"Religions Are Systems for Orientation"

Secularisation is not the solution to the problem of religious violence, says Richard Schröder, member of the National Council on Ethics in Germany. In this interview with Volker Maria Neumann, he talks about the differences of Christian and Islamic concepts of self-criticism

9/11 confronted the world with a religiously motivated violence. How does theology explain this violent fundamentalism that seeks its legitimacy in God?

Richard Schröder: Islamism is a modern phenomenon, it is a response to failed strategies of modernization. When Napoleon defeated the Egyptian army, it became clear to the Islamic world that it had lost its cultural and technical superiority over the West, a superiority that had in fact continued until the end of High Middle Ages. Therefore, the Islamic countries' first reaction was to try to learn from the West.

But since neither modernization of their economies and administrations nor the importing of nationalism and socialism produced the desired successes, a counter-movement arose: No imitation of the west, but rather a return to tradition was demanded. In this context, the Sharia doctrine of Holy War (Jihad) for the dissemination of Islam that derives from the first centuries of Islam was revived.

It had played no role at all in the policies of Islamic states, i.e. in that of the Ottoman empire. The Islamists are re-militarizing the Jihad to combat the infidels at home and in the west. The fact that most casualties resulting from Islamist fundamentalism are Muslims and that most Muslims reject violence is often disregarded. Nevertheless, it is true, a great many look up to bin Laden as a hero.

In other words, historical experiences of lagging behind are the source of violent Islamism? Is bin Laden's Jihad nothing more than compensation for a collective inferiority complex?

Schröder: Let me put it this way: experiences of humiliation that are intensified through the media, by programs and films that impart an impression of immense luxury and moral decay in the west. In spite of this, it would be oversimplifying things to pin the blame for these experiences of humiliation entirely on the west.

First of all, for radical Islamists the ultimate criterion is the claim to Islamic domination of the world – whereas in the New Testament there is only a commandment to proselytize.

Second, the billions of dollars of revenue from oil production would suffice to substantially modernize the Arab world. But Islamists also accuse the west of corrupting the governments of their own countries.

So while the willingness to find fault with oneself is quite pronounced in the west, as Bassam Tibi once remarked, the tendency among Muslims to find fault with others is very strong. For many Islamists, everything is the west's fault and they are simply victims.

They then decide to change this state of affairs by means of violence. Obviously this strategy is not only going to work for Muslims, and, on top of that, it backfires and causes great harm to the Muslims community itself. But human beings everywhere are prepared to requite wounded pride with violence. By the way: In the Koran, God's most important epithet is "The Merciful." The Islamists ought to think about that, too.

Violence plays a role in all of the sacred scriptures of the world's religions. How dangerous is this "potential for violence" in religions in today's world?

Schröder: The discourse on religion and violence is often fashionably shallow and sweeping. Some say that humanity would be peaceable without religion. But the greatest mass murderers of the 20th century, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, did not seek legitimacy through religion, but with pseudoscience, for instance by racial theories, and by theories of laws of history. The RAF left-wing terror in Germany also had no connection to religion.

Not so long ago, the bloodless revolution in the Eastern German Republic, during which the Christian churches played a considerable role, was being hailed as peaceful. But ever since 9/11 religion is categorically being suspected of being violent in nature. If one wishes to judge soundly and thoroughly, the least one needs is a good memory.

To remember what?

Schröder: The history of the violent Christian Occident does exist. But the history of Christianity is also a history of Christian self-criticism. And not one Crusader was ever declared a saint. The Koran, on the other hand, states that Jihad is Islam's monasticism, drawing a deliberate distinction with the non-violent Christian hermits of the time whom Mohammed, by the way, had highly respected. But he did not only found a religion, he founded a state, an empire, and was also a military commander.

For these reasons it is easy for Islamists to cite Koran passages as they see fit. But these passages need not be interpreted in this way. One can relativize the normative power of such passages by taking the particular situation in which they were uttered into account, historicizing.

And the Asian religions?

Schröder: Militant fundamentalists with many casualties to answer for are to be found among the Hindus, too. And although Buddhism is considered to be especially peace-loving, there is also a history of violence in Buddhism.

In Sri Lanka the battle against the Tamils is justified on religious grounds in the sense of a holy war for the island consecrated to Buddha. Monastic wars took place between Tibetan monasteries, and the deadly martial arts of the Shaolin monastery are also framed in a Buddhist context.

How great, then, is the potential for peace in religions?

Schröder: One should not confuse religions with computer programs that either program for violence or for peace. Religions are systems for orientation that are capable of learning and are able to find new answers to new challenges, also. But they are always primarily focused on in-group communication.

Setting boundaries or disassociation from other possibilities of human life and behavior is an aspect of every "identity."

But the closer people come in contact with one other through the global media and through migration, the better must living together be organized. Points of contact for positive forms of peaceful coexistence of different groups exist in all great cultural traditions, because through time the experiences are all rather similar.

But it is only in the western cultural tradition that the idea of tolerance, has been extended to include both freedom to practice one's own religion and freedom from religion as such. In some Islamic countries, lapsing from Islam, apostasy, and atheism are not tolerated – as was the case in the Christian middle ages.

The separation of church and state is firmly established in European legal systems. Can the secular state set standards for the globalized world? Is our liberal democracy, with its guarantee of religious freedom, suitable for "export" to so-far non-secular states?

Schröder: A Muslim friend once said to me that he regrets that the Koran does not have a passage such as Jesus' instruction: "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's." In the past, the Caliph was the "Lord of the Faithful," emperor and pope in one person, so to speak. But there has been no caliph since the abdication of the last Ottoman monarch.

And in the history of Islam we very often do find the de facto distinction between secular authority, the sultan, and the spiritual authority. One might therefore describe the situation as follows:

In the history of Christianity there were manifold connections between throne and altar, but again and again voices were raised that said, "This is wrong." In the Islamic world the de facto distinction between political and religious authority occurred again and again, and voices were also raised – again and again – that said: "This is wrong."

Today, the Islamists are saying: "The state and religion are one." In the Ottoman empire a broad religious tolerance was practiced, extending to Christians, too. Genocide was first committed against the Armenian Christians during the First World War, as a harbinger of Turkish nationalism. Therefore one cannot claim that the distinction between state and religion is alien to the Islamic world.

The question as to whether our form of democracy is suited for export to all countries can be set aside. But that civil rights not be made conditional on religious adherence is an indispensable precondition for constructive forms of peaceful coexistence in any state.

In spite of Jefferson's "Wall of Separation", the current development of a "new rapprochement" between religion and politics in the U.S.A. is unmistakeable. Do you see a long-term danger to the American judicial system, or do you believe that that everything will change yet again under the next president?

Schröder: Separation of church and state can mean many different things. In socialist countries, for instance, it served to promote the extinction of religion and was tantamount to discrimination against Christians in society and the state. In the US it aims at allowing for an untroubled co-existence among religious communities.

In addition, there is also a "civil religion" in the US. "In God We Trust" is printed on every dollar bill, and until now every president has used the phrase: "God bless America." The only new development is that the "Christian Right" – in other words, by no means all American Christians – has massively supported the conservatives.

But in all likelihood, this trend will not continue. Claims that Bush Jr.'s policy is derived primarily from his understanding of himself as a "born-again" Christian are based on a lack of understanding of American political and social realities. The war in Iraq was not started due to demands of the Christian Right. It had already been considered during the Clinton administration.

Basically, there is only one single foreign-policy demand coming from this milieu, and that is that Israel be established within Biblical borders, i.e. including the East Bank. The Bush administration, however, did not seriously consider this demand. On the contrary: in his support of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

Interview: Volker Maria Neumann

Richard Schröder, professor of philosophy and theology, is a member of Germany's National Council on Ethics. He is also an acting judge at the Constitutional Court of the State of Brandenburg.

Qantara.de

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