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WAF Articles
The uses of fundamentalism
Journal no.5 1994. pp7-9.
Gita Sahgal and Nira Yuval-Davis respond to Jan Nederveen Pieterse's article
THE key question Jan Pieterse asks in his survey of the use of the term 'fundamentalism' is whether it is either a good analytical or political tool. As members of Women Against Fundamentalism our answer is perhaps obvious. Yet while we disagree strongly with his overall conclusions we find much to agree with in his article. However, Pieterse bases his view of the different uses of the term on a set of binary oppositions. In describing these he unfortunately falls into the error that he describes - setting up a straw figure in order to combat it.
While objecting to the English term 'fundamentalism' Pieterse approves of the French term 'integrisme'. However, our definition of 'fundamentalism' is very similar to his definition of 'integrisme'. Having moved away from the narrow theological definition within Christian Protestantism, WAF (and we are by no means alone in this) have adopted a wider definition of fundamentalism. In our founding statement we say,
By fundamentalism we are not referring to religious observance, which we see as a matter of individual choice, but rather to modern political movements which use religion as a basis for their attempt to win or consolidate power and extend social control.
This rather compressed definition also takes into account use of the media and in other ways the sense of newness of the movements. Fundamentalism is not merely a defence of tradition in our definition. Pieterse has ignored this widely held definition. When we translated an article on France for the WAF journal the term 'integrisme' was translated as fundamentalism.' It referred to the crusade of the Catholic right 'to re-establish the reign of our Lord' armed with the slogan 'God, Family, Fatherland'. Ann Rossiter's writings on Ireland have examined the historic roots of Catholic fundamentalism in Ireland and its relation to the state.' .
Pieterse also mentions the Indian term 'communalism'. The history and use of this term is instructive. The historian Bipin Chandra has defined this term as the "belief that because a group of people follow a particular religion they have, as a result, common social, political and economic interests.',(3) It applies not only to rivalry and competition between religious groups but also between caste groups. The term is in very common use in India today and has pejorative over tones, inherited from its nationalist origins. As a term of abuse, it is used by the most 'politically correct' in Indian politics - the left and the liberals, who define it in opposition to the modernising project of nation building. Used in this sense, the term (and the phenomenon) have a very modern usage, gradually developed by Indian nationalists in the 1920s and 30s, who saw communalism as a political threat, and found it necessary to name and discuss the problem in order to expose it.
But, this use of the word had originated in colonial discourse about Indian society.
Communalism captured for the colonialist what they bad conceptualised as a basic feature of Indian society -its religious bigotry and its fundamentally irrational character - long before the term came to be used in its Indian sense. Like tribalism and factionalism, communalism is given, endemic, inborn. Like them, it denies consciousness and agency t6 the subjected peoples of the colonised world. 'history' happens to these people; it can hardly be a process in which they play a significant part. (Pandey, 1990) (4)
While communalism was an ahistorical phenomenon in most colonialist discourses, nationalists tended to historicise it and situate it in modem times.
While it is important to be aware of different words used in different historical, cultural and linguistic contexts, the appropriation of fundamentalism from its strictly Protestant origins to a term used across religious movements, is inevitable in anglophone discourse. In any culture, references to religious movements are clothed in the language of the dominant religious influence. No other word was so readily available for appropriation in transatlantic discourse but its use has spread far beyond that. (5) Rather than abandoning it, it would be more useful to import it back into English usage in relation to the self rather than the other. In other words instead of using it only to describe an outside threat, an 'alien other', it could be held up as a mirror to the dominant culture - to the huge influence that the various groupings that Pieterse discusses have on American politics and the ideology of the right. Even in England, relatively small sects such as the Plymouth Brethren have had a disproportionately large influence. With some well placed lobbying they managed to get teaching on HIV and Aids -removed from the National Curriculum, as a compulsory subject. Compare that with the persistent and relatively unsuccessful demand for voluntary aided status for private religious schools which are not Christian (mostly Muslim, but also of other minorities including black Christian sects). in a Christian country such as Britain, even one that is by no means fundamentalist, the space for white Christian fundamentalists to Push their demands is consider able.
The spectre of fundamentalism has been used selectively in areas like the Middle East by both Israel and the US. All those who object to Pax Americana can be tarred with the fundamentalist brush. However, just because the word is used by discredited proponents does not mean that it is not valid. Jan Pieterse himself points out that fundamentalism is used very selectively as a bogey when it is in conflict with Western security interests. Many would not abandon the ideas of solidarity and mutuality embodied by the term socialism even though it was coopted by authoritarian states, nor the concept of empowerment, now used by the World Bank and the IMF. The struggle to rescue the language of human rights, not only from a liberal capitalist ethic in which it originated but the specific aims of the American security establishment, was most poignantly demonstrated by the hundreds of groups lobbying the UN Human Rights conference in Vienna with their tales of torture and dispossession. Many of them came from countries allied with the USA - indigenous peoples from Latin America, dissidents from South Korea. Language is an area of contested meanings. Usages shift and change according to context - and historical developments.
Fundamentalist movements arise in all major religions and are a reaction to the crisis in/of modernity. As we have written in the introduction to Refusing Holy Orders
The recent rise of fundamentalism is linked to the crisis of modernity of social orders based on the belief in the principles of enlightenment, rationalism and progress. Both capitalism and communism have proved unable to fulfil people's material, emotional and spiritual needs. A general sense of despair and disorientation has opened people to religion as a source of solace. Religion provides a compass and an anchor; it gives people a sense of stability and meaning as well as a coherent identity. (6).
It is in relation to fundamentalism and modernity that Pieterse's constructions of discourses around fundamentalism as a series of binary oppositions breaks down. As he acknowledges, "The dichotomic view of modernity/ tradition is misleading." For those of us for whom fundamentalism was not merely a polemical concept, this is of no great importance. In fact, it is impossibly reductive to squeeze all discussions of such a diverse and shifting phenomenon into 'binarism'.
Since Pieterse does not recognise 'fundamentalism' as a valid description, he has not discussed the common ground in discourses within fundamentalist movements: the sense of danger from outside, irrespective of whether the religious collectivity is a minority or majority; the claim of purity and authenticity; the right to interpret the religious text and to insist that this is the only true version of it; the imposition of social control on members of the collectivity and the drawing of boundaries of legitimacy of the collectivity; and above all the use of state media and other resources to capture power or maintain control.
In many respects, though, fundamentalist movements do not present themselves as homogeneous phenomena. Fundamentalism can align itself with different political trends in different countries. It can appear as a form of orthodoxy - a maintenance of traditional values - or as a revivalist radical phenomenon dismissing impure and corrupt forms of religion 'to return to original sources'. It can grow among persecuted minorities or among the powerful with backing of international resources. The fundamentalist gospel can rely heavily on sacred religious texts, but it can also be more experiential and linked to specific charismatic leadership.
Examining the concept of nationalism might help us to understand better the multiple, contemporary meanings of the term fundamentalism. Both cover such a variety of movements in very different historical circumstances. Though many have examined nationalist discourses such as Gellner (7) and Anderson (8), they have not waved a wand to reduce the phenomenon to a series of discourses about it. Yet to say that Nelson Mandela and Radovan Karadic are both nationalists, is to state the near impossibility of defining it. Here is one definition, describing some of the characteristics of nationalism:
The discourse of nationalism is pail of the post enlightenment discourse of modernity, of progress of human capability: but as a discourse of modernity it bears the distinct marks of an earlier age. Consequently, nationalism has everywhere a deeply divided relation to 'community'... On the one hand, nationalism must speak the language of rationality, of the equality of all individuals, and of 'construction', the possibility of making the world as we want it; on the other it needs the language of blood and sacrifice, of historical necessity, of ancient (God-given) status and attributes - which is part of the discourse of community, as it were, and not of individual rationality.(9)
The most astonishing omission is Pieterse's discussion of the feminist use of the term, particularly his silence on the work of his colleague Amrita Chhachhi(mentioned in the bibliography but not in the article). Far from being an attack on a transhistorical structure called patriarchy, feminist theorists and activists have produced complex works detailing particular social and historical configurations which have led to the growth of fundamentalist movements and demands. Their work on the state is particularly important. Amrita Chhachhi's article on 'Forced Identities:
the State, Communalism, Fundamentalism, and Women in India' is a part of a major contribution to the debate on the relationship between the state, capitalism, fundamentalism and women's rights/position in very specific case studies.
Because we differentiate between religion and fundamentalism, collapsing the two together can be especially dangerous in discourses about religion. It is precisely women from within various religious traditions who are in the strongest position to analyse the effects of fundamentalist control over them. They can see that the fundamentalist project is definitely a new development. The reference to scripture may allow space for women, for instance, to fight female genital mutilation as an un-Islamic practice (11), or it may circumscribe what is permitted by tradition, like banning dancing and singing at weddings (12). Either way, it is clearly a break with tradition not a continuation of it. Greater scriptural authority will not necessarily convert the devotee who uses her knowledge of her religion to follow the dictates of her heart. 1 am willing to be judged by God, " said one, " but not by the mullahs of this world."
Many members of WAF are in constant contact with women who remain within their religious traditions, many of whom have reinvented their religions to fulfil/satisfy very private needs. There may well be a difference between these women who have often led transgressive lives and those who are members of what Pieterse has termed 'new religious movements'. But it is the business of academics not WAF to make painstaking classifications about who is or is not an enemy 'other', and who a potential ally. We must focus our energies on finding ways to resist oppressive practices and increase areas of autonomy for women. Rayah Feldman says
Female genital mutilation has been shown not to befundamentally an issue of religion. Yet many people believe that it is a religious requirement. Paradoxically, as seems to be happening in Sudan, religion may provide a forum from which to resist the practice, On the other band, some fundamentalists may use it as a further means of repressing women. Clearly this issue, as others, shows that we need to draw distinctions between different genres of institutionalised religion, and engage in dialogues with religious opponents of AGM. Our role in WAF is obviously solidarity with those campaigning against FGM.
What 'Female Genital Mutilation: Proposals for change' teaches, is that such solidarity cannot be given cheaply as a kneejerk reaction to the strong arm of fundamentalist men, but requires a close political analysis of the issues it raises. (13)
Politically, it is very important for WAF to use a term which is not specific to one movement such as Islam, because this would support a more narrow and con fined reading - a racist usage of the term. (Although, this does not prevent us from using specific terms when referring to specific movements.) it would also prevent us from looking at the the commonalities across religions and cultures. Far from wiping out divergence it is precisely our view of religious movements as social and political movements which alerts us to the dangers inherent in the politics of identity (14). We can also see the problems in the left viewing of all anti- imperialism as a sort of sacred cow; and their disastrous failure to recognise the character of the Khomeini regime in Iran.
Retaining the general term 'fundamentalism' has proven to be very important for WAF speakers who have found that that women from diverse backgrounds can relate to the phenomena we are describing. This sense of common experience is fundamental for political mobilising and creates links across religious and cultural specifics. As it does not deny difference in context and circumstances it is a very different response to earlier homogenising and ethnocentrist 'sisterhood is powerful' feminism.
Yes, divergency is important; so is coalition politics. (15) As Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak remarked:
Deconstruction does not say anything against the usefulness of mobilising unities. All it says is that because it is useful it ought not to be monumentalised as the way things really are.
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