal end whose imposition will lead to the superlative form of statereconstruction and development for weak, failing, failed, and otherwise undemocratic states in general. However, attempts to impose liberal economic and political values have inadvertently led to the exacerbation of local tensions in recipient societies and have, in some cases, increased the likelihood of long term instability (Paris and Sisk 2009). That is not to suggest that nondemocratic societies, particularly Islamic ones, are naturally incompatible with such liberal values. In fact, there is a large body of literature that questions this assumption (Esposito and Voll 1996; Abootalebi 2000; Diamond, Plattner and Brumberg 2003; Bayat 2007). Conversely, when secularism is equated closely with modernity (Asad 1999, 179) it is difficult not to equate a “firebrand” cleric such as Muqtada as the equivalent of the Iranian revolution’s Ayatollah Khomeini, and envision a strict, and puritanical, theocratic state that imposes harsh restrictions on basic human rights. Where religion has attracted attention within the reconstruction literature, the discourse has revolved around the empirical concept of religious violence, fundamentalism and its various impacts as a motivational tool behind political behaviour (Glazier 2009). Significant evidence exists that explicates where religious actors and relevant institutions have attempted to influence the outcome of a conflict. Reychler (1997), for instance, notes the negative role that the Vatican has played in certain conflicts. He identifies the concord of the Vatican with the state of Portugal in the 1940s as an example. Other cases include the Vatican agreement with Spain’s dictator Franco in 1941, as well as support provided to authoritarian regimes in Latin America. In other instances, the Vatican has produced contradictory policies towards conflicts. For example, in Haiti, the Vatican refused to sanction or support Jean-Bertrand Aristide as a presidential candidate. Conversely, they supported and

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actively recognized the regime’s military despite its heavy-handed practices (Reychler 1997). Likewise, within the Islamic world, the relevant religious institutions such as those in Iran, Saudi Arabia and others have actively supported “authoritarian” regimes and their governments. As a result, significant literature has emerged focusing on the hypothesis that certain religions are more prone to violence than others (Jurgensmeyer 1993; Fowden 1993). The consensus is that monolithic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam tend to be more authoritarian and, hence, more prone to violence (Jurgensmeyer 1993; Fowden 1993). More specifically, Islamic fundamentalism has been rationalized away through the modernization discourse, where Islamic societies that have achieved an incomplete level of modernization are widely viewed as more violent. Turkey, in contrast, widely considered as the pillar of Islamic democratic governance is celebrated for its liberal economic policies that have led to widespread modernization and development (see Baran 2010). The reconstruction process in Iraq has involved a similar intellectual analysis where the motivations behind religious violence have attracted substantial attention; yet there has been a limited attempt to frame that discourse in a more balanced manner and also take into consideration positive contributions of religious leaders. While numerous studies have analysed the role of violence as a contributory force behind state formation, there has been little attempt to connect the role of violence, particularly religiously motivated violence, to the process of state-building. Just as Mukherjee (2009) argues that ideas and values surrounding the term Islamism are context specific, and that the term has different meanings and connotations depending on the political and institutional legacy, history, and geographical location of the case, so too are state-building cases unique, where the basic values of political culture, history and religious norms differ from one case study to another. The cultural, religious and historical complexities encountered by the state-building process in Afghanistan differ quite drastically to those encountered in Iraq, despite the fact that the common denominator is Islam as the official religion of both states. It is, therefore, essential to view each case as unique in itself, requiring substantial analysis of the cultural-historical-political intricacies of each case before a mission is launched. The difficulties of state-building lie in divergences in the normative analysis and empirical practices relating to the state and raises uncomfortable questions relating to the agendas of the wider international donor community in assuming such reconstruction responsibilities.

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Yet, in light of the increased spotlight on religious violence, particularly after September 11, religious organizations and actors, principally Islamic ones, have a long and difficult road ahead if they wish to establish themselves in peace-building and conflict resolution with the explicit consent and approval of the international community. Nevertheless, they do intend to play an influential role in guiding and supporting their communities where conflicts arise. The dilemma of reconstructions is, thus, how to wed secular and liberal norms with local traditions and values so as to produce a functioning democratic system. An analysis of the extensive reconstruction literature demonstrates the discomfort the international donor community feels with regards to illiberal local values, with the general consensus being that of marginalisation and exclusion. Yet, the donor community can ill afford to ignore or exclude these values and the actors representing them because of the extensive level of social capital they wield. Instead, through marginalising such actors, reconstructions sacrifice the establishment of a more widely accepted and legitimate post-conflict state, in order to produce weak and unstable democratic processes. Further, the rise of religious actors may yield new possibilities of accomplishing alternative means of peaceful nation-state-building. The various stances such actors adopted depended largely on the shift in the political terrain and the policies adopted by the US, nevertheless, religious actors proved that they could play a multitude of roles, including being conciliatory, belligerent, adaptable and sophisticated political actors. The visible, powerful and vocal nature of such religious actors in criticising or supporting particular policies reduced the ability of the coalition forces to dictate and direct the reconstruction according to Western liberal norms. Clearly, if such actors are not successfully accommodated into reconstructions, and if liberal peace theory continues to brandish modest positive results, and does not reassess its inherently narrow West-centric values then the possibility of peace for weak and conflict-ridden societies continues to be unfeasible.

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Paris, R., and T. D. Sisk. 2009. The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Operations. New York: Routledge. Putnam, R. 2001. Bowling Alone. New York: Simon and Schuster. Reychler, L. 1997. “Religion and Conflict.” International Journal of Peace Studies 2 (1): 19-38. Said, E. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books. Sharot, S., H. Ayalon, and E. Ben-Rafael. 1986. “Secularization and the Diminishing Decline of Religion.” Review of Religious Research 27 (3): 193-207. Smith, D. E. 1970. Religion and Political Development: An Analytical Study. Michigan: Little Brown. Thomas, Evan. 2007. “The Rise and Fall of Chalabi: Bush’s Mr. Wrong”. Newsweek. 15 February. Accessed 19 January 2013. http://www.playtime.rlbunn.com/Politics_and_Policy/Content_Text/D ubya/HlpMeUnd/The%20Rise%20and%20Fall%20of%20Chalabi_%2 0Bush’s%20Mr.%20Wrong%20-%20Newsweek_%20Wo...pdf. Thomas, Scott. M. 2000. “Taking Religious and Cultural Pluralism Seriously: The Global Resurgence of Religion and the Transformation of International Society.” Journal of International Studies 29 (3): 81541. Vallely, Paul. 2004. “Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani: The Real Face of Power in Iraq.” The Independent. 6 March. Accessed 28 January 2013. http://www.lebanonwire.com/0403/04030602IND.asp. Warren, K. B., ed 1993. The Violence Within, Cultural and Political Opposition in Divided Societies. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Westerlund, D., ed 1996. Questioning the Secular State: The Worldwide Resurgence of Religion in Politics. London: I.B. Tauris. Wuthnow, R. 2007. America and the Challenges of Religious Diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

CHAPTER TEN RE-IMAGINING ISLAMIST VIOLENCE IN INDONESIA: RADICALIZATION AND THE STATE JOSH SNIDER Introduction For researchers interested in explaining the trajectory of violent religiosity, Indonesia remains an evolving and so far under-theorised field of analysis. And despite the recent success of the Indonesian police and security service in breaking the yoke of the most lethal Jihadist network in the archipelago (fatally apprehending the groups’ operational leader, Noordin Mohammed Top and several of his key lieutenants) and in dealing with successor groups Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (JaT), it would be a mistake to view the problem of Islamist violence as either fully contained or as a phenomenon that can be understood through the narrative of the extended Jemmah Islamiyah (JI) network alone. In this sense the current state of Islamist militancy in Indonesia has yielded a somewhat conflicting set of outcomes, both in relation to the future of Jihadist activism and how best to respond to it. On the one hand Southeast Asia (Indonesia/Malaysia) has not emerged as the “next front” of the global war on terror as Gersham (2002) predicted. And in fact we are not seeing the manifestation of the much feared “slippery slope” phenomenon of exposure to radical Islam leading to increasingly large numbers of people taking up the idiom of violent extremism. And more interestingly we are not seeing militancy establish itself as the moral vanguard of a creeping cultural Islamization of the state—i.e. the Pakistan phenomena. At the same time however the problem of acts of violence justified by and in defense of various strands of Islamist ideology has not abated. Alas, it seems then that Indonesia like a variety of other nation-states is confronted with an ongoing problem of a particular type of relapsing and remitting

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religiously justified “light insurgency” enacted against both apparatuses of the state and the perceived symbols of western modernity. The analytic framework of this chapter essentially seeks to harmonise two strands of scholarship. The first continues on the analytic basis established by regionalist scholars including Sidel (2006, 2007) and Fealy (2004) and argues that spasms of violent Jihadism remain a pernicious issue in Indonesia due to the confluence of two key factors—the presence of a deeply entrenched and committed social network with intergenerational ties and because the Indonesian state has to varying degrees created and used the voice of violent Islamism for its own institutional ends. The second draws on scholarship related to the trajectory of global Islamism as a political ideology—particularly the theoretical typology offered Olivier Roy (1994, 2004)—the leading exponent of the “French School.” He maintains that the diffuse and disconnected nature of global Salafi-Jihadism lies in stark contrast to much of the dominant scholarship on this theme and posits some important implications in our quest to both re-calibrate the scholarly tectonics around the ongoing problem of Islamist inspired acts of violence and gain greater insight into how this phenomenon will unfold in the future. To this end I will demonstrate that while JI (and loosely affiliated splinter networks) is and will continue to present a very serious security problem for governments of the region we must look beyond the JI network to unpack antecedents of Islamist violence in post-New Order Indonesia. To elucidate this discussion I will engage several areas of analysis including: a brief overview of the scholarly terrain explaining the rise of Islamist violence in the region; a brief historical analysis addressing the actors and ideologies at work in the trajectory of modern Islamism in Indonesia; an analysis of the threat posed by various Salfi-Jihadist groups to the Indonesian state, an exposition on the efficacy of the response to the problem of violent militancy; and finally an analysis detailing the vexed role of the state in being both an object of violence and an agent of radicalization. By highlighting these themes this chapter will advance the position that the persistence of structural violence employed by the Indonesian state at various levels directly and indirectly creates conditions that increase the attractiveness of the groups that justify a violent agenda on Islamist precepts. Thus while the Indonesian state has taken an increasingly vigilant stand against activities of JI/JaT and affiliated splinter cells, it has been much slower in responding to other trends, among them: the Islamization of street violence, the worrying trend of reradicalization among supposedly reformed Jihadists serving time in

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Indonesia’s infamous prison system, and the use of Islamist gangs in intercommunal violence amongst Muslim and Christian communities.

Contested Explanations Over the course of the past decade analysis on the subject of Islamist violence in Indonesia has been the unfortunate victim of “group think” among members of the terrorism studies community. This “group think” not only reflects a conservatism in the nature of terrorism studies itself but might also reflect the extent to which mainstream academic discourse in this area has concerned itself with answering questions posed by the counter-terrorism community (responding to the needs of policy makers) rather than engaging in a nuanced set of discussions around the problem of Islamist violence as unique and modern extension of secular politics. On the subject of Islamist violence in Indonesia there are three frequent ontological claims made. The first and most persistent claim is that there is a direct causal relationship between the escalation of Islamist violence in Indonesia and the aggressive agenda of the al-Qaeda network from the mid-1990s onward—that in effect JI operated as a branch office of al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia (Gutaratna 2003; Abuza 2004; Archarya 2007). The follow-on from this position is not only that events in Indonesia are linked operationally to events elsewhere but the process of Islamist radicalization in Indonesia is being directed on some level by nefarious foreign actors and that political fragmentation in the core of the Muslim world somehow drives events in the periphery. Along the same lines there has been a persistent level of analysis employed by Patman (2010) and others that more generally attempts to link the global upsurge in Islamist violence to the dysfunctional geo-politics of the end of the Cold War, and further that the United States could and should have done more to manage this phenomenon. The second claim is that “bad ideology” lies at the heart of this problem. The view here is that there is a clear ideological migration process that ultimately leads the adherents of Islamism to commit acts of violence. This logic leads to the somewhat problematic view that ideology radicalizes and that we can in effect prevent attacks by defeating extremist ideology. The third claim focuses on material and economic dispossession and essentially argues that in fixing the myriad of governance and accountability issues that plague states like Indonesia we will effectively remove the kindling that feeds Jihadist rage. Fleshing out the implications of these three influential narratives remains a contested and highly politicized endeavour. The scholarly

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tectonics around the first narrative are fairly clear and there has been plenty of primary source documentary evidence presented by the International Crisis Group (2007a) and others that refutes the primacy of the global linkage thesis. Here we see that despite the fact that there has been some low-level operational assistance provided by actors associated with the al-Qaeda network in South Asia and the Persian Gulf with elements in Southeast Asia we cannot confuse small cash injections and philosophical inspiration with operational control. Of course there has been some high-level interaction between actors associated with both alQaeda and JI—most notably Ramsi Yousef and Hanbali. But these cases are the exception and there is little evidence suggesting ongoing operational links between the two groups. Moreover, despite the fact that Salafi-Jihadist groups like JI (and similarly inspired splinter organisations) privilege the supposedly globalized elements within their ideological menu, their agenda remains resolutely domestic, and is centred on the full Islamization of the Indonesian State and not the annihilation of Israel, the destruction of the USA or the establishment of the Caliphate (NevilleWright 2004, 30). And despite the fact the JI choose to attack western targets they only did so to embarrass the Indonesia state. The second and third narratives are unquestionably more complex to unpack, and here academic contestations over the nature of Islamist radicalization in general and processes of violent transformation amongst Jihadists in Indonesia (and elsewhere) remain divided over a wellrehearsed set of scholarly disagreements. The most fractious of these is a core debate over the power of ideology in driving processes of violent transformation (Desker 2003; Ramakrishna 2007, 18) versus the role material and social dispossession in inspiring patterns of violent activism justified in Islamic ideology (Sidel 2007, 55). I am not arguing either position nor is it my intention to proffer a specific typology of Islamist radicalization or offer an exposition on how some Islamists justify their theological position on the use of violence. Rather, I raise the subject of contested typologies of radicalization in an attempt to highlight the extent to which strands of dominant thinking have both dominated scholarly interest and have at the same time yield little in the way of answers. There are several reasons for this. First, by focusing on the radicalizing impact of ideology, it is possible to analyse the problem of Islamist violence using a reductive framework that places the onus on “bad religion” rather than looking at the complex intersections that exist between the rise of militant religiosity and the failure of secular politics. Second, by focusing on material dispossession as the root of Islamist radicalization we open the door to a pseudo-Marxist narrative that ends up

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espousing a “radicalization of the looser thesis,” which in the Southeast Asian context gets very difficult to defend. So, instead of getting bogged down in contested narratives I maintain that it is more productive to analyse the ongoing problem of Islamist inspired violence as the end product of an unresolved set of political contestations related to the boundaries of Indonesian nationalism and the position of Islam within that dynamic.

Islamism in Indonesia: Actors and Ideologies Before we can begin to unpack the current trajectory of Islamist violence in Indonesia it is first necessary to discuss at some length the complex evolution of Islamist ideology as a force for political liberation in modern Indonesia. And indeed, since the attacks on September 11 2001 and then in Bali and Jakarta (in 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2009) there has been much attention paid to a supposedly “worry trend of Islamization” in Indonesia. Notwithstanding the obvious level of analysis, and taking in to account specific events, even a cursory glance of the region’s modern history (from the time of Dutch occupation) would reveal a continuing and similarly “worrying trend of Islamization.” Beginning with the Padri Wars in Sumatra in the early nineteenth century, continuing through the Dural Islam movement in the Sukarno years, and then inter-communal violence of the late Suharto era, various forms of violence justified under the banner of Islam are not unique to the politics of the region (Laffan 2003, 410). Thus it remains to be seen whether recent acts of religious violence inspired by, and in defense of, Islam present prima facie evidence of the mass spontaneous mobilisation of radical Islamism in Indonesia. If we employ Ehud Sprinzak’s Iceberg Model, which argues that fringe elements acting as the tip of the ideological iceberg (in this case Salafi Jihadism) can melt away and infect and thus radicalize the rest of the polity, to justify the conclusion that the radical fringe of the Indonesia Muslim spectrum poses the ability to conservatize the sensible middle, then perhaps many of the recent events would take on a new level of urgency (Sprinzak 1995). This hypothesis, while attractive, is difficult to justify and despite the presence of various radical groups that advocate a broad project to Islamize the Archipelago, these forces have failed to coalesce as a mass project. Insomuch as acts of violence associated with the Islamist agenda have proven to be perennial features of the Indonesian system, this phenomenon should not be taken out of context and, in many instances, has more to do with a broader pattern of structural violence hardwired into the geo-politics of the archipelago than it does with the

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traction of the globalised agenda of Jihadist neofundamentalist Islam. The evolving idea of the Indonesian nation-state, particularly since the fall of the Suharto regime, has re-invigorated the space for activism surrounding the question of Muslim identity and the boundaries of religious expression. Within this changed environment it cannot be denied that there are groups that harbour deeply conservative agendas unfriendly to Western interests and to the interests of the secular nation-state itself. Despite that there are people and groups that want violently to shift the goal posts of Indonesian Islam to the right. However, Islamism (in all its forms) has always been one of many competing “isms” looking to capture the sociopolitical imagination of the archipelago. Thus disembodying recent manifestations of Islamism from the evolution of the nation-state itself paints an incomplete picture on the nature and trajectory of Islamism’s impact. In addition to the political history of modern Indonesia, the trajectory of Islam itself presents a particular problem if one wants to explain the persistence of violent religiosity in post-New Order Indonesia as a function of ideology. While we cannot discount the role that ideology plays in informing the world view of those who commit to a program of Islamist militancy, assessing the relationship between typologies of piety and the connection between certain types of groups and acts of violence requires a nuanced perspective. For the purposes of this work the delineations around the practice of Sunni Islam in Indonesia can be most accurately understood by assessing piety in terms of adherence to either Modernist or Traditionalists frameworks. Traditionalists adhere to a syncretized version of Islam that incorporates local (non-Muslim) customs into ecclesiastic rites, such as ancestor veneration and saint worship. Conversely, Modernists subscribe to versions of revivalist ideology that seek to strip the practice of Islam from the various manifestations of “cultural innovation” that occurred as it was transmitted into the Malay world (Hooker 2003). It is important to note however that the modernist tent is a big a one and includes ideological frameworks ranging from versions of culturally austere Salafism (that reject politics and calls for a retreat into prayer) to the neo-modernist ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood that espouse a distinctly political program to Islamize the state. When it comes to political activism, the Traditionalist tent is similarly broad, and over the past half century has included groups that range from benevolent Nahdatul Ulama to the violent activism of Dural Islam. While the Traditionalist-Modernist divide is an important metric in understanding the broad delineations within the rubric Indonesian Islam,

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when it comes to assessing the trajectory of violent activism it presents some limitations. This is particularly true when the TraditionalistModernist delineation is used to predict the future unfolding of violent activism. Since the attacks in Bali, the desire on the part of terror analysts to categorise and effectively “order” degrees of religiosity to fit the metrics of threat analyses not only misses the mark in terms of understanding the dynamics of Islam in Southeast Asia, but more broadly misses the mark as a predictive indicator of how and when violent attacks will occur. In this regard there has been a fixation on the trend of “Arabization” of Indonesian Islam. Here, the analyses offered by Bubalo and Fealy (2005) and Eliraz (2004) offer scholarly and nuanced interpretations on the diffusional relationship between on the transmission of Islam from the Gulf to Southeast. Despite the nuanced take offered, these works place a particular emphasis on the security problems associated with the import of Modernist ideology and cultural practices associated with the Persian Gulf and in particular maintain that the propagation of Salafi ideology acts not only as an agent provocateur of radicalized sentiment (and stokes the latent fires of intolerance), but presents a more general threat to Indonesian secularism (Elriaz 2004). However, even if we can construct a “good Muslim/bad Muslim” calculus whereby adherence to a menu of theological moderation as defined by Javanized Islam is good, and adherence to variants of Arabised influenced modernism is bad, the cleavages within Indonesian Islam are varied and complex enough that securitizing Middle Eastern influences represents a vast over-simplification of facts. In assessing the development of the Islamist agenda in Indonesia it certainly is the case that ideas from the centre of the Muslim world have been transmitted to the periphery, including strains of revivalism that advocate theologically austere and even violent agendas (Porter 2005). Yet if we are looking to assess the degree to which Modernist movements (Salafism among them) have been engaged in contestations for political power through both violent and non-violent activism it is difficult to maintain (taking a long view) that either modernism or traditionalism have been more or less prone to inspire strains of militancy. In fact, many have argued, including Bertrand (2004, 55) and Emmerson (2006, 120), that secular politics has done as much to radicalize Indonesian Islam as specific modes of theological interpretation. Frequently cited examples of this include: the Japanese mobilization of the Islamist Masyumi organization as a force of anti-colonialism in the latter half of the second world war; the Suharto regime’s use of Islamist gangs to put down elements unfriendly to its agenda; and more recently, use of Islamist

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militias to aid the military in is struggle against Christian separatists in Ambon (Hefner 2000, 25). In addition to this the most violent and wellorganized Islamist movement in the history of the region, Dural Islam (the forbearer of both the Majelis Mujahideen Indonesia and Jemmah Islamiyyah), was Traditionalist in its ideological foundation, using Javanese mysticism to justify its claims to legitimacy (Hefner 2000, 25).

Misinterpreting the Threat The emergence of Jemmah Islamiya as the region’s prototypical (and most violent) Salafi-Jihadist organization presents an interesting case study, which both confounds the complexity of Islamist violence and also demonstrates the limitations of relying too heavily on the ideological plane to explain the rise and future trajectory of Islamist violence. The organization was founded in 1993 by Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Ba’asyir (aka Abu Bakar Bashir) and was perceived by its founders to represent both the ideological vanguard of Indonesian Islamism and to be a continuation of the flagging Dural Islam project. Both men were longterm veterans of the Islamist activism and, in addition to being active in DI, founded the Al-Mukmin pesentren (Islamic boarding school) in Solo City West Java (ICG 2002). The group’s activism began (under the moniker Majelis Majahidin Indonesia—MMI) and was inspired following the massacre of Muslim protestors by the Indonesian army in Tanjong Priok (Jakarta) in September 1984. Until this point MMI maintained ties to the regime and Mukmin pesentren students were frequently employed in paramilitary units of the Indonesian security forces. The deteriorating relationship between MMI and the regime culminated in the forced exile of Sungkar and Ba’asyir to Malaysia in 1985. For a period of roughly 13 years (1985-1998) Sungkar and Ba’asyir not only maintained a publicly hostile stance towards the Suharto government, but also became increasingly vocal in demanding the implementation of sharia law and the promotion of violent jihad as a means of achieving the Islamization of the state. This view was set out in the organization’s founding documents, the Pedoman Umum Perjuangan Al- Jama’ah al-Islamiyyah (General Guidebook for the Struggle of Jemaah Islamiyah), known simply as the PUPJI (Chalk and Ungerer 2008, 6). What remains interesting about JI and its stated ideology is the extent to which it was concerned with the continuation of DI’s failed project to establish a regional Islamist super-state and supplant the secular political order that triumphed in the post-Colonial period with one centered around Islam. Thus, while the group expressed rage at the perceived negative

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influence played by foreign and colonial actors (particularly in propping up the New Order regime) it was more concerned with Islamizing the Indonesian state than attacking foreign interests inside Indonesia. Following the collapse of the New Order regime, both Sangar and Bashir (along with other religious and political dissidents) were permitted to return to Indonesia. During this period it is clear that JI went through a type of transformation—from an organisation that called for the violent Islamization of the Indonesian state its agenda shifted to one that included conducting massive attacks on foreign interests. And while the increasingly violent trajectory of JI is easy to observe in terms of outcomes, the precise impact of ideology on that transformation process remains contested (Bubalo and Fealy 2005, 76). The question remains as to whether this ideological transformation reflected the political realities that resulted from the fragmentation of post New Order Indonesia or whether this transformation was a function of the broader geo-strategic realities of mid-1990s, including the experience of returning volunteers from the Afghan mujahideen. At this juncture we return again to the contested role of Salafism, both as an ideology that touts a globalised program of political liberation and one that has long and deep roots in the cultural lexicon within the practice of Indonesian Islam. Regardless of how one chooses to assess these dynamics, the fact that many JI operatives, including those executed for the Bali bombings, have espoused Salafi ideology has bolstered the perception that it has served as the agent in the radicalization process of those individuals (Barton 2004, 14). While there is salience in this analysis, it might be more accurate to place JI’s style of activism in the category of Salafi Jihadism. The categorical division between Salafism and Salafi Jihadism reflects the latter’s ideological tendencies toward a version of Modernism that advances a conservative interpretation of Seyyid Qutb’s thinking on Jahilya and acceptability of violent Jihad, specifically the acceptability of violent Jihad against fellow Muslims. Moreover, the connection between the mainstream of the Indonesian Salafi movement and JI remains tenuous. While JI has maintained cordial relations with a number of radical organisations, this has not precipitated a flow of volunteers into the JI movement and if anything, JI actions have distanced it from mainstream of Indonesian Islamism (ICG 2004). The public statements of many JI figures castigating the mainstream Salafi movement for its refusal to engage in its agenda, present prima facie evidence of the fissures between the two communities (Bubalo & Fealy 2004, 76). It should also be noted that the other key doctrinal division between JI

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and other Salafist organisations is the former’s connection to the messianic Dural Islam movement. And as noted earlier JI arose from ashes of MMI, a network comprised of DI dissidents who came out of hiding to reformulate their agenda in the late Suharto era. In this sense it might be more accurate to argue that while JI has adopted the veneer of Salafi rhetoric to communicate its position, its experience and much of its actual practice more closely reflect the rural Javanese heritage of DI, which mixes Islamist ideology with other syncretic elements including the religious veneration of people within its own movement—a trait that would be completely unacceptable to strict Salafists (ICG 2004). By the early 2000s cleavages arose (particularly in the wake of the 2002 Bali bombings) within the JI hierarchy between old members associated the DI and those affiliated with Noordin Mohammed Top, with the former committed to a program of domestic Islamization and later more flexible in its choice of targets (ICG 2007b). The ideological fragmentation that occurred within JI goes to the heart of demonstrating the fallacy of relying on either ideology or organizational dynamics to explain the rise of Islamist violence in post-New order Indonesia. Not only is it the case that there is no conformity of view amongst what we can broadly define as Salafist groups, there is also no conformity of view among or within Salafi-Jihadist groups on the efficacy of violence and in particular to whom that violence should be directed against (Ahnaf 2006). While JI is certainly the best known of Indonesia’s Salafi-Jihadist Islamist groups, highlighting the rise of two other salafist organization (Hizbut ut’Tahrir (HT) and the now disbanded Laskar Jihad (LJ)) further problematises the notion that there is a uniformity of purpose and actions among these groups. And in particular, the case of LJ demonstrates that it is possible for a Jihadist group to maintain an extreme ideological position while at the same time engaging in a very limited armed struggle. The group arose out of the political fragmentation of the late Suharto era and advanced an agenda that called for violent Jihad against the enemies of Islam. For a period lasting from 1997-2001 the group dispatched militias around the archipelago to fight in a variety of confrontations. Despite its ideology and propensity for violence LJ presents several anomalies. First, LJ was less interested in the violent Islamization of the state than it was in defending what it saw as the Muslims’ victims of intercommunal violence. And second, while not opposed to the idea of a regional caliphate, or using violence against the “enemies of Islam”, the group’s founder Jafar Umar Thalib (a charismatic preacher and veteran of the Afghan Mujahideen) employed a limited definition of the term

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“enemy” and resisted the idea that violence should be employed to achieve any political reorganisation of the region. Thalib disbanded the group following the first Bali bombing and was highly critical of the JI’s willingness to take civilian casualties. In addition to JI and LJ, HT is a self-described Salafi organisation that is frequently cited in regional security assessments as being of concern. Indonesia is currently the only country where HT, Palestinian in origin, operates openly. Again, the case of HT demonstrates that an organisation can maintain a rhetorically extreme stance without engaging in total struggle to un-seat the secular state violently or punish foreign interests within the state. For the past 40 years the group’s Indonesian arm has primarily concerned itself with Dawa (teaching) activities and like many traditional Salafi organizations HT (Indonesia) shuns direct involvement in pushing for political change and instead encourages its members to retreat into austere religiosity. According to all available open source channels there has been a very limited (if any) migration between these groups. There is no doubt several reasons for this. First, anecdotal evidence suggests that in the Indonesian context members of groups like the ones mentioned above tend to stay loyal to particular individuals (Van Bruissen 2002, Kolig 2005). So beyond the stated ideological position that these groups adopt it can be argued that they become in effect personality cults around charismatic leaders. Second and more importantly, the lack of empirical evidence showing a clear trajectory of ideological migration from within the membership bases of these groups towards differing and more extreme manifestations of Salafi activism highlights the complex point that even adherents to Salafi-Jihadism can maintain a somewhat limited menu of activism. Therefore, if we view the post-2002 activities of JI as being representative of the most violent and dangerous typology of Islamist activism present in the region then perhaps we can take some comfort in fact that there does not seem to be a strong gravitational pull from the limited or rhetorical Jihad advanced by LJ and HT to the total and indiscriminate violence of post-2002 JI.

Responding to Islamist Violence It cannot be denied that the Indonesian state has taken a vigilant posture against acts of a certain type of Islamist violence. Over the past decade the Indonesian security services have not only disrupted major attacks but have also put down major JI cells including, most recently, the one led by Noordin Mohammed Top. But in assessing the totality of the response of the Indonesian state to the problem of Islamist violence it is

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necessary to look beyond JI and the manifestations of Islamist terror directed at western targets. At this juncture it is important to unpack in some detail the distinct manifestations of violence associated with the Islamist agenda manifested over the past century. Here activism can be placed into several distinct categories: (1) Activism that has sought to Islamize the state through bringing non-Muslims into line—more specifically enforced piety, as well as vice and intimidation campaigns, (2) Activism that employs Islamist precepts (and violence) to sew inter-communal discord among and between the various religious groups in Indonesia. (3) Activism that has sought to Islamize the state violently and forcefully undo the secular character of post-Independence Indonesia (4) Activism that embraces elements of aforementioned but draws on a globalised rhetoric to punish foreign interests within the state. The response of the Indonesian state to these four typologies of activism has not been uniform and has been framed both by Indonesia’s complex transition out of authoritarianism and the utility and convenience of these groups as servants to elite interests. In this regard the fourth manifestation has gained the most attention and has had its most negative impact on the prestige of the Indonesian state overseas. Not only has the Indonesian state been proactive in an ongoing violent struggle against the various cells nominally aligned to JI, but it has also cooperated with the international community (against popular domestic sentiment) in turning over high value detainees such as Hanbali. Assessing the response to the first two manifestations is more complex. Groups that stir inter-religious discord and maintain an agenda to Islamize the state (at various levels) are a strategic problem for the Indonesian state. How best to respond to this problem is tied to a series of issues related to Indonesia’s brand of federalism and the role of Islam within the evolving contours of Indonesia’s political spectrum. Here, the fluctuating line between freedom of expression and intimidation is one that is frequently played out in the media, as are various regional demands for religious autonomy. And in many cases the state has been unable or unwilling to spend precious political capital to push back against manifestations of Islamist activism that seek to enforce piety—usually among the economically and politically disenfranchised. The third manifestation of activism represents yet another problem. Certainly JI challenges the state

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but in an indirect way, it primarily seeks to embarrass the state by highlighting its inability to protect foreign interests—5 star hotels, Embassies and places frequented by tourists. What remains interesting is that despite the fact JI emerged from the DI tradition there is no group that has continued on with DI’s agenda to challenge the state violently in an effort to bring about its collapse. There are probably several reasons for this. First, it is quite likely that no one wants an enemy in the Indonesian security apparatus. Challenging the state directly and violently as opposed to attacking foreign interests would be a huge escalation and would no doubt yield diminishing returns. Despite the fact that there was a transition out of authoritarian politics many institutions are still run by people that discharged security during the New Order regime. Thus, it is quite likely that direct and violent challenge to the state (individuals, institutions and apparatuses) by Islamist elements would be dealt with by using equally aggressive and non-traditional tactics. Secondly, by all accounts extreme Islamist politics do not have a popular constituency in Indonesia. This can evidenced by looking not only at the public response to the tactics used by JI but also by looking at the general performance of Muslim political parties in the electoral process. Whether Indonesia is becoming more or less Muslim is another story altogether, but it is clear that manifestations of extremism that challenge the state are not popular. Thus while the role of Islam has been going through a period of evolution since the collapse of the New Order regime, no group has succeeded in mounting a popular challenge to the version of secularism embodied in Pancasela that has been thrashed out over the course of the past five decades.

Conclusion This chapter has made a modest attempt to recalibrate the analytic framework most commonly invoked to view the connection between the state and the ongoing problem of Islamist violence in the world’s most populous Muslim nation-state. My analysis in this paper has demonstrated that de-emphasising the role of the specific typologies of Islamist thought and re-centring analysis around the role of the state provides a much clearer and nuanced picture of why Islamist violence has been, despite its lack of popularity, a means of persistent political engagement. Implicit in my analysis is the view that contemporary efforts to understand the radicalization process are flawed because the threat itself has not been properly understood. This is particularly true in the policy prescriptions given by Indonesia’s allies, most notably the USA and Australia, in

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regards to counter-radicalization strategies. Certainly gains have been made in closing down certain Pesentren (religious schools) that preach hate. Similarly, as a result of Western pressure Indonesia’s security services are now more vigilant in their surveillance of certain groups. At the same time however many of the demands made at the request of western intelligence agencies are short-sighted and only reflect the immediate security interests of specific actors outside Southeast Asia. For example, demands that the Indonesian government should take a more activist position in the policing of religious schools and more generally “moderate” the practice of Islam is a particularly ineffectual way of combating radicalism. Secularism has been one of the hallmarks of the Indonesian state and many analysts worry that moves to empower the doctrinally conservative MUI (Majelis Ulemma Indonesia)—the National Ulemma Council—to police religious practices more actively will lead to deterioration in religious freedom. In particular, moderate and non-violent groups like the Sufis and the Shia Ahmadiyyah sect worry that if MUI is empowered by the state to enforce doctrinal norms they will inevitably face more persecution than they already do. Similarly, secular civil society groups worry that if the MUI is empowered by the state they will face the growing tide of state sanctioned religiosity, albeit under the guise of combating radicalism.

Works Cited Abuza, Z. 2003. Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror. Boston: Lynnne Rienner Publishers. Ahnaf, M. Iqbal. 2006. The Image of the Other as Enemy: Radical Discourse in Indonesia. Chiang Mai: Silk Worm Books. Acharya, A. 2007. The Bali Bombings: Impact on Indonesia and Southeast Asia. Centre for Eurasian Policy. Occasional Research Paper Series II (Islamism in Southeast Asia). No 2: 1-5. Barton, G. 2004. Indonesia’s Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam. Sydney: UNSW Press. Bertrand, J. 2004. Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bubalo, A. and Fealy, G. 2005. Joining the Caravan? The Middle East, Islamism and Indonesia. Lowy Institute Paper No 5. Sydney: Longueville Media. Chalk, P, Rabasa, A., Roseneau, W. and Piggott, L. 2009. “The Evolving Terrorist Threat to Southeast Asia—A Net Assessment”. RAND National Defense Institute. Washington DC: Rand Corporation.

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Available online: http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG846/. Desker, B. 2003. “Islam in Southeast Asia: The Challenge of Radical Interpretations”. Cambridge Review of International Affairs 16 (3): 415-429. Eliraz, G. 2004. Islam in Indonesia: Modernism, Radicalism and the Middle East Dimension. Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press. Emmerson, D. 2006. “One Nation Under God? Faith, History and Identity in Indonesia”. In Religion and Religiosity in the Philippines and Thailand: Essays on State, Society and Public Creeds, T. Friend, 7183. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Fealy, G. 2004. “Islamic Radicalism in Indonesia: The Faltering Revival.” Southeast Asian Affairs 2004: 104-121. Gutaratna, R. 2003. Inside Al Qaeda, Global Network of Terror. New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group. Hefner, R. 2000. Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hooker, M. 2003. Indonesian Islam: Social Change through Contemporary Fatawa. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. International Crisis Group (ICG). 2002. “Indonesia Backgrounder: How the Jemaah Islamiyah Terrorist Network Operates.” Asia Report No. 43. Accessed on 23 March 2013. http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-eastasia/indonesia/043-indonesia-backgrounder-how-the-jemaahislamiyah-terrorist-network-operates.aspx. —. 2004. “Indonesia Backgrounder: Why Salafism and Terrorism Mostly Don’t Mix.” Asia Reports No. 83. Accessed 23 March 2013. http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-eastasia/indonesia/83_indonesia_backgrounder_why_salafism_and_terrori sm_don_t_mix_web.pdf. —. 2007. “‘De-radicalisation’ and Indonesian Prisons”. Asia Reports. No. 142. Accessed on 20 March 2013. http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-eastasia/indonesia/142_deradicalisation_and_indonesian_prisons.ashx. Kolig, E. 2005. “Radical Islam, Islamic Fervour and Political Sentiments in Central Java Indonesia,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 4 (1): 55-88. Laffan, M. 2003. “The Tangled Roots of Islamist Activism in Southeast Asia.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 16 (3): 397-414. Lane, M. 2007. Unfinished Nation: Indonesia Before and After Suharto. Sydney: Verso Press.

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Neville-Wright, D. 2004. “Dangerous Dynamics.” The Pacific Review 17 (1): 27-46. Patman, R. 2010. Strategic Shortfall: The “Somalia Syndrome” and the March to 9/11. Westport, CT: Praeger. Porter, D. 2005. Managing Politics and Islam in Indonesia. London: Routledge Curzon. Ramakrishna, K and Seng, T. 2003. Eds. After Bali: The Threat of Terrorism in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies. Ramakrishna, K. 2007. Radical Pathways: Understanding Muslim Radicalization in Indonesia. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International. Roy, O. 2004. Globalized Islam: The Search for the New Ummah. New York: Columbia University Press. —. 1994. The Failure of Political Islam. Translated by Carol Volk. London: I.B. Tauris. Sidel, J. 2007. The Islamist Threat in Southeast Asia: A Reassessment. East-West Center Policy. Series 37 (Southeast Asia). Singapore: ISEAS Press. —. 2006. Riots, Pogroms and Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

CHAPTER ELEVEN THE VALUE OF FAITH IN THE PROVISION OF WELFARE: AN AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE SANDRA REEVES Introduction This chapter examines the intersection between religion and politics through a study of the Australian government’s policy to increase delivery of welfare support through faith-based organizations (FBOs). For the past decade or more, welfare policies across OECD countries have been framed in terms of mutual obligation and individual responsibility. In Australia this has seen welfare recipients, who are unable to meet the demands of their participation contracts, become subject to significant monetary sanctions. In turn, the tightening of criteria to access some benefits and a residual payments system has led to a heavy demand for emergency relief (ER) which government contracts FBOs to deliver. A number of Australian politicians, echoing their overseas counterparts, claimed that FBOs offer valued guidance when helping the needy because of their religious underpinnings. This enables welfare recipients, via interactions with those who are upheld as highly moral, to become “responsible” citizens. This study of FBOs in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia, between 2006 and 2007 demonstrates that (i) even though those working in FBOs are heavily motivated by their religious beliefs, their understanding of faith often leads to compassionate help largely devoid of moral castigation, even in the face of limited resources; and (ii) welfare volunteers in Hunter FBOs seek to meet clients’ immediate need for material assistance or social support irrespective of socio-economic situation, behaviours (that at a political level are classified as undeserving) or religious affiliation. It also indicates that the harsh welfare policy climate may lead to a clash of cultures in regards to adequately meeting

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the needs of the poor as welfare support is translocated into the not-forprofit sector. In recent years, the intersection between political and religious values has led to interesting changes in welfare provision in Anglo-Western nations across OECD countries where politicians have perceived a strong need to re-evaluate welfare provision (Bartkowski & Regis, 2003; Burke, 2008; Mendes, 2005, Saunders, Peter, 20051; Warhurst, 2007). In turn there has been a massive restructuring of welfare that, in Australia, has reconfigured the relationship between the government and the not-forprofit (NFP) sector in which FBOs play a major role (Engels, 2006, Family and Community Services (FaCS),2 2003, 2005; Lyons, 2001; Nevile, 1999). This increased investment in the NFP sector has led to an expansion of service provision such that the human services are the fastest growing employment sector in Australia (Lyons, 2001; Nevile, 1999). However, FBOs administrating welfare tend to be largely staffed by volunteers with a religious motivation to be of service to others. Governmental attempts to target welfare to those who need it most, and to deal harshly with the most severely disadvantaged, such as the longterm unemployed, were seen as punitive by many (ACOSS, n.d; ACOSS, 2001; Andrews, 2005; Kerr & Savelsberg, 2003; Maddox, 2005; Mendes, 2005; Saunders, 2004, Wallis, 2005; Walsh, 2000). Hence in the period that this study was carried out, the Howard Liberal Coalition Government’s welfare reforms led to the targeting of specific welfare dependents who were deemed to be engaging in morally bad behaviours such as drinking, gambling and drug taking which stopped them from seeking employment (Costello, 2003; Walsh, 2000; Wear, 2008). In 2006 the severity of the breaching program was increased. Welfare dependents on Newstart, Youth Allowance and Parenting Payment faced penalties that could see them losing their benefits for a period of up to eight weeks (Andrews, 2005; Centrelink, 2006). For many, there was little option but to access emergency relief (ER) when in need of help with purchasing food or payments for utilities such as electricity, which they could no longer afford to pay via their welfare payments alone. This was compounded by sanctions coupled with residual payments and the tightening of criteria to access pensions that have a 1

There are two Peter Saunders in Australia who are very influential in the poverty debate. To differentiate one from the other, one will be referred to as Saunders, Peter (Centre for Independent Studies) and the other as Saunders (Social Policy Research Centre) 2 FACS is now known as the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA)

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higher monetary value. Another benefit for government in the restructuring of welfare provision was that it was a way to move the supply of welfare resources incrementally away from government via contracts into the NFP sector. As the majority of contracts to supply ER are held by religious organizations, the needy would be funnelled through the FBO system and come into contact with the religiously motivated. There, it was assumed, they would be exposed to moral values that would make them less dependent on the state and more likely to help themselves (Engels, 2006). The evolution of these policy initiatives has had, for the most part, bipartisan support. The origins of these initiatives date from the changes introduced in the preceding decades by the Labor governments led by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating (Aulich & O’Flynn, 2007) reflecting a complex web of political ideas dating back to the Reagan and Thatcher eras in the USA and UK respectively, and continued by Clinton and Blair (Bartkowski & Regis; 2003; Levitas, 2005; Reddel, 2004; Travers, 2005). These ideas found considerable traction in Australia, where welfare recipients were recast as passive dependants who did not want to work, as opposed to those who did, who were cast positively as “Aussie battlers” (Goot & Watson, 2007, p. 254; see also Dyrenfurth, 2007). Little regard was given to socio-economic barriers stopping people from working, particularly the long-term unemployed. Structural issues in regards to poverty were largely ignored. Instead, policies with revealing names like workfare or welfare-to-work sought to direct welfare to those most in need, such as those who were unquestionably disabled. At the same time however, welfare policy aimed to force those deemed to be of an economically active age, and physically able, into paid work or social enterprise (Gray & Agllias, 2009). It must be remembered that access to disability and sole parent pensions was tightened and less regard was given to issues such as physical and mental health, parenting responsibilities, addictions, social alienation, and any number of issues faced by the poor in meeting their individual contract requirements (ACOSS, 1998; ACOSS, 2001; Centrelink, 2006; Kerr & Savelsberg, 2003; Saunders, Peter, 2005). For those caught by the changes, particularly those who may have qualified for a pension previously, poverty was their responsibility as viewed through a moral political lens, with little regard to rights and needs being met via a social justice agenda upheld by government initiatives (ACOSS, n.d; Bland, 2006; Dutton, 2005; Johnson, 2007; Mendes, 2005). Of particular importance for this process was the emphasis that the governments led by John Howard (between 1996 and 2007) placed on FBOs as providers of welfare. He was not alone. From the late 1990s a

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diverse range of politicians both in Australia and overseas began to view FBOs as more than just providers of emergency welfare and social services (Bush, 2002; Costello, 2003; Walsh, 2000; Wuthnow, 2004). FBOs had always been somewhere the poor could go if they had a “one off” crisis, such as the fridge blowing up or the car breaking down. They were another support for when things went wrong. However, their religious orientation, and the faith and moral wisdom assumed to be embedded within their day-to-day practices, was seen by many politicians, policy makers and social commentators as a means to impact positively on the behaviours of those using their services, especially those drawing state benefits (Bartkowski & Regis, 2003; Bush, 2002; Costello, 2003; Leventhal & Mear, 2002; Olasky, 1992, 2000; Schwartz, 2000; Walsh, 2000; Wilson, 2003; Wuthnow, 2004). By seeking to remove the problems of the poor from government and place them further into the care of FBOs via welfare reforms, the Howard government used the rhetoric of social inclusion and individual virtues. Liberal leaders, especially those professing a religious faith, including Howard, focused on the volunteer as the crucible in which virtues, such as self-sacrifice, individual endeavour, and personal duty, were distilled and expressed (Brett, 2003; Maddox, 2005). Volunteers who worked in FBOs provided the added value of faith and hence could provide an extra dimension to assist in reforming those on welfare, something secular staterun services could not do. Peter Costello, the Howard government’s Federal Treasurer for eleven years, articulated this position in an address at an Anglican lunch: [T]hese agencies can make more immediate and individual contact with those in need. They are run by people of religious and moral conviction willing to share their values (virtues) in support of treating underlying causes of poverty’ (Costello 2003, n.p.n).

Therefore, the causes of poverty, from the perspective of the Howard government, were embedded in the personal behaviours of the poor. Again as highlighted by Costello in the same address: A homeless man who is drug or alcohol dependent will probably be entitled to income support…the pension should be enough to provide food and shelter … but it doesn’t … [money] is always spent on the wrong thing. And it always will be until you treat the cause of the poverty, which is alcohol and drug dependence (Costello 2003, n.p.n.).

For Costello, Howard, and other conservative politicians, FBOs were conduits of moral values which could impact on the poor and transform

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their lives by influencing their self-undermining behaviour (Bartkowski and Regis, 2003; Gregg, 2000; Lohrey, 2006; Maddox, 2005; Nagel, 2006; Olasky, 1992, 2000). Coupled with the moral imperatives contained within the Social Gospel for Christians to help those in need, this repositioned FBOs as a solution to poverty within the context of a reforming welfare state. Embedded in this approach was a view that workers in FBOs would look through a value-laden lens to determine which services or resources might or might not be granted based on client behaviours. Thus it was hoped, at a political level, that this secondary tier of welfare provision would be an appropriate moral answer to the problem of poverty (Reeves, 2006). Yet there was little concrete evidence for these assumptions as was revealed in my research conducted in the Hunter Valley Region in 2006 and 2007. This discussion revolves around a small sample of results drawn from a larger research study. It involved a survey mail out which doubled as a recruitment tool that resulted in 10 in-depth interviews with managers and volunteer counsellors working in eight Protestant FBOs. Data were also developed using a “client assessment of services survey” (CASS) that was distributed to clients of one major regional FBO during the months of June and July 2007 on the initiative of that FBO’s manager. Within this time, 613 clients sought emergency relief, 124 were given “in-kind” support (food over the counter), leaving 489 receiving a face-to-face interview with volunteers and a paid member of staff. From this group, 80 assessment surveys were completed and returned, giving a response rate of 16%. The research showed how volunteers and managers of FBOs viewed their clients and how clients perceived their treatment when accessing the services of an FBO. It demonstrated that the moral lens hoped for by the government did not manifest in direct moral judgments of the clients seeking emergency help; that is, clients were not denied resources because they were deemed morally bad. The only time they were denied assistance was because they could not provide proof of need by way of receipts showing evidence that they did not have any money left, but even this process was fluid rather than a rigid requirement. Instead, this cluster of FBOs treated their clients with care and compassion, underpinned by the strong undercurrent of their Christian faith in an effort to meet clients’ immediate needs, which overwhelmingly was the need for food. Predominantly, the amount of resources given to clients was based on the demands of budgets and not exclusively on client behaviours, which were discounted if a client could prove need. Interestingly, even though the managers and volunteer counsellors who participated in the in-depth

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interviews held a strong belief in God, all viewed FBOs and faith in particular as a limited solution to poverty. Hence it was concluded that policies in which FBOs were expected to provide a role in disciplining the poor might instead lead to a clash of cultures as FBOs struggled to meet the increasing needs of their desperate clients.

Jesus Lives in This Place Undoubtedly, the participants interviewed emphasised the importance of working within an environment underpinned by their Christian faith. All participants were religiously active in their wider community and local church. Therefore, it was particularly important that their faith manifested in their actions towards clients conceptualised as “a love of mankind” as this resonated with their belief in the love God has for humankind. As one respondent stated: I think, for the organisation, it [faith] is probably the real crux of why the organisation exists. It is because of their faith and their belief that man is created by God and to our service to man is also a service to God. So I think for the organisation if it wasn’t for the faith, the rest of the organisation wouldn’t exist, because it’s very much biblical based. The social arm, it comes from the faith (Manager, interview 1)

Particular references were made to following Jesus, doing what Jesus wanted, and being Jesus “with skin on”. Manifesting a “Christ-like persona” was deemed important as hopes were held that clients would see Christ in them, as one volunteer commented: “God is in the service”. Therefore, FBO volunteers and workers wanted clients to know that even though they were poor, God loved them. Descriptions given in regard to the qualities possessed by FBOs as opposed to secular organisations related to perceptions of providing “genuine care and concern”, the provision of “hope” (in God, to see them through their troubles), and a strong “sense of unity”. These self-perceptions as to how they interacted with clients stood in stark contrast to participants’ views on how they thought Centrelink treated welfare beneficiaries. For example, one manager thought Centrelink “off loaded” those they did not want to help straightaway to FBOs (Manager, interview 3). Most of the participants felt that Centrelink treated people like numbers, whereas their centres really cared for people at a deeper, more personal level. Due to this view, there was an overall tendency to try and accept, as one volunteer stated, “where people are at”. Working in what might be conceptualised as a “philosophical or spiritual work environment” did

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lead to a change in attitude from another volunteer who claimed to have a direct communication from God. She stated: Because I sort of knew that there were things that they were saying here that weren’t quite true... so it took me a while to accept that. Once I did, once I had this message from the Lord saying to me you know, “this can’t be, you can’t be judging”, I just settled here. So now I am happy to discuss or talk or help with whoever comes in now (Volunteer, interview 2).

This acceptance of “whoever” permeated the volunteers’ views on clients, which tended to be liberal in perspective. When asked if any client problems would make them feel uncomfortable, most said “no”. However, one male financial counsellor did state that he was uncomfortable with scantily clad women (Volunteer, interview 4). Even though it was acknowledged that some clients did have issues with addictions, drinking and relationships, there was no overt moralising in discussions relating to single parents, welfare dependents or the long-term unemployed. This is not to conclude that client behaviours perceived as being wrong did not lead interview participants to get frustrated at times. Some articulated wanting to intercede in their affairs and personally take over client finances or to point out that what they were doing was leading to their (material and emotional) situation. Wanting to intercede was based on secular concerns of budgeting, or clients becoming involved in the wrong type of relationships, rather than on trying to promote a morally infused faith-based solution to client problems. At times, this created an underlying tension as expressed by one volunteer when she stated: “I couldn’t do this every day” (Volunteer, interview 1). Even though volunteers found some of the behaviours of clients frustrating, they strove to express their faith by showing a loving, caring and compassionate persona to those in need regardless of client behaviours, beliefs or social situations. Discussions relating to interactions with clients were peppered with comments such as: “I love the people who come in here week after week”; “faith helps me love everybody”; “I accept everyone”; “everybody is equal”; and “God loves all of humankind”. They tried to demonstrate God’s love to clients during their interactions with them. This acceptance of clients regardless of why they were in need stood in stark contrast to the assumptions behind the policy solutions of the Howard government and welfare reform in general. Deviant behaviour, particularly that which impacted on clients’ ability to uphold their contractual obligations to keep

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their benefit, was liable to harsh sanctions which left clients of the state without any recourse to state funds for a period of time, usually many weeks, regardless of need. For FBOs, breaching made assisting clients very difficult as articulated by one manager: We put them on an auto voucher3 just so they can continue to eat. But what about electricity, rent? We just do not have the resources to fund a person’s total living expenses.

Even so, they still tried to meet clients’ needs even though, at times, resources were limited.

Care and Compassion Results derived from the Client Assessment of Services Survey (CASS) upheld the claims of care and compassion by the volunteers and managers (see Figure 11.1 below). They indicated how clients felt when accessing emergency relief: Responses highlighted that clients felt welcome (n=58), understood (n=18), and uplifted and supported (n=10). Only two respondents said that they felt judged while in an interview situation with a volunteer.4 In regard to some clients having a negative experience one manager stated: The actual quality in the delivery of services however can vary enormously depending on the outworking of faith of the individual staff/volunteer member (Manager, survey 2).

This suggests that there were times when volunteers had not lived up to the expectation of their centre and clients had been treated in a negative way. However, this was the exception rather than the rule. Nevertheless, caution must be applied as some might have been denied assistance or not received adequate assistance and, as a result, might not have filled out the client assessment survey. If assistance was denied, this was not necessarily undertaken in a negative way. However, those who did receive assistance found it a positive experience as follows: “Kind and non-judgmental” 3

An automatic food voucher is given to a client facing a prolonged period of time without an income: for a third breach this could be as long as 8-10 weeks. 4 The volunteers providing services to the ER clients were a different set of volunteers and did not participate in the qualitative data collection process.

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“I was treated with respect and compassion and encouraged through my trials.” “When I needed food and clothes and shelter you were there. Thanks.” “I was extremely happy with interview, it was nonjudgmental, non-invasive and dignified. Thank you very much for your help in my time of need, it is very much appreciated. I feel very much relieved. Thank you! Kind regards.” “Wonderful service, I don’t know how I would get through without the ability to access this service” “Very supportive and caring and assisted with information” “I was taken in trust and self-value which is pleasing to me as I believe in honesty”. Figure 11.1: CASS - Client Responses to ER Provision5 Judged Uplifted Hopeful Angry Supported Understood Not Understood Welcome

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Other responses included “God bless you” and “thank God there are people like yourselves”. Therefore, overall, based on client and participant responses, the results indicated that volunteers and workers in FBOs did strive to provide a caring environment. For volunteers and managers, this aspect of faith and working in a FBO was very important. Rather than being overtly expressed, faith was conceptualised as the “undercurrent of provision” creating a caring and compassionate organisation. However, even though faith was very important for all participants, all denied that they engaged in verbal manifestations of faith or conveyed corresponding moral messages or imposed instructions onto clients as part of welfare or 5 There were a total of 117 responses with 37 individuals offering multiple responses.

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social provision. In contrast to political expectations they viewed such conditions as quite inappropriate. Managers, including one not contracted to the government, were united in their views of the role of faith and its manifestation to clients accessing services, as the following statements show: We take the opportunity of speaking the gospel if the clients give us the opportunity. It is not like you have got to do so many hail Mary’s or recite your Bible verses to get any assistance, that (assistance) is always based on the need the client presents...they will make up their own mind about their spiritual welfare and all that sort of thing, we are not here to Bible bash people, but if the opportunity to present spiritual things comes up, we will talk to them (Manager, interview 3). So in our actions we would hope that people would see Christ, and that would be unreal (Non-contracted Manager, interview 2: emphasis added). I think primarily our actions should speak loudly about our faith, even though many people don’t understand it and may even interpret it or see that it is God in action, but certainly the actions should be representative of our faith, whether we talk about it or not (Manager, interview 1).

Responses such as these highlight, yet again, the importance placed on faith manifesting as social action rather than overt moralisation via faithbased verbal messages or moral judgements about behaviour. The term “Bible bashing” was used derogatorily more than once during the interviews. It became clear that welfare relief and counselling assistance was not dependent on clients being exposed to an overt religious message. As one manager elegantly put it: “We should not thrust faith down a client’s neck because we have a captive audience” (Manager, survey 1). At one centre, the role of faith was so understated that the manager remarked: As far as our clients are concerned, some of them wouldn’t even know that we are part of the church except that we are right next-door. I mean, if people ask us “are we part of the Baptist church?”, we always tell them yes (Manager, interview 3).

The responses from clients to the question in the CASS asking whether religion was mentioned in their interview with a volunteer, 82% said no, upholding the claims of the volunteers and workers who were surveyed and interviewed. The relaying of a religious message was deemed appropriate only if clients sought out this type of assistance themselves. However, it must be acknowledged that service provision was grounded in faith and, therefore,

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contained a strong moral undercurrent. In acting out their faith in a caring and compassionate way, volunteers and managers hoped that clients would see the benefit of a religious—Christian—lifestyle and thus come to know Christ and change their behaviour; that is, the outcome the Howard government sought would happen by osmosis. Largely, however, they hoped that clients would view God as another support as they struggled with their circumstances. Rather than seeking to punish clients who were deemed deviant by restricting resources and thus changing their behaviour, as the welfare reforms set out to do by way of punishment, faith-based service provision demonstrated the benefits of faith by providing a caring environment in which the “occasional” religious conversion was the icing on the cake. However, clients were often in crisis and seeking a religious message was not why they accessed the services of FBOs. This was obvious to the interview participants, therefore the focus of service provision was on meeting immediate need be it counselling, social support or material welfare. Clients had only to prove their need. As one manager stated: “We are not here to judge, but to provide a service” (Manger, interview 1). Overall, there was a tendency to want to be able to help clients more substantially, whether that was through increased material assistance or access to more appropriate services, such as professional counselling. This was particularly important as participants were aware of the difficulties faced by clients. Qualitative responses from the CASS survey highlighted the desperation of some clients. The responses were littered with words and phrases like “urgent, hungry, survival, now I can eat, and hard times” and, rather disturbingly, “my children will eat for the next few days”. However, the provision of increased assistance depended on financial resources, particularly guaranteed government funding. Mostly, resources could not meet the full extent of need. There was constant concern that government contracts might not be renewed and this hindered providing a long-term solution to client need, and poverty persisted in the face of the dominant view that faith would help lead people out of it. Therefore, FBOs had to manage their resources carefully so as to “get through” the funding year as demand increased. Guidelines as to the amount and frequency of assistance given were often tightened to cope, especially when budgets were running low. Due to this situation, one manager, who did not like to refuse assistance, had, in some instances, to tell people that they could not have any more help if they were viewed as “becoming dependent”. All the FBO providers had to implement this rule largely due to the limitations of their resources. They were also very aware

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that clients had little in the way of options if they could not help them. This being an inherently moral judgment, tension arose as to how they would like to help clients but given budgetary constraints and FBOs’ heavy reliance on government funding they had little option but to manage their resources carefully (see Figure 11.2 below). This “poverty of provision” or underfunding of the faith-based sector in relation to client need was viewed by all as a serious problem: the service that we provide here, if a government agency were to do it, it would probably cost you half a million dollars a year. And you know we are here five days a week (Manager, interview 3).

Manager 3 also stated that his centre operated on a budget of AUD 38,000 for Electricity Account Payment Assistance (EAPA) and had between 2000-2500 clients on its books. For the most part, the flexibility that the faith-based sector could exercise, as the political rhetoric claimed, was directly related to its ability to access non-government funding. Private donations gave this centre its flexibility and allowed for clients to be helped in alternative ways, such as bus fares, rent payments or other measures not covered by emergency relief. Most significantly, Manager 3’s organisation relied on one regular donor that paid the manager’s weekly wages. If this donation were lost, the centre would close. This story was not exceptional. The main regional centre had the same problem and operated on an ER budget of AUD 195,000 per year, including approximately $100,000 for food vouchers. This centre serviced between 4000 and 5000 clients annually and relied heavily on two substantial private donations that allowed flexibility in helping clients, such as paying for rent, and other needs which lay outside of the government funding criteria. The total running costs of meeting provision for this centre totalled approximately $A500,000 per year, including the centre funding of $A200,000 in food vouchers and staff salaries. The difference between government funding and the total running costs of the centre was approximately $A300,000 per year: Flexibility [comes] from other sources of funding. If they need a green slip, (for their car) there would have to be medical issues. Funding from other sources allows us to make life changing differences at that particular time in someone’s life. Under emergency relief we just couldn’t do that. If it wasn’t for the extra funding from other sources, we would have to be more conscientious (Manager, interview 1).

If non-government donations were lost, the centre would not be able to assist clients with any type of flexibility. Results from CASS (see Figure

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11.2) indicated that there were 44 requests for non-ER funded assistance. Therefore, a substantial amount of assistance provided by FBOs was not related to government funding. It was private and organisational funding that allowed for resources other than ER to be given with any degree of flexibility. Figure 11.2: CASS - Client ER requests6 Phone Electricity Food parcel Food voucher Clothing Furniture Transport Infant Cash Pharmacy Rent 0

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When questioned as to why government was increasingly seeking to use the faith-based sector as an alternative to state services, there was resignation from a number of participants that it was probably because they provided “cheap welfare”. In addition to managing on limited budgets, most operated out of buildings supplied by churches or the larger organisation under which they operated and, of course, much of their labour force was comprised of volunteers. Most organizations paid their own electricity bills, water and land rates, and staff salaries: “The church owns the building and pays for electricity” (Manager, interview 2) and “ER funding does not pay for rent” (Manager, interview 3).

6 There were a total of 117 responses with 37 individuals offering multiple responses.

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On top of these costs, those under contract to the government also had the extra cost of paying for yearly audits of their books that ate into their budgets: We used to have to report, we used to get our funding and we didn’t have to report it all just (overview) because we (now) get more than $10,000 we have to provide an audited account each year for the funding we do get. I mean that sticks in my claw (sic) because it costs us over $1000 a year to get our audit done and as a consequence of that there is 10 families I can’t assist straight away sort of thing (Manager, interview 3).

A level of tension and anger was expressed about the government’s perceived attitude that faith-based service provision was inexpensive. One manager of a small FBO operating on $A23,000 a year in EAPA and other utilities funding linked to a larger chain, felt that the organization in which he worked had “done itself a disservice” (Manager, survey 1) by becoming too closely involved with the welfare side of things. Another manager of a small centre not attached to a larger network took out his frustrations on the larger FBOs thus: Government will give everything to the cheapest tender and that’s why the Job Network is no good. They have conned the major charities like St Vincent de Paul, The Salvation Army, Wesley and all those people bidding for these contracts and underbidding one another to get the price down. They are doing it cheaper and cheaper ... (Manager, interview 3).

This manager also tendered for contracts, but he felt the larger FBOs where undermining the whole process. But this tension was also reiterated by a manager of a national FBO as he stated: It is a cost saving mechanism. It would cost double for the government to provide the service. It is not only volunteers but smaller remuneration for staff. No bonuses or overtime. One of the things that I get very disappointed in, is the fact that because FBOs do some of this work, the government funds them because they do it cheaper than anyone else (Manager, interview 1).

Due to there being a lack of resources in which to make a real difference in a person’s life, one manager referred to his centre’s services as bandaid assistance in line with the views of a volunteer who stated, “they’re still handing out vouchers and paying bills and putting band-aids on things” (Volunteer, interview 4). Even though there was acknowledgement and belief that government sought an increase in their services because they were cheap, it did not sit

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well. There was an overriding wish that government used their services because the services they provided were good and that they were giving “something back to the community”. There was also a corresponding wish that the funding they received from government would reflect this. Turning to the sector because it was cheap was viewed as “the wrong reason”. It seemed to undermine their sense of purpose and pride in their work. However, for most of the volunteer participants this was tempered with the view that what they did was God’s work, so whether government thought them cheap or efficient was not a major issue, they were not doing it for the benefit of Government: but for God, in service to the poor.

Conclusion As this sample of research highlights, the political rhetoric of the Howard government as to how those working in the faith-based sector at a grassroots level interact with welfare clients did not necessarily equate with political expectations. Even though it is obvious that faith-based organisations have a strong moral undercurrent which it is hoped will influence clients to adopt a religious lifestyle, the overt verbal moralization to the poor does not manifest as an automatic trade-off between accessing material or social resources. Instead access to resources was based on need, some of which are a direct result of harsh government policy, in which behaviours, whether deemed deviant or not by volunteers and managers, was not the major consideration. If in need, the hungry are fed and those in need of social support are comforted. However, the Howard government was right in stating that the sector is filled with people who care; clients were treated with care and compassion. All participants followed their faith in keeping with the dictates of the social gospel. However, the sector is constrained by funding limitations and could only focus on the immediate needs of clients. This sector is unable to provide any long term solution to poverty within the current funding regime, moral or otherwise. Tensions arose for a number of reasons: funding constraints, the perception of Centrelink as being uncaring, the increasing needs of clients, as well as government using their services because they are cheap. Overwhelmingly the FBO participants would like to do more for their clients but are unable to. As governments seek to reduce the welfare bill, particularly for those deemed undeserving via blaming the poor for their situation who face losing their welfare benefits, a clash of cultures may arise, but not necessarily of the sort prophesied by Huntington (2002 [1997]). As governments increasingly admonish welfare clients to get

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them to conform to social expectations, faith-based organisations, although situated within a conservative moral framework, seek to model behaviour via faith by showing care and compassion. How long the faith-based sector can keep providing services set against a state which seeks to make access to state resources increasingly difficult is something only the sector can decide.

Works Cited ACOSS. (n.d.). “Welfare to Work—Effects and Solutions.” Australian Council of Social Service. Strawberry Hills, Sydney. Accessed 1 May 2007. http//www.acoss.org.au/publications. —. 1998. “Living on the Edge. Breaching the Safety Net. The Harsh Impact of Social Security Penalties.” Australian Council of Social Service: Strawberry Hills. Accessed 27 September 2008. http//www.acoss.org.au/publications. —. 2001. “Breaching the Safety Net: The Harsh Impact of Social Security Penalties.” Strawberry Hills, Sydney. Australian Council of Social Service in conjunction with the Welfare Rights Centre. Accessed 3 September 2008. http//www.acoss.org.au/publications. Andrews, K. M. P. 2005. “Welfare to Work—$3.6 Billion to help People into work.” Media Release. Office of Hon Kevin Andrews MP, Parliament House: Canberra, ACT 2600. Aulich, C., and J. O’ Flynn. 2007. “John Howard: The Great Privatiser?” Australian Journal of Political Science 42 (2): 365-381. Bartkowski, P. J., and A. H. Regis. 2003. Charitable Choices. Religion, Race and Poverty in the Post-Welfare Era. New York: New York University Press. Bland, R. 2006. “Poverty and Mental Illness.” In Thinking about Poverty, edited by K. Serr, 131-41. Sydney: The Federation Press. Brett, J. 2003. Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class. From Alfred Deakin to John Howard. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Burke, D. 2008. “Obama Pledges to Expand Bush’s Faith-based Works.” The Christian Century 125 (15): 13. Bush, G. W. 2002. “President Bush Implements Key Elements of his Faith-Based Initiative.” Accessed 10 March 2006. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/20021212-3.html. (Transcript no longer available). Centrelink. 2006. “Jobnetwork.” Accessed 22 February 2006. http://jobsearch.gov.au/JNS/jnsSearchResultsAll.aspx?

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Costello, P. 2003. Is Faith a Lost Cause? Anglicare. Wateredge, Pier One, Sydney, Commonwealth of Australia: Luncheon Address. Accessed 23 May 2004. http://www.treasurer.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?pageID=&doc=speech es/2003/007.htm&min=phc. Dutton, R. 2005. “Disability and Work: Inclusion or Coercion.” Paper presented to the Australian Social Policy Conference, University of New South Wales, Australia, 21 July. Dyrenfurth, N. (2007). “John Howard’s Hegemony of Values: The Politics of ‘Mateship’ in the Howard Decade.” Australian Journal of Political Science 42 (2): 211-231. Engels, B. 2006. The Funding and Provision of Emergency Relief in Australia. Thinking about Poverty. Leichhardt: The Federation Press. FaCS. 2003. Discussion Paper: Emergency Relief Program. Department of Family and Community Services. Canberra. Accessed 16 May 2006. http://www.facs.gov.au/internet/facsinternet.nsf/content/erp_discuss. htm. —. 2005. “Emergency Relief Program.” Department of Family and Community Services. Canberra. Accessed 16 May 2005. www.facs.gov.au/internet/facsinternet.nsf/family/erprogram.htm. Gregg, S. 2000. “Playing with Fire, Churches, Welfare Services and Government Contracts.” Issue Analysis. 14: 1-8. Centre for Independent Studies: St Leonards, Sydney. Accessed 3 August 2004. http://www.cis.org.au/IssueAnalysis/IAhome.html. Gray, M., and K. Agllias. 2009. “The Australian Welfare System and How its Development has Shaped Contemporary Issues and Debates.” In The Welfare State and Postindustrial Society: A Global Analysis, edited by J. Powell and J. Hendricks, 271-91. New York: Springer. Goot, M., and I. Watson. 2007. “Explaining Howard’s Success: Social Structure, Issue Agendas and Party Support, 1993-2004.” Australian Journal of Political Science 42 (2): 253-276. Johnson, C. 2007. “John Howard’s ‘Values’ and Australian Identity.” Australian Journal of Political Science 42 (2): 195-209. Huntington, S. P. 2002 [1997]. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. London: Free Press. Kerr, L., and H. Savelsberg. 2003. Breaching and Disadvantaged Young People: The Social and Financial Imparts. Adelaide, SA: University of South Australia and Adelaide Central Mission. Leventhal, A. E., and P. D. Mear. 2002. “Will Churches Respond to the Call? Religion, Civic Responsibility, and Social Service.” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare XXIX (2): 53-76.

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Levitas, R. 2005. The Inclusive Society? Social Exclusion and New Labour. 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lohrey, A. 2006. “Voting for Jesus: Christianity and Politics in Australia.” Quarterly Essay 22. Lyons, M. 2001. Third Sector. The Contribution of Nonprofit and Cooperative Enterprise in Australia. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin. Maddox, M. 2005. God under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin. Mendes, P. 2005. Australia’s Welfare Wars. The Players, The Politics and Their Ideologies. Sydney, NSW: University of New South Wales Press. Nagel, A. K. 2006. “Charitable Choice: The Religious Component of the US Welfare Reform-Theoretical and Methodological Reflections on ‘Faith-based Organisations’ as Social Service Agencies.” NUMEN 53: 78-111. Nevile, A. 1999. Competing Interests. Competition Policy in the Welfare Sector. Canberra, ACT: The Australia Institute. Olasky, M. 1992. The Tragedy of American Compassion. Washington, D.C: Regnery Publishing. —. 2000. Compassionate Conservatism. New York: The Free Press. Reddel, T. 2004. “Third Way Social Governance: Where is the State?” Australian Journal of Social Issues 39(2): 129-142. Reeves, S. 2006. “Hope, Faith and Charity in the Post Welfare Era.” Paper presented to the Australian Political Studies Association. University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, 25-27 September. Saunders, P. 2005. The Poverty Wars. Sydney, NSW: University of New South Wales Press. Saunders, P. 2004. Australia’s Welfare Habit and How to Kick It. Sydney, NSW: Duffy and Snellgrove. Schwartz, J. 2000. Fighting Poverty with Virtue, Moral Reform and America’s Urban Poor, 1825 - 2000. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Travers, P. 2005. “Rights and Responsibilities: Welfare and Citizenship.” In Ideas and Influence, edited by P. Saunders and J. Walter, 85-102. Sydney, NSW: UNSW Press. Warhurst, J. 2007. “Religion and Politics in the Howard Decade.” Australian Journal of Political Science 42 (1): 19-32. Wallis, J. 2005. God’s Politics: Why the American Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it. Oxford: Lion.

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Walsh, A. D. 2000. Religion, Economics, and Public Policy. Ironies, Tragedies, and Absurdities of the Contemporary Culture Wars. London: Praeger. Wear, R. 2008. “Permanent populism: The Howard government 19962007.” Australian Journal of Political Science 43 (4): 617-634. doi: 10.1080/10361140802429247. Wilson, P. A. 2003. “Faith Based Organisations, Charitable Choice, and Government.” Administration and Society 35 (1): 29-51. Wuthnow, R. 2004. Saving America? Faith-Based Services and the Future of Civil Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

CHAPTER TWELVE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICS AND RELIGION IN NIGERIA: A NOT SO STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE? RICHARD OLORUNTOBA Introduction Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people (Karl Marx 1843, 244).

The relationship between politics and religion in Nigeria seems analogous to the story of “Jekyll and Hyde,” a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1886 about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates the strange phenomenon of having more than one distinct personality in a person. In the story, there are two personalities within Dr Jekyll, one good and the other evil—completely opposite levels of morality in a single individual, a paradox of immense proportions. Politics as practiced by Nigerian leaders and politicians, military and civilian seems to be a constant interplay of good words and intentions expressed in public and symbolised by publicly identifying with Islam or Christianity while undertaking corrupt deeds and actions in secret which usually only become public knowledge by accident. Seen in this context religion seems to be just another tool for politicians to exploit, control, and distribute public resources for the benefit of the political and religious elite. This chapter aims to demonstrate the interwoven nature of politics and religion within Nigeria. To address this aim, the discussion is organised into four sections. First, I present an overview of Nigeria’s socio-political history. Like many former colonial “possessions”, Nigeria inherited administrative and political arrangements that, even though they have

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changed considerably, continue to inform Nigerian politics. These arrangements also created ethnic and religious geographies that exacerbate political and religious tensions. Hence in the second section I provide a brief overview of these religious and ethnic geographies. On that basis I then provide, in the third section, a brief sketch of Nigeria’s political economy. This provides the necessary background to explore in the final section the links between the phenomena that I am calling “politicised” religion and “religionised” politics in Nigeria. The intertwining of these two phenomena constitute a “Jekyll and Hyde” persona for Nigeria, a Manichean dialectic in which each uses the other to the detriment of what might be understood as the welfare and well-being of the Nigerian people.

A Socio-Political Overview of Nigeria Nigeria is located in West Africa and has a total area of 923,768 square kilometres. It shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger Republic in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Bight of Benin and Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. The combined population of Nigeria is estimated at 162m (UNDP 2011). It is the most populous country in Africa and seventh most populous in the world. Upon gaining its independence in 1960, Nigeria became a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja (Mwalimu 2005). Like many parts of Africa and Asia, the British colonised Nigeria in the late nineteenth century and set up administrative and logistical systems, processes, structures and law mainly to facilitate the exploitation and transportation of assorted natural resources to major British maritime centres such as Liverpool and London. At the time of the partitioning of Africa by European colonial powers in 1884, the British had two separate colonies within the boundaries of present day Nigeria, the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and Cameroons, mainly with Yoruba and Igbo nationalities, and the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria mainly with Hausa/Fulani nationalities (Falola and Heaton 2008). Both protectorates have scores of minority nationalities within their borders. The northern part of Nigeria at the beginning of the 19th century was Muslim and under the political control of Usman Dan Fodio and the Hausa/Fulani nationalities of the prosperous Fulani Empire which continued until 1903 when the Fulani population and land were taken up and divided by European colonial conquest (Falola and Heaton 2008). The Yoruba kingdoms in south-western Nigeria became prominent in the 12th century through the centuries-old overland trade with North African

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traders. In the 16th century, Spanish and Portuguese traders became the first Europeans to begin to trade with and in Nigeria (Hrbek 1992). Europeans, including the French and the British, soon started transporting slaves mostly to the Americas to work as labourers and many Nigerian national groups were transported to the Americas and the Caribbean (Juang 2008). Apart from slaves, the Yoruba kingdoms were also known for the production and trade in cultural artefacts such as terracotta and bronze figures (Hrbek 1992). The Yoruba Kingdoms once extended from western Nigeria to the neighbouring Benin Republic (formerly Dahomey) and Togo; Yoruba power lasted for nearly 400 hundred years from the 15th century (Laitin 1986). In the south-east of Nigeria, the Igbo nation started in about the 10th century and continued until it lost its sovereignty to the British colonists in 1911(MacDonald et al. 2000; Isichei 1973). In 1884 at the Berlin Conference of European powers the Europeans agreed that Africa should be partitioned and shared for the European powers to colonise and control (de Blig and Muller 1997). As a result, in 1885, the British chartered the Royal Niger Company under the leadership of Sir George Taubman Goldie to exploit and administer the area where Nigeria is today. In 1900 the Royal Niger Company’s sphere of control came under the control of the British government, and on 1 January 1901, both the Northern and Southern protectorates became British protectorates, and formally part of the British Empire (Brown 2001). Initially the Protectorates of Southern Nigeria and Cameroons and Protectorate of Northern Nigeria were administered as two separate and distinct entities, but in 1914 were amalgamated through an administrative fiat issued in London (Talton 2004). The goal of the amalgamation, for the British, was to seek further administrative and logistical efficiencies in transporting required natural resources to feed the rising appetite of the industrial revolution in Britain (Talton 2004). However, in reality and administratively Nigeria remained divided into northern Nigeria and southern Nigeria with separate and different governance structures and cultural practices (Rashid 2003). This is a direct consequence of colonial arrangements, and its legacy continues to be felt as it often underpins, if not causes, some of the ongoing tensions within the country.

Mapping the Ethnic and Religious Divisions Religious differences align not only with particular ethnic divisions, they also tend to align with regional divisions. Many northern Nigerian states practice strict Taliban style Sharia and Islamic law, while southern Nigeria is mainly Christian, embracing Roman Catholicism and protestant

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Christian religions, and there are also a few practicing assorted traditional African religions (Rashid 2003). The three largest and most influential nationalities in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. There are also scores of other nationalities and lingua-cultural groups that were lumped together with the Hausa (predominantly located in the northern parts of Nigeria), and the Igbo and Yoruba (predominantly in the southern parts of Nigeria). Most of these unique nationalities have very little in common. Modern Nigeria is divided almost equally between northern Muslims, concentrated mostly in the north, and southern Christians and traditional African religionists who mostly live in the South and in the middle of the country. However, it is worth noting that the rate of religious, lingual and cultural syncretism is often high in Nigeria until there is some pecuniary resource or financial benefit to be derived. Since the arbitrary amalgamation in 1914 of the vastly different northern and southern regions of Nigeria, political leaders in both regions have distrusted each other. Political and religious leaders often play on these divisions and use them to claim or defend rights to resources and benefits such as land, property and lucrative political offices and other positions of authority based on nationality and regionalism (i.e. “northerner” or “southerner”), religion (i.e. Christian or Muslim) and nationality (i.e. Igbo, Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and other minority nationalities). The competition and differences between the northern and southern region is often referred to in Nigeria as the “North-South dichotomy”. On both sides of this dichotomy one can find the “Jekyll and Hyde” persona in operation. Since the mid-1950s there have been recurring spates of extremely violent religious clashes and riots in the north of Nigeria targeting “southerners” and non-Muslim people, or anyone who does not look native or indigenous to the northern parts of the country. These massacres of non-Muslims and non-northerners most often are directed against the Igbo, the Yoruba and Christians, involving many violent incidents and hundreds of deaths. Such violence has tended to occur with increasing regularity in Nigerian political life. Such extremes of religious activity may be due to cultural intolerance or to puritanical forms of Islam but, whatever the cause the outcome is an enduring murderous cycle of hatred of non-Muslims and others with differing value systems, lifestyles and world-views. Yet it would be misleading to lay this solely at the door of Islam as such because there has been a long standing tradition of Islamic culture and use of Sharia law predating the establishment of colonial administration in northern Nigeria.

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However, since 1999 when the top echelons of leadership of the country, long dominated by northern personalities and Islamic worldviews, transitioned unexpectedly to persons of southern Christian extraction the issue of Islam and Sharia became even more highly politicised. Politicians long used to political power on the national stage took to using Islam as a tool to further their interests. Invoking an Islam under threat, Islamic politicians have tried to galvanise, mobilise and unify the masses of northern Nigeria in order to assert an underlying unity of the region and seemingly exclude other faiths and other Nigerians from permanently residing in the region (Uwechue 1971; Fafunwa 1974). Many northern political (and Islamic) leaders in recent times have rejected co-existence with other Nigerian religions and nationalities. Co-existence is often portrayed as devaluing and compromising what they regard as a pious or orthodox form of Islam. In this way they help to generate, bolster and authenticate a regional and religious sense of uncompromised unity. Some have even called for the establishment of a Sharia system of government in the country as a whole, including the mostly Christian south. A few, like the warriors of Jamaatu Ahlis Sunna Liddaawati Wal Jihad, commonly known as Boko Haram, have gone militant and undertaken significant Taliban and Al-Qaeda style terrorist attacks such as the suicide bombing of the Nigerian Police headquarters in Abuja (believed to be the first suicide bombing in Nigeria’s history) and the United Nations’ offices in Abuja in 2011. Many northern leaders and politicians have recently called for amnesty and pardon for terrorists fighting for the introduction of Sharia throughout Nigeria. Christianity, for its part, has not fared any better in terms of its impact on Nigerian society. Indeed, one might argue that the growth and expansion of Christianity seems to have reduced the level of godliness in Nigerian society. On the major roads, gigantic churches stand as monuments to beauty and wealth, a beauty that often hides the evil that goes on therein. Nevertheless, churches are filled to the brim and overflowing to the streets on Sundays. Many have multiple services each day. Large billboards advertise the miracles on offer, and the newest and most expensive offerings from Bentley, Maybach and Roll-Royce are often parked in front of the churches. In the north of Nigeria, mosques are fewer but similarly large, elegantly adorned and filled up as well. People gather to pray and dance and willingly donate money to the church in return for divine intervention from “god” to solve their problems. Clerics often “sell” their followers to the highest bidding politicians in order to garner votes and, in general, progress seems to be defined by how many churches are found on each street and how big and glamorous looking they

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are rather than how ethical and law abiding community members are (Oyatogun 2012). Christian lifestyles are not much different from the pagan and corrupt lifestyles of others. Notwithstanding the regional, political and religious divisions in Nigeria, the political elite seem to be quite united when it comes to the management, or mismanagement, of oil wealth. Huge oil and gas reserves since the 1970s have brought great revenues to the country, estimated at over $US600 billion between 1960 and 2010 (Romanova 2007). Yet such a boom commodity has seen Nigeria afflicted with what economists call the “resource curse”—where developing countries richly endowed with resources find themselves performing badly on most social and economic measures (Sachs and Warner 2001, 827).

Political Economy and Nigeria’s “Resource Curse” Nigeria is the regional military, industrial and economic powerhouse and hub from which neighbouring countries source much of their required services and goods in West Africa and the Sahel. It is the second biggest economy in Africa after South Africa (Business Insider, 2011), and after South Africa is the biggest market in Africa for Western manufactured goods and technology. It is listed among the so-called “Next Eleven” economies (Business Insider 2011). Nigeria has significant natural resources, of which oil is the most important, current exports at over 2.75 million barrels of crude oil per day. Nigeria has relatively well-developed legal, communications, financial, transport sectors and a stock exchange which is the second largest in Africa. Its economy was ranked 31st in the world regarding Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 2011 (Business Insider 2011). It is the United States’ largest trading partner in Africa, with the exception of South Africa and Egypt. Nigeria supplies 21% of its oil to the United States and the United States imports 11% of its oil from Nigeria (Business Insider 2011). The United States is Nigeria’s largest foreign investor and Nigeria is one of two countries from Africa among 11 Global Growth Generators countries whose economies have been identified as sources of growth potential and of profitable investment opportunities (Business Insider 2011). It is a major player in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel. It is also a member of the United Nations and Commonwealth of Nations. The wealth generated by its oil revenues has not flowed on to the majority of Nigeria’s population. Nigeria has some of the worst developmental indicators of any developing country. According to the

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United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) international human development indicators for 2011, Nigeria’s human development index (HDI) is 0.459, which gives the country a rank of 156 out of 187 countries with comparable data and is well below the regional average. Life expectancy is only an average of 47 years for males and females compared with neighbouring Ghana at 64.2 years, Cape Verde at 74.2 years, Morocco at 72.2 years and Egypt at 73.2 years; under five infant mortality per thousand births is 138; average years for schooling for adults is only 5 years (UNDP 2011); health, health care, and general living conditions in Nigeria are extremely poor and only half the population has access to potable water and appropriate sanitation (UNDP 2011). This is further evidenced by massive health tourism as Nigerians who can afford it attend foreign hospitals in the United Kingdom, Dubai, Thailand, India and South Africa at prohibitive costs while those who cannot afford to attend foreign hospitals simply pass away from their preventable and curable illnesses. In addition, the mass exodus of skilled and unskilled Nigerians emigrating to Europe, North America and other places in search of a better life attests to the poverty and degradation in the quality of life in Nigeria (United States Library of Congress 2008). For example, the website of the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas boasts a membership of over 4000 Nigerian doctors. In spite of its vast oil wealth, however, about 75% of Nigerians still live on less than $US1.25 a day (Romanova 2007), 50% of its youth are unemployed (Akinyemi 2013) and Nigeria is still listed in the group of “low human development” countries and “failed” or “failing” states (Abdallah 2012). Nigeria ranks 14th out of 177 countries in terms of degree of state failure (Abdallah 2012), and is one of only three countries in the world where polio is still endemic, the others being Afghanistan and Pakistan (New York Times 2013; Business Insider 2013). Though Nigeria inspired high hopes at independence in 1960, the country has since produced one of the most disappointing overall records of economic development and political stability of all the countries in the developing world. Real average personal incomes are lower today than they were in 1960. Current news coverage of Nigeria in February 2013 dwelt on continuing Boko Haram and Islamic terror, corruption, kidnappings, organised crime, drug and human trafficking, poverty and strife. The accumulated totality of these dire statistics do not reflect the depth and scope of tragedy that has befallen Nigeria as that is beyond the scope of this discussion.

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The State, Politics and Religion in Nigeria Nigeria’s three largest nationality groups (Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa) and members of the two largest religions Christianity and Islam have always maintained historical dominance in Nigerian politics and leadership positions. However, intense competition amongst these three nationality groups and two religious groups has fuelled corruption and graft in Nigerian politics (Martin and Subramanian 2003). Leaders and politicians at independence seemed not to have had a collective vision of what type of country they were going to build, and indeed there seems to have been no collective faith in the Nigerian project. Each of the then Regional Premiers with their political associates had a vision for their own region but there was no vision for the whole country. There were no goals around which a consensus was built. Indeed Nigerian politics since then has often been referred to simply as being about “sharing the national cake,” in other words, the acquisition and application of power for private ends without a common and public purpose. Sharing the national cake seems somewhat analogous to Harold Lasswell’s definition of politics as “who gets what, when, and how” (Lasswell 1951). Many scholars and analysts naturally expect the practice of politics in Nigeria to be focussed on attaining key developmental goals given the historical experience of slavery and colonialism as well as on-going mass poverty and low developmental indicators (Joseph 1983; Osaghae 1995; Ake 1996). However, politics in Nigeria is bedevilled by corruption and other structural problems that arrest development. For many scholars there is a need for a focus on genuine democracy and development (Akinyemi 2013; Ezekwesili 2013) to reverse the relatively poor indices of socio-economic and political standing of Nigeria when compared to countries at similar levels of development at independence in 1960 and other oil exporting countries (Lewis, 2007; Ezekwesili, 2013). Countries that have achieved key developmental goals such as the provision of healthcare services, education and public housing include Botswana, United, Arab Emirates, Qatar, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Ghana and others. However, Nigerian politicians have largely eschewed the politics of “cake sharing” in the accepted sense of looking after the collective good, and instead treated it as a matter of private gain from public resources. It is no exaggeration to suggest that Nigerian politics may be characterised as simply all about making illegitimate financial and other gains, largely through corruption and other fraudulent activities that is tied mostly to oil revenues (Lewis, 2007; Ezekwesili, 2013). Hence,

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corruption can be said to have been elevated to state/public policy in Nigeria. Since independence in 1960 Nigerian politicians and political actors often overtly practiced ethnocentrism, tribalism, religious persecution, prebendalism and other types of organised criminality and graft with impunity. Perhaps because of the self-seeking pursuit of private gain from the public purse, Nigeria’s political parties are pan-national and irreligious in character although, such inclusiveness does not preclude the continuing dominance of the Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo nationalities (Rashid 2003). Ironically, corruption and mediocrity seems to be the only unifying factor for the political elite in the Nigerian state and in Nigerian politics. According to a renowned political science scholar and former Nigerian Minister of External Affairs Professor Bolaji Akinyemi: People in jail accused of murder run for and win elections. More than a score of members of the Nigerian Senate have Economic and Financial Crimes Commission court cases against them. Only in Nigeria do you steal billions and escape with less than a million naira fine (Akinyemi 2013 n.p.n.).

Similarly, in a recent newspaper article Akinde (2012, 1) commented on the relationship between the political class in Nigeria and corruption by describing the Nigerian political class as “the very quagmire of corruption, nurtured on corruption, sustained by corruption and dependent on corruption for its very survival.” Akinde added that most of Nigeria’s political challenges are attributable to corruption and bad leadership which is corruption’s closest ally. Bad leadership fuels corruption, and every attempt to confront it is neutralized by bad leadership, and vice versa. At the centre of corruption is the system that breeds bad leaders. This corrupt system - from the very beginning - had irrevocably set in motion a chain reaction leading to a selfpropagating, self-amplifying and self-sustaining series of crises (Akinde 2012, 1).

Like some other countries prebendalism and excessive and extreme forms of corruption continue to constitute major challenges to Nigeria, as vote rigging, electoral fraud and other means of intimidation and violent coercion are practised by all political parties in order to win an election, remain in office and continue to reap financial and other rewards from corruption and impunity (Joseph 1983). Indeed a “special presidential pardon” was recently granted to a state governor who was tried and convicted of stealing over $US65 million in one of Nigeria’s oil-rich

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states. Hence despite the duplicity demonstrated by the abundance of promises from politicians and those in leadership about delivering good governance, equity and fairness, democracy, respect for human rights, distributive justice and the rule of law (i.e. displaying the good characteristics of Dr Jekyll), the Nigerian brand of politics and governance has remained pervasive and enduring (i.e. the evil Mr Hyde). Indeed, according to Akinde (2012), political “corruption in Nigeria, like cancer in its late stage, has eaten deep and become incurable” hence, in Nigeria it may be argued logically that politics is simply corruption.

Jekyll and Hyde: The Paradoxical but Complementary Nature of Politics and Religion in Nigeria When Marx declared in the mid-19th century that religion was “the opium of the people” he might have been speaking of contemporary Nigeria. Traditional African religions seem to be dying out hence the vast majority of Nigerians are adherents to either Islam or Christianity. Religion in Nigeria is often regarded as divine, sacred or as a god sent article of faith that must not be questioned, revised or abolished. Arguably because of the mass wretchedness of many Nigerians, many have sought succour and refuge in religion, both Islam and Christianity. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, an American research think-tank, reported in 2010 that Nigeria was the most religious country in the world. Paradoxically religion seems to have provided a deceptive and duplicitous path for political corruption and other organized crime in Nigeria. As in politics, religion has by and large become a “profit-seeking enterprise”. Both Islam and Christianity seem to have provided a safe, hospitable and secure space for all manner of individuals and charlatans to become religious leaders and clerics, including people of shady character and easy virtue who have failed in their attempts at establishing honest careers, or have never even attempted an honest living. Religion has provided no restrictions for several of such vocational dropouts to hibernate. With nothing but money in their mind, these clerics plot the exploitation of human weaknesses for their selfish benefits, through preying on gullible and unsuspecting adherents. Confronted with an economy that defies all understanding and faced with the regular situation of a state of anomie, confusion and paranoia in attempting to deal with the fear of the unknown, Nigerians seek refuge in Allah and God who both promise peace. Many Nigerian Christians for example have resorted to patronizing the many one-man founder churches for promised succour, emotional and spiritual comfort and varieties of

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trumpeted “miracles” (Opadokun 2012). Many criminals in disguise now deceptively profess to be Pastors, Bishops, Founders and General Overseers, Popes, Prophets, Evangelists, Imams, Mallams, Ustazs, Gurus, Grandmasters and so forth. One common thread in their activities is that rather than teach the commonly accepted religious injunctions and ethics, they engage in vain self-glorification and self-advertisement of the accomplishment of “supernatural miracles”. There are numerous church advertisements in the media promising a variety of miracles such as instant wealth for individuals, lucrative employment for the unemployed, election victory for aspiring politicians, babies for the barren, visas for potential emigrants, love for the lonely and matching-making spinsters with bachelors, healing the sick of afflictions, overcoming unknown enemies, prophesying and foretelling the future and so forth. Through these promises and fake miracles church leaders seem to be able to manipulate gullible followers into parting with their money and making followers vote en masse for whichever politician that is favoured by such church leaders. In short, the “sacred domain” is a vital and integral part of popular political culture that the State cannot destroy therefore politicians together with the State seem to co-opt religion for their own ends (Ibrahim, 1991). More importantly, clergymen and clergywomen in recent times have directly embarked on direct acquisition of dubious wealth by endorsing and collaborating with those in high public office (and multi-millionaire business tycoons capable of financing them); in return these religious leaders promise the support of their congregations. Many Nigerian religious leaders accept gifts, zakat, tithes and offerings from highly placed politicians and criminals without questioning the sources of such exorbitant gifts. Often, such gift-givers are well known because of their reputation for corruption, often with provable evidence, many with pending indictment for misappropriating public funds. Yet church leaders accept colossal sums in donations and contributions from such disreputable individuals. The current state of religious expansion in Nigeria without commensurate godliness seems to be part of on-going corruption where politicians and governments at all levels are aware that the public has no confidence in government, but have full public confidence in their religious leaders. As a result, politicians through financial inducements gain control of the religious leaders in order to control the disaffected masses in spite of the lack of support from such masses. One of the greatest fears of the corrupt political elite in Nigeria seems to be a popular, spontaneous and sustained campaign of civil disobedience

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(or uprising/revolution similar to the Arab spring) that might ultimately consume the elite. Hence, those in political authority work closely with leaders of the mosques and the churches. These religious leaders are frequently used to “calm” the masses down and prevent any breakdown of law and order, or quell a popular revolt if it breaks out. Indeed, sometimes, public riots break out over living costs, especially prices of fuel and basic food items, however religious leaders on behalf of those in authority quickly help calm such situations down in order for such riots not to ultimately overwhelm the security forces of the state. Religious leaders often make high profile visits to State Houses and other political institutions while high-ranking politicians and government officials regularly attend the bigger mosques and churches to “pray,” seek public support for government policies and programmes and request adherents to pray for Nigeria and pray for the political office-holders in their quest to solve Nigeria’s array of problems. Office-holders also request adherents to pray and seek divine intervention from “god” in the affairs of the country. Since God is divine, God can solve all social, economic and political problems. Such attendance in mosques and churches helps portray such leaders as caring for the ordinary people, and more importantly it portrays them as identifying with and belonging to the same faith and belief as the people. The people tend to see such politicians as humble, even vulnerable because s/he requested the peoples’ help in praying and seeking God’s face in solving national problems. Also, the people see the politician as “one of us” and often empathize with the challenges such leaders face. And what is in this symbiotic arrangement and relationship for the clerics who provide their places of worship to politicians as a safe and sober non-official means of reaching the hearts of the masses? Clerics often get in return an ostentatious, superstar lifestyle, extreme personal wealth and opulence as demonstrated in: multiple luxurious mansions around Nigeria and in prestigious overseas destinations; possibly a fleet of top range personal luxury aircrafts and top marque automobiles for their transport; and armed professional bodyguards with armoured motorcades. Through the activities of religious clerics, churches and mosques and their collaboration with corrupt politicians, politicians are able to control the vast majority of Nigerians who are poverty stricken by manipulating the normal reasoning processes of Nigerians away from evidence-based, objective thought to the realm of the divine and the sacred where normal evidence counts for little, and faith, hope and belief counts for much. The Nigerian people and their political elite seem to live in happy denial of reality having been enchanted by religion and religious

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institutions in cahoot with political leaders. In Nigeria, when someone is found to be corrupt and abused their position of public office, accepted bribes, given jobs to relatives or spent public money on personal pleasures, they never resign, never think of resigning, and instead attack the moralists and go on regardless. Often Christian clerics may weigh in and declare publicly that the corrupt individual has been forgiven by god, so who is to punish him whom god has forgiven! Such a nexus between politics and religion is not new. Marx noted it in his commonly quoted “religion is the opium of the people”. It is a nexus that provides collective amnesia, at least temporarily. British military expansion into Northern Nigeria introduced Christianity to a region that had experienced over five hundred years of Islam thus resulting in chaos that lasts till today as northern Christians are constantly attacked (Fafunwa 1974). The colonists used the “bible, business and the bullet” and in particular they used Christianity and Christian education particularly in Southern Nigeria as a tool to further dominate, divide and control Nigerians, in other words a tool to “civilise” and cultivate a “proper” way of thinking. (Fafunwa 1974:71). Western education in Nigeria was led by Church missionaries who used the missionary schools as a means of converting the indigenous people to Christianity. The Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.), the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA), Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) and so forth all remain today. These British religious, political and educational institutions translated the Bible into indigenous languages and helped codify the use of English language as the local vernacular. Hence, present day Nigerian politicians and their religious assistants are in many ways simply governing Nigeria using religion exactly as the old colonists did. However, while it may be that religion deals in illusions, as is implied in Marx’s view quoted above, it is also possible that in the Nigerian context, illusion is perhaps the only reality in Nigerian political and religious life. The public treasury seems to be there solely as the exclusive resource for those occupying leading political and government positions. The proceeds of corruption from annual public budgets finance the lifestyles of those in government and allied clerics, politicians’ cronies and their civil/public servant collaborators. As a result the nexus between religion and politics and by extension corruption in Nigeria cannot be ignored. There is little indication that things will change soon.

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Conclusion This chapter has discussed the relationship between Nigerian politics and religion highlighting their seeming Jekyll and Hyde character. Ordinarily, religion and its adherents are meant to be godly, ethical and moral in outlook, but in Nigeria they have often served the interests of corrupt politicians, a juxtaposition of good and evil at the same time in the same space. The chapter has also noted how present day Nigeria’s patchwork of many nationalities is a legacy of its colonial past which continues to have political and religious implications and has contributed to the structural dysfunction of Nigeria’s political and social system that sees great wealth and extreme poverty existing side by side. As has been argued a major cause of this “resource curse” is the existence of institutionalised political corruption, often sanctioned by religious authorities for a share of the loot. Such a difficult and hopeless backdrop seems to have resulted in mass despair and encouraged people to seek solutions in the churches and mosques, and wait patiently to be rewarded in an afterlife. Politicians have encouraged such mass amnesia by using their religious collaborators to control the population as well as prevent and suppress any form of a popular backlash against the corrupt political system in Nigeria.

Works Cited Abdallah, N. M. 2012. “Nigeria May Become a Failed State in 2030 not 2015—United States.” African Herald Express. Accessed 3 March 2013. http://africanheraldexpress.com/blog7/2012/01/18/nigeria-maybecome-a-failed-state-in-2030-not-2015-us. Ake, C. 1996. Development and Democracy in Africa. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Akinde, F. 2012. “One Nation Bound in Corruption.” Accessed 12 January 2013. http://www.writosphere.com/activist/visitor-story-details/OneNation-Bound-in-Corruption-316/ December 11, 2012. Akinyemi, B. A. 2013. “Leadership, Democracy and Development: A Paradigm Relationship.” A Public Lecture to Commemorate the Inauguration of the Governor of Ondo State on 23 February 2013 Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. Brown, D. 2001. “1956: Suez and the End of Empire.” The Guardian (UK) 14 March.

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Business Insider. 2011. “Forget the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).” 22 February 2011. Accessed 31 May 2012. www.businessinsider.com. Ezekwesili, O. 2013. “Oby Ezekwesili Indicts FGN In Speech At 42nd Convocation Ceremony of The University of Nigeria, Nsukka.” 24 January. Accessed 10 February 2013. http://www.9jalife.com/2013/01/27/full-text-former-minister-obyezekwesili-indicts-fgn-in-speech-at-42nd-convocation-of-university/. Fafunwa, A. B. 1974. History of Education in Nigeria. London: George, Allen, & Unwin. Falola, T and M. M/ Heaton. 2008. A History of Nigeria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ibrahim, J. 1991. “Religion and Political Turbulence in Nigeria.” Journal of Modern African Studies 29 (1): 115-136. Isichei, E. 1973. The Igbo People and the Europeans. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Joseph, R. A. 1983. “Class, State, and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria.” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 21 (3): 21-38. Juang, R. M. and Morrissette, N., Fullmer, M. 2008. Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History: A Multidisciplinary Encyclopaedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Kelley, M. 2013. “Bill Gates Is Trying To Eliminate Polio, But Radical Islamists Keep Killing People To Stop Him.” Business Insider. 1 March, 2013. Accessed 3 March 2013. http://www.businessinsider.com/the-world-could-be-polio-free-20132#ixzz2MNF0cyYC. Laitin, D. D. 1986. Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Religious Change among the Yoruba. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lasswell, H. 1951. Politics: Who Gets What, When, How. The Political Writings of Harold D. Lasswell. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Lewis, P. 2007. Growing Apart: Oil, Politics, and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria. Ann Arbor, MI:University of Michigan Press. Martin, S.I and Subramanian, A. 2003. Addressing the Oil Curse: An Illustration from Nigeria. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund Working Paper. Marx, K. 1843. Critique of Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right.” In Karl Marx: Early Writings. Edited Quintin Hoare. Introduced by Lucio Colletti. New York: Vintage Books, 1975. Mwalimu, C. 2005. The Nigerian Legal System: Public Law. Peter Lang. Opadokun, A. 2012. “Nigerian Clerics: Kicking God, Kissing The Dog.” Sahara Reporters. 22 February, 2013. Accessed 8 March 2013.

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http://saharareporters.com/article/nigerian-clerics-kicking-god-kissingdog-ayo-opadokun/. Osaghae, E. E. 1995. “The Ogoni Uprising: Oil Politics, Minority Agitation and the Future of the Nigerian State.” African Affairs 94 (376): 325-344. Oyatogun, O. 2012. “The Curse of the Nigerian ‘Big G’ God”. Sahara Reporters. 28 December, 2012. Access 4 January 2013. http://saharareporters.com/article/curse-nigerian-big-g-godoluwafunmilayo-oyatogun. Rashid, K. K. 2003. “Review of Ethnicity and Sub-Nationalism in Nigeria: Movement for a Mid-West State/Ethnic Politics in Kenya and Nigeria/Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria.” African Studies Review. 46 (2): 92-8. Romanova, I. 2007. Oil boom in Nigeria and Its Consequences for the Country’s Economic Development.” Munich, GmbH: GRIN Publishing. Accessed 3 March 2013. http://www.grin.com/en/ebook/67959/oil-boom-in-nigeria-and-its-consequences-for-the-countrys-economic-development. Sachs, J. D., and A. Warner. 2001. “The Curse of Natural Resources.” European Economic Review 45: 827–838. Talton, B. 2004. “African Resistance to Colonial Rule Africana Age, African and African Diasporan Transformations in the 20th Century.” Accessed 4 March 2013. http://exhibitions.nypl.org/africanaage/essayresistance.html. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 2010. “Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Accessed 3 March 2013. http://www.pewforum.org/executive-summary-islamand-christianity-in-sub-saharan-africa.aspx. Uwechue, R. 1971. Reflections on the Nigerian Civil War. New York: Africana Publishing.

PART IV THE PERSISTENCE OF THE NEXUS

CHAPTER THIRTEEN RELIGION AND NATION BUILDING IN AUSTRALIA AND EAST GERMANY: “GETTING OUR MONEY’S WORTH?” DOMINIC FITZSIMMONS Introduction Both the German Democratic Republic (1949-1990) and the Commonwealth of Australia share some curious and unexpected similarities in relation to nation building. Apart from both playing against each other for the first time in the 1974 football World Cup finals, both were consciously modern nations insofar as there was a kind of enforced egalitarianism (comradeship and mateship) as part of the national ethos. It was almost as if both countries had to convince their own citizens of the worth and legitimacy of their nation. Yet, the idea of the new nation was not strong enough on its own to do this, so both the GDR and Australia relied on common pre-existing symbols and narratives, both to create unity and to exercise social control. Curiously both nations used the narratives of religion in similar ways to build the idea of the “nation”. This paper considers the roles played by religion in the nation building process. What was useful about religion was that it provided structures of obedience, moral certitude and already existing symbols. Growing up as a Catholic in 1960s-1970s Australia meant that the hard work of assimilation had already being done. What was left was a shell of “difference” rather than a “real, existing” difference of the type that haunted many diasporic (Northern) Irish Catholic communities in previous decades and centuries. Indeed early Church leaders in Australia urged Catholics in Australia to behave more like their Protestant co-patriots if they wanted to get on in this new country. What is curious in current debates is that religion appears to relate more to “values,” rather than specific belief systems or cultural practices. In the debates about education, much is made about the ideological nature of support for religious “private” (non-government) schools, particularly amongst parents

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and opinion leaders. Curiously, this ideological adherence disappears completely once tertiary education is the setting, where public universities are both the norm and more prestigious. I was lucky to grow up in a time and place when Catholic allegiance or loyalty was rarely in question. I could dream of playing football for Australia, while also not having to consider that being Catholic would get in the way of this. So, it was a surprise when I read recently that the Catholics ought not to be trusted because their first form of loyalty is to the Vatican and not to the nation state in which they reside. But I was also aware that this feeling of “belonging to the nation’ was an unusual and recent experience in both Australian and broader world history, particularly growing up in a family atmosphere soaked in the inward looking strident loyalty of Catholic/Nationalist Northern Ireland. (In the United States, the catholicity of the Kennedys was always a question mark in terms of final loyalty: USA or the Pope). The principal dilemma is that although Catholics were and still are a minority group in Australia, they constituted a universalized imagined community—borrowing Benedict Anderson’s phrase—based on shared rituals, beliefs, signs, words and images. The Catholic worldview in Australia then encapsulated the belief that not only could there be a secular nation-state, but that other communities of belief coexisted with, and also reached beyond, these national boundaries and allegiances. This paper then considers not just that religion is useful, but asks the question whether it has delivered on this usefulness. In the case of the GDR, perhaps it was of less value than in the Australian context. My departure point is this concept of usefulness; by this I mean the extent to which religion played a role in the ongoing creation of the nation. I am not arguing that religion in either case was a determining factor, and it is clear that if the nation cannot exist for other reasons, then religion is not going to help. The subtitle is deliberately sober, almost utilitarian, shorn of any romantic imagery whether in the style of Fanon or Renan. I want to convey the point that religion in the two examples provided is often less about the rhetoric of transcendent belief systems, and more associated with the power of religious symbols, structures and a certain kind of moral certitude in everyday society. And while there are fewer believers in practice, religion has a certain kind of residual power which lends prestige to whatever social, political or economic project is at hand. To be more specific, its importance lies in the art and craft embedded within religious belief systems of persuading people to side with or support overtly or covertly, or at least be ambivalent to a certain position.

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While I am focusing on the building of a “nation”, for both countries, what was also at stake was the viability of the “state.” The establishment of a functional state based on a national entity where none had previously existed, was a challenge for both a decolonizing Australia bound into the British Empire in 1901, and the creation of East Germany under the auspices of the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact in 1949. My arguments may traverse both concepts but my intention is to focus on the nation, rather than on the state. Recently, Kunovich (2006) investigated the role of religion in the building of national identity. He provides three reasons why religion would be important to the nation (2006, 437-9): first, the overlapping nature of elements of identity common both to religion and the nation; second, religion acts to “reinforce” certain characteristics which together help to build the national identity; and third in more political terms religion provides organizing structures which enable efficient “group mobilisation.” Each reason alludes to the contingent nature of the relationship between the nation and religion, that while each views the other suspiciously as a contender for the same political space, both can recognize themselves in the mirror. In this chapter I will investigate how the Nation (or at least the nation- state) has used these elements of religion to further its own position. The chapter is divided into two different sections following Kunovich’s definition above, without dealing in any detail with his notion of group mobilization through institutional structures. First, both share a common discourse in that they are imagined (Anderson 1983) or invented (White 1981). Second, religion had already laid down a field of symbols, rich in power and reaching back into time, which were ripe for reappropriation by the nation.

Imagined and Invented Both Australia (1901) and the GDR (1949) can be categorised as relatively recent attempts at nation building. Anderson’s discussion that the idea of the nation is a modern project, or at least a result or modernization of relationships of power, is compelling (Anderson 1983). It makes sense in trying to explain the demise of multinational empires or faith based states with the development of capitalist means of production in which the market becomes the determinant of value. Yet, I would like to work from Anthony D Smith’s (1992) contention that while the nationstate is relatively recent, the nation draws on far older means that people have used to identify themselves, such as the “etnie” or the Venerable

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Bede’s “gens Anglorum”, or what the Romans referred to as “natio”. We can see in these the prototype of the modern nation, which Eric Hobsbawm (1990, 46) referred to as the “protonational feelings of collective belonging.” This is close to Smith’s understanding of the sometimes unconscious feeling of collective belonging which characterized the will to build a nation. This definition is very close to my earlier assertion about the Catholic community; it was collective, vast and deeply layered with some kind of mystical or intangible connection, as well as forceful sense of authoritarianism, which kept it all together. A better way of explaining this connection is to lean above all on Anderson’s compelling idea that the nation is invented. As it is something we cannot experience by our own senses alone, we have to imagine its scope, and thereby its complexity. A further way of thinking about this notion is that by recognising that the nation is invented also helps to reveal the diverse and multilayered interests involved in building and maintaining a nation. Australian historian, Richard White (1981) has used a similar idea in his analysis of the images used to describe Australia as a nation. He writes of inventing Australia in the same way that the nation is an imagined community. The importance of this is that somebody or some collectivity must have done the imagining and inventing; that some agency is at hand. Additionally, the nation cannot be invented out of thin air, but out of the solid fragments of previous nation building activities. This process can be seen in the origins of both the GDR and Australia. The rationale for the nation is not enough; it requires symbols to represent power, unity and other principles which underline the “need” for the nation to exist. Fulfilling this need is precisely what makes religion useful. Religious belief systems have long filled this gap between the reality of everyday life and the longing for a certain kind of imagined community: the divine rights of kings; the chosen people; the manifest destiny; the white man’s burden, have all being connected to some kind of religious practice. All these terms in some way imply that forces outside of humanity were at work in building the nation and more importantly bestow a certain kind of legitimacy for why the nation is built here in this place and this time. In Europe the doctrine of territorial religion arose from the ruins of The Thirty Years War. The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 used religion to create a certain kind of peace. In order to prevent further armed conflict on the basis of religion, each state gave preference to a certain form of religion; in time this partly led to the establishment of state and then national churches. What is important is that the foundation for the later evangelical “Church in Socialism” in the GDR had already been laid.

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Furthermore, the attitude of various Prussian rulers in the 18th Century indicates that religion was less about practices of faith and more about using religious obedience to the end of building the nation, as indicated ironically by Friedrich the Great: “anything which kept the masses quiet was too useful to be discarded” (Craig 1970, 96). A further curious similarity between Australia and the GDR is the official attitude towards religious toleration. Both nations decided to “tolerate” religious practice, and simultaneously prohibit the establishing of a national church or religion. To a considerable extent, this is a purely rhetorical position, as Australia is considered a nominally Christian nation, and the GDR as a secular state-socialist nation. Yet, the rhetoric holds some value in the debate over what kind of state to live in. Perhaps also what was occurring was to draw people away from a faith-based allegiance and direct them to one based predominantly on the nation. Commonwealth of Australia Constitution s116: the Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. German Democratic Republic Constitution Section V Religion and Religious Institutions – Art 41.1: guaranteed freedom of religious belief and practice for all citizens

The Constitutions of both nation states provide a framework for this shift by providing a tolerant space for religious faith and practice, as a deliberate policy to show the state did not intend to eliminate religious institutions. But perhaps this deal was also to control or channel the allegiance, and thereby to indicate to the religions that they expected something more, i.e. to support the current state and not to set up rival allegiances. According to Ramet (1998), who has researched the legacy of the Cold War and religion across Central and Eastern Europe, while Communist authorities in the GDR wanted to control religious associations, they employed a number of different means to compel these organizations to “adjust.” Their usefulness to the nation building process depended on how they were categorised by the authorities: first, “legally recognized, coopted associations”, second, “legally recognized associations treated with distrust, kept at a distance but tolerated”, and third, “proscribed organizations” (Ramet 1998, 5).

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As noted by many scholars in this field, the state set out to use religion, as much through negotiation as compulsion. The church was often seen as a mediator between dissident groups and the governing organs; or as seen as a space in which dissent could occur but under the surveillance of the state. The government allowed religious ministers to be exceptions to the travel bans, used them as quasi-diplomats in development projects in Mozambique and Angola, were allowed to teach at universities, and had access to printing offices. Perhaps in the end it is accurate to assert that most religious figures had a stake in the status quo, and therefore argued for moderate change, rather than revolutionary change in 1989. Another fundamental factor is the depth of infiltration by the East German secret service, Stasi, of these organizations. Indeed it is often bitterly commented that the infiltration was so pervasive that when the protests began in earnest in 1989, the numbers of dissidents was swelled disproportionately, and left a public impression that the urge for significant reform was far greater than in reality. Later, after the fall of the Wall and in the rush to monetary and political union it is not surprising, that the religious organizations were just as disapproving of the goldrush consumerism of 1989-1990 as the leftovers of the Communist state. At first glance Australia seems a quite different place, but a similar form of pragmatism took root here in the colony of New South Wales. Perhaps there is no better example than the decision to reject the idea that the Church of England should be the official religion of the colonies. This decision also set the tone for the later separation of Church and State in Australia. Rather, what was agreed to by a perhaps far seeing Governor Bourke in 1840 was that the three major Christian denominations (Church of England, Roman Catholics, and Presbyterians) would have equal status, and equal funding (Hirst 2005). Although practically the Church of England was the faith of the Crown (“Defender of the Faith”), the threat from Roman Catholics of a concerted religious/ethnic challenge was blunted. In a sense, Catholics were co-opted into the far grander project of building a new nation, as Hirst (2005) argues. He asserts then that this is an example of why the religious turmoil of Europe of the 18th and 19th century never found much fertile ground in Australia. Indeed, he maintains perhaps with some justification that this co-opting of Catholics (particularly Irish Catholics) into the mainstream by slightly changing the rules of the game which allowed a better deal than they had in Ireland or Britain, set the tone of “tolerance” for the building of a multicultural society post World War II. This agreement lasted until the 1970s under pressure from other religious groups, and in the light of negotiations for a

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national constitution a new formulation was proposed in which the Church and State were to be separated and religion would be seen as either a private matter or one for each community to decide on for themselves rather than having a solution imposed by government. Religion then becomes useful because it provides an already existing conceptual framework about how to think about an imagined community; as well as a model of exercising power and ensuring allegiance without having to do too much work. The explanation for obedience exists within faith itself.

The Symbols of Religion It is often written that the symbols used by the nation are merely “secular versions of religious symbols” (Weissbrod 1983). But it is not that they are simply substitutes carrying the same kind of emotional and political power. Rather such symbols are deployed to enhance a process of nation building which is already underway. It is as if the nation only has shallow roots and needs to call on the heavy duty deep rooted ties that religious symbols possess in order to convince its own people and others of the seriousness of its nation building project. Seal (2007) has researched widely the significance of Anzac Day in both contemporary Australian society and in its contribution to the building of the nation. In effect, many of Kunovich’s arguments could be equally applied to Anzac Day, particularly in the way that its mythologization relies heavily on already existing religious symbols, such as the ritualistic use of flowers on burial ground, memorial services, and a national holiday (“holy day”—once known as the 53rd Sunday). There is a quasi-religious service with “a prayer-like moment in which no prayer is uttered” (Seal 2007, 140). Seal is reworking ground already dug by Ken Inglis, C.W. Bean and other Australian historians, but gives this the process a name: the sacralisation of the secular. Religious symbols are used because they are part of the cultural resources that Australia had already acquired by British-European traditions. In this sense religion lays out a blueprint similar to Edward Said’s textual attitude (1978). We know how to think about the importance of Anzac Day and its relationship to the nation because the symbols of blood sacrifice of the young and innocent, is familiar from Christian and non-Christian mythology. The symbols of the GDR also borrowed from that which was already known: the hammer and the compass bordered by a ring of rye were symbols of skilled labour—the blood and sweat of the worker, the intellectual and the farmer. Here the secular symbols became ersatz

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religious symbols, as they were also designed to ensure the power of a common narrative. And importantly, this narrative was designed to be the antithesis of Nazi Germany in which mainstream German Christianity was complicit through silence. Additionally, the biblical injunction to turn swords into ploughshares as a transformation from war to peace was certainly an important discourse marker used by the new Socialist State. Less coincidently, this symbol was used as a name by a peace and environmental group in the 1970s established under the auspices of the Evangelische Kirche (Protestant Church) in the GDR. Perhaps it could be argued that these symbols of the nation became important as a rallying point, a marker of difference of the group, or better described as a form of “boundary maintenance”.

Conclusion A final word in this paper is that often religion has called in its favours to achieve its own ends. An important example in Australia is the issue of state funding for religious schools. This debate has been won to the advantage of religious schools, but it was clever political manoeuvring which managed it, particularly by the Catholic schools. Up until the 1960s there was no significant national funding of Catholic schools, but the threat that Catholic schools would close their doors, temporarily flooding the public school system, caused a fundamental realignment of what the nation would fund in terms of education. Indeed, the question arises whether this contravenes s 116 of the Constitution, but it would be difficult for the two major parties to initiate this kind of public debate. Perhaps the power exercised here by the Catholic Church (a power that perhaps a Muslim organization could not exercise at the moment) is a clear contrast to what East German churches were able to do. It seems absurd to argue that the Church in East Germany caused the downfall of the Communist state as proposed by Kuhnle (2008)—because like a medieval state it became closely entwined with it. Although both countries were constitutionally without official religions, the role that the Church played in politics was quite different. Yet, pragmatic decisions were made so that religious symbols and organizational structures became useful in winning the battle of ideas over legitimacy. For both the GDR and Australia, sport has been a more successful way of binding the nation. Changing attitudes and behaviour is a long game which requires both a powerful rhetoric and practical measures; in brief, religion is useful, but it is questionable whether the nation gets its money’s worth.

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Works Cited Alter, P. 1985. Nationalism. London: Edward Arnold. Andersen, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Craig, G. 1970. The Church and the Age of Reason 1648-1789, London: Penguin. Hirst, J. 2005. Sense and Nonsense in Australian History. Melbourne: Black Inc Agenda. Hobsbawm, E. 1990, Nations and Nationalisms since 1780. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuhnle, L. 2008. Reconceptualising Religious Space in the German Democratic Republic. The Role of Protestant Churches in the Formation of a Political Opposition. The Canadian Centre for German and European Studies, Working Paper Series Number 14. Kunovich, R. M. 2006. “An exploration of the Salience of Christianity for National Identity in Europe.” Sociological Perspectives 49 (4): 435-60. Ramet, S. P. 1998. Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics and Social Change in East Central Europe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Seal, G. 2007. “ANZAC: The Sacred in the Secular.” Journal of Australian Studies 9: 135-144. Said, E. 1985. Orientalism. London/NY: Penguin Books. Smith, A. D. 1992. “Chosen Peoples: Why Ethnic Groups Survive.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 15: p.440-449. Weisbrod, L. 1983. “Religion as National Identity in a Secular Society.” Review of Religious Research 24 (3): 188-205. White, R. 1981. Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688-1980. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN NO GODS, NO MASTERS: THE SINE QUA NON OF POLITICAL RULE? JIM JOSE Introduction One of the enduring aspirations to emerge during the French revolution was that of ni dieu, ni maître, loosely translated as neither God nor master. The sentiment was clear; the hierarchical order of the estates of pre-revolutionary France was to be dismantled. In its place, a new social and political order predicated on liberty, equality and fraternity, the verities of the declaration of the Rights of Man, would see each individual man (and for the briefest of moments, individual women) as masters of their own fates, citizens beholden neither to a god nor a master. That hierarchy and privilege reasserted itself, that gods and masters were not eliminated, and that the Church as an institution survived more or less unscathed, did not dilute the indelible impact of the idea of citizens as masters of their own political destinies. Moreover, as the English also demonstrated during the seventeenth century, the legitimacy of the political order was not divinely ordained (i.e. beholden to God) but rested on what philosopher John Locke termed the consent of the governed (Locke, 1690, II §97-98). While for Locke the idea of “the governed” was narrowly conceived, for succeeding generations, especially those who made the French Revolution, the idea of “the governed” radically expanded to include all who could claim the status of citizen. Moreover, political and social orders were now understood as owing their legitimacy to citizens who determined how political rule was to be constituted and exercised, beholden to neither gods nor masters. The idea that the political and social order derived neither from gods nor masters but from selfactualising and self-constituting citizens became the sine qua non of modern political rule. For mainstream political theory these nurturing roots of modern political rule have disappeared from view. The idea of citizen-constituted

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political rule beholden neither to a god nor a master serves more as a founding mythology than a guiding principle, something to be ritually honoured in political ceremonies and then quietly ignored lest it disturb the actual exercise of governing. Only within anarchist political philosophy does it find overt expression, but transmuted into the categorical imperative of “no God no master”, largely relegated and marginalised. Yet like Banquo’s ghost appearing at Macbeth’s feast to disrupt his psychic peace by reminding him that his rule was predicated on a lie, so too the idea of ni dieu, ni maître serves to disrupt our psychic state. It is both accuser and accused within the complacent selfcongratulations of liberal philosophy’s “conceit about the universalism of its basic principles: secularism, the role of law, equal rights, moral autonomy, individual liberty” (Brown, 2008, 21). Foucault (1986, 121) once remarked that political theory has not yet managed to cut off the king’s head. That is, the sovereign authority of the State may have been rendered subordinate to the citizens, but the hierarchy of authority that it symbolises remains embedded within our theories of political rule. Even so, Foucault only identified half the problem. The other hierarchical authority, symbolised by the Cross, also remains intact. Despite the advent of a misnamed secular age, political rule remains tied to its religious moorings. The State may have been tamed, but the Cross remains unrepentantly unruly. In this chapter I am principally concerned with demonstrating that political rule remains beholden to the hierarchies of gods and masters. At the centre of the body politic of the modern state lies a paradox: on the one hand, in the spirit of “neither god nor master”, religion is separated (and its institutionalised mouthpieces allegedly excluded) from political rule; on the other, is the curious phenomenon of political leaders, at least in the Anglophone West, emphasising their religious affiliations and in this sense political rule remains tied to these allegedly separate religious moorings. To explore this paradox, I will discuss a number of seemingly disparate areas. First, I sketch how the relationship between the respective authorities of the State and the Cross has been understood within the history of Western political thought. This will be followed by a discussion of one of the foundational dimensions of the so-called secular politics of the modern era—the alleged separation of the State and the Church. It will be argued there that the received wisdom of modern states being secular in the sense that the Cross is of no importance in the constitution of political rule is a delusional fantasy of modernist political theory. To put some empirical meat on the skeleton of the argument presented in these two sections, a third section will provide a brief summary noting how key

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leaders within modern states in the West have positioned their religious affiliations. That they continue to do this, despite the alleged unimportance of religion for the constitution and exercise of political rule, suggests that hierarchies of gods and masters, not self-actualising citizens, remain the sine qua non of political rule.

Of the Cross and the State In the Christian West the tensions between religion and politics date back to before the birth of organised Christianity to the idea that believers should render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s, as reported in the Gospels by Matthew (22: 21), Mark (12: 17) and Luke (20: 25). While this was attributed to Jesus it is likely that the source is St Paul who also made a number of pronouncements on this issue about the obligations of subjects and rulers. Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation (The Holy Bible: Romans 13).

Here “every soul” includes the sovereign power. All are subject to the power of God. Most importantly, “the powers that be”, the monarchs or rulers, those who wear the crown receive their authority by the grace of God. And whoever disobeys or challenges such authority is in effect challenging the will of God, and hence shall suffer the spiritual consequences (not to mention the actual earthly punishments that the monarch is ordained by God to visit on those who “resisteth the power”). In the same text, Saint Paul elaborates. The monarch or ruler is a minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour (The Holy Bible: Romans 13).

Monarch’s or rulers were God’s representatives on Earth. They ruled by the grace of God. This formed the basis for monarchical rule for centuries. Its repudiation in the late seventeenth and subsequent centuries forms part of the story to be told in this chapter. Here I want to note simply that Saint Paul’s views provided the basis for solving the problem of divided loyalties. The monarch and his or her subjects were all God’s subjects and

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hence all owed allegiance to God, and by extension God’s chief representative on Earth, the Pope. And the subjects owed allegiance to the monarch who ruled on God’s behalf. Thus those who challenged the right of monarchs to rule thereby challenged God. Over the course of the first five hundred years or so of the development of the Christian Church, the practical relations between monarchs and clergy came to be hammered out along lines similar to those just described. However, the domain of the clergy was seen as separate from the domain of everyone else. While nominally subject to the monarchs the clergy were answerable to ecclesiastical courts rather than secular courts. They were God’s teachers and hence answerable to God (in effect the Pope), not the monarch. In addition, in all spiritual matters, the monarch too was subordinate to the clergy. Thus there emerged two domains of sovereign authority: one applying to nominally secular matters and one to spiritual matters. In principle each power, the State and the Cross, was understood to be autonomous, each in their own sphere, but to the extent that the religious sphere authorised that of the State, the Cross had the upper hand. For even though men and women supposedly were the subjects of monarchs ordained by God (and hence owing a duty of obedience to them) it was also the case that men and women owed a duty to God. If the two duties came into conflict then the obedience to God was to take precedence—at least in principle. In this regard, the ascendancy of the Cross, its spiritual sovereignty so to speak, entailed a serious degree of spiritual autonomy, at least for those charged with exercising such spiritual sovereignty. That is, it entailed a right that was by definition independent of the monarch and which, as Sabine and Thorson (1973, 190) perceptively noted “left a residuum without which modern ideas of individual privacy and liberty would have been unintelligible”. However, it needs to be emphasised here that the modern ideas of “individual privacy” and “liberty” owed much to the reformation movement of Protestantism and the subsequent efflorescing of Enlightenment thought several centuries later. Such ideas had a different resonance in a time when the idea of Christendom was the dominant reality. Although there were distinct territories or principalities ruled by different and feuding monarchical families, these territories were part of the domain of Christendom that was overseen by the Church. Nonetheless, the idea that spiritual freedom entailed direct loyalty to God, mediated by the Church as it might have been, provided the political space for all sorts of manoeuvres with respect to struggles between monarchs and Popes, and monarchs and their subjects. And once the various monarchies rendered the Church subordinate to their authority (in the wake of the various wars

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of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and the principle of noninterference proclaimed within the various treaties following the Thirty Years War) the residuum idea of spiritual freedom provided an opening for challenging the arbitrariness of the State’s sovereignty. Two points need to be emphasised here. First, the notion of the secular had always been tied to the domain overseen by the sovereign political authority, the State, in contradistinction to the spiritual domain overseen by the Cross. And second, precisely because this latter domain was spiritual, an idea of spiritual freedom was built into this separation of sovereignties such that the Cross could never be considered entirely subordinate to the State, if at all. However, all this was to change when the sovereign authority of the State was itself redefined in ways that allegedly removed the Cross from the equation.

From Gods and Masters to No Gods, No Masters? This redefinition of sovereign authority was played out in political tracts and treatises, on the battlefields of revolution, and in the histories of those revolutions. At issue was the redefinition of the source of, or basis for, legitimate sovereign authority. The longstanding idea that sovereign political authority derived from some divine source in the sense that it was authorised by the Christian God was displaced in favour of grounding that authority on some form of covenant (e.g. Hobbes 1651a; 1651b) or contract (Locke 1690; Rousseau 1762). The ascendant principle hypothesised by these and others was that the governed gave their consent to authorise the founding of the authority that was to rule over them, and hence there was a covenant or contract between the governed and their governors. This was a direct repudiation of the previously dominant patriarchally informed justifications for government and, by extension, a repudiation (in principle at least) of arguments about the religious bases for sovereign authority. The three great revolutionary moments of early modernity—the revolution of 1688 in England, the revolutionary war of independence in the Americas in 1776, and the French revolution of 1789—put paid to arguments about the State’s authority being divinely authorised. Although contemporary Tory writers like Astell (1705) mounted compelling counter-arguments these eventually receded in importance as the historical events became more distant until, by the late 1720s, there was considerable consensus that the revolution of 1688 was less a revolution and more a minor correction to a momentary lapse of proper government (Pincus 2009, 17; Springborg 1995, 631). It also set in train the possibilities for challenging and possibly denying the newly reconfigured

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States the right to impose a particular religious viewpoint on their citizens. But it was only a possibility because the reconfiguration of the English state subordinating the monarchy to the parliament’s sovereignty left the supremacy of the Church of England more or less intact. Granted, it could be accepted that this reconfiguration, in conjunction with “the Toleration Act of 1689, separated Church and nation”, but only in the limited sense of overturning the pre-revolutionary view (held especially by the Church of England and others) “that Englishness and communion in the Church of England were one and the same thing” (Pincus 2009, 12). The Church of England remained the established church and the reigning monarch, however much subordinated to the will of parliament, remained its head (though as noted below this also entailed that the Church of England was also under the authority of the parliament). Moreover, it is a required part of the coronation ceremony that the monarch pledges publicly to uphold not just the law of the land as enacted by parliament, but also the authority of the Church of England as established by law and settlement (see Form and Order of Service, 1953). In effect the Cross retained a privileged position in relation to sovereign political authority. In this respect the so-called separation remained consistent with the practice of preceding centuries in which the Cross provided the spiritual sustenance for the secular ruler. The legislative outcomes and subsequent political practices were less about separating Church and State and more concerned with ensuring political stability in the aftermath of a successful coup in which a foreigner (albeit the husband of the usurped monarch’s daughter) had been installed on the English throne. Abstracting from the specific details and form of arguments invoked in particular debates over religious toleration (Brown 2008; Grell and Porter 2000; Mendus 1988) it remains the case that the over-riding issue for those who successfully prosecuted the revolution was the management of dissent. And within that context it was necessary to make space within the reconfigured polity for those whose religious beliefs were not endorsed or sanctioned by the Church of England. But granting a degree of religious toleration did not mean that this proved that a separation of Church and State had been effected in the sense that the Cross was removed from the domain of politics. The Cross was not denied its place even if the Church of England as an institution became folded into the sovereign authority of the State. The secularity of the newly emerging State (and the society in which it exercised its authority) was much like that which it superseded. The Church continued to authorise the investiture of monarchs, not in the name of the State, but in the name of God. In itself this is paradoxical

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but indicative of the sleight of hand of those seeking to justify the revolution of 1688 by reconciling the (apparently ascendant) liberal philosophical justifications for the newly configured state while holding on as much as possible to long-held traditional ideas and principles of government (Pincus 2009; Springborg 1995, 631). Moreover, where the English revolution of 1688 consolidated the supremacy of parliament this did not necessarily entail the supremacy of a self-constituting citizenry. There were no citizens, only subjects, most of whom had no right to elect their parliamentary rulers. The realization of a fully universal franchise was still over two hundred and forty years away. Challenging the idea of masters was never really on the agenda of those making the 1688 revolution. The radical democratic ideas of the Calvinists (at least some of them), the Levellers and the Diggers were relegated quickly to oblivion (see in particular Maddox and Moore in this volume; also Berens 1906; Petergorsky 1940; Hill 1972), and there never was a challenge to the authority of God. The American revolution of 1776 ushered in a reconfigured state that broke from the English metropole, a republican state purportedly under the sovereign sway of “We the people” (USC 2010). Here at least was a polity approximating a self-constituting citizenry. However, this self-constituting citizenry, “We the people”, was not a challenge either to masters or gods. Rather, it was an assertion concerning the basis for, and legitimacy of, sovereign political authority. The clauses of the Constitution and the series of amendments now understood as the Bill of Rights, in particular the First Amendment, were aimed at specifying the basis and scope of sovereign political authority. The First Amendment specifically prohibited Congress, the sovereign authority, from making any “law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (USC 2010). In effect this amendment was aimed precisely at preventing the newly formed political authority from setting up a state religion or establishing a state church, and hence was prohibited from imposing a particular religious belief on the rest of the population. In part this stemmed from the fact that many of the early European settlers were themselves refugees from religious bigotry, and hence founded communities within which they could ply their faith without fear of persecution. Of course, for many of these communities religious tolerance was not necessarily a feature, rather, intolerance towards dissenters was often the norm. The restriction on Congress was as much a product of this intolerance as it was a desire to establish the principle of religious freedom. As one legal scholar has expressed it, “the primary purpose underlying the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment [was] the preservation

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of autonomy—of the state, of religious institutions, and of individuals” (Scharffs 2004, 1232). Yet while this might be seen as constituting a separation of Church and State, and indeed for many it is often held up as the paradigmatic statement of such separation (Voth 1998, 127; Ewing 2000, 33), it in fact enshrines the legitimacy of the Cross within the constitutional framework of government. At best it establishes the freedom of religion within that framework, free from the watchful eyes of government, free to conduct itself (lawfully) in the manner of its own choosing, and free from government interference. In this respect this was an advance on what the 1688 revolution achieved in England because the parliament, by subordinating the monarchy to its authority, effectively placed the Church of England under its authority. Hence in the sovereign authority established for the US Congress there was a clear removal of any church from its purview. There was not to be a State-sanctioned establishment church in the new republic, and freedom of religion and religious worship was to be guaranteed. Yet this did not guarantee freedom from religion, since the foundation of the new state was predicated, as in post-1688 England, on rendering religion a merely private matter. Although the legitimacy of the new republic’s sovereign authority rested on its citizens, a transformation of hierarchy and privilege was barely effected since the vast majority of the citizens were in effect fenced off from meaningful democratic participation. Nonetheless, symbolically at least, the US revolution provided significant inspiration for those seeking to challenge the old order of dynastic rule. Certainly the revolutionaries in France in 1789 looked almost as much to the lessons emanating from the newly emerging United States as they did to the Enlightenment philosophers of Europe, particularly the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his radically democratic view of popular sovereignty. For if Locke’s idea of the consent of the governed left the door of sovereignty partially open to a democratic basis for constituting political rule, Rousseau blew the door off its hinges. The revolutionaries made good on Locke’s promise of a new form of political legitimacy based on the consent of the governed by directly challenging the prevailing hierarchies of gods and masters: the “articulation of popular sovereignty took on a holistic, messianic, and universalist rather than a more liberal, constitutional, and constrained form” (Bukovansky 1999, 198). While the revolutionary fervour was quelled with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte at the close of the eighteenth century and his imposition of a monarchical style of rule, the understanding of popular

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sovereignty unleashed by the revolution survived to be one of the pillars of modernity. For a brief period from 1789 to 1802 the idea of ni dieu, ni maître was in the ascendancy. It was a bleak time for the Church as its landholdings were confiscated, and its authority and credibility were at an all-time low (perhaps best exemplified by the savage satires of the Marquis de Sade, 1791). With Napoleon’s coup the Church had its privileges restored (Weber 1976) and, for most of the nineteenth century, appeared to be thriving though with the ignominy of being placed under direct state control. In 1905 the Church was totally removed from the state’s control with the enactment of the policy of laïcité which redefined the relationship between Church and State as one of strict neutrality. Religion, as a matter of state policy, was deemed an entirely private matter: “financial aid to churches officially ended … and freedom of public worship was guaranteed” (Ewing 2000, 38). This was consistent with the revolutionary sentiments of the 1790s in which the newly reconstituted political power guaranteed “a public space that is neutral with respect to religion” (Bowen 2007, 14), that, as Bukovansky (1999, 200) has suggested, was “founded on a Rousseauian conception of General Will as a unity rather than a representation of a plurality of interests”. Thus it would seem that for most of the twentieth century the French state returned to the principle of ni dieu, ni maître, except that political authority remained hierarchically organised in ways that minimised the democratic pulse of Rousseau’s imagined republic. Similarly in Australia, a post-colonial settler society, the sovereign authority remains the Crown. The citizens perform the rituals of representative democratic processes but the constitutional reality is that a polity in which the self-constituting citizens are sovereign remains to be achieved. Like the USA and France there is a constitutional recognition of the separation of political and religious authorities with the former understood as sovereign. Constitutionally, the Australian State may not legislate to impose a particular religion, may not enforce particular religious observances, may not prohibit the “free exercise of any religion”, nor impose a religious test “as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth” (The Constitution, §116). The intent would appear to be one of guaranteeing that citizens would have freedom from a state imposed religion, though as Frame (2006, 8) has noted, “[t]his separation does not, however, preclude interactions between church and state.” Whether it is appropriate to describe this constitutional arrangement as a separation remains debatable, but Frame’s point still stands because

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the Australian state and its rituals remain very much inflected with officially sanctioned religious observances and practices (Maddox 2005).

Religion and the Sine Qua Non of Political Rule? Each of the above three instances of reconstituted political sovereignty, post-1688 England and the republics of the USA and France, provide salutary instances of transformed political and social orders in which the legitimacy of the newly constituted sovereign political authority appeared to be beholden to neither gods nor masters. In all three cases the institution of the Cross came to be subordinated to the sovereignty of the State wherein the latter was constituted on and legitimised by the authority of the governed. However, this was not the triumph of secularist philosophy, but merely the end of the divided sovereignties problem—at least in principle. In practice, however, the power of the Cross still exerts a considerable presence, even in the US and France where the separation between Church and State is supposed to be well defined. Despite the fact that self-actualising and self-constituting citizens are supposed to be the sine qua non of modern political rule, all of these states are marked by hierarchical systems of political rule. Moreover, the very fact that religion is supposed to be a private matter results in these private issues permeating the political identities of those who aspire to rule in the name of these selfconstituting citizens. It is hard to find any democratically elected leader within Western countries who eschew the religious mantle when pressed about their affiliations. Only a few have expressed an avowedly atheist position such as former British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband (Zakaria 2009). Of the forty-four US presidents only five (Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes) had no stated religious affiliation during their term of office, though there is considerable controversy over the particulars of their beliefs. With the exception of Gordon Brown, all previous British PMs professed to be Anglicans in accordance with the place of the Church of England as the established Church. In New Zealand, former Prime Minister Helen Clark was an agnostic (Graham 2009, 160). Similarly in Australia, former Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke (and possibly Ben Chifley) were agnostic, but with one significant exception, namely Julia Gillard, all other Australian PMs have professed to belong to one or other of the Christian faiths. Indeed, since the late 1990s within Australian politics the religious affiliation of political leaders has generated considerably more

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scholarly comment than was the case in decades past (e.g. Crabb 2009; Warhurst 2007; Frame 2006; Kelly 2006; Maddox 2005). One of the key views within those discussions is that in the past two decades religion has created a presence that is, at least for some denominations, “in real danger of fusing religion and politics, of failing to maintain the necessary distance between church and state” (Frame 2006, 10), and hence religion is moving away from its accepted place within the political order. But it would appear that scholars have become focused on a mote and missed the beam in their own eyes. The point is not that the Cross is or might be exercising increased influence. This has been happening for most of the twentieth century in Australia, and elsewhere in the Western world. Rather, the point is the way in which the Cross is continually invoked to legitimise political authority, and by extension to legitimise the exercise of that authority. For example, former Australian PM Rudd built his political credibility in the lead-up to the 2007 federal elections, in part, by establishing his religious credentials and playing on them as part of his presentation of his aspirational political self. This was also similar to the electoral strategies pursued by Blair in the UK and Barak Obama in the US in that each used their personal faith commitments to articulate a new “moral compass” that could appeal to their respective electorates as a means of cultural, social and political renewal (Graham 2009). Where invoking religious beliefs in some way or another is expected of presidential candidates (Raban 2008), its appearance within the political discourses of New Labour in the UK and the electoral strategies of Rudd in Australia was less usual. However, neither Blair nor Rudd was simply playing the religion card in order to get elected. The political cultures of both countries have low levels of tolerance for overt expressions of religious belief by politicians. Just so long as Blair and Rudd recognised that they had leeway only to point to the ways in which their religious principles informed the moral and ethical values that would be the core of their parties’ respective political agendas then the electorate would tolerate their invocations of religion. As Graham has shown in the case of Blair, during his tenure as Prime Minister, he was often obliged to tone down his appeal to religious principles, and on one occasion his minder, Alistair Campbell, famously interrupted an interview with Blair to inform the journalist that “We don’t do God” (Graham 2009, 151). Similarly, once he won the 2007 election, Rudd also toned down his appeal to religion so that this aspect of his electoral strategy did not become the source of his political undoing. And as noted, his successor in mid-2010, Julia Gillard, has eschewed any religious affiliation, for the most part allowing others to label her an

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atheist. Three of her senior Ministers, Nicola Roxon, Greg Combet and Chris Bowen have also described themselves as non-believers (Gordon and Fyfe 2010). But open acknowledgements such as these are rare in Australian politics, indeed, in most Western polities. For some commentators this means that in Australia, with the exception of Gillard and Combet, there has been occurring an intensification of the presence of religion in politics in the early twentyfirst century (Maddox 2005; Kelly 2006; Warhurst 2007). It is also interpreted as an indication that the so-called secularisation of society has reached its limit and politicians ignore this at their peril (Kelly 2006). Yet both of these interpretations share an assumption, also common to the Blair and Rudd political strategies, that religion is the sine qua non for possessing values, or at least that religion demonstrates that one has (the right) values. The paucity of that view needs no refutation here. Suffice it to say that it excludes non-believers of any form of religion (the orthodox, the fundamentalist, the newly created, and the downright bizarre) from having moral values and ethical principles. What is far more interesting is that it reminds us that religion is indeed the sine qua non of something— not of holding moral values and ethics, but of the moorings that tie politicians (and by extension the wider polity) to a particular understanding of the constitution and exercise of political rule. In effect, the hierarchies of gods and masters, not self-actualising citizens, remain the sine qua non of political rule.

Works Cited Astell, M. 1705. The Christian Religion, As Professed by a Daughter of the Church of England. London. R. Wilkin. Berens, L. H. 1906. The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, & Co. Ltd. Accessed February 2010. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17480/17480-h/17480-h.htm. Bowen, J. R. 2007. Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Brown, W. 2008. Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bukovansky, M. 1999. “The Altered State and the State of Nature: The French Revolution and International Politics.” Review of International Studies 25 (2): 197-216. Crabb, A. 2009. “Invoking Religion in Australian Politics.” Australian Journal of Political Science 44 (2): 259-79.

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Ewing, K. P. 2000. “Legislating Religious Freedom: Muslim Challenges to the Relationship between ‘Church’ and ‘State’ in Germany and France.” Daedalus 129 (4): 31-54. Foucault, M. 1986. “Power and Truth.” In. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-77. Edited by C. Gordon. Translated by C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham, and K. Soper. Brighton, 109-33. Brighton, UK: Harvester Press. Frame, T. 2006. Church and State: Australia’s Imaginary Wall. Sydney, NSW: University of NSW Press. Gordon, J., and M. Fyfe. 2010. “Q. What do These MPs Have in Common? A. They are Out and Proud Atheists.” The Age, 14 March 2010. Accessed 30 November 2012. http://www.theage.com.au/national/q-what-do-these-mps-have-incommon-a-they-are-out-and-proud-atheists-20100313-q59i.html. Graham, E. 2009. “A Window on the Soul: Four Politicians on Religion and Public Life.” International Journal of Public Theology 3: 145-64. Grell, O. P., and R. Porter, eds 2000. Toleration in Enlightenment Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hill, C. 1972. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. London: Temple Smith. Hobbes, T. 1651a. Leviathan. Edited and Introduced by C.B. Macpherson. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976. —. 1651b. De Cive – Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society. On-line version from http://www.constitution.org/th/decive.htm. Accessed 20 March 2010. Kelly, P. 2006. “Christian Political Engagement - Contemporary Tensions.” Acton Lecture on Religion and Freedom. Centre for Independent Studies. 11 December. Locke, J. 1690. Two Treatises on Government. A Critical Edition with an Introduction and Apparatus Criticus by P. Laslett. Rev. Ed. New York: Mentor Books, 1976. Maddox, M. 2005. God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australia. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. Mendus, S. ed 1988. Justifying Toleration: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Petegorsky, D. W. 1940. Left-wing Democracy in the English Civil War: A Study of the Social Philosophy of Gerrard Winstanley. London: Gollancz. Pincus, S. 2009. 1688: The First Modern Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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Raban, Jonathon. 2008. “Good News In Bad Times.” The Guardian (UK). 5 January. Rousseau, J-J. 1762. The Social Contract. Translated and Introduced by M. Cranston. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987. Sabine, G., and T. L. Thorson. 1973. A History of Political Theory. Revised 4th edited. by T.L Thorson. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press. Sade, Marquis de. 1791. Justine or, The Misfortunes of Virtue. Translated by Helen Weaver. London: Bell Publishing, 1966. Scharffs, B. G. 2004. “The Autonomy of Church and State.” Brigham Young University Law Review 2004 (4): 1217-1348. Springborg, P. 1995. “Mary Astell (1666-1731), Critic of John Locke.” American Political Science Review 89 (3): 621-633. The Constitution. 2008. In Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia 2008—31st Edition. Accessed 23 March 2010. http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo. The Form and Order of Service that is to be performed and the Ceremonies that are to be observed in the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, on Tuesday, the second day of June, 1953. Accessed 20 March 2010. http://www.oremus.org/liturgy/coronation/cor1953b.html. The Holy Bible, the Authorized or King James version of 1611 now reprinted with the Apocrypha. 1963. With reproductions of 105 of the sixteenth-century woodcuts of B. Salomon. London: Nonesuch Press. The United States Constitution (USC). 2010. Accessed 20 March 2009. http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html. Voth, B. 1998. “A Case Study in Metaphor as Argument: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Wall Separating Church and State.” Argumentation and Advocacy 34 (3): 127-39. Warhurst, J. 2007. “Religion and Politics in the Howard Decade.” Australian Journal of Political Science 42 (1): 19-32. Weber, E. 1976. Peasants into Frenchmen: the Modernization of Rural France 1870-1914. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Zakaria, Fareed. 2009. “Interview with David Miliband.” Accessed 20 March 2010. http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0907/05/fzgps.01.html.

CONTRIBUTORS

Hawzhin Azeez is currently a Ph.D student and a lecturer at the University of Newcastle. Her areas of interest include reconstruction of post-conflict societies and democratisation. Her current thesis focuses on the reconstruction of post-conflict societies such as Iraq and the relationship between the religious and the secular. Des Brennan spent much of the 1990s studying and working in Central Europe, mainly in Poland and Hungary. His interests include Central European history and geography, cultural geography and ethnic relations in Central and Eastern Europe. He is currently based in Wellington. He recently completed a PhD entitled “The European Union, Poland and the Transmission of Values and Norms to Eastern Neighbours” at the National Centre for Research on Europe, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Guy Charlton is currently a visiting associate professor at City University of Hong Kong Law School. He has a PhD from the University of Auckland and a MA from the University of Toronto. He has practiced law in the United States. His research interests include indigenous rights, legal history and public law. Stephen Chavura has lectured in politics at several universities in Australia. His research interests include the history of political thought, religion and politics, and church and state in Australia. He is the author of Tudor Protestant Political Thought: 1547-1603 (2011). Christine Doran is Senior Lecturer in History and Political Science in the School of Creative Arts and Humanities at Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia, where she lectures mainly on Southeast Asian history and also on Australian history. In addition to several monographs and edited volumes, Dr Doran has published widely on Southeast Asian and Asian history and politics in leading international journals. A major focus of recent research and publishing activity has been on the political objectives and strategies of Chinese intellectuals in colonial Singapore at the fin-de-siecle.

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Contributors

Dominic Fitzsimmons works in the Faculty of Law and in the Learning Centre at the University of New South Wales. His research interests include migrant literature in Germany, learning and teaching practices, including peer mentoring, and the experience of non-traditional students in tertiary education. And cats. W. John Hopkins is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Law at the University of Canterbury Law School, Christchurch, New Zealand. He is a public lawyer who also works in the fields of comparative, European and international law. His work has primarily focused on multi-level and sub-national forms of governance, particularly in the European Union. He is a former Deputy Director of the Institute of European Public Law. In 2012 he was the New Zealand Fulbright scholar to the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC. Rob Imre is a Senior Lecturer in Politics in the Discipline of Politics and International Relations in the Newcastle Business School at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. Details of his research can be found here: http://www.newcastle.edu.au//staff/research-profile/Robert _Imre/. His email is [email protected]. Jim Jose is Associate Professor in Politics in the Discipline of Politics and International Relations in the Newcastle Business School at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. Details of his research can be found here: http://www.newcastle.edu.au//staff/research-profile/Jim_ Jose/. His email is [email protected]. Graham Maddox is Emeritus Professor in Political Science in the School of Humanities at the University of New England. Graham has published extensively on Australian politics, religion and politics, and history of political thought. His books include The Hawke Government and Labor Tradition, Australian Democracy in Theory and Practice, Religion and the Rise of Democracy, and an annotated edition of Political Writings of John Wesley. Recent articles include “The Secular Reformation and the Influence of Machiavelli”, “Hebrew Prophecy and the Foundations of Political Opposition”, and “The Spell of Parmenides”. Tod Moore is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Newcastle, Australia. His interests include theology and resistance theory in the Early Modern era, idealist liberalism 1890-1920, Australian political intellectuals, and sovereignty theory. Tod is currently

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researching the pamphlet literature of the Australian conscription crisis, 1916-1917. Richard Oloruntoba has lived and worked in several of the large cities in Nigeria for over three decades before migrating to the UK in the 1990s, and then to Australia in the early 2000s. Richard’s research interests include international logistics, international business as well as issues related to disaster relief, disaster and humanitarian logistics and more recently politics, religion and current affairs. He is a Lecturer of International Logistics, International Business and Management at the Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle Australia where he recently completed his PhD thesis on increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of natural disaster relief processes. His email is [email protected]. Sandra Reeves is currently tutoring in the field of sociology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her interest in social and welfare policy at an academic level corresponds with her direct experience of poverty by way of her volunteer work for a faith-based organisation near to her place of residence. Her recently completed PhD, from which the chapter of this book is drawn, highlighted a disconnect from what politicians and policies makers assumed would happen at the level of faith-based volunteer/client interviews and what actually took place. Josh Snider is an Assistant Professor in the School of Politics, History and International Relations, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. His research agenda is multi-disciplinary and bisects Security (trajectories of religious terrorism) and Nationalism Studies. His areas of specialization also include: Ethno-religious violence in South/South East Asia, Political Islam in Southeast Asia, US Security policy relating to “Global War on Terror” in South and West Asia, and Governance and the effects of violent religiosity on civil society movements. He is currently completing his PhD at University of Newcastle Australia exploring the complexities of modern religious nationalism in South and Southeast Asia and specifically compares how the State has co-opted Islamist politics for secular ends in Indonesia and Pakistan. Christian Wicke is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Movements, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, and a Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies in Canberra. He holds a PhD from the Australian National University and has previously studied at the

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Contributors

University of Edinburgh, Maastricht University and Bogazici University in Istanbul, and in 2012 he worked at the Collaborative Research Centre 804 at TU Dresden. He recently edited a special issue of Humanities Research on “Biography and Nationalism” (with Jonathan Hearn), and has also published in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics.

INDEX Abdullah Sungkar, 140 Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, 140 Adenauer, 106, 107, 115, 116 Alger, 125 allegiance, 51, 187, 190, 192, 198 Al-Mukmin pesentren, 140 al-Sadr, 120 Al-Sistani, 119 Anderson, 83, 99, 124 imagined community, 187, 188 inventing the nation, 189 nation-building, 188 Anzac, 192 Arabization, 139 aristocracy, 27, 29, 31, 33 Asian values, 53, 54 Australia, 5, 9, 145, 149, 150, 151, 152, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 203, 204, 205, 206 Ayatollah, 119, 120, 127, 132 behaviour, 4, 123, 127, 153, 155, 158, 159, 164, 193 Belarus, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 Belgium, 86, 87 Bell, 101 Benedict XV, 101 Benedict XVI, 102 Berger, 102, 122, 123, 124, 130 Berlin Conference, 1884, 170 Bible, 28, 29, 31, 37, 158, 180, 197, 208 Bill of Rights, 201 Bismarck, Otto von, 100 Blair, Tony, 151, 205, 206 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 202, 203 boundary maintenance, 193 Bowen, 206 Brest, 92, 93 Brown, Gordon, 204

Bush, George W., 132, 152, 164 Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics, 93 Calvinism, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 38 Catalonia, 89 Catholic, 8, 16, 65, 83, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 103, 104, 105, 119, 170, 186, 187, 189, 191, 193 social doctrine, 99 theology, 100 Catholic Centre party, 101 Catholic Centre Party, 100 Catholic Social Teaching, 104 Central Europe, 92, 190 Centrelink, 150, 154, 163 Chifley, Ben, 204 Christian Democracy, 98, 104, 107, 110 citizens, 9, 11, 17, 18, 19, 62, 93, 119, 149, 186, 190, 195, 196, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 206 Clark, Helen, 204 Clinton, Bill, 151 Coffey, John, 33, 37 colonialism, 61, 139, 175 Combet, Greg, 206 Confucius, 49, 54 Confucius Institutes, 55 congregations, 30, 32, 33, 36 Independent, 36 and democracy, 27 Nigeria, 178 Constitution, 38, 190 Australia, 190, 203 German Democratic Republic, 190 mixed, 27, 192 United States, 201 Constitution Act 1982, 65

214 Costello, Peter, 152 Cotton, John, 26, 27, 31 Crown, 191, 203 Dawa, 143 democracy, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 20, 26, 27, 29, 31, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 45, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 108, 118, 120, 175, 177 loop of, 5 vs God, 3 Deng Xiaoping, 55 Diderot, 51 Dural Islam, 137, 138, 140, 142 Eastern Europe, 88, 92, 190, 209 empire, 18, 46 Empire British, 170 Fulani, 169 kleindeustsch, 106 Erzberger, 101 Esposito, 123, 125 European citizenship, 88 colonialism, 169, 170 Community, 110 identities, 89 integration, 106, 109, 110 patriotism, 110 powers, 82 settlers, 201 states, 80 European Union, 82, 86, 88, 118 faith, 4, 5, 6, 33, 124, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 177, 179, 190, 192, 201, 205 and Helmut Kohl, 109 and Jefferson, 20 and morality, 152 Faith, Defender of, 191 Faith-based organizations (FBOs), 11, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, 162 Finck, Johannes, mentor of Helmut Kohl, 104, 105, 106, 111, 115 Foucault, Michel, 3, 12, 53, 58, 196, 207

Index Friedrich the Great, 190 Galicia, 93, 95 Gellner, 84, 90 German Democratic Republic, 186 Germany, 87, 93, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 115, 116, 186, 188, 193, 207, 210 Giles of Rome, 15 Gillard, 204, 205, 206 Goodwin, Thomas, 31, 32, 40, 41 Grand Debate, the, see Westminster Assembly Grand Marja, 119 Grant, Ulysses, 204 Grodno, 93 guoxue, 53, 55, 56 guoxue re, 52, 54, 56 Haller, William, 37, 41 Hanson, Russell, 22, 24, 31, 37, 41 hard-borders, 83, 84, 89 Hawke, Bob, 204 Hayes, Rutherford, 204 Hebrew, 33, 37 Hitler, Adolf, 101, 102, 103, 104, 111, 112, 113 Hobbes, Thomas, 18, 22, 37, 199, 207 Hobsbawm, E. J. nationalism and national movements, 82, 85, 99 nationalism and religion, 99 protonational feelings, 189 Hong Kong, 46, 53 Howard, John, 150, 152, 155, 159, 163 Huntington, Samuel, 163 Iceberg Model, 137 Independents, early modern English political thought, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 44 individual and community, 87 and conscience, 16, 30 and group identity, 78, 79 and identity, 83, 90

Not So Strange Bedfellows and rights, 60 and rights, 72 individualism, 54, 61 Indonesia, 11, 133, 135, 137, 145, 146 and al-Qaeda, 135 and Jihadism, 134, 136 and nationalism, 45 Islamist agenda in, 139 modern Islamism in, 134 post-New Order, 138, 141, 142 Indonesian Islamism, 140 Indonesian state, 144 Iraq, 117, 118, 119, 122, 126, 128, 131, 132, 209 and Ahmad Chalabi, 121 and Daawa Party, 120 and Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, 120 Jafar Umar Thalib, 142 Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid, 133 Jefferson, Thomas, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 204 Jemmah Islamiyah, 133 Jemmah Islamiyyah, 140 Jerusalem, 27 Jihadism, 134, 137, 141, 143 Johnson, Andrew, 204 Kang Youwei, 50, 52 Keating, Paul, 151 Kelly Lake Cree Nation v. British Columbia (Minister of Energy & Mines), 71 Kohl, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115 Kongzi. See Confucius Kultur, abendländische, 105 Kulturkampf, 100 Kurds, 119 laïcité, 14, 203 Laskar Jihad, 142 Law Jobs, 85 Liang Qichao, 53 Liberal peace theory, 118, 127, 129 liberalism, 61, 62, 108, 210

215

Lida, 93 Lim Boon Keng, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 57, 58 Lincoln, Abraham, 204 Lithuania, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97 Locke, John and consent of the governed, 195, 202 and lectures on the law of nature, 20 and Mengzi's arguments on rebellion, 49 and social contract, 199 and the role of the State, 19 and Thomas Jefferson, 19, 21 Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), 18, 19 Lukashenko, Aleksander, 96 Luther, 29, 30, 101 Lviv, 92, 95 Maastricht, Treaty of, 110 Macaulay, T. B., 54 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 27, 37, 52 Majelis Mujahideen Indonesia, 140 Majelis Ulemma Indonesia, 146 Manchu (Qing) Dynasty, 47, 50, 51 Marsilius of Padua, 15 Marxism, 3, 7, 8, 55, 100, 109 Masyumi, and Islam, 139 May Fourth Movement, 53 Mengzi, 49, 50, 51, 52 Messianism, 7 Miliband, David, 204 Modernism, 139 Monarchy, 7, 27, 32, 35, 100, 200, 202 Montesquieu, 51 moral compass, 205 morality, 20, 108, 168 Mukherjee, Kunal, 128 Myanmar, 45 nation -building, 9, 11, 84, 85, 86, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 105, 108, 109, 110, 117, 129, 133, 138,

216 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193 Nation -Cree, 64, 71, 76 -Navajo, 66, 67, 68, 72, 76 nationalism, 45, 80, 81, 86, 90, 91, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 105, 108, 110, 123, 137, 211 nation-state, 78, 79, 80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 89, 145, 187, 188 neo-liberalism, 9 New England, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 210 New Order, 134, 138, 141, 145 Nigeria corruption, 175, 176, 178, 180 oil, 173, 175 poverty, 174, 175, 179, 181 resource curse, 173 normality, 98, 102, 105, 109, 110 Obama, Barak, 205 pamphlets, 26, 30, 32, 33, 37, 48 Pancasela, 145 Papen, Franz von, 101 Pedoman Umum Perjuangan AlJama’ah al-Islamiyyah, 140 Pinsk, 93 Pius XII (Pacelli), 101 Poland, 91, 93, 94 political religion, 3, 7, 10, 11 postcolonial, 57 postcolonialism, 45 poverty, 9, 151, 152, 154, 159, 163 Presbyterians, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38, 191 radicalization, 134, 135, 136, 145 Raffles, Thomas Stamford, 46 Rawls, John, 21, 22, 25 Reagan, Ronald, 151 reason, 4, 6, 21, 35, 108, 124 Reason, Cult of, 8 reconstruction, 11, 27, 117, 118, 120, 123, 124, 126, 129 reconstruction., 122 republicanism, 34, 37, 38, 50 Revolution

Index American, 199, 201, 202 British, 30, 33, 37 Cultural, 53 England 1688, 199, 201, 202 French, 7, 38, 84, 100, 195, 199 Industrial, 170 Iranian, 127 Russian, 8 Rights of Man, 195 Roma, 88 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 199, 203 Roxon, Nicola, 206 Rudd, Kevin, 205, 206 Rutherford, Samuel, 33, 34, 35, 39, 43, 204 Sade, Marquis de, 203 Salafi-Jihadism, 134, 136, 140, 141, 143 Salafi-Jihadist, 142 Salafism, 138, 139, 141 Seyyid Qutb, 141 Shi’ite, 119, 120 Shia, 119, 120 Singapore, 45, 46, 47, 48, 53, 54, 58, 59, 148, 175, 209 Sinology, 56, 57 Skinner, Quentin, 37, 44 social justice, 151 Soft-borders, 80, 86 Suharto, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 147 Sunni, 119, 120, 138 Taiwan, 46, 53 terror, war on, 6, 7, 133 terrorism, 135, 211 Thatcher, Margaret, 151 Thirty Years War, the, 189, 199 toleration, 96, 190, 200 Toleration Act of 1689, 200 traditionalism, 139 Transcarpathia, 95 Treaty of Westphalia, 82, 189 Tu Weiming, 53, 54 Ukraine, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97 United States, 24, 38, 46, 53, 65, 66, 67, 75, 76, 109, 117, 118, 124,

Not So Strange Bedfellows 131, 135, 173, 174, 181, 187, 202, 208, 209 Venerable Bede, 189 Voltaire, 51 Warsaw, 94 Warsaw Pact, 188 Weber, Max, 54, 99, 116, 203, 208

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welfare, 11, 15, 49, 64, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159, 161, 162, 163, 169, 211 Westminster Assembly, 30, 31, 33 Whitlam, Gough, 204