February 19, 2005

Religion in Politics B

George Bush and Osama bin Laden

Religion

Attempts at Definition: Insofar as the task of defining anything presumes a discrete object that can be identified in contradistinction to others, any definition implies a model of Areligion@ that emerged only with the Enlightenment. Prior to that time, even in western Europe, religion cannot be analytically (or practically) disarticulated from virtually all other aspects of culture. Any view of religion as delimited, and therefore definable, is culturally bound, historically recent, and discursively loaded (pp. 1-2).

The Enlightenment: The Enlightenment can be read as a long struggle against the regime of truth that was centered in and championed by the medieval church. Despite being weakened by the Reformation and Wars of Religion, in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the church, and the faith it represented, retained their connection to B and considerable control over B all aspects of social, political, intellectual and economic life. The goal of those who waged the struggle against this regime of truth [from Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), and Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), to Francois Voltaire (1694-1778), David Hume (1711-1776), Denis Diderot (1713-1784), and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)], was to constrain and de-privilege this hegemon, opening space for secular arts and sciences, and political economy (pp. 2 and 57).

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): Kant brought this struggle to an end with a compromise formulation, whereby Areligion@ was acknowledged as the only means to engage lofty metaphysical issues like the immortality of the soul, but inappropriate for all other matters. For everything save metaphysics, reason is both necessary and sufficient, and it is with this division of intellectual labor that Western modernity was founded (pp. 2 and 57-58).

The Nation-State

Among the prime beneficiaries of this structural transformation was the secular nation-state, which learned to derive its legitimacy from the people it governed rather than God, and which assumed responsibility for countless functions previously discharged by religious institutions B law, education, moral discipline and surveillance, social relief, record keeping and others (p. 58).

Two Models of the Religious: The Amaximalist@ model of the religious reflects the conviction that religion ought to permeate all aspects of social, indeed of human existence. (The term Afundamentalist@ fails to capture this crucial aspect). The Aminimalist@ position, taken by Kant at the culmination of the Enlightenment, restricts religion to an important set of (chiefly metaphysical) concerns, protects its privileges against state intrusion, but restricts its activity and influence to this specialized sphere (p. 5).

The Necessary Four Domains of Religion:

A proper definition of religion must necessarily attend, at a minimum, to the following four domains. Religion is:

1. A discourse whose concerns transcend the human, temporal, and contingent, and that claims for itself a similarly transcendent status. The claim to transcendent authority is grounded in Scripture, revelation or immutable ancestral traditions. Insofar as certain propositions or narratives successfully claim such status, they position themselves as truths B to be interpreted, but never ignored or rejected. Religious discourse can re-code virtually any content as sacred, for what distinguishes religion is its meta-discursive capacity to frame the way any content will be received and regarded (pp. 5-6).

2. A set of practices whose goal is to produce a proper world and/or proper human subjects, as defined by a religious discourse to which these practices are connected. Religious practices generally divide into the ritual and the ethical. They render religious discourse operational, moving it from the realm of speech and consciousness to that of embodied material action. They are the way discourse acts on the world. No practice is inherently religious, and any practice may acquire a religious character when connected to a religious discourse that constitutes it as such (p. 6).

3. A community whose members construct their identity with reference to a religious discourse and its attendant practices (pp. 6-7).

4. An institution that regulates religious discourse, practices and community, reproducing them over time and modifying them as necessary, while asserting their eternal validity and transcendent value (p. 7).

Religion and Violence

All religions sanction, even enjoin the use of violence under certain circumstances, the definitions of which have proven conveniently elastic (p. 73).

A conflict may be defined as the situation that arises when rival interests can no longer be contained by the structures and processes ordinarily competent to do so. As a result, after an indeterminate period of confusion and crisis, normal competition moves into phases that are more open, bitter, confrontational, costly, and frequently violent. Like all others, communities and institutions that define themselves in terms of religion still wage their conflicts primarily around rival claims to scarce resources B people, territory, wealth, positions of power, and economic advantage, as well as such non-material resources as dignity, prestige, and all manner of symbolic capital. Unlike other groups, however, they aim to reconcile the gritty nature of their struggles with the elevated precepts featured in their discourse. The results permit would-be combatants to define themselves and their cause as not just moral, but holy B chosen people, sacred land, divinely ordained offices, inviolable ancestral traditions. At the same time, they can define their adversaries in terms of religious alterity of the Manichaean sort employed by President George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden. In so doing, they constitute the foe as debased, benighted, even demonic B Ainfidels,@ Apagans,@ Aheretics,@ Aapostates,@ AGreat Satan,@ and Agodless atheist communists@ (p. 74).

Religion begins with a human discourse that constructs itself as divine and unfailing, through which deeds B any deed B can be defined as moral (p. 16).

Al Qaeda

The Al Qaeda network constructs itself as simultaneously the militant vanguard and the most faithful fragment of an international religious community. The goal it articulates is the restoration of Islam in a maximalist form and its consequent triumph over its internal and foreign enemies. Those enemies include:

1. Western powers, which are not only non-Muslim, but also non-religious, and even anti-religious (Ainfidels@).

2. Post-colonial state elites, whose Islamic commitments have been egregiously compromised (Ahypocrites@).

3. That part of the Enlightenment project committed to religious minimalism and the ascendancy of the secular state (p. 75).

The set of instructions which, on September 11, 2001, hijacker Mohamed Atta left in his luggage along with his last will and testament, shows how religious discourse construed mass murder and terrible destruction as religious practices (p. 8).

The instructions rarely treat the mission as a whole and never mention its fiery finish. Instead, the operation is atomized, decomposed into a series of minute actions, each of which is invested in one fashion or another with religious significance (p. 10).

Similarities and Differences B Bush and bin Laden

Similarities and differences between the two men stand out in a comparison of two documents:

* George W. Bush, Televised Address to the Nation, October 7, 2001: This is the address in which, less than a month after the attacks of September 11^th, President Bush announced the American military response (pp. 19 and 99-101).

* Osama bin Laden, Videotaped Address, October 7, 2001: The riposte from bin Laden in a videotape prepared in anticipation of the military action announced by Bush (pp. 19 and 102-103).

1. The Construction of a Manichaean Struggle: Both Bush and bin Laden constructed a Manichaean struggle, where Sons of Light confront Sons of Darkness, and all must enlist on one side or another, without possibility of neutrality, hesitation, or middle ground. Both men used the same orienting binaries B good/evil, hero/villain, threatened/threatening. Both men exacerbated the polarity (pp. 20 and 22).

Bush:

AEvery nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril@ (p. 20).

bin Laden:

AI tell them that these events have divided the world into two camps, the camp of the faithful and the camp of infidels. May God shield us and you from them@ (p. 20).

2. Key Signifiers: Both men denounced and demonized their adversaries.

Bush:

Bush=s key signifier was Aterrorists.@ For him, not just the attackers of September 11^th, but any government associated with them, were Aoutlaws,@ Amurderers,@ Akillers,@ and Abarbaric criminals@ who harbor Aevil plans.@

Bush was careful not to acknowledge any construction of the conflict as a struggle over scarce resources (oil above all) or as a violent reaction to American policies many Muslims find offensive (pp. 21 and 27).

bin Laden:

bin Laden=s key signifier was Ainfidels@ which has a Quranic resonance of Aunbeliever,@ Aenemy of the faith.@ In bin Laden=s usage, however, the word acquired a more specific and pointed contemporary referent, designating non-Muslim states that project their military, political, economic, and cultural power into spaces Muslims regard as most holy. The moral failings bin Laden attributes to infidels include vanity, arrogance, duplicity and callous , wanton violence (pp. 21-22).

3. Children in Danger: Beyond noble heroes, outrageous villains, and waverers called to choose between these two rival camps, both men called on another set of cardboard figures whose features were equally determined by their propagandistic utility. These figures consisted of children in danger, menaced by one side and protected by the other (p. 22).

Bush:

A... the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan@ (p. 22).

AWe defend not only our precious freedoms, but also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear@ (p. 23).

bin Laden:

AThey have been telling the world falsehoods that they are fighting terrorism. In a nation at the far end of the world, Japan, hundreds of thousands, young and old, were killed and this is not a world crime. To them it is not clear issue. A million children in Iraq, to them this is not a clear issue@ (p. 23).

AA million innocent children are dying at this time as we speak, killed in Iraq without any guilt@ (p. 24).

A[... a group of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam]... have stood in defense of their weak children@ (pp. 24-25).

4. Type of Authority claimed:

Bush: In the terms of Max Weber (1864-1920), the authority Bush claimed was official-bureaucratic B grounded in the government, elections, laws, and the Constitution of a nation-state. Bush spoke in his official capacity as head of state, as the representative and director of the state apparatus, as one who not only represents the state and but also the nation. Bush spoke from the Treaty Room of the White House, and was surrounded by flags as he defined the struggle in terms of his nation=s traditional ideals B peace, justice and freedom (pp. 24-25 and 26).

Bin Laden: By contrast, in Max Weber=s terms, the authority bin Laden claimed was charismatic. It was also religious. The chief ideal bin Laden voiced was faith, and he spoke of his group as Athe camp of the faithful@ whose victory may be expected, because the Awind of faith is blowing.@ As leader of the faithful, he claimed no formal titles or office but presented himself as a holy warrior, seated on a prayer rug, with Kalashnikov and Quran close at hand. He submerged his own identity in an Aus@ which he defined as Athe group that refuses to be subdued in its religion.@ He described the hijackers as a Agroup of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam,@ whom God has blessed Ato destroy America@ (pp. 25-26).

5. Type of Following Mobilized:

Bush: Bush sought to rally American citizens, regardless of their religious affiliations. Beyond that, he portrayed himself as having assembled an alliance of religiously diverse states, support from whose leaders confirmed his actions and policies as based on shared human values:

AWe are supported by the collective will of the world@ (p. 26).

He kept religious language to a minimum and took special pains to assure his audience that this was not a latter-day Crusade, representing himself and America as well disposed toward Muslims:

AWe are the friends of almost a billion worldwide who practice the Islamic faith@ (p. 26).

Bin Laden: In contrast, bin Laden sought to mobilize a following that cut across all political distinctions of citizenship, ethnicity and other potential lines of cleavage, aspiring to unite all Muslims on the basis of their shared faith:

AEvery Muslim must rise to defend his religion@ (p. 25).

6. Rhetoric:

Bush: Bush=s rhetoric remained at the level of inspiring (and inflammatory) but vague generalizations B freedom vs. terrorism (p. 26).

bin Laden: bin Laden adapted his equally lofty (and inflammatory) formulations to signal immediately pragmatic issues:

AThe wind of faith is blowing and the wind of change is blowing to remove evil from the Peninsula of Muhammad, peace be upon him@ (p. 26).

AI swear to God that America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad@ (p. 26).

7. Religious Language: The extent to which they couched their views in religious terms was probably the sharpest divergence between the two men.

Bush: Bush made very little use of unambiguously religious language, although a de-coding of his biblical allusions shows that he provided reassurance to those Americans who could be expected to reject the religious minimalism that otherwise characterized his text (pp. 28-32).

bin Laden:

The concentration of overly and emphatically religious content in bin Laden=s speech was almost sixty times greater than in Bush=s (p. 28).

8. Core Contradiction:

Bush: Bush=s core contradiction was his admission that religion is important as well as politics. He did this in subtle but revealing ways B too numerous to list here and hence described separately in the next section.

bin Laden: bin Laden=s core contradiction was the admission that politics is important as well as religion. Islam is not unitary, as religious ideals would have it, but lacerated by political divisions. There are Ahypocrites@ B those post-colonial state elites in Muslim nations who cooperate with Americans, help advance and protect their interests, and profit from this service. The hypocrites are Aapostate,@ camp followers of the infidels, and persons estranged from the suffering of the Muslim brethren. bin Laden called down God=s judgment on such people:

AThe least that can be said about those hypocrites is that they are apostates who followed the wrong path. They backed the butcher against the victim, the oppressor against the innocent child. I seek refuge in God against them and ask him to let us see them in what they deserve@ (pp. 27-29).

Bush=s Maximalist Construction of all Values as Religious

Having consistently sought political unity and denied the religious aspects of the conflict in order to avoid the possibility of fragmenting his coalition along religious lines, Bush ultimately did acknowledge the importance of religion, even a maximalist construction of all values as religious (pp. 29 and 32).

The following reflect Bush=s indirect, sotto voce, maximalist view of religion:

1. God=s Blessing: Instead of the conventional formula, AGod bless America,@ Bush closed his speech with:

AMay God continue to bless America@ (p. 30).

The statement emphatically reaffirms the notion that the United States has enjoyed divine favor throughout its history, and moreover, that it deserves this favor insofar as it remains firm in its faith. Bush=s closing words are the tip of a vast sub-textual iceberg. Though brief, they provide sufficient reassurance that American policy is rooted in a faith so profound it need not be trumpeted (p. 30).

2. The Wrath of the Lord (and Bush): The first of two brief flights of imagery in an otherwise un-embroidered text, helped Bush assert the religious nature of the conflict in the same moment he sought to deny it:

AThe terrorists may burrow deeper into caves and other entrenched hiding places@ (p. 30).

This statement not only reduces Bush=s adversaries to hunted animals, but also gestures toward a climactic scene of the Apocalypse when the Lamb of God (Jesus) opens the sixth seal on the scroll of doom:

AThen the kings of the earth and the great men and the generals and the rich and the strong, and every one, slave and free, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, >Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand before it?=@ (New Testament, Revelation of Saint John 6:15-17) (pp. 30-31).

This vision of evildoers hiding in caves and trying to escape God=s judgment associates American bomb runs with the wrath of the Lord. The passage also indexes one from the Hebrew Bible which addresses the unfaithful directly:

AEnter into the rock, and hide in the dust from before the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty. The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the pride of men shall be humbled; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day (Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 2:10-11) (p. 31).

Righteousness against Perdition: A second brief flight of imagery allowed Bush to say that anyone siding with bin Laden:

Awill take that lonely path at their own peril@ (p. 31).

The passage conjures up a host of biblical passages that contrast a path of righteousness with one of perdition. Among these, are:

ASuch are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless man shall perish@ (Job 8-13) (p. 31).

And,

ATheir works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Desolation and destruction are their highways. The way of peace they know not, and there is no justice in their paths. They have made their roads crooked, no one who goes in them knows peace@ (Isaiah 59:6-8) (p. 31).

The Killing of the Innocents: Among several of Bush=s more trenchant phrases which may also be perceived as Biblical allusions, is:

AKillers of innocents@ (p. 31).

This phrase surely gestures toward Herod=s slaughter of the innocents in Matthew 2, and perhaps also to:

ADo not slay the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked (Exodus 23:7) (p. 31).

There will be no Peace: Another biblical reference is encoded in the following phrase:

AThere can be no peace@ (p. 31).

The phrase invokes the refrain of Jeremiah and Ezekiel:

AThey have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, >Peace, peace,= when there is no peace@ (Jeremiah 6:14. 8:11, 8:15. 14:19; Ezekiel 13:10. 16; compare also II Chronicles 15:5 and Isaiah 57:21).

These allusions provide a thunderous moral condemnation running parallel to Bush=s more prosaic characterizations of the enemy as outlaws, murderers, criminals and terrorists. The biblical sub-text is not redundant, however. Rather, for those who have ears to hear, these allusions effect a qualitative transformation, giving Bush=s message an entirely different status. This conversion of secular political speech into religious discourse invests otherwise merely human events with transcendent significance. By the end, America=s adversaries have been re-defined as enemies of God, and current events have been constituted as confirmation of Scripture (pp. 31-32).

The Religious Right in the United States

Two Favored Nations: Leaders of the religious right in the United States find it easy to construct typological associations between the United States and ancient Israel, the two nations which they understand as privileged, enjoying a covenantal relation to God and a position of special favor. The televangelists read the attacks of September 11, 2001, as a sign of God=s wrath, and at the same time guarded against any inference that the new president was in any way responsible for America=s loss of divine favor (pp. 42-43).

The Real Enemy is inside the United States: The attacks were thus interpreted as a powerful wake-up call B as the Reverend Pat Robertson put it, Athe trigger of revival.@ The attackers were not really the enemy in any absolute sense. As God=s scourge, they were the instruments of divine purpose, sent to call the chosen people back from the brink. The real Aenemy@ occupied an ambiguous position inside the American nation B rather like bin Laden=s Ahypocrites.@ They were those whom Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson denounced for having estranged America from the Lord and occasioned his chastisement B a Fifth Column that flourishes inside America, putting the nation at terrible risk (pp. 36 and 43-44).

Christian Patriarchy is divinely Ordained: Specifically, these two southern white males focus on persons, groups, and institutions that have challenged their preferred model of what family, society and state ought to be, which is patriarchal and Christian. The Christianity they favor is of a decidedly maximalist sort, such that it ought to inform all personal choices and permeate all aspects of culture. Their opponents include all who resist the assertion that the ideals these men champion are divinely ordained (p. 44).

The Religious Right=s View of the September 11, 2001 Attacks

Ancient Israel and Contemporary United States*

Phase	Ancient Israel	United States
Golden Age	Solomon	AFounding Fathers@ (an extremely vague period that sometimes seems to last from the New England Pilgrims through the Eisenhower years, 1960).
Age of Decline	Solomon=s sons, Schism of kingdom, Sinful later kings, Defeats by Babylon.	Engle v. Vitale school prayer decision (1962), Counter-culture of the 1960's, Roe v. Wade abortion decision (1973), Carter Amalaise@ (1977-1980), The election of Clinton (1992).
Prophets calling for Repentance	Jeremiah et al.	Evangelists and televangelists.
Disastrous last King, sinful and unrepentant	Zedekaih	Clinton, especially as revealed by Monica Lewinsky.
Outcome	Military defeat, national humiliation, destruction of the Temple.	September 11^th B In prayer and repentance lies the only hope that disaster may be avoided.

* Pp. 42-43.

Reference

All page numbers refer to:

Lincoln, Bruce, Holy Terrors B Thinking about Religion after September 11 (University of Chicago, Chicago, IL), 2003.

***