By Ammar Ali Hassan - Al Ahram Weekly - Cairo, Egypt20 - 26 September 2007 - Issue No. 863
Millions have found a home in religion in the context of the West's confrontation with the Arab and Islamic worlds. The crisis, or assimilation, of secular Arab nationalism has contributed to the rise of political Islam.
Does this signal an end to the Arab project of building civil-oriented states, or can politics be melded with moral and ethical concerns without becoming a pawn of religious fervour?
Instead of bringing politics into religion, we should consider bringing moral and ethical values into politics.
Many intellectuals hold that the Eastern mentality in general is more inclined to the spiritual than to the abstract philosophical. But the distinction between spirituality and philosophy is a rather spurious one in that over the course of history the two have been so closely intertwined that the attempt to separate one from the other inevitably results in a failure to comprehend both.
Islam is a single indivisible "text", but it has given rise to numerous and diverse interpretations and exegeses which, when translated into human actions and attitudes, have yielded a broad spectrum of behaviour ranging between the antithetical extremes of "revolutionary dissident" and "Sufi recluse".
Religion, even in its most ritualistic sense, creates a set of values that become an integral part of the worshipper's self and shapes his awareness and perceptions of the world around him. Thus the gateway between the religious and the political is wide open.
The worlds of politics and religion share several common traits, among them ambiguity, diversity, interconnectivity, fluidity and dynamism. They both combine material, moral and structural elements and are closely connected.
Religion imparts moral values, which are essentially social values; it functions to regulate society through conventions of rites and rituals and the codification of the divide between right and wrong; and the religious establishment plays a vital role as a conduit for social advancement in societies that accord a special status to religious culture.
Some people turn to religious fanaticism as a refuge from odious social realities. For them, religious fanaticism is a defence mechanism against oppression, frustration, fear and all the attendant anxieties and tensions arising from the inability to face the demands and pressures of reality.
Too weak or downtrodden to take reality face-on, they withdraw from the realm of ordinary life, wrap themselves in the comfort and security of religious fervour and begin to carve out for themselves a new role that will no longer leave them marginalised, a role that evolves into a new constant in the dynamics of society.
Their relationship with society can be either assimilative, which when taken to the extreme means that the one must absorb the other, or adversarial, which when taken to the extreme means that the one must exclude and ultimately try to eradicate the other.
Both patterns are a manifestation of mankind's interest in the phenomenon of religion and an affirmation of the perpetuity of this phenomenon, even if contextualised against the entrenchment of structures of political corruption and class exploitation, as religion was for Karl Marx, who could not ignore how it functioned ideologically as a social regulator.
If religion is a moral/ideological calling with an expectation of moral commitment and dedication, these concepts also underlie politics. Politics, in its broadest sense, is about power, and power entails an expectation of commitment, submission and deference to a higher will.
Like religion, it also entails rules to regulate its practice and to ensure conformity. Thus religion, in part, regulates a metaphysical relationship, and politics, in part, regulates a civil relationship.
As fundamental a difference as this might be, the two are nevertheless connected by virtue of their need for human organisation, and this connection has imposed a permanent relationship between the two that has been evidenced in all societies and civilisations without exception.
Religion has always influenced politics and served as a platform to stake out a political presence, and power has always striven to use religion as a means to ensure cohesion and loyalty.
In Arab society, religion, in the form of politicised religious movements, has played a prominent role as an engine of social and political change. Religion, at least according to some, has also left its imprint on the processes of ideological obfuscation, false consciousness and the flight from reality used to entrench class discrimination and to legitimise tyrannical regimes.
Neither of these antithetical phenomena derives from Islam as it was originally revealed, but rather from the interpretations of Islam by individuals and groups for whom the religious text becomes entwined with a complex social fabric made up of diverse interests, desires and conditions.
Whether religion is a vehicle for change or for repression is a subject of considerable controversy. My intent here is not to analyse or pass judgment on either of these positions, but rather to underscore the fact that by merely positing views on the positive or negative influence of religion on society affirms the close connection between religion and politics.
As for the relationship between the religious establishment and the legitimacy of the political regime, it varies in accordance with the nature of that establishment and the diversity of its activities. Generally, it is in the nature of official religious establishments to promote the values and political trends espoused by the regime.
Conversely, it is in the nature of unofficial religious establishments to propound new or alternative values, opposed to those espoused by the regime and that may have the potential to threaten its stability and perpetuity.
Aware as they are of the power of the religious establishment and its influence on political awareness, ruling elites have frequently co-opted that establishment with an eye to transforming its podiums into political schoolhouses in which people can be inculcated with ideas and modes of behaviour that serve the interests of the regime, simultaneously with an eye to preventing oppositional currents from using the same podiums for opposite reasons.
In order to prevent religion from being exploited in this manner -- from being manipulated to justify certain forms of political behaviour or from its being stripped of its sanctity and glory and reduced to a mere ideology -- perhaps we should contemplate "religionising" politics, as opposed to politicising religion.
In other words, we should explore the possibility of giving politics a moral framework, as did some Muslim political philosophers in the past, or as Kant did in Western political philosophy. It is important to stress, here, that such a moral framework must not exploit religion as a political tool, which demeans its sanctity and reverence and which would also constitute duping a naturally religious Egyptian public.
"Religionising" politics becomes a viable alternative when it signifies placing the latter within a moral and ethical framework inspired by religious beliefs or even by beneficial traditions and conventions and when used to refine the practice of politics and to eliminate hypocrisy, fraud and deceit. Indeed, such an alternative remains one of the quests of political science.
The politicisation of religion, on the other hand, must be rejected in no uncertain terms. To mix religion with the practice of politics is harmful to both, because ultimately it produces new and multifarious shades of deleterious tampering with people's interests and minds, because it opens the path to religious demagoguery that obscures the objective assessment of reality, and because it permits a group to advance its own claims and interests in the guise of an absolutist dogma.
The writer is director of the Middle East Studies and Research Centre, Cairo.
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