The Battle for God

BFG Study Internet Links	Armstrong Definition of Fundamentalism	Glossary of Terms
Previous Page	7 Points Discussion	Next Page
"The Fundamentalist assault took many secularists by surprise. They had assumed that religion would never again be a major player in politics, but during the late 1970's there was a militant explosion of faith. In 1978-79, the world watched in astonishment as an obscure Iranian ayatollah brought down the regime of Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, which had seemed to be one of the most progressive and stable states in the Middle East. At the same time as governments applauded the peace initiative of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, his recognition of the State of Israel, and his overtures to the West, observers noted that the young Egyptians appeared to be turning to religion. They were donning Islamic dress, casting aside the freedoms of modernity, and man were engaged in an aggressive takeover of the university campuses. In the United States, Jerry Falwell found the Moral Majority in 1979, urging Protestant fundamentalists to get involved in politics and to challenge state and federal legislation that pushed a "secular humanist" agenda." It seemed that these groups were rejecting the best of modern progress and returning to an archaic way of life. The enthusiasm that followed these movements was an even greater surprise. Secular observers were for the most part unawares of these developments. Clearly, not only were the old religions not dead, but could inspire passionate allegiance. And it was clear that these people were not neutral about, but loathed secular liberal culture. As these fundamentalist movements began their political missions they would find it difficult to retain their integrity once they had "entered the plural, rational, and pragmatic world of modern politics." But suddenly they had the wind in their sails and the attention of the world. In Israel, the Kookist movement was increasing finding allies in secular Zionism. In 1974 a group of rabbis, Kookists, religious and non-religious secularists, some of which had served in the Israeli Defense Force, formed the Gush Emunim (Block of the Faithful). They purposed to be a pressure group, not a political party. The Gush objective was "the full redemption of Israel and the entire world." They were concerned of four factors: mental weariness, the frustration of extended conflict, lack of challenge, and the attenuation of Jewish faith, mostly this last. The Gush did not want Israel to be like other nations, but considered Israel to be unique, chosen, holy. The Gush gathered themselves for a year, developing a style of life - a counterculture - with modes of music and dress and more. For example replacing the traditional skullcap with the knitted kipa - very chic. They adopted the Kabbalist method of prayer kawwanah, of swaying back and forth. As the Gush became more and more active, their very action became holy. They experienced religious ecstasy in their attraction to the land as soldiers dragged them away. Their leaders were outspoken and emotional. Politics became an act of worship. Settlement of the occupied territories was a prime goal. Settlers began an illegal settlement in Nablus under the leadership of Moshe Levinger. The country was split. In April 1975, he led 20,000 people on a march into the West Bank, and outfaced Prime Minister Peres into a small accommodation of settlement there - 30 people. Rabbi Levinger became a hero - the "leader of the Zionist revolution." 1974-77 was the peak of the Gush effort to recruit and push their agenda forward. They goaded the authorities and so made themselves the victims of the IDF - such TV exposure gained them much sympathy. They were very resourceful, clever and strategic. They appealed to all the factions of Israeli society - secular and religious alike. Yet the Kookists understood both the holy and the profane - they well knew that politics was a "gutter". That the intransigent nature of politics could be most mundane, impure or perverse. This increased both their passion and their anxiety. They experienced the darkness of political failure and the "bursts of light" of unexpected political victory. There are difficulties in the "spirituality of rage and reconquesta", as Armstrong puts it. In 1977 Menachem Begin became Prime Minister. He honoured Kook and Levinger and believed in settlement. The Likud government began massive settlements. By '81 there were 20 settlements with 18,500 persons and 3 years later this increased to 113 settlements and 46,000 persons. Security was delegated to West Bank settlers who were supplied arms and equipment for that. The Gush were despite their great assist from the government still very confrontational with the government and worked for increased independence. By November '77, Anwar Sadat made his historic journey to Jerusalem to initiate a peace process that led to the return of the Sinai. But the Sinai was not sacred land. Begin had no idea to return the West Bank and in fact the very day the Camp David agreement was signed Begin announced 20 more settlements. Nevertheless, the Right were not appeased. The Tehiya party (Renaissance) was started with the blessing of Kook to fight this accommodation to peace. The Morasha (Heritage) was started to promote more West Bank settlement. For the Gush, Israel was battling evil and their could be no relaxing. They believed the redemption of the world depended upon the redemption of Israel and that depended on themselves. Politicians had to be real. Whatever his rhetoric, Begin still had to deal with American interests. This would always be a problem for modern fundamentalists - that they must accommodate political realities. The Gush set up a Yeshiva overlooking the Temple Mount, the site of Islam's 3rd most holy site the Dome of the Rock. They looked to the day they would rebuild the temple on this same site , so this was highly provocative. They also began to buy up property in Old Jerusalem and to construct synagogues. In '79 the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the dismantling of a new settlement near Nablus and the Gush Emunim threatened hunger strikes and other civil disorder, causing cabinet intervention and a government 5 year plan to establish 59 new settlements on the West Bank. But their heyday was done. The Israeli public liked the peace and in '82 the Gush lost their momentum. They instituted a huge sit-in in the community of Yamit which had been evacuated under the Camp David agreement, but did not succeed this time in changing the government's decision. Then Rabbi Kook died. Then the movement split, some for patience, some for violence. In Egypt there was also opposition to the Camp David Accord. Sadat was admired in the West. He had dismissed 1500 Soviet advisors in '72 and he opened up Egypt to capitalist markets. But this was not to Egypt's advantage. Foreign goods poured in and Egyptian business suffered. An elite got rich, but most citizens suffered. Corruption was rife. The young were alienated. Only about 4% of them could find decent jobs. Hundreds of thousands of them had to leave Egypt for employment. Sadat called himself the "pious president" but the people of Egypt saw a huge gap between his behaviour and the Muslim ideal of a leader. Sadat however was in his own way trying to honour Islam. But he was trying to westernize it; trying to treat religion in the Western manner, subservient to the state. He released many of the Muslim Brothers from jail and allowed most of their activity. He courted the young at college, trying to win them over from socialism. He tried also not to repeat Nasser's mistake of fighting religion, seeking rather to co-opt it in modernizing Egypt. His support and encouragement was so little and his corruption so large, that Sadat neither appealed to the people at large, nor the religious elements. "Al Dahwah" the journal of the Neo-Brotherhood identified 4 enemies of Islam: Crusaders (Christians) Zionism (Jewry) Communism Secularism (as in Ataturk) These made the Neo-Brotherhood unable to support Sadat after Camp David. At this time an extreme sect came to light. Shukri Mustafa felt that all of Islam had gone wrong after the fourth caliph and should be destroyed, putting a new Islamic State in place where the Koran would reign supreme. Mustafa felt all not with him were against him. Nasser had jailed him in '65 of simply distributing leaflets. He came out in '71 ready to lead a revolution. He formed the Society of Muslims, and withdrew from society to prepare for jihad. They lived sincerely and with the poor. They felt that Egyptian society was entirely corrupt and excommunicated the lot. When some of his members left, the group set out to kill them and 14 were charged with attempted homicide. Mustafa responded with kidnap and murder, thus bringing the state down upon him. He and 5 followers were executed. "Unbalanced and tragically mistaken as he was, Shukri had created a counterculture that mirrored the darker side of Sadat's new Egypt, which was being hailed with such enthusiasm in the West. It revealed in a distorted, exaggerated form what was really going on, and expressed the alienation experienced by so many young Egyptians in a country which they no longer felt to be their own." The jamaat al-islamiyyah (the Islamist student associations) tried also to make an Islamic space for themselves. Their universities were huge over-crowded mass institutions with very poor facilities. The students were very poor, many having just come from rural Egypt. Learning was by rote. They were learning modern culture in a most superficial way. There was no religious instruction. Their religion was untouched. So students themselves applied their Islamic upbringing to their new environment - this place of the infidel. In '73 summer camps were created in the major universities where they studied the Koran on their own. There were sports also. This gave them an idyllic experience of Islam - an authentic experience - which they tried to bring into the university. This included segregation of the sexes and return to traditional dress. They created study halls in the mosques as a haven from the overcrowded university study halls. They were asserting and affirming themselves as Muslim. Westerners found the return to the veil as backward. The veiled woman has become over the years an icon. In Western eyes, it was a sign of an unequal suppressive culture. But Muslim woman often found it affirming and declarative. Muslim tradition was in many ways the opposite of Western attitudes of individualism and display of the body. Also, the ways of modern Muslim women were changing. For example they believed in education and equality much more than earlier generations. But change was being expressed and experienced at their own pace. Even the manner of dress was not the old way, but fashionable. The jamaat student movement was essentially peaceful and non violent. But they were becoming more assertive. In the '70's they reclaimed some of the secular space of the universities for mosques. In this they were protesting the centrality of the Western view. At Minya in Upper Egypt, in '77, this became rather confrontational, with an increasing claim of space, and attacks on churches and those who would not give way. This escalation was put down by a thousand of Sadat's troops. Sadat had supported the jamaat till then, but now considered it an abuse of religion and shut down the organization. Their huge size however meant this took some time. Repression created more rebellion. There was open revolt against the regime. At a time when Egypt was promoting the archeology of its past, Islamic leaders said Egypt should be not Pharonic, but Islamic. This was also at the time of the Iranian Revolution and Khomeini was an inspiration to these students, and all Muslims, that secularism could be contested with and halted. In the 1970's Iran seemed to be booming. The Shah was a friend to the West. The White Revolution was well under way. Wealth abounded. Except of course for the poor majority of Iran's citizenry. The ulema reacted in different ways - from political non-involvement to participation with reformers. Khomeini's vision of government by an Islamic jurist had not gained ground yet, but he was a principle symbol of resistance to the regime. Increasingly Khomeini was being regarded as an Imam. In '76 Jimmy Carter was elected president of the US. In '77 Amnesty International gave a damning report of Iranian repression, and Carter began to apply pressure for improvement. SAVAK was put on a short leash for a while, but the new tolerance didn't last long. The Shah had Khomeini's son Mustafa killed and so again cast Khomeini in the light of the persecuted Imam and himself in the light of the arch-villain Yazid. Worse, it was in the month of Muharram - the remembrance of the Kerbala story, when this would be on people's minds. Worse yet, he forbade the traditional 40 days later mourning rituals, and at exactly this time, Carter dropped in to play the part of the great Shaitan. There is misunderstanding on this idea. Westerners take more offense than intended on being accused of being the "Great Shaitan". The Western Satan was evil personified, and held great power - a fearful icon. Shaitan in Shii mythology was a different figure - the foolish tempter who stands against the good. America was seen as supporting the Shah, and so indistinguishable from the Shah's program. The Shah used murder and coercion to hold power, his modernism made only a few wealthy at the expense of the many poor, and he not only suppressed the religious, but murdered theology students. It made no sense that Carter could claim to be a Christian who supported human rights could defend the Shah. At the end of Muharram, an article was published defaming Khomeini and thousands of students went to the streets in protest. The police shot into the crowds, killing 70 students. The massacre drew outrage. It was the beginning of the end for the Shah. On the 40th day huge rallies occurred and there were more killings. On the 40th day after, more rallies and more killings. It was an unstoppable sequence. It was the "ultimate passion play". There was no plan - history merely unfolded itself. The Shah made concessions, but it was too late. Then on 4 September '78, the last day of Ramadan a massive demonstration in Tehran did not have the police open fire. The crowd prayed and gave flowers to the soldiers. The middle classes joined in. This was the middle of the end. A subsequent massacre of 900 could not stop it. Buildings were burned. Oil workers went on strike. The Iraqis expelled Khomeini from Najaf to Paris. From Paris Khomeini gave orders for the processions in honour of the martyrdom of Husain should be a demonstration against the regime. There were marches of millions of people. By mid January 1979 it was over. Khomeini's arrival in Tehran was one of those symbolic events, like the storming of the Bastille, which seem to change the world forever. For committed liberal secularists, inside and outside Iran, it was a dark moment, a triumph of superstition over rationality. But for many Muslims, Sunni as well as Shii, who had long feared that Islam was about to be annihilated, it seemed a luminous reversal. ... the lesser jihad was now over and that the infinitely more arduous greater jihad was about to begin." The '70's in the US were far less dramatic. Despite their feelings of alienation, American fundamentalists were very much a part of America. They were leaving the isolationism they had felt for 50 years and were becoming politically active with a mission to put American on the right path. The symbol of this was the Moral Majority. Three right-wing organizers joined to create the Moral Majority. Richard Vignerie (Catholic), Howard Phillips (Catholic) and Paul Weyrich (Jewish). Noting the strength of the evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants, they picked Jerry Falwell as the leader. Moral Majority was not sectarian, but had little appeal outside WASP centers in the South. The message of the Moral Majority was simple - war against the liberals. They were against more than they were for because they saw an assault of evil threatening America. Sexuality was often the common theme of this fear (as for the Muslim). Feminism was a "philosophy of death" because the very survival of society depended upon a traditional view of woman's roles. So also their fear of homosexuality. It was a "perversion of the highest order". Over against the womanly virtues of forgiveness, mercy and tenderness, which Christianity largely represented, a new emphasis was being given to an aggressive Christ, "a fearless leader, defeating Satan, casting out demons, commanding nature, rebuking hypocrites". So inspired, they took on an aggressive politically active role. Perhaps this is why they resisted gun-control measures. Like other political movements, they organized their vote, and promoted their agenda. Increasingly they learned to play the game very well. They helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. Many of their successes were at a local level, such as the banning of books on school lists: authors like Twain, Steinbeck, conrad, Golding. By the end of the twentieth century, religion was a force to reckon with in America. Like Jewish and Islamic fundamentalists, these Christians in America were "fighting to extend the domain of the sacred, to limit the advance of the secularist ethos, and to reinstate the divine." During these years of resurgence, Falwell and Robertson both learned about compromise - that to achieve political success, they had to concede to enemies they regarded as satanic. This tension was their primary difficulty. It led to some being tempted to far. It led to compromise of many religious values - even the prospect of religious defeat.

	Clicking the icon left will activate the e-mail on your machine and direct your comments to us. Comments are welcome and will be posted with usual editorial courtesies.
EMAIL