Nationalism and Religion

Abstract

Following the spectacular disintegration of the Soviet Union, popularand academic interest in nationalism and religion gathered momentum. Inaddition to recent ethnic clashes and religious conflicts in many parts of theworld, particularly the Balkans, Central Asia, the Middle East, and manyAfrican states, questions have been raised about the relation betweennationalism and religion. What, if any, is the relationship between nationalismand religion? To what extent can religion influence the emergenceand maintenance of nationalism? Can religious beliefs and sentiments legitimizea nationalist ideology? What is meant by “religious nationalism,” andhow is it related to nation-states, resistance, and violence? These questionswere addressed during a one-day conference held at the London School ofEconomics, University of London on 22 March 1996. The well-attendedconference was organized by the Association for the Study of Ethnicity andNationalism, which was established in 1990 and has published the journalNations and Nationalism since March 1995.The first paper at the Nationalism and Religion conference was presentedby Bruce Kapferer (University College of London, London, UK).In his paper “Religious and Historical Metaphors in the Context ofNationalist Violence,” he addressed political action, the force of ideologies,and the relevance of mythological schemes to religious and ritual practiceby means of a case study of Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka and theevents of 1989-90. In his own words, his focus was “the dynamics ofremythologization, or the process . . . whereby current political and economicforces are totalized within mythological schemes constructed in historicalperiods relatively independent of the circumstances of contemporarynationalism” and “the force of such ideological remythologizations, that is,how such remythologizations can became a passionate dimension of politicalactivity and give it direction.”According to Kapferer, the relation of mythologization to routine religiousbeliefs and ritual practice is significant. In his paper, he argued that“nationalism is the creation of modernism and it is of a continuous dynamicnature whose power is embedded in and sanctified by the culture that hasoriginated in the rituals of religion which provide a cosmology for nationalism.Cosmology of religion as diverse as nationalism itself that is far fromuniversal claims but exists in diversity.” Kapferer’s theorization is based onhis research in Sri Lanka where, he thinks, continuing conflict is related tonationalism based on cosmologies. The case of Sri Lanka provides anSeminars, Conferences, Addresses 425excellent example of how the construction of state ideology is influencedby religious forces, in this case Buddhism. Kapferer asserted that religionhad a deep territorialization aspect and that nationalism, in this sense, mighthave functioned as reterritorialization of a particular land and postcolonialstate. One can discern from his statements that, in the construction of stateideology in Sri Lanka, myths written by monks and religious rituals wereused to create a nationalist movement that eventually developed into a violentand destructive force in the context of Sri Lanka. Kapferer believes thatthe hierarchical order of the Sri Lankan state is embedded in the cosmologyof ancient religious chronicles.Christopher Cviic (The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London,UK) analyzed another phenomenon taking place in WesternEurope. His paper, “Chosen Peoples and Sacred Territories: TheBalkans,” discussed the relationship between religion, nation, and statein the Balkans throughout history and analyzed how these forces haveplayed themselves out in current events. According to Cviic, historicaldevelopments in the Balkans can provide important clues to understandingthe ongoing Balkan crisis, in which the Orthodox Church hasassumed the status of a nationalist institution representing the Serbiannation. The roots of these developments and the creation of a mythical“chosen” Serbian nation legitimized by religion can be traced to thedefeat and fall of medieval Serbia at Kosova by the Ottomans. Thisdefeat meant that they lost the land.However, under the Ottoman millet system, non-Muslim communitieswere allowed to organize their religious life and legal and educationalinstitutions. This allowed the Serbs to preserve and develop their ethnicand religious identities under the leadership of the Orthodox Church.Thus, religion and identity became inextricably linked, and the OrthodoxChurch assumed an extremely important role in the public life of individualBalkan nations. Cviic pointed out that “in the case of the Serbs, theirOrthodox Church played an important role in the formation of the modemSerbian nation-state by nurturing the myth of Kosova, named after theKosova Polje defeat by the Turks. Essential to that myth was the view thatby choosing to fight at Kosova Polje, the Serbs had opted for the Kingdomof Heaven. Later on the myth grew into a broader one, representing theSerbs as the martyr/victim people with a sacred mission of wresting theirHoly Territory of Kosova from the infidel Muslims to whom it had fallen.A later variant of that myth defined Serbia in terms of wherever Serbiangraves were to be found.” ...