Toward a World Safe for Religion and Politics
Chris Seiple Friday, 21 February 2003
Since the Enlightenment, the West has divided state from religion in the name of good governance. The result has been admirable, but too often the casualty has been holistic analysis. We have forgotten that the rest of the non-NATO world very much views religion and state together, often seamlessly. The stakes are high, to include political stability and even physical safety.
In America, security was originally understood as closely linked with religious freedom. The Rhode Island Colonial Charter from England in 1663, for example, made quite clear the religious dimension of security:
A Most flourishing civil state may stand and best bee maintained...with a full libertie in religious concernments; and that true pietye rightly grounded upon gospel principles, will give the best and greatest security to sovereignetye...
Those freshly persecuted colonists were acutely aware that security began with the peaceful tolerance of other faith traditions. Rhode Island was home to Baptists, Jews and Quakers, among others, in the 17th century.
Over three hundred years later on the other side of the world, secular analysts living among the persecuted came to the same conclusion. In its March 2001 report on Central Asia, the International Crisis Group boldly echoed this (now missing) dimension to Western audiences:
Treat religious freedom as a security issue, not just a human rights issue, and advocate unequivocally that regional security can only be assured if religious freedom is guaranteed and the legitimate activities of groups and individual are not suppressed.
Consider Central/South Asia prior to 9/11. In the Taliban's Afghanistan, we witnessed a religiously intolerant regime blow up world-treasured Buddhist monuments, pin yellow stars on Hindus, and provide sanctuary to other intolerant Islamic terrorist groups that eventually attacked the United States as well as their Central Asian neighbors to the north. With no history of statehood, let alone pluralism, Central Asian governments responded to these terrorist attacks by repressing their citizens' right to worship. In turn, that repression ironically created the very environment that terrorists sought: one without mechanism for political grievance as moderates became receptive to more radical views and means. It is an oft-repeated cycle in this world, not easily broken. In general, it follows a familiar, five-phase cycle.
The cycle begins when a repressive regime cracks down on a faith group it does not understand and therefore cannot control. As generally law-abiding citizens go underground to practice their legitimate beliefs, state security forces find it more difficult to sort out genuinely threatening factions from more benign groups (groups they could have had transparent access to if they had not threatened them to begin with).
Next, an opaque, rumor-based atmosphere emerges that poisons society, undermining interpersonal and community relationships. Where lies and secret police dominate, there is no trust, resulting in less opportunity for shared values to develop. Without the opportunity for faiths to legitimately share their beliefs, tolerance is less likely. Shared goals become impossible among people who do not trust or tolerate each other.
Third, the government crackdown creates sympathy among the general public for the persecuted, most of whom society knows not to be a threat to their homeland. Fourth, the persecution normally results in more believers, as members of the majority—tired of meaningless government slogans amidst a deceiving culture—seek meaning from those who inexplicably risk their lives for their faith. Finally, real religious extremists use the government crackdown as "proof" that their cause is just and that the only means available for real change is violence.
This cycle of repression also exacerbates ethnic minority tensions because minorities often practice a non-mainstream faith. The Chinese Communist Party, for example, groups religious and minority affairs together in one division of the United Front Work Department. This approach encourages the labeling of marginal religious groups and other social minorities as dangerous elements within society, elements that must be controlled.
Moreover, such an approach puts cross-border relationships in jeopardy as minorities rarely reside entirely within one international boundary. Once radical Islam seeped into Central Asia from Afghanistan, the region became less stable because of the terrorists' presence and the response to them. Now China is very concerned that this radical Islamic inkblot will spread across the map to its westernmost province, Xinjiang, where the Uighur minority group practices Islam, a minority faith in China.
Given these self-perpetuating dynamics, it is no wonder that people in the West are beginning to grapple with religious freedom and security. In August, 2002, for example, the Nixon Center and the Institute on Religion and Public Policy held a meeting on "Realism and Human Rights." In October, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe hosted a conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, on "The Role of Religion and Belief in a Democratic Society: Searching for Ways to Combat Terrorism and Extremism," while in November the International Religious Freedom Association hosted a conference on "Religious Freedom and Security." In May of 2003 the Institute for Global Engagement will convene a conference on "Religious Freedom: The Missing Dimension of Security."
Importantly, these concepts are not just rediscovered convictions of modern liberal democracies. They are convictions that increasingly hold sway among moderate Muslims. As Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, a respected Sunni theologian, has said: "If I force you to become a Muslim, I destroy Islam and I destroy myself. What you must have to come to the truth is freedom." Or as the Shi'a President of Iran, Mohammed Khatami, recently stated: "The best, most secure and legal option for this country is Islamic democracy, where both religion and freedoms are respected." Religious freedom is indeed a self-evident and universal truth that has no geographic or single-faith home.
While religious freedom ensures the most private of rights—the right to believe—its presence or absence is an eminently public pronouncement regarding the health and long-term sustainability of the state. Strong states see ideological diversity and strenuous dissent as an integral part of public discourse, the greatest conflict prevention tool invented. States that suppress dissent on questions of ultimate concern may present an impressive facade of order and stability, but they ironically invite the very social instability they seek to prevent.
Where true religious freedom exists, so too does a public forum where dangerous ideas can be brought to light and seen for what they are...by the society as well as the government. In such an environment, transparency grows, trust is built, civil society matures, and government legitimacy increases.