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Symbolic Violence: Religion and Empowerment
- Fordham University Press
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Symbolic Violence Religion and Empowerment Mark Juergensmeyer From Bali to New York City and from Mumbai to Madrid, images of religion have become fused with scenes of violent protests against the political order. Islamic activists in the Middle East, Christian militia in the United States, Jewish zealots in Israel, and Buddhist militants in Sri Lanka exemplify the many rebellious challenges to the secular state that have erupted around the world. They have employed religion as a way of legitimizing the power of antiauthoritarian movements. In none of these cases is religion the sole cause of violence—these are movements for political empowerment, not theological contests. Yet religion has become a problematic partner in some of the most virulent political movements of our generation. In this essay I want to explore why this is so: why religious symbols convey an experience of empowerment and why this experience is intimately related to violence. I find that the idea of cosmic war is at the center of many of these outbursts of religious violence, and I probe the significance of ultimate warfare as a way of conveying power and meaning. I also try to imagine a way that images of ultimate conflict can be defused, so that lives can be spared the savagery of warfare even when the symbolic potency of the bellicose images remains intact. Understanding the role of religion in providing a sense of empowerment might help to explain what may appear to be some of the more puzzling features of modern acts of terrorism and religious violence: assaults by extremist groups on opponents who are infinitely better armed. These attacks— including suicide missions undertaken by ardent followers of a desperate cause—seem destined to fail. It is hard to take seriously the notion that these are rational efforts to achieve power, at least by ordinary calculations. Yet to 3 9 M A R K JU E R G E NS M EY ER those undertaking them, there may be something exhilarating, perhaps even rewarding, about the struggle itself. This sense of empowerment may make the effort seem worthwhile. It can also, at times, lead to real political change. ‘‘To die in this way’’—through suicide bombings—the political head of the Hamas movement told me, ‘‘is better than to die daily in frustration and humiliation.’’1 He went on to say that, in his view, the very nature of Islam is to defend ‘‘dignity, land, and honor.’’ He then related a story that the prophet had told about a woman who fasted daily, yet was doomed to hell because she humiliated her neighbors. The point of the story, he said, is that dishonoring someone is the worst act that one can do, and the only thing that can counter it is dignity—the honor provided by religion and the courage of being a defender of the faith. In a curious way, then, both religion and violence are seen as antidotes to humiliation. Countering dishonor with piety and struggle is a theme that runs through many incidents of religious violence in recent years. A Jewish extremist in Israel, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, felt compelled to kill innocent Muslims in the shrine of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron because he felt Jews had been dishonored. A similar sense of pride was exhibited in the nervous bravado of the Palestinian Hamas suicide bombers in the videotapes made the night before their actions and in the assured self-confidence of Mohammad Attah and other hijackers of the airplanes that attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, as seen on the videotapes of security cameras as they entered the airports on their tragic mission. Sikh militants were so angered that the government ignored them that they turned to violence in order to force the government to take them seriously.2 Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Buddhist new religious movement who ordered the nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo subways, wanted to be not only ‘‘like a king,’’ as one of his former followers told me, but also ‘‘like Christ.’’3 These are all examples of symbolic empowerment related both to religion and to violence. By describing this feeling of strength as ‘‘symbolic empowerment,’’ I do not mean to imply that the empowerment is not real. After all, a sense of power is largely a matter of perception, and in many cases the power that the activists obtained had a very real impact on their...