Faith, Conflict and Toleration

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Issue XVI - Autumn 2011

Faith, Conflict and Toleration

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THE STUDENT JOURNAL OF Issue XVI - Autumn 2011 POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND PHILOSOPHY

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Editorial It is sometimes thought that two of the defining features of the modern world are the decline of religious certainty, and the authority it implied, and, perhaps causally intertwined, the growth, or perhaps birth, of conflicting plural values.

These features of modernity have given rise to what might be thought to be a particularly modern ideal: toleration. In this issue of VOX, our contributors examine these three interrelated ideas, in the form of Faith, Conflict and Toleration.

This issue begins with an essay that argues that “radical toleration” (to use Hardy’s terminology) is inconsistent with religious belief as it is commonly understood (p. 5). Following on from this, we have essays examining the religiosity of political beliefs (p. 8) and whether or not one’s religion can be separated from political practice (p. 14). The influence of Islamic faith on identity is then considered, with Ahmmed concluding by arguing for the need for “shared human values”, not parochial practices (p. 20). The nature, and practice, of conflict is then considered: first by Baron, who examines the idea of ‘just wars’ (p. 27), then

by Khoo, who provides an account of the strife facing the women of the ‘Arab Spring’ (p. 31).

We would also like to take this opportunity to announce the winner of the first ‘VOX Essay Award’. From a shortlist of undergraduate essays published in VOX in the academic year 2010-11, the Head of the School of PEP, Professor Matt Matravers, chose Emily Coward’s essay ‘Dignity’, from the issue Rights and Duties. Described by Matravers as a ‘beautifully written essay’, we’d like to offer our warm congratulations to Emily, along with a book token prize.

This is also the first issue of VOX for the new intake of first years – we very much hope you enjoy this issue. If you would like to get involved with the production of VOX, please email us at vox@clubofpep.org. For those interested in submitting an essay, details of the next theme and the submission deadline can be found on the back of this issue.

Dan Iley-Williamson & Firdaus Kader Editors Editorial Team Editor: Dan Iley-Williamson Co-Editor: Firdaus Kader Layout Editors: Kathrin Eichinger & Tørris Rasmussen Events Coordinator: Tørris Rasmussen Webmaster: Clement Wee

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Sub-Editors: Abir Ahmmed Arina Bairbarac Clementine Brooks Rupert Callingham Risga Carson Dominic Falcao Alastair Gordon Mira Wolf-Bauwens

Peer Reviewers and Proofreaders: Beth Donkin Philipp Dreyer Nikolay Iliev Jamie Fisher Aisana Nurusheua Vicnan K. Pannirselvam Jennie Warner

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THE STUDENT JOURNAL OF POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND PHILOSOPHY

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ISSUE XVI - AUTUMN 2011

Faith, Conflict and Toleration ESSAYS

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PLURALISM AND RADICAL TOLERANCE Henry Hardy

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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARX Tom Wyatt

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RELIGION AND POLITICS - PRIVATE MATTERS? Professor David McLellan

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ISLAMISM, NATIONALISM AND THE CRISIS OF IDENTITY Abir Ahmmed

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JUST WAR AND POLITICAL AUTHORITY Dr Ilan Zvi Baron

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AFTER THE ARAB SPRING, THE WOMEN’S TURN Alexandra Khoo

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VOX is a student academic journal that aims to provide a platform for the exchange of ideas and insight into the debates relating to Politics, Economics and Philosophy (PEP). The Club of

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“A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops.’’

- Amos Oz

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Image by Joe Allam (www.joeallam.co.uk)

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Issue XVI - Autumn 2011

Pluralism and Radical Tolerance1

By Henry Hardy “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

Jesus of Nazareth (John 14:6) “Religious ethics has often tended to brand as immoral and prompted of the devil all codes different from one absolute code regarded as given for all time.”

Sterling P. Lamprecht (1920: p. 571) Pluralists emphasise that the different values espoused by mankind, not being variations on one super-value, are sometimes incommensurable – cannot be compared so that irresistible preferences between them can be established. When freedom conflicts with equality, truth with mercy, knowledge with happiness, there is no superior criterion to dictate an inevitable resolution. There can be reasons for the decision that has to be made in particular circumstances, but this decision must not be misrepresented as a universal solution of the problem.

Structures of which values are formative constituents are also plural: conceptions of life, cultures, moral codes. There is a core of common humanity shared between them, but this

can accommodate a variety of diverse approaches to living. Indeed, it is distinctive of human nature to be openended, not confinable within any single detailed ethical recipe.

How should people with differing visions of life treat each other? The basic answer is simple: whoever observes the universal ground-rules of human conduct should be treated equitably.

But there is one kind of candidate for such equitable treatment who differs from all the others: the one who claims unique rectitude.

It is widely assumed that a civilised world should include monistic, universalistic ideologies, whether religious or political: creeds part of whose essence is that they alone are held to be right or true – for everyone, everywhere. No matter that wars have been fought over rival conceptions of humanity’s relation to an alleged deity, or of the best political order for mankind.

No matter that there is permanent potential for intolerance in such creeds.

It is argued nevertheless, remarkably, that such conflict need not continue, or can at least diminish, if the different ideologies can only learn to live

1 This article, first published in Insights 118 No 1 (Fall 2002), is a shortened version of ‘Taking Pluralism Seriously’, in George Crowder and Henry Hardy (eds), The One and the Many: Reading Isaiah Berlin (2007), and also available at http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/writings_on_ib/hhonib/taking_pluralism_seriously.html.

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together tolerantly.

But the tolerance achieved by monists is different from that of pluralists towards other pluralists. A monist tolerates views he regards as mistaken, hoping that one day they will be discarded in favour of the truth. A pluralist tolerates attitudes to life whose validity he recognises to be as great as that of his own approach. One might call the latter ‘radical tolerance’, since it calls on deeper reserves of flexibility, and does not see itself as ideally temporary.

It is because the tolerance of monists is at best provisional that the expectation of future peace between unreconstructed monisms is unrealistic.

Despite this, the conflicts caused by monism are usually blamed not on mutually antagonistic beliefs, but on the way in which this antagonism is managed. Rival traditions are urged to agree to differ, to respect the convictions of others, just as they expect others to respect their own; not to seek to impose their own beliefs on everyone else.

“If pluralism is true, all monisms are false, and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise.”

Those who think that such injunctions are the only proper response to ideological conflict have not grasped its deeper cause. Acquiescence in the 6

face of excessive claims to exclusive certainty needs to be challenged. This is not a plea for active intolerance of those who make such claims: tolerance is due to all whose views differ from one’s own, subject to the usual proviso that tolerance should be withheld from intolerance. But the tolerance extended by the pluralist to the monist is not ‘radical’. Just as the monist hopes that the pluralist will eventually embrace the unique truth, the pluralist looks for the abandonment by the monist of his overweening certainty. It is not consistent for a pluralist to acknowledge, as unproblematic contributions to the diversity of human value-systems, ineradicably non-pluralist approaches to life.

However tolerant pluralists may be in practice, they can give no intellectual quarter to monist creeds, especially those which maintain that they can co-exist frictionlessly either with pluralism or, even more implausibly, with rival monisms. If pluralism is true, all monisms are false, and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise. This may seem an obvious point, but it is often strangely overlooked. The pluralist is bound to look forward to a time when monism seems just as strange as the belief in the propriety of slavery or in the divine right of kings.

Why does this matter? Because the potential perniciousness of those who believe they have the only answer is encouraged by pretence that they pose no special threat, or by failure to acknowl-

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edge the damage they already do. Religious monism in particular has played a role in several contemporary political conflicts – Northern Ireland and the al-Qaeda campaign are two obvious examples. Yet the media rarely if ever blame religious traditions for claiming that they enjoy privileged access to transcendent truth: almost any other factor is held responsible sooner than this one. Do politicians and journalists really believe there is nothing intrinsically antagonistic or destabilising in such belief-systems?

Whether we are concerned with Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any other religion or quasi-religion which takes monist or fundamentalist forms, anyone convinced of the truth of pluralism must in consistency hold that, since such creeds cannot accommodate themselves to pluralism without a denial of their essential natures, they cannot be full participants in the pluralist enterprise of radically tolerant co-existence. The major world religions each claim to offer a uniquely true vision of man’s proper relationship to ‘God’: indeed, this is a central purpose of the whole religious exercise, however misguided. Attempts by some members of these faiths to portray themselves and their rivals as somehow jointly embarked on the same venture are somewhat ludicrous: a reconciliation of this kind can be achieved only by abandoning too may central tenets.

Fundamentalism is today one of the major threats to world stabil-

ity. So it is worth cautioning against a condition that can develop in that direction. Religious monism is to fundamentalism what being HIV-positive is to AIDS: some do not succumb to the full-blown condition, but there is always the danger. Believing that your truth is the only truth can be the first step – especially if ‘salvation’ is held to be dependent on its acceptance – on the path to believing that you must impose it on others, by means however barbarous, because nothing can be more important than spreading the truth.

No one supposes that English country vicars are going to become terrorists enforcing world Christianity, but they are the more acceptable face of the kind of enterprise that in other contexts abets political violence and hatred. Islamic fundamentalism may show as much about the state of some Muslim societies as about the intrinsic properties of Islam, but the religious contribution is real and regrettable.

Benign or otherwise, monism is the enemy of pluralism and its fruits – in other words, if pluralism is true, the enemy of a truthful way of life.

Bibliography Lamprecht, S. P. (1920) ‘The Need for a Pluralistic Emphasis in Ethics’ in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, 17, pp. 561-572 ____________________________________

Henry Hardy is a Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford.

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The Gospel According to Marx

By Tom Wyatt “A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.”

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables.

There are few more inflammatory issues in society at present than that of faith. Simultaneously praised and derided, faith is a common theme in many of the great debates of our age, from peace in the Middle East and terrorism to abortion and the education of children. It seems wise to begin this analysis by actually defining the term and doing so as a “belief even in the face of contrary evidence” (Grayling, 2002: 117). This definition seems to extract faith’s unique distinguishing factor as belief that is not substantiated, if not in whole then in part, by reason. However, although a discussion of the role of faith in religions and sects from Anglicanism to Zoroastrianism would be interesting, I mainly intend to explore the ways that faith has manifested itself in other, ostensibly secular, guises.

Marx’s famous view of religion as “the opium of the people” (Marx, 1844 cited in Raines, 2002: 171) alludes to a critique of religion that has its place assured amongst one of the most tenacious conflicts in human history. Marx viewed religion as inexplicable without reference to the aliena8

tion of man caused by his oppression at the hands of the ruling-class. Marx posits that “religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against suffering” (Marx 1844 cited in Raines, 2002: 171). This nuanced account of religion identifies its cause as the economic infrastructure of a society which forces individuals to seek solace in something exterior to it. There comes the expectation of redemption and salvation in an after-life and, crucially for Marx, the toleration of ones current persecution in the belief that a better state of affairs will ensue after ones bodily death. Marx’s major critique of religion is therefore in fact a “criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo” (Marx 1844 cited in Raines, 2002: 171) - the state of affairs that makes religion and the promise of an after-life a plausible and indeed desirable option for alienated individuals.

When history had driven its relentless and inevitable course and the workers arose and revolted, religion would cease to exist. Man would swap paradise after this earth for paradise on this earth.

Such a conviction in the fundamental alteration of the world to bring about a workers’ Utopia has led many theorists to claim that far from

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establishing a post-religious society Marxism is in fact a religion in its own right. The Bolshevik revolution attempted to eradicate religion from life entirely; there came the sacking of churches and the brutal suppression of the clergy whilst saints were disinterred to prove that their bodies were subject to mortal decay (Burleigh, 2007: 48).

However, there was also the devoted adherence to Marx’s prophecy as foretold in Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto. Lenin and Trotsky both revered Marx’s iconoclastic analysis of capitalist society and revolution. Lenin was “worshipped like a Marxist saint” (Seabag Montefiore, 2008: 200), drawing pilgrimage to his enshrined

and embalmed self.

A few years later it could be said of Stalin that he replaced God with himself. Indeed, the eradication of dissenters and their liquidation into slave labour serves to illustrate the brutality towards those who did not subscribe to Stalin’s doctrine. Condemned to infamous ‘show-trials’, those who were deemed a threat to his leadership were subjected to torture, forced to confess, were convicted and shot (Seabag Montefiore, 2008: 205). One does not have to labour very hard to unearth the similarities with, for example, the Spanish Inquisition when the crimes of heretics were explicated and the perpetrators vilified, tortured, imprisoned

Image by Balakov

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and killed – usually by burning them alive – all in the cause of protecting Catholicism as the ‘true faith’ (Seabag Montefiore, 2008: 104).

The comparison does not stop with Communism however. The religious iconography of Fascism is obvious – absolute rule by the Führer who supposedly embodied the hopes and aspirations of his Reich. So all pervasive was this myth that Hitler himself “was the most ardent believer in his own infallibility and destiny.” (Kershaw, 2000: 94) Hitler regularly employed Christian texts in his speeches whilst words such as ‘faith’, ‘resurrection’ and ‘sacrifice’ were in common parlance with mass conversions of people to Nazism whose lives had a ‘new meaning’. The Nuremberg Rallies were the apotheosis of Nazi ideology, thousands gathering for a weeks worth of procession, speeches and public spectacle which caused the loss of individualism in the mass of the ‘national community’. The crescendo of events culminated with a ritual whereby Hitler descended amongst the crowds with the movement’s sacred relic – the blood stained swastika banner used in the failed ‘Munich Putsch’ of November 1923, in the fledgling days of the movement. He then proceeded to ‘consecrate’ the fresh banners of the SS by brushing them against it. According to the historian Michael Burleigh “everything worth knowing about Nazism is contained in that moment.”

(Burleigh, 2007: 113) 10

John Gray holds that the links between religious faith and modern secular political movements to be so strong as to posit the existence of a common narrative through time from the ancient religious phenomenon of ‘Millenarianism’ to modern day apocalyptic faith-based movements. Gray not only includes Jihadist Islam in the latter but also the ideological powerhouses of the twentieth century, namely Nazism and Communism. Gray argues that Millenarianism, or the belief in a profound and substantive change in the world’s order, is the precedent to all modern day radical movements which “are a continuation of religion by other means.” (Gray, 2008: 3) He concludes that “the very idea of revolution as a transforming event in history is owed to religion.” (Gray, 2008: 5) Gray identifies a ‘doctrine of last things’ or ‘Eschatology’ in early Millenarian movements, chief amongst them being Christianity which “injected the belief that human history is a teleological process” (Gray, 2008: 6). Treating history as a resource from which one can derive meaning, viewing it as a grand narrative with a beginning, middle and end, and ultimately extracting the necessary information to predict the future began, according to this theory, with Christianity. The Marxist belief that the revolution of the proletariat is pre-determined by the inevitability of progress through class conflict, from feudal heredities to the eventual and final equality of man,

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is known as ‘historical materialism’ and relied heavily on such a ‘scientific’ analysis of history (Gray, 2008: 13).

Within such ideologies there was a palpable belief that the final consummation, the fulfillment of the historical narrative, would bring about a fundamental alteration of human kind.

Trotsky theorised that the average hu-

rior race that was highly resistant to pain and needed little food or sleep.

He employed Ilya Ivanov, who pioneered the artificial insemination of racehorses, with the task of crossbreeding chimpanzees with humans in order to achieve this goal. Unsurprisingly, all experiments failed and Ivanov was exiled to Kazakhstan (Gray, 2008: 58).

Image by Adriano Amalfi man would “rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx” (Trotsky, cited in Gray, 2008: 56). Trotsky’s faith in revolution as an overwhelming liberation of human possibility lead, argues Gray, to the exploitation of science in the attempt to develop the new super-human. Political prisoners, diplomats, soldiers and prisoners of war were used for experimentation in Moscow’s Lubyanka prison in the service of this belief (Gray, 2008: 57).

By the time of Stalin’s rule there was less of an interest in breeding a higher class of human than developing a war-

Whereas Communism’s pseudoscience was developed around class, Nazism’s was founded on race. Nazism sought to fundamentally alter the education of its nation in line with ‘racially pure’ principles. This involved a farcical rewriting of history and the whole scale rejection of what was referred to as ‘Jewish science’. Forbidden from working in German universities by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, Jewish scientists, Einstein amongst them, fled Germany for America – their expertise ultimately leading to the development of the Atom bomb. It seems reasonable 11

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Image by Ewen Roberts to posit that if Germany had developed such a weapon first the course of the war would have been radically different (Shirer, 1962: 252). Furthermore, as the tide turned against Germany in 1943, resources continued to be deployed rounding up Jews and transporting them to the death camps. Far from scaling down the genocide during a time when manpower, transport and logistics were stretched beyond capacity, Hitler deployed yet more resources from the German war machine to eradicate Warsaw’s Jewish population.

From the perspective of his ideology, he saw as more important than ever the “struggle to wipe out Jewry” (Kershaw, 2000: 588). Hitler’s view of the war as a final, decisive all consuming conflict after which his own conception of Utopia would formulate in the new Reich seems much at home in the Millenarian vein of thought. As indeed was his passionate belief in Providence which he believed had guided his ascent from Austrian peripheries to the 12

Führer of Greater Germany (Burleigh, 2007: 102).

Hitler’s Germany and Lenin’s Russia are not Gray’s sole targets however, for he also accuses the atheism and concomitant humanism of, among others, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens as, far from being an alternative to faith, direct descendants of it. He argues that the Enlightenment inspired principles of free enquiry, autonomy and individual liberty as a means to improving the world are indicative of a belief in perfectibilism that is typical of faith-based movements (Gray, 2008: 153). According to Gray’s principles one could also conjoin environmentalism and faith in the transformative power of capitalism to the same tradition, urging as they do revolutions that would fundamentally alter lives, proponents of the respective movements would argue for the better.

However, A.C. Grayling has criticized Gray and accuses him of performing a “gigantic fallacy of equivo-

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cation” (Grayling: 2007) in the way he assimilates such values to the religious tradition, giving the impression that they are inherently utopian in conception, conflating secular and religious movements to the same tradition of faith-based millenarian beliefs. Instead, Grayling identifies a common theme amongst certain movements both secular and religious – of being “monolithic ideologies” (Grayling: 2007) which demand subservience and reject autonomy, liberty and freedom of thought. Isaiah Berlin, an influencial teacher of Gray’s (Gray, 1995), fundamentally objected to the paternalism exhibited by an ideology that “denies utterly the value of individual experience over the impersonal needs of society” (Berlin: 5). Stalinism and Nazism certainly share these characteristics, as do the Catholicism of the Inquisition and the militancy of Al Qaeda, all of them betrayals of the Enlightenment.

It seems that Gray’s attempt to provide an overarching theme of religiosity to this debate is essentially redundant. Although important distinctions should be maintained between the two, the mass-murders of Auschwitz and 9/11 reveal that faith in the absolute veracity of an ideology, be it political or religious, can lead to truly horrifying results. We should be cautious of any movement that seeks to dehumanise an individual for the sake of a greater purpose, and should rightly be protective of freedom of thought, ex-

pression and enquiry; cherishing them as the Enlightenment’s greatest gifts to modernity.

Bibliography Berlin, I. (Lecture notes from 1949) Democracy, Communism and the Individual (Unpublished. Found via the Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library: http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac. uk/lists/nachlass/demcomind.pdf [Accessed 18ix11]) Burleigh, M. (2006) Sacred Causes Religion and Politics from the European Dictators to Al Qaeda (London: Harper Collins) Gray, J. (1995) Isaiah Berlin (London: Harper Collins) Gray, J. (2008) Black Mass (London: Penguin Books) Grayling, A.C. (2002) The Reason of Things (London: Phoenix) Grayling, A.C. (2007) ‘Through the Looking Glass’ in New Humanist, [online] Available at: <http://newhumanist.org. uk/1423/through-the-looking-glass> [Accessed 24vii11].

Kershaw, I. (2000) Hitler 1936–45 (London: Allen Lane) Marx, M. (1844) ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’ cited in Raines, J. (ed.)

(2002) Marx on Religion (Philadelphia: Temple University Press) Seabag Montefiore, S. (2008) Monsters: History’s Most Evil Men and Women (London: Quercus Publishing) Shirer, W. (1962) The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (London: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd.) ____________________________________

Tom Wyatt is a second year undergraduate reading Philosophy and Politics at the University of York.

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Religion and Politics - Private Matters?

By Professor David McLellan My purpose in this article is to demonstrate that one’s religious belief can no more be a private matter than one’s political belief can be.

As a preliminary point, I should make it clear what I mean by “religion”.

I am not taking it in a Durkheimian sense – very roughly, society’s worship of itself. On this definition, the argument I am trying to make would be trivially – not to say tautologically – true in that no member of a society (and who isn’t?) could be irreligious.

No, I mean what is ordinarily meant by the term – belief in a transcendent reality, belief in God etc. I shall come to what that belief amounts to in a minute.

Nor do I think that I am attacking a straw man (or indeed woman) here.

My guess is that the prototypical person on the Clapham omnibus world readily agree with the proposition that I am contesting. For it is a liberal, individualist view very deeply engrained in Western society.

I wish to contest this view on two grounds, the first largely philosophical and the second largely empirical.

First, then, I ask: what is it to be religious, to hold religious beliefs? I want to deny that belief, at least principally, consist in the holding of propositions inside one’s head. Belief, it seems to me, 14

is less about mental events than about features of behaviour. After all, in its original sense, “belief ”, like its Greek and Latin equivalents pisteuo and credo,

“However much, like Horace’s nature, you may expel [religion] with a pitchfork, it comes rushing back in from the place many would like to assign it in the private sphere.” was originally a performative word, i.e. a word that, rather than being merely a description or evaluation, enacts what it announces – like the words “I do” in a marriage ceremony or “I promise” in a contractual situation. As a public profession of faith, the words “I believe in God” are more of a promise than an opinion or expression of attitude.

By contrast, as Peter Moore has written “the dominant idea of belief in our culture nowadays is propositional and intellectual. So pervasive is this idea that we find it difficult to believe that things were ever different. For example, people in other cultures and earlier phases of our own did not go around believing or asserting that God existed (or did not exist) in the way that many religious believers and non-believers

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go around doing nowadays (partly through the over-intellectualization of religion in its own terms and partly in a response to sceptical and scientific attacks on religion). Talk about God for them was roughly what talk about democracy or evolution is for us. There were, of course, those who expressed scepticism about the existence (or, better, reality) of God, just as there were specialists (theologians and philosophers) who spent time asking exactly what kind of a being God was, and so on. Likewise, in our times, the number of those seriously examining or challenging the ideal of democracy or the theory of evolution is far outweighed by those for whom these things are simply taken for grantedâ&#x20AC;? (Moore, unpublished manuscripts). Indeed, on a more general philosophical plane, it is at least arguable that belief necessarily involves certain activities. If I told you that I believed that eating meat was wrong, but on a daily basis breakfasted on pork sausages, had chicken (even free range) for lunch, and a succulent T-bone steak for dinner, you might come to wonder whether I really did believe what I claimed to believe. Now of course it is true that we do not always live up to our principles, but what I want to say is that belief necessarily involves commitment to, and, to a large extent, practice of, certain ways of life. And â&#x20AC;&#x201C; unless they involve complete withdrawal, e.g. the Amish (and Image by Mike Keran 15

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even here there is a question: could the Amish be the Amish except in relation to contemporary American culture?)

– that these ways of life inevitably impinge on politics.

Second, on the more empirical side, some might say that, in that religion has become increasingly marginalised in contemporary society, it has thereby increasingly become a private matter. Let us start with the concept of secularization – the idea that our world is becoming more secular. Now this concept is an essentially contested one.1 Fifty odd years ago secularization seemed more evident to many than it does now – when from China to Peru (as it were) the world seems, for better or (often, I fear) for worse, to be awash with religion. Nevertheless, there is obviously a lot of truth in the idea of secularization as the growing emancipation of secular spheres – principally the economy and the state – from religious control. Each of these spheres – including the religious – develops an institutional autonomy and norms which are internal to its own sphere.2 It is undeniable that this long-term structural trend has been taking place since the Enlightenment. But this does not entail – and is in fact not evidently 1 See further W. B. Gallie, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’ in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1955/56) vol. 56, particularly pp.

171 ft.

2 For the locus classicas of this view, see Max Weber’s essay “Religious Rejections of the World and their Directions”, in (1946) From Max Weber, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Mills (New York: Routledge)

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accompanied by – a decline in religious beliefs and practices, however much this might seem to be the case in our own little corner of the world. Indeed, an influential approach claimed that religious pluralism actually increases religious participation – the more market there is, the more people will buy.3 In what is perhaps the most thorough statistical analysis, Pippa Norris’s Sacred and Secular (2004), this view is rejected in favour of a correlation between “existential security” and decline in religious belief and practice which, so it is claimed, fluctuate according to a country’s GNP. Given not only the current financial crisis but also, and more importantly, the looming environmental crisis, one would have thought (though she does not say so), that there is only too rosy a future for religion.

“[We] see a whole range of religious movements mobilizing around issues of disestablishment and the differentiation of the secular spheres [...] What is involved here is the attempt to write, as it were, religious doctrines and precepts into the political institutions of society.”

3 See, for example, R. Finne and R. Stark, (2000) Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: California University Press)

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I want to argue that, over recent for some religions or one religion over decades, religion has become increas- others and the state’s passing religious ingly de-privatised. It is not just the precepts into law are associated with obvious rise in Islam, whether funda- a poorer human rights record (Fox mentalist or not. Political interven- 2008). At the political level, we see a tions of the Church of England, from whole range of religious movements Faith in the City onwards, the political mobilizing around issues of disestabactivism of John Paul II, the influ- lishment and the differentiation of the ence of Catholic Liberation theology secular spheres – for example, Chrisin Latin America, the New Christian tian democracy in post-war Europe or Right in North America etc. – all these the fundamentalist Protestant drive in examples demonstrate how religion the United States to Christianize the has played an important role, both Constitution. What is involved here is intellectually and actively, in public the attempt to write, as it were, relicollective action. However much, like gious doctrines and precepts into the Horace’s nature, you may expel it with political institutions of society. a pitchfork, it comes rushing back in from the place many would like to as- Image by cliff1066 sign it in the private sphere.

So, if it cannot be simply a private matter, what should the role of religion be in our societies?

It may be helpful here to consider recent work on the concept of civil society, particularly following the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe.4 Civil society is here contrasted with the state and with political society. And I want to suggest that it is in the area of civil society that religious organizations find their appropriate and legitimate sphere of activity. When religion is part of the state – or, indeed, has taken it over – freedoms which tend to be considered basic, at least to most modern Western societies, are at risk. Research shows that state support 4 See, for example, J. Cohen and A. Arato (1992) Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

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Civil society, by contrast, involves the idea of the public sphere as described by Jurgen Habermas in his early The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989). And it is at least arguable that it is only here that public religions are consistent with modern universalistic principles and modern differentiated structures. In this guise, religion does not need to appear (as it so often does and as portrayed by Dawkins et al.) as an anti-modern critique of certain types of modern industrialization, a critique which presupposes precisely the acceptance of the validity of the fundamental values and principles of modernity. It can act as an imminent critique of modernity from a religious point of view. A good example of this would be the 1986 letter of the US Catholic Bishops entitled Economic Justice for All. To return to my main theme: although religious belief does in fact affect people’s political attitudes, it might be argued this influence is inappropriate in a liberal democracy and we should strive for its elimination. In a liberal democratic society, in other words, the grounds of decision should have an interpersonal validity that extends to virtually all members of society. Decisions should be based on shared premises or types of reasoning that are accessible to everyone. Although the theories of liberal democracy advanced

by John Rawls and Bruce Ackerman do not explicitly mention religion, its exclusion is implied. In Rawls, for ex18

ample, the “veil of ignorance” behind which people are to choose the principles of justice which will govern their society includes ignorance of their particular conceptions of the good. More recently Rawls has written: “In public questions ways of reasoning and rules of evidence for reaching true general beliefs that help settle whether institutions are just should be of a kind everyone can recognize” (Rawls, 1980, p.

539), which seems to exclude religion.

But it seems to me simply untrue that important political questions can be resolved on the basis of value premises that are shared by all or even on shared approaches to factual knowledge. To see the force of this, one has only to reflect on the arguments surrounding such issues as the possession of nuclear weapons, our attitude to the environment, or to abortion. Unfortunately, in very many important issues rational grounds for assessing what is true are highly inconclusive. In such cases people are likely to rely on some sort of deep and intuitive feelings, and this often involves a religious perspective. To say this is not to undermine any vital premise of liberal democracy: it is to recognize the fact that citizens in a liberal democracy rely generally on moral judgments to arrive at decisions, and that moral judgments are frequently informed by religious views. It is also to recognize that liberal democracy is less anaemic than many of its proponents would have us believe. Yet this recognition is also compatible with the

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view that, as far as open public discussion is concerned, it is mistaken for the ordinary citizen to advocate a position by direct reference to his or her religious values – general human welfare being the appropriate point of reference. Where individuals get their values is up to them: the terms in which individuals advocate their values to fellow-citizens is more circumscribed.5 If one were a church leader whose job is to express the views of a specifically religious community, the case would be, of course, different. But, by contrast, the tendency of political leaders to refer to the deity should be resisted – because of both the tendency to homogenize religion and the usually arrogant presupposition of the coincidence of their country’s progress with the purposes of God. A final point. From Weber onwards, many have traced historical links between Christianity and the shape of our modern world. Weber of course talked of the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. The lengthy and subtle analysis of Charles Taylor in A Secular Age (2008) shows how, in Western Europe, the very idea of secularization has religious roots.

Tom Holland does the same, in shorter shift, in his Millennium (2008). Of course, thorough–going secularists are duly appalled at the idea. Like some children who are extremely resentful 5 For an excellent discussion, see K. Greenawalt (1989), Public Policy and Individual Choice.

on being reminded of the debt they owe – for good or ill – to their parents.

Of course they might say that, even if they are the inheritors of the Judaeo– Christian tradition, at least inheritance implies the death of the testator. But I doubt whether matters like this are so easily disposed of. And this doubt can only be increased by the philosophical and historico-sociological considerations that I have here advanced.

Bibliography Fox, J. (2008) ‘State Religious Exclusivity and Human Rights’ in Political Studies, vol. 56 Habermas, J. (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Holland, T. (2008) Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom (London: Little Brown) Moore, P. (Unpublished manuscript) The Trouble with Belief Norris, P. and Inglehart, R. (2004) Sacred and Secular (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Rawls, J. (1980) ‘Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory: The Dewey Lectures’ in Journal of Philosophy, vol. 71 Taylor, C. (2007) A Secular Age (London: Harvard University Press)

_____________________________ David McLellan is Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at the University of Kent.

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Islamism, Nationalism and the Crisis of Identity

By Abir Ahmmed Introduction ists find a growing number of receptive Ask a group of people what they ears. This essay will explore some of the see to be the greatest threat to Euro- factors that have contributed to this pean society, and the answer is likely trend, looking particularly at identity. to be terrorism inspired by Islam. The Ambivalence with contemporary threat of violence is perhaps one that is Western society has sometimes been overstated. There will always be a few presented as the continuation of a cenpeople who are misguided and callous turies-long conflict between the Islamenough to commit violence in the name ic east, and the Christian west. Numerof religion; a trend cannot be inferred ous books in the vein of Huntingtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s from isolated incidents. But when one â&#x20AC;&#x153;Clash of Civilisationsâ&#x20AC;? (Huntington, looks beyond terrorist atrocities it is 1996) have suggested that Islam poses equally clear that previously marginal a mortal threat to western civilisation conceptions of Islam are gaining wider and its values. These are straw men, but currency. That is not to say that these they do reflect a common tendency to conceptions are violent, as few would condone terrorist activity. But a sur- Image by James Gordon prising number sympathise with the arguments and justifications used by terrorists. There is increasing ambivalence towards contemporary Western society, and a turn to fundamentalist conceptions of Islam.

It is among the young that this shift is most pronounced. This is part of a wider overall trend of increased religiosity amongst young Muslims.

Many second generation immigrants are showing greater interest in religion than their parents. In itself this may be no bad thing, but taken together with other factors, it can create the environment in which the messages of extrem20

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see Islam as a homogeneous, timeless entity. There is a widespread perception that there is something peculiar to Islam that makes it more reactionary, more violent and more intolerant than other faiths. This is misguided; it ignores the divergent ways in which Islam has manifested itself in different times and places. And this is not mere pedantry; to overlook the fact that Islam, and indeed religion generally, can manifest itself in myriad ways is to be blind to why it is currently asserting itself in a reactionary way. Those who present Islam as an “adversary culture” (Caldwell, 2010: 138-140) only strengthen the hand of those who wish it to be such a culture.

This essay will proceed as follows.

First I will look at how second-generation immigrants often face a crisis of identity, feeling caught between two sets of values and culture. It is in this gap that extreme conceptions of Islam are growing, as I will investigate afterwards. Where this has been recognised the strengthening of national identity has often been seen as a panacea to these tensions; I will question this before concluding the essay.

Crisis of Identity There are various ways in which a trend of increasing religiosity among young Muslims can be observed.

However, this has to be kept in perspective. Extreme views are only held by a minority, but this minority is larger amongst younger cohorts. Young

Muslims are more likely than their parents to feel that they have more in common with Muslims abroad than they do with non-Muslims in Britain.

While religion provides a group identity, it is one that can further a sense of separation from others. Mirroring the clash of civilisations thesis, Islamist groups present a narrative in which Islam is a last bastion of morality and values against the pressure of the imperialist West.

One survey put the number of young Muslims (16-24) who agreed with the statement “I feel that I have as much in common with non-Muslims as I do with Muslims” at 62%, as opposed to 71% of those over 55 (Mirza, M, Senthilkumaran, A and Ja’far, Z, 2007). This increase in religiosity has manifested itself in a hardening of cultural attitudes in certain regards, particularly with regard to homosexuality and conversion from Islam to other religions. One survey found that when asked “If I could choose, I would prefer to live in Britain under sharia law rather than British law”, 37% of those 16-24 preferred sharia compared to 17% of those above 55 (Ibid.) This may be misleading, as those who answered preferred could interpret sharia 21

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anywhere between laws covering family affairs, to punishing apostasy. But it does highlight that while harsher interpretations are in the minority, they are gaining wider acceptance among young Muslims.

Second-generation immigrants can be seen to be suspended between two broad cultures. On the one hand there is the influence of parental culture, which is often quite culturally strict.

On the other there is the influence of wider society, more permissive and morally relaxed. This can lead to a crisis of identity, arising from a sense of alienation from the values of both parents and society, and confusion with ones identity in society given these competing pressures.

The role of parental culture and “ancestral identity” is a mixed one.

Quite obviously they have a profound effect on one’s identity, through the role they play in ones upbringing, one’s home environment, and the religion and values that one is exposed to and grows up with. Outside the context of their parents’ upbringing, cultural norms can be seen as arbitrary and overly restrictive. Large extended families can be found suffocating. In families where arranged marriages are a norm, a great deal of friction can occur. Parents may see marriage primarily in terms of an environment to raise children, as opposed to notions of romantic love. Indeed even where arranged marriages do not take place, the focus on marriage held by many 22

families can be found grating. Furthermore, gender expectations can be seen as archaic given the advancements made in western society.

On the other hand alienation from wider society is often created by a perceived clash of values. So often tensions with society are exacerbated by pressure from parents to only selectively integrate. Yet even where this is not the case a sense of isolation can still occur. One survey found that when asked whether Britain was “My country or their country”, 44% of Muslims 18-24 years old said “my country”, as opposed to 55% of those 45+ (Ibid.). A sense of “us and them” that has become entrenched over the last decade. Sometimes this may be due to overt racism towards immigrants, but perhaps the bigger factor has been the tendency to emphasise difference. Various disparate groups, from multiculturalists arguing for the need to support diversity, to those hysterical about the supposed conflict between Islam and modernity, have only further entrenched division, only making it harder for young Muslims to feel a part of society. Indeed it has had no small part in politicising Islam.

This sketches the context in which religion has gained a greater significance, but it does not on itself explain why there has been a hardening of views. This lies in appreciating both the global reach, and global message, of various Islamist ideologies.

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Global Islamism Given that Islamist groups are presented as backwards and anti-modern, it is ironic that they have been among the most adept groups in using technology. Groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir were able to use technology to organise and spread their messages across borders, without attracting unwanted attention from nation states (Nawaz, 2011). Perhaps the reason that Al-Qaeda has been so resilient is that rather than having a command and control structure, it is a network of local struggles that are able to co-ordinate against

targets around the world (Castells, 1997).

Another key factor is the global reach of Saudi money. Saudi princes see the propagation of Islam as a key element of foreign policy. Between the mid-1970s and 2002, more than $70 billion of Saudi state money was spent spreading Wahhabist ideology (Alexiev, 2003), which is an ultraconservative conception of Islam that stresses the importance of warlike interpretations of Jihad. Much money has been used to build mosques and print books that further the influence Image by Hash Milhan

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of the Islamist mind-set. A Freedom House report into Saudi funded publications in US mosques found books that forbade mixing with unbelievers, labelled Muslims who didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t proscribe to Wahhabist thought as apostates and promoted violent Jihad (Freedom House, 2005). Given elements of similarity with Islamist groups, Wahhabism has had an indirect effect in spreading global Islamism.

The global reach of fundamentalism is clear, but it is in the global message that the most influential Islamist groups propagate that we can see why exactly such messages have become resonant. Islamists wish to put political control in the hands of a global Ummah, a global community of Muslims that transcends national barriers. This political control would then be used to return Islam to its roots, to practise Islam as it was in the time of the prophet. Two factors in particular may account for its increasing influence.

Religion gives a platform to appraise cultural norms held by parents.

While socially conservative with regards to personal morality, Islam can be used to reject practices such as arranged marriages, and gender expectations often held by parents from South Asia. At home religion and culture become intertwined. Most Islamist groups are fiercely critical of this blending of religion and culture. The arguments of Islamists to return to a pure Islam, not corrupted by cultural additions can find resonance with second 24

generation immigrants, since parental traditions can feel archaic outside the context of their parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; upbringing.

We have seen that religion is becoming more important in the identities of young people. As such appeals to a global Ummah, extending beyond any national identity, are found compelling. It is in a greater embrace of religion that many young Muslims seek to find belonging in a system of group relations.

This is problematic in the sense that this does not solve the tensions underlying the crisis of identity, rather it entrenches them. While religion provides a group identity, it is one that can further a sense of separation from others.

Mirroring the clash of civilisations thesis, Islamist groups present a narrative in which Islam is a last bastion of morality and values against the pressure of the imperialist West. Conflicts around the world, particularly the Israel- Palestine conflict, are used to present the US and her allies as oppressing innocent Muslims. This generates outrage at foreign policy and alienation from Western society. It increases a sense of solidarity with Muslims abroad; although it is perhaps more akin to pity given the lack of knowledge that most have of foreign policy, despite their opposition to it.

These issues are not uniform amongst young Muslims, nor exclusive to them. Complaints of declining morality, decreasing social trust and community, and lack of a national identity

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are common in multiple and disparate groups. So why is it a problem that these concerns are growing amongst young Muslims? The problem can be seen as a lack of social solidarity. As the nexus of identity shifts towards religion, the phenomenon of seeing other people through the lens of religion will only increase. The result will be an increased distance between people on the basis of religion. How then can a basis for social solidarity be established?

Global Civil Society It has been suggested in various quarters that we need a renewed sense of national identity to resolve these problems. As David Cameron put it, “we must build stronger societies and identities at home” (Cameron, 2011).

But I fear that narrowing our focus on the national will prevent any such project from fostering solidarity. Given that the strength of the Islamist vision is its global focus, any response to it must also be global in nature.

A YouGov survey in 2006 posed the open ended question “What does the term “Britishness” mean to you?”

Responses fell into two broad categories, tradition (e.g. birthplace, monarchy, British achievements) and values (e.g. democracy, fairness, free speech) (Kellner, 2009). Can either of these provide the basis for solidarity? Various traditions do form a wider British culture, but it is unclear how this can provide social glue. Often these traditions are no more than stereotypes and

have little bearing on people’s everyday life. That is not to say that these traditions don’t have value, but solidarity based on these is likely to be weak, given that the YouGov survey found that there was a 2 to 1 preference for defining Britishness by values amongst non-whites (Ibid.).

What then of values? Democracy, liberalism and fairness are certainly great values, and indeed a great part of the nation’s history. But peering at these values through a lens of Britishness narrows their power. To celebrate these values merely because of their supposed Britishness almost treats them as a quirk. As if we have different values, UK values as opposed to European or Eastern values. But these values are clearly not unique to Britain; so when I say that these can act as a basis for solidarity, it ought to be a solidarity that extends beyond mere “identity at home”. It ought to form the basis for a global civil society.

The vision presented by Islamists is powerful because it is one that unites people on a set of values that stretch beyond nation, an ideal of a way of life for all to follow. To counter this a rival global vision must be proposed, in which ‘reason, moral sentiment and/or civil action ... provide the basis for social solidarity’ (Kaldor, 2003: 46-47).

Nationalism can only create tensions; human rights on the other hand provide a platform that can bring all together on a shared humanity.

This no doubt will be seen im25

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practically idealist. That is perhaps true. But to perceive those espousing a renewed national identity to improve solidarity and weaken the shift towards Islamism as somehow realistic is misguided. Any proposed notion of Britishness will either be so narrow as to ignore the country’s diversity, or so loose as to be meaningless. Instead we must move our focus from fostering a national identity to fostering solidarity across borders. By enforcing similarity rather than difference, along with shared human values and rights, there we might find the tools to shatter the allure of Islamism.

Bibliography Alexiev, A. (2003) Terrorism: Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States, Testimony before the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, 26 June 2003 Ahmed, T. (2005) “The Muslim ‘Marginal Man’”. Policy, Vol 21 Beck, U. and N. Sznaider (2010) “Unpacking cosmopolitanism for the social sciences: a research agenda.” The British Journal of Sociology, 61: 381-403 Caldwell, C. (2010) Reflections on the revolution in Europe : immigration, Islam and the West (London: Penguin) Cameron, D. (2011) Speech on Multiculturalism. Speech presented at Munich Security Conference, 05/02/11 Castells, M. (1997) The Power of Identity.

Volume Two of the Information Age (Oxford: Blackwell Press) Freedom House (2005) Saudi Publications 26

on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques (Washington, D.C.: Center for Religious Freedom) Huntington, S. P. (1996) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster) Kaldor, M. (2003) Global Civil Society (London: Polity) Kellner, P. (2009) “What Britishness Means to the British”, in Gamble, A. and A. Wright (eds.), Britishness: perspectives on the Britishness question, pp. 62-71 (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell) Micklethwait, J. and A. Wooldridge (2010) God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World (New York: Penguin Books) Miller, D. (1995) On Nationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press) Mirza, M, Senthilkumaran, A and Ja’far, Z. (2007) Living Apart Together British Muslims and the Paradox of Multiculturalism (London: Policy Exchange) Nawaz, M. (2011) A Global Culture to Fight Extremism. Speech presented at TEDGlobal 2011, Edinburgh, July 2011 O’Donnell, M. (2007). “Review Debate: We Need Human Rights not Nationalism ‘lite’: Globalization and British solidarity.”

Ethnicities, 7(2): 248-269 Patomäki, H. and M. B. Steger (2010).

“Social imaginaries and Big History: Towards a new planetary consciousness?” Futures 42(10): 1056-1063

_____________________________ Abir Ahmmed is a third year undergraduate reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of York.

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Image by fdecomite

Just War and Political Authority

By Dr Ilan Zvi Baron While it is rarely, if ever, read in this way, the just war tradition is in some ways a political theory of the state.

This is not to say that the tradition (or, theory) provides a “morality of states”1 argument or that the political communities that early just war theorists wrote about are the same as modern nation-states. Rather, this is to emphasise that in its early days, the application of moral considerations to the institutionalised use of armed force was closely tied to considerations over political authority. Consequently, while the tradition is primarily read as a normative discourse about the morality of going to war, of fighting a war, and of responding to the consequences of war 1 See, for example, Walzer 1980.

(Brown 2002; Walzer 2004), just war thinking can also be read as a normative argument for political authority, if not political obligation (Baron 2009).2 In relation to war the fundamental problem of political obligation is the ability of the state or its equivalent to oblige its inhabitants to go into battle and risk their lives in the process. As Michael Walzer writes, “When the state is in danger, its citizens rush to its defense, forgetful of all personal danger. They die willingly for the sake of the state, not because the state protects their lives – which would be as, Hegel argued, absurd – but because the state is their common life.” (Walzer 1970, 2 On political obligation in medieval thought see Passerin d’Entrèves 1959.

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p. 92)3 In this regard, the normative discourses of a just war rely on some account of political obligation – and there are many different accounts of political obligation (see, for example, Horton 2010; Klosko 2005). Moreover, it seems reasonable to suggest that any just war requires that those being sent into battle to kill and possibly to be killed are not forced or coerced to do so. Whereas modern consent theory would seemingly provide the answer to this problem, it should be obvious that if a state ends up going to war, should it be unable to conscript (if necessary) the state would collapse (Baron 2009). Of course, the classical just war thinkers, notably St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, did not write in the terms of liberal consent theory, but they were deeply concerned with the problem of political obligation.

It is well known that the origins of just war thinking are in Christian political thought (O’Brien 1981, p. 5; Ramsey 1992; Brown 1992), although it has come to have less to do with political theology than with the ability to apply a moral discourse to the problem of war. The phrase “just war” is the translation from the Latin iustum bellum, which is more accurately translated as “justified war.” (Ramsey 1992, p.

8) The term “just” is not meant to connote justice per se, but is more attuned to the term justifiable. According 3 However, one wonders to what degree the citizenry actually rush to the state’s defence.

See Paret 1993.

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to the tradition, a war is just if the criteria of “just cause, right intention, proper authority, last resort, effectiveness, proportionality, [and] discrimination” are met (Brown 2002, p. 104).

These are the tenets that make up the just war tradition and are often distinguished by the two categories of ius ad bellum (the justice or laws of war) and ius in bello (the justice or laws in war), although initially there was no such distinction as all the issues of relevance fell into one, possibly overcrowded, ius ad bellum. The theory outlines the application of morality to war, and the contemporary literature generally uses the just war tradition to form sets of guidelines for the moral evaluation of a particular conflict or a particular type of conflict; sometimes the literature critiques one or more of these guidelines or explains the contribution to the tradition of certain thinkers.4 What is lacking in these accounts is the extent to which just war thinking requires (1) an account that justifies a political authority obligating its subjects to face the danger of death by being sent into war; and (2), consequently, a political theory of this authority.

While, for example, it may have been faith that guided St. Augustine to justify others being sent into war to kill and perhaps to die (Augustine 1998), it was not God that commanded the soldiers but other men, men with the authority to do so.

4 For examples of these different ways of using just war theory see Elshtain 1992.

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The account of “proper authority” ity to warfare. While modern political serves a few roles. One of them is to thought about the state has attributed limit who may justifiably wage war, and the state’s violent abilities as one of its thus may also help key characteristics to limit how a war (Weber 1994, p. is fought – although 310-11) and thus whether or not a lessened the extent proper authority is to which the state’s more likely to obey use of violence in moral constraints in war can be chalwar is questionable. lenged, the early The turn to proper just war thinkers authority serves as did not take this a doubly legitimataspect of the state ing discourse. The or of an equivalent authority is, first, political authorjustified in making ity for granted. political obligations, Rather, proper auand, second, those thority was somewho are obliged are thing that had to presumed to recogbe explained. In nize the authority’s Image by DonkeyHotey this vein, there are ability to obligate. In some implications this regard, the early just war theorists that as modern subjects we need to adrecognized that, unless their argument dress. was to be logically fallacious, they had In particular, we should be asking to defend the reasons for the author- what is the relationship between quesity having the ability to politically ob- tions of legitimate authority and those ligate. Consequently, the concept of of legitimate obedience/disobedience proper authority served as a kind of in times of war? As the United States theory of state, as key historical surveys increasingly relies on private armed of the tradition and other related texts contractors in Iraq, there are serious imply (Johnson 1975; Russell 1975). questions here about the normative Whereas today, the significance of underpinnings that establish who acthe proper authority tenet is not as tually ends in being placed in harms important as it used to be, the proper way with the capacity to kill and to authority tenet was, and remains, es- the threat of being killed. In addition, pecially significant for making sense with the origins of just war thinking out of the application of moral- and its treatment of political authority 29

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being closely tied to Christian theology, the moral framework of how religious discourse features in political arguments regarding authority should not be dismissed (as if to presume strict church/state separations) or presumed (as if to ignore the role of contemporary religious groups in articulating just war arguments). Finally, the extent to which proper authority serves as a legitimating factor in the application of morality to warfare should be questioned. Authority carries responsibility, but it may be that the proper authorities behind a just war cannot be trusted to carry out their moral responsibilities. The use of torture and extraordinary rendition are two such examples that question the moral character of the state to claim its title as a proper authority. Indeed, to what extent does just war thinking fall upon a presumption that we can (or should) trust our authorities to do the right thing? Authority raises more questions than answers, and while academically it is the questions that are usually more interesting, politically it is often the answers that have the greatest impact.

With the application of morality to the great tragedy of institutionalised violence among states or other actors, we should ask what is the morality that characterises that type of authority5 that is able to send its citizens to face the danger of their death in battle.

5 On related topic of ethics and public institutions see Erskine (ed) 2003.

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Bibliography Augustine (2009) The City of God against the Pagans, Translated and edited by R.W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Baron, I. Z. (2009) Justifying the Obligation to Die: War, Ethics and Political Obligation, with Illustrations from Zionism (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books) Brown, C. (2002) Sovereignty, Rights and Justice: International Political Theory Today (Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers) Elshtain, J. B., ed. (1992) Just War Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell) Erskine, T., ed. (2003) Can Institutions Have Responsibilities?: Collective Moral Agency and International Relations (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) Horton, J. (2010) Political Obligation.

2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan) Johnson, J. T. (1975) Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War: Religious and Secular Concepts, 1200-1740 (Princeton; London: Princeton University Press) Klosko, G. (2005) Political Obligations (Oxford: Oxford University Press) O’Brien, W. V. (1981) The Conduct of Just and Limited War (New York, N.Y.: Praeger) Paret, P. (1993). “Justifying the Obligation of Military Service.” in The Journal of Military History 57, no. 5, pp. 115-26.

Passerin d’Entrèves, A. (1959) The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought: Thomas Aquinas, Marsilius of Padua, Richard Hooker (New York, N.Y.: Humanities Press) Ramsey, P. (1992) “The Just War According to St. Augustine.” in J. B. Elshtain (ed) Just War Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell)

Issue XVI - Autumn 2011 Russell, F. H. (1975) The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) Walzer, M. (1970) Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War and Citizenship (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) ———. (1980) “The Moral Standing of States: A Response to Four Critics.” in Philosophy and Public Affairs 9, no. 3, pp.

209-29.

———. (2004) Arguing About War (New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press) Weber, M. (1994) Political Writings (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press)

_____________________________ Dr Ilan Zvi Baron is a lecturer in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University.

After the Arab Spring, the Women’s Turn

By Alexandra Khoo Women protesters have proved themselves contrary to the silenced-victim stereotype, but their shared victory in regime change has not yet overturned the patriarchal order. A close-up on Tunisia and Egypt reveals breakthroughs and substantial challenges.

They have become more vocal, energised by their role in the revolution.

In Egypt, however, women activists remain largely unacknowledged by the state. In February this year, a coalition of 11 women NGOs called for the dissolution of the “unrepresentative” National Council of Women and the prevention of its leaders from officially representing Egyptian women (Nazra, 2011). To date of this writing, no official statement has been released in response and the council remains.

Similarly, 15 women groups (Africasia, 2011) petitioned for women’s rights to be secured in the reformed constitution. Their suggestions included claus-

es for equal rights for women at work and in education. However, amendments in the constitution (Egypt Cabinet, 2011) contained no references to equality for women. ‘Gender’ was conspicuously missing from the list of statuses on which no one could be discriminated in Article 6.

This may not be surprising, given that the constitution committee excluded women altogether, despite Egypt’s availability of qualified women like the Constitutional High Court judge, Tahani Al Jebali.

Tunisian women were more successful, having won a landmark campaign (Aljazeera, 2011a) for gender parity in the constituent assembly, a body tasked with drafting the new constitution. Near-parity proportion of females among registered voters was also given by the Tunisian Higher Election Authority as of 20th August at about 45-percent (Aljazeera, 2011b).

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Egypt’s political scene was overall more fluid. In a startling unprecedented move, one woman is running for the presidential elections due this October or November, Buthaina Kamel, a 49-year-old television anchor and social activist. Her bid would have been inconceivable pre-revolution, and is in antagonism to the influential Muslim Brotherhood that forbids female presidential candidates. Elsewhere, the status quo of lack of women representation continues. Essam Sharaf, Egypt’s new prime minister included only one woman (AWID, 2011) in his cabinet; Planning and International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abouelnaga, an old guard of the previous regime. Her role (Bikyamasr, 2011) in the state’s hostility towards independent NGOs makes uncertain the prospects of grassroots women movements or organisation.

The minister herself however made it clear that she was keen for fuller female participation in decision-making (The Daily News Egypt, 2011).

Women in Egypt also no longer have reserved seats in parliament.

Before the 64-seat quota, only nine women held seats in the Egyptian Parliament post-2005 elections. Now instead, party lists must include at least one woman candidate. The government spokesman Ahmed El-Samman thought it a good deal for women (Ahram, 2011). “This means that each party participating in the election must place at least one woman on its list of candidates in each district,” he 32

said, arguing that “in this way, women will be able to get at least 29 per cent of seats in the new parliament”. How this calculation is derived is unclear, as the number of women in parliament ultimately depends on the number of parties elected.

Fighting Sexism on the Streets Women’s highly unequal status has often been marginalised as an issue left to specialist women’s institutions. “If we were to campaign for our rights as women in parallel with the revolution’s national goal, that would have been called political opportunism,” says Hala Kamal of Egypt, an assistant professor at Cairo University and a member of the Women in Memory Forum (Aljazeera, 2011c). The government decision to create a committee handling women’s welfare under the cabinet’s supervision reinforces this trend.

In Tunisia, gender issues are more visible in the public domain. “The force of the Tunisian feminist movement is that we’ve never separated it from the fight for democracy and a secular society”, says long time feminist and activist Khadija Cherif (Al Arabiya News, 2011).

Public opinion in Egypt has also turned against women activists despite the initial gender solidarity at the start of revolution. The march at Tahir Square on March 8th to commemorate International Women’s Day was derided by angry men and other women.

Around the same time, the Egyptian

Issue XVI - Autumn 2011

military subjected many of campaigners to ‘virginity tests’, a form of thinlyveiled sexual harassment. Engy Gozlan of HarassMap, an initiative that helps women report sexual harassment by SMS, noted that sexual harassment incidents have returned to their preprotests level (Aljazeera, 2011c). The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights survey in 2008 revealed that 83-percent of local women have been sexually harassed (BBC, 2008). Women activists in Tunisia faced similar backlash.

After the revolution, there were loud calls for the women to return to their homes (NPR, 2011). Feminist Raja bin Salama was denounced by Rashid

al-Ghannouchi, a popular formerlyexiled head of the Islamist party Ennahda, who made threats to hang her in Tunis’ Basij Square. This marked a huge reversal given that Tunisian women had enjoyed relatively more advanced rights enshrined in the 1956 Personal Status Code.

An Arab Sisterhood?

The women in Egypt and Tunisia are not a monolithic group within each country. The dichotomy is not a simplistic Islam-Feminism one but sharp cleavages also divide Muslim women with varying interpretations of Islam and its application to the status Image by Hamed Saber

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VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Image by np&djjewell of women. Halima Gellman, an expert on gender issues in Yemen, says, “women in the region need to recognize their common needs and interests, achieve consensus on key issues, build coalitions and organize campaigns around them, in order to ensure that the promises that politicians are making to gain their support during the transition and are translated into concrete action when the dust settles” (USIP, 2011).

Bibliography Africasia (2011) Egypt Women Demand Equal Rights In New Charter. [Online] Available at: <http://www.africasia.com/services/news_africa/article.php?ID=CNG.67d603a832d1aa3c 07e2360dc76ce279.6e1> [Accessed 6 September 2011] Ahram (2011) Egypt Cabinet Introduces Mixed Electoral System. [Online] Available

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at: <http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/0/15611/Egypt/0/Egypt-cabinet-introduces-mixed-electoral-system,-r.aspx> [Accessed 6 September 2011] Aljazeera (2011a) Tunisian Gender-Parity ‘Revolution’ Hailed [Online] Available at: <http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/04/2011421161714335465.html> [Accessed 6 September 2011] Aljazeera (2011b) Tunisia: Women’s Rights Hang In The Balance. [Online] Available at: <http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/featur es/2011/08/201181617052432756.html> [Accessed 6 September 2011] Aljazeera (2011c) The New Egypt: Leaving Women Behind. [Online] Available at: <http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/featur es/2011/03/201138133425420552.html> [Accessed 6 September 2011] Al Arabiya News (2011) Women Are Tunisia’s Pillars of Strength. [Online] Available at: <http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/04/28/147069.html> [Accessed 6 September 2011] AWID (2011) Egypt’s Rights Groups Criticize Male-Dominated Cabinet. [Online] Available at: <http://www.awid.org/News-Analysis/

Issue XVI - Autumn 2011 Women-s-Rights-in-the-News2/Egypt-sRights-Groups-Criticize-Male-DominatedCabinet> [Accessed 6 September 2011] BBC (2008) Egypt’s Sexual Harrassment ‘Cancer’ [Online] Available at: <http://news.bbc. co.uk/1/hi/7514567.stm> [Accessed 6 September 2011] Bikyamasr (2011) Egypt Justice Ministry To Investigate Foreign Funding Of Civil Society.

[Online] Available at: <http://bikyamasr. com/36226/egypt-justice-ministry-to-investigate-foreign-funding-of-civil-society/> [Accessed 6 September 2011] The Daily News Egypt (2011) Women’s Rights A Priority I Transitional Period, Says Panel.

[Online] Available at: <http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/womensrights-a-priority-in-transitional-period-sayspanel.html> [Accessed 6 September 2011] Egypt Cabinet, (2011) Constitutional Declaration. [Online] Available at: <http:// w w w. c a b i n e t . g o v. e g / A b o u t E g y p t / ConstitutionalDeclaration_e.pdf> [Accessed 6 September 2011] Nazra (2011) Coalition of Women’s NGOs in Egypt. [Online] Available at: <http://www. en.nazra.org/print:page,1,18-coalition-of-

womenvs-ngos-in-egypt-national.html> [Accessed 6 September 2011] NPR (2011) In Tunisia, Women Play Equal Role in Revolution. [Online] Available at: <http:/ www.npr.org/2011/01/27/133248219/intunisia-women-play-equal-role-in-revolution> [Accessed 6 September 2011] USIP (2011) Women and The Arab Spring.

[Online] Available at: <http://www.usip.org/ publications/women-and-the-arab-spring> [Accessed 6 September 2011]

This essay was originally published at ThinkAfricaPress.com. _____________________________ Alexandra Khoo is a third year undergraduate reading Politics with International Relations at the University of York.

VOX Panel Lecture on “Toleration” Wednesday 7th December 2011 (week 9) in ATB/056 at 6:30 pm Speakers: Professor Matt Matravers (Director of the School of PEP and Director of the Morrell Centre for Toleration, University of York) Professor Peter Jones (University of Newscastle) Professor Sue Mendus (University of York)

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VOX | The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

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THE STUDENT JOURNAL OF POLITICS, ECONOMICS AND PHILOSOPHY

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Is there a route out of the impending environmental crisis?

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Does the continuing financial crisis imply that economics itself is in crisis?

Can nihilism be avoided?

Are the August 2011 riots evidence of ‘Broken Britain’?

Are rising populations (both local and global) a threat? (Malthusian and demographic fears.)

• ____________ (your own idea) Undergraduates, graduates and academics are all welcome to contribute. All undergraduate submissions will be considered for the 2012 VOX Essay Award.

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