Religion as Source of Violence

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 2001 by T.K. Oommen

A Sociological Perspective

Let me begin with two short observations. Firstly, the "ought-is" distinction is seminal in that there is a dialectical relationship between them. If in the past religion was seen in conjunction with several other elements in society, there is an increasing tendency to recognize the differentiation between these elements and to endorse the division of labour between them in contemporary times. However, this differentiation is not accepted by all religious communities. When religion is seen as independent of states, nations and ethnies(1) it is rarely a distinct source of violence.

Secondly, there is a widespread belief today that some religious communities are less violent while others are virulent in their violence. Part of the problem in this perception lies in "contemporization" of social reality by a "retreat into the present" (to recall the evocative phrase of Norbert Elias)(2) which creates an abysmal wedge between the past and the present. If the first issue can be located in value orientations and structural connectivity, the second is to be understood in terms of historicity. In analyzing religion as source of violence, I shall discuss these three dimensions but in the reverse order.

Historicity

Four historical moments may be identified to locate the historicity of religious violence.(3) The first of these moments is associated with the diffusion of world religions during the 4th to 7th centuries of the Christian era. Christianity became the dominant religion of Europe not only through the displacement of the religions native to that continent, but also through the new faith's officialization in the Roman empire. Christianity also spread to Ethiopia in Africa and Kerala in South Asia during this period. Hinduism spread to the Indonesian archipelago. Buddhism went to China, Korea and Japan from India. By the beginning of the 8th century CE, Islam captured Spain and the Arab world, and went to Sind in the Indian sub-continent. Much violence was involved in this transcontinental spread of the world religions.

While it is tree that much of the pre-colonial spread of religions was associated with political conquest and physical violence, this was not uniformly so. For example, violence was not a characteristic feature in the spread of Hinduism. Christianity scarcely used any violence in transplanting it to Kerala. Ashoka, moved by the carnage he witnessed in his victory in the Kalinga war, convened to Buddhism and propagated that religion through peaceful missionary propaganda. And not only that. Ashoka averred through one of his edicts (now numbered XII) thus: "... a man must not do reverence to his own sect or disparage that of another man without reason. Deprecation should be for specific reason only, because the sects of other people all deserve reverence for one reason or another."(4) That is, Ashoka did not encourage blind veneration of one's religion, or irrational disrespect of others' religion.

The second historical moment, namely colonialism, was characterized by racial superiority ("the white man's burden") and cultural conquest (the civilizing mission) in addition to political and economic domination, and was charged with religious violence. However, the intensity and nature of violence varied between the different denominations and at the different colonial sites. Here it is necessary to distinguish between two types of colonialism -- replicative and retreatist.(5) Replicative colonialism produced the New World consisting of the Americas, Australia and New Zealand. The European missionaries did not even recognize the primal vision of the First Nations of the New World as religion; indeed, the original inhabitants of the New World were not even treated as full-fledged human beings. Both the Christian church and the colonial state were at their worst in inflicting violence in the New World: not only were the First Nations not allowed the right to define themselves in terms of their cultural identity, but they were physically liquidated. Genocide and culturocide (the systematic liquidation of culture) co-existed.

Retreatist colonialism produced two dichotomies -- the primitive and the modern as well as the Orient and the Occident. The "Dark Continent", "primitive" Africa, was also inhabited by peoples "without history" and "without religion". Therefore it was necessary to convert them to Christianity in large numbers. But unlike in the New World stiff opposition from Islam had to be faced, often resulting in violent clashes between the two "imported" religions. Today, the leading religion of 50 percent of the African states is Christianity, the other dominant religion being Islam; thus the native religions were relegated to the background thanks to Christian colonialism and the Muslim conquest of Africa.

The Orient-Occident dichotomy was couched in different terms; but in fact there were three orients as against one occident.(6) The Orient was home to three great civilizations -- Chinese, Indian and Egyptian -- all of whom have had not only a long history, but also developed religions. The Far Orient, the Chinese civilizational region, had several native developed religions -- Confucianism, Shintoism, Taoism and Buddhism had a strong presence there. The Middle Orient, the Indian civilizational region, was home to several world religions -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. As for the Near Orient, the Egyptian civilizational region, Islam, one of the religions of the Book, was the dominant religion. Therefore, the scope of Christianization of these regions, through colonialism, was limited. In fact, there is only one Christian majority country in Asia -- the Philippines. However, Muslim conquest turned the Indian subcontinent into the biggest Islamic congregation in the world. Even after the division of the sub-continent into three -- India, Pakistan and Bangladesh -- India's Muslim population is 120 million, second only to Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world. Both Islamic conquest and Christian colonialism injected violence in the Orient, particularly in the Near Orient and the Middle Orient.