Cultural Globalization: The Role of Religion

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Cultural Globalization The Role of Religion
Introduction

• Lechner Boli, pp. 345-347

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Public "Relieved" By bin Laden's Death
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Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979)

• Major world event" that "put fundamentalism on
  the map"
• Outcome of long struggle to overthrow the Shah of
  Iran
• Shah was seen as puppet of the West, esp. the
  US
• Iran was predominantly Shi'a (the two main
  sub-groups of Islam are Shi'a and Sunni)
• Shah was seen as an "illegitimate tyrant who had
  tried to modernize the country in violation of
  Islamic norms"
• Revolution showed it was possible to build an
  Islamic state under modern circumstances

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Islamic Revolution inspired active jihad among a
minority of Muslims

• jihad a religiously motivated opposition to a
  secular, liberal global order
• In predominantly Sunni countries, a movement
  w/similar purposes was growing, the Egyptian
  Muslim Brotherhood, which also rejected Western
  culture and advocated a restoration of sharia
• sharia Islamic law
• In Afghanistan, after the Soviet invasion in
  1979, an extremely conservative group called the
  Taliban took lead in resistance to invasion and
  established an oppressive, orthodox regime in the
  1990s
• The struggle attracted militants from other
  countries, such as Saudi Arabia

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Militants increasingly thought of jihad as global
struggle to restore Islamic caliphate and
implement sharia

• culminating in the attack on the World Trade
  Center on 9/11
• to some, 9/11 was the expression of a new global
  political divide, a "Clash of Civilizations" (à
  la Huntington)

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Islam, like Christianity, is diverse

• Believers have a range of perspectives on
  globalization
• Muslims differ on basic questions concerning the
  relationship between religion the state, gender
  roles, democracy, etc.

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"Bin Laden and Other Thoroughly Modern Muslims"

• Charles Kurzman, Ch. 42, pp. 353-357

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Islamists, Radical Islamists, and Islamic
liberalism

• Islamists seek to regain righteousness of early
  yrs of Islam and implement sharia
• either by using the state to enforce it
• or by convincing Muslims to abide by Islamic
  norms of their own accord
• Radical Islamists have much in common w/ Islamic
  liberalism
• Both seek to modernize society and politics,
  recasting tradition in modern molds
• Both see multiple ways to be modern and don't
  equate modernity w/ Western culture

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Radical Islamists (Al Qaeda) vs. traditionalists
(Taliban)

• Traditionalists draw on less educated sectors of
  society
• Believe in mystical and personal authority and
  are skeptical of modern organizational forms
• "For this reason, traditionalist movements are
  finding it difficult to survive and occupy only
  isolated pockets of Muslim society" (pp. 353-4)

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The Islamists Roots in Secular Education

• Many Islamists have university (secular) rather
  than seminary (religious) educations
• OBL (AQ leader) held civil engineering degree,
  but issued fatwas (religious decrees) as if he
  were a seminary educated Islamic scholar
• Islamists have railed against seminary-trained
  scholars as out of touch and politically inactive
• Seminaries are considered "backward" by Islamists
• College-educated Muslims have increasingly been
  analyzing sacred texts in a "do it yourself" kind
  of theology

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There's great diversity in Islamic opinion and
Islamic authority

• Govts have taken a role in establishing their
  own official religious authorities and advancing
  their own visions of the proper relationship
  between Islam and the state, through textbooks,
  for example
• There is no universally recognized arbiter to
  resolve Islamic debates
• Any college graduate in a cave can claim to speak
  for Islam

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Islamist political platforms share much with
Western modernity

• Islamists envision overturning tradition in
  politics, social relations, and religious
  practices
• Islamists are hostile to monarchies, such as the
  Saudi dynasty in Arabia
• Islamists favor egalitarian meritocracy, as
  opposed to inherited social hierarchies
• e.g., OBL combined traditional grievances such as
  injustice, corruption, oppression, and
  self-defense with contemporary, secular demands
  such as economic development, human rights and
  national self-determination

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Western biases tend to wrongly lump Khomeni's
Iran together w/ the Taliban in Afghanistan

• Both claimed to be building Islamic states, but
  Iran is a modern state and Afghanistan is not
• Islamic Republic of Iran copied global norms by
  writing constitution, ratifying it with a
  referendum w/ full adult suffrage, holding
  elections, conducting census, etc.
• vs. the traditionalist Taliban, which preferred
  informal and personal administration to the
  rule-bound bureaucracies favored by modern states
• On the issue of gender, Taliban barred girls from
  school, while the Iranian Islamic Republic more
  than doubled girls education levels

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In ideology and also in practice, bin Laden/Al
Qaeda and other radical Islamists mirror Western
trends

• Al Qaeda operates globally like a TNC, with
  affiliates and subsidiaries, strategic partners,
  commodity chains, standardized training,
  off-shore financing
• Insiders call it "the company"
• It's a bureaucratic organization, with a
  modernized communications strategy

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Radical Islamists are a minority within Islam

• Surveys consistently show that most Muslims
  oppose Islamists and their goals
• Islamists rarely fare well in free/partially free
  elections
• However, the US-led war on terror may
  inadvertently benefit Islamists
• The modernization of Muslim societies promoted by
  the US and its allies as a buffer against
  traditionalism may wind up fueling Islamism
• Modern schools produce Islamists as well as
  liberals
• Modern businesses fund Islamist as well as other
  causes
• Modern communications can broadcast Islamist as
  well as other messages
• ? Modernity may take many forms besides Western
  culture

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Osama bin Laden Largely Discredited Among Muslim
Publics in Recent Years
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Islam the West