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The new identity politics of religion
As an undergraduate in the early 1990s, the heyday of identity politics, I was a full-throated participant in the protests for cultural centers and academic study programs that focused on racial and ethnic minorities. Why didn't Asian Americans have their own center, like the blacks and Latinos at the University of Illinois? And where were the academic courses that focused on our experience? How could the administration even consider painting over the mural in the old Latino cultural center (which, if I remember correctly, they were tearing down to build a bigger and better center)? I raised my fist for that cause, too.
But even as I foamed at the mouth with faux outrage, a reasonable thought or two was fighting for life in the back of my mind. For all the talk about identity, the truth is that only some identities were at the table. There were all these students going to Wednesday Bible studies and Friday night song circles, thousands of these Evangelical Christians. Wasn't that an identity? And what if those students demanded professors, cultural houses, academic programs that represented their identity - shouldn't they get them? Why were only some identities deemed worthy of discussion and representation?
Then there was that second critical thought: I didn't really want to belong to one of the divided tribes of Turtle Island, I wanted to belong to the United States of America. For sure, I didn't want my citizenship to cut me off from my racial and ethnic heritage, but couldn't there be models where such identities were viewed as mutually enriching instead of mutually exclusive? Isn't this what my activist and literary heroes - King, Baldwin, Hughes - managed to do? Weren't the terrible wars in the Balkans and Northern Ireland and the Middle East all about the violent tribalization of identities rather than the connection of those identities towards the creation of a greater whole?
As Sam Tanenhaus writes in a smart piece in the New York Times Week in Review, Christian conservatives are taking a page out of the book of liberal identity politics activists in the fight for their version of the soul of America. Tanehaus writes that "Liberals -- on the Texas board and beyond -- detected an attempt to force-feed children conservative dogma, whether it was the putative religiosity of the nation's founders, the historic contribution of the Moral Majority and Rush Limbaugh, or the elevation of John Wayne into the pantheon of patriotic heroes." He later continues,"Though its authors say the Texas curriculum reinforces American traditions, it may instead reflect the conservative variant of identity politics."
So here's the worst scenario possible: discourse around religion in America mirrors the identity politics model. That model basically follows three questions:
1) Who am I?
2) How have you oppressed me?
3) Since I am constantly afraid of being oppressed by you, what ways can I conceive of to dominate you? If not by the sword, then by the textbook or the legislature.
And here's the surest way for the above model to take root, as it appears to in the case of the Texas curriculum battle: to avoid the discussion of religion altogether.
For all the madness of 1990s-era identity politics, it revealed some important core truths. Cultural, racial, ethnic, religious, gender, sexual identity matters a great deal to people. And in a democracy, what matters to people in their private lives becomes public, through politics and civic structures. (Identity matters in totalitarian states as well, it just festers underground and then explodes when the dictator disappears - witness Iraq after Saddam and the Balkans after Tito).
The challenge is to allow, even encourage, people to express their identities, but to do in a way that builds bridges of cooperation - rather than barriers of division - between different communities.
Religion, as Samuel Huntington noted in The Clash of Civilizations, is perhaps the deepest and most intense of all identities. It motivates heroism (Gandhi, King, Dorothy Day) and horror (al-Qaeda). America is the most religiously diverse country in the world, and the most religiously devout nation in the West at a time when Huntington's clash of civilizations seems to be coming true.
We cannot forfeit the discourse around religion to those invested in division. So here's a model for expressing religious identity in a way that builds bridges rather than barriers:
1) Who am I (Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Humanist, etc)?
2) How do I relate to you (what is the theology of cooperation in my faith?)?
3) What can we do together to make the world better?
By
Eboo Patel
|
April 5, 2010; 11:51 AM ET
| Category:
Morality
,
Religion & Leadership
,
Religion & Politics
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Posted by: Secular | April 9, 2010 12:57 PM
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It is time members of a religion think for them selfs. What do they know of their relgious beliefs and the history of their religion. They should always ask questions. How many are members of a religion by their own choice and free will? Are they fully in the beliefs of their religion with out any doubt? Think.
Posted by: usapdx | April 9, 2010 10:33 AM
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The new identity politics of religion?
How about the new reality of religion thereby deleting religious beliefs and religious politics:
All followers of religion to include Mr. Patel are actually "Mythians" considering the mythical foundations of the major religions i.e. there was no Abraham, no Moses, no Noah, no Easter, no virgin birth and no Gabriel and therefore no angelic revelations to Mary or Mohammed.
Posted by: YEAL9 | April 6, 2010 11:44 PM
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"1) Who am I (Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Humanist, etc)?"
i am a human
"2) How do I relate to you (what is the theology of cooperation in my faith?)?"
As we belong to same core like a tree whose core is just a seed. If one part of tree is effected than pain comes to other part. So we should take care each other by spreading the message of Love/Smile/Peace, because we all are one.
"3) What can we do together to make the world better?"
To make this world better, we have to break the matrix, which gives us a fear of losing something, we should realize that we will not die, because according to the law of physics, energy can't be created or destroyed, we are one of the form of energy, when we will die our soul can takes another body...and our soul is a part of GOD. so no worry for fear of losing our life also. we should think positive, remain calm/patience and do what ever you think good for this mother earth.
Posted by: faisalin | April 6, 2010 1:22 AM
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What can we do together to make the world better?
Promulgate the flaws in the theology and history of all religions-----
For example:
Mohammed was an illiterate, womanizing, lust and greed-driven, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, who also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" and flying chariots to the koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.
This agenda continues as shown by the massacre in Mumbai, the assassinations of Bhutto and Theo Van Gogh, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic bombers of the trains in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani “koranics”, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino “koranics”.
And who funds this muck and stench of terror? The warmongering, Islamic, Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.
Current crises:
The Sunni-Shiite blood feud and the warmongering, womanizing (11 wives), hallucinating founder.
Analogous summaries for the flaws in Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism are available upon request.
Posted by: YEAL9 | April 6, 2010 12:49 AM
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1) Who am I: A victim of catholic clergy child abuse
2) How do I relate to you: a voice of outrage for past, present and future victims of the same
3) What can we do together to make the world better?:
Know and recognize the symptoms of a priest "grooming" or molesting children:
http://sexual-abuse.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_pedophiles_groom_victims
Report suspicious behavior by priests to the FBI, the US Attorney or the National Child Abuse Hotline:
http://www.childhelp.org/pages/hotline
1-800-4-A-CHILD
DO NOT report the problem the the diocese, Catholic DAs or police departments with Catholic lieutenants, captains and/or chiefs.
It's time we put this church on notice that their pervert molesters and their criminal accomplices will now be reported to and investigated and prosecuted by US Justice. It's time to take a stand and say enough.
Posted by: areyousaying | April 5, 2010 9:18 PM
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"1) Who am I (Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Humanist, etc)?"
None of the above.
"2) How do I relate to you (what is the theology of cooperation in my faith?)?"
Not answerable as asked.
"3) What can we do together to make the world better?"
Attempt to rid the world of superstition and superstitious thinking.
Posted by: PSolus | April 5, 2010 1:48 PM
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Tribal identity is at the root of tribal violence. Modern nation states have tapped into our species need for tribal identity and call it patriotism. That can be relatively benign or not, depending on leadership.
Any religion that parts humanity into the saved and damned camps is just another tribal identifier that is the root of organized violence against the "other".
Posted by: edbyronadams | April 5, 2010 1:32 PM
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The comments to this entry are closed.
Yeal9 wrote:
"This agenda continues as shown by the massacre in Mumbai, the assassinations of Bhutto and Theo Van Gogh, the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK,......"
Lets be careful here. I have seen many a post referring to Bhutto's killing. First one needs to disambiguate Bhutto, by do you mean Zulfiqar or Benazir. Zulfiqar was murdered by the Zia not because of him straddling the secular/religious fence. He was tried in a kangaroo court and killed for his so called corruption. in manner of speaking god knows, he was guilt as charged but.....
Coming to Benazir, she was no Joan-of-arc for secular values at all. While she was in power (twice) she rode that tiger of Islam when ever it fit her needs and purposes. She was quite a champion of teh Islamic terrorists of pakistan to fuel the fires in Kashmir. She was clearly murdered not for her secularism but because she was inconvenient to teh powers to be.
That said, let me also be clear there need be no secular tears running down our cheeks, for either of them. Their untimely demise is nothing to be celebrated but nothing to loose sleep over. Both of them were capable and would have done similar stuff to others, if opportunity presented itself and situation ameliorated for them.