"No man is an island."-- Each person is connected to others through social links, and through these links to a larger community.
In the first chapter of his book Terror in the Mind of God, Mark Juergensmeyer highlights what seems to be a surprising fact: terrorists, like everyone else, are part of communities. Often, their communities tacitly or explicitly condone the acts of violence that they commit.
I'm part of several communities (my church community, or my college community, for example) that help me to understand what a powerful support community can be. I rely on their support and approval for many things that I do, and I extend my support to them as well. I have no problem understanding the power of community. But it's difficult to imagine a community condoning violent acts like the 9/11 attacks, Hamas suicide bombings, or IRA strikes. These acts are not committed by isolated individuals but are made possible by support from a broader community.
Reading from Jack Eller's Cruel Creeds, Virtuous Violence helped me to understand how these groups can form. "Ethnoreligious" groups congeal around a perceived cultural difference, using religion, class, language, etc. as a marker that separates their group from another. In times of conflict, people group together to stand against an enemy. When they form ethnoreligious groups, the conflict can have cosmic implications and can grow in to a battle of good versus evil. When the definition of a community becomes a religion and this community feels that they are under attack, this is the type of group that could be more willing to "reinterpret" moral codes and to offer support to actors in religious violence.
In our readings for this past week, we saw how naturally and easily this type of ethnoreligious group can form in the right circumstances. Reading about conflict in Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and (closer to home) in the US has made me think about how readily and naturally conflict seems to start. How can we work to prevent it? As a member of a community, I have a responsibility to withdraw my support from any violent or destructive activities. That definitely gives me something to think about.
I think you make a really strong point that you, the individual, "have a responsibility to withdraw support from any violent or destructive activities." Our readings last week explained how this type of group violence is ingrained in us through the evolution of society in ethnoreligious groups, but they do not answer why we are still continuing with violence now that many of those factors are no longer there. Perhaps the first step towards resolution is realizing that you do in fact have a choice.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that most of the times, people who commit acts of violence are normal people in their strongest years. However, one of the misperceptions about religious violence that we saw in class at the beginning of the semester, and with which I do not agree, was that religious zealots who enact violence are emotionally unstable. Personally I think that it is important to differentiate between different communities and moreover how does one define the world “community” in general. If it is a closely-knit group of people who gathered together because they share the same ideologies, it is normal and not that surprising that in such a case, the perpetrators of religiously violent acts will be supported by their immediate community, because most of the time this small community gives them the courage and justification for their violent acts. However, as one can perceive Islam as a different community from Christianity or Judaism, with saying “community” we can also mean all Muslim or Christian people for example. And here, I do not agree that these communities tacitly condone acts of terrorism or violence. Fundamentalists, for instance, are most of the times clandestine communities within the general community which recruit young people in their early twenties, because for me these are the years when people are most emotionally unstable and prone to brainwashing and believing certain ideologies. They are made to think that religion, class, language, etc. are markers that separate their group for another and from then on, enactors of violence justify their acts of violence with ethnicity and religion. That is why, I do not thing that society as a whole is the main culprit for religious violent acts, but only a very small fraction muddles the water and believes in ideologies which promote war and conflict.
ReplyDelete